#they are adults her bc this is from my au i abandoned for no reason other than i legit cannot write

[holysheithyall]

i have nothing to post so im posting something a little older

greg gives him a flower he found on the side of the road and tony spends the entire night looking up that specific flower and its meaning(s)

[viloxity]

I thought of something more fanciful, like for example, a reader girl almost a baby who entered a dungeon forgotten by everyone and there she found Jinwoo, in my delusions he can transform into a kind of chimera dragon (You know with a human body even the torso and the dragon torso hahaha) At first Jinwoo doesn't pay attention to this girl, but she keeps coming to see him, so Jinwoo tells her that if anything she doesn't have anything better to do in this abandoned world.

She tells him "I don't have parents, nor a family, much less does anyone care about my existence... Are you like that too, sir?" And although she only sees her human half hidden in the shadows, she does not see her dragon half (Let's be clear that obviously Jinwoo can transform at will but for me he is a bit lazy for that hahaha. Returning to the topic, she frequents him a lot and he He lets her be, bored more than anything since he doesn't bother leaving his territory, he usually listens to this girl's ramblings and over time he takes a liking to her (although he doesn't say it openly) Then on another day he tells her that Why don't you just stop coming to see him? If you know it's dangerous, but she doesn't care and responds with another question: "Why don't you ever let me see you? I only see your eyes, which are beautiful and changing."

Jinwoo would sigh and would take a while to respond with "Humans don't understand my existence, much less would you, but you're strange... maybe one day I'll let you see me in full."

And everything would stay there but with the passage of time she stops being a girl and at some point she is a teenager, at this point she is the only one who knows this eternal and forgotten dungeon (not so much because she is the only one who remembers and always goes to see him) In the end Jinwoo is seen for the first time when she tells him that she may not come to see him anymore because the way here is dangerous for a civilian, although he is bothered by that and blames the few police in the place.

Laughing without grace, Jinwoo finally agrees to show himself after years in darkness, she would be surprised but she would only tell him how great she looks and that would be enough to make him sigh at how strange she is but not make him love her less. Neither of them knew that Jin-Woo would become obsessed with her when she gradually stopped visiting him because she was busy in her adult life trying to survive in the remains of humanity, which would upset him and make him go out for the first time (I forgot to say it). but it's a strange AU hahaha, it occurred to me, Jinwoo is also a shadow monarch, obviously his physical form is different)

I hope you liked my delusions, anyway, thanks for reading! Another fellow novice fanfic writer greets you (Cough! I've been writing for 7 years, I'm sorry! Hahaha)

MY FIRST ASK WOOHOO!!! and an amazing one at that, I really love your mind! I wanted to wait until I got the second part out but I don’t wanna ignore this since it’s passionate and lovely so here I goooo

exploring AUs involving Jinwoo is great bc there’s soooo much to do with him—especially bc of his power as a shadow monarch. It’s one of the reasons why I decided to do a ‘bad ending’ story in relation to the main story; like what if jinwoo did not want to side with humanity? it’s like the same idea here except he’s a more neutral figure and is unbothered by the world around him, therefore he plays no hand in it…. Except you come barreling into his life. It’ll start a domino effect the moment you speak to him, which he might realize later but it’s too late then. Perhaps he might do subtle things that display his dragon like nature—hoarding—and humanity. If he has a hoard of sorts, he would give you gifts from his prized possession. Normally, he would be angered at the idea of some pathetic lowly human touching his treasure but he feels warm at the idea of providing you with something he cherishes. You would initially protest—probably because it looked expensive—but his growls that nearly ripped the cave apart would zip your lips immediately. Your departure that day would be filled with immense amounts of ‘thank yous’ and he would just give you a begrudging ‘yeah, whatever; get out of my sight.’

After some visits, and when you say the final visit will be your last, there is a new feeling that bristles within him. The way that his claws get sharper, his teeth begin to bare, and his expression contorts confused him—never before in his mundane life did he act in such a way. It was different, deviant, and new—a sensation that excited him more than anything. He would recognize, then, in his own little world how he gave you a comfortable little place in it—a place that is always, always by his side. If he was quick enough, hearing your footsteps echo as you trekked down the mountain, he would give chase whether that be through his dragon form or his shadows. If you had already left as he sorted his thoughts, he would fly to your village himself and find you. You were a priority now; someone who deserved everything and he knew he would be the one to give you the world. No matter the cost, he would have you, and he would keep you.

I hope this did your story justice? Thank you for sharing !!

[faultlinescrew]

Spitfire, Sophia getting a better story, fucking up nazis and cool gasmasks? Sign me the fuck up i am so down for this you have no idea.

The Arrows created by @nonplatonicsubtext, and i will make more art in return for more lore on these three and Charlotte Design notes and hcs under the cut

(if any of these dont fit please feel free to disregard them :] i am just 'yes and-ing' here)

Spitfire: - I have five different designs for her i rotate through depending on how im feeling, so i went for the one that would best fit for this au - In canon shes one of the younger members of palinquin (in my hcs she is the youngest) and pretty timid, so plays more of a support role, in this shes a more a frontline fighter, so natrually, more scars - ^ and i like the idea of her getting burnt by her own powers (not canonly fireproof and all) - many thoughts about her you have no idea - having more of a spine is a good thing, but it is also causing her so much stress - went for a more assymetrical design partly for the lack of resources due to her not ending up taking any teams offer, parlty bc i thought it looked fuckin sick - very curious as to why she turned down faultline - was homeless (i belive this for a number of reasons), her and Apsis are crashing in some abandoned basement somewhere Morrigan: - I dont really have much to say, i am so hyped to watch her be rescued from her original narrative and i want to make art for it - n0brainjustvibes prowler!sophia design is so good it rewrote my brain entirely, shes ourple now - your (nonplatonicsubtexts) description for her costume was so vivid i just picked it up and threw it at the drawing software

Apsis: - Shes kinda just free real estate to do whatever with so this will be mostly hc's - Also havent given her a full costume design bc i am waiting for a more solid vibe if that makes sense - Mixed south asian/white (in the above art, at least) - May i suggest the name lila/leela - Whilst Emily and Sophia are roughly 15, shes more 18/19, and that age gap might contribute more to the gap she has with the other two - Fell out with the Merchants a while back due to petty drama and managed to avoid their aquisition into the Syndicate - Has a bit of a substance problem from that, but wont really recive any support due to the whole 'tramatised homeless young adult whos primary job is kicking the shit out of white nationalists' thing, so thems the breaks i guess - Shes just chillin

[luffythinker]

what do we think about this family tree?

I like the idea that Kirishima comes from dragons because of the fantasy AU so he's got dragons in the family from his mom's side and his dad's side has rocks and metals

IDK WHERE TO PUT KOHAKU but shes blonde so i just sat her over there

I haven't gotten to the part where i meet kid yet but he has a metal power i do know

same power and they canonly used to be called "Meta abilities" in BSD they just call them abilities

villain father - hero student daughter, i like to remember Setsuna got in on recommendations ? i think she did and normally rec students are rich (Iida,Todoroki,Momo) so she's rich for a reason hjrtbdhxjstbg

ITS A STRETCH IDEA but step siblings with a age-gap (15 - 24 i think they are nine years apart? im bad at math)

Trumpet is Momo's father. Same father different mothers and Kai's mom abandon him? and the Liberation was trying to get ahold of him but Kai wants nothing to do with his "good for nothing father who only wants to mooch off his successes"

somebody on twitter told me "I guess I could see how disassembling and reassembling matter could be connected with transmutation of lipids if you assume the lipids are being disassembled at the subatomic level." so it must be the mothers quirk that's

TRUMPET AND AIZAWA ARE BROTHERS, MOMO IS TRUMPETS DAUGHTER AND OVERHAUL IS HIS FIRST CHILD

I don't know enough about one piece im only on season 1 but i go and look at a lot of spoilers but not so many i don't know anything about Sanji's family but i remembered either me or somebody else gave quirks to the One piece characters on your blog and labeled him with a fire quirk (i couldn't find it but i found it on my blog so i think it was me?? i have it tagged as #My treasure academia so maybe it was me??)

Quirk: flaming ankle: User can catch their legs on fire for fiery kicks. Only the legs nothing else

so Sanji as a todoroki jkgbdjtfghj

tho this is making me think about him being a Kaminari, DENKI HAVING A COOL OLDER BROTHER Sanji actually kinda reminds me of Kaminari ngl

and i just wanna say Nami - Ochako sister

Quirk: Navigation: User always knows where they are and where to go just by taking a moment to look around. Everything becomes familiar if they visited the place once. (Not very sure how this quirk works but i also feel like it could work if they spend a day in one place they automatic know the layout)

but i could change it to fit in with Ochako's family to this

Quirk: Compass/ true north: grants the user an innate ability to perceive their sense of direction and spatial orientation no matter where they are. The user can always pinpoint the exact location of true north and has an exceptional awareness of their surroundings once the quirk is active, making them naturally skilled in navigation. This ability extends to sensing the precise positions of objects and people within a certain radius, even if they are hidden or out of sight.

my sole reason: because they have the same voice actor and it would be cute for both the money girls to be sisters and Ochako having a troublesome thief sister is funny

Do you have any thoughts or add-ons? someone on twitter added someone who wasn't a mha character into Compress family tree so i had to put in my 5 dollars

oh my god this is a lot, okay let me think

first of all the idea that kidd could somehow be a distant relative of Kirishima makes so much sensenjdfjkdfkjf

as for aizawa and dazai, i LOVE those two and i think it says a lot about me that they are two of my fav (adult) characters

buggy and that girl i gotta be honest i do not remember herjdvfkjdfkj but i stand by u on that!

now momo and chisaki being siblings is something that makes sense to me, because momo's family is super rich, and nobody that rich is doing something clean with their money, so it would be interesting to see that her money comes from underground stuff like the yakuza

trumpt and aizawa brothers makes sense just bc they look alike tbhkjdfkjdfkjfdlk

and god u have no idea how right you are by saying that sanji would be in the todoroki family kvkmdkjckdfkjdfkdc but i like the idea of kaminari and sanji being siblings as well

NAMI AND OCHAKO SISTERS IS SOOOOO TRUEEE they sooo are, older sister nami my precious babygirl

im not sure i have something to add, but now I'm thinking about Kirishima meeting shanks, and i think they would hit it off so well lmao

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Omfg, Zoroark Lewis!! And Arthur working for Emmet as a depot agent who still lost his arm somehow?! Who is an enabler encouraging Arthur's probably sleep deprived plan, of course, but only if he can go too. He has a lot of vacation time saved up, it's fine, and he trusts his other depot agents to keep things running smoothly while he's gone. Listen, he's been a good, responsible adult for however long Ingo has been missing, he deserves to get to do a few crazy as shit things like punching a hole through time with a train, as a treat. Plus he... probably shouldn't let Arthur go alone if he's still fucked up enough over losing his arm that he can't work. I'm just imagining Arthur driving the train down the mountain the same way he does that hill in Hellbent, just like screaming the whole way down until he finally crashes into something, but worse because he only has one arm, is intensely sleep deprived, and is probably on some pretty intense pain killers.

Wait wait, no, before my brain runs away with this more, tell me what other ideas this crossover idea already has. I think this au conception was before I started following you, so I don't know if it's been fleshed out at all. I have Questions about how, for example, Arthur lost his arm, and how Lewis wound up in the past but still died with a grudge against Arthur, and if Vivi has amnesia here, etc.

qhjqhjk ok honestly the au is very vague right now, in that i have some hazy ideas but i'm not sold on them and could go another way if we think of something better. but anyway

so right now i think all the riftnappings happened at once? like, ingo vivi and lewis were all in the same place for Reasons and all of them got yoinked. and this was probably possessed-arthur's fault since yeah lewis still hates him. probably the fall killed lewis but the others survived? the alternative is that vivi was taken later in the same way the protagonist is. either way i think yes to vivi amnesia bc she idolizes her ancestor so otherwise shed get a lot of spoilers out the gate (since mushi (the original one) is the hero of legend)

another thing i pitched re: how they even wound up in the past is that arthur is volo's descendant, and as such is a vulnerable point for giratina to exploit. i think giratina mostly just wanted vivi, but the other two got caught in the crossfire

IF mystery is vivi's partner and not a thing from the past (which was another pitch earlier), i think he looks like a weird hybrid vulpix but is Not a vulpix and can still do the transformation thing. like a hoopa confined/unbound situation. however giratina possession is also probably not, like, arm based, so maybe he grabbed arthur's arm in his teeth while falling? (if that happened, you get the bonus that even if mystery would have form shifted he still arrived in hisui with a mouth full of blood and someone's fucking arm and it's like. he's very small now but that's not exactly a recipe for trust)

now i'm just like. going on. but also i think lewis is sort of unique as a zoroark in that 95% of the time he's very chill unless he has to remember arthur for some reason. normally zoroark are consistently vicious and humanity-hating but lewis is just a nice young man if you ignore the fire-breathing anger about That One Guy (who doesn't seem to actually exist as far as anyone can tell.) this i think is bc most zoroark were abandoned by humanity sort of comprehensively, and were made to feel entirely alone and rejected, whereas lewis has no problem with most of humanity but his betrayal over arthur was just so intense that he came back as a zorua anyway.

anyway yeah jlskjsklj part of emmet's reasoning is also that like. if he made it all the way over to the station in the first place he's probably not going to like. Stop. he's gonna do the inadvisable wormhole thing one way or another and at least this way he's sort of supervised. but yes mostly he's just also really on board with the idea himself. and also yes re: the train going down the mountain like the van in hellbent, except that i think emmet's driving.

also i think THEY keep their memories, maybe arthur put some kind of protective barrier together or it's just a matter of the actual physical train walls or whatever.

the final note is that despite ingo and vivi having amnesia and all that, a lot of people know arthur's name in hisui. except, of course, they know him via lewis, so most of their understanding of him is that he's an evil, murderous, two-faced scumbag with no morals and the blood of at least one good man on his hands. which makes for a fun time when arthur chats with people for a while and then finally introduces himself

[chaoticevilbean]

Another Star Wars AU, TBN*

*To-Be-Named

I love time travel. A lot. So here is a time-travel au, with the CW trio.

Somehow, perhaps by touching a Sith artifact, perhaps by the Force deciding they should, perhaps from some sort of weird ritual the locals were performing that the trio didn't know about, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Anakin, Rex, and Cody travel aback in time.

[Please keep in mind that Canon Timeline has died tragically in a fire, and I am but the weeping widow with an inheritance.]

Due to whatever happened, they all also end up (technically) deaging. They still have their memories and their knowledge and skills, just stuck in smaller bodies. They can think and act like adults, but they also have to struggle a bit more to implement Older Skills in Younger Bodies.

Ahsoka is 2. She's nubby. She's emotional. She's tired and sore from her deaging.

She wakes up in someone's office. She's in a spinny chair, a big one with leather padding. It's kind-of chilly in the room.

She's not thinking, because all her brain is putting together is that she's still tired. She grabs the jacket off the back of the chair and pulls it over herself. She goes back to sleep.

Rex and Cody wake up together.

They are their actual age, which is to say they're both about eleven.

They find themselves on Mandalore. In the more wild areas.

(let me believe that there are parts of the planet that aren't covered in city)

(also, this is the Mandalore in the cartoons)

They find a teen trying to wake them both up. Rex has absolutely no clue what's going on. Cody has a vague idea, because this girl looks very similar to a picture he once saw...

Obi-Wan does not fare as well. He is 3.

He wakes up in someone's arms. He's just as tired and sore as the other three. However, he's also got more awareness because he's in someone's arms.

He looks up to see who's carrying him.

He looks around at the people walking with them.

He starts crying. He cannot help this, as he is suddenly flooded with Emotions, and he is Smol. Smol = harder to handle Emotions.

Because Qui-Gon is walking right next to him, tapping away on a holopad as they go. Dooku is on his other side, on a comm call where both parties sound very tired.

And Obi-Wan is being held... by Obi-Wan.

So, yeah, not that great for a suddenly Smol Obi.

Now, Anakin is 8, so he's better off in that perspective.

But he wakes up on some remote planet without anyone around. He just was in the middle of a group, so he ends up kinda panicking.

Then he hears something coming towards him, and he panics more.

He's Tiny! He's Smol! He's massively at a disadvantage against attacks! He can't fight off whatever is on a planet like this!

It's Mace (and Depa).

Anakin, however, doesn't realize this. He has gone Feral.

Back to the beginning

Jango Fett has been very busy w/Important Mand'alor Paperwork all day. He finally has time to go and relax a little, and he makes it all the way down to the exit before he realizes:

It is really cold outside. He is not in armor bc he was planning to only do paperwork today (though he still has many weapons). When one plans to stay in the same room for almost the entire day, one does not wear normal garb.

That said, he has no protection from the cold. He forgot his jacket upstairs. He rushes back up to his office.

He distinctly remembers that he left the jacket on the back of his chair, not on the seat.

He also is wondering what that lump is.

He arms himself, grabs some of his "emergency" armor plating, and walks over to the chair.

He lifts his jacket up, expecting a bomb or some paperwork that fell off the desk, or something logical.

He does not expect to find a tiny Togruta child clinging onto the fabric, whining as they're woken up by his yanking of the jacket.

Jango's brain stutters for a moment, then he kicks into action.

First things first, he wraps the jacket around the Togruta. They thankfully stay asleep. Then he turns up the heat, because he knows the office has gotten colder in the twenty minutes or so he's been gone, and Togruta are from warm temperate zones.

He decides to call, in this order, a guard who can help him watch the Togruta (they did break in, after all), a medic to check the Togruta’s health, and the first person he can find in his contacts that might know an adult Togruta.

Next group

Rex and Cody manage to get the teen to stop fussing over them for long enough to ask for her name.

Her, clearly lying, but that’s understandable: My name is Ine.

Cody, who knows exactly who this is now: Oh, kriff. You’re Duchess Satine, aren’t you? Kriff.

Rex: Wait, Satine? As in the General’s Satine?

Satine, now very suspicious and reaching for her stunner: I think you need proper medical attention.

Cody, looking down at their eleven-year-old selves: Yeah, I think so, too.

They agree on one thing, at least.

Next

Obi-Wan is crying. Loudly, uncontrollably, w/too many Emotions to even care that he’s supposed to be an adult rn.

Other Obi-Wan is very uncomfortable, bc he doesn’t know how to handle children too well.

They found this kid unconscious in the middle of a ruined, abandoned town.

Obi-Wan was meant to hold this kid while Qui-Gon did research and Master Dooku tried to convince the Council that it was entirely necessary to bring the kid back to Coruscant. Granted, they can still give the child to the locals at any time before they make it back to their ship, but apparently the Force is Being Loud.

The Force was Being Loud when it told Master Dooku to come along.

The Force was Being Loud when it led them to that town.

Qui-Gon and Dooku have argued fifteen and a half times on this mission, and an additional six times on the flight here. Obi-Wan is trying to mediate but also doesn’t want to overstep. The Force is Being Loud, sure, but the kid is also Force-sensitive so it might be something off that.

He didn’t argue with holding the kid bc he thought that it was better than being caught between the Masters.

Holding a crying child and trying to get two adults to stop arguing bc they can’t decide how to comfort the kid is not better.

Obi-Wan keeps walking past them to the ship with this baby. He does what he’s seen some crechemasters do to the younglings. The kid eventually calms a little, and he belatedly realizes that both Masters are still behind him, not with him.

NEXT

Anakin is panakin.

He is currently in a state of Feralness. His instincts have kicked into overdrive, full-on Survival Mode.

Depa and Mace do not know this. All they know is that there was suddenly an extremely powerful Force presence that started fading quickly (bc Anakin started shielding).

They burst into sight of Anakin and are suddenly attacked by all four feet and some of Feral Force Child.

It’s all they can do for a good minute or so to avoid losing their fingers, eyes, or untorn clothes.

Mace puts a few things together very quickly.

This planet is uninhabited by any sapient life. Therefore, this child is utterly alone. This child also is clearly strong in the Force, and knows how to hide their presence, for whatever reasons. Mace is a Jedi, and therefore is bound by certain duties.

He decides it is his Duty to get this kid back to Coruscant safely.

Back to the beginning

Ahsoka wakes up to find a familiar face looking down at her. She’s still tired, but not as much. She’s very aware of her size, and does a few quick observations.

She does not fully know who Jango Fett is. She does know that some clones run off bc they hate war and weren’t given a choice an- no. Not going down that path yet.

Ahsoka assumes, semi-incorrectly, that she was shrunk or deaged and somehow found by a rogue clone.

She knows it’s a rogue clone bc they’ve got weird armor.

So she does the logical thing and tries to comfort this clone bc he looks really worried and kinda panicked. She stands up on the spinny chair and tries to balance and he practically lunges to help her and she can’t help but giggle, but it comes out in a bunch of chirps instead.

The clone picks her up and looks really awkward so she pats his face bc that’s the best she can do bc she doesn’t want to disprove the fact she’s two yet.

For all she knows, this rogue clone has no idea she’s actually a Commander in the GAR.

He doesn’t, but for different reasons than she thinks.

NEXT

Rex and Cody go with Satine to the city. They have introduced themselves and said that they were separated from their aliit. They don't know where said aliit is.

Satine is highly suspicious by this point, bc these two kids recognized her with only part of her name, and they were alone, and they speak Basic with Mando'a thrown in.

Basically, she thinks that they're children of people like Death Watch, but she's too young to know that Death Watch isn't really into children.

Rex and Cody get checked over by a medic, but also start trying to get access to some working comms. They are refused on account of being suspicious children (which makes them a little upset bc they're not children)(Well, they are, but not those types of children)

They have not yet figured out that they are in the past, bc Cody and Rex only know that General Kenobi talks about Duchess Satine, and they know about Padme Amidala from General Skywalker, so clearly this Duchess is really young and the General simply viewed her as someone he wants to protect.

They are very very very wrong.

NEXT

Obi-Wan manages to calm himself somewhat now that it's just him and... him.

He is three, and he knows roughly what's happening, so he knows he should probably act like a 3yo.

Unfortunately, he has very little understanding of how child ages work. 3 is smart enough to go up the stairs and communicate with adults, but def. not old enough to speak sentences that are 15 words long with at least 2 5-syllable words.

Fortunately, his older (younger?) self doesn't know children either.

So when this 3yo starts telling him that he needs to leave the two Masters on the planet and head to Tatooine really fast, Obi-Wan is more concerned about the idea than the strangeness of "this is a 3yo suggesting this".

Obi-Wan is really good at convincing people. Including himself. He manages to get Padawan Kenobi to leave supplies where the ship is supposed to be and head towards Tatooine.

He says that the Masters will be fine, they know how to survive, and they need to be alone together in order to work through all the tension. Plus, it gives them plenty of time to talk to the Council.

Toddler Kenobi also tells himself that he'll take the blow and say he used a mind-trick.

Padawan Kenobi doesn't believe him yet, but Toddler Kenobi smiles like a very smug adult and says "you'll get there eventually". What he truly means is up in the air.

NEXT

Anakin, since waking up, knows much less than everyone else. Which is saying something.

He knows he's Smol. He knows he's Alone. He knows Someone has come and they are Strangers.

One thing about Anakin's instincts is that they are very much Survival Based. He was Feral when he joined the Jedi, only he had to hold those instincts back for most of his life bc of being a slave.

A slave cannot bite someone who approaches and Vibes Wrong.

By the time he felt okay with being Feral Out Loud, he also felt safe enough that he didn't need to activate his Survival Mode.

What I'm trying to say is that Anakin does not realize how strong his Feral Instincts are. He has absolutely no control over them rn.

When Mace decides to Help this child, this child is trying to Maul them.

Mace makes a small ruckus to draw Anakin's attention to him so Depa can move back. Depa pulls out her saber now that she won't hit the kid. The kid notices Purple and Bright and Lightsaber.

Lorge Jedi Mind says this is Good. Safe. Jedi.

Smol Feral Brain says this is Dangerous. Mean.

Anakin freezes on sight and just starts tracking Depa's saber. She does one of those things where a snake or something is focused and the person waves the fire or the food slowly to make sure the wolf is watching it and usually they toss the thing away so the snake follows it.

Mace instead takes this opportunity to wrap Anakin in his cloak. And Depa's cloak. And the spare ones in their bags.

Feral Child is not happy with this. Feral Child is also unable to scratch or Maul or do things other than bite and snarl.

Depa carries Feral Child while Mace comms the Temple and they walk back to their ship.

The Temple is having a field day.

First, one of their Shadows reports that a well-known bounty hunter got an emergency message from a pal of theirs that said Jango Fett needs help learning Togruta childcare.

Then they get a call from Dooku, which is not the mission report they wanted.

Yoda: Mission report, you have?

Dooku: Of a sort. We successfully spoke with the locals, then went to investigate a rather large disturbance.

Mundi: A disturbance?

Dooku: We found the source to be a Force-sensitive child.

Mundi: So you are here to ask for more time on the planet?

Dooku:...

Yoda: Bring the child back, you wish to?

Dooku, unapologetic: He is of an acceptable age to be admitted into the Temple, and no other beings were around at the time to entertain the idea of there being guardians.

The Council is sighing and muttering bc this is a Disaster Lineage (and they haven't even met the other two yet). Their call is interrupted by the sound of crying and Dooku saying the child's woken up.

Then there's another Shadow who sends a message saying a set of twins that seem like Death Watch were found by the heir of Clan Kryze.

Finally, to top everything off, they get a call from Mace Windu and Depa Billaba. Two very dignified, not-at-all chaotic Jedi from a perfectly respectable lineage.

Yeah, most of the Council and the Order itself forgets that Yoda had a hand in raising Windu. Yoda "Feral Grandpa" who throws children at every problem. Grandson isn't doing too well? Throw a child his way. Other grandchild is struggling to cope with grief? Throw another child their way. Oh, there's a war going on and newest grandchild is angry a lot? Here's a child!

The entire lineage has a soft spot for children.

Anyways...

Mace: Our mission was a success. We found the artifact and both specimens.

Koth: How long until your return?

Mace:...

Yoda: Found a child, you did?

Gallia: Master Yoda, that's a rather illogical guess. Once is unusual, twice is-

Mace: Oh, did Qui-Gon find a child as well?

Yoda, smugly: Bringing the child back, are you?

Depa, from the background, after a rather loud snarl is heard: We do not bite things, young one.

*more snarling*

Mace: We have no reason to believe he was not alone.

Tiin: *deep sighing*

Mundi: *mild confusion noises*

Koon, eagerly: Please send photos of this youngling. For the archives, of course.

Mace, nodding sagely: Of course.

*extremely loud yowl* *sounds of Mace turning*

Mace: DEPA!

Depa: He nearly bit off my finger!

Mace: That doesn’t mean you pinch him!

Depa: What else am I supposed to do?!

*sudden exclamation filled solely of Mando’a, Huttese and Twi’leki curses*

Mace: So, I don’t know if he speaks Basic, but Master Che should be able to talk him through a check-up.

Yeah, several Council members are experiencing headaches now. Normally, they would have some empathy for Mace and his own stress-induced migraines. They currently do not.

Right after that call, Dooku calls back to say that Obi-Wan has left without them.

Mundi: He left the child with you, right?

Dooku:

Mundi: He left the child with you, right?

Obi-Wan did not leave himself with the Masters. Obi-Wan has listened to Mini-Obi and is off on some wild space adventure to a criminal-run planet.

The toddler won’t stop staring at him. He asks for a name. The kid says to call him Ben.

OW: Is that your name?

“Ben”: It is a name I am called :)

OW: That isn’t what I meant.

“Ben”: I know :)

Ben also keeps staring at OW’s lightsaber. OW decides to make sure the kid doesn’t start playing with it when he isn’t looking.

MEANWHILE

Ahsoka has figured out that she was really very oh-so wrong. She’s on Mandalore. As in, the Mandalore that is under Jango Fett. Bc she’s with Jango Fett. He’s holding her hand bc she was nervous about the strange looking medic (who was just wearing armor, but not clone armor and civies don’t wear armor.)

Ahsoka knows very little about Jango Fett. Clone Buir, Mandalorian leader, tried to kill Master Kenobi. Also dead.

He asks how she got in. She shrugs. She is too small to fight back so she can’t let him know anything. Whatever everything is right now. But also, he doesn’t seem mean or evil or anything.

Oh yeah. Skyguy said that Mandos love children. That's why the clones were so protective of her, even with Skyguy on her side of the argument.

She decides to use this to her advantage. She can probably get herself a comm, and enough time to call the Temple. If she can convince them she at least knows a Jedi, then they can come get her and she'll work from there.

ELSEWHERE

Rex and Cody are getting really upset. This Duchess is really nice, but she's acting really weird and keeps insisting she's not actually called Duchess. No one will give them a comm, they keep getting weird looks for speaking Mando'a even though they're on Mandalore, and Satine's father keeps mentioning a Fett. Maybe Boba's set a bad example again.

Rex starts to fall asleep, to his chagrin. He's too bored, sitting and getting some abnormally extensive check-up. Cody is fine, but he's used to the calm that is General Kenobi. Rex usually has a Togruta teen in the vents and a Human that is never where he's supposed to be.

Rex does, in fact, fall asleep. His "twin" starts glaring when a doctor goes to wake him up. Cody makes it clear that his brother is like Cat: once asleep, you do not wake.

Satine is giggling, but trying not to let the others hear. Cody does. Cody looks at her. They have a stare-off.

Cody goes back to glaring at the doctors. He will not admit to any emotions besides Protect™.

BACK TO

Obi-Wan and Ben have made it to Tatooine.

[gas-station-trackphone]

Fic Recs/Mandatory Reading for Reddie fans

Here is an incomplete list of some of my favorite Reddie fics on ao3, because i cannot get over the sheer talent of this fandom’s wonderful writers! A lot of these are the Greatest Hits that you’ll find on almost every fic list, but that’s why I consider them mandatory reading. like if you haven’t read some of these, what are you doing?

the years go by like days by georgiestauffenberg, rated M

the 27 years in between, but better because richie and eddie stay together. every time i think of this fic, i think of that lady gaga meme where she’s like “brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, etc” and maybe it’s bc this is one of the first reddie fics i ever read, but this one is always gonna be my favorite

broken record by spunknbite, rated E

the mother of all time loop fics. every reddie veteran gets chills at the phrase “the house on Neibolt was still standing”

literally everything by stitchy

like seriously just clear a few days bc you’re not gonna want to stop reading this author once you start. no other author has made me literally fucking cackle in one paragraph and sob in the next like this one, pls do yourself a favor and devour all their works like i did 

the night we met (take me back) by camerasparring, rated E

ch2 fix-it where eddie shows up at richie’s door alive and with no memory. great slow burn with a wonderfully conflicted richie, 10/10

let’s hear it for my baby! series by cloudings, rated E

OOOOOOOHHH boy! a modern teen!reddie grindr AU that’s both steamy AND sweet?? more like a fucking blessing amen hallelujah

a heart that laughter has made sweet by marjaani, rated E

another lovely teen!reddie fic that’s got it all! sweet, stupid boys, humor, a teeny bit of angst, and some 5-alarm fire smut with some top eddie, as a treat

keep talking. i’ll keep walking toward the sound of your voice. by theappleppielifestyle, rated T

angst with a happy ending is my favorite, and this one is just fantastic. so sweet, so sad! and stan is featured as eddie’s afterlife buddy and idk about y’all but i cannot get enough of stanley uris in my reddie fics. read this, then read all this author’s reddie fics, they’re all amazing

collateral by loosecannon, sheepknitssweater, rated E

a post-ch2 fic that i guess could be classified as fix-it, BUT with some very interesting twists. they beat the clown, everyone lives, but no one really gets the tropey happy ending. the WIP sequel is also incredible and i live for the updates.

the greater fool  series by mischiefmanager, mostly rated T with some E

this is a series i’ll reread a lot bc it’s so fucking good. follows young reddie into early adulthood, mostly a bunch of cute shit where they figure out themselves and their relationship. also contains the single best teen reddie fic in existence, he came in through the window, but reading the whole series is a must

brokeback derry and everything else by Amuly, rated E

27 years in between, richie and eddie reconnect in their 20s and meet back up in derry twice a year to remember and love each other before going back to their lives and forgetting. so much pain. there’s a lot of sweet stuff in there, but you can see shit’s gonna get complicated from miles away and the anticipation almost gave me stomach ulcers (in a good way). ultimate angst with a happy ending.

let me name the stars for you by playedwright, rated M

speaking of angst with a happy ending...Martian AU!!!!! this one fucked me up in the best way, i literally called my roommate at 2am to vent to her about my emotions after reading it. i go back and reread chapter 8 just to be overwhelmed by it, and it makes me cry every time. plus, there are awesome sequels/companion pieces in the series! read this, i beg you!

walk through fire for you by hyruling, rated T

unwind after all that angst with some cute, drunk, confused eddie being very upset when he finds out richie is engaged. richie only teases him a little before pointing out the matching ring on eddie’s finger. 

in the heat of the summer (you're so different from the rest) by kaboomslang, rated E

post-ch2 slow burn with tags that really say it all, including but not limited to: eddie moves to california and richie is a mess, Eddie Kaspbrak’s Hot Girl Summer, and cute middle aged man dates

pivotal moments by danfanciesphil, polypocket, rated E

high school reddie has a sort of fwb thing goin on, but emotions get in the way. featuring wonderful bevchie friendship, hella miscommunication, cute double dates, high eddie, and a happy ending

like a bullet in the back by jerry_duty, rated M

adult idiots in love! a personal favorite trope of mine! slow burn with a fair helping of angst but a really great ending. richie stays with eddie in new york while he’s there on business, and it takes these losers SO LONG to figure it out but the way they dance around it is very cute

no sense of living without aim [WIP] by liesmyth, rated E

richie and eddie meet on grindr in the 27 years between and hey, whadda ya know, they fall in love! i really love this fic but i’m pretty sure it’s been abandoned. i’ve had it open on my phone browser for like 3 months with no update but i still check it regularly bc i’m pathetic and this fic is just so good i’m DYING to know what happens next so read at ur own risk

a strange sense of familiarity [WIP] by Katranga, rated E

another “they meet and fall in love without remembering” fic, and even though it’s not complete yet, it gets regular updates. oh, also, i’m obsessed with it. they’re long distance fuck buddies who can’t admit they’re in love, and then they get hit with the childhood memories! and everyone lives! what’s not to love!  also PLEASE read kisses take like mint and every other reddie work by this author, they are all fantastic

adult friends by sudowoodo, rated T

AU where adult reddie meet at a first aid seminar for work (immediately fall in love), become friends, become best friends, and finally get to be happy. has some super repressed eddie and intensely pining richie, which is always fun, and genuinely made me laugh out loud. also please check out this author’s other reddie fics, there’s some super sweet kid reddie in there that really warms the heart

the mind's a funny fruit by joldiego, rated T

eddie wakes up barely alive in derry, has 0 memory, calls himself richie, and moves in with some lesbians. an absolute must read that ought to be on every reddie fic rec compilation. i read this a long time ago and just thinking about it makes me want to read it again.

now what i'm gonna say may sound indelicate [WIP] by IfItHollers, rated E

it took me entirely too long to find this fic since i joined the fandom, and it’s truly a fucking masterpiece. it’s almost at 200k now and still unfinished, and the slow burn is excruciating, but this is a legendary fic for a reason. eddie spends the first chunk of this fic in the hospital recovering from the massive chest wound, and then he and richie move the recovery to ben’s cabin in the woods. the author’s notes for each chapter are a story in themselves

signs of a new lifetime by swordfishtrombones, rated T

one of the sweetest, most romantic reddie fics i’ve ever read. a fresh take on a classic concept: post-ch2, they’re in love, they haven’t said/done anything about it yet, BUT!!! it’s not angsty! they are all cute and giggly like “you say it first!” “no, you say it first!” and it makes me fucking MELT

broadcasting tower by swordfishtrombones, rated E

back-to-back recs from the same author! bc i love these fics so much! sort of similar to the last one in that they both know what’s up and just haven’t said it, but this one’s got the angst! i didn’t know when i read it that it was the same author as the other fic, and i thought how funny, i found another reddie author that perfectly captures this pair in such a wonderfully romantic way! i also just noticed there’s a follow up to this so now i have to go read that immediately

eurydice; the original comeback kid by Vulcanodon, rated M

for the love of god please read this and the other work in this series. it’s a ch-2 fix-it with some intense action sequences and major pining, and it has haunted me since i first read it

love on the telephone by tempestbreak, rated E

okay this one is really just 30k of pure smut but it’s also so sweet and features a mini sexual awakening for eddie and some insecure richie with an emphasis on how much they love and trust each other. also it doesn’t hurt that the smut is fire, like does anyone else want that twink obliterated, or is it just me?

the boy who loves you by candlejill, rated E

eddie lives, richie confesses, things are chill and then they’re not. richie’s career flourishes, which is always nice to read and is what ultimately catalyzes eddie’s gay awakening and realization of his love for richie. it’s got some sad angsty parts and a very sweet ending, and it up there as one of my favorite reddie fics of all time

richie and eddie break up [WIP] by skeilig, rated M

a refreshing and realistic take on life ch-2 for the losers, because being in love at thirteen doesn’t mean you can fall into a perfect relationship at 40. i’ll admit, i’m hoping this will ultimately be a “richie and eddie get back together” fic, but it’s still a very good read (and often very funny in the second chapter) at the moment in the midst of their break up

september 1989 and everything else by pineapplecrushface, rated T

cute kid reddie figuring it out and making me smile. the follow up to this and the after derry series by this author are also personal favorites

go west by ssstrychnine, rated T

road trip fic! an absolute work of art slow burn with teen reddie in the 90s. it’s so beautifully written i just wish i could go back and read it for the first time again

the edification of eddie kaspbrak by tozier, rated M

character study with some incredible fucking prose, my lord it gorgeous. explores how eddie learns about love as he grows up, and it’s super fucking sad sometimes bc the poor boy doesn’t know how to have the things he wants and i just want to give him a hug, but it’s really a spectacular fic

circular motion by sinchronicity, rated M

soulmate!AU that follows book canon and even though it’s been a long time since i’ve read it and the details are fuzzy, i remember absolutely loving it and thinking it was incredible

tell me you know by RichiesToesHurt, rated E

college losers with some severely pining and jealous richie with a lovely ending 

predicament bondage [WIP] by dgalerab, rated E

i resisted reading this fic for so long, recently broke and binged all of it, and now i’m like frothing at the mouth for updates. richie’s a closeted actor/comedian who meets eddie, a professional Dom, when he needs help researching a role. they become friends, they develop crushes, richie realizes he’s a sub, and it’s just so much fun to read

there’s a lot more fics to rec so i might add on to this in the future, but in the meantime my biggest tip for for reading fanfiction that took me embarrassingly long to figure out: focus on the authors! if you read something you like, check out the rest of the work by that author bc odds are you’ll like that too. i mentioned it in a few specific works above, but check out the authors catalogues for these fics. if i included every work by these authors that i loved, this list would be miles long

feel free to add on any great stuff i missed, there’s sure to be tons of it!

[aclosetfan]

To be written ideas: Number 16

Thanks for playing along!! @kayyee also asked for 16!

haha omg I haven't touched #16 in like four years. Okay, don't judge me, but i've got it titled in my outlines folder as "PowerPossible"

The outline's pretty long. i've actually shortened it for you all lol. Please let me know if you want to hear more about this one!! I can talk about it for a while :) Read below the cut for all of it!

this story's the obligatory Human/tmnt/Kim Possible-ish AU. The girls are NOT related and have no powers (in the beginning).

Family dynamics:

BC: Professor and Ms. Keane are her parents, she has a little brother named Ken (ppgz reference ;p). According to BC, Ken is their favorite child. She's just jealous because Ken has more in common with the Professor, who BC truly adores. She and the Professor have trouble relating because she's into sports, he's not. However, the Professor and her are more alike than she knows. Ms. Keane is still a kindergarten teacher and is the reason their family moves to Townsville.

Bubbles: Her parents died when she was young and now, she lives with her grandparents, the Mayors! The Mayor is still the Mayor of Townsville. (btw Im 85% sure that canonically his last name is also Mayor) The Mayor is under HIM's thumb, and when he finally messes up one too many times, HIM has him "taken care of." However, that's like towards the middle (?) of the story. So, in the end, Bubbles only has her grandmother.

Blossom: Two moms! Ms. Bellum and an unidentifiable second mother, who isn’t important (lol). 2nd mother isn't dead or anything, and she's happily married to Ms. Bellum--she's literally just one of those "mentioned in passing characters who are constantly out of town." Ms. Bellum is the Mayor's secretary, which Blossom uses to her advantage.

PLOT

The story starts out with the girls in kindergarten. Bubbles and Blossom are friends because Bubbles is the only person who doesn't think nerdy lil Blossom is annoying/socially awkward/too smart for her own good. Blossom in turn doesn't make fun of Bubbles being a crybaby. Buttercup's kind of a bully, but she's really just mad that her family had to move to Townsville. Ms. Keane (BC's mother) finally has enough of Buttercup's rebellious attitude and makes her sit with Bubbles and Blossom. Together the three girls find themselves in a confusing and troublesome situation: what happened to their class pet Twiggy??? (that hamster in that one episode). They solve the mystery (i.e. Mitch), and Ms. Keane frees Buttercup from the "loser lame-o sissy table." Except Buttercup ends up staying because *spoilers* they become best friends. (and she likes solving mysteries with them)

FASTFORWARD TO HIGHSCHOOL-ISH AGE

The girls are as thick as thieves and have a bad habit of sticking their noses where they don't belong. Blossom's the brains of the operation, Buttercup the muscle, and Bubbles is the obligatory "guyssss you promised we were going to the mall today not solving crime!" (Like Arnold from the Magic School bus who's like "oh please let this be a normal field trip!" And everyone is like "With Bloss and BC?! No Way!")

They've hit a "mystery" dry spell. At this point, none of their "mysteries" have been high stakes. Just petty stuff, but BC wants more. After another bust, she goes home and overhears her father (who's still a high-profile scientist) on the phone talking about the "odd mutant/monster-like" sightings that happened a few days ago in Townsville Central Park. Buttercup takes it as an opportunity to 1) help her dad and win his favor (that she already has smh) and 2) to break the dry spell she and the girls were going through, so they set off to investigate. To protect their identities, the girls essentially "mask up" and by the end of the story are described by the Townsville News as vigilantes.

Eventually, the girls stumble headfirst into Townsville's underbelly and the adults in their lives are all connected. They find that there is in fact a mutant uprising that has an overwhelming connection to the Professor, his ex-lab partner, the Mayor, and a mysterious man only referred to as HIM. And, of course, Chemical-X. X was the once abandoned project of the Professor and his once lab partner Mojo Jojo. It was supposed to be a miracle medicine! Now, in Townsville's underbelly, it's a popular/very dangerous drug/commodity.

At one point in the past, during a fit of rage, Mojo had mutated himself with an unstable vial of the chemical—accidentally--and fleed with the only "perfect" vial. He runs into a sickly man (who becomes HIM) and is conned out of the chemical. HIM takes the chemical and it "cures" him from his disease. It also gives him "superpowers." (NOTE: chemical-x superpowers varies person to person) However, the chemical is also unstable, and now HIM wants (NEEDS) a better formula, one that isn’t tainted (as Mojo still cannot figure out how to make it correctly) and will do anything for it. This is something that HIM believes the Professor can do. So, the Professor is essentially blackmailed into working for HIM (like most everyone who is in a position of power in Townsville). It's an expensive endeavor, so HIM sells the "almost perfect" batches (which in small doses can make a person feel invincible, but is highly addictive) to the crime syndicates. If you take an "almost perfect" version of Chemical-X, you generally need to keep micro-dosing to stay alive or your body starts to fail. (This is why HIM needs that PERFECT version)

Unbeknownst to everyone, The Professor was only ever able to perfect the formula once and it was by complete accident. (the version HIM had gotten was very close to perfect, but not all the way). Even the Professor doesn't know how he did it. (But that's because it wasn't the Professor who had perfected it--the Girls had done it accidentally during a sleepover in middle school (which the ever studious Blossom had recorded in her notebook). The Girls had been playing "scientist."

However, the Professor HAS figured out an Antidote-X. Again results vary. His version works best on the lab rats the original research group had experimented on. Blossom ends up perfecting Antidote-X for humans and the Girls are able to reserve mutations they come across on their "patrols", which pisses HIM off to no end, resulting in a bounty on their head. (He doesn't like the lose in profits)

As more mutants begin to appear and HIM becomes more frustrated at the lack of progress, Townsville becomes a darker place. At the height of this frustration, he kills the Mayor (who was wanting to break ties with HIM b/c of Bubbles' pleading). At that point, the Girls know who HIM is and what he is capable of. Since they have no one of authority to turn to that can stop HIM, they work together to create the perfected chemical-x like they had all those years ago in hopes that they can appease HIM and free the Professor.

The Girls figure out the formula, and in a race to save the City and, most importantly, the Professor, they confront HIM. Because they're kids, they naively think that they can trade the formula for BC's dad. It doesn't end up working out as they planned. In the end, HIM injects BC w/chemical-x (PERFECTED version), and she gains superhuman powers. To keep the ending vague, the Girls end up saving the day ;)

Important Characters the Girls Encounter:

Amoeba Brothers: the brothers are the first failed chemical-x test created by the Professor's research team that did not result in death. They haunt the sewers after they escaped the lab. They are the Girls first encounter with the mutations/mutants running rampant in the City

Gang Green Gang: Delinquents chosen by the City to be injected. Again, the tests failed. Had temporary "powers" but they teetered off quickly and the boys permanently stayed green (weird side-effect)

Bunny: Sad. She is also a failed test, but she is mutated while the Girls are actively investigating the case. She has super strength and was able to break out of the lab. The Girls hunt her down and they end up trying to help her. However, she passes away. This has a lasting effect on the girls.

Sedusa: she's definitely in the story idk how yet. lol. I just really like her as a character.

Princess: For financial support, HIM promised Mr. Morebucks that'd he'd give Princess superpowers like she wanted when the formula is perfected. But she’s mad, impatient, and power-hungry. In the end, sick of HIM's games and the Professors inability to give her what she wants, she injects herself with the chemical. It works for a bit, and HIM's like "holy shit did we do it??" but after a few days, she becomes unstable. (Her death is captured during live television b/c she makes her superhero debut a Whole Thing). Knows Blossom and Bubbles b/c of their parents. Doesn't like them. Doesn't bother to learn BC's name. Just canonically a brat.

The RRB: Adopted by HIM (and Mojo) "out of the goodness of their hearts." (PR stunt). They were really adopted to be test subjects, but HIM ended up liking them more than anticipated, so HIM decided that they'd be injected AFTER chemical-x is perfected. Absolute shit-heads. They can do whatever they want and no one can tell them "no." They cause havoc for the Girls to keep them off HIM's tail. Drive futuristic motorcycles that leave "light trials." Mad that they can't pin down who the Girls are.

[rgrettes]

heyy, I hope I'm not bothering but I've seen that you used to post about faberry and faberry fics like Shafd, and since I'm trying to find some faberry fanfics to read, could you please recommend me some of your favorites? Thank you :)

OKAY so this took me a whole lot longer than anticipated because I didn’t want to make it be like 500 fics long! But here, in no particular order, are my top 10 faberry fanfics! [excluding SHAfD of course bc whomever asked this definitely knows SHAfD!]I will be including trigger warnings/content warnings! Please be sure that you can handle the subjects before reading the content! Be safe and put your mental and physical wellbeing before a work of fiction!

10. Dirty Little Secret by patchesofink

Chapters: 77/77 [208k]

This fic would actually happen to be the first faberry fic that I ever read. I felt my little 15 year old self cry several times throughout this fic. It’s what first got me into writing fanfic, because I wanted to write as well as this author! There is a content warning so please be careful reading it if you are sensitive to topics mentioned!

Rachel has a secret and Quinn has figured it out - but will Quinn use this knowledge to exact revenge on Rachel for telling Finn that Puck was really the father or will she use her own experiences to help. WARNING - language and sexual content, r*pe.

9. I’ll Be by stix04

Chapters: 20/20 [330k]

God I was such a sucker for fake dating au’s as a young teenager and I’m most definitely a sucker for them now. This one I didn’t read right when it came out, I didn’t actually find it until it had finished but it still makes my top 20 because it’s just too good not to talk about!

Can Quinn pretend to be in love with Rachel just to get out of Lima? Can Rachel pretend to love Quinn so she's not so lonely in New York? And what happens when both girls realize they're no longer pretending?

8. Long Way to Happy by patchesofink 

Chapters: 42/42 [104k]

This is the sequel to Dirty Little Secret and makes the list for being just as good as the original. This author is so talented and the story just resonates in my soul! 

warnings for sexual content, language, violence and potential ptsd triggers!

Sequel to Dirty Little Secret. Rachel still has some healing to do as well with dealing with becoming a mom. Quinn has her own issues to deal with. Can their fledgling relationship deal with the ups and downs of life and cope with senior year? Quinn learns to open up and Rachel deals with motherhood and not letting her past define her. It's a Long Way to Happy.

7. Leather Jackets and Bad Coffee by antonius

Chapters: 11/?? [75k] [has not updated since 2018 :(]

Bikers, 50′s style diners, and good girl/bad girl pairing. Literally who could ask for anything more? I’m super sad this one hasn’t updated in a long time but it’s still such a fun read!!

warning for violence!

Ninety miles and nearly two hours from the heart of New York City, just off of PA-33 North, is the little town of Belfast, Pennsylvania: population 1,257. Right outside the city limits sits Moe's, a small 24-hour diner whose newest waitress, Rachel Berry, has taken her best friend Kurt's advice and started a calm summer temp job away from the hustle-and-bustle of busy city life in order to rest up before her final year at NYADA.During her very first midnight shift, she encounters a group of rowdy regulars led by a pink-haired woman with piercing hazel eyes. Quinn Fabray is the leader of the Skanks, a small but well-known local biker gang that doesn't take shit from anyone.So began the strangest summer of Rachel Berry's life.

6. Talk by saintdyke

Chapters: 17/? [43k] [last updated may 2019]

This is another one I’m sad hasn’t updated in a while! This honestly stole my heart to a point that in the time I found it in mid April 2019 and June of 2019 I have re-visited the fic 105 times, rereading it at least half as many as that. I’m really hoping the author comes back to the fic, because it was keeping me on the edge of my seat.

warning for violence, abuse mentions and depictions, homophobia and ptsd triggers!

(Previously titled Grease Stains, Starry Skies) Famous actress Rachel Berry’s car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. A pretty blonde with a blue truck rescues her from the side of the road, and just so happens to own an Auto Repair shop in town. Quinn is frustrating and mysterious, and Rachel is just as stubborn. Together, they start a revolution.

5. Just off the Key of Reason by iamapanda

Chapters: 30/30 [129k]

This one is another absolute classic in the Faberry fandom, and is another fic that has stuck with me throughout the years! It has a fantastic softer take on Quinn that I truly appreciated because everyone back in the early years of the fandom would make her so angry and bitter and she’s just so soft in some interpretations

Rachel Berry is a successful Broadway star with a new roommate, the very odd, naive Quinn Fabray. It starts with a note on the fridge and a childishly scrawled doodle of an elephant. Everybody has a little crazy in them.

4. Still off the Key of Reason by iamapanda

Chapters: 37/37 [185k]

The sequel to Just off the Key of Reason! Still as soft and as crazy! I can’t mention one without having the other in the list as well! I can’t explain how it feels to look at the ff.net pages after so long, my heart is transported back to 2011 and I’m sitting on my bed after I’m supposed to be in bed. I miss the days where I could just spend time reading these fics and not having adult responsibilities.

Quinn is thundering her way through vet school. Rachel is enlightening the west coast with her talent. The story continues with a wedding, dogs in tuxedos, and Pooh Bear vows. Crazy never fades.

3. A Million Miles of Fun by Jade8Devlin

Chapters: 12/12 [103k]

This one is a little different from the last ones! It isn’t my favorite because of its literary genius, but because of how fun and out there it is! It’s concept is fresh and dark and something I honestly didn’t expect to see but it quickly grew to be a favorite for me!

warning for violence, abuse, mentions of murder! the whole story revolves around The Unholy Trinity + Rachel murdering Quinn’s family so please take that into consideration!

And in Lima, Ohio, a man and woman were killed earlier today during what is believed to be a home invasion. Russell Fabray was last seen leaving Gas'N'Go at two o'clock; his wife, Judith, from a grocery story an hour earlier. Police are linking the double homicide to the area's recent surge in breaking and entering – though these appear to be the first fatalities. The victims are survived by their daughters; Quinn and Stacey."Jessalyn Briggs shuffles the papers on her desk, clearing her throat. The somber expression on her face seems to float off her as she turns towards camera 3."Otis-the-Otter finishes today's news headlines as the little critter that could. Abandoned by his mother and found foraging for scraps in the Nelson family's garbage cans, Otis has proven; if you can't teach an old dog new tricks, teach them to an otter! Otis placed second at this year's Ohio Dog Show after last year's well-documented struggle by the Nelson family to allow Otis to be included. Well done Otis, we here at Channel 43 salute you.

2. The Silence of Silence by your.kat

Chapters: 31/31 [135k]

This one... I can’t describe why I liked it, I just liked it.

warning for mental health, and trauma [possible others, please read with caution]

Quinn and Rachel meet at Haverbrook under unusual circumstances. Why is Rachel silent? And why does Quinn care? "You can hear," Quinn said simply, "but can you speak?"; "Yes," Rachel signed. "I can speak. But silence is a friend who will never betray."

1. Kissing Quinn Fabray by vondrunkaton

Chapters: 6/6 [45k]

This one just makes me super warm and fuzzy inside. I don’t think I can say it’s entirely changed my life but it’s just so soft and i love it

Quinn comforts Rachel after Finn says something oafish. Rachel is surprised by how sweet Quinn is. There's also some making out in delicious detail. Fluffy getting together fic.

I am super open to talking about more fics I love/like and other pairings! This was a ton of fun to talk about and sent me down memory lane! I went searching for two hours on a vague memory of a fic that I think has been deleted by now. But if anyone wants to help me track it down! Hit me up and I’ll give you the details!

[eerna]

Hi could we get more info on the pirate au? I'd love to know some stories for fan art purposes! :)

*cracks knuckles* HERE WE GO AN INFODUMP ON THE PIRATED DRAGON AU

Callum and Ez are sons of a governor with a taste for adventuring. Recently he and Viren returned home with this cool big jewel that is a gnarly conversation starter in their mansion’s parlor. (Viren doesn’t know what it is exactly, but wants to experiment. Harrow is like “ok but keep me out of your weirdness”)

Woopsie daisy it was a dragon egg, and the mansion gets robbed by pirates who search for it. Callum missed the battle cuz he fell asleep drawing in the cellar and woke up to a ragged girl chasing him down with sabers and interrogating about the egg. He prolly knocks himself out trying to get away and wakes up in the morning to find out his brother and the egg have been taken by the pirates, and Harrow vanished too.

Viren has taken control of the household. He probably figured out some deets about the egg the previous night  (more on that later), and now wants to get his arcane loving hands on it. But Harrow didn’t like the idea, so Viren took care of him.

Callum figures out Viren isn’t all about his family’s wellbeing, and since he is powerless and very scared, he does something pretty risky: he decides to get the one pirate who got captured during the raid to help him. Her name is Rayla, she’s the very girl who scared the heck outta him the previous night, and only after some persuasion does she get convinced to let Callum help her escape the gallows. The two steal a ship and set sail after Ez.

Rayla’s a weird one. Her genetic palette def doesn’t fit the setting, she is mysteriously missing a pinky, and has a swirly tattoo that spans from her wrist to her neck. She doesn’t want to talk about herself, isn’t out to make friends, and def doesn’t want to unpack the emotional baggage that comes with being abandoned by her crew to die on her very first mission. After all, it’s what the Code demands. 

THE DRAGON EGG. There’s this mythical treasure cornucopia named the Stormspire Isles (previously Dragonlair but s3 had a cooler name for it) and the only way to get there is to be led by a dragon. Ez is the only one who can speak to the egg, so the crew took him to act as a navigator for them. This particular crew is all about dragons because- wait for it- sirens yall.  The crew is all related to sirens, explaining their weird genetics. Sirens are obsessed with dragons as much as Viren is with sirens and all the other curiosities of the sea that could bring him power. Basically adults are power hungry

Soren and Claudia get the same mission as in the normal story, except the ones on the hit list are Callum and Rayla bc their know what’s Viren up to. But tbh I just want brodigies tracking the two through all the sleazy pirate ports and  havin the time of their lives ok

Amaya is a privateer, serving the crown. Janai is a prominent pirate lord. Can I make it any more obvious

Ez, Bait, and Egg Zym have tons of fun slowing the pirates down and messing them up as much as they can. Party time

Rayla’s tattoo is a vow of secrecy- the more Callum finds out about the mission and her life, the redder it becomes, and yall know what happens to her arm from there on.At first, it started flaming up even though she didn’t talk about anything- just her leading Callum to her crew counted as treason. But then she got emotionally involved, because she def isn’t  gonna jut let the boys get messed up, anddddd also emotionalsupportfeelsnice. Cue Rayllum

I’m thinking she ran away from home and joined the pirates for…. some reason. I don’t think Runaan would have ditched her so he can’t be the pirate captain, and I don’t wanna make her an orphan cuz I really want a sweet sweet reunion to happen.

Pip is a parrot. I need to stress that

Also I’m adding in that part when Rayla grabs Callum and launches them both from a high place with only some rope to secure them. Iconic

Callum likes making maps. This cruise is a wonderful expedition to him, sweet boy.

Rayla is still scared of the water, but kinda pushes that far, far down, because she Must Be Strong.

Yo. It just occurred to me I can make Aaravos a fancy pirate admiral who wants that sweet dragon power. Neat 

And…………… I think that’s it for now. Wow I think abt this way too much for my own good

[in-tua-deep]

are y’all ready for a showerthoughts au?? a little brain wiggle that decided to invade my brain once water hit by body?? well buckle up kids bc here we have a bizarre au where five both is and isn’t the main character

SO we start with the premise that, when Five worked for the Commission, he had health checks and doctors visits and all that. In the comics he was genetically experimented on and his aging is halted, but I don’t think they’re going that way in the TV show bc young actors age

but my whole point is: they probably have samples of Five’s genetic materials

(disclaimer: i am not a scientist and don’t know how any of this stuff works)

and wouldn’t it be so useful to have trained and loyal soldiers with the same ability to jump in space and time who are completely molded to your will? Isn’t that a brilliant idea? In this au, the Handler definitely thought so (and if she had grand plans to eventually sick her new assassins on Five and give him the shock of his life, well that’s too bad isn’t it)

except it doesn’t entirely work. Five’s DNA is actually kind of unstable? From his space jumps and time jumps, every time they attempt to clone him it fails and they end up with nothing. They keep tweaking things, but they have a limited supply of usable genetic material and they rack up failures. They almost give up when one child finally, finally, succeeds and makes it through the fetal stages and takes his very first breath surrounded by breathless scientists who are whooping and hollering in joy

They don’t name him. He’s a weapon. But they refer to him as ‘The Boy’ and the Handler is so tickled pink by the comparison with Five’s hero name that she refuses to name him anything else, even a project name or experiment number.

The Boy grows up. He’s trained. He goes through grueling training to become the perfect assassin, with the Handler standing over his shoulder and smiling the whole while - likely imagining the day he would be old enough to take down her original nemesis. 

And Boy doesn’t know anything else. He grows up, and he ends up getting sent with other agents on missions. Sometimes as a prop, a child helping them blend in and get closer to a target, and sometimes as the assassin. 

The theory is that raising him in isolated Commission environment, without siblings to care about, without a world to care about, he will be perfect.

(They shouldn’t have sent him on missions.)

He knows something isn’t right. He knows something is missing. He gets check ups every week until he’s six and then it becomes every month. And scientists talk. They marvel at his stability where ‘the others’ failed. He knows he isn’t the first child they tried to make.

And for whatever reason, the idea that at some point he wasn’t alone is an important one. And he’s curious. He wants to know about the other children who failed, the ones who didn’t make it, the ones who were his siblings. It’s an idle curiosity, of a child who went on missions and saw families and recognized something that he didn’t have.

He’s perfect. He was raised in the Commission. There’s no reason to believe he’ll defect, because there’s nothing for him to defect to. His entire life is the Commission. 

(Sometimes, the Handler takes his face in her hands. Her nails dig into his cheeks in he tries to look away and so he doesn’t, standing perfectly still with a thousand yard stare. Sometimes, she calls him ‘five point two’ with a delighted smile and he doesn’t know what that means.)

No one expects him to rebel even a little bit, and really picking the locks on the record room and reading old logs barely counts. 

(He can’t jump, not in the building. The first thing that the Commission did is figure out a way to sense when he jumps. They can’t figure out where he goes, but they know when it happens. If he jumps unauthorized, his punishments are severe. Hence: the lock picking.)

He wants to find records of his siblings, of the experiments and the failures. He wants to know how many came before him.

Instead, he finds a photo of himself. Except not quite. It’s him but older, obviously taken from a security camera and cropped. It’s an incident report, which shouldn’t be filed here. Something that slipped through the cracks. He reads the report, and his eye catches on the name. Five. Status: Unknown, the report proclaims, but it’s an old report.

The Boy’s first thought is not that Five is the original. Because the Boy has been around long enough to know what normal names are like, and as an experiment it would make sense for them to be named numbers, experiment numbers. The Boy doesn’t look at the picture and think that’s where I came from.

Instead, he looks at it and he thinks - brother. 

He thinks that he wasn’t the first success that the Commission had with jumping kids. He looks at the teen in the photo and thinks that Five is another Commission experiment. And the Boy is so lonely. He tucks the picture up his shirt with care.

He scours through the rest of the piles for any information on this Five, but comes up empty handed. The report with the original mention was filed incorrectly, he wasn’t supposed to see it at all. But the report didn’t say deceased, didn’t say mission closed or objective complete or anything like that. It said that Five’s status was unknown. Which meant he escaped. Which meant he might still be out there.

The Boy might have family that was alive. 

He keeps his knowledge close to his heart. He breaks into every records room he can get his hands on. But the Handler was thorough in her classifying of Five’s existence (until the time was right to kill him, of course) and the Boy doesn’t find another hint for a long time.

And then, like magic, he does. He’d been looking through old reports and, on a whim, decided to look at the newer ones. There was a mission to kill someone in a city in 2019, and there was a special note to be careful and extra covert because former agent Five was known to be hostile to Commission Agents.

Which meant that Five was alive. And that he was in that city. In 2019. The Boy had a time and a place and a date and, for the first time, hope. 

In the end, it’s a crime of opportunity. He’s sent on a mission with an older agent who is mean. The older man is unimpressed with being assigned to, in his words, babysit a child. So it’s maybe a tiny bit vindictive when the Boy grabs the suitcase and jumps, leaving the man behind and stumbling out into an alley in a city he’s never seen before. 

He destroys the suitcase, knowing it can be used to track him. And maybe he was a bit impulsive - because it’s a big city and there’s only one of him and he has no idea where to start looking. 

But luck is on his side, because the Boy has been living homeless for weeks trying desperately to keep under the Commission’s radar (it helps that they tread carefully as well, unwilling to draw attention to themselves) while also looking for his one family connection. And he’s squatting illegally in a building, and he gets busted.

And he’s tired, and exhausted, and hungry, and jumping right now is a terrible idea. He could kill the officer with ease, but that would draw even more attention to him and just. Ugh.

But he’s taken to the station, and there’s a woman there who blinks at him and says - “Five? What are you doing here?”

And all the Boy can do is blink stupidly at her. 

The woman, Detective Patch her desk says, sighs deeply at him and shakes her head. She waves off the officer who brought the Boy in, “I’ll call Diego. What they hell were you doing in that abandoned building?”

“Uh - ” The Boy tries, because she asked him a question, but words are escaping him right now. This woman thinks he is Five. This woman knows Five. His brain is running at a million miles a minute and this is the best lead he’s had since he landed here and somehow he can do nothing but stare at her with wide eyes. 

“Never mind.” Detective Patch says, pinching the bridge of her nose, “I’m sure I don’t want to know. Just sit tight a minute, okay?”

His body moves on autopilot to sit down, used to obeying orders and never questioning them. Even so, he’s almost vibrating in place in excitement.

The detective is on the phone. The detective nods. The detective hangs up.

“Someone will be by to pick you up in a minute.” She informs him, “Don’t go traumatizing my coworkers in the meantime, you hear? You know where the bathroom is if you need it.”

The Boy does not, but it’s easy enough to figure out. He ends up staring at himself in the mirror, and quite frankly he looks like hell. He’s been homeless for weeks, and while he’s better off than many due to his skills as a thief it’s still not great. And he’s about to meet Five, his family. He has to look presentable! He runs the faucet and scrubs at the dirt on his face and runs his hands through his hair to try and look presentable. It doesn’t really work, but it’s the best he’s going to get.

By the time he comes out, there’s a man standing at Detective Patch’s desk. He’s wearing all black and has - knives? The sight automatically makes the Boy wary. But surely a Commission agent wouldn’t be so obvious? The Detective sees him, and the man turns to follow her eyes.

He has a scar on the side of his head, the Boy observes. He wonders where he got it. 

“I don’t have time to be bailing your ass out, Five!” The man barks, and he sounds angry. The Boy can’t help the flinch - it’s never good when adults are angry with him. It always leads to more pain. The man tracks the small movement and frowns.

But he does soften just a little bit. “C’mon.” He says, still gruff. “Klaus is waiting in the car.”

The Boy doesn’t know who Klaus is, but if following the man will get him closer to Five then he’s going to do it regardless of personal discomfort. The scarred man goes around to the drivers side, and the Boy is left hovering uncomfortably between the passenger and backseat door.

He hasn’t been told where he’s allowed to sit.

“Don’t worry!” The man in the back, presumably the Klaus that was mentioned, hollers through the door, “Ben’s good wherever!”

And yeah, that makes even less sense and the Boy still doesn’t know what to do.

Thankfully the scarred man rolls his eyes, “Just get in the back.” 

The Boy does so, sitting gingerly on the leather seat and trying not to stare at either of the two strangers who now have him inside an enclosed space. The glittery man, Klaus, looks towards the empty passenger seat with a confused crease to his eyes.

“What happened, Five?” The scarred man asks bluntly as he pulls out.

The Boy... doesn’t know how to answer that either. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out even though he was asked a direct questions. 

“You have... an episode?” The man asks almost gently, tiptoeing around his phrasing like a man afraid of setting off a live grenade. The Boy is sure it would have been helpful, if he knew what the fuck the man was talking about to begin with. As it is, he’s even more confused. 

Klaus coos softly, looking concerned from what the boy can see of his reflection in the window. Not knowing how to respond, he stays silent. Clearly though, that means something to both of the men because the scarred one nods and they both drop it. 

They pull up outside a big house. Both men get out of the car, and look confused when the Boy stays in place. He hasn’t been given permission to exit the vehicle yet though, so he’s not sure why they look concerned. These two aren’t very good Handlers, he hopes they’re not the ones in charge of Five. 

“Uh,” The scarred one clears his throat, “We’re home dude. C’mon.”

That’s about as much of an order as he’s going to get around here, probably. And if the scarred man says that we’re home, including who he assumes is Five in that sentence, then that means - his search is over?

Suddenly eager, he jumps in a flash of blue over to the door. It’s not allowed, and immediately icy shock goes down his spine and his brain is alight with anxiety, but nothing happens. He’s not in the Commission. They can’t track his jumps outside of it. 

Before he can spiral further into panic, the door is opened and he’s being swept inside. It’s big. It’s really big. 

“Is that you, Diego?” Someone calls from within the house, “Dinner’s almost ready! Five said he’s gonna be late - ”

A woman emerges from a room, a towel in her hands. She’s tall, is the first thing the Boy notices about her. Her hair is curly - he likes it. 

“Patch called me.” The scarred man - Diego? - informs the woman, who immediately frowns at the Boy. He hunches his shoulders in a little. “I think he had an episode or something, I dunno. He’s acting weird.”

Somehow or another he’s ushered into the kitchen. There’s even more people in there. There’s a lot of people in this house. There’s another woman, who is short and mousy. She gives him a small smile when he enters. There’s a man as well, tall and broad and scary looking. The Boy tries not to look him in the eyes.

There’s fussing and suddenly everyone is sitting down at the table except for the Boy. 

He shuffles his feet, and all eyes are on him, and he has to speak he has to. He’s here. It’s important. He hasn’t been asked a question, but the other homeless people didn’t hurt him for talking, so. It’s a risk he’s going to have to take.

“Uh,” He says, voice small and eyes darting around the room, “Where’s - I mean. Where’s Five?”

“What do you mean where’s Five?” Klaus exclaims, looking confused. Everyone is looking confused. 

“I want - uh, I’d like to meet him. If he’s here.” The Boy stumbles, and he knows it’s a misstep to says words like want and like but it’s the truth.

The scarred man has slowly put his hand to the knives still strapped to his body, looking especially alert. It kind of makes the Boy want to run in the opposite direction, “Are you saying you aren’t Five?”

“He jumped from the car!” Klaus protests, looking from a single point in thin air to the Boy and back again. Which means that Five can also jump? The idea that someone else has the exhilarating and terrifying ability to jump is somehow an incredible relief to the Boy. He’s not alone. Klaus looks the Boy directly in the eye with an intensity that has the Boy’s eyes darting away, “Are you having an episode right now?”

A few people at the table nod their heads as if agreeing but that’s not what the Boy wants. He’s so close. He shuffles his feet again. 

“I’m - I’m sorry. For not telling you at the station.” He finally offers, “Detective Patch called me Five, and then she called you, and just - please.” The sorry made them look alarmed but it’s the please that really gets everyone attention and Diego has drawn a knife that he holds loosely in his hand. 

There’s a flash of blue off to the side and suddenly the Boy is looking in a mirror and his mirror image stiffens in alarm. Another small flash and his doppelganger has a knife in his hand as well, face twisted into a snarl.

“Who the hell are you?” The boy who must be Five bites out.

The Boy’s eyes dart around the room. Everyone’s standing now, moving automatically to stand behind Five, recognizing him as the real deal. 

“I’m - I’m the Boy.” The Boy says, and the fact that all of the faces react in a weird way make the Boy wonder what that’s all about. “I think - I think you’re my brother?”

Well that sets the cat among the chickens.

It takes a while, but eventually they all gather in the living room and the Boy is sat on one of the comfortable couches and Five is across from him peppering him with questions.

“You - you came from the Commission, too, right?” The Boy interrupts hesitantly.

Five frowns, “Sort of. Not in the way you did, I imagine. I worked for the Commission.”

The Boy nods, and pulls out the picture that he kept. The one with security footage and the very first inkling that he might not be so terribly alone in the world. Five plucks the picture out of his hands, and the Boy pretends it doesn’t give him anxiety. 

“The report said status: unknown.” The Boy tells Five as if he doesn’t already know, but the nerves keep the words coming. “Which means - which meant you didn’t die. They always told me I was the only one that survived but - but they lied! You’re here! You’re like me!”

“I don’t understand.” The big man - Luther, apparently - says, crossing his arms. The Boy almost forgot he was there for a moment (stupid) and flinches. “Where did the new Five come from?”

Five shrugs, “Alternate timeline, maybe? Steal me as a baby and raise me as a Commission weapon?”

The Boy blinks. Does Five not know? Not know they were grown in a lab? Maybe Five never knew about the possibility of siblings?

“The Scientists grew us.” He tells the man, because if he has more information then he has to share it. “The - The DNA was uh, unstable though. ‘Cause of the jumping. So they kept failing. Except then they succeeded! They said I was the only success but they lied.”

There’s a heavy silence in the room.

It’s broken by Five, who looks at the Boy with a sort of softness that the Boy gets the feeling isn’t all that common. 

“They didn’t lie.” He tells the boy softly, as if he isn’t dismantling the Boy’s entire world view. “You said they had DNA, right? That DNA had to come from somewhere, right?”

The Boy processes that, and suddenly he can’t believe he was so stupid. Of course he had to come from somewhere. There had to be an original. And the Handler’s comments about five point two make a stupid amount of sense.

“But - ” The Boy stutters, shoulders hunching, “But your name is Five? That’s an experiment name.”

There’s some kind of reaction going on in the background, but the Boy only has eyes for Five, his - his original?

Five just nods, “I wasn’t a Commission experiment, but the man who took me and raised me - he didn’t think of me as a person, either. And when I worked for the Commission, they were - interested in my abilities.”

So the Commission stole an experiment. Tried to recreate an experiment they didn’t own. The Boy was a copy of something that wasn’t supposed to belong to the Commission in the first place.

“I came from you.” The Boy says, slowly, looking at his feet as he turns the thought around in his head. “Does - does that make us... still family?”

There’s a heavy silence.

It makes the Boy nervous enough to just blurt out his thoughts. “I don’t - I don’t want to go back! They’re scared of you. Please, I won’t bother anybody - you won’t even know I’m here, I promise.”

Because that report had told the agents to be wary, to be careful, to not cross Number Five. The Commission didn’t mess with Five, and if the Boy stayed close then that meant they probably wouldn’t try get him back, right?

Suddenly there’s a weight next to him and an arm slung over his shoulder and he’s still as a board as he whips his head to look around at - Klaus?

“Aw kid,” Klaus coos at him, and even though the proximity is weird it’s also kind of nice? Klaus squeezes his arm and for some reason it doesn’t feel like a threat. “We’re not gonna make you go back, right guys?” Everyone mumbles their agreement, though Five stays silent.

“You’re Five-o’s clone, right? And if Five’s family that automatically gives you a free pass as family as well!” Klaus grins, “I know you only expected one sibling, but mi familia es su familia, ey?”

And somehow, that’s that. It’s agreed that the Boy gets to stay and there’s a flurry of activity and somehow throughout it all Five sticks around just enough to ease a little bit of the Boy’s anxiety. 

It’s not going to solve the Commission problem, and every time the Boy brings up something about his life at the Commission or is confused about something mundane the family’s heart break a little bit more, but honestly their entire family existence has been a wild roller coaster of a ride so this might as well happen

and if Five is furious enough at the highkey violation of getting an unauthorized clone and decided that maybe it’s time once and for all to get rid of the Commission well. Dismantling a shady government organization is practically what passes for family bonding to them all, right?

[zmwrites]

1, 5, 11, 21?

thank you, sumayyah!! (have i mentioned how happy i am that you’re back? bc i am v happy.)

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

a lot of my contemporary romances, actually! they intimidate me bc i intend for them to be new adult and deal with heavier issues and have Actual Sex Scenes. except as someone who doesn’t have any experience w dating or anything of the sort, i’m terrified i’m going to get it wrong. i definitely keep pushing those to the back-burner just bc i’m not sure if i’m ready to write them yet. (also bc i know i have to change so much bc they all started as iw au stories shhhh don’t tell anyone.)

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

probably jordan caixisys from indigo wars, tbh. she originated in a ‘modern fake dating au’ i wrote for my critique partner bc nat wanted a certain character to have a love interest (hence the super modern first name). then i started thinking about how she would fit into the iw world and suddenly i had fae and blood debts and this angry, damaged, hurt young woman who wouldn’t let anyone get close to her.

she’s evolved so much from that au, but dang am i glad she’s around.

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

i’m proud of how far my ability to blend world building into the narrative has come! i still have a long way to go before it’s anywhere near seamless, but it’s improved SO MUCH from when i started writing.

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

if i go to really old stuff, i do cringe a bit bc i’ve improved so much from then. i’m incredibly proud of the kid who sat down and decided to write a novel, but she had so much to learn.

if it’s on the recent end of “older” i mostly want to go back to the plots i was working on. i still intend to get back to all of them eventually. there are a lot of really cool sci-fi projects i had but temporarily abandoned to focus on my fantasy projects.

[get to know your author asks]

[hbwbyniall]

The Letter Club

This a Sherlock AU, it’s also @fuckanarry ‘s fault so she had to help me with the corrections. This took me forever bc my life is a mess and I think I just became an adult this year so I’m constantly suffering.

Enjoy!

His walking stick resonates in the entire abandoned warehouse as he walks in and Niall wonders if he’s really this stupid. One second he was walking down London streets and the next public phones start ringing wherever he stands until he picks up and this mysterious voice of a woman demands him to get into a car that appears out of nowhere to take him to this empty place with the only indication of walking straight by a woman dresses in a suit with tattoos covering her hands and arms.

He's not intimated, he's just curious and a bit impressed. Perhaps h33e wants to meet the person capable of using security cameras and public phones at their will, he especially wants to know what a person like that would want with a person like him. Niall leans his weight on the walking stick to speed up his steps until he sees a silhouette at the end of the hallway.

It’s a woman leaning on a closed umbrella with her other hand on her waist. As Niall gets closer, he gets a better look at her. She’s beautiful in a way that makes his bones tremble and his feet trip, her eyes are cold and stoic, her skin is fair and Niall can see some freckles behind the makeup and the red lips. She’s also young, way younger than he expected by the sound of her voice on the phone, assuming it was her voice.

So, he immediately starts looking for a way out:  he tries to calculate the distance between the center of the place, the door he just entered from and the door behind the woman; he tries to think how fast he can be with a defective knee and how much damage would he need to make to get out of danger. He moves slowly, taking all in before, remembering the feeling, the spark of adrenaline running down his spine, his brain working full speed and the smirk he's trying to hide.

Her dark green eyes follow him until he stands in front of her and a single chair in the middle of the open space. He clears his throat. Her hair goes down to her shoulders and looks like a brown wavy cascade that moves elegantly at the slightest head movement. Her hand falls into the left pocket of the black suit pants. She opens her coat with the other hand, holding the umbrella under her fingers and Niall can see the black and white jacket.

She's rich. He can tell by the way her hair shines on the top of her head to the expensive high heels with the red coloring part at the back. He also knows by the way she's looking at him, examining him. Niall loses up the collar of his shirt and puts both hands on the handle of his walking stick.

“Sit down, John," she says with the same refined tone he heard on the phone just moments ago.

"You know," Niall says looking around him, “I’ve got a phone.” He tilts his head to the right to get a better look of the woman in front of him. “I mean, very clever and all that,” he smiles with the same arrogance he sees in her face, “But you could’ve just called me.”

“When one is avoiding the attention of Sherlock Holmes,” she smiles, looking at her feet and Niall’s smile slowly start to fade away. How does she know Harry? “One learns to be discreet.”

Niall looks around him, then. He is in some kind of warehouse and it’s completely empty besides for the two of them standing in the middle of a large room and the car that drove Niall here, which is waiting to return him behind him, according to what that lady with the tattoos; Louise, Niall remembers when she introduced herself; said. The lights are on but the place smells like it's been washed with rainwater and Niall's starting to get a stuffy nose.

“Your knee must be hurting you. Sit down,” she says again, pointing at the chair behind him with her hand but Niall doesn’t move.

“I don’t want to sit down," Niall answers, not breaking eye contact as she smirks. “Who are you?” he finally asks.

“Who I am is not important right now,” she says, looking directly at his eyes with a smile. “I’m more interested in your relationship with Sherlock Holmes.”

“What do you have to do with Harry?” Niall replies with a question and her whole facial expression changes.

She slowly frowns, letting every single part of face fall as she looks at Niall like she’s seeing him for the first time. Maybe Niall accidentally found a weak spot, something the person in front of him didn't expect him to know, but he can't figure out what exactly it was. That is probably due to the fact of how hard he's trying to not look nervous or freak out right now, but if there's anything he has learned in the last couple of days then he should start getting used to this kind of thing.

"So you call him Harry," she says and Niall can hear the surprise in her voice. "Only a few people call him that.” And he doesn’t know if she’s whispering to him or to herself.

The woman clears her throat and looks to her right holding the umbrella with both hands. She's smiling again, but it's a different smile; it's calm and almost imperceptible like it's a secret.

“What’s your connection with Sherlock Holmes?” she asks again and Niall physically steps back.

"I don't have one," Niall answers, eager for clearing his throat too but not letting himself show any type of weakness, even if it’s over something he cannot control. “I barely know him,” he explains and then Niall realizes he doesn’t know Harry at all. “I met him… a few days ago.”

The woman laughs and Niall can see it in her eyes, she doesn’t believe it. But that’s the thing, Niall is not lying. Two days ago he was struggling to find an affordable place to live in London and the next day he bumps into Ed, an old friend, and he introduces him to Sherlock Holmes, who was looking for a flatmate, and then it was all a blur.

 Harry and Niall were having some breakfast in the restaurant of one of his acquaintances to talk about Baker Street, the rent and the requirements when Lestrade called him for a case. Harry asked him if he wanted to come along and Niall hasn't agreed to something that fasts in a long time. He knew very little about Sherlock Holmes but what he did know is that he works for the police solving cases which only a few other people know seemed to know.

“He’s not a public person.” Said Ed when he told him about Harry before introducing one to the other.

Niall studied with Ed Sheeran in an all-boys boarding school back in Ireland and for some reason, he bumped into him in a park in London after many years of not hearing about each other and after a bit of small talk, he said that he knows someone who’s also looking for a flatmate. Half an hour later, they're both standing in front of a Laboratory's door with Sherlock Holmes inside.

If he has to be honest, Niall didn’t believe a word Ed told him about Harry. Legends are always being exaggerated and even the name “Sherlock Holmes” sounded like an urban legend. So he wasn’t prepared at all for what was waiting on the other side of the door or how he felt completely unarmed and vulnerable in front of his eyes, because apparently, all he needed was a look to uncover Niall’s biggest secrets. He was intrigued.

So, while he didn’t get the chance to see him in the case he was working on when they met, he jumped on the opportunity of seeing the great Sherlock Holmes in action the moment he got that call while they were having breakfast.

Niall has been at war, worse than that, he has been an army doctor. He has seen the worst condition of the human body and has seen more pain than anyone can handle in a lifetime. Seeing the boy's body in that room reminded him of that and quiet surprised Lestrade that he didn’t react to it after Harry briefly introduced them. The truth is he wanted to puke, right there in front of everyone.

His shoes were missing, his face was smashed, his fingertips were severely damaged, and blood was everywhere. The smell of it was strong as well, it was on the floor, the walls, and the bed where he was lying. Lestrade called the crime scene a “mess”, Harry called it “interesting”.

Seeing him "in action" wasn't quite what he expected. He is quiet except when he tells people to move or not to touch certain things, but then he just observes and only talks to Lestrade. He only asked about the time of death and he did it looking at Niall who wasn't ready to be involved, thus it took him a couple of minutes to understand the fact that he was talking to him and to give him an answer.

After that he didn’t need much. He knew who found him – not the name of the person but he knew it was in the morning after the party ended by the owner of the house –, he also knew that the kid was wealthy and he came with companion, not just one person but a group, maybe some friends from university, and he also knew they left the crime scene somewhere around two in the morning. When he was done he left the room, leaving Lestrade taking notes and Niall standing in the middle of it, wondering if he just made all of it up or he really just needed a few looks at the room to figure it out.

 He knew things about Niall no one else could, like how he used only his first name and his last name when he was serving in the army instead of Niall because he thought he would be saving some part of himself he didn’t want to lose once he joined. He knew about his knees and how he used to play guitar by one glance at his nails. He knew about his brother’s alcoholism and how his wife left him just by looking at his phone and when he finally looked into his eyes, Niall felt like that man already knew everything that could be known about the Irish doctor and he felt exposed like never before.

Only then he asked him to call him Harry and meet at 221-B Baker Street.

“Mhmm,” the woman approaches him and the proximity of the dark green eyes makes Niall blink a couple of times until he can finally focus, “…and since yesterday you’ve moved in with him and now you’re solving crimes together.” Niall is starting to feel a bit dizzy. “Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?”

Who is this woman? “Who are you?” Niall asks again, louder this time.

"An interested party," she says this time, easily, like she has answered that question a hundred times before.

“Interested in Harry? Why?” Niall steps forward but she doesn’t move, just crosses her arms under her breast and looks up at Niall, directly into his eyes. “I’m guessing you’re not friends,” he says slowly as he evaluates her reaction.

She laughs again but this times it’s more genuine, like Niall actually said something funny.

“You’ve met him.” She smiles at him, tilting her head to the side, looking at him condescendingly. “How many friends do you imagine he has?”

It's not the first time he has heard that in such a short amount of time. Harry seems to be surrounded by all these different kind of people and they all seem to want something from him. They rely on him but at the same time, he seems so… lonely. There’s something in his eyes, the void of any kind of emotions in the way he talks that makes Niall think he was the one in the war instead of him.

And that just makes him wonder more and more about the green eyes and the curly brown hair. The little things that disconcert him that somehow are out of Harry’s character, like the hidden smiles he has caught every time he deducts something and turns out to be right or how his hands go soft in his pocket after he gets something he wants, or how childish he is in general but hides it behind a cunning look on his face or his haughty tone of voice when he explains something not everyone understands.

Everyone around him finds him annoying, but Niall, he finds him fascinating and kind of amusing.

“I’m the closest thing to a friend that Sherlock Harrington Holmes is capable of having.” She interrupts his train of thought again and this time, Niall frowns.

“And what’s that?” Niall asks.

“An enemy.”

Niall freezes for a second to look into her eyes. She means it.

“An enemy?” he finds himself asking again and she nods.

“In his mind, certainly.” She uses the umbrella to support her weight again, stepping in the middle with her legs open and somehow, she looks even more intimidating than five seconds ago. "If you were to ask, he’d probably say his arch-enemy. He does love to be dramatic.” She laughs and for a second Niall thinks he sees fond in her eyes before the now familiar cold returns.

He does. Harry is quite dramatic which Niall can tell from the handful of times they have spent together so far. But now Niall is very confused. Who has an arch-enemy? What do you have to do to even have an enemy?

“And you don’t?” Niall asks looking at the empty space around them, trying to make a point. This whole charade, making public phones ring, moving surveillance cameras, black car picking him up in the middle of the street and an intimidating assistant that guides him into empty storage only to find a woman standing there with red lips and in a suit.

That’s a bit theatrical and Harry would love it. Niall can't help when the look on the woman's face breaks a little and she's about to say something but Niall's phone beeps and he takes it out of his pocket only to find a text from Harry.

Baker Street. Come at once if convenient. –H.

Niall clears his throat as he thinks what could have come up since he left Harry with Detective Inspector Lestrade and how long he’s been back home already.

“I hope I’m not distracting you,” she says to make herself notable again and Niall is grateful for it because he really doesn’t have the time or the head to ask himself why he just referred to Baker Street as home.

“Not distracting me at all,” he answers as he puts his phone back into his pocket but he can't quite shut out his thoughts now. Is Harry okay?

“Do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock Holmes?” Her voice is growing numb as she starts losing Niall's attention but somehow, that sentences make him frown, looking at her from a new perspective, one that makes him feel threatened.

“I could be wrong… but I think that’s none of your business,” Niall replies with a smile trying to imitate her posture, using his stick to do the trick.

“It could be,” she answers, plainly.

"It really couldn't," Niall replies and he's not liking where this is going. He can easily step down and go back to Baker Street to find out what it is that Harry needs from him but that would give him no answers about what he's doing here and who this woman is.

“If you do move into, ehm,” she puts her hand into her jacket and pulls out a red velvet notebook only to open it and read from it, “221B Baker Street,” and Niall freezes.

It shouldn’t really surprise him. Someone with the power of controlling street surveillance cameras and payphones is completely capable of finding out Harry's address, but for some reason his heart starts beating faster and he can feel his hands getting sweaty. He needs to get back to the flat now.

“I could pay you a meaningful sum of money on a regular basis to ease your way,” she finishes, putting back the notebook where it was at the beginning.

“Why?” he asks, trying not to show how nervous he’s getting.

“Because you’re not a wealthy man,” she says and if Niall can hear the mockery, he ignores it.

“In exchange for what?” Niall reiterates, even if it’s not necessary, even if he already knows the answer.

“Information.” She has that smile again, as if that explains it all. “Nothing indiscreet. Nothing you’d feel… uncomfortable with. Just tell me what he’s up to.”

She sounds so casual, like she’s just asking Niall if he wants milk with his tea or not and Niall wonders if everything in the world of the one percent is that easy. She has money, anyone can tell. She has also power, Niall has seen it before, the way how those kind of people carry themselves. He has seen it in the army, he has seen it as a doctor and he can see it right now, in front of him with a raised eyebrow and red lips.

And now this woman is trying to use her money to do… what? Hurt Sherlock Holmes?

“Why?” He asks because he wants to know before he walks away.

“I worry about him. Constantly,” she says it so seriously; Niall almost believes her.

“That’s nice of you,”he laughs.

She ignores his jab and keeps talking. “But I would prefer for various reasons that my concern goes unmentioned. We have what you might call a difficult relationship.”

Niall doesn’t have the time to ask if they actually have some kind of relationship or if one of them is obsessed with the other one because that’s what it all looks like at this point. His phone vibrates again before he can even open his mouth and he takes it out of his.

If inconvenient, come anyway. –H.

“No,” he finally answers, still looking at his phone and writing a quick reply.

“But I haven’t mentioned a figure,” she says slightly smirking with a mocking tone in her voice.

"Don't bother," Niall says putting his phone back into his pocket.

She looks at him then and crosses her arms. Niall has seen that look on her face before too. She thinks he's stupid, or too naïve, or something else that could make him weak or a liability. His brother had the same look on his face after Niall left his parents' house to enroll in the army, his general had the look on his face when he joined the field operations as a rescue doctor. At least, he proved one of them wrong.

But the thing is, he doesn’t need to prove anything to this woman. There’s a high possibility he won’t see her again and he’s okay with that. This whole thing has been too odd and he no longer thinks his life or Harry’s are in danger. At least for now. She can certainly do whatever she wants and get away with it, but there’s something in her eyes and in the way she talks that tells Niall that she wouldn’t actually hurt Harry.

Or maybe war hasn’t fucked him up as badly as he thought and he’s still seeing the best in people, especially the worst kind of people.

“You’re very loyal, very quickly.” She sounds surprised and Niall can already see the pity in her eyes and hear the incredulous tone on her voice. She thinks he’s too naïve, then.

“No, I’m not,” he replies, holding his walking stick even tighter in his fist, “I’m just not interested.”

She pulls out her little notebook and Niall has had enough so he turns around and starts walking, leaving whatever the hell this place is and trying to find out how to get to Baker Street.

“Trust issues…says here.” Her voice makes him stop and slowly turn back around.

There's a couple of notes on yellow paper that she took out of the notebook and which she's now holding in her other hand, and he recognizes those too well.

“What’s that?” he asks anyway, swallowing the lump in his throat.

“Could it be that you’ve decided to trust Sherlock Holmes of all people?” She frowns, putting the notes back into the notebook and the notebook into her pocket.

Niall doesn’t move from where he’s standing. The place seems to be even more empty than it was seconds before, if that's even possible. Maybe is the way her words seem to be echoing not only in his head but also resonate in his feet, like it hit the walls and fell into the floor. Somehow, she seems bigger from far away; here she's almost a blur of red and black and white. Niall is starting to think he is seeing things.

He doesn’t trust Harry, it’s not like that. He is just amazed by him and how he seems to know what he’s talking about, where he’s going and what to do in the darkest and creepiest scenarios Niall has seen in the city since he came back. And Niall just… follows him. He hears him talk and doesn’t get offended when Harry insults his average intelligence. That’s all he has done so far and for some reason that has concerned a few people.

“Who says I trust him?” Niall says, leaning his head to the side, his eyes resting on where she keeps the small red velvet notebook.

“You don’t seem the kind to make friends easily.” It doesn’t sound like a question. She asks but it doesn’t sound like a question. She knows it which means she has investigated him too and in another lifetime she would be wrong, but Niall is not the same person he was eight years ago, he is barely a shell from that man.

“Are we done?” Niall clears his throat and put his hands into his coat pockets.

“You tell me.” She walks up to him and her steps resonate in the space, making Niall count the distance between them in steps until she stands in front of him, not that far apart, looking as intimidating as the first moment, just a few minutes ago, when Niall saw her in the middle of the room, standing alone with an umbrella and a red lips turning into a smile, “I imagine people have already warned you to stay away from him, but I can see from your left hand that’s not going to happen.”

“My what?” Niall frowns, making his fist tighter in his pocket.

“Show me.” She gets closer and Niall steps back.

“Don’t.” He stops her by putting the walking stick between them.

She raises her hands up to her chest and Niall takes a couple of seconds to calm his breathing before taking his hand out of his pocket and extending it to her.

"Remarkable." She gently touches his hand and looks intensely at his palm, his knuckles, and his bitten nails.

“What is?” he asks, taking his hand from her to put it in his pocket again.

"Most people… blunder around this city and all they see are streets and shops and cars.” She’s not looking at him anymore, she’s walking around with her eyes on the walls, the floor, the metal doors. “When you walk with Sherlock Holmes, you see a battlefield.” She turns to him then and points at him with her umbrella, “You’ve seen it already. Haven’t you, Niall?”

“What’s wrong with my hand?” he asks again because she seems to know what she’s talking about.

“You have an intermittent tremor in your right hand." Niall nods. He already knows that, his doctors told him that the second he came back, that's not news, but he waits until she's happy enough with the dramatic pause she’s doing as she stands in front of Niall, her face close to his but Niall doesn’t move. “Your therapist thinks its post-traumatic stress disorder.” Niall flinches and he hates the fact that she took him by surprise. “She thinks you’re haunted by memories of your military service.”

“Who the hell are you? How do you know that?” Now it’s him who gets closer but she evades him as easily.

“Fire her.” She smiles at him. “She’s got it the wrong way round. You’re under stress right now and your hand is perfectly steady. You’re not haunted by the war, Dr. Watson… You miss it.”

She walks past him to the door behind him, leaving Niall standing alone with his breathing getting faster and memories he’s trying to suppress crashing into him.

“Welcome back.” He hears her voice getting more and more distant. “Time to choose a side, Dr. Watson.” And then, the door closes.

*

When Niall finally returns to Baker Street, he finds Harry in a robe, lying on his back on top of the old stinky green couch with both hands over his lips and his eyes closed. Niall takes a look around the flat to see it in the same condition he left it in: stacks of paper over the desk against the windows, boxes of files scattered in the floor, and the strange aromas coming from the refrigerator.

Harry doesn’t look harmed or in pain and everything seems to be in its place.

“What’s the inconvenience?" Niall asks, getting out of the coat and hanging it on the coat rack next to the door.

“Can you hand me my notebook?” Harry replies without moving a muscle.

Niall frowns and looks around to see his rose gold laptop resting in the coffee table next to the couch. He could spread his arm and just take it.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Harry opens one eye only to see Niall standing in the middle of the living room with both hands on his hips, looking funny with the frown on his face, but his face is starting to get red so Harry closes his eye again until he feels a weight drop on top of his stomach, which briefly takes his breath away. That's going to leave a bruise. He takes his laptop from his abdomen and opens his eyes to access to his mail.

“You made me come here because you wanted me to pass you the stupid laptop? I thought you were in trouble! Or some kind of emergency came up!” Niall speaks loudly, not fully yelling but getting there.

Harry sits up slowly, really looking at Niall instead of the screen for the first time since the latter walked in. He’s been walking in the rain, somewhere outside the city by the mud on his shoes, maybe some abandoned warehouse or storage by the humidity of hair. Harry bites down his smile because he knows exactly what just happened to him.

"I told you to come if it wasn't inconvenient," Harry replies, calmly.

“And then you told me to come if it was inconvenient, anyway!” He’s still mad but not as much as a couple of seconds ago, which is good.

"There's been a breakthrough in the case," Harry says with barely any interest in his tone, "They finally identified the body."

The look on Niall’s face changes completely. He turns to the sofa he has claimed as his as his and sits down to face Harry. "Well, that was fast," Niall says and Harry nods.

He takes his phone out of his pocket and sees a bunch of red notifications coming from the chat bubble with Lestrade’s name on it but he ignores it. If it’s urgent he’d send a mail, Lestrade knows that. Instead he opens the autopsy report to confirm what he already knew the moment he saw the faceless bloody mess in downtown.

“Dylan McKlein,” Harry says.

“McKlein?” Niall asks in disbelieve. “As in the guy that owns a bunch of Biogenetic Laboratories?”

Harry nods again, “More like the son.” He closes the laptop and leaves it on the coffee table to stand up and walk to his room the moment he gets Lestrade’s email asking him to come down to Scotland Yard.

“I met a woman today,” he hears Niall say from the living room, where he’s standing up from the armchair as well.

“Congratulations?” Harry asks, leaving his door open as he takes his black pants and a plaid shirt from his closet.

“Not like that.” Niall enters the room, taking a second to look at Harry changing clothes before clearing his throat. “She offered to pay me to spy on you.”

Harry laughs, putting the pants on and bottoming up the shirt. “Did you accept?”

“No…” Niall doubts, skeptical, offended even.

"Too bad. We could've used the money.” Harry passes him as he walks to the living room to get his coat. He opens the door but stops when he doesn’t hear steps rushing up behind him. “Lestrade need us at the Scotland Yard.”

“I’m wearing the same clothes as yesterday,” Niall offers as an explanation of his temporal inability of movement.

“It’s not my fault you’re too slow at moving in.” Harry takes Niall’s coat from the rack to walk to him and make him put it on arm by arm.

“I haven’t decided if i want to move in yet,” he says, making Harry stop to look him into his eyes.

“We both know you have.”

And with that, Harry disappears through the door frame and down the staircase. Niall follows behind, but not before swearing under his breath.

*

The place is upside down when they get there. Everyone is running from one side of the room to the other, phones are ringing, and they can see Liam in his office through the glass walls. He’s talking to what seems to be a married couple and their daughter. The man is screaming and Liam is trying to calm them down but it doesn’t look like it’s working. That’s the moment when Harry decides to make his way through the current chaos to get to Lestrade’s office.

And that’s the thing about Harry, it’s the way he moves into the masses, the way he walks with his hands in the pockets of his black coat and the collar up, always with that fake intense look in his eyes and the small smirk he thinks no one sees, the way he never greets anyone but is always aware of every person in the room, the way he provokes people only to get a reaction because he can see underneath the surface; he can tell when someone is lying or the moment they make a decision. Maybe that’s how he knew Niall wanted to move into Baker Street, even before he knew it himself, and somehow he’s okay with it.

When Niall sees the two women start crying and the man holding them both, he tries to grab Harry by the arm to stop him from going into the office because Liam obviously just told them the news about their son but unfortunately he’s not fast enough because Harry is already stepping into the office and he’s right there behind him.

Everyone looks up at them but Harry's expression doesn't change when he makes eye contact with the father, he only starts walking in the room, behind the desk until he stands in front of the big window facing the street. Niall stands awkwardly next to the door ready to leave this place once Harry is ready to go. When he’s done with his thing where he stands in the corner of the rooms to look at people and make deductions only he could make, from facial expressions, tones of voice or even the condition of the clothes.

Niall’s brain can’t quite get it yet but he’s getting used to it.

Liam is explaining how they found their son's body in a room of the house where the party was taking place last night. The cause of death wasn't too hard to guess: several traumatisms to the head with a golf club, according to the autopsy. Lots of blood and no fingerprints, and interestingly enough not one of the over eighty guests on the first floor saw or heard anything. The time of death is somewhere around two and four in the morning. He was found by the owner of the house at six in the morning when he was going to sleep in his bedroom.

He was positioned in a fetal position, bruises on his arms and thighs and his black shirt was missing some buttons from the struggle. Niall examined him when he arrived with Harry that morning, his face was unrecognizable and his fingertips were cut in a half to make the process more difficult and from what Harry said, he wouldn’t have a criminal record to compare DNA, but apparently, he was wrong.

“…We were able to identify him by his hair; he was in the system,” Liam explains as he takes a file from his desk to read the charges.

“What?!” The man takes the file from his hands and starts reading it. “Drunk driving?”

That’s when the young woman starts crying harder, gaining her father’s attention.

“It was my fault,” she sobs. “About two months ago he called around three in the morning to get someone to pick him up from a police station but you were already sleeping so…" Her mother starts rubbing her back and she takes a couple of seconds to breathe, "I just went there and paid the bill, I didn't think about a record, I-"

“It’s okay,” Gregory McKlein says, throwing the file on the desk to kiss his daughter on the forehead instead.

Niall looks down because he feels like he’s intruding on something private, and he is. They shouldn’t be here, at least not now when these people look so vulnerable and in pain. Niall understands pain, he lives with it every day just like everyone else. Happiness is just stolen moments with the abstinence of pain. And maybe even Harry understands that because he starts walking to him, to the door and Niall is already turning his body to leave the office as well when he steps back and points at the daughter.

“When were you adopted?” Everyone goes silent and Niall can’t swallow suddenly.

And this is how the magic of Sherlock Holmes works. The world stops and the time slows down. Niall can see the change almost immediately: the air feels heavier and the breathing gets deeper. He can see the anger building up in people's eyes and knuckles being pressed so hard they turn white. That’s also one of many talents that he has discovered from Harry: he infuriates people, a lot. He makes them angry and scared so he always gets a response. But that’s a thin line and Niall is afraid one day he’s going to overstep it.

He wonders if Harry can hear the peoples' heartbeat just like he seems to actually be able to read minds. Maybe he can and maybe the sound of those thoughts is too loud that it makes him carry their pain too, making him the way he is. The father looks back at Harry and the mother slowly opens her mouth in shock. It feels like Harry just dropped a bomb in the middle of the room and everyone is waiting for it to explode. Niall only hopes for Harry to step back, but he already knows it won’t happen.

“What…?” she whispers and Harry steps closer to her.

“Not as a kid, obviously, you don’t feel completely comfortable around them…so, a teenager?” Harry is looking right in her eyes but the mother puts her arm around her so she steps back and the father stands in front of him instead. "You also have an assembly to the woman, is it… a brother? No, a sister. You’re her sister’s daughter, she’s your aunt.” He smiles, putting both hands in his pockets.

Niall walks in to grab Harry by the arm and out of the room, but he’s not moving.

“Excuse me?” The man yells trying to hold back the tears that are threatening to spill over. “Who are you?”

Harry stands up straight, slowly rising to his full height. He is as tall as the man in front of him and he has that petulant look on his face that Niall is starting to recognize. That’s when Liam steps in, making himself a barrier between the two of them.

“This is Sherlock Holmes and his colleague Dr. John Watson,” Liam clears his throat. “They’re consultants of the Scotland Yard.”

Niall knows this is Liam trying to save himself because ‘how else could two civilians be in the office of the Detective Inspector if they’re not related to a case?’ He shouldn't be surprised by Lestrade's reaction but he is, especially because he doesn't feel really useful following Harry around and giving his opinion on things he doesn't really need an opinion for, plus they have medical examiners that could easily do a better job than Niall, but he wants to be selfish because he wants this job or whatever the hell it is that Harry does. He likes it, he likes the adrenaline running through his veins and the way his brain works under pressure and that he always has a response for anything Harry says and how important this is, even if Harry doesn't see it himself.  

He also doesn't miss the little smirk on Harry's face after Liam stands up for him or how he included Niall like they're some kind of package deal now. Niall can see it on his face when he turns to him for a quarter of a second.

We both know you want this.

Niall is starting to hate those green eyes.

“I don’t want them anywhere near this investigation,” the man tells Liam, stabbing his finger on his chest.

Harry starts walking into the room again, with his eyes on the ceiling and his hands inside his pockets.

"But you do," Harry says behind McKlein as he looks at the women sitting on Liam's couch. "If you want to catch your son’s killer, I mean."

McKlein turns to him again. Niall can see the redness of his neck from where he’s standing. He’s furious.

“Do you have any idea who I am?” he says in disbelieve.

That’s when Harry laughs, loudly and rough. “I know you work with bacteria and you probably have the next epidemic, which can easily be used for a biologic attack, freezing under a hundred degrees celsius in one of your laboratories.” The man stands still, almost stepping back and blinking a couple of times. “Oh, you do.”

Harry puts the collar of his coat up and walks to the door.

"Send all the information regarding those projects." He turns to look at McKlein. "I mean all of it: from bank accounts to daily schedules. Don't make me have Watson hack into your services."

And then he walks out of the office, making Niall clear his throat and run after him to catch up.

“You are aware I don’t know how to hack, right?” Niall asks as Harry presses the button to call the lift.

“Of course I am,” Harry says when the lift doors open in front of them. “But he isn’t.”

Niall enters the lift the moment a smile appears on Harry’s face.

*

“Why do you never introduce yourself as Harry?”

They’re in the living room. Harry is reading the newspaper and Niall has been sitting in the chair for way too long now going through the boxes of files that McKlein sent over to Scotland Yard and writing down names and dates, not knowing exactly what it is Harry’s looking for.

He looks up, bending a piece of the paper to see Niall sitting in front of him. The light comes through the window and falls on Harry’s hair and Niall just remembers they haven’t had breakfast yet. He looks down at the paper in his lap only to not look at Harry right now. He has this lump in the middle of his throat every time Harry does this thing where he looks at him and stops doing whatever he is doing and everything on his face seems to stop moving as well.

And Niall doesn't understand it. He doesn't know why he feels this need of moving his hands to distract him from looking at his face or why his neck feels warmer or his feet start taping the floor or why his mouth feels dry and his heart starts beating a bit faster, so he ignores it.

“I don’t use that name very often.” He returns to his reading as if that heavy moment didn't even happen.

“Then, why did you ask me to call you that?” Niall doesn’t know where that question came from but now he needs to know the answer.

“I like how it sounds when you say it,” he says, turning to the next page and reading the title.

Niall goes quiet. He dares to look at him for just a second, at his profile illuminated but the light coming from the window, his fingers holding the paper and his crossed legs as he sits even further in the chair.

“Do you like an Irish accent?” Niall laughs, dropping one file to the floor and picking another one from the top of the box next to him.

"No," Harry answers, looking at him again. "I like yours."

Niall opens the mouth to say another joke that would make him stop feeling so conscious about himself or so aware of Harry’s presence so close to him when Ms. Hudson walks in holding a plate with two cups of tea, sugar, and milk, so he only clears his throat and stands up to help her clear the tea table next to Harry. He drops the bunch of files that he hasn’t touch yet to the floor next to his feet and put the mugs on the table as Ms. Hudson walks downstairs again.

Harry is a quiet person, the reflexive type. He stands or sits in one place for as long as he needs for his brain to navigate that giant web of his, connecting ideas and places and remembering dates or names as if time would wait for him. Niall’s a lucky person; he doesn't know Harry that well but he doubts there's anyone on this earth that confidently could say they know Sherlock Holmes. Niall highly doubts anyone else knows he's also named Harry.

Then, why him? Why would Harry tell him these parts of his life? Why does he feel so strange around him but Harry seems so unbothered? Why does Niall feel like that he can see the man behind the façade he portraits? They haven't spent much time together, they haven’t even talked a lot but somehow Niall knows exactly what Harry means by a look or a single phrase, and it’s funny because Niall has met a lot of people in the course of his life, but hasn't understood anyone the way he gets Harry.

So, when Niall sees he's taking too long reading just one page, he turns to look at the files next to his feet and he realizes it's already ten in the morning and Harry's still in his silky pajamas.

“Why haven’t you picked up a single box since Lestrade came to drop these?” Niall asks, putting sugar and milk in his cup of tea.

“Because the answer is not in any of those boxes," Harry answers, finally turning the page. Niall points at the sugar and he shakes his head, so he takes his cup and walks to the chair to sit.

“What do you mean?” Niall takes a sip, it’s still a bit hot but it’s good enough for Niall to put up with.

“He wasn’t killed because of some bacteria.” Harry finally gives up with the newspaper and throws it somewhere behind him, “He was killed by revenge, poetic justice, call it whatever you want.” He stands up and stretches in front of the chimney.

“Anyone of these people could’ve wanted revenge,” Niall says, as he walks up to Harry. He leaves his unfinished cup on the top of the chimney to pick up a file he left in the important pile at his right. “Fired scientists, accountants, even his partner,” Niall notes, handing him the file.

"He wasn't killed because of his father," Harry responds, ignoring Niall completely as he starts walking into the room. Niall follows his movements with his eyes.

“Then, why did you ask for all of this?” he asks when Harry finally stops in front of that yellow smiley face drawn in the wall with three bullet holes in it.

Harry gets bored easily.

“To distract them,” he answers as he turns to face Niall, using that condescending tone of his, as if that was a well-known fact by everyone. “False sense of security,” he explains, after looking at Niall for a bit too long.

Distract them from what? Finding the real killer of their son? Why would Harry want that, if not -?

“You think his father did it?” Niall says, slowly approaching Harry and standing next to him in front of the wall.

It's empty now but Niall doubts that will be its state for too long. When he first got in the flat the wall was covered in pictures, newspaper and web articles, and they were connected by red threads going from one side of the wall to the other. Harry was in the middle of solving this huge case that took him a week, he barely ate or slept according to Ms. Hudson and Niall only came at the end of it, he wasn't of much help even if Harry told him his "contributions were quite fruitful".

“No.” He touches his chin as if he’s thinking about how to put out another criminal collage on his wall.

“Then who?” Niall asks turning his body to look at Harry’s profile.

“I don’t know yet,” he answers as if it wasn't a big deal like they ran out of milk and he has to go and get some eventually.

Niall wishes he wouldn’t have to look at Harry in disbelief that often, but he does because Harry doesn’t tell him what’s on his mind at any moment. He just tells him what he wants him to do or say when it’s necessary, and apparently this wasn’t one of those times.

"Wait," Niall says looking around him to the pile of unopened boxes and the already read files near his chair that he spent all day yesterday going through. "Why did I go through those boxes if there's nothing of value there?!"

"I didn't ask you to do that," Harry answers, looking at Niall as if he lost his mind. "You picked them up and started reading the files."

“Why didn’t you tell me to stop?” he asks again, trying to remain calm and not think about the zero sleep he got last night.

“Why would I do that?” Harry looks at him in bewilderment. “We’re waiting for Lestrade to call me about the friends anyway.” Weirdly enough, Harry’s phone rings right before Niall can ask for an explanation. Harry answers his phone, nods a couple of times and then he goes to his room to change. The next thing he knows, Harry is throwing him his coat and they're stepping out of Baker Street.

*

There are five kids sitting outside Lestrade's office when they get to Scotland Yard. They're young, around the age of the deceased and they seem to be scared. Niall has seen a lot of scared people in the last few years, he has seen the terror in faces and has heard the tears in someone's voice. These three women and two young men are a perfect example: two of the girls are crying but every single one of them seems to be trembling. They're looking at the lights above their heads, the floor, the rest of the officers, anything but each other.

Harry walks pass them not giving them a second look as he enters Liam’s office. He’s standing next to his desk and talking to someone on the phone when they step in. He points to the couch when he sees them and Niall goes to sit down but Harry stands right in front of Liam, separated only by the desk between them, and waits.

“Are they confessing?” Niall asks when Liam hangs up.

"No, but their lawyers are on their way, so if we want a confession we have to act fast," Liam says, looking outside his office and making eye contact with one of his officers, nodding at the interrogation room.

“You won’t get a confession,” Harry laughs, “Don’t be ridiculous, Lestrade.”

The officer approaches the kids sitting outside the office and guides them to the interrogation room.

“What do you mean?” Liam asks, checking his phone one last time but Harry doesn’t answer. Liam seems to be used to it because he just sighs before stepping out of the office with Harry and Niall walking behind him.

*

“So, let me get this straight…” Liam says slowly, “You found the body, got scared, left the party and burned your clothes with his blood on it and possibly evidence?”

The girl starts crying again, hysterically. Liam is really trying to conduct the interrogation to get something helpful but he’s getting nowhere. Harry and Niall are watching from a different, smaller room which is separated from the interrogation room through a one-way mirror.

The shaky blonde girl in front of them is called Shelly and she is the girlfriend of the deceased. Liam decided to interview every single one of them by himself, so the rest of the group is waiting outside. The girl was the first to find the body but she didn’t call an ambulance and if Niall has to be honest, he doesn’t understand why she would come here and incriminate herself. Eventually Harry would’ve found out about it, he already knew about some “friends” but the girl in front of them makes no sense.

She found the body, got covered in blood and stayed in the bedroom until her friends found her holding the deceased’s body and they all fled the scene without leaving any trace? And without being seen? Something is off and Niall can see Harry thinks the same by the way he frowns as he looks through the window. Maybe he’s trying to catch something in Shelly’s eyes, her trembling hands or her swallowing throat. Niall doesn’t know, the only thing he knows is that Harry is up to something.

“We had a fight earlier that day,” she says and it’s already looking bad for her. “He was supposed to pick me up from the dorms to go to the party but since we don’t talk when we fight I went on my own.” She breathes in a couple of times and Liam writes something down in his little notebook.

She takes a sip from the glass of water on the table. Her hands are not trembling like before but her face is still red from the crying and her blond hair is all over the place. Her eyes look like they were injected with some kind of substance and Niall almost feels sorry for her. She starts looking around her and Liam lets her for just a minute before clearing up his throat but it almost seems like it’s not necessary since she already has an answer on the tip her tongue.

“I saw him a couple of times on the party but I wanted him to come to me,” she’s looking at the door frame with lost eyes and an empty expression, “he never did, so when I saw he was going upstairs I thought he was going to screw some girl and I followed him. I lost him for a minute but when I finally found him, he-,” her eyes start watering again and Liam nods.

Liam pulls out the photos from the crime scene from the file over the table and puts them in front of her. She gasps and touches the picture with the body of Dylan McKlein.

“That’s how you found him?” Liam asks, as he buys her testimony.

She looks at Liam, confused and then she looks at the pictures again, pulling them closer to her and putting it in some kind of order as if she was drawing the room. Niall can’t see exactly what it is she’s doing from that side of the room but he can see her shaking her head.

“I never turned the lights on but he was lying on the bed,” she says, picking up two photographs. “he was lying on his stomach and I turned him over,” she sighs, “then I saw his face-,”

She sounds hurt but it’s not like in the beginning of the interrogation. She sounds concerned and methodic now and the tone of her voice is delicate as if her throat is sore but Niall can see it in her eyes now, he can see it in the way her fingers move all over the pictures trying to give one bit of sense of everything that’s going on, she wants to talk.

“The bedsheets-,” she puts the imagine of the empty and clean bed over the table and looks at it, in shock. “It was all covered in blood, I don’t-”

“Why didn’t you call an ambulance? The police?” Liam asks, taking the pictures from her hands.

She puts her head in her hands, her eyes still glued to the table where the pictures were a second ago. “I was scared, and then Oliver-,”

“Don’t say another word!” In that exact moment the door opens and everyone inside looks up to find a woman in a gray suit holding a briefcase. “I’m her lawyer,” she says looking at Shelly. “And you’re conducting a witness declaration in an interrogation room, detective inspector Lestrade.”

*

The wall is covered again. Photographs of the five friends in strategic points with their names on top top of their faces and Harry’s standing in front of it, looking for answers as the video of their interrogations play behind him on his laptop as a background noise. It’s been almost twenty hours since they’ve been in the flat after Lestrade’s call and neither of them have eaten, slept or showered.

Niall is tired and his vision is starting to get blurry every time he looks up to see the same five photos of the same five faces they have seen for twenty hours. He just wants to go to bed and call it a day but Harry hasn’t moved in two hours and Niall is worried he’s going to spend what’s left of the day in the same spot. So he stands up from the chair and walks up to Harry until he’s standing next to him.

“Isn’t it fascinating, Niall?” His voice is so filled up with emotion and it makes Niall slowly turn to see his face.

He’s smiling so big, just like a kid on Christmas morning about to open a pile of presents. His hands are in the pockets of his pants and he’s bouncing on his toes like he has pure excitement running though his veins.

“The board has never been so empty and yet so full of possibilities,” he says, his eyes going from one photo to the other.

“You do realize that it’s actually a wall, right?” Niall prefers to distract himself from the fact that Harry seems quite pleased at the moment. “It’s the main wall in our living room,” Niall repeats himself, turning his body entirely to face Harry, catching the way the smile on his face changes at his words.

“Our living room?” Harry asks, softly and for a second he looks like a normal thirty-something year old man wearing a robe in the morning, making Niall speechless.

“Why are you so surprised?” Niall says looking at the wall and ignoring the red of his own cheeks and the overwhelming feeling of Harry’s eyes on his face. “I already accepted living here.”

Harry laughs for what seems like the first time since Niall has met him. The sound is deep, coming from the back of his throat and released to the world in a light way, it’s captivating and that scares the shit out of Niall because he has never felt this way for a man before. He’s not stupid, he can recognize the itch on the tip of his fingers or the warm behind his neck, he’s familiar with the numb noise of his ears every time he talks or walks in the room, he has felt it before, but never for someone like Harry.

He doesn’t know what to do with this new information so he walks to the kitchen even though he knows there’s nothing that he could eat as breakfast, or any kind of meal if he has to be honest. Niall can hear Harry in the living room behind him, moving from one side to the other and talking to himself louder than he actually thinks.

It’s not the first time these kind of thoughts appeared on his mind, but that’s all they were, thoughts. It’s different now, the way he feels about Harry is just a confirmation of what he’s been knowing for a long time, and it feels great, it’s terrifying but it’s good. Liberating in some way. So when Niall comes back to the living room with two cups of tea he can’t help but smile at him.

“Why do you look so pleased?” Harry asks when he receives the cup of tea. “It’s like you already know where we’re going next.”

Niall laughs as he sits in the chair next to Harry’s and takes a sip. “Well, I don’t.”

“But I do,” Harry replies, lifting on eyebrow as he drinks the tea.

*

“Why are we here again?” Niall asks as he crawls down following Harry.

There are guards behind the building so he understands the need to not be seen. What he doesn’t understand on the other hand is why Harry had to wait till it was midnight to come to the university campus or why he didn’t just talk to Liam and ask for a warrant. Harry stands up facing the Dean’s office window, takes something from his pocket and forces the bolt until it finally opens. He looks around and steps in.

“Harry!” Niall whispers but he’s already inside, his flashlight pointing to different sections of the room, catching glances of everything.

Niall gives up and enters the room to find Harry sitting at the desk, turning the computer on.

“What are you doing?” He approaches, but Harry doesn’t answer, his eyes flicking across the screen and his fingers clicking non-stop are enough for Niall to know where his attention is.

Niall walks up to him to catch a look at the screen. For someone who understands so much about the world and interactions and deductions, Harry seems so oblivious to the simplest things.

“It needs a password, Harry,” Niall whispers into his ear, looking at the door in front of them, feeling that someone could find them at any second.

“A password, of course!” Harry whispers back and hands him the flashlight. “Show me the office.”

It takes him a second to understand what he needs but when he finally gets it he starts to point the flashlight to different parts of the room for Harry to see. After a couple of glances Harry sits down and writes a password. Niall doesn’t even ask when he guesses it right.

Niall sees him looking at the desktop, opening file after file until he finds, apparently, what he’s been looking for: Student Records.

“You are aware that Liam has the friends’ records, right?” he says to Harry when he sees him type the names only to find the same faces they have hanging on their wall.

“Not the ones I want,” Harry answers, printing page after page and making Niall more anxious than he ever thought he could be. And he’s been in war.

“Their first year? Why would you want the record of their first year?” Niall asks, confused.

But Harry can’t answer because he only has time to turn the monitor off and drag Niall under the desk when the door opens. Harry is calm, Niall can see it in his face just a couple of inches apart from his as he tries to control his own breathing. They’re close, too close to be comfortable but the guard is still in the room and his flashlight is searching the office.

Niall can feel Harry breathing on his neck and his hand on his waist keeping him from moving and for once, Niall is pretty grateful for the fact that he was so scared he closed the window after stepping into the office. It’s pretty quiet apart from the guard’s steps as he wanders through the room but Niall can swear the three of them can hear his heartbeat, going faster and faster, especially when Harry starts moving, like he’s trying to stand up. Niall takes his wrist to stop him the exact moment the guard closes the door.

Harry takes the pages and turns the computer off before taking Niall’s hand in his and leaving the Dean’s office.

*

It’s been two days and Liam’s stressed. Niall can understand the reason why. He has father come in every single day, yell at him, throw a few things at the wall, call him inept and then he leaves. That’s not a good environment for any kind of progress, especially if Liam’s board looks even close to as messy as Harry’s wall. The same photos, the same red string and the same interrogation points over faces, places, times and names.

The friends are not saying anything different from their first deposition. The same words and emotions on their faces as they recite the facts over and over again: The girlfriend, Shelly Reagan, found the body at around two in morning, and somehow, managed to not scream or move until Oliver Allister casually walked into the same room and found her holding Dylan’s head in her lap and then he contacted Isaac O’connor and Nina Maccioli, who finally called Audrey Scallo. Anc they did all of that without calling any attention to them. It’s almost like it was rehearsed, but the expression on their eyes when they tell it, when the explain the same details over and over again is not, Niall can see it through the glass, they’re in pain, they’re hurt and they all loved Dylan in their own way.

“Someone is here for the McKlein case, Sir.” A head pops into the office, making Liam turn to the detective’s voice. “A girl saying she’s been seeing Dylan for over three months.”

“He was cheating on her!” Liam immediately stand up and runs to the board with a red marker and circles the girlfriend’s face and connects it to the crime scene. “Everything about the crime scene… it was personal.” His eyes are shining with excitement, feeling like the case is finally being solved.

Liam’s whispering to himself before he picks up a file and follows the detective to the interrogation room. The room is left in silence, no one else moving, just the sound of breathing and maybe Harry’s brain doing his thing if Niall focuses enough. The thing is, he hasn’t said a word since they came into the office and Niall is a bit worried if he has to be honest. He doesn’t know what to expect when it comes to Harry, he never knows what’s he’s going to do or what he’s thinking of, let alone the reason for anything he does. He’s getting used to it, yes, but the feeling that he has to be alert and ready for anything at all times, that stills pretty fresh in the back of his head.

Niall is ready to go after Lestrade and the other detective when he notices Harry’s still sitting on the couch with no intentions of moving, which he finds odd. Harry is not the calm, sitting-in-one-spot kind of guy, not when he has a case between his fingers. But seeing him in that moment...it almost seems like he’s resting, sleeping with his eyes open even.

He hasn’t say much after they came back from the dean’s office and he hasn’t told him about the importance of the records he printed either. It’s not hanging on the wall or written down on notes connecting the dots. It’s just sitting over there on a table, almost like it’s mocking them.

“You don’t want to hear the interrogation?” Niall asks, surprised after hearing nothing but silence from Harry.

“Oh no, Liam is right, he was cheating on her,” he answers, absolutely calm, crossing his legs and placing his hands over his knees. “The girl wasn’t wearing the gold necklace she owns in several pictures shared on social media accounts from the night of the murder. At first I thought she lost it in when she found the body, but apparently she wasn’t wearing it for over two months at that point. She also didn’t dye her hair or get a manicure lately. She doesn’t look like someone who would be that negligent about herself, except when she didn’t see a point to it or even forgot about it because something else was occupying her mind.”

“You knew?” Niall asks in shock. “And you didn’t say anything?”

Is this the reason why they went to the university in the middle of the night? How did he find out? Niall has noticed, he’s not dumb, that Liam technically gives Harry everything that he wants or needs for the investigation. He’s also witnessed him ignore Harry’s insults and disobedience, and the only reason Niall guesses he allows it is because there’s no one else who can do what Harry can.

But keeping this kind of information from him? He’s not that sure anymore Harry deserves Liam’s trust.

“Lestrade doesn’t like my deductions without hard proof,” Harry answers as if he heard Niall’s thoughts. “I prefer to save my patience to explain simple things for you only.”

And there it is, the sarcasm and the satire on his voice, like he physically needs to remind everyone, everywhere that he is the smartest person in the room.  

“Liam is not gonna like this,” Niall says, choosing to ignore Harry’s previous comment.

“Who?” Harry asks, genuinely confused by the expression on his face.

Niall stops to look Harry directly in the eyes, trying to ask questions he doesn’t want Harry to answer out loud.

“Liam?” Niall says in return, pointing at the door where Liam’s name is written. “Lestrade?”

“Don’t you mean Leonard?” Harry answers.

“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

Harry shrugs and Niall opens his mouth to call him out but by the way he turns his entire body to face the whiteboard again he realizes it may not even matter. If Harry hasn’t learned his name after all those years, how would Niall be able to change that? It’s not that Niall doesn’t think Harry can change or improve, it just seems that no one around him has actual faith in it.

Niall sees Liam walking out of the interrogation room with a pleased expression on his face, looking like he just solved the entire case.

“The girlfriend didn’t do it.”

It’s the first thing Harry says the moment Liam steps into the office, slowly erasing the smile he just had on his face but the moment of sadness is replaced with an expression that Niall’s grown used to seeing on Liam’s face when Harry is involved: tiredness.

“Not right now, Holmes. I have a solid case.” Liam walks pass Harry to his desk and sits, leaving the file in front of him.

“You are better than that, Lestrade,” Harry says, approaching Liam from the other side of the office. “Some random girl saying she had kind of a relationship with McKlein wouldn’t be enough for you to consider a crime of passion.” He rests both of his hands on top of the desk in front of Liam.

Liam leans back, putting his hand on the back of his head and letting all the air inside his lungs out. He truly looks tired and Niall assumes Harry has a lot to do with it.

“How do you explain the letter, then?” Liam asks.

Harry steps backs like he’s counting his steps, slowly and carefully. His hands are somehow still in front of him but now they’re just floating in the air. It’d almost be comical, the way he looks right now, if it wasn’t for the expression on his face, one Niall hasn’t seen before and, going by his reaction, Liam hasn’t either.

“A letter?” He sounds surprised. “What letter?” Harry didn’t see that coming.

*

“She said she found it this morning under her door at the dorms,” Liam says looking at the letter over Harry’s shoulder.

Harry has the protocoled gloves on his hands as he examines the letter. It’s a white and thick paper that’s used for formal letters or invitations. It was written on a typewriter and is dated from three years ago. it doesn’t say much but the message is clear and scared its recipient enough to come through.

May, 2016:

Go to the police. Tell them about Dylan.

-S.

The lab is quiet, mainly due to Harry yelling at the scientists earlier who were working on the small piece of paper before he could get his hands on it. After twenty-five minutes, he had three conclusions.

One.

This comes from someone who knew about the relationship between Jessica Stanley and Dylan McKlein. Someone other than his girlfriend, which Harry is certain about. This person managed to get the note to Jessica without being noticed. They know Jessica’s schedule and location of her dorm room. They also waited a couple of days, maybe realizing Jessica wasn’t going to come out with the truth by herself.

Two.

They didn’t just leave a letter. There was something else attached to the letter according to the light marks left on the back of the paper once the envelope was held against a light source. Harry believes Jessica took it and kept it. Harry also thinks he needs to see it.

And three.

The paper is from 2016. The letter isn’t just dated as 2016 but it was also written three years before the crime actually happened and it was kept to be send just now.

“How could you possibly know that?” Niall questions, putting his hands in his coat pockets trying to battle the cold wind of London.

They left the lab and the station after Harry announced his three conclusions and then walked out of the room without saying anything else to Liam, just waiting for Niall to follow him to start talking. Niall could still hear Liam calling for their names, asking about the conclusions.

“There’s a recognized printing company in downtown London called ‘The House of Caxton’.” Harry stands at the edge of the street with an extended arm, waving his hand to stop a taxi. “They celebrated their 100th anniversary in 2016 by selling a very limited edition of a certain presentation-card type of paper,”

A black cab stops in front of them and Harry opens the door for Niall. He stands still for a couple a second, looking at Harry without knowing exactly how to react so he just laughs and gets in the car, watching Harry do the same until he’s finally sitting next to him.

“So, let me guess,” Niall says, trying to imitate his voice and the tone he always uses when he’s making deductions, like it should be obvious for everyone. “That letter’s paper is part of that package,” he says as he hears the car’s door closing.

“It was in the market for only three months.” Harry looks Niall directly in the eyes, looking directly at his eyes, but he’s not only explaining him a fact, he’s sharing information.

And that’s when it hits him.

Harry trusts him. Definitely more than he trusts Liam or any other detective. He thinks of Niall as an equal, even if he won’t ever admit it. Harry Holmes, this impossible man and unapproachable human sees Niall Watson as a peer even though he’s only known him for a few days. He nods his head at him, almost like reassuring him about his new discoveries, then he turns his head to the driver.

“To Caxton’s printing, please.”

*

Coming back to Baker Street after their failure at the printer was irritating Harry terribly. Niall knows he’s an incredibly smart man, Harry understands the world in a way Niall has never witnessed before, he sees people and streets and interactions as maps and clues, he sees the world as an empty space that only needs his senses to be filled and solved, but when it comes to basic facts like memory cards, Harry can be a little dense.

“How could they not keep the footage?!”

Harry waits till Niall opens the door to storm in, fighting his way out of the coat to hang it in the hallway and then stalk the stairs upstairs.

“It’s been three years, Harry. They delete everything every six months.”

“That makes no sense!” Harry flops down on the couch and covers his face with his hands.

Niall closes the door behind him and sits in the chair next to him. Now is his turn to be patient, to explain things to Harry.

“I just don’t understand why you’re so upset.” Harry takes his hands off his face to look at him. “. “The chances of us finding the person who bought the package were really low. It could’ve been a gift or something they found and decided to use to throw the police off. We don’t even know if the letter it’s from the killer…”

He was still talking but it takes Harry just one second to stand up and grab Niall’s face on both hands, pulling their faces dangerously close, almost breathing over his lips and then he whispers.

“Oh, but it is, Niall,” he whispers urgently. “It is from them.” He smiles and takes the hair out of Niall’s eyes, slowly, gently and Niall wonders if he’s going to kiss his forehead. “They’re smart. They have planned this for a long time.”

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t kiss Niall or stay like that for another second. Instead, he lets his face go and walks to his room with a red face, leaving Niall and his traitorous heart all alone.

*

The music is loud, the lights bright, and the heat almost unbearable. The place is crowded and they were standing in the entrance, not really sure if they should go in. Niall doesn’t know if he should be here, he hasn’t spoken to his therapist about coming to places like this yet, but to be honest, he hasn’t spoken to his therapist since he met that woman. The flashes and the sounds are making him uncomfortable, like something is crawling down his skin and he’s just getting ready to be jumped.

When Harry said they were going out that night, he never imagined a gay bar. It’s not like he has never been to one before, he just didn’t think Harry has. But then again, Harry doesn’t really talk about his personal life or his preferences, the way he spends his free time.

“Um, Harry?” But he’s already walking into the bar, avoiding to bump into people like an expert, fast and focuses like he has a goal. Niall has no other option but to follow him. When he finally catches up, he sees something he never thought he’d see: Harry, laughing, and charming the bartender, with wrinkles around his eyes and that beautiful big smile on display. He can even see his front teeth.

“Oh, here he is.” Harry smiles at him when Niall arrives and, to Niall’s further surprise, takes his hand on his. “This is Nate, my boyfriend.”

Niall is positive that if he had a drink in his hand, the glass would have hit the floor the moment Harry said those words.

“We’ve been spending some time in Ireland with Nate’s family but we’re finally back home,” Harry laughs and the bartender smile at them, touching both of their arms.

“So everything went okay?” He asks like he’s an old friend of them and Niall has never been more confused.

“Of course! They loved me,” Harry says, looking at Niall. “Didn’t they, pet?”

“Yeah…” Niall says, exhaling the words as he looks deep into Harry’s green eyes. “How could you not love this face?” He finally relaxes and takes Harry’s chin between his finger to shake his face softly.

They share an intense moment of eye contact before Harry clears his throat and turns back to the bartender. “We’ve been trying to get in touch with our friend?” Harry says, recovering from the awkward silence. “Isaac and Dylan? They always tell us about this place.”

Niall tries to maintain a blank face but he’s as surprises as the bartender at Harry’s words.

“I didn’t know they have friends who knew about them,” the man in front of them whispers.

“Not many do.” Harry smiles, intertwining their hands before putting them hands on top of the bar. “But we haven’t talked in a few months and we miss them.”  

“The last thing I know is that they had a huge fight.” The bartender leans over the bar, closer to them to talk lower, like the music in the place wouldn’t keep people from hearing their conversation. “Apparently, Dylan’s girlfriend was getting suspicious about him cheating.”

“Oh, no.” Harry says. “Maybe we’ll go see them at Isaac’s dorm.”

“Wait,” he says, standing up again and growing a few inches. “Why don’t you try calling them?”

“That’s a fantastic idea…” Harry smiles back at him and points to the name written on the label on his chest. “Brian. Thank you.”

He doesn’t have time to reply because Harry is taking them both out of there, dragging Niall through the dance floor and pushing people away. Niall starts to get out of breath and really feel the lack of space and the amount of people around them. He’s not feeling good but it’s almost like Harry knows by the way he’s walking.

It’s when they stand outside the club when Harry lets Niall’s hand go to let him breathe. His head is palpitating and his hand is on his chest, to help him calm down. Niall can see Harry’s shoes in front of him and he wonders if he thinks Niall’s weak. A claustrophobic boy joining the army. But when he feels his hand rubbing his back, he knows he doesn’t.

“Breathe.” he hears him say into his ear, and he does. Slowly and calm as he feels the air cold on his cheeks and the warmth of Harry’s hand on this back.

Harry straightens him up and turns him into the lights of the club’s sign to have a better look at his face.

“Are you alright?” Harry asks, returning to his usual tone of voice. His face is void of the smile from earlier and the spark in his eyes. He looks worried.

“How did you know?” Niall asks instead, starting to breathe normally again.

“I knew the moment you walked into 221 B, looking at the windows and the doors. Counting your steps from one room to the other.” He sounds like the mere question offends him. And maybe Niall should’ve known that before.

“And yet, you brought me here,” Niall says, turning his face to the side.

“I needed you.” Harry’s hands are still over his shoulder and his voice is still tender, like he’s afraid Niall’s going to break any second now.

They look at each other, even when Niall tells himself he’s looking at the wall behind Harry and Harry is just looking at the cars passing by or the people walking to the bar. Would it matter to him? If someone sees them there? He doesn’t seem to be the person who cares about what other people say, but somehow this seems different. It’s too personal.

“So…” Niall says, kicking the little rocks by his feet. “Dylan was gay.”

Harry shakes his head, without taking his hands off Niall as if they’re used to have this kind of conversations. “Isaac is. Dylan just comes here with him. I just need to know why.”

Harry catches something behind Niall and he is about to turn his head when Harry’s hands come up to hold his face straight. Harry’s grip tightens as he gets closer, looking Niall straight in the eyes.

“I want you to know I’m doing this because it’s entirely necessary,” Harry says, slowly pushing Niall against the wall to their left.

“I understand, Harry,” Niall says, getting slightly more and more confused.

“It’s what the situation demands. I’m being professional. We’re working right now.” And that’s when Harry stops making sense.

“What?” Niall whispers but the sound is robbed from his lips.

Harry is not being professional; this is not professional. The way he’s kissing him is not the way you kiss a co-worker. The way he has Niall trapped between the wall and his body, almost covering him entirely. The way his hands move from his back to his sides. The way his lips feel on his. Nothing about this is professional. It’s rough and fast. He can feel the tip of his nose on his cheek and his fingertips on the back of his neck, so he does the only thing he can do in this moment. He kisses him back.

He grabs the flaps of his coat and pulls him closer. He has kissed a good amount of girls before, but he has never felt this way and it’s overwhelming. Harry’s body is touching his from knees to chest, his cheeks feel red and hot and his hands seem to be useless right now. And when he opens his mouth and Harry makes that sound, Niall regrets every second they wasted not kissing each other since he walked into that apartment on Baker Street.

Niall doesn’t know how they kiss last after that, but it’s not enough. Harry is breathing heavily against his cheek, his forehead resting against his, and his hand extended on the wall next to his head. Niall has his hands on his hips and he’s trying to bite down the smile growing on his face.

“Isaac,” he whispers on his ear.

“What?” Niall turns his head just a little to catch a glance at Harry’s profile. His lips are open and more red than they regularly are, his eyes are closed and the hand on his waist is not gone.

“He was walking into the club,” he explains and Niall’s hand drop to his sides. “He saw us in Liam’s office. I didn’t-”

“Yeah, yeah.” Niall nods, stepping aside and leaving Harry in the same position he was just a couple of seconds before but now Niall is not between him and the wall anymore. “I remember.” Niall clears his throat. “We should get going.”

*

The Lestrade’s case is going nowhere. Liam tried to charge Shelly but she got a good lawyer who’s slowly breaking Liam’s theory down, exactly how Harry predicted she would. Dylan’s sister went twice more into the station to testify but they found nothing other than circumstantial evidence against the girlfriend and the rest of the friends. On the other hand, Harry’s been busy. Not only trying to avoid Niall but taking everything from his wall, only leaving a single red line pointing to their door.

Niall is standing behind Harry, looking at the empty wall and drinking his morning tea. He has been rejected a couple of times before and he has learned to make peace with the numb feeling in the middle of his chest, even if he has to live with the reason his ears go red and his pulse quickens every time he sees him. Harry’s been trying to keep the conversation level at minimum, which is difficult to him when he has all these ideas he wants to share and be praised for, so Niall laughs every time he struggles and listens like the good friend he knows he is.

It was just a kiss. It doesn’t matter how much it changed him. Harry doesn’t feel the same way, he’s a grown man, he can deal with that.

He’s now putting up the photos of the friends again, but this time one by one, some pictures next to the other two letters that were sent a few weeks ago to Liam’s office.

The situation was perfect for Harry. He had an excuse to spend entire days in the lab only to examined the letter, finding no DNA or anything that could be helpful in any way to find the killer. Harry is getting frustrated, not only because of the letter but, apparently, all of them, the five friends, had a reason to kill Dylan McKlein. His entire life was falling apart the last two weeks before his murder: Shelly found out about his affair, he didn’t get the money he promised to Oliver for his mum’s surgery, he took Nina’s opportunity of having her dream job thanks to his father’s connections, he threatened to expose Isaac sexuality to the football team and his family and he almost destroyed Audrey’s career.

All problems which were all solved after he died.

“Is it a timeline?” Niall asks, finishing his toast and taking the last sip of his tea.

Harry nods while hanging more papers on the wall until he gets to the day of the murder.

“That’s why you needed the student records,” he says, more to himself than to Harry. “Is that the time each one of them met Dylan?” Niall points at the pictures in order and Harry nods again.

“There’s something I’m not seeing.” Harry backs up and stands next to Niall and that’s the closer they’ve been in three weeks.

“Like a hidden message?” Niall asks and Harry once more. “Something like the dates in the letters or how it’s always signed with a different initial?”

Everything stops until it all starts working again. Harry’s eyes open wide and he runs to the desk for a paper and a pen.

“The names and the dates,” Harry says, frantically writing on the paper. “How couldn’t I see it before?!” he takes a red marker and circles the first letter of every name: Shelly, Oliver, Nina, Isaac and Audrey, according to Harry’s timeline.

He throws away the red marker and find a blue one and then, he does the same thing with the last names.

When he’s done, one name is written in Harry’s paper.

Sonia Morales.

Every initial of every name and every initial of every last name lined up in front of them.

“Sonia Morales?” Niall repeats. “Is that a suspect?”

“I’ve heard that name before.”

Harry freezes for a second, thinking. The next thing he does is smile, so big it brings Niall back to the day at the bar, just like the kiss Harry plants on his lips before he’s disappearing through the door.

“You are a genius, Niall!” He can hear Harry’s reached the bottom floor already as he’s still frozen on the same spot Harry kissed him a few moments ago. “Call Lestrade! Tell him we solved the case!”

The door opens and the noise of London invades their apartment.

“Tell him we will be needing a helicopter, too!” Harry says and Niall can almost hear him smile, “The game is on.” And then, he closes the door.

*

The noise coming from the motor blade is loud but Harry is yelling over it and trying his best to explain his deductions to both Liam and Niall sitting in front of him before they get to some town, with a name he can’t be bothered to remember, forty-five minutes from London.

Harry told Niall he read about this case, but he was in a bad place at that time and wouldn’t have been of much help. Niall is itching to ask about it, but now wasn’t the time

Sonia Morales was a Brazilian nineteen-year-old golfer. She was found in a lake six years ago and according to the necropsy she suffered from sexual assault and then suffocation which ultimately killed her. It made it to the news because some kids found her one morning and they thought she was a ghost due to the white dress she was wearing as well as her long black hair. She had not family or friends in the country other than her manager since she came to London that summer to compete in a golf tournament and find herself some sponsors. And she did, at the Club Gala the last night of the tournament: The McKleins.

The body was too wet and wrinkled to find out the exact date of her death or any DNA from her killer.

“You think Dylan abused her and killed her?” Niall screams through the intercom. “At what? 17?”

“And someone saw it,” Harry nods. “And they died for it.”

The helicopter lands on the golf course and Harry runs to the cabin near the seventh hole with Liam and Niall at his side and a bunch of policemen following behind them, but when Liam takes down the door all they find is a body lying on a chair with a bullet hole on his head, holding a bloody golf club in one hand and a gun in the other.

“That’s Sonia’s father,” Liam says behind them, putting back his gun into its holster.

Niall knew the wounds in Dylan’s head would match the end of the golf club, he had studied those photographs enough to be able to draw them himself. When they get back, they find Dylan’s family in Liam’s office. They all stand up the moment the three of them walk in. Both women have red eyes again, evidence that they’ve been crying, and Gregory McKlein walks up to Harry, extending his hand him. “You said you’ll catch his killer. Thank you.” Harry takes his hand and shakes it.

“You said you’ll catch his killer.” Harry extended his hand and shake it. “Thank you.”

“I caught more than that,” Harry says, putting his hand back into his pocket. He walks over to the window and sighs. “Does the name ‘Sonia Morales’ ring a bell to you?” Harry turns to look at them and Niall can see how the couple turns to each other, physically jumping.

“No,” he says, firmly.

“Let me refresh your memory then,” Harry smiles. “She was the last golfer you were going to sponsor before you moved to London, but you found your son abusing her and trying to shut her up with a pillow over her head until she wasn’t breathing anymore.” The room fell silent as Gregory gaped at Harry.

“What the fucking are you saying?!” He screams directly at Harry’s face.

“But you weren’t the first people to find him, were you?” Harry stands, proudly in front of him with Liam behind him, fearless. “It was your sister and her husband. Is that not right, Mrs. McKlein? You see, the same night Sonia was murdered, a car accident happened near the Golf Club. A couple died that night, the car fell off a cliff but their daughter survived.”

The woman walks to them, elegant and determined, with fire in her eyes and rage in her hands as she points her finger at Harry’s chest.

“Are you making fun of our pain?” she whispers, looking at Harry’s eyes. “Do you find this entertaining?”

“No,” he says and turns to look at Leyla McKlein. “But she does.”

They all stare at her. She’s standing there with a blank expression on her face, her hands behind her back and suddenly, she looks so much older than a minute ago.

“You forgot one witness.” Harry walks past them and approaches Leyla but she doesn’t move, she doesn’t speak, she doesn’t even flinch. “So when you walked in and saw what was happening you tried to talk to your sister and her husband, but they weren’t listening. I imagine they were already calling the police and leaving to get in their car.”

Doris McKlein in now behind her husband and they’re looking at Harry the same way they all look at him at the end of the day: with hatred in their eyes.

“Then the fatal accident happened, but when Leyla didn’t die, you decided to adopt her. You changed her name, took care of her and even loved her like your own,” Harry finishes, looking at Liam and nodding. “But it doesn’t matter how far you run, the past will always catch up.”

This is when Liam steps up. “You’re under arrest for the murder on Alice and Brenan Addley.”

Another two officers enter Liam’s room and handcuff the McKleins, taking them out as they yell about nonsense and lack of proof, how Harry’s over just like Liam’s career. Leyla McKlein is taken out of the office too, but to the interrogation room instead with Liam following close behind.

Niall breathes out all the air he didn’t know he was holding since this case started. He presses the button to call the lift and they wait, nodding at people who talk to them about one thing or the other until the door opens and they can finally leave.  It’s raining when they step out of Scotland Yard and they wait for a cab to stop in front of them.

“No one is going to buy it.” Niall says, looking at Harry’s profile as he turns to him just for a second. “The father and the sister doing this alone,” he says, moving his hand around like he’s trying to explain the situation, but the truth is, he has other thing in his mind. They need to talk about the kisses. “The names? The letter? All this time waiting?”

“Or maybe someone else did all the work.” Harry turns to him, slightly looking down at him. “Maybe they just waited and tipped them off. I don’t doubt she is smart,” Harry explains, “because she is. But to execute something at this range.” He shakes his head, looking in front of him as he has the answers in display, it’s just going too fast to see it clearly now. “They had to have help, from someone with contacts and power.”

Niall frowns and looks up at Liam’s office where he should be questioning Leyla McKlein. Who was Harry talking about? Someone that would guide two broken people to do something this atrocious? What kind of person is that? How do you find them?

“Are you gonna tell Liam?” He asks.

“Not now,” Harry says, frowning. “Not until I know who is behind all this.”

Niall is about to reply when he sees a familiar black car park in front of them and then, a red umbrella stepping out of the vehicle. The woman he saw a little more than a month ago is walking towards them dressed in a black dress, wearing a perfectly clean white coat and red heels, matching the color on her lips. She’s looking at Harry with a smile on her face but Harry is still talking to him, paying her no attention, making Niall’s heart beat even faster. Is he in danger?

“Harry,” Niall says under his breath, pulling on his coat sleeve.

“If you’re questioning my moral compass just now, Niall, I’m sorry to tell you-”

“That’s the woman!” Niall says louder, making Harry turn at the same time she stops in front of him, holding her red umbrella and taking off her sunglasses.

“Afternoon, Sherlock.”

Harry gives her a look, from head to toe. He’s not afraid of her, he almost looks… bored. He takes a couple of steps further but Niall stops him, pulling him by the sleeve again. They don’t know if she has people with her right now.

“What are you doing here?” Harry asks, sounding irritated as he shakes Niall off and goes to stand in front of her.

“As ever, I’m concerned about you.” She closes her umbrella when she’s under the roof with the two of them, using the umbrella as a walking stick.

“Yeah, I’ve been hearing about your concern,” he says between his teeth and Niall looks away. The woman laughs and gives Niall a smile.

“Always so aggressive,” she says as she clears his coat from non-existent dust, fixing up the collar of his shirt, like she knows he likes to wear it that way. “Never occurred to you that you and I belong on the same side?”

Harry laughs, stridently, catching the attention of almost everyone around them. “Oddly enough, no.”

She lets go of his clothes goes and starts walking around them, looking at the building and the people going in and out, looking and the police cars and hearing the sirens. She breathes it all in, but she’s not intimidated. She acts like she owns the place, like she’s been here hundreds of times before, like she’s the one who calls the shots.

“We have more in common than you’d like to believe.” She walks behind them, making the umbrella tap the floor with every step she takes, putting that sound in the back of Niall’s mind. “This petty feud between us is simply childish.” and now she sounds irritated. She’s mad. “People will suffer,” she snarls and Niall wonders if he’s the only one listening to this conversation, “and you know how it always upsets mummy.”

What?

Niall frowns and looks at her and then at Harry. Their expressions haven’t changed at all. They’re still standing back to back, extremely dramatic as the raindrops hit the floor and people’s steps are the only sound that can compete with the water hitting.

“I upset her?” Harry turns to face her. “Me?!” He’s screaming now but she doesn’t react at all. All she does is cross her arms and look at him like it’s not the first time she has dealt with this. “It wasn’t me that upset her, Mycroft!”

“No, no,” Niall says, shaking his head as he gets closer to them. “Wait.” He lifts his finger, pointing at both of their faces and taking one second to think. “Mummy? Who is mummy?”

“Mother,” Harry answer, as if it that was obvious. “Our mother.” He points to himself and then to the woman in front of him. “This is my sister, Gemma. But she goes by Mycroft. Also putting on weight again as far as I can see.”

“Losing it, in fact.” She smiles back with murder written in her eyes, ignoring Niall completely.

“She’s your sister?” Niall whispers to Harry, his eyes wide open and his hand on Harry’s arm.

“Of course she’s my sister.” Harry frowns at Niall and he can see it now, the resemblance.

The shape of the face, the nose and even the lips if he pays enough attention. Her eyes are green, just like Harry’s, just a bit darker but he can see fire within them. The way she moves, the way she smiles and the way she talks like she knows everything and anything about everyone. Yeah, he can see it now.

“She’s not…?” Niall says but stops immediately. It sounds so ridiculous now.

“Not what?” Harry asks, leaning his head to the side.

“I don’t know…” Niall lets Harry’s arm go as he slowly turns to look at the woman next to him, Harry’s sister, Gemma Holmes, apparently. “A criminal mastermind?”

Harry smiles, nodding as he looks at Gemma. “Well, almost.”

“For goodness sake!” she screams out, stomping her foot on the floor and turning her hands into fists. “I occupy a minor position in the British Government.”

“She is the British Government.” Harry ignores his sister as he talks to Niall directly. “When she’s not too busy being the British Secret Service, or the CIA on a freelance basis. Let’s go, John,” he says if Gemma didn’t already know his name. “Good evening, Gemma. Try not to start a war before I get home, you know what it does to the traffic.” And then he’s off to call a cab with an extended arm.

“So,” she says. Niall doesn’t need to see her face to know what she’s about to ask, he understands now. “You’ll stay.” He nods and puts his hands in his pockets. He has decided he wants to make Harry suffer a little longer for not telling him the scary woman was his sister.

“Did you bring me a car?!” Harry yells from the other side of the street.

“Why would I bring you a car?!” Gemma yells back. “Buy your own one.”

And that’s when Niall laughs. He starts walking towards Harry when Gemma opens her umbrella and catches up with him.

“Dr. Watson?” Niall looks at her in surprised. After this last couple of months, his own name sound strange. “Take care of him.”

And then she’s gone. She gets into the black car and disappears in the middle of the rain. Niall goes to Harry and stands next to him. He whistles, making two cars stop in front of them. He walks to the nearest one and opens the door for him.

“You should have done that sooner,” Harry says as he steps inside. “Our lives are quite busy, Watson.”

Niall smiles, looking down at the floor as he closes the cab’s door behind him.

“To Baker Street.”

[borderlandscast]

starwarscast rythian

this au is essentially rythian playing himself in a dnd game set in star wars, pre clone wars. everyone else is also playing themselves. the last post i did was listing the current cast’s characters and their species, plus a sneak peek into nilesy and rythian’s stats.

below is all my cleaned up and compressed notes on rythian’s timeline, trivia and backstory.

rythian:

honorable mention of this rythian goes here because i rarely return to this au (i blame all the ‘canon’ worldbuilding we’re finally getting on rythian’s species, now decades after the original books were published) and i’m still fond of him.

hold up your thumb and index finger. now put them together so there’s the a gap but they’re not touching. that’s how much less gayer he is than blcast rythian.

long haired; keeps it well maintained with lush products bc he’s kind of vain about it. has it in a french braid that runs down his back. if he ever suggested cutting it, a petition would go around to stop him. he still has the pale/grey stripe running down the middle of his hair.

he still can’t cook. if anything, he’s even worse at it. whether or not he deliberately plays it up is a running joke. it’s a mystery how he survived as zoeya’s padawan. zoeya jokes about watering him whenever others ask. he doesn’t appreciate it.

rythian’s full name is in the archives, and he never uses it. he goes by a much shortened version (thanks to the circumstances by which he arrived at the temple, and zoeya’s help). keep reading for why.

the slightest mention of a holocron (sith or jedi) or lost knowledge is the fastest way to summon him from across a room. he’s one of the best artifact hunters and puzzle solvers.

his main job in the jedi temple is a librarian, and he has a reputation as a strict but helpful master. don’t run any of the texts, and you’ll keep staying on his good side.

he’s actually younger than he looks; he became a master in his late teens, and zoeya had to make a solid case about him taking the exams to become a master that young. it distanced him from a lot of his peers.

now that he’s older, he gives slightly less of a f*ck, and is fairly outspoken as a grey jedi since he sometimes uses fairly questionable means to accomplish his goals (something zylus takes after him in that regard).

lightsaber is purple. he’s never been prouder. he uses the same style as obi-wan, but has a decent grounding in other styles to throw someone off if he ends up in a duel.

his species is exceedingly rare. to give you an idea of how rare, he’s the only chiss residing within the bounds of known, explored space; his species exists in a difficult to navigate, well isolated patch. it also causes him some minor grief whenever he leaves the temple, since most think he’s just a freak, mutant or a hybrid pantoran.

even funnier is that he’s the only jedi of said species, but is not the only force sensitive of his kind (go read timothy zahn’s latest triology, it’s got some good tidbits at last about how his species views and treats their force sensitive individuals). i know there was a canon chiss jedi padawan but the old star wars canon is a mess i’m not touching with a ten foot pole, or else rythian would have died of happiness to meet another one of his species even if neither of them know anything about them.

his arc revolves around gaining acceptance that sometimes things happen even if we don’t want them to, and that not all answers sought out will give happiness, including the truth.

his backstory was that his parents (a happily married trio, consisting of a fleet commander, a governor and a scientist) made the decision to give him away as a baby due to two events: restless political climate nearly resulting in baby rythian’s death from assasination, and his ridiculous force sensitivity, which immediately marks him for a risky career as a hyperspace navigator once he’s old enough to walk and talk. they don’t hold family ties once they start this career, so.

not wanting to risk their child’s life, his parents sneakily flag down a passing jedi ship carrying one jedi master zoeya (who is a sentient, old af tree, known as ‘neti’). she is very surprised that she is now in charge of an unknown alien infant but understands that for reasons unknown, he is now in her care. for who knows how long.

rythian spends his childhood at jedi temple. he matures way faster than the other kids, and excels in his studies. apparently, that’s normal for his kind, but it’s abnormal to others. it’s made even worse because nobody knows what species he is. he befriends a kel dor named will strife, another padawan after strife stops a couple of older teens from hassling rythian.

zoeya officially takes rythian as her padawan. she also secretly gives him an ecrypted disc containing a basic dictionary and guide to chiss language, the only link rythian has to his parents (aside from the hand stitched blanket and baby clothes). rythian never knows zoeya gives him the disc since it’s left on his bed. it’s the only knowledge he never contributes to the jedi temple’s extensive archives.

stuff happens to zoeya; rythian loses her as a master due to her past trauma catching up. he learns that he’s her third padawan (the second being lomadia, who is still alive); her first died hundreds of years ago, and zoeya’s memories keep overlapping so she’s confusing him for them. she leaves the order after her memory’s adjusted so she can start fresh as a civilian. the last thing she says to him before she goes for treatment are a string of numbers, and a single, nonsensical name. rythian is advised that it’s best not to find her or risk a relapse.

will strife voluntarily leaves the order as well due to pressing circumstances; i.e., a fabricated scandal with him and a well known politician (played by lalnable). rythian gradually accepts that everyone he knows and cares for will eventually leave him. he still maintains strife as a contact after strife takes up a career as a traveling merchant.

rythian takes a teen zylus as a padawan and resolves to do better than zoeya, as a mentor and parental figure. he did bring baby zylus to the temple after all. he keeps an eye on zylus as zylus grows up, occasionally nudging zylus to stay focused.

that said, rythian had his nose in a book during the candidate lightsaber matches, thus narrowly missing zylus leaving. zylus dropped by the libaray on his last day at the temple, which was where rythian found him and dragged him of to get him approved as his official padawan.

zylus successfully graduates, and to rythian’s great relief, he stays to work on the archives with him as a fellow holocron hunter and decrypter.

and then the chosen one, nilesy, arrives at the temple in search of how to best temper his newfound force sensitivity. in tow is ravs, a sith. rythian volunteers to be the sith watchdog, and nilesy’s trainer, and it’s not just because this is his golden chance to hit up a sith for secret forbidden lore or anything.

unfortunately, ravs has no interest in helping rythian unlock sith holocrons; he advises that his fellow sith buddy, daltos, might be of help but he has no idea where said buddy is. this greatly annoys rythian (unbeknowst, several months later, zylus has the honor of said first meeting).

ravs constantly hides in rythian’s room from jedi padawan nanosounds, who is eager to test her formidable lightsaber skills on a sith. rythian eventually gets used to ravs randomly chilling in his room.

he and ravs have a thing. zylus is completely oblivious to it, and nilesy pretends that he’s not aware of it.

rythian decides to go on holiday, which immediately sparks suspicion from everyone because everyone has to literally pry rythian from the archives on a daily basis. ravs secretly tails him, and sees rythian about to board a chiss ship.

afraid of losing him forever, ravs butts in, and discovers that rythain is meeting his parents, who also react to ravs like he’s a threat. rythian persuades his parents that ravs means no harm, and gets ravs permission to board as well.

rythian tries to reconcile with his parents’ decision to ‘abandon’ him, and their aloof attitudes after finally reuniting with them as an adult. he has no memories of them, to their disappointment. he eventually discovers in one of his parent’s offices, a hidden compartment containing two photos of him as a child and padawan.

he confronts his parents, and finds out that zoeya met his parents in secret one more time to deliver these photos. reassured that they’d made the right decision, they ask her to pass on a message: if ry’thia’nuruodo wishes to learn of his heritage, meet us at these coordinates on this day. we shall return yearly, without fail, until we are unable to. this was zoeya’s message, which she’d passed onto him, albeit incomplete.

rythian also has to contend with helping ravs make a good first impression; his parents don’t speak basic (or pretend not to, wanting to test if rythian retained his knowledge of his species’ language), and ravs can’t speak their language. they don’t approve of him having a relationship with ravs since he’s an alien and they don’t know what he’s capable of, but eventually concede that ravs will do since nobody else can match their son’s capabilities.

as for the issue of who exactly rythian’s family members are? i don’t know anything about chiss society so this entirely headcanon. their society is very rigid, and is based on doing your job correctly and loyalty to their houses (ie, family branches). all chiss tend to be fairly straight faced, calm and composed and intelligent individuals. rythian is an exception, which is why he doesn’t initially understand why his parents are so cold to him at first, but clues in eventually that they’re exceedingly subtle about their affection and praises (and insults, too).

his biological father is ry’aratalla’nuruodo (aratalla for short), cedef fleet commander. rythian takes after him in sense of humor, looks and height but inherited all his teeth from his other biological parent, sev’adira’csapla. very level headed, accomodating, quiet and grounded; rythian is a little intimidated by him, and assumes his dad has the final say in everything. this is utterly wrong and his dad is whipped by the other two parents.

sev’adira’csapla (vadirac, or adira) is a colony governor and ship provisions officer. nonbinary, goes by they/them. has a mean, petty and haughty personality, can also be called a tsundere. unfortunately, rythian gets his vanity and dramatic flair from them. he doesn’t get along with them, and the two spend a fair amount of time insulting each other (which adira actually enjoys).

radar’isoto’inrokini (isoto for short, a triple wordplay on ‘risotto’, ‘radar’ and ‘isotope’). rythian’s ‘mother’, in a sense. rythain gets his curiosity and love of knowledge from her. she’s like zoeya; full of optimistism, disarmingly charming, frightening when angered and is actually one of the sharpest minds around. she’s a exceptional mixture of physicist, linguist, biologist, geologist and chemist, being the chief scientific officer serving on the same ship as rythian’s dad. she gets along with ravs a little too well, and takes on the giant task of learning basic so she can communicate with him.

rythian leaves with ravs, having learned a great deal about chiss. he’s supposed to be a big secret since his parents spread a rumor that he died from ‘weak constitution’. he and ravs are to keep everything they learned and visited a secret.

rythian, nilesy and zylus learn of a secret mission to assassinate the sith who’ve been more or less friendly towards nilesy: minty, ravs and daltos. minty escapes, but ravs and daltos aren’t so lucky, resulting in nilesy, rythian and zylus interfering. the three let ravs and daltos escape, causing the three jedi’s standing to plummet within the temple. don’t worry, it doesn’t stay that way for long.

right after the above happens, the clone wars occur. rythian doesn��t meet ravs for months; ravs ghosts him. they end up reuniting on a mission much later when ravs frees him from a seperatist jail at the risk of compromising his cover. it’s a very emotional reunion. ravs is in hiding since he suspects a bigger conspiracy, and has been compiling clues and evidence. he and rythian agreed to meet up and share what they know.

rythian assists nilesy in further training his powers. unfortunately, without ravs counterpoint, there is no balance for nilesy. nilesy is confined to the temple since he can’t take part in any of the life threatening missions.

rythian takes ‘tom’ (angor) as his clone officer. tom assists him in piecing together transmissions and intelligence to send off. ravs passes him information every now and then. rythian is a dad to a clone trooper, okay.

order 66 occurs at the climax of the clone wars. the temple is under siege by a traitor jedi and the clones. rythian and any jedi on the scene attempt to escape. rythian almost dies when tom fails a will check to stop himself from shooting rythian due to order 66. nilesy and ravs pool together their resources and wills to save him.

when all hope is lost, nilesy ascends as a ‘chosen one’, bringing a fragile balance to himself since he failed the galaxy. through his connection in the force, he learns that the other chosen one (thanks, skywalker) went off the deep end. nilesy unlocks the secret of mortis, and drags the survivors of temple massacre inside before closing the rift.

rythian recovers, forgives tom, and stays on as nilesy’s teacher, having successfully saved several important texts and holocrons from the archives prior to leaving the temple.

nilesy wishes to join the rebels once he hears news of them.

i got this far before having to stop due to real life circumstances interfering, and felt that this was a safe stopping point as well.

[valen-but-not-tine]

tezz, blake, agura, and mermista for that ask meme pls?

Fair warning a lot more of the questions have to deal with shipping than I thought when I first reblogged the ask meme this is for a /while/ ago, and I’m not really a big romance person (except one of these is in a HUGE ship of mine and I’m certain that was intentional ave.

got long, it was a long meme, and 4 characters

Tezz Volitov

What I like about them

well. that’s really hard to answer. to quote you, avery when I mentioned having trouble w this question, “I like him because he’s Tezz”

He’s everything that normally annoys me but done well to where it doesn’t?

cocky arrogant tech savvy bastard. but he has extremely strong sense of morals. Like boy took one look at the red sentients and was immediately ready to fight a war by himself and dedicated himself to being a one man rebellion.

What I dislike about them

how long it took me to answer the first question, he’s not my normal type, like for real I think his archetype normally annoys me, but for some reason the exact way he’s written gets around that.

Favourite moment

the entirety of the episode “Lord of the Kharamanos” Tezz making friends with tromp and once again showing his strong sense of morals with his absolute refusal to leave the kharamanos alone to fight the Vandals. I think this ties into why I love him so much, normally his archetype would have been the one willing to leave them to fend for themselves, helping them is a risk, but Tezz doesn’t even consider leaving, and is insulted by Vert considering it for even a moment.

Least favourite moment

The best quality version of his introductory episode on youtube is cut into 2 parts and the uploader split it /right/ in the middle of dialogue.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

BACK! STORY! what’s his family life like? what did he eat when he was stranded?

An interesting AU for this character

This is pretty general for bf5 as a show, but in the the bf5 fused webisode “Cold Fusion” Sage is shown making an instruction type video for if they lose, somebody else could potentially take up the fight, and she deletes it at the end as Vert tells her the war will end with them. But what if she hadn’t. And then. what if they had lost? Tezz wasn’t part of the team yet, if the bf5 lost before he joined, but someone else (Grace?) found the video and picked up the fight, and then he joined? I don’t have much thought (well actually I have more than I’d like to admit) put into this idea, but ever since seeing that 50 second webisode, I’ve had that hmm what if idea in my head, and the only way I can really “see” it happening is if there was a similar situation to the shadowzone episode, where our bf5 meet the group that took up the fight when they died, team led by grace, with tezz, zen, and the rest of the group is ocs, but if this were a plotline I’d love for one of the team to be one of Agura’s brothers who came looking for her when she dropped off the face of the planet.

A crossover

umm I was really into storm hawks at the same time as I was into bf5, tho bf5 has withstood the test of time, so combining the 2 is something I’ve put some thought into before, but really w bf5′s setup of being able to go to different dimensions battlezones writing a crossover for really any show wouldn’t be hard.

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

I don’t have a lot of ships for bf5 as a whole, if I had to say one Tezz/Sherman, I love the interaction where someone asks if tezz is the brains of the operation and sherman says tezz is the left brain and he (sherman) is the right

Other ships?

Tezz/AJ I guess, in the finale when they sent the og team in bc “they started it, you should be the ones to end it” they had some cute interactions

BROTP

Tezz and Tromp, lord of the kharamanos gave us so much good tezz content.

NOTP

bf5 didn’t have a lot of romance, so there was never a set up that made me go NO but anyone with zoom is a full stop for me, there’s no canonical ages, but zoom reads as 16 to me, and most of the other cast as young adults, but adults.

An assortment of headcanons!

He’s Autistic!

Boy had a Bad Home Life, the boy was like 9 when he got himself stranded in a battlezone, and wanted to get back to earth because it’s where he’s from, but he /never/ mentions getting back to people. like it’s one thing if his parents just let him do whatever and he was experimenting in his free time, but he didn’t try to find anyone when he got back. and he immediately was ride or die for the bf5. the show probably just didn’t have time to touch on it, but with what we were given I can not see him having a good relationship with his family.

Blake (asuming Belladonna)

What I like about them

Listen I love revolutionaries. love me some characters fighting for a cause. Blake don’t back down.

What I dislike about them

how much Sun is tolerated lol

Favourite moment

When she stared her abusive ex in the eyes after he asked “what made her think she could win this time” and said “I don’t have a choice, I have people who actually care about me, and I promised I’d never leave them agian. So I’m not dying now!”

you tell him blake

Least favourite moment

90% of the scenes she shares w sun lol. why couldn’t we get more time with her parents? oh right sun took up any time they could have had lol.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

fambly.

An interesting AU for this character

au where Adam never touched her.

A crossover

She-ra and the princesses of power, blake/yang and catra/adora, blonde jock and their cat gfs interacting

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

Uh Bumbleby without a doubt. they’re the slow burn we never get with queer couples, and while they’re not “canon” yet, that’s because they’re a slow burn, and they’re getting proper developement, but even so, them having feelings for each other is canon, to a point where Arryn Zech, Blake’s va got a motherfucking bee tattoo. like they’re /the/ main couple of rwby, Arryn mentioned Yang as someone who was in love with blake at a panel and had to be reminded to mention Sun. that’s cast tho, their interactions in show?

Yin/yang symbolism where they’re both both at different times, beauty and the beast allusions, character with abandonment issues/character who has a tendency to run, excellent fighting synergy? I could literally talk about how much this ship means to me for hours (you’ve heard a lot of it sporadically ave) and it truly means a lot to me, I’m not normally a romancey person, but something about a show I was into before knowing (or really admitting to myself) that I was queer giving me that rep? in 2 of my favorite characters? I’m used to seeing shows w queer rep bc I heard there was rep and decided to check it out, but Bumbleby seemingly happened around me already here. they’re not a queer bait. one of them isn’t going to die. and they love each other so much.

Other ships?

Listen. no other possible ship for blake (or yang) holds a candle (ha sweet burning the candle reference) to bumbleby. I’m not gonna go into it explicitly, bc the person who sent this ask isn’t there yet >:) but (as much as irl, friendship is just as important as romantic relationships, and I hate the idea of romance being “more”) the show has built up yang and blake in such a way that if anyone else wanted to be even considered they’d have to compete with the other. if you’re considering getting into rwby, Heroes and Monsters was the ep that a lot of the fan base realized that hey, they’re actually doing bees? and that’s bc there’s a scene that is so powerful with the 2 of them. from a storytelling perspective no other ship has the substance to compete with the bees.

BROTP

Blacksun. Blake and Sun work better as friends than they ever could as romantic partners, Sun has feelings for Blake, but they’ve always been one sided, and the only time he’s been on screen that didn’t have me rolling my eyes or wishing he’d leave blake alone so her parents who she hasn’t seen in years could maybe get some of the screentime he’s hogging was when he was recovering from being injured and blake is all “this is why I had to leave, my friends get hurt bc of me” and he was like “that’s our decision to make, I’d do it again, and I know Yang would do the same” like yeah he continues to flirt while in menagerie (sp?), but as soon as he realizes that she didn’t run off to fight the white fang alone he spends his time trying to get her to go back to her team.

NOTP

Tauradonna. I’ve also seen the “ship” called Animal Abuse and ouch if that doesn’t just hit the nail on it’s head.

An assortment of headcanons!

when blake and yang kiss for the first time her ears are going to twitch.

Bi

Agura Ibaden

What I like about them

listen the second thing she does in the show is tear a robots head off do I need to give more words than that?

What I dislike about them

I mean one of my only complaints w bf5 is I want more girls, does that count? I wanted to know more about her backstory in general too, like 5 brothers? at least one nephew? warrior princess? give me

Favourite moment

The first time Vert isn’t there and Stanford challenges her right to be second in command and she just shuts him down hard and takes charge.

Least favourite moment

uhhhhh. idk whatever made agura/stanford a bigish ship in the fandom

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

Listen. The toy line, which technically yeah sure not technically canon, but the toyline. calls her a warrior princess. was this just to sell toys? yeah probably. am I still intrigued. most definitely. Is Agura a motherfucking princess!!??

An interesting AU for this character

I can’t use the au I used for tezz, cause she’d be dead in that one. hmm. I just had a galaxy brain idea but what if everyone on the team got weapons with their vehicles and not just vert.

Give Agura a big sword.

OH SHIT I forgot about an idea I’ve had in the past but I don’t want to erase the give sword idea, one of those swapped aus shows have, agura and tezz are swapped tezz is on the team since the begining, is a little better w people, not by much he’s still but he didn’t spend his childhood alone fighting robots and sentients, and Agura got stuck on Vandal and becomes warlord within a year. Basically, trapped on alien planet--> I run this now. by time bf5 meet the vandals they’re allies not conquerors.

A crossover

yeah really just read what I wrote for tezz’s, the only way agura’s would change is if she’s a warrior princess like xena that could be fun, but cars and bf5′s whole thing would be super out of place.

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

don’t really have any, Agura/Grace if I have to

Other ships?

Agura/Sage

BROTP

Agura and the Cortez brothers!

NOTP

any straight ship with her is lame

An assortment of headcanons!

I know I’m not over the toyline but like. what if she was just a princess the entire fucking time. and was just way chill about it. imagine the shutdown

Stanford: ~I’m 189th in line for the throne~

Agura: cool I’m 2nd, but if it becomes relevant before my nephew is an adult I’ll be acting monarch until he’s old enough for the responsibility.

Stanford.exe has stopped responding

Mermista

What I like about them

I like swimming, she’s a mermaid

What I dislike about them

she’s vaguely got rude older sister in a sit com where the younger brother is the main character written by people who don’t have siblings, but like not really?

Favourite moment

“mermista will swim through the sewer system” “I’m sorry mermista will what?” but she still does it.

Least favourite moment

hhmmm not sure, she was in 5 episodes and I liked her, I guess early on when I saw her and sea hawk interact before I knew what their relationship was like and I thought she genuinely didn’t like him her intro scene was kinda :/

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

well I’m expecting a princess with fire powers eventually (I haven’t seen original she-ra so I don’t know if that’s an accurate assumption) and fire/ water powers are always cool to see interacting.

An interesting AU for this character

maybe I’ve been reading too much of that she-ra dnd blog but she’s an eldritch knight with the control water cantrip and that’s gud

A crossover

it’d be neat to see her and Lapis Lazuli interact

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

Mermista/Sea Hawk. It’s a twist on what we normally see where the guy in a het relationship is emotionally distant and the girl does all the emotional labor, but even then mermista obviously cares about sea hawk a lot, she is just not comfortable expressing affection, and he respects her boundaries and absolutely adores her.

Other ships?

did you see how she looked at adora after she transformed into she-ra? I don’t actually ship them but every princess is gay for she-ra

BROTP

With what we have so far I’d like to say frosta, just cause water/ice powers.

NOTP

I don’t think I’ve seen anything with her that I had a negative reaction too   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I mean I guess frosta, we don’t have confirmed ages for any of them except for forsta who is decidedly way younger than the other princesses.

An assortment of headcanons!

the girl is bi

she had the mermaid tail before the people legs, and the tail is the default setting

[sunnysidewrites]

Neighbor!Woozi

based on this post hehehe

i just fed yall TWICE. in the span of just 2 DAYS!!! AND THEY’RE BOTH MORE OR LESS THE SAME LONG ASS LENGTH!!! yeah that’s right i went overboard again gtg

happy happy bday to the lovely admin bee of @mansaeboysbe you are such a beautiful person inside and out, and im incredibly proud to know someone like you :’))) i’ve already sent a bday message to you so im not tryna redo it LOL but just know that i love you a whole lot and i always will! 💗💗💗💗💓💓 (she’s also the same person who gave me those beautiful headers on my mlist so please give her tons of love <333) love you sm hub hope you have a wonderful and fantastic day!!!

*to all the mutuals with bdays that have either passed or are coming up, i love you all SO FREAKING MUCH so pls dont feel left out!! it just so happened that i wanted to write this au for a long time and i wanted to present it as a bday gift for this jihoon stan hehe but i rlly love each every single one of u ok babes? <333*

warnings: i feel like i dragged this on for too long but i hope it’s still cute :’)) also i put in a joke like twice LOL anyways lil wooz only gets tongue-tied around you so you become his muse for songs

You were looking for a place to stay in bc “I am a grown adult i am not living with yall anymore” you @ your parents

And they’re like lol ok Good Luck Kiddo

After a month and a half of deeeeep searching you finally find a reasonably priced place to live in

It��s quite a distance from your parents’ home but it’s the point of you moving out to begin with

On the move-in day, you’re carrying your boxes up to your new apartment complex and you hear some tunes drifting from your next door neighbor

And you’re like hey this is actually really good music but i’ve never heard of it

You shrug it off and continue settling in

Once you finished hauling your boxes, you were about to pass out on your couch

Ok you actually did pass out on your couch

But you had to unpack some necessities later that night for bathroom and bedroom purposes

All you had for dinner was pop in some instant ramen and call it a night. You then hopped in the shower and got ready for bed

The following morning it was primarily you unpacking and shifting around your furniture a little but it was challenging by yourself

You were making a good amount of noise and in the middle of the day you were met with a very loud knock on your door

And you were in the middle of unpacking your kitchenware so you were like oh shoot ahh i’ll be right there!!

Little did you know your next door neighbor wasn’t having any of it

Can’t I get some peace and quiet around here? He grumbled as he impatiently waited for you to open the door

I swear, I’m gonna tell them off they won’t even knOW what will hit--

You finally opened the door, and he’s like oh. My gosh.

You had a few pieces of hair sticking to your forehead and your hair was tied back in a messy bun

You were dressed in a faded coral tee underneath a pair of worn-out denim overalls with house slippers

Everything he planned to complain about suddenly vanished and his first thought was:

“Is that Pikachu on your front pocket?”

Apparently he said that aloud, which he didn’t register until he saw you giggling

“Yeah, it was a hand-me-down! Still cute, right?”

And he’s kinda still just staring at you with his mouth slightly agape

And you’re like oh right ahem did you need anything?

That’s when he notices the utter mess behind you: plastic covering still over some of your furniture, half-emptied boxes littered in almost every inch of the floor, etc.

And that’s when it hits him: all that noise was you unpacking

“O-oh yeah, I just,, wanted to let you know that it was getting a little loud since I live right next door”

He silently curses at himself like i almost went off at my new neighbor rip that wasn’t gonna be a good first impression

Luckily for him, you were chill about it and you’re like omg sorry!!! It’s a little tough doing this by myself, sorry for the ruckus

Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “do you need any help?”

Jihoon internally: u doofus u have an album to produce whAT ARE U DOING

Jihoon externally: i can help you :))) no matter how smol i may be

But that internal reprimanding melted away when he saw your eyes light up in relief and you’re practically bouncing up and down

“Would you, really??? It would be great if I had another hand around! Oh, but you’re probably occupied doing something, right??” and you feel bad that a stranger, your next door neighbor nonetheless, was about to abandon his work just for you

A cute neighbor, at that

Jihoon is like ok this is your chance to get away and go back to work cmon man

But there’s just something about you that pulls him in magnetically and he finds himself trying to reason internally that it’ll just be for a “few moments”

Yyyeaaahhh that doesn’t happen lmao rip Jihoon’s songs

Jihoon is just like “nah it’s fine I can help out for a bit” and you’re like god bless this human being

When you open your door further to let him in, he’s like oh right btw I’m Jihoon

“I’m y/n! Sorry about the mess, I only got here yesterday evening”

He shakes his head and quirks up his lips ever so slightly, “i remember when my place looked like this too except replace this space with music production things”

And you’re like ooOOoOoOO you make songs??? That’s amazing!!

And that’s when you got the ball rolling!!!

“A few moments” turn into hours and the next thing you know it’s dinnertime

“Oh crap sorry for keeping you for this long,,, those songs won’t produce themselves, right? I think I can take it from here”

Admittedly, jihoon didn’t wanna leave just yet bc he actually enjoyed your company and it was nice taking a break from staring at his screen frustratedly

“Well, I don’t mind helping out. I could show you my work one day if you want”

And you’re like holy cheeseballs yES

He starts getting up and brushing off his clothes and you’re a little sad that he’s leaving and he kinda is too :(

“If you’re not too busy tomorrow, you’re welcome to help me out more! I mean, you already helped me a whole lot today, but there’s still some things left to do”

As much as his brain is telling him to NOT DO IT,,,,

He does it

Next thing you know, jihoon is at your door again around the same time and he has something in his hand

As you let him inside, you ask him what it is and he’s like ;))))

“It’s a CD that compiled just a few songs I thought you might like”

And you’re #shook bc did he really just have a CD like this out in the open or did he really take his time yesterday to transfer songs on it??

“Do you have a player or a laptop?”

“Yeah, my laptop is on my bed, you can bring it out here!” You shout over your shoulder as you arrange your things in the living room

Shortly afterwards he emerges from the hallway and he presses a few buttons and clicks here and there and beautiful melodies ring out from your speakers

You can’t help but stop rustling to take in the sweet tunes and you’re just like :’))) have i heard anything so beautiful??? :’)))

One of the songs sound vaguely familiar and you realize it’s what you heard when you first arrived here

“Did you actually produce this??? This sounds like an actual song you can hear on the radio”

And he’s like yep made by yours truly!!!

He was only using “yours truly” half-metaphorically if you know what I mean ;)))

You keep bouncing to all the catchy tunes and swaying to the soulful ones

And in all honesty, seeing your reactions makes Jihoon feel really warm and even a little proud bc it’s one of the biggest reasons why he loves his job so much

He makes eye contact with you and you’re like :D and he’s like ahEM COuGh coUGh i’m gonna dust this shelf over here

He suddenly stands up and busies himself and you’re like ???? okie dokie

He’s a real help around the place and you’re practically done settling in

As you survey your fresh living space, you can’t help but feel a little…. Disheartened?

Bc it was actually really fun to have him around even while he made blunt remarks about your taste of decorations

“This looks like something my five-year-old niece would have”

“For your information, I got that from a five-year-old!! It’s cute, alright!”

You spent the past three days with Jihoon unpacking and talking about whatever comes to mind

Jihoon is pretty devastated that he has to go back to his makeshift studio in his room as much as he will never admit it

He eventually leaves your place and the both of you are just sad little puppies

From then on, every time you pass by each other, you greet him with a friendly smile and wave and you never fail to make his heart skip several beats

You don’t talk as much as how you first started bc he’s gotten much busier trying to mass-produce a lot of songs

For some strange reason, every time you hear a melody coming from the other side of the walls, you feel like you’re somehow connected with him

Well, except for the muffled cursing LMAO

And sometimes you would also hear several male voices at once and you’re guessing they’re his friends or the people he’s working with on the song, but based on their friendly banter and the constant run-throughs, it’s probably both

You would hear the same melody play over and over again, and you’re guessing he’s stuck on a certain part of a song as he tries to recreate new melodies from that point on

“aaAAGHGHHHGGHHHH” *deep sigh* me trying to overcome writer’s block LMAO

This would happen for about half an hour and you can’t help but wanting to reach out to him, but you’re not exactly the most musically-inclined person sadly

When he ultimately calms down, he goes back to working on the song until he finally gets the results he desires

More often than not, you fall asleep from hearing the slow ballads he creates with a smile on your face

Lil Jihoon does try to visit you and vice versa!! He sometimes shows up with random food and more CDs and you’re wondering just how many songs has this guy produced in his lifetime??? He looks around the same age as you but he’s probably produced 26+ songs by the way he packs a decent amount on each CD

Usually his excuse to sharing a meal with you is that “the guys brought over too much and i have a ton of leftovers that i can’t finish by myself”

In reality, he stared at a restaurant’s menu and contemplated for about twenty minutes about what you would like. This guy’s got dedication not just for work

“Would it be weird if i get fried chicken?? Maybe just a bowl of noodles?? What if soup is better??? It would give weird vibes if i bought drinks too, right?? Or should i just go ahead and buy them???”

Regardless of what he buys, you’re eager to eat anything and everything with your fav neighbor *wink wonk*

You feel bad when he would do that though, so you try to return the favor every so often as well

One time, you ordered some takeout but the servings were waaaaay bigger than advertised and you’re like Idea!! Let’s head over next door!! So you took the plastic bags and put in some drinks before heading out the door

You knocked on the door and that was when you heard light chatter on the other side of the door

You’re like sldjfljds i hope im not interrupting anything aaa mAYBE I SHOULD JUST LEAVE--

Too late, someone’s voice rang out “I’ll get it!” and next thing you know, the door swings out to reveal a face you’ve never seen before

“Oh, hi!” He says a little surprisedly but with a smile nevertheless

“H-hi, umm,,,, is Jihoon there?”

The guy is nodding his head in the direction of the back hallway, “yeah, he’s in the bathroom” and that’s when he looks down at your hands and his eyes instantly light up

“Omg did you bring food?? You’re so thoughtful!! Come in, come in!!” and before you could protest he literally drags you in and you’re met with a bunch of other strangers who are staring back at you like :oooo????

“Who’s this?? Jihoon never mentioned someone coming over today,, AND YOU CAN’T JUST DRAG SOMEONE IN THIS ISN’T YOUR HOME”

And you’re like ya i didnt know either lmao

You’re awkwardly shifting on your feet and praying jihoon will pop up instantaneously bc you’re gonna melt in embarrassment

“I just wanted to give him some of this,” you hold up your hands to gesture your food, “since it’s too much for me to finish on my own”

“Oh that’s cool! Some of the other guys are actually out to get more lunch, but food goes out fast with all of us here,” another guy says as he pats your shoulder reassuringly. “Well, since you’re already here, you can join us!”

“I-it’s ok! I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything, I just wanted to deliver this,,, I’ll get going” and you’re about to zOOM outta there but the same guy who ushered you in is like nO DONT LEAVE

“We’re taking a lunch break, so it’s cool if you join us! I’m Soonyoung” and he’s like :DDD and you’re just like ,,,, what a hyper guy but i like him

Everyone goes around to introducing themselves

you do a headcount of 8 and you remember there’s more guys getting food for them,,,, holy heck how many people do they have???? You’re about to introduce yourself after them but then

“Soonyoung, who was at the door--” a familiar voice calls out in the hallway before he emerges

And jihoon is like dsljLSJDF what the hELL

“Y/N??? What are you doing here???” *side eyes soonyoung*

And everyone’s making eyes at each other like waIT WAIT THIS IS Y/N???

“Soonyoung dragged me inside”

“Gdi soonyoung, how many times do i have to tell you that you can’t go around dragging people to join us???”

This guy who you think is named Seokmin pipes up, “yeah he does this all the time at our workplace too. A lot of our coworkers always end up extending their stay for far too long” and you’re nodding slowly like yeahhh i can see that happening

Soonyoung’s eyes are widened and he turns to jihoon like “is this the y/n that inspired your recent so--”

And jihoon is quick to cover his mouth so his voice is all muffled

“aHahaAHHAH soonyoung’s always the joker, april fools day!!! Let’s set the table, the others should be back soon”

jihoon whispering to soonyoung: you better sleep with one eye open tonight boi

And you’re like uhh alrighty :)))???

About twenty minutes after you’ve arrived, there’s another knock on the door

Soonyoung is practically bouncing on his way to the door and you can hear more unknown voices

They’re filing in and they suddenly stop and look at you like wait what

Them: :o????

You: :))),,, what up

Jeonghan briefly explains the situation to the guy who came in the door first and you’re lowkey intimidated bc he seems to be eldest and looks like he could beat you up to a pulp

BOY WERE YOU WRONG

After jeonghan tells him, he breaks out into this gigantic, cute gummy smile like welcome!! :DD i’m seungcheol! And the other guys behind him follow suit

Jeonghan’s like “this is,, y/n” and everyone tries to be subtle and nods like they didn’t hear jihoon babble on and on about you for weeks

You: ok why do yall act all weird when my name is brought up whAT DID JIHOON TELL YOU

Them: i would tell you but i don’t wanna die just yet sorry dude

Jihoon, somewhere in the kitchen: SET! THE! TABLE!

You end up staying there for a pretty long time, bonding over the whole feast you have and it’s really lively and fun, not to mention super loud with 13 guys in the same room,,, but you’re genuinely having a good time

Jihoon would glance at you nervously occasionally to check on you if you’re uncomfortable in any way

Jeonghan, who’s sitting next to him, notices jihoon’s eyes are practically glued to you and he’s like “is this the part where you confess your undying love and propose”

And jihoon is like shUT UP NO WHAT this chicken tastes great *quickly chugs down water*

You look back at jihoon sometimes and see he looks flushed but it’s not like he’s drinking alcohol

“Jihoon are you feeling ok?? Your ears are bright red” which obviously makes them redder rip

“I-i’m fine,, wow is it hot in here maybe it’s just the spiciness of the chicken let’s open the windows”

You eventually leave them as much as they protest and even try to get Jihoon to guilt trip you (unsuccessfully)

“Don’t leave just yet y/n!! You should stay, right Jihoon???”

“Huh?? O-oh yeah, I mean, you can if you want,,,,, we kinda need to work though”

Everyone’s looking at jihoon like bro wTF are u kidding me

Rip reader i can feel your heart drop :’(((

You’re feeling slightly dejected but you nod understandingly. You’ve already stayed far longer than you anticipated anyways, and work comes first for Jihoon

“Yeah, I totally get it! Good luck on the album guys!” You put on your shoes and close the door

When they finally hear your own door close, they’re attacking jihoon like

“SO Y/N IS THE ONE BEHIND ALL YOUR SAPPY LOVE SONGS HUH!!!”

“I knew it, the lyrics just suddenly got cheesier -- there had to be someone behind all of that”

And jihoon is just praying you won’t hear what they’re saying like “SHUT UP THESE WALLS ARE THIN”

Back at your apartment, it suddenly feels much emptier and lonelier

“What am i doing,,, I just met the guys for like two hours???”

You sigh and you try to busy yourself doing other things but you hear a loud commotion on the other side of the walls with just a bunch of incoherent shouting

You smile and laugh to yourself when you think about how close they all are

Your smile slowly fades when you start wishing you wanna be close to Jihoon and you’re like snAP OUT OF IT!!!

A couple of weeks pass by uneventfully but you notice that Jihoon has gotten more reserved around you

It’s just him being bashful around you and he panics every time he sees you but obviously he doesn’t want you to know that

You’re standing at your little mini balcony and admiring your cute little cactus plants

Just as you start thinking about him and his wellbeing, you hear your name and you’re like wHO’S THERE

You look down and see Jihoon staring back at you and honestly he looks like he’s awestruck by your whole beauty bc seriously everything you wear always looks super good to him

[insert photo]

(also pretend he’s holding plastic bags)

He holds up his hands and you’re laughing bc you know exactly what that means

“Come on up!”

There’s a knock on your door promptly afterwards and what do you know!!! It’s the man himself!!!

It’s just funny how the both of you have this ongoing routine that you know what to expect

When you let him in, he places the bags on your table and quickly smiles to himself when he sees your laptop on your bed

You and Jihoon both mindlessly do your respective roles as usual

He slowly comes out in the living room with your laptop and he’s like “so the album is pretty much done now,,, i can’t release all of the songs yet but there’s one i want you to listen to. I’ll show you after we eat”

You’re like ooo im excited and you start catching up with him as you’re eating

You can’t contain your excitement any longer, so as soon as you eat the last bit of your food, you’re like “oKAY SHOW ME IT NOW” as you’re restlessly shifting on your legs

He nods and pulls up the media player on your laptop. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before pressing play

It’s a melody you’re quite acquaintanced with after hearing it countless times at night, the same tune that lulls you to sleep

You have high expectations for this song, and surely he surpasses them with flying colors

You’re enjoying the song and telling him “wow this is a really good song!” when suddenly some lyrics catch your attention

You hear something about messy hair pulled back, ruffled clothes, eating meals

And you’re like huh that sounds a lot like us haha is that supposed to be me??

Jihoon is avoiding eye contact with you and looking down at his fidgeting hands as the song progresses in its later verses

The lyrics talk about wanting to develop a deeper relationship, one where “it’s okay to tell me anything, your hardships and desires. I just want to see you smile” and you’re like wait,,,,

And one of the final lyrics says something about “i can’t help feeling like this, will you accept my hand?” and you’re like wait wait w a i t

The song comes to an end and silence fills the room

You’re not sure whether you should speak up first or wait for him, but either way you’re speechless and wouldn’t know what to say anyways

Jihoon clears his throat awkwardly and stumbles on his words poor bby

“S-so, yeah,,,, I’ve been working on this one the longest,,,, umm do you,,, like it?”

But you know better that he’s not just talking about the song

“Nah sorry man i’m not interested”

“O.”

April fools kiddos ofc you are

“....yeah. I do like it”

And he finally brings himself to look at you and he’s like !!!!! really????

“Wait, for real??? You actually like it???”

He’s pretty much paralyzed in shock and all he can do is watch your hand move towards his and hold it

“I like it a lot, Jihoon :)”

He blinks slowly and he can’t fight the grin that spreads on his face as he grips your hand back

“I’m accepting your hand now heehee ^^”

“Okay let’s not talk about that”