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heartberrydog · 20 days ago

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having read all of your analysis/opinions, and the most recent one, of that hanahaki fanfic, I see /well, more fully that just after reading the fanfics/ and I like your perspective on the soukoku relationship. It's an interesting one and dare I say quite informed by your own aromanticism. I see where you're coming from, I think for me the superposition soukoku are constantly in and their ineffability, unspoken things that lie between them are also one of the most interesting points about their relationship

I think where a lot of people are coming from, when they see this inaffability, it's like a free, in your face, character arc - two people who mean the world to each other but never speak of it, rarely acknowledge the "it" between them, never cross any lines and have clear problems with intimacy in relationships in general - what make them grow? what would be fun to force them to do? to finally say something, of course. to acknowledge. to do something with it. to get over themselves and start living together, confess their love, start dating, or having innuendos, idk, depends on the fanfic/piece of art/interpretation.

frankly, I don't love a lot of those interpretations - some make soukoku too hard on each other and too hateful, some make their relatioship too obvious (which I fuck with sometimes but I don't actively like this trope lolol. but also it's played for comedy a lot of the time so anyway), some make their relationship too defined by one clear emotion/dynamic/behaviour when their relationship is too complicated and multifaceted for that. sometimes complicated emotion are on point but the overall interactions and dynamics are not enjoyable, to the point where you don't understand what soukoku even have to do with each other here.

at the same time idc - interpretations are interpretations and I read fanfics to see two idiots fall in love in a lot of different ways, not just one. if the overall premise and prose are on point, if my interpretation is at least loosely followed, it's ok.

I don't think soukoku have to date, in the end, or confess, or have any number of semi-conventional (bc nothing with them is ever truly conventional) romantic relationship check points. they don't need it, they're relationship will forever be incredibly meaningful - both in universe and from a liteterary standpoint.

at the same time, i don't think them acknowledging their relationship or going through with making it "oficially" romantic will lessen them - we disagree on this one. it's not neccesarily something that they need for them to work - but it may be something that they'll want.

dazai is a person created of dualities - he finds human existence miserable and at the same time tries to find reasons to stay all the time, he finds humans themselves foolish and horrible and yet they amaze him to the very core, there's not a thing that he loves more than humanity. he craves being noticed and acknowledged and known and at the same time it scares him to the the very core of his being, he hates it, he finds himself too wretched and inhuman to ever truly be payed attention too - that's why he and chuuya work so well, he can go through with a terrifying ordeal of being known without it being explicit - without either of them saying everything they think and yet it works, they have an incredibly profound understanding.

but...dazai, secretly, wants to be "tied" to other people in some ways. he doesn't acknowledge odasaku as his friend until after the other dies, and yet it was so incredibly important to him. he creates intentional emphasis onto chuuya's and his partnership - and greatly wants to be acknowledged as such. same goes for kunikida, even though the nature of their relationship is less intimate (he doesn't truly understand dazai while he and chuuya are like crooked mirrors of each other) but not neccesarily less important to dazai himself.

same goes for chuuya, though in other ways - dazai was the first person in his life to treat him completely as an equal. to be his equal, even. he craves the understanding and ease that comes with such a relationship.

dazai, through wanting chuuya, may want to be acknowledged. want to be called something in a romantic sense. not neccesarily a "boyfriend", but acknowldge that what they have is intimate on romantic level. maybe a lover, or maybe just a partner again. in many ways, it just would be an extention of what they have now - always having each other backs, being there when no one else was, pushing each other forwards, being understood. dazai craves labels just as much as he wants to hide behind silence and being understood without words.

well, at least that's what I think.

i don't know if they ever would be ready for a vulnetability of an acknowledgment - dazai is certainly far from acknowledging his wants and needs and love for other people, explicitly. but I personally think that putting things he doesn't want to say or describe into words would be a point of growth for him. because avoiding it is another way of staying safe, of avoiding vulnerabily that comes with wanting something - and everything he wants dissapears the second he allows himself to want it - acknowledging that he wants something would mean acknowleding that it may not come to last, that it may cause him pain and accepting it. and I want him to accept it. because being content with scary reality of everything being fickle and still maybe having a profound impact, maybe being beautiful, important, amazing - that's where one of the main faucets of happiness lie.

speaking of romantic acknowledgments, soukoku and interpretations - it's worth to mention that I'm not an aro person, so your milage may vary. I don't think the potential "acknowledged" relationship between them has to be strictly romantic - queerplatonic soukoku are very cool as well. I think they are very close to that anyway.

how do you see soukoku, well, in current timeline or after it? you don't want to see them dating, but do you want them to become more intimate with each other in some way shape or form? maybe spend time together from time to time?

can you see them going on dates? don't have to be traditional dates, just...spending time together, doing something vaguely intimate that has romantic implications.

can you see them living together? or being each other life companions?

if they're never gonna date/acknowledge each other in another way and never gonna find another mmm, life companion, because well, it's them, do you think they're just gonna hold their weird and profound relationship close to their heart for the rest of their lives (and fuck occasionally)?

how long would their lives last, in your vision?

wow, it's a lot of text... I surely felt emboldened to write by your encouragement not to worry about troubling you😭but if asks these long do bother you, let me now please...

hope it didn't felt rude! I love your thoughts and would love to hear them again. thank you for your work.

HI HI HELLOO!!! (≧ヮ≦) 💕

Yeah, I don't really like any of the popular renditions of these two, honestly. Though I can always stand them genuinely hating each other and being meaner to each other a lot more than them being anything resembling softness.

I would call their relationship a 'situationship' at most, but I feel so weird using that term publicly because that word has a million definitions, and not in the good way. Personally, I love the version of it that means an unidentified relationship which molds itself to the people's needs, instead of society's needs. I like that concept because it presents a good and highly needed middle ground. But, there's a large group of (predominantly straight) people that view it as a one-sided love kind of spiel? A relationship born out of a single person's lack of commitment and the other person, despite wanting something else out of the relationship, going along with it because they can't let go of the person?

I feel like these are literally contradictory definitions, which makes the word unreliable because if it can be viewed as literal opposing concepts, then it also can everything in between, and so this word can mean literally everything in the relationship scope. It's so confusing??? And I don't think it's a coincidence that predominantly straight people, which created the conventional model of a relationship anyway, are the ones viewing this concept as inherently negative because they think anything that doesn't become THEIR version of a proper romantic human connection must be unhealthy and fundamentally flawed and unsatisfactory. I'm so fascinated by the ways queer and straight people's viewings of relationships differ, honestly. Because queer relationships live off this unconventionality, I feel. We were forced to build our relationships in this much deeper, secretive way because they could never be shown, the same way straight ones could. We generally put a lot more value on the actual human connection than the exterior expression of it. Just... Putting the romantic relationship evolution of queer and straight people is so interesting because straight relationships, due to many factors with a big accent on religion, have historically been about making that relationship official in the eyes of others. Arranged marriages, marriage as a concept, in general, courting. Everything is about how this relationship appears to someone else. People married (and still do tbh) without even knowing who the other person was, or with minimal knowledge of them. This was never about love. And as such, I feel like, at its core, the concept of what the straights view as the pre-marital phase—dating—isn't either. Or, at the very least, it's within the second plane of importance. So much of what I see straight people, even nowadays, talk about in terms of relationships is so shallow?? I have this... acquaintance, can't say we're friends because we're not at all, and when she was asked how her relationship is going the FIRST thing she thought to say was that her boyfriend bought her this really expensive bouquet of flowers. That's insane to me. Like, I get appreciating that, to each their own and whatnot, but why is that the most important aspect of your relationship? My friend's boyfriend made a joke that those flowers couldn't be better than the ones he gets from his edge-of-the-block market, and she looked at him with such disgust it was insane 💀 Like... Have you maybe considered that not everyone expresses their love through material objects?? That the price of some flowers isn't the highlight of everyone's relationship??? Maybe????????

So many married couples don't even know the person they're married to. These people don't talk, they don't actually form proper connections to one another, and simply have a pretty bow to wrap around their relationship. I feel this is partially because marriage has always been within their right, and they take it for granted, and also partially because of how said marriage has been historically treated. Meanwhile, gay people had to fight so hard for the right to love and to be married that we generally appreciate and value them a lot more.

This is not to say that these are restricted to straight and gay people. This is just an overgeneralization I made because of my personal experiences and views of how sexuality can definitely alter people's perception of what romance even is. There are definitely straight relationships, even marriages, that are very healthy and have good communication, made of people that actually love each other, as well as unhealthy gay relationships built on a very shallow foundation. There are also relationships that follow a more conventional model, both straight and gay, that are perfectly fine and well. And, of course, gay people date and are capable of doing so openly now (mostly. kind of), which is great, don't get me wrong. Unlike some people I'm not here to define other people's relationships by my personal relationship model, so even though I will never get married because that's glorified ownership to me, and I also don't fuck with the idea of dating either, despite feeling a lot of romantic love, since I feel like everything it means and the immediate array of expectations that mere concept creates in the average person's mind isn't something that resonates with me and a relationship I'd enjoy partaking in, I'm not going to say any given person is wrong or that their relationship is unhealthy/shallow/whatever for getting married, or for dating, or that it means X, Y, Z about them, etc. I'm speaking in generalized terms because these are such common types of relationships I see, and patterns do exist, exceptions don't deny patterns.

What I'm talking about here is how romantic relationships can exist and have existed without ever being 'official' and that doesn't take away from their worth, if anything we should be more concerned about the way so many 'official' relationships don't actually have anything behind them. Love is not transpired in the label, and sometimes label literally take away from the love, whether that's because of the way the labels have been watered down in a way that some people (such as myself tbh) don't feel like that label is enough anymore, that using it is forcing the love into a box which it cannot fit in and leaving the excess which pours out in order to close said box behind, or because that kind of commitment isn't something either party is looking for, or because what society has made of these labels is so estranged from the actual core of the relationship and is instead so highly focused on all these expectations and pressures that the people have no interest in participating in, or whatever else.

But again, in general, straight people are predisposed to taking love a lot less seriously, and thinking about what that relationship can offer them in terms of material, instead of emotional gain. Even though I believe everyone is able to choose for themselves and do what they want (but even so, the mere existence, don't even get me started on the frequency, of such relationships saddens me so much because FUCK you could spend your life with someone whose presence you actually enjoy and who makes your quality of life better through mere presence instead of ways they can serve your financial/material/whatever needs, but so many people have either been conditioned to think that the genuine kind of love is the temporary and shallow one, or that material gain is more important, or simply, genuinely can't afford this kind of spiritual peace at the expense of proper living conditions and AGHHFGSHHG THE STATE OF OUR SOCIETY ENRAGES ME), but these people so often act like their model of a relationship is the correct one everyone should strive for??? And that any relationship that doesn't fit this model is fundamentally flawed and ruinous?? (again, the situationship thing) And the fact that this so often extends to fandom, with its historically gay roots back in the times when we didn't have the right to exist in pieces of media so creators had to do mental gymnastics to transpire those romantic feelings in a way the straights wouldn't catch onto, and the way they did that was LITERALLY by making these things implicit and subtextual so the people that were supposed to realize it would be able to, and started creating their own content outside of the public sphere??? The literal reason why the concept of enemies and violence are so romaticized nowadays is because this was one of the first ways gay subtext and queercoding gained existence, because people "fighting" and violence gives characters excuse to be incredibly close to one another, and being "enemies" gives excuse to think extensively about the other person, and justifies obsession. Because we were always only allowed to exist in metaphor and now that we are capable to exist outside of it, people take said metaphor and strip it of its very meaning so they can then make that a trope which ultimately places the 'completion' of the relationship riiight back at the finish line. Why are trope-ifying our roots in such a fucking surface level way and erasing the very CORE of them, instead??? Why is the direction we went in "romaticize enemy tropes based on the inability to show love in a conventional way, but paradoxically still put basis on the conventional 'completion' of a relationship" instead of "now that we are able to transpire love directly, there is a way to express those feelings of love through various relationship models, not just antagonistic ones". OU'RE TAKING AWAY THE WRONG FUCKING MESSAGE!!!!! THE WHOLE REASON THESE TROPES GOT CREATED IN THE FIRST PLACE WAS TO ALLUDE TO THE LOVE IN AN ACCEPTABLE WAY!!!!!! LOVE WAS ALWAYS THE IMPORTANT PART, LOVE WAS ALWAYS THE NUCLEUS!!!!! FUUUUUCK!!

The ability to canonify a relationship and have your word taken as gospel by the demographic is precisely what makes straight relationships so boring most of the times. They skip the actual love and human connection part and jump straight to the 'official label' because they can. This is not a writing shortcut, this is writing slaughtering. Same thing as when the love exists and is so beautifully transpired, but upon gaining a label that relationship gets immediately molded into the basic romantic relationship archetype, because, fuck, of course it does. Those labels are deeply conditioned to mean a single thing and a single type of relationship, and once a label gets slapped onto something both the audience's and the creator's sense of familiarity kicks in and that switches off creativity in such a heartbreaking way. This is a big reason of why I, personally, am against the use of relationship labels at ALL in fiction. I don't care about real life, use whatever label you want, but I believe using them in fiction is fundamentally detrimental to both your portrayal and the perception of that relationship. Labels come with their gigantic package of expectations, and even if you manage to fight your own preconceived notions and not water down the relationship... High chance the audience won't. Relationship completion not being never verbally acknowledged, not only stops the viewer from assigning that relationship any attributes, while watching, at the very least, but it also forces the writer to find creative and more profound ways to express that relationship and the love behind it, in a way that communicates the specific and very particular kind of love those characters have, without the viewer actually assuming what said kind is based on a label and its history.

Sure, the easiest way to do this is through stereotypically romantic actions like kissing or fucking, or alluding to wants regarding them (faces being very close, staring at lips, leaning in, checking someone out, sexual touches), which I believe in themselves are much better than slapping a label onto it anyway, but I think being capable of communicating romantic attraction even in the absence of those kinds of things is a GIGANTIC skill and one of the most honest ways of communicating these things as an artist. It's probably one of the things I aspire to do well the MOST, as a writer. I'm not there yet, I think, but I hopefully will be someday.

Bottom line is: On top of everything I've mentioned in my previous rant(s), giving a certain fictional relationship a label comes with a whole package of expectations and assumptions about that relationship that can lead to both a lazy portrayal and stomped audience engagement. While not using one allows for a unique portrayal of a relationship that is specifically catered to the characters themselves. And also I'm biased because I think dating a concept is bullshit. So, you're kind of right, basically. My aromaticism definitely has quite a lot of influence.

Dazai definitely yearns for importance (and exclusivity) in other people's lives, yes, but I don't think he could ever be capable of resonating with society's depiction of... anything. And especially not with relationships. His relationship with Chuuya doesn't need to be defined for them to be tied together in the way Dazai wants. And even so, I think calling their relationship a 'partnership' works really well because 1) that label can literally mean anything they want it to, it's customizable in ways I believe 'boyfriend' isn't 2) that label was assigned to them by an outside source, it is not something he particularly chose to call Chuuya, and while that doesn't take away from its significance between the two of them, it takes away from its significance to the outside world, which Dazai wants. The thing that is so special about the two of them is that whatever they have is so wholly implicit, nobody but them can understand it. This gives Dazai a feeling of higher importance in Chuuya's life than being an official couple ever could, because Dazai believes he is wholly replaceable, and having this kind of intimate, invisible connection to someone grants him as a specific individual, worth. Only he and Chuuya understand what they have, what the word 'partner' really means between them, and Dazai thrives in that because it means Chuuya cannot have what he has with Dazai with anybody else. It's exclusive, yes, but not visibly so. The world doesn't need to acknowledge what they have, he doesn't need to flaunt Chuuya around and Chuuya doesn't need to flaunt him around so it becomes real. It is real to them, and that's what matters. It's not necessarily lack of acknowledgement, but lack of explicit acknowledgement, I guess. Because, truthfully, they're aware of what they have in an implicit way, but there are no words to properly describe it without watering it down, and they don't need to anyway. There are only two people that need to understand it, and they already do so without explanation.

I honestly don't think Dazai craves labels at all, but to each their own. He knows best out of any person just how shallow and distrustful words can be, and he doesn't need them. What he may need is the astute certainty of something, but that doesn't come exclusively through verbal communication, and especially not communication to anybody but the people involved in the actual relationship.

I think the fact that he only refers to Oda as his friends after his death supports this more than anything? They didn't need that label while he was still alive, because he understood what Oda was to him, and he understood what he was to Oda too—the word wasn't necessary. But after his death, that connection got severed, or at the very least put on hold, and so without the mutual understanding, he needed a substitute, of sorts. And also, he uses the word friend in order to explain that relationship to somebody else, that's the easiest, vaguest way for him to do so. As such, I believe he also likes the label of 'partner' for Chuuya because of how vague it is, and how it can be misinterpreted in a way that still leaves the actual nature of their relationship something strictly theirs to know about.

And also his relationship with Oda was generally more open, to be honest.

Okay, yeah, Dazai acknowledging things—especially verbally, giving them physical form and undeniable meaning—would be a big point of character growth, and huge step towards him becoming healthy... But I don't think he needs it. I don't think every story needs to be about the characters tackling all their flaws and becoming healthy, not that there's anything wrong with that, this is just a personal preference. I really don't want Dazai healthy. At all. I want him as unhealthy as possible most times, actually. There is such profound humanity to be found in either an 'evil' or a depressed character with proper psychological reasoning behind their every action, and Dazai had the potential to be both before his semi-redemption arc. I could go into SO much detail about this actually but I already have a gigantic rant in this response and I'm a bit too tired to dig through my brain for every micro-reasoning for what I believe/like, at the moment, so I'll leave that for another day.

...I really dislike the notion of queerplatonic relationships 😔 That's sill too much of a Label to me. I really like the ways qprs are usually represented in media a whole ton, but I probably dislike this label more than I dislike any other label. Again, another thing I could rant about for a million years, but no longer have the energy to. Ugh. Someone remind me to make a grander statement about both of these things someday 🙏

I also believe skk's relationship is romantic in nature, so a qpr doesn't even fit them in my eyes.

I honestly don't want them to become anything more than what they are. Or to do anything different to build up to that, for that matter. In my personal interpretation of soukoku, intimacy is already a constant. It's just not really... normal intimacy. Fighting together is intimate, and Corruption is intimate, and their understanding is intimate, every single one of their interactions and talks and everything happening away from prying eyes (lightnovels 💕) is intimate. Outside of the actual canon, I believe they have various interactions where they're touching and holding each other in very intimate ways. As their 22-selves, and beyond that, I think how comfortable they are with touching one another will escalate, though. Like, as teenagers, that intimacy was definitely only allowed if it had some reason behind it—tiredness, drunkness, comofrt, sadness, one of them being injured, and so on. But I think as time passes they just naturally get better at allowing themselves to do these kinds of things.

I don't need the canon to ever show me that. I feel like being an artist really... Changes your perception of art, as well as the intentionality of it and what it means. I don't need canon to show me absolutely anything, actually. Because interpretations and opinions are given rights of any and every media consumer, and as long as they are genuine, they're valid. It is actually impossible to misinterpret any given piece of art if you're doing it genuinely (as in, not doing so pretentiously/superficially for X, Y, Z external reason, or not misinterpreting something [oftentimes intentionally] to fit an agenda/bias), you're just finding an unintended meaning, otherwise. Also, of course, we are all inherently biased, but there's a difference between interpreting something to fit a bias, or interpreting it based on personal experience. Having a unique personal experience that gives you a proportionately unique lens to view the story through is fundamentally different from viewing the story through a crooked lens precisely so it fits you/whatever you want it to fit. People do do this subconsciously, but that's out of lack of self-awareness, and therefore not genuine in the way I'm using the term here.

Even surface level analysis is valid, if it's genuine. There was this one situation that enraged me beyond belief where an adult who was doing analysis on tiktok made a video about how BSD is not for people under 17 because they won't get it. They got a comment from a person that was around 14, I think? Saying that even if they probably don't understand the deeper themes of the story, having watched BSD was really comforting for them because they related to Dazai a lot through their shared suicidality.

THIS MOTHERFUCKER. MADE A RESPONSE VIDEO TO THAT FUCKING 14 YEAR OLD'S COMMENT SAYING THAT THEIR COMMENT PROVES THEIR POINT BECAUSE "Uhm ackshually 🤓☝️ Dazai doesn't want to die, he wants to find a reason to live. He's not 'just like you fr'" And while they were technically right, because, yeah, Dazai doesn't want to die, that doesn't discredit the relatability of his situation and the way a teenager might find comfort in his, specifically teenage, character. That person was viewing Dazai through the lens of their own teenagehood—which is valid—and came up with the analysis that lens required. Is it an incomplete analysis? Yes, definitely. Does that make it wrong? No. Through being Dazai's age, at the time, and LITERALLY, genuinely in his position, this person was able to get into Dazai's head in the precise way one would be capable of hearing their own thoughts. As in, that is what Dazai thought about himself at that age, too. Do you seriously think Dazai's internal monologue at 14-15 years old was "I don't actually want to die, and I am 100% aware of that and what it means for me, but through my looking for a reason to live, which is what I am aware to be my core motivation, I will still illogically pursue an idealized version of death, which I am also aware will not be able to bring me the catharsis I desire. For the lolz. ". NO IT FUCKING WASN'T!!! THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS ANTITHESIS OF DAZAI SEEKIG DEATH DESPITE HIS MOTIVATION BEING A HUNGER FOR LIFE IS THE FACT THAT HE HAS A MISCONCEPTION ABOUT THE WORLD THAT HE IS NOT/ONLY LOOSELY AWARE OF WHICH TAINTS HIS ACTIONS!!!!!!! PEOPLE AREN'T AWARE OF THE WHOLE PSYCHOLOGICAL CHAIN REACTION THAT DRIVES THEIR THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS!!!! THOUGHTS ARE IRATIONAL SOMETIMES. OFTENTIMES. FUUUUCK.

Due to being 14, that commenter was able to understand Dazai's direct point of view, and relate to him because of that. This makes them MORE like Dazai, than anything. Most suicidal people don't actually want to fucking die. This is why Dazai is such an universally relatable character—even if the analyser doesn't understand the whole reasoning behind it, his seeking of a painless death and the glorification of it as the peaceful escape from suffering is a verry common mindset in suicidal people, especially so teenagers, and that will obviously be relatable in itself. If a teenager interacts genuinely with the media, they will understand this, on a surface level, yes, but it is still proper, accurate understanding. This is why Dazai is honestly such an amazing character to follow as a suicidal 14 year old (speaking from experience). He has that very unique, very real view of suicide that resonates with the viewer through their own misunderstanding of the self. While growing up and developing proper analysis skills, they are able to delve into their own psychology and teenagery misconceptions and therefore into Dazai's too, and vice-versa. They are able to live vicariously through him and create their opinions about their existence through a piece of media they love. This is a beautiful thing, you dumb fuck. DON'T TAKE THIS AWAY FROM THE KIDS WHO NEED IT!!!!

Anyway. The point was that canon doesn't mean shit because the beauty of art is that it is up to interpretation. Canon isn't gospel. There are things every creator implements without meaning to, or at the very least that the creator only implements subconsciously, without a concise explanation of it. As such, the creator's word is even less gospel than the actual text. Everything Asagiri says about his story is bullshit. I never listen to a word of it. He doesn't understand it, and that happens often when it comes to pieces of media. Artists are capable of having innate talent that they don't understand, but following it will create a good story, nevertheless.

It pisses me off to no end when people make posts like "canon is what I want it to be" and the like. No, canon is what the author makes it, but canon shouldn't be your frame of reference in this particular scenario. Intention is not the same thing as interpretation, and that's okay. And that doesn't make interpretation any less valid. Something doesn't need to be canon to be true.

How did this even start? Oh. Right.

Generally, I believe soukoku would be capable of doing all of those things. I believe they already did them as teenagers, but their natural development was forcefully stopped at a certain point due to Dazai leaving. They cannot continue from the point they left, so they're starting from scratch. It might be a slower process, it might be a longer process, it really depends what angle you're viewing it from.

Also. I would never call any soukoku scene a 'date'. Ever. That is so icky to me. For a lot more of the same reasons I keep yapping about, but also because not every instance of two people that are romantically interested in each other spending time together alone is about the romance?? Though my perception of what a date is is definitely up for debate so I'll shut up.

Yeah, pretty much. I think this weird thing between them will last however long it is allowed to, and it's definitely enough for the both of them to feel fulfilled. Even if they do have a fallout, for whatever reason, that doesn't... That doesn't mean they'd have to find another romantic partner?? Living with someone for the rest of your life is by no means mandatory, and neither is it for that to be a single person, or a person you are romantically interested in.

Fuck if I know 😭😭😭 A characters life span is not something I ever think about? What would the defining factors for any given answer even be?

It didn't seem rude, no worries!! Sorry if I seemed rude at any point shjhhsjv After writing that first rant I became really determined to finish this today and so this is a bit more. Unfiltered than usual. Not that I tend to have a filter, but this is more stream of consciousness-esque, I guess? Whatever.

HAVE AN AMAZING DAY AND NEVER WORRY ABOUT THE LENGTH OF YOUR ASKS!!!!! (๑ > ᴗ < ๑)°♡ . ° . !!

#🫀 — asks!

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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 4 years ago

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I know you’ve talked about how all the Cullen pairings are eventually going to implode - glad someone said it - but I was wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about what you think Meyer INTENDED with the pairings - tropes and whatnot? And what you think would have to change in her narrative to make what was intended what we actually saw on the page? Or — what do you think each cullens’ Perfect Spouse would actually look like?

Anon is referring to this post.

And well, you've certainly given me quite the challenge.

Some Musing Ramblings Before We Begin

Sort of like asking me to make Dramione work, I'm not sure I'm the person to ask this. Anyone who reads my work knows that... well, that's a lie, every story I secretly write is a love story. But it's not Twilight in any way shape or form.

Twilight simply isn't a story I would set out to write. This isn't a good thing or a bad thing, it just is, which means that asking me to make Twilight work the way Meyer intended is probably not your best bet.

But I'll try regardless, it's what we're here for.

Bella/Edward

Meyer intended Bella Swan and Edward Cullen to be the best and brightest of all the pairings in Twilight. They have the love and devotion of Carlisle and Esme, the physicality and sexual attraction of Rosalie and Emmett, and are such a grand love that even depressed Marcus takes note. This is the love story that drives the entire series.

Edward is an improvement upon Carlisle, a Carlisle with even better control, and the most beautiful man you ever did see. He's also a gentleman, a man of his time and from an era where chivalry was alive and men courted women. Bella is one of those disturbingly altruistic people who makes you feel bad about yourself just by being in the same room. She's incredibly selfless, kind, and also quite brave.

Together, despite their ups and downs and the many obstacles in their way, they're disgustingly perfect.

However, that's not what we get. On Edward's end he's... Edward about loving Bella. On Bella's end, she has no idea who Edward even is but she does know he's beautiful and special.

And to get what Meyer actually wanted... Christ, Anon, I'll try.

So, the first problem, if Edward was truly a good person then Twilight would never happen.

Edward would have his first day of Biology, miraculously maintain control, and flee to Alaska as he does in canon. However, he would not return. Edward in canon returns due to his budding obsession as well as his wounded pride, in fleeing Forks he feels he has lost to Bella. When Carlisle later points out that a girl's life is on the line, that Edward is foolishly endangering this girl solely for his ego, Edward refuses to acknowledge this.

A good man would never have returned from Alaska, the Cullens would have moved in short order, and Bella may or may not have died in a parking lot or in Port Angeles.

That said, what if Bella is not, in fact, Edward's singer? Then there's not this constant debate of him eating her or his creepy, budding, obsession with his personal brand of heroin.

Well, the trouble with that is that Edward would then never notice her. Even were Edward not a colossal dismissive dick, required per this ask, Bella is one mortal out of many and someone he shouldn't grow close to. Associating with her just exposes her to unnecessary danger from him and his family. Edward is a guest in our world, nothing more, and a kind Edward might chit chat with her in Biology but even if he had a growing crush he'd keep his distance.

As he tried and failed to do in canon, actually.

Basically, change Edward alone, and it's not enough. The Edward Meyer wanted would never get together with Bella. At least, not without a lot of AU-sauce.

But let's look at Bella for a moment. Bella's character also has to be entirely stripped down. The Bella of the books is extremely depressed and her infatuation with Edward is fueled in part because of this. Edward's obsession with her gives her worth.

Obviously, in this new and improved edition of Twilight, Bella can't use either Edward or Jacob for validation. She has to be able to stand on her own two legs. If she does use either for validation, then the relationship must come to an end, as she and her significant other realize just what it is Bella's doing.

The trouble is, what does this not-depressed Bella have to fall in love with? Yes, Edward's beautiful, and that certainly goes a long way, but in canon he's a dick. Bella even thinks to herself that he's a complete dick (even when he's trying to be charming). Luckily for Edward she later decides that this is cryptic and therefore appealing.

Well, in AU land, Edward might be so damn charming that Bella likes him anyway but we come back to Edward keeping her at a polite distance.

So, what we need is a terrifying villain. Let's call him Angelus (though per Twilight this would probably be James). Angelus is a vampire that will force Edward's hand. For whatever reason, he decides to torment and ruin Bella's life, ending the hunt in either eating her or turning her into his bride. Angelus' existence forces Bella to be in the know and for Edward to have to take extreme action.

The pair become closer, grow through undoubtedly horrific trauma, and through said trauma Bella understands not only the pros of being a vampire but the terrifying cons.

Basically, it'd be this story. Just replace the name "Carlisle" with Edward and "Edward" with James.

Alice/Jasper

Alice and Jasper are supposed to have this ineffable, mystic, connection where they're together because... Alice saw them together. And in a way, that's true, but it's supposed to be a thing of beauty, soulmates if there ever were any, and instead it's this dumpster fire with nothing holding them together.

This one's easier in a way, well, sort of. Alice would have to be a completely different character and we'd have to see a lot more of Jasper.

Alice has a bad habit of treating those around her, even those she loves, as chess pieces. She'll put them in significant danger, court their misery, so long as it gets her the future she wants.

And she's extremely controlling.

Right away in the opening of Midnight Sun we see this and how it affects her and Jasper's relationship. The novel opens with Alice hovering, scanning the future for Japser fucking up, while Jasper just sits there in misery. Due to her obsession on making sure Jasper doesn't eat students, she actually misses Edward's plan to massacre Biology and his many plans to eat Bella Swan.

Even if she wasn't, this isn't good for anyone to live with. Jasper has very little concept of free will, whatever happens to him, whatever he'll do, Alice tells him and the worst possible option is always on the table.

For Jasper/Alice to work either Alice's gift needs to go (and that's... sort of all Alice is) or she has to tell no one any vision ever unless under extreme circumstances.

Which would be devastating for Alice. Rather than this mostly well-adjusted, perky, girl, Alice would be crippled by her gift. The weight of the world, everyone's free will, rests on her shoulders and she has to constantly avoid temptation to simply pick everyone's future for them.

Without the attitude Alice has in canon, I think she'd go mad with such a gift, or else be consumed by the responsibility of it.

Then we get to the mess that is Jasper. Jasper's complicated, and I don't want to get into it here, but his love story would have to be... too large to be put to the side like that. The redemption he'd need is not one that can be shoved into a few paragraphs told to Bella, it's frankly the kind of story that would drive an ordinary story.

So we'd have to see a lot of Jasper and Nouveau Alice. Which, of course, detracts from Bella/Edward which is the main point of the story.

Honestly, I take it back, there's no salvaging this relationship. They would have to be completely different people to the point where they're entirely different characters wearing nametags 'Alice' and 'Jasper'. Alice couldn't have her gift, which informs her entire character, and we'd have to see way too much of Jasper who is ultimately a tertiary character.

Carlisle/Esme

Thoughts on Carlisle/Esme.

Carlisle and Esme is a very 'spiritual' relationship per Meyer. They're... mom-bot and dad-bot. Alright, fine, they're the perfect parents with this deep love for each other and a very parental bond with Edward especially. It's the relationship Edward admires the most in his paired off family.

I don't even know how to fix this one.

Again, they'd have to be such different people. The trouble with Esme and Carlisle is that they share no values and are plagued by massive miscommunication. The Carlisle who is perfect for Esme... No, wait, this Carlisle is perfect for her, but that's because she's in Esme Land.

The Carlisle that would be perfect for a grounded Esme is not the one that exists. She'd want someone who would always put the family first, who would treasure her above all other things, that's not Carlisle.

Carlisle, similarly, would want someone that truly shares his ideals. That's not Esme.

So, we're back to nametag land, because one or both have to completely change for this to work. (Not to mention that Esme's probably not supposed to be Esme).

So, I've got nothing for this.

Rosalie/Emmett

I actually think these two are what Meyer intended. They love each other but are mostly held together by attraction. They're a very physical couple and good for the most part but inherently lesser than Bella/Edward.

Sure, I'd argue that they're the most put together couple in the house, but I think they're meant to have flaws. They work well together, but every other relationship in the Cullens has to be a step up or at least have something more to it.

Something Edward and Bella can be better than.

Conclusion

Dear god. Did I only manage to somewhat address Bella/Edward? Was that it? This was worse than I thought.

#twilight #twilight meta #twilight headcanon #twilight renaissance #twilight shipping #bella/edward #anti bella/edward #carlisle/esme #anti carlisle/esme #alice/jasper #anti alice/jasper #rosalie/emmett #anti rosalie/emmett #meta #headcanon #opinion #shipping

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blorbosondeck · 4 years ago

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fic rec masterlist

canon divergent/finale fix its

Anamnesis

THIS! FIC! this fic lives in my head rent FREE it is so good and it makes so much sense in the narrative that the shitty finale concocted, as to why they wouldn't mention cas or anyone else and its just. so good and they write chuck in the most villainous way that i love!!!

"Chuck is depowered, Jack is the new god, and the world is free. Dean and Sam get into the Impala and chase down the miles on an endless highway, and their story is finally, finally their own to follow. At least, that's what Dean tells himself. But the diners and motels and painted interstate lines are blurring together and the smallest details keep catching at his brain like tiny fishhooks and he can't quite shake the feeling that not everything is exactly as it should be. Fix-it/alternate series finale. Canon-compliant through the end of 15.19."

Sunset Sound: Stairway to Heaven by @adhdeancas

GOD FUCKING CHRIST this is so good and sweet and im such a sucker for team ups and reunions!!! its 3:30 am rn and i just finished it and i love it SO much it made me laugh a lot and the last few chapters i had the stupidest grin just plastered to my face

The Closer the Star, the Greater the Parallax by @rocksalts

repressed bastard dean submits to the mortifying ordeal of being known and receives the rewards of being loved but only after some miscommunication i LOVE this i read it last night and it’s a fast favorite. my interests have overlapped and i am INTO it

“When Dean sits down to watch some bullcrap Discovery Channel episode with Cas, he doesn’t expect to actually learn anything. Except, with Cas explaining, he makes an effort to connect the dots.”

Don't We All Deserve To Be Happy?

VERY sweet and a VERY good pick me up. all around feel good fic!!!

"Post-canon fix-it, divergent from 15x19 where Jack stays and Dean doesn't die and Cas comes back and everyone is happy. Take a shot every time I'm salty about the finale."

Keep Your Love Alive

okay. okay okay okay this may be my favorite finale fix it just because of how well reasoned it is. like this feels what should have happened i love it SO much

"Dean gets to spend eternity sharing beers with Bobby on the Roadhouse porch and riding around in his Baby with Sam. He’s at peace… or he feels like he should be. But a few things nag at him: Where is Cas, and everybody else Dean had been hoping to see in Heaven? Why does he feel like he’s stuck in a loop, reliving the same memories over and over again? And who are the strangers wearing Sam’s and Bobby’s faces?"

The GoldenRod Revisions by @aethylas

this is one of the most well written things ive ever read. the script format DID make it feel more real and honestly? this is better writing than this show deserves. the finale that could have been ♥️

“A rewrite of Supernatural’s final two episodes, expanded into a five episode arc - in which Chuck needs to be defeated, Castiel deserves to be saved, and the characters in this story get a very different ending.“

Ascend by @wanderingcas

THEE finale fix it fic!!! written by the AMAZINGLY skilled and talented @wanderingcas !!! it’s 50k of angst and hurt/comfort and pure bliss

“Something in the world is wrong.

Demon activity is rising where mysterious black substance oozes and unusual ecological events are shaking the world. Dean, grief hanging on his shoulders, restlessly searches for answers that might lead him to the Empty… and to Cas.

But what Chuck wrote can’t be undone. The narrative thread pulls Dean along, forcing him to comply. Because once a story already has an ending, it can’t be rewritten.

Or can it?”

Things Happen (They Do, And They Do, And They Do) by THEE @sobsicles

i KNOW everyone has already recommended this and likely you’ve all already read it. but it has to go here bc REPRESSIOOOOOOOOON i LOVE this so much it is one of the most perfect things i’ve read. are you bisexual? did you have a kind of weird relationship with your best friend and not realize that how you felt about them wasn’t necessarily how other people felt about them and you were maybe a little bit in love with them but were too repressed to realize it? you’ll feel seen. maybe a little too seen

Closer (isn't close enough)

are you a sweet and sappy yet horny bastard? do you like cas exploding light bulbs? you will like this.

“the one where they finally talk about what cas said before the empty took him”

You and Your Husband

it is exTRMELY sweet!!! repression dean strikes again <3

"Five times Dean corrects someone about his relationship with Cas, and one time he realizes he doesn't need to."

Tall Grass

miscommunication and a slowburn! despite being written in 2017 and finished in 2018, it feels like a fix it. ft. plant obsessed cas <3

Invictus

a LOVELY and short (relatively) finale fix it

“They saved the world. They're free. It's done.

Except it's not, and carrying on is the last thing any of them are thinking about.

They still have someone they need to save.”

Unchained Link

post finale- it’s a great case fic and i am compelled i want more!!!

"It's after the end of things. Life continues on while Dean is "livin it up" in heaven. But it's never that simple, is it? A freak occurrence sends Dean into another time stranded back on Earth. And he thought his hunting days were over. But, no worries. His knight in shining armor comes to the rescue. Hijinks, therefore, ensue."

fun and time unspecified

Ladies and Gentlemen, This is Love Potion No. 5

very funny and sweet! miscommunication at its finest ♥️

"Cas gets drenched with a mystery potion from the ‘love spell’ shelf and... Dean has a sneaking suspicion, angel or no— the spell may have taken effect. And Cas might be in love with Sam."

The Way We Were

Y'all. It is so good its a great mix of funny and serious- extremely fun to see dean as like a base bisexual

"Dean and Castiel pose as a couple to gain access to a gated community known as 'The Glen', a pleasant if secretive location that the boys believe might be linked to several dead bodies showing up over the years bearing signs of ritualistic sacrifice. All seems well until Dean's memory is affected from an incident during a solo exploration, leaving Dean convinced that their cover story is true. Castiel is left trying to resolve their case without taking advantage of an increasingly enthusiastic Dean"

While You Were Sleeping

this is basically just the movie but replacing sandra bullock with cas. this is my comfort movie and imo, one of the most perfect rom coms. the fic isn’t finished but i still have the tab open on my phone and i will straight up go back and re read it when i need a pick me up.

aus/rewrites

The Harvelle Gospels: Offscript

i know everyone ever ( @jewishcharliebradbury ) has recommended this fic. and for good reason go fucking read it

“The Apocalypse is averted, the angels are in Heaven, and Jo is free from the threat of possession. Somehow it couldn't be farther from a happy ending.“

absolute riots

An Ineffably Profound Bond

i honestly would have put this in the finale fix it section! look. i know. i know you've been burned by crossover fics before. but this is Thee good omens/spn fic you want. its funny as hell and immensely satisfying. im weak for everyone working together tropes and that is this

"After Chuck sets 'The End' in motion, the remaining members of TFW make a miraculous escape. Not willing to waste any time, Castiel comes up with a plan to travel to one of the other worlds to try and get help from the angels there, but after a fight with Dean, it's the hunter who gets sent into an alternate universe,with seemingly no hope of return.

When a mysterious human with a heavenly weapon shows up in Aziraphale's shop, he and Crowley learn that their world is not the only one. Now it is up to them to decide whether or not they want to join forces with the human and help him save his world or simply find a way to send him home."

Somebody Up There Likes Me by @lafilleredige

cas is hit with a spell that turns his vessel into a woman, hijinks and sexuality crises ensue etc etc sam is a supportive and bitchy little brother and its all SO fucking funny and also. horny as hell i love it i love it i LOVE it

“’Dean doesn’t want to talk about your breasts, it’s making him uncomfortable because he hasn’t acknowledged the complex fluidity of human sexuality.’“

Stray Cat Strut

a long crack fic that IS one of the funniest things i’ve ever read and i can’t explain why. it’s so ooc but its so funny that i don’t care. if you need a laugh you gotta read this

"Sam and Cas are immediately in love with the adorable kitty they find outside the bunker door, and occupy their time planning how to convince Dean--who they believe is off sulking after a botched hunt--to let them keep their cat. Along the way, Dean learns to use a litter box and hears some confessions he maybe wasn’t supposed to hear, all while realizing just how much he loves Castiel.

Now all Dean has to do is convince Cas and Sam their new pet cat is actually him before they do something crazy--like neuter him!"

canon compliant or slight canon divergence

Give

by @doublestuffedimpala post season 7 episode 7, kind of ambiguous ending but truly a cas is happy to bleed for the winchesters fic

Punch Like Bones

short, post 5x04 homoerotic moment that i wish we’d gotten

#lmao please interact with this i spent so much time on it #i had to go onto desktop for this #ill keep adding on to it #my fic recs #fic rec #spn fic rec #deancas fic recs #charlie.txt

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goodomensbingo · 3 years ago

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Heaven and Hell would like to extend their favorably inclined and ominous congratulations to all you mortals who dare to have a good time participate in this event!

The Mod Team would especially like to congratulate Ngk_is_cool on their first Blackout!

You demonstrated a keen sense of perseverance and determination. The Mod Team couldn’t be prouder of your achievements! So we prepared this masterpost to showcase the fruits of your labor!

✘ Keep yourself Alive

Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Crowley & Pepper Tags: Second Chances, author doesn't know how to tag without spoilers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Alternate Universe Word count: 829

✘ Taming a Demon Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Crowley & Pepper Tags: Crowley is a cat, Lilith is a cat, No Beta - We Fall Like Crowley, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cats, Word count: 636

✘ Star gazing (is a different kind of hell) Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley Tags: Crowley Created the Stars, First Kiss, Stargazing, meteor shower, POV Crowley, Light Angst, Crowley's Fall, Crowley Hates the 14th Century, Stars, Crowley has Trauma from the Fall, Canon Compliant Word count: 912

✘ The Final Cut Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley Tags: Crowley is a Mess, POV Crowley, Crowley Loves Aziraphale, Light Angst, Ducks, Self-Reflection, Crowley Has PTSD, Aziraphale's Bookshop, Scene: The Bookshop Fire, South Downs Cottage, Angst with a Happy Ending, Post-Almost Apocalypse, aziraphale loves karaoke, Canon Compliant, POV First Person, Crowley's Sunglasses Word count: 1613

✘ No Rest For The Wicked Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Pestilence (Good Omens), Original Characters Tags: The Other Apocalypse rider, look who is back, How Do I Tag, retirement is hell, indirect reference of Covid-19, Mentioned Horsepersons of the Apocalypse, Pandemic, Pandemics Word count: 577

✘ Closer to fine Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Greasy Johnson & Pepper Tags: Pepper Is an Adult, Post-Almost Apocalypse, World Travel, Desert Inspired by Poetry, A Donkey That Travels Far Does Not Become a Horse, Not That Pepper Is a Donkey, Greasy Johnson is an Adult, I'm Bad At Tagging, Being Lost, Doctor Who References, Not a Crossover, TARDIS references, Africa, canon Compliant, Post-Canon, Author loves cats, Even Sphynx Cats Word count: 6148

✘ The Bait Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Crowley & Pepper Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cats, Cat Crowley, Prompt Fic, Domestic Fluff, Mentioned Gabriel, very briefly Word count: 556

✘ Sheltered Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley, Aziraphale & Gabriel , Aziraphale & Crowley & Gabriel Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - pelican, pelican Crowley, Prompt Fill, Zoo, author has no idea on ornithology, Fluff and Humor, Wings, Aziraphale Loves Crowley, Crowley Loves Aziraphale, one of them is a bird Word count: 669

✘ Sorcerer’s Apprentice Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley Tags: Blasphemy, Missing Scene, Before Golgotha, Aziraphale is Bad at Being an Angel, Crowley is Bad at Being a Demon, Miracle gone wrong, Inspired by Poetry, Inspired by Movie (Fantasia), Food as a Metaphor for Love, Prompt Fill, Canon Compliant Word count: 677

✘ A Beach Holiday Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Pollution & War Tags: Canon Compliant, Dolphins, Swimming, Quality Time, Pre-Almost Apocalypse, Mentioned Horsepersons of the Apocalypse, talking about retirement, No Smut, Partial Nudity, Angst, Happy Ending, Depend on the View Point, Misquotes, Quote: We're On Our Own Side Word count: 564

✘ It Started With a Sushi Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Crowley & Original Female Character(s) Tags: Sushi, White Suit Crowley, Canon Compliant, Mentioned Warlock Dowling, Nosy Neighbor, Musicals, Agnes But Not Nutter, A Different Kind of Nutter, Crowley Has a Bad Day, Crowley pulls a Crowley on himself , Elevators Are Hell, Older Characters Word count: 1688

✘ It’s all in the name Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley Tags: Post-Almost Apocalypse , Banter, Historical References, Canon Compliant, Ineffable Idiots, Oblivious Aziraphale and Crowley, Oblivious Aziraphale , rococo, Pole Dancing, Was There Pole Dancing at the Rococo?, Just Another Night at the Bookstore, Chippendale and Chippendales, Aziraphale's Bow Tie, Bow ties are cool, banter without plot Word count: 1611

✘ You must be an angel Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley Tags:Crowley Needs a Hug, Crowley Loves Aziraphale, Protective Aziraphale , Inspired by Music, Ambiguous Aziraphale and Crowley Relationship , Canon Compliant, Post-Scene: Soho 1967, Prompt Fill, Canon Typical Alcohol Consumption, Drunk Crowley, Drunk Aziraphale, Holy Water Word count: 1023

✘ Hand In Hand We’ll Go Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Sergeant Shadwell & Madame Tracy Tags: Canon Compliant, Post-Apocalypse, South Downs Cottage, Domestic, Everyone Needs A Hug, New Beginnings, Older Characters, Moving In Together, Scottish nicknames are the best, Feels, Ambiguous Relationships, Asexual Relationship Word count: 584

✘ The First Day Of The Rest Of Their Lives Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Adam & Eve Tags: Mentioned Aziraphale, Mentioned Crowley, Post-Scene: Garden of Eden , Aziraphale's Flaming Sword, New Beginnings, the first cave man, Attempt at Humor, not all snakes answer back, a lot of bird singing, The first day of the rest of their lives, Prompt Fill Word count: 500

✘ SoHo Bookshop Orientation Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Aziraphale & books Tags: Books, Aziraphale's Bookshop, Mentioned Aziraphale, Mentioned Crowley, cocoa is the best, sentients books, No beta we fall like Crowley, Canon Compliant, snores can be cute, Prompt Fill Word count: 692

✘ Showtime Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Aziraphale & Madame Tracy, Aziraphale & Crowley Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - pelican, pelican Crowley , Snake Madame Tracy, Prompt Fill, no snake was hurt during the writing of this fic, nor any kid, BAMF Aziraphale, Protective Aziraphale, Zoo Word count: 879

✘ Englishman In New York Rating: General Archive warnings: None Relationships: Greasy Johnson & Warlock Dowling Tags: Greasy Johnson is an Adult, Greasy Johnson in New York, Warlock Dowling is an Adult, Warlock Dowling has Ice Cream Firm, Greasy Johnson and Tropical Fish, Stranger in a Strange Land, Post-Almost Apocalypse, Canon Compliant Word count: 590

#gob #goodomensbingo #masterpost #blackout #blackout bingo #good omens #good omens fanfic #ngk_is_cool

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lov3nerdstuff · 4 years ago

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Voluptas Noctis Aeternae {Part 7.36}

*Severus Snape x OC*

Summary: It is the year 1983 when the ordinary life of Robin Mitchell takes a drastic turn: she is accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Despite the struggles of being a muggle-born in Slytherin, she soon discovers her passion for Potions, and even manages the impossible: gaining the favor of Severus Snape. Throughout the years, Robin finds that the not quite so ordinary Potions Professor goes from being a brooding stranger to being more than she had ever deemed possible. An ally, a mentor, a friend... and eventually, the person she loves the most. Through adventure, prophecies and the little struggles of daily life in a castle full of mysteries, Robin chooses a path for herself, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more, and two people abandoned by the world can finally find a home.

General warnings: professor x student, blood, violence, trauma, neglectful families, bullying, cursing

Words: 3.4k

Read Part 1.1 here! All Parts can be found on the Masterlist!

______________________________

"And that is?" Robin raised her eyebrows at him in question and curiosity alike, immediately catching onto the spark of hope that came with the prospect of an advantage indeed.

"Me." He replied as simply as that, with an entirely, if not too straight face, and Robin couldn't help her snort in return

"How very humble of you…" She said smoothly, but with a smirk on her lips nonetheless. He was right though, they did stand two against one after all, and they always would. The thought, as always, served to calm Robin more than any piece of saving history or weapon could.

"I am entirely serious about it." Snape added however when Robin's humoured expression didn't cease even after a few seconds, and thus her smile vanished to make way for her utmost attention to his words again. "Since there have always been mutual affections between the Morgan and the Bennett heir up to this point, as well as going by the few accounts of various incarnations of the prophecy, it is safe to say that there has never before been such a disturbance. Both heirs have as of yet always opposed each other alone, because neither was free in their choice to seek out a different partner."

"And you think that whatever anomaly it was that made me not have any curse-inflicted positive or negative emotions for Morgan is the reason why the prophecy will end differently this time?"

"I believe you are the best chance to end the prophecy once and for all that the Bennett line has had in over five hundred years." He replied in open sincerity, and Robin's heart skipped a beat before it was captured by both hope and adoration. "And I can state the facts as they are: I was never meant to be part of this prophecy, nor am I part of it now. I am the anomaly in this scenario, and as we both know, anomalies tend to lead to a different outcome than the predicted one, even in any controlled environment."

"Did you just use potions logic to explain why we will win against Morgan?" Robin couldn't help the affectionate smile that took over her features once more; phrased like he had just now, it really did sound like she had a chance. She couldn't put into words how much she loved him for always cheering her up. For giving her hope, and every strength she could possibly need.

"It appears so." He mused in return, quirking an eyebrow up along with his words as he studied Robin in the flickering light of the flames. "Yet the fortunate preconditions will not change one of the core problems of the entire prophecy: in order for you to live, we will have to kill Morgan instead."

Robin's heart fell in an instant, as did her smile, and even her stomach picked up the all too familiar churning once again. For a few seconds she avoided Snape's eyes by staring into the flames, before at last her gaze returned to him in all the unfathomable sadness it brought along. "I can't kill him, Sev. I had every possibility and reason to today, and yet I… I can't."

"I know. And we will see to it that you won't have to." He replied quietly, then seemed to be lost in his own thoughts for a moment until he spoke on. "Though I admit I do not entirely understand how the prophecy treats the subject. From what I understand, Morgan will have to die at your hand and only yours, even though or especially because I am not part of the prophecy. Otherwise I would gladly have volunteered to end him myself in this very instant."

A huff, both bitterly humoured and indignant, escaped Robin's lips, and she found herself rolling her eyes at this stupid prophecy. Of course it had to be her… everything else just would've been too easy, wouldn't it? But then again… "I wouldn't have wanted you to do it either way." She said. "I will gladly spare your soul that torture at any cost."

"Morgan's death is inevitable if we want to keep you alive, you know that."

"Nothing is truly inevitable. It can't be." Robin shrugged with another sigh, then finally gathered her wits to speak up about another thought that had fostered in her mind ever since this afternoon. "You know, I looked at him while he was at my mercy today, and I realized something that only now makes sense to me. At last."

"Enlighten me."

"Do you remember what my boggart turned into, in my third year?"

"How could I forget… It was a deeply concerning and unsettling occurrence." Snape scoffed, but then sighed and motioned for her to continue.

"I think it was the prophecy that made the boggart change into that dark version of myself which we both saw. And it's also what turned my nightmares in my fourth year into such a horror show. Remember Morgan's words, at the ball: he sees in me the hollow darkness of inevitable death." Robin took a deep breath, then finally got to the point. "The boggart and my nightmares showed me precisely what will become of me if I kill Morgan like I am obviously meant to. It was my destiny in the prophecy that the boggart and the curse found in my being, not my deepest fear. Even though it might as well be one and the same thing at this point."

"That-..." Was his only reply for a few long seconds, until surprise was followed up by understanding in his expression. "I believe you might just be right about that."

"I don't want to become that thing we saw back then, Sev." Her voice took on an almost pleading tone, low and far too breathy for Robin's liking, but it was the price for keeping it from breaking entirely. "But I would, if I kill Morgan. Perhaps it's part of the curse… or perhaps it's just my own stupid weakness. But we both have seen what will become of me, and I don't want to be that person. I can't be. I can't kill him."

"Then we will find another way to end the prophecy. Without anyone dying."

"What other way could there possibly be? You said Morgan's death at my hands is inevitable, it's always gonna be either him or I. No third option. I kill him, or I die."

"Just as you said before, nothing is truly inevitable." He returned, as calmly serious as ever. "While I would not hesitate to end Morgan in a blink, I will also not hesitate to spare you from doing so yourself. We will find a different way, because we always do. Because we have to."

"Alright." And again, as always, Robin couldn't help believing him in the end. A half smile tugged on her lips as she looked up at him once again, in the knowledge that they would be alright somehow. "We will find a way, before it's too late."

"That we will." He sighed under his breath, then placed a gentle kiss on her forehead and yet held onto her a little more tightly in return. They weren't optimists, no… but they had as of yet gotten out of even more impossible situations than this, every single time.

Robin's smile brightened ineffably as she allowed herself to be tugged closer against his chest, his head coming to rest on top of her own, and for a moment they simply enjoyed the silence of the night. It was terribly late, and there was no doubt that they both were beyond exhausted. Perhaps detention and almost dying weren't quite comparable in what they did to one's body and mind, but it was safe to say that this day ought to come to an end for both of them nevertheless. It had been too much… Hogsmeade, the room of hidden things, Morgan's office, dinner, their office, Morgan's rooms, the astronomy tower, and finally the entire struggle with the prophecy right here and now. Good gods, Robin's head felt like bursting with all the things she had just learned. They had uncovered so many horrible truths today… but they finally had gotten a step further in understanding the big picture. A step further to bringing it all to an end.

"Is there any more we can do now?" She asked after a while. "I feel like we forgot something crucial, but I can't grasp what that might be."

"We should rest, for now. Everything else can wait until tomorrow."

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as I can be." He replied with a subtle sigh, and finally pulled away just enough to look at Robin once more. "Perhaps we should see the bright side of things, too, for once."

"And that would be?"

"I can keep you here with me all night without any remorse."

A loud snort escaped Robin as they both got up from the ground to get ready for bed at last, and she couldn't help the smirk that just then tugged at her lips. "As if you've ever felt any ounce of guilt over that before…"

"Officially, I have."

"Officially, I shouldn't even be here in the first place for you to feel guilty over."

"Good thing we make our own rules then."

"Indeed."

… … …

Falling asleep that night, surprisingly, turned out to be less troublesome than Robin had anticipated. Once they both were curled up under the soft covers, wrapped tightly into each other's arms in the fierce comfort of utmost protectiveness, they were both out like a light within seconds. While it still hadn't been often that they'd gotten to spend the night like this, it currently was the reassurance of each other's presence that made it possible to find sleep in the first place, and while Robin would've found more excitement in it under different circumstances, it was the calmness that gifted her a dreamless sleep for what was left of the night to rest.

The morning, however, was everything but calm in return. It was Sunday, sure, but when they woke up five minutes after breakfast had started, the world came crashing down on them rather abruptly. In all due haste, it took them only a few minutes to get ready and hide the box of parchments in one of the shelves before they quickly made their way towards the great hall. Together, for once, since Snape had absolutely refused to let Robin wander through the empty hallways alone, and Robin had given up her protests before she had even gotten properly started. When Snape had set his mind to something, there was little to nothing she could do about it. And honestly, she found herself rather glad about that.

As always, they did go separate ways once they reached the doors to the great hall though, and Robin didn't hesitate to make her way inside and towards the Slytherin table already, while trying to catch her breath after almost having to run to keep up with Snape. At some point, when there wasn't such a pressing reason to hurry, she would have to remind him that his legs were about double as long as hers, which made it nigh impossible to keep up sometimes. Or at least it felt like that; she would have to remember to bring it up at some point. Unfortunately, it was only when Robin spotted Gideon and Michael that she remembered something else, namely the thing she had forgotten about last night. Their challenge, which really hadn't been one in the first place. Oh bloody hell… she had forgotten to take a proper look into her memories to check the stupid order of the stupid items on Morgan's stupid desk. But seriously, there had been so much more urgent matters at hand! Bloody fucking hell though, for she still couldn't tell them that. She still had to put on a smile and joke as if there wasn't some ridiculous life changing prophecy at work. Great.

"Got up on the wrong foot, eh?" Gideon greeted her with a smirk right when Robin reached their little group in the middle of the long table. "You look like someone's turned your shower cold while you were still under it."

"Something like that, yeah." She sighed in return, then dropped down into the seat between Jorien and Simon that had been saved for her. "Anyway, good morning to you, too."

Granted, her friends did try to cheer her up during breakfast, and Robin found herself sighing inwardly more than once while she put on a fake smile and, sometimes, could even muster up a real one. Her occasional glances towards the head table were kindly ignored like always, her 'hmm's for an answer as well, and at last she almost believed that the boys had forgotten about the challenge for good when after twenty minutes still nobody had asked about it. But of course, fate or whatever entity was currently messing with her wasn't as kind as to let her off the hook that easily.

"So, when are we finally going to talk about yesterday's evening activities?" Cas asked with a beaming and giddy smile that made Robin want to strangle her in an instant. Honestly, she loved Cas, but the girl had the most awful timing known to human history.

"Oh yes, right!" Gideon jumped right onto the train of thought, and even dropped his toast while his gaze flew over to Robin. "Where's that proof you promised, huh?"

Under different circumstances, Robin would've straight up snarled at the boy's smug expression and quieted his every inquiry with a single glare. But she had more or less promised them proof, and she had most definitely promised herself to keep her friends out of this mess. So she had to live with the consequences now, even if they majorly annoyed her. Sighing inwardly, she tried to recall the details about Morgan's desk, what it had looked like, what items he kept on there… Perhaps a rough description would have to do. Or, perhaps indeed, it would only take one single detail, a detail that almost nobody could know of. Well, unless they had carefully searched through his desk like she had, of course. Yes, that certainly would do to serve as proof for the boys! Why on earth hadn't she thought of that before?! With a mostly feigned mischievous smile, Robin leaned onto her lower arms and over the table, closer to Gideon and Michael. Unsurprisingly, every single one of her friends followed suit and leaned in closer to her as well. The fact that they were already so used to her antics rendered her smile a little more real, and a little less bitter.

"Alright, but don't judge me before you've checked the facts yourself." She started, once she was sure that all five of her friends were listening. Even Jorien and Simon, who had shown absolutely no interest in the entire endeavour last night, were intently paying attention now. "In the locked drawer in his desk, Morgan keeps a book on beautifying spells 'for the modern gentleman'."

It took a second, but then Michael and Gideon burst into laughter, while Simon and the girls simply gaped at Robin as if she'd told them that a spaceship had crashed in Hogsmeade. Admittedly, both reactions amused Robin quite a bit in return, which served as a most welcome distraction from the morning's hasty gloom. The book had indeed been an amusing discovery, now that she thought of it. One that she had previously simply ignored in order to focus on the greater good, the bigger plan, the more important matters. Well, perhaps it did her some good now to remember that there were other things in life than the big problems. That Morgan was also just a human being, with flaws and secrets and weird mannerisms. It certainly made breathing a little easier for now.

"That is absolutely hilarious." Gideon snorted a moment later, after he had finally managed to catch his breath. "I honestly hope it's true."

"Of course it's true!" Cas snapped back at him, even though the fact still seemed to irritate her at the same time. "Robin doesn't lie…"

"Thank you." Robin gave the girl a half smile and a nod, then turned back towards the boys across from her. "I consider this inane challenge completed now, but you are of course free to verify my claim."

"I believe you." Michael shrugged with another humoured huff. "Would explain why the guy's always so…"

"Pretty?" Gideon suggested with raised eyebrows, and Michael nodded in agreement. "Pretty is a good way to describe it."

"Petty would be even more like it." Robin sighed under her breath, but her own thought made her snort a second later nonetheless. Arrogance wouldn't help her, but if she was stuck in a limbo between confidence and fear already, she might as well enjoy the highs for now before the lows came back to haunt her.

"Speaking of petty, you won't believe what that pillock Justin did last night!" Gideon said, and Michael just groaned in return before shoving his friend and rolling his eyes.

"Who the frick is Justin?" Jorien asked with an indignant frown in return, which almost made Robin snort again, for the girl, as so often, displayed a copycat version of Robin's own thoughts.

"Some guy in their house." Cas answered with a roll of her eyes, but more at the subject than because of her friend's question. "He should be in Robin's year, actually, but knowing her, she probably has no idea who he is either."

"Caught me. I still don't care about the people in my year." Robin shrugged with one shoulder and kept her eyes on her toast, but she didn't cease to listen curiously to the elaborations around her at the same time.

"Anyway, Justin was helping us with our charms essays last night. Or rather, he was supposed to help us, but ended up being a stupid pillock about it." Gideon went on to explain.

"Yeah, he is really good at charms." Michael continued in a sigh where Gideon had stopped. "But he didn't even try to help us! Properly, I mean. He could've just answered our bloody questions, or pointed us to books that would have helped, but no, he had to make it all even more difficult by giving us even more questions! Questions and problems and… ugh! He honestly just made it more difficult for us to get the bloody essay done."

"I bet he didn't even want to help us." Gideon made a face, and Micheal nodded once again in agreement. "He probably just wanted to make himself look clever in front of the girls in the common room. Honestly, next time we'll just do it by ourselves."

"Or ask Robin."

"Right."

Robin nodded; of course she would help them with their stupid essays if they asked, she always did, but that was entirely besides the point right now. Her thoughts were already drifting off into another direction entirely, to something they hadn't even said, and that yet their rambling had triggered in Robin's mind. A thought, an idea… a perspective! A rush of adrenaline started burning down her veins, and her eyes just as her thoughts inevitably moved away from her breakfast and her friends, towards the head table, then towards Snape. It took but a few more seconds for his eyes to meet hers, and another for his mind to reach out to her.

'That look on your face is not about the dunderhead gang, is it?' He asked, straight to the point, which Robin was as always grateful for.

'No. We need to talk. With words. Now.' Her reply was a mere staccato, phrased like that in order for her request to even come out clear over the mess her thoughts had become once more. Going by the look on his face, he had understood her nonetheless.

'Astronomy tower. In five minutes.'

______________________________

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mashkaroom · 3 years ago

Text

Lengthy analysis of Holes, as promised!. This will include spoilers, which will be marked. Just gonna go through the book and the philosophy/themes/connections I caught onto this time around. Stuff discussed, in order: connections to Camus, on the question of children’s books, systems, cycles, and why Stanley is gay and jewish 😏

Camus:

The first and perhaps most obvious set of texts/theories it makes sense to put Holes in conversation with is the works of Albert Camus. Holes starts out with a description of the sun and the heat, which readers of the Stranger will remember are major themes there. The heat continues to be a prominent part of the story, though thematically, it functions very differently in the two books. In The Stranger it primarily represents the indifference of the universe (or at least so claim a ton of sources and I’m inclined to agree) and the lack of control we exert over our own lives while in Holes it’s basically the opposite of that. The heat and drought is implied to be a semi-divine punishment for a past injustice and, moreover, the elite adults of the camp have air conditioning and access to shade: the sun does not affect everyone equally in Holes as it does in The Stranger (though even that is debatable: I don’t think this was Camus’s intent, but it’s notable that it’s only the white englishman who’s driven to murder by the sun. This could certainly be read as critique of colonizers who cannot/refuse to coexist with the land and environment and how the indigenous population always suffers for it, but I digress). The other Camusian parallel one is immediately inclined to draw is that, of course, of Sysiphus: there’s the repetitive and seemingly meaningless act of digging holes not to mention that carrying stuff up a mountain is both thematically and plot-wise a very important part of Holes. But, once again, it is eventually revealed that both acts do carry an inherent meaning. Holes does not present the image of an uncaring universe: on the contrary, destiny and semi-divine influence plays a major role. The story may start out with a series of seemingly random and inherently meaningless events, but as the story progresses, people, actions, items, and events become increasingly imbued with meaning. In the Holes universe, one must imagine Sisyphus redeemed, not through the act of rolling the stone but by rebelling against it. I have difficulty imagining that Sachar was not thinking of Camus while writing Holes, or, at the very least, that if he encountered Camus afterwards, he must have been struck by the similarities. I don’t know if there was a specific intent in creating a story so embroiled in Camusian absurdism, especially since the target readership is (allegedly) children who almost certainly are not recognizing specific allusions to Camus, so perhaps the similarities are purely aesthetic — after all, everything that is nominally similar does play quite different thematic roles. However, I would never pass up the opportunity to talk about the myth of sisyphus and I think placing Holes in dialogue with Camus can raise some interesting questions about the nature of meaning.

Is Holes a children’s book?

Speaking, though, of the target audience, the audience for this book is in fact children. What about it makes it a children’s book makes it difficult to say: the protagonists are children (and, I would argue, it is not a coming of age story, despite the claims of one piece of lit crit about Holes in which i disagreed with almost every claim made, but i digress once more) and the writing style is fairly simple: you can read it with a second-grader’s vocabulary. Also, of course, being a children’s book doesn’t (and crucially shouldn’t!) mean that it’s lacking in depth and complexity. However, I think most thematically rich children’s books tend to be quite allegorical. The Little Prince is a good example. Holes is just way too specific for its sole market to be children. It’s either intended to be read by multiple generations at once or for child readers to return to it as an adult. It addresses themes of racism (and not just generic racism, anti-black racism in the reconstruction south), homelessness, intergenerational trauma. and the modern carceral system. These are social critiques that will probably go over most kids’ heads (certainly over mine). However, the themes of the text are not inaccessible for children. You don’t have to understand the particular history of the US criminal justice system or even that Sachar is making a comparison to anything specific to get that the system that he’s portraying is unjust. Knowing the real-world context just adds another layer to the text. Holes also has one of the hallmarks of children’s books that I really like, which is a particular type of absurdism that the child characters come up against. This always rang true to me as a kid and well into my teens, when you start understanding that your life is controlled by some set of systems, but you haven’t quite gotten what those systems are or why and how they came about. Like nowadays, I can say “we did this in elementary school because of a state law, that because of a federal law, that because of the history of puritanism, and this because we got a grant for it”, but as a kid nobody tells you these things or really even cares to explain why the rules are as they are, and the systems that govern your world, often with no small degree of violence and almost always with an inherent disregard for your agency, are ineffable and slippery, and good children’s books capture this really well (Series of Unfortunate Events is probably my favorite example of this, where a secret organization that everything is implicated in and more more tragicomic details about it get revealed until the Baudelaire children find themselves to some degree members with mixed feelings is honestly an excellent coming-of-age allegory. oh, not to mention the constant conflict with bureacracy. god that series is so good, everyone read it). Back to Holes, Sachar weaves the more fantastical ineffable elements in with real-world issues so neatly. Stanley’s family is allegedly cursed, which is why Stanley keeps having bad luck, but he also lives in systemic poverty, which is also why he keeps having bad luck. Sachar eschews neither the allegorical elements common in children’s literature nor the more direct systemic critiques more often found in YA and adult lit, and it creates a really unique vibe. I think the story really benefited from having a children’s author, and I would love to see more authors in both children’s and adult lit do this!

Systems

Speaking of the systems, this book is surprisingly radical. Like it’s full-on an abolitionist text. The law is pretty much only ever presented as adversarial, both in the story of Stanley’s present time, and in Kate and Sam’s story. It’s implied if not stated repeatedly that Stanley and the other boys are pretty much victims of circumstance and have been imprisoned pretty much for the crime of being poor. The hole-digging is shown to be cruel and bad for the boys. It’s noted that in digging the holes Stanley’s heart hardened along with his muscles. This is of course very evocative of the system of retributive justice we have in America. Additionally, Camp Greenlake’s existence can ultimately be traced back to an act of racist violence, also in close parallel with our prison system. Hole’s stance on justice is very restorative. Punishments are never shown to work: only through righting the wrongs can true justice be achieved. Moreover, Holes even gives the opportunity for redemption to a minor antagonist when [minor spoiler] Derrick Dunne, the kid who was bullying Stanley in the beginning ultimately plays a small role in helping Stanley regain his freedom [spoiler over].

Cycles

Cycles are a major theme in holes, and Sachar creates a unique temporality to support this theme. There are 3 interwoven stories: that of Stanley’s in the present date, that of Stanley’s ancestors, and that of the land that Stanley is on (though, as I will delve into later, it’s at least a little implied that Stanley is descended from the characters in that story also). The stories from the past reach in and touch the present. You can’t untangle the past from the future. Looking at this again through a social justice lens, it could be seen as fairly progressive commentary on what to do with regards to America’s past wrongs. The past cannot and will not be left in the past: it must be dealt with on an ongoing basis. Even the warden, the greatest villain of Stanley’s story has a sympathetic moment at the end where it’s revealed that she, too, is stuck in a cycle of intergenerational trauma she can’t break free from.

Stanley is gay and jewish

Ok, I will now talk about how Stanley is a queer Jew, but this entire section will be riddled with spoilers, so read the book first and then come back!

A queer Jew?? i hear you ask. You’re just projecting. Yes, 100%. However, I think that interpreting Stanley as both these things adds to the thematic richness of the text. Let’s start with the Jewish bit: it’s not explicitly stated that Stanley is Jewish, but his great-great grandfather is a nerd-boy Latvian immigrant with the last name Yelnats, and his great-grandfather was a stockbrocker, so, like, ya know. Louis Sachar is also himself Jewish, as was the director of the movie, who cast Jews in the roles of Stanley and his family (dyk Shia LaBeouf is Jewish?? i did not), so I know I’m not the only one interpreting it this way. And honestly, does it not resemble the book of exodus quite a bit? They escape what is pretty much a form of slavery and wander in the desert. Sploosh resembles the well of Miriam, and then they ascend up a mountain to the “thumb of god”, perhaps in a parallel to Moses receiving the commandments. Is this a useful way to look at the text? Who knows. But what I think we do get from reading Stanley as Jewish is a more nuanced discussion of privilege and solidarity. If Stanley and his ancestors are Jewish (or at least Jew-ish), then what placed the curse upon his family (and, we see, Madame Zeroni’s family isn’t doing so great either) is the breaking of solidarity between oppressed people. But also, the fact that you are also marginalized does not wash you of the responsibility to other marginalized groups. I don’t think Sachar intended it this way, because I think he probably would have talked about it more if he had, but I would say this book can be read as a call to the American Jewish community to take an active role in forging solidarity with other marginalized groups and actively righting the wrong you, your ancestors, and your community wrought upon them.

Now, why do I think Stanley and Zero are gay? Before I go into how it augments the text thematically, I bring to your attention this passage.

Two nights later, Stanley lay awake staring up at the star-filled sky. He was too happy to fall asleep.

He knew he had no reason to be happy. He had heard or read somewhere that right before a person freezes to death, he suddenly feels nice and warm. He wondered if perhaps he was experiencing something like that.

It occurred to him that he couldn't remember the last time he felt happiness. It wasn't just being sent to Camp Green Lake that had made his life miserable. Before that he'd been unhappy at school, where he had no friends, and bullies like Derrick Dunne picked on him. No one liked him, and the truth was, he didn't especially like himself.

He liked himself now.

He wondered if he was delirious. He looked over at Zero sleeping near him. Zero's face was lit in the starlight, and there was a flower petal in front of his nose that moved back and forth as he breathed. It reminded Stanley of something out of a cartoon. Zero breathed in, and the petal was drawn up, almost touching his nose. Zero breathed out, and the petal moved toward his chin. It stayed on Zero's face for an amazingly long time before fluttering off to the side.

Stanley considered placing it back in front of Zero's nose, but it wouldn't be the same.

Girl, I’m sorry, that’s gay as shit! It’s such tremendous tenderness, not to mention the traditionally romantic imagery of moonlight and the flower petal. There’s also the non-romantic aspects. Stanley’s inexplicable happiness and suddenly liking himself evokes, for me, at least, the experience of coming out to yourself, of realizing who you are. Later in this chapter, Stanley contemplates running away with Zero despite the fact that it would make them lifelong outlaws. This book, remember, was written in 1998, and homosexuality was decriminalized in 2003, and the book takes place in Texas. It would have been, if anything, even more evocative of gayness when it was published. Now as to how this increases the thematic richness of the text: obviously, in carrying Hector up to the thumb, giving him water, and singing the lullaby, he redeems the wrong done by his ancestor, after which his family’s luck immediately changed. However, after Hector and Zero return to camp Greenlake, rain falls there for the first time. What was redeemed here? Remember that earlier on we learn that what caused the drought was the fact that Sam the onion man (who was black) was murdered for kissing Kate Barlow (who was white) — so what would a [post-factum wronging of that right look like? Zero, as we remember, is black while Stanley is white, so them being in a romantic relationship would be a successful interracial relationship to redeem the one Kate and Sam weren’t able to have. It’s also, as I said earlier, implied that Stanley is descended from Kate Barlow on his mother’s side: Stanley remembers seeing the other half of the lipstick tube with her initials on it in his mother’s bedroom. I’d also argue that Sam the Onion Man is implied to be descended from Madame Zeroni (chronology-wise, I think he’d be her grandson). First of all, there’s no follow-up with Madame Zeroni’s son who moved to America, and pretty much all other plot threads are followed up with in Holes. Secondly, Sam mentions water running uphill, just like Madame Zeroni does. Even without these speculations being true, Stanley and Hector being gay would redeem the land they’re on, but If they are, the parallel with the other ancestral redemption arc becomes to much to imagine it was unintentional.

So anyway, those are my thoughts on Holes, now everyone go read it!

#was trying to express my dad that shia labeouf is jewish but couldn't remember how to pronounce his name #so i was like. dyk sheeya labeeoof is jewish? indiana jone's son. shaya labyof. Pap. Indiana Jone's son. you know who he is. Pap come on #when he figured out who he was he asked if harrison ford was also jewish #as a joke #and turns out he fucking is! his maternal grandparents are jews from minsk!#quoth my father: 'they're everywhere. nothing is sacred'#lololol #anyway this fucking booooook you guys

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ciaran-archive · 4 years ago

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"neil being stupidly in love with the protagonist and doing a highspeed retake of that process with the younger version of him"

aaaaaaa i love how you describe this so much omggg this is EXACTLY it??? also how neil is Not Okay(TM) throughout the entire movie and hides it so very well (except for his completely trashed and heartbroken looks during mumbai).

i believe the protag is actually aware at some level, of neil going around in this perpetual sadness, but is just much too much of a professional to ever bring up something that's obviously very private and personal. he had most probably thought that after the world is saved and the dust has settled, they would have finally have time together, and he can ask neil about it. neil has promised his life story, after all.

but alas. neil goes off to die instead, to save him. so now what 😭

anyway praying to the fic gods for the rest of your tenet fics to see the light of day! <3

neil probably spent the days and weeks after protag died in his timeline daydrinking and crying and then ives bangs on his door and tells him he has to go to the past and rescue protag and neil is MY TIME HAS COME and just throws on a suit and travels back and forgets how fucking wasted he looks. we love a grieving pining idiot.

i love the idea that the protag is aware of neil’s sadness but doesn’t feel able to do anything about it and he can’t even bring it up....and honestly neil kind of doesn’t give him a chance? he’s so On all the time because he’s a chaotic little performer and it’s been a while since he’s had protag’s eyes on him and he wants the thrill of that attention again without distracting protag with his own shit (and in the middle of saving the world, no less). so that leaves the protag thinking they have time and neil going “i have five minutes to save the world and make him not hate me go go GO” and it’s just [holds them gently] [locks them in a room together].

i’m toying with the idea of neil leaving letters behind. i bet the protag didn’t tell neil about the sator thing until the end (if at all) but he must’ve told neil about his other cases, and i’m really into the idea of neil leaving letters for the protag to find at the end of every case. i imagine the protag’s really lonely in the long shadow years between neil and neil again, busy establishing tenet and their networks and it’s satisfying but it’s exhausting and idk i just like the idea of neil writing stuff like “that kid you tossed out of the way of a bomb last week will go on to work for doctors without borders and save three of our agents’ lives thirty years later,” and just...a lot of stuff that reminds the protag that he’s not saving the world for nothing.

when he meets neil again, neil doesn’t know about the letters, but i bet he finds the box of them that the protag keeps and reads a couple before the protag takes it out of his hands and that’s how he starts writing them and making agents leave them in the past...finding ways to take care of his husband in the years he wasn’t around to do it himself.

my unposted/incomplete tenet fics are as such

aforementioned letters idea but very different; neil leaves himself letters.

a character study thing about neil pining for protag while protag’s busy burning himself out to save the world

He’s so much more delicate than anyone understands, and so much more lonely. When you were fresh out of MI6 and dead not six months you thought that was projection, but it’s not. He’s as steady as time and as ineffable as the ocean, but he’s only a person at the end of the day. He needs someone to bring him dinner and pour him a glass of water.

You aren’t sure what you are to him, but you know you’ll be anything he wants you to be. When you were young you thought of yourself as an action-hero, like all young boys—but this is his movie, and you’re just the guy that dies to save him.

You’re okay with that.

?? fic about neil being a jaded washed-up genius physicist that no one takes seriously due to the esoteric nature of his work when the protag meets him, and the protag being fascinated by a version of neil that isn’t the enthusiastic, eager, devoted one he remembers.

thank you for your interest in them! <3 i hope i manage to get them to a place i’m happy with at some point

#the second one is so sad which is kind of why...i want to complete it #but it's nowhere near done #the first one is the most complete but i'm the least happy with it #fksdjkas #tenet #bloodredandvividblue #asks #writelogging

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givemearmstopraywith · 4 years ago

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I'm so curious about your mystic revelations, if you were willing to talk more about them. I've been becoming more interested in mysticism since last autumn when I visited Bruges and spent hours and hours in spectacular pre-reformation churches. Do you know about the Basilica of the Holy Blood? It seems very much your jam, its a chapel in Bruges all about venerating this vial of Jesus' blood and it was very dark and smelled powerfully of incense and it had a real revelatory effect on me.

i want to preface this with something of a disclaimer. i think there will be a point, in the future, where i feel comfortable sharing my mystical experiences with people, but that time hasn’t come yet. i’ve only told one or two people about them: they are very precious, and they are not something many people understand. even i struggle to understand them because i am only human. so i won’t be getting into detail about them, at this time, although i may in the future.

i call myself a mystic but its a bit of a joke- as much as i would like to, i don’t think i will ever be on the level of spiritual transcendence the mystics i admire are, and its because i am too human and too bound to my own corporeality, as much as its something i’m trying to shed through my relationship with mysticism and God. but i think the act of mysticism is something i’ve chased most of my life, even as a child. i have a very mystically inclined mother- she’s always had a very strong relationship with spirituality, deep insights and a connection to the world i’ve never been fully able to understand or emulate. she’s my guideline for everything, my icon. like me she pulls from a lot of different spiritual practices, which has hugely influenced my own experiences and faith.

i am drawn to specific practices but wouldn’t call myself a proponent of them, at least not as an adult. i was raised practicing judaism at home and anglicanism in public until i was nine, when we started attending the catholic church like the rest of my family (this led to me having a stint in pure atheism, which ended when i had my first, what i would consider, mystical experience). but with that being said, as a child i wanted to be a priest: likely because of my relationship with gender despite being afab i was never drawn to being a nun, which is ironic because the vast majority of mystics i admire (teresa of avila, hildegard of bingen, and julian of norwich) were nuns or nun-adjacent (julian was an anchoress). basically i knew i wanted to connect with God and priesthood seemed the easiest way to go about it. and to be honest, even now i feel that pull- they say its call and it really is, and i don’t think it ever really goes away. so part of my mysticism has been realizing that i can live the life i felt called to without taking an oath or living under rule: the church is not a necessary part of mysticism or a relationship with God, it just helps and creates a framework under which God, who transcends human understanding, can be somehow incarcerated in human understanding. for me mysticism is where understanding God leaves the fallible, mortal human realm and pulls the human somewhere else. i have experienced things that are literally beyond my ability to explain. even with people i love i sometimes cry because i can’t explain them. but that is God: ineffable, sublime, the absolute manifestation of something gothic and ominous because he haunts me the way a ghost haunts a space but in the most pure, beautiful, comforting way imaginable.

and lastly: yes, i have heard of the basilica of the holy blood and its somewhere i would love to go! i had a similar revelatory experience at st joseph’s oratory in montreal- it’s not as old, but its one of the older pilgrimage sites in canada and similarly its a basilica, and the feeling i had there is something that rises in me like a craving.

#purityghoul #replies #need to come up with a tagging system for these asks but not today sadly

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argumate · 5 years ago

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If men drink more, do drugs more and kill themselves more than women, does that necessarily mean they receive less support for mental health issues? If women attempt suicide more and succeed less, couldn't this just as easily be caused by a higher suicidal intent on average but less ability to be violent, as it could be caused by a lower suicidal intent? Isn't it sexist to make generalisations about society supporting women more based on your guesses about the real cause of various behaviors?

These are really complex questions and answering them properly requires sources of data and a degree of statistical rigour that I do not possess so I am going to stick to generalities.

As a group, men take more risks and are more violent than women (for the commonly understood meaning of “violence”, which is arguably male-focused).

But as soon as we start to talk about group differences it’s obligatory to point out the obvious: men being taller than women on average, as a group, does not mean that every man is taller than every woman, or even that the difference is particularly large (it’s 14cm in Australia), just as women living longer than men on average, as a group, does not mean that every woman lives longer than every man or that the difference is particularly large (it’s 4 years in Australia).

And beyond differences in simple averages there is also the question of the distribution, with men for whatever reason more likely to be outliers at both ends for many traits (more men than women with zero children and more men than women with a hundred children).

I mention that simply because any discussion of group differences tends to get the hackles up as it’s an issue that people have very strong feelings about (not me though!) and so it helps to be careful with language.

Whenever anyone does something we immediately ask is that what they wanted or were they forced into it, and if it turns out that is what they wanted we ask why, and that’s where things start to get really murky. If a man does something stereotypical of men is that because he’s trying to live up to the gender role impressed upon him from birth by society or is it because men are just like that? And is that even a meaningful question to ask? Is there such a thing as a “man” without the context of society?

Suicide is complex and is entangled with many factors: rates of depression and mental illness, cultural scripts, and the simple availability of methods. Some claim that availability is an important factor, with things like guns, coal gas ovens, pesticides, or certain medicines making suicide significantly easier in the moment and thus more subject to impulsivity. Any attempt to compare male and female suicide rates would need to compensate for access to these methods, both physical and cultural.

But beyond the choices people make we still don’t know why, and how things might have gone differently in a different context. For example older men often have fewer social connections than older women, and that is often explained by men putting less effort into social grooming and maintaining relationships than women (on average, as a group), which in turn could be explained by the ineffable male nature or by the fact that traditionally more men were in long-term full-time employment (work friends!) and thus their retirement is a bigger change to their social situation, whereas women have lower rates of workforce participation in the first place and thus are less affected by retirement.

If a man does not seek out therapy, does he lack support? If he attends therapy but finds it useless, does that mean that he lacks support? Honestly I’m not an expert on therapy (or anything) but this seems like a really tough question to answer without begging the question, how do you disentangle the role of therapy from everything else? I mean just to pick an example completely at random, women (on average, as a group) often have closer relationships to their children, which could potentially impact suicide rates, who knows.

A brief dip into evopsych would suggest that there are evolutionary advantages to women being more passive, stable, and patient than men (on average, etc.) and advantages to men taking bigger risks, for obvious reasons, and if that’s more likely to leave men dead from suicide, or bar fights, or alcoholism, then evolution simply shrugs and points at the numbers. (Evolution doesn’t care about any of us being happy, it’s entirely possible to spend a “successful” life in grinding misery, so while evopysch can suggest reasons for certain patterns it’s no guide to living).

To circle back to your original questions, it’s hard to even say what it means for society to “support” men or women. If men do want to drink more alcohol, is society supporting them by providing it, or exploiting them? And given that society is made up of men and women, are we really asking if men support themselves, or support other men? If a majority of therapists are women, is that because there is more demand for female therapists, or more supply? Does that even matter? And why am I the one asking all the questions here?

As with most questions, the real puzzle is why they are asked in the first place. When it comes to social issues and gender differences such questions are often a club for a preferred agenda: schools are failing boys, computer science needs more women, but the complexity of the issues is ill-suited to the intensity of the debate, and attempting to grapple with the details just produces word salad like this.

If you ask me, and you did, I would not hazard a guess on whether men receive more or less support for mental health issues than women. But if someone did a study and found that one or the other were more likely to see a therapist or receive recommendations to see a therapist or get snubbed in the office break room for seeing a therapist I would still recommend exercising caution in applying that result.

One of the pitfalls of group differences as I alluded to earlier was that people interpret “men are taller than women” as “all men are tall”, and similarly they might interpret “men are less likely to see a therapist” as “women get more support from society while men suffer in silence” or “men have less need for therapy while women are all narcissists who want to talk about themselves” or “therapists are con artists who prey on women” or who knows what.

Ultimately everyone wants to be happy and most people aren’t, there is a lot of unfairness in the world and some of that unfairness is people unfairly accusing others of having it better than them when they actually don’t, so it’s probably best for everyone to exercise a little restraint when it comes to claims like that.

#Anonymous

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jenanigans1207 · 4 years ago

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Flowers for Margerie [1] |Ineffable Husbands|

Okay I’m gonna experiment with tumblr to see how it does with posting chapters of fics. It used to be great but then it stopped being great and so I disappeared from here for awhile. So let’s see how this does, shall we? The first three chapters of this fic are already up on Ao3, but I’ll be posting the other two shortly, too. I hope you enjoy!

Summary: “What have you got there?” She asked as the doors slid shut behind her, stepping up to inspect the plant. “My, what a lovely thing. Where are you taking it?”

“I’m, er, getting rid of it, actually.” Crowley answers, caught off guard by the way Margerie is looking at the plant. “Leaf spots.” He offers as a weak explanation, shifting it so she could better see the offending spot.

“Oh, that’s hardly any reason to get rid of it!” Margerie replies at once. “When something is a little damaged like that, you don’t throw it away, you take care of it. A little love and dedication and it’ll be healed right up.”

When Crowley tries to figure out what to do with the plants that disobey him, he doesn't expect to suddenly befriend the woman who lives in the flat below him. But he does.

The first time one of Crowley’s plants betrays him, he doesn’t know what to do.

He must make an example of it, of course, that part isn’t in question. There will be no disobedience in his flat and he’s determined to drive that point home. But he’s not sure how to do it. He grabs the plant by its pot, stalking out of the room with it, only pausing to send a menacing glare back at the plants who are watching their friend be taken away. They make it to the kitchen and Crowley sets the pot down on the counter, inspecting the plant inside of it, the offending leaf spot a dark focal point on its otherwise luscious leaves.

“How could you have done this?” He murmurs to the plant, turning it around. His tone is softer than he means it to be, sad more than disappointed, so he keeps his voice low so the other plants don’t get any ideas. “Was there something I didn’t give you? More I could have done?”

The plant trembles before him, its leaves shaking unceremoniously as Crowley spins the pot around, inspecting it from different angles, feeling the soil for dampness. He’d given it enough water, it had sunlight, he’d even gotten special potting soil that was supposed to help starter plants like this one. He had done his research on how to prevent things like leaf spots and made sure the plants had all the appropriate nutrition they needed. By all accounts, there was no reason for this plant to be betraying him so.

“Well,” He says, this time sounding as disappointed as he actually feels. Whether he’s disappointed in the plant or in himself is a moot point that he refuses to think about as he fixes his eyes back on the offending spot. “S’nothing to be done but to make a point, I s’pose.”

The plant triples its efforts of trembling and Crowley thinks it would be healing its leaf spot right here and now if it could. With a drawn out sigh, Crowley reaches over to flip on the garbage disposal, the sound loud and grating against his ears. He knows it fills the entire flat and can practically feel the fear of the other plants radiating from the other room. It seems barbaric, but he doesn’t exactly have an arsenal of plant destroying machines about his flat and he can’t think of any better way to handle the situation. The plant betrayed the only order it had been given, it needed to be taken care of. Such was the order of life.

He picks up the plant from his counter, grabbing it by the stems and yanking it out of the pot with little care or concern. The plant seems to vibrate under his fingers as he brings it over towards the garbage disposal, lowering it into the sink, further down, down, down. It’s just a hairsbreadth away from being in the garbage disposal when Crowley stops with a sudden jolt, his other hand bracing against the counter and his head sagging low.

“What am I doing?” He hisses, frustrated. He doesn’t make an attempt to move the plant away, but he doesn’t lower it any further, either. The sound continues in earnest and he just stands there, heaving breaths that his body doesn’t technically need. “Playing God?”

Crowley can feel it in the pit of his stomach— the despair at what he’s trying to do. He doesn’t want to demolish his plant, doesn’t want to punish it for something that very well may not have been its fault. And that’s what he was doing, wasn’t it? Punishing the plant for a small error that it hadn’t even meant. Surely if the plant had any control over it, it wouldn’t have gotten a leaf spot. Crowley had made it clear to every plant in his flat that leaf spots were unacceptable in no uncertain terms. Surely this plant deserved a second chance, deserved to learn from its mistakes and to try again. Where was the fairness in punishment without any warnings first?

He sees it for what it is, and he hates it. It tastes bitter in the back of his throat, makes his stomach flip.

He hadn’t intended for his gardening habit to turn into what it had turned into. He’d picked a few plants up after he was no longer Warlock’s nanny as something to do to pass the time. With the end of the world looming and damn near six-thousand years under his belt on Earth, Crowley would’ve thought that he’d be able to have a few indoor plants without it turning into— into whatever the fuck it had turned into. He had, apparently, been wrong.

“I am, aren’t I?” He murmurs to the plant again, lifting it away from the garbage disposal finally. “I’m playing God.”

And he knows that he is. He doesn’t need the plant to give him any indication. He’s playing God with house plants, punishing them for disappointing him the way God had punished him for asking questions. He’s forcing them to live in fear, to think about everything they do and he’s casting them out if they so much as even wilt in a little heat. He has set clear, borderline unreasonable expectations for them and then given them no chance to adjust. He’s created his own Garden of Eden— beautiful, luscious and completely unfair in every aspect.

He’s punishing bloody house plants because still, thousands of years later, he’s nursing the deep scars on his heart from his Fall.

The pain from his banishment from Heaven has never fully subsided, but Crowley has buried it in his heart under layers of mischief and lies, a carefully crafted facade of disinterest. It’s taken thousands of years of practice to come off so easily unbothered by things and Crowley realizes with startling clarity in this moment that these plants have become his Achilles heel— his method for coping with the tragedies of his past. They’re the one weak spot he has, the one spot that would bring him down if it were ever brought up. What he’s doing is so plainly obvious if he just looks and he realizes suddenly that he’s lucky that nobody else has ever had the chance to look. He’s fairly certain this is unhealthy at best and completely mental at worst, but he’s not sure where to go from here.

He can’t very well take the plant back. That would be letting the others know that leaf spots were accepted, which they absolutely weren’t. Even in the face of this realization, he wasn’t about to lower his strict standards or let his plants start getting… ideas. There was clearly something there to unpack and Crowley could deal with that on his own, but his plants needn’t know a thing about it. If he were crafting his own personal Eden, that was his business. But nobody said that he had to model his punishments after God just because he modeled his garden after Her. He could have his Eden and deal with the disappointments in a way that was less traumatizing for all involved.

“Stay here.” He hisses to the plant, shutting off the garbage disposal and setting it down safely inside the sink. The plant sits obediently in the sink, its leaves perfectly straight, reaching for the ceiling, an attempt at picture-perfect.

He casts one last glowering look at it before snagging its empty pot off the counter and sauntering back into the other room to show the others that it had been disposed of. It hadn’t, but Crowley made a big show of the empty pot with plenty of glares to keep his plants in line for the next few years, at least. And then, satisfied that he’d reestablished order, he headed back to the kitchen, empty pot still in hand. The plant trembled as he approached, trying to shrink away from him as best as it possibly could. It didn’t deter Crowley, who scooped it back up and dropped it back in the pot like it had never left, gathering it up and heading for the front door, careful to take the long way so the plants in the other room wouldn’t get a glimpse of their distinctly undestroyed friend.

Crowley didn’t even bother with shoes as he padded out of his flat, heading for the elevator. He was simply going to drop this plant off outside, leave it for someone to take. It seemed fairer to give it a second chance— one he had never gotten— and it would keep the other plants from having any idea. A part of him still tasted a bitterness in the back of his throat at the thought that he’d never know what would come of the plant. What good was a second chance, really, if he never got to see how the plant used it? But he would not have the status quo disrupted so he’d resigned himself to using his imagination and allowing the rest of the questions to just fade away. He was leaning against the back of the elevator, pot clutched to his chest when there was a ding and the doors slid open to reveal a woman Crowley recognized as his downstairs neighbor.

She was friendly enough, had introduced herself to Crowley when she’d first moved in and said hi to him every time she saw him in passing. Crowley made a point to be cordial back— manners were important, even for demons— but never got particularly close to her. There wasn’t much point in getting close to humans as it was, and that was especially true with older humans like her— they had even less time left.

“Mr. Crowley!” She greeted as she stepped into the elevator, beaming up at him with a smile that could rival Aziraphale’s. “Good morning!”

“ ‘ello, Margerie.” Crowley greeted with as much warmth as he was capable of. It wasn’t much to speak of, especially given his state of inner turmoil, but Margerie’s smile somehow grew even wider.

“What have you got there?” She asked as the doors slid shut behind her, stepping up to inspect the plant. “My, what a lovely thing. Where are you taking it?”

Crowley tries very, very hard not to relate what she’s saying to his previous revelation about his plants representing him. He fails, but at least he doesn’t say anything about it out loud. That’s a crisis he’ll save for later when he’s alone in his flat, pacing restlessly and trying to figure out when the hell this had all come to mean so very much to him.

“Would you like it, then?” Crowley asks uncomfortably because he needs to be out of this situation as fast as possible. “I’ve got— got my hands full with a bunch of others. Just too much for me but you— you’re welcome to it if you have the— ah the time, and love? did you say? to give to it. S’not really my thing.”

“Oh!” Margerie lights up at the suggestion, looking up at Crowley through his sunglasses and he’s suddenly thankful to have them on because he thinks he might be blinded otherwise. Humans aren’t supposed to be this bright, he thinks dimly as she reaches out to touch another of the leaves. The only other person he’s seen shine like this is Aziraphale and he’s a bloody angel so he has an excuse. “Are you certain?”

“Yeah, please.” Crowley holds the plant out for Margerie, leaning down just the tiniest bit to hiss to the plant, “You be good for her.”

Margerie takes the offered plant graciously, holding it gently against her chest like it’s something precious she’s been given— something she will cherish. Crowley feels a weird twisting in his stomach and doesn’t know what to make of it. “Thank you, Mr. Crowley.” She says almost breathlessly. “I will take great care of it! And you’ll see, in no time that spot will be gone! You’ll have to come by for tea and see for yourself.”

“Er.” Crowley says because— was he just invited for tea? That doesn’t happen very often. “Right, yeah, sounds lovely. You just let me know when it’s all healed up and I’ll pop on by.”

Mercifully the elevator stops on the bottom floor finally and the doors slide open, revealing a series of people waiting in the lobby to head up to their flats. Crowley shuffles out with Margerie because somehow it feels rude not to, even though he can’t possibly explain why. Margerie moves easily, but slower than Crowley and he waits for her off to the side.

“Well,” She says once she reaches him. “Thank you for this gift, Mr. Crowley. It’s really rather lovely.”

“Do you need me to—” He gestures vaguely at the plant and then towards the elevator again because it’s suddenly just dawned on him that she’s leaving and he’s now stuck her with plant to carry around as she goes.

Somehow she understands his haphazard signaling and smiles at him again. “No, that’s quite alright. I’m headed to the store and it’s lovely weather, I can leave it in my car while I shop.”

“Right.” Crowley says. And then he feels like he should say more. “Thanks for, well, taking it off my hands, then.”

Margerie smiles at him as she heads slowly towards the door. “I’ll see you for that cup of tea soon!”

And then, all at once, she’s out the door, plant in tow, and Crowley wanders his way back up to his flat with no idea what had actually just happened.

—

In truth, Crowley completely forgets about Margerie, the plant he gave away and the promise he made.

Well, that’s a bit too callous. He doesn’t forget about Margerie— he sees her most days sitting on the bench outside their complex and gives her a polite greeting as he gets into his Bentley and screeches away. Somehow she never mentions the reckless way he drives and he thinks, fleetingly, he should have her meet Aziraphale so she can teach him her ways.

He does forget about the plant, though. And certainly about the promise. He hadn’t even meant to make a promise and he’d never had much intent on keeping it— demon, all that. It was the only reason he could admit that guilt free. But suddenly, a few weeks later, there was a knock on his door and it was different from the way Aziraphale knocked in the few times he’d ever come over to Crowley’s flat for something. Surprised— and certainly on guard— Crowley approached the door and swung it open.

Margerie stood on the other side, beaming her brilliant smile up at him. “Oh, wonderful, you’re home!”

“I am.” Crowley replies, and then he feels ridiculous and redundant.

Margerie presses on like his answer was the only acceptable answer, like he hadn’t just damn near made a fool of himself. “Are you busy this evening?”

And, as it so happened, he wasn’t. Tomorrow he would be busy, heading to the theater to catch a new play with Aziraphale. But today— today he had nothing on his plate. “No.” He replied and then hastily added on to make it sound less curt. “I haven’t got any plans today.”

If possible— and Crowley wouldn’t have said that it was possible if he hadn’t watched it happen— Margerie’s smile grew even brighter. “Well then, how about that tea? Your plant is doing lovely and I’d really like you to see it.”

The promise he’d made comes back to him all at once and Crowley pauses, staring down at Margerie who is quite a bit shorter than him, he’s just now realizing. Being a demon, it would be perfectly fine for him to rebuff her offer, to make up some excuse, to blow it off completely. In fact, it’d nearly be expected of him. But being a decent person— not that he was, he certainly wasn’t— forbid him from doing that. Or maybe it was the way her smile reminded him of Aziraphale’s and the fact that he’d never said no to Aziraphale in nearly six-thousand years.

Or, no, not that. Because he refuses to think like that.

The silence is stretching on and the edges of Margerie’s smile are starting to fall. It’s nearly imperceptible but Crowley feels it like a punch straight to his heart and he knows he can’t let it happen. “That’d be splendid.”

“Wonderful!” She replies and her smile is back in full force. “I’ll just need a bit of time to get the tea and biscuits ready. Why don’t you come down in, say, about an hour? Does that work?”

It does work, and Crowley tells her as much, going so far as to wave awkwardly at her as she heads back towards the elevator. She pauses before stepping in, shooting an encouraging smile at him over her shoulder and then she’s gone and the doors are closing and Crowley is left to wonder what the hell he’s gotten himself into.

In theory, it can’t be too bad getting to know her, right? If Hell asked— not that Hell ever bothered to check in on him, but if they did— he could just spin some lie about how he was trying to corrupt her. He has to get to know someone before he can successfully corrupt them, after all. And being older with hair that was more grey than not— Crowley thinks it was probably brown when she was younger, there’s still some streaks of it hidden in there— she was closer to being assigned to one side. Plus, if things went according to Plan— as much as Crowley was going to do everything in his power to ensure that it didn’t— everyone would be assigned a side and just over a year when the Earth as he knew it, well, ended. It was for Hell, he told himself firmly as he switched into an outfit that seemed more fitting for tea.

Not that anything he owned was particularly fitting for tea.

He didn’t even like tea, that was Aziraphale’s thing. Crowley preferred coffee, dark, bitter and with a biting aftertaste. He preferred it strong and scalding hot. Tea was too— too bland, too boring, to mild for his tastes.

And yet an hour later he found himself in clothes that were slightly less form fitting, standing outside Margerie’s door, hand poised to knock and a bouquet of flowers that he had miracled at the last moment in his other hand.

Margerie opened up almost immediately, gasping at the flowers as Crowley extended them to her and placing a warm hand on his forearm earnestly as she thanked him for his generosity. She stepped aside to invite him in and Crowley diligently took his shoes off just inside the door like a good guest before being led further back into her flat.

It was exactly how he had pictured her flat would be— homey and outdated in a way that was more charming than anything else. Not for the first time, he thought that Aziraphale and her would get along excellently. They could probably even trade decorating tips since they both seemed to stuck a few eras in the past. There was nothing sleek about the inside of her flat and Crowley thinks he was only able to navigate the mismatched furniture and uneven rugs with such ease because of his centuries of practice moving expertly around precarious stacks of books.

“Nice place.” Crowley knows enough about manners to know that small talk is essential. He’s not particularly good at it, though, given that he spends the majority of the time with another supernatural entity and they skip small talk completely in favor of philosophical discussions and stories from throughout history.

“Oh, it’s not much.” Margerie says with a fond smile. “But it’s home.” She leads Crowley through one final doorway and he finds himself in a small kitchen. Technically, it’s the same as his— all flats in this complex are exactly the same— but the way she has decorated it makes it look like something else entirely. “Please have a seat while I get these gorgeous flowers some water.”

Crowley obliges, sliding into a chair at the table in the center of the kitchen. He glances around as she moves across the kitchen to grab a vase. His kitchen has a few essentials— very, very few considering nothing material is really essential to a demon— and a few pieces of furniture just for the sake of appearances. Margerie’s kitchen has drawings taped to the fridge, pictures on the wall, mail scattered on the counter. Her kitchen looks lived in with a few crumbs underneath the pantry door and a dirty mug sitting in the sink. It looks human and Crowley finds it frightfully calming— and maybe even a little endearing.

Margerie makes a sound and Crowley snaps his eyes back to her at once, seeing her struggle with one hand braced on the couter and the other stretching as high above her head as possible as she reaches for a vase on a shelf far taller than she is. In an instant, Crowley is up and out of his seat, leaning over Margerie to grab the vase down for her, hardly a stretch at all for his lanky limbs.

“Oh, you’re such a kind one, aren’t you?” Margerie says gratefully as she takes the offered vase from his hands and shuts the cupboards.

Crowley stiffens next to her, opening his mouth before promptly snapping it shut. He is not and has never been nice, or kind, or any other word even slightly resembling those, but that’s not a speech he can give to Margerie. He can’t explain to her that he’s actually a demon and he keeps his plants locked up in his flat as some sort of twisted God complex and futile attempt to right the wrongs of his past. He can’t tell her that he spends his days creating low grade evil and chaos, only occasionally broken up by a blessing when he needed to step in for Aziraphale.

Luckily, Margerie doesn’t seem to notice his pointed silence as she fills the vase with water and then reaches into one of the kitchen drawers for a pair of scissors to cut new ends on the flower stems. They won’t need it— Crowley had well and thoroughly threatened them into behaving, too, but it’s another item on the growing list of things he can’t explain to her so he just resumes sitting at the table and looking idly around in a desperate attempt for some way to make this less awkward.

“Do you see it?” Margerie asks after a moment. Crowley makes some sort of questioning noise that couldn’t quite be considered a word but it gets a smile out of Margerie just the same and she gestures to the plant sitting in the middle of the table. “Your plant.”

“This?” Crowley says, reaching forward to pull the plant closer. It’s in a different, bigger pot than it had been when he’d given it to her and the leaves were exceptionally green. Crowley spun it around, inspecting it, noticing the way the leaves seemed to tremble the tiniest bit as he inspected them. Sure enough, there was the tiniest hint of the leaf spot that had caused Crowley to cast it out, nearly gone now. “It looks completely different.”

She smiles at him from across the kitchen and it’s completely different, somehow, than the smiles he’s seen from her already. This one is smaller, more intimate but just as warm. It makes Crowley feel like squirming out from under the weight of it. “Like I said, it just needed a bit of love. You’d be amazed how much love can change something— or someone.”

“Yeah, well,” Crowley feels like he’s losing his mind suddenly. He’s not used to this sort of kindness, he’s not meant to be receiving it. He’s a demon and demons are unforgivable and utterly tasteless, they weren’t the kind of person that someone wanted to spend a casual afternoon tea with. But Margerie continues to shoot him encouraging smiles and seems entirely comfortable with his presence in her kitchen, long legs poking out from under the table at an awkward angle. “I might know a thing or two about that.”

And what the fuck did he think he was doing?

He wasn’t honestly sure if he was talking about his feelings for Aziraphale or the love that God had ripped away from him but bother were delicate subjects that he had vowed a long, long time ago to never address. He had locked them away and promised himself he would never put words to them ever. And yet.

Crowley tried desperately to write it off as a side-effect of the existential crisis he had worked himself into with the plants but it didn’t stick as well as he’d have liked it to.

Crowley was about a half a second away from verbally backpedaling, making some series of noises that would no doubt display his discomfort when Margerie just smiled at him again and came to join him at the table with the vase of flowers she’d finished arranging. “Would you like to talk about it?”

“Not—” Crowley swallows, completely baffled at the entirety of this encounter. “Not really. It’s— complicated.”

“Well,” Margerie says kindly and Crowley recognizes that tone. It’s the one Aziraphale uses when he’s purposefully ignoring something for Crowley’s sake, pretending he didn’t see or hear something he knows Crowley wouldn’t want him to know about, locking it away to never bring it up again. “That’s alright, then. We can talk about other things.”

The tea kettle whistles on the stove and Margerie turned around to grab it. She clicked off the stove and settled two cups onto the table in front of their respective seats. She moved a plate of biscuits onto the table, too, before returning with the kettle and pouring hot water into both of the glasses, tea bags already inside.

Crowley still didn’t care for tea, but he found himself suddenly glad for a way to occupy his hands and for something to sip at if he ever needed to avoid her questions. But he never did need to, as it turned out. She deftly avoided any conversation topic that seemed to make him even the tiniest bit uncomfortable, poking around at the shallow stuff like what he did for work— at which Crowley had given a broadly vague I work with people— and how he liked to spend his free time.

Somewhere along the way, though he was loath to admit it and surprised to see it, he melted into the easy conversation. He listened to stories from her childhood, tales of her children’s accomplishments. He laughed as she regaled him with particularly embarrassing stories and smiled fondly when her eyes would drift far away as the memories overtook her. In turn, he told her about Aziraphale— not in the way that she had asked earlier, but just about his presence in Crowley’s life. He told her about their plans for the play tomorrow which had led them off on a discussion about their favorite plays and Crowley was thrilled to find that Margerie preferred the funny ones, too.

“The sad ones— it’s just, why go to the theater to be sad?” Crowley is saying, a biscuit in his hand as he gestures wildly. He figures it would be rude not to eat it and he has human appearances that he must keep up. “I can do that alone in my own flat, y’know? Don’t need Shakespeare or— or some other bloke to make me sad. Plenty capable of that on my own.”

A hand suddenly appears over his on the table and Crowley swallows the bite of biscuit he’d finally taken, startled at the stern look in Margerie’s eyes. “You shouldn’t be sad.” She says kindly, maybe a little sad herself. “You have nothing to be sad about, you’re such a wonderful young man.”

“You just don’t know me that well yet.” Crowley mumbles in response, wondering how they’ d gone from laughing about the theater to this. But, it wouldn’t be the first time he mucked something up. He supposes it’s fine, he’s a demon, the conversation probably should have ended this way anyways.

And then Margerie surprises him, her grip tightening over his hand. “Nonsense.” She says at once. “I know you plenty well to know you have a good heart in you, Mr. Crowley. For starters, you gave me a lovely plant and the you brought me beautiful flowers. And you’re spending your afternoon keeping an old woman like me company. That right there is enough. But just in case you’re not convinced—” She makes a pointed look at his expression and Crowley tries to school it back into something neutral, but he’s not certain it works. “I’ve also seen you picking up the litter outside the complex, and holding the door open for the mother with her stroller down in 3B.” Crowley moves to protest— how has she managed to catch all of the undemonic things he’s done?— but Margerie won’t hear it. “You are a very kind person, Mr. Crowley. And I don’t know who made you feel like you need to hide that, but it can be our little secret if you wish.”

Crowley feels a distinctive emotion threatening to close up his throat and he can’t swallow around it as well as he needs to. He takes a deep breath, his hands flat against the top of the table. He knows he should deny it but there’s something so open and honest in the way Margerie is looking at him, something that feels like a safe-haven.

“Crowley.” He finally manages to choke out. “Everyone just calls me Crowley. Er, well— my friends do.”

He really only has one friend to speak of but it’s not untrue. Regardless, it gets the point across and Margerie is once again smiling that brilliant smile at him from across the table, her thumb tracing patterns across the back of his hand.

“Our little secret then, Crowley?” She asks again, her voice a soft whisper, a promise of privacy, a solemn oath to not repeat anything she’s heard from him, seen him do.

It only takes a moment of hesitation before Crowley offers her a weak smile. “Our little secret.”

—

Much to Crowley’s surprise— and certainly to his disdain— it doesn’t actually take that long for another plant to betray him.

He spares a moment wondering if they know what happened to the previous plant and are looking for a way out, but then discards it as a ridiculous notion. Plants can feel fear, that much is evident every time he walks into the room, but they’re certainly not forming complex theories about their owner. So, Crowley drags that plant out of the room, too, turning on the garbage disposal as he enters the kitchen. This time he has enough thought to throw something down there— some bit of wood he miracled up— just so it sounds more realistic. Maybe the plants had realized that nothing had gone down there last time. He won’t make that mistake again.

Once he’s certain he’s got the full attention of the house, he stalks back in with a replica of the pot the plan was still residing in, stalking around and staring down each plant individually, holding the pot in front of each of them one-by-one so they had no choice but to see. He hissed out a few pointed threats and then left, heading back to take this plant down to Margerie, too.

Crowley isn’t sure why he thinks that’s an okay thing to do. Just because Margerie had taken one of his plants didn’t mean she wanted to acquire her own forest inside her flat. Still, there was something about her— something that Crowley couldn’t put his finger on, no matter how much he thought on it— that made him certain that she would gladly take it.

In the end, he was right.

She opened the door to her flat and immediately broke into one of her beaming smiles as she saw Crowley standing there with another plant in his hands. This one had flower buds that hadn’t yet bloomed. They would be beautiful, though, Crowley had made sure of that.

“Crowley!” She says, and she steps aside immediately, ushering him in. “What a lovely surprise. I was just baking, I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t need to stay—” Crowley starts to protest immediately feeling like he’s inconvenienced her.

“Nonsense!” She waves a hand and gestures for him to follow her into the kitchen. “I’d love some company while I bake.”

Crowley kicks off his shoes obediently, wondering how he’s now gotten himself into this situation twice. He pads quietly down the hallway after her, carrying the plant along with him the entire time and feeling distinctly foolish. They enter the kitchen and sure enough there are ingredients scattered all over and Crowley gets a waft of warm earthiness.

“I had another plant—” He pauses, certain that saying the plant had betrayed him was not a normal thing to do. “It’s ah, got the spots. And, y’know, not my thing, all that.”

“Is that why you’re carrying that lovely thing?” Margerie asks, pausing at the sink and looking over at him.

“Yeah.” Crowley says, feeling kind of small for some reason. “Was wondering if you wanted it? Or wanted to— to heal it or whatever it was.”

Margerie pauses for a moment, appraising Crowley with her eyes. Crowley tries not to squirm underneath her gaze. He’s certain that she can’t see the truth of who he is— not with his sunglasses on— but he feels like she’s not looking for that sort of information. He feels, more than anything, like she’s trying to read what’s written in the shadows of his heart.

“I would love it, Crowley, thank you.” Margerie says after a moment, and she steps forward to accept it from him. “I will gladly take any plants you choose to get rid of but there is one condition.”

“What’s that?” Crowley asks as he hands the plant over, suddenly feeling unmoored without the weight of it in his hands to anchor him down.

“You have to come see them.” She says with a small smile. “You’re giving them a second chance by giving them to me, so make sure to come back and see how they do.”

Crowley startles, amazing at how accurately she had pinned what he was doing. He wonders if he’d really been that obvious, but then he tamps that worry down because it will just lead to him wondering what else he’s that obvious about and that’s a Pandora’s Box that he doesn’t want to open— now or ever.

“Right.” Crowley says after a moment’s pause. “Seems fair enough.”

There was a moment where they just looked at each other and then Margerie gestured for him to sit. Crowley did, though he wasn’t sure why because he didn’t really have a reason for sticking around now that he’d handed the plant off. Still, he took the same seat as he had last time and watched as Margerie set the plant down on a counter off to the side and then headed to fill the tea kettle with water. Crowley went to protest but thought better of it because he knew Margerie wouldn’t hear it, so instead he slumped back and waited patiently.

It only took a moment for her to get the kettle on and then she moved back to the counter where she appeared to be making a dough of some kind. “So,” she began and Crowley didn’t like the tone of her voice. It meant she was going to pry, to ask questions, to search for information that he either didn’t have or couldn’t give. He braced himself. “Did somebody break your heart?”

“Well, I— what?” Crowley shoots up in his chair, his spine the straightest it’s probably ever been as he stares at her incredulously across the kitchen. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting her to ask but that was certainly nowhere even near the list of potential questions.

“I’m sorry,” She says gently, like he might break. “It’s none of my business and I shouldn’t ask but…” She pauses for a moment as if she’s giving Crowley the chance to back out of the conversation. He wants to, but he also wants to know how she had jumped to that conclusion from a simple plant. “It’s just— the way you look at the plant, like it’s hurt you with these spots. I just— I see that sadness in you that you mentioned last time. Call it mother’s intuition, I guess.” She glances over at him as she kneads the dough, her smile small but still genuine, maybe even a little sad itself. “You don’t have to answer me, I just want you to know that I’ll gladly listen if it’ll help.”

Crowley feels like the air has been knocked right out of his lungs and he’s not sure what he’s supposed to make of that. Fleetingly he realizes that so far he has spent every encounter with her completely caught off guard and uncertain of what to expect. That’s probably a bad sign, he reasons, but he finds her so comforting and he really believes that she won’t repeat anything he says. There’s something about her— maybe it’s her energy, the way it radiates pure good and unconditional love. It damn near feels like standing next to Aziraphale.

“Does that work?” He asks quietly, looking down at his hands on the table before him. “Talking about it?”

“I think so.” Crowley isn’t looking up at her but he can hear her working and he appreciates her attempts at making this such a casual thing for him, her attempts to not put any pressure on him. “If you keep everything locked up inside, it’ll drag you down. Best to share the burden with someone else.”

“And you want to bear my burdens?” Crowley tries for teasing but it sounds more incredulous than anything else. If the world weren’t set to be ending in the next year, Crowley wouldn’t believe that this was happening. But everything had been unbelievable in the last ten or so years and humans never failed to surprise him.

Margerie responds in kind, her tone actually succeeding at hitting teasing. She pauses what she’s doing to come and pour him a cup of tea before retreating back towards the stove. “We’re sharing plants already, why not?”

It startles a laugh out of Crowley and he settles a bit more comfortably into the chair again. “Are you going to share your burdens with me?”

“Do you want me to?” Margerie asks, clearly caught off guard by the question.

Good, Crowley thinks, they can be on the same weird, unexpected page. “ S’only fair, wouldn’t you say?”

“You drive a hard bargain.” She pauses her kneading to look over at him and there’s a crinkle to her eyes. Crowley meets her gaze and thinks that her eyes look like melted gold from across the room and he thinks that’s fitting, somehow. Like her eyes are reflecting the kindness within. “Well, alright then. You have a deal. Now tell me about this heartbreak.”

Crowley knows he can’t tell her about Heaven— not in such clear terms, anyways. And he shouldn’t tell her about Aziraphale since that was— that was a mess of his own making. And yet he found that he did want to talk about both of them.

And so, he did.

He told her that he had been loved by someone, once, and then they had turned on him and kicked him out, even if he’d never really grasped what he’d done wrong. He tells her about his plants and how he’s realized that they are a reflection of this— he even mentions how impressed he is that she figured it out after only two plants.

“Took me damn near thirty before I pieced it together.” He says with a laugh that’s not entirely mirthless. It’s more self-deprecating than anything and Margerie hears it, shooting him a look.

“Is this the love you said you’re familiar with last time?” She presses after a moment.

“You’re ruthless, d’you know that?” Crowley laughs again and this time it’s more genuine. “Can’t let a man catch a break, can you?”

“I meant it when I said you don’t have to answer,” Margerie looks at least a little contrite as she slides her most recent creation into the oven, pulling out what Crowley has since identified to be brownies.

The entire flat smells amazing which is impressive considering that Crowley doesn’t ever feel particularly drawn to food. Margerie waits for him to say something as she does some sort of intricate dance in front of the oven, swapping pans and shuffling stuff around. Crowley watches idly for a few moments as she eventually sorts it all out and shuts the oven door with her foot, reaching over to set a new timer.

“That one might be a bit heavy for today.” He answers finally.

“Oh, my dear.” She says, turning to look at him and Crowley feels his heartstrings plucked at the endearment. Partially just for the sake that she’s using an endearment on him and partially because there’s only one other person in all of history who has called him my dear.

How Margerie continues to hit so close to home, Crowley isn’t sure. He lifts his glass up and drains it, despite the fact that it’s nearly cold at this point. He hadn’t touched it at all but felt it would be rude to leave it full.

“I should probably go.” Crowley says, shoving his lanky legs underneath him and pressing up from his spot by the table. “Wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome. You can’t be sick of me before I even begin checking in on these plants.”

“I don’t think I’ll be getting sick of you anytime soon, Crowley.” Margerie says with such un bridled warmth that Crowley thinks for a moment that he’s standing in Hell— brimstone, flame, all that. There is a reason humans believe Hell to be eternal burning after all. “But please do hold on for just one moment, I’d like to send some of these brownies home with you.”

“You don’t—” Margerie stops his protest with a single look. He sighs and props a hip against the table. “Alright, fine. I’m not much for chocolate but I have a— friend who is. He will love these.”

“Well,” Margerie says as she finishes slicing the warm brownies and settles them on some tinfoil. “Please be sure to tell me what your friend thinks. And I do hope you’ll try at least one of them. For me.”

Crowley accepts the parcel of brownies as it’s offered to him. “He’ll love them.” Crowley says with absolute certainty and a weird warmth closing his throat. “And I’m sure I will, too.”

—

Crowley’s late.

Well, as late as he can be for something like this. He and Aziraphale don’t have strict reservations anywhere, so it’s not like he’s at risk of actually ruining their plans, but he knows Aziraphale is waiting outside the complex for him. He’d spent too long trying to pick what to wear which, incidentally, was stupid considering all of his outfits looked nearly the same.

“Sorry,” he calls as he rushes through the front door to find Aziraphale standing there with his hands folded behind his back, looking entirely at ease. “Got, er, caught up.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble.” Aziraphale says with that easy smile of his, turning to watch as Crowley approaches.

Crowley tries his best to look calm, to keep his pace slow and unhurried. He’s not certain it works but Aziraphale at least has the decency to not point it out if his frantic energy is palpable. He reaches Aziraphale’s side in a few quick strides. “So, given any thought to where you’d like to go?”

“Yes, actually.” Aziraphale says with that beaming smile that makes Crowley thankful for his sunglasses. “There’s a new Thai place just up the road. It’s close by and lovely weather so I thought we might walk there.”

“Sure, whatever you want, angel.” Crowley agrees automatically, happy to go anywhere as long as it has Aziraphale there. “Lead the way.”

They take off down the sidewalk together but only make it a few steps before a car door is thrown open in front of them, halting their progress. A few choice words pop to the tip of Crowley’s tongue but they die the moment Margerie steps out of the car, her eyes landing on them.

“Oh, Crowley, I’m so sorry!” She says hurriedly, shutting the door and leaning against it so that they can pass by if they want. “I didn’t mean to be in your way.”

“S’no problem.” Crowley says, resolutely not looking at Aziraphale. “We’re in no rush.”

Crowley can’t be rude or curt to Margerie, he just can’t. Not after how kind and welcoming she has been to him, not after she’s heard some of his secrets and kept them locked away— just between the two of them. He knows his kindness will fuel Aziraphale, will give him material to tease Crowley with for the rest of time— no matter how long that ends up being— but he just can’t bring himself to do it. Margerie doesn’t deserve his attitude and Aziraphale will always find something to tease Crowley about. If not this, surely it’ll be something else.

“Oh,” She perks up and smiles at him, “I’ve been meaning to ask you, did your friend enjoy those brownies?”

“You can ask him yourself.” Crowley says, gesturing towards Aziraphale. He gets the distinctive feeling that his face is red but he doesn’t waste time thinking about why.

“You made those brownies?” Aziraphale jumps fluidly into the conversation like he knows Margerie already. “Oh, my dear, how do you do it? Was there a hint of— was it cinnamon I tasted?”

“It was!” Margerie perks up immediately, stepping away from her car to properly engage them in conversation. “I’m impressed you could taste it, it was only a teaspoon in the whole batch.”

“It was delectable,” Aziraphale says, reaching forward to grab her hands earnestly. “It was just a little hint left on my palate. Oh, I daresay they hardly even lasted an evening. The most delicious brownies I’ve ever tasted!”

“Oh, you’re just being kind.” Margerie is the one to turn distinctly pink this time and Crowley just watches it happen, feeling how surreal this moment is.

“Absolutely not!” Aziraphale emphasizes. “I would not say such a thing lightly! You must give me your recipe, I’d love to make them!”

“Do you bake?” Margerie asks and she seems to catch Aziraphale by surprise.

He looks puzzled for a moment, like he’s not sure why he asked for a recipe that he can’t use and it makes Crowley feel at least a little better. There’s something about Margerie, he decides, that draws this happiness out of people. Maybe she’s a supernatural entity herself. (Crowley knows it’s not true, he’d be able to feel it, but she certainly seems to have some sort of superpower.)

“Well, no, actually.” Aziraphale admits after a moment, looking properly sheepish. “But perhaps I shall learn for this! Your brownies are worth the effort.”

“Perhaps Crowley could bake them for you?” Margerie suggests instead.

The world seems to screech to a halt.

Crowley knows that she doesn’t mean anything by it. There’s no way that she’s figured out that Aziraphale is the one he’s been desperately avoiding talking about. But then again— maybe she has? She’d called it mother’s intuition before and she had a strange habit for hitting the nail right on the head. Crowley looks at her desperately, but she’s simply smiling warmly at him, guilt-free. She doesn’t know what she’s implied and Crowley isn’t sure if he’s relieved or not, even though it seems like it should be obvious.

“Oh, dear me.” Aziraphale laughs, recovering from the shock of the moment far faster than Crowley. “I’m afraid he’s an even worse baker than I am. I daresay I wouldn’t survive those brownies.”

“See if I ever try to make anything for you again, angel.” Crowley grumbles, shoving his hands deep in his pockets.

“Is he?” Margerie leans closer to Aziraphale. Or perhaps she draws him closer to her by their still connected hands, Crowley isn’t sure. All he knows is that suddenly Aziraphale and Margerie are leaning towards each other, close enough for Margerie to whisper conspiratorially, “At least he’s attractive, though, right?”

“That’s it!” Crowley cries, huffing past both of them and their stupid combined hands and their mocking grins. “I’m going to the Thai place. Angel, you’re welcome to join me if you wish. Otherwise, I hope you both have lovely nights.”

“Bit touchy, that one.” Margerie says fondly behind him.

Aziraphale laughs before calling after him. “Crowley, dear boy, the restaurant isn’t that way.”

Crowley makes a frustrated noise and spins on his heel, not sure when he’d gotten turned around. He supposes it was sometime around when Margerie had come to join their circle. It doesn’t matter. He stalks past them, going what is, apparently, the proper direction.

As he passes, he hears Aziraphale’s, “It was so lovely to meet you.”

“And you, dear.” Margerie replies before calling after Crowley’s retreating back. “Have a good evening, Crowley! I’ll see you for tea soon here!”

Crowley makes some sort of noise that’s both disgruntled and confirming their plans and continues storming off, leaving Aziraphale to catch up to him, laughing the whole way.

—

Crowley’s in the back of the elevator, clutching a plant to his chest when Margerie finds him. It’s distinctly reminiscent of the first time they’d really talked and she smiles at him as she steps into the elevator, her eyes falling to the plant in his hands.

“Another one for us to share?” She asks with a pointed look.

“Actually,” Crowley says and he’s not sure why the words try to stick in his throat. “Not this time.”

“Not yet.” Margerie corrects fondly. “It’s only a matter of time before it makes its way to me.”

“First of all,” Crowley replies affronted, “I am perfectly capable of raising plants properly and I don’t appreciate that implication.” Margerie laughs and it’s airy and light. “And second of all, it’s not for me either. So no, you can keep your mitts off of it.”

The elevator lurches as it comes to a stop at the bottom floor, the doors sliding open. Crowley steps forward and places a hand over one of the doors to hold it open while Margerie moves into the lobby. He’d known her for a few months at this point and he didn’t like the fact that he could already see her slowing down.

“Who is it for, then?” She asks with feigned innocence.

“You’re a vulture.” Crowley remarks dryly. “It’s for Aziraphale. My— the friend you met. With the brownies.”

“Oh, is that his name? Aziraphale.” Margerie says it like she’s tasting the sweetness of it. Crowley knows the sensation of it well, his mouth forms the name with ease and a certain amount of forbidden fondness. “That’s fitting for him. He seemed rather charming.”

“He—” Crowley garbles up a few more words before sighing. “Yeah, he is.”

“First brownies and now a plant.” Margerie points out in a way that lacks any and all subtlety.

“Don’t.” Crowley warns with a pointed look. She shrugs her shoulders innocently. “He’s— he’s about as rubbish at raising plants as he is at baking. But he owns a bookshop, see, and is always talking about how it needs something living to brighten the place up. So I— this one doesn’t require a lot of tending to. Just some water occasionally.”

He expects her to make some other comment about how this all appears, but she takes pity on him instead. “What if he forgets to water it?”

Well, she tries to pity him, but the answer he has to give to that still drives her point home anyways. “Well, I’m, er— I’m at his shop frequently enough that I can water it and it should stay alive.”

He sees the knowing look in her eyes, but she doesn’t say anything other than, “I’m sure he’ll enjoy it greatly. That’s a lovely gift.”

“Yeah.” Crowley said helplessly because he knows what it looks like and if Margerie thinks it, what is Aziraphale going to think? He’s probably being a fool, making some unwanted gesture that’s going to tip the scale too far.

“Well, better hurry along, then.” Margerie says with a kind smile and a tilt of her head. “I’m sure he’s anxiously awaiting your arrival and the chance to tell you how much he loves your gift.”

Crowley glances at her. She seems to always know what needs to be said. Mother’s intuition he remembers her saying, even though he hasn’t seen or heard much about her kids since that first night. “Right, thanks.”

He vows to tell her someday that her intuition has so far been spot on with him. To his understanding, mother’s love that— being told they’re right. And she’s been absolutely right on every account thus far.

—

Life progresses mostly as normal after that. Days go by, weeks turn into months and months fade into nearly a year in the blink of an eye, and Crowley doesn’t think too much of anything. He tries to ignore the passage of time and the metaphorical clock that’s ticking above all of their heads, but it grows more difficult with each day. He says hi to Margerie every time he sees her, slips by her place occasionally for tea and passes every plant that breaks his rules to her care. (And so what if the plants he’s passing along get more and more beautiful each time? What if there happens to be her favorite flower in there? That’s just coincidence). She takes them all with nothing more than a tut in his direction, chastising him about how he still hasn’t learned his lesson about love.

“I don’t love,” He’d said once in a vulnerable moment, the mug of coffee pressed close to his face, helping to hide his expression. Margerie had yelled at him— as close to yelling as Crowley could imagine her getting, anyways— when he’d finally confessed that he preferred coffee instead of tea. “It’s just not something I’m… capable of.”

“Oh, hush.” Margerie had waved a hand at him almost dismissively. She’d known him nearly a year at this point and still held firmly onto her convictions that he was good and kind. Crowley, admittedly, had given her a fair share of reasons to think exactly that,but he still tried to pretend he hadn’t. It made Crowley less sick to hear— in fact, sometimes hearing her say it was his only solace— but he didn’t let that show. “You know I’ve heard too much to believe that.”

And she had heard too much. It had started one night when she’d found him drunken outside of their complex, having recently stumbled home from Aziraphale’s bookshop. Crowley didn’t remember much of the night, but he knew Margerie had helped him up to his flat, listening to him ramble on about Aziraphale’s eyes, apparently, and the way his hair looked soft as a cloud. He’s apparently expressed a long suppressed desire to touch it and see if it was, in fact, as soft as it looked. When she’d showed up at his door the next morning with some advil and demands that he let her cook him breakfast, he’d groaned out loud and buried his head in his hands.

(He’d barely had a moment to miracle in normal cooking utensils and food before Margerie was shoving her way through the door and banging around in his kitchen, apologizing belatedly for the way that the sound must be bothering his hangover.

“How’d you know I was hungover?” He’d asked.

He was hungover, but he didn’t need to be. A simple miracle would send it scurrying, but he couldn’t do that in from of Margerie so he’d resigned to suffer for the time being.

“Oh, honey.” She said, smiling almost wickedly at him from across his kitchen, “Did you not wonder how you got home last night? Did you not wonder who you spilled your heart to about— dare I say it? Aziraphale?”

Crowley decided he liked Margerie distinctly less at that very moment. But he was impressed with her bastardly streak and by the time she finished recounting the details of the night before he was certain that he didn’t hate her at all, he hated himself.)

“You’re reading into things.” Crowley tried for dismissive, but it didn’t work particularly well. “We’re just friends.”

Of course, Margerie had a laundry list of reasons not to believe that. She never brought them up, but Crowley would catch the look in her eye when he mentioned Aziraphale, or asked for an extra serving of something to bring over to him. He’d catch the curl of her lips when she’d ask his plans for the week and he’d say that Aziraphale had already claimed some of his nights. She’d known long before he’d drunkenly ranted about Aziraphale’s beauty.

“Just friends.” She repeated with a roll of her eyes. Her attitude had certainly not diminished as she aged and Crowley admired that about her. He admired a lot about her, in fact, even though he absolutely shouldn’t.

He admired the fact that she had, in the year she’d known him, kept his kindness their little secret. She greeted him casually in the hallway but never anything more, never anything that might suggest that their acquaintanceship had turned into a friendship. He also admired the stiff upper lip she kept, steadfastly acting as if she were unbothered by the way her children didn’t come visit and rarely called. She was a terrible actress, but Crowley was a terrible actor so he figured he had no room to critique her. Plus, she graciously slid away from topics she knew he didn’t ever want to talk about, so the least he could do was offer her the same courtesy.

“Just friends.” Crowley repeated again to drive his point home. “No love, not from me. That’s why you get all the stubborn plants.”

“And if he’s being stubborn?” She asked with a delicately raised eyebrow. “Do I get him, too?”

“You are wicked woman.” Crowley hid his smile behind the rim of mug, trying his hardest to keep his delight hidden. She didn’t have the same philosophical debates that he and Aziraphale had, but she was still great at conversation and even better company. “But you two would love each other. In fact, I think he might have the exact same ancient couch somewhere in his dusty old bookshop. Might even rival yours for how many layers of dust it has.”

Margerie swatted at him from across the table, making an affronted noise and Crowley drew back, laughing. “Which one of us is wicked? You foul man!”

Crowley laughs again and settles back into his seat, bracing his elbows on the table and ignoring the way Margerie glowers at him for the faux pas. They lapse into comfortable silence, the smell of the lasagna she was cooking in the oven filling the place. Crowley had grown comfortable here in the last year and he wonders if that’s okay. It’s most likely not, but very few things he does actually are so he chalks it up to another reason he’s a terrible demon and locks it away somewhere in the depths of his heart.

Plus, it doesn’t very well matter at this point. Either the world ends in flames and there’s no reason for fear, or he does something much worse than befriend a human. Something like stop Armageddon all together. In the grand scheme of things, he figures this has to be the smallest blemish on his record.

“You should tell him.” Margerie says gently from across the table.

Crowley’s never actually told her explicitly how he feels about Aziraphale, not even drunkenly, but he’s said enough incriminating stuff for her to put the pieces together. It’s not hard, honestly, for someone to figure it out if they talk to him about Aziraphale enough. He’s practically bursting with these purposely unnamed feelings, they’re going to sneak their way into conversation if they have the chance.

“No point.” Crowley says, somber. He sets down his nearly empty mug. “I already know how he feels.”

Plus, the world is on the verge of ending. His heart is the last of his concerns, he tries to convince himself. But it’s not easy to do.

“You can never know if you don’t ask.” Margerie says but Crowley pointedly ignores it.

She changes the subject, sensing his discomfort and the growing rifts in his heart. She invites him to stay for dinner, he declines, waving to her as he slinks out the door to deal with these emotions he’s clearly doing a terrible job controlling.

—

Crowley throws the covers off of himself when he hears the shouting from down below. This very well may be his last chance at getting some sleep before an eternity of— well, he didn’t know what, but he doubted it included restful naps in his lovely four poster bed and silk sheets.

He breaks through the front doors of the complex, still in pyjama bottoms and a loose shirt, sunglasses looking ridiculous with his messy hair, and comes to a halt when he sees Margerie there with a young woman.

“You’re being ridiculous,” the young woman yells, gesturing wildly with her hands. “And stubborn! Do you even think of anyone other than yourself? What about us? Do you know how hard it is for us to check in on you as often as we need to?”

“I—” Margerie begins to say, but she’s cut off again. She sits on the bench outside the complex, eyes downcast and shoulders slumped.

“It’s like—”

“Excuse me.” Crowley slides into the conversation with an icy outer shell, glaring the woman down through his sunglasses. “but I know you aren’t talking to Margerie like that.”

“This is a family matter.” The woman says in a voice that’s not so kindly telling Crowley to mind his own business.

Unfortunately for her, minding his own business is not something Crowley has ever mastered. “Family?” He says with a bark of ironic laughter. “You call yourself her family? Funny that I haven’t seen you in the last year.”

“Are you keeping tabs?” The woman rounds on him, attempting to square up with him but Crowley doesn’t even flinch.

“I wouldn’t say that.” He concedes. “It’s just that I have tea with her every week and I’ve certainly never seen you around.”

“Crowley—” Margerie tries to cut in.

Crowley, unlike her daughter, spares her a glance and affords her the opportunity to say what she needs to say. Instead of saying anything, she simply shakes her head, indicating that it’s not worth the fight.

But oh, Crowley feels like it absolutely is.

“Now you listen here.” He turns back to her daughter and he’s nearly snarling at this point. He catches himself at the last moment and reigns in his more demonic side, reminding himself that he’s supposed to just be a friendly human neighbor and not some sort of avenging angel. “Your mother is a blessing and I hardly think you’re equipped to know what she needs. You say it’s a hassle for you to check in on her when you need to? Last I hear, you hadn’t called her in months. So which is it? She doesn’t need you checking in that often, or she does? You can’t have it both ways.”

“I thought I made it clear that this was a family issue.” The woman sniffs, crossing her arms and turning her head stubbornly away.

“Oh you did.” Crowley bares his teeth in a wicked smile, “And I consider her a part of my family so you better get comfortable with me being in this conversation pretty quickly.”

“Mom—”

“Oh no,” Crowley steps to the side to stand in between Margerie and her daughter. “You don’t get to be nice to her now that you’re losing the battle.”

The two of them stare at each other for a long moment. He can see the woman running through a series of different retorts in her mind but none of them stick and Crowley is glad to see it. He takes a deep breath in, focuses. As much as he would love to settle this with an old-fashioned verbal beatdown, he knows that isn’t what Margerie would want from him. He closes his eyes behind his glasses, focuses on the woman in front of him, connects with her.

And just like that, he pours a little bit of his energy into her, bends her mind just the tiniest bit to his side of thing. He opens his eyes in time to see the tension melt out of her face, to see her shoulders slump like all the fight has gone out of her.

“Your mother is one of the kindest people I’ve ever met,” He says aloud, finalizing the ideas he’s placed into her head. “She is caring and thoughtful and deserves far more love than you’ve been showing her.”

“Crowley—” Margerie says again, but this time her voice is distinctly choked with emotion. “My dear…”

Her daughter takes in a shuddering breath and then dissolves into tears, stepping around Crowley and throwing herself onto the bench next to her mom, burying her face in Margerie’s neck. “He’s right. I’m so sorry, mom. I’ve been awful to you. I’ve just, I’ve been so stressed and—”

Margerie shushes her with gentle hands on her back, running through her hair, pressing kisses to her temple. She shushes her and holds her close and suddenly there’s two crying women on the bench.

Crowley knows it’s time for him to take his leave and he feels vindicated. “Your mom is perfectly fine to stay here,” He says softly. “She has me checking in on her. Nothing will happen to her while she’s here.”

It’s a promise to them as much as it is a threat to the rest of the world. If things continued to exist, the world would know better than to threaten Margerie in any way.

“Thank you.” Margerie says tearfully, catching his hand as he walks by to head back inside and allow the women to make their peace. “You’re my family, too.”

And Crowley knows that he is.

—

The bookshop looks much the same as it always has. At one point in history, Aziraphale would change the books displayed in the window on a semi-regular basis as an attempts to blend in and look like a properly functioning bookshop. And then somewhere around the time Aziraphale decided he hates customers, he decided that appearances didn’t matter and he hadn’t touched the window display since.

Crowley ascends the steps with a practiced ease, hand yanking the door open before he hears a clatter and a quiet gasp from somewhere on the other side of the street. He stills, door open and exposing him to Aziraphale who was standing in the middle of the bookshop, staring at him with a questioning gaze. He ignores it, turning his head to find the source of the sound and there’s Margerie, across the street, arms too full of groceries she’s trying to shuffle into her car. She’s dangerously close to the curb and even though it’s a short drop, it could do her more damage than Crowley would like to see.

Briefly Crowley curses the world for being bold enough to defy him right to his face like this.

Without even thinking about it, he lets go of the door and hustles across the street, brain not even registering Aziraphale’s confused, “Crowley…?”

The groceries are stacked high in Margerie’s arms and she can’t even see her car properly as she struggles to find the door handle. She takes a step closer, her foot slipping off the curb and she pitches towards the street—

And directly into Crowley’s hands.

He barely catches her in time, pushing her back onto the curb and all but yanking one of the bags out of her grasp. “Margerie what are you thinking?” he hisses as she regains her balance.

“Oh, Crowley!” She smiles up at him, warmly and as if she had done nothing wrong.

“Do you know how dangerous that is?” He presses, taking another bag out of her arms with a sharp look. “You nearly pitched into traffic!”

Margerie shrugs as she opens the door to her car now that she has enough mobility to do so. “I didn’t.”

Crowley is so frustrated, so— so upset that he almost doesn’t feel the swell of fondness at the stubborn side of her.

“What if I hadn’t been here?” He chastises, and Crowley feels a familiar panic clawing up the back of his throat. “What if you’d been alone?”

Oh, he realizes at once. Those exact words were ones he’d said to Aziraphale at some point in history. He remembered it well, pacing a restless circle in front of Aziraphale and tyring to impress into him the importance of not doing reckless things and getting discorporated. He’d been frantic, then, the metallic taste of fear still slick on his tongue as he’d swallowed down all the words that he wanted to say. What if you’d left me? What would I do without you?

“Crowley.” Margerie says again, her one empty hand coming to rest on one of his forearms as she looked up at him. She had soft brown eyes that he thinks matches what her hair color had been at one point in life. “I’m sorry.”

It doesn’t do much to quell the war of feelings inside of him.

Aziraphale had apologized, too. And then he’d ended up in a Bastille about to be beheaded, and then he’d been caught in a church in Germany in the middle of a bombing, and then he’d—

Suffice it to say that he hadn’t learned his lesson.

“Take care of yourself.” Crowley chastises as sternly as he possibly can, but he knows Margerie sees right through him.

She opens her mouth to say something, but suddenly her eyes track over his shoulders and she drops her voice just enough to say. “Blue eyes and blonde curls coming our way. Should I—?”

Before Crowley can even react, Aziraphale is at their side, eyes scanning over the situation. “Everyone alright, here?”

“Oh, yes, quite.” Margerie says, sweet as sugar. “I’m afraid I was being a little careless, trying to handle too many groceries on my own, you see. I couldn’t see where the curb was and I slipped off the edge. But this lovely gentleman came over to help me so I’m quite alright now.”

“Did he?” Aziraphale asks, and there’s a question written into his gaze as he settles it on Crowley. Crowley steadfastly ignores it. “How kind of him.”

“Aziraphale.” Crowley says sharply in warning, certainly not missing the way Aziraphale’s lips twist into a pleased smile.

“Well, let’s get you loaded up then, shall we, my dear?” Aziraphale presses on like nothing happened, taking one of the bags from Crowley’s arms and moving around Margerie to load them into her backseat.

Crowley passes the next bag over once Aziraphale’s arms are empty, unwilling to be caught doing anything further that could be considered nice. It only takes a moment before everything is settled inside the car. While Aziraphale is busy arranging the bags, Crowley shoots Margerie his sternest expression. She smiles back at him in return, the wicked kind that nearly makes Crowley groan from where he’s standing along the curb still. And then Aziraphale is out of the car and offering an elbow to Margerie and their silent conversation is forced to end.

“Oh, aren’t you just so charming?” Margerie says to Aziraphale as he takes her arm and escorts her around to the drivers side of her car. “And so dashing, too! Quite a handsome young man.”

Aziraphale’s cheeks flame red at the unexpected compliment, but he takes it in stride far better than Crowley would. “Well, thank you. Though I’d hardly say I’m a young man.”

Crowley hides his bark of a laugh behind a cough, but Aziraphale catches it and shoots him a wry smile just the same.

“You know, I don’t know if you remember me—” Margerie begins and Crowley considers turning on his heel and simply stalking away.

“I’d hardly be capable of forgetting those brownies,” Aziraphale says warmly and Crowley can’t really be surprised. He’s known since he properly met Margerie that she and Aziraphale would get along well.

“Oh, you flatter me!” She cries, placing a hand over her chest, pressing it into her heart. Crowley glowers at her. “You know, Crowley here has told me that you own a bookshop. I’m guessing this must be it?”

“Ah, he talks about me, does he?” Aziraphale teases, glancing over his shoulder at Crowley who is glaring so darkly at this point that he’d give the midnight sky a run for its money. Unfortunately for him, Aziraphale has nearly six-thousands years of practice of ignoring his expressions and pushing his buttons and he’s doing a remarkable job of both at the moment. “But yes, that is my shop. It’s regrettably closed at the moment, though.”

“I suppose I’ll have to come back some other time then.” Margerie glances between them with a raised eyebrow and Crowley once again thinks that she’s about as subtle as a bull. He’s going to have to have a conversation with her about it.

“Yes, lovely, you can come back some other time.” Crowley growls, stepping forward and pulling open her driver’s door. “But I’m afraid your groceries might expire if you don’t get home soon, Margerie.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says with his eyebrows pulled together. “Groceries don’t go bad that quickly—”

“He’s quite right.” Margerie says and for a fleeting moment she looks contrite. Crowley supposes it’s the most he’s going to get. “Lots of perishable stuff in those bags. I really ought to be going.”

“Well, it was lovely to see you again.” Aziraphale says with one more worried glance cast at Crowley. “And I’ll look forward to seeing you in my shop.”

Margerie goes into her car willingly, thanking both of them profusely again. Aziraphale offers for them to go with her to help unload her car but she promises that she will be much more diligent about emptying it, only taking in one bag at a time. It seems to sate Aziraphale, who moves to stand next to Crowley as Margerie closes her door and bids them a final farewell. They watch her go in silence for a moment and then, once she’s out of sight, Crowley takes off towards the bookshop again, hands tucked deep in his pockets.

“Should I ask about that?” Aziraphale says as he catches up to Crowley’s side easily, despite Crowley’s long legs and loping stride.

“No.” Crowley says, but it sounds more defeated than stern. “You’re both bastards, that’s the only part that matters.”

His heart is still pounding against his chest, the familiar fear banging against his ribs. Somewhere mixed in there is frustration with Margerie, with himself, with his stupid feelings. It hadn’t turned out bad, Crowley reminds himself. Not now with Margerie, not in the past with Aziraphale. It had never turned out bad because he had always been there. And he’s realizing suddenly that he now has two people he needs to be there for— he just hopes they won’t ever need him at the same time.

“Right.” Aziraphale says and it’s that tone he and Margerie share— the one that indicates that he’s letting it go for Crowley’s comfort, but his curiosity is still there. “Well then, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Was going to tempt you to a spot of dinner.” Crowley mumbles as they reach the other side of the street, stopping abruptly next to the Bentley.

“Was?” Aziraphale prompts.

“Still going to,” Crowley clarifies. “If you’re willing.”

“Oh, my dear boy, I’m willing.” Aziraphale smiles and reaches for the door handle of the Bentley.

—

“Crowley!”

Crowley’s nearly out the door of the complex when he hears his name. He stops, hand on the handle and turns to see Margerie rushing across the lobby towards him.

“Oh, good, I’m glad I caught you in time.” She says as she approaches him, smiling fondly up at him.

Crowley raises an eyebrow at her in question. He’s headed off to meet Aziraphale for a walk through the park. Aziraphale had locked himself up in his bookshop for nearly the last week, losing track of time entirely, so Crowley had gently suggested that some fresh air might do him some good. No idea how much longer we’ll have fresh air to breathe, he’d said and then Aziraphale had chastised him for being so callous. It had sounded like a good idea at the time, but now that Crowley was a moment away from stepping outside he was realizing just how cold it actually was. The warm air of summer was giving way to the chilly biting breezes of autumn and he hadn’t a proper jacket.

It was something he could’ve bought or even miracled over the years, but he’d never bothered to. More often than not Crowley spent his autumns and winters bundled up under the covers of his bed, catching up on the sleep that he’d missed.

“Honestly.” Margerie says instead of immediately answering his unspoken question. “Don’t you own any suitable clothing?”

“I look very stylish.” Crowley retorts, even though he knows she is absolutely right.

Margerie rolls her eyes fondly at him, reaching into her bag and suddenly producing a deep, wine red bundle of fabric. “Here,” she says after a moment, unraveling it to reveal a knitted scarf. “At least wear this.” Crowley opens his mouth to say something and Margerie reaches up to loop it around his neck before he can say no. “It’s exactly your color.”

Crowley stands obligingly still as she loops it around his neck a second time and then tucks the loose ends of it into his coat, adjusting the collar so it all sits a little neater. Whatever yarn she’d used to knit it was as soft as a feather— and Crowley knew first hand how soft feathers were. It was exactly the right length, looping around his neck enough times to create bulk that he could use to cover his mouth and nose if he wanted to with still enough length to stay tucked into his jacket as he moved around.

Crowley looked down at it, feeling a familiar fondness well up in the back of his throat and strangle his words. “Thank you.”

Margerie smiled at him warmly. “Can’t have you freezing to death.” She mumbles as she steps back, clasping her hands together in front of her. “You’re my only child that comes to visit.”

“I thought your daughter—”

“Yes,” Margerie says, “But you’re still a better child than her.”

Crowley makes a noise that is startled but happy and Margerie ducks her head a little, almost as if embarrassed. Crowley, obviously, has no idea what having a mother actually feels like, but he thinks this might be close. He thinks of the times Margerie has dropped leftovers on his doorstep, of the time she gave him a “sick kit”, as she’d called it.

(“I don’t get sick,” Crowley had insisted. He understood her worry, he hadn’t left his flat in nearly four days, but that hardly meant anything. Time barely existed to him and honestly, four days was just long enough to be a worthwhile nap.

“Nonsense.” Margerie had waved him off, handing him the bag she was clutching. “Everyone gets sick sometimes. And I find it hard to believe you have any medicine in the house.”

“I’m not that ill-prepared.” Crowley scoffed, but he took the bag anyways, glancing inside. A series of over-the-counter medicines and kleenex boxes filled to the brim and he thought he might’ve seen a thermometer somewhere in the mix.

“Well?” She prompted after a moment. “Did you have any of that in the house?”

“How do you manage to be so rude when doing something so kind?” Crowley had fired back and Margerie had laughed, taking it as the confirmation that it was of her suspicions.

Of course he didn’t have any of this in his flat. He really didn’t get sick— that was human stuff. But he couldn’t very well tell her that, so he thanked her and promised her that he’d call her if he needed anything. He waited a few days just for appearances and then made a point to leave his flat so she didn’t worry about him any further. She’d caught him in the hallway and told him it was good to see him back to his old self. Crowley had just smiled).

“You can’t get rid of me.” Crowley said after a moment and Margerie’s smile was so fond it nearly bowled him right over. “No matter how often you try to poison me with your cooking.”

“Oh, you!” She smacked him on the arm fondly before ushering him out the door. Crowley thanked her properly for the scarf as he went, casting one last look at her over his shoulder.

As he walked towards St. James park, he thought back to the year and a half he’d known Margerie. Time was a funny thing, especially for a demon. It was even funnier now that they were closing in on the eleventh birthday of the antichrist. Crowley and Aziraphale had been released from the Dowling’s employment a few years ago and had more or less spent the time just waiting. They checked in on Warlock from time-to-time, of course, as they were meant to do, but otherwise it was a matter of just biding time and waiting for the child’s birthday to see what would happen.

Nearly eleven years ago when Crowley had brought the antichrist to Earth, he’d wanted to stop Armageddon. Now, eleven years later and with a second friend to his name, Crowley was more determined than ever.

Fuck the Great Plan.

“Hello, dear.” Aziraphale greeted as Crowley approached, bundled up appropriately for the weather. “Lovely to see you.”

“Found your way out of your book piles, did you?” Crowley asked with a smile as he dropped down onto the bench next to Aziraphale. “I’m impressed.”

“I was in the middle of a very good series.” Aziraphale answered with a wistful smile that told Crowley that he was remembering it fondly. What he didn’t say, what hung unspoken in the air between them, was that he didn’t know how much longer he’d have to read his favorite books and he weas trying to fit in what he could. “Simply lost track of time.”

“Lost track of a whole week there, angel.” Crowley replied, but he wasn’t at all put out by it.

“Yes, I did, rather.” Aziraphale agrees with a bit of a grimace. “I was thrilled to hear from you when you called.”

There’s a warmth that blooms across Crowley’s cheeks at the words and he ducks his face into the scarf Margerie had made him. The scarf and his glasses combined cover nearly his entire face and Crowley thinks he could get used to this. He’d be an unstoppable enigma if he dressed like this all the time— nobody would be able to read into his intentions or guess his next move.

Which, he knows, isn’t true. Aziraphale would see right through the cover and into the heart of whatever Crowley was doing. Aziraphale could hear his plans in the simple tone of his voice and had shut down his ideas on more than one occasion over the phone before Crowley had even had a chance to propose said idea. But that was alright because Aziraphale didn’t stop his big ideas, just the small ones. Their arrangement meant that Aziraphale could see right through Crowley’s new face covering defense and he would do nothing more than roll his eyes at whatever he found on the other side.

“Shall we?” Crowley asks after a moment of silence, unsure how to address what Aziraphale had said to him. He gestures towards the park as a whole and Aziraphale understands perfectly, the way he always does.

They walk side-by-side through the park, chatting idly for awhile. They pause to allow people to pass them, stepping to the side rather than breaking apart to make it easier. Crowley tries not to think about it, tries not to read into it. He does an okay job holding the thoughts off, but he knows they’ll be back later.

“So,” Aziraphale says mildly as they turn a corner. “Can I ask about the scarf?”

“Eh, yeah.” Crowley turns his face resolutely in the other direction, mumbling more into the scarf than anything else, “My neighbor made it for me.”

Of course, Aziraphale hears him because Aziraphale always hears him. “Your neighbor?” He echoes, and he sounds completely delighted with the turn of events. “It wouldn’t happen to be that woman you helped a few weeks ago, would it? The one who makes the brownies? She’s your neighbor?”

Crowley stops in his tracks, finally turning to look up at Aziraphale. He knows his face is red from being caught but he hopes Aziraphale assumes it’s just the cold air. “Er—?” Crowley sighs. “Yeah, she is. So what? It’s not a big deal.”

“Crowley, my dear.” Aziraphale says and his eyes are so soft as he takes in what’s visible of Crowley’s expression, so full of adoration that Crowley feels like he may just discorporate on the spot. “You nearly stopped traffic just to get to her side. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you move that fast.”

A long, low groan rips out of Crowley’s throat and he throws his head back, letting his eyes slip shut. “Brilliant.”

“Come now,” Aziraphale nudges him gently with his elbow. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you do ni—” A sharp look from Crowley cuts that word off before it can be said into the air between them. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you do similar things before. You do things like that for me all the time.”

“Yeah and that’s bad enough!” Crowley replies. “The last thing I need is to be doing it for two people. Demon can get in a lot of trouble for that.”

“You haven’t gotten in trouble yet.” Aziraphale points out unhelpfully. “And I daresay helping an angel is a bit riskier than helping a human.”

“Can we just—” Crowley grinds up a few words but when he spits them out, they’re not nearly coherent and they don’t sound anything like a sentence. Aziraphale doesn’t even blink, entirely used to it at this point. And Crowley doesn’t want that to make a well of fondness swell inside of him, but it does. He takes a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter. But she did make this scarf for me and it’s bloody cold out so I figured I should wear it.”

“It suits you.” Aziraphale says, moving along fluidly with the changing pace of the conversation the way he always has. “It’s exactly your color.”

“That’s what she told me when she gave it to me.” Crowley offers and he sees the way Aziraphale tries to stifle his smile. “You’d like her, angel. You both have a lot in common— old and stuffy.”

“I see. Well, I hope I get another chance to spend some time with her. I’m still waiting for her to show up in my shop.” Aziraphale says and there’s that twist to his smile that Crowley dreads because it means Aziraphale is about to make a fatal blow to his heart. He’s right. “Seems like you have a type, then, doesn’t it?”

“Angel.” Crowley chastises. “I invited you out here to figure out what we’re going to do for Warlock’s birthday party not for— for this!”

Aziraphale takes pity on him, laughing as he sets their pace again. “Alright, fair enough. But do tell your neighbor that the scarf is very dashing on you. I’m sure she’d appreciate the feedback.”

Crowley is more determined than ever to stop the end of the world.

—

The birthday party is a disaster, Warlock is the wrong boy and the end of the world is suddenly only hours away. Crowley and Aziraphale— okay, Aziraphale— somehow manage to find the right boy, the bookshop burns somewhere in there and suddenly Crowley is racing around town because holy fuck the world is actually about to end. He’s pretty sure he flat out murdered Ligur but he doesn’t waste much thought on it.

It’s only when Crowley is screeching away from the pub, miraculously sober and with a destination in mind that he realizes that he has one last thing he needs to do. He jerks the wheel sharply and heads back towards his flat, the sudden need to see Margerie undeniable.

He flies out of the Bentley— which he had parked haphazardly, halfway on the sidewalk— and through the doors, taking the stairs because he can’t bring himself to wait for the elevator. He takes them two at a time and then flings himself out of the stairwell on her floor, collapsing into her door and pounding incessantly.

Margerie opens the door, clearly alarmed. “Wh— Crowley?”

“Margerie.” He says frantically, pulling himself away from the door before he tumbles through it. “Listen, I can’t explain anything to you properly right now. I wish I could but you just— I need you to trust me, okay?”

“Okay.” She says with absolutely no argument, no hesitation.

“You are one of the best friends I’ve ever had.” Crowley says. “One of the only friends I’ve ever had. And I just wanted— I need to thank you.”

“You don’t thank people for being your friend, Crowley. It’s a gift freely given.” She answers after a moment, clearly alarmed but dutifully not asking whatever questions she has.

“Not to me it isn’t. And I can’t— I can’t say any more than that but if this all goes pear-shaped—” He stops, stumbles over a few words, turns to look at her. “You were right, all this time. I love him. And I—” He groans and drops his head into his hands. “I don’t want this to be goodbye. But if it is, I just needed you to know that. You were right. Moms like hearing that, don’t they? That they’re right? You’ve had me pegged from the beginning.”

She smiles fondly at him but her lower lip wobbles like she can sense the severity of the situation. “You’re not as hard to read as you think.”

A hysterical laugh bubbles out of Crowley as he reaches for her and pulls her close, crushing her into a hug. “Thank you.” he murmurs again.

She squeezes him back briefly before stepping out of his embrace. “You’re in a rush.” She says and it’s not a question. “Go. And when you get back you can tell me more about all the ways I was right.”

Crowley laughs again, his throat constricted with more emotions that a demon is equipped to deal with. “I’ll start making a list.”

And then he turns and rushes out of there to, hopefully, save the world.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #based on neil's tweet #fluff #found family #fanfiction #soft #feels

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thechekhov · 5 years ago

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Good Omens Fic Recs

First of all, I’m gonna say that these are probably not ALL the fics I’d recommend, there are more, but I’m trying to keep it comprehensive.

Fics listed here are non-explicit in nature, though they might contain sexual-ish elements or allusions to sex being had.

All fics under the cut contain explicit sexual content.

Pre-Apocalypse:

it’s the light (it’s the obstacle that casts it) (5783/Complete)

It's like having a curtain pulled back on something he wasn't expecting to see. A surprise punch-and-judy at an up-scale restaurant, a lobster thermidor when he's ordered an ale.

Crowley's gleefully trying to wrap his head around the fact that Aziraphale is speaking Polari. Because of course he is.

Or: The Patron Saint of London's LGBT Community is real, and he lives in Soho.

two slow dancers last ones out (1658/Complete)

“Do you even know how to waltz?” “No. But you could teach it to me.”

and, so on (8938/Complete)

Crowley doesn’t remember heaven, but Aziraphale remembers him.

notes on a theme (4501/Complete)

After six-thousand odd years playing human, Crowley is beginning to suspect they've both gone a bit native.

Nanny Knows Best (series) (32,800/Kinda Complete?)

Being a nanny, that should be simple. Simple. Easy as pie. Crowley wished that were true. (*Warning: this fic contains various depictions of sexual harassment Nanny Ashtoreth has to deal with.)

Wings and How to Hide Them (10134/Complete)

Crowley's been annoyingly in love for six thousand years. What's another lifetime between friends? (*Warning: this fic contains a mild sex scene but it’s not overly explicit, so I’m letting it split through)

When in Rome (series) (3938/Complete)

"And have you?" Aziraphale asked. "Anywhere to be, that is?"

"I don't suppose I do," Crowley said. "Would you like to go to dinner?"

"With a demon?" Aziraphale replied, tipping his head a little, his smile still hiding in his eyes. "I probably shouldn't."

names in history (23468/Complete)

Maybe he’d shown Crowley how to perform a few miracles, but that Crowley had taken to them so well was surely a sign that he wasn’t all bad. And maybe Aziraphale had let himself be called upon to perform a few temptations, but that was just testing the will of the faithful if you looked at it from a different angle.

dream to me (7342/Complete)

“You know, angel. Sometimes I think we’ve been bearing witness to a very great love affair, and we didn’t even notice.”

or: an angel and a demon fall in love. but a bookshop and a bentley do it first.

Linked (15665/WIP)

Crowley allows himself to get caught in a ‘demon trap’. He is now trapped. Oh no. Whatever shall he do.

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Post Apocalypse:

Love’s Such An Old-Fashioned Word (2,384/Complete)

There has to be, Crowley thinks, a better word than love.

all i need, darling, is a life in your shape (14,243/Complete)

After everything, Aziraphale and Crowley, by unspoken agreement, begin sharing their lives.

Rip It Up and Start Again (9128/WIP)

After the Apocalypse is averted, an Angel and a Demon go on holiday, which turns into something a bit like retirement... or it would, if there weren't so much unfinished business following them around...

Gourd Omens (11504/Complete)

“Neave is a name I believe and certainly rings a bell but I will have to look up what a cucurbita is - it sounds rather latin.”

“Pumpkin.”

“Yes, dear?”

“Wh-NO not you!”

Aziraphale and Crowley move into their new cottage in South Downs after Armageddidn’t blows over. But of course hellish interference is never far away, and it looks like its target is the local flower show. Can the pair prevent Asparageddon, befriend their neighbours, grow the largest vegetables and win the cup for division B?

A Sky Full of Stars (2575/Complete)

Aziraphale takes Crowley as close to Heaven as they can get, these days.

Salinity (And Other Measurements of Brackish Water) (3455/Complete)

It's an odd thing, getting on after the End of the World. Crowley takes to sea-watching.

dawn on the gates of eden (1262/Complete)

It’s the first day, but it’s an old story.

Slow (9371/Complete)

It started like this: A boy with the ability to warp reality met an angel and a demon and he made assumptions. Aziraphale and Crowley find themselves somehow married. Crowley fears going too fast. Aziraphale forges ahead. Neither know how to ask questions of each other.

it’s a new craze (5541/Complete)

CROWLEY: I try not to make a habit of gratitude, but I must give our appreciation to everyone out there who’s been listening and subscribing to The Ineffable Plan. AZIRAPHALE: Ooh, yes, we’ve become quite popular, haven’t we? CROWLEY: Yeah, just hit number eight on the advice charts … No advertising at all. AZIRAPHALE: Mm. How … miraculous. CROWLEY: … Aziraphale. You did not.

Warning: the rest of these recs contain explicitly mature themes. I’ve tried to tag them to the best of my ability.

Long Is The Way, And Hard (27081/Complete)

The first time Crawley meets the angel, the celestial being is twisting its shining white robe in its fingers and looking wretched. It hardly spares him a glance as he shifts from snake to human, and Crawley is a touch put-out. It’s taken some practice to be able to do it so fluidly.

#through the ages #gets explicit at the end #soft and emotional sex

small infinities and all that (13208/Complete)

And there it is, isn’t it? Something they’ve known for a long time, but haven’t named it. Have been too scared to name it. Something that speaks in their bones, in the space between them.

#Crowley and Aziraphale are turned human #gets explicit at the end #soft and emotional sex

The Pleasures of the World/Sleight of Hand (35480/Complete)

Aziraphale's fingers brushed [Crowley's] cheek, then turned his head slowly.

"I'm asking you to think it over," he said, so quietly that Crowley almost couldn't hear him. "That's all."

Crowley's stomach clenched harder. Somehow his hand had gotten ideas again and migrated in the direction of Aziraphale's waist, blindly creeping its way around, forcing the angel to lean slightly forward. This was the sort of thing reckless human teenagers did, or in the very least reckless human adults who hadn't gotten out much and were just beginning to notice how entrancing their bridge partners were.

"Won't take much," Crowley said, and leaned over to kiss him.

#slow burn #buildup of various sexual encounters #Aziraphale and his Hedonism are out for a joyride

The 21st Century, In Which They Finally Work It Out (22379/Complete)

This is light speed in comparison to the last few centuries of their relationship, but Crowley is barely holding on to his patience.

#gets explicit in the end #soft and emotional sex

You, Soft and Only (9400/Complete)

He hadn’t expected a sudden lapful of angel.

“Very sorry about this,” Aziraphale said, and kissed him.

#Aziraphale and Crowley have various sexual encounters through history #get you horny first and break your heart halfway through the story #fem!Aziraphale #fem!Crowley #all sorts of genital configurations and all of it is thoroughly entertaining

The Better Part of Valour (6204/Complete)

“...the apocalypse has Not Happened and they’ve fallen into queerplatonic (or so they think) bedsharing and Crowley thinks he’s alone in being driven slowly to distraction by it, so he says nothing. Then one night he wakes when it’s still dark, and at first he doesn’t know why, until he hears Aziraphale’s breathing a little raspier than usual, and feels the very slight trembling of the bed.”

#bedsharing #Aziraphale has a Vulva #masturbation #fingerfucking #this one gave me about 5 heart attacks from how hot it was

for let thy efforts be (9337/Complete)

The first time Crowley made the Effort, he was reclining on a very comfortable couch in the dimly-lit confines of a cozy little restaurant in Rome, with his head pillowed upon the breast of an Angel.

#alcohol #nonhuman genitalia #fingering

Surrender (series) (78,828/Complete)

Aziraphale felt the explosion of dark power all the way in London, but had no idea Crowley was involved. When he realizes the demon is missing, Aziraphale goes looking. What he finds is not the lively, wily adversary but a dying snake that barely feels of demonic power at all. The angel can perform miracles, but he can’t heal a demon. Aziraphale has to do everything he can to save Crowley, because an eternity alone on this Earth is as unthinkable as the end of the world was.

#Hurt and Comfort #Near Death Experience #Crowley is a VERY pushy sub #marking/possessiveness #piercings and tattoos done with holy water/blessed objects

#good omens #good omens fics #fanfic #fanfic rec #good omens fanfic rec

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universe-n-3276 · 4 years ago

Text

Carrying the Moon

Epilogue

He shouldn’t have been there. He knew that if someone found him on the school’s rooftop, he would immediately be lectured by the headmaster, who obviously would call his parents, and he could already imagine the concerned look on his father’s face. Whenever he did something stupid, that man always had the same look painted on his face, and he couldn’t stand it anymore. But the boy couldn’t help it. He needed it. When he felt things overwhelming him (it often happened during the lunch break), he needed to feel the comfort that arose from watching his schoolmates from above, small as ants, move around frenetically.

On the roof of the school, alone, the noises and people around him were far away. The air was fresh, and the perspective changed completely. Three months earlier, during his last exams of the semester, he had begun to feel different. Everything he felt was amplified. He was full of energy and able to do anything. He had been awake, night after night, writing, planning, drawing. During the day, as he answered all the quiz, he felt confident, he knew everything, then the verdicts came. He had failed all his tests and in his mind, his teachers were trying to set him up, they wanted him to fail. He had fought furiously with his parents, and it was weird because he was used to talking with them, and not screaming his lungs out, but he was only a sixteen-year-old, and teenagers usually argue a lot with their parents, right?

Then during the Christmas break, he had started to spend whole days locked in his room, until he no longer wanted to go out or get out of bed, and after that moment there were only doctors, pills, and worried looks. He hated feeling that way, he hated not being able to control it. He felt as if an alien had moved into his brain and had taken control over it. He just wanted to feel like before, he wanted to go back to being the happy and carefree person he had always been. The boy heard the door open behind him and turned quickly, hoping he hadn’t been caught, but he immediately recognized a familiar face and raised a hand in greeting, allowing himself to smile a bit. He wanted to be left alone, but he liked Eva’s company. The girl had auburn, straight hair, very fair skin, covered with freckles, and blue eyes, identical to her father’s.

“Hero David Driesen-IJzermans, you’re so weird.” “I did nothing.” “School is supposed to help you develop your social skills, you know? And you spend your time here alone.” “I'm not feeling well.” Eva's lively gaze softened. He walked over to Hero and placed a hand on his back, moving it in a circular motion, to try to give him relief. “You should call your fathers.” “I called Charlotte. My dad is busy at work and my papa has always a stupid worried look on his face when something happens, and I don't wanna see it.” The girl nodded, and was silent for a few moments, staring down at the schoolyard full of their classmates enjoying their free-time. “Have you told Camille you're hiding here?” “No. I broke up with them.” “Why?” “We weren't right for each other.” Hero bit his lip. Breaking up with Camille had been difficult. He had thought about it for a long time, not knowing if it was the right decision if it was really what he wanted or that sense of impatience was just a side symptom of the disease. “You know, since our parents have these great stories about being with their soulmates since they were teenagers, I always feel under pressure. What if I won’t find that ineffable love?” “They always say when you know, you know, so don't worry too much about it.” The boy gave Eva a small smile as he retrieved his ringing phone from the pocket. He looked at the screen, picking up his backpack from the ground and put it on his shoulder, happy to finally get out of that school that made him feel caged. “I gotta go now, Charlotte is here. Bye Ev.” “Bye, weirdo.”

Hero didn’t remember the exact moment when he was told that Charlotte was his biological mother. It was as if he had always known, and it had never been strange. He had seen movies where the main characters discovered as teenagers that they had been adopted, and were traumatized by the idea that those who they had always believed their parents were strangers. He just couldn't put himself in those people's shoes, because he was convinced that a family went far beyond the DNA and that all the love and the affection he had received from his parents since childhood, were what would tie them together for the rest of their life. Charlotte had given him life, but only with his fathers, he felt safe. However, Hero knew, he was lucky to know who his mother was. To be able to talk to and see her every day. He knew his story, and he didn't have a thousand question marks floating in his head when he thought about who he was, or where he came from. He knew why Charlotte had decided to let him be adopted, and he knew, it wasn’t his fault. Since he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder three months earlier, he understood her choice even better. Sometimes he had talked to Eva about the fact that they had both been adopted, but the affinities of their stories ended there. She didn't know anything about her biological parents, she didn't know her story and this made her suffer, even though she was grateful for the love, she had received from Jens and Lucas since she was a child. Eva had lived in a foster home until she was adopted by the two boys at the age of five, and because of this, she still had memories of when she felt abandoned and alone in the world. Hero had never felt the same way. He had always had two parents, an aunt, two uncles, four grandparents, and eventually, a sister. There was no space to feel alone. When he came out of school, he saw Charlotte waiting for him and smiled at her, walking in her direction. When they were in front of each other, she promptly squeezed him in a hug, and Hero immediately felt some of the tension vanish. He was sixteen and most of his friends shunned their family, trying to spend a lot of time away from home among their peers. But since he had his first episode, he felt comfortable only with his family. He knew, he could finally let his guard down because they would take care of everything. “Thanks for picking me up, Aunt Charlotte.” “Anytime, baby. Let's grab some hot chocolate, okay?” Hero nodded slowly, following Charlotte who had started walking. He had heard so many stories about her. When she was young, his aunt was the life of the party, ready to joke around. She hadn't changed much over the years. Charlotte was a funny person and always had a smile on her face. She lived with her girlfriend Ellie in a house by the river. They had no children, but Hero knew they were both very happy with their busy lives. When they sat facing each other in the cafeteria, waiting for their order, Charlotte looked Hero in the eye, and the boy suddenly felt exposed, as if there was no way could he have lied without the other noticing. “How are you feeling?” “I felt a bit overwhelmed at school, but now I'm fine.” “It was the same for me, but I pushed myself so hard all the time, just to fit in, that after some time it almost felt normal.” “Should I do that too?” Maybe Charlotte had the answer to all of his problems. Perhaps following her footsteps would lead him to regain his lost normality. So when Hero asked that question, his tone came out far more hopeful than he wanted. The woman looked at him sweetly and reached out to stroke his cheek. “No, baby. I know how it feels like you have no control over your mind or your body, but it’s not like that. It’s like learning to drive a new car: everything is new at first and you are scared but eventually, you’ll get used to it.” “So I'll be able to control this thing, eventually?” “Not really, but you will know how to deal with it, and also, all the people around you will know what to do to help you.” Hero sighed, looking down. He felt trapped in a tunnel with no exit. “It's frustrating.” “Yeah. But if you go to therapy and take your meds, it will be fine. You’ll know when something is coming. Everyone has symptoms. But don't worry, okay? We’re all here for you. We're gonna get through this. I promised.” “Thanks, Aunt Charlotte.” -

After spending a few hours with Charlotte to clear his mind, Hero had made a decision. He knew, he had to talk about it with his parents first, and this made him a little anxious, but he was sure that talking about it with his dad would help him more in deciding what to do. Hero was very attached to his dad, and unlike many teenagers, he felt free to talk to him about everything, without ever being judged. While he was waiting for the elevator, he closed his eyes and suddenly felt all the tiredness envelop his limbs. It was a weird sensation for the middle of the day. He had always been a boy who liked people, and yet the disease made social interactions physically exhausting. After half a day with his schoolmates and teachers, he just needed to rest. Going home and doing homework in those conditions was complicated. He couldn’t focus. The only thing he wanted to do was simply lie down to recover some of the energy lost during the day. Even before the elevator doors opened, Hero could hear the voices of his uncles. They were bickering as usual, and he couldn’t help but smile. Jens and Lucas have always been two of his favorite people in the world. Thanks to them he had learned to skate as a child, even though he often found himself in the midst of their deathly competitions to decide which one of them was more skilled on the board. “This damn stroller. Why you had to pick this monstrosity, uh?” “It was the safest one, Jens.” “It's bigger than our car and we barely fit in the elevator.” When the doors opened, they revealed the two men comically squeezed in a corner, to make

room for what was truly the largest stroller Hero had ever seen. Inside that gigantic thing, there was Lilith, a little girl of just six months, with thick raven hair and big chestnut eyes. “Hey, kid!” Jens was the first to notice Hero, and as soon as he managed to get out of the elevator, he gave him a high-five. Lucas took the stroller out and joined them. “Are you okay, baby? You look tired.” Lucas could spot the tiniest detail of one’s face, and Hero knew this very well. There were rare times in which he had managed to get away from his uncle’s gaze, and in fact, Eva had also stopped trying to hide anything from him. “And you should still be at school, right?” Hero still hated to talk about his illness, and it was wrong, especially because they were his uncles who had known him forever and knew exactly what he was going through. Lucas and Jens had been close to Charlotte when she was struggling. It should have been easier to say I felt a little overwhelmed today, so Charlotte picked me up and I just wanna rest even though it's only two in the afternoon. But he still couldn't, so he just shrugged, hoping the two would understand. Lucas stroked his cheek, giving him a look full of affection. “It's gonna be fine, Hero. And we are all here for you, okay?” “Yes, if you need anything, just call us, or come upstairs. Our door is always open for you.” Hero smiled, extremely grateful for the safety-net around him. He was surrounded by people who cared so much about him. They would never leave him alone, even in their darkest moments. He thanked his uncles and waved them goodbye, doing the same with little Lilith who had watched the whole scene from her huge stroller. - When he walked into his house, he immediately heard music coming from his papa's studio. Since Bowie, his sister, was born, Sander had decided to focus on her and work more from home. His sister was a little brat, and the fact that Sander spoiled her didn't make things better. The two spent hours playing with paint and soiling clean clothes and furniture with it. Hero had never been particularly talented with pencils and brushes, and perhaps for that reason, he believed in his heart that his papa preferred to spend more time with Bowie. He couldn't help but be a little jealous of their relationship, and of how Sander was able to show affection to the little girl. The boy knew, he was also deeply loved by his papa, but lately, there was something off between them. He knocked on the open door of his father's studio to get his attention, and the man looked up, giving his son a warm smile. “Hey, you're back early!” “Yeah, I didn't feel good and I asked Charlotte to pick me up.” “You could have asked me.” Hero shrugged, avoiding Sander's gaze. He hated to see the disappointment on his face, but his papa couldn't understand what he was going through. Charlotte, on the other hand, could. “How are you feeling now?” “Tired. I think I'm gonna get some rest.” “If you need anything, I'm right here.” Hero nodded, giving his father a small smile. As he made his way to his room, his sister darted past him laughing, without even saying hello and he frowned, thinking she was the strangest girl in the world. When he entered his room, he quickly walked over to the desk. He took off his backpack, placing it on the floor, and got rid of the sweatshirt he was wearing, already anticipating the moment when his body would finally touch the bed. He turned, but his expression changed immediately when he saw a huge stain of red paint standing out on his favorite blanket. Hero reconnected the dots. It wasn’t a hard task, after all. “BOWIE. I SWEAR TO GOD. I HATE YOU SO MUCH.” He closed his eyes and tried to regain control of himself, trying to breathe normally through his nose, while thinking he had to move quickly before the paint would run through the blanket, ruining the sheets and mattress. “What happened?” Sander appeared from the door with a frown on his face, followed by Bowie that was hiding behind his legs. Hero looked at them both, furiously, while a thousand thoughts were crowding his mind. He wanted to keep screaming all his anger, but he didn't. Instead, he started to roll up the blanket, being careful not to spill the paint around. “Your favorite child made a mess.” “Hero, what are you talking about? I don't have a favorite child. You two and your dad are my favorite people in the world.” The boy didn’t argue. He kept undoing his bed to the mattress, in silence. When he noticed that his father was doing nothing to leave him alone in his bedroom, he decided to speak up. “Where's dad? I wanna talk to him.” “He's still at work.” Hero was tired and angry, and in moments like that, it was like his emotions were exploding inside of him uncontrollably. He hated feeling that way as if everything he had inside was about to get out of his hand at any moment. Despite fighting against it for most of the time, sometimes he couldn’t help but let go. He looked at his papa's face and clenched his jaw when the other's eyes held his gaze with the same intensity as if they were a mirror of his own. The boy wanted to say everything he had been holding inside for months, all the thoughts that were hurting him. The things that kept him awake at night. Why don't you love me as much as you love Bowie? Why don't you ever want to spend time with me? It's because she is really your daughter and I’m just... He swallowed the lump in his throat and looked away, suddenly feeling too fragile to be able to withstand such a fight. Once again he had been betrayed by himself. “I don't get why he's always at work, while you are here.” “You're being rude, and you know I work here so I can be with you and your sister.” “Yeah, with my sister, of course. Whatever, I want dad now.” “Hero, you can also talk to me.” “I need to throw these things in the washer.” “Okay. Let me help you.” - Later that evening, he was hiding in his room, tucked under clean blankets, with the light on, because he wanted to avoid, in every way, turning his bad mood into something worse. Hero heard a knock on his door. When he turned to look at his visitor, he was delighted to see his dad's face. He sighed in relief and sat up against the headboard. The boy was happy to finally see him. He had needed his presence since he left for school that morning. “Hey, baby.” “Hi, dad.” “How's your day?” Robbe sat down on the bed, hugging him tightly, making that annoying lump in his throat reappear, and his eyes becoming instantly watery. They released their embrace and Hero shook his head, trying not to look his dad. Robbe sighed, placing his hands on the boy's shoulders. “Hero, what’s going on? Papa told me what happened.” “Snitch.” “He's worried about you. He loves you as much as I do, you know that.” “But he loves Bowie more because she’s your biological daughter.” “Baby, what are you talking about? You can't be serious!” Hero shrugged. Saying that sentence out loud was all he had been trying to do for weeks, but now it was like finding himself suddenly naked, in front of a crowd that was staring at him. He couldn't add anything else or speak up, because, yes, he was serious, but when he felt his dad's arms wrap him in a hug, he felt a little less stupid. “You can't even imagine what your papa did for you when we were young. He gave up everything for you. His relationship with me and with his sister. He was ready to drop out of uni, just to find a job and take care of you.” “I didn’t want to be rude to him. I was just pissed because Bowie made a mess in my room while he was supposed to watch her.” “He can get lost in his work sometimes.” “And I also don't know how to talk to him. With you, it's easier.” “We can call him and you can try to talk with both of us.” “Fine.” When Sander walked through the door, following Robbe and holding his hand, he had his usual worried expression painted on his face. He sat on Hero's bed, and Robbe did the same, on the other side of it. Hero, somehow, felt calmer, safer, there sat between his fathers. “Sorry about earlier, papa.” “It's okay, don't worry.” Like a suspicious cat that suddenly jumps in your lap, Hero approached his papa, leaning his back against the man’s chest, and Sander began to card his fingers through his son's hair, looping his waist with the other arm. Hero closed his eyes, relaxing. He realized that the distance he had felt between him and his papa was probably yet another trick of his mind and that for all that time, it would be enough for him to reach out, and bring down the walls that he had created. “I think I should drop out of school. I’m overwhelmed all the time and it’s really hard for me to focus. When I get home I’m too tired to do my homework. I feel like I'm failing at everything and it gives me anxiety.” There was a long moment of silence in which Robbe and Sander looked into each other's eyes, and Hero was sure that somehow, after years of marriage, the two had discovered a way to talk telepathically, because he had seen them do that so many times. “Your mental health is our priority.” “Definitely, and we understand that you need your time to adjust to your illness, to understand how to live your life with it.” “Thanks.” “But, maybe we can consider other options, you know?” “Like what?” "Homeschooling, for example." It wasn't a bad idea. That way he would adjust his schedule according to how he felt. “It's a good idea, but I don't know if I can start something new right now.” “It's okay, baby. We can take it day by day.” “And if it gets too much, we can also take it minute by minute.” Hero turned his face to look his papa in the eye, and smile gratefully at him. He liked the idea of not having to think about the future and being able to focus only on the present. It made him feel grounded and for the first time in weeks, his mind wasn't drifting. Robbe held Hero in his arm, kissing his forehead, while Sander hugged them both as they did when he was still a little kid. “My baby boy.” “Our baby boy, Robbe.” “Yes, our baby boy.” Maybe Hero would always be a fish out of water among his peers, because of his illness or because it was just what he had always been. Having been loved so deeply since he was born, had led him to be free of being himself because his parents had always pushed him to express his personality and not to apologize for who he was. Reality hit him very hard when he found out that people usually prefer predictability and labels. The world doesn't like unpredictable things. Hero loved to live his little utopia, in the arms of his parents, in which he was free to be himself, with his illness, his moment of euphoria, and his depression. He was free to express his ideas, to love immeasurably, to cry, to feel sad or happy. In his little utopia, he felt safe and knew that if he fell, someone would always be ready to catch him. At that moment Hero knew that, although he’d always carry the moon inside of him, thanks to the love surrounding him, eventually, the sun would shine again.

[previous]

#wtfock #wtfam #carrying the moon #epilogue #robbe ijzermans #sander driesen #jens stoffels #lucas van der heijden #van der stoffels #drijzermans #sobbe

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lov3nerdstuff · 4 years ago

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Voluptas Noctis Aeternae {Part 7.29}

*Severus Snape x OC*

General warnings: professor x student, blood, violence, trauma, neglectful families, bullying, cursing

Words: 3.7k

Read Part 1.1 here! All Parts can be found on the Masterlist!

______________________________

The very moment Robin was back inside the castle, every possible doubt about what she was about to do had vanished entirely if it had ever been existent in the first place. On her haste down into the dungeons, people jumped out of her path at the mere sight of the sinister expression on her face, and honestly, she was more grateful than ever that nobody dared to as much as look at her for too long. Sometimes a reputation was a curse, sometimes a saving grace. Right now the latter was the case.

She didn't say a single word when she opened the door to the potions classroom in one swift move. Still stayed silent when she made her way through the rows of desks and students, straight to the front where Snape was working at his desk like always during detention. She didn't need to say a thing, and yet all eyes were on her in an instant. The students' many ones in surprise and nigh intimidation at her mode of entrance, Snape's merely in instant concern. He knew that she wouldn't just show up here, bursting into detention if it wasn't for a matter of utmost importance. So she only looked at him in silent confirmation of what they both knew was happening right now.

"Detention is over. Get out. Now." Snape spoke up with a brief glimpse at his students, in a tone to match Robin's grave expression. Then however his eyes found and never left hers as he rose to his feet in an instant to round the table to come over to her side as if the rest of the world beyond them simply ceased to exist.

"But professor, it's still over an hour until dinner… Are you sure we're allowed to go already?" A young boy, probably a first year, remarked carefully, which earned him a few groans and curses from his peers, and an instantaneous but deathly glare from Snape.

"Question me again and you will spend the entire remainder of this term in detention." He snapped at the boy, then turned to everyone else who had stopped in their tracks or not yet started moving in the first place. "What on earth are you waiting for?! Is there a part of 'get out' you dunderheads failed to understand?"

It took exactly five seconds for the students to rush out the door while the echo of his words still ghosted through the masses of stone. Then, in the very instant the last people had left, the door to the classroom flew shut, was locked and warded in a now long practiced procedure that, to Robin's knowledge, was yet unbreakable. Ever since new year's, they had become more careful with their every step for a multitude of reasons. Morgan being one of them.

"What on earth-..." Snape didn't get further than that before Robin had dropped her backpack and winter robes on the ground and wrapped her arms around him so tightly that her muscles started quivering, urged into this impulsive need for closeness by the sudden and sheer overwhelming realization that she had come way too close to never seeing him again. In the end, it was a gift of fate that they were still here, still together. This thought as well as the hot rush of welling tears it brought along was only quenched when he held her tightly in return, and her composure collapsed once and for all.

Sure, there were more important things to be dealt with right now and Robin had promised herself not to let her emotions get in the way of that, but she couldn't help it anymore. Repression and putting on acts for her own mind only worked for so long. And thus she let herself dwell in his embrace for now, clawing onto him like a lifeline of reality, basking in the comfort and safety she needed now more than ever. The world could wait. It had to.

"Whatever it is, we will be fine." He said after a while of drawing soft patterns on her back, and Robin almost had to smile. She had never told him just how soothing she found that gesture, nor his voice and words of encouragement, but somehow he still had always known anyway. There was no measure for how much she loved him for that, for just knowing. "May I see for myself?"

"Please do. I couldn't logically explain what happened anyway, not even if I tried." She sighed in return without even having to ask what he meant, and then waited for his presence in her mind as she had felt it so often before. It was a truly pleasant procedure at this point, like a gentle caress, like the patterns on her back. And therefore sharing her memories of what had happened brought an immediate and breathtaking relief to her troubled mind as much as his presence did to her soul. The panic faded, the anxiety and sickness made way for reason and even a strong sense of safety. She might not need him to protect her… but she still was more than glad to know that he wouldn't let anything stop him from doing so anyway.

For a while longer neither of them spoke, even once he had seen all there was, all there had been. His hold on her only tightened, and moments later the scratch on her eyebrow started tingling with the warm echo of magic. Perhaps she should ask him to teach her some of those miraculous healing spells… If fights over life and death were to become a normal occurrence in her days now, it might yet prove useful to have some of his tricks up her own sleeves as well. But that would have to wait; for now, she had to get over herself and deal with the more pressing issues. With a deep breath, she pulled back when she finally felt ready to face the world and the worries it brought at last. They could do this. Together, like always.

In the following minutes it in return took Robin quite a bit of convincing to remind Snape that, one, she had won the fight and had come out more or less fine after all, only cold and bruised, and two, that they had agreed that killing Morgan was still not an option. No matter how very tempting the idea was under the current circumstances. Robin did agree with one point though, when Snape said that if it ever came to a moment where it was either Morgan's or Robin's life, he wouldn't waste a second of thought to save her no matter what might be the cost in return. She did agree, even though she knew that it had never been meant as a question in the first place.

Indeed, the thought made Robin smile. He would gladly set the world and skies on fire for her if the opportunity should come, without a single doubt or hesitation, and while that thought should have been at least somehow disconcerting, the unshakable fact only made Robin feel ineffably proud. There had never been such a thing as 'normal' when it came to him and her… They had always been living by extremes. Living through passion for life. And in that intensity, in the way they lived and were going to live, she found her fear replaced by determination.

"I believe to have a lead on Morgan's reasons, to find out what this is all about. A start." She said, and was met with the most attentive, intrigued gaze in return. "Or at least I finally have an idea where to look for one."

"Other than his sheer insanity being reason enough, you mean?"

"Actually, I'm rather sure that he is quite as sane as you and I." Robin sighed, while a half smile found its way onto her lips nonetheless. "But no matter what he is or isn't, we will find out what makes him do what he does and we will put an end to it. In a different way than by killing him. A better one."

"You're terribly rational. As always." Snape replied in a huff, and yet let his fingers trace the outside of her hand in a feathery touch to replace some of the past embrace's comfort. It was remarkable how much better he had gotten with such simple signs of affection over the last few months, even if still ever so subtle. "I wish I had your level of optimism."

"I'm not optimistic, but realistic." Her half smile turned into a full one as she took the opportunity to interlace their fingers in return. "This mess with Morgan has been going on for almost seven years now, and I need it to end on my terms before it ends on his. We have to see to it that it does, and we will."

"Tell me more about your lead then; I must say that neither his words nor your thoughts on the matter made much sense to me."

"They didn't make sense to me either, until I went shopping with Cas and Jorien."

"You almost died, and then you went shopping right after that instead of coming straight back here?"

"Yes?"

"You hate shopping. And you almost died."

"Yes…?"

"I am honestly not sure if I should be impressed or irritated. You really are perfectly impossible."

"Why, thank you!" Robin had to smirk upon his incredulous expression, but soon enough her thoughts and expression went back to business as she tried to put the mess of thoughts into a stringent sentence. "To be honest, I just went shopping because I didn't want to let the girls down, and I hoped it would bring me some diversion from the events I did not even nearly understand at that point. But it was Morgan's words that made me think, and even throughout the hour where I tried to focus on other matters, they never quite left me alone no matter what. To make it short, I have an idea what he could've meant with some of what he said. The part about looking at my being but not me, the earrings and also comparing me to some other person who is me and not me at the same time."

"And?"

"The painting in the room of hidden things." Robin finally got out the very core of her thoughts, of her suspicion, and it didn't take more than that for Snape's mind to visibly halt at her words. "We have to find it and see if the woman who looks like me has earrings or not. Because then Morgan's comments-..."

"Would suddenly make a disconcerting amount of sense." He finished the sentence for her with a deep frown as his thoughts finally caught up with hers. "It still doesn't explain why he does what he does, but it certainly is a starting point indeed."

"The best lead we've ever had. And the only one."

"Then we cannot wait any longer." His tone went from considering to beyond determined. "We should be able to get up to the seventh floor unseen even at the present time, if we make use of the hidden paths in the castle."

"Lead the way then." Robin said with a small but sincere smile, then gave Snape's hand a gentle squeeze and finally let go to take her robes and bag to his office for safekeeping. The classroom was a mere shed in comparison to the fortress of spells that surrounded the office these days, and if today had proven anything to her, it was that she couldn't be careful enough. Not even with her belongings. After all, objects could be cursed just the same, and do perhaps even more damage than a simple one-time spell. She wasn't keen on finding out just how much more.

… … …

They made their way up to the correct seventh floor hallway in a matter of minutes, unseen in the rising darkness of the castle, and it again took only a minute and an illusionment charm to summon the grand door to the room of hidden things. The extraordinary place didn't fail to fascinate Robin even now upon their entrance, and she inevitably had to think back to the last time she had been here. The only time, to be exact, because she hadn't dared returning alone. A lot of things had been easier back then… But she wouldn't want to go back for anything in the world. She couldn't even bear the thought of going back to the torture that was loving from afar.

"Do you remember where the portrait was located?" Snape asked once he had closed the heavy door behind them, and broke Robin out of her marveling and memories. Yes, this reality was far better, no matter what.

"I, uh… I was rather distracted the last time we were in here." She admitted with a small shrug, which made him raise an eyebrow at her. Robin rolled her eyes in return. "I was trying not to jump at you for how close you kept coming to me, if you have to know. So no, I don't remember the path to the portrait."

"Pity." He sighed in feigned disappointment, then merely took her hand again and started walking off in absolute certainty where to go while pulling her along. Of course he knew where the portrait was… Robin had to smile against her will as she couldn't help rolling her eyes again. Insufferable idiot. Her idiot.

In a matter of minutes they reached the mountain of objects Robin very much recognized as the place she had discovered the portrait in nonetheless. The flipped chairs, the pile of pink teacups, the bucket filled with yellowed scrolls. Yes, this was the right spot indeed. But there was no painting anywhere in sight.

"It's gone…" Robin wondered out loud, brows furrowed and the hairs in her neck standing on edge. She hadn't quite considered that people other than them had access to this place as well… other people who might not have her best interest in mind, with the portrait or not. Or who came in here not to hide something, but to hide something that already was in here. The thought made her shudder.

"I can see that." Snape replied flatly, with very much the same irritation colouring his features and occupying his mind. His concern was all the more reason for Robin to feel everything but at ease in this place, even now that their hands were still tightly interlaced. Perhaps they were both scared to part again any time soon. But still, bloody portrait… couldn't anything ever be easy at Hogwarts?! Perhaps this room wasn't such a great place after all. Then again, maybe it only was almost getting killed that had her on edge far more quickly than usual. That explanation for her unease was more likely. Gods, she couldn't even keep her thoughts in line properly.

"Perhaps someone moved it while in the search for something else?" She suggested in an attempt to keep her recently regained calm. This was not a setback, that they hadn't found the portrait where it was supposed to be. It was rather a mystery, a riddle, and those were supposed to have edges and corners. Yes, that made her feel better about the situation. "I know tracing spells don't work in here, but perhaps we could have a quick look around nonetheless?"

"I have a better idea." Snape said with a thoughtful gaze at the spot where the portrait had been. Then – much to Robin's dismay – he let go of her hand and instead made them both move to the side, almost leaning into the next mountain of objects behind them as he went on. "How likely is it that Morgan, the perhaps only professor who has a habit of being constantly short of time, would spend precious minutes every morning and every night, according to his own words, to come here to look at the painting?"

"Unlikely, I should say. Practically impossible."

"Yes. And what does that thereby mean?"

"You just love to make me guess, don't you?"

Snape rolled his eyes, partially at Robin and also partially at himself if she wasn't mistaken, but then answered his own question nonetheless. "It means that he must have taken the portrait elsewhere. Either to his office or his private chambers, I presume."

"Oh bloody hell no…" Robin groaned under her breath, then leaned her head back into her neck for a moment to place that very logical piece of information into her mental puzzle. "I'm afraid you're right, but I still very much hope you're not. The thought-..."

"I know. It concerns me no less."

"Can we do anything to find out for sure before I break into his office for nothing?"

"Before we break into his office. Don't even think that I would let you do any of this alone." He protested immediately in a reproachful scoff, but when his words only made Robin smile ever so slightly, his expression mellowed out in return. "There is no way to be entirely certain about the whereabouts of the painting, seeing as the room's magic to protect its contents is older than the castle itself. We cannot undo it, not even nearly."

"Pity." Robin sighed in a mirror of his own favoured expression, which earned her a not-smirk before he went on.

"What we can do however is to trace a person's movements. If Morgan ever was in here, we should be able to see where precisely he went, which in this case is the next best thing."

"That's bloody brilliant!"

"Don't look so surprised…" He scoffed again, but the not-smirk lingered on even as he worded the according spell. It wasn't an unfamiliar or difficult one, but what made Robin feel both in awe and proud beyond reason was the very idea in the first place. Tracing the person and not the object was such an out-of-the-box approach to the problem at hand that it might as well have come from her own mind. But coming from Snape now, it made Robin realize all over again how much they had grown into each other's ways of thinking over the years. She couldn't help feeling proud of that even in a situation like this.

A mere few seconds later, the ground before them lit up with a straight line of glowing footsteps that came from between the mountains of things from the direction of the door. It led straight to the point where Robin vaguely remembered the portrait to have been, then it took a sharp turn straight back to where it had come from. No detours, no looking around. A straight path here, a straight path back.

"The spell only shows the last time he was here, not possible times before that." Snape explained, and Robin found herself nodding on instinct as her eyes followed the footsteps between the mountains where they disappeared from her sight.

"Yeah, I know…" She mused, frowning to herself once more. Obviously she knew the spell and its specifics, but something entirely else was nagging at her mind again, something she should take notice of but hadn't as of yet. It was terribly irksome.

"Perhaps a summary of the state of affairs might help?" He suggested, and it didn't even come as a surprise to Robin anymore that he knew exactly what was going on in her mind. In more instances than she could count, he just knew indeed.

"Very well, let's see…" Robin mused with a sigh, while they started making their way back towards the exit in a slow saunter. "Morgan wants to kill me. He is not insane, he rather seems to have a reason for what he does. One he doesn't quite agree with, or at least is somewhat troubled by himself. The chance that he can win a duel against me at this point is near non-existent, so his only chance is to catch me by surprise or trickery, like he did today. He would find it easier to kill me if I fought back, but he still doesn't plan to stop trying either way. He cannot stop for some reason, or so he says at least. He wants to kill me, and yet he doesn't want to see me dead."

"He has a twisted obsession with you, whether that be for you as a person or you as a representation of something or someone else." Snape went on in the wake of her words. "He clearly adores you, while yet he has an ineffable hatred for you, which makes him both enjoy and dread seeing you suffer. The obsession with you led him to take the portrait out of this room, which he came to discover by yet unknown factors. He came in here at least once and took the portrait out with him to presumably either his office or his rooms. There he looks at it every morning and every night, as for his statement, because he rarely sees the real you outside of class. Through that or perhaps for other reasons, he has formed some sort of bond with the woman in the painting, which he recognizes to be you and not you at the same time. He wants you to be his, and yet he wants you dead."

"Exactly." Robin sighed again. "That makes so much sense and yet it doesn't make sense at all. It's as if he is two people at once, at war over one thing he is made to do and one thing he wants to do. If you would've asked me a year ago, I would've said it could be an Imperius curse. But after reading the book Dumbledore gave me for my birthday, and you'll know this because we both have read it a gazillion times by now, the curse just doesn't quite fit in with the facts of the case."

"I agree. He is far too aware of himself and his struggle on either end to be cursed. Especially unlikely for an Imperius curse."

"Good… But that also means that nothing fits in with the facts. We have a bunch of new questions, but no answers whatsoever."

"Yet."

______________________________

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