#this is the only way I can get myself to read lmao

[demigod-shenanigans]

Leo And Jason DoorDash A Baby

Summary: Jason made a displeased noise as the lights came on. He said something that sounded like half a nickname in garbled Spanish and grumbled about it being late and being abandoned to sleep on his own.

“Yeah. Sorry about that, Sparky,” Leo said. “More importantly, though: look at this baby I found.”

“Can you please come to bed first and make jokes at me after?” his husband complained, yawning. “I just want to cuddle for a bit.”

“I would, but I think we’ve got more immediate problems than me depriving you of cuddles. Namely: the fact that I’m holding a child.”

“Leo, I love you, but what in the world are you talking about?” Jason murmured, finally starting to untangle himself from the blankets.

Then the little girl in Leo’s arms started crying.

Jason sat up with a start, wide awake the instant it dawned on him that this wasn’t one of Leo’s jokes. “What did you do?”

Leo looked his husband dead in the eyes and said, “I cloned myself.”

—

Or: someone leaves a baby at the entrance of the Waystation in the middle of the night. It’s not quite how Leo and Jason expected this whole adoption process to work, but, well… when has anything in their lives ever gone the way they expected it to?

Word Count: 7.3k

Rating: Teen and Up (just to be safe)

CWs: mentions of past traumatic experiences, since those are gone into to a certain extend (Jason is not going to be okay about finding an abandoned child when he’s been an abandoned child in the past).

I have spent a lot of time waffling with @queenjunothegreat about this concept and had a lot of fun writing it out! Ended up quite a bit longer than I expected, but I’m not complaining.

Main focus of the fic is accidental baby acquisition feat. married Valgrace, but there is also some lost trio content (Piper is having a great time during that particular Iris message, lmao), and little Emilia McLean from this fic is also here, a little older now! There’s references to that fic in this one but reading it is not a requirement to understand this fic.

———

It was 3 am, and Leo was just trying to get to the bedroom after finishing up his latest magic object repair project in the workshop. As was the case with the Waystation sometimes, he tripped out the front door instead.

That was just how it worked, living in a magic building. Sometimes it was convenient, like when someone was hurt and the Waystation made the infirmary appear in the next room, or when Leo and Calypso had needed space after their breakup and simply hadn’t crossed paths for a week. Sometimes, it was a little less convenient, like when the workshop was suddenly next to the bedroom so Jason only had to cross one room if he wanted to drag his sleep-deprived husband to bed. Once, when Leo had neglected maintenance for too long, the Waystation had dropped him into the pool fully clothed. It had an attitude like that.

Currently, Leo couldn’t think of anything he might have done to piss off the building, though, so there was probably a different reason why he’d ended up out here. 

The air was cold enough that he pulled the large hoodie he’d borrowed from his husband a little closer around himself. He realized how stupid the impulse was a moment later—he could have just upped his body temperature instead. That was sleep deprivation 1, Leo Valdez 0.

It was a night of a full moon, and between the moon’s soft glow and the street lights, Leo could see alright. No need for a flashlight or to light himself on fire. 

He let his eyes wander, trying to figure out why he’d been thrown out of his home in the middle of the night. They didn’t have to wander far. 

Someone had placed a basket beside the entrance to the Waystation. And inside that basket��

“Holy shit.” Leo pinched himself, trying to confirm he wasn’t so sleep deprived he was hallucinating the whole thing. 

Nope, the basket was still there. And that was definitely a baby. What the hell?

He kneeled down next to the basket, looking at the infant that had been left here all alone, with no one but the moon to guard her.

They were wide awake, looking at him with large, dark eyes. 

“What are you doing out here, hm?” 

He scanned the area again, trying to see if there was a parent around who’d come back to collect their baby. He couldn’t see anyone. Not that leaving a child on some stranger’s doorstep to go buy groceries or something would have been peak parenting, exactly.

The wind was bitingly cold. And if it was that bad for him, Leo couldn’t imagine basket baby was doing much better, in their thin onesie and blanket.

“Okay, we need to get you inside,” he decided, reaching out towards the basket, then stopping suddenly as he spotted something tucked underneath it.

It was a small piece of paper, no larger than a postcard. He pulled it out from beneath the basket so he could take a look at it, slowly, so as to not startle the child in the process. Words had been hastily scribbled onto the paper. 

‘I can’t care for her, but I know she’ll be safe here. This is what’s best for both of us.’ 

Leo’s heart was hammering in his chest, aching for the poor kid and whatever demigod had dropped her off here—and it had to have been a demigod. No one else would think to drop their child off at what the general public considered to be a generic event space—never mind in the middle of the night—expecting her to be safe.

Leo folded the note and put it into one of his many, many pockets. 

He hesitated again, trying to remember whether he’d washed his hands properly coming out of the workshop. He decided better safe than sorry and went for the effective, if slightly unusual, disinfecting technique of temporarily setting his hands on fire.

Once he’d put them out and cooled them back down to a semi-normal temperature, he reached out to scoop the baby up out of the basket.

Thankfully, Leo wasn’t completely useless with babies. Em, his honorary niece, was three now, but he’d held her enough times as an infant to know how this went. Make sure the head and neck are supported first, then place the other hand under the baby's bottom and lift them up carefully.

He still remembered how Piper had first explained it to him, Reyna glaring at him from across the room like she was fully expecting him to drop the baby. That had made two of them.

He’d been weeping, still reeling from the declaration that the girl was named after him—as a gesture of love and because in a world where names had power, the name of someone who’d defied death twice and found his happy ending against all odds was good luck. He’d spent so long thinking of himself as a curse that someone choosing his name as a blessing hadn’t quite computed.

“Don’t mind my lovely wife. Rey’s just nervous,” Piper had whispered to him, patting his arm encouragingly while he held Emilia for the very first time. “You’re the first person aside from us and the hospital staff who gets to hold Em.”

Leo had understood nervous, then, with his best friend’s kid snuggled up against his chest. He understood nervous now, with this small, vulnerable human in his arms. Despite knowing exactly what he was doing, he was still anxious he might hurt her accidentally. This had to be terrifying for her, and the last thing he wanted was to make it even worse.

The Waystation roulette was merciful. After walking back up the ramp with the baby in tow, Leo found himself standing right outside his bedroom door.

Thank the gods. He really needed Jason right now.

Okay, technically Emmie and Jo would probably have been more convenient than Leo’s poor husband, whose experience with babies was about the same as Leo’s own—limited to playing with Em and babysitting for Percy and Annabeth back at uni. But Emmie and Jo weren’t here right now. They were in New Rome with Georgina.

The thought of Georgina at NRU was still weird as hell. Leo had known this kid since she was seven years old. The fact that she was attending university now would never, ever, feel normal to him. 

But in all honesty, even if his foster parents had been at the Waystation right now, Leo probably still would have wanted Jason. He was pretty sure wanting your husband there was a natural instinct when one found a child on their doorstep. He’d have to ask around for reference.

Leo pushed open the bedroom door with his hip, wincing as it creaked. He’d been meaning to take care of the rusted hinges for a while, but between the dracon incident last month and an emergency pegasus landing two weeks ago, he’d been preoccupied with other fixes and forgotten about this one. He hadn’t exactly thought to account for the inconvenience the issue might cause to any babies found on the doorstep in the middle of the night.

The little girl in his arms scrunched up her face like she might start to cry.

“Shhhh. Hey. You’re okay,” he tried to soothe her, bouncing her awkwardly. “That’s what I get for prioritizing fixing the person-sized hole in the roof over some rusty hinges.”

The baby didn’t start crying, though she still looked very unhappy about the entire situation. Leo couldn’t say he blamed her.

Jason shifted in his blanket heap.

Leo wasn’t surprised he’d woken up. Creaky door or not, he almost always woke up when Leo came to bed. His husband had always been a light sleeper—all too ready to jump out of bed with his sword drawn at even the hint of a threat. Even though more than a decade had come and gone since he’d been an active member of the legion, he’d never quite managed to break that particular habit. 

Usually, Leo felt bad for waking him. Right now, that he woke so easily was a huge relief. Having to shake Jason awake with one arm while balancing a baby in the other wasn’t an experience Leo was particularly sad to miss out on. 

His husband made a displeased noise as the light was switched on. He covered his face with one arm, said something that sounded like half a nickname in garbled Spanish and grumbled about it being late and being abandoned to sleep on his own.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry about that, Sparky. More importantly, though: look at this baby I found.”

“Can you please come to bed first and make jokes at me after?” Jason complained, yawning. He patted the mattress next to him. “I promise I’ll laugh, even if I’m way too tired to understand the joke. I just want to cuddle for a bit.”

“I would, but I think we’ve got more immediate problems than me depriving you of cuddles. Namely: the fact that I’m holding a child right now.”

“Leo, I love you so much, but you know I don’t have the capacity for your sense of humor at this hour. What in the world are you talking about?” Jason murmured, finally starting to untangle himself from the blankets. 

As if on cue, the little girl in Leo’s arms started crying. Whether this was because she was hungry or cold or because the existential dread of being ditched on a stranger’s doorstep by the only person she’d ever known was starting to hit her, Leo couldn’t immediately tell.

Jason sat up with a start, wide awake the instant it dawned on him that this wasn’t one of Leo’s weird jokes.

He looked at the two of them, eyes wide as saucers. “What did you do?”

“I cloned myself,” Leo said, looking his husband dead in the eye. The joke didn’t entirely work. Her skin was a shade darker than his and the tufts of hair on the girl’s head were clearly brown instead of black.

He rocked the baby gently against his chest. 

“What?” Jason was out of bed at a speed that was honestly frightening, even for someone who had seen him go from zero to battle-ready in under thirty seconds before.

Jason looked frantic, apparently completely willing to believe Leo’s stupid joke, the obvious inconsistencies be damned. He moved to stand beside them.

“Kidding, mi cielo. I’m still working on cloning.” Leo grinned at him. He felt as terrified as Jason looked, and even now, despite the fact that he was supposed to be a semi-responsible adult and had been married for almost a decade, jokes were sometimes the only thing that helped. “I just ordered DoorDash. Not sure why they sent a baby. I’m pretty sure I just asked for fries.”

“Leo, whose child is that?” 

Okay, that was enough with the jokes. They might have been helpful for Leo, but it was obvious they were doing the opposite for Jason, and getting him even more worked up would probably not help the situation.

“I have no idea,” he admitted. He continued to rock the baby, but it wasn’t helping. She just wouldn’t stop crying. “It wasn’t DoorDash, but someone did leave her at the entrance of the Waystation with no intention of coming back.”

“Oh.” Jason’s posture immediately changed. The tension went out of his body, replaced with a kind of vulnerability Leo had only seen his husband show a handful of times. “But she’s so small.Someone just abandoned her?”

Leo’s chest constricted. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard Jason sound so utterly broken.

The parent that had left the girl here probably had their reasons—and, speaking as someone who’d spent a lot of time in the care of foster parents who hadn’t been fit for the job, sometimes not having a parent at all was definitely the preferable option.

But how could Jason have thought of anything other than the feeling of being that small, abandoned child, waiting in the woods for a mother who never came back?

Leo wanted to pull his husband to his chest and soothe him, but currently he had an armful of wailing baby, which made that a little difficult.

“Come on, let’s sit for a while, yeah?” Leo suggested gently. Jason nodded, and together they sank down onto the edge of their bed, the mattress creaking slightly as they did. “You wanna hold her for a bit?”

“I…” Jason hesitated, then nodded. “I do, actually.”

Leo very carefully handed him the baby. That made her crying even worse. Leo gulped, wondering if she thought she was being abandoned again.

“Hey, cariño, I’m not going anywhere, okay?” he said soothingly. “That’s Jason. He’s nice, I promise. I wouldn’t have married him otherwise.”

He gently poked one of the girl’s palms with his finger. She immediately grasped for it, meaning she had to be very little. He knew that because he loved being Em’s tío and had been endlessly bummed out when she’d grown out of automatically grasping his fingers at five months.

“Hey. You’re going to be okay,” Jason said to the girl, sounding almost shy. His voice was quavering as he cradled the child protectively. He looked at her with all the determination of someone who knew exactly what it was like to be abandoned and would have done anything to make sure it didn’t happen to anyone else. “I’m sorry. This is so, so much, and it has to be so overwhelming for you. But you’re safe. We’re not going to let anything bad happen to you, I promise.”

His voice cracked.

Leo wrapped his free arm around his husband, placing his head down on Jason’s shoulder. Jason was shaking.

“You’re okay, too,” Leo reminded him gently, pressing a kiss to the side of Jason’s head. “I’m not going anywhere. Expert at sticking around, remember?”

Jason nodded, smiling weakly.

“I love you,” he sniffled, leaning into Leo. His eyes were brimming with tears. “She’s so upset.”

“I know, Jase.”

Leo thought for a moment, then started humming the melody of an old lullaby his mom had sung to him when he’d been little, the words of which long since been lost to time.

Between this, Jason’s gentle rocking and Leo’s finger grasped tightly in her little fist, the baby startled to settle down, staring at them with large, dark eyes.

“There you go. That’s better. You’re way too young for that level of existential dread,” Leo joked, heart aching. “I could go find you a warmer blanket, if you want? You’re a little cold.” He tried to pull his hand back, but the second she lost her grip on his finger, she started crying again. “Or not! Maybe you’ll continue to hold my finger hostage instead,” he decided, letting her grasp it again.

She immediately quieted back down.

Leo’s tool belt wasn’t super helpful at producing blankets. It could do car covers and cleaning rags, but Leo wasn’t convinced those materials were baby-safe, so instead he leaned as far as he could off the bed without removing his finger from the girl’s little fist again and pulled a fresh bed sheet out of a drawer. Then, he asked the tool belt for scissors.

~~~

A few minutes later, Jason had wrapped the baby up in the remnants of a very wrecked bedsheet. She cooed happily, still hanging onto Leo’s hand, though he put a stop to it when she tried to stick his finger in her mouth.

“Trust me, kid. You do not want to do that. My hands are clean-ish, but you don’t know where I’ve been.” She scrunched her face up again. “Nope, I’m not budging on that. You do not need to know what oil tastes like yet. Spoilers: I’ve tried it. Do not recommend.”

He hummed at her again, which slightly soothed her offense at the terrible injustice of not getting to eat his fingers.

“I wish we had a pacifier we could give her,” Jason said quietly. 

“I’m not sure Georgina’s twenty year old pacifiers still exist, but even if they do, I don’t think they’d be any safer for her than my fingers,” Leo commented, sighing. “I wish we had something to give her, too. Her bio parent at least could have had the decency to dump her on our doorstep with some basic necessities.”

“They’re really not going to come back for her, are they?” Jason asked. He didn’t look like he was about to break down in tears anymore, but his breaths still came shakily.

“No,” Leo said, running his free hand soothingly down his husband’s arm. “The note they left made it sound pretty permanent.”

Looking at him—at the way Jason was smiling down at the child, so, so very gentle despite all his grief, and the way all three of them fit together—something in Leo’s mind began to click into place. 

Before he could decide what, exactly, that something was, Jason beat him to it.

“Can we keep her?” he asked suddenly, with no preamble or warning. He was tense, anxiety written all over his face. He continued hastily, “I know it’s not really how we planned to do this, but-”

“She’s here now. And she needs someone,” Leo finished, smiling at the fact that their minds had gone to the same place. They were like two gears in the same machine, running perfectly in sync.

Jason nodded. Some of the tension went out of his shoulders. 

“You don’t think I’m being completely ridiculous?”

“For wanting to adopt a child you met maybe ten minutes ago?” Leo beamed at him. “I mean, a little. But I can’t be making all the ridiculously impulsive decisions in this relationship.”

He pressed a kiss to Jason’s temple.

Jason smiled weakly. The grief in his expression started to melt away into something soft and almost hopeful. “So you’re saying we’ll think about it?”

That would have been reasonable. This was maybe not the sort of decision one should make at this hour of night. But Leo had never been the reasonable sort. Mostly, this had been to his benefit—if he had been reasonable, he would have been extremely fucking dead, and Jason with him.

Honestly, Leo made some of his best choices when he wasn’t overthinking things. 

Besides, considering how easily the girl had settled in his husband’s arms, and the soft way Jason was looking at him…

Well, fuck being reasonable.

“Eh, I’ve told you before that I try not to think too much. It interferes with being nuts.” Leo grinned. “So, I guess we have a kid now?”

Jason leaned forward and kissed him.

~~~

Maybe Leo should have been freaking out more. That seemed like the reasonable way to act when you’d suddenly become a dad from one minute to the next with no warning.

But apparently he’d gotten most of his frantic energy out of his system when he’d found the baby, and now that Jason was with him and they knew they’d be keeping her, the whole thing didn’t seem quite as ridiculously terrifying anymore.

When the baby started crying again—utterly inconsolable this time in a way that, from all their past baby experiences, made Jason and Leo agree she was probably hungry—he didn’t let himself panic. He briefly left his husband and the baby to go bother the nice mortal couple down the street about diapers and formula and a baby bottle, fumbling his way through an explanation about unexpectedly ending up with a Safe Haven Box baby. He figured that was close enough to the truth. 

Preparing the formula wasn’t too hard, but he was glad he had practice from babysitting.

When he got back to the bedroom, Jason was hovering—like, literally hovering a good foot above the ground—and talking to the baby in a hushed tone. 

“What in the world are you doing?” Leo laughed, raising an eyebrow at his husband.

“I don’t know. She seems to like it,” Jason told him, slowly floating back down.

The baby was still obviously unhappy, but she wasn’t crying quite as hard anymore. Huh. They'd have to put that down for future reference.

“Hey, cariño. I brought food.” Leo waved the bottle at her. “Jase, do you wanna feed her?”

Jason’s eyes gleamed. “Would that be okay?”

“I mean, it’s not like this is a one and done kind of deal. I can feed her next time. Besides,” Leo continued teasingly, “seems only fair that you take more of the baby feeding shifts. We both know I’m gonna be making most of her food once she grows out of formula and puree age. You’re a safety hazard in the kitchen.”

“You’re impossible,” Jason laughed, sitting back down on the bed and adjusting his hold on the baby to get her into a better position for feeding.

“I’m also right.” Leo smirked. “Remember that time back at NRU when you tried to make popcorn and somehow exploded the microwave?”

“That was ten years ago,” Jason pouted. 

“And you’ve since managed to fry our microwave a minimum of five times, and the oven at least twice. You are not helping your case, mi cielo.” He handed over the bottle. The baby looked at it suspiciously for a moment. “Solid instincts, cariño, but I made that one. It’s good, promise,” Leo told her, feeling incredibly smug when she started to drink.

Her tiny scrunched up face started to relax.

“There, that's much better, isn’t it?” Jason asked soothingly. 

“Look at that. A bit of Chef Leo food and she’s immediately content,” Leo announced, ignoring the fact that in this particular case, his specific input in preparing the food had been minimal. “I can’t believe she’s been with us for all of an hour and she’s already taking after you.”

His husband gently headbutted Leo in the neck, like he sometimes did. He was a fucking weirdo. 

But he was Leo’s fucking weirdo. Forever.

“Hey, it’s not our fault you’re a great cook.” Jason was smiling softly. “She’s gonna fit right in.”

“Yeah, she is.”

Leo was transfixed on the image of Jason holding their baby. Their baby. They had a daughter now. 

It was almost startling, how quickly the certainty of it had settled over him. How right it all felt. They’d been talking about adopting for a while, and it had felt more and more like it was the right time.

Her appearing on their doorstep now… it was something like destiny. 

Normally, the concept of destiny would have set off alarm bells in Leo’s head. For most of his life, destiny hadn’t been a good thing. So little of his and Jason’s lives had ever been coincidental. They’d both spent their entire childhoods tangled up in strings the Fates had woven for them.

But he figured after all the awful things he’d been destined to be—an orphan and a hero and dead—being a dad wasn’t a destiny he minded all that much.

“The note didn’t mention a name, right?” Jason asked as he put down the bottle. Leo shook his head. “Does that mean we get to choose one?”

Jason shifted the baby in his arms, holding her upright and gently patting her back to burp her. 

“Yeah. She seems very enthusiastic about being named.” Leo chuckled. “I’m partial towards Leo 2.0, personally, but between me and Em, that might get a little confusing, so 3.0 might be better.”

“Serious suggestions only, please?” Jason asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Sorry, if that’s your condition you’re gonna have to find a different husband.” 

Leo flicked him in the head, still grinning, but then he dutifully redirected his attention towards the baby. He thought back to the list of baby names they’d made—a list that he’d always figured they most likely wouldn’t need, considering most adoptees came much older than this, with a name already attached. Jason had insisted they make a list anyway, just in case. Leo hadn’t had the heart to tell him no.

And, well, considering their 3 am postal delivery baby, that was a point in favor of Jason’s incessant need to prepare for all possible scenarios.

Names—especially demigod names and the power woven into them via the Fates—were kind of a huge deal, and not a decision to make lightly. He was more than glad their past selves had narrowed it down.

“What do you think of Sofía?” he asked, tilting his head at the baby. 

She cooed at him. 

“She seems to like it. I think that’s a good sign.” Jason smiled, but there was a hesitation in his expression, like there was something more he wasn’t saying.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me. If you’d rather name her something else-” Leo started, but Jason shook his head.

“It’s not that. I think Sofía fits her. I just thought maybe she’d like a middle name.” He bit his lip, but then he looked right at Leo with those startlingly blue eyes of his that Leo loved so much. “We don’t have to, if it doesn’t feel right to you, but… what do you think of Sofía Esperanza?”

Leo’s heart skipped a beat.

It had taken him longer than he felt comfortable admitting to talk about his mom to Jason—to really talk about her. The good times they shared and the joyful memories and the stinging feeling of loss that still remained, despite everything.

Leo had gotten closure. He had a mother who loved him dearly, throughout life and beyond death. Jason’s mother had been such a dickhead that she’d made a point of breaking out of the Underworld to re-traumatize him. How was it fair to burden him with all this—to share his mourning for a kind of love Jason had never known?

But when Leo had finally fully shown that part of himself, Jason had held him through it, and gladly. Through the joy and the pain of it all. 

They carried each other’s burdens, the way they always had.

Jason wouldn’t have made the suggestion lightly. He must have been thinking about this for a long time. Maybe since they’d first made that list, back when the child in question had still been entirely hypothetical.

“Would that… is that really okay with you? I mean-” Leo stammered, struggling to find the words—struggling to find any words at all. His thoughts were failing him utterly. 

In his defense, it was almost 4 am, and they’d just adopted a baby on a whim. These things tended to turn one’s brain to mush even when they occurred separately.

“Of course I’d be okay with it. It was literally my suggestion, mi vida.” Jason smiled softly at him. “Besides, Esperanza means hope, right? If we’re worried about names having power, I think this one is powerful in a good way.”

And, as was the case far more often than Leo would ever admit out loud, his husband was right. They’d both learned a long time ago that hope was perhaps the greatest power of all.

“Wisdom and hope, hm?” Leo gently booped Sofía’s nose. “Guess we’re really trying to drive home the fact that you’re not related to either one of us.“ Sofía smiled up at him, catching one of his fingers in her little fist again, and Leo laughed. “Look, Jase, she’s got your reflexes.”

Her hand was warm and soft and her adorable little smile made Leo melt. 

Jason looked down at their daughter with pure adoration in his eyes. 

Oh, they were in so much trouble. Leo wasn’t sure how they’d ever manage to tell her no on anything.

On the upside: they’d make sure little Sofía Esperanza would never feel unloved a day in her life.

~~~ Leo was officially never sending a vaguely worded Iris Message again.

His first impulse had been to call Piper—because, well, it was Piper—which would have worked great if she had been awake, but that seemed like a long shot at this hour. The thing was: Piper slept like a log. When she was out, she was completely dead to the world, and if that was the case, they would be sent right to rainbow voicemail.

Going with “McLean household, Oklahoma. Just give me whoever is most awake,” had seemed like a safe bet at the time. If Reyna and/or Piper were up, they were good. If neither of them was, then they’d at least know that it was pointless to call again tonight and they’d just try again in the morning.

Except, well… Leo was currently looking at his three year old niece.

“Tío Leo!! Uncle Jason!” Em beamed at them. “I’m up!”

“We can see that.” Leo blinked at her. “Uhm, as awesome as it is to see you, could you maybe get one of your moms? Either one works.”

“But I wanna talk,” she pouted. Then she sat bolt upright. “You’re playing dolls? Without me?”

“I would never,” Leo said in mock-offense. “Also, that's a baby, not a doll.”

He shifted Sofía in his arms so his niece could take a proper look at her. Jason had handed her back to Leo when he’d gone to collect Georgina’s old bassinet from the attic that had mercifully decided to pop up next door, and Leo had been holding her since.

“A baby?” Emilia stared through the rainbow with wide eyes. “She’s so small.”

“Yeah. Babies are kinda just like that. They don’t come in too many different sizes,” he explained with a shrug. “This is Sofía. Say hi to your prima, cariño.” The baby just kind of blinked at Em, but she was smiling, which he figured probably counted. “Sorry. They don’t come very talkative at that age, either.”

Em didn’t seem to mind. She waved at the baby excitedly.

“Hi Sofía.” Her voice was full of wonder. “She’s adorable.”

“Yeah, she’s kind of perfect, isn’t she?” Jason’s voice was stupidly fond. Leo would have married him all over again in an instant.

Before anyone could say anything else, the door to Emilia’s room opened, light spilling inside from the hallway.

Leo made a little shushing noise at his niece, holding the baby just out of frame. Emilia giggled.

“Emmy, I thought we decided you were going back to sleep,” Piper’s groggy voice came from somewhere beyond the rainbow’s visual range. “Hang on, is that an Iris Message? What the-” A second later, her face appeared in the corner of the rainbow. “Leo? Jason?”

“Pipes! Hey!” Leo beamed at her. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“I say this in the fondest way possible, but I am literally going to kill you guys. I just managed to get her settled back in bed.”

“Sorry,” Jason said immediately. “It’s kind of an emergency.”

“What sort of emergency requires you to call my toddler in the middle of the night?” She looked at them incredulously “Leo, it’s four thirty in the morning. I know it’s a full moon, but can you please get your werewolf husband under control?”

“No, I cannot. May I remind you that you were the one who said if you wanted a responsible godfather, you would have picked someone else?” Leo asked with a grin. “Though, in our defense, we were technically trying to call you or Reyna. Iris just decided to be funny.”

“Uh-huh.” 

“I think you’ll probably forgive us, considering the circumstances.”

“What circumstances?” Piper narrowed her eyes, looking suspiciously from Leo to her giggling toddler, like she expected them to have hidden paint bombs across the house together.

Talk about bearing grudges. They’d only done that once. 

…okay, maybe twice. But still. 

Besides, Leo was halfway across the country right now. That made getting into trouble with his niece a lot more difficult.

“And what were you trying to call us about? Because you both seem way too cheerful for this to be an actual emergency.”

“It is an actual emergency. The good kind, though,” Jason explained, voice soft. He wasn’t even looking up at Piper. He’d gone back to smiling at Sofía. The little girl cooed happily at him.

“I don’t think that’s a thing.” Piper paused. “What was that noise?”

“Surprise! You’re an aunt now!” Leo lifted his armful of baby into the frame. “Sofía, this is Piper. Piper, Sofía Valdez.”

Piper rubbed her eyes. Then, apparently realizing that the baby was very much still there and not going anywhere, she stared at him in utter disbelief. “Leo, what the f-”

“No cursing!” Jason yelped, moving to cover Sofía’s ears.

Emilia burst into a fresh fit of giggles. “Mommy said a bad word.”

“Yeah, I did. But it’s a mommy only word, reserved for special occasions, so please don’t use it, okay?” Piper said quickly. She covered her face with her hands. 

“Okay, no saying fuck,” Em agreed, causing Jason to make a fresh offended yelping noise while Leo just burst into laughter.

“Not. A. Word,” Piper grumbled, glaring at him. 

Leo would have pointed out that technically, he hadn’t said anything, but figured that if he was planning to see his daughter grow up, he should probably leave it.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said instead, taking a few breaths to try and get himself to stop laughing. It was only semi-successful. “Emilia, listen to your mom, okay?”

“I am!” she pointed out, grinning. “No using the word. Just said I won’t.”

“Smart kid,” Leo said approvingly, which just made Piper glare at him even harder. Hey, it wasn’t his fault his niece had inherited Piper’s chaotic energy and Reyna’s ability to win political debates. His only crime was not discouraging her. 

And honestly, which decent tío would have? As far as he was concerned, she should be allowed to make use of her natural talents.

“Matters of teaching my child to curse at four thirty in the morning aside,” Piper sighed, shaking her head, “would you guys please tell me what in the world is going on? Whose child did you two kidnap?”

“She’s ours,” Jason said, completely matter-of-factly. “No kidnapping involved.”

“I’m a prima,” Emilia told her mom, beaming.

“That’s great, sweetheart.” Even through the rainbow filter, it was easy to tell that Piper was barely listening to Emilia. She looked from Jason to Leo to Sofía, wide-eyed, apparently reassessing the situation. “You two are actually serious.”

She sat down hard on her daughter’s bed. 

“Yeah. Why would you think we were joking about that?” Leo asked, shaking his head. “Gods, Pipes, I’m thirty years old, for crying out loud. Don’t you think I’m a bit too mature to prank call you at four thirty in the morning?” Despite the fact that she was obviously in shock, Piper still raised an eyebrow at him at that question. “Okay, fine, maybe I would do that, but what would the punch line even be in this case?”

“I don’t know!” Piper gestured vaguely. “Where did you guys get a baby at four in the morning?”

“Annabeth had Cooper at one in the morning,” Leo told her with a shrug. “Babies don’t exactly come with business hours.”

Sofía cooed in his arms. 

“That’s different!” Piper protested, clearly exasperated. “I saw you guys last weekend! If one of you had been pregnant, I’m pretty sure I would have known!”

“Someone left her on the doorstep of the Waystation an hour ago,” Jason explained, that same fragility from earlier creeping back into his voice. “She’s ours now.”

“Oh.” All the fight drained out of Piper in an instant. She turned to Emilia, putting a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Can you do me a favor? Can you go wake your mamá for me, sweetheart?”

“But I wanna stay,” Emilia pouted. “Sofía’s cute.”

“I know, honey. But she’s still gonna be here when you get back. And mamá’s gonna want to meet the baby, too.”

Emilia thought about this intensely for a moment. Then she nodded and climbed out of the bed. “Okay.” 

“Besides, mommy might need to use a few more curse words, and I do not want you around for that,” Piper muttered after her daughter had left.

Jason crossed his arms. “Hey, you can’t curse at our child, either.”

“She’s not gonna remember at that age,” Piper said. She looked a lot less confused and a lot more upset now. “Is she okay?” she asked, wringing her hands.

“Dunno. She had a bit of a crying fit when I brought her inside, but Emilia had a lot of crying fits at that age without you guys ditching her at a random event space, so I’m not sure that’s related,” Leo told her. He gently bounced the baby in his arms. Sofía was cooing at him again, waving her little hands around. Considering everything that had happened tonight, Leo was surprised she still had this much energy. “We’ll ask Nico if he can shadow travel Will over in the morning so he can check her over. She doesn’t seem hurt or sick, but we figured it’s better to be sure.”

“She’s really small. I don’t think she actually understands what’s happening,” Jason added. “But we’re gonna make sure she’ll be okay.” He said it in such a fierce, protective way, and Leo’s heart broke for his husband for the umpteenth time. 

“Are you guys okay?” Piper asked. She was looking directly at Jason now. “This is a lot.“

“We’re okay,” Jason said, in a way that made it blatantly obvious to both Piper and Leo that he wasn’t. “It has been kind of overwhelming, but I’m managing. Leo’s been amazing.” 

“Superman’s being unnecessarily modest,” Leo told Piper, shaking his head. “He’s doing a great job. He fed her and found her a crib and everything.”

Jason smiled weakly. “I- thanks.”

“She’s lucky to have you both,” Piper said. She still looked tired and seriously worried, but her voice was fond. “I mean it.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re amazing, and you only want to kill us a little bit for Iris Messaging your toddler in the middle of the night,” Leo said, smiling at her. 

“Just this once, you’re pardoned due to extenuating circumstances,” Piper decided solemnly. “Besides, I’m not orphaning your child.”

“Thanks?” Jason said. It came out more like a question than a statement, but his voice was tinged with amusement, and after everything that had happened tonight, that was a huge relief. “We wanted you and Reyna to be the first ones to know. And, uhm. Maybe ask if you’ve still got some of Em’s old baby clothes?”

“We do.” Piper smiled softly. “Reyna couldn’t bring herself to get rid of any of them. She’s incredibly sappy at heart.”

“Oh, we know,” Leo said with a grin. “We’ve seen the way she looks at you.”

Piper sighed contently. She opened her mouth to say something else, but she was interrupted by the sound of a door banging open.

“Em said you used a bad word and also something about a kidnapping?” Reyna asked, sounding seriously concerned. “Who are you IMing at this hour? Is anyone hurt? Do we need to send out search parties?”

She stepped into range of the rainbow, but she wasn’t looking at the Iris Message. Her eyes were firmly on her wife, their daughter clutched protectively to her chest.

“No one’s hurt. No one’s missing, either.” Piper made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. “So glad our three year old covered all the important bullet points.”

“I got mamá awake,” Em reported, yawning.

Leo couldn’t blame her. It was almost morning. He was starting to feel seriously tired, too.

Sofía wasn’t. She was still wide awake, cooing and wiggling happily in his arms. Leo wasn’t sure if that was normal, but he figured it did not bode well for the amount of sleep he and Jason would be getting going forward.

“That you did, sweetie,” Piper said, smiling at her daughter. Then she looked up at her wife. “Morning, Love. I promise it’s nothing bad, but you might still want to sit down.”

“Hi Reyna,” Leo greeted her. “So, uhm, funny story. You know how Jason and I have sort of been talking about adoption for a while?”

~~~

By the time they got off the line with Piper and Reyna, it was well past six am. Em had dozed off on her mamá’s lap more than an hour ago. Sofía was somehow still awake, though she’d been wiggling a lot less and yawning a lot more in the last half an hour. 

In the end, it took a diaper change and a second feeding session for Sofía to finally start dozing off in Leo’s arms. By then, the sun was starting to come up.

He still held her for a while after, making sure she was well and truly asleep before swaddling her properly and gently transferring her into the bassinet. The sunlight through the window was tickling his face as he sat back down on the bed with a quiet thunk.

“I can’t believe she’s inherited my awful sleep schedule. That's not good,” he joked, letting himself sink into Jason’s side. “Make better choices, kid!”

“On the bright side, you probably won’t have any trouble staying up with her,” Jason said, wrapping both arms around Leo and pressing a kiss to his curls. “We’re really doing this, hm?”

“Yeah. Weirdest adoption circumstances of the century, maybe, but we are.” Leo laughed. “Man, this is so on-brand for us. We can never do anything the normal way.”

Jason laughed right along with him—a low, rumbling sound that reverberated through Leo’s body with how close they were pressed together. Leo loved that laugh. Loved that it wasn’t the suppressed chuckle that had been Jason’s default when they met. It had been so hard to make him laugh, back then. Not that it had ever stopped Leo from trying.

For a while, they just sat there, all wrapped up in each other as the sun slowly rose on the other side of the window.

“There’s so much we don’t know,” Jason said eventually, breaking the silence. Leo didn't have to see his face to know he was looking at Sofía. “Do we have any idea what we’re doing?”

“Do any parents? Especially demigods?” Leo asked, raising an eyebrow. When that just made his husband grow even more tense, Leo hugged him tightly. “Hey. We managed to save the world when you didn’t know anything except for your first name, sword fighting and whatever vague mythology fun facts your godly stepmom decided to leave inside your skull. Compared to that situation? I think we’ve got a lot to work with here.”

“I just don’t want to fail her,” Jason said, very quietly.

“I don’t think we’ve ever failed at anything we did together.” Leo paused. “Well, at least not when it comes to anything important. Despite your best efforts, I’m still a really shitty dancer,” he amended.

“You’re not that bad,” Jason insisted, pressing another kiss to his hair.

“Right. And you’re only a mildly terrible cook,” Leo teased, still holding on tight. “We’ll figure things out, Jase. We always have.” 

“You’re probably right,” Jason sighed, sinking into him and gently nuzzling Leo’s cheek. “Together.”

“Always. You married me, so you’re never getting rid of me now,” Leo told him, failing to suppress a yawn. 

It had been a long night, but he wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world.

Leo looked back at Sofía, who was peacefully snoring away in her bassinet. 

If ‘together’ meant three of them instead of two of them now… well, he was more than okay with that.

Leo had faced the end of the world with Jason by his side. He figured they could probably handle parenting, too.

———

Fic Notes:

-Sorry about the extremely silly fic title. Juno made a joke about this to me forever ago when we were first talking about this concept and it just kind of stuck.

-Fun fact: I've been working on this fic on and off since last year! I cannot believe how long it ended up being, lmao.

-Family stuff is super fun to me, and considering Jason’s was abandoned as a little kid and Leo knows exactly what it’s like to not have anyone look out for you from his later childhood and teens, I always knew they'd somehow end up adopting. Me and QueenJunoTheGreat have been chatting about Sofía forever now, and I’ve made several tumblr posts about her, so it’s a little strange that this is technically the first fic I’ve posted about her.

-This kid has a lot of lore and thoughts attached to her (as does Em, though this is technically her second fic), so if you wanna read more about her you can always just scroll through my tumblr and specifically the (specifically the “pjo next gen” tag)! -Would actually love to write some more fics about these kids, but we’ll see how it goes.

Thank you so much for reading! Comments extremely appreciated!

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s6 episode 10 thoughts

hmm… scully seems to be black and white in the image for this episode. maybe she has had this power to turn greyscale the whole time and she has simply never chosen to wield it until now. how fascinating of her!

ah, i see that the one after this is likely a two-parter, based on titles alone. so i had better focus now before things get crazy.

the description here emphasizes that scully will be the one pursuing this photographer!! i hope that bodes well for our girl!! i need lots of scully time!! or else terrible things happen to me!!

post-episode thoughts: we need to release the cut of this episode where mulder and scully team up to destroy this ritter fellow. i know mulder had to physically restrain himself from choking that dude out. frankly, he usually has FAR less self-control, so this was a big step for him.

but first and foremost, this was a scully episode. and there is so much i want to say. about living!! and dying!! and loving!! and what scully wants for herself!!! and i am sad, but i am pondering!!! and i want her to be happy!!! and in the process of editing my notes, i got myself so worked up over the whole thing that i simply cannot articulate anything!!!! which is such a shame, because if i had words, i would use them!!! at length!!

we open in new york city, where a woman gets help pushing a shopping cart out of an elevator to deliver some mail. mail time!!! wait. who is behind her?

get away from her. she is working. STOP FOLLOWING HER. I’M SERIOUS. now the elevator is taking too long to come get her…. and the creepy guy gets in. GET OUT OF THERE. YOU’RE MAKING ME ANGRY.

why can creepy man see everyone in black and white? until he steps out of the elevator, and all of the color returns.

oh shoot. he gets out and then the elevator starts breaking. so he takes the STAIRS. and it falls!!!! 

he’s taking a picture of the collapsed elevator?? with the bodies in it??? 

now who does that help….?

why is he documenting it… is he working for OSHA or something…..? 

shortened intro, you will not sneak your tricks past me.

someone else is doing a background check here at the FBI!! are scully and mulder free?? well, they’re stuck on the same floor, so probably not. mulder is on the phone and fiddling with his pen.

no; they, too, are sadly stuck performing background checks. this is so sad!!! she can save lives!!!! and they use her for this!!!

she asks if mulder is ready to quit and he says “no. that would make way too many people way too happy” <- LMAO well, that is entirely understandable

ohhh, she gets a strange call and is on the move. she was asked to go to kersh’s office!! this cannot be good!! he hates her!! and she was the only one called!

OOO, WE SEE HER FILE. she’s 5 foot 2!!! i didn’t know that!!! but i figured she was somewhere in that area. and she lives in annapolis, maryland. like learning that mulder lives in alexandria, i do not know enough about geography to know what that means.

seems she was brought on in 1990 as an instructor of forensic pathology, and she was recruited right from the university of maryland. i did know this. but not the years during which it happened. 

ARGH, i wish this screen wasn’t so dark so i could SEE. it says something about physics. BA in physics?? ARGH! this is so frustrating. mulder had described her thesis as her “graduate thesis”, so maybe she did physics undergrad, physics grad school, then med school, then FBI. 

well. it’s not focusing other than that, so i can’t make any conclusions unless kersh announces what he sees inside. because he is the one reading her file.

some agent named ritter is here from new york. who are you, man? he found an old crime scene photo of a woman who passed away from an overdose. but the clock in the photo is 45 minutes earlier than her listed time of death. scully points out that a clock can be wrong. why is this ritter man, like, quizzing her?

hmm!!! from the newspaper, the other photograph of the body shows a totally different time, an hour and a half later!!! that is very weird. from the same photographer, too. i’m guessing he wasn’t just hanging there for 2 hours and spacing out his picture taking.

alfred fellig is the photographer. ritter thinks that maybe he poisoned the woman and photographed her for personal pleasure, then came back later to do his job for the police and photographed her AGAIN. and while scully says that is “quite a theory”, there are 3 other photos of fellig's that show very different times according to different negatives.

she says there’s no consistent MO, and he says there is no consistent anything. and he wants her help. kersh asks him to leave. what is afoot here….

“i would say he has a promising career ahead of him. so did you… at one time” <- OH MY GOD??? 

(furious scully face)

“AGENT MULDER and i will begin immediately” <- OH!!! she stood right up for him!!! what a good friend!!

but kersh says he is a lost cause. and that he hopes she isn't as well.

so now she has to go to new york city with this RANDOM GUY. oh, i’m pissed off FOR HER!! kersh must be trying to separate them….

fellig is getting off a bus and watching some guy have what appears to be a heart attack. heart attack (or coughing fit? chest pain?) guy is in black and white!! 

he goes somewhere and gets some mail, patting his head with a cloth while fellig watches out the window. and he grabs his arm!! and falls!!!! AND FELLIG COMES CLOSER TO WATCH????

he pulls out his camera and takes a bunch of pictures of the dying guy, who he sees in black and white. very weird.

mulder is looking through a bunch of photos on his computer. ohhh, it looks like he found the pictures from fellig. “mulder. what are you doing?” “being nosy. eating my heart out. they’re sending you on an x file” <- OHHH, HE LOOKS SO SAD AND LEFT OUT :(

“it’s not an x file” “that’s not what i’m reading”

“i’m thinking murder by telekinesis. i’m thinking maybe a shamanistic death touch. i’m thinking about the muslim superstition that to photograph someone is to steal their soul” <- OHHH, LET HIM ON THE CASE :( 

fascinating look into how he starts gathering leads based on the little information he knows about the case and his wealth of memorized strange facts....

he thinks they’re splitting them up!!!! and he’s so sad!!! oh!! she tries to tell him it’s a one-time thing, but he isn’t buying it.

she bites her lip, closes his tabs as agent ritter walks in, and introduces them. he very visibly wants to beat the guy with a hammer. and makes a point of calling him by his first name.

jump to new york city. ritter and scully are asking some cops about fellig. he has yearly renewals for his job a very long time, and he’s been doing it since 1964!!! he doesn’t seem to have aged. 

OH! this ritter guy seems fine enough, but he called her "dana", and that made me flinch. he doesn’t seem to think it’s that weird fellig hasn’t aged at all.

meanwhile, some other dude is being chased and calling for help. whoever is chasing him pulls out a knife and kills him!!! and fellig is there to take pictures of the scene!!

but the murderer finds fellig and starts stabbing him…… he steals fellig’s camera as the blood pours everywhere. but fellig gets up!!! and pulls the knife out of his own back!!! ack!!!! 

the blood from his body is red and didn’t cause any gassing, so i don’t think he’s one of the shape-shifting aliens, but maybe he’s some sort of vampire or vampire-like creature?? maybe he sucks energies from the photos of dying people he takes??

ritter and scully find the knife with fellig’s prints on them.

“what’s this?” “a whole lotta blood” “yeah, i got that” <- LMAOOOOO, do not separate her from her bonded pair or she will be mad. scully clearly does not think there is a second victim because there is no second body.

ritter says it is “january 4th”. so does this take place BEFORE rain king, somehow? or did we jump ahead a year? you know what? i’m gonna try not to think about it. 

that seems like a weird detail to include for it to just prove the timeline wrong.

(i'm still annoyed about this 24 hours later btw)

they’re interviewing fellig. scully watches from the corner. he says he saw someone stealing a kid’s shoes and tried to run him off. he claims he touched the knife after the murderer left. 

OHHH, she picks up on the fact that he is in pain and is closing in on him like a shark smelling blood. yeahhhh, noir detective. ritter seems fascinated by this but like, come on, we all are. he’s not special.

fellig confesses to being cut. and she helps take off his shirt to see the gashes. ritter says to get his blood drawn and take pictures.

“hey, i’m confused. i thought we were trying to bust this guy, not look for reasons to let him go” “i thought we were looking for the truth” <-YEAH, YOU TELL HIM 🔥 

he gets pissed and leaves

AWWWWW, MULDER CALLS HER AND SAYS IN A STUPID VOICE THAT THEY USED TO SIT NEXT TO EACH OTHER AT THE FBI :,) AWWWW, LOOK AT HER TIRED SMILE!!!

WAIT, WHY DOES HE KNOW ABOUT THE STABBING, LMAO????? “i told you, i’m nosy” <- WHAT DOES HE KNOW??

they found another murderer’s prints on the knife and fellig’s blood all over the place… yeah. so fellig probably isn’t killing these people outright.

DID HE HACK INTO THE NYPD DATABASE SOMEHOW?? LMAOOOOO???

NO, HE GOT THE FILES FROM KERSH SOMEHOW, AND HE SEES THAT FELLIG HAS A HEALING FACTOR. LMAOOOO, oh he is gonna get in TROUBLE!!

but he says kersh has (mostly) nice things to say about her. which is kind of him to add.

he whines his way into doing a background check on the murderer, saying it’s what he does now. and you can tell she wants to say no, but also knows that saying no to him won’t do a damn thing, lmao.

why does he have access to kersh’s files….?

scully is joining ritter in a car at 1 am. seems he’s doing a stakeout on fellig. ritter tells her to have a LOVELY evening in a way that seems like he really hates her. man. i thought he was kinda chill at the start of this episode. except for the way he was quizzing her. and ignoring fellig not aging. maybe he was a jerk all along and i simply tried to be kind.

time for scully to flip through some more murder photos. OH NO!! she hears the camera clicking in the distance… and ritter just walked away!!! IS HE GONNA BE DEAD???

she knocks on fellig’s door and says “explain this” LMAO, get those answers!! how did he take a photo of a murder an hour before the police arrived?! 

she says he needs to explain himself or he will not know a moment’s peace. and trust that she means it.

fellig says to take a ride with her, which has me scared. and then he drives her around for an hour!!! he says he is looking for the shot. 

he finds a woman on the street corner, saying she’s about to die, could be a minute, could be an hour. scully grabs her gun, thinking he’s going to do something nefarious. he says the way they die is always a surprise- he just always knows when. 

“you want me to believe that?”, she asks

but then a man comes toward the woman on the side of the road, and they start fighting. scully gets out of the car! and she grabs the dude!!! he is under arrest!!! i fear she may only fulfill the prophecy somehow… 

she takes a gun off of him, and when he claims it isn’t his and calls her “red”, she slaps him on the face, omfg…. just a little slap…. but it was enough

BUT NO!!! when scully goes to ask the lady on the side of the road if she’s okay, the mystery woman gets hit by a truck!!!

OMG????? and fellig comes in to get the shot…

ritter is mad as HELL with scully when she rolls up with this random dude under arrest. she is also very mad at him!!! she does not need his permission to do her job!!! but he says he has something to show her. 

the murderer who killed that kid over the shoes claims that fellig did it. and scully accuses RITTER of making the STORY UP, OHHHH!!!

“fellig is a murderer. whether or not he did this specific one, i don‘t care-“ WELL, YOU SHOULD???

omfg… is this some sort of moral test for scully? is kersh torturing her like this is the good place? he says he knows the judge and he’ll get the warrant

OHHHH!!! “you know, kersh warned me about you.” “uh, he did?” “yeah, you and your partner. god knows his reputation precedes him, so i guess i should have seen this coming. you muck up my case, and kersh will hear about it. are we clear, dana?” “scully.”

WHEW!!!! THE WAY SHE SAID HER NAME ALL CLEAR AND QUIET GAVE ME GOOSEBUMPS

you tell that pathetic rat.

“and we’re done with this conversation” YES MA’AM 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

wow. still playing this on loop in my brain, 24 hours later. the implications... the defining of herself... the resistance... yeah.

phone call time!! it’s mulder!!! she admits that it is an x file, which prompts him to sound worried. “what happened?”

mulder says that fellig is 149! under the name henry strand, someone applied for a press license way back in the day, and henry’s prints match fellig’s!! and before henry, there is an L.H. rice who was born in 1849 and has the same fingerprints!!

how did he track the fingerprints down… get mulder out of this office and into a research lab, maybe!

“i’m not good at math, but i figure that’s a whole lot of candles on the cake”

! MULDER LORE REVEAL ! he doesn’t think he’s good at math!!!

man, i haven’t gotten to do a lore reveal text format like that in a while. that felt nice.

scully finds fellig's age hard to believe, but mulder says she should find him before he vanishes again. she turns up at his apartment and looks so scary, LMAO. 

but she warns him that he will be arrested in 2 hours and charged with murder. which makes her seem to be the the good guy here, and not as scary as her angry face would suggest.

fellig says he just takes the pictures, but she hits him with “what you showed me was a contemptible lack of compassion for another human being. you showed me that you profit off of people’s deaths” <- OHHHH, GET HIM!! that strong moral code kicks in again!

“now, why shouldn’t you go to prison?” <- oooo, she’s playing hardball. but he says they’re lucky!!! and he doesn’t take them, “he” does. girl, who the hell is "he"?

fellig must be jealous that these other people can die… 

scully follows him into his darkroom. i feel such fondness for her as she moves the curtain. 

he points to someone in the photograph and says “he’s the one who takes them” BUT WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?! 

it’s a glimpse of death itself. he’s trying to photograph death!!!

“mr. fellig, i know you know more about photography than i do, but this is just a lens flare” “you’re right, i do know more about photography than you” <- LMAO, okay, that did make me laugh.

she asks him why take a picture of death, and he says he wants to look into his face so he can die. nothing will kill him. he's tried it all.

hey man, i’m unfortunately really distracted by the terrible feelings of tenderness that scully has sparked in me right at this very moment. yeah, idk. i don’t really want to focus on this guy right now. it’s very sad, genuinely, but look at her face. 

he says he doesn’t want to be here, and he got left behind. 

“you know, i don’t believe you” “yes you do. that’s why you’re here” <- OHHHH, he called her out…. the cracks in her disbeliever facade keep growing… is it that she doesn’t believe him, or that her greater commitment to needing to know the truth and therefore do the morally correct thing in handling this murder case brought her here?? can they be separated???

she flips through his photos, touching one of a young flapper. she asks how he knows when they’ll die, and he says he knows.

scully has to step outside. and she calls mulder, asking if louis brady (name on the flapper photo) was also one of fellig's names. he says no, but there is a big gap before 1939, so it could be.

but somehow, fellig disappeared!!! just kidding, he’s back. he wanted to get his film. i thought he vanished for a few seconds there.

mulder is in the FBI archives at 9:30 am. ahhh, i wish i could go there. and he finds fellig’s photo!! it shows him wanted under the name louis brady for double murder!!!

mulder calls ritter when he learns of this news, because he cannot get ahold of her. he tells him about how fellig killed two patients and walked away!!! he tells him to find agent scully NOW. and ritter, of course, is shocked that this murder happened like 80 years ago, but whatever. you better go check on her, ritter.

meanwhile, scully is still with fellig. she asks “how can you have too much life? there’s too much to learn, to experience” and this hits hard because she, of course, was very recently dying.

(moaning in pain as i think about scully wanting to experience and learn everything there is this world has to offer.......)

he says you start to wonder what everyone else gets to know

OH, SHE ASKS ABOUT LOVE??? he wanted to look up his wife 40 years ago. and he couldn’t remember her name. 

(scully, you damn romantic...)

“love lasts 75 years, if you’re lucky. and you don’t want to be around when it’s gone” <- oh stop… you’re going to make her cry…

but, is he actually going to try and kill her…..?

WAIT! she turned black and white… and tells her to count her blessings.

IS HE GOING TO KILL HER BECAUSE HE WANTS TO HELP HER???

(author's note: no)

she wants to know how to prove his thing- that he can live forever, and that he can sense when people are going to die before they do. fellig says someone took his place. he had yellow fever. and he’s getting his camera around…

he saw death back when he was sick. and he saw him dancing around the room, taking people. but death didn’t take him. 

a nurse sat with him, and when death came, he looked away. she looked at him instead. and the fever broke, and she was the one that died. 

he tells her she’s very lucky. she gets in his face and insists she is NOT going to die. she tells him to turn it off. he took her phone!!!

he says death is coming and he needs to make her peace…. 

but it’s ritter!!!! he fires his gun at fellig!!!

SHE COLLAPSES???? WHY IS SHE BLEEDING??????? there is blood coming from her throat???? did ritter miss and shoot her instead???

fellig tries to take a photo of her with his other camera, and asks if she sees "him". he says don’t look, close your eyes. and he holds her hand in his. AND HE LOOKS INTO DEATH INSTEAD. and he gasps softly…. oh my god…. he finally dies.

scully is in bed in the hospital a week later. mulder is waiting, telling ritter he’s a lucky man. which is better than i expected.

OH, he grabs her hand. and he sits on her bed. and he smiles, saying her doctor says she is making an amazing recovery. but she seems so sad, and in so much pain

he says “death only looks for you once you seek its opposite” <- OHHHH my god…

and we fade to black.

so i rewatched the scene where scully gets hurt because at first i couldn't tell what was happening, and this DUMBASS ritter shot fellig, and the bullet went STRAIGHT THROUGH HIM and INTO SCULLY???? like. what the HELL WAS HE THINKING????

holy fuck, if i were mulder i would have done a lot more than tell him he was a lucky guy. look at her enduring ritter's presence while she’s in her hospital bed and he was such an awful person the whole time they worked together. i would have told him to fuck off and let me recover from the bullet YOU put in me in peace.

and mulder grabbing her hand. and the flowers in her room. and his smile at her news. but she’s so sad. people don’t live forever. 

she wants to live, and she wants to have a life, and holy HELL need to lay down.

oh my god… this episode was super dark. and usually i don’t really like the dark ones. but it has scully, so i liked it better. because we got to contemplate her worldview. 

and she wants to LIVE. she wants a LIFE. she wants LOVE. the way she got in fellig’s face and REFUSED to let him take her picture… the way she tried to understand how he could be jealous of death, because she always wants to understand and to learn and empathize… the way she helped fellig, and fellig helped her by telling her to look away from death, so he could look instead… oh my god.

we need to do something about this ritter guy. hopefully, he will simply be fired. you can’t go around shooting your own agents. OH! and the way he didn’t care about justice at all- how he got the warrant because he knew the judge, and he told scully that if she got in his way he’d go to kersh… and how she told him her name is SCULLY and this conversation is OVER…

oh!!!

and mulder helping over the phone; mulder using her sleuthing skills to find out that fellig WAS a murderer and she WAS in danger, and he called ritter immediately and said you had BEST find her. and i can only imagine how he went to bed that night thinking of all the ways he wanted to kill ritter. how he sat by his phone for her. bouncing his basketball until the hospital sent him word of her recovery. 

now, i’m still puzzled as to why he has access to kersh’s files. perhaps this is some sort of clue. but to what? i cannot say.

i just love scully SO MUCH. she saw that the woman on the side of the road was going to die, and she stepped right in and did everything she could, even if it was ultimately doomed. she couldn’t sit back. and she wants a life. she’s in love and she wants a life and she wants a house and a dog. and to save people. and to do work that is satisfying. and all of these things she has been denied.

(screams into my hands)

she’s been slowly starting to believe- maybe not in the traditional sense, but in the sense that she recognizes something she cannot understand is afoot, and she finds herself curious about how and why. i found it very interesting that fellig called her out for this and gibson did as well. and we know that gibson can read minds, so we know it to be true. i don’t think “believes” in the same use of the word that mulder does, but she is finding it harder to compartmentalize, maybe. and can you blame her? i mean, she is miss "there HAS to be a scientific explanation for this". belief not in the supernatural sense, but in the sense that there is so much more to learn and understand and experience. be it love and life or the guy who lives forever and can somehow sense death. maybe the spiritual and the scientific aren't that separate.

god. this really was a scully episode, and i am so grateful. i deserved this. even though it wasn’t one where she laughs and enjoys the gift of being alive, we still got to dive into her thoughts and emotional state. AND we got bonus angsty mulder- angst about them being separated, and angst about nearly losing her. is this not the ultimate kind of mulder angst? 

i shall go to bed a bit sad this evening, but content. 

as i edit my notes to make them readable the day after watching this, there is still so much on my mind. in the sense that i want to write a thinkpiece on what this means for scully's character. maybe this will be a turning point, when she once again confronts her own mortality. how easily death can come. maybe she'll tell him how she feels because she realizes that now is all she has. maybe she'll confront kersh and tell him to get them off of their nonsense assignment so she can go back to saving people. maybe she'll think about all of the times she felt so certain that she was going to die in the past and once again try and make a meaning for why she didn't.

i am also thinking about how sad mulder was when kersh separated them and then how horrible he must have felt when he heard that she was SHOT in his absence. and there was nothing that he could do for a week while he could only wait to hear if she was okay. and then he drove up there as soon as he could. and he KNEW that it was ritter's fault she was lying in that bed fighting for her life, but he somehow managed to say only how lucky he was instead of slamming his head through the drywall. and how he held her hand, smiling, so happy to see her, taking his spot on her bed, thinking of how he loves her and how many times her has nearly lost her. and her thinking the same thing. and neither of them saying anything. just touching.

the feelings i am experiencing are large and difficult to put into words, which is frustrating because, like AUGH! (gestures wildly) do you get what i mean?! do you SEE what i am saying?!?! (grabs your shoulders and shakes them vigorously)

please share your thoughts with me, especially if you are a scully girl like myself. to me, this felt sort of like scully's version of paper hearts, in a way. at least, i see some parallels. even if i cannot elaborate at this time because my brain is flopping.

[nestinqomega]

hi hi!! can you explain what it’s like being an omega?? I never knew this was a thing until now but I think it seems cool.

hi ! i will try my best !! i don’t know how good of an explanation i’ll be able to give bc i find it hard for me to describe a lot of parts of my identity, but i hope it makes sense :)

also obligatory disclaimer that all omegas have different experiences and may feel/identify differently than i do !

i think it honestly probably started before i ever even knew anything about the omegaverse, let alone the misce community; when i was young, probably elementary school, i would get confused about why people acted certain ways, sometimes - in the sense that it felt like everyone was over complicating things. that being said, finally getting diagnosed in my late teens as very neurodivergent probably sheds some light on a few of those feelings

that THAT being said, i know it was more than that because i found myself always coming back to the idea of “why don’t people act more instinctual or like animals?” because i always knew humans are animals. i felt so out of place because i’d want to lean into those more instinctual/animalistic urges and it was always frowned upon

on top of that, as someone who’s AFAB, my relationship with with gender has always been a winding road too. i never quite felt like any of the other girls, i always felt like i was looking through a window - girl adjacent. a looooong way down the line (in the last couple years) i finally realized i fell somewhere in the demigirl area.

however

the first time i read a fully fledged out omega character (years ago) i had this moment of “oh my gosh that’s me!”

i couldn’t tell you who that character was now (i read a lot lmao), but ever since then, i’ve always felt this intrinsic connection to omegas, and always wishing i could exist there, in whatever au i was reading about because i felt like that was the only place i could feel like me and others would get it

finding the misce community was like a weight off my shoulders and a breath of fresh air - i’d finally found my people !!!

the specific characteristics that i feel like align with my identity as an omega are hard for me to pinpoint cuz they just feel like me, yk?

but i guess i’ve always been nurturing - towards people (especially kids and babies), plants, animals, anything in nature really, even objects

i love caring for people and being cared for in return, in a deeper way than a lot of people i know irl do

i’ve always been creative and absolutely LOVE crafting, specifically creating things for the people i care about. especially crocheting - i feel so happy and warm and fuzzy when i make a crochet plush or household item or knick knack for someone :)

things like scent/scenting, nesting, and vocals like purring have always felt like something connected to me too, in a way that was just like “oh yes, duh!”

i’m also very very particular about touch - who, where they’re touching me (both on my body and in what setting), how, why, etc. it’s a weird balance of aversion to touch but also craving touch that i still struggle to grasp, and that’s something i feel like is part of my own personal omega identity

there’s a lot of stuff i’m probably missing (i know there’s at least 1 thing i’m gonna realize i missed), but i hope this answered your question and was helpful ?

if you have follow up questions or questions about specific things i’ll do my best to answer those too :)

[confused-possum]

I get it. I get Ace Attorney now. These characters….the story…..oh my…..

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[welcometogrouchland]

(ID in alt) I literally said I was gonna post this month's ago and then never had the wherewithal to describe it and so I didn't Lmao (said with pain). But since I'm thinking of opening my commissions I figured I should remind ppl that I. Yknow. Can draw.

Lots of Steph here (I had major art block making all of these and my brain worms for her kept me going) + some sprinkles of stephcass for Cass nation to enjoy!

[meamiki]

Happy Anniversary In Stars and Time!! Have some Friend Quest based drawings :D

(These have specific quote picks related to them! And there's also a long ramble on why I like those specific quotes below if interested)

(And by long, I mean roughly 2k+ words of proper ramble total, so be warned before clicking keep reading this link right here to the rb!!)

[witchinatree]

making a list of my favorite quote/ones that stuck with me from each season 1 episode because i feel like it

(i'm starting this after episode 4 but it will be a WHILE before i post it)

episode 1: "bones are a lie peddled by Big Milk" - alice

i love this one because it's a great introduction to alice i think. also it radiates spiral so i hope we get avatar alice not dead alice (isnt there a podcast called alice isnt dead?)

episode 2: "If I wanted to clear the canvas, I would have used turpentine." - statement

this one was just fucking powerful and caught me so off guard like 😶

episode 3: "What would I do without her?" - statement

the norris statement <3 it feels like martin asking what he would do without jon which makes mag200 a lot sadder and i love them

episode 4: "Perhaps you shall prove a stronger will than I, and will yet find it within yourself to destroy this hungry thing of wood and cat-gut." - statement

augustus sighting #1 and we immediately get jonah magnus expressing that it may be possible for gwen bouchard unknown family member to overcome the eye's hunger spooky violin

episode 5: "Voyeur needs to be seen to be believed." - statement

i feel like this one is pretty reflective of how the seasons gonna go? like if you explain the events of tma (mag200 specifically) no one's gonna believe you, it must be seen to be believed!! and also seen!! like the eye!!!

episode 6: "Not sca- This isn’t some poxy blood test, some little pinprick, this is hundreds, thousands of razor sharp points pushing into your flesh." - needles

i love needles so much and i thought this was really funny because it was like "you dont find me scary!! what the fuck!!!" just kind of toddler michael energy

episode 7: "It’s not like we’re wrestling with tape recorders and manila folders." - celia

STOP IT. celia you can't say that you just cannot!!!!!! you Know™ too much maam i cant with you

episode 8: "Pleasure to meet you both. I’m Gerry!"

RAGHHHHH OH MY GOD GERRY!!!! i love him so much and idk how to handle him being alive in the tmagp universe!! gertrude too but idk we got so much of her in tma and not nearly enough of gerry

episode 9: "And honestly, it’s kind of compelling by this point." - sam

they got him 😔😔 the horrors got sam 😔😔 also i found this to be an interesting contrast to jon's heavy resistance in season 1 like he was being compelled but he wasn't going to let anyone know that vs sam "its kinda compelling to trauma dump on this paperwork :]" how is he somehow even more victim material

episode 10: "Gosh you’re sexy, here’s a twenty for your trouble.” - alice

does this count as a quote if shes also quoting what she thinks sam should say? idk anyway i love her i would say that to her if given the chance and it was very silly. i will not be addressing bonzo i am scared.

episode 11: "...Thank you, Alice" - gwen

dyhard dyhard dyhard dyhard dyhard. okay also, the way she CRUMBLED at the idea of anyone doing anything nice for her please someone give her a hug and let it be ME. this series is tossing me back and forth between sam & alice (what is their ship name) and dyhard but this put me back to dyhard

episode 12: "You know it's rude to have absolutely no game?" - alice

she's so fucking funny i need her to be okay so badly!!!! i don't think even tim made me laugh as much as she makes me chuckle and this one really got me. it's hard to write such a comedic character in a podcast since you only have the voice but they really nailed it i adore her

episode 13: "Is it my fault?" - gwen

each of these episodes just reveal a little bit more about how loving and soft gwen is and idk i love her so unbelievably much so seeing that she felt guilt about the bonzo stuff just made her so much more real :(

episode 14: "Christ, they’re in the walls…" - statement

theyre in the walls!!! theyre in the goddamn walls!!!!! anyway that got me because i realized the hole before the statement said it. made more sad than scared tbh

episode 15: "Babies are cool!" - alice this entire interaction between her and sam & celia was so awkward, she is so obvious and i love her anyway

episode 16: "It’s not like I was holding doors open for Mr Bonzo or anything." - gwen my wife is so so so stupid but i adore her AND this gives room for character development. i wish she did not do that though. i love when characters are flawed and have depth but i struggled to get past THIS flaw of hers

episode 17: "Thanks, I guess. Not exactly the same, though, is it?" - celia shes talking TO JON IN THE COMPUTER. SHE KNOWS. i lost my damn mind i love her i love her. get the gay people out of the puter please queen

episode 18: "Why would I need to talk to you? Your work is satisfactory. Unless you have a work-related issue I could assist you with?" - lena solidified my opinion that lena is the best boss to ever have, i adore her and i would want to work for her if she wasn't the boss of Creepy Establishment #1

episode 19: "You’re going to throw it in the fishtank, aren’t you?" - alice colin's behavior is like really worrying BUT i'm glad he's back. i was not convinced he was still alive

episode 20: "I suppose it’s too late for remorse, isn’t it? And why should I be sorry? This is what I deserve!" - ink5oul/statement they reminded me of jon a lot, like especially his season 3/4 transformation when he doesn't quite know everything but he knows he isn't who he was in season 1 anymore, i hope we see more of their life and they can be helped :(

episode 21: [Tape Recorder Bites Ink5oul] - audio description i know it's not technically a quote but this is just so fucking funny. why does it have teeth. what does this mean for the lore. holy shit.

episode 22: "Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood" - celia. knawing at the walls of my enclosure i am so not okay. i'm not okay. wtf. wtf. wtf. they're real. wtf.

episode 23: "I had a favorite mug. It said “love you, bitch” and had a picture of a drunk dog on it." - alice. okay i just love this entire interaction because gwen got to open up a little bit and my dyhard heart is so full

episode 24: "I am told that children like me, and I’ve always held the opinion that the world would be a better place if everyone just thought more." - basira. once again this whole interaction was so fun but like idk i loved hearing basira somewhat happy and in a safe place :] my wife <3

episode 25: " I am trying to help, to save us from this goddamned fucking nightmare machine!" - colin. MAN I REALLY WAS ROOTING FOR YOU!!! I WAS SO CONFIDENT YOU WEREN'T GONNA DIE!!!! it's over

episode 26: "I was worrying for a moment that you were Magnussing." - alice. MAGNUSSING BEING CANON MADE ME SAY IT EVEN MORE I'VE SAID IT LIKE TWICE ALREADY

episode 27: "You didn’t tell me the room was labelled, “Archivist.”" - celia. oooooh somebody's got TRAUMAAAAA LMAO

episode 28: "So you’re telling me you know nothing about an OIAR external contract being found with the bodies of two tattooed thugs who met rather grisly ends?" - TREVOR HERBERT???? anyway. ink5oul mention!!!!! i hope they stop killing people it's really rude

episode 29: "Alice, er… we’ve got to talk. It’s important." - teddy. i knew it was over for him but i didn't think it was gonna be THIS bad??? bye babe i guess??? 😭

episode 30: how do i even pick. the whole fucking episode. i can't. i am in a state of shock. i need to lay down for 30 years.

[chiimeramanticore]

waow

[phagodyke]

the masculine urge to take a saucepan off thr draining board and bash myself repeatedly over the head with it until I pass out and no longer have to experience feeling Bad 😍

[cuteniarose]

The consequences of my poor financial decisions are here!!

[memento-morri-writes]

I've been thinking a lot about how Rook's reunion with his former mentor, Zara, is going to go, and since I can't predict what the DM is going to have her do or say, I can only dwell on what I know is going to happen. Which happens to include taking off the illusion ring that's been hiding his injuries from her. So have a snippet of the description I have planned for that moment:

tw for description of (mostly healed) injuries

He hesitates, twisting a ring on his finger. Looking at it more closely, she can tell it’s very finely crafted, and must have been very expensive. A large emerald is set into the band. Rook sighs, and pulls the ring off his finger in one quick motion.  Immediately she’s struck by the difference in his appearance as the illusion melts away. He looks awful. His warm, healthy skin fades to a dull and sickly grey. There’s huge bags under his deeply sunken eyes, and his cheeks are hollowed, as though they have been carved out by an overeager sculptor. He looks like he’s recently risen from the grave.  While he was thin before, now she can see his ribs under the skin, and his collarbones are exaggeratedly pronounce. Thin white lines left by dozens upon dozens of recently healed cuts are scattered across his body. On top of that, faded bruises cover most of his visible skin, a mottled mosaic of purple and yellow. They’re clearly days, maybe weeks old, and she can only begin to imagine what they must have looked like when fresh. Bandages are barely visible under his shirt, wrapping around his back, hinting at even more injuries.

[clambuoyance]

I’ve never been so obsessed with a character so bad that I literally can’t do anything else I’m like the squidward meme watching SpongeBob frolic outside the window stretching a hand out to all the pretty paintings and animations and comics I see in my head but being unable to feel any motivation for it . If only i could use the energy spent to create 20 kon doodles to sit down and concentrate on a single finished full piece I used to be able to make like 5 page comics what happened to me

[gingerbreadmonsters]

its so important to me that you know how much ive already cried over this wip and its literally only been two days

[seventh-district]

so uh. that 2.2 Special Program, huh

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...