poo4afew

[depmode]

seeing posts on your dash from people reviving themselves after years away from tumblr

[dvp95]

can’t breathe when you touch my sleeve - chapter 2

pairing: dan howell/phil lester

rating: e (eventually)

warnings: none

tags: alternate universe, slow burn, fluff & humour, tiny bit of inner turmoil wrt sexuality but trust me it’s not that deep, eventual smut, idiots in love

word count: 3,884 for this chapter (9,268 total)

summary: Dan keeps making a fool of himself in interviews, to the point where it’s basically a meme. Now he’s got to sit down for the better part of an hour and sell his show to the YouTuber he’d had a massive crush on when he was a teenager.

read from the beginning on ao3 or on tumblr!

read this chapter on ao3 or here!

It's going to take a lot more than a couple of dissociative episodes between embarrassing himself on camera for Dan to, like, be comfortable with everything that hanging out with Phil might mean or might lead to, but he knows he has a bit of a habit of overthinking, so. He empties his entire suitcase onto the hotel bed and tries to find something suitably casual but cute, because he can admit that much to himself: he wants Phil to think he's cute.

Dan spends too long on his clothes, finally deciding on some ripped jeans and a striped jumper just as his alarm goes off. He eyes his hair in the mirror - he can either leave now and meet Phil on time, or he can straighten his hair and be half an hour late.

Shrugging at himself, Dan slips his phone and wallet into his bag. He doesn't care so much about his hobbit hair when he isn't going to be on camera.

--

"What is that," Dan deadpans.

"It's for vlogging," says Phil, waving the small camera around. He almost drops it and Dan steadies it. "Oops, thanks. Don't worry, I don't have to film you if you don't want, I just always need stock footage of Thor."

"For your endscreen," says Dan. He knows that, now.

Phil beams at him. God, those eyes are like a targeted attack without the barrier of his glasses. "Yeah! Anyway, hi!"

"Hi," Dan echoes, a smile tugging on his own lips. "I was promised a corgi, you know."

"I thought we could get coffee first," says Phil. He puts one of his hands in his jacket pocket, the other still clutching the vlogging camera. "I'm really bad at juggling my drinks and his lead."

"Fair enough. I'd drop everything, too."

When Phil laughs and turns to walk in the wrong direction, Dan allows himself a moment to just look before gently reminding him that the coffee shop is the other way.

Dan tracks the movement of Phil's hands as he talks about London so that he doesn't keep looking at his shoulders, his thighs. He's so expressive that he almost drops his camera twice more before Dan quietly takes it and stuffs it in his own backpack for safekeeping.

Phil looks good today in well-fitted black jeans and a bright red shirt under his denim jacket. There are pins on the pocket that Dan desperately wants to know the story behind. It all really makes Dan wish that he'd taken the time to pull the straighteners through his hair, but whatever. He thinks being late would have been worse.

"But you're from around here, right?" Phil says, interrupting his own tirade about the best tourist traps. "You know all this."

"Near Reading," says Dan. He holds the door of the café open, smirking when Phil almost keeps walking right by it. Phil sticks his tongue out. "I dunno, I didn't come to the city all that much. No friends and no money meant I just played RuneScape til my eyes bled."

"Oh my god, RuneScape," says Phil. "Talk about a blast from the past."

They chat about various websites they'd lost their teenage years to until it's time for them to order. Phil rolls his eyes when Dan hangs back, intending to pay for his own drink, and curls his fingers around Dan's wrist to drag him forward.

Dan is a little transfixed by the sight and feel of Phil's hand around him. The barista has to ask him four times what he wants, and he stammers it out like he's never spoken to another human being before.

Phil lets go of Dan to pay, chattering at the tired-looking barista until they smile, and Dan has to put his hands in his back pockets so he doesn't do something stupid like reach for Phil again. He doesn't even register that Phil has stopped talking to the barista and started talking to him again until Phil snaps his fingers in front of his nose.

"Uh, what?" Dan asks, blinking back to reality.

"You were on another planet," Phil laughs. He doesn't seem to mind much. "You wanna sit and talk or walk and talk?"

"Always sit," says Dan. "Unless you can lie down, I guess. Then lie down."

"I don't think they'll let us lie on the floor," Phil muses, taking their drinks from the counter with another bright smile at the workers. "But thank god, I didn't want to walk more than I have to."

Dan follows Phil to a table, feeling a bit like a lost puppy. "Then why did you offer, doofus?"

"Wanted you to think I was someone who walked just for the hell of it," says Phil. He's still smiling, it shouldn't even be allowed.

"I'd like you a lot less if you were," Dan jokes, stirring his macchiato absently. "I'm lazy as fuck, mate."

"Same," says Phil. "So how was BuzzFeed?"

"It was alright," Dan says, wincing. "They talked to us about memes from the show, kept calling us by nicknames we didn't consent to, and I swear they were just waiting for me to fuck up the whole time."

"Did you?"

"Not a lot," says Dan. "Just tripped. Didn't even fall."

With a quiet laugh, Phil raises his coffee cup. "Well, hello, let's celebrate that."

Dan snorts despite himself. He bops his disposable cup against Phil's and takes a long drink from it.

"How was your day, filming?"

The way Phil's face lights up when he gets to talk about making a video has Dan's heart doing double time. He talks to Dan about it with the same passion he'd talked about London, gesticulating a lot and smiling at Dan like he's the only person in the room. Dan hears everything Phil is saying but retains roughly zero of it, too busy looking at the way thin lines around Phil's eyes crinkle when he's happy.

"It's nothing too crazy," says Phil, as if Dan has any earthly idea what they're talking about. "But I always get so excited when I can do something more... I don't know, creative? Really put my master's to work."

"Your masters?" Dan asks, bewilderment knocking him back into the conversation. "Think it's a little early in the friendship to tell me about your BDSM shit."

Phil blinks at him and then laughs, loud, one hand coming up to cover his mouth. His blue-green-yellow eyes are sparkling as he looks at Dan like he's the funniest person in the world. "Oh my god, Dan, my master's degree. From uni. Where the hell does your mind come up with this stuff?"

"Pardon me," says Dan, "I need to go walk into traffic."

"So it's not just interviews you do this in," says Phil, still grinning. He gestures vaguely at Dan's entire being. "This is just... what you're like."

"Yeah," Dan says miserably.

"It's endearing," Phil assures him.

"So you have a master's degree," says Dan. He can feel the heat in his face, knows he's all red and patchy. He knows he looks and sounds ridiculous right now.

Thankfully, Phil allows him to change the subject with nothing more than a smirk. "I do, it's a post-production thing I spent way too much time on. You want to uni in Manchester, didn't you?"

"I did," Dan says, a little surprised by Phil knowing that. "I mean, I didn't finish uni, but I did go for a bit."

"I grew up near Manchester," says Phil, "so that kind of stuck out when I read up on you, because I was like, what if we had mutual friends back then? Went to the same parties? What if we passed each other on the street and I didn't know I was looking at someone who was gonna be famous? It was a whole, like, existential thing."

Dan's heart feels like it's going to burst, but he just laughs. "Me? Parties? Friends? Going outside? You're drastically overestimating my uni life."

"Guess so," Phil laughs.

Like it's second nature to keep the conversation going - and as a radio host slash YouTuber, it might be - Phil offers up stories from his own time at university and asks Dan a bunch of questions about everything under the sun. Dan barely has the presence of mind to answer them accurately, let alone ask any questions of his own, and it feels a bit like he's sitting for another interview. He doesn't mind much, though, because Phil listens so intently and is really good at jumping onto new conversation threads at points that feel right.

Before Dan knows it, their drinks are long empty. He could probably get another and just sit here and talk to Phil about video games for ten hours straight, but he doesn't want to give up the option of meeting Phil's dog.

They keep chatting while Phil leads the way to his place. Dan manages to think of some questions and ask them; Phil manages to get them hopelessly lost for a few minutes while trying to rattle off fifteen hamster names in a single breath.

Dan pretends to get a phone call when they reach Phil's stoop. He isn't sure he's emotionally prepared for being in AmazingPhil's flat, or Phil's flat for that matter, and he'd rather stand awkwardly on the pavement than deal with that. It's a narrow brick building, snug in the middle of a whole row of narrow brick buildings, and looking at it almost makes Dann feel claustrophobic after so many years in the boroughs of Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles.

He doesn't feel homesick for any of the places he'd couch-surfed or filmed in, exactly, but he does feel a little homesick for privacy from nosy neighbours. He feels like someone is watching him through their blinds right now, and knowing what he knows of the British elderly, there probably is.

All thoughts of America are thrown unceremoniously from Dan's mind when the blue front door swings open again and Phil reappears with Thor at his heels.

"Oh, look at you," Dan coos, his voice going into the soft one he reserves for cute animals and small children. He's crouching down before he can even remember giving his body the command, and Thor gives him a quizzical sort of head tilt.

"It's okay," says Phil. His voice is soft, too, way sweeter than Dan has heard it before. Dan wouldn't be opposed to hearing it more often. "Say hi, Thor."

As if he was waiting for Phil to give him the go-ahead - maybe he was, Dan doesn't know fuck about training dogs - Thor barks once and jumps up, putting his stumpy front legs on Dan's knees and allowing Dan to give him scritches. Dan's eyes well up a little bit and he chokes the tears back as he pets the soft, small, very good boy.

"Hello, oh my goodness, you're such a good, good boy, your fur is so soft and pretty and I would fall upon my sword to keep your tail wagging, do you understand me? Do you even know?"

"Oh, he knows," Phil says, fond. "Fall upon your sword?"

"I'm not even a little kidding," says Dan. He can't stop staring at Thor's puppy eyes and perked ears. "I'd legit die for this dog."

"Same, but he wouldn't even appreciate it," says Phil. He gives Thor's lead a tiny tug, and Thor yips, abandoning Dan to wind himself through Phil's long legs a couple times.

Dan grins like an idiot as he looks up at Phil, and Phil grins right back at him. It takes a moment before Dan realises that he's still crouched on the pavement and he's very much eye-level with -

He stands up so fast that he has to blink spots out of his eyes.

"Uh, yeah, totally," Dan stammers. He has no idea what they're talking about anymore. His brain has gotten tripped up on the idea of being on the floor in front of Phil like it's a record scratch. He's pretty sure that Phil can tell, there's no way it's not all over his flushed face right now, but Phil just laughs and lets Thor lead the way down the street.

"He's way better at navigating than me," says Phil. He sounds so casual. Dan is focusing on not walking into a lamppost. "And that's really good for some stuff, but he also brings me to the park when I'm trying to go to the shop."

"Right," says Dan.

"Oh, can you grab my camera?" Phil asks as if he's just remembered its existence.

"Yeah." Dan is thrilled to have a task that doesn't involve thinking about Phil's body more than he ought to be. He digs around in his bag and fiddles around with the settings on the camera while Thor takes a leak. "This is pretty cool. You want me to hold it for you?"

Phil grins. "You wanna film me?"

"That's not what I said, I -"

"Sure."

"- didn't mean - sure?"

"Sure," Phil repeats, tongue between his teeth as he smiles. "I don't usually have someone to help me out."

So Dan films some stock footage for the AmazingPhil endscreen, because that is what's become of his life, somehow. He gets a new perspective on Thor doing various dog things on the walk to the park, laughs every time Thor or Phil do something cute, and feels his heart start to swell more every time he sees Phil's answering smile.

As soon as they get to the dog park and take him off the lead, Thor is zooming off to bark with his friends. Dan keeps rolling and just turns the camera on Phil, who pulls a silly face.

"Is this what a day in the life of AmazingPhil is like?" Dan asks in his best announcer voice. Phil giggles.

"Honestly, no," says Phil. His hands are in his pockets and, despite a camera being on him, he isn't using his camera voice. It's all a very good look. "I stay home and answer emails until Thor forces me to stop working."

"I don't know if I could have a dog," Dan says. "I'm too fucking busy. Aren't you busy?"

"Gonna have to bleep that," says Phil, which Dan guesses is more as an aside to himself, since he doesn't pause for Dan to apologise. "Yeah, I'm really busy. Like. All the time. But I stopped being so careful for a little while, there, during some family stuff, and made a pretty impulsive decision or two. Thor was one of those, and I honestly don't regret it."

"Ooh, what else did you do? Get a tattoo? Join a cult?"

Phil winks. Tries to, anyway. He mostly just blinks a little out of sync like he's got something in his eye. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

The cackle that's surprised out of Dan is not at all an attractive sound, but it makes the happy crinkles around Phil's eyes deepen, so. Worth getting it on tape. He's not even sure that Phil will use this footage for anything.

Dan turns the camera off and slips it back into his backpack so he can fully focus on taking photos of various dogs on his phone. He and Phil migrate to a bench where they don't have to interact with any of the other dog parents milling around.

"God, I love dogs," says Dan.

Phil laughs at him but nods in agreement. "So do I. Well, I love basically all animals, but dogs are the best kind."

"Is it good, having Thor?" Dan asks. "Even though you're busy?"

"Yeah," says Phil. "I mean, do I wish I could give him more of my time? Of course. But having something else relying on me to function has forced me to take better care of myself. I couldn't keep working myself to the bone when I had this tiny thing who needed attention and, like, proper routine."

"They do say that having animals is good for your mental health," says Dan. "Maybe the routine thing is part of why."

"Not to mention the unconditional love." Phil grins and whistles over at a group of small dogs, who all perk up. "Thor, c'mere!"

Thor happily bounds over to them on his stout little legs, and Dan coos when Phil picks him up, sets him in Dan's lap. The dog seems fine with this development, giving Dan's nose a lick.

"Oh, hello," Dan breathes.

"What do you think?" asks Phil. "Is it worth turning down some work opportunities for this little dude?"

"Yes," says Dan. He's petting Thor and feels his eyes start to water when Thor lolls his tongue out in a goofy sort of grin. "Yeah, I mean - I personally still move around too much to get my own dog, but it makes sense for you. If I had a home base, maybe I'd consider it more seriously."

"Yeah," Phil agrees, sounding happy. Then he clears his throat. "Feel free to tell me off, but can I get a picture of the two of you? You're just so sweet with him."

"Course you can," says Dan. "Tag me on Instagram."

When he looks up from scratching Thor's ears, Dan is taken aback by the softness in Phil's expression. It's gone as soon as it appeared, fleeting, and Phil grins as he pulls out his phone. "I just figured you wouldn't want to, like, make this a public thing."

"I don't mind," says Dan.

There are some people who he probably would mind that for. Usually the same people who call him Dan even after he says not to. They just want to seem closer to him than they are in order to further their own agendas.

Phil isn't like that. Dan has known him for only a handful of days, but the man is so genuine in every interaction they've had that Dan doesn't feel like this is put on to gain some kind of audience.

It's fun and easy to let Phil take silly pictures of Dan, teary eyed with a dog in his lap. It's just as easy for Dan to take the phone out of his hand and snap a selfie of the three of them. And it's even easier still to take shots and short videos of Phil rolling around in the grass once Thor has had enough of sitting still. They go back and forth for what might be actual hours, training their phones on each other like they're just regular friends hanging out.

By the time Phil puts his phone away, Dan's stomach is grumbling loud enough for the whole park to hear.

Phil laughs, but it isn't a mean one. "C'mon, I should get Thor home, and you need to eat."

It isn't an invitation to keep hanging out, exactly, but it isn't a dismissal either. Dan is impressed by Phil's ability to walk a line like that, to keep his own feelings on the matter a complete mystery.

As much as Dan would love to spend the rest of the afternoon following Phil around like a puppy, he has to spend some time recharging or he'll hate himself tomorrow.

"Yeah, my leftover Domino's is calling my name," Dan says lightly. "Then I've got to prepare myself for the pure horror that will be tomorrow's interviews with teen magazines, what the fuck, I'm not a Jonas brother."

"Nice teen reference," Phil deadpans.

"Shut up," says Dan. He scratches Thor's little head, looking down at him so he doesn't have to look at Phil's reaction to his probably-desperate-sounding, "We've gotta do this again."

"We do," Phil says, all warm and happy in a way that makes Dan flush pink, bite his lip. "I had fun."

"Me too," Dan admits. He sticks his hands in his pockets so he doesn't reach for Phil, fidgeting with the inner fabric. "Like, a lot of fun. I don't get to do this a lot."

"I figured - and neither do I. Text me when you're done your interviews tomorrow, yeah?"

It's a good moment for them to hug again, probably, but Dan doesn't think he can handle that. The more time he spends around Phil, the harder it is to ignore how badly he wants to feel Phil pressed up against him.

With a promise to text and an awkward salute of a wave, Dan tries to walk away. He only gets a few feet when Phil calls, "Oi, Dan, hold up a second."

Okay, so he's not getting away without another hug after all. Dan takes a deep breath to brace himself before turning to Phil again. "Yeah?"

"You," says Phil, smiling wide, "still have my camera."

Dan narrowly avoids facepalming by digging in his backpack and muttering apologies. Phil just keeps smiling at him. When he takes the camera back, Phil's fingers brush against Dan's wrist in a way where Dan can't tell if it's intentional or not.

"Sorry," Dan says again.

"It's okay," says Phil. He bites his lip, just for a moment, and then waves with the hand holding Thor's lead. "See you around!"

--

Messaging Phil is the only thing that keeps Dan sane through the next few days of both print and filmed interviews, the same questions over and over, publications dying for a new tidbit of information so they can be the first to talk about it. Dan is used to all of that, at this point, but it doesn't make things any less repetitive.

Phil sends him photos of Thor and chatters about his own day and generally gives Dan something to look forward to. Dan doesn't think he's ever hit it off with someone so quickly.

Granted, Dan hasn't actively tried making new friends since uni. He's an adult now, which means he's got work friends and people he plays MMOs with and a bunch of acquaintances on his Facebook who can't wait to catch up whenever he's in town.

That's not the way this thing with Phil feels. It's just as easy as their day together had been, talking about everything under the sun between their various responsibilities.

They talk about movies and television and video games, where they find that they've got a lot in common; and they talk about music and books, where they find they don't have much overlap at all. But Phil listens to Dan's rant on why Janelle Monáe changed the concept album game and so Dan, in turn, lets Phil waffle on about Stephen King in the middle of the night.

The fact that he has trouble sleeping afterwards is entirely irrelevant.

Dan learns a lot about Phil over these days. Not all of it is good, but nothing makes the festering warmth in Dan's gut start to recede. He's got a crush, and it's getting worse by the day.

--

"What a cutie," is Jaime's opinion when she sees the photoset on AmazingThorgi that Dan has been tagged in, which includes six pictures of the two of them and Thor at the park.

"He takes crap selfies," Dan tells her in case she wants to snoop Phil's personal Insta.

Jaime quirks her thick eyebrows in a way that makes Dan feel wrong-footed, like she can see directly into his soul. "I meant the dog."

[peopleandrhythm]

S2E7: Suffocate the Atmosphere

Friends, I don’t know what to say. This time, both the preview and the post were deleted from my queue. I’m terribly sorry about that, but I also don’t know what to do to fix it. Sunday nights are usually not a very good time for me to keep an eye on Tumblr, so I suppose I will have to post these chapters manually on Monday mornings, which is not typically a problem for me. Thank you for your patience, and if you have a solution to this really frustrating problem, please let me know.

Hayley jerks awake to a loud bang. She blinks rapidly to focus, and it’s only when she hears the rumble of the garbage truck down the street that she realizes what ripped her from sleep. She groans and rolls over, and that’s when she notices the empty half of the bed beside her, still perfectly made. She furrows her brows and looks around the bedroom. “Elijah?” She’s met with silence. There’s no sign of him anywhere.

She gets up, pulls a sweatshirt over her head, and pads out into the hall. “Elijah?” No response. Hayley makes her way through the compound, poking her head through doors, looking for him but coming up empty. When she makes it to Rebekah’s bedroom, she knocks and waits for the quiet, “Come in.”

Hayley pushes open the door. Rebekah is still in bed, her blonde hair strewn wildly across her pillows, and scrolling on her phone. “Hey, have you seen Elijah?”

Rebekah doesn’t look over. “Hayley, I have yet to get out of bed this morning, and I have no plans to do so in the foreseeable future. I have no earthly idea where my brother is, but it’s not in here.”

Hayley makes an unimpressed face. “Did you hear him come in last night?”

“Last I heard he was enforcing Hope’s new curfew.” She finally tears her eyes away from her phone. “Is he not here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he already left. I’ll call him.” She leaves the bedroom, pulling the door closed behind her.

Still making her way through the halls, Hayley pulls her phone out of her pocket. She navigates quickly to Elijah’s contact and dials. She presses the phone to her ear and waits.

“You have reached the voicemail of: Elijah Mikaelson. At the tone, please leave a mess—”

Hayley hangs up with a frustrated sigh. She stares at her phone screen for a minute, debating how worried she actually wants to feel, before tapping out a text. Hey, call me when you get this. Then she slides her phone back into her pocket and, an uneasy expression on her face, continues on.

Things are swirly when Elijah comes to. This isn’t his first time recovering from a stake to the heart, but judging by the fire surging through his veins, he’s been injected with more than enough vervaine to kill another sort of vampire. That theory is compounded by the searing around his wrists; though he can’t see what’s binding them behind his back, he knows vervaine ropes when he feels them melting off his skin.

He blinks once, twice, and, panting, tries to take stock of his surroundings. He recognizes the vague shape and look of a shipping container—the docks, then. He jockeys himself into a somewhat sitting position, using his shoulder to push himself off of the floor, and hears a cold rattling. His ankles are chained together, and the chain disappears into the dark half of the container.

Elijah’s head tips back against the wall of the container. He focuses his energy on the vervaine ropes; he’s weak, and pulling against the vervaine is excruciating, but if he can just get free—

Sharp footsteps against the metal floors divert Elijah’s attention away from his task. He looks over to see a figure emerging from the darkness. He narrows his eyes and whispers, “I…I know you…”

The figure smiles. “We met a few days ago. We have a mutual friend. Hayley?” He brings his face fully into the light from a tiny hole in the wall. “My name’s Joel.”

The entire Mikaelson clan gathers in the courtyard. Hope and River sit close on the edge of the fountain, River’s arm around Hope’s shoulders.

“It’s been hours,” Hayley says, standing apart from the others. “This isn’t like him.”

Klaus strides in, phone in hand. “He isn’t answering any of us.”

Hayley turns to Freya. “Nothing on the locator spell?”

Shaking her head, Freya answers, “I could feel that he was still in New Orleans, but nothing more specific than that.”

“Same here,” Hope pipes up, voice quiet. “I couldn’t get a read on him.”

From his place leaned up against a wall, Kol drawls, “Well our big brother might be the prissiest of us all, but he doesn’t go down without a fight. Now who do we know who could take down an Original?”

There’s silence, and then Hope murmurs, “Marcel.” All eyes turn to her. “He’s, like, a super-charged vampire, or whatever, and his bite is lethal to all vampires, including Originals. He’s pissed at me right now. Maybe, to teach me a lesson…”

“No,” Klaus insists, shaking his head. “Marcellus would never.”

“Marcel hates Elijah,” Kol says with an eye roll. “He doesn’t need an excuse. One would think tearing his heart out and tossing him off a bridge would be enough to earn some revenge.”

“Enough,” Rebekah snarls. “This isn’t Marcel’s doing.”

Hayley’s already heading for the exit. “It’s worth an ask, don’t you think?”

“Wait.” Hayley stops, and everyone turns to look at Freya. She’s seated, arms crossed in on herself. “I think…I think may know what happened to him.” She takes a deep breath. “There’s a vampire hunter in town.”

Elijah shakes his head, partially to clear it, partially in disbelief. “You…you’re…”

Joel leans against the container wall opposite Elijah. “Yeah. Looks like you and I both found ourselves smitten with Hayley. Oh, that isn’t what this is about, by the way. I’m not, like, jealous or anything. God, we slept together, what, eight years ago? Please, I’m just relieved that that kid she was talking about is too old to mine.” He snorts. “Nearly had a heart attack in the middle of the farmer’s market.”

“Then what is this about?” Elijah grits through his teeth.

“Oh right.” Joel rocks himself off of the wall and walks closer. “So, I’m a vampire hunter. I know, I’m a little short to play the part, but I’ve been staking vamps like you since I was eighteen years old.”

“I highly doubt you’ve ever staked a vampire like me.”

“Right, right. You’re an Original. Hadn’t even heard of you until a couple of days ago. See, when my sister got accepted to grad school here in New Orleans, I thought, This is the perfect opportunity to do some real good. Everyone knows that New Orleans is crawling with all sorts of supernatural witchery, and I assumed I’d spend my night staking as many vamps as I can.

“That’s when I found out about you.” Joel squats in front of Elijah. “Kill an Original, wipe out their entire line. That’s a lot of vampires in one fell swoop.”

“Genius plan,” Elijah says dryly. “There’s just one problem.”

“And what’s that?”

Elijah stares him right in the eye. “You can’t kill me.”

Joel pushes himself back up with a groan. “Right, right. Original vampires can’t be killed in the usual ways—stake to the heart, beheading, fire, tearing out the heart. That is inconvenient, not going to lie. The only thing that can kill you is white oak.”

“And there’s no white oak left. You’re only…oh, fifteen years too late.”

“Right, right.” Joel digs around in the pocket of his leather jacket and pulls out a tiny vial filled with what appears to be dirt. He carefully extracts the stopper and dumps the vial onto Elijah’s lap. “Maybe not so much.”

Elijah eyes the substance warily. “What is that?”

“I thought you’d recognize it. Heard your aunt Dahlia tried to poison you with it once back in the day.”

Elijah goes very, very still. “Where did you get that?”

Joel shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. What matters…” He grins. “…is that I’m going to kill you with it.”

The breath whooshes out of Hope. “I’m sorry, what?”

Rebekah looks aghast. “Freya, how long have you known about this?”

“Just—just a couple of days—”

“A couple of days?” Hope leaps to her feet. “Three vampires were staked yesterday and you never thought to bring up that you knew there was a vampire hunter in the Quarter?”

“What the hell, Freya?” Hayley snaps.

Freya takes a deep breath. “There was someone I was…protecting—”

“And what of my daughter?” Klaus’s eyes are boring so hard into Freya it’s a wonder her skull doesn’t burst into flames. “When did you decide to stop protecting her?”

Kol snorts. “That’s rich, coming from the lunatic starting wars in the city just to undermine his daughter’s power.”

Hayley’s head snaps back and forth between them. “Wait, what?”

Hope lets out a strangled groan. “Oh my god.” Freya finally looks up to see Hope staring at her. “It’s her, isn’t it?” Freya nods.

Klaus looks bewildered. “Her? Her who?”

“Her name is Amaya.” Freya’s voice is barely above a whisper. “She works at Rousseau’s. We’ve been…seeing each other for a few weeks now.”

Silence reigns. The other Mikaelson siblings exchange glances of varying degrees of surprised, before Rebekah says, “You’ve been dating a woman?”

“Well why the bloody hell should we care about that?” Kol bursts out. “My god, Nik fell for a seventeen-year-old beauty pageant winner back in Mystic Falls and no one batted an eye. Surely we can’t be fazed by this.”

Unimpressed, Klaus ignores his brother and says, “I fail to see the connection between this girl and—”

“He’s her brother.” Klaus falls silent. “The vampire hunter is Amaya’s brother. And she doesn’t know—not about him, not about me, not about any of this. And I knew if word got out that it was a vampire hunter was killing people in New Orleans, it wouldn’t be long before someone killed him, and then her brother would be dead—”

“And what of our brother, sister?” Rebekah asks. “What of Elijah? Should he die to spare her feelings?”

“No, of course not—”

“The threat comes from outside the city.” Everyone turns to look at Hope, confused by her sudden interjection. She’s staring at the ground, thinking hard. “That’s what…that’s what Esther said to me. ‘The threat comes from outside the city, but it will consume our communities, setting them aflame from the inside.’” Hope looks back up at Freya. “It’s him. This burgeoning war between the witches and the vampires, the chaos and the confusion and the fear. You knew what was causing it all and you didn’t say anything. And now my uncle’s life in at risk.”

Freya’s eyes slide close. “I am so sorry—”

“Save it, Freya,” Hayley snarls.

“I’m going to go commune with the ancestors,” Hope says. “See if they can’t get a read on where Elijah is.” She heads for the stairs, River close on her heels.

Rebekah walks over to Hayley and wraps an arm around her shoulder. “Come. We can be of use to Hope.” She leads her after the girls.

Klaus stalks up to Freya. “Tell me everything you know about this hunter. Now.”

“I don’t know much,” Freya insists. “Amaya never spoke much of Joel—”

“Joel?” Hayley comes to a halt and whips around. “The hunter’s name is Joel?”

“Yes.”

The final piece falls into place. “I know exactly who he is.”

Joel has his back turned to Elijah, fiddling with something in the darkness. Elijah pulls slightly on the vervaine ropes, but the sizzle of his skin burning off earns a quiet tut from the hunter. “If I have to, I’ll stake you again. But that would just be a waste of both of our time.”

“I’m sure you have some tragic backstory that I would love hear another day,” Elijah says tiredly, “but today I’m just not in the mood. If you let me go, I’ll do my best to ensure that you actually have another day.”

Joel turns around, some sort of device in his hand. “No one’s going to find you here. I got a witch to do a little cloaking spell for me.”

Elijah’s face betrays surprise. “A witch from New Orleans is helping you?”

“Oh no, no one from this city. Well, actually now that you mention it, it was a New Orleans witch who told me all about you and your family. She’s the one who gave me the idea to wipe you all out so I could rid this city of vampires once and for all.”

Impressed, Elijah says, “Quite the operation you’ve got planned. Pity it’ll never work.”

Joel makes a face. “What does that mean?”

“The vast majority of the vampires in this city belong to my brother’s sire line.”

“So?”

Elijah smiles. “My brother’s link to his sire line was severed fifteen years ago. Killing him will do nothing but rob a young girl of her father.”

Joel stares at Elijah for a long time, face impassive. Then he blinks. “Well then, screw New Orleans. You have to have sired vampires wreaking havoc somewhere in the world. I’m thinking more globally than just one shitty city in Louisiana.”

Elijah lets out a dry, breathy laugh. “You should be grateful that it was I who heard that and not my brother.”

“Well you’re not going to get to tell him, because this is the part where I kill you.” Joel presses a button on the device in his hands, and something starts whirring in the dark half of the shipping container. Elijah can hear the air shift, and there’s something heavy about it. Suddenly, he feels it, clinging to his nostrils, to the back of his throat—white oak ash.

He starts to choke, coughing and sputtering uncontrollably. His body screams to get it out, get it out, but the ash is being blown his way, surrounding him in a slowly thickening cloud of poison. Joel leans back against the metal wall of the container, crosses his arms, and watches.

After pulling on her second boot, Hayley pushes herself off of the bed and stalks toward the door to her bedroom. She pulls up short, though, when someone appears in the hall. “Out of the way.”

Freya puts out a hand. “I just wanted to apologize—”

“I don’t want to hear your apology,” Hayley snaps. “Not after what you did to Elijah, to me, to Hope.”

“I was trying to protect someone I care about—”

“And in the process you let a murderer run free in New Orleans, in the city where my daughter lives.” Hayley shakes her head. “I don’t care if you love this girl or not. You had the choice to stop this guy and you didn’t. That’s the only thing I care about.”

Before Freya can say anything else, Hope appears beside her. Without looking at her aunt, she says, “Uncle Elijah’s somewhere by the docks. The ancestors can’t get more specific. He’s being cloaked.”

Hayley nods. “Okay, stay here. Your father and I are going to go get him.”

She starts to push past Freya, who begins, “I can help—”

“I’m going too.” Hope juts her chin out defiantly. “You’re going to need a witch. I can help.”

“No,” Hayley says emphatically. “It’s too dangerous.”

“What’re you going to do, search every building, every shipping container, every warehouse on the docks? He could be dead by then.”

“We don’t know that this hunter has the means to kill an Original,” Freya points out.

Hope finally looks at her aunt, and her glare is piercing. “No. We don’t. There are a lot of things we still don’t know, things that we might have known if you had chosen to tell us anything. But my uncle’s life is on the line, and I’m not taking any chances. So I’m going to go down to the docks, I’m going to find him, and I’m going to bring him home.” She marches down the hall toward the stairs. “And none of you is going to stop me.”

The sun glints brightly off of the Mississippi, and Hope holds an open hand over her eyes to shield them from the glare. “There are thousands of places he could be.”

Klaus places a hand on her shoulder. “Anything you could do to get more specific would be a great help, luv.”

Hope nods, and then bows her head as if in prayer. Her parents watch her warily, unsure of what to do. There’s a sound, gradual, as if a breeze coming in from the sea, that only Hope can hear: whispers. She starts to walk, eyes still closed.

Hayley and Klaus exchange a wild look. “Hope?” her mother calls.

“They’re helping me find him,” is the only response. She keeps walking, and her parents, with no other choice, follow.

Elijah is coughing heavily, curled over on himself grotesquely as he tries to expel the white oak ash from his body. His throat is closing, growing tighter and tighter, and as he struggles to breathe, he can see his skin start to gray.

Joel coughs too, and lets out a low whistle. “Damn, if I stay in here, this ash just might kill me too. I’ll head out, come back when you’re dead.” He strides for the container entrance without a backward glance at the dying man. The clang of the metal door is deafening as Elijah is left to choke alone.

Hayley and Klaus follow Hope through a maze of shipping containers and warehouses, not sure at all where they’re going. They double back when they hit dead ends, or even just when Hope spins around without warning. Each of them want to say something, to ask what she’s hearing, but they let her be, choosing instead to walk behind in uneasy silence.

Finally, Hope stops dead, smack in the middle of a large path between two long rows of containers. Her eyes are still twisted shut, as if she’s listening intently to something. After half a minute, Klaus decides to ask, “Hope? What is it?”

Without a word, Hope’s eyes spring open, and slowly, she lifts up her head.

A few hundred yards down the path stands a man, staring at them with wide eyes. Joel. A growl rips from Hayley’s throat. She takes a step, but Klaus grabs her arm. When she turns, wild-eyed, to glare at him, he says, “You deal with him. Hope and I will find Elijah.”

Having gotten all the confirmation she needs, Hayley tears off in a blur after Joel, who disappears like a rabbit between two containers in terror.

Hope’s walking faster now, her father hot on her heels. “He’s dying,” she says, panicked. “I can feel him dying, but I can’t see him—”

“Hope.” Klaus steps in front of her, places his hands on her shoulders to stop her.

“What’re you—”

“Breathe. You are the most powerful witch this city has ever seen. If anyone can find your uncle Elijah, it is you. Believe in yourself. I do.”

Hope nods, and lets her eyes slide shut. She listens as the voices of the ancestors wash over her, a cacophony of chatter and information. She focuses on sifting through the noise, searching for the one thing that can help her find her uncle. Then, out of the blue, a thought: Blue container, fifty yards due east.

Her eyes open again. “I know where he is.”

Joel steps as silently as he can manage, picking his way through the shipping yard like a big cat in its jungle. He knows what Hayley is now, knows how easily it would be for her to track his every move. He keeps to the mosaicked shadows on the ground, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

Still, he can’t help but taunt her. In a low voice, he says, “Gotta admit, you snuck it past me all those years ago. I had no idea you were a bloodsucker. Didn’t even know there was such a thing as a werewolf, either.” There’s a loud bang off to his right, and he flinches violently, but there’s nothing there. Pressing on, he says, “I didn’t mean to shoot your kid, you know. I don’t hunt humans. It was a mistake. I’m glad she’s okay. So I get why you’re pissed, but—”

And then he’s flying through the air, tumbling limb over limb until he crashes onto the pavement and skids. He pushes himself up with a groan, but before he’s back on his feet, a punch like a wrecking ball crashes across his face. He falls again, and this time, before he tries to stand, he whips a small gun out of his pocket. He rolls onto his back and fires, but Hayley dodges the vervaine dart easily.

She stands tall over him, eyes black as night, fangs bared. “You nearly murdered my daughter, and now you’ve taken one of the people I love the most. You think I’m pissed?”

Joel swipes a leg out and trips Hayley up. She easily rolls and hops back onto her feet, but when she looks down, he’s gone, up and running between containers again. She rolls her eyes, and a blink later, she’s in front of him, clutching him by the neck. He grabs at her arm, gasping desperately for breath, but her grip is far too strong to break.

She pulls him close and hisses in his face, “I’ll tell your sister you died doing something brave. The lie should bring her some comfort.” Then she sinks her fangs into the scar along his neck, tearing out his throat. Blood spurts all over her, and she drops his corpse to the ground with a satisfying thud.

Hope comes to a stop in front of a blue container. “This is it?” Klaus asks. Instead of answering, Hope holds out a hand. The door to the container bursts open, and a gust of air and ash follows it out. Klaus immediately begins coughing, but blurs into the poisoned air anyway. He looks down and sees his brother, his skin nearly completely grayed. Klaus easily snaps the chains around his ankles, then scoops one arm under Elijah’s back and another under his legs and whisks him out of the container and into the clear air.

Klaus lays his brother on the ground, ripping the vervaine ropes from his wrists. “He’s not breathing.”

Hope falls to her knees beside her uncle just as Hayley appears, still splattered with Joel’s blood. She looks down at Elijah, distraught. “Is he…”

“Hold on.” Hope settles her hands about a foot over Elijah’s chest and closes her eyes. After a few seconds, ash starts to rise out of Elijah’s mouth. Suddenly, he’s coughing, hacking up the ash as Hope pulls it from his lungs.

As the gray starts to fade from his skin, Hayley crashes to the ground beside him, pulling his head into her lap. “You’re okay,” she says softly, brushing the ash away from him. “You’re okay.”

Once she’s finished pulling as much ash as she can, Hope stands up. Klaus immediately grabs her and pulls her into a hug. “Thank you,” he breathes into her hair.

Hope wraps her arms around her father’s middle and, face buried in his chest, hugs him back.

[bibliosexxual]

Hey guys! I’ve gotten a lot of new followers lately, so I thought I’d do a little summary of what’s been going on my blog so far this year to update you all.

I’ve been unusually prolific, so I’ve got a lot of new Sterek fics up, including some old WIPs I updated this year.

So, without further ado, here’s the masterpost, as of early May 2017. Happy reading!! And let me know if you think a post like this for my older fics would be helpful as well.

EDIT: Almost forgot, I’ve marked the most popular fics with a ❤.

*

rich!Derek first date drabble (on tumblr) ~1300 words | E

Out of necessity, Derek has fine-tuned a few simple tests for anyone he goes on a first date with.

the kid!fic (on tumblr) ~2300 words | Teen

“Do you think I’m ready for fatherhood?” Stiles asks, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. He’s not freaking out about this. He’s not.

Boyd says flatly, “Stilinski, you’re twenty-one years old. You’re supposed to know how to use a condom by now.“

Stiles’ hand spasms and he accidentally squirts a huge glob of ketchup on his mound of curly fries. Fuck. He has the ideal ketchup-to-curly-fry ratio down to a science, and this is not it. “No, absolutely not what I meant. It’s just. Did you know Derek had a kid?”

❤ stress baking (on tumblr, AO3) ❤ ~1500 words | Gen

From the prompt, “You bake when you’re stressed and sometimes you give me cookies, but recently you’re giving me whole baskets each day, now I’m not complaining but are you okay?” 

❤ the flight to hawaii (drabble on tumblr) ❤ ~900 words | Teen

Jake runs a hand through his sandy blond prince-charming hair and snorts. “Please, this relationship is over when I say it is. Or do you seriously think anyone else is lining up to date you?”

For a moment Stiles is actually speechless, because how has he spent the last three months thinking this guy was attractive? How did he overlook this level of douchebaggery? Some kind of witchcraft, probably.

That’s when the guy in the row ahead of them turns around in his seat, looks Stiles straight in the eye, and says without even one hint that he’s joking, “I would date you.”

❤ the engagement (on tumblr, AO3)  ❤ 1595 words | Gen

The whole thing starts with Stiles really, really craving a meatball sub from the place across the street.

❤ the saga of the valentine’s day cucumber (on tumblr) ❤ 616 words | Teen

Drabble based on the prompt,

I JUST SERVED A CUSTOMER AND THEY WERE PURCHASING A CUCUMBER AND THEY WENT

“It’s for Valentine’s Day”

I REPLIED

“You must be lonely?”

THEY REALISED WHAT I MEANT AND NOW I’M SAT WITH A COMPLAINANT FORM IN FRONT OF ME.

❤ the nerd party, AKA the bookstore!AU (on AO3) ❤ ~4400 words | Teen

From the prompt, “We both tried to grab at the last copy of that desired book at the same time and had a tug of war.” HS!AU in which Derek is crushing hard and Stiles might not be as observant as he thinks he is.

Sterek doctors!AU (on tumblr) ~2000 words | Teen

A ficlet in which Stiles and Derek are coworkers at the hospital, Stiles accidentally (?) becomes Derek’s new roommate, and there is pining. Basically the outcome of my addiction to House, M.D.

you know you’re on my mind (WIP on AO3) 8164 words | Teen

The pen pal AU where Derek lives in California and Stiles lives in Poland. Long-distance pining, whoo!

draw me like one of your french girls (on tumblr: part 1, part 2) 3687 words | Teen

College AU + art student AU + nude modeling AU.

❤ accidentally? (on tumblr, AO3) ❤ 3683 words | Mature

Based on the prompt,

boss: “know why I called you in here?” me: “because I accidentally sent you a dick pic” boss [stops pouring 2 glasses of wine]: “accidentally?”

yup.

❤  breaking & entering (on tumblr, AO3) ❤ 4161 words | Teen

Based on the prompt, “[burglar gently wakes me] You live like this?" In which Derek Hale deserves nice things (and gets them).

prince in training (on tumblr) ~3000 words | Teen

Based on the prompt, “i grew up not knowing i was royal and now i guess i’m heir to a throne and you’re the guy who’s supposed to be teaching me how to be royal bc i suck at it and oops we made out”

❤ gorgeous beards of BHU (on tumblr, AO3) ❤ 2239 words | Teen

There are a lot of reasons Stiles is pretty sure Erica is his platonic soulmate. Her brilliant innuendos. Her epic dance moves. Her stubborn refusal to back down from things that scare her. The fact that her comic book collection is even bigger than Stiles’. And, of course, her @gorgeousbeards_of_bhu instagram account.

Or,

In which Erica posts a picture of a gorgeous mystery man to her Instagram and Stiles has to know who it is.

the roommate (on tumblr: part 1, part 2) ~1900 words | Teen

In which Stiles and Scott get a terrifying-except-not new roommate thanks to Craigslist.

❤ little spoon (on tumblr: part 1, 2; AO3) ❤ 6455 words | Teen

To save money while attending college in NYC, Stiles and Derek decide to rent one tiny apartment together. With one bed.

the blazing bombardier (on tumblr) 1670 words | Teen

Fluffy summertime meet-cute in which Stiles loves roller coasters and Derek really, really does not.

the valentine’s day showdown (on tumblr) ~4000 words | Teen

So Stiles and Erica have this competitive flirting/wooing thing going. This totally-mutually-agreed-upon-to-be-platonic competitive flirting/wooing thing. Every Valentine’s Day Eve, Erica gets him good, and every Valentine’s Day, Stiles gets her back, thoroughly.

Except this year things don’t go quite according to plan.

❤ on the bus (on AO3) ❤ 13299 words | Mature

HS!AU in which Stiles and Derek ride the bus to school together, and there are bisexual awakenings.

older!derek fic (on tumblr, AO3)   ~4000 words | Mature

Stiles likes Derek. Derek thinks he’s too old for Stiles. Meanwhile, Stiles is stubborn (and attractive).

❤ ships passing in the night (on tumblr, AO3) ❤ 1410 words | Teen

Stiles can’t say he blames Derek for quitting. Hell, this is basically the best thing to ever happen to Derek, Stiles knows that, and it’s awesome. They’d talked about their dreams, and Derek had always said he’d love to be a musician. Now his single has climbed to number eight on Billboard’s Hot 100 and his face is at the top of Stiles’ news feed every day for a week, and Stiles wouldn’t take that away from him for anything.

BUT. Just because Derek gets his dream job doesn’t mean he can just—just leave and never contact Stiles again.

Only, that’s exactly what he does.

Or, musician!Derek AU with pining.

not really casual (on tumblr, AO3) 2714 words | Teen

They meet in Biology 101. Stiles is a freshman, and he’s in this class mostly because Scott is pre-vet and Stiles signed up for all the same classes because he has no earthly idea what he wants to do, career-wise. Derek is a junior Spanish lit major taking this because he needs the gen. ed., and he’s terrible. He’s the only person in the class who’s not a freshman. He’s always a few minutes late—that’s how he ended up sitting at the table by the door with Stiles and Scott the first day—and he’s so gloomy, and he always lugs around this backpack full of Pablo Neruda books because he has a Spanish poetry class right before this one, and he takes the neatest, most meticulous class notes Stiles has ever seen. (Stiles, meanwhile, doesn’t take any notes. He takes photos of every slide with his phone as the professor talks and then spends the rest of the time goofing off quietly, doodling dumb stuff on Scott’s arm and working on five different assignments at once on his laptop.)

at the museum (on tumblr) 2452 words | Teen

Of course the first time Stiles sees Derek Hale since high school just has to be on the day he’s finally gotten Lydia from Marketing to agree to go out with him. That’s how the universe works, apparently, always giving Stiles the shittiest luck.

the hunger games AU (WIP on AO3) 7941 words | Teen

Derek shifts on his feet, says, quiet, “You must really care about him.”

“He’s my brother,” Stiles says simply. “And with his asthma, he’s—he wouldn’t have made it fifteen minutes in there. Even assuming he did, he wouldn’t kill anyone. He doesn’t have it in him.”

“And you do?” Derek asks.

Stiles stands a little straighter, looks Derek straight in the eye. “I’ll do what I have to do.” He hopes it comes out sounding more sure than he feels.

Or, in which Stiles takes Scott’s place in the arena.

***

So that’s it for this year�� but the year is still young. :)