#this barely scratches the surface this whole family seems to have their own curse in a way similar to appledusk’s bloodline

[clanborn]

feeling so normal about the implications if curlfeather is reedwhisker’s daughter

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Family reunion; Sirius Black x daughter teen reader

*Author’s note*

Okay so this is my first Harry Potter fanfic in awhile so if I get anything wrong, I apologize in advance. So this takes place during POA and I know it kinda drags along in some parts but I promise it gets better in some parts. Now idk if I'll make a sequel to this part, maybe with enough encouragement from you guys, maybe I'll get around to writing a part 2 that takes place during Order of the phoenix. But for now please enjoy this oneshot of Sirius Black.

Warnings: Swearing, mild violence, death of parent(s), bit of angst and fluff.

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things​

@waddles03​

@psychosupernatural​

@ixchel-9275​

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels​

@queen-paladin​

@platawnic​

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If you had told me that when I first walked through the halls of Hogwarts that in my 5th year that I would reunite with my dad, honestly I would believe it.  I always believed my father was innocent, even at just 3 years old I remember that night very clearly.  Because it wasn’t just the night that my godfather James and god mother Lily were killed, but my mother was also killed that day.

I saw with my own eyes (my mum had borrowed my godfather’s invisibility cloak to hide me) as Peter Pettigrew killed my mother with the ultimate unforgivable curse.  I remember crying over her dead body pleading for her to wake up, I remember daddy walking in and seeing us on the floor and him crying alongside me.

I especially remember when he left me at uncle Remus’ place for protection to go hunt Pettigrew only to be framed for murder of not only him but 12 muggles.

Since then my uncle was next in line to take care of me should anything happen to either my parents or godparents (my mum had no other living relatives and my dad wanted to ensure that I had no ties to the Black family tree should the worse happen).

For years I’ve been under my uncle Remus’ care who believed every word the Ministry said about my dad.  He didn’t want to but the evidence was stacked against my dad (even though no deep investigation had been made).

Anyways—oh wait I’m getting ahead of myself. I tend to do that a lot.  The name’s (Y/n) Lupin-Black, I’m currently a 5th year Hogwarts student in Ravenclaw (my mum’s house).  Even though I’m in Ravenclaw I’ve been friends with the Weasley twins Fred and George since our first year when the two of them stole my notes and wouldn’t give it back till I could tell them apart.

Amazingly I did and since then they’ve stuck to me like glue. The three of us do cause a bit of trouble at times (I get my mischievous side from my dad and brains from my mum, according to Gryffindor’s head professor, Professor McGonagall).

I also have an ability that I also inherited from my dad. I am a legal animangus, in fact I’m the youngest animangus the Ministry ever recorded.  

It took a lot of hard work and training in order to focus but by my second year I had mastered the ability.  My animangus form is a puma, and I’ve used it to help with my uncle’s—condition.  In fact that was the reason I wanted to become one.

He was at first against it but with a letter recommendation from Professor McGonagall and my head of house, Professor Flitwick, my uncle had no choice but to allow me to go through it.

Now as a 5th year, things have been—hectic these past few years since Harry Potter came to Hogwarts.  The Chamber of Secrets had been opened last year, and we had an incident with a troll, lost 2 DADA professors (but what else is new with that), but this year my uncle is the new professor for that class, and so far according to the Golden trio, everyone loves him.

But back to this story about my dad.  This year everyone at Hogwarts was on alert because my dad had escaped from Azkaban, the first ever wizard to ever do such a thing.  Now our school was to be housing for the Dementors until my dad was found and captured.

I tried to keep a low profile about it but at nights whenever I helped my uncle out during his ‘wolf-trots’ I would also try to see if I could find my dad.

Then one night it happened.

I was out with uncle Remus but I had lost trace of him through the Forbidden forest.  As I walked along in my puma form, my ears soon picked up the sound of barking.  Not werewolf barks, they were—dog barks? But why was a dog all the way out here? Dogs are the sort of creatures allowed within a mile of Hogwarts, nor can they get pass the barrier.

I raced on ahead and when I stood over a cliff but lowered myself down behind the rocks.  There I saw a scruffy, lean, but massive black dog barking at a few Acromantulas.  God I hate those things, I don’t care what Hagrid says, spiders can’t be trusted!  And I was right because right now this dog was being attacked by about seven of these things.

As one of them knocked the dog down and pinned it to the ground, ready to bite it and fill it with its venom, I let out a protective roar.  The spiders all looked up at me and I leapt down from the cliff and stood protectively in front of the black dog.

With a slash of my paws, I struck one of the spiders across it’s many eyes before biting down on it and tossing it like a paper ball.  I then leapt forward and pinned one of the other spiders down.  Another one tried to attack me but as it reared upward, the dog suddenly came up and rolled around with the spider.

I bit the head off the one I had pinned before racing across and swiping the legs off another one.  Soon realizing that they couldn’t win since a few of their siblings had already fallen, the rest of the spiders retreated back into their burrows and caves. I let out a loud and aggressive roar before turning towards the dog.

We walked towards each other till we stood face to face of one another.  As I stared at this dog, something about it was familiar to me.  Through the scruffy, madded fur and the very lean body I looked into it’s eyes and if I were back in my human form I would’ve gasped.

This wasn’t any ordinary dog, it—it was him.  My dad. Of course this was his animangus form, I remember! All the times he’d chase me around in his dog form when I was little, our nights curled up under the stars whenever mum wasn’t home, it was him!

My ears bent back as I sniffed at him.  When he noticed that I wasn’t any ordinary puma, he came up and sniffed around me.  He let out a surprised grunt as his ears perked up and his tail went up as it softly began to wag.

I leaned my head up against his letting out a loud, affectionate purr and he nuzzled against my head as well.  His paw would reach up and lightly touch the side of my head, almost as if he were embracing me.  We continued to nuzzle each other and I knew that if we could both show our human forms, we’d both be weeping hysterically as we’d hug and kiss each other.

But for now, our animangus forms would have to do.  As his head rested on my chest, I licked down his neck where I had seen a pretty bad scratch.  I licked his wound when we both heard the sound of a werewolf’s howl. Uncle Remus.

We both turned towards the direction of the howl before looking back at each other.  Dad gave me a gentle nod.  I looked between him and the direction of the howls hesitantly while giving him sad eyes. How could I leave him when I just found him after 12 years.  He came up to me and licked my muzzle up to behind my ears.  He then backed up and let out a couple of confident yet soft barks.

I nodded and nuzzled him again purring before licking his face affectionately.  I backed up and walked to where uncle Remus was but turned back to dad one last time. He let out another bark before I let out a low meow before racing on ahead to find uncle Remus.

That was over a month ago, but here is where our story truly begins.  Harry and his friends were slowly starting to piece together the story of my dad and Peter Pettigrew but with some straying doubt from my uncle, Harry still believed that my dad betrayed his parents and sold them to Voldemort.

I myself have tried to get him to see that my father wasn’t a threat but Harry has shut himself away from me.  He’s called me practically every name in the book and refuses to listen to me, hell he barely can even stand the sight of me.  Ron’s also elected to ignore me and treat me just like the school and the whole wizarding world has treated my dad.

Hermione on the other hand tolerates me just a bit more. She wants to believe what I have to say but due to the 12 long years of ‘evidence’ against my dad, she can’t seem to fully understand why the wizarding community would lie about framing an innocent man.

I sat alone by the Black lake looking up at the gloomy sky and stared out into the still, calm lake.  I let out a heavy sigh when I heard a voice behind me.

“You should really started heading back to the castle, it’s almost curfew time.” I turned around and there stood uncle Remus.  “And I would hate to give my niece a detention.”

“Please. You couldn’t find it in your heart to ground me for a week when the Weasley twins and I exploded the supply closet in the potions classroom in our second year.”

“Yes but I did give you a stern good lecture about messing with those chemicals.” He sat down beside me on the rocky surface and stared out the lake alongside me. “This reminds me back to my years at school with your father and the rest of my friends. We always snuck out here to this lake for late night swims.”

“Now, now uncle don’t go influencing me. You never know I might just run it by the twins.” I teased.

“(Y/n).” he started in that lecturing manner of his.

“Kidding, kidding. I know of the dangers of this lake.”

“Plus I never approved of us coming here to swim. It was always James and…….” He trailed off.

“Uncle do you really believe dad did what people said he did?” I said as I looked up at him.  He sighed deeply and said in a soft manner.

“As much as I want to believe it didn’t happen, I wasn’t there to say it wasn’t your father.”

“But I’ve told you countless times about my mother’s death! I saw with my own eyes who it was that killed her.”

“And I don’t doubt that. But with your godparents and those 12 muggles……your father’s family ties…..”

“Don’t define him! That’s why he made sure to not let anyone of the Black family tree get custody of me! Why he made sure that you were to be my guardian after papa James and mama Lily died!”

“If I‘m being honest he shouldn’t have done it to begin with.”

“Because of your condition?” he went silent. “Uncle……I never cared about that. You were never a monster to me. Why do you think I studied to be an animangus?” he turned to me.

“I’m just thankful you didn’t do the same thing your father did. Going ‘bout it the illegal route.” He cupped the side of my face, “You know Harry’s not the only one with his parent’s appearance.” I smiled solemnly.

“I know. My mother’s face but I have my father’s eyes.” It’s true.  Throughout all my life I had been told of people, especially uncle Remus here that I look practically identical to my mother, my eyes however are just like my father’s.

“I wish that she did get to see the women you grew up to be. She would be very proud of you.”

“Sometimes I—fear that I’m starting to forget about her.” I admitted to him.  Uncle Remus stroked my hair and allowed me to rest my head on his shoulder as an arm wrapped around me.

“Just think of how you succeeded throughout your schooling. That’s your mother right there. She was far too clever for her own right, even more than me. I’ll even admit that at times I was jealous of her at times.” We both softly laughed.

“I do recall dad telling me some of your little competitions you and mum used to do to prove just who was the most clever. She always beat you.”

“Not at everything!”

“I’m kidding. I know you did beat her at some stuff.” I looked up and saw my uncle looking toward the sky.  He almost seemed deep in thought about something. “Uncle? Uncle? Uncle Remus?”

“Hmm? Oh sorry love. But back to the reason why I came here; even though I am your uncle and guardian, I’m still a professor at this school and I order you to get back to the castle.”

“Yes Professor Lupin.” I said as I got up and walked away. However I snuck behind a tree because I wanted to see just where he was going.

If he wanted me to get back to the castle so urgently, why not just take me all the way there himself? What’s he up to? So I quietly followed behind him in my animangus form.  Sticking to the shadows and any tall shrub or bush to hide myself from my uncle, I crouched down low behind a rock as he now stood before the Whomping willow tree.

He took out his wand and said a spell which made the tree go still.  Once the branches went still, I saw him enter inside a small entrance of the tree and I quickly followed, now phasing back into my normal form.

I noticed that this place now suddenly looked like some sort of shack.  It was haunting and creaks and groans were heard all around me.  I reached out for my wand but before I could even grab it, I felt something touch my neck and a low, graveled voice said.

“Don’t. Move.” Ahh bollocks!

“Professor Snape.” I said lowly, trying to not be a threat. Yeah much like my dad, Professor Snape pretty much hated me since day one (I’m pretty sure he hates every student that isn’t a Slytherin).

“Sneaking out past curfew, allying in your father’s hiding, I would have the right mind to have you expelled from Hogwarts and have you be taken to Azkaban alongside your fugitive of a father.” Oh man did I really wanna punch him at this point.

“Professor you know he’s—” I felt his wand press harder against my neck as he hissed in my ear.

“It’s your word against the Ministry’s. Now follow me and do as your told.” Knowing I had no other choice, I allowed him to lead me up the stairs where I heard my dad’s voice say.

“Peter Pettigrew. And he’s in this room! Right now!”

“Take your wand out, and if he’s armed, disarm him.” I took my wand out and as my dad was calling out for Peter to come out, I stepped forward and cried out.

“Expelliarmus!” I saw as a wand fell out of my dad’s hand and that’s when my dad turned to me in shock.

“(Y/n)?” he gaped at me.

“(Y/n) what are you doing here?! I thought I told you to go back to the castle!” uncle Remus said.

“You should’ve realized that she’s more like her father in every way. Including disobedience.” Professor Snape soon made himself known as he now aimed his wand at my back, making sure to let my dad see it. “Vengeance is sweet. How I hoped to be the one to catch you.”

“Severus—” my uncle started off. Snape sent him one dirty look and as usual my uncle submitted as Snape hissed out.

“I told Dumbledore you were helping an old friend into the castle and now here’s the proof.”

“Brilliant Snape. Once again you put your keen impenetrating mind to the task, and as usual it comes to the wrong conclusions. Now if you’ll drop your wand and step away from my daughter, Remus and I have unfinished business to attend to!” his wand moved from my back to my throat.

“Give me a reason. I beg you.” He challenged my father.

“Dad.” I pleaded with fearful eyes.

“It’ll be alright darling.” He assured me.  His eyes then turned cold as he stared at Snape. “It’s one thing when you put your nose where it doesn’t belong, but when you force others to do your dirty work for you, that’s where I draw the line. If you don’t let my daughter go now, then I will show you a reason why I belong in Azkaban!”

“Sirius don’t be a fool.” Uncle Remus said.

“Well he can’t help it Remus it’s habit.”

“Quiet Sirius!”

“Quiet yourself Remus!”

“Listen to you two quarreling like an old married couple.” Snape said but that’s when dad sassed back at him.

“Why don’t you run along and play with your chemistry set!?” I was then shoved out of the way as Snape now had his wand right at my father’s neck now.  I fell to the ground but was quickly brought back up and held in my uncle’s arms.

“I could do it you know. But why deny the Dementors? They’re so longing to see you. Do I detect a flicker of fear? Oh yes, a Dementor’s kiss, one can only imagine what that much be like to endure. It’s said to be unbearable to witness but I’ll do my best.”

“Severus please.” My uncle tried to reason with him again. Once again Snape glared at my uncle and sneered once again.

“After you. Then we can deal with that rebel daughter of his next.” The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife before suddenly Harry called out.

“Expelliarmus!” then Snape went flying back towards an old rotten bed which collapsed right on him.

“Harry what did you just do?” asked Ron.

“You attacked a teacher!” Hermione exclaimed.

“Tell me about Peter Pettigrew.” Harry demanded as he pointed his wand at my uncle and I.

“He was an old school friend of theirs.” I answered him.

“No. Pettigrew’s dead. You killed him!” Harry said as he now pointed his want towards my dad.

“No he didn’t. I thought he was too till you mentioned seeing Pettigrew on the map.” Uncle Remus said.

“The map was lying then!” Harry argued.

“The map never lies! Pettigrew’s alive! And he’s right there!” my dad said before pointing towards Ron.

“Me? He’s mental!”

“Not you Ron! Your rat!” I told him.

“Scabbers? But he’s been in my family for—”

“12 years?! Curious long life for a common garden rat. He’s missing a toe isn’t he?”

“So what?” demanded Ron.

“All they could find of Pettigrew was his……” Harry started off.

“Finger.” Both my dad and I said.  The two of us looked at each other and softly smiled before my dad continued.

“The dirty coward cut it off so that everyone would think he was dead. And then he transformed into a rat!”

“Show me.” Harry ordered.  At this point my dad went to grab Ron’s rat but of course he refused to let go.  Once he managed to get Pettigrew out of Ron’s grip, Ron pleaded for my dad to leave Scabbers alone.  Hermione and I held him back so that my dad and uncle could finish the job.

Unfortunately Pettigrew was too fast for them to get a good shot to change him back.  So I quickly whipped out my wand and right as the rat went for a hole in the wall, I shot the spell and he soon morphed, for the first time in over 12 years, back into the stout, pudgy man that killed my mother.

My dad and uncle pulled him out of the wall and for the first time, Harry, Ron and Hermione saw Peter Pettigrew, the real man behind my father’s framed crime and the person responsible for Harry’s parent’s death and my mother’s killer.

“Remus…….S-Si-Sirius? My old friends.” Pettigrew praised before trying to make an escape for it, but they wouldn’t have it.  When his eyes soon lay on me, I felt my blood boil. “Ohh little (Y/n). So much like your mother, and with your father’s eyes. You remember me right? Your old uncle Pete—” as he came closer to me, I allowed my puma claws to come out as I scratched him across the face.  He whimpered as blood now began to seep down his face.

“You have no right to talk to me!” I growled at him. “I saw what you did that night! I WAS THERE YOU BASTARD!! YOU KILLED MY MOTHER!!” this time Ron and Hermione had to be the ones to hold me back from tearing that rat apart.

He shielded away from me in fear before turning to Harry who was just stunned in shock.

“Harry, look at you. You look so much like your father. Like James. We were best friends you know……”

“How dare you speak to Harry!” my dad hissed protectively. “How dare you talk about James in front of him!” soon the two of them had Pettigrew pinned by the piano, their wands at the ready.

“You sold James and Lily to Voldemort didn’t you!?” my uncle demanded.

“I didn’t mean to.” Wept the rat man pathetically.  He then began to go off on a ramble of how Voldemort was powerful and had weapons we had no idea he possessed. “What would you have done Sirius? What would you have done?”

“I would’ve died! I would’ve died rather than betray my friends or the woman I love!” my dad exclaimed as Peter tried to make his escape.  Harry blocked his escape but Peter whispered into his ear about something.

Finally I decided to step in and I pulled the rat away from my godbrother and aimed my wand at him.  Without even hesitating my father and uncle joined at my side and I said.

“Then you should know uncle. That if the Dark Lord didn’t kill you, then we will!”

“No wait!” Harry exclaimed.  My breathing sharpened as I said.

“Harry, this bastard……”

“I know what he is (Y/n). But we’ll take him to the castle. Together.” He placed his hand on top of mine and he softly whispered, “Would you mother want this?” I looked at him, tears starting to form in my eyes.

I turned back to Pettigrew who was now on his knees praising Harry for his mercy.

“Bless you boy. Bless you sweet boy.”

“Get off!” Harry snapped. “I said we’d take you back to the castle. Afterwards the Dementors can have you.” oh now this I like.  The traitor’s face turned from pure bliss to absolute horror as he fidgeted fearfully trying to make himself smaller.

After leaving the Shrieking Shack and exited out of the Whomping Willow, I watched as my dad walked ahead and stood to look up at the school.

I looked to Harry and gave him a soft nod.  His eyes showed hesitation but with a gentle shove he walked towards my father and I watched as the two of the proceed to talk with each other.

“You knew he was innocent?” Hermione said to me.

“Yes, I did. As I said back there it wasn’t just uncle James and Aunt Lily that died because of Peter. I was there to see my mother die right before my eyes. She had the invisibility cloak at the time, probably stole it from uncle James just to spite him or something. But she hid me with it and I saw as Peter came in and killed her with the last of the unforgivable curses.”

“I’m so sorry (Y/n). To think you had to see something like that.”

“We’re sorry we’ve been wankers to you about this (Y/n). Harry and I especially, can you forgive us?” Ron said.  I softly smiled and ruffled his hair.

“There’s nothing to forgive Weasley. Although you’re gonna have to do a lot of kissing up to your brothers Fred and George. They’ve been wanting to slug you for your behavior towards me.”

Then something happened that I wished never did.  The clouds slowly began to move away to reveal the full moon.  Oh no!

“Uncle Remus!” I exclaimed but it was too late.  He was starting to transform into his werewolf form.

My dad quickly ran up to him trying to hold his transformation back, but it was no use.  The agonizing groans and screams coming out of my uncle as his bones snapped and broke before changing and morphing to fit his upcoming werewolf body.  And to make matters worse, Pettigrew seized that opportunity to escape from our grasp.

Even though Harry disarmed him with an Expelliarmus spell, it still didn’t stop the rat from turning into true form before making his escape.  My dad knowing he couldn’t hold uncle Remus any longer told us to run.

Soon my dad was thrown down the hill and I exclaimed out.

“DAD!!” I quickly ran towards uncle Remus hoping I could knock some sense into him before his final transformation came around. “Uncle Remus you can fight it! The monster does not control you, you control it! Fight it! Think harder on your human senses!”

Just like my father, I too was sent down towards the hill as the last thing I heard was the sound of my uncle’s werewolf howl.

When I opened my eyes, I saw myself in Madam Pomfrey’s nursing wing.

“(Y/n), oh thank goodness you’re awake. Can you stand up?” Hermione’s voice said over me.  My vision finally came back and I said.

“What happened?”

“There’s not a lot of time to explain (Y/n) but your dad’s in serious danger. The Dementors are going to suck his soul.”

“What!?” I said fearfully as I shot up. “They can’t do that. He’s innocent!”

“Which is why I need to ask if you can stand and walk?”

“Yeah I can but why?” she pulled me up from my bed over to Harry who stood at the center of the room.

“Sorry Ronald but you can’t walk.” She then took a necklace out from her shirt and placed the chain around Harry and I before holding out what looked like a mini-hourglass.

The pendent began to spin around and soon right before our very eyes, the world around us seemed to go backwards.  Night turned into the gloomy afternoon once more as the medical wing was now abandoned and Hermione stopped the pendant’s spinning and she said as she took the chain off of mine and Harry’s neck and tucked it back into her shirt.

“Where were we at this hour Harry?”

“Uhh going to Hagrid’s I think.”

“And (Y/n) where were you at this time?”

“I was down at the Black Lake with uncle Remus, why?”

“Alright come on!” she took off running.  Harry and I ran after her confused asking her just what was going on.

That’s when she explained to us about the time turner necklace she had been given by Professor McGonagall, and she explained to Harry that that was how she was able to do all her classes this term.

So throughout the day we went down to Hagrid’s and I even got to see Hermione sucker punch Malfoy right in the nose (which I praised her on). We went down to Hagrid’s hut and we made our plan to save Buckbeak the Hippogriff (apparently Professor Dumbledore said that more than one life could be spared today).

As the day went on, it was nearly time to try and save my dad. So we sat just down the hill from the Whomping Willow.  We watched as uncle Remus came in and made the tree stop it’s swaying for a brief moment before entering inside, followed by me shortly after him.

“Wait you’re also an animangus?” Harry asked me.

“Surprised?” I asked him.

“When did you become one?” asked Hermione.

“I was roughly around your age when I took my test before the Wizard council to get my official license. They said I was the youngest registered animangus there ever was.” I looked up and said, “And there goes Snape. Right in after me.”

The two young teens turned and saw that Snape did go in shortly after me.

“Now we wait I guess.” Harry said.  We all made ourselves comfortable because we knew it would be awhile before we all left the Shrieking shack and came back before the Whomping Willow.

Then after seeing us come out, I watched as Harry went down to talk to my dad and that’s when he told me.

“You see me there talking to Sirius? He had just asked me to come live with him, you as well (Y/n). He talked about you and your mother a lot. As well as my parents.”

“I know. They were really good friends Harry. Even at just 3 years old, I knew my dad would never have betrayed yours. Never, not even if he were tortured. That’s why he named your parents my godparents.”

“I guess we were meant to be siblings either way.” I softly grinned at him and ruffled his hair before pushing his glasses back up his nose.

“I remember be so excited to have a younger ‘sibling’. Though I’ll admit I wanted you to be a girl, but you eventually grew on me.” Hermione giggled while Harry turned away embarrassedly.

Then that’s when the trouble began.  We saw uncle Remus transform into his werewolf form, the fight between him and my dad (who was in his animangus form), and then even be chased by him when Hermione howled to stop him from attacking Harry.

I phased into my animangus form to protect Hermione and Harry in case my uncle came around to find us.  When he did, I stood protectively in front of my brother and Hermione snarling and roaring at him.  But before we could charge at each other, Buckbeak had came in and fought my uncle off.

Man poor uncle Remus is having a really rough night. I then felt a coldness in the air and when we looked up we saw the Dementors flying towards where my dad must’ve been at after the fight with uncle Remus.

I gestured for Hermione and Harry to get on my back and once they were on, I raced on ahead and we stopped across the frozen lake and we all watched with horror as the Dementors began to suck out both Harry’s and my dad’s souls.

“Now just wait Hermione, my dad will come. He’ll be standing right there.” Harry said as he got off my back and walked a few steps ahead of us.  Hermione and I looked at each other sympathetically and she got off my back as well and stood beside him.

“Harry—your dad’s…….”

“Dead I know but just watch. He’ll cast the Patronus right there. Just like he did before.” We waited and waited but all we saw were my dad and Harry dying right before our eyes.

“You’re dying Harry. Both of you.” I said as I morphed back into my normal form.  God I had heard of witnessing a Dementor’s kiss is something awful but—god this was torture.  I wanted to step in and save my dad and Harry from the Dementors but what could I do? I’m not strong enough to conjure a Patronus charm, plus I would be outnumbered even if I tried any other spell I could name.

Next thing I saw was Harry racing forward to the spot where he said his dad was standing at.

“Harry!” Hermione called out but I wrapped my arms around her to stop her from racing towards him and that’s when we saw him lift up his wand and exclaim.

“EXPECTO PATRONUM!” Soon a bright light came from out of his wand and a bright wave of light shot out, which sent all the dementors away, saving Harry and my father from a terrible fate.

As I stared at my godbrother, I couldn’t be more proud of him. Not even I was able to conjure up a spell like that at his age, hell I can barely do it now.  He truly was a gifted young man, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.

After saving himself, we were now flying on Buckbeak heading for the highest tower where my dad was being kept.  I was sitting right behind Hermione while she was terrifyingly holding onto Harry for dear life.

“You were right Hermione. It wasn’t my dad I saw earlier. It was me! I saw myself conjured the Patronus before. I knew I could do it this time because—well I’d already done it. Does that make sense?”

“No! But I don’t like fly-AHHH!!!” She screamed as Buckbeak took a dive down towards the school, while Harry and I were cheering our heads off.

When we reached the tower, there we saw locked up in a cage, my dad looking forlorn as he awaited his fate.  He quickly turned to us and I took out my wand and pointed it at the lock as I proclaimed out.

“Alohomora!” the doors unlocked and swung wide open. “C’mon dad, we’re busting you out of here.” I extended my hand out to him and he immediately took my hand.

The four of us now flying on Buckbeak with Hermione up front, me behind her then my dad and Harry.  

And for the first time in 12 years, my dad finally felt free as a Hippogriff flying high in the sky.  Never have I heard him sound so happy and it brought a smile to my face as I heard him cheering.

We landed in the garden wing of the school and as my dad helped Hermione as well as me off of Buckbeak he said as we walked towards the corner of the garden.

“I’ll be forever be grateful for this. To the three of you.”

“I want to go with you.” said Harry.

“One day perhaps. For some time my life will be too unpredictable. Besides, you’re meant to be here.”

“But you’re innocent.”

“And you know it Harry.” I told him. “Just like I’ve always known.”

“She’s right. And for now that’ll do.” As Hermione left the three of us to have our little family moment, my dad then turned towards me. He stood before me and gently cupped each side of my face.  His calloused thumbs stroking my cheeks as he said to me, “I expect like Harry you might be tired of hearing this, but you are a splitting image of your mother. Except your eyes, you have……”

“Your eyes.” I finished for him.  Tears flickered in my eyes but I tried to hold them back. “I’ve only dreamed of something like this happening, and—even now I fear this still feels like a dream.”

“I’ve told you once when you were little; Dreams can feel like many things. Whether to make us feel happy or afraid, but in dreams you can never feel what is happening to you. So this, right here, is real my darling kitten.”

He took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.  When I felt it, I knew that this was real.  My dad was free, he was here, and he was right in front of me.  I embraced him as tightly as I could, burying myself into the ragged cloth of his prison uniform.  Slowly a few tears dripped from my eyes one by one as I felt my dad embrace me back just as tightly while rocking me from side to side.

“I’ve missed you so much dad.”

“Not as much as I’ve missed you. I’ve missed so much of your life. You were just a little girl when I was taken away and now I’ve seen you’ve become a beautiful young woman, just like I’d hope you’d be. Your mum would be so proud. Just as I am. I’m so sorry I put you through this.”

“I know why you did it dad. If I were older I would’ve done the same thing. I just……wish none of this had to happen.”

“As do I kitten. As do I. There hasn’t been a day that I don’t regret leaving you like I did. I made you lose both your parents.”

“That’s another thing I’ve inherited from you.” he looked at me confused. “Uncle Remus has always said I did get your stubbornness.” He softly chuckled before grabbing the back of my head and pressing his forehead against mine.

We stayed in that position for what felt like forever till he pressed a kiss to the center of my forehead before he guided me over to sit next to Harry.  He knelt down before the both of us as he said to us.

“It’s cruel that I got so much time with James, Lily and (m/n) and you both so little. But know this. The ones that love us never really leave us. And you both can always find them,” he then placed his left hand over Harry’s heart while his right hand pointed towards mine, “In here.”

Dad stood up and walked over to Buckbeak and mounted on top of his back once again, gently gripping onto the chained reins.  As Harry and I came up and stood beside Hermione, my dad complimented to her that she was indeed a bright witch for her age.

Buckbeak then reared as he let out a proud roar before taking off running before flapping his proud wings and taking off high towards the moon with my dad on his back.

Two souls finally free from the law.

The clock tower began to gong loudly and that’s when Hermine told us we needed to get back to the hospital wing.  We quickly raced towards the medical wing before the last strike of the belltower.

We saw Professor Dumbledore with his back towards us as he peeked through the doors before closing them.

“Well?” he asked us.

“We did it. They’re free.” Harry said.

“Did what? Goodnight.” The headmaster gave us a wave before descending down the stairs.  Oh that crazy old man.  The three of us walked towards the door but before we went in, we had to watch ourselves disappear to start the whole rescue all over again.  Once we disappeared, that’s when we came in the room.

“How did you get there? You were just over there. And now you’re there!” Ron said to us in shock.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Ronald? Do you Harry? (Y/n)?”

“No clue. Maybe you should have your head examined Ronny, think you might be going mental.” I teased.

“Yeah Ron. How can people be in two places at once?” Harry joked alongside me.

Things after that were pretty crazy.  After it had been leaked out about my uncle’s condition (damn you Snape!) my uncle resigned as professor at Hogwarts, Harry had gotten the new firebolt broom (curtesy of my dad) and he got to test it out.

I was in my bedroom just finishing the last bit of my packing to return home for the summer when my owl Arella came flying in.  Her familiar grey and white feathers ruffled as she landed on her perch and she made her trilling sound.

“What have you have there, girl?” I noticed she had a small jewelry box tied to her back along with a note in her beak.  I took the note then untied the box from her back as she shook herself out and ruffled her feathers.

I set the box down and opened up the note and inside was a letter written in my dad’s hand writing.

My beloved kitten,

This once belonged to your mother (I gave it to her just shortly after you were born) and I figured she would want you to have it.  Keep it close to your heart and her memory will never leave you.

Your father,

Sirius Black

I set the note down and opened up the box now and inside was a necklace.  It was a silver heart-shaped locket and I noticed a little button at the side of it. I pressed down on it and it opened up to reveal something that not only broke my heart, but also filled it with joy.

The moving picture inside was my mother holding me as a baby. Her wide smile as she held me in her arms, her eyes filled with nothing but love.  When she looked up and her smile softened, I really did get to see what my uncle and dad were talking about.

I really did look like my mother.  Same hair, same mouth, same face, almost everything was of my mother. A single tear fell down my cheek as I kissed the picture and held it close to my heart.

Soon I began to get brief flashbacks of various moments with my mother.  I remember how she’d always sing me to sleep while having the windchimes of various creatures softly ring above me.  The way she’d make breakfast, and how we’d play together at papa James and mama Lilly’s place.

I unhooked the chain and placed it around my neck and saw as the heart shaped locket actually rested against my own heart.

“Thanks dad. And thank you mum. I miss you, but you can rest easy now. Dad’s free.” I said as I stared up at the sky holding the locket closer against my heart.

[violetnotez]

Izuku x reader

⤷ Genre: Fluff, Mafia Boss AU!

⤷ Word Count: 3600+

⤷ Warnings: i think cursing? I think?

⤷ Synopsis: Working in a rundown bar kinda sucks, especially when the owner is you ex best friend, your crush, and now a mafia boss.

This is for the Izuku Month! Pls check out the awesome writers participating for this month!

You wiped down the grimy surface of the bar, your shoulders sagging from fatigue.

God you hated this job.

It seemed like such a long day, such a long time since you’ve been able to truly be completely calm. You felt how rigid your shoulders were, always seemingly expecting a fight or confrontation. 

Working and managing a bar under the control of the mafia wasn’t the most calming job in the world, you had to admit that, but you had to get money somewhere. You would be on the streets, scrounging for anything that resembled a meal if you didn’t have this job. 

As much as you hated it and all of its requirements, from the drunken brawls you had to pick apart to the back room deals in the dark, you at least were able to eat, to live in a somewhat decent apartment, to pay your bills. 

You constantly had to remind yourself of this, every time you had a man cat call you or a fight happened on the sickly white porcelain tiles. You would bawl you fists into balls, your lip quivering to finally let loose the pain and frustration being caged in your chest.

If you allowed yourself to be truthful to yourself, you'd admit just stuck, trapped, and powerless you felt in this moment. You felt like a little ant scrambling in a hug hive, under control of one leader who wouldn’t ever let you stop working. 

You wiped a brow of sweat off your forehead, your makeup long gone from the strenuous workday as you glanced a look at the corner of the room.

Each table was clean and pristine, (all thanks to you), the wooden surface glistening under the hazy yellow lights, the crystal vases holding a single rose bloom, the petals dark like blood. 

Some tables were occupied, men having late night conversation with a beer in hand, their tones surprisingly quiet and calm, as if  the alcohol had somehow changed their rambunctious demeanor from 2 hours ago. 

Everything around you was a typical late night on a Saturday, the clock reading 12:45 am as it ticked like a bomb ready to explode, the men oblivious to the ominous countdown as they chit chatted away on their tables. 

The only thing strange, the only thing that had thrown you off since he had arrived…..was the man in the corner, casually drinking at an empty table.

He was sitting in the VIP lounge, his shoulders hunched like yours as he surveyed the scene like a slinking cat, his scarred hands swirling an amber liquid. 

You had been watching him all night, after your boss had been thrown into an uncharacteristic frenzy when he first saw the man: it was him. Izuku Midoriya. The owner of this bar and the mentee of Toshinori Yagi, the late Mafia Boss.

Midoriya's rise to fame was infamous, it seemed-Yagi had plucked the poor boy off the streets, declaring him as his protege that very same day. All the mafia bosses in the city couldn’t understand why Toshinori had picked the boy at the time-he was barely 16, his short height and timid voice practically making all the others bosses double over in laughter.

He would never survive this hardened lifestyle, and the talk was they would slowly pick apart the Yagi legacy, taking over all of his territory once the boy became the new leader.

You were barely 16 yourself at the time, a poor girl who had watched her best friend get thrown into a world that wasn’t his. You had been friends with Midoriya since you were a child, playing with him in the streets after school and protecting him from all the bullies that would try to take advantage of his shy personality.

It was strange to see him now after all those years of silence, his change shocking you.

He was older, in age and in spirit. He looked so burdened with knowledge, his eyes coated underneath with a purple hue and his brow fixed in a tired expression.

 But he still had a youthful look, his eyes wide and doe-like and his freckles like stars in a clear night, his curly green hair as unruly as it was in his youth.

You couldn’t fathom why he was at this bar so late at night, or why he was even here in the first place. He was well known now-everyone knew who he was, whether they respected him or not. There was no need for him to be in a shady bar at 1 in the morning, drinking his alcohol as if he was bored by the whole scene in front of him.

But there he was, looking as placid as ever as his two bodyguards stood at the ready, surveying the spotless room for any intrusions or enemies that could hurt Izuku.

You looked down at the bar, the white rag turning brown with the dirt that had collected on the surface.  

You wiped a strip of sweat from your eyebrow again, the humid heat feeling suffocating as  your hand returned to the rag, swirling it in lazy circles on the shiny surface.

“Another whiskey please,” you heard a young voice ask, his voice sounding hesitant and slightly worried.

You looked up with exhausted eyes, only to feel all the air leave your lungs.

Izuku was looking at you with wide, apologetic eyes, his face expecting your response. He was wearing an expensive suit, the gold embellishments on the sleeves gleaming in the warm lighting.

You gulped as you willed your heart to slow at the sudden movement, moving a fallen piece of hair back behind your ear.

“Isn’t it a little late for that?” you asked dryly, your voice free of any emotion as you continued to clean the counter, your cheeks blossoming with red as you tried to contain your shock.

Even though you knew Midoriya for many years, it was embarrassing for you, seeing your once best friend becoming such a high and mighty figure in the underworld, so full of power and luxury, while you were stuck in a grimy job that gave you just enough to survive.

It also didn’t help that you used to have a crush on Izuku since grade school-you had thought you had gotten over those feelings, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Your heart still swelled at hearing his voice, it’s pace quickening like you were running a race just from the sweet sound.

He chuckled, a soft chime rumbling out of his chest. He sat himself at the counter, not minding the dampness as he rested his shoulders on the dark surface.

“Still always out to protect me,huh, y/n?” he asked, his voice sounding bitter sweet, “You were always looking out for me.”

You looked up, your eyes blown wide with shock. 

He still remembered you? It was strange to see  him after all these years, those pink cheeks bright against his brown freckles, as if he was cursed to always be blushing so adorably.

“More like I don’t feel like dealing with another drunk this late at night.”

He smiled yet again, his face lighting up at your sarcasm.

How the hell was he still so him, so innocent and sweet after all he must have seen, must haven been through?

Was he really still the same boy from your past?

You sighed, your heart feeling heavy with emotions. No, he wasn’t the same-he was a mafia boss. He was the boss above your own boss, the CEO of your whole damn life. You couldn't fall for his sweet antics, no matter how much they pulled on your heartstrings. 

You sighed, your hand slowly stopping the rag.

“What is it you want Izuku,” you quickly asked, your face stony and harsh. “Somebody like you doesn’t just come to a bar like this just for some whisky-at 12 in the morning might I add.”

He chuckled again, this time the sound more nervous as he scratched the back of his head. 

Izuku had to admit it, you were right-there was no reason why he should be here. No reason why he should be here at 12 in the morning, looking like a pompous rich brat with his two bodyguards as he peered at you from his lounge, watching you work.

When he had heard you were working at this bar, one that he owned on his part of the city, he felt like bricks had been dumped into his stomach. How did he not know you were here? 

After getting recruited by Toshinori, he had somehow lost all contact with you, his life becoming so hectic and terrifying that he has decided he didn’t want to see you. He was fearful of bringing you into this terrible life-you were his best friend and his crush after all, he didn’t want to see you get hurt because of him.

But you had somehow already gotten twisted into this lifestyle, this swirling mish mash of legal and illegal, family and foes, loyalty and lies. Now you were apart if it, being a manager of a mob bar. If you were apart of it, he felt like he could actually approach you now, because the fear of getting you hurt was far less. 

But he was scared for you still-you were around many shifty characters daily, dealing with your fair share of criminals. With his high status, he could help you now-he could keep you safe.

“I just want to know how you are,” he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he looked at you with concern, “it’s been so long I-I-didn't realize you were here.”

He grimaced slightly, weighing his words out slowly and carefully. “You don’t seem to like working here much.”

You grinned slightly, your eyebrows cocked up in an amusement and exhaustion. You set the rag down, your hands spread against the counter.

“You’re still very observant-did you catch that from talking to me or watching me for the last 2 hours?”

Izuku chuckled nervously, his cheecks on fire as he hands swirled the gold watch in his wrist like a worn out habit. Your eyes widened slightly at the expensive accessory-another reminder of how different this Izuku was from you. He had power, he had freedom, control, and everything in life- and you didnt. You were a bird caged inside, unable to spread your wings and free yourself of the troubles that followed you each and every day. 

Your smile lessened as the lump of misery in your stomach grew, his eyes catching the small gesture. He leaned against the counter, his green eyes searching your face. 

He felt so close, those tufts of green hair cascading against his forehead as his eyebrows scrunched in worry.

“Are you okay y/n? I’m worried for you,” he said quietly, as if he was revealing a secret to you.

Your cheeks blushed in red-how did he still seem so-him? He was so kind and caring like he was as a child, always making sure you were okay, taking care of you when you had scraps on your knees or tears on your face. His heart was made of gold, and you honestly couldn’t fathom why Izuku had turned to the life of a hardened, merciless mob boss.

You noticed his hands twisting again, wringing in worry as he waited for your response. Your eyes trailed down to those digits and the plethora of scars on his fingers, wrapping around his skin and trailing under his tailored suit, turning his smooth skin into a rippled, pink pattern.

Your heart broke at the sight, just imagining the terrible things he must have been through to attain those marks. 

Your fingers wrapped around his hand, your nurturing nature kicking in once seeing those pink tiger marks decorating his skin. Your finger trailed against the skin, following the pink river lines rising against his skin.

“You don’t look so good yourself Izuku,” you said, your digits touching and caressing the scars lightly as you examined each one.

Izuku gulped, his brain going into overdrive-you were touching him. 

No matter how much time had passed, he couldn’t forget how much he had fallen for you as a kid, and it was following him into his adult life. He missed your sweet smile, your laugh, your bright personality that could light up his whole day and week.

But now his sun was so bleak, your face cracked with fatigue as you stared at his scars with such intent it was as if your eyes were burning a hole into his skin. 

He sucked in air harshly, trying to figure out how to breathe again.

“How do you get these ‘Zuku?” You asked quietly, looking up at him, his wide, green eyes staring back at you.

He shimmied his hand away from yours, his cheeks a rosy red as he averted your gaze. It was sweet to see him so vulnerable, the hint of nervousness gracing his complexion, but you missed the feeling of his skin on yours.

“I-It’s not that important-“ he stuttered slightly, “I’m hear you see you, not talk about me-“

You gave him a thin smile, your lips curling inward from exhaustion as your head tilted onto your shoulder.

“So, what did you want to ask me?” you asked. You watched as he exhaled a small sigh, his body willing him to speak his next few words. You held your breath watching him look so nervous, like watching a dam slowly crumble and release the flood of water it had been holding back for so long.

“Are you happy-doing this?” he looked you square in the eye, those forest green eyes expansive and sucking you in whole. 

 “And you have to answer, no going around the question,”

He quickly pointed his finger  at you, his body manner stern yet his face betraying his thoughts. His face was still so soft, still so innocent looking and concerned as he leaned closer to you on the countertop.

You squinted your eyes at him-you honestly didn't want to sound mean, or well, bitchy, but-what was he playing at? Over the years you had learned that trust isn't something easily won over, even if you had known the person for years. You and Izuku had been friends since you could remember, that was true-but it had been so long, and you weren't quite ready to be rubbing shoulders so closely with the mob boss yet.

“I work at a bar where I get paid enough to survive and have to deal with drunk idiots who catcall me every 5 minutes,” you chided slightly, your voice dripping with sarcasm, “ So, no, not that much,”

“Do you want to change that?”

“Of course I want to but-“

“But what?”

You stared at him again, not knowing what to say. He was a puzzle to figure out- there were so many questions and clues surrounding Izuku’s nature and motives and personality. Once you found a piece to the ever growing puzzle it felt like 3 other pieces were missing, making the picture of who Izuku was full of gaps and holes. You couldn't understand him, why he was here, if he was truly the Midoriya you knew or if he was just a memory-but the way he looked at you with his doe eyes and his lips parted with concern made your heart pace and your hands squirm.

Maybe this was still the kind, nurturing boy you knew from your childhood-just maybe.

You sighed, willing your heart to stop beating so quickly and  to say your truth. “It-it’s scary. This is a mob bar after all, who knows what would happen if I left,”

“But what if you didn’t leave?” he interjected, his face still laced with concern but his voice quickening from anticipation,  What if you just-got promoted,”

You chin tilted up, your eyes scanning the boy with suspicion.

“What are you implying Izuku?” You asked him slowly, hesitantly, watching as he squirmed with uncomfort in his seat. A breath collected in his lungs, being held for barely a second as he slowly let it escape his body.

“Y/n, we’ve known each other forever- we were best friends and, well, you were the one who ever believed in me. I-I never forgot about you, and always wondered how you were. Once I found out you were working here, I had to come. To see how you were. I just wanted to know you were okay-and now I know your not.”

He leaned into the bar yet again, his hands folded, his green tresses bouncing against his skin.

“Please y/n, I want to make you my personal assistant. You’ll be safe, I’ll make sure of it-all you have to do is help me with my daily tasks and events and-“

“No, I won’t do it.” you interjected, your voice having a desperate quality, as if you were anxious for him to stop talking

Izuku gazed at you with confusion, blinking a few times with shock- you didn't want this job? He watched your face turn into a grimace, as if the mere idea was painful for you to imagine.

“You-what?” he asked quietly, unable to understand your words.

“Izuku, I cant just get a free card from you,” you revealed, your eyes looking down from guilt, “I’m not going to just be your desk girl so I can be a little bit better off.”

“But-but your not, I want you to be my assistant-You know me better than anybody else!” he exclaimed, his eyes wide as he tried to convince you, “ You’ll be the best person for the job because you’ll be able to make the best decision for me-“

“I’m not taking your pity Izuku. People pity me enough, I don’t need you to add to the list.”

Izuku gave you a good, hard look, his big green eyes searching your face. He could tell you were hurting inside- the way your shoulders sagged like you were carrying a heavy burden, your tired eyes signaling you hadn't had a good night’s sleep, the way your voice broke and your face cracked when you allowed yourself to be vulnerable. You felt scared. You felt trapped, and alone. Powerfless. He had never wanted to comfort anyone more in his entire life, to hug them and tell them that it would all be okay.

He took a breath, letting the air escape through his nose as he gazed with you with empathy.

“You want to know how I got my scars?”

He watched you blink from confusion, to then give him a numb nod in response. He smiled nervously, settling in his chair as he opened his mouth to speak.

“A lot of people didn’t believe in Toshinori when he said he had gotten a 15 year old kid from the streets to be his successor-many people laughed at him, laughed at me, even talked down to me. I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t strong enough. I’d never be able to take over his empire.

“But I trained. I fought. I learned everything I could so I would never feel inferior ever again. Toshinori gave me leverage in life, yes-but I took advantage of it. I have some blood on my hands, I can’t say I don’t- but I proved my worth. I proved I deserved everything life had to offer and more-all I needed was a boost.”

“And that’s what I’m trying to give you-“ he gave you a reassuring smile, his eyes soft and his cheeks rosy, “a chance at a better life. A chance to prove your worth.”

“What do ya say?” His smile turned into a bright grin, his scarred hand outstretched and welcoming as he waited for your answer.

You stared at him, your lips parted and your eyes wide with conflict-where you going to do this? To just throw away everything in your life right now in the hopes it would be a little better? You were putting all your trust in Midoriya-would it all end up okay?

You looked down at your hands, the fingers sticky with grime and spilled alcohol, making your spine crawl with disgust. 

Fuck it-never again did you want to be underestimated, to be barely surviving and another ant in the hill. No-you were going to make a name of yourself.

“Fine-,” you placed your hand in his, your heart pacing. His skin was surprising soft on the inside, the pads of his digits coarse against your own flesh. “But if my uniform is a tiny ass skirt I’m going to kill you.”

A bright laugh tumbled out of his chest, his curly tresses bouncing with the motions.

“I promise I won’t,” he smiled at you, his cheeks as red as ever.

He loved the feeling of your skin on his, and the way your eyes light up like lightbulbs on a dark night. A glimpse of your previous self seemed to surface, for barely a moment, but he drank up the rare moment and locked it in his memories. 

You sighed, your hand leaving his reluctantly as you looked up at the clock, the ticking entering your mind and banging against your head like a headache. 

“I gotta lock up the bar…” you grumbled, your hand reaching out for your rag, “thank god Ill be out of this place-“

Izuku smiled, his green eyes trailing up to the clock. His eyes widened as he noticed the placement of the hands, the irises glistening with stars as he recognized something in those numbers.

“It’s 1:11,” he stated, his pointer figure drawing your attention as he nodded his head at the clock, your eyes trailing to the device. “You know what that means?”

You cocked your tired head, a small smile gracing your lips: Izuku was always the bookworm, his brain soaking up information like a sponge and giving it out at the strangest times. It was quite endearing, and you surprisingly missed it.

You leaned against the counter, your face closer to his.

“What’s it mean?”

He grinned at your face, his cheeks bright and on fire- 

“New beginnings.”

Taggings:

@weebartistinc​ @orokayagi​ @leeeah-loooser​ @bakarinnie​

[yandere-daydreams]

has a yandere incubus been done before? an incubus that loves to visit his darling every night, disturbing her dreams and seducing her through them?

This is less ‘seducing’ and more ‘phycological torture’, but incubi are such an unused landmine of terrible, terrible things… it’d be a shame not to use them to their full potential. Let me be a little selfish, sometimes.

TW: Mentions of Death, Mentions of Gun Violence, and Emotional Manipulation.

~

It was zombies, today.

Technically, it’d been zombies for the past week, but time passed quickly in the depths of your mind, the world around you changing whenever he willed it to. The sun never seemed to set or rise, but the sky grew dark and brightened accordingly, the landscape around you doing its best to accommodate the change. He’d chosen a bleak setting, this time, full of decaying buildings and toppled concrete structures, and of course, stocked with slow-moving, groaning, decaying monsters, all fresh out of a low budget movie that would never see a good rating. He’d been nice, though, giving you a few days to adjust before the creatures became aggressive, but his mercy must’ve come to an end.

The scratching was enough to tell you that. You didn’t need the growling, but he’d always been theatrical.

You grit your teeth, cursing the demon’s name as you reloaded the pistol in your hand, one of the many, many weapons you’d dragged up to the shabby apartment you’d made into your safehouse, barely pausing before jabbing the muzzle against one of the cracks forming in the fragile wooden door, pulling the trigger and shutting your eyes as a gunshot rang out through the small space. Luckily, it served its purpose, the greyish hand that’d wormed its way through going limp and falling away. But, it was replaced with another instantly. You barely let yourself inhale, steeling yourself and--

“It’s fun, right?”

The growling stopped as soon as he spoke, or… quieted, at least, giving him room to fill the silence. You just glanced over your shoulder, spotting your captor, your torturer, Alastor sprawled out over your bare mattress, staring up at the ceiling as he addressed you. He was just as nonchalant as he’d always been, black hair tied back into a loose bun and a lazy, proud grin pulled across his lips, as sickening as every other expression he was capable of. “I thought it might be a little much, but now that I’m seeing it…” He trailed off, chuckling. Laughing at you. “It’s great! Way better than the clowns, that’s for sure.”

“Anything’s better than the fucking clowns,” You mumbled, dropping your gun and grabbing the machete laid at your side. The doorknob’s lock had given out, your heart skipping a beat before a weak, rusted chain took up the slack, keeping your only barrier loosely connected to its supporting wall. The gap was barely wide enough for an arm to fit through, but you made due, stabbing at fleshless limbs recklessly, solely focused on keeping them out. “I couldn’t leave that warehouse for three days. I had to drink rainwater, for god’s sake.” 

“You didn’t have to.” He was whining, now, the zombies growing slower. You caught on quickly, letting yourself relax as he put a momentary end to the attack, Alastor allowing you to shift your focus onto him. Still, he took his time sitting up, stretching as he did so, only bothering to look at you once you made it clear you wouldn’t do the same. “You know the rules. As long as your body is being taken care of out there-” He paused, gesturing abstractly. Alastor never cared for the ‘real world’. “-you’ll be fine in here. And you are being taken care of. I’ve made sure of that.”

“My family made sure of that, you mean.” You turned, attempting to block him out. Alastor didn’t take kindly to that, going silent for a moment before appearing behind you, a pair of lanky arms wrapping around your waist. He slotted himself against your back, nuzzling into the crook of your neck when you failed to shove him away, a thin, leathery tail wrapping around your leg, further pinning you in place. You opened your mouth, your spite quickly find its way to the surface, but Alastor sighed before you could, always prepared to interrupt.

“I don’t enjoy this, you know.”

You huffed, speaking under your breath. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“I don’t.” You didn’t doubt he was being honest, but he’d tricked you. He’d tricked you, and lied to you, and put you in a goddamn coma when you told him to keep his distance. No amount of ‘honesty’ would make you forgive him for that. “I want to be happy with you, (Y/n), I really do. I can take care of you, I want to take care of you, but you have to devote yourself to me, first. I can’t take you home until you do.” He stopped, drawing you a little closer, chilled fingertips slipping under your torn shirt. Your apartment grew noticeably colder. “We’ll be happy, after that. You’ll be happy with me.”

“I’ll be dead.” You’d been through this too many times to feel any sort of sympathy for him. If Alastor wanted your companionship, you wouldn’t have to deal with the dreams he inflicted, the nightmares. You wouldn’t have to fight for your life against barbaric gladiators or wander through a never-ending forest or survive things no one should have to survive. “You’ll have my soul, and I’ll be stuck in hell, under your control. I couldn’t be happy like that.”

You felt him scowl, sharpened teeth brushing against your skin. “You’ll be with me. It’s already been a week in--”

“A week?” The question slipped off your tongue absentmindedly, as flat as it was hopeless. You couldn’t be sure about passing time in your own head, much how long had actually elapsed, but… it had to be more than that. More than a week. A month, at least, a year. Longer than a week. “It’s only been a week? Alastor, you can’t… I’m not...“ You trailed off, letting out a frustrated scream. One you’d been holding in for far too long. “You can’t keep me here. It’s not humane! I don’t want to be with you!”

You felt him stiffen, his hold on you loosening before you realized your mistake. The temperature rose, and for a moment, you were relieved, but your hope dissolved as soon as it continued to rise, the whole manufactured world suddenly seeming to radiate Alastor’s anger. “Fine.” His lighthearted tone was gone, replaced with something sterile. Something dark. “Have it your way, then.”

In the blink of an eye, Alastor was gone, and your nightmare had returned to its previous state. The yelling, the clawing, all of it was deafening now, and you reflexively reached for your machete, only to come up empty-handed. You looked towards your supply, but your weapons had disappeared, vanished, not a single bullet left. Your panic flared, but you couldn’t bring yourself to worry about that.

No, no. You had a much more pressing issue to deal with.

Alastor was gone, but he’d taken your door with him, too.

[pi-cat000]

MSA: Take Back The Future (part 3)

Summary: Vivi and Arthur travel back in time to the beginning of Hellbent. Neither of them are okay. 

(Part 1) (Part 2)

.

Mystery, instead of answering Vivi’s questions, leaps over the seat dividing the front and back areas of the van, exiting out the back doors.

“Wait, ” Vivi yells after Mystery, “get to back here and explain what happened to my memories.”

/It is not a tale that can be simply told. Not right now when we may be in danger/

Arthur thinks kitsune turned dog sounds slightly strained but it’s hard to really tell with Mystery’s weird telepathy. When the meaning of words are projected right into your brain some of the nuance is lost.

“Who is Shiromori? Why is she attacking us?” Vivi tries, following to glare at Mystery who circles the van, barely paying attention to the two of them. “Just answer one question!”

His mechanical arm twitches of its own accord and he eyes it nervously.  To hell with it. Arthur frees his hand and begins to feel about for the quick release lever hidden under a panel on his upper arm. After the van crash and almost getting thrown to his death, the arm had been too banged up to safely remove, jamming in place.  Best to be rid of it now, before everything when to shit all over again.

The sound of his heavy metal arm hitting the ashfelt draws Vivi’s attention and she turns to give him a quizzical expression.

“Better off then on,” He explains, “Wasn’t really working that well anyway. Hopefully, that’ll get rid of the curse as well.” Honestly, this cruse is the least of his worries.

Vivi exhales and Arthur can see the stress pinching her mouth, pulling it down into an uncharacteristic frown, “If the curse is specifically attached to your arm then removing it might work. On the other hand, if it’s anything like the one that got my memories then who the hell knows what will work. I certainly don’t. Apparently, I don’t know a lot of things.”

The last sentence is louder, directed at Mystery. There is no response from the dog who is staring off into the middle distance, head to one side like he is listening intently for something.  Arthur offers Vivj an uneasy shrug. He has his own questions for Mystery regarding Vivi’s memories, his arm, and the night they both went missing. However, his most recent run-in with dead-Lewis has him quickly reordering his priorities. None of the answers are going to mean much if he’s dead. Again…

Speaking of which… On the horizon, a purple light flares, glowing brightly against the dark backdrop. Arthur’s mouth goes suddenly dry and limbs feel very cold. Yeah, that seamed about right…

/You called this spirit Lewis?/ Mystery turns his head to examine him, expression troubled. /Are you sure?/  

He gives a short nod, eyes darting from Mystery then back to the road. It looks like Mystery is planning something based on how his fur is glowing red. He’d seen a similar red glow on the night of Lewis’s disappearance and during the confrontation outside his Uncle’s workshop. How much did Mystery know about Lewis? The question sticks in his mind, painfully heavy.

“Lewis? You mean the purple fire ghost? The one that caused the van crash?” Vivi steps up next to him, eyes locked onto the truck which grows quickly larger, “How are we going to stop it from running us all over?”

It’s too late to try a drive or run away now. Even if he decides to run there is a steep rocky slope on one side and a sharp climb on the other. If he did make it down by some miracle there was just flat desert and no cover for miles. Arthur doesn’t voice this observation instead commenting in a voice several octaves higher than normal, “I don’t think you need to worry about the ghost running you over. I’m pretty sure he’s only after me. So…ah…maybe don’t stand near me?”

Why? Why was Lewis trying to hurt him? In his mind’s eye, Lewis and Mystery meld together into a nightmare inferno of fire, teeth and death.

“I don’t want you to get run over either.” Vivi’s voice sounds faint, coming to him like it has travelled a great distance. Too much fear packed into too short a timeframe is making it harder and harder to concentrate. The ice at her feet thickens into long sheets, which creep out over the road, freezing it solid. He is probably lucky his remaining arm hasn’t frozen off with how tight Vivi had been holding it. Maybe if he turns into a giant Arthur icicle and he can sit this whole thing out. The hysterical thought momentarily breaks through his mounting panic.  

/Wait./

Arthur can almost hear the crackle of fire and the hum of the truck's engine.

/ You should not be drawing on so much of this power at once! You’ll damage the seal further!/

“I’m not letting Arthur die again. Anything comes near us and I’ll make whoever it is, regret it… that includes you.”

Vivi steps out so she is positioned in the centre of the road.

/I can handle this confrontation. There are still many aspects to the situation that you remain unaware of./

“And how am I supposed to fix that if you won’t tell me anything.”

/ I swear I will explain when there is more time. I only ever wanted to protect you./

“I don’t believe you.”

Vivi snaps the final sentence and punctuates it with a sharp hand gesture aimed at the oncoming truck. Several lines of ice stretch out and down the road, racing away from Vivi to meet the oncoming vehicle. Shining an ethereal blue, the frost coats the road’s surface, smoothing it over. Arthur catches the briefest glimpse of skeletal Lewis before the truck hits the ice sheets and the wheels suddenly lose traction.  The sound of metal crunching is deafening, accompanied by the hiss of water abruptly vaporising. Heat and cold collide in a cacophony cracking ice and explosion of steam.

A flash of bright purple fire. Mystery disappears, obscured by the thick columns of steam. He finds himself being yanked to the side by Vivi just in time to watch the purple truck careen past in a shower of sparks and groaning metal. At such high speeds, it rams straight into and through the guardrails separating the road from the rocky slope. Stunned, Arthur watches it disappear over the edge. If Lewis hadn’t already been dead then Arthur might have been worried. The sound of banging and crashing, as the truck presumably roles several times, has him physically wincing. Scratch that, he was worried. Very worried. Worried enough that it overtakes his mental panic and replaces it with deep concern. How durable were ghosts? He doesn’t know and that scares him. 

“Vivi! What the hell,” He finally manages to spit out, breaking his panic-induced stupor. He tries to rush past her, intent on checking for any signs of Lewis. He promptly slips. The combination of ice and his lack of a second arm throws off his balance and he ends up falling backward. He is saved from a collision with the ground by Vivi who seemed to now have supernatural levels of balance and was unaffected by the slippery surface.

“I …wow. That was… something.” Vivi breaths, examining the road still covered in planes of ice as if not quite believing it.

“Help me to the edge,” He interrupts, trying and failing to stand straight collapsing back on her, “I need to see if he’s okay,”

“Who’s okay? The ghost?"

“Yes.”

"You want to see if the ghost is okay? You said it was trying to hurt you?”

Arthur can practically see the concern and confusion now hanging over Vivi as she looks down from where she's holding him up by his one good arm.

“It’s just…a misunderstanding or something. I…we…might know this ghost.”

“What?”

“Just help me check.” He motions with his remaining arm. Visible through the plums of steam are thicker lines of darkened smoke coming from the space where the truck had disappeared.

....

Note: I’m Sorry to everyone who’s showed interest in this AU but i’m not sure if i’ll continue this since i’ve lost motivation.  Here are some of the more coherent plot notes if people are interested in this AU. Feel free to ask questions if u have any :) . 

...

-   Shiromori shows up directly after Lewis’s crash, distracting Mystery. With all the steam obscuring their vision Arthur and Vivi don’t realise that Shiromori has arrived immediately, and there is enough time to briefly look for Lewis. 

- Lewis makes it out of the truck crash only slightly worse for wear and tries to attack Arthur. Vivi moves to defend Arthur, then Arthur has to defend Lewis and it’s all very awkward for everyone. 

- Lewis sees how scared Arthur is a reconsiders his revenge plot, hesitating long enough to get some dialogue in. 

 - Arthur finally gives Vivi a brief Lewis overview (sans the whole ‘he almost threw me off a fake cliff thing’). Vivi is suspicious and somewhat unconvinced. Lewis is slightly confused when Vivi starts referring to the alternate time line. 

- Not time for further discussion because Mystery is fighting Shiromori and, since he had warning this time, he’s winning. 

(fight scene stuff. Vivi rushes in to do something idk this part is not planned.) 

Vivi overused ice abilities. 

Lewis and Arthur have a moment alone. 

Vivi, slightly untrusting of Mystery, ends up stepping to stop the two from fighting. (Vivi ends up saving  Shiromori maybe??? a parallel  to the original timeline). A dramatic moment where Vivi rushes in ( maybe takes a blow for Shiromori idk would depend on Shiromori’s backstory) and ends up injured. 

- ??? makes an appearance, takes over Vivi instead of Mystery. 

Some background world building stuff

- Vivi’s ice powers might become unsealed and she is vulnerable to ??? (spiritual energy is damaging to humans if too much is used at once or if is not used correctly)

- Yukino family are spiritual channels making them both more powerful and more vulnerable. Mystery holds a seal to the ability and it eats up a tails worth of power to maintain. Same deal with Shiromori, Mystery holds a seal to keep her fully realised abilities in check which also eats up a lot of power.

- The seal is damaged when Mystery is hurt

- Arthur is unaffected by the ice because he’s got some odd time based supernatural power which has bonded to vivi spiritual signtaure as well. This is the reason ??? want to possess Arthur. One possible resolution was for Arthur to figure out how to rewind time to the seconds before Vivi gets possessed, giving her a chance to defeat ???. It takes a lot of power which Lewis ends up giving to him. 

[the-darklings]

—𝒘𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒆;

pairing: john wick x f!reader x santino d’antonio

word count: 13.2k+

summary: “You will always make the same mistakes. You will always lose.”

warnings: swearing, a dash of drama, a seasoning of angst.

notes: Wow. Suffering for a week was worth it because I wrote this whole thing in like 2 days. I apologise if I haven’t responded to your comments on the last update. I’m a clown, it is known. I love you all though. Please enjoy. *rubs hands eagerly* :)

children of ares series: 01 | .... | 09 | 10 | . . | 12 |

He remembers sunshine.

He remembers the sea breeze.

He remembers laughter. Unsure but carefree; happy.

It’s easier to remember you like that than to think about what’s currently happening. Better than thinking about you in those damp, cold tunnels. Better than imagining how very easily it can all go wrong.

It’s easier to think about his home, a year ago, and the stinging disappointment of knowing you won’t be there for his birthday transforming into something else—something joyous.

Tarasov had changed his plans last second, putting your own plans of flying out to Naples in jeopardy and it was not the first time Santino had contemplated murdering the Russian, all consequences be damned. But you found a way to see him. Found way to come to him. He never asked how. A part of him had never cared enough to know because you’ve been simply there and it had been enough.

Santino remembers every single detail about those three days. Because it was like something straight out one of his dreams.

You, in his home.

You, smiling and happy.

You, sleepy and comfortable and open.

He recalls the warmth of you in his arms as he spun you in a clumsy circle till you were both dizzy with laughter. He recalls the too sweet taste of that god awful wine you brought because you couldn’t find anything else last minute. He did get drunk.

But on more than just the wine.

The next day when he came from the family meeting with his head splitting apart and his throat dry from the hangover, he found you with Gia, cooking and chatting. The older woman had taken it onto herself to teach you some words in the local dialect and your efforts were valiant if a little awkward.

Oh, but the sight of you.

Hair messy, feet bare, a pale sundress wrapping around your frame and a wide smile on your lips as warm Italian sun bathed you in a golden glow. Standing in the same spot he’s seen his mother stand a hundred times, and it had been like a punch right in the heart, right through him.

You had turned towards him a few, breathless seconds later and your smile had widened at sight of him and—

And if he hadn’t already been stupidly, irritatingly, pathetically in love with you by then—

That would have been the final straw.

Sometimes, he still wishes it was as simple as wanting to fuck you. Simply get it out of his system and move onto another pretty face—of which there had been plenty. But no. Of course not. Of course, you had to attach yourself to him, burrow yourself under his skin so fucking deep it’s like a permanent ache— longing, need—that he can’t get rid of.

Because now…

“How long has it been?”

The guards shift at his tone, wary. None of them want to speak first but they also seem to know that keeping silent will only unleash his barely suppressed wrath quicker.  

“Twenty minutes, sir.”

Sir.

Not boss.

Because he isn’t one. Not to these lowlife Camorra nobodies. At least before they showed some degree of respect to him as an heir. But now he’s just…what even is he? An afterthought, an irritation. To everyone.  

Only twenty minutes though.

During planning, they determined that it would take fifteen minutes just to get there, and that’s assuming they don’t run into any trouble first.

He works his jaw, restless. He hates waiting. He fucking abhors it. He’s been waiting for almost six years—his entire goddamn life—and he’s tired of it already. But it’s not like he can do anything short of taking his pistol and marching into the filthy tunnels to get you back himself.

He wants to. But he’s not a complete idiot despite what you believe him to be.

So he waits. He paces back and worth, his expensive shoes sinking into the wet mud and gravel beneath them. The rain is coming down heavy and harsh now, beating against his umbrella in a relentless rhythm of strength.

He just needs you to come back out already.

Come on, amore. Come back to me. Come and call me your idiot. Just come back.

Time stretches; slow and sluggish.

Twenty minutes become forty and then fifty.

Sunshine, laughter, the gentle expression on your face when you danced, when he gave you his mother’s necklace—

The ground beneath his feet trembles.

He halts, immediately thinking that he’s imagined it, but then a muffled series of bangs echo that shake the ground once again, stronger this time. The guards' curse, pulling their weapons out as if that’s going to do anything.

Underground.

The tunnels.

Explosions.

A destructive chain of concrete, water, and death that stretches far, far too wide.

They’re also pyromaniacs. Experts from what I’ve gathered.

It is then, only for the third time in his entire life, that Santino D’Antonio feels awful, raw sort of fear flood through his veins, leaving him completely immobile.

No.

You dream of sunshine.

You dream of sitting in the sun’s embrace and burning, burning, burning.

But it doesn’t hurt.

Fire doesn’t scare you. It has never hurt you, either.

Darkness you fear because it drips with pain and loneliness. Water you hate because you can’t breathe with it lodged in your throat. But fire rages around you and keeps you safe in its destructive cocoon, letting you have your momentary peace.

Golden tears drip down your cheeks as you kneel on the burning, golden surface. Perhaps you are repenting, perhaps you are mourning. But there is something missing and you want it back—a distant, painful ache you can’t shake but one that tugs you back, back, back—

“Why are you crying, viper?”

A touch against your hair, gentle but firm. It brings you no comfort though. In fact, it leaves you feeling cold deep in your bones even if you don’t pull away.

“Because I am alone,” you whisper through hot tears, your eyes sore and throat tender. “Because I am so deeply unlovable that no one wants me. Sometimes—sometimes I think no one ever will.”

“There is no shame in being alone.”

You curl deeper into yourself, your forehead pressing against the scorching surface. “But I don’t want to be alone. I just want to be happy. I want to be free.”

A hand smooths over your head once again, patient and kind. Something inside your chest coils at the contact. “There is no happiness for you on this path. You’ve walked it once before and where did it lead you?”

A weak breath escapes you.

Why is it so hard to breathe?

“To you.”

The hand on top of your head stills. “Yes,” the voice confirms mildly. “To me. You will always make the same mistakes. You will always lose, and it will always lead you back to me. That is how your story began and that is how it will end.”

Your head lifts, but the figure in front of you blurs through your tears

and

then

you

fall.

Darkness spits you out with a violence that jolts your entire body back to wakefulness.

A slow groan slips out first before you even open your eyes.

There’s a distinct ringing in your ears and when your eyes open they feel grainy and dry.

The room is vaguely familiar with its sleek and modern interior.

You try to inhale and find an oxygen mask over your face. Gritting your teeth, your clumsily pull on it. It takes three tries to drag it to one side of your cheek. Almost immediately breathing becomes more difficult, your throat sore and aching, but you ignore it.

Fingers suddenly latch onto your own and you jolt.

Dizziness is slow to pass, as is the queasiness you feel rolling through your stomach like a heavy rock, but when your vision finally settles, a wave of relief washes over you.

Familiar, brilliant blue eyes are staring back at you, unblinking.

Ares is gripping your hand so tightly her own hand trembles and you want to tease her about her unwashed, still dusty hair and red eyes but don’t.

She’s alive. Relatively unharmed except for few scratches and bruises against her neck.

The sight of her sends a rush of memories back into your skull.

The tunnels.

The Lovers.

The male—Lucien—setting the explosions off.

A weak rasp escapes you and your fingers tighten around Ares’.

She looks awful. If she’s this bad then you can’t even imagine what—

“Santino?” you croak out, trying to sit up but her fingers constrict around yours, near painful, and you still.

He is fine, she signs when she releases your hand. Physically.

You understand the addition for what it is.

Swallowing weakly, you dip your head slightly and move onto another pressing inquiry.

“The Lovers?”

Her expression tightens and the subdued worry in her eyes transforms into ice; honed and piercing.

Got away in the chaos, she signs and her tattooed fingers tremble again before she clenches them and drops them into her lap abruptly. She looks both furious and upset all at once and it’s startling to see. Ares is cocky, confident, brilliant. Seeing her as anything other than self-assured is unsettling.

You’re about to ask her what’s wrong but before you can she sniffs and her hands form slow signs, letting you piece together her next words little by little.

I could not call for help. You were dying and I could not call for help.

Your heart squeezes.

You can’t even imagine what she must have felt.

Ares. Ares who was left by her parents at an orphanage when she was still a baby—no more than two weeks old, simply because unlike other children she never made a sound. Because they believed that there was something wrong with her, some form of defect that made her unwanted in their eyes. Ares who never allowed her muteness to hold her back or define her. She was the one who reshaped the world around her as she wished. She was strong enough to stand for herself, fight for herself.

Ares who had been chosen by the heir of Camorra to be his right hand.

A title and an honour never held by another female in Camorra’s history before.

And to be stuck in those tunnels unable to call for help, unable to do anything when she’s always been so capable, so ready to face down whatever came her way—

“How?” comes your fragile whisper.

Ares swallows and blinks her eyes, glancing away. You allow her that moment, though the gratitude in your heart should make it clear that she doesn’t need to hide from you.

Tears are not a sign of weakness. They’re simply a sign that you’re alive.

Your phone, she signs with a little twitch of her mouth. You still had it on you. I messaged S-A-N-T-I-N-O. Had you partially dug out of the rubble by the time he found us. I have never seen him look so afraid before. Had you stood less than a foot further back you would be dead. Lucky you got away with only a concussion and a dislocated shoulder.

“Lucky me,” you repeat softly, your voice frayed, and place your hand on hers, squeezing. You can’t bring yourself to ask why he’s not beside you like she is. “Thank you, Ares. If it weren’t for you—”

Her eyes flash and her mouth twists into half a snarl. Do not dare thank me. You saved my life.

Your own eyes sting and you force out a soft, exhausted, “We’re a team.”

Her mouth presses shut at that, and she examines you shrewdly. She licks her lips once, and you know its more about controlling her emotions when she glances away again, her tattooed fingers squeezing around yours once before she lets go.

Perhaps we are all more than that.

Yes. All this time you’ve been so afraid of calling them your team you never considered the notion they might have become something even more important. Something like family.

Your eyes flutter shut and you smile slightly. “We are, we…”

The world slips into a comfortable, infinite dark again. 

When you awake next, Ares is gone.

But someone else is beside you.

His head is bowed, his thumb delicately tracing over your knuckles.

You’re at the penthouse, you realise distantly, and it’s stopped raining outside.

Your oxygen mask is missing but you feel clearer, steadier, this time around and blink owlishly to clear the remaining fuzziness from your vision. Then, you take a moment to gather yourself and observe him.

Santino’s shoulders are curved into a tense, weary line with his tie loose around his neck. You only need to look at his messy hair to know he’s destroyed his usually immaculate, gelled curls by continuously running his fingers through them.

I have never seen him look so afraid before.

He asked you to sacrifice everyone and anything to walk out of those tunnels unharmed, but instead, you had placed Ares’ life above your own.

You’re glad that you did not make him any promises because he’s no doubt upset as it is.

You turn your fingers carefully, tracing your fingertips over the tanned surface of his smooth palm. He freezes at the dainty touch, his head jerking up as his wild stare takes you in.

“Hey, grumpy.”

His breath hitches slightly before he relaxes his shoulders.

You can almost see the invisible weight dropping away from him, and it makes you feel even worse. If the situations were reversed—

Your fingers settle on top of his.

After a moment, his expression clears and his own hold on your hand constricts.

“Foolish, brave woman,” he mutters tightly in Italian. “Why must you always do this to yourself?”

“I couldn’t let Ares die,” you reply softly because you can see the bags under his eyes, note how his skin looks more wan and tired, and a permanent frown seems to have settled between his brows. He worried and it’s your fault. Even if he won’t admit it, won’t voice it, it’s marking every inch of him. “I failed, Santi. They knew about it. About the underground and the water, and I was too weak—and—I failed—”

His expression turns stormy in a blink. “You did not fail,” he shoots back hotly, his eyes flashing. “I assure you, (Name). When I find them, I will make them beg for death long before I grant them the mercy of it. They will pay for what they did to you in blood.”

“How did they get away?”

Santino sighs, looking down for a moment. “Ah, I’m afraid that’s on me. Once the explosions went off, I called all the teams to a search, regardless of their location,” he divulges and you understand the heaviness in his tone. It was a choice he had to make. A choice between potentially stopping the people after your heads, or looking for you. You’re not foolish enough to think that Santino won’t have sacrificed the rest of the team if it had meant stopping the Lovers. “If it hadn’t been for the phone Ares found…”

He fades off, staring at your joined hands and you trace your thumb over his knuckles this time.

“I—”

“Do not say sorry,” he breathes, his voice soft with fury, just barely leashed. “Do you know what it felt like, hm? Hearing those explosions. The silence after was far worse, amore, I assure you. Then the searching and the waiting. Do you have any idea what it felt like, seeing Roberto pulling you out of that wreckage? Covered in blood, unconscious, barely breathing. It was like—”

His mother.

His mother all over again.

Bloodied, barely conscious, choking, and then eternally still.

You remember every word of his story.

With his gaze empty and hair wet, he had sat against the backdrop of a Chicago blizzard and told you every last detail of what happened. And it had since seared itself onto your mind, onto your heart. Every single word of it. That night had been the first time you saw cracks in his cocky demeanour. The very first time you saw him as a normal man. More than a nuisance, more than an arrogant mobster prick with a one-track mind.  

You try to keep your breathing steady but fail. “I’m sorry,” you choke out anyway because you need to say it. “And thank you for finding u-us.”

His head rises slowly. “I will always find you,” he tells you, his expression serious. “Always. I promised to never abandon you, amore.”

“Even with one ear?” you joke through a pained smile.

Santino exhales slowly, his eyes narrowing and he mutters a bitter, “Hm, yes. Despite their best attempts, you still have an ear,” he informs you and you ghost your fingers over the bandage. There is dull ache there but nothing as bad as it was before. “It will heal quickly because it was a clean cut. Almost like—”

“He was trying to mark me,” you assume and he nods shortly. You can almost taste his keen rage. He’s like a band stretched too wide to a point of snapping. “Well I gutted the bastard, so I feel better already.”

Shifting in your spot, you wince immediately at the shooting pain down your shoulder and neck, hissing under your breath. Santino presses his hand against your shoulder, pushing you back gently.

“You are not allowed to move,” he chides, giving you a displeased look. “While the injuries are superficial, you do need to rest. Tsk, troublesome woman.”

“Shut up Mr If-It’s-Dangerous-It-Turns-Me-On.”

His lips part, outraged, but for a long minute, he only gapes at you before his mouth finally snaps shut. You can’t quite hold back your snort of laughter and wince in pain right after. His expression makes it worth it though.

“Wicked tongue,” he notes with an arched eyebrow; an invitation to play. “Throwing around such accusations, hm?”

You grin slightly at the way your teasing cools his rage, soothes his worry. “And you’re a bossy bastard. Were you like that when you were little, too?”

One side of his mouth twitches upwards; a half-smile, and another victory for you. “I have you know that I was very charming when I was little, cara mia. Can’t you tell?”

It takes effort to control your outright cackle this time, and he leans closer, his own eyes dancing with mirth as a faint smile lingers across his face, too.

“I’m sure.”

He gazes at you, seemingly lost in thought before his mouth opens and closes again. He wants to say something but you can read his hesitance, though the reason for it is unclear.

“What is it?”

He swallows before his eyes drag back to you again. “Do you ever wonder how different things might have been if we met first?”

You feel his words clatter through you before settling inside your bones.

Right up until that moment, you never have.

The past is a dark pit, you don’t like remembering or thinking about on a good day much less lately.

He meets your steady stare and you think about his question carefully. Try to consider how different things are between you now compared to when you first met. All that you know about him now oppose to then.

“Well,” you begin deliberately, thoughtful, “Considering that I looked no better than one of Bowery King’s little rodents for most of my life and you were Camorra’s darling prince…I think you would have hated me on sight. And I you.”

He blinks, caught off guard.

But before he can retort, you continue, this time with a faint smile. “But with time…well, I won’t say you would grow on me but maybe I would find you less annoying. Maybe I would learn that outside of that spoiled, cocky, asshole demeanour you’re half-decent on the inside. Maybe. And maybe with time, we could be friends, too. And I would trust you while you would have no choice but to stick with me because I’m the only person in all of Italy that could handle your little tantrums.”

His lips stretch into a slow smile, his demeanour lighter now, calmer. The look in his eyes is gentler too and you rest your cheek against the fluffy pillow, still peering at him.

The silence between you is softer this time as well, almost hazy.

“I think,” you begin in a hoarse whisper. “That if we met first, it would have been very easy to fall in love with you.”

His expression creases, coming undone slowly as his lips part in wonder. His grip on your hand constricts again but this time it doesn’t ease off quickly. He’s clutching onto you, his Camorra ring cutting into your skin but you let him.

Because it’s true.

If you had never met John, everything between you would be so easy.

But that’s not the reality you live in.  

Reality is that you’re no longer sure if you’re capable of the type of love you felt for John anymore.

And what you feel for Santino—

You’re not sure when you fade away again.

The next four days are a slog.

You’re able to walk and move around mostly freely by the end of the first day but Doc is as strict as always.

Rest, and more rest, and no strenuous activity with your previously dislocated shoulder or you’re looking at permanent joint damage. Considering how much you rely on your hands, and the fact that you have two psychopaths still out there somewhere who want you dead, for once, you listen to his orders.

You eat. You sleep. You work on getting rid of the layer of dust coating your tongue whenever you speak.

It makes you feel antsy but you rest.

It also doesn’t help that you have three not-so-subtle guard dogs scrutinising your every move.

You’re not sure who is worse Santino or Ares, or both. Roberto usually backs away from one hard stare but Ares is not so easily moved, and Santino might as well be an immovable object.  

When it comes to your recovery, he doesn’t compromise.

His men have been working hard on tracking the Lovers or any remaining members of the Black Dragon but they have seemingly vanished from the face of the Earth. That’s more worrying. You have now lost the element of surprise. But they came out of the confrontation between you with far more severe injuries.

You can still hear it in your dreams though.

Lucien’s cold, soft voice promising you a dance next time you meet.

Your whole body tenses whenever the memory comes back to you which is often. There is no doubt in your mind that you will be seeing him again soon. But he won’t catch you off guard like that again. This time there will be no darkness or water. No weakness for either of them to poke and exploit.

But there is something else.

A shift.

You feel it in the very foundation of every interaction Ares and Santino share with you around. They are good at masking it but you know them both too well. Something is happening, some sort of disagreement, and both are trying to hide it from you. You’re not sure if it’s because you’re still in “recovery” or because it’s something sensitive and Camorra related.

While they have never hidden anything family related from you, there are still boundaries you have never tried to step over. You’re not Camorra. Some things you are simply not privy to.

So you wait for Santino to bring it up first. He always addresses things out loud, unable to contain himself if something is plaguing his mind. Sometimes, on occasion, he even seeks out any advice you have to offer.

But not this time.

He seems to have retreated into himself a little too much.

Your interactions haven’t changed but something in his regard has.

It’s like he’s removing himself, taking a step back, preparing for something.

It worries you—it worries you because you have seen this once before. The last time it happened, John left you and shattered your world into pieces.

You can’t—

“You shouldn’t go,” he mutters as he watches you put your shoes on. “The Lovers could still be out there. Waiting.”

“Winston is old school,” you inform him with a brief, reassuring smile. “He doesn’t do business over the phone. And I’m not about to go to the Bowery King again. Besides I look worse than I feel, you know that. Enough resting.”

He steps closer, blocking your path and you look up at him.

It’s been comfortable spending the last few days with him. With Ares and Roberto and the other guard. Comfortable to a point it’s easy to forget everything going on outside the penthouse walls.

“How do you know he will even help, hm?” he questions but you can tell it’s only an effort to divert your attention. “He cannot get involved in these affairs, you know this, cara mia.”

You dip your head in a nod and ignore the slight twinge in your still bandaged ear. “Yes, and he also likes making exceptions…sometimes,” you say, giving him a pointed stare.

Santino exhales slowly, and mutters a defeated, “Stubborn.”

A grin blooms across your face but it withers moments later as you stare at him. Perhaps—

“What’s going on, Santi?”

His face is calm, his stare focused on you as always. His eyes never stray too far from you whenever you’re around but it’s only lately that you’ve become so aware of them.

He touches you with his eyes almost as gently as he does with his hands. Like he can feel you with his gaze alone.

“Is something suppose to be ‘going on’?” he wonders, his accent twisting his question into something almost teasing, and if you weren’t so sure that something is, in fact, going on, you might have dropped it.

You stare at him expectantly, and after another moment he sighs, one of his hands slipping into his pockets. “Do not worry, amore. Everything is fine.”

“Promise?”

His eyebrows arch, his expression practically oozing arrogance. “Have I ever lied to you?”

No. He’s always been honest with you. Often painfully, directly so.

Your eyes snag onto his tie and you reach forward, smoothing your fingertips over the silky material. The dark brown tie with blue pattern is familiar to you—as is the golden pin with pale green gem holding it in place.

Both presents from you.

You nibble on the inside of your cheek. “If anything happens—”

His hand settles on top of yours and your eyes jump up to him. There is something heavy about his scrutiny and his hand lifts in the air between you, his thumb brushing over the curve of your cheek. “I should be the one saying that, no?” he muses and his eyes roam over your features with that flustering intensity. “Trouble follows you everywhere, bella. But I will keep you safe.”

“That’s rich. You’re just as bad as I am.”

He only offers a slight, crooked grin in reply and you shake your head in mock disbelief, pulling away from him and checking the pistol under your coat.

“I’ll ring you after I’m done talking with Winston,” you inform him and give him one last look over your shoulder as you pull the door open. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m away, grumpy.”

He lifts his hand in a slight wave but doesn’t answer.

And you wonder the entire elevator journey down why it makes you feel so unease that he didn’t.

The doorbell rings just after 1am.

John straightens, his bones creaking as he raises his head slightly and listens.

He’s not expecting guests, and certainly not at this hour.

His mind jumps to you for a brief second, wondering if perhaps something awful has happened after all. He hasn’t heard from you in days but he’s also been busy himself. Finally, his revenge was completed, and the remains of his old life now buried once again.

He treks up the stairs, unable to shake the uneasy feeling that plagues his every step. A shadow of a figure stands behind the door patiently, knowing to wait instead of just leaving. And not you. He knows the shape of you as well as he knows his own, and whoever has come is unlikely to be here for a pleasant chat at this hour. There is a brief instant in which he contemplates not opening the door at all.

After the events of the last few weeks, he just wants to sit and—

Perhaps just sit and think and be with his thoughts for a bit.

With a subdued exhale, he pulls on the handle, the door swinging open silently.

The sight that greets him on the other side stills something inside him.

A familiar man. A man who helped him get out stands before him.

Five years have changed Santino D’Antonio. There is something about the way the man now holds himself that’s different to whatever recollections John still has of him from years ago.

He knew an arrogant, charismatic man who liked setting things on fire just to see if they would burn to nothing or endure. The Santino he remembers never cared about anyone or anything except for himself. That’s why John has always felt so apprehensive about Santino’s keen interest in you—an interest the man has never tried to hide, not even from him.  

“John.”

No smirk; not even a show of superiority with which Santino always handled his affairs so effortlessly. Something more cunning, more honed and focused, stares back at him and John’s instincts go on high alert. He has changed.

That focused calm almost reminds him—  

Of you.

The same way your cool mocking with Perkins and the priest inside Viggo’s church had reminded him of the man standing at his doorway now.

“Santino.”

The Italian extends his arm and John clasps his hand in his, shaking it even as his eyes skip over the man to take count of his many guards. A familiar, elegant face catches his attention and John’s eyes pause on the woman he recognises from the cemetery.

She’s a friend.

Yes, apparently Santino’s guards are now your friends, too. The woman’s eyes narrow on him when their stares meet, judging and warning all at once, and John drags his stare back towards the Italian.

“May I come in?”

It’s a polite, pleasant request—just barely.

Something in the man’s expression tells John that even if he were to refuse, he would still hear about the reason for this late-night visit regardless. There is just enough iciness in the man’s stare that guarantees a confrontation John would rather avoid.  

“Of course,” he says instead, opening the door wider and inviting the Italian inside. Santino steps forward, turning to nod his head at the woman. His second in command? John doesn’t let his surprise show as the door closes. “Café?”

“Grazie.”

John pauses by the entrance to the kitchen, gesturing towards the lounge. The man nods his head in thanks but his expression remains solemn.

It pulls at something—a worry—deep inside his gut. “Is it V?”

Santino’s eyes snap to him, something sparking there, but he controls his expression. The man John knew was expressive and easily provoked. That, too, seems to have changed to a degree. 

But he shouldn’t be surprised. That Santino has changed, or that you have, either. Five years is a long time, and the forming picture of that time he was away…

He doesn’t know the specifics, but all the implications press against his heart like a weight.

A part of him doesn’t want to even consider how bad it might have been for you.

Hunted, hurt. All because of him. 

“No, (Name) is fine.”

Your name—your real name; it flows from Santino’s tongue like molten honey. He utters it with ease and familiarity, an intimacy that shows years of use. Once, John was one of the select few to know your real name, and he can’t help but wonder what the Italian had to do to gain that level of trust from you. 

Something buried deep, deep down coils tortuously at the thought of it.

He blinks and turns to enter the kitchen, moving towards the coffee machine as if on automatic. Silence reigns from the hallways where he left Santino for a few minutes before his voice floats over.

“I was sorry to hear about your wife, John.”

He can’t help but wonder if the man means that.

The last time they saw each other, on the night of his task, Santino wore an expression of such poorly controlled fury that John expected the Italian to pull a gun on him instead. He never asked what had put him in such a foul mood because his only focus had been on getting out. The Camorra heir never did pull a gun on him, though his parting words have haunted John regardless.

“Have a very happy life, John.”

Back then, Santino had sounded like he was cursing him. Wishing him the exact opposite of a happy life. One of the many reasons why his sudden change of heart from not helping him to helping him has never quite made sense to John.

“Thank you.”

Another pause follows.

“And the dog?” Santino wonders loudly. “Does he have a name?”

John leans his palms against the counter for a moment, exhaling, “No.”

If you are fine, then there is only one other reason as to why Santino might be here. Why he would seek John out now.

He gathers the coffee cup in his hand and walks towards the lounge. Santino is already there, shrugging off his finely made overcoat. As always, the Italian man is immaculate. Every seam and inch of him breathes power and money.

He sets down the espresso in front of the man before sitting down himself.

Santino doesn’t waste time though. He’s barely seated before the man begins speaking, “Listen, John,” he says promptly. “With all sincerity, I don’t want to be here.”

That much is true. It’s perhaps the most honest thing Santino has ever said to him. Irony, perhaps, at its finest.

But it also only confirms what John has been dreading.

“Please, don’t,” he says softly. “I’m asking you not to do this.”

But Santino appears unmoved by his request, by his subtle pleading not to go down this path. His green eyes take John in coolly and he shakes his head slightly, pulling a familiar object from his suit pocket. The familiar round curve of the Marker gleams in the light and it clangs deafeningly onto the table as Santino places it down between them.

“No one gets out and comes back without repercussions, John,” he tells him tersely, and a muscle inside Santino’s jaw ticks with a subtle clench. There is a spark of something like resentment there for a second before the man pulls it back, hides it. “Don’t be so quick to forget that the only reason why you are here, like this, is because of what she did for you. If it weren’t for her, you won’t be sitting here right now. So all of this is in part hers…and mine.”

John stares at him, his eyebrows furrowing.

“What?”

His genuine confusion seems to give the heir a pause too, and Santino releases a shallow breath, a sudden understanding gleaming in his too clever, too conniving eyes.

“So you don’t know,” he concludes and this time his bitterness is palpable. He’s still more controlled than usual and John decides he’s better off waiting for some semblance of explanation. What do you have to do with— “She never told you, did she? To spare you, I presume. Ah, such kindness from someone you disregarded so easily.”

That stings but it’s deserved. He could try and explain to Santino that what he did was the only way to make sure you lived, but judging by the pinched expression on the man’s face, he doubts Santino would care much for his reasonings.

But the fierceness in his eyes…

Since when does Santino D’Antonio care—

“Why do you think I changed my mind about helping you, hm?” Santino speaks up, dashing his thoughts apart and John listens, an awful understanding starting to take place instead of confusion. “It’s because (Name) came to me, heartbroken and haunted, and asked me to help you with your Impossible Task. And I did, for her. You owe her your life. A debt that needs paying, John.”

“That’s not yours to call in,” he whispers tightly.

But Santino’s words are sinking in and—

After the hotel. After saying something as final and as destructive as If you walk out of that door, I never want to see you again to still go asking for help on his behalf—

“No, but this is.”

The Marker slides closer towards him.

He doesn’t need this right now. He doesn’t want this.

You had given him this life, this time with Helen. You could have told him what you did but you never did. If it hadn’t been for you, Santino never would have helped him. Not after Tokyo.

“Take it back.”

It’s like a switch being flipped, and Santino’s calm expression seems to stutter, straining, before he manages to rope himself back in. But this time his anger is palpable.

“Take it back?” he repeats sharply.

A slight nod. “Take it back.”

He doesn’t want this life that’s bled him dry again. This life that has made him sick with guilt.

“A Marker is no small thing, John,” the Italian intones icily, his eyes blazing as his fingers motion between them. “For a man to grant a Marker to another, is to bind a soul to a blood oath.”

He knows. He knows this but—

“Find someone else.”

Whatever final shred of self-control Santino seems to be clinging to cracks briefly. He reaches forward abruptly, grabbing the Marker and John hears the tell-tale click of the device opening. In an instant, he is faced with a bloody imprint of his thumb inside the metal. His oath.  

“Listen to me,” Santino hisses, his previous pleasantries forgotten. He points his finger at the blood and his head tilts with a mocking little smile. “What is this? Hmm? Do you remember? This is your blood. You came to me asking for help and I helped you. She suffered because of your negligence and then you broke our deal by keeping her away from me instead.”

The Italian releases a laboured breath and gathers his fleeing composure swiftly. Swallowing, he tries again, calmer this time, “Honour the Marker, John, and I’ll have the power to always keep her safe. You can go back to your...make-believe, and never hear from either of us ever again. If you don’t do this, you know the consequences.”

John exhales, his head dipping downwards.

He can still see your expression at the Continental when your phone rang. How your severe, taut features had softened at the name on the screen, and lightness in your voice when you had picked up, “Hey, grumpy.”

How much has changed between you and Santino?  

Are you—

His head turns and his stare snags onto a photo of him and Helen.

Helen.

God, he loves her. Misses her daily. His time with her was the happiest he’s ever been.

You get involved in this world again, and there won’t be a ticket back this time.

You bought him this time and he regrets so many things. Regrets not doing a better job of warning you, preparing you, protecting you, trying to fix things between you sooner.

And even after everything—even now, you still understand him better than anyone. Understand how he doesn’t want this, can’t handle the thought of being back much less actually going back.

He could. But there would be no way back. No second ticket just like you said and whatever he is—whatever little good there might still reside inside him—would be wrecked and destroyed beyond repair if he did.

Helen wants him to find happiness again.

So even if it’s you.

Maybe because it is you, he turns back towards Santino and tells him, “I’m not that guy anymore.”

The Italian’s expression falters, growing slack. He regards John critically for a long moment and snaps the Marker shut, pointing at him. “You are always that guy, John,” he retorts calmly, his voice soft with accusation. “You have no idea how much suffering you have caused her. This is the least you can do.”

He places the Marker between them again; a final chance, and waits.

John stares at it.

I’m respecting your decision to stay retired.

“I can’t help you,” he whispers heavily, and slides the Marker back across towards the Camorra heir. “I’m sorry. She understands.”

He knows you do. That you will. He hopes you will. He doesn’t want to lose you again.

It’s in a slow look upwards from the Marker to his face, that John sees a glimpse of the old Santino again. That cold-blooded rage that’s practically spilling out from him as he lightly licks his lips, trying to keep himself in check. But no matter how much he tries to contain it, Santino’s anger is so tangible John can almost feel its destructive burn.

He rises to his feet, and Santino does too. The Marker is already in the Italian’s hand and he pockets it carefully. He then slips his tightly clenched fists into his pockets, too, and cocks his head in a proud, scornful manner. If there’s one thing John can say about Santino, is that the man has never flinched away from his stare. Never looked away or lowered his eyes. He’s not sure if it’s arrogance or genuine lack of fear but he’s always admired that in Santino.

The Italian’s next words might as well be a knife straight to the chest though.    

“You don’t deserve her,” he states calmly, coldly, looking him up and down as if disgusted. “You never did.”

Then he turns and walks away without a backwards glance.

For a moment, John is rooted in his spot, unable to form a coherent thought in his suddenly too empty head.

He follows after the heir moments later, dragging his feet after him.

Santino pauses in the doorway of his home, fixing his sleeves as he gives John a dispassionate little smile.    

“You have a beautiful home, John,” he remarks thoughtfully, glancing around briefly with a slight grin. It dies seconds later and Santino turns away, dropping his overcoat around his shoulders with a sweep of his arms. “Buona notte,” he calls out loudly as he walks away.

John closes the door with a soft click and moves across the hallway a few deliberate steps at the time. His eyes trace over his home slowly, savouring the sight and the feel of it. He lifts a photo of him and Helen to his face, staring at those adoring, happy faces.

He can’t recall the feeling of that happiness anymore. Everything in his life has turned to ash.

A distant crash tears through the house and he raises his head.

The world around him promptly explodes into flames.

“Charon.”

The man greets you with a faint glimmer of levity in his eyes. His glasses reflect the light emitting from the computer in front of him, and he inclines his head in your direction.

“Miss Vipress. It is a pleasure to have you back with us again,” he says and your own smile stretches. “How may I help? A doctor, perhaps?”

Biting back a sarcastic retort, you quirk your eyebrow at his deliberate baiting and lean your elbows on the counter.

“No, I’m fine,” you reassure, tapping your fingers in a restless little rhythm. “Winston?”

Charon’s lips flatten in a professional line, and you already know what will come out of his mouth before he speaks. You have seen him adapt this cast many times before.

“Sir is currently away on business but he will be back by the morning,” he divulges and clicks the computer keys a few times without even glancing down. “Should I schedule a time for you?”

You both know it’s a formality and nothing more than that. For the sake of equality and appearance, you still “schedule” appointments if there are people around. Usually, you go to Winston whenever you please and the man has no choice but to put up with you. Obviously, he loves it when you do that.

But right now, Winston may be the only one able to get you information on where the Lovers have disappeared to. The rules state he can’t get involved in such matters as a manager but Winston is Winston. He lives by his own code, too. One you can’t help but respect and imitate yourself.

You hope he’ll help you because the alternatives make you battle down a weary groan.

“Please,” you voice politely, stilling your fingers when Charon’s attention drifts towards them. “As early as you can.”

He inclines his head in a courteous manner, ever the professional. “Of course. I’ll be sure to let Sir know you are looking for him as soon as he arrives.”

Bobbing your head, you let your hand settle on your phone and glance towards the lounge.  

“Thanks. I’m going to grab a bite to eat. Anything good on?”

A thin smile appears on the man’s face, and his rare show of amusement surprises you.

“I do believe your favourite dessert is being served today, Miss.”

You snort, pushing yourself away from the counter with a brief look over your shoulder to make sure you’re not falling into anyone.  

“Lucky.”

Giving him another smile, you move towards the lounge, definitely ready for some food.

During the brief walk, you also take a moment to text Santino.

Winston is out. Will be back by the morning. I’ll stay at the Continental for the night. Breakfast tomorrow?

You send the text and sit down at an empty table further away, grabbing the menu as you get comfortable. This thing is so long and changes so often that reading it feels like reading a fresh newspaper every time you come here.

You’re barely done with the starters when distinct footsteps approach your table.

“Sorry I’m not ready to order yet,” you call out without looking up. “Can you give me another five?”

No answer.

And then—

A scent tickles your nose. You know that scent. The strong, heady cologne.

Your head jerks up, your muscles locking at the sight of a large, looming figure standing before you.

He hasn’t changed much since the last time you’ve seen him.

Everything from the strong, sharp cut of his jaw, the fullness of his lips, and the icy, bored gleam in his bright blue eyes. His large, muscular build is as menacing as it’s always been, as is the pitch-black suit he wears that only accents it. But the most telling is the heavy tattoos marking almost every inch of his skin apart from his face. The ink is masterfully etched along his fingers and peeks from under his shirt as it trails all the way up to his neck.

He’s the type of man you would cross the street just to avoid.  

“Lady Camorra,” he greets gruffly with a derivative curve of his mouth.

It splits his face apart into something as handsome as it is terrible. His beauty isn’t really beautiful. His beauty is the type you can cut yourself onto but still be fascinated by it.

Cool metal settles inside your palm, your body rigid.

He scoffs at your reaction and wanders towards the empty seat, gracelessly dragging the chair back as he seats himself down without permission. “Relax,” he mutters, irritated, and then adds a mocking, “And don’t forget about the rules.”

He looks huge seated against such a small, intimate backdrop. Danger crowds you, your instincts recognising the predator before you, and you slant your body at an angle, your fingers smoothing over a vial of poison in the seam of your coat.

No paralysers. Not with the Lovers still around.  

“Don’t call me that,” you snarl lowly and he tracks your subtle movements with dull disinterest.  

“Oh dear,” he drones with a slight sneer. “Did I accidentally reveal one of Santi’s wet dreams? My bad.”

“What are you doing here Hector?”

The man before you smirks, his expression morphing into something frightening, and the Camorra’s Devil bares his teeth at you in what passed for a polite greeting for him.

“Sightseeing.”

Your expression tightens, and you don’t bother masking your heated glare. “Feed that cork of shit to someone who actually believes it.”

As if Hector, one of Camorra’s elite guards, would come to New York for sightseeing. Hector who is known for his ruthlessness, for his unbreakable loyalty to Camorra. He was handpicked by Giovanni himself, recruited when he was only eight, and made into an elite guard at age eighteen. Only four such positions exist, and these individuals protect and answer only to the head of Camorra and no one else. He was the youngest and first non-native Italian to ever inherit the position. Many say Giovanni favoured Hector even above his own heirs for his brutality alone.

From what you’ve seen of how Giovanni D’Antonio treated his children, you would be inclined to agree.

Hector reaches into his jacket, and his smirk stretches at the way you gradually lower the menu onto the table, your blade glinting between you.  

But the man only pulls out an envelope from his pocket, placing it between you. The cut is familiar as is the faint perfume exuding from it.  

“Judging by your frowny little face, you already know what this is,” he notes and taps his knuckles against the invite once before his tattooed fingers lift. The rings donning them click softly and you follow the motion. You once saw those hands break bones like popsicle sticks. Effortless, quick, and brutal. “Good. That means I won’t have to waste my breath explaining it to you.”

Your eyes meet his warily. You don’t trust him or this entire encounter. “Why is she inviting me?”

To invite Santino to the inheritance ceremony is one thing, but you—

Hector sighs loudly, leaning back in his chair as if this conversation is already boring him. He grabs a crumpled packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, lighting one with expert ease. As one would expect from two pack a day man.

Sometimes it still surprises you his lungs haven’t given out yet.  

“Why won’t she?” he ponders with a tone that implies he doesn’t care to hear your thoughts on the matter. The vicious set of his features disappears in a puff of smoke but you don’t blink. Hector is not the type of man you take your eyes away from if you want to live. “She’s about to inherit Camorra and you’re the Vipress. You’ve worked for Camorra plenty of times before. Maybe she’s simply trying to build bridges.”

This time, you scoff. “Funny. Considering she’s the one who burned them.”

How funny that Gianna would come seeking to make amends now. After all this time, you don’t even think you’re upset or angry at her anymore but the timing of this leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

“Bore someone else with your little dramas,” Hector deadpans and takes a long drag of his cigarette. “If she was stupid enough to make an enemy out of you, I don’t particularly care.”

Your eyebrows lift, and you regard him coolly.

Giovanni’s prized little monster. Best of the best.

But Giovanni is dead now. And Camorra is in suspension.

It’s then, more than ever, that you see the reason for Hector’s dismissiveness.

He doesn’t want to be here. But he is, and Camorra doesn’t just send its best killer for delivery service. No matter how much of a personal touch Gianna may believe you will require.  

“Don’t tell Hector.”

Step had known. His hesitance during your call days ago suddenly makes sense.

“Careful,” you purr slowly and tilt your chin. “That’s your new boss you’re talking about. Show a little respect. I thought you liked Gianna.”

He snorts, and slants his head back, staring at the ceiling above. Completely unconcerned with the fact that he’s baring his throat to you. He’s one of the very few you won’t immediately call an idiot for doing so. 

“Like her? This has nothing to do with liking her or Santino better. Frankly, I don’t give a shit about either of them. Same bullshit over and over again with those two. ‘Papi loves me best’, Papi didn’t give a shit about either of them,” he mutters tensely, and his attention swings back to you, his pale eyes cutting. He leans on his elbows, the cigarette between his fingers still smouldering. “Giovanni loved Camorra and that’s who I now serve. The family, not the individual. Besides, you of all people should know respect is earned, not demanded.”

You toy with the blade on the table, your fingertips grazing against the honed edges.

The door is wide open for a metaphorical knife so you sink it deep.  

“Yes, it must be very hard no longer being Giovanni’s favourite little pet,” you drawl knowingly and watch the way his eyes narrow, a muscle in his jaw fluttering. “Why are you here, Hector? Why didn’t Gianna send someone else? Why not Cassian?”

“Cassian,” Hector begins pointedly. “Is probably too busy fucking her to have time and play the delivery boy. Maybe she simply knows I’m your favourite,” he adds knowingly.

The fucking nerve of this prick.

The blade slips in between your index and middle fingers, and you spin it on the table smoothly; once, twice, thrice.  

Hector watches the little show, a shade amused.  

“When Giovanni threw me out of their estate, I recall your hands on me,” you remind him, and there is a frigid bite to your soft words. “If Gianna wants to make enemies, then she did well in sending you to me.”

His head tilts and he puts out his almost gone cigarette against the silver spoon next to him before glancing back towards you.

“Giovanni was my boss,” he states flatly. “If he had asked, I would have put a bullet in your head, too.”

It’s that simple for him. He, unlike you, or John, or even Santino doesn’t question, doesn’t hesitate.

That’s always been Giovanni’s genius. His ability to assure such absolute loyalty through any means necessary the individuals in question don’t even hesitate in carrying out his orders. Most in Camorra are recruited young so by the time they grow up, they have nothing else outside of it. Camorra is the only path for them; a maze without end. All the way until their deaths, and then they’re replaced in a matter of hours.

You have never met anyone who embodies Camorra more than the man before you.    

“Assuming you could.”

A glimmer of a chilling smile graces his face. “Sweetheart, I’m not like the other three,” he points out lightly. “I would snap your pretty, little neck faster than you can blink.”

“You would be dead before you reached me.”

Hector makes a small, amused sound at the back of his throat, and shakes his head a little, a flash of white teeth filling your sight. “I’ll admit, things have been pretty boring without you around to cause havoc. You know how they get. So stiff.”

You hum, contemplative. “Is that why they sent you?”

Hector doesn’t like to waste his time on pointless chitchat, but he hates stupidity even more.

He nods his head, pleased you’ve caught on, and plays with the lighter between his fingers. It’s a motion just slightly too agitated to come off as completely casual though.  

“Yes, well, it’s not every day darling Santi goes around throwing the word of old Camorra around, now is it?” he speaks and his tone is monotonous. “Do you think the old fuckers took it well? When they learned he tied the entire family to your whims? And now that you’re free of your chain it gives you a little too much power for their liking. What happened with the Lovers? Well that’s a pretty good reason to call in the said oath, now isn’t it?”

Your throat is dry and your own fingers are still around the blade. It had slipped your mind. The fact that for Santino’s oath to be binding, he would have had to inform the family head in order for it to be officially acknowledged. Since Gianna has not officially taken over yet, the news would have reached the collective council of Camorra first.

You can’t even begin to imagine the reaction that room had to learning about what Santino did.

Which makes you wonder only one thing.  

“Are you here to kill me, then?”

This time, Hector does laugh. It’s a wrapped, ugly sound that rumbles from deep in his chest. Like the act itself is unfamiliar to him.  

“If I were you would be dead already,” he states mildly and seems entertained by the slight, annoyed pinch of your expression at his statement. “But no, not yet. Hence the invite.”

“So Gianna wants to buy me instead,” is your bitter, tepid assessment.

The harsh planes of Hector’s features crease with exasperation.

“I don’t particularly care what she wants,” he shoots back briskly. “I’m only here to make sure that Santino doesn’t fuck up again because he’s so desperate to stick his cock inside you.”

He ignores your seething glower and rises to his feet, throwing the lighter in the air before catching it easily in his palm and pocketing it. He fixes his suit as he stares down at you, judging every scrape and bruise marring your face. The expensive, dark material stretches over his powerful, tall frame and you watch him carefully.

“Relax already, but do grow eyes at the back of your head,” he advises, almost pleasantly, and looks you up and down, unbothered by your glare. “I’ll be seeing you, sweetheart.”

And then he leaves you sitting at your table alone, your appetite long since gone.

You take the painkillers dry, not wasting time with water as you emerge onto the terrace, letting the warm sun wash over you.

Today is pleasant. These last few days have brought a spell of bright, warm weather and you can’t help but incline your head towards the light.

It reminds you of your dream when you just woke up after the attack but you shake it off, trying not to think about it.

You’re here only for the man you can already see seated at the table and drinking tea.

Winston’s head lifts at the sound of your approach, and his sharp gaze does one quick sweep over you before he takes another sip of his tea.

“Good God,” he mutters dryly before you can speak. “Did they drag you through those tunnels by the hair?”

Rolling your eyes, you huff a small breath, falling unceremoniously onto the empty chair before him.  

“Ha ha. Hilarious,” you retort dully and pinch your voice lower. “I’ve missed you, V. So good to see you’re alive and well, my dear.”

Winston pauses, giving you a flat stare but his eyebrows furrow slightly as he examines you closely, seemingly confused. Maybe even a touch surprised.

“Hmm, you are in a chipper mood this morning,” he notes, sounding just a bit nonplussed, and takes another sip before writing something down in his notebook. “Handling this better than I expected.”

That gives you a pause.

“Handling what better?”

This time it’s Winston who pauses, his pen scratching to a halt as he looks up at you.

“You didn’t see Johnathan on your way up here?” he questions, his voice deceptively calm.

Something sinks in the pit of your stomach; an awful, curdling feeling of unease.

“John?” you murmur, confused. “Why would I see John here?”

John should be back home. Back with his dog. Enjoying his retirement. He should not be here, at the beating heart of your shadow world.

Winston’s expression eases into a cool mask you have seen hundreds of times before, and his next words make your heartbeat spike just slightly, “You don’t know.”

You force breath into your lungs. Slow and steady.  

“Winston,” you begin softly. “Know what?”

The man sighs deeply, the look in his eyes probably the weariest you have ever seen, and he moves the teapot in your direction.

“Join me for tea, dear,” he says and gives you a look that makes you sit up. “I’m afraid this will be rather unpleasant.”

You have no idea what expression you have on your face but whatever it is, it makes Roberto cringe. His anxious stare as you approach is telling enough.

“V, wait!”

“Don’t.”

It’s a rasp of fury that manages to freeze the guard in front of you and makes his partially extended hand fall back to his side. His expression is torn, almost pained as he peers at you.

“He did it for you.”

He might as well have dropped a burning match into your stomach that’s full of gasoline ready to scorch its way through everything it comes into contact with.  

“For me? For me?”

Ares steps from behind Roberto, her expression guarded and your glare narrows on her.

She knew. What happened last night must have been the reason for the tension between her and Santino over these last few days. The blood roaring inside your ears drowns out the sounds of lively chatter around you. The gallery is full, but you will see him. Regardless of the audience.

Roberto moves to the side, the look on his face full of understanding if not trepidation, and your eyes slide back to Ares. She’s blocking your way, but even she cannot hide Santino from you. Though you can tell by her expression it’s not because he ordered her to do so, and more so because neither she nor Roberto wishes to witness this confrontation.

Frankly, you don’t give a shit about what either of them wants right now.  

He did it to keep you safe.

You ignore her words, instead biting out a grim, “Get out of my way. Now.”

Her blue eyes watch you for a tense moment, but she moves eventually. Only one small step to the side.

You brush past them both without a word.

The muffled noise your shoes create as you walk down the hallway echoes around you, and you emerge into a small section that houses a well-known collection to you.

He sits in front of an enormous painting of a battlefield, silent and alone. But doesn’t speak a word as you approach even though you’re the only ones here.

He knows you well. So he knew you would come.

This morning you woke up to a simple: Something has come up. Dinner instead?—Santi without any additional information.

Now, you know the something in question was going to John’s home to demand payment for a Marker you had no idea even existed until this morning. John never told you, and neither did Santino.

Winston thought you knew about the deal made to get you out of Tokyo, but he was wrong.

For his help in getting you out, Santino had asked for a blood oath in exchange. An oath he almost tied you to as well, even if he ended up changing his mind last second.

Bitterness in your chest swells till it’s almost suffocating you as you come to a halt before him.

His expression is serene, a melancholic smile lingering across the seams of his mouth while he sits with his hands clasped in his lap.

You’re so angry, you can’t even form a coherent thought, much less words. But he speaks first, still not looking at you.

“When I was little, my home used to be a kaleidoscope of colour,” he begins, and his voice is soft, almost dreamy. “Paintings everywhere you looked. My mother—she adored art. She even had a painting studio in the west wing. Did I ever tell you that?”

You don’t answer and he still doesn’t look at you.

“To be fair,” he continues after a beat of suffocating silence. “She was not particularly good at it but she loved it so that my father used to buy all these expensive paintings for her to hang around the house. One day, I worked up the courage to ask him why he would pay so much money for something he did not care for. To him, it was nothing more than a bit of paint on canvas. He had no interest in art nor its beauty. So I asked him, and he thought about it for a long time. So long that I feared my question might have angered him, but no. Mhm. He leaned back in his chair, blew out a puff of smoke, and said to me: ‘They make your mother smile.’ As simple as that. You see it was then I realised it had nothing to do with how much money they cost, or even the prestige of owning them. He bought them simply because they made my mother happy. Her happiness was worth any price to him.”

He pauses, swallowing thickly, and his lips tremble for a second before he presses them into a tight line. “Of course after she died, his indifference grew into hatred. He demanded that every painting was to be removed from his sight and from the house. The once vibrant walls of my home became cold and barren. And now, hm, now I look at these paintings from my childhood but they are only distant echoes of a past long since dead. Now, I see what my father saw. Some paint on canvas and nothing more.”

There is something lonely about his expression. About the way he stares at the grand painting before him like he’s half a foot in his past and half in the present. 

“What did you do?”

It comes out softer than you’ve intended, but your anger hasn’t cooled—not even at hearing his little story.

Finally, Santino looks towards you. His eyes take you in and his slight smile sharpens.

“Judging by your expression, amore, you already know,” he states and blinks a few times before looking away. The smile on his face is growing colder and colder by the second, and you hate it. “Let me guess. Was it Winston?”

But you’re too angry right now and cut straight to the heart of it. “You blew up his house.”

John’s home; a home that’s a lot more than just a home to him. That house has been a part of Helen too. One of the very few reminders of her, and it was a place of comfort for John—a place where he could be soothed by the happy memories they’ve shared. And now—

Now it’s ash.  

“And he refused a Marker,” Santino announces, his tone growing colder, more unforgiving. “We both know I could have demanded his head for that alone.”

You suck in a deep breath, taking a step towards him. “You had no right to that Marker in the first place!”

Your words are like a whip, brimming with fury, and Santino’s self-control crumbles. He rises to his feet abruptly and steps towards you too, his eyes a green flame.

“No right? I had every right,” he hisses and points his index finger between you. “We are not children, cara mia. We do not hand out charity, especially not me.”

Your slight chuckle is icy, as is your sarcastic smile. “No, you don’t,” you agree softly and your heart clenches in your chest. Why would he do this? Why else if not— “You just couldn’t let such an opportunity slip by, could you?”

Ever the businessman. Ever the need for more control.

Santino leans back with an understanding exhale of breath as he regards you.  

“You think this is about power.”

“Isn’t everything with you?”

He saw an opportunity to get a Marker from the most feared man in the world, and he took it. You’re not foolish enough to believe it’s because whatever Santino felt for you back then was so pure and special.

But those words hit something deep, you can tell.

You don’t think you have ever seen him so furious in all the years you have known him. Except, maybe, once before. Back in Chicago. When that man—

“Let me tell you something about your precious Johnathan,” Santino bites out, his voice forcefully calm, but only just barely. “Let me shed some light onto his heroic actions in regards to Tokyo because clearly you either don’t know or could use a reminder. How many days were you stuck in that pit, amore? Hm?”

You stare at him blankly, uncomprehending.

“Ten days,” he forces out after a brief pause, and his words quicken with his fraying temper. This is not new. This is years of bottled-up frustration, spilling out at the most inopportune time. This is a result of you refusing to discuss John or anything relating to him for years. “Next question, when did John come to me, do you think? Did he ever tell you, hm? Did he?”

“No,” you choke out.

“No,” he repeats, but doesn’t look surprised by it. “How delightful of him. Day eight, cara mia. Over a week. But wait, it gets better. It was Winston who contacted him about you being missing. So he either didn’t notice or didn’t care enough to check on you himself.”

Those words burn and sting and tear at the leftover shards of the girl you once were. So long ago now. Because no matter what, that’s exactly what you always feared, isn’t it? That either John didn’t notice or didn’t care enough. But you were the one who cut contact with him before Tokyo, so can you really blame him for not noticing your absence sooner? Can Santino? 

For a very long time, you did.

But you’re tired of feeling the suffocating shroud of hatred and bitterness all the time. You’ve moved past it. 

“Next question—and you are going to love this part, amore—how long do you think it took for my people to track down who took you? Hm?” he proceeds without waiting, and in every word he speaks, you hear the days, weeks, months, years all of this has plagued him. A storm he’s been holding back because it hurt you too much to talk about it. But everyone has a breaking point and it seems like Santino has reached his. “Six hours. Only six. You were there for over a week suffering and alone while dear John was busy charming, dining, and fucking some woman while I found you in six hours.”

Your heart, oh your heart, it hurts. It hurts so much it’s an effort to keep yourself still, composed.

Six hours.

Did it really only take Santino six hours to track your location?

All those days of pain and torture and—

You feel sick. Deep in your stomach, deep in your soul.

“So forgive me, amore, but demanding a Marker had little to do with having power over him,” Santino tells you, a bit calmer now, even if his breaths are still uneven. “It was a punishment. I am punishing him and I will continue doing so because it will never be enough. Because he failed you, broke our agreement, and then almost broke you, too. Because I, unlike you, am not so forgiving when it comes to his sins, cara mia.”

You stare at his tie, confused and speechless.  

Another present from you. A little piece of you given to him because—

Because he’s important to you.

“He didn’t know,” you whisper weakly, trying to digest everything you’ve just learned.

“Oh, but if he loved you as much as he claimed,” Santino tells you quietly, and you see his expression soften a touch at your helplessness, his previous rage retreating somewhat. “Then perhaps he should have.”

You’re not sure what you can say in defence to that. If anything.

Your eyes find his and you search his expression for—

You’re not sure what, exactly.

“What did you ask?” you ask him instead. “To kill the Lovers?”

Why else would he want to drag John Wick into this? A quick, clean sweep to get rid of your enemies. A way for both of you to stay out of a volatile situation and safe while John hunts them down.

Santino stills and something in your stomach sinks at the look in his eyes. It’s that retreat again. Like he’s mentally preparing himself for whatever is going to happen next.

“Ah, not quite,” he says cautiously, and you can see him measuring his words—a rarity. “That is only a temporary solution. There will always be the next enemy and the one after that, yes? The only way to keep us both safe permanently...is if I become the head of Camorra.”

A breath shudders out of you, and with it the numbing understanding, a realisation of what he’s saying. There are only two ways he could become the head of Camorra.

If Gianna passes him the title willingly in an official ceremony.

Or—  

“No,” you breathe, pained, and see his expression crumple at your reaction. “Tell me you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t, Santino.”

He reaches for you, desperate, “It is the only way—”

You jerk away from his touch.

“She’s your sister!”

Santino chuckles, his expression stony and his wild stare cuts away from you, frustrated.

“My sister—” he begins and cuts himself off abruptly, exhaling once before he looks back at you. He takes a step closer, only a step separating you now. “Let’s not stand here and pretend that if the situation was reversed she wouldn’t do the exact same to me, amore. Tell me, if she set her loyal dog onto me, would you still be so defensive of them then? Still call them your friends? Or would you let them kill me? Eh?”

The anger blazing inside your chest grows cold and hard in a blink. Stinging hurt follows swiftly after.

“How dare you?” you whisper softly and his lips part, a glint of regret appearing before he masks it quickly. “How dare you stand there and ask me that? After everything,” you practically gag on the last word.

After all these years. After everything you’ve been through together.

Santino’s hands slip inside his pockets, a shield against you when you can see how your reactions are affecting him, weakening him.

“Perhaps it’s because unlike saint Johnathan, I don’t get all my sins blindly forgiven,” he states evenly, an old resentment coating his words. “Tell me, (Name), do I even exist in your eyes? Or am I simply a replacement?”

His words are delicate, almost like a part of him knows the answer but is preparing to hear you confirm it.

And you feel so angry—so angry he would just assume he knows how you feel better than you do.  

“Stop. Stop dragging John into this when what this is really about is you,” you whisper harshly, your voice hoarse as you stare up at him. “This is all it’s ever been about. You and your thirst for power. You were always going to do this, weren’t you? You always wanted the seat above all else, except now you can stand there and feel justified in your decision.”

He smiles at you; an empty, distant thing.

“What is it that you want from me, (Name)?” he wonders curiously. “Do you want me to play at being a good man? Well, I am not a good man. I always thought you knew that.”

Shaking your head, you hate the helplessness you feel rolling in your chest, the despair of knowing how terribly everything is about to crumble apart.  

“I never cared about you being good,” you confess gently, weakly, and his jaw clenches so tightly you can see the rigidness of it. “But how many will die in order for you to take that seat?”

Too many. All because of Chicago and what you both did. Or perhaps it would always end up the same. With both of you here, aching with things unsaid.

You will always make the same mistakes. You will always lose.

Santino hums, mock thoughtful. But his expression is still vacant. “Do you want me to confess the depth of my indifference then? Is that it?” he murmurs calmly and frees his hand, placing his fingers against your cheek, his touch as tender as always. He leans closer until you can almost feel the heat of his breath when he speaks. “Very well, cara mia. I would let everyone at Camorra, this city, and even my own sister die if it means keeping you safe.”

Your eyes burn as you stare at each other.

“Men like my brother are not capable of love. But if they find it, you will never be loved like that again.”

“Is that what you think I want, Santino?” you wonder faintly, leaning your cheek into his palm for a fleeting moment. “For you to tell me you would let people die for me?”

His grin grows more crooked and his eyes devour you like he’s imprinting the sight of you to memory.

“No, amore. I want you to understand that I don’t need them but I do need you.”

If this happens—if John does this, it will unleash a storm you will never be able to force back into the genie bottle. It will destroy everything you have ever cared about or change it irrecoverably.

“Take it back,” you plead, your voice thick. “The Marker. Take it back.”

The light in those familiar, green eyes gutters out. “Take it back?” he echoes distantly, and his hand drops away from your face. “If it were for you, (Name), I would not even hesitate.”

His hand lowers, his fingers tracing over the chain around your neck. Your expression contorts, your eyes fluttering shut briefly. “But I know you’re only doing this in an attempt to spare him. So no. For the first time, I’m afraid I must refuse you.”

The weight of his words settles inside your heart, squeezing it painfully. You feel hollow and empty all at once.

“Then we’re done here.”

You turn away from him, staggering away. But his hand latches onto your wrist, pulling you back.

His stare is frantic, desolate.  

“Amore—”

You yank your hand out of his hold violently, breathing heavily as you meet his stare, “Don’t call me that! I’m not your ‘love’,” you choke out, your voice cracking as you add a trembling, “I’m not your anything.”

He reels back as if struck, his lips parting and his eyes—

I will never abandon you.

Spinning around, you stride away and don’t look back once.

There is nothing left to say.

. . .

an: ah, things we do for love, eh? :) 

jkhfsdjkhf i aM SO READY TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS AND THEORIES ABOUT WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN NEXT *AHEM* we also got both Santi and John POVs this chapter and hoo boi they were rushed and bad but any feedback (and whether you would like to see more of them) are welcome!!! also, if this chapter reads a bit at a rapid-fire pace, that’s intentional. domino effect, and we’re in the thick of it now heh. also,,,, hector? he’s going to be pretty important so keep him in mind. reddit crew sorry for the delay but here he is as promised lol. as always, I can’t thank you all enough for supporting this dumb series. it, and you guys, bring me so much happiness it’s crazy <33

see you next time!!

[luminescentlyricist]

🧡 Autophobia 🧡

AUTOPHOBIA - NOUN - An irrational fear of oneself ; an intense self-fear that is groundless.

~

Dirk had never been all that emotional, but this was the last straw. He was breaking day by day, teetering on the edge of snapping the carefully constructed mask of apathy he'd worked so hard to maintain. Even before Derse had exploded, there were days where he couldn't slip away into the dream planet. Then, whenever he could - without Roxy there, without having her snoring company - the whispers of the horrorterrors seemed loud enough to deafen him. He'd never told anyone about it. Not even Dave. There were truly no words appropriate for the situation, and it muddled up his thoughts with stupid emotional biases to consider.

He sat in his living room, a hunched-over gargoyle, unmoving and unwilling to move. The larger-than-necessary television screen in front of him blared music, but his own brother's sick beats weren't enough to shake him from his literal and metaphorical slump. For all he knew, it was midnight, but he felt detached enough that he'd disregard the ebbs and flows of tiredness until he blanked out and crashed. Sometimes, his mind and body alike couldn't handle the strain. This was one of those times. Dirk's muscles ached in protest of the awkward position he'd decided to rest into, and as his neck craned downwards - being physically unable to keep his head up any longer - the iconic triangular shades he always wore slipped from his nose.

He made no move to retrieve them. Despite feeling disproportionately vulnerable without them, the Strider barely cared. All of his windows were covered by thick black curtains anyway, the otherwise invigorating sunlight nonexistent.Nobody wanted to visit, anyway, as Dirk was sure they were all sick of each other's company after so long. He was all too used to being alone and looking after himself, so the group's self-imposed isolation period shook him a lot less than it did his peers. He noted that he had been invited to a group board on Trollian - his chat client of choice, as it turned out not to be exclusive to the trolls - but, once again, made no effort to raise himself from his slump.

John had also messaged him, but they had barely spoken. All he knew was that the 'windy boy' was one of his brother's friends.

Dirk's uniquely-coloured eyes slipped closed after a while of vacant staring. He no longer heard the music loud enough to shake the walls. The only thing that met his ears was the low, steady thrumming of his own heartbeat. It was disorienting, yes, having everything fade away, but he was adjusted to solitary ventures and feeling so alone that darkness felt more comforting than seeing.

He'd been wondering whether or not to give Hal a more physical form because he'd been able to salvage the AI from the 'corpse' of ARquiusprite. It felt somehow immoral - even by Dirk's largely skewed moralities - to keep the shades locked away, even though it was to prevent them from tormenting him or driving him to increasingly long periods of sleeplessness. The truth was that Dirk held an emotionless facade as his brother did, though his lack of understanding was left exposed and unmasked in contrast. But he was fragile, as prone to breaking as anyone else was. Hal was an enigmatic being, more than enough to shake him up.

It was haunting, realising just how strangely he had acted when he was younger. How stupidly, how naively. Taken away by his emotions, loud and brash. Was that just how thirteen-year-olds were supposed to be? As detestable as the robot was, he was a reflection of who Dirk had been and who he never wanted to be again. A reminder.

Finally standing, a small groan escaping his lips at the pain of his now-stiff body, the Strider thought. He didn't really know what to do, but never bothered to engage with his friends despite the annoyance of the notification light blinking. Travelling to the fridge with habitually light, wary footsteps, Dirk opened the door and took out a can of Orange Crush. He consumed so much of the stuff it was a wonder his teeth weren't stained. The cold drink seemed like snow - not that he personally knew what it felt like - in the way its coolness slowly spread through his hands. He needed the sugar to snap out of his daze, as strange as it seemed.

The tab of the lid scratched abrasively against his fingers when he attempted to open it, and he cursed aloud, hearing his own voice for the first time in what seemed like an aeon. The surfaces of his fingertips had been caught, and pinpricks of red bubbled up to obscure their swirling prints. Licking the blood away without a second thought, he tried again, ears pricking to the satisfying hiss the carbonated drink made when the metallic seal was broken. Taking a swig, Dirk disregarded the bubbles that seemed to burn his tongue. As much as he hated it, he felt too lonely now, The taste of the drink was familiar and comforting.

Slamming the fridge door with a little more force than was necessary, the young man flinched. His shoulders were raised in a defensive, tight position, so he forced himself to relax. He'd engineered a situation for himself that hindered his emotional and physical growth, the battle bots being the very reason why he was so prone to startling when no one else was watching to protect him. But the one flaw that Dirk seemed to so vehemently disagree with was perhaps his most prominent: He'd largely formulated and fuelled his own misfortune.

Moving back to the couch, he sat, staring at the rotating disc emblem on the screen. It was up at full brightness, as he refused to take off his shades even though he was completely alone. He knew that he should have at least contacted his brother. If he was craving contact so badly, Dave would be the best person to tell about his troubles. They had been raised similarly, after all, regardless of any family ties they might have had. But. for the most part. he felt disruptive.

Watching the rapid spinning of the disc animation, his stomach felt compelled to follow suit. Swallowing another mouthful of Orange Crush, relief washed through his whole body and quelled his nausea to a degree. His thoughts were only becoming louder and harder to ignore, though, so he muted and switched off the television. His ears continued to ring obnoxiously, so he tilted his head back, placed down the can and plugged them with his fingers.

Dirk was procrastinating, denying the need to fidget and tinker in his workshop purely to quieten his Hal-based thoughts, which were beginning to come overwhelming despite his efforts. He just wanted to prevent them from growing.

He still wondered about his Brobots. The boy wasn't one to get sentimental, and he wasn't about to. He'd simply put so much effort into them that it seemed a shame to dismantle them for a cause he didn't truly support. It was one hell of a choice to make, and the self-imposed delays were only hindering his prospects. Surely he was stronger than his thoughts? For someone who'd sat alone with them for so long, something like Hal shouldn't have moved him.

With another few slow swallows of his drink, he forced himself to stand and look towards a corridor. That was exactly where he didn't want to go. The darkness surrounding the area - though purely owing to his laziness, having not installed a lightbulb - was disorienting and even frightening. He'd never liked having his vision taken away because of how heavily he relied on it.

Descending the small staircase, he glanced downwards to check if his boots - normally steel-toed in case he dropped anything onto them by accident, despite outward claims of his own composure - were properly laced. Finding that one was undone, he bent down and carefully double-knotted it, wincing as the normally non-irritating fabric connected with the raw skin on his fingertips. He'd expected such a small thing to heal rapidly, but all it was doing quickly was becoming both a metaphorical and physical pain. Straightening, he pushed open the door to his workshop and stepped inside.

The space no longer seemed as welcoming and relaxing as his memory told him it would be. There was a certain fogginess about it, the windows dark and air colder than Dirk had ever anticipated. The layout was similar to that of Equius', though the benches and worktables were distinctly neater, and various swords and weapons lined the wall. Their metal glinted dully in the waning moonlight. As opposed to bloodied parts of completed and smashed battle bots, Dirk's hosted husks and unfinished or dismantled robots in varying degrees of completeness.

An entire table was strewn with circuits and other electrical components. Dave had once suggested he contact a troll named Sollux to help with those. He hadn't bothered to enquire who that was, but it seemed a little more believable since he'd confirmed that trolls were not just internet idiots but also a bona fide alien race. Some had cool powers, according to his brother, and this 'Sollux' was one of them. He reportedly possessed psionics and eye lasers, though the tech savviness was far more relevant to Dirk's quests.

Checking around for his welding mask, the young man decided to distract himself by turning to the 'wrong' bot entirely. Squarewave and Sawtooth still existed, after all, and his mind was wandering to that uncertain place. He needed a distraction. He didn't want to face that. He was, for all intents and purposes, a complete and utter coward, even more so because he didn't want to admit it. His calloused fingers tightened against the personalised welding mask, so much so that it rubbed against the drink-tab wound, the same one that was so insistent on not healing.

This bot was a loose model, a sort of forgotten 'Davebot', one which he had since decided to abandon the building of. He thought it selfish to construct a model bot of someone who was still very much alive and deserving attention. By this token, he knew that he had broken this unspoken principle by virtue of the bot he had made Jake, though he considered that a separate situation. Dirk wasn't taking any attention away from his original self, and he could also argue that he didn't deserve it at all.

The boy let out a short sigh, rubbing his hands across his face and grabbing a pair of thick black gloves from a hook on the wall. This allowed a streak of red to smear across his nose from the newly reopened finger-prick wound. Although it was a bad idea due to the blatant infection potential, he didn't bother leaving the workshop to get a bandaid for it.

The Dave-esque robot's bright red eye lenses bored into his own with an unnerving glint, appearing far too alive for his liking. Dirk exhaled shakily, reaching out to touch the bot's soothingly cold exterior. Silvery alloy, fused with tight welding and ungodly amounts of heat so that there were no unseemly bolts and such to mess up the appearance of the face. Although he found it unnervingly difficult to display his affections, the care with which he had assembled his brother's likeness was telling enough.

Drumming on the shining lenses with unclipped fingernails, Dirk realised that he had subconsciously removed his gloves while fidgeting. He scanned the room, huffing and looking down at his fingers so that he had a concrete image of himself putting them back on in his head. Without that reminder, the boy was so stuck in his own swirling thoughts he would have forgotten again. He stepped back from the Davebot, wrinkling his nose in disgust - or perhaps a sudden burst of jealousy - despite his prior, awkwardly-expressed affections towards it. He took a nearby cloth, throwing it over the bot if only to obscure its confronting gaze.

The last thing he wanted to do was face Hal, even though it was just like going back in time. He never asked to face himself, no matter the iteration. Dirk knew he was better than that. The flaws that he once had were all locked away tightly, or so he thought. And yet, he had given their metallic prison a name. There was something so disarming about Hal; the stagnancy in growth was awful alone, but seeing himself - or a projection, a perception - so raw and unfiltered was going to break him apart. It just wasn't natural.

As Dirk felt himself spiral into such a distressing pattern of thought, a rare frown took his lips downwards. He picked up a stray piece of scrap metal, turning it over and over in his fingers until he found some peace in the constant action. Placing it into a pocket, he decided to keep it out of the way but nonetheless close by for further 'use'. He also needed something physical to do rather than resulting to his self-jeopardy and facing Hal when he was in such a fragile state of mind.

The tremors that were rippling through his body begun to intensify, and Dirk realised just how useless it was waiting for himself to calm down. There wasn't a whole lot he could do to procrastinate unless he dragged his friends out of the comfort of isolation. Besides, he had a feeling seeing Jake in person wouldn't put him in the best mood. Running a hand distractedly through his hair, the Strider braced himself against a worktable and groaned aloud. Nothing was helping his emotional turmoil, much less the headache pounding behind his eyes.

He'd spent too many sleepless nights wondering about this particular moral dilemma to keep it inside, but that was simply what he had adjusted himself to. Dirk Strider was a bomb, but he was convinced that he could explode if and when he wanted to. But each and every issue he refused to face was only shortening his resolve. What kind of Strider allowed himself to cry? Not him, that was for sure.

Sweat dripped down his forehead, slipping beneath his welding mask and making him his in irritation. Everything, no matter how small, seemed like it was against him. And to someone feeling as sensitive as Dirk was at that moment, it might as well have been the truth. The buzz in his fingers from touching the abrasive metal - despite the gloves - was gradually spreading, vicious pins and needles that were such a rapid sensation every movement was causing him pain or discomfort.

With a shaking hand, he removed his phone from one of his many pockets and opened Trollian. There, in bright red letters, sat the exact help he was so sure he didn't need. Dave would've been able to soothe him, at the very least, but what he really wanted was for someone to just... listen. Dirk hadn't let himself rely on others in the past, and he wasn't about to. Letting the screen fade to black, the young man let out a breath he had no idea he had held in so tightly. The phone fell from his lax fingers and back into his pocket, the dull weight sparking more pain in his midsection that he couldn't ignore.

Teeth harshly grinding against each other, he took one last glance towards the covered Davebot and rounded a corner, pushing back a thin and vaguely dusty curtain that separated one bot from the rest. Exhaling slowly and steeling himself, he stepped inside. Attempting to disregard his various aches and pains. his gaze flickered to a small drawer. It looked as if it were gouged at to try and remove the handle. He had done that, but it had been so long since that he'd forgotten.

Walking slowly towards it, Dirk produced a key from a chain around his neck. His friends had often enquired as to what the chain was for, but he'd never felt the need to answer them truthfully. He unlocked the drawer, closing his eyes for a moment to silently process what he was doing. It was terrifying, as much as he wouldn't admit it. The only thing that scared Dirk enough to break his facade was himself. Facing his own flaws. Hal made everything ten times worse. Nonetheless, he had completed the body, even if it was crafted in a far less personal manner when compared to the Davebot.

Sweat continued to bead at his forehead and drip downwards, irritating Dirk enough that he removed the welding mask entirely to wipe it away as much as possible. Taking a spare pair of shades - which he always had somewhere on his person - out of his protective apron and slipping them back on, a little bit of the tension melted out of his shoulders. It felt more natural to have the shades on, and he had no need for the welding mask. He didn't intend to see to the bot's adjustments just yet.

Although he regretted building Hal a body, all things said and done, it was the only chance he had to try and quash the nightmares and nausea that followed him everywhere he went. There was no logic to the fear, this he knew, but he just wished it'd stop, despite his giving up hope on it a while ago.

His heartbeat pounded in his ears, so he retrieved his phone and headphones. They were a special pair that Dave had once painted for him, sleek, black and noise-cancelling with the added bonus of his hat logo emblazoned on each ear. Again, his thoughts drifted towards getting the help of his brother, but there was no time for any of that. He was too entrenched in his personal problem to think about pushing it onto anyone else. Once again, he put Dave's beats on, but this time they were too close to ignore. The headphones were wireless, luckily, because there was no chance he could have untangled them with his uncooperative hands. They weren't going to stop trembling any time soon.

Dirk's hand rested on the drawer, fingers drumming against the fading, once-burnished wood. He looked down to the contents of the drawer and grimaced, taking a small step away from it. He rethought the last hour's efforts, captured all in the single hesitation. He knew it was necessary, but there was something freezing him in place while his head and stomach spun. The boy curled his fingers so tightly around the handle that his knuckles turned white and it started splintering beneath his grip.

He reached into the drawer, placing his fingers one-by-one on the black lenses within and unsteadily picking them up. As the light caught on them - the workshop lacking curtains as the only room safe and secluded enough - he winced, but it was unclear why until he set them back down and rubbed his eyes vigorously. Dirk had seen the red lenses behind the shades, and thought that he was hallucinating for a moment. He hadn't seen them distinctly prior because he just hadn't processed it. He'd developed a habit of blocking things out physically and mentally when he didn't want to see them.

Sighing to the empty room, Dirk fumbled around in his many pockets for his phone, sending a short message devoid of context to his brother.

~ TimaeusTestified [TT] Began Trolling TurntechGodhead [TG] ~

TT: This is it.

~ TimaeusTestified [TT] Ceased Trolling TurntechGodhead [TG] ~

Returning it to his pocket, he made sure it was on Do Not Disturb mode. There was no way in or out of Hell he'd be shaken from his concentration, and no event more important than it to justify that. It also had to be kept a secret for exactly that reason. Picking the shades back up, he glowered down at them. He hated them - and even more, the AI that they contained - beyond expression. But there was no time, and thusly no back-pedalling that he could afford to be doing. He'd procrastinated enough.

Hesitating despite the reassurance that there was no time to waste, Dirk took off his shades one more time. Removing another welding mask from a hook at the wall - this one plain black unlike the one in the main area that he had taken the time and effort to customise - and replacing it with his own pair of shades, a shudder worked its way up his spine again. This time, the associated tension in his shoulders stayed, giving him none of the prior relief. He never expected it to, really. The Striders were a family who were all capable of working with, around or against their obstacles if needed. Highly adaptable. In reality, nothing much was a hindrance to Dirk because of his learned - and perhaps forced - stoicism.

With a stiff and uncertain movement, the young man drew the shades up to his facE, staring into the crimson lenses as if in a trance. They were lifeless and cold, just as he'd trained himself to be. But he knew, deep in his mind where the bad thoughts - or those he personally considered bad, anyway - rested, that it wouldn't be for long. He barely caught himself fidgeting with the scrap metal restlessly for a moment within his pocket. He begun to prepare the final wirings, those that would spiral out from his folly's chest and centre console.

The one advantage of his fear-based procrastination was having ample enough time to hone his craft. He was able put more careful handiwork into Hal's final form than he ever would have been able to give to the Davebot, which was cause for shame on his part. The wires, all of which he constructed himself, were built to be see-through but contained small lights that would change from blue to red according to the artificial rise and fall of Hal's chest, and the 'beating' of the console. It was a small detail, easily missed, but it made him feel all the more unsettling and real.

He hummed along to the beats still thrumming in his ears, a habit he only displayed when entirely alone.

Dirk inserted the chest-piece along with the console, which was neatly connected and hidden behind) into its proper place, the shaking that had once plagued him long overshadowed and disguised under false confidence. Something was telling him to stop. To leave Hal to rust and his careful wirings to rot. But Dirk's stubbornness and characteristically destructive nature caused him to dismiss all judgements, no matter how logical. No matter how much the dismissals would hurt him.

Clearing his throat, the boy's eyes flickered upwards to the lens that was missing in the facial pieces. Realistically, he could have simply foregone the eye-lenses in their entirety because of the shades he'd put on, but it would have felt unnatural. Regardless of the bot-husks scattered across the workshop and the image they conveyed, their creator was highly committed and dedicated to his craft. Under the right circumstances, yes, but dedicated nonetheless.

Straying from the bot, Dirk re-entered the main sector of his workshop and located a box full of perfectly maintained, crystalline lenses. Picking it up, he made his way back into the smaller room and set it down onto a makeshift workbench, sifting through them in quiet. He had somehow listened to the majority of his brother's discography, even though the intensity of his concentration caused him to block out all else but his work. As such, he hadn't properly realised the magnitude of either achievements, disregarding the bot-related work as well.

Soon, Dirk found the lenses he was searching for, holding them up to the windows and discovering there was no light left to shine through them. Another thing that he'd let slip unwillingly under the radar was just how long he'd been working for at that point. Nonetheless, he knew well enough that their colouration was a near-exact match to his own eyes. They were chosen in stark contrast to the red and black dominating Hal's outfit.

Stepping backwards from the bot in question, the Strider dug the toes of his boots into the floor and started to count silently. He was grounding himself in both a mental and physical manner. He needed to prepare himself for what he was about to finish. For any normal person, the task wouldn't have been so daunting. For him, on the other hand, it was facing his fears. Regardless of his own wants or desires, Dirk both pressed and stepped forwards. He placed the lens in the appropriate eyepiece, and realised that he no longer had to fake his confidence. He was sure of himself.

Slowly soldering the wires with his welding mask pulled down against the embers and sparks, he steadied his once-erratic breathing as much as he could. Upon completing this, he took off the mask and let himself observe Hal, a slight frown turning the otherwise neutral expression he'd maintained. Checking that the kill switch was working - and, despite his loathing, hoping that he'd never have cause to use it - for a moment's distraction, he retrieved the iconic shades.

Connecting them to the bot, he reached down to the centre console and pressed in a final panel. Looking back towards Hal, Dirk realised what he was truly seeing.

These were the eyes of someone more human than he was.

[mistergrass]

Do you think there are differences in how the 2019 anime portrays Kyo's and Yuki's relationship as compared to the 2001 anime?

Oh man oh man oh man, I love this ask. Because YEAH tbh I do think there’s a bit of a difference in how their relationship is portrayed! THANKS FOR LETTIN’ ME TALK ABOUT IT BECAUSE APPARENTLY I HAVE A LOT TO SAY.

I’m gonna start up top though and say I think there are definite pros and cons to both anime adaptations, but I am a fan of both! So this is NOT gonna be me saying one is better than the other by any means! It will simply be a side-to-side look at how the animes have portrayed The Boys. And I think both can definitely be enjoyed and loved without having to compete with each other!

ANYWAY.

I ofc will get to the obvious which is the difference between the endings, but I think we gotta work our way up to that first! Honestly, I really think the differences of their relationships in 2001 vs 2019 comes down to the structure and intent of each production.

2001 was made to be a self-sufficient tale and was definitely a simplification of the source material. In part this is because the manga hadn’t finished yet and hadn’t really gotten that far, and on the flip side I’m sure there’s that other part where the production team wasn’t too,,, caring with Sensei’s wishes for what she wanted the anime to be.

SIDE NOTE: I will say this, as someone who does genuinely enjoy 2001 — I think Takaya made something really remarkable that even in a very simplified form, it still has the ability to be enjoyable and touching and charming!

So 2001 decides that it needs to create a narrative that doesn’t leave behind any real loose ends. It doesn’t go into the mechanisms of the curse, it doesn’t introduce characters and relationships from later in the manga, and it cuts away certain foreshadowing moments that at the time had no pay-off and hadn’t been explained yet. So when you take those moments away, what you’re really left with—ESPECIALLY with just the first few chapters of the manga—is kind of a found-family story.

2001 is a lot slower in its pace and takes its time (for better or for worse) with each chapter. Because of that, there’s a lot of time to fill, and that time always ends up getting fed back into the main trio or into moments within Shigure’s house. The production team of 01 WAS smart in realizing that the main trio’s dynamic really has a wonderful appeal and really staying in that zone when they needed to pad time. And so most filler really just went back to creating extra moments in between them all. Between that and the slower pace, we just get a lot of extra moments with them – some perfectly passive, and some more direct:

They just interact more. Even if they’re kind of throw away moments. Because 01 chose its focus to be on this household and very little outside of that universe.  

2001 ALSO DID SOMETHING KIND OF INTERESTING. The ONE, ONE critique I’ve been somewhat public about in terms of the 2019 anime has been its lack of close ups. Which really gives us a very good look and a very needed insight on how a character is feeling/reacting to a moment.

01 had this very interesting habit of not only going nuts with their close ups (mainly, I’m gonna guess, because backgrounds were NOT A FORTE LMAO), but actually putting a lot of close-ups of Yuki and Kyo side by side. Here are a few examples:

What this does is not only give us insight into what they’re feeling, but also tells us that what they’re feeling is ultimately the same emotion. This happens MULTIPLE times throughout the anime—for both serious and comedic effect. And what it does is plant and nourish that seed that they really aren’t so different from each other. A lot of how they react to their family and the world around them is very similar (which is also something true in the manga, it’s just very interesting how 01 chose to illustrate that via screen).

We unwittingly get this feeling that they’re closer than even they realize. Something that gets illustrated even without close-ups, but in blocking, voice over, and posture at times too — they just… share a lot of shots together:

(I have more but I’m realizing I need to chill out LOL)

The slow pace also meant that certain scenes from the manga really got to shine through lIKE THIS LITTLE MOMENT THAT I SO WISH HAD BEEN IN 2019:

ALSO I DON’T THINK THIS WAS IN THE MANGA BUT FUCKING HEY WHAT THE FUCK I MEAN COME ON SKDJFHSKDF:

LIKE COME ON JUST LET ME HAVE THIS ONE THING IN LIFE I JUST SKDFJHSKDF

ANYWAY

I know this probably looks like I’m all in for the 01 version of their relationship bUT let’s go more into some 2019 stuff.

Yuki and Kyo’s dynamic in the manga is incredible and it’s obviously something I’ve really spent a lot of time…. Thinking about…. What’s amazing about the 2019 anime is that its goal is to stay as true to the manga as possible and to tell the story in its ENTIRETY.

That means getting the real real honest details about Yuki and Kyo’s relationship that were sorely missed in the 01 anime. At its core, Fruits Basket is the DEFINITION of a slow burn. Not just with its romantic relationships, but with all its different dynamics. Where Yuki and Kyo start at the beginning of the story is so far from where they end. And they almost act as these living breathing measuring sticks for each other that monitor and illustrate where they’re at each point in their personal journeys. IT’S SO GOOD.

If 2019’s goal is to cover the manga, then this is something that will inevitably be included. We can see that in some of its foreshadowing — we’re going to get things like an explanation on the hat which is a huge part in Yuki’s perspective of Kyo.

We’re going to get a much much deeper look at Kyo using Yuki as an outlet for his hatred and anger and self-loathing.

THIS HASN’T BEEN FORESHADOWED BUT WE’RE MOST LIKELY GONNA GET YUKI BEATIN THE SHIT OUTTA KYO, TOO.

So in a way it seems almost unfair to compare the two right now?

Mainly because the anime has promised to animate the entirety of the manga, but HAS done some rearranging of the order of the earlier chapters. The manga is so RICH and has so much information, that there are less moments of being able to just sit with the characters, because there is so much information that needs to be shown. Every moment in 2019 feels like it’s doing its best to be meaningful with its time and to tell as much as it can as closely as it can to the manga. But because of that their relationship isn’t as “””””close”””””??? (If that’s even the right word to use) as it was in 01.

For instance, we’ve gotten things like Uo’s backstory and Hana’s backstory earlier on, certain chapters have been fit into half an episode instead of a full one, and we spend much more time with the zodiacs themselves when they’re introduced rather than the main trio REACTING to new zodiacs. Basically, we’ve not spent as much “alone time” with the trio or Yuki & Kyo because there are other things to focus on. The found-family isn’t the default aspect of the anime as it was in 01, because they’re trying to tell a complete story. And the beginning chapters that 01 exclusively covered were never meant to be the whole story — it was just meant to be, basically, a really long set up to a much deeper narrative (and correct me if I’m wrong, but I think even Takaya says that the story really kickstarts after the true form, too).

SO because of that in season one, Yuki & Kyo do seem a little more far apart. They seem kind of as if they don’t know how to be around each other, and that Tohru is the one and only buffer to which they can tolerate each other at all. Even filler moments with them that we see are centered completely around Tohru, rather than them just — idk, cleaning the house, or doing mundane domestic things.

It’s like, they’re only allowed in this “demilitarized zone” of each other’s lives, and that zone is Tohru. (Which, AGAIN is not a bad thing — it’s very much a set-up to a slow burn, and with a lot more time to tell the story, there’s no need to rush their dynamic right away even if I do miss some of the moments LOL).

BUT because of that — say if Yuki were to go after Kyo in 2019 like he did in the end of 01, it would make NO goddamn sense. That dynamic between them hasn’t been built yet. AND IT’S A DYNAMIC THAT DOES EVENTUALLY EXIST. When Kyo runs away after Tohru’s confession, Yuki’s first reaction is to run after Kyo:

And his confrontation of Kyo at the end is a basically well-earned, paid off, richer version of how he goes after Kyo at the end of 01:

BUT that being said, in the 01 anime — tbh? I buy it. It goes against the manga, but it stays true to its own version of logic and narrative. And the idea of all three of them trying to preserve this family and home that they’ve built between  them is something that’s earned because that’s basically been the only focus. But ultimately, because they’ve foregone so much of the manga’s foreshadowing and set-ups, their relationship in 01 cannot go any deeper than it does.

In 2019 and the manga, Yuki doesn’t go after Kyo because their relationship still needs to be sorted out. They still have SO MUCH to learn about themselves and each other. Their issues with one another directly stem to deeply rooted problems that they eventually have to face head-on throughout the ENTIRETY of the manga. And that is what is being SET UP in 2019.

My tl;dr analogy is this: 01 can be seen like a really good fan fiction that was impatient to see the canon dynamics develop and decided to make its own version while it waited for the story to continue. While 2019 is an adaptation that is setting up for a real slow-burn of developing relationships — and the 1st season is barely scratching the surface of that.

[yourcoolfriendwithallthecandy]

Why So Jaded? Chapter 3

Chapter 3! Woo! In case you missed it, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, FFN and AO3 Enjoy!

Part 3

Buddy Pine had always had more than one plan. Getting caught and working for Phillip on his dime had been his contingency plan if the nanochip thing had backfired. But he never expected Phillip to be so accommodating or so generous. But having Violet be the liaison was the icing on the cake and to have her be his heir apparent was a fitting twist considering their shared history and he had had no problems with that part of the contract. He hadn't been this productive since before the incident a decade ago. And for the last few weeks, almost a month, the hours following her visits were always the most exciting as far as progress was concerned. He was finding his spark again and keeping alive and well, he even starting drafting and designing from scratch again. This was working out perfectly.

All he needed was time. Time to prove to Violet at least that he was not the same man he was a decade ago. He had been honest when he told her that Syndrome died. Because a part of himself did die that day and he had no interest in reviving him and his attraction to her was undeniable. 

"Good morning Ms. Parr," Buddy greeted when he heard the door open at 9:00am which had been Violet's chosen time to come in the mornings. He had learned to recognize her walking pattern, it was smooth and fluid yet light and precise, almost cat like.

"Good morning Mr. Pine," Violet replied evenly. "Mr. Sebastian sends his congratulations on the nanochip redesign, it has increased workload by your projections exactly and has earned you an additional 1.4 million dollars as of today." Violet informed him. Happy because it had earned her the same amount as well since she and Buddy would both be getting 15% each of all the sales, leaving Phillip and his company to earn the remaining seventy percent.

"Excellent, what else?" Buddy inquired, knowing Violet preferred to lead with good news before delivering the bad.

"Mr. Sebastian now has 5 new projects to add to your ever increasing roster." Violet informed him as she made a swiping motion from her tablet to his as his own tablet and electronics received the new project data before she rubbed at her temple and winced.

"You ok?" Buddy inquired as he watched her thoughtfully.

"Yeah, just a bad headache," Violet answered dismissively. "Now Mr. Salazar wants to know exactly how much titanium alloy you will need for the VIC project? And what tensile strength will you need to have the silicon wafers at?" She continued as she went down the list in her own tablet.

"I'm going to have to look over my calculations again and I'll shoot you an email with the specifics. How long have you had the headache?" Buddy inquired as he watched her closely, getting flashbacks of when Mirage had similar headaches and how much she used to suffer with them.

"Why does my headache matter? It's a headache, it will go away eventually and with enough Advil." Violet defended, her irritation clear in the way she seemed to snap at him because the pain was sapping every ounce of patience she had today.

"Supers don't usually just get headaches that can be cleared up with over the counter pain killers, they usually need something stronger, especially with your skill set as a Super, you're more likely to have inflammation in the central cortex." Buddy blurted out before looking up to see a practically seething Violet, he was at a loss as to why before it dawned on him of how he would know something like that. He could see it in her eyes, they burned a luminescent shade of ultraviolet for a moment. He could see that she wanted to kill him and the static electricity in the lab was so high the electronics started to warble and wane.

Violet was livid, how dare he have the audacity to speak of such things! She wanted to know how many supers he had lured to their deaths, how many had he interrogated or tortured and experimented on for his research before zeroing in on her family. She wanted to beat those answers out of him. She struggled not to do just that, she struggled to keep herself composed as her grip actually crushed her tablet which caused Buddy to jump and step away before she had to pull her rage back and put an emotionally void mask to her facial features as she struggled to remain in control and not kill him.

"If you have anything else you need for your work, you can contact my assistant, Leslie." Violet managed to bite out before turning and leaving quickly, keeping on her toes to keep her heels from making any more noise on the floors, once out of the lab she raced to the elevator and was thankful it was empty when it finally reached her. She leaned against the elevator wall once the doors closed and tried her best not to have a panic attack as she could feel the panic whirl in her chest and make it hard to breathe. These headaches were getting out of hand and were wearing her down and she cursed herself for having such an obvious and light trigger that he seemed to know exactly how to set off. She barely managed to make it to her own office to her safe room before she broke down and cried, an instinctual forcefield encompassing her like a security blanket. How could she keep acting like none of it happened and he was just another one of Phillip’s colleagues?

Back in the lab Buddy was kicking himself for not seeing how that could have backfired. And for the first time there was something added to his guilt, shame as he was cussing himself out for messing up so bad.

Meanwhile Phillip who was watching and listening to the conversation via security cameras was practically running to Violet's office. He had a hunch this would happen eventually and he had to make sure she would be ok. He got to her office and went straight to the safe room he had specifically built for her. He keyed in his code and the book shelf concealing the safe room moved away to reveal Violet sitting down and curled up in a ball, her knees to her chest as she hugged them and rocked herself, he could see she was shaking but he knew better than to try and touch her now, the forcefield around her would keep him from physically touching her. He couldn't hear her because the forcefield kept any noise she was making inside and would thus make talking to her impossible until she took it down. But what he could do is sit as close to her as possible and wait for her to notice him there.

After a moment she did look up to see him there and let down the forcefield before he crawled to her and put his arm around her shoulders and held her close and did everything in his power- super or not- to comfort her as she crawled into his lap and held onto him tightly.

"I'm sorry," He whispered into her hair as he kissed the crown of her head as she continued to sniffle into his shoulder as the other arm was wrapped tightly around her as he took up rocking her himself. He could count on one hand the number of times this had happened before and he was just grateful she let him in this time.  

"How did he know?! How does he know shit like that?! He shouldn't know that, especially about me," Violet cried, feeling vulnerable in the worst way and feeling like she was a little kid again. With that henchman as he was hunting her through the forest and was hiding in the water. She felt like she was drowning in anguish and anger and rage and hurt and heartbreak and she just wanted her dad to hug her and hold her in his big strong arms up to his massive chest and make her feel perfectly safe again but for now, Phillip’s arms and chest would have to do and she was grateful for him.

"I don't know, but I'll find out ok? It's going to be ok, I promise, I swear on my life it's going to be ok. Where are those pills we made for you?" Phillip asked, trying to get her to look him in the eye as he reached for her face and held it in his hands and used his thumbs to wipe away her tears and streaking mascara.

"I only have 2 left, I was saving them for when it got really bad." Violet tried to explain as she buried her head deeper into his chest, hoping the counter pressure would give her some relief. Phillip pulled her hair down from the bun and laced his fingers together behind her head and applied pressure into his chest, trying to help give her more relief.

"Does that help?" He asked.

"Yes, thank you Phil." Violet said in thanks as she reveled in the relief the counter pressure was providing as she did her best to regain her composure. She hated feeling like this, let alone be seen like this. But Phillip was special. He never thought less of her or think of her as weaker. It just helped him appreciate that even though she was a Super, she was still human and thus, imperfect and had weaknesses and limits. Phillip counted himself lucky to be able to witness this side of her and he had worked so hard just to get to this point with her.

"Now where are the pills? I'll make sure you have more before these wear off," Phillip offered.

"In my top left desk drawer." Violet answered before Phil managed to get up and pull her up with him before he carried her over to her desk and simply set her down on it then looked through her drawers for the meds before he found them and gave them to her as she used her coffee still on her desk to down them both.

"Have you been able to get any sleep lately?" He asked as he noted the dark circles under her eyes that she had tried to cover up with makeup.

"Yeah, I got a whole six hours last night," She answered.

"How much Ambian did it take to get that?" He asked worriedly.

"A hundred and twenty milligrams."

"Fuck Vi, that much should have put you in a coma." He realized.

"I know, but I just wanted to sleep so badly that I kept taking 2 tabs every hour until I finally fell asleep." Violet explained as she slowly got up and sat in her desk chair before letting her head rest on the desk's surface.

"Vi, why didn't you tell me it was getting this bad?" Phillip asked as he leaned against her desk next to her.

"Because there are a thousand and one other things that are more important," Violet groaned as she continued to lay her head on the desk and waited for the painkillers to kick in while she focused on not throwing up.

"Violet, I would not have the best doctors cooped up in a lab working 14 hour days trying to come up with the best solution possible if I didn't think that you and your health were important if not equally or even more important than my own. Promise me that you'll tell me when things are getting bad or if things get worse." Phillip urged her.

"Ok, ok, I promise," Violet said as she steadied her breathing, the painkillers beginning to take effect.

"Thank you, now I want you to do me a favor, take a few days off, go to the spa, get a massage or something and relax, read a good book and don't use your powers. Because the more you use them the worse this seems to get. Can you do that for me?" Phillip prodded.

"Yeah, I can do that, but what about Syn..Mr. Pine?" Violet asked, catching herself.

"Don't worry about it, I will deal with him personally if I have to and he will answer to me about this incident." Phillip placated. "And you start now, I'll go down to the lab to get you your meds, just stay here."

"Deal," Violet agreed as she kicked off her heels for her feet to rest.

Phillip went down to the lab and got Violet the special painkillers that have been designed for her and checked in on the sleep aid they had been also working on for her and got as much of that as they had as he informed them of her recent dose as the doctors rewrote the prescription. It was highly unusual for an employer to take such an intense interest in his employee but Philip considered this extremely special circumstances because Violet was so much more than an employee, she was a friend. A true one he felt and while he knew that Violet didn’t need him, he was becoming more and more dependent on her and was still hoping that when it was all said and done, she would stay with him and while they both had agreed not to pursue a romantic relationship, it was awfully hard for him to keep things strictly business between them. Especially after that first incident when they had been locked in his safe room for a week. It got very physical then and he had found himself craving her more and more and he had time to win her over. He also dealt with anything and everything having to do with Violet he did himself. It's not that he didn't trust his other secretaries and assistants but, he felt better knowing that because he handled it, it was done right.

He saw her off before going to Buddy's lab himself.

"Mr. Sebastian, I was wondering when you would come and see me," Buddy remarked, despite the slight nervous edge to his voice. He had been wondering what ramifications there would be for upsetting Phillip's little 'pet', remembering what lengths he used to go to when it came to anyone or anything that messed with Mirage.

"Well Mr. Pine, it seems you've been busy, making exceptional hardware, offending my staff," Phillip listed off casually, but there was quiet rage to his voice that Buddy immediately picked up on.

"I didn't mean to offend her. I just noticed she was in pain, I didn't mean to upset her," Buddy defended as Phillip took a long hard look at him.

"I'm going to ask you something and I need you to be honest in your answer. Do you have any design or intention of bringing harm in any way, shape or form to Ms. Parr?" Phillip gravely questioned.

"Of course not," Buddy answered.

"But given your history, especially with the Parr's..." Phillip began.

"I know, I'm the last person who should be put anywhere close to any of them but things change, especially in the time that’s passed." Buddy countered.

"I'm aware that you know a lot about Supers, and I know better than to ask exactly how you know..." Phillip began.

"Natalia," Buddy interrupted. "Natalia, or Mirage rather, had similar powers that Violet has, Tali suffered from extremely painful and debilitating headaches too, they were so bad she used to "joke" about drilling a hole into her head to relieve the pressure. Whenever she used her powers, especially her invisibility extensively. Supers are wired differently, they even have extra brain components, Supers who can turn themselves invisible, tend to have larger central cortex's. It puts pressure on the rest of the brain, that's why the headaches are so intense and hard to cure." Buddy explained. "That's how I know about it. I almost had a cure too at several points. But everything I came up with impaired her powers and she always needed to use her powers. Always. The Agency..." Buddy began as he did his best to fight the tears that came to sting at the corner of his eyes at all the memories came flooding back and what surprised him was to feel all that rage he had against The Agency rear it's ugly head as he fought to remain composed and in control of himself and his emotions.

"The Agency knew damn well it was hurting her, hell it was killing her and they didn’t give a single fuck. The needs of the many always outweigh the needs of a few right? And it’s not like she didn’t want to do the missions, she always did and it made her happy to feel useful and helpful and as long as I could come up with the right painkiller for the headaches and keep her in the field, she was happy. All Supers, the good, the bad and everything in between, they always have an itch that only Super work can scratch. They just sent her on mission after mission all while she was working for me, because she had the skill set to be useful in the more "clandestine" work and out of the public eye. To the point the villains never knew she was ever involved in their downfall. No matter what I did, whatever I provided them or tried to find other Supers to take her place on all these missions, they liked to remind me and her who she really belonged to and it took turning on me and exposing me to the fullest and deepest degree for her to break free of them and finally get the out she needed. I lost track and count of how many times and all the different ways I proposed to her, but she never accepted because she knew that The Agency could turn on her if she didn’t walk the line and it would have made both of us targets. Especially when Supers were under ban, she was used even though she was relatively young when all that happened because she was older than me by a decade and she was barely a teenager then. Of course she’s fine now, or so I assume. She’s perfectly fine being a trophy wife for just another rich, powerful billionaire playboy because there's so many of us these days and I used to lay awake at night and wonder what he had that I didn’t that got her to say yes to him but not me." Buddy revealed. Remembering how he used to cradle her in his arms and rock her and squeeze her head to give her counterpressure and swear he would find a cure if it was the last thing he did and the beautiful but fatally flawed relationship they had. But it was still...never enough.

“I see how you are with her. You depend on her a lot. And as much as you like seeing the way I react to her and act in her presence. She’s practically your everything and I know that you know that you’re pretty screwed without her. It would probably take what? A hundred? Two hundred people to do all the things she does on her own by herself. She’s irreplaceable. Funny isn’t it? We get all this money and power and make ourselves as desirable and needed as possible while individually independent as we can be, then a girl comes along and she makes it all feel useless and worthless and they make you realize that the world doesn’t revolve around you and that you aren’t the most important person in the room, let alone the world or the universe- that they are. And no matter what we do, what we give, what we invent, how we try to help-  at the end of the day and when all is said and done, they don’t need us, and it stings like a motherfucker. But if you’re lucky- they’ll want you and if they want you and genuinely care about you, then that’s all that matters.” Buddy confessed, not sure why he was telling Phillip all this. But he felt... absolved to a degree to get it off his chest and he wished with all his might that someone had told him all this fifteen years ago.

“If you had a time machine, would you do anything differently?” Phillip asked.

“Absolutely. I’d do everything differently. I would have dropped my grudge against Mr. Incredible at a very early age and recognized that I had a very unhealthy obsession with him and gotten my ass into therapy much sooner than I did. I still would have built the empire. But I would have tried not buying Tali. Because that was my fatal mistake, I tried to buy her with a salary that almost equaled mine. I got her stock options, I got her investments and I got her so set up that she technically didn’t need me or anyone else but I did it because I didn’t know how else to try to woo her because I will admit I'm not the most handsome, charming guy and I overcompensate and I would have never used her the way I did and I would have just let her be, no strings, no contracts, nothing. Just let her do whatever she wanted. I realized after the fact that she never really let herself really be her true self around me. The line between Natalia and Mirage was pretty blurred to the point, I never knew the difference between the two and I was foolish enough to think they were one and the same. The altruistic Supers are always the same person in and out of the supersuit. But the best ones, the most effective ones are the ones that you would never suspect are their Super persona.” Buddy revealed.

“So what do you advise?” Phillip asked thoughtfully, intrigued yet pleased he was getting all this from Buddy. 

“Never make your relationship with her about the money or the power or any of that bullshit. And don’t make the possibility of staying with you about what she could earn or inherit or anything like that. That's ultimately an insult to their character. Because our greed doesn’t rub off on people like them, they're surprisingly content with little, it comes from their upbringing which more often than not is really humble. In fact make it effortlessly easy for her to walk away from you at any point in time without any retaliation, without backlash and every good thing you've ever promised, make good on it and make it so that the only reason she would stay is what she genuinely feels for you. Make it about honesty and communication and honest to goodness chemistry and the like. And if you’re keeping anything from her, remember that every secret you keep from her is a reason for her not to fully trust you. And if you have any superpowers, either good or bad, never use them on her if you don’t absolutely have to, like if it would mean something like saving her life or if you have, stop and be honest and upfront about all of it , the good, the bad and the ugly and even all the parts that make you wonder if she would even look or speak to you if she knew about. She’s a Super who’s used to spy work, her life’s work is about secrets. She won’t want any in her real relationships. I knew one Super, he was a Villain, and he was known as the Love Machine. He had the power to seduce anyone he wanted within a radius of like, half a mile, it was ridiculous. Then he met a Super who was immune to him. And the more he tried to use them on her, the more repellent to him she felt and when he was finally genuine with her, she never believed him because of his powers and believed that any feeling she had towards him, were because of his powers, when in fact, the feelings were genuine, but she still refused to believe it and when she left him- he ended up drinking himself to death. And I was stupid enough to not learn that with Tali until it was far too late.” Buddy admonished as Phillip simply stood there and considered him thoughtfully.

"Come with me," Phillip invited as he turned and escorted Buddy two floors up to where he had the doctors working on Violet's condition.

Buddy looked over the schematics and her last MRI scans and fought not to cry or gasp. "Oh no. She's way worse that Mirage ever got, is she dying?" Buddy asked Phillip.

Phillip took a deep breath and nodded yes.

"Does she know she's dying?"

"No, because we are on the verge of curing her, no use in upsetting her now," Phillip answered.

"Well what are you using to cure her?" Buddy pressed before Phillip wearily showed him what they were currently using and what else they had already tried and what they were about to try as Buddy's spark was like a bolt of lightning in his brain as it kicked into gear.

"I can fix this, I can fix her," Buddy claimed. "Give me a few weeks working with these guys and maybe a few months of trials but give me access to my old data banks that The Agency took and I can have a cure," Buddy promised.

Phillip paused to look Buddy over before nodding again. "Ok, but you better deliver Pine." Phillip went over to a control panel and gave Buddy access to the databases containing all the research that had been confiscated from Buddy's Island the decade prior along with all the research that had been done since then, along with access to the Medical Lab he was currently in and a security tag so he could go from his own lab to the medical lab on his own. "By the way, Violet is now on medical leave, Mrs. Tyner will be your liaison for everything until she gets back. But anything you need for this project you will tell Tyner and you will keep Ms. Parr out of it. Understood?" Phillip posed.

"Understood," Buddy agreed before turning and bringing up all his old data and instinctively taking control of the medical lab.

Phillip left work and went to a florist and got some nice flowers before he went over to Violet’s apartment to check in on her.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Violet asked as she came to the door.

“I came to check on you. Are you feeling better?” He asked hopefully.

“I am, come on in. I take it these are for me.” Violet smiled at her flowers before he gladly handed them over to her as she took them and got a vase from the top of her fridge to put them in.

“I got a spa day planned for tomorrow.” She informed him happily.

“Good, I hope you enjoy it. You’ve earned it.” Phillip grinned.

“Aww, thank you.” She cooed.

“So, can I talk to you as Phil instead of Mr. Sebastian?” Phillip carefully asked.

“Of course, Phil is always allowed to talk about whatever he wants to.” Violet grinned happily as she got a bottle of wine out.

About four months into this assignment, “Phil” and “Vi” were code for when they just wanted to be themselves and friends and not as employer and employee or Super and Protectee or handler and asset.

“So I talked to Mr. Pine about the incident this morning.” Phillip began.

“That’s a Mr. Sebastian tone though.” Violet noted with a frown as she went ahead and opened the bottle of wine because “Phil” and “Vi” often Netflix, Pinot Noir and Chill kind of “friends”.

“Ok so I asked Buddy about it and he confessed that how he knew about it, was Mirage, or as he referred to her- Natalia or Tali for short.” He furthered as he gratefully took the glass of wine as he took the seat at her breakfast bar and took off his suit jacket and tie as she hopped up in the other and turned to face him.

“Oh, so they were very intimate. I’m her protégé and I don’t even get to call her by her real name.” Violet professed as she made a face before she took a big sip of her wine.

“Yeah, so turns out that’s how he knows about the enlarged central cortex because she suffered headaches just like you and in between his own supervillain agenda, he was working on a cure for her. He knows that all Supers who use invisibility have that. So, it wasn’t nearly as awful as I thought it was going to be. And he reassured me that he harbors you no ill will and has no designs on you.” Phill assured her.

“Do you believe him?” Violet raised a curious brow at that.

“I’m not sure.” Phillip answered.

“Good because I don’t.” Violet insisted.

“What would it take for you to believe him?” Phil asked.

“His dead body.” Violet answered honestly which got Phil to crack a crooked grin.

“Ok. Well maybe one of these days you’ll get that and I hope it brings you closure and peace.” Phillip offered before he clinked his wine glass with hers.

“Thank you Phil. That’s very sweet.” Violet grinned. “So can I jump your bones while you’re here?” Violet asked with a waggle of her eyebrows.

“Hell yeah.” He adamantly as they came together quickly and kissed passionately as they moved each other to the bedroom where they spent the remainder of the afternoon in each other’s embrace as Phillip was proud of himself for not using his powers to get her in the mood. While he knew that Buddy had spoken the truth, he would be taking Buddy’s advice, but he still had his own ideas about how and when he was going to implement them and once they were both sated they laid in bed and looked up at the painting that Violet had installed on her ceiling in the apartment as Phillip sweetly combed her soft hair with his fingertips as Violet simply basked in the afterglow of a great orgasm. Orgasms with Phillip were always out of this world because of his powers and she didn’t mind one bit he used them for that purpose.

“Want to go out to dinner?” Phillip asked.

“Sure.” Violet readily agreed as she got up and went to put on her supersuit.

“Come on Vi, don’t put that stupid thing on! You won’t need it!” Phillip complained.

“Phil, we’ve been through this a thousand times. Every time I don’t wear it, I end up needing it, every single time, without fail. At this point I put it on to make sure that nothing happens and that I don’t need it.” Violet argued as she continued to pull it up over he naked body.

“Just one more time, let’s just try one more time. Please? Pretty pretty please?” Phil begged from the bed as he sat up and steepled his hands like he was praying.

“Where did you want to go out to dinner?” Violet asked as she paused in putting it on as the top half simply hung around her waist.

“Wherever you want to go that you’ll feel you won’t need to wear that.” Phil answered as he gestured to the suit.

“Fine, Sumo’s.” Violet answered as she pushed the suit off her legs.

“Yes!” Phil cheered happily.

“Thank you thank you thank you.” He thanked her as he came over and kissed her soundly before he got redressed in his suit as she slipped into a sexy little dress to go out with him to dinner and once they got to Sumo’s, they happily got all kinds of Sushi and Ramen and other Dim Sum dishes.

And while they were eating Violet noticed she felt especially warm and fuzzy and frankly almost love drunk towards Phillip but knew he was using his powers to make her feel that way as she mentally fought those feelings because she knew they weren’t real, and not genuinely hers. Mirage had always warned her that mixing business with pleasure had it’s perks but also it’s dangers and warned her to never, ever go to bed with someone she wouldn’t feel absolutely free walking away from in the morning, let alone free to put a bullet in their head if she needed to. And that if at any moment she felt that she was in too deep and too attached that that’s when the highest danger would inevitably come and always remind herself that it was still, just a job, just a mission, just an asset and that if at any moment, he could turn from asset- to target. And she needed to be removed enough emotionally to pull the trigger herself if need be.

But one look at the way Phillip was looking at her told her that he was already too attached to her. But she needed him to be for this mission to be a success. He had asked her to be his girlfriend several times over by now and she had always turned him down and instead told him to ask her once her contract was up. And that seemed to satisfy him. And they agreed that their relationship would remain ‘friends with benefits’ until then and that they were open and free to pursue other romantic relationships until then. Thus- why Phillip used the ballerina/model types like tissues. But Violet felt that if he honestly, truly loved her- he would wait for her, wait however long it would take. And every time he used a girl, it was another layer added between her heart and his and honestly helped her keep her heart and her emotions to herself.

She still spent the night at his place though and Phillip gladly sent her in his Rolls-Royce to the spa and even ordered extra treatments for her and paid for her visit and Violet left that spa looking and feeling like a goddess before she insisted that she could come in on Monday which Phillip caved and agreed to.

On Sunday though, she was sent new medication which Phillip himself dropped off and once he left she was sent a video by Leslie of the conversation that Phillip had had with Buddy and Violet just watched it over and over again. She was blown away by Buddy's observations and his insights had been spot on and completely accurate and most importantly, completely honest and genuine and for the first time, she believed him. She knew that Phillip used his powers on Buddy to get that confession and thus why Phillip left it at that. And it was because of that video that she began to let go of her own grudge against him and slowly, but surely, she started to look at him and not see Syndrome anymore. Just...Buddy Pine, a colleague.

[if-you-built-yourself-a-myth]

Idea from @shipper-of-love and @marciscaspar 

Robbe and Sander return to the hotel for their wedding

“Oh, fuck,” said Sander as soon as the crossed the entryway into the penthouse suite. “You did not let me take you here. This is trippy as fuck.”

Robbe shrugged, dropping their suitcase next to the bed. “I thought it was kind of romantic.”

“You would. Your standards are so low.”

Next to nothing had changed since that night five Decembers ago. No one had bothered to change the shitty migraine-inducing wallpaper with all the spirals on it, nor the positioning of the ugly furniture. The same comforter—or at least, the same pattern of comforter—draped over the bed in the center of the room. Robbe cursed himself for not bringing a duvet cover or something.

It was Sander’s idea to spend their wedding night here, to rewrite its history of heartbreak with something untainted and pure. He wanted to enjoy the little details, like the yellow curtains on the window and all the odd paraphernalia scattered on the dressers, because had been too stoked to do so the first time. Robbe couldn’t think of a better place to seal their love than the place that almost called it into question. He agreed right away. Also, whatever happened in the shower here was fucking magical, and they were both up for reliving that moment.

“People can totally see this window from the street,” Sander noted, looking out over the passers-by below. “I will make note of that.”

“Yeah, they saw your dick last time.”

“I bet they were jealous of me.”

“Doubt it.”

Sander slapped Robbe playfully on the shoulder, and it stung a little bit where his ring connected. His ring. Even five years after their first kiss, Robbe still hadn’t completely processed that Sander was his, and he was Sander’s, and they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. It seemed far too good to be true. He watched the gold band as Sander drew his hand away, admiring the reflection of the fluorescent bulbs off its shiny surface. Forever.

“You’re right,” Sander said as he looked towards the bathroom. “They were jealous of you, because—” He waggled his eyebrows, as if Robbe hadn’t already gotten the message.

“Gross.”

“You didn’t think so.”

Robbe made his way over to the bathroom and peaked around inside. In fact, not everything had stayed the same in the penthouse suite. The tiles on the floor were shiny and new, white instead of burnt ivory. In place of the glass-case shower, a claw-foot tub stood juxtaposed to a shower with opaque granite walls. Both Robbe and Sander knew that something would happen in that shower come morning.

For now, they were both too damn tired.

Instead of a reception, Robbe and Sander had elected to have a paintball tournament on the beach where they met, like the one they’d had all those years ago. Once all their friends were in masks, Robbe could imagine no time had passed at all. He watched them shoot and dive. Aaron joined with Jens’ new boyfriend to take Jens and Moyo down in the first fifteen minutes before going after Zoë. The only difference now was that there were more people to play—the dates of his friends—and Sander spent the whole game at his back.

His mother told him once that the wedding day was more for your friends and family than it was for you. Robbe headed back into the main bedroom, stripped off his tuxedo, and slid underneath the ugly covers. He decided that this day had been just as much for him as it had been for everyone else, especially since it meant Sander would be beside him in bed for the rest of his life.

Sander strode over from the window, winked at Robbe, and took off his tuxedo like a striptease. First the tie, carefully undoing the knot and pulling it out of his collar with prolonged eye contact. Next the suit coat, emphasized with a ruffle of his hair. Each button on Sander’s shirt received its own moment of glory. Robbe watched his idiotic boyfriend… no, husband… remove the layers one by one with antagonizing slowness. This, this was a fever dream.

He knew there could never be another besides Sander. He’d said as much in his vows. We will take on the world together, minute by minute, and I promise I will love you from every minute to the next. Jens told him that it was too sappy for a respectable wedding, but he’d cried anyway when Robbe recited it to Sander at the altar.

Sander surprised everyone by not quoting a David Bowie song. I promise it will always be you and me, one hundred percent, in every universe.

The kiss that followed? Chernobyl.

Sander crawled into bed next to Robbe, and Robbe could see that he too was staring at the ring on his finger. Why was the wedding band so mesmerizing, when Robbe had worn the engagement ring for the past three months? Sander bought it from a jeweler’s when they went on a trip to the Netherlands. But no, the simple band was better. The mid-size diamond on a ring meant I want you, and the wedding band meant I have you.

“You know,” said Sander, relaxing into Robbe’s arms, “I stand by what I said last time.”

“What did you say?”

“We should’ve gotten married naked.”

Robbe laughed and pushed Sander away. “You really want Jens to see you nude?”

Sander considered the idea and shrugged. “Jens is a handsome guy. I could see us having a wonderful relationship.”

“Jens is in a wonderful relationship.”

“Pft, you really think Netherlands-guy is going to last?”

“Why shouldn’t he?” Robbe leaned close for a kiss; Sander pulled his head just out of reach.

“No, you don’t get to push me and then kiss me. That’s not how this works, Mr. Driesen.”

Robbe closed the distance between them again and wrapped an arm around Sander’s waist to pull him closer. “I’m not Mr. Driesen. You’re Mr. Ijzermans.”

Their lips had barely brushed each other when Sander pulled away again. “We should just switch last names.” He balanced precariously on the edge of the bed.

The perfect opportunity. Robbe seized it. “Nah. Hyphenate.” He pushed Sander the rest of the way off the bed, laughing when he heard the tell-tale thump.

“I would like a divorce,” came Sander’s voice from the floor.

It must have been past midnight by now. Time to get to sleep. The lights in the suite could turn on and off by clapping, a fact Sander used to annoy Robbe for around ten minutes before he made to effort to get back onto the bed beside him. Feeling their skin pressed together beneath the blankets felt better than last time. Sander’s body went still against Robbe’s as he closed his eyes. No scratching at his skin. No rushed breathing or rambling. Plus, they’d eaten dinner after the paintball game, so Sander shouldn’t be craving burgers in the middle of the night.

“Wait, before you go to sleep!” Robbe nudged Sander until he rolled over, then held up his right hand between them. “Pinky promise you’ll put on clothes if you get hungry?”

“Are you for real?” Sander laughed.

“Shake it!”

Sander let out an exaggerated sigh before he gave Robbe his pinky to shake. “I pinky-promise. Go the fuck to sleep.” He rolled over, and Robbe buried his head in the crook of his neck.

Robbe liked the hotel a whole lot better when he woke up in the morning, Sander still enveloped in his arms.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Witches, Chapter 10: living with the ghosts of who you could have been, a how-to guide.

This is a 13,000 word chapter because that’s just how it is now.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

People Park sits right near the office, but even in the time it takes to bike there Apollo always expects to get hit by a car. Something about Phoenix’s experience, and the fear that Apollo is nowhere near as lucky as him, still hasn’t left his head. But as he always has, he makes it safely through the gates and rolls down the paved path. People are always scarce here - though Phoenix said once it’s funny that the park has become less shady now that the mob has a financial interest in it - but the late afternoon sunshine means that along with the people simply passing through it on the way to another destination, there are a few joggers and a few more dog owners. 

Apollo steers himself into the grass and hops from his bike, scanning the area for a particular dog. Unless she’s just wandered off - which is always very possible - she should be easier to spot than Klavier. (In what world is a cursed fae dog more visible than a rock star? In this world that Apollo has to live in.)

Vongole is a bright white, vaguely dog-like shape lying beneath one of the trees, but only after several blinks can Apollo figure that maybe, without her, he might recognize the blond sitting on the grass next to her as Klaver. Her red ears snap to attention when she spots Apollo and she rises to her feet, but not with a movement that any animal should or could make. She doesn’t propel herself up from the ground with her legs, which would give her some forward motion, but drifts up like she is attached to strings that were yanked straight upward, with legs solidifying beneath her.

Her tail takes a distinct shape to wag, smacking Klavier in the face on each swing. He doesn’t look up right away, and Apollo falters, not certain that Klavier didn’t catch a glimpse of him and deliberately ignore him. Vongole’s tail continues swishing and Klavier finally puts up his hand to block it and lifts his head, visibly annoyed, about to scold her - and he looks where she’s looking, at Apollo, and brightens, instantly, a surprised-but-delighted grin stretching out across his face. “Herr Forehead! What a surprise to see you here!”

“I work literally a block away,” Apollo says. Klavier can’t actually be surprised, and while he doesn’t see any red, his eye only sometimes pings sarcasm and hyperbole.

“And you could easily have just gone on home,” Klavier replies. That’s true, somewhat; Apollo could look at him and forget he’s a celebrity, right now. Not just because he’s sitting in the dirt in a mafia-funded park with his hair barely brushed and held together with an actual rubber band, but as a glamour. He hasn’t disappeared, entirely, faded like a ghost into the scenery, but he’s projecting the image of someone normal, someone who doesn’t merit a second glance.

Apollo doesn’t like not being able to trust his own eyes, when it comes to Klavier, but the magatama feels like an intrusion, so he’s damned either way. He leans his bike against the side of the tree and sits down near Klavier.

“Yeah, but between the typo-laden texts and you being here right by the office, I wasn’t sure if that was all a cry for help or what.”

Nothing said straight-out, because Klavier is only straightforward professionally, not personally. But the calendar, the bakery, the park, and that Apollo knows from prior conversations that Klavier usually doesn’t leave the office until at least six - the evidence leads to a logical conclusion, one that any jury would agree with.

Klavier raises one eyebrow - Apollo’s never figured out how to move them that independently, but that could be glamour, too - and taps a pink pen against the notebook that sits in his lap. “You mean you thought it was me playing coy about wanting to see you, ja?” he asks. The grin on his face now is different, hollower, not pushing his cheeks the whole way up to his eyes.

“No,” Apollo says. “That is absolutely not what I meant.”

“It’s what I would be asking, were I in your place,” Klavier says, but his grin snaps away. Apollo prefers that, feels less like he’s talking to a mask. He gets that feeling with Trucy too, sometimes. 

“That’s because your ego is the size of the sun and just as gaseous.”

“You wouldn’t go wrong having an ego like that.” Klavier leans his head back against the tree and glances at Apollo from the corners of his eyes. “It would fit your name.”

“I didn’t know you knew my name,” Apollo says.

“Of course I do,” Klavier says, though in Apollo’s opinion he’s overestimating himself with the of course. 

“How was I supposed to know when you never once used it?” Apollo asks.

“Your name is on the docket for the court cases,” Klavier says. “And in the letter of representation that Fräulein handed me just beyond the gate, there.” He points to the other entrance of the park, the one near which the noodle stand spent three days sinking into the grass, covered in police tape. Frowning still, his eyes return to meet Apollo’s. “I didn’t know what to make of you that day. I thought perhaps you were corrupt, and that by letting you onto the crime scene you would try something, and Fräulein Detective would chew your head off as she had been mine, and I would have my answer as to what happened on that day with my brother.”

The admission doesn’t hurt but does come as a surprise, given the hand of kindness that Klavier offered him so soon at the end of that trial. “And then you proved yourself to be rather honest, and far too normal, and I still did not know what to make of you but I thought I knew what to make of your place of employment, some sort of fae snare - and I was wrong, again.” He closes his eyes and turns his head away. “I suppose I still don’t.”

And Apollo doesn’t know what to say to that, certainly didn’t expect the conversation to take such a turn when Klavier started out by dodging Apollo’s attempt to scratch beneath the surface. “You thought I was normal even though I can see when people are lying?”

“Mm.” Klavier draws out the hum for a while. “I suppose my perception of such things is rather unbalanced. But compared to the Fräulein next to you, and your boss, yes, you seemed mostly normal.”

“I didn’t know what to make of you either,” Apollo admits. “I mean, I definitely didn’t think you were normal” - Klavier laughs - “but that you were the prosecutor and willing to - to help my case, for the sake of finding the truth - that, I didn’t get.”

And he’d been unhappy with it, at the time - unhappy with the flashy fae-seeming prosecutor pitying his case and lending his assistance. Unhappy that he couldn’t win on his own. It’s petty now, remembering, even if he understands where those emotions came from, and so he leaves that out.

Klavier hums again, still looking off at anything that isn’t Apollo. Vongole chews on a rock. Somewhere in the distance, past the traffic, Apollo would swear he hears Eldoon’s harmonica. “It was a fortunate coincidence that you and your office happen to be out this way,” Klavier says quietly. “What I was - it was simply for the bakery. Or not simply, but—” 

He’s about to say more but doesn’t, instead pressing his fingers to his eyes and pulling up his knees so he can rest his head on them. “Are you okay?” Apollo asks. He knows the answer when he asks this time, too.

Klavier makes a noise of disgust, muffled as it is by his face in his arms. “Give me a moment,” he says, and Apollo does even while plotting their trajectory to the nearest hospital or just back to the office for easy couch access. When he lifts his head again, there’s something artificial and unnatural about the brightness of his eyes, half glamour and half sick. “I wanted to remind myself that something I did since coming back actually mattered. The defendant was an idiot, ja? But he would not have deserved to be falsely convicted, nor die from negligence, as his darling fiance so hoped. That his whole family learned a lesson about this path they had chosen - that I can stress-eat my reminder that something I did was useful—”

“You don’t think anything else you did was?” Apollo interrupts. “Not for Lamiroir and Machi, or—”

“This was the only one that did not cause me more pain,” Klavier replies. “And sometimes it is hard to see the whole forest when the trees around you are falling toward your head. Like I want to tell Kris about the bakery, that there he would have choices there to eat and minimize his salt and still enjoy it as much as I. Or call Daryan and bitch about how I haven’t prosecuted a case in a week and a half and think this the prelude to Herr Chief finally firing me.”

“I really doubt that,” Apollo says. “He has a convicted murderer prosecuting. I think you’re fine.” He’s glad Klavier kept talking, gave him something easy to respond to. What reassurance can he give to the fact that yes, two people Klavier loved - two people he loved most, even - are murderers, and Apollo did the digging to expose that fact. Take comfort that justice is served. How much does it hurt? 

Klavier smiles sadly at him. “That’s kind of you to say, at least.” Clear that he doesn’t believe it, or doesn’t believe that Apollo actually believes it. He pushes some hair away from his eyes. “So you had to face Herr Samurai, ja? How was that?”

“He’s a witch or something worse and I think he tried to kill me,” Apollo says. “He scared the judge into being okay with him having an attack hawk in the courtroom, and even Mr Wright can’t figure out what he is.”

Klavier sighs, his shoulders slumping. “I was afraid I was losing my mind,” he says. “But if it is Herr Samurai, and not me—” They both watch Vongole return with a small twig in her mouth that she drops on Klavier’s shoe. “He reminds me in some way of Kris. The way that when I looked at him I could tell something was odd but - Kris would sometimes be…” His jaw set, he searches for the right word. He tosses aside the twig Vongole left him and she bounds away after it and continues on past it. “Blurry, flickering, with my Sight. Some days I would only get a glimpse of—” He raises a hand and gestures first to the side of his head, around his ear, then to his eyes, and finally pantomiming the curve of Kristoph’s horns that Apollo saw only briefly. Flittering in and out. 

“Do you know why that happened?”

Klavier shakes his head. “And he wasn’t always like that, not at first. And I stopped checking, because I know what my brother looks like, shouldn’t I? And then he just—” He waves a hand in front of his face again. “Kris and his obsession with appearances. Perhaps it ate him from the inside out.”

“So Blackquill…?”

“Ach, I suppose the comparison is small to draw, beyond them both being lawyers and murderers.” He laughs once, sharp and bitter. It’s somehow both something and nothing like the laugh that filled the courtroom half a year ago. “Herr Samurai, I can’t even get a hint of what he might be, and he blurs everything around him too. The Twisted Samurai, ja, is fitting, twisting everything he gets near. It seems to make sense until I ask myself how and why.” 

“I feel like that’s what happens every time someone tells me anything new about magic.” Klavier laughs. “But that’s not part of the standard fae powers, messing with the Sight and people’s eyes?” Apollo asks. Even Kristoph’s tics were visible and highlighted.

“There would be little point to the Sight for us mere humans if they could so easily circumvent it.” Klavier lays his head back on his arms, but turned so that he still can look at Apollo. “Though that would be better. They would have less use for stolen children that way. Our Sight is different than theirs, did you know?” Before Apollo shakes his head, Klavier speaks again. “That for humans it is at will, a choice, to turn on and off, of course, while they are always to see the true forms of other glamoured fae, to see the chains on a witch and the wings of a shapeshifter. What they don’t see so readily are the blessings and curses they pile upon each other’s heads; for that, they look through a magatama like any unSighted human must.”

Vongole flops down on Klavier’s feet and lays her head on Apollo’s shin. He tentatively reaches out and scratches her head. She is more solid than she looks. “Ach, I think the royalty might be able to see everything,” Klavier continues, not looking at Apollo anymore, head raised and eyes fixed somewhere distant. “But they are - the fae are monsters who steal children, the nightmare under the bed, and their royalty are what scare them.” 

(“She could have been queen,” Phoenix said of Mia. Royalty.)

In six months, Apollo has gained no more insight into what is a fitting response to any of this. Or even an awkward, clumsy response. Apollo helps by solving problems, getting acquittals, fixing things. His strategy for sympathy hasn’t changed since he was nine years old, and that strategy is screaming, and Klavier already makes enough jokes about his voice already, thanks. He wants to say something just for the sake of letting Klavier know that he is still mentally present in this park and listening. (He is also mentally back in the office, remembering times that Mia had thrown a blanket at him. The terrifying queen of the faeries, everyone.)

“So those human children who are not artists - the entertainers - they are spies, weapons of politics, to check the curses and blessings on your enemy, tell you everything you can exploit, and maybe in return you try to keep that valuable tool of yours from being destroyed in the crossfire.” Klavier’s voice is soft and even-toned, as though everything he says isn’t so viscerally horrifying that Apollo feels nauseous. 

“And the rest, like me, nameless, underfoot, attached to no alliance, no - keeper, I suppose you could say - I learn only by guessing what blessings and curses look like. Sometimes I see someone and still don’t know. And I learn to keep my mouth shut, because I am no one’s favorite toy, I am no useful piece in anyone’s ambitions in that Court, and they all hold their cards close, divulge no hidden vulnerabilities or secret assets, and should anyone else do so—” 

He snaps his fingers. 

“Oh,” Apollo says.

Even before this he never wanted to wonder what might have happened to a little human girl who could grow up to look just like Vera. He hopes they just left her alone to paint. 

Klavier doesn’t look back at Apollo for any more of a reaction. “I remember so very little of the Court,” he adds, like an afterthought, too breezily for his prior words. “I suppose they took it from me when I left, to keep their secrets - but this I remember. And I - do you know how jealous I was of Kris?” 

Something congeals in his voice, something that sounds to Apollo like the intersection of grief and anger. “That he got to grow up human? That more than that, that our parents were loving ones who cared for him, that he had a name and a voice from the start? That I named a band after myself trying to make myself someone! And still that is not just my name, it is ours, because everything I could have been, he had! From the start!” He presses his hands to the sides of his head. Both are shaking as he raises them. “And he threw it all away!”

Apollo wishes he had words to say, anything to help, that they were in court in a trial and he had evidence and a jury that would put an end to this, usher Klavier back out of the darkness and the skeletons from the closet. There’s no one to save them this time, nothing but the two of them, Klavier trembling, Apollo silent, a silence he could break if he wants to put his foot in his mouth soon after. Because of course that’s what will happen, and maybe if he’s lucky his fumbling would at least make Klavier laugh for a moment. 

“He murdered two men, tried so many more, ruined lives, and I am angry at him that his own life was one of those ruined,” Klavier says. “He deserves it, surely, and it is his victims I should concern myself entirely with, but I…”

“I’m not judging you for that,” Apollo says. 

“And what are you judging me for?”

“Your fashion sense, mostly.”

Klavier laughs, sudden but not sharp, more surprised than anything, his head snapping toward Apollo. “For the first thing, Herr Forehead, there is nothing wrong with my fashion sense.”

“Do you even know how to tie a tie?” 

Klavier doesn’t answer, which Apollo finds suspicious, but he laughs again and elbows Apollo in the arm. “Rude,” he says. 

“Hit a sore spot, clearly,” Apollo says. 

“Hardly. I am unshameable. I’ve never been embarrassed in my life.”

“That does sound like you.”

Klavier tilts his head. “Now why do you make that sound like a bad thing?” His smirk stops it from being a genuine question. 

“Look at your car,” Apollo says. “Look at those deliberate design choices you made.”

“I see we have a rather different perception of what we could consider my flaws.” The smile falls off his lips, makes Apollo realize again how sad his eyes are.

Which reminds Apollo how they started down this road and that something much heavier precipitated it. “Well,” he says. “It’s not exactly like, um, there’s a guide you’re given to follow when someone close to you turns out to be a murderer. I don’t think anyone can tell you how you’re supposed to respond. Especially since this is your brother. And everything else with - with everything.”

Klavier hums, examining his hands. Vongole noses her way into his vision and he starts to push her away before changing course and patting her nose. “My brother,” he repeats. “After all that I admired and trusted him, after all that he had - I would not want someone to be able to tell me how I am supposed to feel. There is no one I would wish this on.” Vongole licks his hand. “Do you mind me asking,” he adds, softly, and Apollo braces himself for anything. “Did you ever have any foster siblings or others your age in the homes you grew up in?”

To gauge whether Apollo can even begin to imagine. To guess on whether he has the chance, however slight, to feel that pain more personally than a mentor he respected. And the answer - how is Apollo supposed to answer that? “None I ever kept in touch with once I left,” he says. 

It’s true in the way the fae speak to truth, if it isn’t true to what Apollo knows in his heart. What he knows he should say, what he wants and doesn’t want to say, is “Yes, I have a brother. His name is Nahyuta. He’s a year older than me and I grew up with him for the first eight years of my life, the longest I ever stayed with one family. We lived in the country of Khura’in, a kingdom so small that if I ever look for news about it, I have to remember how to read Khura’inese, because I never find its modern going-ons reported on in English. And I would have stayed in contact with him if I could.” 

(Because that’s why Apollo first started keeping a journal, isn’t it, when he came to America: to have all of his new adventures easy at hand to recall and share with Nahyuta again when he went home. It helped him practice his written English, too, which started out a hundred times choppier than the spoken. And he kept recording everything, long after hope died, thinking as a lawyer to have records of everything and have his own memory of a case and not just a transcript. It was for him, then, not for his brother, even though if he ever said the full truth, those words would be, “I have a brother; have, present tense, if he hasn’t been killed. I have a brother, present tense, even if I’ve now lived nearly two-thirds of my life away from him and I’m not quite sure if he’s human.”)

And for once Klavier is the one with no way to respond. They both know why he asked; no need to clarify. How many ways to bleed do they share? Not that one, or maybe still, and that’s Apollo’s secret - if Nahyuta were to—

If Nahyuta—

No. 

(Dhurke wanted to overthrow a corrupt queen without shedding blood, but it’s been fifteen years, and when Apollo checked last year, the first time looking up anything about Khura’in in seven years, the queen was still the queen. Maybe they’ll get tired. Does the proper end ever justify the route to get there? Phoenix wants to reform the courts, expose murderers and forged evidence, and he himself faked decisive evidence. What is just in pursuit of justice? Blood on a playing card - blood on rebel hands.)

If Nahyuta. 

End thought.

Apollo leans his head back against the tree. 

“Daryan has a little sister,” Klavier says, his head ducked again and his hands over his eyes.  “Nineteen, maybe, now? She plays the cello, has since she herself was smaller than the instrument. Rock and classical, we all thought it was funny. She was going to university for teaching music. Dropped out, I think, after Daryan’s conviction. I think, only, because I did not hear it from her.” He sighs, his hand now propping his head upright, his eyes closed. “We spoke only after his arrest, when she told me that this was my fault, because had I not gone to Borginia, met Lamiroir and Herr Tobaye, put them in contact with my band - had I not done so, Daryan would not have been tied up in smuggling, would not have committed murder, and she would not have lost her brother.”

“Way to shift the onus of the blame,” Apollo says. He understands the impulse, he’s sure Athena would probably have something to say about it, but of all the people to blame - Klavier, who was losing a friend, too?

“I did tell her such, that Daryan is a grown man who could have chosen not to be involved, and that I empathized with such a loss, with my own brother.” Klavier sighs again, louder this time. “And then she threw a violin at me and told me to fuck off and that was the last I saw of her.”

“An entire violin?” Apollo asks, which is so far from the main point but remains remarkable in the wrong way. 

“She had been refurbishing it,” Klavier says. “I did not stick around to see how much extra refurbishing it would need after that.” He looks pained, what little of his face he’s allowing Apollo to see. “Though strictly speaking she isn’t wrong. Had I not been to Borginia—”

And he pulls up his other arm half around his head, his fingers curling into his hair at the back of his head. Vongole lays her head down on her paws. “Seriously, are you okay?” Apollo asks, pushing himself up onto his knees, his hands hovering over Klavier’s shoulder and back, because despite everything, there still feels like a gulf between them that hasn’t been crossed, all of the times Klavier has poked his forehead aside. “And this time don’t just avoid the—”

Klavier groans. “Herr Forehead, you are yelling in my ear.” Apollo sits back on his heels. That can’t actually help, can it? “You shouldn’t be worrying about me.”

“That’s not ‘yeah, I’m okay’,” Apollo says. “That’s avoiding the question.”

Klavier shakes his head, the movement limited by the position of his arms, and he makes a disgusted noise from the back of his throat. “It’s nothing you can help with.”

“That just sounds like you’re dying!” 

“We could hardly be so lucky,” Klavier says dryly. He shifts, his hand still clutching his hair, his cheek resting on his other arm, to look at Apollo from one eye. “Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if some certain or another thing had not happened?”

“Huh?” And what the hell does that have to do with this, them, now?

Which is a question Klavier expects. “It will make sense in a moment, ja? I promise.”

Somewhere there’s got to be a connecting thread, but it’s like they’re in court, Klavier two steps ahead and setting out the pieces for Apollo to catch up. “I didn’t used to,” Apollo says slowly, because even though he doesn’t understand the groundwork being laid, it matters to Klavier, and he might as well answer honestly. “But now I find myself thinking about it a lot more.”

Sadness, not anger, knits Klavier’s eyebrows close together. He must suspect Apollo to be saying, in a veiled sort of way, “I keep wondering what would have happened if my boss your brother didn’t turn out to be a corrupt murdering fae.”

And that’s not it. That’s not the quandary on Apollo’s mind. But he’s got no way to say, “This isn’t about your brother; it’s about mine.”

(If Dhurke hadn’t sent him away. If Apollo grew up knowing what he and Nahyuta were. If Apollo’s father didn’t die, or Apollo wasn’t stolen away - if he remembered who told him the story of how he came to be raised by Dhurke, because the fae can’t lie but was it Dhurke or Datz who talked about a fire killing Apollo’s father?)

“So what does that have to do with anything?” Apollo prompts. Klavier isn’t going to keep going on his own; he looks like he’s half somewhere else, dazed and glassy-eyed. 

“I don’t have to wonder,” Klavier says. “I know where I would be had Kris and I never been switched. I, ah, see it sometimes. Like I imagine seeing the future would be, except.” He frowns. His frowns are always very pronounced, more like a pout, that on other days Apollo has been tempted to laugh at. (Or that’s the thought that Apollo most allows himself to entertain regarding Klavier’s lips, anyway.) “Except nothing like the future; I don’t know why I’m saying that. It’s quite more like looking sideways, I suppose.”

This time he waits, watching Apollo keenly for a reaction. He’s not going to get one, given that Apollo is still figuring whether this means sort of what he thinks it might, and he’s only part of the way through it. “Like visions?” he asks.

Klavier nods. He starts to unfold himself, stretching his legs out and uncurling his arms from around his head to cross them across his chest, still defensive. “Visions, ja. Of where I would be, what I am doing, having gotten to grow up human. And an only child, as well.” He picks up from the ground the journal he was writing in when Apollo first approached. “I take notes, when it happens - a diary of the life I’ve never had.” He flips through it quickly, too quickly for Apollo to read any of the words, and rather he watches pages and pages of different colorful inks flap past. 

“How long has this been happening?” Apollo asks. 

“On and off through Themis and my first year as a prosecutor.” Klavier snaps the journal shut again. “Almost never for all those years traveling and touring with the band. And then I came back and it’s worse than ever. If there’s a pattern I’d love to know it.” He glances around, finds the pink pen he had earlier, and begins tapping it against his leg. “I let my mind relax for a moment and there’s always a new piece working its way in. I can usually push it back out with something else to focus on, except now today it feels like someone taking a jackhammer to my skull from the inside out. An injury to insult for this particular occasion. I can’t even enjoy the quiet day at the office my other self would have had today.” 

The pen flings loose when he abruptly stops moving his hand and Vongole, with a heavy exhale, rises up off the ground to retrieve it. Klavier’s mouth twists. 

“Are you still a prosecutor?” Apollo asks. “Or, how do you phrase that? Is it hypothetical? Would you have been?” If he’d stayed with Dhurke, he still would have wanted to be a defense attorney. But if not for Dhurke, if Apollo had grown up with his birth family, whoever they were, would he still? What could he have been instead? Was Kristoph the catalyst for Klavier? Who would he have been without his brother? (Who would Apollo have been without his?)

“It’s the least hypothetical hypothetical scenario,” Klavier says. “Which is to say it absolutely does not matter in the slightest.” He grins and it takes several seconds to fade. “But yes, I am. Still. Would be?” Apollo snorts. Klavier glares at him. “Verdammt, now you have me confused. - I wasn’t a prosecutor at seventeen, though. Didn’t go to Themis, wasn’t trying to catch up to Kris as soon as I could. I was Kris, after all. Or not him, but that should have been my name, except I went by would-have-gone-by Kris, and he never tolerated anyone but me calling him that.” Klavier squeezes his eyes shut and brings a hand up to rub his temple. “Does any of this make sense?”

“Relatively,” Apollo says. “The whole concept doesn’t make sense in the first place, but within the overall ‘what the fuck’” - Klavier laughs - “I’m mostly following it.”

“There is a reason I did not tell you about this with everything else, back when.” Klavier waves his hand, unsuccessfully feigning casual dismissiveness. “It’s a bit of a stretch even from ‘my older brother is my changeling doppelganger’, ja?” Another attempt at being casual, glancing at Apollo from just the corners of his eyes, but the worried downturn of his brow and mouth continue to betray him. “And the disconcerting philosophical questions, if this implies that some things are destined to happen - that it all always would have turned out as I see if I had not been taken, that there are choices we are bound to make.” He shrugs. “Or perhaps this is not magic at all and is just my mind trying to make sense of all that happened in the worst way possible. I should ask Herr Samurai for his opinion. You know he studied psychology, ja?” 

“Please do not try and use your coworker the convicted murderer as a therapist,” Apollo says. “Based on all the stunts he pulled in court, all his manipulating and twisting people - he would take all that information you gave to him and use it to destroy you.”

“I would be asking his opinion on one matter, not offering him my entire life story.”

“You entire life story is kinda tied into this one matter!”

“Besides,” Klavier says, at the same time Apollo is objecting, “he and I are both prosecutors. What reason would he have to want to destroy me? It is not as though he could use it to his advantage as my opponent in court.”

Who knows why a murderer like him might do anything, Apollo thinks, about to say it, and then Klavier’s actual words, “my opponent in court”, fully register. He squints at him. “Are you saying I would use it against you?” After everything they have been through - after everything Apollo has helped him with?

“I’m saying that I would have less concern consulting with him than some others,” Klavier says darkly. Apollo isn’t sure what he’s implying with this but doesn’t really like the options. “And while I do not doubt your experience in court, when I spoke with Herr Samurai he was not unpleasant. He quite liked to talk about his bird, and his bird quite enjoyed terrorizing Vongole.”

“That bird would fight god if given the chance,” Apollo says. “And I’m not sure I would want to spend time with a murderer anyway.”

“I seem to end up at that point anyway,” Klavier says bitterly, “and at least on this occasion I am forewarned.”

Apollo swallows the lump in his throat. There’s no good response to that. Klavier’s eyes meet his again, and he lets the silence drag on several more seconds before very softly he says, “But I do like to think I know magic, and I do think that this is more than solely my mind. A last mocking joke from the Winter Court, ja? I won my way home and they taunt me with the knowledge that I am not truly free by dangling ahead of me the life they stole from me.”

“Wouldn’t it really be Kristoph who stole it from you?” Apollo asks. Klavier’s eyes narrow. “That the Court took you, and your brother took your life?”

His expression relaxes. “I was jealous, like I said, but never angry, not at him. He did not ask for it any more than I. We were - I presumed we were in agreement that it was they who were to blame, not each other.” But not sure. Not now, not after everything. Who could blame him? “And I am angry that he squandered the life he had, but not that he had it.”

Apollo watches for lies and waits. And waits, and waits. And accepts that even if Klavier did mean that he’s not sure if Apollo won’t use any of this against him, he’s still continuing to be honest with him. “It would have been a much easier life,” Klavier says. “From everything I…” He motions to his journal. “Many less lows, this past year. Though also some other less.” He tilts his head toward Apollo and shrugs one shoulder. A question, shall I go on? Apollo nods.

Klavier begins ticking off points on his fingers. “I am a prosecutor still, but never the rock star. I did not meet Daryan - I am eight years older than him, so how were we to? No Gavinneers, no tours, no songs on the radio. Music just does stay a hobby.” With a wry grin that falls immediately into an unhappy one, he adds, “Though I never gave up the piano. It’s - how am I to weigh it? I never have a second career I so loved - I am not at Themis to meet my favorite professor - I never know Daryan, but that means, I imagine, that he does not get caught up in smuggling. Maybe he finds trouble on his own, or maybe his sister gets to keep her brother.”

“You don’t know for sure?” 

“It’s like looking through a one-way mirror. I know what is changed with this me-I-could-have-been, but he - I - cannot know what’s happened here.” He spreads his hands wide, palms up, gesturing to the world. “I can’t change what I know there. I can’t get a message to myself to say, go look up Daryan Crescend, see how he is doing. I never met him. There’s no reason for me to pay attention to that name.” He shakes his head. “I know Phoenix Wright only because we have faced each other in court every so often over the past eight years.”

The number stings. It would have a bite on its own, but Klavier gives its teeth extra force, extra sharpness. Without Kristoph, no diary page, no disbarment. Phoenix Wright remains a defense attorney. “Does he still adopt Trucy?” Apollo asks. With no diary page, is Zak Gramarye acquitted, or does he vanish anyway? What happens to Trucy if she stays a Gramarye? The concept isn’t one Apollo likes. 

Klavier shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “He and I only cross paths in court, and he still does not exactly like me, at all.”

“I’ve told you I’m pretty sure he has nothing against you,” Apollo says. He frowns. “And what happened that he doesn’t like you in—” What to call it? A parallel universe, another lifetime?                                             

“It is - hm.” Klavier eyes him suspiciously. “Something that happened, yes.”

“That bad?” Apollo asks. Klavier fiddles with his hair. Apollo takes a shot from a different angle. “Or that embarrassing?”

Klavier elbows him in the side. “That’s quite enough from you, Herr Forehead.”

“Didn’t you say you don’t get embarrassed?”

“I am not embarrassed. I am ashamed on behalf of - of—”

“Of yourself,” Apollo finishes. 

“Yes.”

Apollo raises his eyebrows. Klavier stares back, an attempt at a glare that slowly cracks apart into laughter. “That sounds ridiculous,” Apollo says. “You sound ridiculous.”

“I’m aware,” Klavier says. “That happens. I actually only have a suspicion about what happened between myself and your boss in—” He waves his hand vaguely. “Which reminds me that I have meant to ask you, for several reasons, do you have any idea what on earth it is between your boss and mine?”

“What?” Apollo asks. Even if Klavier is leaping from topic to topic this quickly to keep his mind and visions at bay, he’s abandoned the linear path between anything.

“This is not to say that there is an office pool on if-when they are dating, but I am not to say that there is not such a thing, either,” Klavier says.

“You’re betting on your boss’s love life?” Apollo asks, aghast. Did he ever harbor a delusion that the Prosecutors Office is more functional than the Wright Anything Agency? He definitely hasn’t since spending New Years with Faraday and Debeste. Which, now that he thinks about it: “Wait, that wasn’t a thing that Detective Faraday started or something?”

“I am not part of it,” Klavier says. “I don’t gamble anymore unless I know I will win. But yes, it was her, up to nothing good, as ever.”

“I don’t know anything,” Apollo says. “I mean, I know Mr Wright is friends with him, but not like - well, today Mr Wright left and said he was going to study for the Bar somewhere else, and Trucy just guessed that he was going to see Edgeworth and he didn’t say he wasn’t.”

“If you can get any information out of the Fräulein I will split the winnings with you,” Klavier says. “And I will tell you the ill-advised decisions my other self has made if you promise to keep your mouth shut.”

Apollo blinks. “Yeah?” he says, not meaning to sound hesitant, but doesn’t Klavier know that he hasn’t talked about anything he told him last October? Why would that change now? (Though maybe if it is actually embarrassing, Apollo won’t pass up the opportunity to mock him about it directly to his face.) “Of course.”

“I am reasonably sure that - you know, hypothetically, looking sideways, all of that - that in that hypothetical lifetime, I seem to have unwisely walked myself right into some romantic entanglement of theirs and earned Herr Turnabout’s ire, I believe perhaps out of jealousy, that I asked out Herr Chief.”

Klavier twists some strands of his bangs around his fingers, lips pursed tightly together, waiting for Apollo’s reaction. It arrives delayed and more confused than Apollo has been in a while, though he keeps thinking he’s hit peak confusion and keeps being surprised. “So you’re a homewrecker?” Apollo asks dumbly.

“Nein, I am not!” Klavier smacks Apollo on the shoulder with his journal. “They were not dating! I would not have - I assume it was anger that before he would get himself together, someone else would—”

“You asked your boss on a date?” Apollo asks, louder than the last question, loud enough that even in the half-barren park it might carry. Klavier slaps his hand over Apollo’s mouth with too flat a palm and enough force that it’s a bit like a slap in the teeth.

“He was not Chief Prosecutor, and so not my boss at that moment,” Klavier says, half defensive and half apologetic, pulling his hand back away. Apollo runs his tongue over his teeth; they’ve stopped stinging now. “And furthermore, I am about their age, ja? Or I would have been - my brother is a year younger than them.” Klavier tilts his head to the side, and a slow, lopsided grin spreads across it, wicked and mocking both. “And Herr Chief is a very handsome man, you must admit.”

Apollo covers his face with his hands. “I don’t have to say anything,” he says.

“You were curious, as I recall. You asked.”

“Right,” Apollo says. “I’m good now thanks. Don’t need any more.”

“There’s not much more to tell,” Klavier says, propping up his chin on his hand. “It went nowhere and was not an avenue I chose to dwell on.” With his other hand he picks at the corner of his journal. “I shouldn’t dwell on any of it I’m sure, but there’s some part of it that’s fascinating. Such a quieter life with so many less griefs and my coworkers don’t resent me. I have a dog, a golden retriever. And other parks to take her to, nowhere near kitsune mafia fronts and defense attorneys who know too much about me.”

That’s certainly a statement to unpack. Klavier, as ever, doesn’t linger on it. “Muffin?” he asks, picking up a paper bag from his other side and offering it to Apollo. “I overestimated how much I wanted to stress eat while I was at the bakery.”

“I didn’t know rock stars are allowed to stress eat,” Apollo says, taking the bag and glancing inside. “Are these the regular ones or the, uh, fae ones. Trucy and I get them for Vera whenever she comes to hang out, but I don’t like them as much.”

“I refuse to forsake salt, ever,” Klavier says. “Those are regular. How is Fräulein Changeling doing, anyway?”

As always tends to happen, he asks the question of Apollo once Apollo has a mouthful of muffin. “She’s pretty good,” he says finally, after a perilous second where he thought he might choke to death. “She’s got an apprenticeship, kind of, I guess, with a friend of Mr Wright’s who’s a children’s book author-illustrator. Since November or December, I forget. She’s been talking lately about wanting to sell her house to leave all the bad associations in the past.” Phoenix promised her he would help her with that, even though he isn’t that kind of lawyer. Or any lawyer, right now. 

“Ach, I understand that feeling quite well,” Klavier says. Apollo takes another bite of muffin. Klavier watches Vongole chew on a rock again. “This ‘friend’,” he adds. “Do they know what she is?”

“Oh, yeah. He knows a lot about all of that. Mr Wright said he accidentally became a witch once.”

“He accidentally…?” Klavier is rarely struck speechless. His mouth opens and closest several times. “Of course that is possible, but…” He clicks his tongue several times. “That is not a thing that someone just easily comes away from. Your boss knows the strangest people.”

“No kidding.” And it wouldn’t be any less weird if Kristoph had never been, would he? Trucy might not be around, but Larry - Mia - Iris - they come from before. The biggest difference in the office besides Trucy would be - would be. “Do you know if I still work for Mr Wright?”

He wouldn’t need a badge. He wouldn’t need a bloody ace. Apollo never would have never worked for Gavin Law Office. He surely would have admired Phoenix just as much, maybe even more if he had seven extra years of stellar and befuddling cases, and working at Wright and Co. would be an option - provided Phoenix would let him. And would Phoenix, not needing someone with a badge to make his plans work, even bother? 

Klavier shakes his head. “I don’t know.” He opens his journal and pages through until he reaches a dog-eared corner. “I marked some of the cases against him and once I wrote it down blocked it all out. He had a young woman with him in court that time, rather pretty, black hair, dressed something like—” He shrugs. “A monk, I wrote. Whatever that is supposed to mean now.”

That sounds familiar. 

“But it is like what I said about Daryan, ja? That I am looking sideways through a mirror, and he, this other me, he does not know anything I care about. He doesn’t know what he’s passed by, what he’s lost, what he’s missed. I’m afraid all I know is that we never met.”

And if they did, would they care? They would have no Kristoph in common, no shared trauma of betrayal, with ten extra years between them. 

Maybe it’s a different life for Apollo, too. Maybe in the lifetime where Klavier is never taken away and grows up entirely without his brother, Apollo is never sent away and grows up with his. 

“Oh,” is all he can think to say, and then to save himself from looking like he should have something to say, he finishes eating the muffin. They watch two joggers and their dog loop past on the path. The wind rustles some leaves loose from the tree and Apollo tries and fails to catch one as it flutters past his face. The time to breathe is welcome; there has been so little of it in the course of the conversation. Time to grapple with all of it or maybe none, focus on this that they have now. They can’t escape one way through the mirror.

When he glances back at Klavier he feels immediately guilty for the chance to relax. Klavier has folded back into himself, knees to his chest, head resting on his arms, his journal carelessly abandoned, still open, on the ground. “Are you sure there’s nothing that helps?” Apollo asks. Give him a way to fix it. It’s the only comfort he knows how to provide. 

“When I was still considering going into work this morning, I ate a whole bag of pretzels and got nearly an hour’s reprieve.” Through his arms, his voice is a mumble. Apollo tries to picture it: Klavier, some sort of mess in the morning, with a party-size bag of pretzels, shoving them into his mouth by the handful. A dignified image for either a celebrity or prosecutor, it is not. “Unreasonable amounts of salt is my attempt, and that has its own very large issues.” He lifts his head, hair falling into his eyes, to offer Apollo a very weak grin. “Rock stars die young all the time, but how many have high sodium as the cause?”

Apollo doesn’t laugh, can’t even bring himself to try. Klavier surely notices but doesn’t seem to care, doesn’t cease the light, ugly chuckle that followed his words. “Speaking of unreasonable amounts of salt,” Apollo says, because now that Klavier has given him one piece of the case, one fractal of evidence, he’s got a shot at solving it, “have you ever tried anything from Eldoon’s noodle stand?”

“His is the stand from that case?” Klavier buries his head back in his arms, and Apollo nods before realizing that doesn’t work and audibly confirming it. “I have not. Why?”

“It’s the saltiest ramen I’ve ever had in my life,” Apollo says. That still can’t actually fully impress upon him the true understanding of Eldoon’s Noodles. “It’s the saltiest anything I’ve ever had in my life. Mr Wright says nobody’s ever managed to eat more than two bowls of it in a day, so when we went yesterday after court, the new kid, Athena, took it as a challenge.” Of course she did. She takes everything as a challenge. She makes competition where it doesn’t need to be. “She made it a bowl and a half and then spent the rest of the day lying on the couch saying she’s probably dying but if she survives this is her first step to building up immunity and beating the record.” Trucy promised to assist Athena in such an endeavor, and Phoenix had looked over her head at Apollo and rolled his eyes. Death by noodle stand, the next step forward from being shot dead while pulling said noodle stand. 

“That sounds quite promising,” Klavier says. “And like a challenge I should like to attempt. Tell me we don’t have to walk far, though.”

“He’s only a block past the office,” Apollo says. “Sometimes you can hear his harmonica from here.”

Vongole lifts her head, pointing her nose to the sky and swiveling her ears about. After a moment she springs to her feet, a single motion that nonetheless looks jerky and wrong, like a frame has skipped in the middle that should have showed her picking herself up from the ground. Klavier hasn’t moved. “Or I can just bike down there myself. Meet in the middle at the office if we want to sit somewhere that isn’t the dirt.”

Klavier mumbles something that he must also realize is incomprehensible, and he raises his head and repeats, “How much am I gonna owe you?”

Apollo stands, dusting grass and dirt off of his knees. “I can’t in good conscience accept payment for something that you don’t fully understand how actually awful it is,” he says, lifting his bike back away from the tree. “Besides, Mr Eldoon gives a little discount to everyone who works with Mr Wright, anyway.”

Which definitely implies something about their collective tastes.

He doesn’t think he’s ever gotten Eldoon’s two days in a row and even telling himself that these are extenuating circumstances, he doesn’t like the precedent it sets. His standards have never been good but they’re not so much slipping now as they are plummeting down an elevator shaft. Mr Eldoon does not remark on it, to which Apollo is grateful. He knows no one in the office would let him live - the real and alarming but also conceptually hilarious question would be whether Trucy would approve or not of a “date” with Klavier to Eldoon’s of all places. 

She really would not let him live if she ever finds out about it.

Apollo orders his usual and tells Eldoon to give him two more of whichever, because Klavier said he didn’t care as long as it was salty, and Apollo is not about to ask Eldoon to give him his saltiest. At that point that would be manslaughter, at best. He’s paying for it when he gets a text from Klavier, slightly less typo-laden than before, saying that he has decided after all to relocate to the office. And a minute later:

-do you not lock your office ever??

Mia, welcoming him in. Should he tell him about Mia? Is that even something he would want to know, the lurking ghost, privy to their every word? But for the moment he shoves his phone into his pocket and walks his bike and the noodles back up to the office.

“Mess as it is, there’s probably something worth stealing in here,” Klavier says when Apollo enters. He looks uneasy, wary, like he’s been pacing the room before Apollo arrived, and he doesn’t sit down until Apollo sets the noodles down on the coffee table and sinks into one couch. Even then, he lowers himself awkwardly, his eyes swirling between shades of blue as he glances about. “I certainly wouldn’t just leave anything unlocked in this part of town.”

Apollo wants to argue that it’s not bad, all considered; Phoenix says the Kitakis keep it orderly, and the only cursed locale for a square mile around is the run-down hotel across the street from the window behind Apollo’s desk. (And Apollo had asked how worried he should be about that, and Phoenix said not at all, because he and Mia both hated that people staying in some of the hotel rooms could just see straight into the office. Which then gave Apollo reason to wonder exactly who cursed it, along with reason to never walk past the building on the same side of the street as it. Typical Los Angeles sort of thing. Who in the city doesn’t have a place like that?)

What he ends up saying is, “I don’t think we ever have to worry about getting robbed,” and that is a statement weird enough that he knows he is going to have to explain and he regrets this. Klavier raises an eyebrow and accepts the two takeout bowls that Apollo has indicated are his. “Since the office is, uh, haunted.” Apollo waits, grimacing. Klavier looks at him, expression still unchanged. “By Mr Wright’s mentor. I have an office key but I’ve never actually needed to lock or unlock, because she does it. And I don’t think she would just allow anyone to come in.”

“I knew it,” Klavier says. 

“What?”

“I suspected as much,” he amends. “That there is something wrong in here, about here. It’s felt a different kind of wrong every time I’ve been.”

Apollo glances up at the lights. They don’t flicker. He might have expected her to take offense at Klavier’s description, wrong, wrong. Klavier talking about the royalty. Apollo won’t mention all he knows about Mia. “She spent the winter throwing a blanket at me whenever I got cold,” he says. “It’s not really that haunted-haunted.”

“And I haven’t been smited yet,” Klavier mutters. “Still, I would not - I would be careful, is all, ja? You never know what may happen, if you were to fall asleep on the couch here and wake up to have your body puppeteered by a fae spirit.”

“Can they do that?” Apollo asks. Klavier shrugs. “Mr Wright says he got amnesia from sleeping on one of the defendant lobby couches but I think he left out a few pieces of that story.”

“Knowing him, that was actually all there was to it.”

Apollo cannot find room to object. Instead, he waits for that smug look to disappear from Klavier’s face with his first bite of noodles. No one adequately braces themselves for it - Trucy laughed at Apollo, Apollo at Clay and Ema, and Apollo and Phoenix at Athena, though they didn’t have long to laugh before they were horrified by the way she, still spluttering from the first mouthful, immediately went in for more without finishing chewing. Prodigy in some regard, worryingly dense in others. 

But Apollo watches and Klavier’s expression doesn’t change; he doesn’t flinch. His eye twitches. Is this a glamour that he’s almost holding together? Apollo turns his attention to his own meal, some ever-growing part of him already filled with regret, and Klavier laughs suddenly, brightly, a welcome change from the bitter amusement that threaded through their conversation. “This is how I used to make ramen at Themis,” he says, his grin wistful but sharpening. “Back when I was first discovering salt.”

“You didn’t have salt before them at home?” There were several years between the faery ring and Themis, several that should be accounted for in here.

“Our parents wanted to avoid it as much as possible for Kris and stopped me from dumping the excess I truly wanted on my plate, and then—” Klaver stops to take another bite and to try and rein in his grin. He doesn’t succeed, and still with his face torn between reminisce and wickedness, he continues, “And then we drove our parents to the point that they didn’t keep any in the house for safety’s sake.”

And still grinning he waits for Apollo to ask him what the hell that means. Which Apollo does, but only after half a minute’s pause where the only sound is the slurping of noodles and broth. “What did you do?” 

“It was Kris’ idea, to start. All very thorough of him, of course, as he is.” There, again, sadness that glamour can’t hide or maybe doesn’t try to. “He needed to know what it was to be a changeling, to be fae - what it meant for him in regards to iron and salt and all the superstitions he heard and scoffed at.”

“He hadn’t ever noticed something that he thought was, like, metal allergies, or food, or something?” Apollo twists the ring on his hand and thinks of Clay’s horseshoe amulet. 

(It’s easy to know, with a friend like Clay: the first time Apollo went over to play at his house, Clay had lightly knocked him in the forehead with first it and then a crucifix, just to be sure, because he’d been up late sneaking movies on TV and had seen some version of Dracula and ended up extra paranoid for a few months. They’re still not actually sure where the crucifix came from, because no one in any part of Clay’s family is Catholic.)

“Or is that something that runs on belief, too?” Apollo asks. “That since he didn’t know he wasn’t human, he had no reason to think that it would harm him, so it didn’t?”

“A self-fulfilling weakness,” Klavier says. “I suppose that is possible, though pure enough iron is not precisely common unless you are seeking it out, and salt’s effects not enough to assume…” He rubs one thumb over the ring on the other. “Kris never mentioned anything he did or didn’t notice before he knew, but after, we had it in mind to conduct experiments. After all, he was fae but raised human, and I was human raised with the fae, and we wondered how each of us might be affected. 

“I gathered up everything that I thought could be iron, not that I in my life had ever known iron. They do not exactly have it and salt on hand in the Twilight Realm. Some pots and frying pans, some scrap metal and nails from the shed, there was at least one ordinary rock in there and Kris took it like ‘you know nothing about this is any kind of metal?’” 

Apollo is still surprised when he changes his voice, drops the accent, to imitate Kristoph, and if Klavier’s surprise in return is an indication, he hadn’t even realized this time that he was doing it. They both look away from each other, concentrate too long on their ramen. “And somehow it all went so much worse than you would expect,” Klavier says quietly. “We didn’t get to the salt step before Kris had a broken toe because I dropped the frying pan, and I had to go to the hospital for a tetanus shot because I had a rusty nail through my foot.”

Taking in Apollo’s horror, Klavier adds quickly, “Oh, that was not something Kris did, no, no. I had been poking him with the non-pointy ends of each of the collection of nails I had scrounged up, I dropped a few, I did not find them all, and I did not believe in shoes at the time because I saw no reason for them, and you know how that ends, ja. So our poor suffering parents confiscated all the salt before we found a way to hurt each other with that, too.”

Apollo lets out his breath. He hadn’t wanted to even consider that prospect, but since his method of reassuring himself was thinking that Kristoph, the man whose plans to kill were to lay poison and curses, wouldn’t ever stoop to physical violence unless he was completely out of options - well, at that point, there wasn’t any keeping that thought off his face. “Your poor parents,” he agrees.

(For just a moment he thinks that he and Nahyuta weren’t able to drive Dhurke to something like that, because of how hands-off and otherwise busy he was, but he still had to dive in a river to save them from drowning. And then there was Datz, who provided the opposite of help whenever he was around, forcing Dhurke to, on one occasion Apollo can dredge back up from the pits of attempted forceful repression, retrieve a knife from Nahyuta. Nahyuta had cried when Dhruke took it away, because of course he had, and then Apollo cried because on the worst days they were a stupid feedback loop of emotionality and not knowing what was and wasn’t worth getting hung up on.)

“They did their best and we did not make it easy.” That they are eating while talking means the silences in between feel more natural, but that in itself gives Apollo less warning that Klavier is about to drop something heavy on his head again. “I’m grateful, in some way, that they never had to see how it turned out. All their work to stop us beating the hell out of each other.” He grimaces. “Did I tell you that the scar on Kris’ hand was one I gave to him?”

“You did.” The last time they were here together in this office. 

“It was after our parents died,” Klavier says, watching the noodles slide from his chopsticks with no apparent concern and stabs them back into the bowl. “Kris was twenty-four, I believe - he’d moved into an apartment here by then, and I was dorming at Themis. I had just bought one of these” - he spreads his fingers out, examining the rings he wears - “or maybe that one” - he points at Apollo’s hand - “who knows, and we were arguing about something stupid. It could have been about the ring, why I so felt the need to keep iron literally on hand when he was… I suppose he felt slighted, or like I did not trust him. He put a finger in my face and I smacked his hand away and the iron left a burn that turned into a scar.” Klavier picks up his chopsticks. “And we never talked about it again, because why would we?”

“I can understand that impulse,” Apollo says. “Why bother having the awkward conversations if you can just repress everything?”

From personal experience. Why try explaining his childhood when he can just never bring it up? What’s it matter anymore?  

Klavier snorts. “You know, Herr Forehead, I’m not sure I like how easily you’ve summarized my methods.”

And Apollo likes that they’re focused enough on Klavier for him not to guess that Apollo is speaking for himself, too. “Except I’ve figured you out because of all these awkward conversations we keep having.”

“My tried-and-true coping mechanism failed me at the worst time,” Klavier says through a mouthful of ramen. Hilarious, really, to look at this man and remember what a dazzling celebrity he can pretend to be. “But salt has not yet let me down.”

“Did you really make ramen like this?” Apollo sets his down. Halfway through and he doesn’t think he’s going to get any further. The memory of yesterday’s salt still lingers. This is not a sustainable diet. 

“I made everything like this,” Klavier says, grinning. “If I can think of a food I did not put salt on, I will tell you.”

“No, I don’t think I want to know, because that exception is going to prove the rule, and the rule is that you are terrible.”

“Nein, you are not running from this. This is the least distressing can of worms we have opened all evening and we are going to lie in it.”

“That’s not the saying,” Apollo says. “Do you mean, like, you put salt on - on—” What’s the worst thing he can think of? “Like, cookies?”

“That’s amateur hour, really now. I poured salt in my coffee.” 

“No!” He isn’t lying, and Apollo is gagging already on the mere thought of salted coffee. “What is wrong with you?”

“You know how those little sugar packets” - he holds up his forefingers about an inch and a half apart - “that are sitting around for coffee? And there are little salt packets, similar size, abouts, often near them? Why shouldn’t they be used for the same thing?”

“No,” Apollo repeats. “No, you can’t do this to me.”

With the biggest shit-eating Apollo has seen, Klavier continues, “Our parents had never allowed me to drink coffee! How was I to know what to do with it? I did what seemed reasonable!”

“And you didn’t think, I don’t know, ‘this tastes horrible’!”

“It was dining hall coffee at a pretentious boarding high school! It was always going to taste horrible!” Klavier seems more alive than he has all day, and Apollo finally feels like he’s more than simply a pair of ears, even if another pair of ears is what Klavier needs. They are lawyers through and through, and a good argument does wonders. Or a bad argument, an inconsequential argument, something with as much messy laughter as yelling, for the sake of nothing but not wanting to relent. “I poured extra salt on bags of pretzels! It was about the salt, and I was perfectly pleased with any kind of salt-delivery vessel. Applesauce, yogurt - extra flavoring to cereal and milk.”

Apollo pantomimes vomiting on the floor. Klavier presses his lips together and thoughtfully ponders the coffee table. “I wonder if I still have any of the salt shakers I stole out of the dining hall,” he says.

This time, Apollo’s choking is not feigned, and he spends several very long seconds coughing and praying that he doesn’t die this way, which would be even stupider than dying from eating too much of Eldoon’s ramen. “So you could - could—” He wheezes in between his words. This is definitely the stupid way he dies. “—Could have a steady supply of sodium straight into your veins at all times?”

“See, you understand,” Klavier says. Apollo coughs again, both a decent way of expressing his disbelief and necessary because he’s still choking on a bit of air. “For everything I kept stashed in my room. Candy bars, pudding cups—”

“I am begging you to stop,” Apollo says. “I am actually begging you. I will grovel if it means I never have to hear you utter something like ‘salt in milk’ ever again.”

He lost this round of pointless arguments, and he knows it, and Klavier, smirking, knows it, and that smirk still leaves Apollo with the impulse to smack it off his face. Insufferable, insufferably pretty, and they both know it. “How else were you to properly empathize with my suffering?” Klavier asks, his tone light enough to make it a joke.

“I think I am suffering in a very different way than you, now.” 

“Perhaps.” Klavier props his chin on his hand, his first bowl of noodles finished, and he either pausing before or reconsidering the wisdom of the second bowl. “There was an actual reason I ate like that, and not just not knowing what to do with salt and relishing the chance,” he adds. “One of the professors at Themis - she was not the head of my course, she had been a judge not a prosecutor, but I took several classes from her anyway because I liked her - told me that it is a very common thing, for humans returned from the fae realm, to have horrific salt cravings. The kind that compels you to try putting it in orange juice.”

“Please.” Apollo puts his face in his hands. “Please.” The actual meaning of Klavier’s words, the implication, sinks in a moment later. “Have enough people even come back from the Twilight Realm for anyone to be able to say something’s common? And how would she even know that?”

Klavier shrugs. “I never asked her. I was too afraid to.” He shakes his head. “These were the secrets that my family barely spoke of even behind closed doors, that my brother and I buried, and here she was speaking so openly of such things because she noticed that I kept pouring salt on every meal. And I think she was human, and that she was talking about it should be an invitation that I am - ‘allowed’, I suppose” - he makes quote marks in the air with his fingers - “to ask her, ja?” He lowers his hands very slowly. “But information like that is a weapon in the Court whether you mean it to be or not, and I was afraid to know anything that would make me armed. So even though she became something like a mentor to me we only ever spoke of academics and the legal system and my music and her art projects. Things of consequence here, not there.”

“She’s an artist?” Apollo asks. What was it, exactly, that Phoenix said about artist types and changelings, the moment before he and Apollo both realized?

“She is. Almost any kind of visual arts she could - sculpting, pottery, painting, papercraft, certainly more I am forgetting.” His mouth twists in a scowl. “I suspected that could mean she is like me, but she did not look like what I now am sure that being stolen away looks like.”

“You did say once that you’d met someone who was like you.” And only one; how rare to escape. No surprise that he was afraid of what his professor could be if she knew. “Who was that?”

Klavier freezes, about to take up the second bowl of ramen. He looks like a witness under pressure on the witness stand, Vera struggling to put a name to the man who forged the diary page, Jinxie terrified of the swath of yokai before her. “Oh,” Apollo says. Asking that question immediately after Klavier had just explained to him why he won’t talk about it. “Right. You don’t talk about those things.”

Klavier loudly slurps his noodles and shakes his head. “Some part of me got left behind when I bargained for my freedom and is still sure someone will kill me for speaking to anything.”

Not a lie; visibly not a lie to anyone who could see the fear lingering in Klavier’s wild-eyed expression. Apollo files that away, not to ask, not unless it’s of dire importance, not to put Klavier on the spot like that when it still eats away at him. (Apollo has a magatama he can borrow; Apollo has Phoenix around sometimes. Phoenix is secretive because he’s an asshole, not because he’s neurotic from trauma. He’s the person to wrangle the truth from.)

But a lump sits heavy in Apollo’s throat, and he can’t swallow it, finds it grows bigger as he tries. Klavier went so long without mentioning the blessing on Apollo; Phoenix goes without mentioning anything. “That other person - that isn’t me, is it?”

He’s shocked he manages to get the words out at all. 

Klavier jerks back and then he sits forward, squinting suspiciously at Apollo. “What? No. You’re not.” Apollo scans him, waiting to see red, waiting for the worst to be confirmed after all, but there’s nothing, nothing that he sees, and he knows Klavier and he knows Klavier isn’t like Blackquill and he hopes there’s no one ese in the damn world who’s like Blackquill. He likes to be able to trust his own eyes. “Why would you even suspect…?”

His bright blue eyes linger on Apollo’s face, where last year he first pointed out the dragon scales marked on Apollo that he’ll never be able to see himself. And he’s answering his own question, silently, and showing Apollo that answer. If the blessing came from someone who stole him; but a child in the Court would never need Truth as a blessing, because they are among fae who can’t lie. And Apollo didn’t even grow up around here, anyway. 

“I dunno,” Apollo lies, forcing his voice to sound casual, to not crack on two words. He can lie to Klavier. He can ask Klavier these things that he can’t ask Phoenix because he can lie to Klavier. “With everything that goes on, you never know. And sometimes I’m not sure anyone would tell me unless I ask specifically, so, just making sure.” He shrugs. He thinks even the that shrug would be illuminated red, if Apollo were watching someone else make these same motions. 

Klavier clearly doesn’t buy that, but after several more long moments, he turns his glare to the portrait of Zak over the piano, and Apollo is able to breathe again. What would it be to live like that, as paranoid and suspicious as the likes of Clay, but with full, nearly firsthand knowledge of the exact consequences of crossing the Fair Folk. To have that compulsion to keep silent, especially in a profession so concerned with the truth. As a person so concerned with the truth as Klavier is. And then, with all that in mind—

“Er,” Apollo says. Klavier’s eyes turn back to him, still close to a glare. “I mean, I get it, what you’ve said, but then you - you told me about what you thought Mr Wright was. Him and Trucy, you told me. That.”

Klavier growls from the back of his throat but he speaks and interrupts Apollo as he’s about to consider apologizing for bringing it up. “I thought I had won, against him. That it’s all battles and backstabbing like in the Court, against him, ja? And I had…” The growl turns to more of a scoff, more disgusted, and he strips his accent away from the next words, layering them instead in bitterness. “I had beaten him in court and exposed him for what he was, a cheat and a liar, and of course that means I have won against him, ja?” 

His voice swings between two people, his and what would have been his in another life, his and the voice of the person who had really hoped to beat Phoenix. “And that I don’t have to be afraid of him” - he snorts, blowing up a few strands of hair on his forehead - “and that because I have won means that what I know is a weapon I may do what I like with. Is a warning I may issue if I so choose. Which I thought, then, the best choice would be to let you in on just enough to send you running, and you shouldn’t have to fear the repercussions of knowing because I’m the one running the show, ja? If this makes any sense.”

“A little.” He thought he was the one in charge, that he could - protect Apollo? Save him? And the way everything fell to shit after, it was Apollo who kept having to help save him. And Trucy’s not the fae-stolen child that Apollo knows - it’s Klavier. 

“At any rate, you’re better off asking your boss,” Klavier says. “Knowing how often I have been wrong.”

“Right now I just want to understand anything about Prosecutor Blackquill,” Apollo says. “And you’re both equally unhelpful.”

“As Herr Samurai may very well intend.” Klavier leans back into the couch. “So what all did happen in your trial against him? Was it a case, ach, typical of your office?” He waves his hand with a flourish in a circle, gesturing to the room around him.

“It was atypically awful,” Apollo says, deciding in that moment to leave out the part about Filch’s lie that went uncontested, and the fact that they’re going to have to go wrestle a yokai or something, because even if none of that had happened, the case still would have been a nightmare. It was a nightmare before Apollo knew that happened. “Have you ever heard of Nine-Tails Vale?”

Klavier winces, hissing his breath in through his teeth. “Nothing good ever starts with that question,” he says.

“Yeah, you know what to expect already. So Trucy has a friend who works up there—”

-

“Apollo,” Clay says, from the couch, where in front of him on the coffee table an empty carton of Chinese food lays. Apollo has not even finished closing the door behind him. “It is nearly eight. Why are you just getting home, without groceries, and if you have a good answer I might not stab you with these chopsticks.” He raises the arm that was hanging off the couch and brandishes the aforementioned improvisational weapons.

“I met up with Prosecutor Gavin after work and we went to Eldoon’s,” Apollo explains.

Clay narrows his eyes. “You can’t go to Eldoon’s on a date with someone. Haven’t I taught you better than this?”

“It wasn’t a date,” Apollo says. “What, you think I asked him out on the anniversary of me getting his brother arrested for murder? Who do you think I am?” 

Someone actually brave enough to ask out Klavier Gavin at all, for starters.

“Well, if it was a date I was going to let you off without being stabbed,” Clay says. “But you’ve unfortunately done this to yourself.”

“Uh huh,” Apollo says, grabbing the chopsticks out of his hand as he passes by the couch. “I’m terrified.”

“You should be! Hey!” Clay drapes himself halfway over the back of the couch. “Don’t walk away! I’m telling you that you need to stop your stupid pining and—”

“I am not - I have never been—”

“I can tell when you’re texting him because you get this look on your face—”

“You guess when I’m texting him because I text three people, besides you.”

“Wait, you have three entire other people besides me?” Clay asks. “I’m impressed. But also I’m right about your stupid face and—”

“Just because he’s pretty and I willingly talk to him doesn’t mean that he’s not insufferable or that I’m in love with him. What are you saying?” Apollo throws the chopsticks back at him. 

He is not and has never been pining, especially not for Klavier, who’s even more of a goddamn mess of issues than Apollo knew yesterday. Pining implies, to him, that if there was the opportunity to be in a relationship with Klavier, he would take it - and the problem with that concept, one of the problems, is reciprocity. Is the fact that Klavier can say that he wants to repress it all, but he’s talking. He’s talking and exposing the roaches to the light and Apollo, won’t, can’t, has repression figured out so much better because Kristoph might be here in a prison nearby and Apollo knew him but Nahyuta is a world away. Apollo could bury him. 

And if - if, if - they were - he and Klavier - if Klavier keeps trying to grapple with the past, keeps asking Apollo’s help, one day he’s going to say something that hits too close, hurts too much. Another something about brothers, about lives that could have been. And he’s going to see it written on Apollo’s face and he might ask Apollo to open up to burn out the dark, to have the awkward conversation.

And that’s the one thing Apollo knows he can’t do, not for anyone, not Clay or Trucy or Klavier, not for the world. 

[shannananan]

we dont talk enough about the short period of time where Ron was also an Auror. that time post-war where Ron and Harry realize they don’t have a world-ending deadline on their heads anymore but it feels wrong to just go back to sports and regular life. With Hermione finishing her studies they’re a little lost without her with them every day, Ron especially. Harry mentions he’s going to continue his goal of being an Auror and the Ministry is happy to have him. Ron... hadn’t really thought about it all. They went from schoolmates with an affinity for mortal peril rule-breaking to wanted fugitives in the span of a year. He figures if he can survive that, he can handle whatever the ministry throws at him (I mean there’s no more You-Know-Who, how bad could it be?). Harry’s ecstatic to have his partner in crime with him. They train, they study ministry policies, they lean on each other when they forget protocols or some dull meeting with the head Aurors. They’re full of fire and frenzy to get back out and do some good. 

It’s a shock to the system to have to do everything by the books. They can’t go rogue and do whatever the hell they want to catch a former death eater. They both get called in to private meetings to discuss “not letting their emotions get the best of them” on missions. They realize very quickly how much Hermione led the way for them. For every battle and thug brought in, there’s so much paperwork and background research that bookends a case. Harry starts to fall into a pattern, the payoff of righting wrongs is worth the long nights at the desk. He doesn’t agree with everything the ministry does, but he’s doing what he loves and someday maybe he’ll be able to change the rules.

Ron, on the other hand, starts to lose his passion. Any part of the day spent at a desk, he finds himself watching the clock tick by. Missions start giving him anxiety and he doesn’t know why. He wonders if he should ask Harry if he’s experienced that feeling, but surely he’s never felt that, he’s the Great Harry Potter after all. Anxiety turns into dread which turns into sleepless nights which turns into mistakes. Where Harry is starting to thrive, Ron is starting to falter. He thinks of quitting, but he doesn’t know anything else. Ministry work is steady work which is steady income - something Ron has never experienced. How can he walk away from that? 

Hermione is the first time break the topic out loud. Ron’s mood has become sullen and his quips are more sarcastic than humourous. She asks him if he’s happy. He holds her hand and says of course. She doesn’t fall for it. He gets defensive. They fight. Harry doesn’t get why Ron and Hermione are suddenly on a break. They’re both too exhausted to explain it to him. 

Ron can’t bare living under the same roof as his mother anymore. Every day when he and his dad come home from the ministry, she dotes over him checking for any scratches or bruises. He knows she spends a good part of her day looking at the family clock to see if his name has gone back to ‘mortal peril’. He tries to reassure her that he’s been on desk duty and his biggest threat is a paper-cut. He doesn’t tell her that he’s been pulled from most missions for being distracted and causing more potential risk. Molly continues to fret regardless. Ron hates that his own mother doesn’t believe in him enough to handle himself. He hates that she spends all her time visiting George, trying to make him eat and cleaning his flat for him, and then she come back to the Burrow and dumps all that worry on to Ron.

That’s when an idea to kill two birds with one stone starts to formulate. With Harry constantly working late, he barely notices Ron clocking out promptly at the end of the day. Ron tells his dad that he’s got a big case so he has to work late for a while and he’ll meet him at home. Instead, Ron makes his way to Diagon Alley. He still has the key to the shop and the above flat that Fred gave him when they were on the run, a safehouse if they needed it. Dust and cobwebs line every surface and most of the lights don’t work. George barely acknowledges Ron when he enters the flat. Ron starts updating him on his life despite the lack of invitation to make himself comfortable. He tells him that he’s an Auror at the ministry, not that he would have noticed, holed up in this dump. Ron’s developed a strong backbone with talking to George this way now. He bluntly tells George that he is making their mother sick with worry and that Ron gets the brunt of it. And if George can’t be enough of a decent human to get his shit together for their own mother, he needs a babysitter. Ron needs to get out of the Burrow and George has a perfectly good extra empty bed here that no one is using. This finally sparks George awake. He starts throwing hexes at Ron who puts his Auror skills to good use. He was waiting for it, poking the sleeping dragon until it erupted. He knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but it was the right thing to do.

This continues for a while, Ron going to George’s after work. Ron getting thrown out of George’s with various curses and traps being set to stop him from entering. He returns to the Burrow many evenings with boils in unmentionable places. It could feel like torture to some, but Ron laughs with every new challenge he’s met with. Because it means that George has a purpose again, even if that purpose is keeping Ron out. Finally, one night Ron arrives to the door unlocked, no magical trips or triggers. Just George sitting on the floor holding an old, unbranded but unmistaken box of puking pastilles. One from their formative experimental years, George mutters. He found the box while looking for a portable swamp kit, before remembering that it took two people enchanting the kit for it to work.

Ron moves in to George’s flat. It’s not sunshine and rainbows. Living with George is hell. But Ron starts to feel like he has something worth doing in his life again. His brother is not a charity case, Ron needs this change as much as George. Through the transition of moving his small amount of things, Ron hopes this will bring the spark back to his work as an Auror. Maybe this will inspire him to get back out into the field with Harry and turn things around in his career. Instead, he finds himself exhausted from sleepless nights with George who wakes up screaming or gets himself drunk before Ron leaves for work in the morning. He starts poking around the dusty shop as an escape and finds himself uncovering old notes and ideas from Fred and George’s back office. He starts doodling his own ideas in the corners of his parchments at work.  

Ron is nearly two years into his job when he asks to meet with his supervisor. Harry’s moving his way up the ladder, not without his own challenges, but he dedicates his life to his work, especially with Ginny going abroad trying out for Quidditch teams. Ron has fallen into an unfortunate habit of being ten minutes late for work nearly every day to avoid taking the same route as Hermione into the office as she starts her job as junior assistant in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. This place doesn’t belong to Ron and he doesn’t belong here. Harry seems to be the only one in his whole department that seems shocked by Ron’s departure. Ron can’t help but laugh at Harry’s complete obliviousness sometimes. He knows Harry or Ginny will pass the news on to Hermione, not that she’ll care after how he left things. 

It’s another eight months before the Weasley Wizard Wheezes shop doors open again. George refused to look at the old notebooks for months, while Ron started pouring over them and tinkering with some of the twins’ old ideas. George started to notice Ron experimenting and had to save him from himself on a number of occasions before something exploded or removed Ron’s hair permanently. Exasperated, he’d step in and fix a potion or a trinket until it worked while Ron stepped back and let George work in his element. George knew what Ron was doing, he hated him for it, but he begrudgingly started to scribble down his ideas again. A vision started to form for the potential the store still held. Ron had to call in a few favours with friends and family to get everything fixed up in time before the new school year when they’d have the biggest influx of customers. Harry had made a bargain with most of the Auror Department that he’d do all their paperwork for a week if they brought their families for opening day (Hermione agreed to work late with him to make sure it was actually done properly). George is quiet and lets Ron do most of the sales, but when a small witch asks him what made a simple deck of cards magical, he starts to show off some muggle magic tricks, gathering a crowd of young eyes. Molly spends most of the day in tears, Arthur having to hustle her into the back office as she was scaring off customers. 

Harry, George and Ron are clearing up the last of the days festivities in the back office when they hear the front door open with the bell. In all the bustling they’d forgotten to lock the door when they closed. Ron runs out to politely tell the customer they’ve closed up shop for the day. After a number of minutes, Harry and George realize Ron hasn’t come back yet. They peak out to see Hermione awkwardly standing in the middle of the shop, Ron leaning against the service desk, both talking quietly. George snorts and goes back to the office, saying he’ll put the kettle on as this might be a while. Harry smirks, as he takes in the scene. Despite the work ahead, Ron was in his element, he’d found his place, something he was proud of and entirely his own. 

-

welp that took a turn. All of this because of a great moment of Aurors Ron and Harry that @blvnk-art illustrated found here.

[firesign23]

I would like to read that very angry post and learn the two rules.

Okay, so, I was GOING to be all “Here are my well composed arguments” about this, but… honestly, I’m still digesting the specifics of Brienne’s story in 8x06 and getting caught up on “Soo, we’re going with the shallowest interpretation of her character’s desires and also kinda just making her Jaime 2.0: The Just Edition” (more on this rant LATER, because oh it was so much worse than I thought when I read the leaks), so instead y’all get a slightly edited version of the Angry Screaming I sent a friend a few days ago. Buckle up, I am Riled.

A pre-rant note–my husband woke up this morning, checked his phone, and looked at me like a man who had Seen Some Shit. “The leaks were right.” He has never watched Game of Thrones (he’s been waiting until the show is done, and I’m pretty sure season 8 killed his plans to binge it), but honestly I can think of no better way to sum up this experience.

(Fucking MOOD, Jon.)

So, first off, I do not expect a lot from Game of Thrones. The visuals are amazing, the actors are top notch, but there have always been issues with the plot, with misogyny, etc. What has made me so ANGRY about this season is that it thumbs its nose at storytelling as a craft. I expected it to be dumb. I did not expect it to be “Wow, my nine year old literally has a better grasp on constructing stories” dumb. #subvertedexpectations (As an aside, I could turn this into a series of rants about the different elements of storytelling and how season 8 fucked them up, but honestly I’d rather lose a fucking hand and I still have a spite fic to write to fix what I can. So we’ll have to content ourselves with this rant, and if husband ever DOES binge the show I’ll save the others as a reward for surviving the experience.)

Second of all, I want to make this clear that any writing rule can be broken (some I don’t believe SHOULD be, which is what started this rant, but they CAN), but you must understand the rules you are breaking and why. And you can’t break all of them at once. I have seen exactly zero evidence this is true for D&D, those talentless hacks.

Now, onto the two rules for character arcs that should never be messed with because they are SO structurally important, and they’ve fucked over both repeatedly throughout season 8:

(1) A character must always want something. They absolutely do not need to GET it, but they need to want it. Hell, NOT getting it is basically the definition of tragedy.(2) A character getting what they want should not result in “Guess their story is over, we can kill them or write them off”

This applies to SO MANY of the characters right now, but I’m going to use Jaime as an example of (1) and Brienne as an example of (2) because honestly that’s the only plot I’ve followed with any enthusiasm. (There are definitely better examples of (2) within the show, but I used Brienne as an example in the original rant and I’m carrying that over. Because Brienne. Fight me.)

RULE ONE: A character must always want something.

Jaime’s arc has been about redemption, about listening to his own morals instead of the poisonous family first that has been dripped in his ear for decades. The setup is all there–a brash kid who is forced to make a call between his own morals (not burning half a million innocent people) and the oaths he made (to protect the king), makes it, and is reviled for it because the truth is never revealed. He falls further into this “Family above all else” mindset because he’s been groomed since childhood for this. There’s like a whole meta post from me in the Lannisters and abuse, but people better than I have gone there before. For this post, “Jaime’s arc is about redemption, a redemption he doesn’t always BELIEVE in but has been a core of his character from season 1” suffices.

His death absolutely should have been about this redemption. Whether he succeeds and kills his sister and lives, or kills his sister at the cost of his own life, or he gets there and the decades of brainwashing means that he falters at the final hurdle… THAT doesn’t matter, so much, but the impetus absolutely should have been DRIVEN by that need for redemption. Have him go south because he needs to save innocents, or even the family of choice (THERE IS A FAMILY OF CHOICE SCENE IN THE FUCKING EPISODE!!!) Hell, have him SEE saving Cersei as redemption. (I mean, that would be fucking stupid beyond stupid, but it wouldn’t insult me on a crafting level.) Just… don’t go “He’s happy, guess it’s time for a relapse we lay no groundwork for, and then handwave with forgiveness from a female character because…she’s so good and pure? We want to pretend we are deep?” There is no tragedy in Jaime’s death because they moved the goalposts at the very last second.

(As an aside, the Very Dear Friend subjected to this rant responded to this portion of my ire with “Why would they do that? It’s so meaningless”, and all I could say was “Because it’s ~*~sHocKinG~*~ that way. NO, YOU BASTARDS. You make it shocking by laying the groundwork and then subverting our hopes at the last second, but THE GROUNDWORK NEEDS TO BE THERE. YOU NEED TO USE OUR CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING OF STORIES.” This was the toned down version of my actual thoughts, because Very Dear Friend is genuinely dear to me and does not need to know the depths of my creative cursing.)

RULE TWO: A character getting what they want should not be the end of their story.

As for Brienne… she is such an interesting character because she’s SO driven by her own morality. She wants, desperately, to be a knight. Not just BE knighted, but to embody the spirit of knighthood. She gets that knighthood from someone she respects, deeply–she’s one of the few people who truly knows about Jaime’s struggle with morality vs oaths and has utter faith in him–and so she gets what she wants. Great, right? WRONG. We are at Unbreakable Rule #2–a character who gets what they want should not then have nowhere to go.

NB–the original rant here was far more articulate and focused on how this rule is broken, but we might descend into slathering rage instead. Because the ending (oh god, seriously, like I said, I’m still digesting the depth of the shit in this because on a surface level it seems happy but it’s really fucking terrible) puts her in this horrible stagnation that is more focused on title than her actual character. She didn’t necessarily want to be a Kingsguard, she wanted to be a Kingsguard for a king she believed in. And, like, she had a say in electing Bran? (Rereading this rant--that’s a weird phrasing. I’ll deal with it later) But that whole thing makes no sense (“I can’t be lord of Winterfell because I’m the Three Eyed Raven, but I can totally be King” ??? I just… honestly, my brain is not computing this well.) and I just… CAN WE FUCKING TALK ABOUT HOW SHE HAS PREVIOUSLY PLEDGED HERSELF TO PEOPLE WHO ARE IN SOME WAY VULNERABLE??? Seriously, who has she pledged oaths to before now? A gay man and women. Because that was always fucking important to me, and this is just… no.

The ending as it is basically just makes her Replacement Jaime–a highborn heir who instead takes the role of Kingsguard, but don’t worry guys she’s so Noble and Caring that she absolves Jaime of his sins by writing his story in the book. Where’s the fucking vomit emoji? (Don’t get me wrong, that scene is emotional and moving and honestly FUCK YOU GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE FOR BEING SO LOVELY AND TALENTED, but in the wider context of this show I just cannot see it as a good thing.)

I just… look, in my rant a few days ago I’d read the leaks, but I still had some hopes the ending would be better on screen; right now I can’t even articulate the number of levels it bothers me on, so just know that I SHOULD HAVE BEEN FUCKING HAPPY WITH HER ENDING! But I’m not, because it is this surface level understanding of what she desires from knighthood, and there is this… okay, so, I’m articulating this TERRIBLY because the original rant was solid but did not account for fuckery, but you know what Brienne’s ending made me think of? Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s interviews where he would fight for Jaime’s character and basically get told to shut up and follow the script. THAT is what Brienne’s ending feels like to me, and it shouldn’t.  She should have places to GO and GROW from here. Like, there are SO MANY things they could do with these characters that are surprising. Hell, imagine Brienne getting this knighthood and then getting presented with a similar situation to Jaime–does she keep an oath or to her own morals? Make it a smaller scale so that the answer isn’t so simple, have knighthood become shades of grey she never really understood–she gets what she wants, but it’s not simple. Boom, her story will go on after the end credits.

(I also have Capital I Issues with the narrative surrounding her love life and gender and… seriously, this could have been a motherfucking SERIES of rants. I could do a week’s worth just on how they did Brienne dirty)

RULE THREE: If you make me spend over an hour trying to present a coherent explanation for why your writing sucks and I’ve barely scratched the surface, you don’t get to write anything ever again. Sorry, I make the rules and I have decreed it so. All in agreement, raise your hand.

[welllpthisishappening]

Nights Were Mainly Made for Saying

It's possible. Emma is certain. She's going to fix this. She's going to save him. By time traveling. Which is totally, absolutely possible.

She's read about it. There's a theory.

So, no one has ever actually done it yet, but that doesn't mean she can't or they can't try and she just needs a little help. From Killian Jones. And his magic.

Rating: Like a very high T teetering on the edge of M AN: I wanted to write something spooky. So I wrote about witches and time travel and Hamilton references. Can we still make Hamilton references? Has the time passed for that? Who cares, this is a time travel fic. It’s also absurdly long. Just like...because. I have no excuse. You should probably listen to Arctic Monkeys’ entire discography because that’s totally the vibe I was going for. Also because Alex Turner may be a vampire. That joke will make sense later.

On Ao3 if that’s how you roll. 

“Say that again.” “No.” “Swan.” “I know you heard me the first time,” Emma growls, trying to push her way through the half-open doorway. Killian, however, doesn’t move. If anything, he grows several feet, eyes widening and an expression on his face that appears torn between disbelief and incredulous.

And possibly furious.

Or worried.

Emma can’t really tell the difference.

This might have been a mistake.

She huffs, shoulders drooping with the force of her own frustration. “I don’t get why you’re being such a jerk about this,” she mumbles, kicking at his ankles like they’re friends or something.

They’re not... not friends. Not really. Killian’s been around for as long as Emma can remember because he’s been David’s partner for as long as Emma can remember and magical folk alway tend to flock towards each other.

It’s some kind of defense mechanism, she’s positive, a twist of their genetic makeup or something because magical folk are emotional and prone to immediate reaction and neither one of those things ever works out very well in the real world. So they’ve got to be around each other. To make sure no one else figures out they’re there.

Strength in numbers or whatever.

No one really knows how magic started or why it only appears in certain people, but they’re there and some sort of quasi-community and support system Emma never could have imagined when she was sitting in a foster home in Minnesota, certain the way lights always flickered around her was just a byproduct of an exceptionally difficult puberty.

Magic was in her blood. As they say. Or as Mary Margaret would say because Mary Margaret loved to say things like that and promise things like that and Emma had nearly collapsed when she felt the particular rush of her magic at freshman orientation.

It went from there. Mary Margaret never left Emma’s side, or vice versa, and David appeared sophomore year, a rush of power and positivity that was questionably good at brewing things and they found more magic in New York, of the literal and metaphorical variety, a family and a certainty and nothing bad was ever going to happen.

Except, of course, when one of your magical friends is murdered in cold blood, alone, without any suspects of any kind. Then, you know, the cliché loses a bit of its weight.

Emma kicks at Killian’s shin that time.

He scowls, lips twisted and head tilted at an angle that cannot possibly be good for his neck. And, for the first time since Emma marched to his front door fifteen minutes earlier, she takes a second to look at him. Really. Because he looks like shit. Really.

There are bags under his eyes and a hint of red in his gaze, like he’s gotten approximately forty-seven minutes of sleep in the last few days. His hair is longer than usual, curling behind his ears and the NYPD t-shirt he’s got on has a hole in the right sleeve.

“Swan, I swear to God,” Killian growls as soon as the toes of her boot collide with his ankle again. “If you don’t stop assaulting me, I’m going to--” “--What? What could you possibly threaten me with? Ignoring my requests again?”

“Oh, they’re requests now, are they?” “Obviously,” Emma sneers, and this is not going the way she thought it would at all. She, admittedly, did not think it was going to go great, but the whole thing has been a disaster from the get and she’s averaging less than forty-seven minutes of sleep a night.

“Strangely enough I’m not getting that at all.” “Because you’re being the most difficult person on the planet.” “I really don’t see how that’s true,” Killian argues, and, that time, Emma’s foot comes up against an invisible barricade. The pain ricochets up her thigh, lingering around her knee and there are not enough curses or spells for all the things she wants to do to Killian Jones.

And that, really, is her problem.

Because Emma doesn’t really like Killian, but she doesn’t really hate Killian and she knows he’s the only one who will even consider going along with this plan.

It’s a relatively crazy plan.

“That’s a cheap trick,” she accuses, but he just flashes her a grin and his eyes almost look normal. Emma has no idea what his eyes normally look like.

The lie tastes bitter on her tongue, even without saying it out loud.

“I hate to repeat myself, love, but, again, I really don’t see how that’s true.” “Magician.” “Ah, that’s rude.” “A fact,” Emma growls. He hasn’t taken the barrier down. He’s lifted his eyebrows instead, the smirk settling onto his face like it’s putting down roots. “Listen, I’m going to do this whether you want to help or not, so--”

She’s not entirely sure what happens after that.

It’s a rush of something, magic and feeling and a hint of emotion that may be concern or something fundamentally deeper and far more important than that, but it leaves Emma breathless anyway, mouth falling open as she tries to take it all in. Killian jerks forward, fingers wrapped around Emma’s wrist, like he’s nervous she’s going to start disappearing right then.

She’s fairly certain that’s not how the spell works.

His fingers are impossibly warm.

“I can’t keep doing nothing,” Emma says, voice dropping of its own accord. The words scratch their way out of her, fighting their way to the surface because they’ve been sitting in the pit of her stomach for weeks and Graham didn’t deserve that.

He didn’t deserve to be alone.

He didn’t deserve to die.

Emma is going to fix this. She’s a goddamn witch.

“There’s not anything for you to do, Swan.” “We both know that’s wrong.” Killian sighs, thumb tracing across the back of her wrist. “That’s all speculation. No one’s ever actually done it.” “That you know of.” “You are pulling at straws, love.” “If that’s what I have to do, then, yeah, fine, I’m pulling at straws.” Emma wishes her voice would pick a volume and stick with it. Instead, it cracks over every other syllable, tears welling in the corners of her eyes and stinging retinas that are in desperate need of a set sleep cycle. Killian doesn’t blink. “Graham was a good guy.” “I’m not questioning that. Good is a vast understatement.” “Don’t you want to know what happened?” Emma presses, and she’s starting to sound desperate to her own ears. “It’s...it’s driving me insane. There are too many coincidences for it to be the accident David thinks it is.” For half a second Emma thinks she imagined the next few words out of Killian’s mouth. For half a second she thinks she’s actually delved into complete and utter insanity. For half a second she’s terrified.

But Killian doesn’t blink and his thumb is still pressed flat against her skin and Emma’s lungs are incredibly grateful when she takes a deep breath.

“Say that again,” she whispers.

The smirk turns into a smile. “I feel like we’re going in circles, Swan.” “Killian, c’mon, I--” “--I think it was a witch.” Emma’s entire body sags when she exhales, head colliding with Killian’s chest and she barely considers the fact that he didn’t barricade that before she’s wrapping both her arms around him. She mumbles something into his shirt, nonsense that may just be thank you several dozen times and that doesn’t really make sense, but David wouldn’t listen and Mary Margaret couldn’t listen and Graham did not deserve to die.

Alone.

He died alone.

“Did you tell David that?” Emma mumbles, Killian’s head shake almost audible.

“He’s not interested in that. The department said it was cut and dry. Wrong place, wrong time, and a weak heart, but it was…”

He trails off, Emma’s heart thundering in her ears because she knows how that sentence is going to end. It’s impossible. The medical records don’t make any sense. It wasn’t a heart attack or a stroke or anything remotely human.

It was magical and wrong and Emma is going to fix it.

Before it happens.

“You don’t know this is going to work,” Killian continues, a warning there that Emma ignores.

“I’m more optimistic about it than I was, like, four days ago.” “Why is that?” “Because I tried four days ago and it didn’t work.”

“Emma!”

She jerks back at the sound of her own name, eyebrows furrowed because they’re not friends and he never calls her that, but there’s a desperation to his voice that gives her pause. She bites her lip. “It didn’t work,” Emma repeats. “So, you know...no harm, no foul. Or whatever.” “That’s not whatever. That is…” Killian exhales sharply, tongue flashing between his lips and Emma has to dig her heels into the floor to stop herself from moving. “You can’t do that again, love. Please.” Emma nods slowly, an agreement without considering what she’s agreeing to. She can see the muscles in Killian’s throat move when he swallows though, and he’s going to do damage to his jaw if he holds it any tighter. “I don’t think anyone can do it alone,” she says. “I...it’s not simple magic.” “Because going back in time should be impossible.”

“Not in theory.” “And what happens if it doesn’t work?” Emma shrugs, a flush of fear creeping up her spine and settling at the base of her skull and the magic seems to spark in her fingertips. Killian laces his hand through hers without a word. “That’s why you’re here,” she says, and those words have a weight to them as well, a certainty she didn’t expect, but kind of needs because she’s not entirely what will happen if this doesn’t work.

Killian’s lips twitch. “And you didn’t think to ask David or Mary Margaret?” “David won’t and Mary Margaret can’t. You know that. And…” “And?” “You also know you’re better at magic than both of them. Don’t laugh at me.” “Why would I laugh when you’re complimenting me so nicely, Swan?” Emma flicks his chest, another twist of his eyebrows and quirk of his lips and his fingers are back around her wrist as quickly as if he’d teleported them there. He might have. He’s very good at magic.

He’s very good at everything.

It’s frustrating.

“We can’t just go into this blind, you know,” Killian says. “There’s got to be a plan and an escape route and--” “--And I’ve got that. All of it. Well, most of it.” “Most of it?” “You’re going to be the worst time travel partner, I know it.” “That’s assuming this works.” “It’s really not helping my confidence or my magic that you keep pointing out the likelihood of failure,” Emma mutters, trying to pull her hand back to her side. Killian’s fingers tighten. “The books are clear. It’s all about getting the incantation right and, well, you know...having enough power. I don’t...it didn’t work on my own and you’re the strongest magic I know. So either you agree or you don’t and we just...we never know what happened and we don’t fix it.” Killian considers that for a moment, eyes tracing across Emma’s face like he’s looking for the lie or the inevitable jab at his character. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t say anything. She holds her breath.

He taps his thumb on the back of her wrist again.

“You want to fix it?”

Emma hisses. “Was that not obvious?” “It felt wrong to assume.” “He shouldn’t be dead.” “The world’s not all that interested in that, I’m afraid.” “Yeah, well, fuck the world,” Emma says, and Killian’s eyes widen. “Listen. I…” “Ok.”

She’s positive she imagined it again.

That’s a frustrating habit to have picked up in the last few moments.

Emma gasps, stumbling back at the certainty in those two letters and the force of the magic around them and she’s certain they’re setting off several metaphorical alarm bells to every other being in a hundred-block radius, but ok is echoing between her ears and she’s almost hopeful this will work.

“Ok?” Killian hums. “You’re right. He shouldn’t be dead and I don’t think he died the way we’ve been told. There’s something wrong here. So, if you want to figure it out, then...seems wrong not to help somehow.” “What a gentleman.” “Something like that.”

“Alright,” Emma says, drawing the word out cautiously like she’s nervous he’s going to change his mind. “So, um…” “I’m not particularly interested in time traveling with you immediately, love. And if we’re going to assume our success is based entirely on the strength of our magic, then I’d suggest we aim for a well-placed full moon on Halloween.” “There’s a full moon on Halloween?” “You’re a very observant witch.” Emma clicks her tongue, but he’s also got a point. Several of them. She hopes she doesn’t regret this. She hopes this works.

“Just like that?” Emma asks. “Full moon on Halloween and you’re ready to go back in time and prevent a murder?” “You came to me, Swan.” That’s another point.

Emma’s going to scream. Or curse him. Or something else. Something less aggressive, but possibly just as drastic as cursing.

“Yeah,” she mutters. “I did.” The floor creaks when he moves, stepping away from the doorframe and Emma shudders as soon as his arms wrap around her. It’s like...something or everything and the magic in her veins practically sings, a certainty and confidence and she buries her face against Killian’s chest without asking.

His fingers drift across her spine, tracing between her shoulder blades like he’s following a path he can see and Emma lets her eyes flutter shut. She’s exhausted and worried, but she’s also tired of both of those emotions, and even more tired of seeing Mary Margaret cry and David ignore the possibility that there’s magic in New York they’re not aware of. So Emma doesn’t move, just breathes in the scent of laundry detergent and something that smells a bit like salt and it’s as if time gives them both a second to be.

Just to be.

Emma assumes that means time is on their side.

She appreciates it.

“You can’t tell David or Mary Margaret,” Killian says, the words far too loud in a moment Emma didn’t particularly want to end.  

“No, no, I won’t. They wouldn’t...they’d try to stop us and--” “--I know, love.” Emma doesn’t think he realizes he keeps switching between endearments – he’s got nicknames for everyone, sarcasm and smirks and a distinct lack of sincerity that always seems to fall by the wayside whenever he glances her direction. She’s not sure he realizes that either. And she’s got no idea when she did.

Probably before deciding to time travel with Killian Jones.

“If I say that we should meet at moonrise, are you going to actually make fun of me?” Emma asks, leaning back in just enough time to see his tongue find the corner of his mouth.

“Absolutely.”

“Ok. Good.” “Maybe a few minutes before moonrise. Just to be safe.” “That’s what we’re being? Safe?” Killian nods. “When playing with uncharted magic, yes, but ...you’re right. I think this could work.”

The magic around them grows, strong enough that Emma is surprised she can’t actually see it. She can feel it though, like it’s cracking through the air and weaving between them, connections and knots, all of them twining together and twisting and it’s not as terrifying as it probably should be. It’s comforting.

“Moonrise,” Emma repeats, taking a step back and Killian’s hand falls to his side. “Here?” “Less likely for David or Mary Margaret to appear unannounced, yeah?” There’s something on the edge of his voice, but Emma’s too preoccupied with her pulse and her magic to linger too long on it. She hopes that’s not a mistake. “Yeah,” she agrees. “Ok, so, uh, it’s a date?” Killian chuckles lightly, hair grazing his eyebrows when he nods. “It’s a date, Swan.” 

She sends Mary Margaret and David an email.

In case this doesn’t work.

Or something.

It seems less hokey than taping a note to their apartment door – which is only a few doors away from Emma’s apartment door, but it also feels a little less emotional and a bit more detached and Emma doesn’t bring anything except her phone with her when she walks fifteen blocks to Killian’s building.

He answers on the third knock, a different NYPD shirt and sneakers that look new. There are candles everywhere, more than few stacks of paperwork littering the floor. Emma’s eyes dart around the room, not sure what to land on because she’s now only a little worried they’re going to burn to death before they can even start the spell.

“What the hell is this?” she asks. “And did you buy new shoes?” Killian doesn’t quite glare at her, but it’s an admirable effort. “Why is David already texting me?” “I asked you first.” “This is...not a big deal. Did you tell David and Mary Margaret what you were doing?” “No!” “Swan.” “Not...directly.” “Emma,” Killian groans, and she wishes he would stop doing that. It’s messing with her mind and her center and she needs both of those to be as perfect as possible. Her magic is vibrating, she’s positive.

“I’m not having this conversation with you right now. We are running out of time.” “We are literally trying to time travel. We have more time than we could possibly know what to do with.”

“So then ask me this question when we’re in the past,” Emma mutters. “Did you work on the pronunciation for the spell? That’s important.” “I’ve cast spells before, Swan.” They’re both dancing around each other, deflections and distractions and neither one of those seem entirely appropriate a few minutes ahead of what they’re trying to accomplish, but it’s also the basis for their entire relationship.

Emma wishes her mind would shut the hell up.

She can hear kids laughing on the street below them, trick-or-treaters and humans without any knowledge of the magic that exists around them and sometimes threatens them and if there’s a witch out there killing other beings, then they’ve got a moral obligation to stop it.

Together.

She sighs, a breath of air she probably needs, and it takes less than a full moment for Killian to move into her space. His fingers are still warm when they brush over hers, twisting her hand to place something in her palm.

It’s a moonstone.

“Where did you get this?” Emma asks in disbelief.

“I’ve had it.” “What?” “Hold onto it, ok?” Emma nods slowly, lips suddenly dry because at some point her mind decided to start breathing through her mouth and moonstones are supposed to protect travelers. She doesn’t ask if he has one for himself.

“Alright,” Killian continues, grabbing several candles and moving them around a photo on his coffee table. Emma nearly chokes. It’s the crime scene, police tape obvious and a body even clearer and her vision spins as soon as the realization slams into.

He must feel the shift in her magic because he spins as soon as Emma’s breath hitches, a mumbled hey, hey and something that sounds like it’s alright, love and she nods as soon as his thumb grazes her cheek.

“Fine,” Emma promises. “I’m fine. You seriously know how to say all the words, right? I don’t want to end up, like, in the prehistoric age.” “I highly doubt that’s how it would work, Swan. Plus, every theory I’ve read says if you want to travel, you need visual of where you’re going. We’ve got that.” “You’ve got that. Why do you have that?” The tips of Killian’s ears go red. It’s a tell. It’s been a tell for years. “I already told you. You weren’t the only one with suspicions.” “You’ve been researching this!” “That’s a very dirty-sounding word. I’ve been...looking into it. That’s all.” Emma hums, but that realization seems to crash into her with the force of several eighteen-wheelers and the stone in her hand feels as if it’s vibrating. “Sure,” she says, taking a step around him and it feels like a million miles. “Alright, so we focus on the picture and the moment and--” “--Cast the spell? Yeah, that’s usually how it works.” “I’m going to kill you and leave your body in the past.” “That is violent.” “Happy Halloween.”

Killian barks out a laugh, teeth finding his lower lip. “C’mon, Swan. We’re getting very close to the witching hour.” “That’s not how that phrase works at all.”

“C’mon.”

She doesn’t argue that time, sinking onto the far ground at the far edge of the coffee table. It isn’t easy to keep her eyes away from the photos, but she’s going to lose her nerve if she sees, and Killian is right – it’s time.

“You ready?” he asks, like this wasn’t her idea and Emma nods brusquely, taking his hand when he holds it out. Still warm. “Try to stay in rhythm when we talk. The world likes that, usually.” Emma laughs, but it’s not a joke and her whole body starts to tremble as soon as Killian waves his hand over the candles. The flames jump, a flash of blue light and energy and she knows she’s speaking, can hear her own voice echo around them, but it feels like she’s watching it as well, hovering above the scene like she’s totally detached.

“Buailín, bean an taistealaigh, féachaint ormsa,” Killian says, care on every letter. His fingers don’t leave Emma’s, growing tighter with every moment. Her palm is sweaty, she can feel the moisture, making it difficult to hold her grip, but he doesn’t let go.

She digs her nails into the back of his palm.

“Cibé an bhfuil mé ag taisteal san aer, ar thalamh nó ar muir,” Emma continues.

The flames shift again, a flash of red and anger – the emotion almost palpable in the air, as if the air is angry at them for trying. Emma squeezes her eyes closed, doing her best to fight off the wave of nausea in her stomach, but the smell only gets more potent.

It’s like burned rubber and ashes, disappointment and fury and none of it is right. She’s shaking now, quick jerks that send pain through all of her limbs and into the base of her spine, moisture pooling at the bottom of her neck.

The smell grows.

And Emma gasps when she hears it, a cry of despair that seems to rip across all of time. Her eyes snap open, if only to check that she’s not actually being ripped apart as well. It feels that way, agony and an emptiness that seems to stretch out as far as she can see.

Her eyes widen, trying to find an end, but it only looks more vast the longer she stares ahead, a never-ending wasteland of darkness and nothing.

Alone.

The word flashes in front of her gaze like a neon sign, taunting and Emma shakes her head. It doesn’t move. The feeling grows, blooming in the very center of her chest like there’s a black hole there, and Emma can’t breathe.

She tries to lick her lips or swallow back the cry in her throat, but she feels like she’s standing on the edge of something, any movement certain to leave her falling into the abyss in front of her.

“Swan!” She doesn’t hear it at first. It’s nothing more than a wisp and want, but he yells again and squeezes her hand and Emma grips the moonstone as tightly as she can.

“You’ve got to finish it, love,” Killian says, and, that time, Emma hears him perfectly. “You can do it. I know you can.”

Emma shakes her head. “I don’t…”

“I’m not going anywhere, Swan. You’ve got to say the words.”

“Cosúil le talisman--” she starts.

“--i mo phóca clochfaidh mé.”

His hand never leaves hers. And everything goes dark.

Emma wakes with a start, eyes scanning the room and there’s no one there.

She sits up slowly, wincing at the ache in her right palm and her fingers barely unclench. There’s a moonstone in her hand.

“Oh shit,” Emma breathes. “It worked.”

It takes her a frustratingly long amount of time to figure out where she is, her apartment looking almost foreign without the empty takeout containers and piles of half-finished laundry she’d accumulated in the weeks after Graham’s death.

She shouldn’t be in her apartment.

She should be in Killian’s apartment.

She should–– “Oh shit,” she hisses again, leaping out of bed and wobbling as soon as her feet hit the floor. “Killian! Killian, are you here?” Silence.

Painful, vaguely terrifying silence.

“Killian?” Emma hates how small her own voice sounds, but bits and pieces are starting to come back and she’s not sure this worked the way she thought it would. Something about this is wrong. There shouldn’t have been that noise or those feelings, a flash of magic Emma is certain wasn’t hers. Or Killian’s.

Killian.

She jumps at the knock on the door, a quick rap of knuckles that’s practically exuding impatience. Emma swallows, tapping her fingers against the pajama pants she’s inexplicably wearing. Oh. Oh.

They hadn’t gone back to the crime scene, but they’d gone back to the day. And Emma had woken up in her apartment wearing pajama pants with a snowflake pattern on them because Mary Margaret had bought them for her last Christmas. It was a very bad joke.

The knock is louder the second time.

Emma twists her wrist, magic crackling between her fingers as she jogs towards the door. He’s halfway to a third knock when she swings it open.

“Swan,” Killian mutters, a note of wonder in his voice and she belatedly realizes it might be the first time he’s seen inside her apartment. They’re not really friends.

“Hey.” It’s an absurd response, all things considered, but Emma’s brain is firing a mile a minute and her magic is moving even quicker and she’s not entirely prepared for the look on Killian’s face. His entire expression shifts down, lips falling and shoulders sagging.

She’s almost surprised there’s not some soft of blue aura around him, just to really drive the point home.

“Oh,” he nods. “Ok, I um--”

He moves to walk away, which really is almost more absurd than Emma’s hey, but then she waves her hand and he crashes into an invisible wall that wasn’t there two seconds before. Emma assumes that means she’s won.

“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t...don’t go. Please.” Killian turns around slowly, the heel of his hand rubbing his jaw. “Did you just magic a wall for me to run into?” “I wasn’t really thinking.” “Yuh huh.” “Were you...were you thinking? When you came over here?” “You’re doing a rather abysmal job of beating around the bush here, Swan.”

Emma scoffs, waving her hand again so no one else is injured by her invisible wall. In the past. They’re in the past. “That’s because I’m not entirely sure of the rules.” “I think we’ve broken right by all of those, don’t you?” “Look who’s beating around the bush now,” Emma accuses, reaching forward to stab a finger into his chest before she can reconsider it. His fingers curl around her elbow, another expression that she’s possibly hoarding or recording for posterity, and she can’t think when his tongue drags across his lips. “What exactly do you remember?” “About time traveling with you?” “Oh my God.” “Enough that I realized where we were when I woke up this morning. I’m going to go ahead and assume you remember too?” Emma nods. “That was…” “Horrendous?” “Yeah, something like that.” “Did you hear the screaming?” Emma asks, but one glance at Killian’s face is enough of an answer. “I didn’t expect that.” “Neither did I. And I don’t think it was time.” That catches her by surprise. “What? What was it then?” “I think it was the person who killed Graham.” Emma’s eyes widen, and she’s glad Killian is in front of her so she can rest her palm flat against his chest. “But that noise. That wasn’t--” “--We didn’t think it was human, love.”

“That didn’t sound like a witch,” Emma argues. “That sounded like...I don’t even know what. Every horrible thing in the world. That can’t be right.” “If you’ve got another suggestion, I’m all ears.” Emma scowls. She doesn’t have another suggestion. She’s got negative suggestions. “You want some coffee?” And, really, she shouldn’t be keeping track, but Killian’s face keeps doing things and responding to her and he hasn’t tried to move her hand away from him. So, she adds that expression to the list she’s only maybe kind of keeping and tries to smile like any of this is normal and Killian’s step is almost steady when he crosses the threshold.

He puts four spoonfuls of sugar in his coffee.

And they try to come up with a plan.

It’s a garbage plan. It’s a garbage, shit, terrible plan and Emma can’t help the whimper that falls out of her as soon as Killian’s phone goes off, David’s frantic voice on the other end because Graham’s dead and they’ve done all this before.

David only looks a little stunned when they show up at the crime scene together.

“What the…” he mumbles, shaking his head like it’s all a dream and Emma wishes it was.

She and Killian had left her apartment hours earlier, patrolling the twenty blocks around where Graham was found. There wasn’t anything. No clues. No nothing. Everything exactly where it was supposed to be.

And Graham looked even more pale in person than in the photos.

Emma turned on the spot, head colliding with the jut of Killian’s shoulder as he tried to tug her closer to his side.

David’s eyes were going to fall out of his head.

“What the hell is happening right now?” he demands. “How the hell did you get here so fast? How did both of you get here?” Killian ignores all three questions. “What’s your gut reaction to this?” “What?” “Your gut reaction, Nolan. Now!” David flinches at the acid in Killian’s voice, gaze flitting from his partner to Emma and back again. It reminds her of a pinball machine. “The coroner thinks it’s a heart attack,” David mumbles. “No outward signs of struggle and no witnesses and--” “--That’s not what I asked.” “What the hell are you getting at? You’re making it sound like you’re looking for something nefarious here.”

Killian sighs, letting his cheek rest on the top of Emma’s head. They’re not friends. They’re not friends. They’re time-travel partners. Who failed. Completely. And immediately.

David appears to be choking.

“You’ve got to tell me what’s going on with you two.”

Both Killian and Emma ignore that as well.

“There wasn’t anything, David?” she asks instead. “Nothing suspicious?” “Should there be?” “I don’t know.” “Sure you don’t.” Emma rolls her eyes, falling back on tried and true when nothing feels like that. Killian’s arm tightens around her shoulders. “What was Graham doing here?” Emma presses. “We’re not anywhere near his apartment.” “It’s a city, Em. People go out. Right?” She’s positive he doesn’t mean for that last question to sound as unsure as it does, but the world appears to be playing one long trick-or-treat joke on her and Emma can feel the tears on her cheeks. “Yeah, I guess,” she mutters.

Her eyes dart back towards Graham, though, medics and the coroner and she can dimly make out the crinkle of a body bag unfolding. Killian's mumbling in her ear, quiet promises and assurances that don’t make any sense at all, particularly with David glowering at both of them.

“There wasn’t anything, Swan,” Killian says, not for the first time that day.

“That is impossible.” He chuckles against her hair. “Yeah, that seems to be the theme.”

“We didn’t do anything. We didn’t change a single thing.” “What?” David shouts, drawing the attention of several uniform officers. He waves them off, shifting on his feet and one of the streetlights above them flickers.

“Don’t do that,” Killian warns. His fingers are moving now, tiny semi circles on Emma’s shoulder that seem as natural as the breathing she desperately needs to do.

“I’m not doing anything. Why did you get here so fast?” “We were in the area.” “We?” Killian glares, turning Emma on the spot and resting both hands on her arms. She feels kind of dizzy. She assumes that’s a byproduct of time travel. It’s probably not.

It’s definitely not.

“Maybe we were wrong, love.” “You are lying to me,” Emma hisses. “Right to my face. You know this wasn’t a heart attack.” David curses again, stomping his foot for good measure. Emma doesn’t blink. Killian inhales sharply. “I don’t think we did it right, Swan,” he says, soft and cautious like speaking too loudly will make it real.

“Did what right?” “That noise. Whatever it was. It shouldn’t have been there. And I think it’s got something to do with us. And Graham.” Emma sighs, an agreement sitting on the tip of her tongue. She doesn’t say it. She’s far too busy crying.

Killian doesn’t flinch – again. Just lets her head crash into his chest and holds onto her, ignoring whatever sounds David is making as several different police officers try to get them to move. There’s a gurney working its way through the crime scene.

“C’mon, Swan,” Killian says. “I’ll make you some hot chocolate.”

She lets him direct her back towards her apartment, never asking how he knows about hot chocolate or the cinnamon she sprinkles on top. She sits in the corner of her couch, crying even after the tears stop falling.

And they don’t try to come up with another plan.

There’s not anything to say.

Something is wrong.

They just don’t know what.

Emma has no idea what time it is when her eyes start to flutter, but it must be close to midnight, Killian shifting slightly next to her. Her heart stutters. “Hey, hey,” she says sharply, grasping at the side of his jeans like he’s about to disappear. “Don’t...um, don’t go. Please.” He turns slowly, staring at her with an expression she’ll probably think about every time she wakes up and just before she goes to sleep.

He nods.

“Yeah, ok, Swan.”

She falls asleep easily, her head on Killian’s thigh and his fingers toying with the ends of her hair and it’s almost enough that Emma doesn’t hear the scream as soon as the clock in her kitchen ticks twelve.

Emma wakes with a start, eyes scanning the room and there’s no one there.

She blinks, the frustrating sense of familiarity tugging at the back of her brain. There shouldn’t be anyone there. She’s home. In her apartment. Where she lives. Alone.

It’s...she can’t remember what day it is.

The phone on her nightstand is already ringing, a flash of color and vibrations and Emma hates the little lurch her heart makes when she notices the name.

Killian Jones.

She nearly knocks the phone on the ground in an effort to pick it up, slamming it against her ear. “Hi,” she says, and it comes out like a sigh.

“Hi.” “What day is it?” “My phone claims it’s September 12th.” Emma drops her phone.

She yanks the blankets away from her legs, staring wide-eyed at the pajamas she’s wearing again. Or still. Or, maybe, again. Words get confusing when time travel is involved.

And Emma has never hated a joke Christmas gift more in her entire life.

“Fuck.”

He’s yelling her name into the phone, loud enough that it nearly makes Emma laugh because the whole thing is absurd and impossible and they probably should have discussed leaving the past more. Emma just assumed it would...happen.

Magically.

God.

“Swan?” “Yeah, yeah,” Emma mutters, nearly falling out of the bed as she gets her phone back to her ear. “Still here.” “So, uh, it appears we’ve done a few things wrong here, love.” “You can say that again.” “Was that a joke?” “Not an intentional one.” Killian hums, and Emma pinches the bridge of her nose, the threat of a headache pulsing behind her left eye. “Ok,” she continues. “So. What do we do? Are we sure it’s still September 12th?” “I really doubt my phone would lie to me. Or NY1.” “NY1 is incapable of lying. Did he read the newspapers?” “Same as they were yesterday.” “Holy shit.” “Those were my sentiments exactly.”

“What do we do?” Killian makes a noise, not quite words and something that sounds a hell of a lot like confusion. “Try to find something again? Maybe it’s a gift from the universe?” “That seems like an awfully chipper mindset.” “Ah, the power of positive thinking. Also I just watched the same news story about a school in Crown Heights that’s getting its first-ever playground for the second time in as many days and it’s done wonders to my mindset about the world.” Emma laughs, easy and normal. She imagines Killian smiles. “You want to come over and drink more of my coffee and come up with a plan that, this time, doesn’t suck?” “I thought you’d never ask, Swan.” 

 It takes a full week before Emma believes the plan is impossible.

The plan continues to suck. Or sucks even more and Emma is standing next to Killian at a crime scene she’s certain she can describe in minute detail at this point.

For the seventh straight day.

David stormed away from them in a huff five minutes before – as soon as Killian growled walk away, Detective when David spotted his fingers wrapped around Emma’s – and no one’s paid them a second glance since. They’re standing stock still, a few inches of space between them, but Killian hasn’t tried to move his hand and Emma is gripping it like several metaphorical anchors.

She wonders why Graham looks so pale if it was a heart attack.

It wasn’t a heart attack.

“At what point do we just throw in the white flag?” Emma asks, not taking her eyes away from the coroner. His name is Victor. They learned that on the third day.

Killian turns towards her slowly, eyes frustratingly blue and decidedly distracting. His expression is unreadable. “Why would we do that?”

“There’s nothing here, Killian. We’ve searched every corner within fifty blocks. Nothing has changed. We haven’t done anything.” Emma’s voice cracks on the last word, an anger she’d been doing her best to avoid. And neither one of them have acknowledged the very real possibility that they may be stuck on September 12th for the rest of their lives.

They’ve got no escape plan.

She should have prepared better. She thought her magic would react better. Her magic, however, seems to be at the crux of Emma’s problems. It’s as if it’s developed its own rhythm in the last few days, a tide that’s coursing through every inch of her, warming her from the inside out and keeping her slightly off-kilter. It boils under her skin, a determination to do something because they haven’t talked about that noise either.

The noise that pounds in Emma’s memory and lingers on the edge of her consciousness every single night. At midnight. Every single night.

“Maybe there isn’t anything to do,” Killian whispers, and Emma doesn’t miss the defeat there.

“Hence my white flag joke.” “You’ve got a habit of making very poorly timed jokes, love.” “It’s a very misplaced defense mechanism. I think it drives Mary Margaret insane.” “I sincerely doubt that.” She doesn’t need the rush of feeling shooting down her arm to know he means it, the honestly in his voice strong enough to permanent damage to the space-time continuum. He nearly smiles when she meets his gaze.

“That was nice,” Emma mutters.

“It happens from time to time.” She nods, pulse fluttering and Killian’s eyebrows shift when he feels the change in her magic. “I don’t know what we’re missing. There’s got to be something. What did we do wrong?” “I don’t know.” “I”ll be honest and tell you that’s not the answer I was hoping for.”

He laughs, more than a little sarcastic, and for one absolutely, insane moment Emma is certain he’s going to kiss her. He stares at her like he’s about to, eyes tracing over her face and lingering for a moment on her lips, but then he blinks and it’s over and they’re still stuck in some weird Groundhog Day situation with no new clues and a terrifying shriek to end every day.

She probably wouldn’t have argued the kiss.

The corner has to ask them to move out of the way of the gurney.

God.

“I think we’ve got some time to figure it out, Swan.” “Was that a joke?” “Probably worse than yours, right?” “Decidedly.” Killian grins, not quite as exhausted as it’s been while they’ve been chasing ghosts and possible magic and Emma chews on her lip to remind herself that they’re not really friends. She can’t figure out why he agreed to help her.

She can’t figure out how he’s not furious she’s inadvertently trapped them in the past.

“Hot chocolate?” he asks, and Emma nods out of habit and want. Killian’s smile widens. “Good. I’ve got some theories about marshmallow to chocolate ratio I want to test out.”

They eventually decide that the optimum number of marshmallows in a coffee mug is seven, which seems kind of arbitrary, but Killian is quick to point out that it’s magical, Swan and Emma is willing to be charmed. So she doesn’t argue.

And she doesn’t say anything when, this time, he slides down next to her on the couch, pulling her flush against his chest with an arm around her waist and her hair in his eyes.

It’s comforting, safe and warm and a slew of positive adjectives that are probably as impossible as getting out of whatever loop they’re in because Emma’s breath catches as soon as her eyes close and the sound echoes off the walls of her apartment.

He finds her hide-a-key the next morning, letting himself into her apartment with a smile and coffee in hand. Emma blinks sixteen times at the sight.

“You’ve got to move that, Swan,” Killian says, groaning when he almost hands her his over-sugared coffee. “It took me almost no time to find.” “You’re a cop. And magic. You are literally made to find secret things.” “Made?” “Ask me that question again after I’ve finished the coffee.” Killian chuckles, dropping onto the edge of Emma’s bed. She watches him over the top of her coffee cup, a forced energy and certainty that should probably grate on her nerves more. She finds it kind of endearing.

Mostly because she’s kind of hoping he’s doing it for her.

She’s, like, seventy-five percent positive he’s doing it for her.

“What’s your deal?” Emma asks, and Killian arches an eyebrow.

“I saw that Crown Heights story again today.” “And?” “And I think we should take a day off from crime-fighting.” “What?” “I think you heard me the first time, love,’ he drawls, letting his hand rest on her outstretched leg. “And if we’re going to be stuck here for awhile, then we’ve got some time to...do other things.” “That’s insane.”

“No,” Killian shakes his head. “That’s practical.” “How you figure?” “You hear the noise last night?”

Emma nearly chokes on her coffee, Killian’s expression turning serious. “Yeah, I did,” she says. “It sounded worse, didn’t it?” “Like it was getting ripped apart. So I think we’ve got to change our approach, Swan. We’ve exhausted this avenue of the search, it’s time to find something different.” “By ignoring the search completely.” “Yes, exactly that. You ever been to Veselka?”

“The pierogi place?” “I think they have other things besides pierogies,” Killian argues, but there’s a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and it would be really nice to not spend an entire day thinking about death. “But the pierogies are supposed to be legendary. Or so the rumors say.” “You’ve never been there?”

The question lingers in the air around them, buoyed by mutual magic and possible hope and Emma burns her tongue when she all but gulps down the rest of her coffee. Killian shakes his head again.

“Not once. But I’ve got a deep appreciation of Polish food.”

Emma scoffs, still charmed. Consistently. For the past week. Despite the lingering scent of death. “I really like the idea of a mass quantity of potatoes stuffed into some kind of pasta thing.”

“It’s a date then.” “Is this you picking me up?” “Something like that.” Killian stands up, offering a hand and another smile, or possibly the same smile, and Emma’s going to let him move her hide-a-key. “Get showered and we’ll go. A whole day of doing things we’ve never done.” “You’re very optimistic.” He doesn’t answer, but Emma thinks she hears him say something like that again as she turns on the water and they order every single pierogi option Veselka offers. The waitress looks at them like they’re insane.

They honestly might be.

Oh hey, there’s a second chapter. It’s also on Ao3. 

[happyorogeny]

The Explorer

(~1700 words)(Drow, The Forgotten Realms)(spiders, tw animal death, poison mention, violent thoughts)

The Overworld wasn’t so bad.

When he had first reached the surface it had seemed a blasted and barren place. He had thought with horror that what was said of the Overworld was true, that this was a place of death and burning. It had been all he could do to locate a limestone cave and take refuge as the sun rose, and look on in dread at the blinding incandescence and the bare rock of the mountains. How could anything survive up here? There was nowhere to hide.

Now he knew that that had been the time called Winter, and that in winter the ground was bare and the wind cold and hunger an eternal companion, closer than even his shadow. But just as poisons could be medicine, all curses carried blessings. In the winter the nights were long and dark and the sky glittered with starlight, just soft enough that even darksight eyes could adjust to them. And the days were so short that he could take to some shallow overhang or hollow tree to rest, and rise again as the sun was setting.

He had been blessed indeed, to reach the surface when he did.

Blessed by what, he did not know. Lolth usually didn’t pay too much attention to drow men and they in turn largely preferred it that way.

Now that it was Spring the trees had fetched additional growths- leaves- and soft white flowers that fell over the forest floor and softened his step. The trees were pleasing to him indeed, as they offered him shade and protection from the burning sun-eye. He doubted the surface gods would take kindly to seeing him here. And though they were well known to be weaklings he didn’t care to irritate anything divine. A drow didn’t live long if he didn’t know when he was outmatched.

Besides, why would he want to travel from this forest? It was full of food and he was enchanted by the many different variations of green, the texture of lichen on bark, the way that the wind through the canopy sounded exactly like rain.

He had never heard such a thing before. There was no wind in the Underdark. What a notion, that even the air up here was free to move as it pleased.

What a boon, that it was so quiet he could hear it. Hear even his own breathing, his own heartbeat.

But ah, much as poison could be a medicine, boons came with curses in their wake. He hadn’t heard another voice in some time now. No streetcorner preachers, no mercenaries fighting over the split of their latest proceeds, no endless singing of priestesses in worship, no screaming from rooftop battles or side-alley assassinations. No tunnel-hunters or mushroom farmers trying to sell him their latest wares as they drifted past in houseboats on the great underground river that cut through the city.

This mountainside and the adjoining valley were very quiet. His explorations had turned up rocky caves, underground streams, waterfalls and what seemed to be abandoned paths. The overworlders claimed to have mighty cities, but he would believe that when he saw it.

All the same, these roads had to go somewhere. And so he had started to walk, mapping the forest as he went.

After two moon-cycles worth of exploration he discovered a wood elf village high in the treetops, a situation that brought him to a complete halt in the night. Surface elves, most hated of the overworlders. And yet he recognised the shape of houses up in the canopy, and the bridges running between their homes didn’t seem so unlike the webbing that stretched between the stalactite spires of the Underdark. Even the voices weren’t so different. If he closed his eyes and pretended they didn’t need those torches to see, they could almost be drow.

The thought had brought with it repulsion. The surface elves had not sided with the drow when they demanded stability in the Fey Wilds. And for their cowardly neutrality the Old Elf God – he was not worthy of a name – had thrown them all out. And now they begged and grovelled for forgiveness, to be let back in, whereas the drow had pride and had made themselves a place in this world.

They weren’t like drow. They couldn’t be.

And yet that sounded like a consort squabbling with his house matron, and there was the fussing of a hungry child, and there a young man sneaking off to meet a young woman in the woods much as would happen with an illicit house romance.

They were foolish and careless. He could have followed them less than a breath behind if he cared to, and killed them both.

But he didn’t care to.

He tried to see into their houses, but the light blinded him. He couldn’t see how the men and women looked at one another. And something about them made him restless and anxious and he could do nothing except leave and head deeper into the valley, flattening his ears so that he didn’t have to hear them.

Perhaps there were other drow up here too, drow like him that needed room to breathe and grow, room that didn’t exist in the Underdark. How could anything grow down there, when the caves were filled fit to burst with the constant churning chaos of interpersonal rivalries, religion and murder and lust?

Maybe the other drow that had gone before him had followed the path and left this valley. But he didn’t think he was quite ready for that.

No, he needed time to prepare, for the creatures of the forest said that Summer was coming.

He was blessed indeed to have such a skill, that the voices of birds and animals rang clear in his mind. It had been just the very same in the Underdark, where he was a beast tamer of some minor note and renowned for his ability to calm even the most fresh-caught spider.

That had saved him after he had fled into the tunnels, inquisitors on his heels. Notoriously dangerous and a death sentence for most drow, that empty system of caves had become a haven for him. The creatures of the dark accepted him as a beast among them. Not a wretched houseless drow, not a mediocre man lacking talent and beauty and cruelty. Just a thing of flesh and blood, the same as every other. He could hear their whispered warnings of mind-flayers and drider, hear their murmurs of other tunnels and the caverns that led up to the surface. That had helped him find his way. That, and the messages scratched into the rock by those that had come before him.

Here be darkdwarves. Before you the tunnel is unstable. To the east three days without water. Walk away from the voices. Don’t pass under the stalactites. Have courage.

Have courage.

He wasn’t quite sure what summer was, only that that the creatures of the world were preparing. That the trees were waking up, that animals gorged themselves after the vast emptiness of winter. It seemed a time of anticipation, an oncoming time of plenty. In a way, it made sense. The drow had stability in the Underdark- constant darkness, constant climate, constant flows of food and water. The Overworld was a place of flux and change.

Summer seemed like it was a time of light. Even this deep in the valley, even with all the leaves whispering over him, the sunlight sometimes burned his shoulders and made his eyes sting.

If he was to survive summer, he needed a house. Somewhere to stockpile food, rather than foraging as he went and eating only as much as he could carry. Somewhere he could start to repair his poor torn tunic. A reliable place to retreat to when the sun grew too bright. How strange, to think of a house and not have it be some looming edifice with dozens of rooms and secret corridors and seething tensions.

Already he had investigated three and discarded them as being too close to the road, too far away from water, too easy to be trapped in. The range of choice made him heady. Space was limited in the underdark, and drow had to make to with whatever little they could scrape for themselves.

But here, here he was nearly overwhelmed with options. Why, this cave here could have fit three whole families, assuming one didn’t kill off the other two. And it was a prime location at that, nicely elevated and set deep into the trees, hard to find unless one knew where one was going. A river gurgled past on one side, filling pools as it tumbled down the hill, and the otters had told him the waters were full of fish.

Yes, he thought, squinting into the corners. He could see some tiered rocks there at the back that would be perfectly fine for storing he sadly ragged cloak, and a stock of fruit and roots and dried meat. Next winter he would be a fat and happy drow, rather than shivering miserably in some pathetic little scoop.

And better yet, this cave had pets in it.

He hopped back out of reach as a cave spider snapped at him, scolding it. These ones were completely wild, small and brown, but he was entirely sure he could domesticate them within a few generations. He rummaged into his pack and tossed a dead rabbit into the spiders web as he passed. The four of them immediately descended on the feast, tearing it apart amongst themselves.

Sooner or later they would learn to associate him with food, and from there he could start to train them to come to hand. Drow nobles in the underdark often hunted in the outlying tunnels with small leaping spiders, not so different from these. He had often longed for such a little companion, but he was a mere commoner. He couldn’t possibly afford one, never mind that it would be stolen from him, or that a noble might kill him on the spot for daring to have one.

He climbed up onto a rock shelf at the back of the cave and lay down, closing his eyes. It felt safe enough and he could surely train the spiders to weave a web across the main entrance and catch anyone that tried to attack him. Spiders didn’t eat very much, and he could use the silk to spin bandages and cloth.

And perhaps next year, next summer, he would follow that road and see where it went.

It was not so very much. But it was enough for him, and enough for now.

[psychokai1972]

Lucky

Pick a cutie and a song

Based off :“Next To Me” - Imagine Dragons

Kai Parker x Fem!Reader

Word count: 1162

Request:  kai parker + next to me by imagine dragons! loce your writing btw 💖

Warnings: mentions of death, like one curse word, mentions of sex (nothing major though) , FULFF

A/N: I need Kai Parker back.

English is not my native language, but I try to do my best when it comes to grammar. The spelling mistakes just happen because I tend to write too fast on the keyboard.

He was an embarrassment for his family, everyone knew that, he had been the oldest,the more brilliant but yet still the abomination, the one with no magic of his own; but it didn't matter anymore, because he had got what he wanted, what he had desired all his life: to prove them all wrong. The throne was his now and anyone that dare to tell him otherwise had to face the king himself. Most of them kept quiet, because even though he had done  horrible things in his life and he used fear to control their behavior; he still was a good ruler, he taught them much more than what the others before him had.

But there were ones that tried revealing against him, more than Kai had ever thought. And it always ended tragically for those poor bastards that tried to bring the leader down; most of the times they had to go through a gruesome punishment, to remind them who was the boss, to remind them that Malachai Parker had the power; for others their life came to an end by Kai’s hands, a slow and painful ending. Depending on who you asked those were either the luckiest of who dared to cross him or the unluckiest. Very rarely had the leader to go to such far measures as to kill them, it only happened when someone supposed a serious threat to either him, his coven or his love.

Malachai Parker called them coven matters, making it cleat to all that he was the leader, the one that decided.

Despite not being even a witch Y/N had went to some of the coven’s reunions, all by courtesy of her boyfriend and leader of the Gemini Coven. He wanted people to know who she was, to let them know that whoever even directed a hurtful word to her would suffer. And so had it been, because some of them didn't approve of the leader of their own coven playing house with a simple mortal.

And somehow, after all she had went through beside him, after knowing all the horrible and terrifying things he had done, the misery of his past for growing up without his own magic, knowing how fucked up his mind had remained after all those years alone, knowing how much blood he had on his hands; she still was next to him every day, waking up beside his figure on their bed, their shared apartment had her signature every where you looked. She swore to him often that she would not go, that she would stay by his side until her heart stopped beating; he’s answers to that was always saying that he would make her immortal beside him and someday they would rule the whole world together.  She laughed at his crazy ideas, but she could see the brightness in his eyes when he talked about them, she could see the love he had for her, it was endless. Just as hers.

Kai’s fingers traced the line her spine formed against her naked skin before leaving a smooth kiss on the back of her neck. His arm wrapped around her silhouette, his cold rings which he never took off were pressed on her stomach. She smiled brightly, the rays of the sun were bathing their bedroom, an orange like light reflecting in it; turning around in his warming embrace she faced him, his blue eyes now seemed gray, the same eyes she had loved since the beginning. Kai’s hair was messy, pointing in what looked like all directions, she found him cute. Malachai would play mad when she stated that he was cute, reminding her that the leader of the Gemini Coven could not look cute, that he looked fierce.

He could see the sleepiness on her face, but she still looked effortlessly beautiful. Y/N squeezed herself closer to his body, their skin practically becoming just one. “Good morning, Malachai.” She said in a whisper, brushing her lips on his. Kai smiled, fully pressing his lips on hers as a greeting. His toned and bare body hovered over hers, her hands flying to the back of his neck and fingers playing with the hair there. In need of air, Kai broke the kiss, resting his forehead on hers. Y/N caressed his back softly feeling the memories of their passionate night that were still plastered on his skin in the form of scratches cause by her nails. She had needed something to hold on to and his back was so appealing to her, but neither she or Kai had acknowledged his marks until they had both reached their climax.

“Someone’s excited.” She chuckled stealing little kisses from him as she felt his hard member touching her inner thigh.

Malachai laughed softly, shaking his head. “It’s the morning darling; besides, it’s normal when I have such a beautiful woman as you are sleeping beside me, naked.” He remarked, squeezing her sides. His hand slowly moved up her body, making sure to feel every inch of her skin under his digits, they reached her features, rubbing her cheeks softly. His eyes were focused on hers, wondering what had he done right in life to deserver her, she was so much more than he ever deserved. “Marry me.” Kai said softly, leaning his head closer to hers.

Her eyebrows frowned, words trying to come out to the surface. “What? Kai... don’t joke wi-”  His calm voice interrupted her words.

“I’m not, marry me Y/N. I-I know I’m not the best. God, if there is someone in the world that deserves hell that’s me, we both know that; but besides it you are still with me, you still wake up in my arms every morning, you haven’t left, I don’t want you to.” Malachai licked his lips, processing the words in his mind before letting them out. “I love you with all my being, I’d do anything for you and I want to have you by my side ‘till the end of times. So, would you Y/N Y/L/N marry me?” Kai closed his eyes, praying that she would accept his proposal.

Her words came right away accompanied with tears and sobs. “Yes, yes! I’ll marry you Kai.” She barely managed to breath out, wrapping her arms around his body. 

A joyful smile made it’s way on Kai’s features, pressing his lips on hers and embracing her in a gentle and loving kiss, their tongues wanting to meet each other. She felt something light fall on her skin, disconnecting their lips she took a look at their surroundings, what she saw amazed her; pearl white feathers were falling gently inside their bedroom as if it was rain or snow. It was breathtaking.

“Look, I know I don’t have a ring but, we'll go together and-” She shushed him, her big eyes connecting his blue ones.

“ I don’t care about a stupid ring, all I care about is you.”  Her little confession making his eyes glossy, he smiled still wondering how had he been so lucky.

MASTERLIST

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