#to what seffie has to say and actually talk to her. and she talks about growing up watching princesses and celebrities on tv and being poor

[termagax]

my favourite side episode that ive been planning for 5ever is the team gets invited to a fancy ball and aja gets a handmade gown for it and feels really Normal about all this

[johnconstantinesdick]

Here’s the promised Seffie meta—I wrote this after chapter 9 of Improbable Fiction, expanding on her queerness, relationship to Colette, and how she foils Gil. All under the cut!

So, in Improbable Fiction, Seffie’s queerness has been purposefully left ambiguous, and I would so dearly love to talk about why—some of this I was aware of when I was writing, and some of it is me finally putting words to my gut feelings. The main reason is this: when it comes to Seffie’s feelings for Gil, it doesn’t matter if she’s bisexual or a repressed lesbian or some other flavor of queer. It’s not relevant, because whatever the case is, her feelings still matter. Whether she’s experiencing romantic attraction or compulsory attraction, at the end of the day she deserves to have her experiences and feelings validated. Seffie has so often been treated as a pawn as a matter of course in her family. She’s so often been dictated to or groomed for certain positions or she’s just had it assumed what she feels or means or thinks that it almost felt… like I would just be going against the themes of her arc to say “well she’s a lesbian so these feelings weren’t REALLY a crush” or “she’s bisexual and her feelings for Gil are more valid because she CAN be attracted to men” or whatever because it doesn’t MATTER. what Seffie needs is to be listened to! Not interpreted by me to the readers, just Seffie laid bare, all confusion and hurt and righteous fury.

And it’s also why, while the ending of chapter 9 is very much intended to show that Colette and Seffie are In Lesbians, I firmly believe they didn’t actually kiss or officially get together or anything. It’s not the right TIME. if Colette were to confess to Seffie at a time like this, it would just show that they can’t be together because Colette doesn’t understand or respect Seffie—which she DOES. Seffie is coming off the high of her first love, true or not, and the heartbreak afterwards.

Gil has spent this entire time dismissing Seffie’s feelings. Part of that is just that it’s in his nature to be a little dismissive of other peoples feelings and bulldoze over them and focus on himself, but part of it is also that he thinks first of Seffie as Colette’s Love Interest, and thus He Can’t Be The One She Ends Up With. If Gil considers Seffie seriously and actually fully acknowledges that she has feelings that deserve to be validated if not reciprocated, then he’s going to have to run headfirst into the terrifying fact that he… doesn’t like her. And like sure yeah he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings so that’s a factor but it’s mostly that he’d have to deal with the fact that he’s incapable of loving her and he… doesn’t know WHY yet. He doesn’t really have the words to explain that he can’t feel those feelings now that he’s started to realize that people are actually serious about that stuff—he’s finally reaching the part of life that every arospec person goes through where it feels like you’re still stuck at thirteen not understanding that people aren’t joking or exaggerating their romantic interest or dating lives. Gil is standing at the edge of a realization and it’s terrifying!

And the thing is! Seffie and Gil are foils! Seffie isn’t that oblivious to Colette’s feelings on accident, she’s subconsciously ignoring them because then she’ll have to deal with how that makes her feel! Gil is acting the same way towards Seffie! And it’s why, at the end of the chapter, Seffie CAN’T reciprocate right away! The end of the chapter scene is about her finally acknowledging Colette’s feelings and her own suppressed ones, finally reaching an internal breaking point for herself and letting go of Gil and the willful ignorance! They’re on even footing now, and Seffie can finally have the space to start figuring herself out and figuring out how she feels separate from family pressure. Paris is very much a coming of age college story—nothing is going how anyone expected, everyone is trying to figure out where they stand and what they feel, and absolutely no one is getting enough sleep or making good decisions. Seffie isn’t done with her internal journey, she’s just at the START! She’s finally facing everything terrifying and raw in her heart and she can do that because she trusts Colette to listen to her and catch her when she falls. Colette sees her and knows her—not because they’re predestined true love, but because Colette looks and tries. Seffie is finally looking up and realizing that she’s had someone on her side this whole time.

They understand where they stand with each other, now, even without voicing it. Seffie is able to take that internal step because of that trust she has in Colette. They value each other enough to not ruin their friendship in the attempt at romance, to be careful with each other in moments of vulnerability. And that’s terrifying, for Seffie especially. But that’s not going to stop them from trying, and exploring this new facet of their relationship.

[dreamsausage]

lesbian robot dream

just had a dream where were walking g around my favourite park with a family I didn't recognise. we were going a route that was totally different to the one we usually take, and it seemed to mix another park I like in with it. we walked past a path that had a big solid dam locking in a pool of water, but we were on the other side and there were about 15 herons all standing in the water eating snails.

then we turned a corner and we found these two guys who were actors I recognised but they weren't actually irl people from what I could tell? like my brain went "oh I've seen them on tv" but they didn't look like anyone I've seen before.

they were working on several computers and talking to eachother so we came over to ask what they were doing. turns out they had found some lost media in the form of a movie that they wanted to publish on YouTube, and they realised they were close to where it was filmed, so they came over to compare it.

we watched as they discussed the movie, and they apparently hadn't published the video yet and were just verifying it before they did. they played it in full so we could see what happens in it.

It was a bit muddled, but it was the same every time they replayed it, down to the voice acting. it seems some kind of magician who worked for the mayor of a town created a sentient robot, and used magic to give her a human body to see if the town would accept her. a lot of the town didn't like her because she was very tall and slightly unsettling, and she didn't know how to use the hands she now had so they were constantly frail, curled up and bruised from her stubbing them constantly.

the first half of the movie was in stop motion animation. here it introduced Seffie (the robot girl), the magician who was like 30 years old? and he didn't do much because he had to travel to the next town to get stuff at the start, the mayor who was a very nervous old guy who had a robot butler that followed him everywhere and helped to reaffirm the mayor's decisions, a barber and a shoemaker who went everywhere together and seemed to be played by the same two actors from before, and Lilith, one of only a few 18 year old girls in the small town.

lilith immediately liked the robot girl and couldn't understand why everyone else was so weirded out by her. there was a scene where she was talking to her mother while collecting up the stuff she needed around the house (because she worked as a carpenter) and her mother was saying

"you need to keep your distance from that robot. it doesn't have the capacity to care."

and lilith said

"you just don't get her mum. she has her own way of doing things. and anyway, she's really beautiful..."

at that she grabbed a long hair tie made of pink flowery ribbon off the hat stand, looked at it and thought for a second, then put it in her bag and left the house.

I can't entirely remember the events in between this and the next important part in order but it was just lilith making friends with seffie, taking her around the town and showing her things, sharing her favourite food with her, and then she gave her the hairtie. seffie doesn't have a lot of hair so the hairtie made it seem much longer, and it matched the pink colour of her eyes. at this point something begins to change in seffie and she becomes more proactive and talkative.

there was one part where lilith, seffie, the two guys, the robot and the mayor were all in a car driving down a long path near a lake. the road was slightly uneven and while they were talking, the car malfunctioned and the brakes stopped working. the mayor lost control of the car and it fell into the lake, quickly starting to fill with water.

seffie successfully opened the side doors and the mayor and the robot guy got out of the driver's side, while the barber and the shoemaker got out of the other. there were loads of long plants coming up from the seabed and the robot almost got tangled in them, but he managed to cut through them with his metal claws and pull the mayor up out of the lake. the barber also nearly got his leg tangled up but he had a pair of scissors in his pocket so he cut through the plant and tried to swim out with the shoemaker.

but then it turned out the shoemaker had his hand stuck in the window, which had automatically tried to close when the car malfunctioned. it was too tightly stuck to get his hand out, but the glass was reinforced and almost impossible for him to smash. the shoemaker started drowning and the barber kept ahold of his other hand trying to figure out how to get him out.

then Seffie realised that those two weren't going to get out, so she used her feet to kick open the sunroof while lilith worked on smashing the window. eventually the window broke and they all swam up through the car and got out of the water at the top. the shoemaker coughed up water for a while but he and the rest of the people turned out ok. originally the shoemaker was a little skeptical of seffie but after this he couldn't ignore that she was a good person who genuinely cared for others, unlike what the town thought.

they all walked back to town and the shoemaker got his hand looked at by a doctor when they arrived. some of the townspeople didn't entirely believe what happened, and thought that maybe lilith was the one to actually kick open the sunroof, or even that seffie caused the malfunction. everyone who had been in the car steadfastly refused any of these ideas and insisted the truth of what happened. seffie stayed quiet because she didn't think the people would listen to anything she said.

there was a bit of a blur where something happened but I can't quite remember, but then it came to the end of the movie and the final scene was between lilith and saffie. they were in an orchard in full bloom and seffie still had the hairtie on. they were sitting together and talking about things they wanted to do during the week, and lilith seemed unusually nervous. she grabbed seffie's hand and told her there was one thing she wanted to do right that moment, which was tell seffie that she loved her.

seffie was quiet for a second, but then she pulled lilith into a hug and said "even after everything the people in town said about me?"

lilith said she didn't care what they said, and she loved seffie anyway.

they started to sing their favourite song together and dance around in the orchard. the barber and the shoemaker had been there too watching to see if it would go well, so they came out and congratulated both of them, and then they all started dancing.

the next scene was them walking back to town and lilith and seffie were holding hands and smiling. lilith's mother came out of the house and saw seffie smiling and looking at lilith lovingly, and she realised that maybe seffie really wasn't a robot anymore, and that she not only had capacity to care, but also to love.

they got married and then the credits played. the two actor guys decided that it was indeed the full version like they had hoped, and they immediately began uploading it to various sites, then copied the whole thing to a disc and made plans to have it rereleased by a film studio they had ties to.

a lot of the scenes in the movie were bloody because seffie never fully learned how to use her hands, especially in the car scene since she tried to break the windows and the sunroof with her hands first, breaking them and cutting them on the sharp edges. when she got out of the car there was blood running down her arms and some on her face from the initial crash. several other scenes had her try to use her hands wrong and hurt them, with lilith helping to clean them up.

during the wedding scene her hands and forearms were wrapped in bandages. she never moved her fingers from a fist and held things with both hands. the bloody scenes were often hard to watch because it was obvious she found using her hands very painful, which may be a reason why the movie wasn't archived. I think another of the reasons why the film was lost was because it was a lesbian love story too, and critics received it poorly due to public opinion of gay people at the time. "why couldn't the robot be a boy?" and so forth.

there had apparently been a forum post where this person had remembered the movie, but she only had screenshots of "when I thought seffie looked the most beautiful". she had posted these images to the forum and they were very low quality, so me and the other two guys started going through the movie and finding all the same parts and re-screenshotting them so they were in high quality for this person.

I couldn't tell what time the movie was set in, but it definitely felt like it was in the past. the clothes they wore and technology of the time felt almost steampunk, but it wasn't as over-the-top and many of the people there didn't really bother with technology much, plus they did widely have electricity.

colour definitely drove the narrative a lot. seffie originally had a very monochrome white theme except for her deep pink eyes, while lilith was always very pink and purple. the more the two got to know eachother, the pinker saffie got. her wedding dress at the end was rose pink.

the barber and the shoemaker both wore mostly brown and their hair was very dark brown, almost black. they wore the same things but clearly were not related, just very close. there was a rumour going round the forums that they were initially planned to also get married at the end, but this was scrapped to put the focus on the girls instead.

lilith's mum always wore green, and the rest of the townspeople mostly wore grey, black and white. the magician wore red and had deep pink eyes that matched saffie's.

weird dream but really quite nice honestly.

[the-al-chemist]

hi there! this is a little late, but can i ask 4, 7, and 13 for ethel and selene and if u want maybe a question of ur choice for jim and vinny? no pressure at all! ok thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Never too late! Thank you for asking! 💛 Selene belongs to @lifeofkaze

4. How do they know the other is in a bad mood before they say anything?

SELENE AND ETHEL (Sethel?! Seffy?) Although Jim is Ethel’s twin, the person she has “twinstinct” with is Selene. Ethel and Selene know each other better than they know themselves. Selene is normally bright and vivacious. When she goes quiet and looks a bit lost in her own thoughts, you know something’s wrong. Ethel, on the other hand, likes to make sure that EVERYONE knows when she’s unhappy. Normally, she rants and raves about what’s bothering her, and the person who has to listen (not that she minds, of course) more than anyone else is dear Selly.

JIM AND VINNY Has Vinny ever actually been in a bad mood? No one knows. Jim is quite an emotional bean (bless his cotton socks) and is prone to his mood swings. He doesn’t tend to take his bad mood out on anyone other than himself, but if you’re as attentive and good with people as Vinny is, you will notice that he becomes even more clumsy and awkward than normal.

7. Describe how they walk together (i.e., matching strides, holding hands, etc).

SELENE AND ETHEL These two do everything together, and when they walk, they do so with their steps perfectly synchronised. Sometimes, they will link arms, but usually, both of them are talking incredibly quickly and animatedly, so it’s far more common to see both of them gesticulating wildly with their arms as they walk and talk.

JIM AND VINNY Vinny is more Ethel’s friend than Jim, but these boys do get on well. Usually, if they walk together it’s because they are going to or from classes or going down to watch the Quidditch together. Generally, Jim will be quiet, and Vinny will talk to him as they walk. Jim is taller than Vinny, so Vinny has to walk faster to keep up with him.

13. What do they do to make each other smile or laugh on bad days?

SELENE AND ETHEL Everything and anything. Usually this involves flying, making up horoscopes, dressing up in ridiculous outfits and performing plays, making up elaborate ways to best the other Quidditch teams (especially that ghastly Hufflepuff Keeper, Lysander Mercury @slytherindisaster), and playing with Alan the Ferret. When things have been really bad, Selene has been known to buy Ethel model cows for her collection, and after the first time Eliot @kc-and-oc broke Selly’s heart, Ethel summoned all of his undergarments from Ravenclaw tower and used them as fashionable hats for several gargoyles around the castle.

JIM AND VINNY Jim once drew Vinny a portrait of him with his friends in Gryffindor house, and Vinny has told Jim on several occasions that he reckons he saw that new Ravenclaw girl looking at him earlier that day.

[phoenixyfriend]

The Catboy Valois AU

This one is a little cursed, and inspired by this Totally Spies post.

This AU does contain some nsfw content, which I will place at the end of the post and mark for (it’s right after the dog pics). Once again, this was brainstormed on the GG server, back in October of 2019. Biggest contributor other than myself was @atagotiak​.

So I decided that, at some point, I need to see one of those inexplicable and very horny modern catpeople AUs.

Where a fraction of the population just happens to have cat ears and tails etc. for... minimal reason.

Tarvek def has them. Bc twink. Sticking to the tropes, you know.

All the Valois are catpeople because most of history didn't have the option of interbreeding, just coexisting. Something something sterile hybrids because chromosomes.

Andronicus Valois, Catboy King

Lucrezia was full human and Aaronev never had a chance.

"Most of history" because recently they scienced up ways to get around it, so there are catperson/human hybrids, like Gil and Zeetha (Klaus is human, Zanta is not).

Klaus is kinda glad Gil has cat ears bc this makes people automatically assume he can’t be the dad even if they realize it’s technically possible.

This means Agatha gets her boys.

The human (Lars), the hybrid (Gil), and the cat (Tarvek).

Anevka's initial robot body doesn't have the cat features just due to the fact that Tarvek was aiming for Bare Minimum, and then when he added them in later she decided she liked being able to pick when she had them.

I am morally obligated to reblog the callout art @mercurialvoid​ did for me a few years ago.

We’re not gonna talk about that, though.

human Othar/catgirl Anevka

SCENT MARKING

It's considered Undignified but everyone still DOES it, just... discreetly.

Agatha thinks nothing of it when Zeetha rubs their cheeks together while training and then someone looks at her funny and asks if that's her girlfriend or something.

And Agatha Realizes that she's currently got Belongs-to-Zeetha scent on her and has to scramble to explain that Zeetha kind of adopted her as a little sister because it's the closest approximation she can come up with that still has Acceptable Connotations.

I think platonic marking is a THING but mostly within families, children, and really close female friends, like holding hands. (Toxic masculinity does apply.)

And kolee-zumil is effectively family relationship.

Agatha can't SMELL the scent markings but she gets used to them.

Also like. There's probably different levels of scent marking depending on the body part. Wrists and cheeks are different.

Jagers that used to be catboys have better senses of smell, and are the ones sent to find a Heterodyne.

Agatha and Lars make out but don't go all the way because Agatha is not ready. (Meanwhile, Zeetha can literally smell how horny these dumb kids are.)

TINY BABY GILVEK FACE NUZZLES WHILE STILL ON CW:

(Imagine how much more dangerous the baby gilvek airship-exploring shenanigans would be given one is a catboy and the other is half catboy.)

Gil just kinda scent marks on literally everything/everyone. The boy is affection-starved well into adulthood. He probably purrs too. And purring is probably considered kinda undignified.

Tarvek purrs when he’s designing clothes in his head. He’s embarrassed when he realizes. Everyone thinks it’s cute tho.

Also when crafting super-complicated diabolical plans.

Purring isn’t very diabolical. So it’s embarrassing and doesn’t fit with the aesthetic at all.

It’s hard to do an evil scheme while being an image-conscious catboy.

Gil only. Sort of knows how to cat. He's not very good at it. Zulenna helped but...

Is Von Pinn a cat? Gut says yes. Though it makes it less likely she'd be mistaken for Lu as the students did, but hey! She’d appreciate that.

She probably wouldn’t know how to cat.

Or maybe she would, given we’re assuming hereditary and she was made for Andronicus... She probably knows a bit abt how to tell other people how to cat, but she doesn’t know how to cat herself.

The Muses... not designed to look like catpeople. Ruined the minimalist bodies RVR was going for, going by canon's lack of consistent ears or noses

Agatha does not realize at first that Von-Pinn is a cat-lady because her ears match her hair and every time she sees Agatha her ears go back, and the tail is hidden under the hobble dress.

Otilia is very happy to go from catwoman body to Giant Metal Cat body

KITTY BANGLADESH DUPREE

She's got a faint pattern to her fur that's, on closer inspection, very much indicating she's a PANTHER.

Consider: Tarvek starts working himself up into a frenzied panic and the nearest Trusted Person starts petting him to calm him down and he like. Melts.

TBH tho, a good portion of canon Tarvek’s behaviour can already be described as “cat does something stupid and immediately after attempts to pretend he has dignity even though everyone saw the stupid thing.”

Once Tarvek calms down... Lazy Cat Time.

OH

NECK PINCH

CH would be ecstatic that Agatha snagged two suitors, then swing around to devastated that they’re both catboys, and maybe delusional enough to attempt to cut the ears/tails off like that’d solve anything then come around to “well there’s always science” once it’s fixed.

All Valois have high necks on their outfits, at least at the back

So nobody tries to Deactivate The Cat

(One less thing for Anevka to worry about.)

Because, you know. Canon decided to cut Agatha in half to acquire an heir, so we can’t exactly say the Castle is all that sensible.

It does calm down once Agatha mentions she has Lars, though.

Per @lyratalus​: Krosp could be... so much more dangerous in this AU. What if he was designed to be emperor of all catpeople?

Cats never do what they're told anyways, and you can’t really control people without wasps, but the attempt was made! Vapnoople was ambitious!

Long story short, there's a spark of Something but then they just bat him off the table.

Imagine Seffie making Martellus Stop by deactivating the cat

Violetta is the cutest lil catgirl...

SHE GETS REALLY BRISTLEY WHEN SHE'S MAD

HE'S NOT A TWINK AND IT'S WEIRD. Not even a twunk???

Martellus is

So fucking ODD for a catboy

Like it HAPPENS but it means that human women are more likely to find him attractive than catgirls (and even that's a bit of a long shot on the basis of personality).

(Gil excused from the catboys-are-twink-to-twunk rule on the basis of being half human, and his dad being Basically A Wall.)

That said, for Andy I’m gonna go with "buff as fuck but sooooooo charismatic that all the catgirls, and human girls, flocked to him anyway."

So that’s at least two Bara catboys in this AU

Tarvek is canonically more or less the same size/shape as Gil, but... in my heart, Tarvek’s a twunk. He’s got muscle but he's not AS big, and he's got intense Twink energy, especially since Tarvek actually is queer.

(And they're both straight so they're not even technically bara, just Buff.)

(Not twinks either but...)

(Twink is a fun word.)

Colette is human and Seffie isn't but they'd need science for babies ANYWAY so who cares? It's a lot of Seffie laying her head in Colette's lap and purring as she falls asleep because Colette just keeps petting her.

Catboy Martellus still makes sparkhound shapeshifters. He's a catperson...  but he's still a Dog Person.

Martellus and his dynamic with the sparkhounds:

He loves them, they love him. But they’re embarrassing sometimes.

THIS MARKS THE BEGINNING OF THE NSFW CONTENT

ANYWAY back to the point, which is that a lot of these catperson AUs are just... really super horny.

Which is valid.

Ears are technically erogenous zones for everyone but for the cat people... it's a Lot. It's also not like. Inherently sexual? But it can be. Like spooning. It feels nice ALWAYS but with the right person it's also HORNY.  Or like brushing someone else's hair. 

Ear rubs and headpats that result in like, intense sensation? Good actually.

Also I’m declaring that catpeople have heats. Or at least like. Heightened mating seasons? Extra horny times.

So you have Agatha and Lars normal, Gil kinda horny and confused, and Tarvek rubbing himself against the nearest spouse in hopes that someone's going to fuck the living daylights out of him.

Valois probably take suppressing things as a matter of course bc it’s hard to stay alert to assassination attempts when overwhelmingly horny. When Tarvek deliberately forgoes them eventually, everyone is touched by how much trust it shows.

Without suppressants, the horny is either something you can cope with or something that is intense but comes in Very brief periods. Either one day a month, or a week twice a year? Something like that.

Honestly though, imagine if Gil tried to hide being a catperson for the sake of the Empire or some nonsense, and had to just suffer when in heat?

Agatha likes to watch the boys go at it because there's something about Fangs On Neck that's super pleasurable for cat people and she can't provide that for Tarvek but Gil certainly can.

Bonding marks aren't a thing but possessive biting is.

(Since birth control is so easily accessed in GG, I feel like Lu’s opinion of catboys would be a super gross objectifying thing.)

(Which. Yeah.)

(Lucrezia basically has that opinion on any man in canon that isn’t immediately useful to her for science reasons.)

[peppermintquartz]

TW: Cancer (the disease). Angst AF

Baloreigns, Playroom!verse dynamics (not including this into the actual 'verse, I just wanna write it)

Finn is going over the books in the Playroom, a task he reserves for the end of the month, when his phone rings. Glancing at it, he’s surprised to see Roman’s name. The younger man seldom calls him, preferring to text instead.

“Hi, Roman. What’s up?” he asks with a big smile, thinking that Roman may have something up his sleeve for Tyler.

“Finn, are you- um. Are you, are you busy right now?”

Finn frowns. Roman sounds... off. The Irishman leans back in his chair and puts down his pen. “No, I’m not busy.”

On the other end of the line, Roman clears his throat before asking, “Can I come up? I’m, uh, I-I need to... I need someone to talk to. That’s not... I can’t, I can’t tell-” He inhales sharply, a loud gasp for air that even Finn can tell is desperate. “Please.”

There is no way Finn will let Roman go away distressed, and so he invites the younger man up. Clearing away his desk, he texts Sasha to tell her that he won’t be able to attend to the scene with the Greenes; Drew will have to take his place instead.

When Roman comes into the office, his lips are pale and tight. Finn rises to his feet and gathers the taller man into his arms for a hug. Roman breathes in and returns the embrace, strong arms almost crushing Finn.

Finn rubs a hand along Roman’s spine and murmurs, “Oh, puppy, what’s wrong?”

“I was at the doctor’s.” Roman doesn’t let go, keeping his cheek pressed to the side of Finn’s head. “I was, um. I’ve been feeling off, like, I had no appetite, I was... I was tired all the time.”

A sense of unease grows in the pit of Finn’s stomach. He doesn’t move, though, guessing that Roman doesn’t want to look at Finn right now.

“The doctor... She, um, I took tests. And.” Roman sniffs, and shudders. When he next speaks, his voice cracks. “Finn, I have leukemia.” He breathes out, shakily. “Stage two.”

It takes the breath out of Finn’s lungs. Speechless, he tightens his embrace, and squeezes his eyes shut. It must have shaken Roman to receive the diagnosis, and Finn has to support the younger man now. When he knows he has his composure under control, he steps back, keeping his hands on Roman’s waist.

“Thank you for coming to me. You must be scared,” Finn says, smiling gently at Roman. “I’m very glad that you trust me with taking care of you.”

“I am scared, but... I’m not scared for me. I’m scared for... If, if I don’t make it, if it metastasizes. Seffy-” Roman averts his gaze, but there’s no hiding the quaver in his voice, the tears creeping down his cheeks. “I can’t. I can’t tell. I don’t know how to... And. And genetics. My dad, he had cancer, and he didn’t make it, and I’m so scared that- What if she... I can’t bear it, I won’t forgive myself if she also-” He covers his mouth, as if uttering his fear will make it come true.

“Hush, shush. Come here, puppy, come on.” Finn leads the younger man to sit on the sofa in the corner. Roman sits and bows over, elbows on his knees, his hair falling out of the bun at the base of his neck. Finn undoes the hair tie and starts combing his fingers through the silky, dark tresses. That Roman doesn’t get irritated by Finn playing with his hair is a clear signal that Roman isn’t thinking about anything other than his baby girl’s health. Pressing a soft kiss to the back of Roman’s neck, Finn says, “One battle at a time, alright? We’ll take each fight on as it comes. Right now, it’s your fight.”

Roman nods. His fingers lace together tightly, knuckles going white with pressure.

“We’ll get you the best treatment money can buy,” Finn says with assurance. “It’s an advantage you have, okay? You can afford the best treatment in the world. I know that we can’t fight your battle for you. But we - all of us - are in your corner, you hear me?”

Roman turns and looks at Finn, stricken. “Tyler. I don’t know... I don’t know how to tell him. I don’t- It’s gonna scare him, and I don’t want to-”

“Puppy, Tyler is brave. He’s strong. He loves you so, so much, and he will do anything to take care of you.” Finn runs the edge of his thumb over Roman’s damp cheek. “We all will. We’re not going to let you struggle alone.” He bends down and presses a tender kiss to Roman’s lips. “You’re not going to be alone. You are not going to die. Seffy is going to be so proud of her dad for being the strongest, bravest fighter she will ever grow up knowing.”

Roman’s eyes flutter shut and he turns away again. His broad shoulders shake as he cries, silent tears dropping to the hardwood floor. Finn clenches his jaw, willing himself to hold back his own fears. There will be time for him to lower his defenses, perhaps in Joe’s or Sasha’s company; right now he must be steadfast as a rock.

When Roman has his composure back, he sits up and rubs at his red nose. “You might have to be there when I tell Tyler,” he says.

Finn takes Roman’s hands and kisses his knuckles. “Anything you want, puppy.” He cocks his head. “Almost anything.”

Roman glances over, a small, weak smile on his lips. “Almost?”

“Well, yes. A man has to recognize his limits.”

“So if I were to ask you to stop calling me puppy...?” Roman raises his eyebrows.

“Can’t do it, sorry.” Finn grins, and rubs tear stains off the younger man’s face. His expression gentles as he asks, “Do you really want me to stop?”

Roman smiles and shakes his head. He sounds bashful as he admits, “I like it.” He stands up and Finn follows suit. “I’m going home. Tyler’s waiting.”

Finn tugs Roman down for a kiss to the lips and then one more to his forehead. “Let’s go. And you don’t have to tell the rest of the guys - I’ll do it.”

A big, grateful smile blossoms on Roman’s beautiful face. “Thanks.”

[the-dan-sargent]

Night at the Butterfly House

by Dan Sargent

“This is so f*cking stupid, man.”

“Exactly, that’s what makes it so fun!”

What do you do when you’re drunk and you want to spice up your night? According to Orville G. Mariposa (or as his friends call him, Orv), you visit a butterfly house. At midnight. So that is what he decided to do, and he dragged his three friends Seffie, Jamie, and Devon along for the ride.

“How do you know you can make it in?” Jamie inquired.

“I don’t. I’m just assuming they haven’t changed the passcode on the door since I used to work here,” replied Orv.

Seffie and Devon trailed behind, with Devon desperately trying to keep Seffie with the rest of the group. “Where are we--are we going again?” Seffie asked, clueless as ever and stumbling over his own two feet.

“You’ll find out when we get there,” Devon replied. If she remembered correctly, Devon was very aware that Seffie was absolutely terrified of insects. “Yo Orv, are we almost there? I can’t wait to see the look on Sef’s face when we--”

“The... what on my face?” Seffie mumbled, turning to face Devon yet over-rotating a bit.

Devon giggled. “Oh, you’ll see,” she coyly replied.

The friends continued on like this for another minute or so, and then finally turned around a corner to face a beautiful little building made up entirely of glass.

“Okay, we’re here!” Orv announced.

“Oh. It’s a greenhouse,” Sef observed, clearly completely unaware that the “greenhouse” housed his greatest nightmare. “Cool, I love flowers!” Cue Devon cackling behind him. “What? Don’t (hic) judge me, man.”

Seeing that Devon is determined not to let Sef know that the building before them was actually a butterfly house, Orv decides to also keep it on the down-low. Smirking slightly, he teases “Oh trust me, bro. This is more than a greenhouse. This is SO much more than a greenhouse.”

Realizing what the others are doing, Jamie interrupts with a brief “Dude…” before she rolls her eyes and decides to just go along and see how everything unfolds.

The four friends make their way to the building’s front door and Orv steps up to the number pad. Everyone stands in silence, watching as Orv fumbles with the buttons. Concentrating with as much energy as his extremely-tipsy brain can muster, he squints at each number as he presses it. 8… 2… 6… 7… 4… Orv takes a quick breath… 7. Much to everyone’s amazement, the friends hear the victorious click of the door’s lock. Excitedly, Devon pushes herself to the front of the group and swings the door open. She bolts several feet into the room and turns around, whipping her phone camera out in anticipation for what she knows is about to unfold.

Sure enough, immediately after Devon, Seffie enters the building. Feeding off of Devon’s excited energy, he runs in after her and stands, arms flung wide, in the room’s entranceway. “I love you flowers!!” he yells, and goes to hug a nearby cluster of flowers. Mid-hug, he goes in for a kiss, and… unknowingly plants one square onto the wing of a bright yellow butterfly. Needless to say, his reaction once he realized what he did was priceless, by the other three friends’ standards at least.

Devon tries (and fails) to hold her phone steady as she is recording the entire incident. Orv is practically on the floor laughing, pulling Jamie down with him. Meanwhile, Seffie is shrinking away from the bush, as well as every single other plant in the room, in fear. “I kissed it, oh my god I KISSED it,” he sobs through hiccups, failing to gain any composure whatsoever.

While Seffie continues to collapse more and more onto himself, Orv gets up and heads toward the recipient of the smooch.

“What a beautiful swallowtail!” he says, gushing over the butterfly while picking it up. Coddling the butterfly, he continues “My friend here didn’t hurt you, did he? He didn’t mean to, I promise, he’s just like that. It is absolutely nothing against you at all, little guy.” Turning toward the others, he clears his throat and holds out the insect. “This, my dear friends, is an Anise Swallowtail.”

Seffie whimpers and covers his eyes. Devon and Jamie, however, pick themselves up. Jamie puts an arm on Sef to comfort him while she sits and stares at the bug. Devon runs up to Orv and gets as close to the butterfly as she possibly can, eyes wide in amazement and fascination. “Wow, she’s so pretty! And bright! I love her,” she squeals in delight.

“I know, right? Aren’t butterflies amazing?” Olv exclaims in equal excitement, and continues on. “These bad boys are most commonly found on the western coast of North America, and are named after the wild anise plant. Once one of these came to my garden at home and sat on my zinnias. You can only assume how entranced I was. Not only had a butterfly come to my garden, but one as beautiful as this one! It brings a tear to my eye, knowing something as precious as this creature right here exists in the world.” Turning to the butterfly, he added, “I love you, little Anise Swallowtail.”

The butterfly leaves Olv’s hand and flies off to the other side of the room. Olv and Devon chase after it, and are immediately distracted by another butterfly. Jamie eventually also gets up and joins in on admiring the insects, finding the black butterflies the most fascinating of them all. Devon asked her why she was so fond of them, to which she replied, “They remind me of myself.” She then continued onward, leaving the other two in a state of mild confusion.

The three friends went deeper into the room as they searched for more bugs, and Seffie remained curled in a fetal position on the floor. Olv talked endlessly, spewing fact after fact about every single butterfly he saw. Devon would interrupt with bug jokes and an excess of “ooh”s and “ahh”s. Jamie remained quiet, silently admiring the insects surrounding her.

Jamie looked around the room, taking in her surroundings. The butterfly house was small, yet filled to the brim with flowers of all colors. Jamie personally preferred the color black, but still saw that there was something especially beautiful in the mountains of brightly-colored plants surrounding her friends. Each flower was unique, as was each butterfly, and she was fascinated by it all. As her eyes glossed over the adornment of hanging plants draped from the walls, she caught sight of the building’s front door.

Which was wide open. And butterflies were escaping as she watched.

Jamie rolled her eyes, wondering why her friends were so idiotic, and realized she’d have to be the one to fix everything. She was going to be the only one out of her friends who’d be able to retrieve the butterflies successfully. So she slipped away, her friends completely unaware that anything had even gone awry. After exiting the building and triple checking that the door was closed, she chuckled as she looked into the surface of the glass in front of her. Completely reflective, yet no reflection of her in it whatsoever.

“Well, here goes nothing,” she sighed, slipping into a nearby bush. Seconds later, a bat emerged and flew into the night sky, ready to catch some butterflies.

An hour passes, and the other three friends are still in the greenhouse. Orv is in his own little world. At this point he has moved on from the topic of butterflies, and is currently thoroughly discussing the details on every single plant in the room. Devon has grown extremely sleepy. After barfing in one too many bushes, she’s decided to collapse on the floor next to Seffie, who is also passed out.

Suddenly, Sef sits up, groggily yet quickly enough for him to feel a sharp pain in his head. “Ughhhh,” he groans. “Where are we?” He sees Orv and calls out to him. “Orvie… I want to go home.” This snaps Orv back to earth, resulting in him instantly noticing that he also has a splitting headache.

“Sh*t, my head…” Orv starts. Turning to look at his friends, he continues “That’s actually a great idea, Sef. I think we all need to go home and rest.” He walks over to Devon and rouses her, and the three friends attempt to compose themselves enough to make their way home. In their exhausted, messy state, the three friends make it to the front door and exit the butterfly house.

As they leave, no one notices the black bat resting on the branch of a bush, surrounded by a cluster of black butterflies.

——————————

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[randomly-random-jen]

Uncalled For Actions (7/?)

A Girl Genius fanfic

When Gilgamesh Holzfäller is fourteen, he’s taken on as an apprentice to Baron Wulfenbach as part of a program to produce the next generation of leaders in the Empire–a group that will hopefully get along (although most see this as wishful thinking on the Baron’s part). He’s learned a lot over the months of shadowing the Baron, but nothing has prepared him for his most challenging assignment: confronting the skeletons in his closet. 

[Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Part 8 ]

Part 7

With a defeated sigh, he sat next to her on the bed, careful not to wrinkle her dress.

"Talk to me Tarvek," she whispered, squeezing his hand in support.

He remembered this from when they were little--huddled together in the corner of his room or under the covers of her bed after their mother had died taking what little solace they could find in each other. He swallowed hard. 

"Remember when I was on Castle Wulfenbach."

She tensed.  "I remember they stole you away in the middle of the night."

Tarvek rolled his eyes--like Anevka hadn't been jealous he'd been chosen over her because everyone knew being held hostage by the Baron was the place to be; it meant you were someone important or would be someday.

"Yes, well, I wasn't their prisoner for long was I?"

"No, I suppose not. You were pretty quiet when you came home and never wanted to talk about it. Father was angry."

Boy, had Father been angry, Tarvek thought--being sent home in disgrace like that. His punishment had been discreet but intense; he shivered thinking about it but regained his composure quickly under Anevka's watchful gaze.

"So what happened?" she prodded after a moment.

"I got in trouble." He glared at his scuffed boots. "Or more precisely, Holzfäller got me--got us--in trouble."

Anevka raised one perfect eyebrow. "I'm going to need more than that if you want me to hate Gil along with you."

"I don't want you to hate him," he said without thinking, getting a knowing look from his sister. He frowned at his shoes again and played with a tear in his trousers he must have got in the fight. The memory of Gil standing over him looking more than a little crazy and raging about not wanting to be here helped direct his thoughts back to the topic.

"See," Anevka said, bumping his shoulder, "you do need me to hate him. With you or for you is yet to be determined," she added with a bubbly laugh.

Tarvek glared at her. "I don't need you to hate Holzfäller for me; I can hate him quite enough for myself."

"I can tell after that fight."

He let go of her hand feeling too exposed all of a sudden. He knew she wouldn't understand.

Before he could get up, though, she tugged his sleeve and gave him an apologetic look. "I'm only teasing and I shouldn't--that wasn't very thoughtful. Please continue with a list of Gil's offenses so we can brainstorm forms of acceptable retaliation."

"Ugh," he said, hopping to his feet, "I'm being serious, Anevka. Holzfäller is bad news, and I don't want you hanging around him.

This got an eyeroll. "I'll decide that for myself if you just tell me what happened for Gil to deserve such wrath--he seems really sweet."

Tarvek narrowed his eyes. "Well, he's not; he's a duplicitous, backstabbing snitch, and the reason I got sent home."

"Quit being so dramatic," Anevka said with a dismissing gesture, "that's Seffie's department. Sounds like you're pretty hung up on him after all these years if you ask me."

"Well I didn't ask you, and I'm not hung up on anything besides his betrayal."

The two stared at each other until Anevka finally sighed, looking away then patted the bed beside her. "All right, tell me what actually happened, and we'll figure something out together because in less than an hour you have to sit across from him for an entire supper if you can handle that."

Tarvek sat next to her again but refused to take her hand, instead, crossing his arms over his chest "I can handle it just fine," he grumbled.

"Good," she said, patting his knee then tucking her legs under her, "now spill it; I want to know everything that happened on that blasted ship."

He ignored the gentle ribbing implied in her tone, took a deep breath, and let it all out--everything that happened before and during that night and after he got home. Well, everything except the important stuff like figuring out who Gil really was and maybe how it was Tarvek’s idea to sneak into the vault in the first place.

He thought it would feel good to finally tell someone but he only felt drained and deflated at the end.

Anevka leaned back on the bed, letting out a long breath, her face scrunched up in thought. "Are you sure about this?" she finally asked.

Tarvek shifted away from his sister out of frustration. "Am I sure that the kid I thought was my friend completely betrayed me and ruined my life?"

She rolled her eyes. "That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?" He sounded surly even to his own ears and fought to rein in his irritation.

Anevka got up with a little spin that fluttered the skirts of her dress before facing him looking sympathetic but skeptical of his motives which wasn't anything unusual. "I'm just saying that doesn't sound like Gil."

This time Tarvek rolled his eyes nearly out of his head. "You don't know him at all."

"And you haven't seen him since you were eight so how do you-"

"Whose side are you on, Anevka?" he nearly shouted causing her to stumble back.

Her expression softened as she stepped towards him and rested her hands on his shoulders. "Your side, of course, brother, as always."

Tarvek doubted she was ever one hundred percent on his side, but it still felt good to hear the words. His shoulders relaxed some as Anevka tugged him in for a hug, her hand running up his neck to pet his head--something else she must have learned from their mother in their short time with her.

He sighed, burying his face in her neck. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I've been awful today."

"Oh, you're awful all the time, you're just more self-aware when you're drunk," she said, hugging him closer.

Tarvek tried to push away with a groan, but it only made her grip tighten until they were both laughing at the struggle. When she finally released him, he let out a long breath and with it fled the anxiety and confusion from earlier.

Anevka smiled then reached for his face "Look at you, all grown up," she said, playfully.

He smacked her hand away but couldn't stop his own smile. "Shut up--I probably look awful."

"You do, but I still love you. Now let's get you cleaned up before supper or Father will have another fit."

"We wouldn't want that," he muttered, following Anevka into the bathroom where she started to run water in the sink.

Tarvek made the mistake of looking in the mirror as he unbuttoned his shirt--the person staring back looked nothing like him with his bloodshot eyes, bruised cheek and bloody lip. He didn't even remember Gil hitting him in the face, but it all happened so fast and was so confusing. He sighed again then let Anevka do her mothering thing--she loved taking care of Tarvek for some reason.

After a good thirty minutes, she had him washed, groomed and wearing enough face gunk to cover the bruises and cuts. "How am I supposed to smile in this stuff--I feel like I have ten layers of lead paint on my face."

Anevka giggled. "Do you think I look this good naturally?" she asked, blinking her eyelashes dramatically.

Tarvek frowned at her flawless skin and sculpted cheekbones. "Where are your freckles?"

She laughed even harder. "You are ridiculous--boys know nothing of what it takes to maintain that which they love to look upon."

"Ick," Tarvek spat. "I don't want to know about why guys are looking at you."

While Anevka returned her makeup to a small bag she carried, Tarvek carefully picked out a shirt in a mauve silk, sighing as the soft material slid over his skin. What knowledge he lacked in cosmetics, he made up for in his formidable knowledge of attire. He paired the shirt with trousers and jacket of deep purple with gold piping and buttons.

Anevka came from behind to straighten his sigil then patted his shoulders with a smile into the mirror. "There, all fixed up. No one will know you were a drunken bully an hour ago."

"Gee, thanks for ruining the effect," he mumbled getting a bigger grin.

* * *

Violetta slipped into one of the secret passages, leaving Tarvek and Anevka to get all sibling mushy. Her own siblings never treated her with anything but ridicule and contempt because of her size and lack of ability as a Smoke Knight so she didn't understand her cousins' affection or behavior towards each most of the time.

At the least, it made her uncomfortable, and at the most, it made her unjustifiably jealous. Or maybe it was a little justifiable when she tended to consider Tarvek more of a brother than any of her own even though, deep down, she knew she shouldn't--it was dangerous as Tarvek always pointed out and led to nothing but heartache.

She growled at her unfiltered and unwanted thoughts as she navigated the pitch-black tunnels with the expertise that only came from years of practice avoiding bullies and creepy uncles. She cleared her mind of familial dissatisfaction to focus on her current mission--seek and destroy one Gilgamesh Holzfäller.

After several turns, Violetta hauled herself up into the recently installed ductwork that came with the new heating system and crawled along the ceiling of the largest library in the castle, coming out the other side over a hidden lab, past that through several sitting rooms occupied by various summit members and back into a tunnel, cutting her arrival time in half.

She smiled at the thought that not many Smoke Knights could use that particular speedy method; her size came in handy sometimes. 

Another turn and a squeeze through a busted section of wall found Violetta in a long gallery filled with paintings of the Storm King and the Shining Coalition among other artifacts supposedly from that time. The important part was she was near the guest quarters where she knew the most important summit members were housed, including the Baron--all she had to do now was locate the scoundrel and-

Violetta ducked behind a bust of Andronicus as voices approached the room. She immediately recognized the Baron's commanding voice talking to someone in the corridor then a lone figure entered the room, his young face highlighted by the torch near the door.

What luck--just the person she was looking for, she thought, watching Gil inch farther into the room to look at the collection. She quietly pulled a vial from her cloak along with a dart. She wasn't allowed any of the more potent or dangerous poisons Smoke Knights used, but she still had a few tricks up her sleeve using what she had.

Not really caring about the dosage in her thirst for revenge, she loaded the dart with truth serum, and as soon as Gil got close she took her shot, hitting her mark square in the neck.

Gil stumbled back and yanked the dart out, staring at it then looking around. "What the-" he said, words slightly slurred as he continued to sway unsteadily.

Maybe she used too much serum. Oh well, not her problem. With that thought, she jumped out from behind the bust, nearly scaring the older boy half to death.

"Now it's time for you to talk," she said as she shoved him into a dark recess.

"What are you doing?" His words were less garbled now.

"Why are you here?" Violetta demanded.

"What?"

Gil blinked furiously like he was trying to clear his thoughts more than his vision.

"Why are you here?" she repeated, standing on tip-toes to get as close to his face as she could.

He took a step back, connecting with the wall. "What are you talking about?" His eyes suddenly narrowed. "Wait, you're that kid Smoke Knight that hit me earlier--what is your problem?"

"I'm doing the interrogating here, buster." She emphasized each word with a poke to his sternum that forced him back against the wall each time until he finally swatted her hand away.

"Is that what you call this--an interrogation? You're like five."

This time she kicked him in the shin, doubling him over in pain. Smirking, she said, "I'll ask the questions."

Gil glared up at her, still holding his injured leg. "What do you want?"

"Why did you come here--are you still out to get Tarvek? What's your goal? Your plans?"

Gil's eyebrow shot up as he straightened to his full height again to tower over Violetta. "Tarvek?"

Violetta crossed her arms over her chest, waiting--it was taking an awfully long time for the serum to kick in. Gil matched her stance, scowling down at her in what he probably figured was intimidation, but Violetta dealt with people like Martellus on a daily basis--he didn't scare her one bit. Besides, she had several weapons and Smoke Knight techniques she could use to incapacitate a grown man in seconds if she needed.

"Look, kid," he said after a moment, his shoulders relaxing, "I don't-"

She tried to kick him again, but he easily hopped out of the way. Violetta growled, reaching into her cloak. "I don't have time for this."

* * *

Before Gil could react, the girl spun and something caught him on his shoulder with a sharp, piercing pain that thankfully only lasted a few seconds. He ripped another small dart from his arm, dropping it at his feet. "What is with everyone stabbing me today?" 

A moment later, Gil found himself flat on his back, the kid standing over him with a menacing smile that creeped him out--what was her deal anyway?

"Just tell me why you're here?"

"I'm the Baron's apprentice," he said, hoping answering her questions would end the madness. "I'm here for the same reason everyone else is."

She smacked him lightly on the cheek. "Wrong answer."

"What?" he yelled, trying to free his hand to rub his stinging face. "It's the truth."

She nodded but didn't look at all convinced. "I want to know what your plans are--are you here to get revenge on Tarvek?"

Gil bucked suddenly, catching her by surprise and sending her flying into the wall. He scrambled to his feet, putting distance between them. He felt a little woozy from whatever she dosed him with, but his father had taught him many tricks to keep his cool and his mind clear.

"You're crazy, you know that? Tarvek was the one that attacked me--I didn't do anything to him."

"Everything was fine until you showed up, and now Tarvek is a mess--this is obviously your fault so what are you up to?"

Gil shook his head in frustration which did nothing for the growing fog threatening to suffocate him. "I don't know what Tarvek told you, but I doubt it's the whole story so this conversation or interrogation or whatever you want to call it is over."

He made to shove past just as her foot shot out in front of him, giving Gil just enough time to hop over it and continue to the door.

"This isn't over," she shouted. "Yes, it is," he yelled back, sprinting for the safety of the hallway.

Outside, he slumped against the wall with a sigh. "Is everyone here crazy?" he muttered.

He glanced down the hall, expecting his father to be looking for him, but found him still talking to the two summit leaders that approached them in earlier. At least he cut a break there--he couldn't get in trouble for delaying them if his father was the one to stop to chit-chat.

He waited near the gallery, watching the tension grow in his father's shoulders and half expecting another attack from Tarvek's little psycho bodyguard. This day just kept getting worse and worse, he thought before pushing off the wall and strolling towards the group down the hall.

He tugged a watch from his pocket popping it open without looking at it as he approached. "Herr Baron," he said over the babble of voices bringing the conversation to a halt. "It's getting late, sir."

The flash of relief in his father's face was more than a little satisfying--maybe he still could do some things right. He snapped the watch closed with a smirk that thankfully no one noticed.

His father turned to the group. "I'm sorry, gentlemen, but our company has been requested at supper--it would be rude to our hosts to be tardy."

The other men reluctantly mumbled their good-byes then headed off in another direction while their obviously grateful guard continued to escort them to the dining hall in the private wing of the castle.

"Thank you," his father whispered, falling back to walk next to him.

Gil shrugged--he didn't have much experience with any kind of praise and had no idea how to react to it coming from the Baron of all people.

His father laid a hand on Gil's shoulder. "No, that was good thinking. Could have been a little sooner, though."

With that, his father returned to the guard's side leaving Gil sighing in frustration. Even when he did things right, he did them wrong.

"I can't win," he muttered then rubbed at the sore spot on his neck that was making his entire jaw feel tight and painful to talk.

A moment later, they turned the corner and passed through a set of unassuming doors into what could only be described as a cozy home within a home. Well, a home within a castle. It wasn't unlike the Baron's personal quarters on Castle Wulfenbach. Not that Gil knew much about that--he'd only visited them a few times and still lived in the dorms with the other kids in the school.

They followed a carpeted hall past a large living room, smaller lady's sitting room, a smoking room, sunroom with no windows but beautiful summer landscapes painted on the vaulted ceilings, and finally to a rather grand dining room although not as spectacular as the official ones he'd seen in other parts of the castle.

The room was large, holding several long wooden tables adorned with linens, but it was obviously a family room--paintings of children and parents adorned the walls, the chairs were actually comfortable and most importantly, everyone was laughing and talking over each other like Gil assumed a family would.

The whole thing was a little overwhelming, but he followed their escort who guided them to the head table where Prince Aaronev sat with a small child on his lap. He tweaked the girl's noise getting a giggle before she whisked away by her mother or nanny.

He stood, shaking the Baron's hand. "I trust everything is in order, Klaus," he said, eyes sliding to Gil with obvious meaning.

Gil straightened up and before his father could prod him, he sucked up his pride and said, "I want to apologize for my earlier ill behavior, Your Highness. As you know, I was friends with your son on Castle Wulfenbach, and we didn't leave things in good terms. I regret that it boiled over today--I should have handled things differently."

His father nodded in approval. Even the Prince seemed satisfied with his apology and cowed demeanor. It's not like he'd spent all afternoon thinking about what he'd say to ease things over with his father, but even though he did mean most of it like wishing he'd handled things differently, it still nearly killed him to say it out loud.

With the formalities out of the way, Gil was shown which table to sit at which consisted entirely of children of various ages, the youngest attended by nannies at one end of the table.

From the farthest end, Seffie waved frantically at Gil, motioning him to join her. He felt a moment of panic that resolved itself into resignation when he realized there was no polite way to decline the younger girl's obvious invitation.

He reluctantly, and rather slowly, made his to the empty seat beside her. "Good evening, uh-" He stumbled over his next words--was she a princess like Anevka; what did he call her? Unsure of the answer and the extent of his lessons on royal formality, he settled on a slight bow and a mostly mumbled, "Miss Seffie."

"Oh, please--it's just Seffie," she said, scooting her chair closer to Gil, forcing him to slide nearly off the other side of his own seat.

He quickly reached for the glass of water beside his plate, avoiding eye contact with her, but Seffie didn't give up easily.

As soon as he returned the glass to the table, she reached for his face. "Oh, Gil, what happened to your eye?" she asked dramatically.

Gil blinked at her--he was pretty sure everyone in the castle knew what had happened earlier in the day. She waited for an answer, her thumb running over the edge of the bruise causing him to cringe away. "Just a misunderstanding," he mumbled, taking her hand and placing it in her lap. "I'm fine."

It was then that he noticed who sat across from them. Anevka watched the two of them, mouth slightly open in apparent shock while Tarvek glared back. Gil quickly looked away, cursing under his breath and getting a weird look from the older girl on his other side.

Seffie still wasn't finished, though. She brushed his bangs from another bruise on the side of his head. "Who would do such a thing?"

"No one important," he said, surprising himself at the words and the resentment behind them. Across the table, Anevka's jaw snapped shut with an audible click.

Seffie's hand dropped back to her lap, but Gil didn't miss the way she glanced in Tarvek's direction--so she did know what happened and was playing him for a fool. Figures--his father did say the entire family was poison; he supposed that included cousins and other distant relatives like crazy miniature Smoke Knights.

Gil took a deep breath, centering himself. "I'm fine," he repeated more for himself than anyone at the table.

Seffie nodded, though, and thankfully, dropped the subject, turning to Anevka to discuss some other scandal from this afternoon.

Tarvek's heated stare burned his skin or maybe that was all of the drugs he'd injected with over the course of the evening. He rubbed at his shoulder then took another sip of his water before putting the glass down slowly and straightening all of the eating utensils in front of him.

He picked up a tiny spoon, examining the detail on the handle then picked up a small fork, comparing the two. He set the spoon down but continued to play with the odd fork--anything to avoid everyone at the table.

"It's for the salad," Tarvek informed him.

Gill glared, setting down the fork. "I know that--I was admiring the filigree. It's very detailed, reminiscent of Viktor Hophauser during his Paris phase, but you can tell by the scroll work that it's more likely the work of one of his students--Iliad Marquois, perhaps, although he favored an Indian flare as opposed to Provençal.

“If I had to guess, the original silver was lost in a card game of some ill repute and replaced by these stunning Herrod Garteau recreations--excellent workmanship but not authentic, unlike this demitasse spoon which is a Hophauser original but from his later Bavarian inspired Paris-style designs. Of course, that means these were made long after Adronicus Valois would have been considering flatware for any reason but meant to look like something he'd chosen for himself.”

Gil's words trickled to a stop as he noticed more than three sets of eyes focused on him, many narrowed with contempt. At some point, he realized, he'd slipped into the French he'd originally read The Full History of Europa Cutlery; or Why You Should Never Use a Soup Spoon to Reanimate the Dead, a Cautionary Tale.

He quickly wet over his entire speech while sipping his water--had he just accused the Royal Family of using forged flatware? Finally, he couldn't hide behind his glass any longer, setting it slowly above his set of shiny, pointy knives he considered his first line of defense if the natives decided to riot. "Of course," he said, clearing his throat, "I could be wrong."

The table was utterly silent, the tension suffocating until Seffie suddenly clapped. "Gil, you speak French?"

"Oui," he said before finishing off his water to hide a giddy grin.

And just like that, the tension broke--the other diners going back to their conversations just as servers arrived with the first course.

"Have you ever been to Paris?" Seffie asked, tugging at his jacket sleeve. "Grandmother took me last summer--there is nothing like summer in Paris."

A bowl of what appeared to be creamed asparagus was set in front of them. Gil fiddled with his soup spoon as he waited for the others to be served while Seffie continued to babble about all of the things she's seen on her trip which to Gil's ears consisted mostly of cafes, dress shops, and other frivolous venues--girl stuff.

Tarvek and Anevka continued to watch him with matching scowls--no doubting they were related. Obviously, Tarvek had turned Anevka against him. Not surprising, but it hurt more than Gil thought it should considering he'd only met her this morning.

He tried not to think about the fun they had running around the castle and exploring the arboretum but he felt his face flush just the same as the memory of Anevka holding his hand and smiling at him. He couldn't shake the image of that crumpled drawing now at the bottom of the wastebasket in their guest suite--kind of a metaphor for their entire relationship so far.

Gil snorted at that, getting Tarvek's attention again. The other boy's eyes narrowed, spoon halfway to his mouth. They watched each other for a moment before Seffie distracted both of them when she switched to rambling about the unfairness of her not being allowed at the summit.

Gil stuffed his mouth with spoonful after spoonful of soup to keep out of the conversation, but he noticed each bite had less taste than the last. That matched the growing haze around the corners of his vision and overall fogginess of his brain. He frowned, dropping the spoon in his bowl with a clank then sat back, the whole room swimming around him.

For a moment, he wondered if he was going to be sick but a twinge in his jaw brought his hand up where it rain across the sore spot on his neck. That damn Smoke Knight. "What did she do to me?" he mumbled.

"Pardon?" Seffie asked, her attention suddenly focused entirely on Gil as if he'd spoken to her by name--just what he needed.

Gil forced a smile on his face. "I was just saying that you don't belong at the Summit."

"Oh?" Her face fell in disappointment.

"I mean," he added, quickly as he fought to gather his thoughts, "it's boring--you would hate it."

"Told you," Anevka said, taking a sip of her soup.

"I'm sure you're being much more useful outside the summit," he continued despite the constant internal threats to shut the hell up. "You're an information gatherer, correct."

She seemed delighted by this description, sitting up straighter with a smile.

"You mean rumor-monger," said Tarvek as he set his spoon neatly beside his empty bowl then dabbed at his mouth with the corner of his napkin.

"I prefer rumor collector, thank you very much," Seffie said, turning her nose up at Tarvek and getting a laugh from Anevka.

"And the interesting stuff isn't happening in the meetings, and if it was, it's all being recorded by fifty different people. Everyone will know every detail of what happens in the meetings, but the other stuff-”

"Don't encourage her," Tarvek interrupted as a waiter removed their bowls and another came behind them filling one of their glasses with white wine.

Seffie stuck her tongue out at her cousin, reaching for the filled glass just as someone else snatched it from in front of her.

They all looked up as Martellus passed them, tossing the entire contents of the glass back in one gulp. "Ah-ah," he said to his sister, "you're still a little too young."

He left the glass on the platter of one a waiter and continued back to one of the adult tables with a laugh.

Seffie slumped in her chair, arms crossed over her chest. "I hate him."

"We all hate him, sweetie," Anevka said just as another waiter stepped between her and Tarvek. She put her hand over Tarvek's glass. "He's good," she told the white-haired man.

If looks could kill Anevka would have been laid to rest ten years before she was even born.

"What?" she said to her brother as she sipped her wine. The two glared at each other in some unvoiced sibling standoff before Tarvek turned away, his cheeks slightly red.

What was that about? Gil wondered. He glanced at Seffie who looked more interested in how she might steal the glass from the gangly teen boy sitting on her other side than whatever was going on with her cousins.

Gil realized he was out of his element when it came to family affairs; he had no idea if this was normal sibling behavior. The way Tarvek had talked as a kid, he worshiped the ground his sister walked on to the point that Gil had worshiped her, too--well, worshipped the idea of her.

He'd always dreamed about finding his real family and learning he had a sister to love him as much as Tarvek and Anenvka loved each other. Of course, that never happened, he had no sister, and from what he can tell, things between brothers and sisters aren't that great anyway.

A new set of waiters descended on the table, dropping off plates of poached salmon in some kind of sauce. It smelled amazing, but like the soup, Gil found he couldn't really taste any of it. So not fair.

"Something wrong with your fish?" Tarvek asked, his voice sounding large inside Gil's head.

Gil blinked at him then at the fish. "No." He stuffed another bite, tasting nothing but bland dryness. As soon as supper was over, he was going to find that little psycho and make her tell him the antidote to whatever this... detastifying drug was.

"Do you like fish?" Seffie asked.

"Huh?"

He forced his eyes to focus on the little red-head next to him. She was wearing a different dress than this afternoon--this one a plum color that actually looked nice with her bright hair. She kind of matched Tarvek with their color scheme while Anevka's green dress fought for attention with her own flaming hair.

Gil was wearing a plain black suit with red trim. Why was he even thinking about this? Didn't Seffie ask him a question? 

He shook his head, trying to clear the growing fog and finally focused on Tarvek across from him, eyes narrowed. It was the first time Gil took a good look at him since their fight earlier, not that you could tell Tarvek had been involved in any scuffle. His skin was as pale and flawless as always--not a hint of bruises or cuts.

Gil couldn't remember if he'd hit Tarvek. His knuckles hurt like hell so he must have but Tarvek didn't show it. Must be some kind of makeup.

Gil didn't know about any of that stuff so his wounds were out in the open for everyone to whisper about which was pretty par-for-course for Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. Heir to the Wulfenbach Empire... er-

"Gil?"

Gil started, turned wide eyes on Seffie then smiled a little maniacally and said, "yes, I do like fish," more loudly than he'd intended before quickly gulping down half of his wine.

Tarvek and Anevka just stared while Seffie seemed completely immune to his absurd behavior. She lifted her plate, looked around then dumped the contents onto his. "It's useless to eat fish without the wine."

She batted her long eyelashes up at him--they were red like her hair. "Unless you want to share your wine, Gil."

Without thinking, he slid the glass over to her which got a huge smile, but when she reached for it, Anevka took it away.

"You're no fun," Seffie said, thrusting her lower lip out in a royal-size pout.

"I'll get us some more waters," Tarvek said, signaling to one of the waitstaff positioned around the room.

"I don't want water," Seffie moaned. "I want wine like everyone else."

Her feet swung back and forth, kicking anything in their way. Anevka moved sharply under the table, causing Seffie to sit up straight with a yelp. "Well, maybe if you weren't acting like a child you wouldn't be treated like one."

"Tarvek isn't drinking," Gil said. "He must be acting like a child as well."

The three just stared at him then Seffie fell against him in a fit of giggles. "He is being a brat, isn't he?" she said into his shoulder.

Gil smiled, proud of himself for some reason--it was hard to tell why with the growing haze in his head--but making Seffie laugh seemed like a good reason.

Tarvek huffed just as a waiter deposited several glasses of water between them and refilled Gil and Anevka's wine.

"He's abstaining for his health," Anevka said, grinning over the lip of her wine glass as she sipped.

Tarvek's face reddened further. Gil thought he might literally explode so he pushed his glass across the table. "You look like you need this more than me."

Anevka spit her wine back into her glass with a snort while Seffie burst into another round of laughter--this one more honking than giggles.

Tarvek pointed the death glare directly at Gil, and that didn't feel very good, but he couldn't seem to stop the stupid that kept coming out of his mouth.

"You're funny," Seffie said, laying her head on his shoulder--she was practically sitting on his chair now so he slipped his arm around her to keep them both from falling off.

Anevka frowned; Tarvek's eyes narrowed, but they didn't get a chance to say anything before more waiters descended on the tables to whisk away the fish and bring out another course--this one some kind of small, whole bird surrounded by steamed squash and carrots over rice.

"I didn't finish my fish," Gil said glumly, poking at the bird with his salad fork.

"It wasn't very good without the wine anyway," Seffie added.

"I had wine."

"But you gave it to Tarvek who was very ungrateful by the way."

Gil snorted. "He wasn't, was he?"

[ Part 8 ]

[setaripendragon]

I was thinking of Well Met at Mechanicsburg as well! That fic is awesome! Geisterdamen trying to infiltrate Mechanicsburg quickly learn to keep poison capsules on their person in case of capture. Caught Geisterdamen die very painful deaths. No one is forgetting the fact that the Geisterdamen want to download Lucrezia.exe into THEIR Heterodyne's brain. Also, if Von Pinn is still in Mechanicsburg when Barry returns, things will probably play out like in Well Met. The Castle fragment in (cont)

(Cont) would DEFINITELY spill the beans about the whole body switching thing. Whether or not Otilia would WANT to stay in Mechanicsburg afterwards is another story. The funniest thing about this AU is Klaus Wulfenbach being the voice of moderation and tact.

Huh. I hadn’t thought about the Muse!Castle, actually. I mean, there’s a good chance that Barry wouldn’t find it, because it was only a happy accident of having blasted a hole through the Great Movement Chamber floor that revealed her mother’s secret lab. Of course, if Barry does what Agatha did in canon, and killed the castle fragments in order to reboot it, then, I guess that would probably free the Muse!Castle as per canon... Huh.

Of course, that makes me even more fond of the idea that Von Pinn left with Klaus Barry and is travelling with the Circus. Because once she got there, she’d stay there because of her sisters, as long as Klaus Barry was there, too. But then you have Barry looking for her to give her her body back, and the Muse!Castle running around terrorising Jagers and being annoyingly overprotective of Agatha and Barry (and pestering Barry to get married, and the only reason Barry doesn’t dismantle it for that is because he doesn’t want to damage a Muse).

And then, of course, the Muse!Castle could go with Agatha to chase down Tarvek, and (many thanks to @katiekelpies for helping me come up with this) they run into each other in Sturmhalten, and things get all complicated when Eotain and Shrdlu turn up and maybe Vrin is still there, and they, as per canon, drag Agatha off to stick her mother in her head, and Tarvek is, as per canon, trying to play both sides because he doesn’t want to fight his mums, but he doesn’t want them to get Agatha. (Or, hey, maybe this should happen in Wulfenburg, kind of smash together the Sturmhalten arc and the Castle arc, and have Gil and Zeetha running around involved as well? I don’t know, that would need thinking about...) And at some point, the Muse!Castle runs into Tarvek and Von Pinn (and Klaus Barry? It would be kind of funny if the Castle didn’t recognise him) and Tarvek manages to hijack Lucreia’s tech and put Otilia back in the right body. And then they flee back to the Circus just before the Jagers turn up and throw down with the Geisters, and Agatha!Lucrezia gets the shock of her life when she orders them, as the Heterodyne Heir, to stop fighting, and they just laugh right in her face and truss her up to drag her back to Barry. Because they’re not compelled to obey, they obey out of love and loyalty to the House of Heterodyne, and Lucrezia just mindraped their baby Heterodyne. The only leeway she gets is that, since she’s in Agatha’s body, they’re going to make sure her body is at least repairable by another Heterodyne Spark.

And, god, but I love the idea of poor, terrified Lucrezia being confronted by embracing-being-the-Heterodyne!Barry, who’s been Sparky mad for years on years, and this is the woman who seduced and murdered his brother, got his nephew and her own son killed, and just tried to overwrite her own daughters brain, his niece, and the last family Barry has left. And poor Lucrezia has no idea what Barry became after taking Agatha, because the other version of her in Margolotta (or Tarvek’s mum -shrugs-) went on the fritz before she could update herself, and so she’s expecting a cross-but-still-morally-upstanding-and-generally-good!Barry to tell her off and maybe try to rip her out of her daughter and possibly keep her locked up to lecture her into being good, but instead she gets The Heterodyne in a full force protective-vengeful spark fugue, perfectly willing to torture her out of his neice.

God, I bet Lucrezia would try to seduce him then, maybe not sexually, exactly (although, well... this is Lucrezia), but in a ‘you’re not even playing at being a good boy anymore, what’s to say we can’t work together? You’re trying to take over Europa, and I can make it so much more easy~’ and Barry loses his temper like whoa and scares the ever-loving shit out of her, and then creates the locket to keep Lucrezia suppressed until he can get a good look at Lucrezia’s machines and get her out for good. And then Agatha gives all the Jagers that beat her up and brought her home hats, just to make sure they’re not secretly stewing in guilt over it (because they would, even if they were, like 90% sure they hadn’t done wrong).

Honestly, the idea of this happening in Wulfenburg is really tempting, just because I just love the the idea of Klaus trying to keep the situation under control while his kids kidnap a carnie and his two muses, who turns out to be working with the Other, but Gil springs Tarvek when Klaus locks him up because he’s kind of maybe falling for him like a lot, and then Lady Heterodyne turns up like ‘where’s my boyfriend?!’ and Zeetha’s like ‘he ran off with your other boyfriend’, and then Geisterdamen show up and kidnap Agatha, and Tarvek and Gil kidnap the Muse!Castle, and Zeetha’s tearing up the town looking for her BFF, and a pack of carnies led by a scatterbrained hero who looks painfully like Bill are tearing up the town looking for Tarvek, and then Jagers show up and there’s a full out war being waged in the streets, and oh my god wait what if Klaus Barry (maybe with Zeetha’s help?) accidentally found Agatha!Lucrezia and tried to ‘save’ her from the Geisterdamen (ugh, creeeeeeep factoooooor, Lucrezia would 100% flirt with him) and then the Jagers show up, and they have no idea that the Heterodyne they’re smelling is coming from him too. And then Gil shows up and Lucrezia flirts with him, too, except that sends Gil into a fury because of his history with Agatha, and in the confusion, Tarvek sneaks in, grabs Klaus Barry, and bolts with him back to the Circus. The Jagers grab Agatha!Lucrezia and spirit her off to Mechanicsburg. And poor Klaus is left with all that mess to clean up.

Of course, if I was going to stick with the roleswaps... I actually ought to kill Klaus off somewhere in there. But god, I can kill Anevka off before the story starts, but I don’t know if I could kill Klaus? I like him far too much for that. But maybe he got really, really badly hurt fighting alongside the Jagers, and everyone expects Gil to step up and take charge and run Wulfenburg in his stead, but Gil’s like ‘lolnope I have to go protect Tarvek from the insane Heterodyne girl’ and fucks off to Paris after Tarvek, so Zeetha steps up and takes charge, and sends a message off to Mechanicsburg to check on Agatha, and then Agatha shows up like ‘Zeetha, want to come with me to Paris?’ and Zeetha’s like ‘well, Wulfenburg’s back on it’s feet, I can put a senechal in charge for a while, and I need to go thump my brother for just dumping this in my lap so he can go kiss his boyfriend’.

And I know, in the original post, I said Seffie would be in love with Colette, and I stand by that as an endgame ship, but it occurred to me that it would be hilarious if she fell for Gil, and as per canon, tried to convince Tarvek to help her get him, only in this, Tarvek is 100% in love with Gil, and is like ‘no get your own’ and eventually (by being his usual sneaky-weasel self) discovers that Seffie and Colette actually had a bit of a thing a while back, but broke it off because Seffie has to get married, and Tarvek totally sets them up.

Also, speaking of Seffie, credit again to @katiekelpies for helping me come up with this, but given that I don’t think Barry would have hired Bangladesh the way Klaus did (he’s already got his own army, and he’s not interested in people who aren’t as pathologically loyal as Mechanicsburg, really), she’s probably a free agent in this verse, just generally causing havoc and looking for the hero that blew up her fortress, BUT, being a free agent, I bet she’d do a lot of contract work for the Storm King conspiracy, and I love the idea of Seffie sort of having a murderous rampaging Pirate Queen on retainer. Imagine Seffie being the center of a love triangle between Bangladesh and Colette. (Which, of course, would be resolved with an OT3, because this is Girl Genius, and that’s the only sort of happy ending we’ll accept =P)

Heh, sorry, that totally ran away with me. But thank you for giving me the opportunity to get some of the stuff I talked with katiekelpies about published ^_^

[brawltogethernow]

Meet-Cute ((The Author Fails the Marshmallow Test))

There’s like five chapters to go between the chapters of A Corrupt Politician, a Demon, and a Terrorist on AO3 and this one, but it’s been done and having it lying around is getting to me, so here it is. It contains vague spoilers for developments in the intervening parts of the fic if you care about that.

Gil appears in the pentacle in the guise of a large lobster. Which is actually aping the preferred guise of a friend of his, a little. But Zoing did get it from Gil to start with, so.

Xerxsephnia tuts where she’s standing in the opposite circle. “Can’t you be human?” she says. “You’re so much more palatable when you’re human.”

“Nnnooo-oo,” drawls out Gil, waving a feeler. “I can’t ‘be human’, because I’m not human.”

“Oh, you know what I mean, Gil,” she says, flicking a gloved hand with demure dismissiveness. “There’s a dear.”

Seffie is overly fond of the humanoid form Gil made up to needle Tarvek, still kept aged at a rate with him mainly out of a nebulous feeling of petty spite. Especially when it only has the expected number of teeth. Begrudgingly, he shifts into it anyway, because it is more effective to talk to people when you look like, well, people.

“Thank you,” says Seffie.

Gil has really lucked out on masters so far, oddness aside. Relatively, at least, which isn’t saying much. Passingly humane enslavement! Woo.

“Now that we’re all civilized,” she continues. “I’ve only a simple job for you today, I’m afraid. Crowd control. There’s going to be a rendition of an old favorite from the Mekanikopera for the public, today, in St. James Park, and lately the commoners have been…restless.

“Rioting,” says Gil. “The commoners have been rioting.”

“And firebombing the odd government building,” agrees Xerxsephnia, who really isn’t all that bad, for a magician. Not a lot of them will take cheek from a spirit, but Seffie seems to see him as almost a person, most of the time. “So it’s your job to prevent that. Patrol the general area. You’re to discourage any signs of public unrest that you see, subtly if possible, and put a stop to any actual unrest that you fail to prevent. I don’t have many spirits on my roster right now with sufficient subtlety and good sense, so I’m counting on you.”

The servants of magicians have a...high turnover rate. One reason many of GIl’s peers try not to get attached, even though they’re all in the same boat. It's pragmatic, but lonely.

There’s a lot of room for interpretation in Seffie’s wording that would allow him to be excessively harsh with the commoners. It would be nice to think that’s entirely because she trusts him not to be, but.

He doesn’t mention this, because he’s not going to tell her to tighten her wording. Instead, he says, “This opera wouldn’t happen to be that drek about Valois and Euphrosynia, would it?”

Seffie hesitates. “It has technically challenging musical numbers.”

“Challenging to listen to, maybe. And it’s propaganda.”

“Yes, well, propaganda is what keeps us here, isn’t it?”

“It’s propaganda with a ridiculous premise.” Seffie has forgotten he isn’t an “us”.

The Storm King Opera is about an epic tale of love between a human and a spirit. It ends with King Valois entering the “Spirit Realm” that manages to be defined both loosely and ludicrously inaccurately, questing for the off chance he can be with his unearthly beloved, which

A) Is impossible

B) Were it not impossible, would undoubtedly be fatal.

Though that’s probably not how the historical Valois died, given that incident with his mortal remains a few years ago. Yeesh. Yeuch.

“Oh, Gil,” says Seffie irritably. “If you’re going to be intolerable be on your way now.” She makes a gesture, and speaks the words of dismissal with a practiced ringing tone of import that he supposes is coming along rather well. And then he’s yanked off the material plane.

 *

Agatha stumbles into another square. She lost her locket, and she’s fairly certain the man responsible came this way, but now she’s seeing things. Fanciful shapes and textures have been flickering in the corners of her vision with increasing regularity, with a likewise more and more difficult-to-ignore escalation of phenomena. And she just screamed when a man in an official uniform grinned at her and then flickered and seemed to have green skin and ears like a goblin and was bearing a mouthful of fangs and then everyone in the vicinity looked at her like she was crazy, and she hates that. She always has, so you’d think she’d have gotten better, by this point, at avoiding it.

She tries to straighten up and instead almost crashes into a man she didn’t notice right in front of her, what is wrong with her today? He’s scanning the street with an expression of bored attention, at least until he turns to ogle her frantically pinwheeling her arms to avoid slamming her face into his chest, and is probably some kind of security guard. She’s going to get arrested. Her parents will be so worried.

The probably-a-guard has a ridiculous mop of flyaway brown hair, is a bit younger than the average age of the crowd here, around her age, and is dressed rather averagely. He stares at her without moving to help as she overbalances and crashes to the ground, which strikes her as kind of boorish. She glares up at him, and channels all of her ire for her entire day through her eyes up at him, just because she’s fed up and she can. “You,” she hisses venomously, “could help, you know. Instead of gawping. I am not a side show.”

The man, the nerve of him, simply blinks at her, and then swivels his head around, as if to check if there’s someone standing directly behind him.

As if she could even possibly have been talking to anyone else.

“Yes, you,” she says, propping herself up on her elbows, or part of her upper half at least, and he’s actually starting to look slightly alarmed now. Good.

He blinks at her, owlish. “Are you…talking…to me? he says hesitantly.

Agatha deepens her glower at him, pulling her mouth into a snarl. “Who else would I be talking to?” she demands.

He blinks at her again, and then he looks up and into the distance and furrows his brow like he’s going to do something but then doesn’t do anything for several solid seconds. Then he looks down at her again and waves his arm to the side of himself. “Can you see this?” he asks.

Of all the things — “Can I see your arm?”

“Wow,” he says.

Agatha, who is tired of humoring the mentally incompetent, says, “Are you going to help me up or not?”

“I think I’d better not,” he says, cringing regretfully, which is stupid.

Agatha launches herself to her feet with a snarl, knocking over a display of flower pots bordering the foot of a street stall. “Are you employed by the government?” she snaps. “Because I’m looking for a stolen item.”

He’s beginning to look faintly panicky. “I —”

Then part of the crowded street explodes.

 *

Gilgamesh grabs the girl with the Sight and tucks her under himself, flickering visible on the first plane and hoping someone appearing who wasn’t there before will be less noticeable in the sudden panic than a pedestrian being yanked around by (and by all likelihood continuing to yell at) thin air. Seffie probably won’t kill him where he stands for blatantly abandoning a task a host of other magicians had their own spirits on, but he’s still got to think of a workaround fast, before the pain starts.

Smoke is billowing out of the broken window of a shop at the edge of the square — magic supplies, it figures — and the malcontents responsible have already vanished into the crowd, except for one straggler who’s been tackled to the ground by an overenthusiastic boar-man -shaped foliot.

“Hey,” he says to the girl in his arms. “You know what I think this probably was? Foreign terrorists.”

“What?” she says, starting to shove at him to get herself free.

“Russian insurgents, I think,” he says with relish, and starts hustling her out of the square.

“Are you insane?” demands the improbable commoner. “There have been attacks all this month and it was probably the same as —”

“Definitely Russian,” insists Gil. He shoulder checks a nice old granny out of the way. “Or Irish! Brits hate the Irish, right?”

“What?!”

“So this definitely isn’t public unrest,” continues Gil. They’re almost out of the crowd now. “Why, foreign nationals hardly have anything to do with the public at all! And I am disgusted,” he says feelingly — they enter the mouth of a dingy alley — “that London would have to put up with this foreign terrorist attack.”

They stop. Gil backs away from the girl a step, his guise’s hands still on her upper arms, and grins down at her winningly. A loose flyer blows past their feet.

“Rrriiiiight,” she eventually says, with deep suspicion. Then, “Let go.”

He lets go.

That was, objectively, quite dense. He’s going to be in trouble, and — But he just, he had to get the girl with the Sight out of there. How the hell has she made it this long without being silenced by the government, or recruited by an insurgent group, and without seeming to have any idea what she can do? Sight isn’t like Resistance, it’s not like you can go your whole life in a magically bustling city and have it just not come up. But she sounds like a local and everything. Has she been living under a rock?

Her ability isn’t weak, either. She spotted him when he was invisible on the first plane — and intangible, leading her to crash spectacularly trying to avoid a collision with thin air — and then continued to follow along when he was doing something different on the fourth through sixth as on the second and third, which isn’t exactly a dime-a-dozen ability.

She almost certainly can’t see into the seventh plane, though, or she would probably have screamed. Even Gil can admit that there is such a thing as too many teeth, and the rawest incarnation of his essence as it manifests on Earth is it.

He does think all the lightning is cool, though.

“What kind of stolen item?” he asks, following after a hunch.

She levels him with a deeply skeptical look. “You don’t want to go after the ‘foreign nationals’? she asks, pronouncing the term with air quotes big enough to use as wall pegs.

“Nope!” says Gil blithely. He waves a hand, for good measure. “I’m sure the police can handle it.” Werewolves don’t really need a djinni’s help tracking people, now do they? Gil wouldn’t want them barging in to help him fly. So Bangladesh wouldn’t want any help gruesomely murdering innocents. “My job today,” he iterates one last time, “is public unrest: You’re a member of the public. What’s making you unrestful?”

She glares at him again. Is he really that bad? Is it his face? Should he try out a new one? But she does, begrudgingly, say: “…My locket was stolen. I was mugged. By a man with…some kind of creature.”

“A creature?” interrupts Gil, intrigued.

“He opened up a bottle and it flew at me,” she says, words plain but shoulders hunched. “And it tried something with a light but I threw it off.”

A detonation, or a combustion. “You threw it off?” says Gil. She isn’t. She mustn’t. Is she? Maybe the attack just missed.

“Yes,” she says, preemptively defensive at what she probably sees as unnecessary prompting. Oh, she’s hunching because she’s expecting him not to believe her. “And then they ran off, to around…here….” Her eyes track back to the entrance to the smoky square, now bleeding faint sounds of insistently calm evacuation, and widen.

Gil’s seen it, too. Oh, wow. Jewelry-stealing, artifact-wielding, bomb-setting terrorists.

“Seems like there might be just one set of troublemakers. Do you think?” ventures Gil.

“You mean the ‘unruly foreign nationals’?” she says in a cloying singsong without bringing her gaze back from where it’s rapt on the entrance to the main street.

“I think they might,” admits Gil, “be public unrest. Would you like to help me investigate them?”

[sendryl]

365k - 10,806 - Jan 14

(So I definitely ran out of time and energy to type up everything I wrote, but on the upside I know I’ll have some story for tomorrow! Here are some excerpts, because I am SO not posting all 4,530 words. I’m only posting about 3k. That’s MUCH more manageable. *shakes head at self*)

When the letter came, Owen ignored it completely. He knew what it was for. He knew it was a lifetime achievement award, for his work in developing an effective method of self-control for all Shifters. He knew he had paved the way for a massive change in the world. He was proud of his accomplishment, and he wanted the award, but nothing could make him open that envelope.

Thankfully, Seffie spotted it. He didn’t ask her to open it, but he didn’t discourage her either.

A Fiels Award? Owen, this is amazing! Can I come? Seffie signed quickly, the letter tucked under an elbow.

Owen frowned at her. “I’m not going.”

She actually took a step backward, looking him up and down in shock. What? Why not?

“That school holds nothing but bad memories. I don’t want anything to do with it.”

Owen had never fit in at school - any school. He sometimes had a friend or two, and he had many acquaintances, but his grad school in particular was a horror show of shunning and animosity from the other students. He would rather pull out his own toenails than go back to that place.

Seffie’s mouth pursed in thought as she slowly signed, But… But it’s a Fiels. You don’t want it?

“Of course I want it.” It was recognition for his life’s work. Recognition for Shifters and researchers, and the countless hours Owen had put into helping others live productive lives. He wanted the award so badly, but… “Just not enough to go back.”

Then I’ll go get it for you.

~~~

No one cheers when Alpha’s name is called. Seffie stands up on her chair. She has a spell in a tube, which she breaks open, spilling light and sound everywhere. Everyone in HollyOak contributed to the spell. It sounds like the room is filled with townspeople, all clapping and cheering and screaming congratulations and talking about how wonderful Alpha is and how much he deserves this.

The whole university falls silent and stares, and Seffie grins at Alpha with her entire being. Alpha smiles, then grins back, and accepts his Fiels Award with a huge, happy grin.

(That’s the photo they use for the Award. Seffie’s photo is in a newspaper clip - taken by the newspaper, spell lighting up the air around her, massive grin in place, huge sign {with the townspeople’s signatures around ‘Alpha Owen - Fiels Award Recipient - RECOGNIZE’} held above her head. The clip and photo go on the wall beside the Award, in Owen’s house, his office, the Pack House, and everywhere the Pack can manage to put it.)

~~~

Seffie uses the Speak App to say, “Really? He’ll be so excited. I’m Seffie. You can wait with me.”

Nick raises an eyebrow at the Speak App, but doesn’t comment on it.

Instead he says, “Speaking of impressed, please forgive me, but I was seated behind you before, and I have to say - are you an astronaut? Because your ass is out of this world.”

Seffie is uncomfortable, but doesn’t want to offend Owen’s potential friend.

“Wow, that’s actually a decent line,” She lies through the Speak App, thankful it doesn’t have a setting for sarcasm. “Did you make that up?”

Owen finally walks up.

“Owen!” Seffie uses the Speak App to exclaim. Seffie is incredibly relieved and thinks Owen’s scowl is from all the people he had to get away from - they were all trying to congratulate him and get on his good side.

“Owen,” Nick interjects. “So good to see you after all this time.”

“Nick.” Owen’s voice is cold. Seffie looks up at Owen.

Not friends?

Owen signs back, No.

“I can’t believe you came back,” Nick’s voice is smarmy and condescending as he reaches for the award. “You don’t deserve this, you know.”

Owen’s face shutters, and Seffie has heard enough. She steps in front of Owen, who doesn’t even twitch the award away from Nick’s grasp. Good thing Seffie is there.

She types furiously.

“Excuse you. Owen deserves all good things. He works so hard, so such good reasons. He deserves every award on the planet.”

~~~

“Wow, Owen. Quite the cheerleader you’ve bagged. Did you knock her up too? Did you at least manage to get her to keep it this time?”

Seffie turns to look at Owen, shocked at Nick’s poisonous words. Owen is just shrinking further and further into himself. Seffie is abruptly furious, too angry to blush as the meaning of Nick’s words sinks in. She whips back around to face Nick, who is smirking at Owen, ignoring Seffie completely.

“He didn’t bag me, he’s my best friend!”

“So you aborted too?” Nick’s poison is directed at Seffie now, and she recoils from him.

All she can think to type out is, “What is wrong with you?”

“Well, I can see why you would. No one would keep his brats.” Nick is practically spitting his words now, his neck cording with stress.

But his words have struck a cord in Seffie, and all she can think of is Owen. Owen, who so desperately wants to become a father. Who has confided in her his deepest fear - that he will fail his future children. She turns and looks at her best friend, her dearest confidant, her protector and the one she heals time and again. Her best friend. The one she loves dearly. She knows he loves her in return. There are some experiences which bind people to each other, and Seffie and Owen have saved each other, bled for each other, nearly died for each other. She trusts him above anyone else, and it is that - the fact that she trusts him - that prompts her next words.

I would. Seffie signs to Owen. His eyes widen, and she gives him a small smile before turning and typing the same phrase to Nick. He needs to know who he’s messing with.

“I would.”

~~~

Okay, nevermind that calm thing. No. That is not happening. Seffie is furious again.

“You are just-” She starts to type out a scathing phrase, but Nick interrupts her with a hand over hers, stopping her from typing.

“Sorry to hear that. You’re definitely attractive.” He talks over the scrambled letters and words the Speak App is producing, each of his words more offensive than the last. “Why don’t you come with me for the night? We can ditch this broken guy and this gadget and have some fun. I bet I can make you scream.”

Seffie is frozen in a instant, terror sweeping through her, her hands going loose in Nick’s grip. She is utterly terrified and in that split second, she is fifteen again, hiding from the monster around the corner. Her mind starts locking itself away, some small part of her shrieking in horror.

But in that same second, Owen growls. He steps up beside her, and his warmth at her back, the comfort of his presence, the protective fury she can feel through their Packbond, it all combines to snap her back to reality. She takes a deep breath and leans into him, feeling him support her entirely. She yanks her hands out of Nick’s grip, and carefully types into the Speak App.

“Let me make this clear: I will never go anywhere with you.”

Nick’s grimace twists into a self-confident grin, and he responds, “Oh yes you will. I can do more for you than he ever could.”

Seffie stands up taller at that, and Owen moves with her, his arm and shoulder pressed against her back, strength and solidarity. He’s letting her handle this, but she knows he’ll step in if she asks. He knows she wants to tear Nick apart, and he’s more than willing to let her. More than willing to be defended and helped. The only difference between this fight and all the others they’ve been in together is that this one won’t end in someone’s death.

So Seffie straightens her spine, and Owen guards her back, and she answers Nick.

“You can do more for me than my best friend - more than Owen, who I have trusted and continue to trust with my life?” The Speak App lacks inflection, but the incredulous look on Seffie’s face speaks its own volumes.

“Yeah,” Nick draws the syllable out, licking his lips as he looks Seffie up and down again. His eyes dart up to Owen’s, narrowing as he glares at the other man.

Seffie comes to the firm conclusion that Nick is both delusional and a complete idiot. She types into the Speak App one last time.

“Let me explain this in your terms, because you seem to be unable to comprehend basic human speech,” Seffie glares through the sentence, and types out the next with angry stabs at letters and words. “If I’m an astronaut, you’re a neanderthal, because I am eons out of your reach.”

~~~

When they enter the room, Seffie is still shaking, but not with fury any longer. Her eyes are wide, and her breathing shallow, and as soon as Owen shuts the door, she slumps against the wall.

“Seffie? Seffie! What’s wrong?” Owen’s voice is fearful, but his voice comes from underwater, echoing and strange, as Seffie slides down the wall. She blinks, and Owen is crouched in front of her.

Panic, Seffie signs.

Owen starts to reach out to her, but stops, unsure. Usually Seffie needs to be held, but he isn’t sure what to do. He is afraid of hurting her, afraid of making the attack worse. He feels small and worthless, undeserving of such a friend, and incapable of helping. Then she reaches out for him, and when he hesitates she whines, the sound caught deep in her throat.

In the next instant he has his arms around her, holding her tight, his hands spread wide, broad palms and strong fingers covering most of her back. He presses her body to his own, and tries to breathe slow and easy. She squirms and he loosens his grip, but she merely twists to tuck her head against his chest, placing her ear against his heart, pressing herself impossibly closer. He tightens his grip again, and she snuggles into his embrace, listening to his heart, shakily breathing and breathing and breathing.

~~~

Owen carefully moves his arms, lowering both to wrap them around Seffie’s legs and hips. He stands easily, one smooth movement, and walks over to the beds. He shifts his right arm, looping it around Seffie’s lower back and underneath her bent legs, bracing Seffie against his hip. He lets go with his other hand, supporting her with one strong arm while he piles all the pillows onto one bed and drags the fuzzy blanket Seffie brought from home over the top of the pile. He slowly lowers himself to the bed, scooting back to sit against the headboard, propping himself up with one pillow, wrapping the blanket around them both, and arranging the rest of the pillows around them in a loose nest of comfort and warmth.

“Better?”

Seffie feels Owen’s voice more than she hears it, vibrating through his chest, a low, deep, comforting rumble. She is curled up in his lap, her face turned down to press her left ear against his heart. She pushes up, and Owen immediately releases her, the blanket flying back and away from her. Seffie turns over in his lap, pressing her right ear to his chest now, curling back up into his chest, her legs tucked up in between his.

Better.

She quirks a little smile up at him. His answering smile is tiny and fragile, worry lining his face.

~~~

I just… This should’ve been special. This was supposed to be good, and you deserve this award, and this… The sigh Seffie breathes out seems to take the last of her panic with it, and she slumps down even further in Owen’s arms. This should’ve been perfect.

“It was.” Owen chuckles at Seffie’s skeptical eyebrows, and continues with a smile, “The spell, the sign, you standing on your chair - it was like a movie, Seffie.”

His smile widens, becomes a grin as he tilts his head to the side.

“How long have you been planning that?”

Since you said we were going. You didn’t want the rest of the Pack to come, but I knew they’d want to cheer you on. We recorded it at the park, and one of the Park Moms asked what we were doing, and then she activated the Phone Tree, and you know HollyOak. Everyone wanted in. Seffie is grinning outright now, her body quivering with silent laughter. Owen’s eyes are growing wider and wider, his mouth going slack in surprise. Seffie continues signing,We had spreadsheets. It took weeks to record it all.

She waits for Owen’s response, but he is speechless, his mouth fallen open, his eyes wide and vulnerable. It takes a long time for him to speak. While he gathers his thoughts, Seffie’s grin fades to a gentle expression, her eyes soft and wise.

Owen is finally able to breathe out one word, “…Why?”

Seffie reaches up and cups Owen’s face in her hands, gently brushing her thumbs under his eyes before pulling away and signing, We love you, Owen. We all love you.

Owen blinks rapidly down at her, quickly looking away and clearing his throat. He tries to speak jokingly, but his voice just sounds hoarse when he coughs out, “That’s a lot of work for one little award.”

Seffie reaches up again and turns his head back to face her, smiling and shaking her head.

It’s repayable, She signs slowly, watching her Alpha’s face.

You can listen to it as many times as you want. Oh, She rolls her eyes at herself. The volume is adjustable, of course. No sense in blowing out your eardrums every time you need a pick-me-up.

Owen is confused and overwhelmed, and Seffie elaborates, We know you’re wonderful, Owen. The Fiels is an amazing honor, but we decided to make sure you know that we already know you’re amazing. That’s what everyone decided to record - why we love you. She shrugs, So now you can listen to it whenever you need to, and know that all of HollyOak is with you. It’s cheesy, sure, but it’s yours.

Seffie is smiling up at him, and Owen’s stoic facade finally breaks. His heart begins to race in her ear, his mouth quivers and his eyes tear up. He lowers his head, hiding his face in her hair. Seffie can feel his tears, running down his face and onto hers. She reaches her arms around his neck and holds him, slowly combing her fingers through his hair, lightly scratching his scalp. Owen’s body shakes against hers, and she starts to hum.

He is shocked into stillness at the sound. It is the first time Seffie has consciously voiced a sound for him. Owen starts to sob then, his breath hitching in his throat. His arms wrap around her, clutching her to his chest like a talisman. Seffie holds him tighter, soothing him with her music and magic, stroking his face and neck with gentle fingers.

They sit like that, curled around each other, protecting each other, anchoring each other.

They sit like that for a long time.

~~~

If you ever needed me to, if you ever asked, I would… Seffie takes a deep breath, knowing things are about to get awkward. I would be a surrogate for you.

She closes her eyes briefly, and misses Owen’s face as he breathes out, “What?” His voice breaks a little, and she knows she’s shocked him. She keeps her eyes closed, signing as quickly as she can, knowing he’ll catch every word.

I mean, you won’t need me to, because you’re going to find a wonderful woman to be with, and you’re going to have wonderful children, but I have to tell you. You have to know I wasn’t kidding when I said that. I meant every word. Every word, Owen.

Seffie opens her eyes then, and Owen looks completely floored.

“You would do that for me? Bear my children?” His voice is wrecked, breaking and twisting on every word.

In a heartbeat, Seffie signs, no hesitation.

“But, why? Seffie, why would you do that for me?” Owen is crying again, tears falling unchecked, occasionally landing on Seffie’s face. He wipes the tears off her face, but they keep coming, and eventually he just rests his hands on either side of her face. Seffie smiles up at him.

Owen. You’re my best friend. You’ve saved my life - multiple times.

“You’ve saved mine. You saved me first,” Owen interrupts, his voice strong through his tears.

Seffie nods, Exactly. We save each other. This isn’t payment, or a debt, or a favor. We don’t owe each other. This is because I care about you. We care about each other.

Owen is nodding at her words, no longer trusting his voice.

You told me you want children - a family. So, if you aren’t able to have one on your own… How could I not give one to you? I would give you everything. Anything I possibly could. And I know you’d do the same for me.

~~~

Seffie’s stomach suddenly growls. Loudly. They both freeze, and then Owen twitches and bursts out laughing. Seffie is shaking with laughter as well.

So now that we’ve determined that I’m your future surrogate, can we order room service? You must be hungry too, right?

Owen nods, but doesn’t comment. He calls up room service, and they order French toast, bacon, and fruit. While they wait for the food, Owen tries to speak. He opens his mouth a few different times, but can’t find his words.

What is it? Seffie finally asks.

“I don’t think I could ask you to be my children’s surrogate.”

Owen’s voice is quiet, nearly a whisper.

What? Why not?

“It wouldn’t be right.” Owen won’t look her in the eye. Ashamed, he casts his eyes down to his feet, stretched out in front of them.

Seffie is confused, and slowly signs, You don’t think surrogacy is-

“It’s not that,” Owen reassures her.

Seffie pauses, then seems to curl in on herself, fingers shaking as she signs, Then, is it me? You don’t want me to-

“No!” Owen speaks quickly, grabbing Seffie’s hands, his movements frantic. “No, no, Seffie, you’re wonderful.”

Seffie’s fingers twitch, and she looks up at Owen. He glances at her, then away, his eyes worried and sad. He keeps his hold on her fingers, so she raises one eyebrow in an unspoken question.

“It’s me.” Owen winces at the cliche phrase, but continues, “I don’t think I could ask you to be a surrogate because-” Owen closes his eyes and drops Seffie’s hands, runs his hands over his face. He takes a deep breath and meets her gaze. “Because I’d want you to be my children’s mother, Seffie.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Owen is blushing and stammering to himself, “Wow, that sounds insane. That is insane. Who says that? But it’s true.” He meets Seffie’s shocked eyes again, “Just listen. I love you. I have loved you for so long, and I know you love me too.”

Seffie nods once, and Owen smiles at her thunderstruck expression.

“But my love is different from yours.”

~~~

Seffie still hasn’t moved. She blinks, slowly, and starts breathing again. She sits up as a brilliant smile stretches across her face.

Owen?

“Yes?”

Owen, I trust you.

Owen’s smile is equally slow, and equally brilliant. He makes an odd sound, a high-pitched bubble of sound popping out of his mouth. He starts to giggle, his entire face creasing in laughter, overjoyed at Seffie’s admission.

He calms himself, and then he asks, “Seffie, would you like to stay in for dinner with me?”

Seffie’s smile stretches even wider as she responds, I would like that. I would like that a lot.

~~~

(WOW. So that’s a lot to read. If you make it through all that, KUDOS TO YOUDOS.)