dannygeist

[dannygeist]

sturgispodmore​:

Sturgis inhaled another shaky breath. When he finally released, he found he also exhaled heaviness. A weight that rooted deep within his body for so long that he forgot what it felt like without. But this, the catharsis of it all—whether it be real, a figment of his imagination, or something of the two—it freed him. Sturgis wanted adventure and tall tales. He wanted laughter and companionship. He wanted freedom and for curiosity to take him far and wide. He wanted to climb tall mountains and let his body float in oceans deeper than his mind could comprehend. He wanted defeat and triumph, anger and forgiveness, sorrow and hope. He wanted to love again and be loved in return. Sturgis Podmore wanted to live. 

A smile finally broke through—lips pressed together, curling upward. “I love you, too.” He exhaled again, feeling even lighter now. He tapped a hand onto his chest, right above his heart. He could hear the organ thumping in his ears; a constant reminder, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive. And then he reached a hand to cup Danny’s cheek. His fingers felt nothing, no physical connection, but Sturgis didn’t need to feel. He remembered. His memories made up the difference, of what it once felt like to hold one another. His fingers moved to brush a few strands of dark hair from Danny’s face. How often had he done this? Sturgis remembered so clearly he could swear his fingers felt something. “I always will.”

Then, Sturgis felt a hand to his wrist. Fingers pulling at his eyelids. For a moment, his surroundings switched—darkness, cold, snow. He blinked. A white beach once again, warm, entirely tranquil. It was time. All he had to was allow life to seep back into his body. He looked beyond Danny, eyes landing on images he had a keen sense that only he could see. It wouldn’t be easy; it wouldn’t be perfect, either. But it was his, and that’s all that mattered. 

“Will you stay with me until I go?”  

.

There were no endings or beginnings. There was only the present. Brief blips in the chaos that was living and being dead. Even the miracle that was finding someone who loved you, and who you loved in return, not many people ever were able to experience such a thing. It was why now, with the proud feeling that he was saying goodbye, Danny couldn’t find it in himself to regret a single moment of his life. No matter how brief, or small in the grand scheme of the universe. He had existed, and their love existed, too.

The next steps were not his to take or grant. All he could do now, was wait. Not for Sturgis to come back to him, but for Sturgis to understand that there were more important things than solving mysteries. Sometimes, even just the journey towards finding acceptance in what one couldn’t control, would be far more vital.

He leaned in further, brushing his lips against Sturgis’ in reply. Of course he’d stay. Danny had all of the time in the world, and Sturgis was hanging on by mere seconds. “You always did like to make a dramatic entrance. How about we have this one be your best yet.”

[dannygeist]

sturgispodmore​:

“You love me?” It sounded like a question, but the breathy words fell from his lips because finally, finally, Sturgis understood. The answer to the question that haunted him every night. Why didn’t you take me with you? It was entirely obvious now. It was the same reason why he spent weeks on end searching for Danny after his disappearance, or why he ran into a building blanketed in rubble and fire because Marlene was inside. 

Love. Danny loved him. Because when one soul loved another, they did everything in their flawed yet determined power to ensure their beloved would be alright. And while parting was cruel and bitter, Danny wanted Sturgis to live. How could he have been blind to a fact more true than anything he had ever known in his whole life? The voices in his head were wrong. Danny loved him. Loved him enough to let him go then—loved him enough to let Sturgis go now. 

Life called to him; he could feel it clearly now. A gentle nudge on his shoulder. The unpleasantness, the grief; the hope, the boundless opportunities. Something great waited for Sturgis. It called to him, begged him to return. It was impossibly close, just within reach. But he had to let go of this universe to get it. Of this peaceful oasis. Of Danny. 

.

“Yes, you pompous arse. Now, for once in your life, can you just listen to me?” They were nose to nose now, but there was no actual connection to be found. Just more swirling wind and the memories of a far away place that didn’t exist for Danny anymore. He was real. He was fake. A contrived dream, a vivid sort of imagining. It didn’t matter what was true and what was just circling in Sturgis’ mind, because the answer would always be the same.

They had loved each other. They had loved each other, and then Danny died. Death’s own permanence didn’t erase the facts of the case, it only enhanced their meaning. Even now, in this made-up place, with a life that no longer belonged to him, Danny couldn’t find it within himself to be sad. That sort of thing could be saved for people with still beating hearts, and warm blood running through their veins. Danny didn’t even have a body to come home to. The moment he stepped through the veil he became a dream.

“Go back there, and do your best. You never needed to be perfect.” Life was about trying and failing over and over and over again. Mistakes were a part of that process. Never to be discouraged but accepted. Sturgis had done something horrible. It wasn’t too late for the worst to be fixed. Made right once more.

[dannygeist]

sturgispodmore​:

Sturgis shook his head, tears spilling freely from his eyes. Anger radiating him. At himself, for gambling away something as precious as his life for this. What he longed for at all hours of the day, begged, cried, screamed for. Finally, it was his, and Sturgis knew in his heart that it wasn’t for him to take. That this was wrong. It wasn’t his time, and the truth was plain to see. 

“No.” He lifted his chin to gaze at Danny again, who seemed realer, as if every moment spent in this world distanced him further from life. “I’m not going back.” He moved toward Danny, terrified of closing the distance and yet desperate to feel his embrace again. “You don’t understand. I’ve ruined everything. There’s nothing left for me.” His lip quivered. They were so close now. “I can’t…” His chin dipped for a moment as he tried to regain composure. “I’m so lost. I can’t do it. I don’t want to live in a world without you in it anymore. I’m not strong enough for it.” It was then that Sturgis lifted his gaze and extended a hand, wanting desperately to cup Danny’s face. 

.

Their make-believe world was spinning faster and faster with every moment that ticked by. Danny had always been different in the way he perceived the living and the dead. Always one to see through the cracks in the foundations of life. Whether it was ghosts, or quiet corners in Hogwarts, away from all of the noise and activity. His life had been quiet until Sturgis appeared. Until Clem and Marlene pushed their way into his life without him knowing.

Now it was his turn to be the one with all of the answers. To offer up knowledge that he couldn’t have known before he died. This Danny, the one Sturgis was reaching to now, wasn’t the same one who stepped through The Veil. This was an unknown quantity. An entity filled with the knowledge of the past, the present, and perhaps even the future.

“I love you. I do. I love you, Sturgis. Which means I need to tell you that you can survive it. You have to. Otherwise, what was the point?” Sturgis’ hand should have touched Danny. There should have been warmth at the almost connection. Except there was a distance, no matter how close they stood. “You’re Sturgis-fucking-Podmore. You’re going to do great things someday, and that can’t happen if you’re here with me. I love you, but I’m letting you go. I love you, but you need to go back to the other people that love you. They deserve better. I deserve better. You. You deserve better, too. Better than a ghost for a boyfriend, and memories for your comfort.”

Death had turned him into something of a writer after all. Funny how that happened.

[dannygeist]

sturgispodmore​:

Then Sturgis remembered. All of it. And the process of knowing was debilitating. It sat in the pit of his stomach, rotting.  “I—” He remembered apparating to Dufftown. He remembered the flat, illuminated, welcoming, music playing. He remembered the empty tin where pills used to hide. He remembered slinking into the road in town. Sturgis remembered. 

“I died.” The admission felt like a punch as tears formed, spilling down his cheeks. “I didn’t mean to do it.” His voice sounded other worldly, spoken like a scream and a whisper simultaneously. “I just wanted to see you again.” His hands shook as visions came back, every moment of that night playing out in his mind, each image more revolting than the next. 

“I didn’t mean to do it.” 

.

Danny lurched back, having known it was the truth, and still refusing to believe it was right there in front of him. No matter how long it had been since he last saw Sturgis, there hadn’t been a moment that he hadn’t quietly wished to the universe that this could be real. That one day he’d see him right there, clear as day, sun setting behind him, and know that everything he hoped for came true.

But this wasn’t that. This was unnatural, and wrong, and for all Danny knew about death, he knew that now wasn’t the right time. That Sturgis deserved more than this. The place that was real, and wasn’t. A space in time that never changed or moved, simply just existed. No. No. 

“I’m dead. Sturgis. I’ve been dead, and I’m staying dead. You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t fucking be here.” Loving someone was letting them go when the time was right. And today, with his toes feeling the coarse sand beneath them, Danny wasn’t about to make the mistake of his past. He wouldn’t hold on, dead or otherwise. Let go, let go.

[dannygeist]

sturgispodmore​:

The voice shocked Sturgis, lulling his body into rigidity. The shell fell from his hand, sinking back into the sand where it belonged. And then he heard the voice again. But it wasn’t just any voice, was it?  His movements started slow, rising to his feet as if standing for the first time and worried that at any moment he might fall back down. He didn’t, though. Sturgis stood facing the water, breathing in the briny scent one last time before finally turning around to see him. Danny. 

Why was he here? Sturgis struggled to remember, as if it were on the tip of his tongue. Just within reach, but faded somewhere into oblivion. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out yet, his brain unable to discern if the image in front of him was real or a figment of this reality. But he kept his gaze fixed on Danny, terrified and comforted all at once. 

.

“Sturgis,” Danny repeated, moving ever closer still, until they were a few feet from one another. Eyes locked, yet an entire ocean separating where one belonged and the other remained. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here.” The confusion took over any amount of happiness at seeing him. And why shouldn’t it? Of course Danny loved him, but more than that, he was slowly understanding the repercussions of such a reunion. Never one to be selfish, he kept his distance, anger taking hold.

“You need to leave.” The words were harder to say than he expected them to be. Somewhere inside of his celestial form, he wanted to beg Sturgis to stay. To reach out for his hand, and keep him here forever. Wouldn’t that make everything better? To exist, here and now, in a forever sort of paradise made to their own specifications? A place where death was no longer in charge, no longer governing their bodies.

He shook his head, his too long hair flopping from side to side. “Sturgis, please.” 

[dannygeist]

sturgispodmore​:

WHEN: somewhere beyond time WHERE: the in-between WHO: Sturgis Podmore + closed

Sturgis awoke with a gasp. Air filled his lungs once more. It took a few moments of heaving to calm his rapidly beating heart. But tranquility washed over him eventually, a peacefulness like nothing he had ever experience in his entire— Life. He blinked, eyes attempting to take his surroundings into view as he sat on the ground, waves coming to meet him but never dampening his clothes.

It wasn’t Dufftown, that was for certain. Night didn’t blanket his surroundings either. No, when Sturgis’s eyes fluttered open, he realized he lay in the sand of a familiar beach, the one near his childhood home. The escape he ran off to more times than he could count. The place he felt most safe in the whole world. The sky bathed him in white light, impossibly comforting and warm. The only sounds that met his ears were birds cawing in the distance and waves flowing, kissing the earth and then retreating. 

Sturgis stuck his hand into the sand, wiggling his fingers until cupping a seashell. It looked perfect in his hand, vibrant shades of pinks and blue. He stared at it, transfixed, as a thought tugged at his curiosity. Hadn’t he held something else in his hand only moments before? He couldn’t remember, only that whatever it had been, it was gone now, and he was safe. Free from all the pain, finally. 

.

Time didn’t exist for the dead. There was no point in the construct, not when their bodies were no longer connected to earth, and the only thing remaining was whatever their souls were made up of. Danny, therefore, had no idea how long it had been since he stepped through The Veil, nor did he care. Death, in the simplest sense, had brought him peace. There was loss, sure, but those concerns didn’t matter anymore. Not here. 

Except suddenly there was some form of existence. Not the kind he was used to. Something more solid. Sand underneath his bare feet, waves crashing behind him. Had this always been here? Or was this just another part of the process of no longer being a part of the living? He squinted his eyes as this non-existent world tugged at him further. There could be no escaping certain greetings when a person passed over.

“Sturgis?” Danny asked, his voice both fair away and present. The world around them seeming to echo the noise, drowning out the noise from the surf. He felt no thumping in his chest, because there was nothing there anymore. “Why are you here?”

It was more of an accusation than he intended. Danny was certain only dead people were allowed in the place between worlds. And Sturgis Podmore wasn’t supposed to die.

[dannygeist]

[dannygeist]

lexbragnam​:

When: 10 October 1980 Where: Masquerade. Who: Lex Bragnam & OPEN

“Ded you know there’s this thing in the Department of Mysteries called ‘The Veil’ and as part of our training in Magical Artefacts we get to study it but we cannae get too close cause if we go through, there ain’t no coming back. It’s like a one way portal to the bloody underworld.” Lex rambled on to his neighbor in excitement for the event at hand.

.

[dannygeist]

if I saw a portal i would enter it no questions asked

[dannygeist]

march 30th, 1980 / around 2:00 a.m. / department of mysteries

Daniel Geist was not suicidal. Or, he didn’t think himself to be, nor did killing himself ever enter into his ever-expanding mind. Life, for the most part, had come full circle for him. He found, despite the traumas and tribulations, that he rather enjoyed what life had to offer. The trick had been to take, instead of merely watch. His relationship with Sturgis had stabilized to the point where living together was actually not just feasible, but an event he was excitedly looking forward to. When had he become that sort of person? And beyond that, his friendships only continued to grow, with people like Clem and Dawn rounding out the picture, and still, others like Benjy, Marlene, Mary, and Pandora, picking up the rest. He might have even begrudgingly added D.W. to the list.

Somewhere along the way, he had started to enjoy life. Which was why it’s important to say that he was indeed not suicidal, merely horribly curious in a way that couldn’t be fixed or curbed. That was the conundrum that he faced as he stared ever thoroughly at the Veil, the glowing ethereal nature of it claiming him as its victim. He was not suicidal. He was just too invested to turn away. Too wrapped up in the questions and answers of life and death to step back, to halt his progress, and press himself against the corner of the room in any hope of survival.

That was the thing about insomnia, he began to realize. A part of himself was much braver than he had ever known, if only because sleep was a constant battle that he often never won. And through those constant losses, the ones that created the bags under his already dark eyes, and the skin that clung to his bones like peanut butter to the roof of a person’s mouth—he found that in sleeplessness, he was free. It was a little like being high. It was floating, without being afraid of the freefall that would inevitably follow. It was staring into the Veil, knowing that no good would come of him stepping through it, and wanting to either way.

Bravery might have been the wrong word.

Danny wanted answers. Any sort of answer would do. He would milk as many as he could from Esmeralda, who deemed fit to offer what she could, but even she had never actually been dead herself. There was no greater expert than a person who was a ghost, or who was dead, and they were so horribly cagey about the secrets in their frozen hearts. Was he wrong to want such things? Was he too persistent in wanting to figure out this kind of universal unknown? He didn’t think so. His moving feet didn’t think so, either.

Especially not when he thought back to his mother, and the goodbye that had been given. Even she, in death, could not have offered him anything more than the fleeting moment of being. That had never been enough. It wouldn’t be enough. And she, too, was finally free.

The real issue with the Veil was that it was not a silent, nor foreboding force. The Veil knew exactly what it was doing, exactly what it was offering. Despite all of the people studying it, they all seemed to miss out on this point. They all almost assumed that no one would want to get any closer to the quite literal door to death. The curtain to the afterlife. Had they no idea the questions in other people’s minds? The desperation when it came to wanting to claim one thing for one’s own person? The Veil was loud in its whispering, crushing in its chokehold. Danny had been helpless the very first time a hand reached out to grab him. 

A voice called out to him. Danny, it seemed to whisper. Danny.

No, he was happy in his life, and not at all suicidal, but the voices stayed. They were lasting, and present, and he was certain he had even started to pick out who the voices belonged to. People in a life that didn’t exist anymore. A mother crying over her child. A man aching for a love connection gone wrong. The Veil was cruel in this regard. It showed too much, and too little, and Danny was beginning to wonder how he would wrench himself free of the fingers that had silently laced themselves with his own. How easy it would be to let himself be pulled in. 

An important point to note, at least to Danny, was most people had stumbled their way home by now. Though the life of an Unspeakable was not completely horrible, filled with too many half-truths, they all seemed to enjoy when they could open the doors of the Ministry and file out silently. Danny too understood that relief, though for very different reasons, and none of which applied at the moment. He enjoyed putting space between himself and the glowing archway, because the longer he stared, the more nothing else mattered.

Tonight was different. The pull was almost insatiable in a way that new lovers greeted one another after their first tryst. An unwillingness to part, lest the meeting never happen again. Danny took a step forward, and then another. Before long, he was merely a few meters away, the coldness from the Veil felt almost warm now, as if offering him a long embrace after months of being separated. The hug that was a welcome home.

He kept moving.

Danny knew he ought to have stopped. That in some way he was playing with a kind of fire that he didn’t understand. The closer he went, the more he knew he was likely to burn, and what a horrible thing, to realize that one simply didn’t care. Maybe the burning would be worth it. What was fire if not a form of purification? Danny wasn’t suicidal, but he did know that he was broken on a level that meant he would likely never be fully whole. He could pretend at it. He could love Sturgis, and love his friends, and that could be his life. But would the ache in his chest never free him? 

The Veil was merely centimeters away from his fingers now, urging him closer in a dance for the ages. It was leading, he was following, and suddenly he was gone. There was no telling what had happened, or when he had let himself be pulled in by the light. By the quiet voices in his mind. The world in front of him now was sprawled out with answers, and there was no point in looking behind him. This wasn’t what he intended, but sometimes that was how life worked. It was brutal, and unforgiving, and he could only go forward in a place unknown.

After Danny was gone, his body long since passed through the Veil, the only things left would be the diary Clementine had given him, with pages that were marked and bent, his own system showing what he had gone over and what he had consumed from the Magical Theorist, and a walkman gifted to him by Sturgis. In it, a Led Zeppelin cassette was playing, the music blaring from the headphones, echoing throughout the haunting chamber: 

I must have did somebody some good, yeah Oh, I believe I did I see the smiling faces I know I must have left some traces

Daniel Geist had solved the riddle he had been searching for at last. It came with a price. Both steep, and almost underwhelming. His life. What would he have said if given the chance to say goodbye? There was no point in hazarding a guess, only that he was gone, disappeared from the mortal realm, and in his place—an absence. One that only a few short years ago, he had been positive would’ve have existed at all.

He was gone, the story finished. The world kept turning.

[dannygeist]

hestiajones​:

“Why, you—”

But whatever Danny was, he didn’t get to find out, as Professor Flitwick’s office door opened with a loud creaking, only to reveal an even louder Bertram Aubrey. Hestia managed to bite her tongue, though the effort felt no different than if she had bitten it clean in half. Her eyes cut through Danny with the same severeness. She felt like a balloon, stretching thin as she expanded with boiling hot anger that she’d not yet been permitted to release. So this was what came of doing the right thing—distrust, harassment, a scarlet flag pinned over her head like a rain cloud no matter where she went. If not for her fury, Hestia might have cried, but it had already turned her frustrated tears to steam.

“Yes, yes, Bertram, we’ll discuss it next week. Danny!” Professor Flitwick greeted the Hufflepuff with more relief than enthusiasm—and then Hestia, who he regarded with bewilderment. “Oh, and Hestia! You’re a bit early, aren’t you?” Professor Flitwick checked his watch and started. “Or perhaps I’m a bit behind.”

“That’s quite alright, Professor Flitwick,” Hestia said curtly, stomping purposefully towards the office door. “I’m happy to go first.”

.

Danny straightened up his posture, stepping away from Hestia in a flash. While he was happy to continue on his tirade, he wouldn’t do so in front of Flitwick. The conversation was unfinished, and he could see, just by looking at Hestia one last time, that it would be a meeting that she wouldn’t soon forget either. Lines in the sand had been drawn. Danny wasn’t about to budge, not when it was Sturgis on the line. But at this point, it didn’t much matter.

“She goes. I’ve just realized I’m late for Quidditch practice. Thank you, Professor.” With one last glance behind him, hoping it might feel like daggers, Danny was gone. He wanted to be as far away from the witch as possible, so maybe then no one would see the way his hands shook.

the end

[dannygeist]

sturgispodmore​:

“I will, too. I promise.” 

Sturgis decided to hold onto this memory, house it in a vial so that even if one day he awoke to nothingness, to not even remembering his own name, he could live this evening again inside the confines of a pensieve. He would look upon this time and remember what true, all encompassing happiness felt like—a sensation entirely boundless, that went on and on, never met any edges. Something like the ocean, in a way. Life inevitably moved forward, chapters fading and new ones springing forth, and even if there was no longer any Sturgis nor any Danny, and time faded away the very beach where they lay, for a moment in the great vastness of humanity they existed. They found each other. They mattered. His jagged edges and Danny’s fragmented pieces somehow, against every odd thrown at them, found a way to fit together and build something that made Sturgis believe in something he once deemed entirely foolish: fate. 

How else was he to describe Danny’s impact on his life? Surely, something that profound did not fall into his orbit by chance. It was against Sturgis’s nature to believe in predestined paths and an orchestrated fate, and yet, simultaneously, he knew with such an impassioned ferocity that he was always supposed to meet Danny. Because knowing him, loving him, felt as familiar as coming home. It was like meeting a piece of his soul that Sturgis never knew he lacked. 

He remembered when they met on their first day at Hogwarts, and slowly getting to know each other over the course of the year until he couldn’t recall a time not being friends. The night of Marlene’s birthday party—Danny’s birthday—when they stumbled back into his Slytherin dormitory. Egypt came, when clarity finally struck him, and then experiencing the first flurries of love when Scotland bloomed in spring. Trousers set on fire by Peeves, and unable to get through a day of classes without sneaking off for a quickie. A summer apart, and autumn in shambles. A bitter winter that somehow, despite his melancholia, brought forth a flicker of warmth. Camping among snow, visiting ruins and graveyards, finding each other once again and building something stronger than before. Sturgis remembered. 

And now the future stood ahead of them, its warm glow calling to them, promising them a better, kinder tomorrow. If lethargy had not set in, perhaps Sturgis would have run to it. He yawned, though, nestling his head into the crook of Danny’s neck. Without verbalizing it, he accepted they were to fall asleep on this beach, curled up together in the place where Sturgis experienced safety and freedom in his youth. 

“If you’re up before sunrise, wake me up. I want to watch it with you.” 

He pressed a kiss to Danny’s chest as his eyes fluttered open and then close a few times. It would be only a matter of minutes before he succumbed to a dreamy, peaceful sleep. There was truly only one thing left to say, parting words to share after a few moments of nothing but the sound of waves brushing against the shore meeting his ears. A conclusion to the greatest night of Sturgis’s two decades worth of life. 

“Goodnight, Danny.” 

.

Peace was a word that Danny found people used too liberally, without care or thought if what they were describing gave them any tranquility at all. But he knew in this instance, that he was at peace. Whatever struggles he had been through, all of the loneliness, none of it really mattered anymore. And why should it? People, Danny had learned, were more important. People that could be touched, and held. For all of his time spent around ghosts, observing them, learning about their lives, he had missed out on simple opportunities to understand that the greatest mystery he could ever attempt to conquer was that of a living and breathing human being.

Sturgis had been the project of a lifetime, which might have sounded unfair to say, but he represented all of Danny’s failures and achievements. The ways in which he had grown, and the ways in which he was still too stubborn to move on. Their relationship was truly a microcosm of how far Danny had to go. He was not finished yet. There would be days when his first instinct was to isolate himself. To shy away from touch. To lunge away from being known.

Tonight wasn’t that night. Tonight he felt changed for good. Like maybe he wasn’t himself anymore, and maybe that was a good thing. He was the best version possible. Passionate, and steady, without losing any of the edge that he clung to so desperately. Danny, laying on that blanket, wrapped around Sturgis, knew that he could never walk back into the past ever again. There was nowhere to go now that didn’t involved Sturgis with him, and if that meant shedding off his last pieces of armor, then so be it.

“Goodnight, Sturgis.”

Danny fell asleep with surprising ease for a person who rarely fell asleep at all. Whether it was the atmosphere, with the waves rolling in, or the peace that he had never quite felt before, closing his eyes had never been so quickly and successfully done. Within seconds, his chest was steadily moving up and down, the last whispers of Sturgis’ kiss still remaining on his lips.

the end

[dannygeist]

[dannygeist]

clementinerobards​:

“Unless you’re only saying that to throw me off the scent.” She too looked up, mirroring Danny. “Probably to that branch,” she pointed, “but I’m not sure a first time tree climber could get any higher than that. And I wouldn’t leave you behind.” Hadn’t they promised each other that, that neither of them would leave the other? That could apply to tree climbing too, Clem thought. 

.

“Fine, we stick to this branch. But next time, we climb higher.” He let the silence of the forest hold him still. There would be other days where his life might be busier, full of errands he had to run, or places he had to see. Both he and Clementine would be dealing with work, and she would be pursuing her dreams to become a teacher. Either way, they could always remain as firm as the tree they were sitting on. Deep roots, and always growing taller.

That was life, he knew. It was never staying the same, always moving. But some things could remain. A tree that a person climbed as a child. A home that had yet to be demolished. A feeling that didn’t waver. Danny didn’t yet know all of the secrets to the universe, but he did know that he would always be friends with Clementine Robards. Tree or no tree. Rich person weed, or no weed at all.

Some things were inevitable. 

[dannygeist]

clementinerobards​:

“I think if I was going to make you take an Unbreakable Vow, it would be about my biscuits and you not tampering with them.”

.

“Awfully suspicious now, aren’t you? I couldn’t very well tamper with anything now, that’d be foolish, to reveal the plan and then still go through with it.” He stared up the tree. “How much further do you think we could climb?”

[dannygeist]

clementinerobards​:

“I wouldn’t tell anyone that,” Clem promised, pretending to be scandalised, “it’s just between you and I.” She held out her hand, as if they had to shake on this solemn vow. 

.

“You won’t make me take an Unbreakable Vow? Surprising, given the seriousness of what we’re promising here.”