#there is also stuff about mother three but that diverges too much from canon to fit in this post

[just-your-average-mutant-blood]

Did someone say earthbound swap Au between Pokey and ness? No? Too bad!!!!!!!!

Plus doodles of this Au I’ve been doing lately

[quaddmgd]

Claudia x Aya - younger Cloud AU headcanons

So recently I wrote a post about how Aya would probably be a good mom for Cloud if she had met Claudia when he was younger and I'd like to elaborate on that with some au headcanons. All of it ties to my otp, related fics and these Claudia Strife headcanons I wrote a few days back, so you can expect me mentioning Claudia's friendship with Thea, her falling out with Brian, Cloud probably coming out as a trans woman in the future and all the fic stuff. It's a huge divergence from the canon to say the least.

Also from now on if I mention "the canon", I mean my canon universe, not the FFVII canon.

I don't really have any intention writing something serious for such an au, though. Just thinking about it and writing headcanons is fun so here we are.

---

I'd like Aya to be of the same age when she met Claudia in my canon - 25 - and it would be good for them to have a well-established relationship before Tifa's accident. If Cloud was, for example, 6 years old, Claudia would be 23, making her the younger one in the relationship this time around. Three years before the accident is more than enough time for them to become inseparable.

Also while Aya would be the older one, it'd still be Claudia that's more emotionally mature due to their difference in experiences. Aya is a really introverted person, traumatized by her family and following the path that was forcibly chosen for her. And while Claudia had her son at a really young age, with her husband and parents dying soon after, she still seems to be the more stable one. All of this would remain true for the au as well.

The reasons for them meeting (taking census, the first real date during Aya's annual leave, her extended stay during the sick leave) would stay the same.

For their second meeting, aside from buying Claudia her necklace like in the canon, she could get Cloud a cute plushie (possibly a yellow chocobo, since she herself noticed that he looks like a chocobo, even in one of my fics)

Thanks to Aya being on Shinra's payroll, Cloud would probably end up having a bit more toys in general, since whenever she would get something for Claudia, he would get something from her too.

While in the canon, they had limited time for dates in Claudia's household, due to the Nibelheim Incident, now it would be years away if possible at all. That would mean a lot more visits before Aya would decide to live with them. The young family could visit Aya in Midgar as well, where she could show them around and let them see the difference in their lives. They could even go somewhere for vacation.

Eventually, Aya would quit her job anyway, since she never actually liked working at Shinra. She would move in with her new family, already largely adjusted to their lives due to her multiple stays at their house.

While Aya didn't ever want to have kids, being with Claudia and an adorable child like Cloud would sweeten the idea. She ends up really liking him in my canon anyway.

She would be a lovely mom to Cloud, though she would obviously have a lot to learn, with her own family giving her nothing but trauma and her daily life being kinda messy in general up until this point. And while she's much more reserved than Claudia, she would do her best to let Cloud know that she has his back and that he has a friend in her.

Having a second mom around (instead of a potential dad), a person similar to him in personality at that, would make Cloud warm up to Aya rather quick and they would start getting along and hopefully sharing hobbies. Since I always imagined Cloud being a momma's boy and treating Claudia not only as a mother figure, but also his best friend, especially after the whole thing with Tifa, befriending Aya shouldn't be an issue!

While in the canon they already had few undisclosed encounters with some of the townsfolk during their walks and shopping, since Claudia would never shy away from showing her partner around, I can imagine many more interesting scenarios with them in regards to both women being queer (and Cloud having two moms etc). Some of them might end up being a bit negative though, but I imagine some of the friendlier faces being supportive of Claudia. Thea's and Tifa's reactions would be interesting too, since to me Claudia and Thea were friends since forever, while Tifa would be a lesbian in the making at this point.

Cloud would probably have it much easier after Tifa's accident, since he would have both women standing up for him and providing him with emotional support. With Aya being already very attached to her new family and having no previous ties to the village, she might be able to actually blow up in anger even better than Claudia did at Brian while defending her son. This can happen with multiple townsfolk and might either improve their situation or not help at all depending on how she does. Still, the effort would be made.

Still, it's highly possible that during the whole thing with Tifa, both women would be considering moving out of Nibelheim at some point. Cloud wouldn't probably want to leave Tifa in spite of not being allowed to see her and Aya wouldn't see herself going back to Midgar. Claudia probably prefers a simpler life as well, at least with Cloud still being little. In the end the women would decide to stay in Nibelheim and give it another chance, especially since together they should be a bit more resilient to the potential shunning.

With other women of Nibelheim fulfilling Thea's role in teaching Tifa useful household stuff, Aya might be able to convince Brian to let her teach his daughter some things herself and maybe that way reconnect her with both Claudia and Cloud.

With Aya's help and her past experience at Shinra, Claudia would end up looking at the company much less positively. In the end, the women could be able to talk Cloud out of joining SOLDIER. And if Aya's efforts to reconnect Tifa with them worked, Cloud probably wouldn't even feel the need to prove himself that hard. And while Claudia wouldn't end up alone anyway, since she would have Aya, I think we can all agree that leaving for Midgar didn't do Cloud any favors.

And since such a canon divergence might be the "time traveler moves the chair" kind of situation, that might mean that there wouldn't be any Nibelheim Incident to begin with, since any operation in Crisis Core where Cloud was originally involved, might result in a completely different outcome. That could mean them all staying at Cloud's hometown along with Tifa, but that's a bit of a reach and the possibilities would be infinite at this point.

Also they might actually move out at some point. If the Nibelheim Incident would still happen, I would just make them somehow survive, like I did the first time around (I should post the damn fic already).

Oh and maybe Cloud would be more eager to come out with two lovely gay moms around... you know... as a trans girl she is ;*

[jextell2514]

Hi! Tal here! If you’re feeling inspired to write anything please do! if you need any inspiration I really like your Amber time travel au and also the Jarra and Amber swap. But whatever’s on your mind is good!

ummm for fic recs I’ll read most fics if they’re in a fandom I’m in. Ummm really angst and fluffy stuff is fun! I love hurt/comfort and character studies. I like canon divergence best as an au setting! Esp crossovers idk why lol.

thanks for offering to do this btw!

Of course! Honestly I mostly just wanted some external motivation lol so thanks for providing!

I've been thinking lately about the Jarra and Amber swap because I was talking about it with someone IRL, and I think I actually do want to acknowledge the language barrier because of the angst potential. The snippet I already wrote would probably change a little but not too much because I headcanon that Jarra (like the nerd she is) actually learned English, kinda like how some people learn Latin today. So does Fian, although that's more for plot convenience.

Amber, however, most definitely does not speak Language.

I woke up and looked around wildly. I was in an unfamiliar room, with a strange man sitting by the side of the bed I was in. What had happened? Where was I? Adika wouldn't have let just anyone come to see me, and he certainly wouldn't have let me be taken--

Then I remembered. The package from my mother. Opening it. The voice in my head. The crystal cage, trying to crush me out of existence as my three-year-old self took over my life.

I wasn't in the crystal cage anymore, but I wasn't in my unit either. That meant the imprint was removed, and I was awake, but... since I wasn't in my unit, it might be too late to escape.

The stranger was saying something, but it sounded like gibberish, and I knew it must be the language of another Hive. Elden's Hive.

This man couldn't be Elden, because he didn't look anything like Forge, but he must be working with him to kidnap me to his Hive.

The stranger repeated the same gibberish phrase, but more urgently.

I decided to play clueless. If I could get some privacy, I might be able to call someone for help, explain that I hadn't requested this transfer of my own free will.

"Where am I?" I asked.

The man's eyes widened in apparent concern. He said another incomprehensible word, then tilted his head at me in a questioning motion.

"Where am I? What happened?" I said, frustrated. Not only had they kidnapped me, they couldn't even bother to translate somehow?

He pursed his lips, then pulled something off his sleeve that looked almost like a dataview but wasn't. Maybe they had different dataviews here.

He waited in silence until a blonde boy, about my age, came rushing in, and exclaimed a single word. "Jarra!" Perhaps that was the man's name? The man stopped him from coming right up to me, and they began talking to each other in their language.

Eventually, I gave in to my irritation and said, "What is going on?!"

The boy paused and looked at me. Then, finally, he said something that I could actually understand. "Why are you speaking English?"

"You haven't exactly deigned to imprint me with your language yet," I said acidly, and regretted it. Lucas had said that imprints could damage my telepathy, and I had seen in his thoughts just how vital I was to the Hive.

The boy's brows furrowed. "I'm guessing... Jarra, you don't remember me?"

"My name's not Jarra."

[galadrieljones]

WIP ask game: 👻 and 🍎

Thank you for the ask, my love! ^_^

👻 ghost: can you tease some wip ideas that have been haunting you/something you want to write in the future?

Hmm, yes I do have dreams. I think usually, however, my writing is like, totally spastic. I write whatever I'm feeling in the moment, which is actually why I have so many unfinished fics. If I let something fester too long without ending it, the odds keep going up that my focus will stray and suddenly I'll be eyeballing something else lol.

I would really like to finish my bethyl fic afterglow as I was really dead set on finishing that one. I literally have maybe one or *possibly* two more chapters to write. It's not off the table. The problem is I'm now completely consumed with Team Delulu and all of our current escapades and adventures 😂

With my Dragon Age stuff, a lot of my old Solas and Arlathan lore is quickly finding its expiration date lmfao because there is now a new game in which we will see actual backstory and canon events from what happened in Arlathan. I'm not saying this means that canon divergence becomes invalid, but I think it would lack an interested audience, so idk if it will ever happen, but I have always wanted to write some about the events of Solas's life during the Great War, and his rebellion, and his love story with Mythal, via my canon for The Dead Season. Like the events that happened after Solas's teenage years in Teen Wolf and before he made the Veil. I love all those characters a lot, like Solas and Abelas and Mythal and Solas's mother Leanathy as I've written them. I would probably possibly have like three dedicated readers on this and maybe that's all I need lol. Anyway, my hands are full at the moment but never say never!

🍎 apple: let’s talk about friendship in your wip. do you have any favorite friend/platonic dynamics? any friendships gone sour?

In my current most active wip, which is Riptide for Dragon Age/Solavellan, there are lots and lots of friendships which are going through all sorts of dynamic changes due to Sene's volatile state of mind. Sene's most important friendships are with Sera and Dorian, both of whom are very present in the story and who are constantly trying to find the balance between comforting Sene in her time of need but also making sure not to coddle her obsessions and her intense denial. They are trying to get her head on straight, and she knows this and loves them for it, but sometimes, it's too much, so she runs away and hides to nurse her wounds alone. In my fic, I've also done some development of a friendship between Abelas and Thom Rainier, as well as Solas and Cole. Cole is pretty much the only person that Solas can open up to while he's sequestered at the Lighthouse, at least until Sene starts letting him into her dreams again, which is happening soon. The only friendship in Riptide that has seemingly soured is that between Solas and Abelas, though I have only explored that indirectly so far...

October-themed Writeblr Asks ❤️

[bespectacledbun]

see I've been going over the timeline with my gil–obsessed friend (and I document the timeline and lore from all the routes very extensively) and this is what I came up with as a theory of my own (⚠️ under the cut for Yves and Gilbert JP spoilers ⚠️):

so, what we know for certain from Gilbert's route is that Gilbert knew of Yves's existence for years before meeting him, whereas Yves didn't know anything at all about Gilbert or the rest of his mother's side of the family. in Gilbert's route Yves specifically asks Gilbert to tell him about the Kloss family's history, because he doesn't know anything about the Kloss family. nobody in Rhodolite was privy to Obsidian noble houses, and the only person who DID know (namely, Chevalier) wouldn't tell him. this is clearly not the case on Gilbert's side, however; Gil very much knew that A) his POS grandfather brokered a treaty with Rhodolite and sent one of his daughters (Gil's aunt) there, B) said aunt gave birth to a son before dying, and C) this son, Gil's cousin would be the sole surviving heir to both the house of Kloss and the Obsidian empire's throne in case the rest of the royal family got wiped out.

the other thing we know for certain is Gilbert's family history on his father's side, specifically when's brother (Albert) and parents died. we know that Gilbert was in Rhodolite as a young child getting medical treatment, and when he returned to Obsidian he found out that the previous emperor had killed his one of his older brothers and mother. given that cybird tends to place the princes’ super traumatic events to occur around 7-9 years old (with keith being an exception) if we say Gil was around 9 years old at the time, the oldest he could be, it means Yves would have been 4 or 5 and still under the care of his nanny.

we ALSO know that the last emperor died around 10 years ago during Bloodstained Roses Day, because that is when Gilbert killed him and took the throne by force, and it’s implied his other three brothers also died/were killed BEFORE Bloodstained Roses Day. so between 21 years ago and 10 years ago Gilbert began eliminating all his remaining family members in the power struggle for the throne (Yves’s nanny died at least 19 years ago). should highlight that Yves was 2 years old when the Obsidian treaty entourage left him and like 6 or 7 years old when his nanny passed.

now that we’ve covered all the canon stuff, let’s actually get into the question of 1) how tf is Yves returned to Obsidian and 2) how does he survive the power struggle without dying at the hands of his maternal family? first one’s easy enough to answer: Granddaddy Kloss is canonically a piece of shit who basically auctioned off his two daughters in order to elevate the family’s status. it’s not too far fetched to diverge a little from canon, have him learn about Yves’s existence, and basically hold the Rhodolite king hostage and go “hey that’s the heir to my household, return him to me at once or i’ll get my son-in-law the emperor to start a war with Rhodolite” and thus have Yves shipped off to his grandfather in Obsidian.

the answer to the second question is also easy if you take the answer for the first question into consideration: cousins and other extended family members were generally not considered a part of the line of succession until all the members of the main family had passed. so unless ALL of Gilbert’s brothers AND Gilbert were deceased, Yves wouldn’t even come close to being a threat to the line of succession. additionally, in this canon-divergent universe, old Lord Kloss has already claimed Yves as HIS heir to the Kloss household, so there’s no need to eliminate Yves at all. if anything, I can see one of Gilbert’s shitty brothers actually trying to bribe and brainwash Yves into supporting them so that if they ascend to the throne they have a loyal family member (who is also the head of a well respected noble household) financially and socially backing them

tagging @wardans too i see you in the notes 😂

my brain is currently rotting with obsidianite!yves worms 🪱

[star-going-supernova]

I found this fun random idea where Vanessa was related to Mrs. Afton and they came from France, so maybe Vanessa calling Gregory petit ours? ("Little Bear")

Oooh, that is fun! Sorry about not posting a story/update yesterday, I got kinda busy in the afternoon. Instead, here’s the first of the tumblr ficlets from the ideas and stuff a bunch of you sent me! This takes place in a nebulously canon divergent situation. I… wrote out way too much backstory in my notes for this one, haha. This has full AU potential, oops.

Price to Pay

Vanessa didn’t know much about the rift in her family—not the cause, not who it started with, not why it was never really healed. She and her parents had traveled a lot when she was a kid, for both work and pleasure, so it wasn’t like she saw evidence of the rift very often.

Her aunt’s family was relatively unknown to her, even now, when she was an adult. She knew she had cousins, at the very least. And as of today, for the first time, one of them had reached out to her. With her parents in New Zealand and her missing the familiarity of family, it felt like something of a sign.

Turned out, her eldest cousin, Michael, knew about as much about the rift as she did. In his letter, he mentioned he was pretty sure his dad had done or said something to piss someone off all those years ago, but neither of his parents had ever explained before… well. Before it was too late.

His mother had died recently, was the thing. And Michael had taken custody of his younger siblings—eleven and sixteen, a brother and sister—which he wrote about with the tightness of someone who was still angry and really didn’t want to talk about it.

With something she might dare to call sheepishness, Michael had asked if she had any interest in getting to know the three of them, since life was short, and a different generation’s argument shouldn’t really affect them, and please don’t think I’m only writing to you because being a guardian, even of my siblings, is scary and I could kinda use some moral support from a fellow young adult.

What a coincidence, Vanessa had written back, I’ve also recently acquired custody of an eleven year old. Want to set them loose on each other and share horror stories over coffee?

It ended up working out that Vanessa and her… kid—son didn’t feel right, honestly, and when she’d mentioned as much to Gregory, he’d scrunched his nose up and stuck out his tongue, so they were on the same page, at least—would meet her three cousins at Michael’s place of work. And wasn’t that a surprise, finding out that Michael was one of those Aftons.

The pizzeria was nice—bright and colorful and bustling with energetic children. They had to get their hands stamped at the front desk, where Vanessa also relayed the message Michael had told her to give one of the employees, about them being the guests he was expecting.

They were led through one of the “employees only” doors and down the hall to an office. Their guide left them as the door swung open almost violently at Vanessa’s knock, revealing a ginger-haired teenage girl grinning almost triumphantly.

“You Vanessa?” she demanded. Behind her, a man groaned, “Elizabeth! Don’t—”

“I need more girls in the family,” Elizabeth hissed, half behind her and half to Vanessa. She glanced down at Gregory and made a face. “That’s terrifying.”

Vanessa double-checked that her gremlin of a kid wasn’t baring his teeth at her or something—he had an understandable habit of biting people when he felt threatened—but Gregory was actually behaving himself and looked somewhat offended.

“Elizabeth!” the man said scandalously, nudging her away from the door and taking her place. Michael was a little taller than Vanessa, with brown hair, and looked just like he did in the picture he’d sent. They’d exchanged photos so they had some idea of who each other were before meeting. “Sorry,” Michael told Vanessa. “She’s just…” He trailed off, staring down at Gregory. “Huh.”

Gregory did bare his teeth that time. “Something on my face, mister?”

Vanessa was always kind of impressed with Gregory’s ability to make the most innocent words sound like the worst insults. She wished she could do that, but she was better at plain old sarcasm.

“Sorry!” Michael said again, jumping a little. “It’s just—you look like you could be my little brother’s twin.”

“It’s creepy!” Elizabeth called from somewhere in the office.

Michael sighed. To Vanessa, he said, “Not the first impression I planned on making, so, sorry about that.”

“You apologize a lot,” Vanessa replied, sticking her hand out. “So I guess we’re already off to a better start than our parents. This is Gregory. Don’t touch him without his permission, please, or you’re liable to get bitten.”

“That’s—okay.” Michael shook her hand. “Nice to meet you both. The demon behind me is my sister, Elizabeth.” Smiling down at Gregory, he added, “You’re eleven, right? Our brother, Evan, he’s the same age. He’s somewhere in the arcade, I think, if you’d rather hang out with him than us boring grown-ups.”

Gregory considered it for a moment, nodding slowly. “I do like exploiting arcade games.”

“He’s a little shy,” Michael warned him, kindly ignoring Vanessa’s budding criminal of a kid.

“Try not to bite anyone?” Vanessa pleaded.

Her gremlin grinned and saluted her. “I’ll do my best!” And with that cheeky response, he turned and ran off back toward the sound of screaming children.

She caught the look on Michael’s face and shrugged. “It’s a long story.” And they were still too much of strangers.

“We all have one of those,” he said, in an agreeing sort of way. Stepping back and gesturing at his office, he asked, “Coffee?”

“Please.”

• • •

Turned out, Vanessa and Michael did get along. And so did Vanessa and Elizabeth, once she got used to the teenager’s blunt, almost harsh, way of speaking. Conversation flowed surprisingly easy, mostly picking up where Vanessa and Michael’s letters left off. Mentions of their parents were tactfully avoided.

Until they offered her a picture of her deceased aunt, one with her own mom in it, from when they were younger. She stared at with a small smile.

“I don’t think I even knew what she looked like,” she admitted. It was evident where Elizabeth’s ginger hair had come from, just as Vanessa was as blonde as her mother.

“We didn’t even know we had a cousin,” Michael replied. She’d passed him one of her own family pictures, of her and her parents. “She told us right before she died.”

“Better late than never,” Elizabeth mumbled, playing on her phone.

They sat in a comfortable silence for a minute, before Elizabeth asked, “So, where’d the ankle bitter come from?”

“Liz!” Michael sighed. “You don’t have to answer that, if it’s part of the long story.”

Vanessa chuckled. “Some days are better than others; it’s easier to talk about on the good days. I adopted him because of some shared trauma, though he got the lion’s share of it. But the two of us met when some creep kidnapped and tried to kill him. Bit the guy to get away, then he found me.” She shook her head, staring into the middle distance. “We avoided everything to do with the case afterward; Gregory would sort of…” She forgot the word the therapist used. “He’d get too deep in the memories, otherwise.”

Elizabeth nodded along, looking rather impressed. But Michael suddenly looked like he’d seen a ghost. Before she could ask if he was okay, the door popped open, admitting two giggling little boys.

And hell, her cousins hadn’t been kidding. Gregory and, presumably, Evan were nearly identical. Even their choice of clothing today was eerily similar. The resemblance was uncanny, and Vanessa found herself forgiving Elizabeth for her initial outburst. She’d have to keep on eye on her gremlin, though. This situation was ripe for some The Parent Trap-ing, and, yeah. No thank you.

Despite Michael’s warning about Evan’s shyness, it looked like Gregory had lured him out of his shell. The two were grinning at each other, already thick as thieves, and given the presence of Gregory and the two large plushies in Evan’s arms, she wouldn’t discount that saying being literal.

“You bite anyone, you little menace?” she called over.

Gregory sent her a sharp-toothed smile. “Not yet!”

Something about their exchange, short as it was, sent Evan into another fit of giggles. He buried his face in the head of one of his plushies, peeking shyly over at her as he edged slightly behind Gregory.

“That’s Vanessa,” Gregory told him, letting the slightly smaller boy huddle against his shoulder. “She’s cool.”

This seemed to mean something more to Evan, because he straightened slightly and clumsily waved, what with his arms being full. “Hi,” he whispered.

“It’s nice to meet you, Evan,” Vanessa replied. “Did your brother tell you about me?”

“Mhm. We’re cousins.”

“Those are some pretty impressive plushies you got there,” Michael said. “You guys play the crane game?”

The boys exchanged mischievous glances.

“I didn’t give you money for the arcade,” Vanessa said, resigned. “Please don’t tell me you climbed inside a crane machine again, Gregory.”

“I didn’t climb inside a crane machine again,” Gregory dutifully repeated, the little liar.

“Oh, what have I done,” Michael moaned, but Vanessa was no fool. She could see the way his shoulders trembled with suppressed laughter.

“Sorry,” she told him, reaching over to pat his shoulder. “But me and the brat—we’re a package deal. Your crane machines are gonna pay the price if you want us around.”

The two of them looked back over at the boys, who Elizabeth had joined. Gregory matched her snark for snark, and though Vanessa couldn’t have known, Michael was so, so relieved to see his little brother looking less like a shell of himself.

Vanessa turned back to him when he chuckled lightly, just in time to catch a flash of sadness and regret in his eyes. Nonetheless, he was smiling when he said, “I think some arcade exploitation is a small price to pay.”

[imperatorium]

did copia ever try to do some magic by copying sister or reading a super secret spell book she had that he knew about

By virtue of being around her more often as a child, especially in the absence of the Emeritus boys, Copia did have the unique advantage of understanding that magic wasn't just something you had, it was something you worked with, something you practiced, something you learned. He understood that Sister was a natural witch, of course, but that even she needed to put the effort into her craft.

The other boys never really got it - One and Two only ever repeated rumours they thought fit into their narrative of her being their evil pseudo-stepmother (not that they ever consciously thought of her as a maternal figure) and categorized anything she did that they thought was sus as "witch bullshit", magic or not. Three understood a little better (or told himself he did), but his concept of a witch was a greatness someone either had or didn't and also that it was his right as future Papa to keep a witch of his own (maybe it would even be Sister).

Sister's office is filled with books and Copia was typically allowed, while the others were in lessons or rituals he was not allowed to partake in, to kick around and read whatever he liked. All the dangerous stuff was locked away, pretty well, and even if anyone knew where, there's no way they would have known how to get into any of it.

The trouble is, Sister spent so much time thinking of Copia as Nihil's child that she had the blessing of carrying that it never really struck her that he was also half her, too.

It started easy enough, with him figuring out that the Ghoulettes had Names that no one but Sister could say or hear. She chalked that one up to him just being more observant and taking less for granted than his half-brothers did.

But one day, she came to collect him from her office for lunch and found her reliquary open, a copy of something that said it was The Lesser Key but...wasn't quite haphazardly tossed on the floor, and Copia looking a little singed around the edges and white as a sheet. She didn't even have time to yell - because of course she was going to, he knew she was going to and now she was probably actually finally for real turn him into her rat familiar as punishment - before he started tearfully recounting finding the Bad Books by accident and not knowing anything was different until he got himself an unexpected, way too personal glimpse of Hell. And he'd come back from the thankfully ever so brief jaunt holding a banana.

Sister did not yell or punish him with anything unnatural (she would never), but rather shuffled him off to the bathrooms to brush the brimstone out of his hair and shake off the sulfur and made a note - quickly resolved, later - to figure out something else besides blood magic as a security measure.

And that was just about all the magic he really did on his own, as a child. As an adult, though, he was quick to pick up on the theory of goetia and how to work with demons (obviously). He's not a witch, by any means, but he's a more interested student now.

(In the current draft of The Jukebox Musical, towards the very end, there's a scene where he gets to do a teensy bit of magic on his own in a very satisfying way, too. And there are absolutely slightly canon divergent things I've written and probably will write where he knows Sister is his mother and intentionally follows at least partially in her footsteps.)

[jbbuckybarnes]

Scared & Sacred - Ch. 7

Pairing: Din Djarin x pregnant!Reader Description: The Mandalorian had helped you while you were hunted for your family name and you had grown a little closer over the months, but you didn’t expect THIS. How was this possible after just three times of getting so close  to him. You had to find a nurse as fast as possible. Warnings: pregnancy / labor, fluff, helmetless Din, canon divergent, not proofread, probably inaccurate pregnancy and labor stuff, the force, emotional Din, just Din having feelings.

M A S T E R L I S T

Chapter 7 - Brown Eyes

„Princess? You will be ready soon.“ Your favorite elder in the Sorgan village smiled at you. You sighed deeply, „Finally.“ You back had been killing you for the last 6 weeks of pregnancy and you were starting to get really cranky towards your adoptive son and husband. „I‘ll start preparing a couple things that will ease the pain.“ She nodded before she slowly left the hut. Din was sitting next to you by the head end of the bed, his legs bouncing nervously. „Stop that.“ You mumbled and he stilled in an instant. Too terrified of an angry pregnant wife. You had developed the strength of a mother recently and he felt like you could crush him with your bare hands if you wanted to. „Sorry, don‘t wanna stress you out.“ He murmured and leaned above you to place a kiss on your forehead. „Dank ferrik!“ You inhaled fast and he stilled again, „Breathe, darling.“ „What do I look like I‘m doing.“ You grumbled beneath him and saw him smile wider. „Why the smile, huh?“ „You‘re hot when you‘re mad. I‘m just trying my best to...help?“ He didn‘t quite help. How could he? You were about to just bring life into the world. „I know and I love you but I just want it to be over with,“ you whined and felt his hand run over your cheek. „It‘ll be worth it, cyar‘ika.“ He placed a gentle kiss onto your lips.

You heard a fuzzing child coming closer before Omera entered with Grogu on her arm. „He made it very clear that he won‘t stop until he‘s here.“ She frowned apologetically. „It‘s alright. He can stay until I‘m actually delivering.“ You smiled at her exhausted. Din took the green little bean onto his lap and heard him babble. „Yes, your baby sister is almost here.“ His little ears rose and he squealed and looked over to you. His little hands landed on your cheek and forehead where he continued making his typical Grogu noises. „I think he wants to comfort you.“ Din chuckled and scratched his little head. „You‘re doing a great job, little one.“ You chuckled and watched him smile wide. After a while he laid down next to your face and nuzzled his head against the side of your face. „Thank the maker for you two.“ An exhale escaped from your chest.

Not too many hours later your contractions became more and more frequent and sweat started forming on your face. The uncomfortable noises made Grogu perk up and put his hands on you again, but this time he closed his eyes. You felt relaxation wash over you, a feeling of being one with nature. It was powerful and replenished your energy in weird ways. „Mama.“ You heard his tiny and cute voice when you came out of this little trance. „You‘re such a good boy.“ You whispered and went over his right ear. You noticed wetness around your legs and your eyes widened, the little boy smiling with such a genuine calmness that you knew that he knew. Must be something with the force. „Din, can you get the nurse. I think I‘ll need her help soon.“ You mumbled while looking at your calming son. The man hurried out of the hut, „Thank you, Grogu.“ „Ba.“ You scrunched your nose smiling at him holding his arms up before another wave of pain hit you. It didn‘t really hurt as much as it was all consuming in a weird sense. It felt less daunting and more purposeful. Definitely something your little boy did with the force. You felt more connected to your body. „You sure that you want to stay for this?“ You asked him once you calmed down. He sat down next to your head with a calm and soft smile. You believed that he was 50 now. A 3-year-old 50-year-old. Din and the elder nurse came in, your husband picking up Grogu, „Let‘s get you to Om-“ He was interrupted by what sounded like a protective growl, „He wants to be here and I need his mental support. My delivery room, my decisions.“ A slightly terrified Din set his son back down and watched your harmonious smile form on your lips again. Yes, probably better to keep Grogu there.

„I‘ll give you about an hour, princess.“ The woman spoke after checking up on you. Now Din‘s heart rate definitely picked up. He wasn‘t ready, he was everything but not ready. Sure, he had parented Grogu, but Grogu could walk, communicate, even defend himself. But you were about to give him the most precious and delicate thing in the world. How was he supposed to protect his princess? How was he supposed to not get scared for her at night and every waking hour? How was he supposed to hold her? He felt a hand grab his and snapped out of it, seeing your smile and a calm Grogu next to you. „We‘re gonna be okay. Just a couple minutes of crushing your hands and maybe even screaming at you, but then we‘re gonna be okay.“ He huffed at that and brought your hand to his lips for a kiss. The elder nurse had prepared several medical mixtures for you. One to drink, one to put on your lower back and one to put on your belly. You didn‘t quite know what these did, but you trusted her decades of experience.

You felt another contraction not too long after she finished with the eternally long but calming procedure to apply all of the mixtures, but it felt different this time. The elder looked at your body and behavior and smiled gently, „You‘re ready.“ Your brain short circuited for a second at those words. Now? NOW? She checked up on you again, Grogu becoming more cheerful next to you. „You can start with the next one. Your body will naturally tell you. Close your eyes if it helps you.“ She smiled up at you happily. You nervously grabbed for your husband's hand and felt your son‘s hand on your cheek. It took a couple minutes for you to feel what she meant, but your body automatically told you what you needed to do and it was a different level of overwhelm, but it was also filled with those weird hormones making your pain more bearable. You pushed, sweat building on your whole body, squishing Din‘s hand. „Good.“ You faintly heard through the pain and felt your body wanting you to do it one more time. C‘mon, just how you learned it from Omera and her. Breathe out and push. Your body gave you a pause for a moment and you tried to stay calm, feeling your son climb to the side where Din wasn‘t holding your hand and pushed one of his plushies the kids had made him into your hand. You gave him a motherly smile before this all encompassing feeling hit you again. „You better make this worth it, Din.“ You grumbled and heard a nervous huff as you pushed again with a whimpering deep sound escaping you. He didn‘t really register your hand crushing his, too mesmerized by the absolute calmness in the room while you did one of the most powerful and feminine things in the world. This is why you were more warrior than him. You looked ethereal to him, even with the deep frown and the pain written all over your face. He only noticed the pure power you were emitting. He would pray to his new goddess soon.

A loud cry cut through the room, snapping both him and you out of your trances. „Good job, darling.“ She checked her up for a second before getting up with her. You both were in awe, you made that tiny fleshy, cutely proportioned, crying being. She laid the baby onto your chest, the crying calming down and turning into whimpering. Your hand wandered to your little girl‘s back, „Welcome, baby girl.“ Deep brown eyes looked back at you, like her dad‘s. „Well, aren‘t you pretty.“ You cooed and booped her nose. „My princess and my queen.“ He whispered and kissed your forehead and then his daughter's head for the first time. His daughter! „Dodie!“ You heard a very distinct Grogu sound and saw him waddle over to gently touch her tiny little arm. „That sounds like a name.“ Grogu looked up at you and raised his ears. „Dodie. Dodie Djarin. Princess of Mandalore, Lady of Karaku...well, what‘s left of it.“ You smiled at her and then at Din. „Sounds good to me.“ He grinned before he was interrupted by the elder nurse to cut the cord and help her clean the baby and your chest up.

You had fallen asleep in exhaustion while he had put Dodie on his chest, gently going through the little bit of brown fluffy hair she already had on her head. The big brown eyes were directed at him and he wanted to cry at how innocent they were. How this little human depended on him for safety and trusted and loved him without any restrictions. „Princess Djarin.“ He chuckled, still not believing it. „I‘m gonna do the best job in the world at protecting you and making you into a fierce little girl.“ He whispered and kissed the crown of her head. He put his finger under her hand, feeling like a giant all of a sudden. Her hand grasped onto it as her eyes became heavy. In a soft voice he hummed a little Mandalorian melody to help her fall asleep until he could watch her tiny chest rise and sink on his. That was his tiny wonder and his future. „You‘re the best thing to ever happen to me.“ You heard waking up across the room and smiled to yourself in overwhelm, thinking back to how this all started.

___

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[alirhi]

The problem with DJ

Like I said, sweetie gets his own post lol. It's funny how far he's come, from a random side character made just to be killed off, to my go-to RP boy, to my favorite character I've ever written. I'll skip the origin story lol (aka the irrelevant random RPs over the years) and get right to the meat of the problem: Crossroads.

It all really comes back to my flaky friend, A. Back when she was creative and invested, she made this crazy girl, Casey, who DJ fell head-over-heels in love with. Casey was highly toxic and came with some unusual baggage, but that's what I loved about her as a character. And honestly? Every girl in DJ's life is kind of toxic. That was rather the point.

DJ describes himself as "a walking, talking stereotype." He's a broke, drug-addicted teen from the wrong side of the tracks with an abusive alcoholic father. His mother committed suicide when DJ was 4, and DJ's been an addict since he was 13. He's also got ADHD, and he's a genius. Sleeps through the few classes he actually attends and still gets straight As genius. He's got two distinctly different groups of friends: his more straight-laced school friends (most of whom have known him since pre-drug days), and his rave/burnout friends. He's also an indiscriminate (ish XD) manwhore. He'll sleep with literally any girl who shows interest, as long as he's not her first (ties into his lack of self-worth and stuff. he doesn't want anyone to be "stuck with" the memory of him as her first - Casey straight-up lies to his face to get him to fuck her 😂 I love her. she's so awful...)

I eventually gave him a little brother, because I'd never put much thought into why DJ - who, again, is scary smart, and also unnervingly self-aware; pretty much impervious to denial - would do drugs. When he was just a random RP character, I...didn't really care? 😂 His background and motivations were less important than the hijinks he got himself into. But then A fell as hard for him as I did, and we decided to give him a real story, so he needed a real motive. Enter baby brother AJ, who is their father's true target, so DJ does stupid shit to piss dad off and keep those fists flying at him, not baby bro.

When DJ meets Casey, he's drunk and high and accidentally gropes her. She punches him and knocks his ass out lmao. He later apologizes, and she and her twin brother Seamus join DJ's school friend group, and she and DJ become fwb. That's the most he can really offer; DJ doesn't date, because he knows he won't be faithful, so why string a girl along? Naturally, because he's book smart but otherwise kind of a moron (lol not really, just no will to live. he tried to kill himself 3 times before he was introduced to drugs. his friends keep warning him about STDs and he's like "eh, death by karma actually sounds pretty apropos") he ends up getting Casey (and a couple of other girls) pregnant.

One of those other girls is his dealer/rave bestie, Luna. Aside from Casey and her family, here is the biggest divergence between the story A and I worked out together, and the one I'm now writing alone. A hated Luna; she hated anyone who was competition for Casey, because she'd latched so hard onto this DJ/Casey pairing that everything that could have been something for them to overcome, she just saw as a threat that needed to be squashed. So she insisted on killing off not just the baby (Lu was always going to miscarry), but also Luna. Y'all... that hurt. A lot. I adore Luna. I'd sooner kill off DJ (and in fact, there's a version of the story where he ODs and dies, and Casey eventually marries AJ). I did not want to kill Luna. But for the sake of not arguing with A forever, I did, and it became a huge part of the overall story, because DJ was in love with Luna. I saw this as an opportunity to explore poly love. A was just like "fuck that. kill her. want a poly ship? Thow Izzie-" (one of DJ's school friends, Izumi) "-into the mix! Casey likes her!" Gods forbid I wanted a little friction and compromise, people finding common ground and learning to live together. DJ likes Izzie, he does. And Izzie canonically does have a huge crush on him. But she's possessive and catty - just like Casey - and they would have imploded.

When I decided to remove A from the equation, my first impulse was "fuck yeah! I don't have to kill Luna! LUNA STAYS, BITCHES!!!" but like...

Now I have to rework DJ's entire arc, because his crippling grief and guilt over her death drove pretty much the rest of his story.

Anyway, in the old version (with the three phases), in phase 1, DJ got clean, married Casey, and got his shit together. In phase 2, they were gender-swapped (there's a reason for that beyond a god's weird sense of humor lol but I'll get to that in a minute) and DJ went from a mousy drug-addicted pacifist to a deadly cleaner for Casey's Irish mob family. It all ties into which parent (s)he is afraid to reflect. male!DJ is terrified of becoming his father; female!DJ is disgusted by what she sees as her mother's weakness and refuses to be her. So while boy-Deej danced and played drums and never took a swing at anyone even in jest, girl-Deej was a fighter, and a damn angry one. In phase 3, back to being a boy and a druggie, DJ overdoses and dies. And the Goddess who'd been trying to get her hands on him this whole time finally manages it. See, Adaghar (god who gender-swapped DJ and Casey) knew about Larash's (goddess who wanted DJ) obsession, so he was trying to make sure DJ lived a long life and went to literally any afterlife that Larash couldn't reach. She finally gets him, and through a series of odd events, he ends up killing Adaghar and taking his place, becoming a god.

That's all gone. 😂 Now DJ's just DJ, no grand destiny or anything, just a kid with an awful home life who needs to clean his act up and do right by his kids. Honestly, that's enough imo. I still adore him and can't wait to get his story done so I can read it... but I'm totally stuck. I don't know how his story ends anymore. I know he can't end up with Luna even if she's alive because they'll end up strung out and on welfare for the rest of their short, painful lives. They are deeply, deeply in love with each other, but they're both tortured addicts and Luna has zero self control. Neither of them will ever get clean if they're together.

And like... that's not even getting into all the craziness with DJ's oldest son, Ari. Ari had different versions, too - one where DJ had no idea he existed until he was about 7 (and had gone through some shit, poor kid) and showed up on daddy's doorstep; that version grew to be an angry, snarky little shit and I love him to pieces. Then there's a version where DJ found him when he was 2 and cleaned his act up and Ari grew into a happy, well-adjusted kid. And obviously in the girl-DJ version, she, y'know, gave birth to him lmao so she knew about him. But Ari had this whole arc with a vampire and he moved to Achlys in one version, and in another (the one where DJ died) he was adopted by AJ and Casey and became a doctor, and... ugh. I love this kid. And now everything about him is a big question mark, even more so than DJ cuz - guess what? the vampire was A's character, too! 🙄😖

Blargh. I dunno, guys. I don't know what to do with this whole thing.

[scullysexual]

Time Can Heal (4/ )

Season 2 | Abduction Arc | Canon Divergence | Angst

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | AO3

Mulder realises his quest for the truth costs too much.

When I deleted the first fic blog I ended up deleting this chapter along with it. Most would have read this before I’m posting it so as there’s no missing chapters when the time comes to create a masterlist for it. Tagging @bevh78 because I’m unsure if they got round to reading it before I deleted it. And for anyone else who has yet to read it, this is the full chapter, you won’t be directed to ao3.

- - -

“So I said to him- What have you got there? He looks at me, looks at his friend and mutters nothing. So I give him a look, not believing him at all and the lad just bolts for it.”

“Hmm,” hums Mulder, trying to listen to the surveillance recording but also pay attention to his new partner’s story.

“So we cuff his friend, and I look at Ben- you met Ben?

“No, I don’t think so,” says Mulder turning up the volume on the recording.

“Oh, well you will soon enough. Anyway, I look at Ben wondering if we really have to chase this other guy.” The man laughs. “I don’t know about you but my knees just don’t have it in them to run anymore.”

Mulder smiles and nods like he understands that feeling.

He met Agent Moe Bocks on his first day, the partner Cavanagh mentioned. Bocks had been excited to work with Mulder, enthusiastically shaking his head and telling him that he couldn’t believe he was working with the Fox Mulder.

Mulder just smiled and nodded comfortably, not used to the level of excitement he was receiving. Most people did not nothing to hide their disappointed that being partnered, or even working alongside him. Not even Scully had managed it when she first met him but she was smart enough to hide it all an air of pleasantries.

He thought he would have been able to move on from her by now but she had followed him all the way to Minnesota. He still had urges to call her when he thought or read about something and he wanted to hear what she had to say about it. He got as far as picking up the phone before remembering.

He would fall back on his couch feeling sorry for himself.

You did this. You only have yourself to blame.

He guesses he got kind of lucky with Bocks. His new partner believed in aliens and UFOs, had people he knew in MUFON that regularly kept him updated about any UFO activity in the area.

But Bocks’ interest in it was fun and trivial. He believed in it all because he had a passion for it. He wasn’t interested in unearthing some deep government conspiracy, his sister had been abducted, neither had his last partner as far as Mulder was aware.

There was fun in Bocks’ belief. There was no fun in Mulder’s anymore.

“Anyway,” says Bocks, now finished with his stories. And people thought he could talk for hours. “You got much off that tape yet?”

Mulder shakes his head, throwing off the headphones.

“Just a load of shit,” he says, sighing and leaning back on the chair.

“Yeah, well…You’ll be out collaring people for walking the wrong way soon,” Bocks says with very little enthusiasm.

Mulder looks up at the ceiling. He never thought he would miss the Hoover Building but now, just short of a week, he would do anything to go back.

.:.:.:.:.:.

Three times is the charm. She ripped open, what would be, the final envelope with less rigor than she had the first two, already deciding that she would have to take the exams a fourth time.

But no. As she glanced over the scores she thought maybe there had been a mistake. She passed. Just. But she passed. For the first time in weeks Dana felt herself smile.

“You’ll be back at work soon?” her mother asked when she told her. Maggie had a mix of delight and apprehension in her voice.

Dana nodded enthusiastically. She was just happy to have a purpose again.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

“You’ll have to be monitored,” Skinner tells her at their next meeting. “See how you go.”

“I feel better,” Dana tells him. And she did. After that night she doesn’t like to think about, she hadn’t had another nightmare since. She wanted to think that was her body’s way of telling her it was healing mentally now.

“You’ve been through trauma, Agent Scully. That stuff doesn’t just go away.”

Dana nods, of course she understands that. Yes, she’s healing but what if something on the field was to trigger her? She only needed to pass the exams once, she needs to do her job every day and if she can’t do that as efficiently and effectively then there is no reason for her to be here.

That scares her.

Her job is the only thing she has left now. Without it, what would she be?

“What are the conditions?” she asks.

Skinner sighs in relief and leans back in his chair.

“You are to attend counselling. Weekly.”

Dana nods but inside she is reeling. Counselling meant talking and Dana was never very good at that. Since she was a child she learnt how to bottle it all up until naturally it faded away. She found herself never needing to talk, talking wasted time.

“And if I don’t?”

Skinner seems prepared for this question.

“Then you’ll be decided unfit for the field.”

Desk duty, in other words. Surveillance, background checks, all the stuff she is extremely over-qualified for, stuff that would have her ripping out her hair at how mundane and simple it is. Making it the perfect consequence.

Understanding this, Dana nods in agreement, telling him she’ll go.

“Good,” says Skinner. “A placement opened up. Violent Crimes Section is looking for someone to fill the post.”  

Dana feels her blood run cold at the mention of that department.

“I told them I had an agent looking for some field work,” Skinner continues. “The Agent in Charge would like to see you ASAP.”

“VCS, sir?” Dana asks, making sure she’s heard right.

Skinner nods. Then sighs.

“I know you and Agent Mulder didn’t form the greatest relationship with them when you worked together-“

“Agent Mulder,” Dana says, cutting Skinner short. “Agent Mulder didn’t form the greatest relationship with them.” She smiles reassuringly. “I’m sure it will be no issue. Is that all, sir?”

“That’s all.”

Dana says her thank yous and leaves as briskly as she can, ignoring the anxiety that swirls around in her stomach at the thought of being assigned to the VCS.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

The bullpen area is empty when Dana enters, something she is incredibly grateful for. The Violent Crimes Section wasn’t the first on her list of places to be assigned.

The Eugene Tooms debacle had left both departments sour with each other, so much so that VCS didn’t work on the case once Tooms was released. Dana wasn’t sure what their reaction would be of her now.

She raps against the door of SAC KEVIN FULLER softly and waits to be called in.

“Come in.”

Dana pushes the door open. Inside sits a man she’s never seen before. His sandy-blonde hair styled perfectly, his suit fresh and new. He definitely looks down on people, Dana decides.

“You’re the agent AD Skinner told me about?” the SAC says, looking Dana up and down. She feels self-conscious standing under his gaze but tries not to show it.

“Yes, sir.”

He begins rooting through the files on his desk.

“Name?”

“Dana Scully.”

Fuller briefly stops what he’s doing, the name halting him before he quickly resumes.

“Scully,” he mulls over. He’s well aware of who she is. “Well, sit down,” he says when he notices she’s still standing up.

Dana quickly walks over to the chair, embarrassed by how fumbling and lacking initiative she’s appearing.

Control yourself, Dana.

Fuller finally pulls out her file. He places it on his desk and opens it up, his eyes immediately falling to where he suspected, surpassing all of her achievements, Dana notices with slight disappointment, and focuses upon one area.

A grin cracks across the SAC’s face.

“X-Files a bit too out there for you?”

Dana doesn’t find it funny.

“Agent Mulder left,” she answers simply and straight-faced. “Skinner saw no reason for me to stay on there any longer.”

“So I got saddled with you,” Fuller says, disdainfully.

Dana makes no comment.

Fuller looks down at her file again.

“You’re a pathologist,” he notes. “We rarely have any need for a pathologist here.”

“I think I’ve gathered enough experience to offer myself in other ways, sir.”

Fuller regards her. “Really?” he asks. He leans in closer. “Let me let you in on a little secret, Miss Scully.” Dana swallows feeling smaller and smaller with every second with this man. “Women don’t last very long in this department. The cases are too much for them. I’m not wasting my time by taking you on, am I?”

His intention was to make her small, to have her running back to Skinner and ask for another assignment. Well, Dana wasn’t going to run. She was going to stay and prove Fuller wrong.

“No, sir. You’re not.”

“Good,” Fuller answers, giving her another slimy grin. There was no way she was never going to like this man. He leans back in his chair again.

“There’s one other thing,” he says.

“Yes, sir?”

“This department is one of the more respected departments here. I want it known that I won’t let that reputation be tarnished by taking Mrs Spooky on board. Are we clear on that?”

She feels a familiar twang of hurt at the nickname, the same feeling she felt when Tom Colton brought it up. Nicknames and reputations spread around quickly here.

“Loud and clear, sir,” Dana answers.

“You’re desk is near the back wall, furthest away.”

Dana rises, taking his words as a dismissal.

“You’re on probation, Agent Scully.” Dana turns at the door watching as Fuller stands. “One mistake and you’re out.”

She nods, understanding, and leaves the office.

She has her own desk now, like she had always wanted, yet this isn’t a desk that fills her with the satisfaction she had hoped for.

- - -

Do what you want with this. 

[thunders-warcats-stuff]

A Midnight Stroll

Summary: Canon Divergence fic where Lionheart stops Bluefur from giving up her kits and a few of her problems are solved not long after. Based on the headcanon that Lionheart was Bluestar’s emotional support and her downward spiral gained serious velocity when he died.

Snowflakes drifted from a milk-colored sky to blanket the eerily silent landscape. Thankfully, the entire camp wasn’t covered in the stuff. Bluefur thought. That would make this so much harder.

“Wake up!” She hissed quietly, nudging her kits awake. She got them up and moving with some halfhearted idea of a game that would have them sneak into the forest through the dirtplace tunnel.

“If you wake anyone up, we lose.” She reminded them quietly as the three of them chittered about getting out of camp and the smell of the dirtplace and what could possibly lay outside the camp. Maybe they could see the famous Sunningrocks that everyone fought for!

She pricked her ears for the cat who sired her, knowing the blue-grey tom she inherited her coat from would be guarding the camp tonight. He would be so angry, so disappointed if he discovered them here. As would the cat she truly considered a father.

Sunstar would say he was merely disappointed and likely banish her to the nursery until the kits were six months old. Thistleclaw would become deputy and the whole forest would soon rot under his leadership. At least, according to Goosefeather.

She’d seen what he spoke of in dreams so she believed it to some extent. She just wished it didn’t have to be her.

Mosskit and Stonekit were safely up the ravine by the time she’d gone over her thoughts about this decision but when she looked down to check on Mistykit, her firstborn was nowhere to be found. In her place was a large golden tom with blazing green eyes and extremely thick fur.

“Come here, Bluefur.” Lionheart called in a low solemn tone. “And bring the other two with you.”

Bluefur’s pelt prickled without her permission, making her look twice her size despite the snow that fell on and around her.

“We need to get them out of the cold, Bluefur.” Lionheart insisted. “Whatever this is, we can talk about it later.”

I can’t! She wanted to call out. To wail her sorrow to the stars. To lay down and let the snow cover her until she couldn’t see anything and stay there until she wasn’t part of a prophecy anymore. Until she was just Bluefur, ThunderClan’s grumpiest warrior who laid around until someone called her for a patrol.

She contributed the bare minimum and these kits were going to change that! Finally, she would have something to focus on that didn’t bring pain and heartache with each step. She could live for her kittens and through them, her Clan. She might even become a pleasant cat to be around.

Warmth spread across her left flank and Bluestar was shocked into awareness. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she crouched on the ground with Stonekit and Mosskit squirming under her. Fur that reminded her of the sun filled her vision and eventually, green eyes met hers.

“Step aside, Bluefur.” Lionheart murmured. There was no judgment in his voice. There never was. “We need to get these kits warm.”

Bluefur dug her claws into the ground and squeezed her eyes shut once more, wishing for all the world that she could wake up somewhere else and not have to worry about this. Her best bet, in this cold, would be StarClan. Hopefully, she didn’t take her kits with her.

“None of you will be going anywhere except back to your nest.” Her friend assured her. Bluefur winced, not realizing she’d said that aloud.

She exhaled roughly and stepped aside.

“Don’t let Goosefeather see them.” She mumbled as Lionheart picked up the other two kits in his mouth. “I can carry them.”

“It’s fine.” Lionheart’s voice was muffled but his stance was clear.

He flicked his tail and they scrambled back down the ravine and into camp. It wasn’t long before Bluefur saw Stormtail’s shocked gaze and wide eyes. He started to say something but Lionheart shook his head and flicked his tail to Highrock. Stormtail nodded and padded over to the leader’s den, waiting under the large boulder rather than going inside. Bluefur blinked, stunned, and scrambled after Lionheart when she realized he had kept walking.

The kits didn’t take long to settle down and Bluefur covered them with dry moss from an empty nest to keep them warm and help dry their fur. After a few heartbeats of Bluefur and Lionheart working quietly, the golden tom gestured with a paw to the nursery’s entrance. Bluefur swallowed audibly and nodded, resigned, as she padded back into the coldness that awaited.

Stormtail waited with Sunstar below the Highrock. Their faces were grim and only darkened as she and Lionheart padded across the clearing to meet them.

“Let’s get you dry.” Sunstar murmured with a fierce calm he likely didn’t feel.

The four of them padded into the den and Bluefur sat not far from the entrance. Stormtail bundled her further into the den and then sat beside her, closer than she could ever remember him being before. Lionheart sat on her other side, almost like he was determined to soak up all the snow on her fur. Sunstar sat less than a mouse-length away and only spoke once his tail curled around his paws.

“Explain yourself.” He ordered.

“I…” Bluefur choked out. “I was going to take them to Twolegplace.” She admitted at last.

This was something she’d struggled with ever since she told Oakheart that he had to take them. He’d been so shocked. Utterly stunned. He had to have thought the worst of her them, and Bluefur was selfish enough to admit that she didn’t want her kits to hate her any more than they were already going to. So she told him that he didn’t have to do anything and that the kits would stay with her.

“Why?” Sunstar prompted, voice breaking on the word. “You love those kits. You’ve spent every day since they were born caring for them and watching them grow. Why would you separate them from the only family they’ve ever known?”

What followed were a few tense heartbeats where Bluefur could bring herself to speak.

“She said something about Goosefeather.” Lionheart admitted at last.

“What about him? He’s headed to the elder’s den any day now.” Stormtail sneered. “He should have gone after he got your mother killed-.”

“Do not,” Sunstar spat. “bring up Moonflower here.”

In that moment, Bluefur was thankful. In that moment, she wondered how she could ever betray one of the only cats who’d been there for her throughout her entire life. The second cat who could claim that title let a low growl rumble in his throat.

“He probably said something to her. We should ask what.”

“A prophecy.” Bluefur whispered at last. “There was a prophecy. He said it was mine. ‘Like Fire, You Will Blaze Through The Forest.’ He’s convinced… he thinks Thistleclaw is going to lead the Clan to ruin if he gains enough power.”

“You obviously agree with him.” Stormtail scoffed.

“To an extent.” Bluefur allowed. “There’s no other way to put some of the things he’s done. The way he’s trained Tigerclaw is… jarring, to say the least.”

“They are both very fierce warriors… but what makes you think he would ever become deputy?” Sunstar snorted. “Do you not trust me? Do you not trust this Clan to be there for you? Did you truly think they would have a better life as kittypets?”

“If she’s been influenced by Goosefeather-!”

“Fire must burn without bonds.” Bluefur mumbled.

“Say that again?”

“Goosefeather. He said Fire must burn without bonds. I have to check on my kits. If he wakes up-.”

“He’s going to wake up.” Lionheart growled. “And explain himself. He threatened your kits.”

“Just like he threatened her mother. Just like he’s been stalking her pawsteps all her life-.” Stormtail’s scoff was cut off by his head turning sideways. Bluefur staggered back, leaning more into Lionheart’s flank, and blinked at the scene before her. Sunstar sheathed his claws and tufts of grey fur lay at his paws.

“You do not get to act like you have done a single thing for any of them.” Sunstar growled, sinking into a crouch and creeping forward. As if Stormtail were a squirrel about to be caught in Sunstar’s paws… Bluefur mused. He sure looked like a squirrel.

“You did not mentor them, that was Sparrowpelt and I. You did not make sure they knew you were there for them. Again, that was Sparrowpelt and I. I’m actually rather shocked that you managed to cry at Snowfur’s vigil. Though you moved on quickly enough, I suppose it’s the thought that counts.”

“You-!”

“Raised your daughter for you. You’re welcome. You have no place here and your anger is not for Bluefur. It’s disgust at Goosefeather, same as it’s always been. So now you’re going to sit here and not say another word lest StarClan steal your tongue from you. And make no mistake, Stormtail. I am StarClan, and I will do just that.”

“Sunstar…” Bluefur choked out, astonished.

The ThunderClan leader flattened his fur, sheathed his claws, and smoothed his expression.

“My apologies, Bluefur. Now, what did Goosefeather say to you?”

“‘You are Fire, and you will blaze through the forest.’” Bluefur choked out. “‘But beware, even the most powerful flames can be stroyed by water.’ After the kits were born, he said ‘Fire must burn without bonds.’ He insisted that I… that I get rid of them. I figured he’s been wrong about prophecies before but he’s also been right. This one… he’s right about this one. About how dangerous Thistelclaw is. I just… I thought if I could get my kits away from all this, away from both of them… they’d be safer. I wouldn’t have to worry about them going hungry or being too cold.”

“You wouldn’t have had to worry about that here.” Lionheart offered quietly. “We’re your Clan. This is your home. We’d do anything to defend you just like you’d do for us. That’s what being in a Clan means.”

“I know, and I want that. For myself and for them. I just… Goosefeather insisted, and what if he’s right? What if Thistleclaw is exactly as Goosefeather says?”

“Then that’s my problem to deal with. Bluefur, you’ve been through too much to let Goosefeather take one of the few good things in your life. We can protect you and your kits. But if it helps you sleep at all… Thisteclaw had no chance at being deputy.”

Bluefur’s breath hitched.

“What?” She whispered, not quite believing. “He’s the most obvious choice-.”

“He’s the strongest choice.” Sunstar corrected. “No cat can doubt his courage, battle skills, or his pride in his Clan. But Goosefeather is right this time. I’ve seen it myself. I don’t want my Clan to be led to endless fighting. Our borders are strong enough without being marked over and over in blood. So if it hadn’t been you, it would have been another cat. Perhaps Rosetail or Lionheart. They both have good heads on their shoulders and I would trust either of them to lead the Clan well.”

Lionheart had stiffened at the declaration and dipped his head solemnly.

“Thank you for your faith in me,” The golden tabby meowed. “but it sounds like the prophecy is about Bluefur.”

“I don’t want it.” Bluefur growled. “I thought it was so great when I was younger and first heard it but I’ve lost too much and been far too selfish to ever lead this Clan the way you expect.”

“Which is why you’re going to be deputy.” Sunstar decided.

“Wait-.”

“You can care for your kits in the nursery. Deputies don’t always fight and neither do leaders when they have kits. Others can carry out your orders just as well as you would carry out mine. But if this prophecy, your prophecy, has lost you so much that you were willing to sacrifice motherhood not to lose what you had, there is no choice but to fulfill it.”

“I… Sunstar, I…”

“Nothing has to change overnight except that Goosefeather will head to the elder’s den earlier than he planned. When Tawnyspots formally retires, you will take his place. In the meantime, you will raise your kits. And we will keep you safe.”

Bluefur and Lionheart trudged into the cold once more, bracing themselves against the wind. Stormtail had gone ahead of them and sat at the entrance to the camp, eyes stony and flickering around for any sign of movement. If nothing else, he would be alert for the rest of the night.

“Thank you.” Bluefur sighed halfway to the nursery. “I might not have made it to Twoelgplace in this weather. There was no guarantee they would make it to a nest. And I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.”

“You might still.” Lionheart deadpanned. “I knew what to look for. I’m glad I was able to help this time.”

It hit Bluefur then that Lionheart had been the one to discover Pinestar’s intentions of leaving the Clan. To see something similar happen right before his eyes, with kits no less… Lionheart would have been crushed, and then disappointed that Bluefur hadn’t gone with her kits. Of all the things Bluefur couldn’t handle, Lionheart’s disappointment was high among them.

“Thank you, Lionheart, for reminding me that life is worth living.”

“It is indeed.” Lionheart rumbled. A pleased gleam flashed through his eyes. “Let me get Thrushpelt. We’ll tell everyone you were sleepwalking and the kits followed you.”

“That… yes please. That makes sense.”

Lionheart dipped his head so that his throat rested between Bluefur’s ears.

“You will always have something to live for, Bluefur. I’ll make sure of it.” He vowed.

The golden tabby disappeared as quietly as he’d crept up on her in the ravine, and if Bluefur hadn’t been watching she would have thought he was gone entirely.

She turned and padded over to where Stormtail sat.

“Lionheart agreed to say that I was sleepwalking and the kits followed me.” She offered quietly.

Stormtail inclined his head.

“You did have that problem when you were younger.” He mused. “You went looking for Moonflower as a kit, and later on Snowfur. I imagine, if you really had gone through with your plans, that you would have gone looking for your kits as well.”

Bluefur winced and pushed her nose into his shoulder.

“I’m sorry that Sunstar said what he did. I don’t think you got Moonflower killed-.”

“My negligence and inaction did.” Stormtail asserted. “I was too focused on the wrong part of the battle. Someone should have been there to help Moonflower complete the mission and common belief says it should be me.” Stormtail exhaled roughly. “If I’d done right by her, it would have been. I cared for your mother, Bluefur. I’m sorry it wasn’t enough.”

Bluefur nodded, stunned, and they touched noses.

“Goodnight.” She mumbled.

“Goodnight.” He offered solemnly before shifting his gaze elsewhere.

Bluefur padded over to Highrock once more and shifted the lichen to alert Sunstar to her presence.

“Come in.” Sunstar grumbled. The ginger tom was settled on his nest but looked nowhere near sleep. He raised his head when he saw Bluefur.

“I thought you’d gone back to the nursery.”

“Lionheart and I talked for a bit. He and Stormtail agreed to say I was sleepwalking and the kits followed me.”

“Clever.” Sunstar murmured approvingly.

Silence reigned for the next few heartbeats.

“I trust you.” Bluefur said at last. “I always trusted you. Sometimes it felt like you were the only cat I could trust.”

“Not with this, though.”

“You’re the leader of our Clan. I didn’t want you to have to make the same choice I thought I did. I couldn’t bear to lose my kits, Sunstar, but I’m not sure I could bear disappointing you either. Losing you like that, even if we live in the same camp… I wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

“I have never been disappointed in you.”

“Oh, please-.”

“Sad for you, yes, and there were many times that I felt helpless and wished you would do more than you did. But that wasn’t disappointment, Bluefur. I couldn’t watch you waste away and join StarClan early. I wanted to keep you here for as long as I could, so I tried to get you to go out more. I thought if you felt like you were doing something, if you could see that your contributions mattered to the Clan, that you could get better. I suppose it wasn’t that easy, though.”

“I… I got better, slowly. I have Thrushpelt and Rosetail and Stonepelt Lionheart and you… cats don’t mind being around me, even if they don’t always chat. I would have been fine, I would have…”

Bluefur drifted off, unsure of what to say.

“Alright.” Sunstar agreed. “But I was never disappointed. And you should not have had to choose between your kits and your Clan. Goosefeather will get what he wants, but it will not be at the cost of your well-being.”

“Thank you.” Bluefur murmured. “You were the best mentor a cat could ask for.”

“Stonepelt won’t want to hear that.” Sunstar chuckled. “You should get back to your kits. And try to get some sleep. I imagine waking up in the middle of a storm would be frustrating for any cat, but it’ll all look better in the morning.”

She touched her nose to Sunstar’s cheek and held it there for a few heartbeats. When she got back to the nursery, she found Thrushpelt curled around the kits.

“Lionheart came and got me.” He murmured when he saw her. “And the kits said something about a game?”

“I guess I said something I shouldn’t have.” Bluefur offered guiltily.

“I thought you were getting better with this.” Thrushpelt murmured as Bluefur slipped into the space he left for her. “You stopped looking for Moonflower and Snowfur.”

“I guess not.” Bluefur admitted. “Or maybe it just happens when I have nightmares. I’m sorry I took the kits with me.”

“You weren’t exactly controlling yourself.” Thrushpelt offered, resting his throat between her ears. “Try and get some sleep, Bluefur. This should all look better in the morning.”

Bluefur sighed and curled around her kits and let herself hope that Thrushpelt and Sunstar and Lionheart were right. She hoped that StarClan wouldn’t be too angry with her for breaking their prophecy, but she couldn’t give up her kits. They were what she had to live for.

[sometimesiwritebadly]

The Lost Girl (Part 1)

Series Summary: The story of Raven, this first and only Lost Girl of Neverland. A long time ago she was a prisoner on a ship, and now she’s stuck on the island she helped create.

Chapter Summary: A long time ago in the Enchanted Forest, a young Killian, Liam, and Talia watch the stars. In present day Neverland, Raven runs into an old friend-turned-enemy.

Notes: Me? Starting a new series when I have two perfectly good ones? No I would never.

Ok actual notes now this is an OC story starting in season 3 of Once Upon A Time. It’s gonna have a little Peter Pan x OC, maybe some Henry x OC in far later chapters. But overall the story is more about my OC, Talia/Raven, than her relationships. In this story we’re disregarding the whole “Peter Pan is Rumplestiltskin’s dad” thing cause that was stupid. I’ll come up with something better. Also Henry is slightly aged up, I’m thinking around 15. I know this creates problems but i don’t really care :) Besides that there’s not much canon divergence for now, but once we get into seasons 4/5 whatever (idk IF the story will go that far into the show cause I only have a vague plan on the beginning and the end and the middle is a big old question mark) i’m gonna fix some shit *cough* frozen *cough*

Warnings: Heavily implied that the OC is a rape victim. I won’t ever go into any detail but it’s going to come up multiple times throughout this series. Not so much in this chapter, but depression/suicidal thoughts may come up in later chapters because of this. Language. 

Word Count: 2.6k

Series Masterlist

Full Masterlist

~ A very long time ago ~

“Talia!” A young boy’s whispers, and his hand shaking her shoulder, woke Talia from her sleep. Talia slowly peeled her eyes open, to reveal a boy a few years younger than herself. 

“Killian, it’s the middle of the night.” 

“The stars are falling! Come out and look, Liam is already on the deck!” Killian tugged on Talia’s hands this time, pulling as hard as he could. Even though Talia was easily stronger than Killian, she allowed herself to be taken from her bunk at the mention of Liam. Liam, Killian, and Talia are the only kids on the ship, luckily all relatively close in age. Talia couldn’t help but develop a crush on Liam, who was only a year older than herself.

When Killian and Talia emerged onto the deck, Talia’s eyes were immediately drawn to the sky. Just as Killian had said, hundreds of stars appeared to fall from the sky in a way Talia had never seen before. Killian and Talia ran to the side of the ship to where Liam was already standing. The trio giggled as they watched the sky, pointing out their favorite stars and enjoying this rare moment of fun. Normally the time spent on the ship was the exact opposite; they were all servants, sold to work for Captain Silver until they could buy their way out. Liam and Killian were brothers, who had been sold to the Captain by their father. Talia was given to the Captain by her mother a year later, when her mother was in desperate need of money. The three of them spent their time cleaning the ship, and avoiding the abuse of the crew.

“I wish I could fly like the stars.” Talia said to the brothers, still watching the sky as the stars began to stand still once more. 

“What do you mean?” Killian asked, looking up to the girl. Talia often teased him for his height, as she stood nearly a head taller than him.

“The stars are free. I wish I could fly away and disappear, like...like a raven disappears into the night.” Talia felt a tear develop in her eye, though quickly wiped it away, not wanting to appear weak. As she got older, Captain Silver and some of the other crew had begun expecting more of her. Talia wasn’t sure how much longer she could succumb to their requests.

“You would leave us?” Killian said, in a whisper so low Talia could barely hear it. Talia knew her answer, though she couldn’t form the words to voice it. How could she tell Killian, her best friend, the closest she’d ever come to a brother, that she would leave if given the chance? Before she could figure out her answer, an adult voice interrupted the night.

“Talia.” The deep voice caused all three kids to turn around, and they found Captain Silver had joined them on the deck. “Come. Keep me company tonight.” Liam’s hand found Talia’s, causing her to turn to look at him. Liam gave her hand a comforting squeeze, before releasing it. Liam and Talia had agreed to try and keep this part of her life from Killian as long as they could. He was still two years younger than Talia, and blissfully oblivious to the darker parts of life. But as Talia grew, the crew became less subtle about their eyes for her.

“Aye, Captain.” Talia spoke to Silver, leaving her friends for a night she’d rather forget.

~ Present day ~

Raven ran through the woods of Neverland, avoiding the traps she knew lost boys had set. She’d lost count of the days she’d been running a long time ago. For more years than she’d like to admit, Raven had been trying to find a way off the island, and rumor has it that Pan was close to finding the heart of the truest believer, which meant she had to get off this island now or never. If Pan really did have the heart, he’d soon be more powerful than ever before. She wouldn’t be able to hide from him any longer, If Pan ever found out what she’d done, he’d kill her on sight.

Luckily, right now she didn’t have to worry too much about Pan finding her, because his focus was on the newest group that had landed on the island. Raven didn’t know who they were, but her magic made it easy to sense them. They had magic of their own, both light and dark, that much was obvious. If Pan is distracted by them, she may be able to find a portal back to the Enchanted Forest without Pan noticing.

Raven slowed her run to a walk as she approached her hideout. The only place on the island that was hidden from Pan. She had a friend that had used it when he hid from Pan a long time ago, but he was gone now, and with a little extra protection magic, she’d made it her own. Her eyes moved up to the rock that covered the entrance, only to see a group of people attempting to get in. Quickly she drew her bow, and took aim. Her warning shot hit the rock just past the ear of one of the men, causing the whole group to turn towards her. It was a group of five; three women and a man she didn’t recognize, and one man she did. Hook.

“Hook, why the hell are you invading my hideout?” Raven said, pointing her bow at him this time. The other four were armed with weapons of their own; one woman even had a ball of fire in her hand, but she paid no attention to them. 

“Your hideout? Last I checked Baelfire was the one who lived here, lass. And you were with Pan.” Killian’s words caused the group to look at her with even more animosity than before. Raven didn’t even get a chance to respond before a fireball was making its way towards your face.

“Regina, no!” One of the women yelled, but she quickly realized her words were useless. Raven moved her bow into her right hand, and used the left to easily catch the fireball before it could hit her. With a smirk on her face, she made the ball disappear. The strangers looked at the seemingly young girl with shocked faces.

“You’ve been gone a long time, Hook. A lot has changed. Especially me.” Raven briefly stopped speaking, and used her magic to move the stone blocking the entrance. “I’m assuming you’re looking for something of Bae’s.” Raven walked towards the group, slipping past the man and women who held swords to enter the little home. “His stuff is all here, help yourselves. Just do it quickly, you being here will bring Pan’s attention, and he and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms.” She had moved all of Bae’s old things into baskets, and so she pulled them out of their hiding spot and onto the makeshift table. “I don’t know what use they have to you, Hook.”

“We thought his things might show how he managed to get off the island.” The woman who spoke had held a bow, like your own, but she was the only one of the group who had actually put away her weapon. 

“Bae got off the island?”

“You didn’t know?” Hook said, taking a step towards Raven and putting away his sword.

“When he ran from camp I was still with the lost boys. When he never came back, I assumed Pan killed him, or that he’d died trying to get off the island.” Raven paused, not wanting to accidentally reveal too much emotion behind her next words. “I’m glad to hear that he’s ok.”

There was an awkward silence after she spoke. “He’s not exactly-” The brunette, the nice one, spoke, before being cut off by another woman, who you assumed to be Regina.

“He’s dead.” Any hope Raven had previously was squashed in an instant.

“Regina!” The man she didn’t know scolded, only to be met with Regina’s glare.

“What? Are we supposed to comfort her? Lie to her? Hook said it himself, she works for Pan!”

Raven scoffed. “I used to work with Pan. I never worked for him.” While she spoke, Hook and the blonde woman were examining the drawings on the walls. Most of them were old, from Bae’s time in the cave, but a few were newer. Raven had added to Bae’s doodles over the years. “If there’s anything in here that’ll get someone off the island, I haven’t found it. And trust me, I’ve been trying to get off this island for a long time.” She said, beginning to pull stuff out of one of the baskets. The nice woman joined her, inspecting each item as she went.

“I’m Snow.” She introduced herself as she worked, looking at a coconut bowl before setting it down. “That’s my husband, David, and our daughter, Emma. That’s Regina, and it’s clear that you already know Hook.” She pointed to each person she introduced. David and Emma each gave Raven a nod when Snow spoke their names, while Regina ignored her as she rummaged through another basket. “What’s your name?” Snow asked kindly.

“Raven.” She could hear Hook scoff from across the cave, but Raven elected to ignore it. 

“Hand me that candle.” Emma said from across the room. David grabbed it from the table where Snow had left it, and quickly lit it aflame before handing it to his daughter. Raven moved to the edge of the cave, watching as the group looked through Bae’s things and examined the wall. Emma and Hook had a hushed conversation about the drawings, while Regina, David, and Snow continued to look through the baskets. Emma turned away from Hook and spoke to the rest of the group after she finished looking at the artwork. “What’s all this?”

“Uh,” Snow began, “Just some cups and bowls he fashioned from things he found here.” Some of those items were actually Raven’s, but she decided to keep quiet and continue watching quietly.

“I don’t know how great a cup this coconut could make. It’s filled with holes.” Raven had already discovered the map that the coconut actually revealed, but she also knew the problem that followed it. So again, she kept quiet. She had no reason to help them, and she hoped once they realized there was nothing of use here, they’d leave and never come back.

“Uh, maybe it’s a tiny...colander.” Snow suggested.

“What’s a colander?” Raven spoke up. Snow waved it off, signalling that it wasn’t exactly important. 

“Yes, because preteen Baelfire probably made lots of pasta.” Regina noted sarcastically, ignoring your question and rolling her eyes at Snow. While Snow glared at Regina, you noticed Emma figuring out the hidden map.

“Hold on…” She started, “Hook, snuff out that torch.” Hook followed her direction quickly, and plunged the cave into darkness. Emma connected the two coconuts, and looked up at the roof. 

“What, am I supposed to be impressed that he made a night-light?” Regina made yet another sarcastic comment.

Raven, having enough of their slow place, decided to jump in. “It’s a map.” Unlike the rest of the group, who were looking at the ceiling, Raven’s eyes were fixed at the ground. She’d stared at that map hundreds of times, but could never decode it. 

“To home?” Emma questioned, a slight attitude in her voice, “I thought you said there wasn’t anything useful here?”

“I didn’t lie. It’s unreadable.”

“Aye, She’s right.” Hook said. Raven looked up, shocked that Hook would even be willing to admit she was right about anything. “There was a short time in Neverland when Baelfire was aboard my ship. I taught him to navigate using the stars. What you’re looking at is the fruit of my labors.”

“Then you can read it.” Regina noted, as she glanced away from the map and towards Hook. For the first time Raven had heard, there was no animosity in her voice. Raven scoffed at her remark, causing Regina’s glare to return and land on Raven. “What?”

Raven looked at Hook as she quoted the words they’d both heard as children, “The best captains conceal their maps in a code.” Hook held the stare for a moment before he spoke again.

“Aye. He was an apt pupil.”

“So you’re saying the only person who can read this map is Neal.” Snow said. Even her hope appeared to be draining. Raven’s eyebrows furrowed at the name Neal, but she figured Bae must’ve done the same thing she had when he left Neverland; New life, new name. 

“Which means the only person who can read it is dead. I told you, there’s nothing useful here.” Raven said. Emma took the lid off of the candle, before setting it back on the table and walking out of the cave, followed by Snow and David.

Regina continued to look annoyed, but shuffled through the last of Baelfire’s items. Raven decided to take this moment to confront Hook.

“Why’d you come back?”

Hook looked at her with an unreadable expression. “Why aren’t you working with Pan anymore?” Raven rolled her eyes at his question. Pan was the last person she wanted to be thinking about.

“We had a disagreement. Answer my question.”

“Pan found the heart of the truest believer.”

Raven drew a deep breath at this. Sure, she’d heard the rumors, but it’s different to have it confirmed. She’s really running out of time now. “I heard. What does that have to do with you?”

“It’s Emma’s son. Emma and…” Hook paused. “Emma and Baelfire’s boy.” Raven’s eyebrows shot up now. This was not what she’d expected at all. To learn that Baelfire made it off the island, died, and had a son who was now being held captive by Pan all at once is a lot for anyone to handle. Especially someone who has so much history with Bae.

“Pan took Bae’s son?” Raven could barely believe it.

“Aye.”

At this point, Emma came marching back in, followed by Snow and David. David took this time to relight the torch. The group began looking around again, she assumed they were trying to come up with some kind of plan, but Raven was hardly paying attention. She owed Baelfire so much, and even though every logical bone in her body said that she should just get these people out of her life, her heart knew she had to at least attempt to help. After all, she’d spent so many years working with Pan, her help had set Pan in the right direction to find Bae’s son. When Emma, Snow, and Regina made their exit Raven followed them, while Hook and David stayed behind a moment. 

“I want to help you guys.”

“No.”

“Really?”

Regina and Snow spoke at the same time, glaring at the other’s response.

“Look, I know you guys have no reason to trust me, but I owe Baelfire my life.” Behind you, David and Hook exited the cave. She had the whole group’s attention now. “If I can’t pay back Bae, the least I can do is help his son. Plus, I really hate Pan.” Raven could practically feel Hook rolling his eyes behind her, but she kept talking. “And I spent more years than I could count working with him. I know him better than anyone. All I ask in exchange is passage off the island after we find the boy.”

“Henry.” Emma said, as she took a step towards Raven, “His name is Henry. How do we know this isn’t a trick? Can you prove to us that you don’t work with Pan anymore?”

“Yes.”

“How?” Hook spoke up this time, coming into her line of sight.

“Easy. I’ll take you to my grave.”

~~~

I hope this is a good first chapter! I had a hard time deciding when to stop lol, but i already have half of the next chapter written so hopefully I’ll update this one pretty soon :)

[shirokodomo]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

THE MUSE - Hakudoshi (Inuyasha)

THE MUN - Eleanor / Ellie / El

Fill out & repost! This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is: Canon / OC / AU / Canon-divergent / Fandomless.

It's a mix of these three, the character itself is canon but I have a bunch of AUs and Canon Divergents verses although I also write him within his Canon Verse

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO.

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom? YES / NO.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom? YES / NO.

I am not sure how the fandom views him in this regard, while he is one of the strongest incarnations, he isn't even on the level of either Inuyasha or Sesshomaru. So, kinda I guess?

Are they underrated? YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main story? YES / NO.

To the story as a whole no, but he was relevant during a few arcs because of his connection to Naraku and the works he was sent to do.

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO.

How’s their reputation? GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL.

How strictly do you follow canon?

Depends on the characters he is interacting with. With the main group (Inu & Co.) and with the other incarnations with whom he has interacted in canon material (Kanna, Kagura, The Infant) I pretty much stick it to canon as much as I can, though I have my own interpretation of his character in certain stuff.

But there are characters he never met or barely interacted with in canon (Koga, Kikyo, Sesshomaru, etc) so in these I go overboard and mostly "ignore" canon, and let my own imagination interpret how their interactions would go, while trying to keep him as the villain he is but without making the interactions short or boring.

Then I have a bunch of AUs and Canon Divergent verses which I love to dive in and allows me to stray away from canon for the most part (i.e: he doesn't die, he doesn't betray Naraku, etc). Two of my favorite Canon Divergent threads are those where he ends up traveling with Sesshomaru after escaping from Naraku or the one where a mother-son bond slowly forms between him and Kikyo.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.

He is a child and a child can still change his personality a lot even if they started out as a villain.

He is very intelligent, knows how to take precautions if/when things go wrong. In my opinion that makes him a good ally as much as it makes him a dangerous antagonist.

Canon didn't explore many sides of him and I'm more than willing to do that so plotting with me can become fun, even if some ideas might sound weird.

Although he was initially one of Naraku's most loyal incarnations and followed his orders, he can be self-serving (and in my eyes that's a good and bad thing) and can choose to take a different path from the initial plan even if that goes against his creator's goal and ends up benefiting the "good guys"

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?)

He is a villain and villains can be a little hard to handle and to create long threads with, without making it sound repetitive.

He can be quite creepy and perhaps a little annoying.

He has no qualms in his actions, doesn't possess empathy, doesn't care how many people were hurt or killed by his actions.

He is manipulative, although not as much as his creator, and more than capable of betrayal. Trusting him can be quite difficult especially after everything he did.

What inspired you to RP your muse?

Hakudoshi was always my favorite in the entire series, don't ask why, he just was, for some reason I was always drawn to him everytime he was on screen. His personality though sometimes difficult to portray can be interesting to explore, especially when aside from the fact that he is evil, there weren't any other sides of him shown which leaves a bunch of open doors for interpretation.

What keeps your inspiration going?

Dreams, random ideas and of course the other roleplayers I have interacted with so far.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

While I am aware that I have choose to portray a villain, I enjoy to try and step a bit out of the typical "I hate you and you hate me" troop when it comes to interactions with the "good guys", not saying that we shouldn't portray that, we definitely SHOULD because he has hurt many people and I don't expect other Muses to suddenly get along with mine but all I want is to try and step a bit more out of it so that we can create an interesting and enjoyable thread together.

An example I like to use for this, within the canon verse, is two threads I currently have with two different Inuyasha muses, in which we created an interesting set up for Inuyasha and Hakudoshi to interact, one that keeps the threads on-going smoothly, while keeping the obvious fact neither can stand the other because that's how their relationship is.

Do you think you give your character justice? YES / NO.

Depends on my mood and depends on the thread. There are many times I wonder if I'm making him "evil enough" or if I'm making him OOC.

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO.

Do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO. But I am thinking of doing a prompt thing once a month for that! To help me with my writing skills.

Do you think a lot about your muse during the day? YES / NO.

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO. 

There are times I doubt it, other times I'm good with it.

Are you confident in your writing? YES / NO.

Are you a sensitive person? YES / NO.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?

I'm open to constructive criticism all the time. 

Being plain rude however it's a no for me.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?

I LOVE getting asks, they help me not just build my portrayal of the Muse but also provides me with many headcanon ideas.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?

As I wrote above there are times I doubt my portrayal and also I am open to constructive criticism, so if someone disagrees with my portrayal I am more than open to receive tips on how I could get better.

Disagreeing with my portrayal just to be plain rude though, I'll pass. I don't want drama and I've created this RP blog to have fun and to escape a little from the problems in real life.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?

Eh I'm fine with it? Hakudoshi is a villain and a secondary character, I won't expect everyone to like him and I respect that. I just ask others to equally respect my liking for this character.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?

Yes I am, again I'm full open to constructive criticism. While I feel quite comfortable with my English, it's not my first language so errors are bound to happen.

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?

I am very shy and not exactly a big social butterfly, however I do like to talk to others that love the series/characters/etc as much as I do so DMs and Discord are open for that stuff too, not just plotting!

Tagged by: No one, found this on a random blog in the search

Tagging: @silverhanyou @windcarnation @konosesshomaru and anyone else who feels like doing this.

[halorocks1214]

the law of relativity

AO3 Link

Word Count: 9963

Summary: The Law of Relativity states that each person will receive a series of problems (‘tests of initiation’) for the purpose of strengthening the ‘light’ within. We must consider each of these tests to be a challenge and remain connected to our hearts when proceeding to solve the problems. This law also teaches us to compare our problems to others’ problems and put everything into its proper perspective. No matter how bad we perceive our situation to be, there is always someone who is in a worse position. It is all relative

Previous Parts (in order): Alan | Virgil | You are here! | Gordon

WHY 👏🏼 CANT 👏🏼 I 👏🏼 WRITE 👏🏼 FICS 👏🏼 IN 👏🏼 MO 👏🏼 DER 👏🏼 RATION 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 also just bluuuergh. dont ask about this fic. part of it was written in a dark auditorium, another was written in a different state, another was written on a frickin bus, this fic has been places ill tell you what. half the time i think this is hot garbage and the other half i think its actually decent so im posting this while my head is in a good headspace and then promptly yeeting myself off the internet for a few hours to wait and see what happens. this series is becoming less of a canon divergence AU and more of a straight-up AU because of certain details im trying to worm in there buT IM TRYING MY BEST

thanks once more to @gumnut-logic, because of the length, this time i used three prompts, them being "What do you mean?", crease, and dream (and they werent even used that much sksksksk)

Warnings for both graphic and non-graphic depictions of violence, as well as mentions of torture and other PTSD/panic attack related stuff. I went deep with this one fellas

Orphan.

The word tasted dirty in his mouth.

He can still see the footage in the backs of his eyelids from when he watched it exactly one year ago. He was the only other (living) adult at the time in the family outside of Grandma, so he was permitted to see it. He remembered they originally didn’t want to show him, mainly because of his age, but Grandma was fierce, and she put one hell of an argument on the table.

One Scott refused to let fall through the cracks by breaking down. If only Grandma knew how he cried his eyes out and screamed to high heaven that night in the hotel room after essentially watching his father be blown to bloody smithereens then she was a goddamn saint for keeping it a secret. It made sense, she was the mother to his father. She had quite the line up of stories from Jeff’s childhood. Scott sensed the early-greying of his hair came from her, heh.

The rest of his family eventually saw it, of course, they did. Scott couldn’t shield them forever. What he will protect, selfishly he might add, was how angry he was at how much better they took it than he did. They cried, yes they did, but they never fully broke down like Scott did. Later in life, he wondered if it was jealousy: jealousy at not truly being able to let go. Whatever it was, he made sure to swallow it along with whatever alcohol he chose for the weekend.

Just add it to the ever-growing pile of shit he had to deal with. Nothing new.

Suddenly he’s 20 again and seated in a plane to be taken to his first stint in the Air Force. He said his goodbyes to Virgil, Gordon, and Alan back at home while Grandma and John metaphorically held his hand all the way to the airport. John was… quiet, more so than usual, but Grandma was stuck right in the middle between being a sobbing mess and ecstatic at the fine young man he’s become.

You’re just like your father. He would be proud.

Scott was secretly glad she never physically said it. It gave him plausible deniability in thinking that those words weren’t laced behind her big, bright, prideful eyes.

The first time went well, maybe even great. He stayed for a couple of months, did some flight tests, and while the training was brutal, boy did he learn a lot. When he came back home it was to a family slowly stitching itself back together. Grandma was a full-time house member, Virgil had taken up painting, Gordon talked about potentially going back to his swim meets, and while Alan was still as silent as ever, he was perkier than when Scott last saw him.

It would be on and off for the next few years: a couple of months at home, slowly and painfully taking over the role their father had (he can’t remember when he essentially received joint custody of his younger siblings with Grandma, but hey, he’s not complaining), then a couple of months out at the Air Force base where he slowly climbed up the ranking platform. He became skillful, perhaps too skillful. When he got his rank of Captain he felt it was less of an honor and more of something they owed him.

He was getting cocky. Never enough to be a danger to his fellow men, but enough to be somewhat of an occasional annoyance. Charles smacked him upside the head more than once. It felt like the world was right-side-up for once. Scott made many-a-calls to John and Virgil, the former enjoying his first few rotations up in space and the latter squarely in the middle of college. Gordon was being offered sponsorships to hell and back, and Alan was quietly getting along with the other kids at his school. Grandma was on welcoming duty for Kayo, who was taking her slot in the Tracy family with grace, though, a warning that their family would take custody of her if something were to happen to her parents would have been nice, Dad.

Of course, nothing ever goes right for their family for too long.

Orphan.

Age 24, it was supposed to be a simple retrieval mission of civilians. Scott was put in charge of his squad and then some. At night, they rolled-- well, flew out to get the job done. Scott can’t even remember the country anymore when minding his own business. Australia? Finland? Perhaps Bangladesh? There was a place John was insistent Scott never do rescues in, Virgil tended to agree, and the eldest unhealthily let them banish him from ever stepping foot there without argument. He could never remember the name off the top of his head until John’s familiar International Rescue, we have a situation rung out in the living room followed by the name of the country.

He would immediately forget it later, trauma too strong, too volatile, but the way his heart stopped and his head shattered and the way he felt ice water rush down his back was a good enough reason to quietly leave the room and let John delegate the job to one of his brothers. Sometimes John found him retching in the toilet halfway through the mission. He made sure to always mute Scott’s wrist communicator, even if it was never turned on in the first place.

The plane touched down. Orders sent the ground team out. But then the ground team took longer than estimated. Scott tensely waited where he was told to. It wasn’t the first mission that took a little longer than predicted and knowing humans, it surely wouldn’t be the last. Then, words mixed with heavy static came over the radio. H--p. Co-- ---7--. --nd ba---p --me--at--y.

Scott sat tensely in his seat, remembering his orders and suddenly hating them. Radio back to home if the mission goes south. Well, it didn’t look like they had the radio anymore. Still didn’t hurt to try at least. Scott spoke the familiar protocol that was ingrained into him when trying to call base. Dammit. Nothing. Probably some kind of blocker of sorts. Sitting up straight as a board, Scott looked through his options.

… He was in charge here. If something happened to his team the fault would lie squarely on his shoulders. Going against everything but his gut, he went out to help his squad. He can’t really remember what he exactly did anymore, but he does remember that it made a noise. Like a Looney Tunes scene: he flinched, froze, waited to see if anything or one heard, breathed a sigh of relief, and continued.

He eventually stumbled across one of his closest comrades, Arnold Brigeets. Yes, the name was ironic and half the reason he joined the force in the first place. The guy was one of the people that actually trained Scott and also seemed to be one of the few that was genuinely proud when Scott became a higher rank. It’s why Scott was more appreciative of Arnold than others, that, and well… Scott thought his fatherly abilities were good. The guy did have three kids back home.

Orphan.

Ducking down behind the cover his older friend was semi-situated behind, Scott watched as Arnold jumped at the intrusion before sighing. Scott had run into some enemies that he swiftly took down-- nothing too serious, he didn’t have the time or weapons for such an act, but they definitely would be out of it for a while-- so Arnold must have too on his way to find cover as well, hence why he was so on edge.

“Thank God,” Arnold wiped his forehead, “Glad to see you join us, kid.”

Scott was breathing heavily, but the grin he attempted was still there, “Y-Yeah, so what happened? More threats than we thought?”

Arnold shook his head, “Yes and no. There were a lot more baddies than we thought, but that’s because the civilians weren’t civilians. It’s a tr--”

Boom. The familiar sound of a gunshot.

Arnold fell over. Never got back up. Dropped like a rock in a lake, never to come up to the surface again.

Scott was so caught off guard he couldn’t react to the gun that swiftly beat him over the head, knocking him out cold. The only thing on his mind was oh fuck oh fuck I messed up I shouldn’t have come I wouldn’t have made any noise that way why did I--

They had him for roughly two weeks. Scott always thought the plotline in movies where the villain vehemently denied knowing any important information was dumb as hell. We’re not stupid. We wouldn’t go after someone if they didn’t know something.

The things they did hurt and no amount of I don’t fucking know anything! would help. Those two weeks were lost to Scott in a sea of pain and torment. The only thing he remembered was being captured, then waking up in a hospital drugged up to his gills with his superiors staring at him like he cured cancer.

“You saved the rest of your squad from sharing the same fate as the first half.”

“I-I did?”

“You betcha, son. I only wish I was there to see it! People be saying you were like an animal in how you took ‘em all down.”

Scott’s never remembered, and he wanted to keep it that way.

He was given the highest honors, even the chance to skip a couple of ranks to be at the same level as the big boys, but the night they were going to share the news to the golden boy himself, they found him in one of the bathrooms with a bloody hand and a mirror shattered with no hope of fixing it.

He was honorably discharged to a family that was so thankful he was home. Words like missing in action and POA never stopped haunting their nightmares. Scott was too, God, of course, he was, but sitting around and doing nothing was the last thing his traumatized mind wanted or maybe even needed. After doing what he considered to be the biggest fuck-up of his life, he needed to feel important.

This isn’t the first time he’ll say this and it surely won’t be the last: thank Christ for Grandma.

“You want me to take over?...”

“Yep, it’s about time Tracy Industries received a new pair of eyes. The Board certainly thinks so.”

“But… they’d rather have a crazy, PTSD-infected veteran over you?”

A rough pinch to his ear, “Hey now, don’t call yourself that,” the gentle motherly tone was back as soon as it left, “Besides, that crazy might exactly be what they want. Half of their argument is that I “don’t take enough risks.” They’re getting tired of listening to an old fart like me.”

A moment of contemplation, followed by the cheeky raise of an eyebrow, “So you’re saying you want me to take so many risks they have no choice but to take you back?”

A bark of laughter, “Damn straight.”

He learned the ropes faster than normal (healthy, is probably the correct term), and he immediately won the hearts of both young and old in the company. Instead of flying planes every few months, he worked on business reports and vetoed new ideas every couple of weeks. It felt satisfying for the most part, and his family was just happy he was still alive to enjoy it.

However, there was a slight roadblock on his way to becoming a somewhat stable person.

He became prone to violent blackouts. It had to have started when he blacked out and saved himself from those two weeks of hell, which made the most sense. Something was always destroyed when he came back to life. John was the best at calming him down due to his own experience with panic attacks, however, John couldn’t always be there, and the next rotation for NASA was coming swiftly. Scott swore up and down he would be fine, he could figure something out. John went back into space with an eyebrow permanently raised.

It was just him and Virgil home (Grandma had taken Alan and Kayo to watch Gordon swim) when he, unfortunately, proved John right. Scott wasn’t sure what triggered it, but he vividly remembered coming back in Virgil’s extremely tight hold. The first thing Scott thought to say was damn, beanstalk, when did you get so strong? but then he laid his eyes upon the forming bruise on his younger bro’s face and hasn’t recovered since.

Virgil swore he never held it against Scott. Scott definitely thought he should have.

That night brought sudden clarity to Scott that he was doing this horribly wrong. He was a ticking time bomb, and it wouldn’t be long before something was damaged in a way that couldn’t be fixed. Scott needed an anchor. Something to ground him before he took it too far. John wasn’t going to be earthside forever, Grandma was busy with Kayo, Alan was just a kid, and Gordon was living the dream. None of them were viable.

Then, as he was thinking, he was suddenly aware of how calming Virgil’s arms were around him, how they were preventing the growing panic attack in his chest from getting even bigger.

It was easy.

For once in Scott’s life, his eyes were big and young as he asked Virgil, “Help me, please.”

After a few brief seconds, Virgil gulped, “Okay.”

From then on, Virgil was Stone Number One. Scott’s admiration for Virgil outweighed the guilt of putting the black-haired man in that position in the first place. Virgil was glad to follow his older brother’s leadership, but just as qualified to bring him the hell back when he went too far. From getting too sacrificial to preventing a good punching-out some of the idiots they dealt with, Virgil made sure Scott knocked that shit off.

Time went on, Scott was a top-notch CEO at Tracy Industries, John was having one hell of a time up in space, Virgil was graduated and had so many life opportunities to pick from, Alan was thriving at being a (mostly) stable kid, Kayo was 100% acclimated to the family, and Gordon--

Scott found himself gripping the wooden desk very abruptly. He was shocked he didn’t snap a chunk off in the process. Why was he thinking about this right after a giant business conference? Who knows at this point. If this giant origin story seemed jagged and jumpy, maybe even somewhat vague, good, that’s how it fucking felt.

Back to said story.

Scott always thought he and Gordon would have the least amount in common.

They do, but out of all the things they could have picked to be similar, why did it have to be the PTSD caused by military-related jobs? Scott was 24 when he got his, Gordon was just under 20. It may have been a few years since their respective accidents, but they’re never going to go another day without it feeling like it was just yesterday.

At this point, Gordon was up and walking again, mainly thanks to John and Alan while Virgil and Scott helped in their own ways. Grandma’s cooking was what probably motivated him the most though, ha, the need to get away from it… Scott smiled. Grandma was always a constant. Honestly, if it weren’t for her, the family might have fallen apart. Literally.

What has he been saying throughout this whole shindig? Thank Christ for Grandma.

One day out of the blue, Grandma reserved the entire family (yes, even Kayo and Alan) private plane tickets so they could spend some time on the mainland for a few days. Honestly, even if the island wasn’t getting major renovations, you hooligans need to get out more. Have some fun. Try not to kill anything, especially each other, she all told them while creepily grinning. John and Virgil smacked Gordon more than once on the plane for insisting that she finally snapped, dudes, she’s gonna kill us.

Most of the time during their little vacation, Scott heavily focused on his breathing. He was pretty sure he knew what she was doing. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous, but the same went for his excitement.

Dad showed him these plans the day after his 18th birthday. You’re a man now, Scotty, I need your help making this big boy decision with me.

As soon as they reset foot down on the island, Scott took a deep breath and felt relaxed at the salty taste in the air. It was weird, nothing on the outside was changed, and yet… it still felt different.

“Guys!” Virgil yelled out, “Stop playing in the water! We just got back, aren’t you two tired?!”

Blinking back to reality, Scott looked over to see his two youngest brothers doing exactly what Virgil was yelling at them for. Poor Johnny was a little damp too, which is what probably caused Virgil to shout at them in the first place. The blondes didn’t care. They continued to prance around in the shallow waves with their pants legs rolled up, acting as if they didn’t hear anything outside of their laughter. Gordon shoved his hands down into the liquid and threw some directly at Alan, nailing him right in the face.

Scott exhaled slowly. He couldn’t imagine them doing this 8 years ago.

Regardless, the artist was right, and they couldn’t waste too much time. Kayo was swift in grabbing both gentlemen by the ears and dragging them onto dry land. They all painstakingly trekked their way up to the-- what would you call Tracy Island? Mansion? Over-blown cabin? Well, whatever it was, Scott would always be willing to call it home.

Stepping inside, each brother took in the view, which was underwhelmingly not that much different, except for one tiny thing. John suddenly noticed a figure already standing in the living room and blinked, “No way… it’s--”

Gordon jumped in, both with his body and his words, “Brains?! Dude, how’s it hanging?!”

The scientist in question jumped at the voices before clearing his throat and readjusting his glasses, “O-Oh, hello again, T-Tracys. It’s good to see you all once more.”

Virgil slung an arm around his shoulder, ignoring the blatant squawk, “Man, how long has it been?! What made you finally decide to crawl out of your hole?”

Snickers came from all corners of the house. Brains stood up straighter, “W-Well, I was contacted b-by Mrs. Tracy over here with an offer I c-couldn’t turn down.”

Eyebrows tilted in all shapes and sizes. Someone cleared their throat. Everyone turned to look at Grandma once again, “I think if you all follow me, you’ll swiftly understand what I’m talking about.”

I already do, Scott thought matter-of-factly. John seemed to be understanding it now, Virgil was on the cusp of remembering what his father was hinting at for him, and Gordon was just as lost as Alan. It made sense, Jeff talked to all of them about it, but the oldest had seniority. The two youngest not remembering just by words was expected, especially since that was going to be rectified very quickly.

The hangar under the island was beautiful. Point blank. It smelt of iron and steel and grease and engine and that was the first time since Scott had been in the Air Force that he didn’t gag or flinch at the thought of flying something again. Scott had seen the plans his father drew. He assumed Jeff finished building it, but he never got to physically see it since…

In some ways, he was glad he didn’t. Now he got to experience it with (most of) his family, and that made it ten times better.

After letting them absorb the scenery, Grandma slowly turned around to look at them all, “You remember that dream your father had?”

The four oldest blinked, Kayo simply raised her eyebrows, meanwhile, Alan, being the teenager he was, didn’t read the emotion in the room, “Oh, yeah! Aunt Casey always talked about how he was going to “change the world” and stuff. What did he call it again?”

Scott felt way more confident than he had in a while, “International Rescue.”

Grandma nodded, gleeful at the happy look on her oldest and youngest grandsons’ faces, “Well, I’ve been thinking about some things. I know we don’t exactly worry about money, but after everything your father put into these girls… I’d hate for them to go to waste.”

The Tracy family jumped at that. John’s mouth was wide open in shock, yes, shock, “That station is still up there?”

Grandma sighed, “You mean ‘Five? Not for long. Not if we don’t send someone up there within the next few days.”

John blushed at the grin Grandma gave him. Clearing his throat, his big brain came to a startling conclusion, “Wait… you brought Alan along?”

The other big brothers in the room jumped at that. Kayo was the only one with enough balls to say the truth out loud, “Mrs. Tracy, I mean no offense, but he’s--”

“Just a kid?” Grandma smirked, “A kid that’s topped the VR charts for Intergalactic Fury for weeks straight while simultaneously getting nothing but A’s in his classes?”

Scott nodded slowly in comprehension. He remembered Alan talking about that game for a while. It was some kind of online racing simulator of sorts. Scott caught the prettiest string of words from Alan when going to bed one night. Nearly made him shit his pants. He made the kid promise to keep it PG-13 if he wanted to keep playing.

Still, the elders in the family slowly turned to look at the freckled boy with both shock and pride. Alan blinked with wide-eyed innocence, “But my English class is only at a B--”

“Shh, kiddo, I’m making a point,” Grandma rolled her eyes. The other brothers snickered. Yep, still Alan. Grandma sighed, “Now before you point out that video games are different, I know, but the difference between them and this is that video games don’t have some of the most talented older brothers in the world to guide him.”

Said older brothers jumped at the idea. Before any objection could be made, Grandma continued, “Besides, the GDF seemed to be okay with it. The Colonel was willing to oversee some of his training too.”

John flinched at that, “But IR is supposed to be independent!”

Grandma slightly frowned. She didn’t exactly like it either, “It still is, but in the world of business, compromises have to be made.”

Virgil huffed and crossed his arms, “Well, that’s… rough. Here I thought only Scott would have to deal with the bullshit of business.”

Grandma chuckled at the somewhat un-Virgil-like behavior, “It really is, Virgil. But about that Scott part,” she slowly turned to look at him and him only, “I hate to give you more work to do, but if you want to work within their restrictions?”

Suddenly every pair of eyes in the room was on the head of the family. Gulping, Scott looked down at his feet to think. It was a tense few moments, nobody sure what he was going to decide, least of all him, before the brunette cleared his throat and brought his face back up with a grin.

“Well then,” Scott turned to look at the bright tip of ‘One, chest fluttering with a feeling that became unfamiliar to him over the past few years, “I guess now it’s time to state the obvious.”

From then on, every time he loaded into that cockpit of his girl, he felt lighter than air.

“Thunderbirds are GO!”

Everything was okay again.

Mostly.

Orphan.

Scott took another sip of his whiskey and refocused on his reports.

---

Scott was in some kind of dissociative state the whole way home.

Alan doesn’t deserve this. He’s still a kid, barely an adult, and he’s going to go through utter hell because you screwed up. You were 24, Gordon was just under 20, Alan was barely 18. Alan’s going to get fucked up like you and it’s all your fault.

His movements were robotic and rigid. Anyone with a working eye could tell he was deep in shock and running on autopilot. Mostly Jeff. Especially Jeff. The rest of the brothers all noticed too, but they were also running on their own empty fuel tanks, so the only thing they could do was guilty send their older brother the occasional glance of pity and concern.

Jeff was going to need to talk to them about that. Somehow. Maybe he shouldn’t be the one to point it out since he feels just as bad. His sons were too much like him, sometimes, and that made his guilt burn all the same. He should’ve been there to warn his sons about the dangers of unnecessary guilt. Having that kind of guilt was a parent’s job, dammit, and maybe grandparents only occasionally.

But then he remembered where he’s been for the past 8 years and… who really was Alan’s parents anymore? His gut was screaming it sure as hell isn’t you, but he knew his sons would want him to step back into the role as soon as he was physically fit to do so, not just for Alan, but for themselves as well. They would deny it, but they probably just wanted to be kids again too, even if it was only brief, fleeting moments.

Who was to tell the protective, fatherly side of Jeff no to that? No better time to fix things like the present after all.

He saw Scott go up the stairs when they first stepped into the living room, so that’s where Jeff was going to go too. Footsteps light, Jeff retraced his eldest’s pathway to his bedroom. Only, he stopped before said bedroom. Unfavorable noises were coming from the closed bathroom door, and Jeff could only swallow whatever emotion it made him feel. Taking a deep breath, he slowly opened the (unlocked) door to the bathroom and laid his eyes upon the incriminating scene.

Jeff was met with the sight of Scott retching his entire stomach into the toilet, hands aggressively grabbing his sticky, hair-gelled hair and trying to make himself bald from the strain.

Jeff’s reaction was always based on autopilot, and it will never stop being so.

Ignoring his protesting body, Jeff kneeled and placed a hand on his son’s back, only to abruptly pull back like he touched a hot stove when Scott only got more hysterical at the contact. The brunette clenched his eyes shut even more (and they were already shut as much as possible) while his head became a special kind of crease. Like he was in pain, “God, I wanna go home. Why won’t they listen I swear I’m telling the truth! Please, I just want Dad--”

Jeff was frozen on the spot, heart stopping in the process. His brain shut down while he watched his son continue to mindlessly ramble and panic. His freaked-out mind barely registered footsteps from behind in the hallway, followed by a voice going what’s going-- holy--

Something thundered past him. Blinking once, Jeff guiltily watched as Virgil kneeled behind the eldest and wrapped his arms around the thin man’s shoulders while taking Scott’s hands in his in a protective blanket, “Scott! Jesus-- we’re at home, you’re safe and it’s June 14th, 2--”

Scott only struggled more, panicking at the fact he could no longer yank his hair out. Dammit, it was the only way he could feel in control, don’t take that away too! “No! I swear I’ve said everything! Please--”

Virgil immediately knew that this was one of those attacks that Scott wasn’t coming back down from with pure human intervention. Add-on the sight of his father’s big eyes signifying the man was at a loss at what to do, Virgil had no choice. He snapped loudly, remembering the comms were still on and only feeling slightly bad at the way Scott flinched in his arms, “Shit-- John! It’s Scott! Get the stuff! We’re in the upstairs bathroom!”

Muffled footsteps through a few walls in the house could be heard. Jeff’s mind was only starting to catch up when the brother Virgil called for came rushing into the bathroom (Jeff never remembered it being big enough to hold four of them) and ignoring Jeff (practically shoving him out of the way too, man, this was bad) on his way to the main problem at hand. Landing on his knees in a way that made Jeff wince, John gently grabbed one of Scott’s arms from Virgil’s hold and subsequently pulled a needle from nowhere and injected something into Scott.

The response was instantaneous.

Scott’s breathing, while still labored, got slower. He stopped struggling as well, and the way he sagged reminded Jeff of ice melting into a puddle. The two other brothers’ shoulders also sagged, relieved at the crisis averted. John stood up, knees cracking as he rubbed the back of his neck. Then, he froze at the sight of something in the doorway, “G-Gordon…”

Virgil snapped his head up from where he was looking at Scott. Jeff did something similar. Yup, in the doorway was the strawberry blonde, eyes wide, making him younger by about 10 years. The ex-Olympian in question inhaled, closed his eyes, and soon speed-walked his way out of the entrance to the bathroom. Dammit, neither Gordon or Alan have seen something like that and it probably spooked him more than anything. He’d understand with his own PTSD-related issues, but still, seeing the “never weak” big brother freak out in such a scary way...

John combed a hand through his hair, shaking his head. As he started walking out of the room, he whispered to himself, probably hoping no one heard him, “Dammit, this is all so fucked…”

Unfortunately, Jeff did hear, and the dirty language made the father flinch. John was always the best about making sure Grandma didn’t wash his mouth out with soap, and the fact that he so willingly didn’t care meant that everyone was at the end of their rope. Still reeling at the sight, Jeff couldn’t react to the gentle arms that picked him up off the floor and slowly led him out of the suddenly stuffy room.

With the click of the door shutting, Jeff realized what Virgil did, “W-Wait, Scott--”

“Will be okay for a few seconds,” Virgil finished for his dad, “I know it’s nearly been a decade, but the one part of you I definitely know hasn’t changed is the need to comfort us, just like we hoped.” The small grin that fell over the middle child’s face put Jeff a little bit at ease, but Virgil wasn’t completely done, “So, I’m going to let you take care of this, but I just want to make sure you’ll handle it with grace. Take this slowly, okay? Scott might be doped up, but he’s still… volatile, in a sense.”

Jeff cleared his throat, suddenly choking on the unneeded tension, “Okay, Virgil, I promise, just… what happened? That was… bad, and really bad at that too. I know Scott would never let something that severe willingly come out in front of his family.”

Virgil rubbed the back of his neck, clearly not ready for this conversation, “Listen, Dad,” he inhaled sharply, cutting himself off before sighing in a way that said fuck it, might as well get this over with, “As much as it felt like it did, the world didn’t stop spinning because you… well, we had lives we somehow wanted to continue living. We all have lives and stories now, and this is Scott’s story to tell.”

Jeff was getting misty-eyed again. Back when he was just a kid, Virgil couldn’t keep a secret to save his life, mainly in part due to his insomnia-related issues (Jeff has to wonder if he still has them, more problems for the future) and general lack of filter because of sleep-deprivation. Now Jeff knew there was a starch difference between a kid who couldn’t keep his mouth shut and a man who genuinely knew how to respect another man’s privacy, but…

It just hammers home how much he’s missed with his boys. Gulping, Jeff made a mental note to talk with his mom about certain things he’s missed. She’ll know a lot more than he would, “Okay, Virge. Thank you, for stepping up there.”

Virgil’s shoulders relaxed at Jeff’s words, as well as his father’s hand patting him on the shoulder, “Thanks, Dad. Just… go easy on him. I know it’s a little late for this but none of us ever properly talked about things. It was very unhealthy, deep down we all knew that, but…”

“You just couldn’t get the proper emotions out?” Jeff finished for his son. At Virgil’s soft nod, Jeff exhaled, “I’m not going to say that it was a smart decision, but we’re all here now. We can move forward with this.” Jeff squeezed where his hand laid.

Virgil blinked before curtly going, “Yeah. Goodnight, Dad. Take care of Scott.”

Virgil stepped around his father and walked to where his bedroom most definitely was not, but Jeff could deal with that in a little bit. He had another son who he was pretty sure just had a violent PTSD attack of some kind, plus, Virgil seemed to sour at something Jeff said. The ex-astronaut wasn’t sure what it was, so he didn’t chase after him out of worry that--

Wait.

We’re all here now.

Dammit, Jeff. Out of all the sentences you could’ve picked...

Alrighty, just add that to the ever-growing pile of things that need to be talked about later. No biggie. Jeff found himself sighing and rubbing the back of his neck much like Virgil did a few minutes ago. Turning around, he was met with the bathroom door once more. Shaking his head, Jeff slowly crept into the room and saw that not much was different, especially with Scott.

His heart softly cracked, but, again, he can deal with it later.

Sitting down on the ground and grimacing at the way his body ached (was gravity always this rough?), Jeff leaned against the floor cabinets about 2-3 feet away from Scott, who made himself into a nice comfortable ball in the corner next to the toilet, his palm smushed against his forehead. Jeff waited a few seconds. Then minutes. Then he realized he would have to be the one to initiate the conversation. He probably should’ve realized that right when he came back in. He opened his mouth, but his wasn’t the one that words came out of.

“It was… Zambia.”

Jeff’s heart stopped and his mouth snapped shut. He couldn’t stop the way his eyes clearly showed his panic, but hopefully, he guiltily thought, Scott was a little too doped up to not realize it, “Scotty, what do you mean?”

Scott shrugged in a way that spoke he thought what he was admitting wasn’t a big deal. Yep, clearly not with it, “Mission went bad… caught for a couple of weeks.”

Jeff was hoping his first fuck back on Earth, spoken to himself like right now or otherwise, would have been a comedic thing, but the way nausea rose in his throat said this was anything but funny.

Scott wanted to be in the Air Force. Badly. Who was a father to deny his son’s want to be part of such a noble cause? He gave him tips, took him to meet friends in high places, sometimes even sparred with him when he turned 18, but then Jeff was suddenly thousands of miles away with no hope of ever having the chance of sparring with his eldest again. Despite it, Jeff hoped Scott went on to become the best pilot the world has ever seen.

Part of this looks like he did, but at what cost?

As much as it felt like it did, the world didn’t stop spinning because you… well, we had lives we somehow wanted to continue living.

Aw hell, “Jesus, Scott…” Jeff couldn’t tell if it was the brashness or the lack of a nickname that made Scott flinch and he hated it. He immediately softened his tone and brought his 27-year-old child into his arms, “Shh, shh, we’ll be okay. We’ll figure this out.”

Like father like son, old habits die hard, and as easy as it was to still be able to comfort his children, Scott seemed to just as easily take it as he used to 8 years ago, “Alan doesn’t deserve this kind of hell, God, he’s barely not a kid anymore! Why--”

Jeff tightened his hold to keep his son in reality, and because he didn’t like the tone behind those words, “Hey, you didn’t either--”

Scott somehow managed to fling himself out of the hug, focus incredibly on point for someone who was doped up to his eyelids five seconds ago, “But I fucked up! I made the wrong call and then suddenly Arnold was dead and he had a wife and kids-- shit, what the hell did I do?”

Okay.

First of all: way to put him back in that headspace when that’s the exact opposite you were going for, Jeff, father of the year. Second: dammit. Just… dammit. This was a big fat hand grenade in a giant handbasket that they didn’t have time to gently get out while simultaneously not yanking the pin clean off with the grace of a drunk elephant. Jeff was no stranger to Survivor’s Guilt, but there was a whole untapped pile of metaphorical C4 within his son’s head that was ready for someone to push the goddamn button.

He wanted it to be him, desperately, because it sounded like he already failed his family enough, it was all he could do at this point, but he absolutely hated that he couldn’t do it right now. This was going to take a lot of time, which they didn’t have, plus, Jeff thought he had a pretty good understanding of this new Scott and the rest of his kids. Jeff was aware that if he didn’t help his sons find their baby as fast as possible over everything else it’ll lead to a fate nobody wanted.

A shaky sigh, “Okay, Scotty, let’s get you to bed. We’ll talk strategy in the morning.”

Scott simply nodded as his father flung Scott’s arm around his broader shoulders and picked him up. Slowly and painfully but surely, father and son meandered their way to Scott’s room. With a thump a little harder than Jeff wanted, Scott flopped down on top of his sheets and immediately started snoring. Despite everything that just happened, the father couldn’t help but grin at the sight. Well, there was another thing Jeff gracefully passed onto his son.

Jeff only took Scott’s shoes off. He would’ve loved to pull the sheets up around him too, but the father didn’t want to take any chances at waking him up. Slowly tip-toeing out of the room, Jeff gave one last glance back at his son before finally letting him be and gently shutting the door. He had three other sons he needed to console, but his tired joints told him to selfishly take a moment for himself for right now unless he wanted to collapse and give his family more to deal with.

Jeff eventually made his way to his room-- which was sadly unkempt, he noticed-- and sat down on the edge of his unfamiliar bed to think.

He’ll figure something out. If he had to crawl through images of his son being brutally and bloodily tortured then by God he would with the fury of a thousand suns.

He was back and he wasn’t going to throw away any second or even third chance he was given.

---

“I got him.”

Virgil turned his comms back on, and with it, Scott’s heart restarted for the first time in a few weeks. Taking a moment for a breather, Scott leaned against the wall while practically wheezing. They have him back, holy shit, they have him back. Scott vaguely heard Gordon cry in pure relief and joy. He saw John’s side of the comms flutter for a bit before a bright flash happened. Blinking away the white spots, Scott looked at his wrist to see a fully detailed map of the compound.

Gordon spoke what they were all thinking, “Woohoo! First Allie comes back, then Johnny-boy gets us a free ticket out of here! We’re winning this race, baby!”

A very loud moment of silence. John cleared his throat, “Actually, I was going to say glad to see you in one piece, you little shit,” a playful gasp came from Virgil’s side. It was too high pitched to be from the pianist’s mouth. Scott chuckled, but the paranoid part of his brain said John wasn’t done. His brain was right, ‘“But guys… that wasn’t me. Or EOS. We still haven’t found a way to get past the metal they made these walls out of.”

That silence was even more deafening than the last, and before Virgil could utter out his typical what the fuck, a small logo appeared at the corner of their new map. One that was all too familiar. The Chaos Crew wasn’t the only one who could brand their awful deeds.

Son of a bitch.

Virgil’s order over the radio was meant for Alan, but Scott couldn’t help but listen to it too.

“Shit, Alan, you need to run.”

Making quick work of the compound once more, Scott, while booking it even quicker than last time, opened a private line between him and Gordon, “Hey, how would you feel if I said go help Virgil while I cover Alan?”

The first response was stuttering, which Scott expected, but then it was followed up by something completely out of left field for Gordon, “... Okay, just as long as you promise to bring Alan back in one piece.”

Part of Scott wanted to console Gordon, another was questioning why Gordon was so quick to give up, another wanted to say of course, I will, idiot, but the first part that made itself verbal was easy, “You know I will, buddy.”

Scott could physically picture Gordon’s tiny, little, somber nod clear as day, “Sounds good, captain. See you on the other side.”

With a click, Scott was back on the group comm. Suddenly remembering what exactly his job was, he pulled out the map so graciously given to them by The Hood. Looking at all the dots, one was heading towards a prone one (oh if that asshole did anything to Virgil…) while another one was heading right for Scott himself. Actually, in just a few seconds, right as Scott rounded the corner he would--

“Woah, look out there, Tigger!”

Yes, you heard that correctly: not tiger, Tigger. Tigger hadn’t been used since Alan was itty bitty. It always seemed like the kid had endless energy with the way he wouldn’t stop bounding off the walls and furniture. Even as a baby, Lucy had to sit with him for a few hours while he slept in his crib to make sure he would stay there. In fact, their mother gave Alan that nickname herself. She was quite the Winnie the Pooh fan, and the rest of the family figured it would be one of the ways they could keep her legacy alive for the tiny potato.

Wrapping his arms around said flailing potato, albeit much bigger than a baby, Scott thought he would collapse then and there. Alan was here, in his arms, and yeah, the sight of his dirty and somewhat ripped up IR uniform made him mad, but Scott, for once in his life, decided to focus on the here-and-now, aka his precious, alive little brother, who finally stopped struggling at the realization that hey, the person holding you is a good guy, time to turn off fight mode.

Smushing their foreheads together as much as possible, Scott desperately fought to keep the waterworks back, a smile from ear to ear hopefully taking whatever energy his tear ducts had, “You are getting such an ass beating when we get home, little bro.”

Alan jumped back with a look of What the hell?! What did I do now?!

Scott simply rolled his eyes, “Really? “Not important”? You graduated high school, tiny dude! That’s huge! You remember Gordon’s party, right?”

Alan’s mouth gaped before he closed it with slightly puffy cheeks. Those same cheeks tinged with a small blush. Alan wasn’t exactly expecting to be smothered so soon (well, he did cry his eyes out on Virgil’s shoulder, but that was different!). Shaking it off, Alan moved his hands rhythmically and rapidly, To be fair, we weren’t sure he was going to get one for a while.

Scott faltered a little bit at the ASL. Darn, he should’ve seen Alan’s lack of talking from a mile away. Scott carefully hid his disappointment from Alan. Lord knew what the kid would take it as, “Yeah, that’s what he got for barely making it. Imagine what you’re going to get!”

Scott assumed his semi-fake charm worked, as Alan seemed to play along without any kind of suspicion, Oh yeah. Fair enough.

This kid, man.

Then, slow clapping came from a dark corner, making Scott’s heart leap out of his throat as well as push Alan behind himself. Glaring as much as he could towards the invisible evil-doer, Scott didn’t have to think twice, “Alan, take my map and find Virgil and Gordon.”

The youngest looked like he was going to object.

“Go.”

He no longer did. Good.

Listening to the field commander’s orders, Scott felt his wristband slip off his wrist and a warm body leave his vicinity. An inhale. Also good. An exhale, followed by an even darker glare, “What more do you want?”

Short and straight-to-the-point and angry, two things Scott typically wasn’t. Regardless, like a cold gust of wind, footsteps started approaching him from the shadow. Once Scott saw the outline of a body, he tensed even more. Virgil would snap at him for clenching his jaw so much.

A dark chuckle reminded him of what was important. The voice that spoke reminded him of something completely different, “Now then, brother, let’s not be rude to each other!”

Scott’s pupils shrunk at the familiar sight of Gordon stepping towards him. Except it wasn’t Gordon, because Scott knew that Gordon knew better. He also knew Gordon didn’t cheekily smile like that, even after a prank, nor did he walk that straight. He always had a funny walk after WASP, and Gordon wore that fact like a badge of honor.

Oh no, Scott definitely knew who this was, “What the hell are you playing at?”

Fake-Gordon rolled his eyes, like it wasn’t obvious, “I mean if we want to go that route, why did kid insist you being in the military was the coolest thing he’d ever heard you do? Maybe I wouldn’t have been pressured into joining a branch myself in the end.”

Scott’s nostrils flared, and by God, his pupils might have actually slitted like a snake’s, or possibly even a dragon’s, “Excuse me?”

Scott blinked, and suddenly he was met by not-Virgil, “Plus, why was our conclusion after hearing a three-year-old wanting to see snow to go to a ski resort? It had to have been those big, selfish, beady eyes, right?”

“C’mon, Scotty, we gotta give you some kind of calming exercise. There’s going to come a time when neither me or John are going to be there.”

“Hmm… does yoga work?”

A snort, “Well, that’s not too bad of an idea. Maybe the person pissing you off will stop whatever they’re doing at the sight of you spontaneously doing downward dog.”

Laughter, an unfamiliar action, “Yeah, okay, but for real, those breathing exercises I’ve seen you do look okay. Let’s start there.”

Scott was not a liar by heart. He had to admit that those exercises were doing jack shit right about now.

Another blink, another brother. Familiar ginger hair was all Scott could see, “To continue that previous point, why did Dad start International Rescue again? And what led to his demise?”

“Sounds like a piece of work. Why do you keep dealing with these people again?”

“Someone has to pay the bills, Johnny. Grandma’s too focused on making the perfect poison for us.”

A roll of eyes, “Right, because the billions we have saved wouldn’t be enough to last a couple of families a few lifetimes. Glad to see your calming exercises are working at least. How’s that going for you, by the way?”

A pause. A flicker of vision around the room. Someone cleared their throat, probably himself, “It’s probably not as bad as whatever space is throwing at you. You handling it okay up there?”

Another pause, followed by a sigh, “Well, since you asked so nicely…”

Scott wanted to deflect the truth so badly right now more than anything else. Telling him he couldn’t pilot ‘One anymore would be a much more enticing option than what he was hearing.

Suddenly, Scott was looking in a mirror, “Besides, I know more than anybody that he wasn’t wanted. A mistake. I thought we Tracys hated being imperfect?”

The Hood must have known their backstories from internet articles, and being the mastermind he was, it probably took him all of three seconds to see Alan had some hidden self-worth issues. By playing the biggest Guess Who? game of all time, The Hood was most likely able to figure out some less-than-positive ideals Alan thought about himself throughout his childhood and danced circles around his already weakened mind to string together some spineless blame to put on the kid by sheer evilness alone.

Knowing his kid brother, it worked.

Scott wasn’t thinking straight-- maybe even at all when the first punch was thrown.

Just like that, Scott blacked out and was running on terminator mode. John would be disappointed. Virgil would be horrified. Gordon might find it funny. Alan wasn’t here, and thank God for that. Scott wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing. All his mind was telling him was make lots of pain hard and fast. His brain also blocked out any hit The Hood was giving him in return. Pain flared for a few seconds, then it was swept away in the puddle of rage his mind was currently being consumed in.

Soon, his out-of-it mind found its target and gripped his-- The Hood’s arm, no disguise would make him have an identity crisis, thank you very much-- nice and rough.

Scott heard the familiar snap of cartilage and felt only partially bad. If he was thinking more clearly, he would be disgusted with himself. Yes, even The Hood didn’t deserve this level of Scott’s fury. Oh, he definitely deserved to be hit by a truck, but not by Scott. It was mostly due to Scott’s sanity. If he could be this graphic and violent at all, even to the worse possible criminals, that meant he could be that way during other moments, and that was not a territory he wanted to cross into.

Welp, he was here now, and he’ll hate to admit it in the future, but the only thing that brought him out of it was a tiny gasp from a few feet away. Snapping his head up, Scott’s eyes landed squarely on a smaller-than-normal Alan, who was currently clutching his arm to his chest in an emotion Scott didn’t want to figure out at the moment. So much for going and finding Virgil and Gordon.

“Allie, help…” fake him grunted out, only making real Scott growl and tighten his hold (and probably making his case worse). Looking up from the person in his arms, Scott felt his heart split in two at the sight. There was fear and uncertainty in Alan’s blue eyes and boy did it hurt. Scott couldn’t tell if it was because even seeing a potentially-fake Scott being beaten up was bad or if it was because he’d never seen big brother be this brutal, even towards their enemies. Whatever the reason, it involved Scott being the main root of the problem.

Wait, that was The Hood’s plan. Shit… make Scott act past the point of no return in a way that was unfamiliar to Alan so the kid couldn’t be fully sure who was who, and Scott fell right into his trap, hook, line, and sinker.

Fuck.

Bloody well done, Scott, you absolute moron.

Scott faltered a little bit, “A-Alan, I--”

That falter was enough for The Hood to break an arm out of his grip and elbow him in the face. In the brief second of freedom he had, he tried dashing towards Alan, but Scott was too quick for everyone’s good and soon had the imposter back in his arms, both of them struggling in a way that made them look like they were tied into the weirdest knot in existence.

Then, an earthquake struck.

No, literally.

A big shake of the abandoned compound threw the look-a-likes about and subsequently off the platform they were on. The place was old; it didn’t take a lot of weight for that guard rail they made their way over towards while fighting to snap right off. With a yelp, the two of them gripped the edge as much as they could and held on. Crap, I know we talked with Fuse about potentially setting some stuff off, but--

Blinking, Scott saw a familiar mop of blonde hair come into view. Alan was rather panicked, clearly not sure which Scott was the real Scott. Not only that, he had little time to decide which one to save. Goodie, another reason to despise The Hood: not only has he put Alan through weeks of torment, now he’s forcing the kid to decide to either save his oldest brother and biggest hero or his personal torturer.

And Alan won’t know until he picks.

Holy hell, this was getting worse by the second. Hopefully, big brother charm can work its magic and get them the hell out of there.

“Alan, quickly, over here!”

“I can’t hold on for much longer, Alan, hurry!”

The two Scotts glared at one another in the exact same way, not making Alan’s job much easier. Another shake, another slip down the metal cliff, more screams, and Alan looked ready to tear his hair out. Scott watched as the kid looked around rapidly, probably praying for a miracle in the process. Suddenly, the kid jumped when he must have spotted something important. Within the blink of an eye, he was gone and out of their range of visions to retrieve it.

Whatever the hell he noticed better be important, because if just ended up wasting precious time then--

Another shake, probably the last one. Still, it was enough.

Both their grips gave away at the same time, screams identical (God, did he always sound that wimpy?) as they plummeted to their demises. Scott was briefly able to look up to see his brother pop his head over the cliff like a chipmunk again and grab the (albeit broken) arm of The Hood and save him. Dammit, Scott should have expected that, though, that display of anger was uncharacteristic to Alan. Probably terrified him even more than he already was. Fuck, Scott deser--

Suddenly, a rope wrapped itself around Scott’s left arm and stopped his descent. Hard. Hopefully, it was only torn stuff, they didn’t have time to deal with dislocation--

Wait.

Scott wasn’t dead if he could think about these kinds of things.

Blinking, he looked at his arm to see the familiar rope of his grappling hook around his forearm. Moving his eyesight to look past that, he saw the wide, blue eyes of his baby brother struggling to stay on top. The Hood was using his non-broken side to try and climb his way back up to safety. Huh, that’s weird. When did Alan get ahold of that? Scott must have dropped it during his scuffle with--

That’s when it hit Scott.

Alan saved them both.

Alan saved them both.

And it would be all for jack shit if Scott didn’t get his ass up there to help.

Panicking, Scott gripped the rope and started to ascend. He had two working arms and a smother complex to boot; it wasn’t long before he overtook a struggling Hood, who could only use one arm and a weakened brother (that bastard was so lucky Alan had a literal heart of gold).

Flinging his arms over the edge and pulling himself up-- and shrugging off the extra help Alan offered. Save your strength, baby bro-- Scott was in a much calmer search-and-destroy mode. He yanked his evil look-a-like up, turned him on his stomach, pinned him down, and before he could even watch Alan blink, “Sign something.”

There, now he watched Alan blink.

Scott pulled out one of his best ‘big brother’ smiles ever, “Tell me something in ASL. I don’t think The Hood learned that kind of etiquette.”

The body beneath him growled, making Alan jump and Scott tighten not only his hold but his glare. Further prove big brother’s point, why don’t cha? He lost the angry look immediately to grin at Alan once more, who seemed to be slowly getting the picture. With a gulp, the blonde slowly strung together a sentence that Scott had to laugh at, just a little bit.

Damn, could you teach me to fight like that, Scooter?

Nodding his head, Scott had to concede, “Sure. Consider it a graduation present.”

Alan blinked again, and the immense relief that washed over the boy’s shoulders would be enough to banish nightmares for at least a couple of days. Suddenly, The Hood’s disguise blinked out of existence, making both brothers jump that time. Scott didn’t falter in his grip, however. This man was going down right here and now, Scott thought darkly, staring at the prone body beneath his.

Scott saw Alan continue to sign out of the corner of his eye, You know you look like shit, right?

Scott chuckled. Alan was always able to put a smile on his face no matter the circumstances, “Yeah, well, kindred spirits, little bro.”

Scott was probably as pale as Alan was with such lack of sleep and food. Running on what was essentially a prolonged PTSD attack wasn’t healthy in the slightest, and no doubt whatever kind of bruises and scratches The Hood gave him didn’t help, however, seeing hope fill those deep-blue eyes when Alan learned he was truly being saved drowned everything out, including the way those freckles were getting lost in those eye bags.

Yeah, their entire family probably looked like shit, and the recovery process was going to be even shittier, but they were going to suffer through it together as a family would.

That made it all worth it.

Shuffling himself so one arm was free while the other kept The Hood pinned, Scott held it out towards Alan. The flinch the youngest made tore a hole in Scott’s heart that was only slightly patched when Alan leaned into the warmth and safety of his biggest bro. Long recovery process, remember? Regardless, Alan still took to the hug like a dehydrated zebra did a pond, and that was good enough for Scott.

The Hood groaned underneath them.

Yep, good enough.

[monsieur-fancy-hat]

How abt an AU where dazai and chuuya are in the mafia together and atsushi and akutagawa are in the ADA

Send me some characters and an AU for me to write headcanons/prompts for.

Ended up rewriting this like twice but I hope you enjoy!!

Some parts of it were taken from the canon BSD AU light novel, BEAST.

Ages during the backstory:

Akutagawa Ryuunosoke- 11 or 12

Nakajima Atsushi- 8 or 9

Akutagawa Gin- 8 or 9

Dazai Osamu- 16 or 17

Nakahara Chuuya- 16 or 17

Odasaku- 20 or 21

Let’s start with Akutagawa and Atsushi’s backstory!!

Akutagawa and Gin have a mother. She abused them, because she believed that she had to work three times harder to take care of them as she was a single mom. She also hated the kids for looking so eeriely like the fathers (cause half-siblings).

So after a while, Akutagawa and Gin fun away from home. They take as much cash as they feel comfortable with, take important belongings (weapons), a coat given to Akutagawa by his father, and other necessities.

The end up in the slums for a while, before an orphanage takes them in. They’re far away enough from their mother that it’s pretty much safe. But the orphanage learns about the mother and stuff. And they decide that maybe they should go into the foster care system? The orphanage isn’t sure right now, so they just let the kids stay.

So Akutagawa and Gin stay at the orphanage. They’re kinda loners, cause they don’t talk to people besides themselves. Some kids believe that Gin is mute (so they make fun of her) and Akutagawa -even at the delicate age of 12- has a death glare that makes grown adults run. So he uses it o the bullies. And if he’s not around... well, Gin has her way of taking care of things (stabby stabby).

But one day, this mysterious guy talks to Akutagawa. This mysterious man starts talking ‘nonsense’ about special powers and stuff. He also explains that Akutagawa might have some.

Akutagawa doesn’t believe the mysterious guy.

But a week later Gin was cornered in a alley by a college kid, who was trying to do.... non-consenting inappropriate things to her. And Gin, being Gin, had a knife out and was about to stabby stabby, when this random kid jumps on the college dude.

And he starts trying to hang onto the college guy by his neck and yelling for help

And Gin is just stand there wondering what the heck is going on

The orphanage staff rush into the alley to see a white-haired kid biting a college dude (who is still trying to shake him off) and a little girl, who kinda looks like a ninja, slipping what they think looks like a knife into a pocket.

They bring the police to arrest the college dude.

Everyone is wondering why he has cat-like scratches on his back and tiger bites on his neck.

Gin is interested by the white haired kid (which, you know, Atsushi) and brings him to join her tiny friend group.

Akutagawa, not a huge fan of him...

And apparently, neither are the orphanage staff.

Atsushi’s 8 or 9, Gin is 8 or 9, and Akutagawa is around 12.

Akutagawa and Gin get the least abused by the staff, cause they are great at not getting into trouble.

I mean, Gin was scolded a couple times for the incidents (“You shouldn’t have run off on your own! And if you’re gonna run away, then don’t come back!!”). But that’s pretty much it.

Atsushi, on the other hand.... let’s just say that the staff have some problems with him.

Gin (and sometimes Akutagawa) usually patch Atsushi up though, so he’s not alone!

They become decently good friends. Woohoo!

But Akutagawa starts thinking that Atsushi is secretly a tiger. Cause bite marks. Also cause he heard rumors that there was a white tiger around the orphanage grounds.

So he meets up with the mysterious guy, and tries to get some answers. Cause he wouldn’t want Gin to be hanging out with someone who could hurt her. That’s a no-no.

Sadly, mysterious guy hasn’t heard about this either. So... oof.

So one night, Akutagawa gets waken up by something crashing outside.

He puts on his coat and decides to go check it out, correctly thinking it’s the tiger.

Atsushi-tiger (he’s a baby tiger, just so ya know), seeing Akutagawa, goes to attack him.

And Akutagawa hears someone shout “Use your ability!!”

Akutagawa is kinda confused, and kinda angry, so he just says the first thing that comes to mind (He remembers that when he was younger, really really young, his father would show him how he sewed cloth together. How many shades of black you could use, and all the different styles. Mr. Akutagawa showed his son one of his favorite pieces, a black coat. He named it Rashomon. Cause I need this story to make a bit of sense.)

“RASHOUMON!”

Boom

Parts of his coat fly towards the tiger, trapping him.

But it can’t hold him for long, and Atsushi springs right back at him.

But mystery guy comes in the middle of them, and activates his ability.

“No longer human.”

In a flash of white light, Atsushi is found on one side, laying face-down bottom-up on the floor.

Akutagawa was standing on the other side.

Mystery guy offered Akutagawa a place to belong. A place to go home to. He even said Gin & Atsushi could come, if Akutagawa wanted.

And Akutagawa doesn’t know what to think.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to, cause ANOTHER MYSTERY GUY COMES OVER

He has dark red hair, and a beige trench coat.

And he seems to recognize mystery guy #1.

“Dazai, is that you?” “Oh! Hi there Oda! Isn’t this a surprise. I’ll be taking the kids and leaving now, if you don’t mind!”

Yup. It’s Dazai and Oda!

Also, FYI, Oda does mind. Cause Dazai left the A.D.A. a couple months ago and no one has had any contact with him ever since.

Oda is upset and wants Dazai to come back. And Dazai... doesn’t give a damn.

They have a standoff-staredown.

And while they do that, Akutagawa goes over to Atsushi to check if he’s alive and okay.

Dazai and Oda fight, but Dazai can’t bring himself to kill Oda and leaves alone.

Which leaves Oda with an uncounsious Atsushi and a tired Akutagawa.

Oda decides that he should take these kids in. So he goes to the orphanage the next day and adopts Atsushi.

And Atsushi is sad cause he thinks he’ll be separated from Gin and Akutagawa.

Which is oof.

But Oda ends up fostering the Akutagawa’s.

So he just ends up with 3 more kids. Woohoo!! And the other kids too, but they’re all younger than them (3-4 at the time).

So Oda has his hands VERY full. Too nice.

He brings them to the A.D.A.

And Kunikida scolds Oda cause “You were supposed to be looking for that bandaged idiot! Not going around taking in more kids!!”.

But Oda interrupts him and says, “I talked to Dazai.”

And everyone goes quiet for a minute. Cause if Oda spoke to Dazai and he still won’t come back, it’s over.

Dazai has defected from the Armed Dectetive Agency.

Oda spends his time training Atsushi and Akutagawa. They’re both young and a bit confused about what’s going on (“What the... I’M A TIGER?!” “Yes, Jinko, we know.”)

But they all get along quite well, so yay!

The trio grow up together, and they eventually become official members of the A.D.A. Gin is an assistant.

She, Naomi, and Haruno become friends. Gin is still closest to Atsushi though.

And that’s their [back]story.

But now... it’s time for Dazai’s!

So, Dazai & Oda went to school together. Dazai had a not-so-great home life, so moved away at 16.

He lived by himself for a month or two, living off weird part-time jobs. Due to his smarts, he managed to skip two grades. So he’s a freshman in college. I think.

And Oda is in his third year of college.

Dazai lived at the school dorms, cause he got a full-ride scholarship. Cause smart.

Dazai has known about his powers for a while. Some weird doctor guy went to him and tried to get him to join some mafia thing, but Oda advises him to not.

So he doesn’t. But he is interested.

Dazai & Oda end up in the A.D.A.

And Oda has a great time there. He likes the people. He has fun. It’s great.

But Dazai... nope. He hates it. He can’t suicide attempt without someone being there to stop him, he can’t wear bandages without being sent to Yosano to get a check up, he can’t even be gone for a day without being chased down by Kunikida or Oda, wondering where the he’ll he’s been.

Dazai is bored and sick of the A.D.A.

So he leaves.

After a huge argument with Oda, Dazai leaves. And Mori, predicting this would happen, appeared to say “I told you so.”

And so Dazai, at the young age of 16, is taken in by the Port Mafia.

And he’s pretty good at it too!

He loves playing mind games and doing interrogations and killing people who NEVER SEE IT COMING~ (sorry, wrong fandom-) and just being evil~

A couple months later, he’s on track to become a executive. He’s already a sub-executive under Kouyou.

But then, Fifteen (Well, it’s more like Sixteen...) happens

And Dazai meets the cutest redhead he’s ever seen in his life.

Also Dazai is a kinky man has a thing for gloves.

ALSO MOTORCYCLE & CHUUYA

So of course Dazai is in love intrigued by the tiny sixteen year old.

“What the f*ck I’m still growing!!”

“Sureeeeeee-”

“F*ck off.”

“So creative, Chuu~”

“I will torture you until you die from the pain and then I’ll burn you and chop up your ashes and scatter them in the sea so that there’s no way you can come back.”

“Oh. Sounds like fun!! I mean, excluding the pain part, I’d love to die with you~”

“...why are you like this?”

Since Mori is a sadist and Dazai, a masochist, Chuuya and Dazai become partners.

“Please NO.”

“Please yes~”

And they were roommates.

oH mY gOd thEy wEre rOommAteS

[cough cough] ANYWAYS

Chuuya and Dazai become partners. They murder people.

Dazai thinks it’s fun, and Chuuya can’t help but go along with Dazai’s shenanigans. Chuuya is very in love annoyed.

The two become a feared duo, but some who know them personally (Kouyou, Mori, & Hirotsu) know that they’re really just lovestruck teens.

It’s really cute.

And que the next backstory!

So. Chuuya’s backstory. I tried making up a new one for him, but I didn’t want to diverge too much from canon, so his is pretty much the same.

Now, the plot. Well, it’s more somewhat connected headcanons that plot, so... oof. The backstories all happened 10 years ago, so everyone is 10 years older than they were before.

Ages:

Atsushi- 18-19

Akutagawa- 21-22

Gin- 18-19

Dazai- 26-17

Chuuya- 26-27

Oda- 30-31

So. Atsushi is going grocery shopping, yeah?

And Chuuya is also grocery shopping, yeah?

And they bump into each other. And Atsushi doesn’t recognize him, but Chuuya remembers from one of Dazai’s drunk ramblings about trying to recruit some white tiger kid and a black coat?

Either way, Chuuya doesn’t really care. But he decides to tell Dazai once he’s home.

But only after he finished shopping for some fresh, non-canned crab.

But as he’s picking out a crab, the grocery store gets attacked by some ability users.

Oof.

And Chuuya doesn’t want to intervene (and risk his identity/secrecy to the public, who have limited knowledge of ability users).

But white-tiger Atsushi just goes flying towards one of the robbers.

And Chuuya knows.

So obviously, he tells Dazai. And Dazai, being Dazai, pretends he doesn’t remember.

Later, he goes to visit the A.D.A.

To see his ‘replacements’.

But he’s super chill about it.

And by ‘chill’, I mean smiley-evil. Like when he was talking to Mori during the A.D.A. & P.M. meeting (in canon).

Atsushi and Akutagawa are a mix of confused and worried.

And Akutagawa is lowkey wondering why the heck this random guy, who looks suspiciously familiar.

And ohhhh it’s that guy who tried to kidnap him a few years ago!

Wait. It’s the guy who tried to kidnap him a few years ago.

And Akutagawa takes Atsushi and they leave the A.D.A. building.

They end up on a we’re-denying-that-this-is-a-date-but-it-really-is.

But like they’re obviously lowkey dating, so yeah-

Like come on, Gin has been shipping this since she was like 9.

Also Dazai (after getting in a fight with with Oda, again oof), on his way home, he sees Atsushi & Akutagawa on the way back, and thinks of his boyf riend~~

And Dazai ships it SO HARD!!

But he first must go home to Chuu~

And that’s all I can think of right now. Also I really wanna get this posted cause it’s super late. I also gotta start the others. ;-;

HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT!! ♥️

[eleanor-writes-stuff]

so a smuggler walks into an orphan’s bar... - ONE-SHOT

When eight-year-old Rey's parents drink themselves to death, they leave her with nothing but a broken heart. Well, that and the only decent bar on the planet.

Meanwhile, across the galaxy, Han Solo gets a bad feeling about dropping his son off for Jedi training and decides to take Ben under his wing instead.

Ten years later, a smuggler walks into an orphan's bar...

So um, I might’ve gone a little overboard for my last canon-divergence fic of the year/decade/pre-TRoS era. Here’s twelve thousand words of smuggler!Ben and bar owner!Rey slowly but surely working toward their happily ever after.

Also available on AO3. And hey, maybe check out my Twitter or Ko-fi?

The first time Ben Solo stumbles upon Jakku, he is a man on the run.

With his mother furious about his first solo smuggling run and his father too scared to defend his life choices, he’s left with no choice but to stay away until the whole mess dies down. It’s a tried and true tactic for dealing with Leia Organa, passed down from one Solo man to another, and Ben knows in a week or two some galactic emergency or another will successfully divert his mother’s attention from his not-so-legal activities.

Until then, he just needs to lay low – maybe spend a few days visiting his uncle until he gets sick of Luke lamenting the lost opportunity to pass on all he knows to his own flesh and blood, then pop by Takodana to pay old Maz a visit until she traumatizes him with her musings on Chewie’s… attributes, and finally cap it all off with a nice few days in Canto Bight to scout out some new opportunities before returning home just in time for his mother’s birthday.

First things first, though: he needs fuel, and urgently. It’s not an ideal situation to be in when one happens to be in the middle of kriffing nowhere, drifting dangerously close to the Unknown Regions, but the Appenza’s navigation system offers him a ray of hope just before Ben starts cursing his luck: a tiny, desolate system with only one planet to its name, the infamous Jakku.

There are two things Ben knows about Jakku: one, that this is where the dying Empire made its last stand; and two, that that was the only thing of any importance that ever happened on and to the planet.

Well, make that three things: three, it’s about to refuel his ship and save his ass.

With no other viable options, he charts a course for the desert planet and soon finds himself landing near Niima Outpost, his best bet to refuel according to the HoloNet. His ship draws a few looks, new as it is, but Ben would take this scrutiny over all the trouble and danger he’d gotten himself into while flying the Falcon any day, every day.

It doesn’t take long to find the right people and strike the right deal; just ten minutes after making planetfall, Ben finds himself with a refueling ship and an hour to kill. There doesn’t seem to be much going on in this tiny ramshackle outpost, but a familiar flag catches his eye before he resigns himself to spending the next hour in his ship.

“It can’t be,” Ben mutters even as he chuckles under his breath and shakes his head in disbelief at the image of Maz Kanata so far from home. The flag bears an exact replica of the statue that welcomes all wayward travelers to her castle in Takodana, along with the name Maz’s Castle in stylized Basic. Why she would choose to set up a location here of all places is a mystery, but then again no one’s ever claimed to understand any of Maz’s choices.

He follows the flag to one of the very few solid-looking structures in the outpost, and a sign hanging above the double doors assures him that this is, indeed, a location of the popular galaxy-wide chain. Inside, the bar is smaller than most of the locations he’s been to, but the set-up is comfortingly familiar. He spots less than a handful of locals, easily identifiable by their worn-out and climate-appropriate clothing, along with a dozen or so traders and smugglers and passers-by scattered around the place. But none of them manage to capture – and hold – his attention the way the girl behind the bar does.

“Welcome to Maz’s!” she calls out with a grin, waving at him with the rag she’d been using to polish the bar. Hers is the first friendly face he’s seen since his arrival, and Ben can’t help but gravitate toward her, planting himself in the seat closest to where she stands. “Not often we get new faces around here,” the girl tells him as she sets down her rag, and something about the way she speaks doesn’t quite sit right with him until he realizes–

“Your accent,” Ben hears himself blurt out to his horror, and immediately shuts his mouth. “Shit, I’m sorry, I– I was just surprised to hear a Core World accent so far from home, that’s all.”

She laughs, and the sound is even more of a revelation than placing her accent, a little giggle all light and airy and brighter than the scorching Jakku sun. “It’s a long story,” she says as her laugh fades into a smile, and leaves it at that. “So, what can I get you?”

He’d reconsider his order if this were any other bar so far from the Core, but Ben can’t imagine any establishment of Maz’s without some top-shelf stuff, even one so far out in the Western Reaches. “Corellian whiskey please, if you’ve got it.”

The girl raises an eyebrow at him, but turns around to pluck a bottle off the shelf anyway. “Fancy,” she quips as she pours him a glass and Ben roots around his pockets. “You really are from the Core, aren’t you?”

“Chandrila,” he tells her as he slides a few credits across the bar, and accepts his drink with a murmured thanks as he takes a sip. “I’m Ben, by the way.”

“Rey,” she offers in return, and Ben can’t quite hide the way he smiles at how perfect her name is for her. It only grows wider when she says his name in that proper accent and cheery voice of hers. “So, Ben – like I said, it’s not often we get new faces around here. What brings you to Jakku?”

“Huh,” Ben says to buy himself some time, weighing exactly how much to reveal. Rey’s given him no reason to distrust her, but he’s spent far too long bearing the names Organa and Solo to just throw caution to the wind whenever he sees a pretty face. Never mind that her smile makes him want to do exactly that, that her laugh puts him at ease in a way nothing else can. “Really? Place like this, I figured just about everyone passes through.”

She scoffs, though her smile remains. “No one passes through Jakku, not unless you’re on a one-way trip to the Unknown Regions.”

Ben tilts his head. “Can’t imagine why,” he deadpans, looking at her with a completely straight face. “Seems like a charming place, if you ask me.”

Rey bursts into laughter – a proper, full laugh this time – and he takes in every single detail even as he joins her. She laughs with abandon, lips parted and head thrown back and eyes bright, and he can’t imagine a more beautiful sight. Her eyes are not quite brown and not quite green, a kaleidoscope of gold and olive shimmering in the sunlight pouring in from the windows on either end of the bar.

And in the Force… he closes his eyes for a brief moment, and feels nothing but warmth in the Force, set ablaze by her presence. She’s not quite Force-sensitive, not as far as he can tell, but her energy is so vibrant he’d easily believe otherwise.

That, above all else, convinces Ben to finally let his guard down. He’s no Jedi, but he knows the Force, has known it since the day he was born and will walk with it until the day he dies – and the Force has never led him astray.

“I’m on the run from my mother,” Ben says, and relishes the way Rey instantly rests her elbows on the bar and leans in closer, giving him her full attention. “She’s… let’s just say she doesn’t fully approve of my life choices.”

“So you are a smuggler,” Rey grins, sounding pleased with herself.

Ben, ever the victim of terrible timing, nearly chokes on his drink. “What– wait– how did you…?”

She reaches out as if to take his hand, only to stop herself at the last second and rest her hand next to his instead, almost but not quite touching. “Calm down,” she murmurs gently, though the proximity of their hands has the opposite effect. “You won’t get into any trouble for that here. It’s just– news spreads fast, here in Niima. News about a brand new ship and a well-dressed man who refuses to give out his name? That spreads even faster. But, like I said,” Rey shrugs, “there’s no trouble here, not unless you’re looking for it. We’ve got smugglers coming and going all the time – you leave us in peace, and so will we.”

His instincts, honed from nearly a decade with his father and Chewie, are at war with the Force. No smuggler is ever really safe anywhere, especially not a Solo, but… but if Rey says so…

“I thought you said you don’t get many new faces passing by,” Ben reminds her, relaxing despite himself as he downs the rest of his whiskey.

“Jakku’s not a particularly exciting place, not even for smugglers,” she tells him as she slowly inches her hand away. “We just get regulars, and even those are dwindling in numbers now that most everything from the big battle has been picked cleaned.”

It’s almost jarring, hearing her refer to the Battle of Jakku so casually; flying past the hollowed-out carcasses of downed Star Destroyers and AT-ATs on his way to the outpost had been equally surreal, after a childhood filled with history classes on the Empire’s doomed final stand.

“So you see why a new face around these parts has us all curious,” Rey continues, resting her chin in one hand as she looks at him. “Why Jakku, anyway? Core World smuggler like you, you could probably go anywhere else in the galaxy to wait out your mother’s wrath.”

Ben winces at the reminder, even though Rey had meant it teasingly. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But there are surprisingly few places you can hide from your mother when she’s a senator like mine is. And anyway,” he hurriedly adds, hoping to gloss past that little bit of information, “I’m not actually here to stay. Just needed to refuel so that I can make the jump to my next destination.”

The smile on Rey’s face is gone now, as she shifts away from him just the slightest bit. It’s the senator thing, it has to be. Realistically, Ben knows not everyone is a huge fan of the New Republic, not even those who’d suffered the most under the Empire’s rule. Here on Jakku, one of the struggling planets the new government has been accused of forgetting and turning its back on… well, he really should’ve thought twice before mentioning his mother’s affiliation with the government.

In his haste to change the topic, Ben completely forgets his earlier blunder and takes it even further. “What about you? How’d a young lady from the Core end up bartending here in Jakku, anyway?”

He’s got to be the luckiest bastard in the galaxy, because thankfully Rey doesn’t react to his rude prying by throwing his drink in his face the way he’d been expecting. “I’m no lady,” she says instead, with a little laugh, “and I’m not just the bartender, for the record. You’re looking at the sole proprietor of the finest – all right, only – bar in the whole Jakku system.”

It’s adorable, the little note of pride that enters her voice and the way she straightens up a bit, the way she gestures at their surroundings with a little flourish. “Probably the youngest one too,” Ben adds, playing along. “You can’t be… what, more than twenty?”

Rey gives him a knowing look, but subtlety has never been a Solo trait anyway.

“Less than, actually,” she tells him anyway. “I’ll be nineteen soon.”

Ten years. She’s a whole ten years younger than him, and Ben can’t really bear to focus on that right now. “Wow, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.” And then, after a moment’s consideration of that life and all the possibilities it holds and the vast nothingness that surrounds her in this desert, he adds, “Are you… are you planning to stay here? It’s just– like you said, things are dying down around this part of the galaxy, and if people stop visiting then… well…” he trails off with a shrug, coming to the belated realization that he’s being rude and invasive yet again.

It’s like something inside of him is clamoring for every single bit about her, of her, that he can get his hands on, for the opportunity to get to know her even though he’s set to leave in… less than an hour.

The reminder feels like ice running through his veins.

Rey seems oblivious to his internal panicking. “This is all I’ve ever known,” she says, as if that’s all there is to it.

“But–” A desperate idea occurs to him then. “But is it all you want? Because if you want more– if you want to leave…” Ben takes a deep breath, tries to play it cool. “I mean,” he says with a shrug, “I do happen to have a brand new ship waiting for me just outside.”

She smiles at him, but Ben’s heart drops because he’s seen that smile, he knows that smile, his mother might not have been around for much of his childhood but she’d been around just long enough to drill that smile and what it means when a woman flashes it at him into his head.

It’s a polite smile, it’s a thanks but no thanks smile, it’s a no means no, Ben, even if she can’t find the voice to say so to someone with your size and your name and your power smile.

“And you probably shouldn’t keep it waiting much longer,” Rey says softly, and after a moment’s hesitation she does reach for him this time, rests her small palm on top of his hand and gives it an almost apologetic pat. As far as consolation prizes go… well, he’ll take it.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he turns his hand around to lace their fingers together, keeping his grip loose enough for Rey to pull her hand away at any time.

She gives him a little squeeze instead. “It was nice meeting you, Ben. Stay safe, yeah?”

“You’re acting as if we’ll never see each other again,” he says with a forced little laugh, trying to keep his voice light and teasing even as his heart grows heavy at the thought.

Rey shrugs, and takes her hand away, wraps it around herself instead. “You were never here to stay,” she reminds him, sounding almost… almost disappointed by the thought. “And no one comes back to Jakku. Can’t blame them, really,” Rey adds, throwing in a hollow laugh of her own.

And he knows she gave him the smile, knows and understands and respects what it means, but… but surely all of this – the hand-holding and the dim eyes and the hollow laugh – means something too.

The Force tells him it does, reminds him once again how warm and vibrant and familiar she feels to him. And because it’s never led him astray, because he desperately wants to believe in it, because Rey should be a stranger but stars, that couldn’t be further from the truth–

“Well, I guess I’ll be the first,” Ben says as he reluctantly gets up, and knows in that moment that nothing will keep him from fulfilling this promise. “I’ll see you soon, Rey.”

“See you soon, Ben,” she echoes weakly, with the mere ghost of a smile. She’s clearly not convinced, but there’s something in her eyes as she watches him walk away, something that he recognizes in himself.

Hope, Ben thinks as he walks back out into the desert, and prays it’ll be enough for the both of them until they meet again.  

⏳  ⏳  ⏳

The second time Ben Solo lands on Jakku, he is a man on a mission.

News spreads fast, he remembers Rey telling him two weeks ago, remembers every single word and look and smile she shared with him. Still, he hurries over to the bar anyway, hoping to beat Jakku’s gossips to the punch and surprise her.

Judging by the look on her face when she glances up from the bar and sees him in her doorway, by the audible gasp that escapes her parted lips and the barely visible sheen of emotion in her eyes and the slight tremor in her hands as she sets down a glass, he’s somehow pulled it off.

“You came back,” Rey whispers as he comes to a stop just two feet away, separated by the bar between them.

“I came back,” Ben says with a nod as he slides into the seat he already thinks of as his, and rests his hands palms-up on the bar in a silent offering. Rey takes them in her own with a shaky smile, her touch warm and comforting and familiar even though it shouldn’t be.

In the past two weeks, he’s realized there are a lot of things about him and her and them that shouldn’t be – but over his dead body is he going to question any of them. Instead, he holds her hands until she pulls away, and watches her reach for the bottle of Corellian whiskey without prompting.

The bar is slightly busier today, with patrons calling Rey away from him more often than not. “They brought in a good haul this morning,” Rey tells him as she assembles another round for a band of scavengers in the far corner, “so it’s time to celebrate.”

“Good for them,” Ben says, though he wonders what exactly is left to qualify as a good haul in picked-apart wreckages older than him.

Rey smiles as she begins to load the drinks onto a tray. “And good for me,” she points out. “Between their endless celebrations and my favorite customer coming back for the good stuff, business is booming.”

It’s a good thing she heads off to deliver the drinks then, because Ben’s pretty sure she wouldn’t have believed him if he’d tried to dismiss the pink in his cheeks as sunburn.

Eventually, the scavengers grudgingly agree with Rey when she cuts them off after four rounds and suggests they keep their precious credits for more responsible uses. The place is left half empty after they leave, and a relieved Rey chooses to slump into the seat next to his rather than return to her spot behind the bar.

“Hello, stranger,” she grins as she moves her chair closer to his, playfully bumping his shoulder before she spins around in her chair so that she can keep an eye on the remaining patrons.

Ben takes a moment to adjust to the fact that she’s right next to him, closer than she’s ever been, and then turns around as well. This way, facing the door and the windows on either side of it, he can see the blinding Jakku sky slowly fade into a beautiful swirl of pinks and oranges as the sun begins its gradual descent.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Rey asks after a moment, and he turns to find her observing him with a little smile on her lips. “I know it isn’t much, this desert wasteland of ours, but even in a place like this… there’s beauty to be found, if you care to look.”

I wasn’t even looking when I found you, Ben thinks to himself, and nearly says so out loud.

Instead, he shrugs and smiles and says, “I guess it’s not so bad, after all.”

Rey laughs out loud, attracting curious looks from the handful of others surrounding them. “Oh no, it’s a hellhole, trust me. The view’s nice and all, but everything else?” She pauses for a moment, seems to weigh her words before she speaks again. “I wonder sometimes, what my life would’ve been like if I didn’t have the bar. I’ve seen how it is out there, how everyone else struggles day in and day out only to get the bare minimum, just enough to carry them through the next day of scavenging. I… I honestly don’t know if I could’ve made it through that,” she admits quietly.

Ben reaches for her hand without thought. “Rey… I probably don’t know enough about you for this to mean anything, but… I think you’re stronger than you know. I think there’s nothing out there you can’t do, if you put your mind to it.”

He doesn’t explain himself, can’t quite put into words how vivid and brilliant she is in the Force, but he doesn’t need to. Rey curls her hand around his, and her lips curve into a soft smile.

“And I think you’re probably the nicest person I’ve ever met,” she says, only to ruin the moment by adding, “Oh, except maybe Maz. Probably wouldn’t be alive without her, so I can’t forget good old Maz.”

Rey lets go of his hand and spins around, gestures for him to do the same before she points out a little statue of Maz sitting on the highest shelf of the bar. “Have you ever met her? They say all smugglers have, at some point or another.”

Ben can’t help but laugh. “Maz? I’ve known her my whole life,” he tells a stunned Rey. “No, really – she’s an old friend of my dad’s. And funny story, she’s actually why I decided to come check out this place the first time I was here. I saw the flag and I just had to drop by.”

“Small galaxy, I suppose,” Rey shrugs, her eyes dancing with mirth. “I’ll have to tell her about this the next time she drops by; you know she loves these little coincidences.”

“Coincidence, or fate?” Ben says before his brain can catch up to his heart, and instantly regrets it. He could play it off as a joke, could even spin it into something Maz would say, but… but it’s not a joke, not to him. Sure, Ben believes in coincidences – even with the Force flowing around and through every living being, sometimes things just… happen, and that’s that. But for him to have ended up in this system of all the stars in the galaxy, to have chosen Niima Outpost of all the settlements, to have caught a glimpse of Maz’s flag and then made the uncharacteristic decision to leave his ship unguarded in a strange place just to check it out…

He knows, with a certainty that his father would laugh at and his uncle would approve of, that nothing about him and Rey is coincidental. But maybe their second meeting isn’t the right time to tell her that, and so Ben settles for a change of topic instead. “How do you know Maz, anyway? I mean, apart from the obvious, of course.” He waves his hand around, gesturing vaguely at the establishment they’re in. “How’d you come to run and own the place?”

Somehow, Rey had seemed less unsettled by his suggestion of them being brought together by fate than she is by his seemingly innocuous question. He’s about to backtrack and tell her she doesn’t need to tell him anything she doesn’t want to when Rey lets out a little sigh and then squares her shoulders as if bracing herself for battle, fixing her eyes on the window beyond his shoulder as she begins to speak.

“When I was four, my parents heard that Maz was hiring, looking for people interested in exciting business opportunities. I guess there’s no business opportunity more exciting than running a bar for a couple of alcoholics,” she says casually, too casually, and throws in a bitter little laugh. “They got their shit together just long enough to pass the interview, and then uprooted our family from Coruscant and moved all the way here. And then… well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how that equation would work out, does it? Alcoholics surrounded by a free flow of alcohol every single minute of their lives.”

For some reason, it doesn’t quite surprise him that Rey’s an orphan. Maybe it’s just based on his perception of Jakku in general, and its reputation in the galaxy as the place where the lost and the lonely go when there is nowhere and no one left for them to call home. But her next words… her next words shake him to his core.

“I was eight, when it finally happened. And I… I didn’t even cry, Ben,” she whispers, her eyes finally meeting his with a glassy, faraway look. “I found my parents dead in a puddle of their own sick, and I didn’t even cry. I just… I knew it’d been coming, I suppose, so I just did what I had to do. I figured Maz would come eventually, if she realized something was wrong, so I boarded up the place and waited. And sure enough, she arrived a week later to find my parents barely hidden away in the shallow graves I’d dug out back and me surviving off bar snacks and water.”

Ben can’t help the way he flinches then, at the thought of little Rey trying her best to dig graves for her parents in the shifting sands of Jakku. He wants to hold her close and promise her nothing bad will ever happen to her again, he wants to rip apart the fabric of time and space to make sure nothing bad ever happened to her in the first place, he wants so badly to be able to do something, anything–

But Rey doesn’t seem to be in search of comfort. “I thought of leaving – I mean, I was just a child, I couldn’t fathom going on like this completely on my own, especially here of all places – but Maz stayed around long enough to set things up for me, arranged for people to come help and train and take care of me until I could take care of myself. And I’ve been running this place ever since,” she concludes with a shrug. “So um, to answer your question without the tragic backstory,” Rey adds with a touch of self-consciousness, dropping her gaze down to the bar top as she bites into her lower lip, “I inherited the place, plain and simple.”

That finally spurs him into action, the sight of her retreating from him. Ben reaches out for her hand, and waits until she turns to look at him to say, “You really are stronger than you know, Rey. Strongest person I’ve ever met, and I think my mother would kill me for saying that,” he adds in an attempt to lighten the mood.

It works, because Rey laughs and fully turns her body to him as she rests her elbow on the bar and uses her free hand to prop her head up. “You know, that’s only the second time you’ve mentioned your mother and I’m already terrified of her. Which senator are we talking about, here?”

And it’s stupid, it’s so, so stupid what he’s about to do, but how could he possibly lie to Rey after all she’s shared with him, after all she’s trusted him with? Ben takes a deep breath, and makes a choice.

“Have you heard about the senator from Chandrila?”

Rey lets go of his hand and nearly falls out of her chair as the arm holding her up fails her.  “Shut up. Your mother is Leia Organa?”

In light of the obvious awe in her voice and her eyes, Ben is forced to reconsider his assessment of her political opinions from the last time he’d broached the subject. But if her reaction that day hadn’t been about the senate, then what…?

Before he can ponder it much further though, Rey’s punching his arm. “You’re Leia Organa and Han Solo’s son! You’re Luke Skywalker’s nephew!” she whisper-hisses, careful not to broadcast his identity to the rest of the bar. “Ben, you– you’re unbelievable! You let me think you were just some random guy!”

“I am just some random guy,” he insists, rubbing at his arm. Unsurprisingly for someone who’s had to fend for herself in the desert, Rey packs quite a punch. “My family are who they are, but that doesn’t mean or say anything about me. I’m not some war hero or Jedi knight or royalty–”

Rey, however, seems to think otherwise. “Oh my kriff, you’re a prince,” she gasps, though he appreciates the fact that she looks more irritated than starry-eyed by the realization.

“Only in name,” Ben tells her – and then, a thought occurs to him. A thought that is, as much as it pains him to say it, probably exactly the kind of thing his father would’ve come up with. “Though I do have a palace I can whisk you away to, if you want.”

To his eternal mortification, Rey does not laugh. She smiles, but just barely as she quietly notes, “That’s the second time you’ve offered to take me away.”

Ben gulps, and can only hope it was not audible. “No pressure,” he quickly assures her, not quite sure what to make of her reaction and the little smile that’s still playing on her lips. “Just, um… just letting you know that the offer still stands, if you ever change your mind.”

She’s quiet for the longest time, but the wait is worth it when Rey says, “Someday. Someday I’ll leave this place and go explore the galaxy, see for myself what oceans and forests and mountains look like.”

His heart aches for her, for the obvious longing in her voice and all the things she’s been deprived of and everything she deserves but isn’t ready for. “When you do…” Ben says softly, carefully. “I’ll be right by your side – if you want me to, that is, I’m not saying you’ll be stuck with me or that a ride off the planet comes with terms and conditions or–”

It’s worth the humiliation, the slight laugh Rey gives him as she reaches out and slowly, hesitantly curves her hand around his cheek. If he leans into her touch with a sigh… well, that’s between the two of them, and Rey has the good grace not to comment on it. “I’d like that,” she says instead, with a smile it physically hurts him not to kiss. “I’d like that very much.”

“Okay,” he whispers, his lips perhaps a touch too close to her hand, and they lapse into a warm, comfortable silence as the sun dips beneath the horizon. When it’s finally time for him to leave, to get back to his ship while he still has one, Rey stares at him with a look of intense concentration on her face until she suddenly throws herself into his arms and burrows into his chest.

“I’ll see you soon, Ben,” she murmurs against his racing heart, which skips a beat when he senses the hidden question in her tone.

“See you soon, Rey,” he promises, and leaves with the knowledge that this time, she believes him.

⏳  ⏳  ⏳

The third time Ben Solo visits Jakku, he is a man following his heart.

It’s barely been two weeks this time, but he can’t help himself. None of the jobs his father contacts him about seem worth his time, none of the sights he normally marvels at measure up to Rey, none of his family’s many properties across the galaxy feel like home anymore.

Jakku calls to him like a beacon, with Rey at the very heart of it all.

When he finally has her in his arms again, a part of Ben wishes he didn’t have to leave. It’s wishful thinking though, and he shoves the thought aside to focus on the present, on Rey and the way her eyes light up when she sees him again and the way her touches have grown bolder and more comfortable. The longer he stays, the harder it is to even consider leaving – and then, nature makes the decision for him.

Rey’s laughing as he regales her with the tale of a childhood dance lesson gone wrong, her setting aside clean glasses for the night and him stacking chairs up onto the tables, when they first hear it. Ben’s heard the wind wail before, but this is a shriek, a painful sound accompanied by the harsh grating of sand relentlessly battering the walls and windows of the bar.

“Oh no,” Rey says as she looks out the window into the darkened desert. “Ben, I think you’re stuck here for the night.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he teases even as he comes to stand next to her, their concerned faces reflected in the window. “Is the bar going to be okay?”

“It’s survived far worse,” she tells him with a shrug. “Your ship should be fine too; the storm doesn’t look too bad, just bad enough to keep everyone indoors.”

Ben casts a look around the empty bar. “I’ll be fine,” he assures Rey. “A blanket would be nice if you could spare one, but I’ve slept in worse.”

When he turns back to her, she’s looking at him with a barely suppressed smile. “Did you really think I was going to make you sleep here? On the floor?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure the bar’s not wide enough for me–”

“Ben,” Rey laughs with a shake of her head, and then reaches for his hand. “Come on, there’s plenty of room downstairs.”

He supposes it makes sense, building underground rather than upward in a place so susceptible to volatile winds, but Ben’s still a little too puzzled by the developments of the last five minutes to really pay attention or react as Rey leads him behind the bar and turns off the lights in the main area before she guides him down a staircase ordinarily kept out of view by the shelves.

“I turned my old room into a storeroom,” Rey tells him as the basement comes into view, a closed door ahead and another to their left. “And the cot was built for a child, so it’s not like you’d fit anyway.” He doesn’t quite realize what she’s getting at until she reaches for the door in front of them, and opens it to reveal a decently-sized room that has to be hers, clothes stacked in semi-neat piles on a threadbare couch and hardy little desert plants lining the walls and…

And one bed, just about big enough for two.

Rey shuts the door behind them. “’Fresher’s through there,” she says, letting go of his hand to point out a door next to her couch. “I’ve got an actual shower, so hopefully my humble abode will live up to your smuggler standards at least, if not your princely ones,” she adds teasingly.

Ben gives her a slight laugh as he curiously heads toward the ‘fresher and opens the door to find that she was serious about the shower. “How?” he asks in bewilderment as he twists a creaky knob that prompts water, actual water, to flow out of the showerhead. It’s nothing to brag about, not even by smuggler standards, but he imagines this has to be the height of luxury for a desert dweller.

“Not bad, is it?” Rey asks, coming to lean against the ‘fresher door with a smile. “What a lot of people don’t know is that this bar stands on the exact spot of Niima the Hutt’s original temple, and she spared no expense when she had that constructed. This is probably the only structure on all of Jakku with running water, courtesy of a pipe that runs deep into the planet, all the way down to whatever source of water’s left from before the Calamity.”

“I’m guessing Maz knew that when she decided to set up shop here?” Ben asks as they make their way out of the cramped ‘fresher and back into the daunting sight of her bedroom and its single bed. It’s not that he doesn’t welcome the opportunity to lie next to her, of course he does, but he doesn’t want Rey to feel like she has to invite him into her space.

But then again, he’d made it clear that he was perfectly content to stay upstairs and she’d been the one to bring him down here…

Rey turns her back to him and starts digging through her piles of clothing and sheets and towels. “Probably,” she says, carefully retrieving a small bundle of clothing from the precarious stacks. “I wish I had something for you to change into, but…”

Right. Clothes to change into, so that they can get to sleep. Together. In the same bed. “I, um,” Ben clears his throat. “I’ll be fine.”

“Right. Good,” Rey nods, suddenly bashful. “Do you mind if I shower first?”

“Go ahead,” he says, and waits until the ‘fresher door closes behind Rey before he closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and takes several deep breaths.

“She wouldn’t have volunteered if she wasn’t comfortable with this,” Ben reminds himself, and a cursory sweep of the Force reveals that Rey is comfortable, her presence warm and soothing and electrified by the slightest bit of excitement.

Sufficiently comforted, he makes it through the rest of the evening with little trouble. In fact, it’s all a little… domestic, Ben decides as he comes out of the ‘fresher to find the lights off and Rey already in bed, arranging two pillows next to each other and folding back the blanket on what he assumes is his side of the bed in invitation. She blinks at the sight of him stripped down to his boxers and undershirt, but invites him into bed with a pat on his pillow anyway. He switches off the light in the ‘fresher, plunging them into complete darkness, and waits until his eyesight has adjusted before crossing the room.

“It gets cold at night,” Rey explains as he holds up the blanket in a silent question, and promptly shuffles into his arms when he finally lies down next to her. “You’re much better than a blanket,” is all she offers up as explanation, along with a contented little sigh.

He takes that as permission to properly wrap his arms around her, and closes his eyes when Rey happily swings an arm around his waist in return. She’s so small and warm and soft in his arms, so comfortable and at home this way that he can’t help but relax into their shared embrace as well. Sleep is already beckoning when Rey suddenly whispers into the night.

“Ben?”

“Hmm?” he hums, lips brushing her forehead.

“The first time we met… why did you offer to take me off this planet, even back when we were complete strangers?” Rey asks, and suddenly every single part of him is wide awake and tense with nerves. He won’t, can’t lie to her, but there’s very little he can say to a woman he’s only met three times while holding her in his arms in her bed without scaring her off.

But first– “You’ve never felt like a stranger to me, not even that first day,” he admits, figuring that’s safe enough for now. “There’s just… there’s something about you, Rey.”

He can feel her smile against his chest. “I feel it too,” she murmurs, and presses a kiss to his neck.

And that’s when Ben begins to stammer. “I’m not… it’s just… I’m not saying you can’t look after yourself, I know you can, but… I was just worried, I guess. Is it safe for you here? And okay, I guess it is since you’ve been on your own since you were eight–” He cuts himself off with a wince then, wondering how his attempt to evade the true depth of his feelings for her had ended up with him reminding her of her painful loss.

For the first time in his life, Ben finds himself empathizing with the way his father always, always finds a way to make things worse when he tries to talk himself out of some mess with Ben’s mom.

Thankfully, Rey doesn’t pull away from him, doesn’t even tense up in his arms. “I wasn’t alone, not really,” she mumbles, lips warm against his skin. “I had Maz’s people, remember? They stayed with me for a bit, and then they’d come check up on me every once in a while. Besides, I wasn’t in any real danger. None of the locals would have hurt me, not back then.”

Ben shifts to get a proper look at Rey, careful not to jostle her in the process. “Why’s that?”

She lifts her head from his chest to return his gaze. “This is your third time here. Have you ever seen any kids around?”

He considers the question for a moment, runs through his brief time here on Jakku… and realizes that he has never seen anyone younger than Rey. “I… I never noticed.”

“Children are precious here,” she says. “Jakku is no place to raise a child, so barely anyone tries to. The kids we do have, we all take care of. So in a way, everyone you see here kind of played a part in raising me.”

It’s an odd concept, but one he’s certainly familiar with on a certain level. “They do say it takes a village,” Ben finally says.

“Especially when you don’t have parents,” Rey adds quietly, and it’s perhaps the first and only time he’s heard her actually sound forlorn by the fact.

His first instinct is to comfort her, and he rolls with it before he can overthink the execution. “Sometimes even when you do,” Ben says, and waits for Rey’s reaction to determine what comes next.

She turns on her stomach and props herself up with one hand, staring expectantly at him in the dark. Ben sighs and rolls onto his back, closing his eyes as he slowly gathers his thoughts and weaves them into words. “Turns out, growing up with a princess and a smuggler for parents isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be.”

He can’t believe he’s telling her his pitiful sob story about his parents when she grew up with none, but Rey reaches out and runs a hand through his hair and… and for the very first time, Ben feels like this story he’s kept close to his chest all his life might actually be worth sharing, and sharing with her.

“I’m not… I’m not saying they’re bad people. They’re amazing people, who’ve done amazing things, but… doing amazing things takes up a lot of time – time that normal people might have spent on comforting their kid after a nightmare or explaining the Force to him when he started lashing out or sticking around for a bit after dropping a bombshell revelation about his grandfather instead of running off to the senate to protect your reputation–”

Rey’s hand is still carding through his hair, soothing and grounding him before he can get lost in his own memories.

“They… they tried their best,” Ben says, more for his own benefit than Rey’s. “Eventually, my mother decided to send me to my uncle for training. She’s strong with the Force, always has been, but she’s spent her whole life trying to suppress it. So when my abilities started growing out of control, she thought maybe I needed Luke more than I needed her.”

She’d thought wrong, but Ben tries not to focus on that, on what could have been. “My dad… he agreed, at first. He still thinks all this Force stuff is mumbo-jumbo, but he just wanted the best for me. So I packed my things, said goodbye to my mom, and got on his ship. I don’t know if it was something in my eyes, or my voice, or maybe just paternal intuition kicking in eighteen years too late, but my dad, he just… he kept looking at me, and then just as we were about to arrive he turned the ship around. And then he said…” He turns to Rey, finds her hand in the darkness and allows himself a smile at the memory. “I’ll never forget it. He said Force mumbo-jumbo or not, you’re still my son. And I’m still your father, dammit, and it’s about time I start acting that way.”

Rey squeezes his hand, and smiles back at him as the hand in his hair slides down to cup his cheek. “And that’s how you became a smuggler instead of a Jedi?”

“And that’s how I became a smuggler instead of a Jedi,” Ben echoes with a nod, curling his free arm around her to pull her closer.

“Are you… are you happy?” she asks, still looking up at him. “With how life turned out?”

He shrugs. “If you’re asking if I’d rather be a smuggler or a Jedi, the answer is definitely, one hundred percent smuggler. I admire my uncle and all, but the life he lives, the life he’s chosen… it’s not for me,” Ben says, a realization he’s long since made his peace with. “Besides, growing up I always wanted to be a pilot just like my dad, and I guess this is about as close as it gets.”

Rey hums in acknowledgement, burrows closer to him to rest her head on his chest. “How about you?” he asks, resting their joined hands on her hip. “Are you happy with how your life turned out?”

She’s quiet for so long Ben begins to think that maybe she’s fallen asleep, or maybe she doesn’t want to answer the question. Just as he’s about to give up and close his eyes though, Rey speaks.

“I mean… most days, I’m okay with it,” she says, and he looks down to find her eyes open but fixed someplace else. “These days, I’m especially okay with it, now that… now that I’m not alone anymore.”

Ben holds her tighter, presses a kiss to her forehead. Rey sighs and looks up at him, gives him a smile. “I’ve got a better life than most people here, so at least there’s that. And… and really, this is all I’ve ever known, Ben. If I leave… when I leave… I won’t even know where to start.”

He pulls them both into a sitting position, looks her in the eyes when he promises, “I’ll be right there with you, every step of the way.”

Rey shuffles closer and reaches up, wraps her arms around his neck and slides her fingers into his hair. She looks at him, just… looks at him, for a short eternity. And then–

“I know,” Rey whispers, and kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him like she can’t stop herself, like her life depends on it, like the floodgates have finally been opened and there will be no closing them ever again.

The storm rages for three days, but by the end of it Ben is sure they’ve barely gotten three hours of sleep combined. When they finally step out into the sun on the third day, they sport matching swollen lips and dark circles as Rey walks him to his ship, unashamedly strolling hand-in-hand with him in full view of the entire outpost.

When the Appenza finally comes into view, Ben can’t resist the urge to ask. Deep in his heart he already knows her answer, but everything else has changed, everything, so why not this?

“Sure you still don’t want to come with me?”

It comes as no surprise when Rey shakes her head with a small smile. ���Not yet,” she whispers, but at least this time she softens the blow with a goodbye kiss.

⏳  ⏳  ⏳

The fourth, fifth, sixth, tenth, twentieth, thirtieth time Ben Solo comes back to Jakku, he is a man in love.

He starts taking jobs almost exclusively in the Western Reaches, so that he can visit more frequently and stay longer. After a while, her regulars don’t even blink at the sight of him behind the bar with her anymore, the two of them huddled close in near-constant conversation, almost always holding hands or brushing shoulders or trading playful kisses.

Rey’s bed becomes as familiar to him as his own, a little sanctuary where all their worries disappear. They share secrets under the cover of darkness, paint futures in the golden light of dawn, grasp at each other with all the desperation and want and joy of young lovers every spare moment in between.

Over bar snacks one afternoon, they laugh and bond over the fact that Maz had been the one to give both of them The Talk. In Rey’s case she’d simply had no one else to do it, and one day Maz just sat her down and told her everything there was to know before offering her a contraceptive implant. In Ben’s case, his mother had tasked his father with the responsibility, and his father had predictably pushed it to Chewie, and Chewie had promptly recruited the help of Maz.

Two months after their first kiss, a case of Jogan fruit on his ship opens up a whole new world of possibilities for Ben, and a whole new world period for Rey. He brings her fruit and flowers and all sorts of things she’s never had the chance to see or touch or taste, and tells her each time that her happiness is all the payment he needs. Well, a few kisses wouldn’t hurt either.

One morning, when Ben awakes with the sudden and terrifying realization that he’s overdue for a check-in with his mother as part of her very strict terms for allowing him to continue smuggling, Rey hands him an ancient, patched-together datapad and tells him the story of how she’d hacked into Unkar Plutt’s network one day just for fun, and continues to make use of the highly-encrypted channel for her own purposes.

Another day, when a sandstorm much like the one that had brought them together rolls in, Rey plops herself on top of him to keep him in bed, and asks him to tell her about everything that’s out there, every single world he’s ever visited. He tells her about the lakes of Naboo, the forests of Takodana, the beaches of Chandrila, even the lost mountains of Alderaan, and she promises him that someday, someday he’ll have the chance to show her all of it.

Eventually, her cajoling and pleading finally pay off and Ben acquiesces to a little after-hours display of his skills, using the Force to move bottles around on her shelf and even call some over to the bar, Rey asks him if he ever regrets it, not being a Jedi. And Ben… Ben tells her everything: about how brightly he’d burned even before he’d come into this world, about the tendrils of darkness that had started reaching for him then and hadn’t stopped until years later, about how ultimately love had been just what he’d needed to banish the voices once and for all, the love of his family and for his family. But love, he tells her, is not for the Jedi, not even in this new age – and what he holds in his heart, what he feels for her… he wouldn’t give it up for all the secrets of the Force, for all the power in the galaxy.

A few months later, nearly a standard year since they first met, he arrives to find Rey laughing her head off before she shoos a band of older women away. The people of Jakku, she tells him later, have a tendency to exaggerate; how else does one keep oneself entertained in the desert, after all? The latest story to take Niima Outpost by storm is the sordid tale of one Rey of Jakku and her revolving door of handsome, rich lovers, all of whom keep her business alive with their drink preferences and court her with priceless artifacts sourced from all over the galaxy and fall to their knees begging for her hand. It’s almost impressive, how much they got right aside from the lovers, plural bit.

“You are all there has ever been for me,” Rey assures him when he pretends to be put out by the thought, “and all there will ever be.”

And so life goes on around them while they settle into a new normal, parting every so often only to always, always come back together, finding love and acceptance and belonging with each other for the very first time in their lives.

Everything is perfect… until it almost isn’t.

⏳  ⏳  ⏳

The last time Ben Solo arrives on Jakku, he is a man trembling in concern and anger and fear.

He’s four days early for his next scheduled visit, but somehow still too late. By the time he makes planetfall, a full day has passed since the message first interrupted his monthly check-in call with Luke. His uncle had been blathering on as usual, something about an awakening in the Force, when the feed of Luke probably bragging about a new student had been briefly interrupted by a single word: HELP.

And somehow Ben had known, even before he’d traced the anonymous message back to Jakku and Plutt’s network, exactly who it had come from.

He’d made preparations to rush to Rey’s side immediately, but an unexpected run-in with the Kanjiklub had delayed him by entire hours until he’d finally given in to the swell of fear and anger inside him and knocked them all out with a pulse of dark energy.

That’s probably going to get him an earful from Luke but frankly, Ben doesn’t really give a single flying kriff right now. Right now, he’s trying not to let his fear cripple him as he lands in an eerily empty Niima Outpost. The streets are deserted and so is the marketplace, even though by now it should be filled with scavengers cleaning up their finds of the day and getting in line to present them to the revolting Crolute. Even more worrying is the absence of said Crolute and his thugs, and the sight of Plutt’s beloved concession stand torn apart and thoroughly emptied of his precious rations.

A rising wave of panic threatens to swallow him whole, until Ben forces himself to close his eyes and reach out.

What he finds nearly knocks him to the ground.

If Rey had been brilliant before, now she is blinding. Even with fear and anxiety and anger clouding her energy, her presence in the Force burns brighter than a star, blotting out everything and everyone else. And with this transformation comes an undeniable truth, one Ben cannot believe it’s taken him this long to realize.

“Rey,” he murmurs, and breaks into a run.

Ben, she whispers back, in some secret corner of his mind that less than a handful of people have ever been able to find, let alone reach.

Ben Ben Ben, she chants – cries – pleads in the space between them until he comes upon the bar, doors and windows completely boarded up. But Rey’s already moving, already prying blocks of wood and sheets of metal off the door with a raw strength that cannot possibly be just her own, until finally there’s nothing standing in between them, until finally she’s in his arms again.

“Are you okay?” Ben asks, hands roaming up and down to check for injury even as Rey clutches him tight and sobs into his chest. “Rey, sweetheart, I’m so sorry it took me so long, are you hurt, what happened, I’m here now, I’m here,” he babbles in relief, his and hers and theirs, inseparable in the Force.

She’s quiet in his arms except for the wet sound of sobs and harsh, ragged inhales, and he holds her until her tears run dry and her breathing returns to normal. “Help me,” Rey croaks, her first words in Force knows how long, and pulls away from him to begin the arduous process of boarding the door up again. It’s a flimsy layer of protection, one that won’t actually do anything, but if this is what she needs to feel safe then this is what he’ll do for her. Together they replace all the layers of wood and metal, and then create an additional barricade using every single chair and table in the bar.

When it’s done, Rey wordlessly takes his hand and leads him downstairs, and she doesn’t bother turning the lights on before she pulls him into bed and curls up in his arms, her exaggerated breaths the only sound in the darkness that curls around them.

In, out, in, out, in, out – and with every repetition, the beacon that is her energy in the Force pulses like a gentle heartbeat, dimming and then flaring back to life in the most extraordinary, beautiful light show Ben has ever seen. He’s content to just stay that way, to hold her and mimic her breathing and marvel at her presence, until Rey finally speaks.

“I killed him,” she whispers, her voice painfully raspy; it’s only then that he wonders when she last drank, when she last ate. “I killed all of them,” Rey adds, her voice thick with regret and pain and fear as hot tears drip down his chest.

“Shh,” Ben whispers soothingly, pulls her closer and starts to rock her the way he vaguely remembers his mother doing once, a long time ago. “Shh, it’s okay, I’ve got you, you’re safe now, I’m here, Rey, I’m here–”

“He– he–” It’s painful, the way she gasps for breath with each word, the way guilt threatens to snuff out her light. He can only hold her close and pray she’s as attuned to him in the Force as he is to her, pray she can feel all the comfort and love and protection he has to offer. Maybe, just maybe, it works, because soon enough Rey calms down enough to fill him in without sounding on the brink of a panic attack.

“It was Plutt,” she whispers, a loose fist curling into the front of his shirt for comfort. “He’d heard about all the gossip the others were spreading, all the lies about my new smuggler regulars and all the business I was getting and the expensive gifts I was hiding in my place. That kriffing blobfish got it into his head that he deserved a cut of my profits, so he rounded up his goons and stormed the place two days ago.”

She’s shaken by the memory, just as Ben is shaken by the timestamp. Two days ago, two whole days ago and she’s been alone ever since, while he was in Naboo with his mother and rolling his eyes at his uncle and wasting time with the karking Kanjiklub.

Rey pauses, burrows impossibly closer to him. “When the fight broke out… it was me against twelve of them. Even with my blaster, I could only take down so many of them before they outnumbered me. They… they knocked it out of my hands, and then Plutt reached out, for my neck, and…”

Just hearing about it makes his blood boil, makes his heart bleed. But Rey is here, he reminds himself, here and safe and alive in his arms, and she needs him to focus on the present, not the past.

“And then… he was choking on thin air. They all were.” Her voice sounds so small, so scared.

“The Force,” Ben finally murmurs, willing her to feel the way his presence curls around hers, the way his soul instinctively reaches out for hers.

Judging by her quiet acceptance, Rey had come to the realization on her own at some point in the last two days. “I never knew, never even thought…” she whispers, sounding half-awed and half-terrified. “But Ben, I… I killed them all. I’m… Maker, Ben, I’m a monster.”

“No.” His response is immediate and forceful as he pulls away and wills Rey to look at him. “No, never. Listen to me, Rey, listen–” he all but begs when she begins to shake her head in denial. “You were scared, and in danger, and the Force chose to come to you in that exact moment, sweetheart, chose to save you no matter the cost. That wasn’t you, no, it wasn’t–”

“I could feel them,” she chokes out, eyes clouding over with tears once more. “Ben, I could feel them slipping away and I didn’t– I didn’t stop, didn’t know how, didn’t want to–”

He leans down and presses their foreheads together, wills her to breathe with him until she stops shaking. "Listen to me,” Ben says sharply, leaving no room for argument. “You were in danger, you had no other choice, and you did nothing wrong. Those men deserved it, and you know that, Rey.”

She’s quiet for so long, and even with their newfound closeness he can’t tell what she’s feeling, refuses to barge into her mind to see what she’s thinking. He can only hold her until finally, she continues her story.

“I buried them,” Rey tells him, her voice eerily flat and detached and steady. “I buried them out back, right next to my parents, in even shallower graves. I locked up the bar and hid down here, but it wasn’t enough. That night I heard the ripper-raptors tear their bodies apart for meat and I thought… I thought to myself finally. Finally they were of some use to this kriffing desert.”

And for a moment, for the most fleeting of seconds, Ben can see how the blinding warmth of her light could easily turn into something else, something that sends a chill down his spine.

But he of all people knows better than to let those possibilities cloud his perception. “When was the last time you ate something?” Ben asks quietly, brushing those thoughts aside before Rey can sense them and focusing only on her warmth, her light.

“I’m fine,” she claims unconvincingly.

“Rey, please, let me–”

She curls her arms around him tighter, trapping him like a vise. “I’m fine. I just…” She softens, voice and grip both, and relaxes into him with a sigh. “I’m just so tired, Ben, I haven’t slept in days.”

He thinks of the boarded-up windows, of the barricade, of the tendrils of fear that continue to stain her Force signature.

“Hold me?” Rey asks, with a voice like the scared child she never got to be.

Ben kisses her forehead. “All night,” he promises, and stands guard over her while she drifts in and out of uneasy sleep and dark nightmares and the prison of her own mind. They spend the rest of the night in silence, save for a few soothing whispers on his part when he slowly draws her out of her nightmares, Rey feigning sleep even when she’s clearly awake and Ben letting her as he draws soothing circles into her back.

Eventually, the chrono mounted above the ‘fresher door displays a dimly-lit 0500, the only source of light in the room. The sun has risen in Jakku, and with it so has Rey, finally giving up her act to roll onto her back and stare at the ceiling instead.

“The second time Maz visited after… after my parents,” she says slowly, quietly, her voice scratchy in that intimate, first-thing-in-the-morning way he’s come to cherish, “I begged her to take me back to Takodana with her. I was so lonely, and sad, and scared, and I just… I wanted to not be all of those things, any of those things, anymore.”

It doesn’t matter how many times Rey talks about her childhood – his heart breaks for her every single time.

“And she said… she said she’d like nothing more in the entire universe, but it wasn’t my time to leave yet,” Rey tells him with a little scoff. “Worst thing to tell a child who’s desperate to get off a planet, but you know how Maz is. She wouldn’t change her mind, no matter how much I cried and begged. All she told me was that I’d know when it was time… and I’ve been waiting ever since.”

And finally, finally all of the pieces fall into place. “So that’s why every time I asked…”

Rey rolls onto her side to look at him. “It wasn’t time. I thought it was at first, I hoped it was. I mean, stars,” she breathes, the faintest hint of a laugh in her voice, and relief crashes into him like a tidal wave. “A handsome smuggler shows up out of the blue and offers to show me the galaxy? That’s the stuff holodramas are made of. But even then, even with you… it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like it was time yet.”

The words are out of his mouth before he’s even consciously aware of forming them, a desperate man’s attempt to hold onto the first sign of light at the end of the tunnel that has been this endless night. “Handsome, huh?”

Ben regrets them instantly, chides himself for making light of her confession and teasing her when she’s clearly not ready for it yet, when this isn’t the time for jokes–

But then, in the darkness his eyes adjusted to hours ago, he sees Rey roll her eyes at him and feels her little hand shove at his shoulder in retaliation. He smiles in relief, and slowly, ever so slowly, so does Rey, a soft little curve of her lips that shines brighter than the desert sunlight breaking through the horizon.

They stare at each other like that, two smiling people appreciating a rare moment of calm, until Ben gathers his thoughts and his nerve. “You said it wasn’t time then,” he says carefully. “What about now?”

Rey’s smile fades, but she slips one hand into his as she slowly considers her words. “Now something… now there’s this thing inside of me–”

“The Force,” Ben reminds her and him both, still marveling at the truth, still berating himself for not realizing it that very first day. No one, no one, burns that brightly in the Force without having the kind of connection to it that he has, that she has.

“Yeah, that,” Rey murmurs, sounding worlds away as she considers her new reality. “I feel… I feel like it’s telling me to leave, to get the hell away from Jakku and never look back.” She pauses, squeezes his hand before she looks up at him with a dozen questions in her eyes. “Can the Force do that?”

“The Force works in mysterious ways,” he tells her, echoing the same bantha fodder he’s been told his whole life and finally knows to be true. How else would he explain ending up on Jakku of all the planets in the galaxy, finding Rey of all the Force-sensitives in existence? He’s always suspected that the Force must have played some part in leading him to Rey all those months ago, but now there’s no denying it.

She laughs, and it’s not quite the sound he’s come to love but it’s close enough, Ben supposes, given the circumstances. “Maz used to say that all the time. Maker, I’d get so irritated at her.”

“Everyone says it,” Ben shrugs. “Trust me, it never gets any less irritating. But… but it’s true,” he reluctantly admits.

Rey hums in acknowledgement, and busies herself by smoothing out his crumpled shirt for a while until she’s ready to speak again. “Ben… Ben, what do I do?” she whispers, and he doesn’t think he’s ever heard her sound so helpless, doesn’t want her to ever feel this way again.

And for that to happen… there’s really only one way, isn’t there? For the very first time in his life, Ben regrets not taking his heritage seriously, not knowing enough to help Rey now. There’s only one person out there who can help her… and he’s probably already waiting, Ben realizes, finally connecting the dots between Rey’s incident and the awakening Luke had spoken of.

Slowly, reluctantly, he resigns himself to the idea. “Luke… Luke felt it, your awakening,” he tells Rey, the words heavy on his tongue and his heart. “He can help you. I can… I can take you to him.”

Her reaction is instantaneous, Rey tensing in his arms and then pulling herself away to stare down at him. “No,” she says firmly. “No, I don’t want to be a Jedi.”

He can’t deny the relief that brings him, can’t deny that he wants nothing more than to go along with her wishes. But Rey deserves a proper teacher, deserves someone who’ll know what to do with her brilliance rather than just blindly worship it the way he has since the day they met. “Sweetheart, just because it wasn’t for me–”

“No,” Rey insists, and kisses him all hard and desperate and bruising before he can go on. “After everything you’ve told me,” she pants harshly against his lips, “do you really think I could ever live that life? To give up everything, to give up you–” Her voice cracks, and a strangled sob follows.

Ben quickly pulls her back in, his heart overflowing with love and awe for this woman. “Okay,” he murmurs between soft kisses, “okay, we won’t go to Luke.”

That leaves him with approximately zero other ideas, but Rey seems to have one. “Take me with you,” she says suddenly, lips barely parted from his.

“What?” Ben asks a little too sharply as he rears back in shock, in surprise, in hope.

“Take me with you,” Rey repeats with a shrug. “You could teach me, right?”

He wants, more than anything in the galaxy, for that to be true. But… “Rey, I barely have any training myself, I wouldn’t even know where to start–”

She silences his doubts by reaching out to curve her hands around his face, her thumbs gently caressing his cheeks. “Ben. I don’t need training. I don’t want to be a Jedi, I just want to be in control. You know that much, right?”

And… he does. Ben might not know much, not as much as he would’ve had his father decided to drop him off at Luke’s that fateful day, but he does know enough to stay in control, to stay away from the darkness, to let love and light and life balance everything out.

Most of the time, anyway.

“Ben, take me with you,” Rey says for the third time, and whatever objections he’d had before disappear into thin air. “Unless…” she adds before he can say yes, pulling her hands away from him, “unless the offer is off the table?”

“No, never,” he rushes to assure her, reaching out to wrap his arms around her waist and keep her close. “I want you with me, Rey, always. But are you sure about this? About leaving, for good, with me?”

Rey has a whole collection of smiles for him, but one of his favorites might be the one she flashes him when she thinks he’s acting like the stupidest creature in all the galaxy. “Ben, my heart breaks every single time I have to watch you leave without me. Do you really think I’m going to put myself through that again now that I can finally get off this godforsaken rock?”

This is happening. This is really, finally, actually happening. “I’ll never leave you again,” he swears, and pulls her closer to scatter kisses everywhere his lips can reach as Rey laughs and squirms away from him. “Never again, Rey. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

She reaches for his head and holds him still, pulls him in for a long, lingering kiss. “I love you too. So get me the hell off this planet and show me the galaxy, Ben Solo.”

And so he does.

It takes them a while to actually get out of bed and pack up Rey’s things and make all the necessary arrangements, but later that day, as the sun sets upon Jakku, a smuggler and an orphan walk out of a bar hand-in-hand… and they never come back.

. . .

Some years later, Luke Skywalker receives an invitation to the grand opening of a new Force academy, one that exists in between – or maybe outside of – the Jedi and Sith ways.

The invitation is signed by none other than Ben and Rey Solo, retired smugglers and galactic adventurers looking to finally settle down and build a home.

⏳  ⏳  ⏳

Hello, friends! First things first: if you made it through all 12000+ words of this, I wish I could give you an actual cookie or some other prize because that's amazing, thank you for sticking around! This ended up being twice the projected word count and took double the amount of time allotted to write, but it's the first time in a long time that I got completely sucked into a story and wrote for hours on end in some sort of feverish need to delve deeper and get to know these characters better, so I hope that translated into the final product.

Next up, I'll be working on a much fluffier (and hopefully shorter!) one-shot to lighten things up before we head into TRoS. I'll see you soon! Until then: thanks as always for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and please don't hesitate to like/reblog/leave a comment!