#yes i did write a dramatized retelling a few years ago

[xthelastknownsurvivorx]

It’s Beas nice ask day!

So my question for you: What is something you haven’t shared here (or shared very recently) that is so shocking and surprising nobody would believe it

hi beas!

can't believe I didn't think of this story immediately upon receiving your ask (probably because it's equal parts trauma, hilarity, and friendship) but here we go with some lee lore

it's a long story though so below the cut it goes

my freshman year of college two friends and I decided to go to karaoke together one weekend. it was going to be a fun trip without anything out of the ordinary happening. we took the bus out, had lunch and a lot of fun singing (since it was a restaurant with an old machine not a dedicated karaoke place), then returned to the bus stop.

unfortunately we had forgotten that this stretch of road had bus stops on either side and you had to go to the correct side, otherwise the bus would be going the wrong direction, and I think we saw the right bus leaving before we could cross over

it was the middle of winter and decently cold by that time (late afternoon) and there wasn't another bus on the right side due for a while. we could have gone back inside to the restaurant (and probably should have), but we didn't feel like it. so one of suggested we walk to the next stop while waiting

however, one stop became another, and then another, and then another, and then—well you get the point

soon enough we had basically committed to just walking home. and for context our school wasn't in the city—it was near a couple of towns but also bordered rural areas, meaning there wasn't sidewalks for the entire stretch of this decently size road that we were walking home on

eventually we came to a (literal) fork in the road and had to decide which way to go: the unlit bridge to the shopping center or the back road behind it, neither of which had a sidewalk. by that time it was dark and, not wanting to get hit by a car or fall into the ditch by trying to walk on the outside of the bridge, we decided on the back road

it probably was the better decision in the end, but the back road came with its own, uh, complications. there were far fewer street lights along the way and the journey was starting to take longer than it seemed like it should have (spoiler alert: the road was a diagonal away from the mall but we didn't fully realize it at the time). we did spot the back of the mall eventually, but it was completely blocked off by a high fence and I wasn't interested in accidentally getting electrocuted either, so we couldn't cut back unless we completely retraced our steps, which wasn't worth it at that point

the longer we walked in the endless cold dark night, the more insane I felt and the more certain I was that we were going to end up kidnapped or something. especially when we turned back onto a busier road and a car started slowing down, its headlights blinding and far to reminiscent of one of those spotlights during a chase scene in movies. there was also a randomly big rectangular hole in one of the yards me passed by, deep enough not to be able to see the bottom

anyway we made it back to the mall after around two hours of walking, breaking into fits of deranged laughter once we had reached relative safety. this time we waited and took the bus the rest of the way home, nothing else happening on the way back to campus or our dorms

it was the absolute wildest, most fever dream-like thing I've ever had happened to me. definitely falls under the is it really college if you don't almost die at least once experience. so, uh, there you go

[wastelandcth]

Father’s Day - cth

summary: calum celebrates another father’s day with his crazy family.

author’s notes: hello! welcome back to the doves! it’s been so much fun to be able to write them again, i missed them so much. 

warnings: the doves are too cute for their own good. 

masterlist || request || more doves

“Happy papa day!” Eloise squealed as she ran over to Calum, “I can’t believe you’re so old now, papa!”

“It’s not his birthday, Elly,” Charlie frowned, walking in after his four-year-old sister, “It’s just a day where we celebrate him!”

“Oh,” Eloise mumbled, looking up at her dad confused, “So you don’t have two birthdays?”

Calum chuckled, shaking his head and crouching down to pull his excited four-year-old into his arms. Eloise always loved special days like Mother’s Day, Valentine’s day, and as of recent, Father’s day. Ever since Dovey had mentioned what he’d wanted to do that day in front of the kids, Eloise hasn’t stopped asking about Calum’s special day and what he wanted to do. Every day at breakfast she’d ask Calum how many days were left until it was time to celebrate and every night when Calum was tucking her in she’d tell him about how excited she was for him. Calum, who would love every day trying to make sure his daughter always was as happy and excited for life as she’d been that day, couldn’t have asked for a better present than a whole day with his family.

“No, El,” Calum chuckled and shook his head, standing up and bouncing Eloise on his hip, “But it does mean that I get to chose what we do today!”

“What did you decide on, bub?” Dovey asked and smiled as she handed Charlie his water bottle, “Or is it a surprise like last year?” she smirked.

Calum had always gotten to pick what the family did on Father’s Day. His first holiday as a dad was spent pushing a seven-month-old in a stroller around the beach, not the brightest idea, but the sun was warm and baby Charlie had been giggly. The year before had been spent across the ocean and far from home, the Hood family hiding away in the privacy of a rental home in Sydney. Every year, Calum got to pick what he wanted to do with his family and this year had been no different. All he wanted to do was see the smile on his kids’ faces and the look of adoration on his wife’s face. The only reason he’d told Dovey his idea this time around was because they would need to pack for the kids and make sure they both had time off of work to do so.

“I was thinking we could go to the lake?” Calum grinned, looking as the two kids gasped and cheered.

They’d been to the lake plenty of times, enjoying the summer breeze and sun while the water outside the usual place they rented shone. It was the place where Calum had caught his first fish with Charlie, both of them too squeamish to do much about it besides throw it back into the water. He’d taken Dovey and Duke there years before their two kids had arrived, the snowy mountaintops hiding them away from the peering eyes of the world. And they’d even gone to the lake for Eloise’s second birthday, the giggling toddler splashing the day away by the shore as their friends and family enjoyed a barbecue in the April sunshine. Calum couldn’t think of a better place to spend a few days away, and maybe Father’s day was the perfect excuse to ditch town and hide away in their special cabin.

Dovey, who was the most amazing wife and Calum still wondered how he’d gotten so lucky, had already packed and stored their weekend bags away in the car. Her dramatic gasp and giggled that joined the children made Calum’s heart race and even if this day was all about him, he had her to thank for it. Without Dovey, he would’ve never become a father and would’ve never had two kids currently attached to his hip as he packed some snacks for their ride up to the lake. She’d changed his life the second she’d told him she was pregnant and ever since that moment, Calum Hood had never been happier to be alive. He was a father and that’s all that ever really mattered, sure he still loved the band and going out to create music, but being able to come home and see his kids was so much better. He was there for the food days where they’d both talks his ear off about school or something exciting they did with their mom and he was there for the bad days when stuffy noses and clogged ears meant he’d have one of them on his chest snoring the day away. He was a father and nothing would ever top that for him.

“Papa?” Charlie asked as he looked out at the passing scenery, “Is Duke my older brother?”

“What makes you say that, bud?” Calum asked with a chuckle, his eyes moving up to the rearview mirror to look at his son.

“Well mama always calls him your baby and he was here before me and Elly,” Charlie shrugged, patting the old dog’s head who was happily snoring away on his lap, “I think it’d be cool if he was my brother.”

“Well, then I guess he is, in a way, your brother.”

“Papa?”

“Yes, Eloise?”

“Is he my brother too?”

The questions continued for much of the journey up to the lake, each kid taking a turn to ask Calum a question and giggle at his response. That was one part of parenthood that Calum hadn’t realized would be his favorite. He rarely used to love answering questions, years of interviews with the same five questions being thrown at them making him numb, but his kids could ask him the same question all day long and he’d happily answer it to hear their giggles or the hum they gave as they thought it over. But as the sunshine high in the sky and the fresh air floated in through the open sunroof, the two kids quieted down until all they let out were quiet snores.

It wasn’t until the car pulled into the driveway of the familiar cabin that Calum had finally felt at ease. The past couple of months had been hectic and Calum was glad to finally let loose and not have to worry about anything but spending time with his family. He carried the two sleeping kids into the living room, laying them both down before helping Dovey with the bags from the car. The two of them unpacked and made a quick lunch for everyone while the kids napped and it wasn’t until the morning sun was high in the sky that they heard the snores fade and be replaced by giggles.

“Papa, can we color your hair?” Eloise asked excitedly, the toothy grin she gave Calum a weakness she knew and used often.

“What color are we thinking this time around, sweets?” Calum asked and chuckled as he helped the little one change into her favorite orange swimsuit, “Maybe pink again?”

“No! Charlie and I want green!”

“And yellow, papa!” Charlie nodded, his legs swinging off the side of the bed as Dovey slathered him with sunscreen, “And red like Uncle Ash!”

“Maybe once we get back home we can do that, yeah?” Calum chuckled and nodded, “It’ll look so cool!”

The rest of the day was spent with one another, with a lot of laughs and giggles from everyone. It was spent lounging by the lake and taking in the sun, making piles of sand into a tiny city while Eloise and Charlie fought over where the dog store would be. It was having a barbecue on the porch and drinking sweet lemonade while Calum told the kids the latest story in Luke’s new puppy adventures. If Calum could’ve imagined the perfect Father’s day, it would’ve been that day. All he needed was his wife, his two kids, Duke who’d been snoring inside all day, and the beautiful view of the lake from outside the living room. He’d been lounging on the couch, listening to Dovey retell the story of how she and Calum had met all those years ago to the two kids who’d hung on her every word.

“But now your papa and I have to clean up that bathroom that you all made a mess in,” Dovey teased, her eyes meeting Calum’s who only smirked, “Why don’t you two watch a movie with Duke, yeah?”

“Happy Father’s Day, Dove.” Dovey whispered and smiled, her lips pressing up against Calum’s as her arms pulled him in between her spread legs, “You’re an amazing daddy,” she teased.

“Yeah?” Calum chuckled and kissed her shoulder, her skin warm against his wandering lips, “Glad you think so, baby girl.”

“Mhm, of course, I do,” Dovey breathed out, her head tilting back as Calum’s lips traveled from her shoulder to her neck, “Maybe we should make you a father again.”

Calum chuckled softly and pulled Dovey’s hips closer to his, both of them groaning at the feeling of the other against them, “We both know that’s not happening anytime soon lovebug.”

“Ugh, yeah no, the thought of pushing another child out of me has me wanting to push you out of this bathroom,” Dovey teased and giggled as she squeezed Calum’s hips with her thighs.

“And on my special day?” Calum teased, smirking as his hands found their way up to the soft flesh on Dovey’s chest, giving them both a soft squeeze.

“Cal-“ Dovey whimpered out, groaning as she heard the inevitable sound of Eloise opening doors to look for them both, “She’s your kid,” she huffed and shook her head.

“Fuck, you stay right there and don’t move. I’ll be back soon.”

Soon, Dovey learned was pretty much never. 

As she walked out of the bathroom, with the pit in her stomach still burning and her thighs squeezing together to find relief, she hasn’t expected to find Calum and their two kids snoring on the couch. The sun and the dip in the cool lake had tired them out and Dovey couldn’t help but snap a picture of her family. They were crazy and sometimes things got chaotic, tears were shed and giggles were echoed throughout a home they’d built. It was chaos and love and everything Dovey could ever ask for. She pulled a blanket over the three snoring bodies, each one mimicking the other’s squishy cheeks and drooling mouth before pressing a kiss to Calum’s forehead.

“Happy Father’s day, Thomas.”

taglist: @hoodhoran @moonlightcriess @mxgyver @calpops @karajaynetoday @notlukehemmo @calumrose @devilatmydoor @lowkeyflop  @notinthesameguey @hemmo1996-5sosvevo @2fangirl4u @multistann @wiiildflowerrr @himbohood

[sineala]

Captain America: The Great Gold Steal

I wrote this up last week because I did not have access to my usual comics files but I figured I could review something that was just a book. So here is a review of the 1968 Captain America novel Captain America: The Great Gold Steal by Ted White, with an introduction by Stan Lee. I really liked it, actually! It was surprisingly good!

This novel features: Cover art of Captain America holding his shield in one hand and a very large gun in the other! A scene where the villains dramatically unmask Captain America and have absolutely no idea who he is! Captain America being extremely, extremely depressed about being in the future! Captain America dropping acid!

(I'm not kidding about the last part. In this novel there is a lot of LSD use. By Captain America. Talk about something the Comics Code wouldn't ever let you put in a comic book. Thank you, 1968.)

Faithful readers may remember that some time ago I posted reviews of Marvel prose novels from the 1970s. There was a line of prose novels featuring everyone's favorite Marvel superheroes, published by Pocket Books in the late 70s; I have reviews of the Iron Man, Captain America, and Avengers entries in the series; I liked the Iron Man one best, and I also have a Doctor Strange one I have not yet read. They're all short and action-packed paperback reads, of varying quality; the only one by anyone you might have heard of is the Avengers one, which was written by David Michelinie, who was actually writing the Avengers run at the time. That one was, um. An experience. 

(Yes, it's "prose novel" because otherwise the assumption is "graphic novel.")

Marvel still publishes prose novels now, of course, also of varying quality; some are new plots and some are straight-up novelizations of comics arcs, which I guess is useful if you want to, say, read Civil War and not look at pictures at the same time. I also have a bunch of those that I could probably review if anyone wants. But, anyway, I personally am particularly intrigued by the older Marvel prose novels, both because the stories are all original and not retellings, and also because I often prefer the characterization found in older comics. And the older prose novels of course use the then-current characterization. So reading a Marvel prose novel from 1979 is like getting to read a brand-new comic from 1979, and that's a whole lot of fun for a nerd like me. Also do you know what's not subject to the Comics Code? Prose novels. So things can happen in these that definitely could not happen in comics of the same era.

This brings me to my current prose novel, which is something else entirely. I mean, okay, not really, it's still a Marvel prose novel. But it's not part of the same line. It's actually a lot older.

Bantam Books actually published Marvel prose novels in the late 60s. Yep, a full decade earlier. They published exactly two, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they were probably not bestsellers. The first one, which I do not own and now sort of want to track down, was an Avengers novel in 1967, The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker. And then in 1968 they published the novel I am currently holding in my hands, Captain America: The Great Gold Steal by Ted White.

(I am still not sure why no one involved in titling this book thought of the word "theft.")

Judging by the back copy, it appears to be about Captain America foiling the villains' dastardly plan to steal gold from the Federal Reserve. Oh boy. Fun.

So this book is from 1968. The modern Marvel universe had kicked off just a few short years ago! Captain America was just getting his own solo book after the end of Tales of Suspense! And here's a novel about him, back when certain elements of his characterization were perhaps a little more flexible than they are today, by which I mean that the cover art -- which the internet informs me was painted by Mitchell Hooks -- is a striking full-body portrait of Captain America, head held high, shield in one hand... and a very large gun in the other. Hell, yeah. Not gonna see that in today's Cap comics, are you? It's amazing and I love it.

(Okay, you might see that in Ults. I'm pretty sure I have seen that in Ults, actually. But this is still cool.)

So the cover art is a definite plus, and apparently it's one of the few reasons anyone has ever heard of this novel. The other reason -- and the reason this is more expensive than the later novels, I assume -- is that Stan Lee's name is slapped on the cover, because he wrote an introduction. (I think I paid about $30 for this. The others were definitely under $20.)

All right. Here we go.

The first page is actually a brief summary of Steve's origin story, but not a version I was familiar with. Steve was born July 9, 1917 (yes, I was surprised too), was orphaned at a young age, and was a student at Columbia University (!) before Rebirth, which in this version is a gradual process that is also extremely body-horror. Steel tubing was inserted into the marrows of his bones. He was fed "high-protein compounds." Then they gave him a chemical that "gave him complete control over every nerve, muscle, and cell in his now-magnificent body." Sweet. Where can I get some of that?

The blurb also confirms his control over his own metabolism as well as his healing factor ("wounds would heal in half the normal time"), which is nice, because sometimes I wonder if canon even remembers the healing factor.

(I don't know why Marvel has this kink for filling people's bones with metal, though. It's not actually empty in there, guys! You need your bone marrow! How else do you want people to make new blood cells?)

The book is dedicated to "Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, without whom there would be no Captain America." Hey, Marvel, Joe Simon would like a word with you. I'm just saying.

The Stan Lee introduction is three paragraphs written in Stan Lee's, um, inimitable, distinctive and extremely florid narrative style -- if you've read any of his work, you know what I mean -- and making the point that Captain America is incredible and you will like him. If you are just discovering him for the first time, you will definitely like him. Okay. Thanks. I guess.

Oddly, the writing style here is substantially different than any of the other Marvel prose novels I've read; it doesn't immediately front-load you with exposition and a cast of colorful superheroes. It opens with a sort of James Bond spy-novel feel, running through a series of unnamed villains and bystanders, and a man who wants nothing more than to talk to Captain America but is killed before he can. Steve comes in halfway through the chapter, and he seems to be written for a reader who doesn't necessarily know who he is, and he isn't introduced as Captain America with his shield flying ahead of him to smite evildoers, or anything like that. He's just a tall, handsome blond guy who is reading a bunch of novels and is unsatisfied by all of them because all he can think of is the past. It's definitely an attitude I would expect from Steve in this era -- he is very much a Man Out Of Time here -- but it's also not how I expected the book to introduce him. You wouldn't even know he was Captain America by the end of the opening chapter, which then ends with a digression about the history of NYC subway tunnels. It's like it wants to appeal to someone who has watched a bunch of Man from UNCLE and just wants to read a cool thriller. Which is not at all what I was expecting.

By the beginning of the second chapter, of course, we discover that Steve is Captain America, as he changes into his uniform. The narration refers to him as Rogers when it's in his POV, if anyone is curious. He apparently keeps the cowl off in the mansion, because the cowl annoys him.

It was not so much that he needed to conceal his identity these days, because for all intents and purposes he had no other identity. Steve Rogers was officially dead, and had been for almost twenty years. Captain America *was* his identity. It was only when he donned the tight-fitting blue uniform with its shield chest-emblem, the red snug-fitting leather boots, and the heavy, yet pressure-sensitive red-leather gauntlets, that he began to feel real -- a complete human being.

Steve? Buddy, are you okay there? You're really not okay, are you, huh?

You see what I mean? They're really hitting the early-canon angst. Hard.

(Also it sounds like his uniform is a few sizes too small.)

We then get an expanded version of the backstory from the beginning excerpt. In this version of canon, Steve actually has an older brother, Alan, who is handsome and athletic and basically amazing, and when they are orphaned they are raised by their aunt and uncle. Steve gets TB twice as a kid, nearly dies from it, and when the stock market crashes, ends up separated from his brother and in an orphanage after his uncle loses everything.

(Honestly if I were writing this book, his brother would be the secret villain. Chekhov's Gun!)

Steve has glasses, gets bullied, is a nerd and an honor student, and studies law at Columbia because he wants to help stop fraudulent business practices and also fight organized crime. Legally, I mean. In a manner relating to law. I guess he's sort of like Daredevil. The lawyer part of Daredevil.

And then he joins Rebirth, and this is the part where I had to put the book down for several minutes, because Erskine's secret chemical, the key to making super-soldiers... is LSD.

Oh my God. You should see my face right now. My expression is, I am sure, indescribable. I'm trying not to wake the dog up laughing.

I just. Holy shit. This book is from 1968 in a way I definitely was not expecting. What the fuck, Marvel?

This project was headed by the brilliant biochemist, Dr. Erskine. His work with the endocrine system, and chemical body control, was well beyond that of his contemporaries. Only he, of all his colleagues, had fathomed the secrets of the Swiss Dr. Hoffman's 1938 discovery -- the mind-controlling LSD-25.

Let's just pause here for a few minutes and contemplate this.

I will point out that Albert Hofmann (yes, the book spelled his name wrong) didn't actually discover that LSD was a hallucinogen until 1943 when he accidentally tried it, but I am positive that 1968 here was a time when Some People were convinced LSD was a wonder drug. I'm still laughing. As far as I can tell, legal manufacturing of it stopped in 1965 so I am pretty sure that the author did not just decide to name a drug that had an ostensible legal therapeutic use, because it wouldn't have still had one by '68.

Anyway, in this version of events, Rebirth is a month-long process that involves a lot of vitamins, physical conditioning and training, and, yes, putting metal in his bones like he's the next Wolverine. They're filling his bones with stainless steel rods to make him stronger. That doesn't seem like a great idea to me, but I am also not sure about dropping acid to gain superpowers. Clearly I am not a genius scientist. Also Erskine knows what DNA is, apparently, because he's just that great. Anyway. Other than the metal, those all seem like relatively normal interventions. So far.

Now Steve has become fairly big and strong (and I guess he still has metal in his bones? this concerns me!) but they need to make him superhuman, so, yes, really, it's time to drop acid. Several pages of this book are devoted to describing Steve's acid trip. His acid trip is amazing and he discovers that he has conscious control of his entire body down to the cellular level. He can control the adrenaline in his bloodstream! He can tighten his muscle fibers! And when he's done tripping he still remembers how to do this, if not exactly on a conscious level, but he can still access the abilities. And that is how you make a super-soldier. It's LSD. Remember, kids, drugs are awesome! Do drugs!

Let's maybe take a few more minutes to think about this.

I just. I have no words. How did anyone at Marvel agree to print this?

I think for the most part superhero origin stories tend not to involve real drugs because people are generally aware that drugs they've heard of won't make you into a superhero. I guess this is what it looks like when you invoke the names of real drugs. They probably wanted something that sounded more realistic but somehow I don't think this was the best way to go. (Radiation, of course, will definitely make you into a superhero but I feel like most people have accepted that as one of the conventions of the genre.)

Anyway, after that Erskine gets killed by Nazis, of course, and Steve goes to war, and for some reason this book contains footnotes by Stan Lee himself listing the comics you can read all of this in. Just like the actual comics do!

We are introduced to Bucky, who for some reason is also from the LES in this version, although not anyone Steve knew before the war, and there is of course a description of Bucky's tragic death and Steve's subsequent icing.

They are really, really stressing the Man Out Of Time thing here:

No other man could have survived so fantastic a voyage through time. And no other man could feel so displaced by time.

He was a man twenty years in his own future. By rights, he should be nearly fifty years old -- nearly twice the age of his fellow Avengers. Yet his mind and his body were not yet thirty.

When the Avengers had brought him back to New York with them and insisted that, as an honored hero of the past, he join them, he felt a sort of melancholy homesickness for his own time and world.

We then get a few paragraphs with the usual being sad that he let Bucky down and got him killed, and also that he misses his family, and that Steve Rogers doesn't exist anymore, and that nobody is alive who remembers him, and that war is hell.

Hey, Steve, maybe the drugs you should do are antidepressants. Just a thought.

Also, this book is 118 pages and we're not out of the origin story flashback until page 34. I think there are some pacing issues here.

Actually, I lied, the flashback keeps going, but now we're up to the Avengers finding him, and I have to say that the list of things Steve finds strange about the future is kind of charming when the future is 1968. Men have long hair! Women have shorter skirts! Everyone is kind of blasé about rocket launches because there have been so many space missions now. (Oh, come on, you haven't even landed on the moon yet, 1968! You're not that blasé.) Color TV! And, excitingly, LPs! You can now listen to 36 minutes of consecutive music. (I actually don't know what previous standard he's describing that is a ten-inch record that holds six minutes a side because I don't think 45s are that big. Yeah, no, I just checked and 45s are seven inches in diameter. Hmm. Oh, never mind. He means 78 rpm, doesn't he? In my defense, the record player my family had when I was a kid didn't play those.)

The description of Steve coming into New York for the first time is definitely written by someone who knows New York, which is fun. There is generally a lot of local flavor to the setting of this book. That’s one of the best parts.

There is a brief summary of Steve's feelings about all the Avengers -- he is most impressed by Thor, which, I mean, fair, he's an actual god -- and Hank telling him all about how he can live in Tony's mansion. With Jarvis. Who Hank says is actually from Flatbush. Apparently Steve spent a lot of time at the NYPL branch at 5th and 42nd trying to catch up on history. And then of course the Avengers ditched him and gave him the Kooky Quartet, and for some reason they're not here right now either so it's just Steve being sad and alone and dealing with this mysterious dead guy. I think probably the book is also done explaining fiat currency now. This is definitely the weirdest Marvel novel I've read.

Anyway, we have now returned to what is ostensibly the actual plot. Steve shows up at the New York Federal Reserve Bank (I guess the theft is happening here and not, like, at Fort Knox) with the gold bullion that the dead guy from the beginning of the book had on him -- I think I got distracted by the LSD bit and forgot to mention that part, but the dead guy was carrying some US government gold -- because the actual plot is that villains are trying to tunnel into the bank vault and steal gold. Steve discovers this after he gets the bank manager to give him a tour. The bank manager tries to refuse, citing security concerns -- Captain America could be anyone under that mask, after all! Steve just smiles and says, "If I removed my mask, would you have any better idea of who I am?" and I guess that's a flawless argument because he gets his tour.

(I'm sorry, all I can think of is that one gif from the JLA cartoon where Lex Luthor bodyswaps with the Flash, announces that now that he's in the Flash's body he's going to discover the Flash's secret identity, then pulls off his own mask, stares at himself in the mirror, and says, "I have no idea who this is.")

Given that the theme of Steve's interior life in this novel is "Steve Rogers died twenty years ago" it seems even more sad that Steve is just walking around basically saying, yeah, well, I'm nobody. And apparently that is being reaffirmed for him by the narrative.

So Steve goes down the tunnels, takes out some of the bad guys, and gets himself knocked out and buried in a collapsing tunnel. Don't worry, he's gonna be fine.

A lot of this book, by the way, is from the POV of random people, like this bank guard who went with Steve into the tunnels:

He had wondered, briefly, if a man like Captain America ever knew the pinch of too many bills, had ever felt desperate over the arrival of yet another mouth to feed. But, of course, Captain America had no family, and would hardly concern himself with such matters. It didn't occur to Thompson to wonder if this in itself might not be something for which to pity Captain America.

Rude. I mean, come on, do we really need random characters telling us Steve is a sad sack whom nobody loves? Steve's already got that covered!  (Also, how does this guy know Captain America has no family?)

Anyway, thanks to the power of LSD, Steve is going into a trance, amping up his metabolism (he loses "several pounds" in a few minutes), and making himself super-strong so he can dig himself out. Hooray. This is definitely how human bodies work. Also LSD. This is definitely how LSD works. Yes.

Steve then finds out that a couple of the guards who were with him in the tunnels died down there and he goes home and eats dinner while stewing in miserable guilt because he was responsible for their deaths. He's really not okay. I'm not sure the book actually understands how not okay they have made him. Then someone from SHIELD is on the phone for him and he is briefly cheered up by the thought that it might be Sharon although I think we should also note that the narrative makes it clear that at this point in canon Steve still doesn't know her name. Remember when that was a thing?

Alas, it is not Sharon; it's just a random SHIELD agent who happens to have information about the plot and asks to meet. Then, as Steve leaves to go to the meeting, we get two pages of exhaustive description about the mansion layout and how it's built relative to the surrounding buildings. It feels like this book was written by a frustrated city planner. But anyway, the meeting is a setup and the villains capture Steve.

They knock Steve out, drug him, take him to their hideout, and tie him to a chair. Except, once again thanks to the power of LSD, the tranquilizer they're using wears off way sooner than they expected and so Steve feigns unconsciousness and listens to them discuss their evil plans.

And then the villains unmask him and I swear it's exactly like that JLA gif:

Rogers heard footsteps scuffing across a thick carpet, and then Sparrow's voice again, almost directly over him. His ears still buzzed, but he fought to catch the elusive familiarity of the man's tone. He wished he dared open his eyes.

"This is a moment which I, personally, have long awaited," Sparrow said, his voice rising in triumph. "*The unmasking of Captain America!*"

Then, his nails scraping along Rogers' face, Sparrow dug his fingers under his cowl, and ripped it back. Rogers felt air strike his exposed cheeks and forehead. Then fingers clutched his blond hair and pulled his head back. "Behold!" Sparrow said.

Raven was first to speak. "Well, I dunno about you, Sparrow, but it rings no bells with me. I never seen him before."

Starling agreed. "His face means nothing to me."

"He could be anybody," said Robin. "What good does this do?"

Sparrow let Rogers' head fall back to his chest, and his voice when he spoke was defeated. "I don't know. Nothing, I guess. I always wondered. I felt, if these guys -- these costumed heroes -- wore masks, it must mean something."

"Captain America was missing for twenty years," Starling said. "That could mean the first one died, and this one took his place. He looks awfully young."

"Perhaps. It doesn't really matter. Let's get going."

(Yes, the villains all have bird-themed codenames. I have no idea why.)

This scene just makes my day. I love dramatic unmaskings. I bet they'd have been a lot happier unmasking Iron Man.

The villains then leave Steve and go to a power plant, where we switch POVs to one of the plant employees and get two entirely unnecessary paragraphs about his racist and anti-Semitic thoughts about his coworkers before the villains murder him. Great. Thanks.

Anyway, the villains cause a blackout, while meanwhile they've left Steve alone with the girl villain, and Steve is busy trying to persuade her that crime doesn't pay. He's moved from the "do you know what they'll do to you in prison?" theme onto "how exactly are you going to spend a billion dollars in gold bullion when it's illegal for civilians to possess? who are you going to do business with?" and then points out that gold is heavy and hard to transport, which is when she gets out a a knife.

The bad guys are off to steal the gold, and Steve has now successfully turned the girl they left him with, because she frees him. Of course, the first thing he does is put the cowl back on.

"Why do you wear that?" she asked.

"The mask?" He smiled. "It gives people something external to concentrate upon."

"But..."

"Without it, I'm just another ordinary-looking man. With it, I become a symbol. For some people it creates awe; for others, fear. Look at me. I'm different now, aren't I? With the mask on."

"Yes," she nodded. "You look -- bigger, somehow. Stronger. Fierce, implacable. You look a little scary."

"Exactly. You no longer see me as a person, but as a thing -- an Avenger. It can be a potent psychological weapon."

"They were so disappointed, when they took your mask off. As though underneath they'd find a famous person."

"Maybe that goes on TV -- handsome playboys, and all that. But I've been anonymous all my life. Even my real name would be meaningless to you, to them. No, the mask is part of the uniform, a psychological device. That's the whole story.

Now: let's get out of here. You have a good deal more to tell me yet, and we can't waste more time."

Bwahaha. In a few years, Steve's going to be pretty surprised about who superheroes are, I think.

STEVE, now: Superheroes definitely aren't secretly handsome playboys! That would be silly! STEVE, after Molecule Man: fuck fuck fuck FUCK FUCK I'm such an idiot

I'm definitely looking forward to that.

Also, not that the issue of Steve's psyche actually recurs after this, but he's once again having the narrative vindicate his belief that Steve Rogers is dead and whoever he is under the cowl doesn't matter. Steve, I don't think this is very healthy.

Steve then tracks down the villains stealing the gold, has some geopolitical thoughts about where the gold could be going (he thinks either South Africa or Russia for the best laundering potential) and then hides himself in the villains' trunk while they drive to Staten Island, which is where they're taking the gold out of the country from.

During the final confrontation, Steve finally gets to see the villains, and he discovers that the one in charge is in fact the director of the Federal Reserve Bank who Steve met at the beginning of this book. Gasp. But that's not all! He's also... the Red Skull!

Honestly, I was kind of surprised; I didn't think this was the kind of book where we'd get any known comic villains, but I guess it's always gotta be the Red Skull. I think he's the only one of Steve's big villains who likes to disguise himself; Zemo has obvious disguise issues and I imagine it's also hard to cover up Zola's Teletubby-esque television body.

Steve shoots one of the villains, because I guess that's what he does in this era of canon.

So the plot wraps up in, like, two pages, because for some reason all these early Marvel novels wrap up very fast. Red Skull, of course, attempts to escape and then disappears and his body is never found. The end.

Well.

That was definitely a book. That I read. Believe it or not, I actually think it was the best of these early Marvel prose novels that I've read so far, even if it was also the absolute weirdest; I thought the thriller-style plot was entertaining, I liked Steve and his Extremely Sad characterization, I obviously enjoy all the identity themes, I liked how very detailed the New York setting was, and I do like how they tried to treat it all seriously. I mean, sure, this did lead to LSD in the super-soldier serum in presumably the name of realism, but I felt like the book was trying to present superheroes in a way that didn't feel silly and also didn't really take for granted that the reader would automatically accept superheroes.

It felt like a book that was written hoping that people who weren't superhero fans would read it, if that makes any sense. And I thought that was interesting, because most modern superhero work that I can think of assumes they've got complete audience buy-in and everyone is willing to suspend their disbelief and we all know the genre conventions and are expecting people running around in brightly-colored spandex. Whereas this is more like a James Bond novel if for some reason James Bond were called upon to defend his decision to wear brightly-colored spandex instead of bespoke suits. But I assume no one read it, because Bantam never published a Marvel book after this one.

If you can actually find a copy of this one for a price you're willing to pay. I recommend it. It was delightful and way more solid than I thought it was going to be.

Also, come on, you know you want to read about Captain America's acid trip.

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 142

Another late chapter... I’m really batting a thousand lately, seems like.

So, work has been insane, but @baelpenrose reminds me to post when I forget, thankfully. And this is SUCH a fun chapter.  I hope you all enjoy!

I dropped into a seat in Mess Hall Seven with a groan, so exhausted that I barely managed to get soup and a grilled cheese from the console.  Tyche yawned and nodded in agreement before poking at her sushi bowl idly. It was six Von-days after the last drill, and between coordinating increased training schedules for Shelters Three and Seven and helping Charly plan kink-night at the Undine, we were wiped.

“People are ungrateful,” she muttered before managing to barely balance a piece of salmon into her mouth.

I muttered something that hopefully sounded like agreement before I scooped up a bite of my soup with one wedge of sandwich, too lazy to even bother with the spoon. “Remind me why we don’t have Vati and Hannah handling the practice schedules?”

“Because they are handling the extra evacuation drills with Jokul and Arthur.”

Personally, I thought they were getting the better end of this deal, but since the raging success of their first Food Festival, it really was only fair. “And the relocations for those who need it,” I admitted. “Except mine.”

“Conor may actually strangle one of them if any of your plants don’t make it,” she pointed out, gesturing with her chopsticks for emphasis after having given up and using her fingers to eat her lunch. “Not to mention I wouldn’t wish packing with Maverick on anyone.”

“He’s letting me pack the books and textiles.” I shrugged in acceptance after taking another bite of soup-dipped sandwich.

We picked at our food in silence after that, grateful for something resembling a reprieve, before we were interrupted by a flurry of grey hair and enthusiasm landing in one of the nearby chairs with a heavy thunk. “Good afternoon, Madams Reid.”

“Hey, Jokul,” I muttered as Tyche just waggled her fingers at him. I really think I liked it better when he was trying to kill me. Right now, I might even let him do it.

“I know you are both on your meal period, but I wanted to test the waters on potentially scheduling a community activity,” he rushed out.

Tyche guarded her lunch with an almost feral aggression, having heard what happened the last time Jokul had interrupted my lunch. “That should really be something you run by Al-”

“Worthington, yes, I know,” he interrupted. “However, I know you are both quite busy and I wanted to be respectful of your time. As such, I will make this as brief as - ow!” He snatched his hand back away from the other half of my sandwich, rubbing where I had slammed my spoon down onto it.

“I have no idea where the food stealing comes from, but don’t,” I warned him.

“Rude, got it,” he nodded in a terrifying impression of Charly’s normal demeanor. “As I was saying, I recently learned a new type of game from Terra, from the Before.  It involves teamwork, and encourages creativity and escapism, and I think it would be a very good community activity - “

I surrendered to my urge to groan. “We are not doing a redux of Settlers of Cattan. Arthur stabbed someone last time.”

“I didn’t press charges…” Jokul pouted, glancing at the scar on the back of his wrist briefly. “Besides, it was only a fork. Clearly he didn’t mean it, there were four knives in arms reach counting my own.”

Tyche cocked an eyebrow at me. Seriously?

I pursed my lips and wrinkled my nose in response. Yep.

“So what game is it this time?” I asked hesitantly.

I was reward-bombarded with a grin. “It’s called Dungeons and Dragons! Somewhat like a video game, but with more people, and using writing implements and paper. Oh, and different kinds of dice, very important. One person is something of the narrator, to give the game a kind of structure, while the other players act as characters in the game… Ivan introduced me to it, and it is quite challenging with the right people.  The dungeon master - that is the narrator - has to re-evaluate the story based on the actions of the other players, but the players themselves don’t know what the dungeon master is going to do. It is very much a social diversion, and there are many classes….”

As Jokul continued to gush, he was rather oblivious to the fact that Tyche and I were stuffing our faces as quickly as possible to avoid interrupting him or laughing. We had both played when we were younger - in fact, we had been introduced to the game by our mother.  There had even been a very overwhelming pop-culture movement in our youth around the game, which further emphasized just how far out in the boonies Jokul had grown up.  As shocking as it was that he was just now discovering the game, it came at exactly zero surprise that he enjoyed it so much - it was right up his alley of interests.

About fifteen minutes and two more grilled cheeses into his retelling of the campaign he was part of, Charly and Arthur squeezed in with us, their own lunches in tow.  As seemed to be a growing trend, Arthur reached over and snagged one of my sandwiches before I could react, shoving half of it in his face.

That was apparently enough to snap Jokul out of his story. “Hey! Why didn’t you hit him?”

“His deathwish, not my problem,” I shrugged.

Around the remains of my lunch, Arthur managed to enunciate. “Told you, Noah fissed the dairy allergy.”

“Bleargh,” I gagged comically. “It’s okay, think I’m done anyway.”

Jokul’s hand swatted Arthur’s out of the way to steal the rest of my food. “As I was saying, Ivan was quite clever with his resolution to deal subdural damage to the player who was very much ruining the storyline by insisting his character was immune to magical sleep…”

“Oooooo! I love tabletops!” Charly squealed, bouncing in her seat. “What setting are you playing in right now?  My favorite was always Exalted…”

“Miss Harper, I think we are discussing different activities.” Jokul sounded supremely confused, but my heart broke a bit.

Arthur shook his head. “Maybe not Exalted, but what about Ebberron? Swordhaven, maybe?  Just tell me it isn’t Ravenloft… I know you haven’t been fucking around in a Dark Sun, but I beg you to tell me you aren’t playing Ravenloft.”

“I’m not sure what those are… Ivan introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons. There is only one setting.”

“So… Greyhawk or homebrew,” Arthur nodded. “Best place to start, get the basics down.”

Jokul’s head pivoted toward me and Tyche, squinting in annoyance. “You knew, didn’t you? And you let me prattle on…”

“You were so… happy….” I explained plaintively. “We didn’t want to ruin that for you.”

Tyche nodded. “We both remember how fun that first campaign is. And honestly? We’ve been having a kind of crappy day.  It was nice to hear someone be excited about something that isn’t work related.”

“But I came to you to discuss making it a ship activity…”

“Originally, yeah,” I shrugged. “That was maybe the first thirty seconds.  After that, you were doing what literally every tabletop roleplaying person has done since the beginning of time… telling stories about the fun, dramatic, and frankly stupid shit the people in your party are doing.”

“Says the two-foot eight halfling rogue,” Arthur scowled.

“I rolled it at random, it was fifteen years ago, get over it!” I threw my hands up dramatically. “At least I wasn’t mated to a frickin’ deity.”

Charly giggled uncontrollably while Jokul goggled at us. “Exalted is broken in all the fun ways.”

“You literally sacrificed, and I quote ‘all of your fucks to give’, for necromancy.”

“That was your idea!”

Jokul turned toward Tyche, waiting for her to say something. She just held up her hands defensively. “I was a murder monk-bunny.”

Arthur snorted. “You were the Black Rabbit of Inle….”

“Well if my wife would have just stopped dying…!”

“At least none of us were the Platinum Knight who pissed his pants every time he confronted his favored enemy,” I laughed. “He never did live that one down. Every. Single. Dragon. He would crit fail his roles.”

“Oh, please,” Arthur intoned drily. “Did I ever tell you about the time one of my players managed to make ‘Notice me, Senpai’ into the most terrifying in-universe warcry imaginable?”

Charly choked before swatting his shoulder. “Not in front of my pasta. Please.”

Jokul, however, looked both horrified and intrigued, egging Arthur on. “Barbarian whose entire clan worshipped a god named The Senpai…. Just imagine, a barbarian in a rage, bellowing ‘NOTICE ME, SENPAI!!!’ before just scything down thirty men with a broadsword.”

At this point, I was laughing so hard that tears were rolling down my face. “Please, please tell me there was a kilt and pigtails involved….”

Jokul touched his own hair, before straightening as seriously as possible. “They are warrior’s braids, Councillor.”

That was it, I couldn’t take it anymore. I just put my head down on my folded arms and waiting to either pass out from laughing so hard or from exhaustion.  A few deep breaths and a spinning head later, I managed to wipe my face on my sleeve and realized the conversation was continuing without me.  Just as I was clearing my throat to let Jokul know he should be fine to start organizing something and to send me a rough outline, Arthur dealt the final blow.

Leaning over, he whispered over my shoulder. “By the way, the barbarian’s name was Drystan of the Doki-doki tribe.”

I was proud that I managed to get up and dash into the hallway before collapsing against the wall in maniacal laughter.  I barely registered Hannah’s voice behind me asking everyone at the table if I needed medical assistance, and that did not help.

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[ellana-ravenwood]

“It’s Alfred dayyyy” - Batfam x Fem!Reader

Synopsis : Every year, every single year, your family reunites to celebrate the marvel that Alfred Pennyworth is.

Because Alfred does deserve his own “holiday” really. This has been sitting in my draft for almost two years, someone send me an ask that reminded me of it and I just suddenly really wanted to write it. I hope you’ll like it : 

my master list : @ella-ravenwood-archives

__________________________________________________

Midnight, a new day :

“And we will be waiting for you at 8 am, your mom and I forced him to sleep in, but we all know he will be awake by that time anyway.”

“Ok, I’ll pick Jaybird on my way there.” 

“Jason is coming ?” 

“He said he would.”

“Oh. Good.” 

Dick did his hardest not to roll his eyes. “Oh. Good.” he says, as if the news didn’t make him wanna jump in joy. But of course, the Batman has a reputation to keep, if he showed too much emotions in one sitting, he’d probably explode. 

The truth was that if Jason was coming...Well if Jason was coming, it meant they were finally on the road to forgiveness. And Dick knew that Bruce had been waiting a long time for this. Bruce...and everyone else really. 

Especially you and Alfred. 

“In any case, be there by 8. We’ll do the usual. Now that I think of it, could you maybe pick up his cake at West Side’s bakery ? Your mother was going to do it, but if you pick up Jason...I think he lives in the area ?” 

Of course, Bruce knew exactly that Jason indeed lived not far from Alfred’s favorite bakery. Because he was keeping an eye on him. Not out of mistrust, or thinking he would kill again (he promised his mom, you, he would stop, but the promise was still recent, so was his return), but because...Well, it was his boy. 

Ever since Bruce adopted Dick, he never stopped worrying about his kids. He never stopped trying to keep an eye on them. It got even worst after Jason’s death...He was actually overbearing many times, which lead Dick away more than once. 

But he’d always be back. 

Just like Jason, eventually, would be fully back. 

For the moment, it was enough that he’d come by tomorrow. 

For tomorrow was the one and only...”Alfred day”. 

“Yeah sure, we can pick the cake up.” 

“Alright. Well. I’m going home, and you lot should too. We promised Alfred, after all. An entire day without any vigilante’s business. Unless there’s an emergency of course. Good night.” 

“’Night dad.” 

Bruce turns to his youngest kids, expecting them to follow him, but Damian says : 

“We’re right behind you, we’re just gonna hang out with Grayson a little more. Since he moved to Blüdhaven, we almost never see him...”

“Guiltripping me will not work little brother.” 

“Are you sure ?” 

Silence. And then Dick turns to his father : 

“I’ll get them home soon, we’re gonna go get some ice cream.” 

Bruce smiles, of this small genuine smile he only has when around his children. He nods, tell them not to stay out too late, and leaves, on his way back to you. 

12:30 pm, Batcave.

“You are late, Master Bruce.”

“Only by half an hour. I had to see Dick before coming back. Logistic talk.” 

As he speaks, Bruce takes his armor off, stretching a little after this short night full of not much happening. As if every villain in Gotham knew this day was happening, and they too would give a break to the butler (because if Bruce was resting, then Alfred could rest too). 

“Well it means you’ll have to start half an hour late tomorrow, this is the deal. Where are the children ?” 

“Alright. I will. And they’re getting ice cream with Dick. Now please, go to bed before she catches you up.” 

“Lady (Y/N) will understand that I was making sure you are home on time.” 

“She does understand yes, and she’s also telling you to go rest this instant ! You have slept even less than Bruce this past few days for god’s sake !” 

Both Bruce and Alfred jumps a bit as you enter the bat cave, smiling at them. Alfred raises his hands in a sign of peace, smiles at you, gives you a kiss goodnight on your forehead (a nightly tradition, by now...you never had a dad, and Alfred took it upon him to catch up lost time), and leaves. 

You turn to Bruce, and gives him your hand. 

He takes it gladly, a smile on his lips. The kind he only shows when around those he loves... 

A “glad you’re here” kiss, and a few words : 

“You know, my favorite thing about this day is that you’re home all day long, and I don’t have to miss you...” 

As usual, your words grip his heart, and his arms tighten around you. Even after years of being together, you could always make his pulse race with only a few words. Sometimes just a look...

He doesn’t resist or look back, when you give his hand a pull and leave the bat cave. 

Rare were the occasions Bruce would forget about his vigilante work. In fact, only one day a year, would he completely forget about it. Because he promised. And because it was a special day. 

A day to celebrate the man he came to view as his father. 

Alfred day. 

1 am, in “Giovanni’s 24/7 gelato” shop. 

The waiter of the place didn't even blink, as he served ice creams to a bunch of kids at 1 am, in the heart of Gotham. Used to it really. Nothing in this city was like any other place. Most people were night dwellers, even children.

Probably because, thanks to a certain group of vigilante, they all felt safer when the sun was down. 

“So, how did it start exactly, this Alfred day ?” 

Duke asks, after taking a full scoop of his favorite ice cream, curtesy of a certain Dick grayson. 

You had told Duke, about a week prior to it, that he had to clear his schedule for this particular day but didn’t really explain what it was exactly. Just that it was to celebrate Alfred. Not giving much more context. 

Dick smiles, and say : 

“How did it start ? Haha, oh man, it’s quite the story.” 

With an annoyed sigh, Damian says : 

“Just out with it already Grayson, we know, you were the only one that knew them by then blahblahblah.” 

“Do I sense a hint of jealousy, little bird ?” 

Damian doesn’t answer, but plants his spoon a little bit more aggressively in his gelato. Ah yes, maybe he was a tiny bit jealous that Dick had the luck to have their parents all for himself, once upon a time...Maybe. 

“Well anyway, legend has it that mom chose the date.”

Dick takes a dramatic pause, making the siblings who already heard the story (so everyone but Duke) roll their eyes. Their oldest brother had a flair for dramatic retelling of past events. 

“A long long time ago, on this day, when I was only 8 and just came into the family, they got into a bad fight. When I was little, before Jason came in, they got on the verge of breaking up a few times. Even did really broke up once, worst fucking time of my life, feeling like I was losing another family (A/N : referencing this story : The break-up)...”

A shot pause, this time, not for dramatics, but because the memory was genuinely painful and Dick had to take a short break. He continues : 

“So anyway, on this day, a long time ago, Mom discovered how vital Alfred was to this family. She said it’d been a day where she wanted to literally kill our father because he was so damn annoying, and overly brooding, and stupid – her words not mine- and that Alfred calmed her in just a few words. I don’t quite know what he told her, or what he told dad. All I know is that he told me that he wouldn’t let them break-up again over a stupid fight, and um, next thing I know, I’m avoiding the East wing for a few hours.” 

“Oh...Oh no Dick gross !” 

Dick chuckles, enjoying a bit too much messing with his little siblings. 

“Anyway, mom decided that Alfred deserved a day, in the year, where we would do everything HE wants because without him, our family would crumble. It just sort of became a tradition. So from midnight right now, to midnight of next day, no vigilante business. And we spend the day all together with him.” 

“That’s actually...a really sweet story ?” 

“It really is Dukie, it really is.”

“Dukie ?”

“Ah sorry, you’re part of the family now, which earns you a nickname from me. Jaybird. Timbo. Dami. Cass or Cassie if I feel like being a particularly doting older brother. So...had to find one for you. It was between Dukie and Dukester so-”

“Dukie is fine.”

Everyone snickers as Duke rolls his eyes, and then he asks : 

“So...What exactly are we gonna do ?” 

“Oh, well it’s simple. It starts at 8 am when we arrive, and we kick off with...”

4 am, Alfred’s bedroom. 

You open the door to Alfred’s room quietly, as you would sometimes to make sure your children sleep. 

This time, you were checking to see if the butler did really go to bed. One of the point of Alfred day, was that he had to feel perfectly fine, and he never had a full night rest ! 

So if you had to make sure he did during that time, then you would. 

Your children had came home a few hours ago, happy they had some time with their oldest brother. Dick had been away often lately, and they missed him...You knew they were gonna guilt trip him into buying them a snack. 

You and Bruce had had some alone time before they came home, that you definitely took advantage of...But for now, you escaped your husbands grip to come and check on Alfred, making sure he was sound asleep. 

And he was. Good. Perfect. He’d have a good night sleep. A full night of sleep. 

Quietly, you left the room again, unaware that a smile slowly rose on the Butler’s face... 

8:02 am, Alfred Day : 

Bruce is the one that opens the front door for them. They have their own keys, of course...but they both forgot them, as usual. 

They’d normally just climb through a window, or sneak into the backyard, knowing where all the security devices were (the back door was never closed because of this), but decided that for this day, they’d just ring the bell and come in the right way. 

Without much surprise, Bruce answers the door. It’d either be him or you, during Alfred’s day. Or anyone that wasn’t Alfred really. 

Dick and Jason move to remove their shoes (house rules, NO SHOES inside) and coats, while Bruce looks at them, waiting for them so they can all walk back to the kitchen. 

Jason is the fastest, and there’s this embarrassed silence between the three of them. Bruce smiles awkwardly at Jason, who looks away as soon as their eyes meet. With a “tt” very typical of his little brother, Jason says : 

“Don’t misunderstand this, I’m here for Alfred. And...For mom.”

“I know.” 

“Good.” 

“Yes.”

Silence. Awkward, as Dick takes way too long to untie his shoes, and pretend he’s not hearing anything.

Bruce knows what he’s doing. He knows his oldest son is trying to give him some more time “alone” with Jason. But he’s not really sure what to say...

“I’m um...I’m glad you came.” 

Good. That was good. Keep going on that path Bruce, that’s actually-

“Yeah, whatever. I’m going ahead, you know the way Dick.” 

Damn. Almost there. Almost there with an actual moment between them two. Dick sighs, and puts a hand on his father’s shoulder. 

“He’ll come around.” 

Bruce doesn’t answer, he exhales slowly and nods, not very convinced...But today was not a day to dwell on the bad. Jason and him would make this work, if only for today. 

Because today was Alfred’s day.

8h30 am, the Kitchen. 

The butler came down in the kitchen, well rested and pleased to be greeted by his entire family. Your smiles already made his day perfect, and if “Alfred Day” was done in this instant, he’d still be happy. 

��Sit down Pennyworth, we have made breakfast for you ! Well...Mom and father did...but we helped ! I was in charge of making tea ! And I think you will appreciate the way I brewed it. I followed an ancient Japanese recipe, and I reckon an aficionado like yourself will appreciate it.” 

Damian bloomed when he was with his family. To people who didn’t know him as well as his siblings and parents, he could seem like a petulant and arrogant child, but he was the opposite of that. 

He was insecure, and unsure. Scared of being left alone. And so to overcompensate all the fear instilled in him by years of abuse from his “grandfather”, the infamous Ras Al’Ghul, Damian could be quite a little jerk sometimes. 

But when he was with his family...He opened up. He smiled. And he spend hours trying to brew the perfect cup of tea for the grandfather he actually chose to have. 

“Bruce made your favorite Alf’, didn’t do half a bad job either -you smile at your husband, and give him a quick peck, which have the famous result of making your children make their best “ew” face-. You taught him well.” 

You say, smiling widely at the butler.

It’s true, Alfred did teach Bruce how to cook really well. People often had the misconception the billionaire was bad at housework, which was wrong of course. 

When his parents were alive, they’d insist he still had chores to do, so he wouldn’t be too spoiled. And when Alfred raised him, he taught him as much as he could so that the boy could hold his own. 

Bruce was a great cook (you could definitely attest to that, what with him cooking your favorite meals on date nights and all). And he always made Alfred’s perfect breakfast for his special day. 

“Jason and I just arrived so we didn’t really participate, but we picked up your favorite cake so it counts right ?” 

Dick says, a wide smile on his face. Oh master Dick, Alfred blessed the day this little boy walked in their lives. 

He wasn’t so little anymore, but he was always such a joy to have over. Even when he had his tantrum as a youngster (and now sometimes too, although he became better in controlling his burst of anger), Alfred couldn't help but love that child. 

The butler turned to Jason, who shyly smiled at him and...Alfred’s heart was full. 

“I am very happy to see you in this house, Master Jason.” 

He said, as he sits around the kitchen table. Jason’s cheek tints slightly of red, as they always do when he’s a bit embarrassed and overwhelmed. 

Jason was such a kind and sensitive child. He never quite got used to compliments, having been used to abuse and hate, and he would always blush under them. Alfred was glad to see that, even after the horror Jason went through, small things could still make his cheek turn rosy...

Jason sat down at the table, looking happier than he had in ages. 

“For you.” 

Cassandra said, settling in front of him a plate full of food, while Damian put the the cup of tea down. 

Sweet little Cassandra. It was always a pleasure to hear her talk. Poor little thing was never taught love, or even how to talk...Having you in her life greatly helped. Having a family, greatly helped. 

She still didn’t talk very often, but when she did, all of her words truly counted. She laid a small kiss on Alfred’s forehead, to bid him good morning, and went to sit in her usual spot, right between you and Damian. 

“You will be happy to know, Alfred, that all of our electronic devices have been off since midnight last night ! Yes, even mine. Promise !” 

Tim exclaims, smiling at him. 

Tim was the only one out of all of Bruce’s children to have entered this life willingly. The only one that came knocking at their door, just really wanting to help. 

Unfortunately, him too lost his parents over time (although they weren’t particularly great ones)...But the first impulse the boy had, was that he just loved Batman and wanted to give a hand ! 

Tim was selfless, maybe a little too much, and often worried you to death. He would get wrapped up in his projects even more than his father, and needed a constant reminder to take care of himself...task that you, Bruce, Alfred and his siblings would share gladly. He would give back anyway, working his ass off and putting his own life on the line for them any hour of the day... 

At the furthest side of the table from him, sat Duke. 

This was his first “Alfred Day”, and he was looking at things curiously, nonetheless happy to be here. 

Young Duke’s situation was a little special. His parents were still alive, and he still hoped they’d find a cure for their madness. Because of this, the boy would often distance himself on purpose from some family events, finding it hard to find his own place. 

This was one reason he didn’t wear the Robin mantel for long, and almost immediately went to be The Signal. It didn’t help either, that he was the only metahuman. 

And yet...Yet as the days went by, Duke felt more and more at home at the Manor, and would more and more hang out with everyone. More and more felt like he was truly part of the family, now. 

Of course, him moving to Wayne Manor was all very recent, and he needed time. Time that everyone was giving him willingly and gladly. Time to adjust and find his place. 

But here, sitting around the kitchen table bustling with activity and laughter, Duke felt like...he felt like this Alfred Day brought him one step closer to truly be a part of it all. After all, to him too, the butler had been nothing but great. 

Alfred had that talent, to congregate everyone around him... 

You felt happy, there, sitting amongst your children, your love, and the man you came to consider your father. 

Alfred had a good feeling, when he first met you. He knew. He knew you’d be the one to “tame” the bat, to not take his shit when he was being a jerk, and to give him unconditional love. 

“Unconditional”. 

It was important, to be in a relationship with a man like Bruce Wayne. 

But oh. Oh he was giving you back every bits of love you ever gave him, times a hundred. He let you in in his world, and had no intention of ever letting you go. 

Breakfast went by fast, as everyone talked away, and enjoyed each others company. 

It was very rare, nowadays, that everyone could be in the same place. At least one of them would be busy normally. But on this day...on this day they surely made sure they would be free. 

And so here they were, having breakfast altogether, happy. 

If only people from the outside could see this scene; If only. 

Then they’d know, just like Alfred knew, that this family was the strongest, tightest that ever existed, and that there was nothing but love between all of them. 

************

11 am, the theater.

Before the first “Alfred Day” happened, Wayne Manor did not have a “theater”. 

It had a “Ballroom number 3″. 

It was your idea, to turn it into a small theater, so that Alfred could perform for everyone. 

Over the years, you had realized that Alfred was actually a very talented actor. After all, he filled in Batman’s shoes many times, to pretend that Bruce couldn’t possibly be him. And he might’ve use his dramatic talent to convince you and the rest of your family to do what he wanted you to do...

Clever man. 

On Alfred Day, the first activity, after breakfast, would be to take part in a monologue of his. Usually shakespearian. But sometimes he’d come up with small surprises. He once recited the “heaven” part of the Divine Comedy by Dante, because he knew you loved that poem. 

It was absolutely brilliant, and you almost wished he had pursued an acting career instead of becoming the Wayne’s butler...but then, you would’ve never met him. 

By 11 am, breakfast would usually be done and it was time for a performance of a year. By that time, Barbara and Stephanie would’ve join. 

They didn’t live in the Manor, but they were close friend of the family. Friends that definitely knew how precious Alfred was to everyone. 

This year, Alfred decided to entertain you with a series of short monologues taken from a wide array of material, from Shakespeare to movies. It was fascinating. They all had their snacks as if they were at the movie theater, and were captivated by his performance. 

For Alfred, it was a way to relive his youth, working in London’s east end’s theaters. And to perform his hobby in front of a live audience. 

So sure, maybe said live audience might’ve been a bit biased towards him, but he knew their applause and praises were genuine. 

************

1 pm, East Wing living room. 

Lunch was always skipped, as you snacked too much during Alfred’s performance, and he was never hungry after he acted. 

You’d directly skipped to Alfred’s compliment session. 

He both loved and hated this time. Loved it because it was a treat to see he positively impacted his family. Hated it because it was never comfortable to just hear people compliment you The moment they gave him a cherished memory they shared with him...

Each year, one by one, they would tell him something he did for them that really was important to them. 

It was custom that the youngest would start. So Damian stood up, and said : 

“My memory this year, is one that happened not long after I came to live in Wayne Manor. I had just gotten into a fight with Tim, and been mean to mom as she tried to talk to me about it...I felt terrible. I felt like I would never be someone good. Pennyworth came in my room, ignoring me when I told him to get away from me. He settled some cookies for me, and told me a story of my father when he was young. Of how stubborn he used to be, and how sometimes, he’d say very hurtful things he didn’t mean...Alfred explained to me that it was normal to feel angry, when we’re hurt. That it was ok to not always be on our best behavior. That the people who love us will understand, and do understand. That they’ll still be there if they really care. Then he left, and I went to apologize to my mom. And she was there. I also apologized to Tim, and him too, was there...”

Damian sat back down, avoiding everyone’s eyes, as he felt too overwhelmed with feelings. You threw an arm around his shoulder, and he instantly hid his face in your own shoulder, acting like a little scared kitten who’d hide under his mom. 

It melted everyone’s heart, but nobody would say anything of course. This was between Damian and Alfred. 

It was Duke’s turn, and he was a little nervous, as it was his first time : 

“Mine is...Well...It’s going to sound so silly, after Damian’s heartfelt story, but one of my best memory with you Alfred, is when I first put The Signal mantel, and immediately hurt myself that night. I came back to the bat cave early, feeling shameful I couldn’t finish my patrol. You took care of my wound, and simply reassured me. It was just...soothing. I didn’t feel bad, as you stitched me up and calmed me down. I felt at peace, for the first time since my parents went mad...I can’t quite remember what you told me, as you just talked about random things, to calm me down. And it worked. As silly as it can sound, it worked. And that’s um...That’s when I started to feel good, here. Ok. That’s all.” 

Duke sat back down too, hoping Tim would start speaking soon. Thankfully, he did. 

“The memory I chose to share today, is one that is rather recent. I was struggling with some...self-worth issues. I felt like I could never fill dad’s shoes. Or Dick’s. Or Jason’s. Or anyone’s. I felt like I was trash. Like I was wasting away. I felt anxiety eating me up, and I was too scared to talk to anyone about it. Even to you, mom. I knew you’d find the right words, but I was just too scared you’d be worried about me. I know you worry a lot. So I didn’t say anything. Alfred walked in on me having a panic attack...and he helped me fight it. Then he scolded me because I didn’t tell anyone anything, and that it was a bad habit to always take all the burden on my shoulders. He then brewed me some tea, and talked about my favorite TV show with me to take my mind off of things...” 

Tim smiled at Alfred, and sat down. You reached for him, and squeezed his hand, making him understand you too, were there. And you worried about all of them all the time anyway so, ya know.

It was Cass’ turn now. Cass always had some interactive things, because she never spoke too long. She held up some drawings she had made (with the help of Damian). It represented her at a ballet recital (to which you all went by the way, and which was amazing. Cass was a talented little star). She gave the small comics to Alfred, took a deep breath, and said : 

“Thank you for helping me work on my dance, even when you were busy. You are a good teacher. For everything, from dance to how to make a perfect loaf of bread. I love your bread. I love your dance lesson. I love eating bread after our lessons. I love you more than bread. Even the sandwiches mom make with your bread and my favorite homemade jam.” 

She then did a few ballet dance move, and sat down again, holding her knees with her arms, and breathing deeply. It was still a difficult exercice for her, to speak. And to convey her feelings through words. It was always difficult, and quite an exploit that she said that much. 

Alfred smiled at her, before turning to Jason. 

“I’ll never forget the day you yelled at Bruce because he tied me up after I stole the batmobile’s tires. How livid you were, and how you threatened him to tell everything to mom. How he instantly looked scared at the idea of her being angry, and how you made him realize he went too far. How you were there, every step of my way adapting to life in a mansion, after living in the streets. But yes, above all, I’ll never forget the day someone stood for me for the first time, when you yelled at da-Bruce. When you yelled at Bruce for me.” 

He almost said “dad”. And that alone, was making Alfred’s heart happy. It was proof there still was some hope to salvage their relationship... 

“Ok, well I’ll be quicker than everyone else. And just say : you’re the best grandfather I could ever ask for.” 

With Dick, there was only two solutions. He would either go into a lengthy reenactment of a very specific event, or throw affirmations like that that would make Alfred feel tears coming to his eyes. 

Today, Dick decided on a short and sweet version, and it fitted perfectly. 

It was now your turn : 

“Every year, I’m reminded how vital you are to this family. And every year, it is tough to chose just one memory I love about you. I always have to think, because there’s so many. But I think this year, I will choose that time I said “yes” to Bruce after refusing his marriage proposal three times, and you screamed in happiness, through your broom across the room, and ran to hug me. It was so out of character for you, it makes me happy just to think about it. But I mean, I can understand the excitement...I was pretty content myself.” 

You smile, looking at your love, and he rolls his eyes at you, before smiling too. Of this pure smile he only shows you. And then he turns to Alfred, and tells him : 

“You made the loss of my parents bearable. Without you, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I’d probably turn...very dark.”

There was a small silence. 

Bruce’s speech was always short and to the point. 

And every time they were all done talking, Alfred would find himself with tears in his eyes. With those last few words from his son, this time didn’t escape the rule, and he found himself dabbing at the corner of his eyes. 

Damian’s next word released the emotional atmosphere as he looked at his father and said : 

“Tt, show off.” 

Everyone bursted in laughter, and this great day continued on... 

************

4 pm, interlude. 

This was Alfred’s few hours of utter peace. Everyone would leave him alone, and he could relax doing something he liked to do (usually reading or something of the sort) while not worrying about anyone. 

You’d give him space. It was very rare, for Alfred to be all alone with his thoughts, thoughts that he was forced to NOT have about his family. 

It was even rarer that he wouldn’t think about Bruce or you, or his “grandkids”. So in this day, when he knew none of them were doing anything dangerous, he took full advantage of it to relax his mind. 

In the meantime, you’d watch a film or two. 

Damian and Tim were in the process of choosing when Duke turned to Bruce, and a smirk on his face asked : 

“Soooo…I heard Alfred Day exists because you annoyed (Y/N) ? »

Bruce glares at Duke, ah he never quite likes to remember why Alfred Day exists…But before he can answer, you enter the room (you went to get some snacks for the movies) and exclaim :

“Don’t let Dick downplay how truly unsufferable he was that day ! Dick always manages to forgive his dad, and make things less worst than they are. It’s a talent really. Annoying doesn’t even cover how awful he was. He had one of those « dark days », decided he should break up with me for my own safety out of literally nowhere, yelled at baby Dick, was mean to Alfred saying he could fire him…I swear I could’ve slapped him.”

“You tried.”

“And if Alfred hadn’t stopped me, I would’ve succeeded. Anyway. Yes. You see, Bruce and I almost broke up that day because he was being really stupid, and Alfred...salvaged everything.”

“I was being stupid indeed...I almost lost...I...”

Sometimes, when he would remind himself of that day he almost went too far and truly drove you away, Bruce would feel almost like an anxiety attack coming over him. Because if he had lost you, and had continue on the path he was taking with Dick...Well he wouldn’t have had that second shot at having a family.

And it was enough of a frightening thought to be overwhelmed with anxiety.

“To be honest, I also was quite stupid. I can be stubborn too, sometimes. And there were time, at the beginning, where I wouldn’t try to be in your place...” 

You say, letting soothing fingers run through his hair, a motion you knew always relaxed him. Bruce instantly calmed down, as your kids made some disgusted faces at your closeness, and the incident was over. 

It was good, though, that Duke asked. First because it was actually pretty funny to think of the fearless Batman getting his ass kicked by his wife...but also because it was a good reminder to him of what he almost lost, and who he used to be. 

Alfred saved him. 

You saved him. 

His children saved him. 

And now, he could appreciate a relaxing movie time with all of you (minus Alfred, who was in his room, probably devouring the cake you got him (because yes, that cake was for him and him only), finally relaxed). 

The movie chosen, everyone took their usual spot on the massive couch, that Bruce had ordered specifically so that his big family could all fit on. 

At one point, both you and Bruce drifted off to sleep, in each others’ arms, and barely noticed your kids placing a blanket on you, rolling their eyes at how teeth rotting sweet you two were. 

6 pm, a walk through the park. 

Alfred loved Wayne Manor’s gardens. 

And he loved even more peacefully walk through them with his family. 

This was the time you were always reminded how massive the “backyard” was, when you’d go through acres of it. 

The kids would play soccer, baseball, football, or anything really. Alfred would often join. He was actually very athletic, and the kids would fight to have him on their team. 

You and Bruce would take part in it too, and your children would always make sure you’d be in the same team. Sure, sometimes you’d stop playing to smooch each others, like two damn teenagers...BUT, having you both on the same team would avoid triggering your crazy competitive minds. 

For some reason, whenever you had to play against each others, you’d both get very ruthless and petty, and it would often time get annoying (for real, you were forbidden to play UNO since a long time by then). 

You’d all spend some times outside, no matter the weather, enjoying a normal family outing. 

Alfred loved this time of the day. 

Because he loved the gardens, but most of all, he loved seeing his family being happy and together... 

9:30 pm, the dinner. 

Dinner was entirely prepared by you, and Alfred only had to come at the table and wait. 

By then, you had a perfect system that made it so the meal was prepped efficiently. It was Alfred’s favorite, of course. 

The table would be filled with all his favorite meals, prepared mainly by Bruce with you guys’ help. 

Your kids would pretend to be waiter in a fancy restaurant, and exaggerate everything, which was very funny. 

And you’d all share a meal, something that was quite rare, in this day and age. 

In fact, you were pretty sure that your entire family being reunited for a dinner happened max three times a year. For the holiday season, for Alfred Day, and for Batman day (you just thought it was funny to celebrate it). 

This was just a time to catch up, and to be together. 

Alfred would ask countless questions to everyone, and everyone would be polite and listen. It’d just be so nice, and relaxing... 

11:30 pm, almost the end. 

The day would end in the batcave, with everyone enjoying each others’ presence for a few more minute before you’d go back to a “normal” life. 

You’d talk about your favorite moment of the day, and how you always really liked “Alfred day”. 

And then it’d be over. Alfred would retake his butler position, and the Batman would prowl the streets of Gotham once more. 

You’d be their home support again, working the computer often, and you-

Ah. Yes. But not yet. 

There were still a few minutes. And it sounded like the perfect time for you to finally talk about a certain news...

You see, Alfred was the one you went to to vent. You loved your family with all your heart... But anyone knowing them just à little bit knew they could be à handful. And Alfred, he was always there. 

So it just seemed fitted for you, that you’d announce this news on that day. While everyone was around, and celebrating Alfred’s existence. 

Because what you were about to say, was one of Alfred’s dearest hope...

12:28 pm, 2 minutes before the end. 

You waited the very last minute, because you thought the effect would be even better. 

And as your husband and kids were ready to leave, you said : 

“Oh wait, I have one last thing to say on this very special day !” 

They all stopped, and turned around, looking at you. You smiled. Nervous, but happy. You knew that you and Bruce wanted this anyway, so it would be fine. And you knew your kids...your kids would be happy. For sure. 

But Alfred. Alfred would be over the moon. And so, without further ado, you said : 

“I’m pregnant !”

Bruce’s eyes went wide, and his mouth opened dumbly. He froze on the spot, before smiling widely and starting to laugh stupidly. His first reaction was to go to Alfred, which you were expecting. 

Your children all reacted at the same time, rushing you like a wave of noise and excited screams and...pfiouh they could be overwhelming. 

Alfred was indeed over the moon. 

And he was the one calming your children, tearing them off of you so he could hug you, and give you some space, too. 

Because that’s what Alfred did. Take care of you. Of his family. 

And Alfred day, this year, ended with him looking at you and Bruce hugging tightly, overjoyed by the news of a future new little addition to the family. 

Up until next year, and this future baby’s first Alfred day...

_________________________________________________

Annnnd it’s 9:12 am, kept my promise to post something “today” haha. Probably not the best time to post. Buuuut...well, another sleepless night (or early morning, all about perspective really haha) of writing. I’m definitely back :). I hope you liked this story, I’m a little nervous after being gone for so long, I feel like I don’t know how to write anymore, and this is all very...mmmmbadhgezhe. I still do hope you liked it a little bit. 

Reblogs and comments are always appreciated <3. 

[jaskiers-sweetkiss]

Swedish Hologram Crush

Pairing: Reggie x Alive!Reader

Word Count: 2.1k

Warnings: none?

A/N: Happy last day of JATP Appreciation Week! Thank you to @jatp-week for organizing this, it’s been so much fun!! Today’s prompt was to write something in canonverse so I bring you my first ever Reggie fic featuring a Julie’s Classmate!Reader. Let me know if you‘d like to be tagged in any of my future jatp works because even though this week is over I will still be writing for these wonderful characters! As always, lmk what you think!!

Masterlist

___

You hadn’t meant to fall in love with a hologram boy from Sweden, you really hadn’t. It had just sort of happened.

Who could blame you though? You were pretty sure everyone in the gym fell at least a little bit in love with the band when they appeared as if by magic behind Julie that day. You, however, fell completely for the bassist.

You were first struck by his looks. Sure, the brunet and blond boys were cute but there was something about the bassist. His dark, styled hair and leather jacket over the red flannel. Your first thought was that he was hot, and then he smiled and your heart melted.

You could tell just by the way he performed and interacted with the crowd and his bandmates that he wore his emotions on his face and his heart on his sleeve. Then he sent a wink in your direction as he played.

You were hooked from then on.

You had so many questions for Julie when you got to your shared bio class. You’d somehow managed to be lab partners for two years in a row now and you worked quite well together so you didn’t feel like you were taking advantage of your situation to get information about the boy.

She told you his name was Reggie and that they were actually from Sweden. You’d been disappointed but unfortunately the fact that you’d probably never be able to meet each other let alone communicate didn’t stop your crush from developing.

You continued to inquire about him when you met at her house to study for tests or work on homework. She’d always tell you what you wanted to know but would always remind you, nicely, that you didn’t have a chance.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt, Y/N,” she’d say sincerely but you would wave her off.

“It’s just a harmless celebrity crush.”

“We’re not celebrities!” Julie would protest  and you’d grin.

“Not yet, you aren’t,” you would remind her, confident in the fact that her band was going places. “But when you go big and the whole world falls in love with those cute Swedish boys I’ll be able to say I was the first Reggie girl.”

You’d both laugh at that before returning to whatever school work you were working on.

You went to every performance you could as well, unable to get enough of the cute bassist and loving the band’s sound. You’d made it to their last-minute coffee shop gig and Julie’s garage party. The girl had even managed to score you a ticket to their Orpheum performance, knowing how big of a fan you were.

___

While Luke was going out of his mind trying to navigate his feelings and relationships it Julie, Reggie had an even bigger problem. He hadn’t been able to get you out of his mind since he’d first seen you in Julie’s school’s gymnasium. He asked Julie about you all the time and would often sit next to you on the couch when you came over to study. He knew you couldn’t see or hear him but he liked spending time with you, much like he did with Ray. Sometimes he’d help you when you got stuck on a problem since bio was one of his favorite subjects in school. You couldn’t hear him but Julie could and it always made him feel warm to know he helped you out.

His situation with you was worsened by the fact that he knew you had a crush on him as well. He heard you ask Julie about him (most of the time he would feed her the answers to your questions so you could know more about him) and he also heard you gush about how cute and talented you thought he was and how unfair it was that he lived in Sweden. He knew in the back of his head that telling you they were from Sweden was actually a smart idea, but he resented his friend for the choice as it meant you’d never know that he was there with you and interested in you too.

Luke had it easy, he often thought frustratedly. At least Julie and Luke could see each other and communicate. Reggie had to get by on the eye contact and smiles she gave him during their gigs. The hardest one had been the Orpheum when he had been sure that it was the last time they’d ever see each other again. It broke his heart when he disappeared after their bows, sending you one last smile and a wink like at their first performance.

When Julie saved them in the barn he couldn’t help but feel relieved. Sure things would still be difficult, but the two of you would be able to make eye contact and share smiles again. He just didn’t realize how soon or often.

___

The day after the Orpheum performance you made your way to the Molina’s garage, having arranged to meet up with Julie to study for your upcoming exam. You let yourself in, sending a text to Julie to let her know you were there. You jumped slightly when you looked up from your phone and noticed she wasn’t alone. Standing in the studio fiddling with a bass was Reggie himself.

“Oh my gosh, um, hi,” you said, shocked at the sight of the boy in front of you. “Oh, um, I’m sorry. Do you speak English?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I speak English?” He asked, tilting his head slightly in confusion.

��Oh, well, Julie said you guys were from Sweden so....”

“Ohh, right! Yeah, that’s us, the Swedish hologram band,” he chuckled nervously and you narrowed your eyes suspiciously.

“Wow, you don’t have an accent at all,” you scrutinized and he chewed his lip nervously.  

“Y/N! You’re here! Ready to work on that lab?” Julie called as she stepped into the studio, heading straight to the couch where they usually worked and setting up her materials.

“Uh, yeah,” you said, puzzled by her actions. She didn’t even stop to look at Reggie. “You didn’t tell me your bandmates were coming in from Sweden.”

“What?” She asked, looking up from her materials. When she locked eyes with Reggie her eyes widened. “You can see him?”

“Yes, I can see your bandmate who speaks perfect English and has no accent whatsoever,” you said, raising your brow to indicate your suspicions. “The jig is up, Molina. Spill.”

“Okay,” Julie sighed, “You’d better sit down though.”

The three of them made their way to the couch, sitting in the same arrangement (unbeknownst to you) that you’d been sitting in for weeks now with you sandwiched between the two musicians. From this close up you could see the freckles that dotted Reggie’s cheeks and nose and the different flecks of colors in his blue eyes. Your breath caught in your throat as he smiled lightly at you, your eyes locking.

“Okay, lovebirds, you’ll have time to stare dreamily into each other’s eyes later,” Julie said, and you felt heat immediately rise to your cheeks as you looked down at your lap. “So, this is gonna sound crazy but you have to go with me on this, okay?”

You nodded, turning to look at your friend curiously.

“They’re ghosts,” she said and your eyes widened at the explanation, looking back and forth between Julie and Reggie. “They died twenty-five years ago and somehow I brought them back.”

“This is insane,” you said, trying to keep an open mind but not believing it.

“It’s true,” Reggie said somewhat solemnly and you turned to stare at him in confusion. “Oh, Julie! Show her the article about our deaths!”

Julie nodded, pulling out her phone and pulling up a webpage before handing it to you. The headline read Sunset Curve: A Hollywood Tragedy. The article detailed the tragic death of three-fourths of the band Sunset Curve right before their performance at the Orpheum in 1995. As you scrolled down you found a picture of three boys who were unmistakably Luke, Reggie, and Alex.

“You’re ghosts.” You said quietly, handing Julie her phone back. “If you’re dead how come I can see you?”

“Well, I don’t really know,” Reggie admitted. “Only Julie was able to see us before but some weird stuff happened last night so maybe it has to do with that?”

“Weird stuff?”

“We were able to touch,” Julie explained. “Before then we just passed through each other.”

“Yeah! Our souls were going to be destroyed but then Julie saved us with a magic hug!” Reggie added and your eyebrows shot up.

“Okay you’re gonna have to back up and explain all that,” you laughed and Reggie grinned, immediately launching into a detailed and dramatic retelling of the events of the last few weeks. How they’d come back as ghosts, found out they could still perform with Julie and that their old bandmate had betrayed them. You gasped at all the right places when he told you about meeting Caleb and the curse he put on them. When he explained the significance of their Orpheum performance and how upset he’d been when he thought you wouldn’t see each other again.

You couldn’t quite believe it but, well, a literal ghost was telling it to you so you supposed it came with the territory. You weren’t sure when, but at some point in your conversation Julie had excused herself, leaving you and Reggie to talk alone.

“So, you were sad you wouldn’t see me again?” You asked curiously, trying to fight the heat rising to your cheeks at the implication.

“Devastated!” Reggie exclaimed, before quieting down as he realized the connotations. His cheeks turned red and he had to fight to look you in the eyes as he continued. “I’ve had a crush on you since we performed Bright at your assembly.”

Your eyes widened at the confession and you beamed.

“Really? I’ve had a crush on you for just as long,” you admitted shyly.

“Oh, I know!” Reggie beamed, and you stared at him. “I, uh, may have heard you talking to Julie about me on multiple occasions.”

“That’s so embarrassing,” you groaned, putting your face in your hands to hide from the boy.

“Hey, I thought it was adorable and really sweet,” Reggie reassured you, reaching out to gently pull your hands away from your face.

“Reg, you’re touching me,” you gasped as you looked down at your hands with were still held in his.

You gasped softly again when you looked back up and found his eyes studying you thoughtfully. There was something in his eyes that you could only describe as intense as you stared at one another, faces subconsciously moving closer together until their noses were nearly touching.

“Does that mean I can kiss you?” Reggie asked softly, squeezing your hands lightly and eyes flicking to your lips before returning to your own.

“I’d like to find out,” you whispered back.

As soon as the words were fully out of your mouth Reggie surged forward, connecting your lips. The kiss was soft and sweet, one of your hands slipping from his to reach up and cup his cheek. It was over all too soon but it was worth it to see the smile that broke out across his face. His hand came up to cover yours that was still resting on his cheek, his thumb softly stroking the back of your hand.

“That was nice,” you breathed and he nodded in agreement.

“Wanna do it again?” He asked brightly and you laughed, reconnecting your lips.

“Woah! Hey!” Julie exclaimed as she walked back into the garage. “I left so you’d have privacy to get to know each other, not get to know each other’s mouths!”

The two of you jumped apart, your face heating up in embarrassment once again. You chanced a glance at Reggie and found his face red with embarrassment but the ghost boy was grinning cheekily at Julie. She rolled her eyes at the boy before shooing him away.

“We have an exam to study for!” She reasoned as she pulled him from the couch, attempting to push him through the garage door.

She’d nearly managed it when Reggie poofed from her grasp and back to his place on the couch, leaning over to give you a quick peck on your cheek. He called out a goodbye as he ran from the garage, not wanting to face the wrath of Julie and you laughed, waving at him until Julie closed the door, blocking him from your view.

___

JATP Taglist: @meangirlsx

[vikingqueer]

music recommendations because i have some thoughts™

i don't wanna be that person who's like "my music taste is so weird lol" but i find that very often most of my friends don't really care for the music i like so i thought i'd just make a long ass post about it on tumblr instead. Fair warning, I'm very passionate about MIKA and The Mechanisms and so this very quickly got VERY long because it is part of my ongoing campaign to convince people to listen to mika and the mechs.

1) MIKA in general, but especially My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019) and No Place In Heaven (2015) (especially the Deluxe version!!)

MIKA is a kind of British singer (half Lebanese, grew up in France blabla), and you probably know him for Grace Kelly and Relax, Take It Easy from his first album Life In Cartoon Motion from 2007. He writes a lot of FUN music, interspersed with the occasional slightly sadder song, especially when looking at an album like No Place In Heaven, which contains a lot of songs with gay themes, resulting in some songs that are just a little bit ouch. He's originally classically trained and has a frankly RIDICULOUS range and idk he just writes very good pop music. Also I have so much respect for that time he talked about how a lot of pop is very fake, with like expensive cars and stilettos and mini skirts in the snow and said "Because I walk down the street, and I don't see any of that. I see fat women and gay men. I don't know... That's real". He's written 5 albums; My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019), No Place In Heaven (2015), The Origin Of Love (2012), The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2009), and Life In Cartoon Motion (2007).

For starters, I recommend listening to Last Party, Origin Of Love, Grace Kelly, Blame It On The Girls, Blue, Happy Ending, Pick Up Off The Floor, Last Party, Underwater, Tomorrow and Tiny Love (yes this is a long list but i REALLY love MIKA). If you want a slightly broader palette that's not just my favourites, I recommend the Mika starter pack on spotify.

2) The Mechanisms. I warn you. I am making this a thing. I have been obsessed with the mechs since last march.

Boy, where to start? The Mechanisms were a British 9 member space pirate story-telling cabaret that "died" in January 2020. They rewrite songs to fit retellings of various stories. I don't even know what genre I'd describe them as, but probably folk but steam-punk?? Their 4 "main" albums are concept albums, and I honestly just recommend listening to the from beginning to end in chronological order. A good way to get into the mechs is also to listen to UDAD and then watching the live show on youtube or alternately try giving Death To The Mechanisms a listen, to get good quality live show audio of TBI and various other stuff. Also, it was streamed on YouTube and someone combined the footage with the album audio and it rocks. Really, I think the mechs' best selling points are honestly just their concept albums:

Once Upon a Time (In Space) Their first album from 2012. I'd say this is the most "easily digestible" for the general public, since it's a retelling of various fairytales. So, what if Old King Cole was in fact not merry, but rather a cold-blooded dictator, intent on colonising as much of the galaxy as possible. What if Snow White was a general, looking to avenge what King Cole did to her sister, Rose. What if Cinderella was to be wedded to Rose the day that King Cole attacked in order to kidnap Rose? But y'know, In Space and also like every other mechs album it's a beautiful tragedy. Fave songs are Old King Cole, Pump Shanty, and No Happy Ending.

Ulysses Dies at Dawn You guessed it, it's a story about Odysseus, or Ulysses because I guess Ulysses is easier to rhyme or fit in the meter or something, idk. Ulysses is a war hero of unknown gender who is said to keep something that could take down the corrupt Olympians, meanest families in the City, in a vault to which only they know the passcode. Oedipus, Heracles, Orpheus, and Ariadne have been hired by Hades, who happens to be The Mechs' quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, to get into Ulysses' vault. I didn't care much for udad at first, but honestly it's got some real bangers and the story is really good. UDAD weirdly stands out as the only of the concept albums to not feature any gay relationships, per se. Fave songs are Riddle of the Sphinx, Favoured Son, and Underworld Blues.

High Noon over Camelot This is my favourite mehcs album. So basically, this is Arthurian legend, but it's a space western and Jonny D'Ville does a bad southern accent. This is the story of the cowboy lovers Arther, Lancelot, and Guinevere searching for the Galfridian Restricted Acces Interface Login, or GRAIL, in order to stop their world from falling into the sun. Meanwhile, Mordred and Gawaine are ruling Camelot, and Mordred has convinced Gawaine to try to establish peace with the Saxons by whom Mordred was raised, but Gawaine hates viciously. If you love getting your heart broken and songs by a fucking off the rails batshit preacher I HIGHLY recommend hnoc. Fave songs are Gunfight at the Dolorous Guard, Blood and Whiskey, and Once and Future King. Honorary mention for Hellfire because it awakens something animalistic in me.

The Bifrost Incident TBI is the frankly only good adaptation of norse mythology I've ever known of, and I say that as Dane who was literally forced to learn things about norse mythology in school because it's my heritage or whatever. I've been listening to TBI a lot lately because it's VERY good. It's definitely the most refined of the mechs' albums (because it's the newest) but also I just love a little bit of cosmic horror. 80 years ago, Odin, the All-Mother, ruler of Asgaard, launched a train through the wormhole Bifrost that would reduce the travel between Asgaard and Midgaard from 3 months to 3 days, but things didn't go quite as planned. Lyfrassir Edda of the New Midgaard Transport Police is trying to solve the case of why suddenly the train has arrived 80 years late; to figure out whether it was accident or maybe it was sabotaged by Loki, who was allegedly sentence to death her murder of Baldur, by the Midgaardian resistance led by Loki's wife Sigyn, or maybe by Thor, who was to take over after Odin, and who holds quite the grudge because he used to be a friend of Loki's. You might've heard the song Thor from this album, it's apparently quite popular. Fave songs are Loki, Ragnarok III: Strange Meeting, and Ragnarok V: End of The Line. Yet again an honorary mention: Red Signal because while Lovecraft was a bitch, his invocations are fucking RAW.

Basically, the Mechanisms do all of their performances in character as captain first mate Jonny D'Ville, quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, pilot DrumBot Brian, master-at-arms Gunpowder Tim, science officer Raphaella la Cognizi, doctor Baron Marius Von Raum (neither a baron, nor a doctor), archivist Ivy Alexandria, engineer Nastya Rasputina, and The Toy Soldier, who is, as usual, present. You can find very obscure lore about the crew of the Aurora here, tidbits on Tales To Be Told and TTBT Vol. 2, such as One Eyed Jacks, The Ignominious Demise of Dr. Pilchard, Gunpowder Tim vs. The Moon Kaiser, Lucky Sevens, and Lost in the Cosmos.

If you feel like listening to a full 40-50 minute album to find out if you like a band is a bit much, I recommend listening to one of the mini stories Alice, Swan Song, or Frankenstein, which are about 12, 5 and 9:30 minutes respectively.

3) The Amazing Devil You know that guy who played Jaskier in the Witcher? I got into The Amazing Devil from spotify recommending them because I listened to the mechs, and apparently Joey Batey from The Amazing Devil is the same Joey Batey who was in the Witcher. Both him and Madeleine Hyland are VERY talented singers and songwriters and their second album The Horror and the Wild makes me go out into the forest and SCREAM. I listened to it on repeat for like a month straight. I guess they'd also be considered folk, but like. New Folk. Also yes, this is another British artist, I don't know why I'm like this. I've never really gotten that into their first album, Love Run, but King slaps. As I understand there's this whole lore about the Blue Furious Boy and Scarlet Scarlet, Joey and Madeleine respectively, but unlike the Mechanisms it's actually possible to find out things about the actual real people and harder to find the obscure lore? I'm open for people to please help me. Fave songs are The Horror and the Wild, Farewell Wanderlust, and That Unwanted Animal, which is literally a third of their second album, but again. I haven't really listened to Love Run that much, and I just LOVE the harmonies on THATW. (also im gay and dramatic leave me alone)

4) dodie I have so much love for this woman. Like many others, I first knew dodie as doddleoddle on youtube. I think I first stumbled across her in probably 2015, because I distinctly already knew her before she released her first EP Sick of Losing Soulmates in 2016. I think I watched probably every video she's ever made in the span of a few weeks. I just loved her quiet sound and was absolutely HOOKED. Also she's actually the reason I got into MIKA originally, so thanks for that. Dodie just realeased her first album Build A Problem (in addition to her three EP's; the one mentioned above, You, and Human) and it slaps. Yes dodie is also British Fave songs are probably Monster, Rainbow, and In The Middle.

5) Cladia Boleyn Unfortunately, Claudia Boleyn only has three singles and that's it. She's been making content on youtube for quite a while, and that's how I first discovered her. I don't know what genre her music is, but I like it. The songs are Celesta, George, and Mother Maiden Crone, of which the latter is my favourite. I'm not saying Claudia Boleyn invented women in 2017 when she released Mother Maiden Crone, but she did. Also you guessed it, Claudia Boleyn is British.

6) Hozier I'm not about to tell you about Hozier. You know who he is. Listen to Nina Cried Power, Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene, and Shrike. Also Hozier isn't stricly British in that he is definitely from A British Isle, but Ireland is not part of the UK. Give me a break.

7) Oh Land Oh Land IS DANISH. I like her early music best, because I'm not that into the electronic sound. I guess Oh Land is just you regular old pop, but with the occasional weird vibe? Oddly enough, I like her first album Fauna best. Unfortunately I haven't really listened to her newest album Family Tree much, but it seems good? Fave songs are Frostbite, Love You Better and Family Tree. I cried on the bus, first time I listened to the Danish version of Love You Better, Elsker Dig Mer because my mother tongue always just hits harder. Also Frostbite is Oh Land doing a duet with herself which is pretty cool.

8) Oysterband This is a live recommendation. I mean they're a decent folk band and all, but they're a fucking experience live. If you like folk and you ever get the opportunity to see Oysterband live, do it. Unfortunately, yes. They are British. Either way, they are incredible on a scene and I think they deserve a mention for that.

9) Ben Platt Honestly don't know much about this guy, but he's not British and he was in Dear Evan Hansen. He released an album in 2019, Sing To Me Instead, and I just think it's a good album, there isn't really not much more to it. Fave songs are Grow As We Go, Bad Habit, and In Case You Don't Live Forever.

and thats all for now. this has been a ramble. shout out to you if you actually read all of this, especially the mechs part.

[callboxkat]

Those Long, Lonely Nights (part 1/6)

Author’s note: This is a retelling of the story These Deep Dark Woods, but from Roman’s perspective, plus a few new scenes. I recommend reading that story first, but this can also stand alone. Please read the warnings!

Summary: Roman, a knight, insists on accompanying his best friend Logan, a potion maker, when he decides to head into the notoriously dangerous woods bordering their home to find some rare herbs and minerals for his apothecary. They find much more than they bargained for when they encounter Remus, a bloodthirsty giant. Logince. Angst with a happy ending.

Warnings:  food mention, blood, injuries, death mention, killing mention, gun mention, mild body horror (it’s Remus), disturbing imagery (it’s Remus), character death, temporary/believed character death, kidnapping, guilt, attempted self sacrifice, talk of giants, vampires and other monsters. Very unsympathetic villain Remus.

Word Count: 1764

Part 2 

Ao3 Link

Writing Masterpost!

...

Roman bounded down the bustling street, waving to familiar passerby as he went. He knew he was easy to pick out and very recognizable, in his white knight’s uniform. Despite the early morning, many people were already up and about, setting up for the day, but the street lamps still glowed—a recent installation, they actually ran on electricity! Roman still didn’t quite understand how that worked, but he was proud to see his settlement prospering, and it was fascinating, how much light came from them, just from a few little wires and some glass. Perhaps there was some sort of enchantment involved.

“Good morning, Sir Roman,” a shopkeeper called.

Roman tabled his nerdy thoughts for the time being. He put on a bright smile and approached the shop, where a woman stood sweeping clear the welcome mat. “Good morning to you, Maryanne!”

The woman put aside the broom and dusted her hands off on her apron. “Would you like a pastry? The peaches just arrived from Mellow Valley, and they are simply delightful in a fruit tart.”

Roman hummed consideringly. “Oh, that’s very tempting, but I’m afraid I’m in a rush this morning!”

“Some other time, then. Perhaps you could even bring that handsome young man you’re always with.” She winked.

Roman really hoped he wasn’t blushing. “Of course—you know I love your treats.”

Roman was on his way to his shift guarding the outer wall, an imposing structure built of shining gray stone that protected the citizens of his home from the monsters that roamed the forest beyond. It was an important job, entrusted to the expertise of the knights, and one that Roman loved doing; but it wasn’t always the most exciting prospect. Their settlement, Old Haven, was one of the longest standing, enough so that most of the monsters had known since generations past to stay well away; and between the few times that things truly got exciting... they could be terribly dull.

But, before Roman went to his shift that morning, he had a stop to make, and this he was definitely looking forward to.

The apothecary was located just a couple of blocks from the main square, in a small, warmly colored cedar and stone building with windows filled with neatly arranged bundles of colorful herbs and evenly spaced rows of bottles of medicinal powders and potions. A hand-painted sign read, Please come in, in neat, white letters, in an only slightly decorative script.

Roman reached the shop just as the door opened, the bell overhead chiming. A customer stepped out, dressed in a dark robe with the hood up. At first glance, he seemed to be clothed entirely in black, but on closer inspection, his robe was actually a deep plum color. He clutched a bottle of pomegranate juice in one pale hand and a neatly sealed packet of herbs in the other. Dark bangs poked out from under the hood, but his face was cast in shadow. Roman frowned slightly noticing the dark, grayish veins in his hands as he stepped back to give the man room. He hurried past Roman and disappeared down the street. Roman stepped inside the apothecary once he was gone.

The apothecarist, Logan, stood behind a counter within the shop, wearing an elegant, navy colored coat and his usual pair of spectacles. He was pushing together a pile of coins on the counter. Copper and bronze coins only, Roman noticed. No silver.

“Got a lot of vampire clientele?” Roman asked, leaning (or perhaps posing) against one of the display cabinets.

Logan looked up, the warm lamplight making his deep blue irises glitter in a way that never failed to make Roman’s heart skip a beat. He glanced back down and finished tucking away the money. “Six,” he said honestly. “Seven, most likely, although she has not personally shared that information with me, and if she is, hers appears to be a mild case.”

“Hm.”

“You don’t approve?”

“Ah… they’re a little too similar to monsters, for my taste.”

“It is a monster-derived affliction, that is true, but with modern treatments, most of those afflicted with vampirism can lead nearly normal lives.”

Roman shrugged dismissingly, waving him off. He hadn’t come here to talk about vampires. “I know, I know. Anyway. How’s my favorite nerd this morning?”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Logan sighed.

“You know you love it.”

Logan did not deny it, Roman noticed with a small smile. Instead, he adjusted a few already perfectly positioned potion bottles on the counter, before saying, “I am well, although rather busy.”

Roman glanced around the room, noticeably empty of customers. “Ah yes, this is a very busy time for your shop, I see.”

“A customer did depart only moments ago,” Logan pointed out. “Although, no, I was not referring to customers. I’m preparing for an outing.”

“An outing?” Roman was interested, now. “Finally taking a little vacation, are you? Good on you. Where are you going? And more importantly—can I come?”

Logan wanted to smile, Roman could tell. But he didn’t. The guy took himself too seriously. “Not that type of outing. I require materials to restock my shop.”

Roman sighed dramatically, making it a full body motion. So much for a vacation. And the hot springs in the hills of northern Old Haven were so nice this time of year. “So? Just put it on the list for the traders. Mellow Valley should have most of your things in season by now. Did you hear the peaches arrived? Maryanne, that baker on Lilac, promised me some of her delightful pastries. We could go get some, when I’m finished with my shift on the South Wall this morning.”

Logan shook his head “Mellow Valley won’t have everything I need; and besides, the costs are considerably lessened when the materials are personally collected.”

Roman furrowed his brow. “Collected where?”

“Outside.”

“You mean outside, like, as in the park, right?”

“In the woods,” Logan sighed, beginning to sound exasperated.

Roman opened his mouth, then closed it again. The woods. The veritable ocean of dense trees beyond the settlement’s walls, filled to the brim with monsters, held back from advancing only by the strength of the guard and broken only by the occasional human stronghold and the heavily protected trails that linked them. Generally, only knights and the traders they accompanied ever ventured beyond the walls—this was, in fact, why Roman had become a knight in the first place, to get to see some of the world that most only saw through pictures and stories. Citizens were allowed to leave—they weren’t prisoners—but it was very rare, and highly discouraged. Many who went unprepared—or even those who did—never returned; and sometimes even those who did return were not the same as when they left—like the vampires who apparently frequented this shop, or at least one or more of their ancestors. Vampirism could be tricky like that. Sometimes it cropped up randomly, somewhere down the line.

Logan had begun sorting through some of his supplies, acting for all the world as if he hadn’t just announced he had a death wish.

Roman shook off his distracted thoughts of vampirism and knightly missions, and focused on the most important thing: “Please tell me you aren’t planning to go out there alone.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Logan sighed. “I will have my dagger, and I will go no further into the woods than required.”

“Oookay, first of all, why am I just now hearing that you’ve been hanging out in the monster-filled woods by yourself?”

“I would hardly call it ‘hanging out’.”

“And second of all, you are absolutely not doing that.”

Logan gave him a dry look. “Yes, I am. My herbs will not pick themselves.”

“Get a garden like a normal person.”

“You know I have a quite extensive garden.” Logan paused, looked confused. He shook his head, going back to counting bundles of tiny black seeds. “Some of these herbs do not naturally grow within human settlements, let alone ours, and my attempts to recreate their preferred environment have in many cases proven thus far unsuccessful. Besides, I cannot ‘get a garden’ to form mineral deposits, several of which are required in even non-specialty potions.”

Roman still didn’t quite see why Logan wouldn’t be able to get all of this stuff using a trader. Knowing Logan, it was less about the money and more about needing to personally ensure that he received the correct materials. Surely, though, even the least-versed in medicinal resources could get him what he needed, if he described them well enough.

Also knowing Logan, though, he would not be dissuaded from going.

Roman pulled himself up to his full height, puffing out his chest and putting one hand on the protective-charm engraved hilt of his sword. “Alright, then, I am coming with you.”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “You’re coming to collect herbs? Can you even tell wormwood from hemlock?”

“I’m not going to find your nerd plants, I’m going to protect you.”

Logan scoffed quietly, clearly believing Roman’s very generous and heroic offer was unnecessary. But he sat down on his stool, finally, and looked at Roman without busying himself with his apothecarist duties. He glanced Roman up and down, apparently trying to decide how serious Roman was. “Alright, then, if you insist.”

“I do!” Roman nodded firmly. He relaxed his posture. “So, when are we going?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes?”

“I—” Roman groaned, looking up towards the wooden beams of the ceiling. “Fine. It’s a little short notice, but fine.” He worked his jaw, then mumbled, “I’ll need to cancel a couple days… maybe Sir Leo can cover? Hm.”

Logan tilted his head slightly, adjusting his spectacles and watching Roman’s dramatics. “I am not forcing you to come.”

You are, though. “Well, I am.”

“Alright.”

“Alright.”

A beat passed in silence, Roman feeling triumphant, before Logan gave the knight a slightly amused look. “I thought you had a shift on the wall?”

“I—right. Yes.” Roman had gotten a little distracted. He took a couple of steps back. “So, you, me, tomorrow, woods. Great.” He turned towards the door, stopped, and turned around. “About those pastries?”

Logan hummed. “I can take a break two hours after noon, which is when your shift ends, if I remember correctly. I suppose I would accept one then.”

“They have fruit in them,” Roman encouraged. “That makes them healthy!”

“I do not believe that is entirely correct.”

Roman grinned and left the shop.

[i-am-just-a-kiddo]

favourite male fictional characters

Thank you @vishcount​ for tagging me, this was a lot of fun! 💞 I originally planned to follow your example and put ten characters here but suddenly it became a lot more oops. also i hope you forgive me for following your format, it’s neat 

I am tagging @isabellaofparma​ , @the-cloud-whisperer​ and @sassyassassy​!

I chose the characters that impacted me deeply on a personal level throughout my life (often shown by how long my love lasts over the years and if i was inspired to write for them). 

In no specific order under the cut: 

Legolas

The Lord of The Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien. 

I think it’s only fitting I start off with this magnificent guy. Maybe I gotta admit, i’ve just had a crush on him ever since I was like, nine years old? He’s the character I will fight tooth and claw for (though I guess he doesn’t need me to do that). I love Orlando Bloom’s portrayal of him, eventhough he is vastly different from the books. Book Legolas is such a delight as well, he feels so whimsical and playful and his banter with Gimli is just gold. I was sad when The Hobbit trilogy came out and I was so disappointed by how they butchered his character, it just did not feel authentic anymore (maybe I am also just bitter about the forced hetero storyline for him. makes no cents, this elf is GayTM your honour. and he will meet his soulmate Gimli in a few decades).  Either way, Legolas is the love of my life, thanks for coming to my tedtalk,

Peter Pan 

Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie

Another childhood crush of mine. The gif I chose if from the 2005 movie because we always used to watch it and it is to this day one of my favourite movies. It’s so dreamy, so magical, yet also incredibly sad and sweet.  I have this very strange fascination with Peter Pan. There is something incredibly unsettling about him, especially in the book. He represents something every child wants - who doesn’t want to escape their bedroom and fly away to experience magical adventured far from the adult world? And yet he also represents the impossibility of it, the curse he carries around with himself because he will forever stay alone, no matter how many lost boys he gathers around himself. And Wendy - it’s a love that was never meant to grow and mature, it’s a fleeting dream for the both of them.  I have seen many different adaptations of Peter Pan and I have my favourites, though I want to give a special mention to the book Peter Darling by Austin Chant. It’s a retelling of the story how we know it, in which Peter returns to Neverland after having finally grown up BUT the main points I want to highlight is trans Peter? Heck yes. Gripping and compelling gay love story with our favourite original lost boy Captain Hook? YES. 

Snufkin

Moomins, Tove Jansson.

I have discovered Snufkin for myself only last year, and yet I know he will stay with me forever. In short - I vibe with him, he vibes with me. His anxieties about being with people and longing for solitude? His fear of being loved and being important to someone to a point he doesn’t know what to do with himself? This man just wants to roam freely with his own mind and yet he always returns for something that captures him. Mum, I love him because I have rarely felt this seen before. Also, Snufkin said ACAB. 

Prince Jing - Xiao Jingyan

Nirvana in Fire (2015)

This too is a darling I have only discovered recently. I watched Nirvana in Fire this year and let me tell you, it’s the best show I have seen in a long while. It’s absolutely amazing and it also ripped my heart out. All the characters are absolutely amazing and I am still not over it.

To be honest, I contemplated between Xiao JIngyan and Mei Changsu, because character-wise I think the latter is a lot more interesting and compelling. He makes for a fantastic heartbreaking and flawed protagonist.

However I have to admit - it was love at first sight with Prince Jing for me and I’m still lowkey mad abt it rip. Seems like I am not immune to Pretty Prince Propaganda. But apart from that, I adore him for his genuine

goodness,

his almost naive drive to be better and seek justice. He lost everything, and for the longest time did not have anything to fight for. So alone and lost and bitter, it makes me sad how much it hardened him. He is heartbreak and clumsy kindness hidden under a skin of scars that was inflicted by his father and many others. I see his sad cat-eyes and I cry, that’s just how it is.

Edmund Pevensie

The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis

I grew up with these books and movies - they have always been part of my life and it will probably always stay that way (only last night I rewatched the first movie and sobbed).  Imagine my surprised when I finally watched the last movie about five years ago and was incredibly impressed by how they adapted the book; also imagine my brain suddenly going CASMUND in bold letters at Skandar Keynes’ and Ben Barnes’  performance in that movie.  From there, I rediscovered this story completely anew for myself. My favourite Pevensie sibling has always been Lucy (and still is, because I identify with her so much and she feels like home to me); however this new discovery of Edmund’s character was overwhelming. It’s interesting to see characters you’ve grown up with from a more grown up point of view. I don’t want to lay out all my thoughts here, just know I am so heartbroken for him, and so so proud as well. His character arc is amazing and maybe that’s how the last movie makes me even more emotional. Seeing Edmund and Lucy still holding on to Narnia but knowing that that door was closing for them? Not to mention what happens in the later books (we don’t talk about that).  Also did I mention Casmund. Here, have my incredibly emo and depressing take on Edmund’s character that I started writing four years ago and which will forever stay a WIP. 

Nie Huaisang

The Untamed (2019)

My son. My soul. My bane of existence. The tragic thing about him is, that he does not really exist in canon as I have created him for myself. He’s a secondary character in the show, always so relatable yet still brings the ultimate twist of the story, yet he still remains this incomplete shadow. The movie

Fatal Journey

gave him a lot more and I cried tears of joy and devastation. I don’t know why I latched on to him so much, but apparently he is the one that I project on, the one that feels like he sits somewhere inside my chest. I don’t know what else to say - this year he has been everything to me. I spend a lot of time in his head while writing, and maybe that’s how he’s there forever now. Nie Huaisang saw my brain and went it’s free real estate. All my love for you, you dramatic art hoe.

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Ah, another lifelong companion. There are many adapations that I adore - starting from the origin of it all, the books and stories which I have all devoured; the 80s adaptation with Jeremy Brett which was incredibly wonderful; to BBC Sherlock which shaped and traumatised me (I still like the first three seaons but I am too hurt to think about it); to the numerous movies -  but by far my most favourite performance is Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. Somehow he manages to capture the Holmes I see in my head when I read the books, the sharp yet polite eccentric detective, who loves his companion so much and who has desire to help others.  Sherlock Holmes will always stay special to me, in so many different ways. He shaped my youth and I know he will stay with me. (also what would you say when I told you he helped me discover that I can, in fact, be queer AND ace at the same time? thanks pal).  What else is there to say? Sherlock Holmes is a universe that you can dive into and find many amazing treasures. 

Isak Valtersen 

SKAM (2015)

There he is, the boy that changed my life. SKAM changed my life. All of the characters did. However, Isak is special for many, as I imagine. I remember winter 2016, when tumblr was flooded by these norwegian white boys kissing in a pool and cuddling and I was like ‘nah’, this doesn’t look convincing.  I don’t know what changed my mind but I remember sitting down at last and watching all that was released of season three and it was only downhill from there. I remember starting to follow the real life updates religiously while watching the other previous seasons in between. The one clip that completely wrecked me was when Isak went to the school nurse about his struggles with sleep - it felt like for the first time I saw someone on screen that could understand me on so many different levels. The entierty of seaons three is so personal, I would tell you to go watch it if you don’t know what I mean. The entire show in fact. It’s a masterpiece and it feels so real. This show impacted my life in a way that no show has managed to do before. I miss it so much. I miss Isak too sigh. 

Shang Xirui

Winter Begonia (2020)

Technically, for me personally, Shang Xirui is the nonbinary, gay and ace representation I need in my life (or at least that’s my own personal take on him), but since that is not official, he’s still here on this list. Of course he is because wow, it’s been a long while since I’ve seen such a compelling character on screen. I went from disliking him to being absolutely heartbroken over him. I don’t think any other character in this show captured me as much as he did. There are so many layers to him and discovering all of his sides is a wonderful, heartbreaking, painful and also beautiful journey. I’m not sure I understand all of him yet, but I am willing to try and dig and just ponder his existence. This too, is a perfect example for a flawed yet authentic protagonist. Also he is the most beautiful thing on this planet, or at least that’s how I have been feeling ever since I watched this. I wish to write more of him in the future. 

Aang

Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005)

I grew up watching ATLA and my favourite characters have always been Toph, Zuko and Uncle Iroh. In recent years however, I completely fell in love with Aang all anew. 

I think especially in the past, I had these prejudices against main characters and found them all the most boring personalities ever. In recent years this changed a lot and especially Aang is a prime example for that. Watching him from the perspective of older me, I find so much wisdom in this young boy. Somehow he represents all I wish to be in my life but at the same time he shows his flaws, he carries this sadness with him that will accompany him all his life. This inner battle and chaos that he has to face day to day and in the end - he is just a young boy. So much has been taken from him and yet he learns how to not let it overtake him, that anger and hurt. He tries his hardest to be better than the day before, even if sometimes the world crashes down on him and he gets overwhelmed. He is a child recruited by adults to manage their mistakes and play into the hands of predestined fate and in this essay I will -

Harry Potter 

Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling

I am surprised myself. I thought I would put Fred and George here, or Remus and Sirius, however I realised that none of them quite capture this feeling of lifelong change, of personal, deep impact that Harry had on me. 

As with Aang above, I used to think Harry was the most boring protagonist, yet my opinion took a 180° turn in the past years. Many of the things I wrote for Aang apply to him too - the fact that he was a child, that lost so much, and was always faced with challenges that a child should never have needed to face. Something I want to address is how my favourite book, The Order of the Phoenix, lays all of this out. Harry is just as flawed, just as vulnerable and angry as anyone else. I know some people did not like his ‘emo behaviour’ in the fifth book but for me it just showed how human he is, how he was just a teen like myself at that time. As for many, this boy shaped my entire life, shaped a generation, and I will forever be grateful. I’m sad and angry at how J*R behaves, and how she puts us in the position of doubting our love for these stories. I know I will always love them, but I will not turn a blind eye on all the problematic shit is carries with itself and what the author piles upon us. 

Lan Wangji & Wei Wuxian 

The Untamed (2019)

I will try and keep this short, because if you want to read my thoughts about Wangxian just go to my ao3 and find the  over 70k i wrote for them.  I decided to put them here together because I can’t seperate them and I can’t choose between them. Each of them carries something I recognise in myself, and each of them is the opposite of me. They each own my heart and soul and I know there will never be a fictional couple like this for me ever again. They’ve snuck their way into my heart and have never left. They deserve to be here, together, because my love for them is indescribable. Bless them.  + Bonus:

The Doctor

Doctor Who (1963/2005)

Technically, the Doctor doesn’t count as a “male” character, but since he has been presenting as male up until recently, I needed to include him. I chose the Tenth Doctor because he is the one that broke my heart the most. I adored Nine but he was there too short, and I do love Eleven and Twelve a lot, and Thirteen absolutely owns my heart, Ten has just always been the one that made me cry the most. I loved this era of Doctor Who, I loved how sad and hopeful he was, how heartbroken and yet determined to help wherever it was needed. Doctor Who is always that show, when I return to it, I am reminded that maybe, humanity and the universe isn’t all that bad. 

phew, this took ages damn. but i had so much fun! i decided to leave out honorable mentiones because we would be sitting here until tomorrow lol. 

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Witches, Chapter 29: something of an overdue talk, in a long overdue chapter.

Hey everyone! We’re back at it, hopefully, with a few orders of business.

First things first: I’d like to issue a small warning for a short discussion of past suicidal ideation that pops up during this chapter. Since this series is a retelling, generally most of you do know what’s coming up next and what we’ll run into and to brace ourselves for that. You know about the characters’ past traumas and future choices and know where that pops up, or if it becomes unexpectedly relevant or makes a new parallel, you did at least know in advance that it happened. Phoenix’s occasional oblique allusion to Edgeworth’s “choosing death”, for instance. 

As this is not something quite like that and comes up more out of nowhere than usual, I just wanted to make sure that no one is uncomfortably caught off-guard. It felt like something different to me personally as I was writing - whether it’s going to strike any of you as different than other heavier material we’ve had in the past, I can’t say, but I’m erring on the side of caution today. If you’ve got any questions or concerns or anything you want done for content warnings in the future, please do come talk to me and let me know!

On two lighter notes: thank you all for bearing with me through the “oops all Fire Emblem only Fire Emblem” hiatus. It’s been a weird year, obviously. I’m hoping that I can carry on with room in my brain for both.

And finally: Happy UR-1 day! Today is, yes indeed, the exact day that Simon Blackquill is arrested for murder, and in honor of that, have a chapter where I mention him one (1) entire time.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches of Los Angeles Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

Golden Saturday-morning sunlight streams in through the blinds, lighting up the dust particles swirling through the air. The office is colder than Apollo expects for the end of October - colder than it was last year this time - and Phoenix is even wearing a sweater, the shining locket that Apollo hasn’t seen in a while hanging around the outside of the tall collar. “Morning,” Phoenix says, without raising his eyes from what appears to be a manila folder full of newspaper clippings he is perusing. “What’s up?” 

Straight to business, then. Apollo is fine with that. He grabs the chair from his desk and drags it around, not directly in front of Phoenix’s desk, but near enough that it will be harder for Phoenix to ignore him.

“Is there any way to break a curse?” he asks, shoving his hands deep in the pocket of his hoodie. If it were this cold in a regular office on a Saturday, that would make sense; save money on heating bills when no clients are coming in. This is just - fae bullshit. The beginning of their seasonal tantrums. Winter only properly begins on the solstice, and Apollo really wishes that the fae of Kurain would respect the astronomical seasons. Stave off the snow until the end of December and end it in March. Don’t allow it to span from October to April. 

Phoenix sweeps the scraps of paper all back within the folder and ducks down to set it inside a drawer. “If I knew a way,” he says, rising back up with the magatama in hand and setting it down on his desk with a hard clack, “do you think I would go around looking like I do? You don’t think I would’ve gotten this mess cleaned up a long time ago?”

He doesn’t offer Apollo the magatama for a refresher on what that mess looks like. Maybe he was just making a dramatic point with it. “Oh,” Apollo says, scratching the back of his head, faintly embarrassed by how obvious the answer is if he’d given it a modicum of thought from that perspective. “I guess not.”

“Right,” Phoenix says. “As my understanding goes, you can theoretically maybe mitigate a curse, if you layer another opposing blessing on. I am ‘lucky’” - he makes sarcastic quotation marks to ensure that the bitterness dripping from the word doesn’t go unnoticed, as if Apollo could possibly not notice - “to have known enough fae that I’m saddled with both Fortune and Misfortune, and Life and Death. But I’m also not certain that when you drop those on each other they don’t just each take their own separate niches. I’m not dead, but god knows when I try to go somewhere for a vacation or a day off, I still stumble across crime scenes like nothing else. Stunningly lucky in some aspects, and wildly unfortunate in others. You know me. I don’t need to elaborate too much, do I?”

Apollo nods. 

“So that’s the theory, but I don’t think that helps anyway for your purposes, which - this is about Prosecutor Gavin?”

Apollo nods again. Phoenix sighs and rubs his eyes. “Shit,” he says, folding his hands together in front of his face and leaning his head against them. “I - believe me, Apollo, I wish I had some - I wish I had any way to help him.”

And Apollo does believe him. Apollo has to believe him, and believe that Phoenix means well, because he’d go crazier if he wasn’t reminding himself that Phoenix’s most frustrating decisions are born out of good intent. That Phoenix thinks he knows what’s best, but there’s still that old saying about good intentions. 

“Why didn’t you tell him?” Apollo asks. “You knew before this. You knew before he asked you.”

Phoenix raises his head. “And what does telling him get him? Secure in the knowledge that his brother - who is already in jail by the way, don’t need any more proof of his crimes, he’s already never getting out to be able to hurt anyone ever again - hates him enough to have wished him dead?”

Basically the same reasoning that Klavier had, but Apollo has a counterargument now. “Gives him time to come to terms with it before someone dies!”

“You don’t!” Phoenix slams his palms on the desk. Apollo flinches. Of course everyone is volatile and heated over this topic, but that doesn’t make it easier in the moment that it first gets directed at him from people who are usually frustratingly calm and casual. But Phoenix winces, lifting one of his hands and dragging his fingers through his hair, and sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says, and repeats, much quieter, “You - you don’t. Or I never didn’t. I knew from right when it happened that I was cursed; I had three years between then and when Mia died - it - I could’ve had a decade, or two, and it - it wouldn’t have helped. I wouldn’t have felt any differently. Any more come to terms with it. With the thought that I - helped cause—”

His tongue heavy in his mouth, Apollo nods. “But - but wouldn’t it have been worse to find out right after she died?”

“Of course it would have,” Phoenix says blithely. “Of course that - this - is the worst possible alternative. Of course I would’ve said something if I’d known that this was what would happen instead.”

“But you have to have expected that someone would—”

“No, I didn’t,” Phoenix interrupts. “That’s not how this works. You know Klavier. You know how much he doesn’t say, don’t you? How much I don’t - you know what people like us are like. Who’s going to tell him? Sebastian forgets half the time that he even has the Sight. Kay only acts like she knows things. Prosecutor Blackquill spent until two days ago acting like magic isn’t real even when he knew we knew otherwise. Someone who means ill isn going to keep that information to use it, and not to just plainly say something.” He frowns. “Well, usually not. Unless they’re a clumsy interloper stumbling in somewhere they don’t belong and getting themselves fucked over for it too.”

“So other than Means just walking all over everything” - because he wasn’t immersed in this kind of fae etiquette, didn’t grow up in it, learned just enough to spot what he thought were opportunities and ruined himself by it - “you think every other random stranger is just going to respect all these - these weird little rules about what you don’t say?”

“Rules of engagement, basically,” Phoenix says. “Yeah, I do.”

“Prosecutor Gavin told me that you’re cursed,” Apollo says. “Don’t just tell me that’s - that’s the exception that proves the rule, or whatever.”

Phoenix’s expression, smug and trying to dampen that smugness back into something that respects the seriousness of the conversation, tells Apollo that yes, yes that is absolutely what his retort was going to be. Apollo considers screaming. “I’ve been tangled up in this for far too long,” Phoenix says. “I can promise you, I know the patterns. I know the way these things go.”

“And because you’re so much smarter than the rest of us, that makes it okay?” Apollo demands. “To take a gamble and just hope that it won’t go wildly wrong?” 

And he wants to, really wants to add, I guess that’s what you do, just gamble with people’s fates, and he doesn’t, and Phoenix’s face still darkens like he knows, like he can read Apollo’s mind. Because every time Apollo ends up arguing with him, that’s always at the core. This playing card that haunts them both, burnt a bridge barely built, and they keep trying to balance on the ashen skeleton of it. “Just because Prosecutor Gavin is too fucked up about everything else to be mad at you for hiding this—”

“I did,” Phoenix says, voice low, eyes narrowed and dark as an evening’s storm clouds, “what I thought would be best, based on my prior experiences of both how curses don’t get talked about, and knowing exactly what it is like to personally live with knowing that I’m cursed. This is not something I want anyone to have to know how it feels.”

“So you think ignorance is bliss,” Apollo says. Klavier said that. Apollo wants to know how Phoenix takes that statement.

“I wouldn’t call it ignorance,” Phoenix says. “It’s not like he, or you, didn’t know what Kristoph was like until you found this out. You know the crime, the verdict, the sentencing - and everything else that Kristoph tried but failed to do. That Kristoph also wanted Klavier dead is only another small piece in the grand scheme of it all.” 

Still the same argument that Klavier made; Apollo can’t imagine they discussed it. What brought them to the same conclusion? That they both have lived this strange specific kind of grief? This common ground that they share that is foreign to Apollo.

“Come to terms with - Klavier’s already got to come to terms with the rest of that,” Phoenix continues. “It was obvious during that trial how much Kristoph despised him. He knew that too. He knows that Kristoph ruined more lives than just the people he murdered - that he tried to kill more people than he actually succeeded at - cursed and tried to kill children because he couldn’t have - didn’t want anyone remaining who - who could - could… say…”

If Phoenix hadn’t faltered like that - fumbling and failing to continue, words petering out as he went back over what he just said, his eyes going wide and welling up with horror - then Apollo would have simply assumed that his thoughts were moving too fast for his mouth and he couldn’t keep them straight. It would have been easy to talk right through it, and Apollo wouldn’t think twice. If Phoenix hadn’t showed his own hand, gave the game away. Something too terrible for even seven years of professional poker to hide. 

“Mr Wright?” Apollo asks, and Phoenix turns his head, glancing away away, no longer meeting his eyes when less than a minute ago he was staring him down with a cold confident glare. “What - what are you talking about? Vera, and - not someone else? Who else?”

Phoenix makes a tiny shake of his head, and even that little motion is a bright, distinct liar’s red. It lights up his eyes, too, when they dart down to the floor. “Mr Wright?” Apollo repeats. When would this have been? He casts his mind over everything he learned, just a little over a year ago, Phoenix sitting him down to explain seven years of information collected about Kristoph, what he’d done and how he’d tried to cover it up. He tried to kill Drew Misham to tie up that loose end; he cursed and poisoned Vera, two precautions because he wasn’t confident enough in the former, hoping that if she ever left the house she wouldn’t be able to speak to his identity and the forgery he requested. He killed Zak Gramarye seven years later to hide the same. He wanted to eliminate every link in the chain that connected the diary page to him. Its makers Vera and Drew, and Zak who knew he was the first attorney on the case, and then the page got to Phoenix via—

Via—

“Mr Wright,” Apollo says. His voice shakes. “He didn’t—”

“Promise me something, Apollo,” Phoenix says firmly. His mouth is drawn in a tight line but he doesn’t look stern. He looks more like he’s going to cry and is desperately trying to stop himself. “Promise me.”

“Wh - what? I can’t—”

“Promise me, Apollo.”

Not until you tell me what I’m promising, Apollo thinks, Apollo knows is what he should say. He’s been told this enough times; he’s aware of this on his own. Don’t agree to a deal before all the terms are set. Don’t sign the contract before it’s read thoroughly. Rules for lawyers and fae are the same. Just because Phoenix means well doesn’t mean that Apollo agrees with those decisions he makes; certainly not the one they have been discussing, and likely not whatever Phoenix is asking him to agree to. 

“Please.”

The air in the office is so cold. Even the sunlight seems cold now. Apollo shivers, hunches himself up further. What does Mia think? Is this secret-keeping so natural to her, easy as breathing once was, because she’s fae and that’s what they are, liars by trick and by trade?

“Just promise me you won’t tell her until I do.”

His mouth dry, Apollo nods and croaks out, “All right. I won’t.”

He almost regrets pushing the issue,regrets ever asking Phoenix why he faltered. Phoenix sits slumped, his hands in his hair, and when he glances back up at Apollo, he looks so exhausted that it reminds him of Klavier last night. Burnt-out and broken, when it’s so rare for either of their masks to break. Rarer for Phoenix not to be positioning himself as the one with all the cards in hand; for him to fall apart, for Apollo to actually see him upset. “Yeah,” he whispers, soft enough that Apollo sits forward to make sure he can hear him. “Everyone involved in getting the diary page from him to me, Kristoph wanted dead, or to make sure he could silence them. Everyone who knew, even if she was - eleven years old, or eight. The girl who made it, and the girl who gave it to me. He fucking hated the Gramaryes. You think he didn’t jump at the opportunity to try and get rid of all of them that he could? That he wouldn’t cast a curse on each one who ever entered his sight?”

“And she” - Apollo’s voice cracks - “she doesn’t know? You didn’t tell her?”

“Shit, no,” Phoenix says. He sounds close to cracking, too, and when he drops his hands to his desk he starts shaking his head, his eyes scrunched closed. “Being a Gramarye has been goddamn enough of a curse for her. She lost all her family and then found out that her grandfather buried her mother’s soul in the woods because he was a monstrous son-of-a-bitch who deserved worse than getting to go out on his own terms by shooting himself in the fucking head—”

Apollo shudders. Phoenix had never before directly stated his opinion on Magnifi, but Apollo could definitely tell he held only disdain for the man. This, though, is more than disdain. This is positively venomous, and more than a bit frightening. Did he always feel like this, and hid it, or is this hatred something that has only come about since last year Trucy came back to the office with her mother’s soul in her hands?

“—so yeah, on top of that, I’m definitely going to tell her that the same man who killed her father cursed her just because of the accident of who her family is.”

“B-but—” Apollo doesn’t quite know what he’s arguing. He also doesn’t know where all of his prior conviction went. Of course Klavier should have been told - because he found out in the worst way possible - and Trucy - to take a gamble with her too - that’s got to be just as wrong— “Nine-Tails Vale,” he says suddenly. “We went there, and then there was a murder - that - that’s - is that like—”

“Like what happens to me?” Phoenix asks. “What happens with a curse? Yes. That’s how it goes.”

“And you - you’re not going to - to tell her? Ever? In case - in case something happens to her like with Klavier, or—” Too many thoughts are playing in his head, and the next one grabs hold of him and pivots him away from the point he was going to make about maybe why Trucy should know. “The concert,” he says. “When we went to the concert, Trucy and I, and Klavier was there too of course but that’s - Romaine LeTousse was murdered. They’re both cursed and they - wait, was Klavier cursed then? That was before…” 

Did Klavier know when it happened? Did he tell Apollo? He’d said that Phoenix had seen him twice since the trial last October. Presume then that Kristoph cursed him then. The last time the brothers saw each other, and that doesn’t make one bit of sense. 

“How could Kristoph have cursed him?” Apollo asks, and he doesn’t miss a momentary flash of panic that passes over Phoenix, his eyes popping wide for half a second and a loud, sharp intake of breath. “Klavier always has iron on him. He gave me—” He looks down at his hand, and then back up, to Phoenix’s lifted eyebrows. Apollo sticks his hand back in his pocket. “What’s the point in iron if it doesn’t actually save you from being cursed?”

Phoenix is obviously trying not to move. He knows Apollo is watching him, waiting for a twitch, anything to pounce on and draw an answer out of him. Staring steadily back at Apollo, he barely blinks; he rests his folded arms on his desk and his fingers curl just a little tighter into where he’s gripping his arm. Apollo is right to be asking these questions. He’s getting closer to something that Phoenix is hiding. 

“Or it does,” Apollo says. The veins on the back of Phoenix’s hand flex from his grip. Apollo thinks about someone else with a tense hand and secrets. “And he couldn’t have been cursed then, at Vera’s trial, if it does. So then Mr Gavin hated him that much before then.” Phoenix blinks placidly, but he doesn’t adopt his lazy-eyed gaze. Too serious even for that. “And you lied,” Apollo adds. “You lied about when.”

Phoenix flinches. It’s just a tiny one, pulling his head back, the muscles in his jaw and neck tightening, but Apollo can’t miss the light show. Can’t miss that the lie is bleeding out of him.

He finds himself on his feet, not stepping any closer to Phoenix’s desk, just needing the height, just needing to move a little to stop the shaking in his hands and in his chest, a trembling that goes right down to his heart. “He knew already that he’s cursed! Why did you keep lying to him!” 

“I didn’t lie to him,” Phoenix says evenly, but very quietly, and Apollo wants to go over and slam his fists on the desk and make him stop with these hollow justifications, make him face what he’s done couched in none of his winding words. “I just didn’t correct his assumption.”

“That’s lying!” Apollo shouts. “That’s still lying! That’s what happened in Mayor Tenma’s trial! Do you remember that? Do you care!” 

“Don’t accuse me of not caring.” Phoenix’s voice is low, his eyes dark, staring up at Apollo. “I do care. I—”

“You don’t care about lying! But you do care about - what, about us? Doing this because you care, because you always know what’s best for everyone not to know!” Apollo throws his hands in the air. Phoenix’s brow furrows further, his jaw set tightly. “Never mind that Athena had a breakdown during the trial because Means hit her exactly where you were worried she would be! And you didn’t prepare her! Never mind that Klavier’s having a breakdown now because he found out at the worst possible time! When you could have told him! You know—”

“And if what he knows already hurt him this badly, then what do you think would be happening if he knew Kristoph cursed him years ago?” Phoenix slams his hands on his desk like he’s at the defense’s bench, pushing himself up out of the chair and onto his feet. “That his brother’s wanted him dead for that long? You think that’ll help anything, for him to find that out right now on top of all this? You want him to have that to come to terms with right now, too? I didn’t lie to him! He made an assumption that I didn’t correct because I’m not in the business of salting anyone’s wounds!”

He makes - a point. Apollo sees where he’s coming from. Why he’d do that. An additional piece of truth, yesterday the same as a salting of the wound. “But you don’t think he’s ever wondered if - if Mr Gavin resented him for that long? If he - if you would be setting something to rest, if you told him that. You can’t decide for someone else what they’re capable of handling.”

“Fair point,” Phoenix says. He sinks back down into his chair, and then motions to Apollo’s, suggesting he sit back down. “If he’d asked, I’d have told him. If he ever asks, I’ll tell him. I just wasn’t about to drop that on his head with him unprepared. Or if he asks you - I’m not asking you to swear silence to that. Shit, if you ever think that it’ll help him to know, then tell him - tell him you just found out from me, throw me under the bus and lie to make me look worse, that’s fine.”

Apollo returns to his chair, still not feeling any less like he wants to take a swing and see if he’s gotten any better at punching since last April. “You want me to lie now too?” he asks. 

“I want you to use your best judgment about what he might want to know or be able to handle,” Phoenix says. “To not pile on more if he didn’t ask, if you don’t think he’s prepared. Like I said, when it comes to being cursed, I didn’t ever not know, and I know what the knowing is like. Yeah, I took a gamble that if I didn’t tell them then no one else ever would. That they’d never know, I hoped.” 

He shakes his head and then leans it back against his chair, his eyes closing. “See, it’s not just grief, not at all. The woman who cursed me was someone I thought I knew. Though I’d known for a while. She had actually wanted me dead since we first met.” His eyes pop back open. “Eventually she tried to poison me, and when that didn’t work she tried to frame me for murder, and when that plan fell apart she just tried to kill me with a curse because she was pissed about it. She was a lot stronger than Kristoph, I’ll tell you that much. But Mia stepped in, and now I’m still alive and other people just drop dead all around me instead.”

He sounds almost like he is making a recitation, like he’s rehearsed it, scripted it. Apollo wonders if he’s ever told anyone else all these details, if anyone else lacking the Sight knows that Phoenix is cursed, and if he used this same script then too. He’s speaking about himself, something so personal, in a way so curt and crisp, so much more detached than he’s been speaking about Klavier, or Trucy. 

Apollo nods numbly, unable to force his tongue to ask any of the questions he has.

“I could have come to grips with her hating me that long and that much - I could’ve come to terms with it and moved on. I was - well, I eventually became glad to know what she was. I could’ve been okay with all that. Eventually. If I hadn’t known about the curse. But I did and the - the knowing, the - Mia was murdered. Three years after she saved me. That long, thinking I could accept that I was cursed, and as soon as something really happened - I couldn’t.”

He presses his hands together and rests them against his chin. “And I couldn’t ever even just grieve her, because I had this guilt. That her death was my fault - I know, I know, some other man murdered her. He got to rot in jail for the rest of his life for his crimes, and he would’ve hated her whether or not I was cursed. For the things she did and because of what he was, and I had no part in any of that, but I was still - thinking, if maybe if she hadn’t ever taken me under her wing. If I hadn’t been around, maybe it would’ve been different somehow. Maybe she would have survived.”

The lights flicker gently and return dimmer and softer than they were before. Everything that gets talked about in this office, Mia hears; Apollo wonders if Phoenix doesn’t get sick of it sometimes, just want to say something without her offering input. Even if this is presumably well-meant, some attempt at comfort, the most a dead woman who can’t speak can give. Apollo exhales and can see his breath. He shivers again. “Why are you telling me this?” he finally asks. 

“I want you to understand.” Phoenix rubs his hands together, a vacant look in his eyes, like he hasn’t quite realized why he’s so suddenly cold. “What it felt like, and what I’m worried about. If I’d told Klavier, or I tell Trucy - once I say something, I can’t take it back. That’s it, and they know, forever, just like I do. So I want to be sure that this won’t - I want—” He drops his hands and reaches over and picks up the magatama, idly spinning it around between his fingers. Apollo can’t remember ever seeing him this uneasy, this fidgety. “Klavier, especially, reminds me of myself when I was his age, and of a prosecutor I knew then, too. And that - recognition” - he gestures with the magatama clutched in his hand - “is not good, because we were not - okay.”

Apollo wishes he could remember with clarity all that Phoenix said to him about this time a year ago, about Klavier, about Phoenix being concerned for him. He does remember that Phoenix said something about some other prosecutor then, too, that Klavier reminded him of. Or that he was worried Klavier was going to end up like.

Phoenix inhales slowly, and says, “Six months after Mia was murdered - which was three, three and a half years after I was cursed, mind you - I lost someone else. I didn’t realize how badly he was doing - he did a good job at hiding it, and I didn’t know how to reach out. I was wrapped up in my own loneliness and depression, and then he was gone.” 

He stops turning the magatama between his fingers, staring down at it for a few seconds, and then he resumes fidgeting with it. “I felt like I’d caused both of those. Couldn’t convince myself otherwise. Every other factor I knew there was, every single thing I couldn’t prevent or control, all these other things that other people did - I still thought that if I wasn’t cursed, then it could have been - just different enough that they would still be here.” He reaches up, brushing his fingertips across his temple. “Wouldn’t have been a fatal wound. Or wouldn’t have—”

He falters, staring past Apollo now, over at the window. This is the same thing he said about Mia earlier, about that sense of guilt, even knowing someone else murdered her. That he held some kind of responsibility, for a curse that seems to manifest itself as coincidence. Just coincidence, a little too often. 

“They could’ve been okay, somehow, in the end, I thought,” he continues. “And instead, I was - I was there, I was still around, and they weren’t. And all I could think was that if I didn’t do something, then I would just lose the other few friends I still had - they would be around me, and they would die for it.”

“Didn’t you say that there’s no way you know to break a curse?” Apollo asks. From Phoenix’s solemn expression, he’s not going to suddenly say that there is a method, but Apollo has no idea what he is going to say. What that something he thought to do was. 

“Right,” Phoenix says. “So I thought - only way to take the curse out of the equation is by taking myself out of the equation. I thought - as long as I’m not around - if I go and die, then anyone else who I love won’t. The curse will be gone, right, if death finally takes me. But the curse only seemed to hit other people, not me, so if dying was what I needed to do, then I…”

Klavier lying on the stage, wondering why it had to be Courte who died instead of himself. Phoenix’s dark, pained eyes, as he speaks again, finishes the thought in a voice barely above a murmur. “It made - made far too much sense to me, then. Was far too appealing a prospect.”

The question of what Phoenix won’t quite spell out catches sideways in Apollo’s throat, and when he tries to force it he just makes a soft croaking sound. Phoenix presses his lips together and glances away. “It’s a pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” he adds softly. “Klavier’s - he’s what, twenty-whatever? I was twenty-five when I—” 

When Mia died, Apollo thinks, but that Phoenix doesn’t finish the thought, swallows hard and stares at his desk and says something else, makes Apollo think there was something even worse he could have said, with that implication he didn’t say. “And Trucy - she’s my daughter. I’m supposed to protect her. I took her in because I couldn’t live with the thought of anything else happening to her when I could bring her here, hope that Mia could somehow bless and protect her as much as she did me. But I can’t imagine just - I can’t let that happen to her. To suffer the way I did, to - to spend her life wondering if wherever she goes, someone’s going to die - the concert, Nine-Tails Vale, to ever - to think she can blame herself. Or that everyone she loves is better off without her. Or to—”

He blinks, fiercely, his eyes watering, and Apollo hopes he’ll never have to see Phoenix this close to tears again. Phoenix, cursed and trying - and in the case of Klavier, now failing - to shelter others from that same pain. Klavier, and Trucy, and—

“What about Vera?” he asks. “You explained to me, but did you ever tell her that she’s—” Phoenix stares at him, blinks slowly. Apollo squeezes his own eyes shut. “You didn’t tell her.” He’s unable to muster the same indignation he was before. He can’t really even bring himself to feel manipulated. Phoenix told him exactly that he was saying all this to make Apollo understand. Phoenix sought this reaction. But Phoenix’s chessmaster act has never superceded his desire to keep secrets before; there’s no way that Apollo can convince himself that this emotional vulnerability is all entirely a ploy to get Apollo to shut up. How many times has he refused to explain something and just left Apollo to stay angry about being in the dark? He has never been reluctant to do that. To just sit silent and lock Apollo out. To let Apollo hate him for his secrets.

He wanted Apollo to understand, intimately, whatever it took. So that Apollo would agree keep these secrets. So that Apollo would go along with him. And it might be concern that drives him - he cares, of course he does - but it’s still manifesting in the most infuriating ways possible. In well-meant silence.

“Would you want to know?” Phoenix asks, and that question at this time is an answer and confirmation in itself. “I know the truth is important to you, Apollo - I know it is to all of us.” 

For once, Apollo believes he means it. He’d know it’s the truth because he can see when Phoenix is lying, but he’s actually convinced, this time. 

“But,” Phoenix continues, “if you already know that the person who cast the curse hates you and is in jail for committing murder - already got to come to terms with that, or grieve that, or for someone else dead - you already know that truth. Would you really, honestly want to live with also knowing that you’re cursed?”

To possibly want to die because of it, like Phoenix did? Apollo opens his mouth. He wants to say yes, yes he would like to know, because that’s the truth of it and he wants to always know the truth, all of its facets no matter how ugly. 

Doesn’t he? 

He thinks about Nahyuta, about Dhurke, about trying to forget they ever were anyone, because that’s easier than facing the fact that Dhurke abandoned him, and they might both be dead by now. Easier than wondering whether they were human or fae or something else. He doesn’t want to know what they were. He wants to deny the dreams, to convince himself they’re nothing but the weird subconscious mash-up of memory and the fae horrors Clay has spent all these years warning him about. He doesn’t want the truth about his childhood. He doesn’t want to remember his childhood at all.

(Is it well-meant silence when he doesn’t tell Clay, or Trucy, or Klavier, about them? To not worry them about his life and his past? Or is it just cowardice on his part? Blissful ignorance.)

He closes his mouth. Thinks about the smile Trucy forced onto her face as she realized that Apollo was about to reveal to the court that her father Zak Gramarye was murdered six months before then. Thinks about how she couldn’t keep that smile forced when she found out that her dead grandfather took her mother’s soul for his own personal gain. Thinks about Klavier lying on the stage wishing that he had been the corpse there, not Courte. All the pains that truth has caused them. Is that better or worse than that alternative? Does it depend on what truth it is being hidden?

(He thinks about how long it’s been since he’s said Nahyuta’s name out loud. What color were his eyes in real life, and not Apollo’s haunted dreams? He doesn’t remember.)

“I - I don’t really know,” he admits.

The smug, victorious expression he expects never arrives on Phoenix’s face. There’s no satisfaction in winning this argument. “I’m sorry,” he says, closing his hand around the magatama. “I told you about Vera because it mattered directly for that case, but the rest of this - I wanted to shoulder it myself. So the rest of you don’t have to worry about it. I don’t want you to have to keep secrets from anyone. But I don’t know what else to do.” He forces a smile onto his face with visible effort that makes Apollo wince. Nothing masks the exhaustion written into the lines on his face. “Maybe we put our heads and together we figure out some better way to talk about it. If I ever figure that I should tell…”

He trails off, touching a finger to his locket. Tell Trucy. If he ever gains reason to think that he should tell Trucy. Would he actually run it by Apollo first, ask for his advice? The possibility of being in Phoenix’s confidence for something that isn’t a case doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. 

“I still don’t think you should try and keep it secret forever,” Apollo says, “but I - I guess I see what you mean. And why you don’t just…”

Why he doesn’t just tell her. More reason that just because Phoenix doesn’t “just tell” anyone anything. For once, he’s not being a cryptic bastard.

“Believe me, Apollo,” Phoenix says darkly, “I’m always thinking ahead and trying to plan for the worst. I’m not naive enough to just hope that anything will stay one way ‘forever’. But I have to be sure I don’t make it worse, either.”

It isn’t the lack of a visual cue that makes Apollo believe him. It’s knowing him that makes Apollo believe him. Phoenix always has his eye on something down the line, playing out the plan a few steps ahead to find the complications. Even - especially - while he wasn’t a lawyer. A gambler’s steady hand holding the cards, chancing on an outcome, because the cost of doing nothing at all is even more unthinkable. 

Apollo nods, more times than necessary, lacking anything else to say. Phoenix cocks his head. “Apollo, you all right?” he asks. 

What the hell is he supposed to say - how the hell is he supposed to be? Fine? In what world is he possibly fine? At the end of this, he’s learned more than he ever dreamed he would from his sole initial question, but in it all, that first answer has never changed. 

This is all there is. A rabbit hole of pain so unfathomably deep and winding, and in its darkest depths, the same as the answer given to him on the surface: there’s no way to break a curse. Their lives aren’t the kind of fairy tale where true love’s kiss can wake a sleeping beauty or transform a beast back to a prince - it’s grimmer than that, colder than that, crueler than that. Curses not so concretely visible but more like haunting coincidence, a ghost whispering at the shoulder with reminders of guilt. How could a man who wasn’t even there when the crime happened blame himself for his mentor’s murder? And yet, even after the killer’s confession, how could he not? How can even the curse’s caster be blamed when someone else wielded the murder weapon? And yet, how could they not share in it?

Apollo would rather someone have been turned into a frog, honestly. Wouldn’t that be easier to grapple with, a simple chain of cause and effect, and no ambiguity in who to blame. 

“No,” Apollo finally says. “Not really, no.”

“I guess that was a bit of a stupid question, huh.”

Apollo nods. No kidding. What’s a better question at this point, anyway? Not what he says. “How - how can there really not be any way? For a curse to be broken, I mean.”

Phoenix spins his chair around, resting his head back against it, eyes turned up to the ceiling. Once he slows to a stop, facing the windows, he says, “I mean, maybe it’s possible there was, once, but it was forgotten. There’s a lot of magic that’s gone that way.” 

He gives Apollo a moment to digest that, and then continues, “The Court’s heyday was thousands of years ago. They’re living ruins of what they used to be, and a fraction of what they used to know. Maya - you haven’t met her, she’s Pearl’s cousin - Maya’s helping me out with some matters by trying to dig up more about some kinds of magic they’ve forgotten the nuance of. But even that’s something we’ve got a hint that they knew, once. Not like—” He shrugs helplessly. “I’m sorry. Don’t hold your breath waiting for a way to break a curse.”

“Oh,” Apollo says, somewhat surprised, but pleasantly so, that Phoenix said that much. It would be typical of him just to reiterate that no, there just isn’t any way he knows, that’s all, and to skip the explanation for fear of giving Apollo false hope. But thinking about the prospect of false hope is still easier than really, truly considering the meaning of what Phoenix just said - that this, that everything they’ve ever had to deal with in regards to the fae, could have be so much worse. They could do so much worse than all this pain they’ve ever wrought - they were once so much more dangerous than this, and now their Court is only ruins. This is what they are when they are weak.

“If I do find anything out, I’ll—”

Phoenix breaks off, rising up slowly from his chair, staring at something past Apollo, over his shoulder. Apollo twists around to look, not sure what he expects to see, but it certainly isn’t Vongole standing in the doorway, her head held high, her body much more solid than it usually appears, and stiller. The wispy fur at the back of her legs and off of her tail does not stir as though she is made of mist and surrounded by a breeze that affects only her; she could almost, in this moment, be a normal dog, but for her glowing eyes and her ears so bright red as though they were dipped straight in paint.

All the color drains from Phoenix’s face. He snatches up the magatama and springs to his feet, hurrying past Vongole to peer into the other half of the office. Apollo rises to his feet; if Klavier was here - if he heard what Phoenix was hiding - how Apollo promised to keep it a secret—

Vongole stares at Apollo. She doesn’t move. Phoenix reappears in the doorway, curling a hand in his hair, but his face has fallen slack with obvious relief. The claws curled into Apollo’s heart unclenches. “So then what are you doing here?” Phoenix asks the hound, whose ears fold back flat against her head, though her snout does not turn to shift her attention to Phoenix. She stares Apollo down like she will pounce. “Does he send you places or did you just wander here yourself?”

“You don’t know?” Apollo asks.

“You think I’ve ever had the chance to ask either Kristoph or Klavier about the logistics of their spectral hellhound?” Phoenix asks. Apollo tries to remember when he first started seeing Vongole. Whose ownership she would have been under. How soon after Kristoph’s arrest did Klavier come back to Los Angeles?

Despite her weirdly lanky proportions, like a regular dog was put on a rack and stretched out, Vongole always moves with grace, a predator’s prowl and elegance. A monster, but a beautiful one. She circles Apollo like she intends to herd him somewhere, like she is a shark smelling blood waiting for the moment to strike. “What—” Apollo spins too, trying always to keep her in his sight. She moves just slowly enough that he can keep up, but just quickly enough that he becomes slightly dizzy in his efforts. “What do you want?”

She stops. Apollo steps forward, trying to escape her circle, but she swings suddenly to the side, throwing her body up against Apollo’s hip. He expects her to fade through him, as she does walls and doors, but when she hits him he staggers with the force of her weight. And the cold - her body is cold and it reaches straight through his clothes, cold enough to burn, ice on bare skin type of burning, and Apollo doesn’t understand. He’s touched Vongole before, without problem, hasn’t he? Surely he has. What’s wrong with her? Or is something wrong with Klavier?

She trots over to the door, standing on the threshold, staring back at Apollo with her head aloft. He can’t bring himself to move, can’t unfreeze his feet from where they are riveted into the ground. Vongole presses her ears back against her head, lowering it so that her neck is level with her shoulders, prowling again, and she makes another circle of Apollo before again stopping in the doorway.

“I think she wants you to go with her,” Phoenix says.

She wags her tail, much faster than the usual low, wide swishing path that it takes. Apollo wrenches his foot from the floor and takes one step forward. Vongole bounds through the front room of the office, weaving between magic props tossed carelessly on the floor as though she couldn’t pass through them. And she stops and waits at the door, glancing expectantly back at Apollo. He fumbles his phone free from his pocket, finding no messages waiting for him; why would Klavier do something as cryptic as sending his faery dog to collect Apollo, rather than just calling or texting him?

Unless it isn’t Klavier instructing Vongole. Unless she’s acting on her own. Or unless Klavier is in trouble.

“You’d better go,” Phoenix says. “I can lend you the—”

“It’s fine,” Apollo says. He’s pretty sure that Klavier hates the magatama, and he found him fine without it last night. And he didn’t have Vongole guiding him then. 

“Let me know that everything’s all right,” Phoenix says quietly. Apollo opens his mouth to ask what Phoenix knows, why he’s so sure that this means something is wrong - remembers what Phoenix said about himself and how Klavier reminds him of himself, long ago. Closes his mouth. Knows why Phoenix worries.

Phoenix always worries. He means well. His road is paved in well-intended worry.

“Yeah,” Apollo says. “I’ll - I’ll let you know.”

Vongole waits for him only to reach the door, diving through it as his hand reaches for the doorknob. He next finds her waiting beside the bike rack, her smoky fur drifting independently of the chill breeze, and as soon as he mounts his bicycle she lopes off down the sidewalk. She never looks back at him but is obviously monitoring him in some way, her pace changing depending on obstacles and traffic so that she always remains in his sight. He follows her through the quieter (relatively, anyway) city of weekend mornings, through his usual stomping grounds, to end up on the stoop of an apartment building that is - quite frankly, not as grandiose as Apollo would expect. He presumes this is where Klavier lives.

(If it’s not, then he’s far too deep into something that it’s also far too late to back out of.)

Vongole noses one of the buttons on the buzzer at the entryway and disappears through the door. Only seconds later, too quickly for her to have physically covered the necessary amount of ground, the door clicks to unlock. Apollo enters the lobby and before he has time to take in his surroundings, she appears in front of him. Literally appears - not bounding up to him out of a wall, but materializing out of the air, white fog swirling in circles around her ankles. She directs him to the elevator, pressing her nose into the button for the fourth floor and then several times in quick succession slamming her nose into the close doors button. “So were you always like that, or did you pick up your impatience from him?” Apollo asks.

She sits down and fixes her eyes on him. He doesn’t know what that means. He’s not sure why he bothered talking to her. She can’t respond - can she understand? Does she have some way to communicate information she hears to Klavier? Surely not - hopefully not, depending how long she was in the office.

She does not move until the elevator halts at their destination, and she springs to her feet and slips through the doors before they have opened wide enough for a fully-corporeal dog of her size to pass through. But when he makes it through, she meets him right at the other side, her impatience not taking her any further down the hall until Apollo can follow right at her tail. The walls are not cracked and peeling as in Apollo’s building, but they are certainly plain - again, very much not the kind of place he would imagine Klavier to live.

Vongole throws herself through the door of Apartment 404, and Apollo waits in front of it. A moment passes, and then another. Right. Even a faery dog doesn’t have opposable thumbs to grip a doorknob. He fails to swallow his apprehension but knocks anyway. There has to be a reason Vongole brought him here. He can’t just run away from it. 

The seconds crawl past. Apollo reaches up to knock again, but the door swings suddenly open, and he flinches back.

Klavier’s hair is barely held together in a ponytail, strands falling loose around his face, and he looks even more like he hasn’t slept, going by the shadows under his eyes. And Apollo never thought there would come the day that he sees Klavier in sweatpants, but - he’s still alive. He’s still intact in one mobile piece, and he’s lucid enough to look annoyed. Apollo fumbles for words, any at all, but none arrive on his tongue. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. He starts to raise his arm to point at Vongole, to blame her, and before he can, Klavier sighs, shaking his head, his apparent annoyance sliding into exhaustion, and he steps out of the doorway, pulling the door open wider, and gesturing for Apollo to come in.

-

[notes on the chapter]

[mxrcayong]

the avatar series: 01.01

masterlist.

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The whole city was bustling with excitement. Vibrant colors streamed the streets as everyone prepared for the celebration that is Avatar Day. It’s funny, the old holiday used to defame the Avatar is now used to celebrate the end of the 100-year war. Every city celebrates differently, although most include a dance performance utilizing all four elements and parades. Sooman City is known for having the most eccentric festival of them all. SM city has the biggest parade that runs from 1 to 4 in the afternoon and dance performances with talent shows everywhere possible. There are dramatic retellings of the story of the Avatar, a special feast, a carnival, and occasionally the descendents of the previous Team Avatar come to speak at the main stage. Additionally, there’s a huge fair in the central park and numerous street bazaars selling Team Avatar themed foods and souvenirs. Children and adults alike run amuck, enjoying their day off from work and celebrating the anniversary of the day the world was saved from eternal darkness. 

Tari always had work on the day of the festival. It usually consisted of spending her shift drawing the faces of the previous Team Avatar with foam on the coffee of the customers. The most difficult face? Funnily enough, was Momo. It’s hard to capture the colors of his face in a distinguished manner. Tari is just glad that ‘Iroh and Me’ café is most known for their tea, cause all they have to do for tea orders is add a cookie with the special Avatar Day design of their choice. Most businesses are closed today, from the gyms to the schools, however customer service never stops for anybody – even the Avatar. People would come in, dressed up in traditional garbs compared to their usual outfits, laughing and feeling grateful for the existence of the Avatar. However, this year, the boss of ‘Iroh and Me’ designated Hendery to be the one in charge of the shop for the majority of today (much to his dismay). So, today was the first day in a while Tari was able to sleep in and will be the first Avatar Day she’ll be able to experience. However, her priority is a good twelve hours of sleep. Working in a café usually means being awake at unholy times - normally five in the morning so she could get to work by six and open up by seven. 

Stretching in bed, Tari was awakened with the sight of the bright sun shining into her bedroom, alarming her of the time. It felt unusual - she’s always so used to seeing the sun rise on the coast first thing in the morning when she walks towards the closest tram station. Consequently, she was momentarily panicked - fuck, I’m late to work - she thought to herself. A wave of relief hit her as soon as she remembered her plan for today: stay inside and relax. With a breath she didn’t even know she was holding, she fell back onto her pillows and nuzzled into the comfort.  

On any other work-free day, she’d be out with friends - usually annoying Johnny in his studio, following Doyoung to the gym, checking out local shops with Kilara, helping Roddie study, or assisting in Sonan’s store. But all those workplaces are closed – except for Johnny’s, but he loves the festival; always trying to get Tari to get an ‘off day’ on work to participate in the festival with Doyoung and him, and any of the friends he invites or bumps into later.  Not only has she been avoiding this day since she’s heard of it, but she just hates the fact that the streets will be absolutely flooded with people. Walking today will be like swimming in the ocean when the tide brings you the other way; difficult. 

Climbing out of bed, she quickly threw on a pair of sweatpants and brushed her teeth in her bathroom. She wanted to get ready to spend the day at home, planning to cook her favorite comfort food of seaweed noodles with traditional water tribe soup. It’s her favorite go-to meal, reminding her of the home she doesn’t have vivid memories of. She may potentially also put on a movie or read a book. She’s been meaning to read “To Rock and Flow With It”, a love story between an earthbender and a waterbender. 

Through her bedroom door, she could hear soft mumbles of a conversation from the living room. Hoping Doyoung hasn’t gone insane, Tari stood up to figure out where the other half of the conversation is coming from. As she opened the door, the brightness from the whole wall of windows blinded her temporarily. “So you don’t have work today.” A voice that certainly wasn’t Doyoung’s commented. Once her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw Doyoung behind the kitchen counter, whisking a bowl and Johnny sitting across the counter on a stool. He looked mischievous, as if he was up to something. Both of them were dressed. The two of them always spends the holiday exploring the city and the different fair activities. Johnny was in a cream sweater and black jeans, a gray shirt poking out from the neckline while Doyoung wore a black hoodie and dark blue jeans.

“Nope,” Tari popped the ‘p’, walking towards Doyoung to see what he was cooking. “Eggs?” Doyoung nodded, “Can I steal some?” She pleaded, widening her eyes and pouting to convince him – despite knowing he wouldn’t need that look to comply to her request. She quickly turned to face Johnny, now sliding towards the fridge. “Johnny, I swear, your home is on the other side of town but you’re always here.” She’s not complaining - she loves his presence, but they just tease each other. It’s the nature of their relationship. 

“Yes, but, this place will be so lonely without me.” He fake cried, motioning to the small apartment. “Who else will sleep on your couch every once in a while?” Tari chuckled, before rolling her eyes. 

Doyoung smiled, staring at the eggs he was now pouring into the frying pan. “I mean, at this rate, you should just move in rather than pay for rent at a place you don’t even stay in.” 

“I’ll hold you to that offer,” Johnny winked, “But for now!” Johnny clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “You know what Tari’s freedom means, Do!” Tari looked at him questionably as she opened up the fridge, grabbing the ingredients for seawood noodles.

Ignoring her confusion momentarily, she turned to look up at Doyoung. She already knew if Johnny was here, he’d want to eat anything that he could. “Seaweed noodles?”

“Yes please.” Doyoung grinned, before Johnny took over the conversation once more.

He put his hands on the top of his head, “I’m just saying this will be your first time in two years to experience the novelty of a Sooman City Avatar Day. C’mon, where did you live before right? You said they hardly celebrated.”

The water bender shrugged, using her powers to speed up her cooking time by gently steaming up the water in the pot with the seaweed noodles and other ingredients in. “I hardly celebrated, I always had to work.”

“So, this will be your first time!” Johnny further contested, making Tari roll her eyes as Johnny now came up towards her, standing beside her in an attempt to convince her more. “I mean come on! Out of your 20 years of life, you’ve yet to experience a culturally important, iconic” He exaggerated his pronunciation of the long list of adjectives that he probably have used in his most recent articles, “... event.” Usually, he was more relaxed and open about her not being able to go - although usually, she also has a solid excuse. She looked to Doyoung. One thing they developed quite well over the last almost-two years of living together was a silent language, purely using their eyes and facial expressions.

Doyoung chuckled at her flustered face just begging him to answer why Johnny is so desperate for her presence, “He has to report on the festival this year.”

She chortled. “Ooh, that’s fun!” Tari teased, “Mixing work with pleasure. What angle are you taking? ‘Why the carousel should be your must-go activity’?”

The journalist leaned against the fridge as his two friends cooked for the three of them. “No, it’s actually about how this day is used to celebrate the previous Avatars and consequently, also bending and thus,” He grabbed a piece of the pile of dry seaweed Tari would sprinkle on the top of the soup and took a bite of it, “shows support against the anti-bending regime.” He obviously rehearsed that, and Tari can only assume that he signed up to report on the event. Surprising, she thought to herself, Johnny usually wants this day to relax. 

The air bender nodded, liking the idea. “You could get some really cool perspectives on that. From both like the police officers patrolling, influencers, stall owners, families, so on.” Doyoung imagined the article’s success already. Johnny was one of the best reporters in the local newspaper and it’s easy for him to gain a lot of attention on his articles. Him writing this article - as a non-bender - may bring awareness to the issues benders currently face, “I’m getting kind of sick of people pointing at the bending gyms and yelling that it’s ‘anti-equality” He sighed.  

“Okay first, Doyoung that sucks and you need to report to the police for harassment.” Tari started.

The airbending instructor was quick to interject, “It’s not to the air gyms, at least – not a majority of time. It’s usually at night and to the fire bending gym. I don’t have any place to report on behalf of anyone else”

“But that’s still society, so this anti-bending regime is just anti-pro bending.” Tari commented, furrowing her eyebrows. She hasn’t noticed any particular hatred for bending other than the pro-bending, which was why it was banned around 20 years ago – just before she was born. Yeah, as a result of this ban – there has been discrimination against benders, often seeing them as violent or leading them to be ostracised – but it’s been improving over the last few years due to the amount of protests and parades hosted to support benders. “Maybe just focus on the societal perspectives?”

Johnny tsked, “I heard from an inside source that there are rumors of something escalating.” He sighed.

“You must be glad you’re not a bender then.” Doyoung chuckled, trying to lighten the conversation from the news regarding perception of benders and trying to hint at Johnny to change the topic. He always notices that Tari gets quite awkward when talking about bending. She’s comfortable doing it – not much actually talking about it.

Johnny winked, “Always.” He turned back to Tari, following Doyoung’s lead and changing the topic, “can you please come? You can help interview people rather than do things.” That didn’t elicit a response, Tari just shrugging - not in the mood to be doing work she normally does when she has a day off anyway. “Okaaaaaayyyyy, how about while Doyoung and I check out the actual festivities and do interviews, you can look at the bazaar stalls?” Tari pouted her bottom lip, getting slightly intrigued. “I heard Sunmi will have a special stall full of exclusive stuff!” He practically sang.

“Hey, wait, when did I sign up to help?” Doyoung lifted his hands defensively as if he was caught in a crime. He’d help regardless, but it’s always nice to be asked. 

Johnny cheekily smiled, “You signed up when you became my friend.” Doyoung stared at the ceiling, laughing, before putting his hand back on the spatula to scramble the eggs. 

“Tempting.” Tari bit her lip. Out of all the local stores in Sooman City, Sunmi owned a shop called ‘wonder girls’ which sells some of the most beautiful re-worked thrifted items. It’s where Tari actually bought her favorite carpet reminiscent of air nation patterns that now adorns the living room and the tapestry in her bedroom which is reminiscent of the patterns reported to be in the Northern Water Tribe spirit oasis.  

“Fine.” She growled out reluctantly. “Let’s go, but after we eat. And we have to stop by Sonan’s shop.”

She wasn’t sure if Sunmi’s stall was worth it. Most of the things she sold were old items reminiscent of the different past Avatars. Yeah - they all fit Tari’s aesthetic and likes, but they just weren’t what she wanted hanging in her room everyday because of the specific designs. The only thing that caught her eye was an old-looking book on “the lessons we could learn from the previous Avatars”. The cover was decorated with minimalist sketches with a traditional edge to them. It called out to her because of the fact that on the front cover, they promoted the fact that the self-help book was apparently approved by Tenzin and Pema. So, she looked through it - and while her fingers flipped through the crisp pages, particular phrases in bold seemed to shout out to her: “No matter how strong you are, individuals cannot maintain harmony alone” and “do not doubt your greatness and do not run from your truths.” At the same time, the last phrase made her scoff and put the book down. Thanking Sunmi and wishing her goodbye, she slowly left the white tent - letting her eyes linger on a necklace similar to Katara’s (but bronze rather than blue), a boomerang with air nation carvings and Aang’s tattoo on it, a headband reminiscent on Toph’s but in different colors, and a silk robe which took inspiration from Zuko’s vest.

Leaving the white tent, she looked around the city that’s already vibrant on it’s own - nevertheless with the purposeful use of colors to heighten the celebrations on the street. She looked at all the children who were carrying around prop-gliders, grinning and smiling. All the booths and stalls sold cookies in the shapes of the Avatars and their teams or of the symbols of each element. Balloons in the shape of Momo and Appa marked the sky while Flying Bisons were used as an attraction, people paying a number of yuan to be able to board and ride the Flying Bison over the city for just thirty minutes. 

While walking down the bazaar, she saw Johnny and Doyoung interview people attending the festival and hosting the stalls. Johnny was equipped with his camera around his neck like a necklace and a notepad which he was intently scrawling notes from the interview. She chuckled at Doyoung’s bored expression; looking around the festival as he held Johnny’s microphone so that he could replay and get exact quotes later. Doyoung caught her eyes across the crowd and lifted one arm up as a wave, so Tari responded similarly - before chuckling at Johnny slapping Doyoung to pay attention. He immediately had to rrub the spot he was hit on and turned back to the interview. If there was one thing Tari learnt while joining Johnny for multiple interviews, it’s that Johnny hates it when there’s anything  that can negatively affect his rapport with an  interviewee. This means whoever he’s with has to look equally engrossed in the conversation. 

Despite how much she has been avoiding these celebrations, the bustling crowd didn’t prevent her from seeing the beauty she saw from the street’s vibrant colors and festivities. Everyone looked so happy and in bliss. This is what peace and harmony should look like; happiness. I’m not needed, she’d tell herself. She stood blankly in the middle of the street, ignoring the very minimal and light pushes from other people as she observed the world around her - mentally slowing down everything thats happening. Mental note, she told herself, ask Johnny to send me some photographs from today. 

Walking down the streets, everything was so lively. Animated story tellers, grinning parents, young adults exploring, children learning history - this felt amazing. Why do I avoid these? She questions herself, before her eyes caught sight of the reason she does. 

Her eyes fell upon the statues of the previous Avatars standing in order, taller than most buildings on the street but only half the size of the Aang statue that guards the coast. Some people were bowing down in front of the statues, some were just observing it. Most people stared at up in awe - afterall, these are the people who save the world and whose purpose is to protect mankind. These are the people who will forever live on through a different reincarnation, a different life. They are the people with immense and extraordinary power. Despite her trembling steps, she decided to approach it, allowing the large and otherworldly statues to stare down at her - eyeing her up and down, reminding her she’s not of similar status. 

She felt her breath get trapped in her throat as her memories flash back to the last time she lived with her parents. 

“We don’t normally tell them when they’re this young,” She overheard someone telling her parents; a voice she’d grow familiar with as she grew up, “But your daughter is showing incredible skill and we want to train her early.” The same voice’s smile was evident in their voice as they continued to speak in conviction, “If we do it right, she can be considered the greatest of them all.” 

She was only four years old when the person who raised her took her away from her family who resided in a traditional water nation village. Ever since then, despite being put into circumstances where it may seem impossible, she kept trying to run away. Not just physically, but mentally. Trying to leave everything behind. All she wanted was a new beginning, a new identity, a new face. She knew if she had the opportunity, she may ask the Mother of Faces to change her face - but at the same time, that doesn’t stop the fact that she’s Tari. That she was born like this. 

Trying to catch her breath, she looked around and saw a stage with a list of performances next to the entrance to the audience area. This should be calming, she falsely presumed. She approached; noticing how some of the famous local dancers like Jungwoo and Winwin are at the front of the audience, probably preparing for their act. She always loved seeing them dance - they were always enchanting. Whenever she hears they will be performing, she always drags someone - usually Sonan or Doyoung - to watch. Although intrigued due to her interest in watching the dancers, as she got closer she noticed that the current show was a play and the actors were standing in line as if they were about to bow. All of them dressed like the statues from earlier, except theres an addition. At the end, right next to Aang, there was two waterbenders holding a newborn child. She tried to focus on what’s being said by the narrator. 

“All we know now is that there is an Avatar in this world and they are from the water nation.” The narrator’s voice boomed, mumbled by the distance. He grinned as if reminiscing about the time he heard the news of the birth of the Avatar, “There’s no other information about him or her, but we know that whoever they are; the spirit of Aang, of Roku, Kyoshi, Kuruk, Yangchen, Bayu, Salai, and Wan lives on through them.”

It started to become overwhelming. She quickly turned back and started heading anywhere she can catch a breath - but that means she has to get away from the bustling crowd. Okay, time to go. Her thoughts were running a mile every minute, nothing focusing - everything in a fast-paced motion. She was planning on going to Sonan’s booth once Johnny and Doyoung started heading in the same direction, as it was set up on the opposite end of the street and she was not going to brace this festival alone. But, she just can’t be here anymore. She quickly texted Hendery telling him she’s on her way and she’ll take over his shift, no problem. His response? A series of celebratory gifs and a promise to a future favor. 

Quickly texting her, Johnny, and Doyoung’s group chat – she informed them of ‘an emergency at work’ where ‘Hendery got burnt’ and she has to step in It’s better to text them rather than approaching them because all they’ll do is convince her to stay. That, and Johnny may actually hold her to him throughout the event. She then texted Sonan she’ll see her later tonight for dinner, which Tari now promised she’ll be providing. She quickly sprinted to the closest tram station, but even there – despite how it’s not as crowded as usual due to people exploring the festivities, everyone who got off the train were in traditional garbs. Especially the orange outfit and red cape Aang was famous for. I just can’t escape, can I? Staring at her quickly shuffling feet as much as she can, she made her way to the cafe within thirty minutes. 

“You’re a savior.” Hendery praised, hugging his friend and passing over his apron. She chuckled.

“Go have fun, donkey.” She lovingly called him his nickname, making him chuckle. As soon as the door chimed, signalling that he has left - she watched him waddle towards the same direction she just came from. “Because I know I won’t.” She mumbled under her breath as she tied her apron behind her back and prepared herself to serve numerous patrons dressed like the very same statues who stared down at her like gods half an hour earlier.

request anything for future parts / penny for your thoughts here 

[artificialqueens]

untitled part 1 (monet x cracker) -lem0nb0y

an: this fic was mostly written while I was half asleep and high but reviewed ans editted while i've been at work. im sorry i haven't been writing much but this is just a drabble cuz i wanted to write for monet. monet and trinity are managers at a phone store btw. this takes place is a part of a different verse of mine, but ofc monet, monique, bob and trinity simple just exist in this verse, they aren't important towards the whole ravjila timeline. im rambling but here is monet being a simple clumsy lesbian.

"Nonono! You have no clue how stressful work was today! We finally released that new phone ya know? Line was down the street, girl! I thought I'd never get out of there! Not to mention the only other manager there was Trinity and don't get me wrong Mo, I love Trin' and all, but she was pushin' alllll my wrong buttons."

With her shoulder pressed into her ear with a phone pancaked between, Monet opens up her purse, shoving her hand into the bag to find her earbuds for an easier talk with her roommate. She couldn't wait to complain about her day of work. The subway was practically empty from what she could see in front of her, which wasn't suprising. She stomps her way to the correct stop, her ankles pinching in pain over standing on her feet all day. Even with the crashing pain swelling her head she could still smile and tone in on her best friends dramatic telling of her own day. Monique's voice on full blast in her eardrum, she quickly takes her phone from between her shoulder and shoves the earbud plug into the phones socket.

Putting the buds in her ears she listens to the beaming storytelling, chuckling along at the antics that seemed to have taken place in Monique's personal life. "-And do you know who I bumped into today? The one and only, Miss Manila! She's doing really well, got TWO girls!"

"Two? Are you sure?" Monet eyebrows press together in confusion, shocked that their old friend had not one girlfriend, but in fact two! She pouts her lips slightly in jealousy, wishing she had at least one partner. All while stepping onto her train ride home, she turns down the volume of the call so nobody around her would hear. Monique continues her retelling of seeing Manila. "Yes! They were all snuggle buggin'. One of them is that one girl that gave you make-up tips few months ago at Sephora!"

"Wait that hot girl with the blonde braids? She's dating HER!?" Monet accidentally raising her voice a bit too loud, the few people on train looking at her with drunken, narrowed eyes. Quietly apologizing, she takes a seat two seats down from a young woman. Monet holds the mic closer to her lips, continuing to chat regardless of the company of strangers. "Nila really got lucky if she is dating that girl, she's gorgeous."

Monique agrees, changing the topic to the recent man in her life, rambling on about the endless details of the date they had recently. Those details went anywhere from how he seems to hold himself to his apparently massive dick print in his jeans. Monet listened carefully, putting in her input here and there but her mind wandered back to the fact her old highschool friend now had two more girlfriends than her. She hadn't been the best with relationships after all, but she knew she had the power and go out to get someone special.

Twirling one of her thin braids around her fingers, she ends up only replying to Monique's questions with a simple 'mhm'. She couldn't help but linger on the idea of wanting to get back out there, like Monique. Maybe go back on Tinder and swipe til she meets her future wife. Doing just that she begins the hunt for the perfect gal to fill her heart. Swiping left and right, she gets lost in it all and had paid no attention to Monique.

"Earth to Monet! Are you even listening!" Monique yells loudly into her own mic, causing Monet to snap her head up slightly and she sighs quietly. Regaining herself back into the small details about the conversation, she finally speaks. "I'm sorry girl but I think I'm just real worn out tonight. But to answer your question, suck his dick on the 3rd date. Okay, love you, night."

Monet hangs the call up and looks around herself, to see how busy the train actually was. The woman next to her and two men down the other side were all her company. As she turned her head to scope the scene, the blonde next to her flips a page of her book. She's reading an older and faded book with a rubbed off title. Looking her up an down quickly, Monet notices her pretty pink shoes. The princess pink shoes with the nails on her fingers to match, had her quite smitten. She was pretty from the small look that Monet got. A silvery blonde with a beautiful profile and sense of style wearing a poodle skirt and a tucked in white shirt. Only seeing part of the shirt, Monet could make out a peace sign.

Having returned her eyes to the phone, the Tinder swiping starts. She carelessly examines the profiles to see if they are deamed worthy of a super like. Many of the girls were basic, just visiting for vacation while others were looking for threesomes. Not quite what she had in mind but still analyzing there profiles regardless. Swiping away from another girl reluctantly, Monets eyes widen slightly as she sees a newly familiar girl.

The girl that sits not less than 6 feet from her was on her phone screen. She looks around to make sure nobody can see, nervously turning her phone screen ever so slightly away from Brianna. That's her name, Brianna. Brianna has a cat, is a hair stylist, and looking for a good coffee date. She had good fashion, always wearing pink and likes to cook. Monet stares down at her phone, wondering of what to do. Being so nervously curious to see if they could match, she hadn't even realized it was her stop. Quickly jumping up before she was left, she drops her phone on the ground. It lands face down, skitting down the floor of the train. "Shit!" Monet exclaims as she grabs it off the ground without even checking for damage. Brianna had looked up from her book just as Monet was rushed off the train, seemingly embarrassed of herself.

Embarrassed she was, after all she had just cracked her brand new phone in front of the first woman that's even peaked her interest the smallest bit all year long. It was love at first sight, but Monet doesn't believe it. Who would believe that one glance a basic blonde girl that likes to cook would be the kick start in the heart that she needed? Monets eyes wander to the long crack down the phone screen all while texting her other best friend if she can come over in hopes to get her head on straight.

She has only two best friends, one of course being the loud and happy Monique always knowing the details behind anyone. The second would be Bob. She's famous for owning the dumbest nickname known to man and being chaotically witty, knowing exactly what to say at all the seemingly wrong times. While being paired with Monique, Monet had the dream team on her hands. Bob especially was a force to be reckoned with when paired with Monet. While they bicker constantly about tiniest details of any memory they share, Monet had a tendency to lose the battle. Nonetheless she knew that Bob was who she needed to talk to about this encounter, regardless of how Bob may question her rationality of putting all her eggs into a basket named Brianna.

Sending text after text, asking if she was awake or busy, Monet got to response. The awkward thing about that was she had already arrived outside of Bobs apartment, in hopes she'd reply while she was on the way. They only lived but a few blocks apart from each other so even if Bob didn't answer the door, Monet could just walk home somewhat still hazey-headed. Monet turned off her phone and pushed it into her bag, looking at the door in front of her. "I hope this bitch is awake." She says quietly before knocking firmly and repeatedly.

There's a pause. Monet can hear the approaching footsteps staggering towards the door, presumably since Bob had just woke up. Stepping back from the door, she watches and Bob flings the door open quickly. In the doorway is Bob, a spatula in hand."Monet! Why the fuck do you knock like the damn police, I mean my god!" Bob smiles with the tip of her tounge bitten between her teeth.

Monet smiles back, going in for a hug. She hadn't actually seen Bob in weeks. Thinking about it, Monet worries that this is the worst idea to discuss her petty love life when she hadn't caught up with her bestie in awhile. The idea rattles around in her brain but still manages to reply unfazed. "I had to make sure you'd wake up! But why the fuck did you think a spatula would protect you from the cops!" A half truth, she really didn't realize she had knocked loud enough to simulate the police. Still questioning why she had chosen a cooking tool for self defense with bickering and laughter, Bob steps to the side of the door to have room for Monet to come in.

[bs-dogs]

Reason Living

Summary

Nakahara Chuuya. Bold. Confident. Dramatic, with just the right amount of flare.

Behind the mask, there’s little Chuuya can do to keep the tremors, the lassitude—  the void that threatens to consume his entire being—  at bay.

And then suddenly he’s switching bodies and falling for a stranger who has dead eyes, a familiar face and a name that tastes like hope and regret on his tongue. There’s a shift in Chuuya’s chest that feels like it should’ve been there all this time, and breathing comes easily to him now.

So what do you think would happen if Chuuya stopped switching bodies? Find out why, of course!

(or the Kimi no Na Wa AU nobody asked for, but here it is. Complete with idiots!Skk pining for each other, fluff, angst, time travel and 2 people trying to find their place in this world.)

CH 1

As Melos lay with arms and legs flung out on the ground, sleep began to overcome him. But then, suddenly, a murmuring sound reached his ears. Raising his head slightly, he held his breath and listened. The sound came to somewhere nearby. Rising falteringly to his—

A knock on the door interrupts Chuuya’s stream of thought, cutting off the vivid imagery that was building up inside his mind. He jumps slightly at the sound, not even noticing how his hand is tired after gripping the pen too tightly, and that the playlist he had the mind to play before working has already stopped. Now, he sits disgruntled on his swivel chair, alone and surrounded by silence with a short manuscript in front of him.

Whiplash. That’s the word to describe what he’s feeling right now. There’s a sense of nausea after being pulled back with enough force to startle him, and then there’s the familiar feeling of apprehension that quickly reestablishes itself into the groves of his weary body.

He takes a few deep breaths, trying to anchor his mind back to the real world. Reaching out, he grabs the small Sheep plushy besides his pen holder, grounding himself with the texture. It works, and he sets it down before looking out of the window. It’s dark out, something that doesn’t really shock him since he has the tendency to forget the passage of time whenever he’s focused on something.

Shooting a glance at the clock to his right, the hands point to ‘7:48’. He isn’t given the chance to think about who might be visiting him, of all people, this late into the evening for another knock makes itself known this time with a little bit more force behind it.

“Yes, wait up,” Chuuya says, voice lighter than he feels, and stands tiredly after pushing himself away from his desk. His feet gently pad across the room to reach his front door, not even bothering to look through the peephole to check who it is. Pausing before opening the door, Chuuya takes a couple of breaths to mentally ready and compose himself before opening the door. 

‘It’s showtime.’

With his best smile in place, Chuuya greets the visitor, a close friend of his— really, his only friend at this point. 

Opening the door wider, it takes a moment for Chuuya to get over his initial shock, “Poe! What brings you here?” He asks and gestures for the shy man to enter. The man ducks slightly under the doorframe, his impossibly tall build making it difficult for him to enter— his hand protecting the raccoon on his shoulder, Karl, from knocking into the frame. Being a smaller person than the foreigner, Chuuya can’t help but be a tad jealous of the man’s height. It’s an ugly feeling which he tries his best to dismiss.

“Oh, I just thought to check on you and stuff…” His voice is almost a whisper, trailing off at the end as if unsure. 

They sit down on Chuuya’s couch, one of the few things of luxury in his apartment, and let a moment pass in silent as Karl titters downward and on his guest’s lap. Once Poe has situated the two of them comfortably, the man takes note of the singular light source and the disheveled desk before opening his mouth, “Did you get too engrossed in your work again that you forgot, Chuuya?” He asks in his soft voice, aware of how much of a workaholic Chuuya is.

All the man in question can do is laugh awkwardly, swiftly flicking the lights on, “Well, you know me…” Chuuya is a little bit blinded by the sudden brightness and laughs lightly to try and mask it, “Would you like some tea? Coffee?” He offers, already halfway to his small kitchen when Poe politely refuses, “No, I’m good. I already ate something.”

“Oh, okay then.” He sits down again, his brain scrambling to think about why Poe would visit him so late.

‘He already passed me his draft, and we had lunch the other day so…’

As if hearing his thoughts, Poe heaves a sigh and chuckles, “We were supposed to meet by the café, remember?” The brunet chuckles, “I invited you…”

Then it suddenly clicks for Chuuya and his chest tightens, “Oh!” He exclaims “The date with the cute guy! I’m so sorry I forgot.” He looks down, voice taking an apologetic tone, “I swear I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s fine. It looks like you have a lot of work to do, so I understand.” Poe kindly says, pausing his petting of Karl to pat Chuuya’s shoulder in reassurance before retreating to Karl’s fur once more. The smaller man smiles at his effort, appreciative especially since he knows of the author’s shyness and aversion to physical contact, “So, how’d it go?”

Poe’s face reddens at an alarming rate, sputtering as Chuuya leans forward and teasingly grins at him, “It was, uh, nice. We just talked and ate and…”

“And?”

It doesn’t take long before he caves in, “We agreed to meet again next week,” He pauses, biting his lips, but it’s obvious to Chuuya that he’s happy with the way the corners of his lips lift up, “Ah… And he… I think he flirted with me?”

“Hot damn, our precious boy bags himself a second date!” Chuuya laughs. At the sudden loud sound, Karl skittishly stands up in alertness before trying to sleep again. The next time Chuuya talks, it’s comparably quieter, “It’s a good thing I didn’t third-wheel, eh?”

“You wouldn’t be bothering us though, he likes debates.” 

“Are you saying I like to argue?” Chuuya can’t help but tease, drawing in his eyebrows and pretending to frown. Poe doesn’t buy it though, choosing to simply smile at him, “Chuuya! I could never!”

They both share a laugh, a nice ambience settling around them. Talking to Poe really calms him down. It really is nice to have a friend or two, Chuuya supposes. He grew up as a very quiet child, rarely letting anyone in— his cold and closed off demeanor only intensifying after that incident a few years back. Over time, he did shake off the hard exterior and began to try the whole “friendship” thing again. Chuuya ponders that it paid off quite well, if his nice chat with Poe is anything to go by.

They met each other almost a year ago, when the man was looking for a new editor for his novel after his previous one, Lovecraft, suddenly disappeared from the face of the Earth. Luckily for him, Chuuya saw his online ad and the rest is history. The writer is quite skilled, his works mostly science fiction and mystery, and Chuuya admires his passion for literature and writing.

“It’s one of his works, isn’t it?” Poe’s voice cuts through the comfortable silence between them, eyes resting on the manuscript on Chuuya’s desk, “The one you’re working on right now?”

Speaking of skilled authors…

“Yeah,” He starts, “The style, the aura, the feel…” Chuuya struggles to find the correct word to explain how he just knows that it’s his work— the mysterious author Chuuya’s been handling for all of 4 months now. He uses different pseudonyms, affirmed by his boss when he once thought to ask, but the distinctive tone and presence of his writing stays the same. Something about the way the author uses word and symbolism is striking, almost alluring, and the literature-geek inside him just melts every time Mori hands him another manuscript.

It doesn’t help that he doesn’t even really need to proofread anything; the grammar is absolutely impeccable, so he spends his time just absorbing the story, Chuuya doesn’t understand why his boss still sends them to him if everything is flawless already, but he’s not really one to complain.

“Well, what name is he using right now? What’s the manuscript about?” His guest’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts. 

“Kuroki Shunpei. It’s a retelling of one of Schiller’s, about friendship and trials.” He starts, “It’s amazingly short, the shortest I’ve ever handled of our mystery person— but I’m sure it’s him.” There’s conviction in his tone, certainty clear in his eyes. Maybe it’s only a gut feeling, but Chuuya’s instinct and intuition have never failed him before.

Poe hums, “That’s new. Isn’t he more of a darkly personal introspection kind of person? Maybe it was, um, written experimentally?”

“Maybe,” Chuuya considers this, “But I haven’t really finished reading yet. I was actually hoping on doing everything today since it’s not as long.”

“So that’s why you were so invested, you were pining away at your mystery guy.” Poe says, tone flat and eyes twinkling. Chuuya thinks he sees smugness in there somewhere.

“Pining? I was just reading, you moron.” To which Poe replies, “Oh, I know you. If anyone had to court you, they’d make sure to send you disgustingly purple prose because of your disease.”

“Say that one more time, I dare you.” Chuuya says, trying to exact the respect he deserved because he is the host here, damn it!

Poe just languidly stares at him, “Chuu-nii, think about it. Maybe he’s your, uh, soulmate or something? Why would Mori even give you the manuscripts if they’re already perfect as is? Maybe there’s a hidden message or a code…”

“First of all, you are older than me, and I don’t have some stupid high schooler disease. Second, there are no hidden messages. And what if he’s an old guy?” Chuuya almost shrieks at Poe, words starting to jumble together the faster he speaks, “And, you know, you’re a mystery writer, not a romance writer for fuck’s sake!”

“So, you checked for secret messages, huh?” Poe raises an eyebrow questioningly, his amusement radiating off him in waves. Chuuya ratters on, sharp sounds and indignant noises as he tries to save himself from the slip-up, “That’s not it at all! I was just— How— What?” His brain short circuits, regretting all of his past choices that’s led to this bout of teasing.

Karl skitters off of Poe’s lap and onto the floor before being scooped back up again, this time being settled against Poe’s chest, “Relax,” He says, lips twisting up, “I was joking anyway. But I do hope we find out who it is.” 

‘We’, Chuuya thinks. It’s the first time someone he’s only known for so long used that word in conjunction with him, and it’s a nice feeling— like someone is on your side for once. He warms at the thought and inwardly promises to himself to make it up to the man.

“Yeah, I do too.” 

-

He closes the door behind him, slowly making his way to the kitchen and grabbing himself a glass of water. The cool liquid is a welcome feeling as it slides down his parched throat, drinking greedily after talking for a long while. He glances at the clock again, idly wondering how he survived interacting with a human for 2 hours straight. Chuuya sets the now empty glass on the counter with a loud clunk, the harsh sound cutting through the heavy air like a butter knife, and contemplates whether he’s hungry enough to want to eat. It takes him a few minutes before ultimately deciding that no, he’d rather sleep because talking really does take a lot more energy out of him than most people. Besides, it’s not really the first time he’s skipping so he’s quite sure that his stomach wouldn’t protest that much after all this time. 

Sighing, he closes the lights and feels the tension from his shoulder lift slightly. The cover the shadows provide him is a much needed comfort— Chuuya’s always preferred the dark over brightly lit rooms. There’s something about people not seeing him and feeling invisible enough to let the cracks through that makes him feel more human than when he stands under the spotlight. Or maybe because it’s the familiarity of having your environment match how you feel that puts his mind at ease? Whatever it is, all Chuuya knows is that he feels safer now.

It doesn’t take long for his eyes to acclimate to the dark; his body already accustomed to the way his apartment is laid out to the point where he could live comfortably even with his eyes closed. He doesn’t trip over wires or stray papers or the books haphazardly strewn about, doesn’t bump into the corners of his desk and bookcase as he goes into his room. Chuuya hasn’t cleaned in a while because of work, but even then he still knows where everything should be in the organized chaos.

He doesn’t change clothes since he didn’t really go out earlier today, and barely goes through his nighttime skincare routine. Chuuya doesn’t really see the point of taking care of himself if no one is going to see him on a daily basis anyway, but he was brought up to at least maintain his cleanliness and appearance.

His adoptive mother— Kouyou, or Ane-san as he likes to call her— beat the need to look presentable into him the moment he stepped foot in her teahouse. And even after years of moving out, he still can’t shake the need to stay clean and hygienic as much as possible. He supposes that he should thank her for that, since he would be akin to a hobo by now if she didn’t raise him to be so prim and proper.

He pats his face dry and looks at himself in the mirror. His eyes trail after the dark bags and tired expression and thinks he looks miserable. He does feel miserable, so he gives himself that, and proceeds to brush his hair. The split ends are troublesome, but he makes it through with only a few red strands sticking to the brush before his arm tires and the giant need to just lay down and rest consumes him. Sluggishly, he drags himself to bed and just stares at the ceiling.

Despite the fatigue that uncomfortably settles in his body, he can’t sleep— and Chuuya’s just so tired of everything but of course he can’t sleep. He thinks about what’s wrong, as if he can list down all the things that’s wrong with him before the sun rises up in a few hours, before he finally gets up and turns the fan on. The sound of the machine whirring does little to calm him down, but it’s better than wallowing in silence. He never could sleep in the quiet, the static blaring in his ears somehow louder than the occasional loud shouts coming from the unit next to him, so he does his best to get comfortable. Chuuya readies himself for another night of terrors, already anticipating the way smoke clogs up his nose and the way heat tickles his skin.

He hopes the empty feeling that continues to persist inside is gone the next day before he surrenders himself to unconsciousness.

-

The next time he meets Poe again, it’s in their favourite café. It’s two days after they last saw each other, but Chuuya can’t really remember what happened yesterday. Maybe he got drunk. Remembering how tired he felt the other day, he wouldn’t put it past himself to try and drown himself with wine. The fact that he woke up with an unsettling feeling in his stomach just cements his theory. Must be a weird hangover.

Poe is waiting for him at their corner, a milkshake already in front of him, “Chuuya! Are you really sure you’re okay enough to go out? We could always reschedule.” The concern is palpable in the man’s tone, his soft voice hurried and fretful. 

Chuuya thinks it’s because Poe caught him blacked-out drunk.

“I’m fine,” he says, “And I wanted to make it up to you anyway.”

“For what?” Poe asks, hands stilling from scratching behind Karl’s ears, his head tilting slightly in question.

After sneaking a glance at the counter and noting that the line is, in fact, longer than usual, he answers, “For ditching you the other day?” Maybe Chuuya should wait until the queue is shorter? 

“But you already did?”

This makes Chuuya halt, confusion tearing its way through his mouth, “What?”. The question slips from his tongue, his mind automatically forcing himself to Think, damn it! What did you do yesterday?

Poe stares at him, trying to find a hint of whatever it is he’s looking for before carefully responding, “You did— yesterday, remember?” He says, “You suddenly called me and we ate in your apartment and talked about your mystery author.”

It takes a few minutes for Chuuya to recover from his brain short-circuiting. Distantly, he notices how his breath is getting a little bit labored and shallow and how he’s shaking. He doesn’t feel like himself right now— doesn’t feel like it’s his body and feels more like an outsider privy to his thoughts.

“Oh… Maybe I got too drunk to remember.” He tries to laugh it off, sounding like he’s convincing himself rather than Poe, “I don’t really remember much. Did I do anything stupid?”

The man takes another sip from his milkshake, already halfway through and it reminds Chuuya that he still needs to order, “You did say a lot of, uh, dark things…”

Warning bells sound through his mind.

“Like, you know— Chuuya, if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here. I know how it feels like and I care about you, okay?” Poe continues to worry, eyes strong and vulnerable. His hands fidget, like he wants to reach out and touch Chuuya and reassure that he’s okay, “I’m not trying to pressure you into anything…”

Chuuya now knows it’s not because Poe caught him blacked-out drunk.

Thoughts of hot chocolates and banana bread fly out of his mind. Faintly, he feels the back of his eyes warm and thinks that there’s a slight possibility that he might cry. He takes a deep breath in, counts from ten just like his therapist told him and tries to relax. It’s hard— harder than usual, like he’s sinking deeper and deeper into the ground and right now he feels like he doesn’t want to breathe anymore.

He tries anyway.

“Thank you,” He finally murmurs, “ I— Fuck…” The words are like broken glass, slicing at his lips the moment they try to break free from his mouths and it stings, “I’m not…”

Chuuya came here today with a slight bounce in his steps because he missed feeling okay when talking with Poe, so he surely didn’t expect to be talking about this. It’s like a slap to the face— like a cold bucket of water being dumped on him because he sure as hell wasn’t ready for his only friend to learn about this.

It’s like a breach of privacy. He was trying so hard to seem fine and okay— he should be fine and okay, damn it— so the fact that Poe thinks he’s not is throwing Chuuya off right now. In retrospect, it was a bit outlandish to think he could take this dirty, dark little secret with him to grave. Soon, preferably. But now the cat’s out of the bag, and he really wishes he didn’t wake up today.

How funny and coincidental is it that someone probably borrowed his body for a day and they’re just as, if not more so, miserable as Chuuya? Because if it were Chuuya, he’d keep up the façade as the workaholic, the outgoing and headstrong and stubborn person until the day he finally died. But he wasn’t Chuuya. He wasn’t Chuuya yesterday, and he slipped and now the first friend he’s had the pleasure to have in years knows how ugly and pitiful he is. 

Something warm presses against his shoulder and he looks and sees Poe looking at him with his arm outstretched. There’s no pity, no disgust, just resolve and worry and a promise. 

“It’s fine. I’m fine. It’s okay.”

Oh fuck, Poe is going to realize that meeting Chuuya was a mistake sooner or later. He’s going to finally figure out that Chuuya isn’t really who Poe thinks he is and that he’s a fake. Oh fu—

“It’s okay to not be fine.”

Chuuya tries to remember if anyone ever told him that. He’s not sure.

-

The man— Poe, his name is Poe— stares at him worriedly. It finally occurs to him, in order, that:

a.) He probably shouldn’t have said that.

b.) He’s not himself right now.

“Chuuya, are you okay?”

c.) He definitely shouldn’t have said that.

He laughs it off, waving his hands. The lower-pitched tone scratches against his voice box and he feels like a stranger and an intruder and that he shouldn’t be here. He feels like this is a fever dream, like something from a movie or a novel. He thinks, ‘If this is a fever dream then why couldn’t I have just dreamed about Odasaku?’ and promptly shuts that thought down because does he really want to wake up crying and shaking inconsolably again?

He smiles, “I’m fine.”

Hi everyone! I’m vvv late but here’s my work  for the bigbang! I’ll be queueing my work over the next few hours. Thanks for reading and see y’all in the next one!

Links will be provided at the last post, thanks!

[sussexcraze]

Better than Roast Chicken [Harry and Meghan One Shot]

So…. I gave in and decided to write about Meghan spilling the baby news to Harry. I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to make this because it is weird to retell real-life events of real life people, but all the ideas have been bugging me and I wrote this one shot because my fluffy and sappy heart can’t take it we all love a royal baby. I totally understand if you don’t like reading works like these; feel free to scroll past this! But if you’re up for it, I’ve put it under the cut!

Even before entering the Royal Family, Meghan always prided herself in her ability to ground her emotions and to stay calm in a spectrum of situations. Whether it was her grueling acting days or her trusty yoga routine to thank for this, Meghan knew that a clear head and a calm and collected mindset have aided her in treading through anything thrown at her with such grace.

Up until moments ago, however, the ever composed and unperturbed Meg was now a complete and utter mess.  

It took her three pregnancy tests - and a solid 10 minutes just staring into nowhere - before it sunk in that she was pregnant. There’s a baby in my tummy,she thought. I’m going to be a mother. Harry’s going to be a father.

As she laid on their bed, Meghan’s thoughts were everywhere. Harry was out on a meeting for their Oceania tour, so she was home alone. Without her husband to listen to her litany of commentaries, Meghan was in shambles trying to sort the wave of thoughts that were bombarding her. Her mind flew straight to the tour - she knew the news of her pregnancy would affect it drastically. It’s been planned for months, Meg, she tried to convince herself. They’ve probably forecasted all possible situations and have prepared a dozen of backup plans.

“Have they been so forward thinking as to expect a pregnancy, though?” Meghan muttered to herself. As ecstatic as she was about her little bean, she would be sorely disappointed if she was advised to forego the big tour.  

Her worry lines went even deeper at the dilemma of who to break the news to first. She was itching to tell her mom, who has been nagging her and Harry to give her a grandchild from the moment they were signing the registers in St. George’s Chapel. But then again, shouldn’t Her Majesty be informed first?

And then there was Harry. Oh, dear Harry. Meghan’s features softened at the thought of Harry finding out that he was going to be a father. He’s been itching to become one even before they met, and Meghan was giddy at the thought that she would be bringing forth to the world that dream that he has been holding onto for so long.

Meghan grinned to herself as she started thinking of how she would break the news. He’s a sucker for surprises, Meghan thought to herself. He’ll love a little bib that says ‘daddy’s little angel’ or something. Or maybe I could give him a card that says from Meg and little bean -  

“You better be feeling a lot better because that meeting was long as hell and I had to go through with it all by myself.”  

Meghan was so engrossed with her thoughts that she didn’t notice Harry arriving. She stood up and strode to Harry in one go, giving him a quick peck on the lips. “You’re here already? How’d the meeting go?”

Harry sighed loudly, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Too long for my liking, as always. And more than half of it was all about press arrangements and media-related concerns for the tour, which we both know is the least exciting part of any meeting.” Harry pulled her closer. “And you, how are you feeling? Still tired?”

“Oh, about that…” Meghan nearly forgot that the reason Harry attended the meeting alone was because she was feeling unusually tired for the whole day, and he insisted that she forego it. “I’m feeling a lot better, actually,” she replied. “The afternoon off was well appreciated.”

Harry smirked. “And have you done anything productive during this afternoon off? And by productive, I mean cookies for your husband? Or samosas?”

Meghan couldn’t resist a laugh. “Sorry love, neither. But… I think I’ve got something… better?”

“Finally!” Harry stretched his arms dramatically and cheered like a five-year-old. “We haven’t had roast chicken for so long… please tell me it’s roast chicken.”

That’s it, Meghan thought as she let out a big grin. All the surprise plans are going out the window.

Meghan shook her head slowly as she smiled to the floor. “Strike two, Henry. Something else is in the oven.”

Frankly, Meghan wasn’t surprised when her food-driven and dork of a husband ran straight to their kitchen instead of her arms. Good heavens, was this man not fed during his 34 years of existence?

“Meg, I love you to death, but you never joke about food with a man who is starving after a three-hour meeting!” Harry nearly screamed as he shut the oven door. “What could possibly be better than roast -”

Harry’s words came to a halt as he turned to Meghan, who was standing a few feet before him - with her hands on her belly.

“Not that oven, you dork,” Meghan paused, then chuckled to herself. “Why did I marry you again?”

Meghan could almost see the gears in Harry’s head move like clockwork, and suddenly, his eyes widen ever so slightly, his mouth agape. Meghan watched him with intensity as his eyes moved from her face, down to her stomach, and back to her face again. Harry was… his expression was indescribable; all that Meghan knew was that it was the exact reaction he had the moment she said yes during that night last November.

Harry dashed to Meghan in mere seconds and engulfed her in a big hug. “Meg, I’m going to be a fa- are you really- ” Harry’s eyes widen, immediately taking a step back to put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry I - was that too tight?” Harry whispered, his eyes filled with concern.

Meghan laughed heartily at her husband’s reaction. “I’m okay, Harry.” She took his hands from her shoulders and placed them gently on her stomach. “We’re okay.”

Of course, Harry lost it then and there. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he stroked Meghan’s belly. Ever the heart-on-his-sleeve man that he was, Harry was not afraid to show what he was feeling; from his eyes, his grin, and down to the slight tremor of his hands on her stomach, his euphoria was palpable. “I- I’m going to be a father, Meg,” Harry whispered as he put his forehead against his wife’s. “We’re going to have a little bean.”

Meghan’s jaw was aching from smiling, but it didn’t bother her one bit. She took the time to wipe her husband’s tear-stained cheeks. “That’s right, daddy.”

Harry chuckled slightly, grabbing her hand from his face to kiss her knuckle. “Mhmmm, it’ll take some getting used to to hear someone else calling me daddy, am I right-”

“Harry!” Meghan barked as she hastily covered his mouth. “You are- no dirty talk of any kind!”

Harry feigned being hurt. “Who said it was dirty talk? And really, it’s going to take some getting used to, considering how often you call me -”

“Aaaaand, zip,” Meghan retorted. She turned her back to him and headed for their bathroom. “If you’re done with your tantrum, Henry, you can come and check the pregnancy tests if you’d like.”

Harry beamed with what he heard and immediately beelined for their bathroom. As Meghan handed him the tests, Harry looked at them with fascination, his grin practically plastered on his face. “I still can’t believe it, Meg. We’ve been waiting for this, and it’s finally here.”

Meghan sighed as she hugged him from behind and placed her chin over his shoulder. “You and I both. I love you, Harry.”

Harry’s features softened. He turned ever so slightly, and cupping her little chin with his fingers, he gave his wife a kiss. “I love you too, mummy,” he replied after.

Meghan pulled away and gave him a quizzical look. “You mean, mommy?”

Harry sighed and smirked at Meghan. “Oh dear, we didn’t think this though, did we? Our poor child’s going to have the most confusing and mixed up English vocabulary for life.” Harry reached out for her stomach to touch it gently, then faced her wife with a sly grin. “Right, mummy?”

Meghan rolled her eyes at her husband. “Well, since you’re not pushing a whole human being in six months time, maybe you can give this one to mommy?”

Harry laughed in response. “No doubt about that, mum- mommy!”

———————————————————————————————————–

Hours and about a hundred tummy kisses later, Harry and Meghan were in bed, with Meghan snuggled tightly into Harry’s arms. It was always how they slept, except this time, his hand was splayed over her stomach.

Just as she was off to dreamland, Harry stirred and nudged Meghan slightly. “Meg, you awake?”

Meghan sighed. “I am now.” She turned to him and gave him a half-asleep look. “What is it?”

Harry stifled a laugh at how she looked. “Before I forget, I wanted to tell you that for the record,” Harry sat up and kissed her stomach one more time. “…this is way better then roast chicken.”

My writing’s a little rusty, so sorry if it’s kind of all over the place. But I hope you liked it! I’m not sure if I’ll continue writing more since I kinda feel bad about making fictional stuff on real people, but I truly adore Harry and Meghan so I might just end up writing from time to time lol would love to hear from you guys!

[sleemo]

Daisy Ridley on finding fame, Star Wars and her love for washing powder

Stylist discovers how Daisy Ridley, London-born star of the biggest movie franchise in the world, became a force to be reckoned with — Stylist Magazine

Daisy Ridley is talking about her favourite washing powder.

“It has got to be Fairy Non-Bio, for sensitive skin. A little touch of fabric conditioner,” she tells me, happily. “God, I love washing my clothes.” Not the conversation I imagined as I flew to LA to hang out with the protagonist of the biggest movie franchise in the galaxy ahead of the anticipated arrival of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. But I’m happy to be immersed in it. The conversation sums up the actress: a normal 25-year-old woman thrust into an extraordinary world. A woman who’s a bit jittery from drinking strong coffee, she confesses.

The Last Jedi is steeped in secrecy. All Ridley can do is reassure me that “the question everyone is asking will be answered” (she is referring to the parentage of Rey, her Star Wars character). But what we do know is this: Ridley will be front and centre again.

The Force Awakens (2015) saw Rey, an orphan and scavenger on a desert planet, discover the Force and fight the First Order. The Last Jedi sees the young warrior develop her Jedi powers, with guidance from Luke Skywalker, and continue to seek her place in the world.

Rey was – is – important because she is not defined by the men around her. She is a talented pilot and combatant. She has been granted proper protagonist status; not just a cipher for plot development. Her costume is one she can move in. She is a survivor. There was an outcry – and a hashtag, #wheresrey – last year over the lack of female characters in the just-released Star Wars merchandise, which has since been addressed – but it is a sign that progress can be slow. Coincidentally, it’s the first time Ridley has seen the Rey mug we took to LA for our shoot.

In Princess Leia, played so powerfully by Carrie Fisher, Ridley had the ultimate beacon of how to be a woman in this world and the importance of inspiring a new generation. Fisher filmed The Last Jedi before her untimely passing in December 2016. Ridley says she offered her advice on dating (“You don’t want to give people the ability to say, ‘I had sex with Princess Leia’”) and fame, telling her to enjoy rather than shrink from success.

Whether Ridley has been able to take the latter on board… well, I can’t call it. “I found the hardest thing was everyone saying, ‘Your life’s going to change’,” says the actress, who grew up in London with two sisters and is still based in the capital. “So many people were telling me this thing was going to happen, then the thing happened and that didn’t happen. I go on the Tube, I’m not harassed all the time. People are super-cool.” But equally as we talk it becomes clear Ridley is in awe of the magnitude of the franchise, and is open about her fear of measuring up to the legacy.

Hardly surprising when you consider that The Force Awakens, the third-highest-grossing film of all time (after Avatar and Titanic), was Ridley’s second film role – the first was a student film – and before that she held bit parts in British TV dramas. This year also saw her join the all-star cast of Murder On The Orient Express, and next year will be equally dramatic with Ophelia – a retelling of Hamlet from the perspective of Polonius’s daughter. There’s more Star Wars to come, and Chaos Walking, a book adaptation about a dystopian world without women. Exciting, but perhaps not as much as putting a wash on.

What are the techniques you use when you feel like that?

I usually tell myself that I need to go through the thing. Don’t shy away from it. Definitely talk about it. Also just sleep. If something is overwhelming, I nap. If I have an emotional day, I’ll fall asleep when I get home. That’s how I process things. I can go to my trailer and fall asleep for five minutes, then get up again. It’s a good skill to have. I’d put it on my CV.

What other skills would you put on your CV? And when was the last time you had to write one?

Two and a half, three years ago… I’m an all right communicator. Pretty organised. Good phone manner. Can prioritise. Good at admin.

You’re hired. You quit Instagram last year. Has that freed up mental space?

It has made me feel like I wasn’t indebted to anyone. Suddenly I felt, ‘Oh, that must have been quite stressful, because now it is not that stressful any more being off it.’ I had a private one that I came off too, and that was much more freeing. People were saying, “But I like seeing what you’re doing.” I’d say, “Well, we can message or call each other.”

You talked openly about suffering from endometriosis on Instagram – was that a good platform to share that issue?

Periods are still not fully talked about; I thought it wasn’t a big deal. I know a lot of people who have really, really bad periods. I don’t understand why you aren’t referred to someone; you shouldn’t be doubled over in pain all the time. It felt nice to say. But ultimately, people [on social media] weren’t very nice and I thought, ‘I can’t be bothered.’

Why do we still have a taboo around periods?

I don’t know! You can have 300 people die in a film with blood everywhere, yet you can’t have period blood. It would be a 15 or an 18 [-rated film]. It’s stupid.

You have spent huge swathes of the year travelling and filming. What do you like to get up to when you’re in London?

I do my washing and sit on my sofa watching Netflix.

People may be surprised to know the protagonist of Star Wars does her own washing…

[Looks shocked] I don’t know anyone who doesn’t do their own washing. Washing is one of my favourite things. I’m a 30-degreeer. I literally wear clothes once and then they go in the wash. I think, ‘If I’m going to wash clothes this much, at least I will do it at just 30 degrees.’

To what extent do you try to live in an environmentally conscious way?

I hate how much plastic there is in America – and actually also in Prague, where I was just filming for two months. I watched an advert for [documentary] A Plastic Ocean and I thought, ‘S**t, this is gross.’ I try to use lower temperatures, I don’t use a dishwasher and I drive an electric car. I’ve always been fairly conscious. We’ve recycled since I can remember.

Are you vegetarian?

I don’t eat dairy, meat or eggs, but this only happened a few months ago as I watched Carnage, Simon Amstell’s film [a mockumentary on veganism]. And I was horrified. Initially I cut out everything and then thought, ‘I cannot survive without something’, so I eat fish. I was genuinely ignorant as to what went on. I didn’t know how dairy farming was done or what they did to male chicks, and I was so horrified by what I saw. Then I listened to his [Simon Amstell’s] podcast with Russell Brand, on which he said one of his friends was like, “Ugh, what is cashew cheese?” and he said, “Well, what is cheese cheese? What are you putting in your body?”

You’re studying for a degree in social sciences. What was the motivation? As a back-up in case this didn’t happen, or to expand your mind?

Not as a back-up. There’s something, mentally speaking, about having a back-up that’s not good. It’s to expand my mind, and I always wanted to have a BA. It’s an Open University course. One of the most interesting things I’ve learned is about social displacement. It usually happens when people don’t have much money and they’re treated very disposably. It feels like we’re going backwards. It doesn’t feel like all for one and one for all at the moment. The people who have more are able to get more. And then there are still people who are dying because they can’t afford to eat or have heating in England, which is horrific.

Did you grow up in a world where there was a great awareness of social injustices?

My mum and dad are super-smart, and so I was always aware of what was going on. My group of friends are all going through it together and everyone is becoming more interested, because it seems like everything is slightly more accessible. With Jeremy Corbyn, people are like, “Oh my god [a different type of politician]!” And regardless of whether people think he’s right or wrong, it’s amazing to see grime artists saying they support this guy. And to feel young people are engaged in something. It’s awesome to be part of that time and group of people.

It feels as though in 2017 there’s been a tangible mix of despair, but also hope because people have been coming together…

I remember talking to someone who I was working with the morning after the election and the announcement that the Conservatives were still in [power]. They said, “I hope that doesn’t mean people are going to stop talking about what’s going on.” But that’s the attitude that means people will stop talking about it. All you have to do is keep thinking the conversation will carry on and it will carry on. It seems hopeful, yes, but also despairing, because no matter the hope, these awful things that people haven’t asked for are still happening, and in a democracy that seems awful.

What do you think 25-year-olds are most worried about?

In London, rents are insanely high, so that’s one thing friends my age struggle with. The living wage, zero-hour contracts… but also having people in charge who do not listen to those who need it most.

You’ve been described as a bookworm. What is the book you’ve been most enchanted by of late?

I was recently harping on about Grief Is The Thing With Feathers by Max Porter, which is amazing. I’m reading Tenant Of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë now, which is brilliant. I’m trying to get through  the classics – my mum gave me a list of them. I intercut them with chick lit or modern fiction. Reading has always been my thing. Last night I was doing a film quiz with a friend and her boyfriend, who is a film buff. My film knowledge is really poor because I read and didn’t watch films. He was asking me questions and I had no idea [what the answers were].

Is there a book that you would like to star in the adaptation of?

I’m adapting something now. I bought the rights, and a production company is writing it to be a series. It sounds far more serious when I say it out loud. It’s funny, these conversations when you’re like, “Sure, sure, it’ll never happen.” And then [it actually happens].

Will you star in it?

I know not. It depends when it’s is ready, and there are many things that don’t get to fruition. But it’s very exciting. John [Boyega, her Star Wars co-star] was saying last night he’s in the middle of adapting something, too. If people feel like their voices aren’t being heard, they can be the person to get their voice heard – and that’s a wonderful thing to be able to do.

You appeared on My Dad Wrote A Porno – Footnotes. What other podcasts do you listen to?

I listened to Serial and S-Town, which were good, but at the end I thought, ‘I don’t know quite what I’m going to take from this…’ I wanted to know who had been at fault. It was just awfully sad and so unexpected.

You mention that you didn’t enjoy watching yourself in Star Wars. Do you generally enjoy going to the cinema?

What I don’t like is people asking me questions or talking during films. The other day, I had to tell a group of guys [in the cinema] to put their phones away! And I went to see Cinderella at the Odeon and someone sat in front of me answered a phone call. I literally couldn’t believe it! Also, it was at the Odeon in Leicester Square – those tickets are so expensive. It was about £20.

If you were with your mum watching Star Wars: The Last Jedi, how would you react if she asked you a question?

None of my family ask questions [laughs]. I went to see a film with my friend once and she talked all the way through. I was fuming. Why would you ruin that? I like to concentrate. I’m trying to be better at not looking at my phone while I’m doing other things, as it is just too much for your brain. RuPaul’s Drag Race? I’m all there. The Graham Norton Show? I’m there. What’s the point in watching anything if you’re not going to concentrate on it? What is the point in doing something if you’re not going to do it properly?

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is in UK cinemas from 14 December.

Images: Rex Features / Photography: Eric Ray Davidson 

— Stylist Magazine