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thieves-never-say-die · 3 months ago

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Weekend in Paris Watch-Along

A summary of everything talked about in the Weekend in Paris watch-along, video here, with Dean Devlin, John Rogers, Aldis Hodge, Christian Kane, and interviewer Brittany Catallo.

Under the cut because it is long.

First question: how do you feel the latest season of Leverage: Redemption is relevant to audiences?

John: [sarcastic outrage] How is a show about evil oligarchs relevant!? I can’t-!

Everyone laughed, and Dean said Leverage was always a show that predicts the future, like The Simpsons, and he specifically mentioned The Mile High Job when Hardison hacks the plane remotely, and The Jailhouse Job which was about the prison industrial complex. At the time of writing those episodes, neither of those things had been done/talked about yet, but soon after the episodes aired both of those things became major news stories.

Dean said the difference this season was that Leverage was actually meeting the current moment, but in the show the good guys win.

John interjected that the good guys can still win! The only time anything is guaranteed is if you give up and accept it will just happen, otherwise the future is always unwritten.

Aldis: So basically Leverage is laying out the blueprint? We just need someone out there to follow it?

John: No! Do not send John Rogers to a foreign prison because you were inspired by something on Leverage!

Q: What can viewers expect this season coming off of last season?

Dean talked about how this season they got to see a whole new side of some of the characters, and get to explore some interesting arcs. He noted that we will be going deep into Parker’s character this season.

John said it’s an advantage of having a show that’s gone on this long, we’ve gone on a journey with them, and the actors give some really nice character work.

John then explained that they chose Paris because they were shooting most of their exterior shots in Belgrade, which is where The Librarians: The Next Chapter is shot.

The intro shot of the team moving throughout the hallway was all one shot that didn't cut, and the cast managed to get it in two takes because they practiced a lot. Everyone had a great time filming it, even if it was stressful knowing one small mess-up would make everybody start over.

When they wrote the scene they didn't have the set yet, and after John turned in the script to director Marc Roskin, Marc called John and said "this is impossible", to which John responded "yes! And that’s what makes it cool!”

It was a lot of exposition dump, but John knows Aldis is the best at it and could do it, which allowed them to use Hardison as the anchor character for that scene.

They talked about how everyone had to race around the set, specifically mentioning Beth scrambling to the top to hang through the vent.

The set itself wasn't as big as it looks, it was a big T that they digitally extended and shot well.

John: The room was like “so it’s Scooby Doo” and I was very hurt, I was like “No, it’s a challenging heist sequence built around an impossible bit of geometry!” And the writer’s room was like “No, it's the Scooby Doo door bit, we all know what you’re doing.”

John pointed out how these characters are now all peers, in comparison to the original show, which means Hardison can give Sophie crap about her relationships in a loving way.

He also pointed out how everyone else is distracted by personal stuff, but Eliot is the only one who stays on mission.

The shot of the team running out of the auction house and into the van was a reference to The Long Goodbye Job.

John: You know, I don’t think many fans will catch it, but we’re basically giving them a horrible flashback to the most traumatic moment of their life.

Aldis: You got the wrong audience for that on this show, because they watch everything.

Dean loved that they went from this long, beautiful one-er to the best action scene they've ever shot.

They were able to film the whole car chase downtown in the center of Belgrade.

The idea of the episode opening in the middle of a busted con was something John wanted to do since the original run of the show but never got to do.

Christian came up with the bit of Eliot recognizing and lamenting the waste of expensive flour.

Christian and John talked for a bit about shooting the fight scenes, and Christian said fight scenes are like a dance, it's less about the violence as it is about working with your scene partners.

John learned from Jackie Chan to shoot fights along a fight line, which helps avoid having the fights all be close up shots of punches. He also makes sure to write Eliot fight scenes with fluidity in mind, because Eliot fights to control the space, not to win.

Aldis shot his line in the van ("how was your first day at school?") in New Orleans six months after Christian shot his reaction outside the van in Belgrade.

When coming up with the bad guys for the episode, one of the Amazon execs said "you may have made them too evil," to which John replied "there's no such thing."

Q: What is the significance of Eliot getting seriously injured in this? What was the motivation behind that?

John wanted to make sure there was adequate build to Hardison's speech later, and talked about how Eliot can take a beating and keep working, and has taken a beating for ten years, but sometimes it's taken for granted. Eliot can handle business while injured, but it's a reminder that he's not bulletproof, and it gives the audience a visual and physical reminder of it for the end of the episode.

Hardison and Parker's waiter uniforms reminded Dean of the Season 1 finale of getting the Davids.

Aldis mentioned he gets nostalgia when thinking about where they started, how far they've all come since then, they had a good time and he misses that time.

John said that the bad guy of the week (Arizona Mike) was an example of the banality of evil. He's a generally likeable, smiley guy who has no idea he's a monster.

Sophie's alias Violet Cesario is a character from 12th Night, which is a clue that Sophie made the alias because she takes names from Shakespeare.

They needed the team to make fun of Harry's beard to explain why it was shaved by the end of the episode. John enjoyed writing Sophie giving him crap for it without even seeing it.

Q: Where did the evil water stealing hot sauce salesman come from?

John said that people always focus on Big Crime when writing, but there's a million mid-level evil dudes out there. The bad guy was based on a certain type of farming in California (which John won't name so he doesn't get sued), but no one ever goes directly into water, they get into it through other means. People have an idea in their head of secret office buildings in Vienna and backroom deals, but there's a lot of mid-level millionaires making people miserable for their own money.

Q: How much of yourself is in these characters, and how much have the characters influenced you?

Aldis said that he's part of Hardison more than Hardison is part of him. Since they've been filming Leverage for so long it allowed them to influence their characters more, especially when Redemption started they got to help plan the maturation of their characters and where they would be ten years later. His performance of his characters is made more natural when he puts some of himself in it, and being able to help build the characters helps with that as well.

Dean pointed out that Aldis filmed several TV shows and movies at the same time as Redemption, and mentioned how he would fly out on his days off just to be in a few scenes. Aldis' other commitments were much darker and more tense. Dean asked Aldis what it was like to come and be this happy character for a week?

Aldis: It was like a vacation.

Aldis continued and said that he enjoys his other work, but being able to come back and work on Leverage is a gift. Leverage is just fun, and gives him nostalgia for where they started, and it gives a strange sense of "we're really doing this?" Because he rarely gets to play a character with so much history, and it's a very different experience at this point in his career, but it's a joy to do.

In response to the earlier question, Christian said that a lot of himself has bled into Eliot, and a lot of Eliot has bled into him. Christian helped create Eliot, and Eliot lives inside Christian's body in a way no other character does. Christian didn't know it when he started, but Eliot is the character he came to Hollywood to play. He wanted a role that had action and heart, and said that the bad guy is usually more fun to play, which makes Eliot great because he is both the good and the bad guy. He doesn't feel like he goes to work, it feels like he's showing up to have fun.

John talked about how on a lot of shows, actors just show up to read the lines given to them and that's it, but on Leverage it's more like a jazz band, and the actors know how to play an instrument that the writers don't know. They give the actors the score but encourage them to make it their own. Over the years the writers have learned how to write to the actor's rhythms as well, and all of that helps sell the characters. This has also kept the characters from getting stagnant after 15 years because they're not just characters that live in the writer's heads, they come from the actors as well which lets them grow and breathe.

Christian can’t imagine what it was like to read the Leverage pilot for the first time, because when he thinks about it now he pictures the actors as their characters. They've worked together so long that at this point he knows how Aldis will improv a line.

The line "the law just sucks, now get in the hole" might be one of the darkest lines on the show, according to John.

Q: What was it like to work in New Orleans? How does that setting affect how the show is now?

Dean said they went to New Orleans because he'd had a great experience filming one of the Librarian movies there, and it made sense for them. The only original art form ever made in the US is jazz music, and it came from New Orleans. It was important to put the show in a place that is culturally so important to America, but is also such a huge place for art and corruption and bad guys and people who fight for good guys.

John knew Aldis and Beth would be able to sell the Eyes Wide Shut bit, and could make it creepy and weird, so he just wrote the bare bones script and let them have fun with it. Beth specifically did it as "this is Parker's idea of sexy", and he loved that because he never could've come up with it.

Dean asked Aldis what it was like to film the conversation between Parker and Hardison about wanting to do something different.

Aldis said it was a really important scene, because they've had so many years together and understand each other so well, they're very aware of the weight of what they'll miss together. It juxtaposes well with the previous scene where they worked together really well. They know they make each other better, but what does it mean for Hardison if his heart isn't in it anymore?

John mentioned that the technique of backtracking money laundering accounts is real.

John then talked about how they wanted to write Parker and Hardison, because they didn't want to do the typical shocked significant other plot line. When you love characters and love people you don't want anything to change, but life is change and the world changes all the time. Change is natural and it isn't bad, but it's okay to recognize that some people need to get off the train at different stops, but you still love them and are still with them. It was the same conversation they were having with the fans through the show. You don't have to abandon each other or stop loving each other just because people are doing different things.

Dean interjected to mention how much he likes how Christian played Eliot not wanting to be in this house, with these people, doing this con, all while injured.

John's favorite version of Eliot is when he's annoyed. They missed it earlier but the exchange between Sophie and Eliot ("Oh, sorry, I was focused on the terrorists!") was one of his favorites.

John: Eliot tough and scary is fine, but my favorite thing is when Eliot is annoyed with everybody.

Aldis: Everybody tunes in to watch him get annoyed.

Christian added that he loves acting annoyed, and Aldis is his favorite scene partner for that.

For Harry's scene at the fence with the tanker, everything past the fence was CGI, it was really just an abandoned golf course behind the building.

Q: How do you see comedy and its role in Leverage?

John said a big part of it was because he and Chris Downey started in sitcoms, and they didn't know any rules about "don't mix comedy with drama", so they decided why not have the corny flashbacks and the cool drama. Back when the show started it was hard to get the execs on board, they didn't really understand the tone, but they got it eventually. All the actors can hit jokes, and if you have actors that can hit jokes, give your actors jokes!

Dean said when they filmed the pilot he didn't know how funny Christian could be until the IT guy, and didn't know how good at improv Aldis was until they filmed.

John loved Harry's side-con here. It's not important, it's just a B-plot, he's having fun, we don't have time or that, it’s whatever you want it to be!

Christian's favorite scenario on set was when Eliot and Hardison were dressed up as cops (The Morning After Job), everything in the car and with the call they responded to was so much fun.

John said that episode was a Chris Downey episode, he wanted the comedy of them working together and told John to make the plot work.

John gave credit to Gina, how she masterminded the hell out of the episode, we get to see how terrifying Sophie can be.

The fight with Eliot, Hardison, and the giant security guard was John's vision. He wanted the Cap/Bucky/Iron Man fight from Civil War, and finally got to write that sequence. Two guys fighting in sync, as a pair, who have known each other for 15 years, and know their rhythms.

Christian said it's hard to coordinate a fight like that, but he and Aldis have worked together so long that they figured it out.

Dean loved that Hardison really went all in on the Vulcan neck pinch thing.

John: Hardison believes the Vulcan neck thing is gonna work, and Parker believes it's gonna work, and that’s what love is.

The interviewer asked a question about how Christian does his stunts, and he confirmed he does all his own fights, and as many stunts as John and Dean allow him to.

Brittany: Legally?

John: No! No, no, past that!

Dean hates that Christian does his own stunt. He'll tell Christian not to do something, and then get dailies of Christian doing that thing.

John: And then I get footage of Aldis and Beth running on top of trains! (The Big Bang Job)

Christian told a story of when they worked on The Office Job and were filming the scene on the roof. They had crash pads down, and after they were done filming Christian just jumped onto it without telling anybody. A few seconds later, Aldis followed.

John facepalmed at that story.

Q: Did you work with a lot of the same crew for this season as past Leverage Redemption season?

Dean said they have a lot of the same crew and appreciate it because it’s a great crew.

John said the key to making a good show is hiring smart people who are good at their job, and then getting the hell out of their way. Dean very rarely harshes anyone's insane idea and lets everyone work collaboratively.

John also noted that Breanna and Becky (Harry's daughter) are now best friends. If they had more episodes the two would've had a whole adventure together.

It was also fun to write Hardison giving Breanna the big brother talk, while Parker's in the background like "tell her about the bomb!" and Hardison shushes her because he knows if Nana finds out he told Breanna about a bomb he'd be in trouble.

They shot the end of episode 1, the end of episode 3, and the last scene of the season finale all within a day and a half of each other because they wanted Aldis to be there.

Dean said he loves the pretzels bit, and John talked about how it started as a one-off thing that was just there, but then it became a thing in the show and in the fandom and now it's a whole callback and shorthand for their relationship.

John talked about the ending scene, and how he didn't want Hardison to just bail, he needed to have an honest conversation with Parker.

It was Gina's idea for Sophie to be dating again, and it comes up several times throughout the season.

John liked the way Christian and Aldis played their conversation, of two guys who care about each other and aren't very good at emotions but still have to talk about emotional things.

John repeated that Eliot isn't looking for redemption, he knows he's damned and he's accepted it. It's hard for Eliot to accept or process that other people see him differently.

Christian chimed in that Eliot's redemption is getting other people to a place where they can be redeemed. They can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and even if he's stuck in the tunnel forever as long as everyone else gets out then he doesn't need to.

Q: Is that something we’re going to see more of this season? Exploring everyone finding their own version of redemption?

Christian said his role is more in the background, he's talking people off the ledge, he's giving Hardison advice, he's talking to Sophie, making sure Harry doesn't screw up. Eliot is especially protective of Harry because he's not as far along as the others, and is really trying to give him a leg up out of the darkness.

Dean talked about how it was very important to them that they never betrayed the truth of Parker and Hardison's relationship.

John mentioned that the actors found that relationship. He hates writing backstory and tends to slow-play relationships, because once you get into a relationship it becomes a soap opera and you start screwing with the relationship in order to get stories, so that's why they waited until season 5 of the first run to get Parker and Hardison together. They don't want to mess with their relationship now to get stories, and it was interesting to write about a mature relationship because everyone knows they're not going to break up. He knows you can't screw with such a central relationship for cheap drama.

John: They're in this complicated, emotional relationship, with them and Eliot—however you want to define it—and they are going to die together.

That was the end of the episode! Dean reminded everyone that a new episode will drop every Thursday for the next 7 weeks, and thanked the fandom for supporting it, as the fans are the only reason they got to come back.

Q: Any hint for what we can expect this season?

Christian said there are some great character arcs coming up. He especially loved the second episode.

Dean pointed out how they've made over 100 episodes of Leverage now, and the thing that most surprised him this season is that they're still doing things they've never done before, he's shocked they can still find new places to go, and says that some episodes this season are completely wild.

John said all the writers loved being back with these characters, and we're going to see some unexpected but not unbelievable turns from the characters as they expose their vulnerable side. We'll explore a bit more for the newer characters, and Breanna especially is going to be great.

#leverage redemption #the weekend in paris job #leverage commentary #john rogers #dean devlin #christian kane #aldis hodge #leverage #redemption spoilers #leverage redemption spoilers #rs3

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editorandchief · 1 year ago

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Relays Of Information | Shelby!Daughter

Summary: Tommy founds out he has a daughter he never knew about. Or The long lost Shelby daughter raised as a widow comes face to face with her father.

Request: Nah

Warning: description of violence

Walking into the club in downtown London, Tomas Shelby let his eyes scan the crowded establishment in search for the young woman he had seen earlier that day.

Flashback:

"Mr. Shelby," Devlin called as her entered the office. "Your next meeting is here." He informed.

"Alright, send 'em in Devlin." Tommy replied putting away the paperwork her was been working on in her time between meetings.

Entering the office once again, this time with a woman following close behind. "Ms. Kitty Jurossi." He introduced causing Tommy to halt in his movement for a moment before looking up at the woman.

"Thank you Devlin." Tommy says continuing to put the papers away.

Once the two were alone they sat in silence for a few moment, through it felt equally as eternal for them both.

"Hello Tommy." Kitty greeted the man nervously. "Or do you prefer Mr. Shelby now?" She asked with a slight chuckle.

"Tommy is fine, Kitty." He answered with a close lipped smile. "Please have a seat, feel free to have some tea." He offered gesturing to the seat at the end of the table with a fresh pot of tea sat in front of it.

"Thank you." She replied shuffling over and taking a seat in the wooden chair. "It's been a long time, how have you been?"

"I've been fine Kitty and yourself." Tommy asked squinting his eyes at the sister of his former lover, a sense of unease creeping in.

"I've been fine as well Tommy," She replied. "It took me awhile after Greta passed on and I think I can just about put it behind me and move on. Which is why I've come here."

Remaining silent Tommy sustained his gaze in the woman allowing her to continue with her story.

"I've wronged you Tommy a great deal, before you left for the war Greta confided in me that she was pregnant." Kitty revealed. "She didn't have the heart to tell you knowing you may not have made it home to meet your child. She knew she was sick and that she most likely wouldn't have that chance either. She asked that when she died I take care of the child and if you returned that the child should be with their father." she continued tears began filling her eyes.

"But that didn't happen."

"No that didn't happen, Tom." She confirmed. "It was hard after Greta passed, I had just lost my sister, I had this baby I had no idea how to raise and no one knew how long the war would last or if you'd even make it back." Tears falling down her cheeks.

"I have no idea how they knew about the babe or why but about a month after it was born some people came to me, they said they would pay me a lot of money to let them have the baby, they said they would give it a good home a good family." She explained wiping the tears from her face. "I was skint and couldn't provide for it, so I said yes and I took the money."

"I have a child." Tommy stated.

"After I heard that you had returned from war it was too late, the child was already gone and I felt that it would do no good for you to know about it seeing as Greta had passed on, knowing you had also lost a child might have broken you."

"But I didn't loose a child did I Kitty?" Tommy asked shaking his head. "You sold 'em."

"I know I've done an awful think Tommy, its been eating me alive all these years." Kitty said now sobbing quietly in her seat. "Which is why I've come here today, to confess, I only hope that one day you... and Greta, may she rest in peace, can find it in your heart to forgive me."

"where is he now?"

"I don't know Tom, But I heard of you, I know you have money, connections things that would make it a hell of a lot easier for you to find them." She answered. "I know most men have no interest with raising a child and I'm not asking you to, I have myself together now, a job and house and they deserve to know about their family about Greta. I can raise 'em take care of 'em now, I just need your help to find the child Tommy, please."

For a while Tommy sat simply staring at the crying woman in his office, a woman who he would have once been his sister-in-law but had sold his child, a living breathing legacy of her sister, her own blood.

"Alright Kitty." Tommy finally spoke breaking the silence. "I'll look for the my child and I will find 'em"

"Thank yo-,"

"And you'll not come anywhere near him." Tommy interrupts. "This will be you first and final warning Kitty, I'll let you walk now, but if you ever come near my family again. I will kill you."

Hanging her head Kitty Jurossi gave a slight nod before standing from her seat heading to the door. "Tommy," Kitty called as she opened the door turning to face him once again. "You should know, the baby...it was a girl. You have a daughter."

It took longer to find her than Tommy would like to admit, but there was obviously no paper trail for the deal Kitty Jurossi had made. Tommy sent men out to search hospitals on any record of Greta giving birth, one came back the all records of the birth and the child itself was taken by a man claiming he was from a home for orphaned girl in London, though he spoke with a Russian accent.

More digging and with the help of his friends (Alfie) in Camden, Tommy found the was one girls home that received many shipments to and from Russia.

‘The Red Room Home For Orphaned Girls.’

Four days Tommy waited outside the home, watching, waiting but for what he didn't know. Yet on the forth day all his waiting paid off as he spots a young woman walking down the street, his breath caught in his throat as he stared at an almost exact replica of Greta Jurossi. She shared nearly every feature with her late mother save a few her and there, but the one thing that wiped away any doubt was her eyes, even from across the street Tommy could see the deep blue color of them. His eyes.

With confident strides she walks up the stairs of the building before entering the door.

"Where have you been for four days?" Tommy muttered to himself never taking his eyes off of the building as he reaches into his breast pocket pulling out a cigarette. What also caught his attention even more was that an hour later she was once again walking through the door and heading off down the street. "What the hell kind of girls home is this?"

With a quick honk of his horn Tommy caught the attention of the blinder down the street, nodding in the direction of the girl, a second later the man began following the unknown Shelby down the street.

[<_>}

Irina sat in the club, small smile on her face, enjoying a glass of champagne as she watched the people around her dance, do drug, have sex and more.

She casually scanned the crowd waiting for her eyes to lock on the man she had followed here. Paul Lipton, he was in the middle of the dance floor, dancing with a pretty blonde women that most definitely not his wife. She knew that for a fact because that was the exact reason she was here, turned out Mrs. Lipton wasn't the type of woman to just set back and let her husband cheat on her.

Downing the rest of her drink Irina stood from her seat heading straight for the dance floor, Spinning and twirling as she attempted to blend into the crowd, making her way toward the unfaithful man she reached for the knife that was strapped to her upper thigh. Getting closer and closer to Paul she raised her arms, doing once final spin as she passed the man quickly dragging the knife across his throat.

It took Paul a few second to realize what was happening to him, she watched as the smiles slowly slipped from his face before his hands shot up to his throat in an attempt to stop his blood from spilling out of his wound. It wasn't until he fell to his knees that his partner noticed that something was terribly wrong. Seeing the red spill from his neck and down the front of his suit drew a scream from the blonde that pierced the ears of nearly everyone in the club.

In an instant the panic started as everyone began to scramble in all directions to what they hope would be safely.

Getting the feeling she was being watched Irina once again scanned the, now panicking, crowd. She had to admit she didn't expect to lock eyes with a man standing on the other side of the club dressed on a long black trench coat, blue eyes nearly completely covered my the peaky cap sat on his head.

After a few seconds of eye contact she took a step back disappearing into the crowd.

[<_>]

Pulling up to the large house 'Arrow' as it was called, Irina took note of the men standing causally outside. Guards, though not very good ones she would say.

"Ne nuzhno derzhat' mashinu v rabochem sostoyanii, ya chuvstvuyu, chto eto zaymet nekotoroye vremya." She said to the driver as he opened the door for her to exit the vehicle.['No need to keep the car running, I have a feeling this will take awhile.']

As she approached the door one of the men broke from the group stepping in between her and the door.

"Can I help you ma'am?" He asked looking down at her.

"No, I don't think you can." She replied rolling her eyes as he blows smoke in her face. "I have a meeting with a Mr. Shelby." She informed trying her best not to punch the man in the throat.

Looking over to one of the other men a bit away her nods his head in the direction of the door before turning back to her as the other walks inside. The man in front of her stares at her for awhile scanning her body ever once and a while.

"You know if your going to see Mr. Shelby, I'm afraid I'll have to search you for weapons." He smirked at her flicking his finished cigarette away.

"Touch me and it will be the last thing you do." She smirked back at the man already prepared to take him out. Her smile only grew as the man took a step forward.

"Mr. Shelby will see you now." The man from before announced sticking his head outside the door.

"Oh lucky me." She says sarcastically, side stepping the man in front of her, coming shoulder to shoulder with him she stops. "And extremely lucky for you." She states before walking up the steps and entering the home.

"Right this way ma'am." An older women in the other side of the door directed her though a hall that came to a large door way. On the other side was a dining room with a large table occupied by a approximately 13 people.

"Mr. Shelby, your guest has arrived." The woman says gesturing over to you. "Shall I take your coat?" She asked causing you to shrug it off allowing her to take it as she exits.

"Irina," The man sat at the head of the table greeted. "Thank you for coming, please have a seat."

Walking over to the table she approaches the seat Tommy had gestured to next to him. Across from her was a blonde woman who she noticed was in a very large portrait above the fire place, she sat next to a small child, obviously her son.

"Mr. Shelby." She greeted back taking a seat. "I have to say when I saw you at the club this isn't the exact way I pictured we'd meet again."

"No?"

"Well most of my clients don't usually introduce me to their family." She informed. "It's not really a family friends profession."

"Are you a whore?" The blonde woman asked looking at you from across the table.

"No...well, maybe." Irina smirked. "I like most people offer a unique service for a price, everyone is a whore is you think about it, just selling different parts of themselves."

"And what service do you provide?" A ginger haired boy a bit down the table asks.

"Finn."

"No its alright Mr. Shelby," She assured. "Well, Finn to put it simply. I kill people."

"Are you serious?" Finn asked looking around the table with a nervous chuckle.

"Deadly." She smiles. "Which is why I was wondering why Mr. Shelby called me here, its no secret that the Shelby family tends to handle grudges on their own."

"So you've heard of us?" A man sitting next to Finn asked with a smirk.

"I prefer to know who I'm working for." She replied. "I asked around about you 'Tommy Shelby the man who could make an enemy out of god himself', So Mr. Shelby who is it that now even the all powerful Tomas Shelby can kill?" She smiles excitement shining in her eyes.

"I'm afraid you may be quite disappointed," Tommy says looking away from the young girl and over to the woman sitting next to her. "I haven't asked you here to have anyone killed."

Slowly the smile slips from her face as she turns her attention to the head of the table, leaning forward with a glare on her face.

"So you've wasted my time?" She asks staring down the blue eyed man.

"I've called you here to offer you some...information you may find interesting." Tommy corrected.

"If I wanted interesting information, Thomas." She started leaning forward some more. "I would have went to a fucking library."

"Not this information love." The older brunette sitting to he left states.

"I don't know how to say this so I'll just come out with it." Tommy started.

"Please do."

"about sixteen years ago, before I went off to war, I was involved with a woman by the name of Greta Jurossi." He explains. "She died while I was still in France, but before that she had a child. My child."

"Is this what coming out with it means to you?"

"A few months ago, her sister came to me to let me know of the child." Taking a moment to clear his throat Tommy finally 'came out with it.' "That child is you."

All eyes were now on Irina as she looked down at the table cloth in front of her. Tommy took her silence as a sign to continue speaking and began introducing the various members of the Shelby family to the newest member.

Having gone down the table Tommy finishes looking back over to his daughter, after a few moments of silence a small chuckle was heard as her shoulder began to move more and more as her laughter became louder.

"I'm sorry," She apologizes as she looks around to see no one else laughing. "I just find this whole story a bit ridiculous."

"You think we’re lying." The younger brunette with a short hair cut asked seemingly offended.

"Yes...No...well, weather I believe it or not doesn't really matter." Irina said waving her had dismissing the topic. "But you were right Mr. Shelby this wasn't a waste of time after all. Because I have some 'interesting' information for you as well."

reaching down in a small pocket in her skirt pulling out a bullet setting it upright on the table. On the bullet a name, crudely etched into the side.

‘Thomas.’

"I'm sure you are familiar with a name by the name of Sabini?" She asked rhetorically. "Well it seems you have offended him in someway seeing as he contacted me sometime ago with the request that I end your life."

"Imagine my surprise when I not only spot you in London, alone, unprotected, but then you invite me to your home." She laughed in disbelief. "So I guess the question now Mr. Shelby is, Mr. Sabini paid a lot of money to have you killed, How much are you willing to pay to stay alive?"

Part 2(?)

#peaky blinder x oc #tommy shelby!daughter #shelby!oc #marvel cinematic universe #marvel #black widow #black widow!reader #peaky blinders x marvel #Tommy Shelby #crossover #peaky blinders imagine #marvel imagine #black widow imagine

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anto-pops · 4 months ago

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The Serpent's Paramour CH 10 - Sebastian Sallow x Female!Reader

Summary: Sebastian's scheme to infiltrate the Ministry sounds simple. You want it to be simple. But if there's one thing you've learned since joining up with him, it's that things almost never go according to plan, and for once, you're sick and tired of being right.

Word Count: 7.1k

Warnings: 18+, aged up characters, canon-typical violence, Dementors doing Dementor things

New chapter is up on Ao3 as well :))

It had been a long time since you’d found yourself outside King’s Cross Station. A seemingly endless crowd of people filtered into the multiple different entrances, some speaking with colleagues while others were completely alone, absorbed in their own thoughts as they prepared to head to work. You had told yourself that rejoining society after so many years spent by yourself would be like riding a broom; easy to manage, simple, and like second nature, seeing as you’d done it so many times in the past.

In the end, you couldn’t have been more wrong. It was overwhelming. With all the different sights, sounds, and the assortment of scents that assaulted your nose as the biting, December morning breeze swept through the streets, it was a wonder you weren’t currently curled up on the ground in fetal position having a breakdown.

To make matters worse, you were waiting on the footpath with Nora and the redheaded Ashwinder, Joshua. To say you were out of your element would be a monumental understatement, and you silently cursed Sebastian for leaving you to wait for him and Devlin alongside two people who likely wanted you dead. You hadn’t seen Nora since you’d used your darker magic to splinter the floor in your room apart, and Joshua had been absent from your sight ever since you’d lost control of your powers and nearly erupted in the garden. Those weren’t the greatest lasting impressions to have looming in the background, and you found yourself wondering what the two Ashwinders thought about having you accompany them to London.

Nora, much to her credit, had said sorely little to you when she’d appeared in your room early this morning. It was for the best, considering you’d almost caved her head in with a Depulso charm in your half-asleep state. You definitely hadn’t anticipated the witch ever setting foot in your chambers again after the last time she’d crossed that threshold. Sebastian had apparently asked her to help you prepare to head to the Ministry– ‘to better fit in’, she’d said with a scowl.

‘Fitting in’ evidently meant putting on the most uncomfortable chiffon dress you had ever had the misfortune of wearing. You hated going from having the freedom to wear trousers to having to layer three different types of skirts over one another, all for the sake of blending in. The petticoat beneath the body of your coral pink dress was itchy and irksome, and you had decided as soon as you’d put it on that it would make for great fire kindling later when you returned to the manor. The only silver lining of the whole ordeal was that you had managed to talk your way out of wearing a corset and a bloody bustle. That was where you drew the line.

You did look relatively pretty, however. The gown– while uncomfortable and not something you were used to– was stunning. Your previously untamed hair had been combed through and styled back in a simple plait, then adorned with a few ivory hair pins. All in all, if you overlooked the real reason for your presence in the city, it was like you were playing pretend.

Nora also looked ethereal. Clearly she had reserved the nicer dress for herself, but you didn’t mind in the slightest. It accentuated her assets in ways that left you jealous she had assets to begin with, and the coppery color of her attire brought out the icy hues of her eyes. If you didn’t already know she was an Ashwinder, you would have assumed she was the daughter of a wealthy noble from some faraway country.

To your left, Joshua shuddered in response to another gust of chilly wind that nearly blew his fedora off. He was dressed modestly compared to you and Nora, having opted to wear a simple dark button down with an ascot and a grey vest over the top. His trousers were of the standard variety, but his shoes were dressy and polished.

Where in the world did your new allies get all the money to buy such nice clothing?

“If they aren’t back in the next five minutes, I’m getting the hell out of here,” Joshua muttered under his breath, his words nearly carried away in the breeze.

Nora sighed, her frustration palpable even before she narrowed her cold eyes at the young man. “We told you to bring a coat. There were four different ones to choose from. You being cold is your own damn fault.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t still complain about being made to wait for half an hour,” he fired back instantly. Shaking his head, Joshua stuffed his hands in the pockets of his vest, cursing to himself when he was only able to fit half of the appendages inside the tiny slits.

Keeping your mouth firmly shut, you looked away from your entourage and glanced around the bustling city streets. The last time you had been in London was after your graduation. You had barely lingered at the train station for five minutes before apparating away, the phantom memory of you and Professor Fig climbing aboard the carriage your fifth-year haunting you and dredging up emotions that were best left buried. The dragon attack and uncovering the ancient magic site hidden away in Gringotts felt like a lifetime ago.

You wondered, then, what Professor Fig would make of you now.

“Don’t you all look chipper,” came a familiar, sarcastic voice ahead of you. It sounded like Devlin, but when you turned to look, you were met with the sight of an unknown man. He was young, with green eyes, dark hair, and wearing an expensive looking wool overcoat on top of a pressed suit. The only thing that betrayed his true identity was the worn bowler hat perched atop his head, and your brows furrowed in confusion.

“Devlin?” you asked cautiously, and the green eyed man smirked.

“In the flesh,” he proudly remarked, hesitating a moment before adding, “Well, someone else’s flesh, technically speaking.”

Nora stepped forward to take in her father’s altered appearance, her mouth curling up into a rare, genuine smile that softened her otherwise sharp features. “Whose face did you borrow this time?”

“William Taylor,” Devlin replied, smoothing his hands down the lush coat draped over his shoulders. “An Obliviator. He’s regularly assigned to attend court proceedings and handles muggles exposed to magic. Him being in the Detention Area won’t draw any attention.”

“And Sebastian?” Nora inquired further.

“Thomas Hughes. Junior Assistant to the Archivist.”

You turned to track the voice as a middle aged man with neatly styled blond hair appeared behind Devlin. Traces of five o’clock shadow lined his pronounced jaw, and a nasty looking scar ran from his chin all the way down his neck, disappearing into the collar of his dark shirt. The top of Sebastian’s enchanted tattoo peaked out slightly– evidently unable to be hidden by magic given its purpose– but it wouldn’t stand out unless he took off his jacket. The man you realized was Sebastian stuck his hands in the pockets of his trousers, the edges of his tailored coat flapping listlessly in the wind. Upon closer inspection, you realized the eyes were still the same color as his usual chocolate brown, just accentuated by crows feet that crinkled when he grinned.

Thomas– or, Sebastian– turned to stare at you, his familiar eyes sweeping down your dressed up body before turning his attention to Nora. “Nice work,” he mused coyly, and your stomach flipped when the blonde woman dipped her head at him in a coquettish fashion.

You clasped your hands together and started to wring your fingers, the flurry of uncomfortable emotions that gnawed at you making you question your decision to come. This was bound to end poorly, and if that sinking feeling wasn’t enough of a reason to second guess your presence here, the suggestive gaze Nora fixed Sebastian with was.

The two of you hadn’t spoken since your momentary tryst in his office days earlier. You knew you had told him he might end up regretting it later on, but the possibility of that being the case made you sick to your stomach for some reason.

“Your eyes are still the same,” Nora commented dryly.

Said eyes made a full trip around their sockets as Sebastian shrugged, then nodded towards Devlin. “Not all of us can perfectly imitate faces. He’s the one with the copy cat power– I’m stuck using transfiguration spells, and trust me when I say they were never my strong suit. This is as good as it’s going to get.”

Nora shot a proud smile at her father, who seemed to be greatly enjoying the praise heaped upon him. You cocked your head to the side as you took in Sebastian’s commentary, the implication of his statement registering a heartbeat later. You looked to Devlin and raised your brows as you asked in a low voice, “Are you a Metamorphmagus?”

The older Ashwinder tipped his bowler hat forward, flashing you a smirk that oozed arrogance. “I am indeed. The second one born to my family in half a century. It’s an awfully useful ability, especially when you’re sneaking into the Ministry.”

It most certainly was. As far as you knew, Metamorphmagi were incredibly rare amongst wizard-kind. Unlike Animagi like Natty, the powers that came with being a shapeshifting Metamorphmagus were typically hereditary, so no ordinary person could learn them. For the first time since this morning, you addressed Nora directly, your curiosity piqued in the wake of the discovery. “Are you one, too?”

She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest, a modicum of insecurity showing on her otherwise schooled features. “No. How it gets passed down through bloodlines isn’t an exact science. My grandmother was one. She had four kids, but he’s the only one who got the ability.”

To say you were intrigued was putting it mildly. Why hadn’t Devlin mentioned it to you before? You were desperate to learn more– to probe him for answers to the quickly growing list of questions in your mind– but you knew now wasn’t the time nor the place. Joshua was still shivering beside you, doing his best to appear put together in the face of Sebastian and Devlin’s arrival, but the two men still took note of his rigid posture.

Sebastian jerked his thumb over his shoulder, his eyes jumping from person to person before finally landing on you. “We should get going. The less amount of time I have to spend concentrating on this spell, the better off we’ll be.”

You were pretty sure you heard Devlin mutter something along the lines of “Sucks to be you”, but everyone was already moving in the direction of the Ministry, ready to tackle the task at hand.

With your group finally set to break into one of the most heavily fortified government buildings of all time, you sent up a silent prayer. If it turned out to be anything like Gringotts, you hoped that the dark witch and wizards surrounding you were prepared.

Anything less, and you’d all end up dead.

—

As it turned out, getting into the Ministry was the easy part. The five of you just… walked in.

Not together, though. That would arouse suspicion. A Junior Assistant to the Archivist and an Obliviator coming to work together? It made no sense– especially considering the vast age gap between the two borrowed identities.

No, there was a plan in place that you were all following to the letter.

Nora had entered alongside her father, playing the part of a hapless muggle who was due to have her memory erased after witnessing an unfortunate display of magic that had killed her make-believe husband. She sold the act remarkably well, crying in earnest as she wiped tears and snot away from her face with a silk handkerchief Devlin had crudely tossed her way.

You, Sebastian, and Joshua entered together next, although your assigned backstory was relatively pathetic compared to Devlin and Nora’s ironclad alibi. You and Joshua were posing as a couple of married scholars, joining ‘Thomas Hughes’ down in the Archives to lend your expertise in deciphering old tomes referencing long, forgotten kinds of magic. The glare you had shot Sebastian upon hearing your title had warranted a knowing grin from him, and you endeavored to smack him upside the head the second you left London.

Part of you had worried about the guards detecting the transfiguration spell Sebastian was actively using on himself, but when the three of you walked through the heavily guarded entrance without so much as a glance from security, you knew you were in the clear.

Devlin and Nora were across the massive lobby already, waiting for the rickety dumbwaiter to take them up to where they needed to go. The unfamiliar face of William Taylor glanced at your trio as you walked up to the service lift directly beside the first, and a curt dip of his chin was the only thing Devlin deigned to grace you with. Talking was pointless and largely discouraged, you recalled Sebastian saying, so you mirrored the action before turning back to the creaking machinery in front of you.

The iron gate of the lift was pulled aside by a journeyman already inside, and he stepped back to allow for a cluster of people to board. Your group was amongst the first to step on, and once the gate had been closed, there was a loud clang as the mechanism began to ascend towards the top of the building.

You were shoved up against the back of the lift, the taller bodies of the actual employees all around you leaving the air hot and thick with intermingling scents. It was stifling, and it took a herculean effort not to shove at the back of the man in front of you to create space for yourself. Sebastian’s disguised face glanced down at you, taking in the tight expression on your face before placing his hand reassuringly on your shoulder. The tiny gesture was the extent of the comfort he could afford to offer you, but you appreciated it all the same.

It took far too long for the lift to begin emptying itself. The shrill chime that went off every time a new floor was visited made your ears ring, and it wasn’t until you were seven levels above ground that the bulk of the people aboard disembarked. You exhaled shakily, relaxing your posture as you were finally given the space to shift freely, and Joshua chuckled under his breath at your blatant display of discomfort.

Ignoring the journeyman completely, you broke the silence within the lift to mutter in a low voice, “Keep laughing and see what happens.”

“Apologies, wife,” Joshua stressed the word, shaking his head and grinning to himself. “I forgot that you haven’t been out much recently.”

Sebastian interrupted the momentary banter with a stern look, the gruff expression on Thomas Hughes’ face enough to have Joshua lifting his hands in a show of surrender. Nothing else was said until the three of you arrived on the tenth floor, the gate of the lift groaning open as the journeyman moved aside to allow for you to step off. He didn’t say a word as he closed himself in following your exit, then began his descent back to the lobby of the Ministry.

You almost wished you had stayed aboard the lift, because the sight that greeted you was something straight out of a nightmare.

Dark tiles lined the floors and the walls, reflecting a dim, blueish light that seemed to come from nowhere since there were no windows. It gave the hallway before you the appearance of a corridor that led into the afterlife– made worse by the shadowy figures that darted above the floor in the chamber ahead. The temperature difference up here compared to the humid lift was stark; it was freezing, and your breath fogged out in front of you as you anxiously sighed, crossing your arms over your chest in a bid to retain some warmth.

When you looked at your companions, you paused. Joshua looked to be as nervous as you were, his leg bouncing a mile a minute as he expelled the tension that was swiftly overtaking him. Sebastian, though…

Even though he wore the face of another man, those familiar eyes of his were riddled with fear.

Being here had to bring back memories of Azkaban. That was the only logical explanation you could come up with.

“How long do we wait for Devlin?” You found yourself asking, doing your best to distract Sebastian from the dreary thoughts that no doubt clouded his mind. He blinked a few times before turning away from the chamber ahead, his narrowed, uneasy gaze landing directly on you. He took in the sight of you for a few seconds, barely moving and hardly breathing as he worked through whatever turbulent emotions plagued him, until he finally squared his shoulders and looked back down the hallway again.

“If he’s not already here, he should be coming up shortly,” he muttered, dropping his hand to his thigh where his wand was securely strapped in its holster. “We can’t linger here, though. It’ll draw attention.”

Joshua elected to speak up then, his teeth chattering furiously all the while, “What are we supposed to say if we’re caught? The Junior Assistant to the Archivist in the Detention Area is bound to raise questions.”

“The story is you’re both helping Thomas Hughes decipher older types of magic that pre-exist our time,” he explained quietly. “We can say that the Dementors are worth cross referencing with that magic since they’re as old as wizard kind. We won’t probe around for long– once Devlin and Nora get here, we’ll find Arthur’s cell and get him out.”

It all sounded so easy when he put it that way. You were supposed to just lie through your teeth in the face of trouble, then break Sebastian’s informant out with no problems? There was no way the enchantments within the Ministry’s Detention Area were susceptible to measly unlocking charms.

No, there had to be a warden of some sort. Someone holding the keys to the cages and patrolling the halls. You made a mental note to keep your eyes peeled for anyone fitting that description.

Getting thrown into one of the cells and sent away to Azkaban wasn’t on your to-do list today.

Sebastian began walking forward then, the hesitation in his steps evident as the distance between him and the Dementors shrank. You and Joshua followed behind him, the two of you taking on the roles of inquisitive scholars who were probably a little too eager to get up close and personal with the soul-sucking wraiths.

You forced a giddy expression to your face as you neared the end of the corridor, your smile wobbling slightly when two of the cloaked figures swooped down from the rounded ceiling to cut off your path. Sebastian halted in his tracks, his face impassive and showing no signs of alarm as he promptly turned so he could gesture at you and Joshua. “The Archivist has requested his colleagues from Belfast observe the nature of your kind to better understand the tomes currently being reviewed. With your permission, we will complete our task and be on our way.”

His voice was unrecognizable as he spoke, the tenor so much deeper and lacking the teasing lilt that you had come to know. Your heart pounded against your sternum as you willed your gaze to shift to the Dementors– to the gaping holes in place of where their eyes should have been– and their gaunt, withered skulls made it hard to maintain your curious facade. Still, you leaned around Sebastian, taking in every detail of the phantom figures with rapt fascination.

These were the things that had kept Sebastian subdued in Azkaban for three years. They fed off of human happiness and left prisoners husks of their former selves. Just standing before them was enough to imbue you with a healthy dose of fear that you did your best to keep under wraps, but you knew you would never forget the sight of the ghastly creatures.

The wraiths hovered in your path for a long time, and the only sign that they actually saw you was the subtle shifting of their hooded heads. Mentally psyching yourself up for a fight, you looked to Joshua, who was doing a less than stellar job of appearing interested in the Dementors. Instead he just looked like he was on the verge of throwing up.

After far too long for comfort, the figures floated back, no longer looming ominously in your faces as they parted to reveal the path that led into the Detention Area. Your shoulders relaxed, as did Joshua’s, and Sebastian was the picture of confidence as he smoothly said, “Thank you.”

For someone who had likely been subjected to torture at the hands of the inhuman husks, he was holding it together remarkably well.

He didn’t waste a second before striding past the Dementors, his head held high and spine straight as the three of you left the first chamber and came upon the second. The sight of bars lining the tiled walls was equal parts reassuring and anxiety inducing. Devlin and Nora needed to arrive before you could move forward with anything, and there was still an obscene number of shadowy figures lurking around. You would all have to continue to play your parts to the best of your abilities.

“This is fucking insane,” Joshua hissed under his breath, yanking his fedora off his head to rake his trembling fingers through his hair. “How the fuck are we supposed to get out later? Those demons are going to eat our souls before we even find Arthur.”

“Stop talking,” Sebastian growled, the bushy brows of Thomas Hughes furrowing dramatically. “We’ll be fine.”

The younger Ashwinder seemed to think otherwise, but he still snapped his mouth shut, rubbing his hands down his cheeks as he looked around.

“This place…” you started to say, a sliver of genuine wonder coloring your words. “It’s terrible. You can feel how lifeless it is. The fact that it’s just sitting above the rest of the Ministry is unbelievable.”

“This place has got nothing on Azkaban,” Sebastian murmured quietly, that haunted, far away look in his eyes returning full force. Against your will, you found your chest constricting as guilt overtook you. “Someone once told me that Dementors were born from the first dark magic ever used in this world. It was probably a bunch of hogwash, though. No one knows where they originated from, or why they are the way they are. They were discovered on an island in the North Sea thousands of years ago, but no one knows how they got there.”

Even though it didn’t seem possible, Joshua paled even further, the greenish hue to his cheeks amplified by the murky light that illuminated the chamber. “The North Sea?”

The weathered face of Thomas Hughes nodded, Sebastian’s alert eyes scanning the ceiling as the shadowy figures above darted back and forth. “The island wasn’t Azkaban as we know it back then, but that’s where the Dementors were found. It’s ironic that the Ministry uses them to guard the place. They know all the nooks and crannies better than anyone.”

It was a sobering thought, realizing that the wraiths swarming the tenth floor of the Ministry were in fact thousands of years old. It shouldn’t have surprised you– after all, you had undoubtedly seen more far-fetched things since your fifth-year. But something about the creatures imbued you with terror so innate, you couldn’t help but wonder if your ancestors had known to steer clear of the ghastly phantoms.

You were certainly playing with fire by lying to them… if they could even conceptualize lying to begin with.

The three of you meandered around the room for a good ten minutes, doing your best to look interested in the unholy creatures circling above. Maintaining your facade was the key to everything here, so you did exactly that; you fixed your eyes on the Dementors overhead and occasionally said something official-sounding to Joshua, who was doing very little to act natural. The poor man looked like he was going to pass out given the circumstances.

After what felt like an eternity, there was a disembodied clang from deeper in the cell area. Your trio went eerily still, eyes wide with fright as your combined attention was dragged to the cage at the far end of the chamber. A muffled groan soon followed from within, and your panicked gaze jumped from Joshua to Sebastian. The marred skin on the neck of his transfigured disguise shifted as he swallowed thickly, then looked away to begin inching his way towards the source of the noise, and you swore you had never wanted to flee from a place more. Not even the traps you had unwittingly set off in ancient magic sites had scared you so badly.

The Dementors overhead continued to swirl around the ceiling as Sebastian led the way towards the cell. Joshua nearly stumbled over his own feet when he finally got them to obey his will, his hand hovering cautiously over where you knew his wand was concealed beneath his vest. As you moved to follow the two men, you found yourself regretting having strapped your own wand to your leg under the copious layers of clothing you wore. Withdrawing it now would require virtually flashing the cloaked wraiths and drawing their attention, so you were left to dig your nails into your palms as you curled your hands into tight fists.

How effective would punching a Dementor prove to be?

Sebastian hesitated for a moment before peering around the wall of the cell, his entire body going ramrod straight when he caught sight of whatever was within the cage. You and Joshua halted in synch, the suspense causing the repository’s magic to thrum violently in your veins despite your best attempts at remaining calm, and you had to fight the urge to turn tail and bolt towards the lift with every ounce of willpower you possessed. Smothering your flight response, you forced your legs into motion, moving to stand beside Sebastian so you could see whatever it was that had him so perturbed.

His hand shot up to curl around your bicep when you saw Nora and Devlin laying on the floor of the cell. Devlin’s appearance had returned to the version of himself you knew, his Metamorphmagus abilities nullified in the wake of whatever had apprehended them. The father-daughter duo wasn’t moving– their bodies stiffer than boards– but their matching blue eyes were open and frantic as they stared imploringly at you and Sebastian.

Fuck.

The sound of something hitting the floor behind you drew your attention, and you and Sebastian both turned around in alarm to find Joshua sprawled out on the floor, his entire body as frozen and rigid as the two Ashwinders in the cell. A tall figure emerged from the shadows within an unlocked cage close to the corridor, stepping out with their wand raised and effectively blocking your only exit. The familiar, pulsing red tip had your mouth falling open in shock and fear.

Ominis Gaunt stood before you– as poised and regal as ever– his milky-blue eyes narrowed in distaste as he used his refined magical talents to pinpoint exactly where you and Sebastian were. His wand leveled itself at his former friend, the unspoken threat in the action apparent, and you felt Sebastian’s hand tighten around your arm in response.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t know you were here?” Ominis asked, cold indifference coloring his tone. “Or did you forget that the brand you bear would announce your presence the second you stepped on to Ministry property? You’ve gotten sloppy, Sebastian.”

“Ominis,” you muttered dubiously, stunned to hear him speak so vehemently after all these years. The soft inflection of his voice had vanished, replaced with a mature, biting tenor that left little room for argument. “Ominis, please, just take a moment–”

“Be quiet,” he spat venomously, and you recoiled as though he’d slapped you. “I don’t want to hear it. You disappear for years after ostracizing me for a decision we made together, then show up with him and think you can tell me what to do?” He shook his head as a sharp, humorless laugh fell from his lips. “So much for it being ‘the right thing to do’. You’re a bloody hypocrite.”

Movement from above drew your eye, and you glanced up warily to find the Dementors ever so slowly descending closer. The way they continued to spiral as they grew nearer reminded you of vultures circling around a dying animal, watching and waiting for the chance to feast.

Sebastian released your arm to hold his hands out in front of him slowly, almost as though he was trying to pacify the blond man. But the glower he had fixed to Ominis’ face was anything but placating.

It was murderous.

“Arthur isn’t here, is he?” Sebastian asked in a low, dangerous voice. Ominis only sneered in response. “He was bait. You knew I’d come. How long did you hide in that cell, hoping that I’d walk in?”

“Long enough to know that you don’t value your people very much,” Ominis retorted. “Seven days and seven nights. That’s how long you left him to rot. We had to send him away after four, since the Dementors kept picking him apart. There wouldn’t have been anything left otherwise.”

“I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, then.” Sebastian chuckled darkly, keeping his eyes glued to Ominis as he shook his head. “You’re more like your kin than ever before. Subjecting a man to torment like that, all for the sake of getting me here… you must make the Gaunt family proud.”

“Shut up!” Ominis hissed, advancing forward a step and prompting the wraiths above to come closer. You weren’t sure which would prove to be worse; being imprisoned at the hands of your old friend, or having your soul sucked dry by thousand-year-old entities. There wasn’t a single part of you that wanted to find out. “For years I tried giving you the benefit of the doubt. You escaped, and I took on the case in the hopes that I’d find out you had run off to live in seclusion in some hovel. I could live with declaring you dead and shelving everything if that were the case. But then I find out that not only are you still skulking around using dark magic, you’re also commanding every Ashwinder in the country. You embraced being a criminal. You’ve forced my hand, Sebastian. The only person to blame for this is yourself.”

The next series of events happened so quickly, you barely had time to register anything.

Sebastian shoved you to the floor, your palms connecting with the tile so violently that you heard and felt a sickening crack from your left wrist. You couldn’t stop the yelp of pain that ripped from your throat, but you were largely ignored as Sebastian’s hand flew down to his side, snatching his wand from its holster before casting Confringo and snarling when Ominis swiftly blocked the curse.

Now a seasoned Auror, Ominis held his ground with little effort, returning fire in quick succession and forcing Sebastian to back up a few steps. The camouflage of Thomas Hughes wavered as Sebastian’s focus weakened– his transfigured disguise falling away shortly thereafter– and Ominis audibly cursed when he felt the ripple of magic.

“Still a coward hiding behind other people,” Ominis jabbed, flicking his wand in front of him to send out a Diffindo charm that Sebastian failed to dodge. He jumped away, throwing himself against the cell door as his right side was left unprotected, and the spell tore through fabric and skin like butter. Your scream caught in your throat as Sebastian sagged against the iron bars, a pained grimace flashing across his face before it was replaced by a bloodthirsty expression.

“It’s all you were ever a master at; using people. You used me,” Ominis continued, casting another spell that Sebastian barely managed to block. “You used her,” Ominis waved his wandless hand in your direction. “You used Anne as an excuse to push the limits of what was allowed. When does it end, Sebastian?”

Sebastian groaned as he pulled himself upright against the bars, the subtle sound of blood dripping to the floor filling the room, and you stared wide-eyed at the growing red puddle beneath his feet. He fired off another wordless spell that emitted a green glow–one that carried the foul scent of an Unforgivable with it– and a growl sounded from him when Ominis blocked that attack too. The Dementor's overhead began to swoop down eerily close to Sebastian– the air around him taking on a wispy, transient quality that was accompanied by his breathless wheezes.

No. No, no, no.

Your fingers curled against the cold floor, the throbbing ache in your wrist muted as you wracked your brain for a solution. Apparating wasn’t possible within the Detention Area, seeing as there were countless wards preventing magical means of escape. You were certain there was a spell of some sort to fend off Dementors, but even though you had read about it years ago, you didn’t know it. Nora, Devlin, and Joshua were still petrified. Self-preservation demanded that you leave them all to their fate and escape by yourself, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do such a heartless thing. Sebastian…

He was going to die.

If you didn’t intervene and do something, he would either bleed out or end up a soulless husk at the hands of the fiendish wraiths swarming him. Your skin prickled as the power sequestered deep inside of you began to rise to the surface in lieu of your heightened emotions.

“Ominis,” came your frantic, pleading voice. The heels of your boots scuffed against the floor as you pushed yourself to your feet. “You have to stop! He’s going to die– please, listen to me!”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t.” Ominis didn’t look in your direction, his wand still stubbornly leveled at Sebastian even though he was the farthest thing from a threat right now. “I don’t know what prompted you to join him after all this time, but I won’t back down. He’s killed people. He uses Unforgivable Curses like they’re nothing, and he’s never going to stop. I am legally obligated to see this through.”

“We’re trying to cure Anne! Please– we’re so close to finishing this, Ominis. I know you don’t want to hear it, but the ends will justify the means. He was your friend once! Doesn’t that count for something?”

Those stormy, unseeing eyes of his landed on you in the next second, and you froze when you caught sight of the pained scowl on his face. “Do you even hear yourself? I’ve heard all of this before– you have heard all of this before. History is repeating itself as we speak, and you’re going to side with him? Do you realize who you’re throwing your life away for?”

The cool wood of your wand seemed to burn against the bare skin of your thigh, so close and yet so far away while hidden beneath your dress. You needed to get your hands on it to channel your magic. It was festering to life quickly– like a cauldron on the brink of boiling over– and you prayed that the desperate plan forming in your mind would work. You inched your fingers down to gather the hem of your dress in your shaking hands, but Ominis was too aware for his own good. He pointed his wand at you, furrowing his brows as a disbelieving look crossed his features.

“Are you serious right now? I can’t believe you,” he huffed breathlessly, shocked that you would even consider drawing your wand on him. His knuckles blanched white around the handle of his own as he doubled down and said, “Don’t make me do this, I am begging you. Stand aside and let me do what I have to. I’ll figure out what to do with you after.”

“No, I’m begging you,” you fired back instantly, the pleading tone you had used earlier entirely absent. In its place was something fearful– something cautionary. He had no clue what it meant to deny you, but he was about to find out. The memory of Isidora’s magic erupting out of you without your wand to aid you made you bristle, and you mentally psyched yourself up for the pain that would accompany unleashing it to destroy the Detention Area.

If the whole fucking place was reduced to rubble, would the wards be destroyed, too? There was only one way to find out.

“Please, Ominis,” you said once more, releasing the hem of your dress to rise to your full height. Your eyes jumped over to Sebastian’s sagging form against the bars of the cell, his eyes half-lidded as he weakly applied pressure to the wound in his side. The Dementors weren’t relenting, and you realized you had officially run out of time. “I can’t ask again; let us go.”

Perhaps it was a trick of the light, or maybe it was just wishful thinking, but you could have sworn Ominis had unshed tears in his eyes. His thin lips pressed together as he shook his head, steeling his nerves as he croaked, “I can’t. You don’t know what will happen if I let him walk away. You don’t know what he’s capable of– he has the support of nearly every dark witch and wizard in the country. I would be unleashing a monster.”

“He’s just one man, Ominis,” you whispered. “One man who sold his soul to save his sister. Can you blame him? Don’t you want to see Anne whole and healthy again?”

It was a gamble to throw Anne’s name into the conversation. You weren’t sure if Ominis even stayed in touch with her anymore– didn’t know if he was aware of her current state. Weeks spent with Sebastian had revealed nothing to you about his twin, but you were fairly certain she was at St. Mungo’s in the city. It was reasonable to believe that Ominis would keep tabs on the younger Sallow sibling following her brother’s incarceration.

The manipulation paid off in the form of Ominis’ wand lowering slightly as his face fell. To use Anne against him in such a way made you feel like a monumental piece of shit, but you were desperate. You didn’t want to hurt Ominis, but if he didn’t relent, you knew he would be caught in the inevitable crossfire.

“You really believe that, don’t you?” he muttered the question under his breath, but it came out sounding sad. Like he had realized that you were too obstinate to be reasoned with. “Anne wouldn’t want this. You know that. She accepted her curse a long time ago. How do you think she would feel knowing that her brother was doing this– condemning himself– all in the name of fixing her?”

You didn’t have an answer. Anne had already watched Sebastian kill their uncle, and it had driven her away from him immediately. But before that, you had seen the hope in her eyes when her brother would come around with poultices and herbs, claiming that they might help ease her suffering. Once upon a time, she had wanted to get better.

Had she really given up?

Sebastian groaned from his crumpled spot against the cell door, the most recent Dementor feeding from him veering up towards the ceiling to make room for the next. He looked pale, and the despondent expression on his face nearly cleaved your heart in two. You knew he wanted to fight. He would stand and defend himself tooth and nail if he were able, because that was just the kind of person he was.

But he couldn’t.

His now dull eyes were fixed on you as he jerked his head weakly towards the hallway leading to the lift. Was he telling you to run? After everything he had sacrificed and worked to accomplish, he was giving up? He had chased you through the woods weeks ago and kidnapped you. He had held you captive in his stupid manor and kept your wand from you until you agreed to help him, and now he was throwing in the towel? He was silently insisting that you get out while he and the petrified Ashwinders you had come with… what?

Got arrested? Died?

The thought made your blood boil, and even though he was pitifully bleeding out on the floor, you glared at him.

“If it’s any consolation,” you heard yourself say, a heavy blanket of apathy settling over your shoulders. “I’m sorry, Ominis.”

“I never wanted–” the blond stopped mid-sentence, his body stiffening as the suffocating sensation of dark magic began to fill the room. His unseeing eyes darted around, his head swiveling back to Sebastian when he naturally assumed he was the culprit of the festering feeling. But the brunet didn’t even react to the Auror’s angry expression. No, his gaze was glued to you, his irises more lively than they had been since apparating to London.

Isidora’s magic buzzed against your skin, the crackling sound steadily growing louder until the noise was akin to a hundred lightbulbs on the verge of shorting out. It felt as harsh as it sounded– like a million needles piercing your flesh over and over and over before being doused with alcohol potent enough to make the wounds sting. It was a roaring tempest within you, pushing and straining in its incessant search for a way out, only to find none. No wand, and no means of control.

You never thought you would willingly put yourself through something like this again, but life had always proven to have a wicked sense of humor.

Ominis’ hazy eyes were wider than saucers when he faced you once more, finally realizing that you were the source of the unnatural magic. “What the hell is that? What are you doing?”

“Cast Protego,” you grit through your teeth, the imminent eruption enough to leave your knees buckling from the agony already coursing through you. “Do it now!”

Ominis staggered towards you as he stepped closer, his confusion and anger evident in his voice. “What– stop!”

“I’m sorry.”

With that, you finally let go, hoping and praying that the torrent of raw pain and destruction you unleashed didn’t kill everybody in the process.

#sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow x you #sebastian sallow x reader #sebastian sallow x mc #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy fanfic #sebastian sallow fanfic #hogwarts legacy fanfiction #sebastian sallow fanfiction #sebastian sallow x female!reader #WIP TSP #ominis gaunt #guess I'll tag him since he's finally here showing his glorious beautiful perfect face again #idc what I'm making him do in this fic he's still pookie to me #my writing #it's 11:55pm do y'all think I still have time to pack for my trip KJAFKSJGSG

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batmanisagatewaydrug · 9 months ago

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reading update: October 2024

hello, ahoy, and welcome to my October reading recap.

I made a real effort to focus on spooOOOoooky books this month, in the name of the season; you may even recall that I started early and read some spooky stories at the tail end of September. (read Carmen Maria Machado's comic The Low, Low Woods, btw.)

I've never been great at sticking to a theme but I think it helped that what gets classified as "horror" can vary greatly, so I never really got bored of the genre. I did get disappointed more than once by how Not Spooky some of these books turned out to be, but that's a totally different question.

right at the end of the month you'll notice a couple of outliers with Caped Crusade and Luster, which happened entirely because I was out of library books and on the road for a conference, so I was reading what I could get my hands on! I've been working on rereading Caped Crusade on and off for a couple months and I bought Luster at a cool indie bookstore in the town I was visiting and then inhaled most of it on the way home.

ANYWAY. to the books!

And Then I Woke Up (Malcolm Devlin, 2022) - this is a novella with an interesting spin on the zombie story, where the "zombies" are actually people who have started suffering hallucinations that fill them with paranoia and force them see other people as monsters. so, like, there were never any REAL monsters, but a woman looked at her young son and saw him as a cannibalistic monster, so she killed him. so who's the real monster? it's very deep. this story's explanation for this is "the narrative," an idea so strong that it simply seems to take hold of anyone who's around a sufficiently charismatic ringleader who drives them to join in their delusions and kill innocents who don't share their worldview. it's not a super subtle zombie metaphor, but I guess very few zombie metaphors are. it's fine.

Through the Woods (Emily Carroll, 2014) - I truly wholeheartedly wish I had more to say about this but it's just a very charming creepy collection of comics. my favorite was the one that was the scariest, involving humans getting taken over by body-snatching worm monsters, but on the whole it was a very minor creepy factor. the art's great the whole way through.

Happy Medium (Sarah Adler, 2024) - Happy Medium is October's romance novel as picked by my patreonites, and I will admit: my hopes were not high going in. a conwoman posing as a psychic clashing with a skeptical hottie goat farmer didn't ping me as a great mix, but honestly? HONESTLY? it kind of served. there was a much more well-rounded emotional core to this book than I often encounter in my romance novels; at risk of sounding like a cornball it genuinely had a lot of heart. the conwoman is actually extremely charming, I was rooting for her in a big way, and her emotional journey goes so far beyond just falling in love with the goat farmer. I'll happily claim Happy Medium as my #1 romance of the year unless a challenger arises in the next two months, but it's not looking likely.

The Ones That Got Away (Stephen Graham Jones, 2010) - this is a collection of Graham's short stories that was published long before he became a huge name in horror with books like The Only Good Indians and My Heart Is a Chainsaw. and as much as I hate to say it, I think I personally prefer his longer form fiction. none of these short stories were bad, per se, and they're incredibly stylized and polished, but I think I like Jones' work a lot more when it has time to simmer out. I may have also been biased by the fact that I was desperately seeking something scary to read, because while Jones plays with some pretty narsty concepts, the horror tends not to hit until a last page reveal that recontextualizes everything that's come before. which is cool! but not scaring me as much as I wish it was.

The Salt Grows Heavy (Cassandra Khaw, 2023) - a lot of people told me I should read this because it stars a killer mermaid and a plague doctor, which are two aesthetic archetypes I love, and I will give this to Cassandra Khaw: I liked this a lot more than their other book, Nothing But Blackened Teeth. which is clearing a very low bar, since I didn't really like that book at all, but I do think Salt is genuinely a pretty marked improvement. the prose is still kind of torturously overwrought in many places and I desperately wish that Khaw would put the thesaurus away, but there's like. a Concept here. the core is fun.

Tell Me I'm Worthless (Alison Rumfitt, 2021) - this book is by far the scariest I read, because the horror is hatred and bigotry and a fucked up, evil house that brings out the very worst of everyone who steps inside of it. this book gets so fucked up and bloody and downright nasty in its exploration of the characters and the underlying bigotries that turn them against each other and drive them apart. I don't want to spoil anything, but the book follows a white trans woman named Alice and her mixed race, cis ex-girlfriend Ila. in the past Alice and Ila entered the evil house with their friend Hannah; that ended with Hannah dead and missing and Alice and Ila both scarred and traumatized, each certain that they were raped by the other. so that's what this book is like! not a lighthearted undertaking, but one that I could. not. put. down.

A Sunny Place for Shady People (Mariana Enríquez, trans. Megan McDowell 2024) - what is there to say? Enríquez is my short story queens, and her new release absolutely lived up to the precedent set for me by The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, which was originally published in 2009 but not translated into English until 2021. this collection is sooo aptly named, because many of the stories are obsessed with the terror of places: hotels haunted by memories, neighborhoods filled with ghosts, junkyards where bodies are hidden, towns abandoned and taken over by something sinister. also, completely detached from the quality of the writing, this book has one of the most striking covers I've encountered this year. the screaming yellow cover and bold purple text looked SO COOL under the purple string lights in my bedroom, which was a little +1 to my mood every time I saw it :)

Thirst (Marina Yuszczuk, trans. Heather Cleary 2024) - I think if I had to pick a favorite book from my spooktober reading, Thirst would edge Tell Me I'm Worthless out by just a hair, because I'm just SUCH a sucker for a modern gothic. this novel is split into two chunks. the first is narrated by a vampire (hinted to be one of Dracula's infamous brides) who flees the Old World and crosses the sea to find safety in a young Buenos Aires, where she struggles to figure out how to slake her thirst and escape from loneliness while avoiding detection in a modernizing world. ultimately she seals herself away in a crypt to escape the relentless pace of change around her, and that's when our perspective shifts. here we join a modern woman with a young son, an ex husband, and a dying mother, who's struggling under the pressure of grief as she watches her mother waste away. she ends up accidentally reawakening the vampire from the first half of the book, and you can imagine things get weirder from there. honestly, for me, the part of this book that's most brilliant is the latter half and it's deep meditation on grief, but the historical portion of the book also plays the vampire gothic to the hilt. delicious!

The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture (Glen Weldon, 2016) - this is a really fun piece of pop culture history, tracking how Batman came to be DC's little #1 it boy alongside the developing prominence of nerds and fandom as a cultural force to be reckoned with. as I said above, this was a reread for me, because I wanted to circle back now that I've actually read most of the major comic events discussed in the book. Weldon weaves between Batman in comics, TV, and movies to examine on how one portrayal influences another - for instance: the goofy '66 TV series saw a huge backlash in comics, which went way dark to reinforce a grim and serious Batman for 'real' fans who objected to the show making Batman a joke to much of the normie population - and I think that's a really neat lineage to trace. while I think Weldon is sometimes a bit too transparent with his own disdain for certain adaptations, he overall has an extremely levelheaded approach to Batfandom and a conversationally informative approach that I really enjoy. of particular note is the fact that Weldon is himself a gay man, making him one of the only writers I trust to talk about why he personally dislikes Joel Schmacher's movies without getting homophobic about it.

Luster (Raven Leilani, 2020) - this book!!! this was one of three novels recommended to me by Bonnie at Snowbound Books, and Bonnie if you are on this website I owe you my LIFE because you were 100% correct. I was obsessed from the very first line and it only gets better from there; Leilani's prose is painting a searing, witty Sistine Chapel to render her protagonist's miserable life in vivid color and detail. the short version is that our 23 year old hot mess finds herself jobless and homeless and ends up moving in with her married boyfriend who's 23 years her senior, where she forms a powerfully weird connection with his rage-filled wife and develops a bond with the couple's nerdy adopted daughter, as the two of them are the only Black women in the excessively white neighborhood. (spoiler alert: she also realizes that her married boyfriend is a fucking loser.) it's a simple enough premise but the execution is bananas in its flair. I couldn't believe this is Leilani's first and so far only novel; if she ever drops another I'll drag myself through barbed wire to get my hands on it.

Juniper & Thorn (Ava Reid, 2022) - I first became aware of this novel via twitter thread of Reid's that made its way to tumblr, in which Reid bemoaned being harangued by readers who were shocked that her dark fairy tale retelling had, you know, dark shit in it. having now read the book, I have to say: these people are fucking pussies. going into this book I was under the impression that there was full on-page father/daughter rape happening, which is actually NOT the case, so you can breathe easy if incest is a hard no for you. what's actually here is a wizard dad who's emotionally abusive, non-incestuous sexual abuse in the backstories of the main character and her love interest, some moderately explicit consensual sex, some bulimia, and [spoiler alert!] admittedly a lot more cannibalism than expected. it's not a lighthearted romp but it's also like, come on. come on. grow up. in terms of the actual book, rather than its controversy, I didn't LOVE it but I'm still compelled enough by the world building (particularly Jewish author Reid's Hueli people, who are a fairly obvious stand-in for Jews down to people claiming that they have horns and using phrenology to prove the have an unfair advantage at making money) that I'm going to check out Reid's earlier novel, The Wolf and the Woodsman, a novel set in the same world. it felt a little repetitive in places and the characters were largely pretty predictable, both of which may be a byproduct of trying to encapsulate the vibe of a classic fairy tale, but I had a good time reading it.

#bookblr #reading updates

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riooooooooo · 2 months ago

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BvZ 7 spoilers below

The more I think about it, the more I realized I was surprised about Albus's reaction to the thing with Faith, Devlin, and Kerano. It's actually how I expected him to react. Of course I don't mean this in a bad way, I'm not saying "ewwuh everything's so predictable ughhh" of course not, because I'd be lying. Ik a lot of ppl expected him to crash out, but honestly bro idk, I had a feeling my boy wasn't abouta put the blame on Karmor. He's aware of his mistakes, and very hard on himself, so it makes sense that he reacted the way he did.

In the next ep, I have a feeling- well more like hope, that there's gonna be some healing time with Karmor and Hipswitch, and Faith and Albus, which I'm very excited for. I also hope we do get more scenes with Karmor and Mahatma, some therapy time yk? Of course I know the ep isn't gonna be all peachy and rainbows, of course not, that's just how their life is sadly. Maybe Hipswitch and Karmor go on another bounty together? Idk if they'd talk about what happened before they left or not. Maybe Karmor would talk to Mahatma about it before Hipswitch came over to him and asks to talk or smth.

I wonder if or how Crow is gonna show up again, because of course, he always shows up even if it's briefly. No matter how sweet the ep, he always comes back- which I don't mind actually, he's a great character (not a good person), and he helps build the story well, even if it's just him being a little bitch.

My predictions last time weren't very accurate lol, so maybe this'll be all wrong lol.

I'm so excited for BvZ 8. I'm willing to be patient because when things are rushed, they never turn out well. Idk if I remember correctly but apparently it's already written? Idk, but I'm truly excited for what's to come next!

#good boy audios #gba bastards vs zombies #kamor gba #gba mahatma #madcrow gba #bvz hipswitch #albus is a stanky ass bitch #albus bvz #faithful good boy audios #gba karmor #good boy audios bvz

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z-iridest · 3 months ago

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Part 2 of Duke flirting with Kaiba, Joey, and Tristan’s crush? Have a great day :D 💕

I'm SO SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG! 🥺🥺🥺

Yu-Gi-Oh! When Duke Devlin Flirts with Their Crush

Joey Wheeler

Of course this is where we're starting off! (It's already bad enough I had to go back to my OG headcannons for this lmaoooo)

Duke and Joey already got off on a bad start with Duke flirting with pretty much every girl in class

But when Duke flirted with you, Joey's crush?!

All bets were off

Joey was jealous from the start

He liked you! You were classier than a flirt like Duke!

"Pass" Was your reply to Duke

Wait, what?

Joey froze, listening as you told Duke you liked someone else.

"Oh yeah? Who?" Duek challenged you.

"For your information, I like Joey Wheeler!" you huffed, making him freeze

What?!

"Ya like me?!" He actually cried out in shock, watching as your face turned red when you realized he was there

"Well... Yeah." No point in hiding it now

"Y/N... I like ya too." It was his turn to admit it, while beet red

Joey still didn't like Duke after that, but he did owe the guy some thanks

Duke got the two of you together, and Joey always made sure that you never regretted choosing him

Seto Kaiba

I feel like at this point, Kaiba's already dropped subtle hints that he likes you

He's not one for loud admissions of crushes

He's Seto Kaiba for Pete's sake!

I'm talking the whole secret admirer stick

Bouquets of roses left on your desk, notes with cheesy romantic crap (Totally not Mokuba's idea!)

After Joey caught Kaiba sneaking a duel card you'd been after into your locker, word got around your friend group pretty quickly

Which led to this

Duke came up to you during the Battle City tournament, while Seto was dueling against Ishizu

Duke started flirting, taking your attention away from the duel

Seto immediately noticed and the look on his face...

It was murderous

His mood instantly soured and he grew even more ruthless in his duel than he'd ever been

Though it did get slightly better when he heard you give Duke snarky comebacks after each attempt

Once his duel was over, he rounded on Duke

"Back off." His tone was demanding, a threat looming on the end of it

"Why? They're single, aren't they?" Duke asked, trying to shoot a flirty look at you

"They're not interested." Seto's words were short

"Besides, I like someone else anyway." You brought up, peeking out from behind the giraffe boy's body. He looked at you. You liked somebody? Who?

"Yeah? Who is it?" Yugi asked. You shrugged

"Guess that's for me to know and you to find out." You gave Seto a wink. "Right, Blue Eyes?"

Blue Eyes... The name he signed with... He turned as his face turned red

Duke laughed. "So it was you doing all those things for them!"

Seto was hardly listening. His crush liked him back, you liked him!

For the rest of the time, he kept you safe, mostly keeping your hand in his or keeping his hand in your pocket

Subtle touches, but touches that showed you were absolutely his

Tristan Taylor

Much like Joey, Tristan and Duke did not get off on the right foot

His buddy was pretty much humiliated by Duke

He did, however, end up liking Duke a little overtime

But when Duke started flirting with you? Oh, friendliness went out the window

Tristan was upset with Duke, mainly focused with trying to keep you away from Duke so Duke would quit his shenanigans

"Tristan, what the hell is going on with you?" You finally confronted him after a while of this

Tristan hung his head, knowing he head to say something about his feelings now...

"I'm sorry, Y/N, I just... I'm a little jealous."

You felt surprised. "Jealous?"

"Yeah... Duke was flirting, but me? I can't flirt to save my life but... I wanna be with you, Y/N. I like you. I'm sorry I got so jealous." With Tristan's confession, you turned red.

Your crush liked you?!

"I like you too." You admitted, watching as Tristan's head snapped up.

What?!

"Y-You do?" He asked, barely able to get it out

You nodded before he took your hands in his, smiling like an idiot.

"About time!" Duke's voice rang out, making both of you blush as you realized you two had an audience.

"What'd you mean about time?" You asked.

"I already knew Tristan had a crush on you." Duke admitted. "It was obvious to everybody, so I decided to flirt with you to goat him into confessing to you."

Tristan had to admit, the teasing was worth it

You were his S/O now, and nothing could make him happier

AWWWWWW!

#yu gi oh headcannons #Seto kaiba x reader #joey wheeler x reader #tristan taylor x reader #duke devlin flirting

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leverage-ot3 · 1 year ago

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Is leverage redemption worth watching? I love Leverage but idk if i could enjoy the show if hardison isn't in most episodes or if the reboot sells out in some way.

okay so I showed up to this ask like four months late with a smoothie so I'm sorry about that BUT

does redemption have it's flaws? yes, I will be the first to admit that!

however, as someone who deeply loves leverage, the characters and what the show stands for, I still can find myself enjoying redemption.

there's one post that's in my drafts talking about the differences between the og and redemption and the so-called universe physics (how logic works in both shows and how they are the same/differ) and there are definitely some differences. there are some really good posts comparing them in the tags and I'll try to tag them as watch redemption when they come up!

I'm going to be really honest right now and say that (no shade) I feel like redemption s1-2 were lacking because john rogers was not a main writer for them. devlin and the others are great and know their stuff, but redemption was missing some of the grit (balanced with everything else) that the original run had. redemption is more fun and lighthearted (where the og was still fun and had comedic elements but also had a more jaded perspective). I think part of that change is the absence of nate as a character and what he brought to the table, but the other part of that is very much the way the show is written overall

I have seen some criticism about parker being a caricature of what she was in the original run (ex: how she goes to a child's psychologist and uses puppets sometimes, is overtly weird, more loud about stuff, etc) BUT I will say that I think there's some nuance to that

I don't think the child psychiatrist thing is infantalizing- some methods of therapy work for people more than others and that is me speaking as someone who works in mental health. if play therapy and stuff like that work for you as an adult, good for you! whatever works for you is more than enough the overtly and loudly being weird thing I really do think can be taken either way. in the original run part of parker's character progression was that she was learning how to interact with people normally (or at least more efficiently), but her being more out about that now can be taken as she is more comfortable in her skin and acting like she wants because she is surrounded by people who love and support her. maybe she doesn't want to (or have to!) mask all the time and I don't see a problem with that

HOWEVER! there are certain criticisms that are related to her characterizations and overlaps with her autism and I don't want to speak over the autism community about those aspects and how they have manifested in her character in redemption so I'm leaving it there

as for the hardison being absent aspect- I was REALLY afraid of that at first BUT the loss isn't so deeply impactful when you have characters like breanna and harry added to the mix. I went in ambivalent about harry and excited to have breanna (a canon queer) joining the team, but I have come to love and cherish both of them dearly and wouldn't want to replace them or lose them as characters in this found family ensemble. I think the writers handled aldis' packed schedule really well and even though he isn't there in most episodes, his presence is still very much around. parker and eliot talk about him and reference him when he's gone. so do sophie and breanna, even harry. he isn't on the screen but the relationships he's formed with the other characters and the impact he's had on them is very evident.

there are some takes from users about whether or not the ot3 was queerbait, un-canoned, etc in redemption. I have a lot of thoughts about it and a lot of them are incomprehensible but what I can say is that I have renewed hopes for the progression and canon development of their relationship now that john rogers is back as the main writer for s3

#leverage #leverage redemption #eliot spencer #parker #alec hardison #leverage ot3 #parker x hardison x eliot #leverage redemption s3 #breanna casey #harry wilson #character appreciation #watch leverage #watch redemption #jackie talks #mine #asks #answered asks #open-source-anarch3y #i tried to write the best i could but i have a bad cold and I am technically working rn so this was the best i could do :/

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azsazz · 2 years ago

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Change Your Ticket (Part 6)

Rugby Star!Cassian x Reader (A Modern AU)

Summary: Dating famous rugby star Cassian Bailey is a dream. What's not one is keeping your secret relationship under wraps. Will you and Cassian be able to keep from the limelight or will your relationship crumble because of it?

Warnings: None

Word Count: 3,300

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5]

Notes: I rlly need to stop overthinking this...so I'm just going to post it.

_________________________________________

Cassian don’t know why he’s running myself into the ground. It’s been a great morning, and although you’d had to leave for work, he’d enjoyed getting the little time seeing those pretty eyes, how your cheeks had pinkened with his taunts.

He almost had you climbing right back into bed with him.

He had loved the way you moaned and groaned about work, how you tried to hide away from him by running into the bathroom. How you tried to block him out by starting the shower, trying to mask how wet you were for him by drenching yourself under the hot spray.

Cassian bets it didn’t work.

His cock stirs at the thought of finishing he’d started, lingering in the space between the both of you like a thread winding tighter and tighter. And he thought it might snap when you’d come out all ready for work, eyes a little bit dazed as they avoided his lounging body on your bed. Cassian had all of the time in the world to tease you.

It was something after your sheepish goodbye, still reveling in the fact that he’d been so close to breaking through your routine. And if your boss dared fire you for spending a little time with him, well, Cassian isn’t too sure he’d be all that mad.

He wouldn’t mind taking care of you. In fact, it’s what he desires. And it’s not some manly expectation for you not to work, if that’s what you truly want, then so be it, he will be your best cheerleader. But he always aches when he’s away from you. He wants you by his side because he’s never had that, never had the rush that someone who actually cares for his wellbeing watches him play the game he loves, will caress him and speak encouragement, no matter if he wins or loses.

He doesn’t have a mother to call when things go sour, a father to seek advice from, nor siblings to playfully banter with. Sure, he’s had the children who’d he seen grow in the system with him, but oftentimes he’d be separated by a foster home that would only last a handful of months before they sent him away again, no matter how much he tried to stay. He’d help in the kitchen, with chores, jumping at the chance without even being asked because if someone were cleaning or cooking, maybe they’d keep him around a little bit longer.

His attempts were futile, at best.

“Bring it in, gents,” Coach calls and Cassian jogs over with the rest of his team. He snags a water bottle with thanks from the young boy handing them out, spraying a large gulp into his parched mouth before tilting the bottle back and wetting his already damp hair.

“Thanks, kid,” he grins, and the little boys’ cheeks turn red.

Cassian joins the rest of the team, forming a semi-circle around the coach. He finds his place between Azriel and Rhysand, the captain of the team. They are his best mates, brothers in every sense of the word, except literally. They’ve all played for the Velaris Stars for two seasons now, and are almost inseparable, both on and off the field.

“Great practice, eh?” he asks, getting down on one knee like the rest of the players as they await Coach Devlin’s words of wisdom. Something the coach has been trying to instill in his team for a while now, according to Azriel, who’s been with the Stars the longest. There isn’t a practice nor game that goes by without a morale boosting chat from Coach.

Azriel cuts him a glare from the side of his eye, and Cassian winces. His teammate hadn’t gotten to practice with them, ankle still not quite healed after the last match. That was poor wording on Cassian’s part.

Rhys brushes his damp hair from his eyes, toweling the sweat from his face as he responds. “Eh, still could work on some more scrums, but we’re in pretty good shape for Saturday’s game.”

“Oi, Third Degree,” Devlin’s snaps, startling the three of them. Cassian, Azriel, and Rhys have become known to the team and the fans as Third Degree because the group of them dominate on the field. It had a nice ring to it, if he does say so himself. Devlin stands with hands on his hips, lips curled around his whistle as if he was about to blow it to gain their attention. “We interrupting your little chit-chat?”

“No, sir,” the three answer in unison, and Cassian notes the difficulty his coach has to not roll his eyes. He bites back a smirk, giving him his attention.

“As I was saying,” Devlin continues with a pointed look in their direction. It slides off Azriel’s shoulders but Rhysand has the gall to look innocently at their coach, as if he’s nothing but the angel captain Devlin thought he was when he’d been chosen for such a position. Cassian snickers and Rhys elbows him. “We’re playing the Autumn Rangers this weekend. Now, since it’s a home game, I expect all of you on your best behavior. You will welcome them to Velaris with sportsmanlike conduct and will not be brawling outside of this stadium,” he says, eyeing Azriel, who had gotten into a fistfight with Lucien Vanserra in the hotel lobby last season.

Cassian never did hear about what had happened, though he did wonder if it had anything to do with Lucein’s older brother, Eris, who is the Stars’ athletic trainer. The younger Vanserra was estranged from his large family, all connected to the sport in some way, shape, or form. Something about a distasteful relationship in the public eye his family was not proud of. In the end, Lucien had lost her heart anyway. Cassian feels a twinge of pity for the youngster, only in his second year in the sport. He has no one, either.

“He better not let me catch him off of this grass, then,” Azriel mutters, arms crossed over his chest. He won’t be playing in the game this weekend because of his ankle, and Cassian knows how hard he’s taking the news. While they were practicing, he’d been on the sidelines with Eris, working on stretching and testing the muscles of his rolled ankle. The red-headed trainer told Devlin he was going to have to sit out for another game, much to Azriel’s utter annoyance.

“He’d probably go straight for that fragile ankle of yours,” Rhys answers quietly, violet gaze still on their coach.

Azriel kicks him with his good foot and Rhys winces, biting back a grin.

Coach Devlin’s speech wraps up with some words of wisdom. The same one’s Cassian hears after every practice, before every game, and even in his nightmares. “Stars help the moon light up the universe. That’s the power of teamwork. Now get off my field and get into the showers, you all stink.”

“To this day, I don’t understand what that’s supposed to mean,” Cassian mutters to his friends, nodding at Balthazar as they make their way towards the locker rooms. He catches Eris eyeing Azriel, a pair of crutches in his hands, but the latter doesn’t seem to notice, or is avoiding eye contact with the trainer as he limps from the field. “You good, man?”

“Peachy,” Azriel grunts, the fringe of his hair falling into his eyes. He’s trying his best not to limp, but there’s a twist of pain in his ankle and he hisses uncomfortably. He’d rather it gives out than use those fucking crutches Eris is lugging around for him. He can fuck right off with those. “It’s just another bullshit waying of saying ‘team work makes the dream work,’ Cass.”

Cassian considers his coaches words. He thought they’d played as an impeccable team during the last match that they had, but they’d still lost anyway. He’s not going to think it’s because his own shooting star wasn’t there in the city, watching him play.

“Maybe he needs to work on it a little,” Cass answers, “Shit’s confusing.”

“More confusing than the Rangers chant? ‘Allez les rouges?’ What does that even mean?”

“It means ‘Go Reds,’” Azriel answers, and Cassian didn’t know he knew French. Maybe he should pester him until he can teach him something worth saying to you to make you swoon. Then, he thinks that Azriel would teach him to say something naughty instead, and Cassian changes his mind.

He tugs the hemline of his shirt up and it sticks to his skin. It’s tight so that other players can’t easily grab it, but it often gets stuck over his broad shoulders. With a breath of frustration, the constricting fabric finally gives way, and Cassian rolls his shoulders, tossing it onto the bench in front of his locker before he digs around for his phone.

He can hear it buzzing against the wood and his brows furrow. Most of the people he knows are from the team, you, and a few others in the league. There’s his media manager, who he has weekly meetings with, and very sparse social media notifications on.

There’s a giddy stir in his stomach, hoping it might be you. He needs to shower, set up a grocery delivery, and head to his house to begin preparations for the extravagant dinner he’s planning on making you.

Cassian’s smile morphs into a frown upon seeing his lock screen. It’s not a call from you, but notifications cover his screen, from his manager, telling him to call him immediately, to a few friends he has outside of his team, texting him about something that’s happening on Twitter.

He unlocks the phone, heart kicking up in speed. If he’s being mentioned and called out for something in the media, it’s usually not a good thing. He wracks his brain as his fingers move on their own accord, motions robotic as they click the blue icon.

The first thing he sees when the screen refreshes is a photo of you, and his world stills.

The noise in the locker room turns to static in his ears. His heart is pounding so hard in his chest, adrenaline rushing through his veins, that he thinks he may drop the phone to the ground. His vision tunnels in on the photo of you from this morning, wearing his black t-shirt stuffed into your trousers. You’re pulling your hair into a clip, your work bag slung over your shoulder. You look good, of course you do, it’s exactly how he remembered you when you’d left him this morning. But what is going on?

The caption above the photo reads:

Cassian Bailey’s Love Try: Secret Girlfriend Revealed!

Fuck. Oh, fuck.

Cassian’s hands shake as he scrolls. Post upon post of you headed to work fill his screen like a tidal wave of coverage. Most are the same photo, and he doesn’t dare look at any of the comments or reposts. There’s a grainy one of you at what must be your work, eyes round and tinged with fear as you stand in the lobby of the building.

He exits the app, pulling up your number instead. He shoves his phone between his shoulder and ear, digging around frantically for his clothes, wallet, and keys. He needs to get out of here, needs to find you, because your phone is going straight to voicemail no matter how many times he calls.

“Fuck,” he mutters, swinging around only to run face-to-face with Azriel and Rhysand.

“Cass?” Rhys asks, reaching his hands out as if not to scare him away. He can barely even focus on them right now, mind reeling with thoughts of if you’re safe, how you’re taking all of this, if you’re over. “You alright?”

“Is it true?” Azriel adds, hazel eyes a touch softer now.

He looks frantically between his friends. His mouth can no longer form words but all he knows is that he needs to get out of here right the fuck now.

Cassian can only nod. It’s more of a jerk of his head, and then he’s shoving his way between them and beelining for the door. It’s all he can do to pray that there isn’t media waiting to follow him, because he’s going straight to your home.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•

“(Y/N), it’s definitely not the paparazzi.”

You place your freshly refilled glass on the table and shove to your feet. The blanket falls from your lap onto a heap on the floor, but you couldn’t care less as you make your way to the front door, Mor on your heels.

You freeze when you round the corner, meeting a worried hazel gaze that makes your aching heart crack. His eyes are red-rimmed, brows pulled tight with worry. Cassina’s hair is a mess, from both practice and running his fingers through where it was pulled back in a sloppy bun for practice.

He pushes gently past Feyre, but he’s still a wall of a man and she jumps out of his way.

It seems like time slows when he reaches you. Your vision vignettes so it’s only Cassian, standing before you like a child scared of the monster under their bed. He reaches out but thinks better of it, worried you don’t want him to touch you at all.

Your name is a whisper across his lips, and it makes you break, falling into his strong arms.

“I can fix this, I swear.” His voice is raw, cracking with his words. You hug him closer. His heart is running rampant in his chest, so you stroke soothing but shaky circles into his back. A touch of relief floods you, knowing that Cassian is as worried about all of this as you are. People know your name, your face, and they’ll be digging into your past, predicting your future, forever, now.

“Cass,” you offer gently, pulling away slightly to look up at him. He doesn’t want to give an inch, hands clamped like iron around your waist. “I don’t want to break up.”

“You don’t?” he asks, like he can’t quite believe it. His frantic gaze searches yours, and you let him see the truth in yours. His shoulders relax only slightly after he finds your words sincere, moving one large hand to your cheek to caress your face.

“No.”

You watch him swallow and force out the question he doesn’t want to ask. “Not even now that everyone knows you’re mine?”

No, you don’t want to be in the media, don’t want anyone to know who you are or try to get close to you only because of Cassian. The thought of people with ill intentions coming after you makes you sick, but you don’t want to stop this relationship with Cassian.

“I have no idea how I’m going to come back from this one, but no, I don’t want to leave you.”

Cassian releases a shaky exhale and because he can’t help himself, he dips down and kisses the hell out of you. You breathe him in, salty with sweat and part your lips, allowing his tongue to dip into your mouth, brushing softly against your own. It feels like an apology but he doesn’t need to give you one, it isn’t his fault you left the house this morning in a t-shirt you’d assumed no one would connect to the rugby player.

“I love you, sweetheart,” he breathes, lips brushing your own. He’s still holding you close, and the cocoon of his arms keeps you steady. None of the outside world matters right now, not when he’s holding you like this. “I’ll do whatever I can to fix this. I promise.”

You nod, an unsure feeling stirring your gut. You don’t know how he might begin to even attempt fixing something like this, but you trust Cassian, and there will be time to talk privately when your friends aren’t staring at you while your boyfriend kisses the daylights out of you.

Speaking of, Mor has the biggest grin on her face and Feyre’s eyes are wide, glass of wine halted halfway to her lips. At least she’s shut the door.

“Hey, Mor,” Cassian nods, and you stare up at him incredulously.

“Hey, Cass.”

Wait a minute.

“You two know each other?” you ask, just as shocked as Feyre, who’s jaw hangs low.

“My uncle owns the team,” Mor shrugs, and now your jaw is touching the ground. “I know all of the players.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Feyre exclaims, elbowing Mor in the side. She groans dramatically, rolling her eyes as she snatches her friend’s glass from her hand to take a sip.

This is certainly news to you. You can’t believe all this time Mor and Cassian have known each other. When you were in the bar last week for the game and your friends had attended, Mor didn’t act like she even knew what rugby was.

“Because I didn’t think you were that into rugby,” she tuts, saying exactly what you’re thinking. She sends a pointed look your way, “And I didn’t know you were dating Cassian Bailey!”

Heat rushes to your cheeks. You do feel bad for not telling your best friends, but you haven’t told anyone, not even your family.

Oh no, your family. Have they seen the social media storm that you’re now in the eye of? Have they been trying to contact you to ask their own questions or see if you’re okay?

You try to dislodge yourself from Cassian but he refuses to let you go, turning to you with a frown.

“Why are you wearing a Sealion’s hat?” His question serious, and there’s a slight scrunch to his nose, letting you in on his distaste. Fuck, you forgot about the hat.

You laugh, but it comes out thickly. “It’s Tarquin’s. He let me borrow it after the paps showed up to my work.”

“Should I be worried about this Tarquin?” Cassian asks, genuine concern on his face. So much so that your wet chuckle turns a touch more real.

“He’s more into you than me, so I’m wondering if I’m the one who should actually be worried,” you tease, hugging him tighter before pulling away. Cassian pouts, but you pat him on his chest. “You stink.”

“I thought you liked when I’m all musky and sweaty,” Cassian responds with a touch of suggestiveness. So much for figuring out what to do about your face in the public tonight.

And it’s fine, for now. You’d much rather spend your evening allowing Cassian to comfort you, and you him. You can still see the weariness in his gaze, how he may not want to talk about this in front of an audience. He cares for your opinion and your opinion only.

“Okay, ew,” Feyre says, sliding from her spot at the counter and reaching for her shoes. “I’m Feyre, by the way, and we’re totally leaving, right Mor?” she asks over her shoulder to a smirking Mor.

“No, wait, you guys don’t have to—”

“Yes, we do. We do not want to be around while the two of you make-up,” Mor agrees with Feyre, slipping into her own shoes. Expensive trainers that she must’ve slipped into quickly when she’d found out the news. She snatches her purse off of the counter, key ring jingling with keychains and keys. “Call us when your phone stops blowing up. See you later, Cass.”

“I think your captain is really hot by the way,” Feyre yells as Mor shoves her through the door with a laugh.

You sigh, turning back to your boyfriend who’s grinning down at you like a creep.

“What?”

“I like your friends,” he says earnestly, pulling you back into his body by your hips. “Now, how about some dinner?”

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•

Change Your Ticket Taglist: @justasillylittlegoofyguy @starsinyourseyes @jdeclerc @indiedash @kennedy-brooke @tothestarsandwhateverend @azsteris @obsessivereaderchick @aalxrose @acourtofbatboydreams @azrielover @bookishbroadwaybish @itsinherited @i-am-a-lost-girl16 @vellichor01 @mischiefmanagers @queerqueenlynn @justdreamstars @mayemperess @wallacewillow0773638 @microwaveallthedemons

#cassian x reader #acotar #azsazz #acomaf #acowar #cassian #modern!cassian #rugby!cassian au #rugby!cassian #acotar au #change your ticket

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zeke-fanfucs · 4 months ago

Text

Welcome home

EHEHEHEHEHEH! It’s a fanfic of my beloved family! Aka! The Bastard Family! Featured Faith, Kerano, Devlin and our favorite ALBUS! (Yes this is before the whole shitshow of Kamor’s power. I NEED THIS OKAY!)

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/—-//—/—////——

The air was warm, the scent of soil and fresh herbs drifting through the dry desert breeze. Faith’s garden was a rare patch of green in the otherwise sunbaked wasteland of SpringRock—a small miracle in a land where life had no right to thrive.

And right in the middle of it, giggling with uncontained joy, was Kerano. She sat cross-legged in the shade of the cabin’s porch, surrounded by a ragtag army of stuffed toys. Some were well-loved, some were missing buttons or patches of fur, but none were as battle-worn as Fluffal.

The stitched-up bunny sat proudly in her lap, his fur matted from years of cuddles and his seams reinforced more times than she could count. Fluffal had seen wars. He had survived tea parties, pillow fort sieges, and the great mud puddle incident of last week.

Kerano held him up, shaking him dramatically. “Commander Fluffal!” she announced, her voice filled with faux seriousness. “The enemy forces are approaching from the east!”

She turned to a stuffed lizard with a missing tail. “General Wiggles, prepare the troops!”

The lizard flopped over in response.

“No time for naps, General!”

She giggled, placing Fluffal down as she started rearranging her army, completely engrossed in her mission. The desert wind ruffled her dark curls, but she paid it no mind. Her world was here, in this little garden, where she could play without a care.

From the porch, a voice called out. “Kerano,” Faith’s warm tone carried through the air. “Don’t wander too far from the house, alright?”

Kerano’s head snapped up. “I won’t, Mom!” she chirped before turning back to Fluffal and whispering, “That was the Queen of the Kingdom. We must protect her at all costs.”

Fluffal, as always, remained steadfast in his duty.

——————————————

Behind the house in a small workshop, the rhythmic clanking of metal echoed through the dry air as Delvin tightened the last few screws on the weapon in front of him. It was a sleek, customized rifle—nothing too fancy, but sturdy enough to survive the harshness of SpringRock.

He wiped the sweat from his brow, exhaling as he reached for a bolt he’d set aside earlier.

His fingers met empty space.

Delvin’s eye twitched. Slowly, he looked up.

And there, leaning lazily against the workbench with a shit-eating grin, was Albus.

Delvin didn’t even hesitate—he just rolled his eyes and held out his hand.

“Give it back.”

Albus twirled the bolt between his fingers, inspecting it like it was some rare treasure. “Give what back?”

Delvin deadpanned. “I don’t have the patience for your games today, Albus.”

Albus smirked, flipping the bolt once before finally tossing it toward Delvin, who caught it effortlessly.

“Didn’t think you’d actually show up,” Delvin muttered, turning his attention back to the rifle.

Albus shrugged. “Didn’t think you’d still be holed up here, playing house.”

Delvin’s hands paused for a second before continuing his work. “Not playing. Just… making sure this family stays standing.”

Albus scoffed, but there was something guarded in his expression. He rarely came around—not because he didn’t care, but because he cared too much. He wasn’t like Delvin. He wasn’t steady. He wasn’t reliable.

He was a mess. And this family? They deserved better than a mess.

Delvin glanced at him, as if reading his mind, but said nothing. Instead, he just sighed, shaking his head. “If you’re staying, make yourself useful. I’ve got another job after this one.”

Albus smirked. “You want me handling weapons? Bold choice.”

Delvin snorted. “Not handling. Lifting. You’re taller than me—useful for once.”

Albus grumbled, but he didn’t leave. Instead, he grabbed a wrench, twirling it between his fingers before setting it down next to Delvin. It wasn’t much. But it was something.

━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾ ≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━

In the quiet of the house, the scent of fresh herbs and simmering broth filled the air. Faith stood at the kitchen counter, carefully slicing a ripe tomato, her movements slow and methodical.

Her gaze drifted to the window, where she could see Kerano outside, completely lost in her world of stuffed animals and imaginary battles. A soft smile tugged at Faith’s lips.

It had been a few months since the incident. Since everything changed.

Since she nearly lost everything.

Her fingers absentmindedly brushed against the chain around her neck, her thumb tracing over the simple ring that hung from it.

Albus’s ring.

She let out a quiet sigh, rolling it between her fingers. She never took it off. It rested against her heart—a constant reminder of what could have been.

What she wanted but refused to reach for.

She knew how he felt. How he tried to keep his distance, convinced he was nothing but a storm that would wreck whatever peace she had built.

But he didn’t realize—he was part of that peace.

Faith shook her head, pushing the thoughts away as she resumed cutting the tomato.

She hummed a soft lullaby as she worked, the same one she used to sing to Kerano on restless nights. It was an old song, one from before she left the Triad. Before she became this.

A mother. A fugitive.

A woman in love with a man too stubborn to believe he deserved to be loved back.

She exhaled, placing the sliced tomatoes into a bowl.

Outside, Kerano laughed, the sound full of life. And in the distance, she swore she heard the faint echo of boots approaching.

Albus was here.

────────༺♰༻────────

Faith didn’t turn around, didn’t need to. She just smiled as she continued preparing lunch.

“Welcome home,” she said softly, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Albus froze in the doorway.

Home.

The word settled deep in his chest, foreign and familiar all at once. He had never really had a home before—just places he crashed, places he fought, places he ran from.

Yet here… in this quiet little cabin, with the scent of fresh food in the air, Kerano’s laughter outside, and Faith standing there like she had always been waiting for him—

It felt like home. And that scared the hell out of him.

He swallowed, shifting awkwardly. “Didn’t know I was staying.”

Faith glanced over her shoulder, her expression knowing but gentle. “You never do.”

Albus exhaled sharply, rubbing the back of his neck. He wasn’t good at this—at staying, at belonging. He didn’t deserve this place. He didn’t deserve her.

And yet… he was still standing in the doorway, unable to make himself leave.

Faith didn’t say anything more, but she reached for the bottle of whiskey on the counter, pouring a generous amount into a glass before sliding it toward him.

Albus didn’t need to be asked. He picked up the glass, his fingers wrapping around the cool rim. His eyes met hers for a moment, his usual playful grin creeping onto his face. It was a facade, a shield he wore well. But something in the way his eyes softened told her more than words ever could.

He took a long sip, savoring the burn as it slid down his throat. Then, with a quick, sly smile, he looked at her again.

“Thought I was the only one with bad habits,” he teased, raising the glass as if to make a toast.

Faith didn’t flinch, not this time. “Everyone needs a vice,” she replied with a wink, continuing to slice the vegetables with practiced precision.

For a brief moment, Albus felt the walls he’d built for so long start to crumble. He knew she didn’t push. She never did. But he couldn’t shake the feeling she saw through him, knew the parts of him that were broken, the parts he kept hidden.

It wasn’t just about the whiskey.

It was the way he avoided real food, the way he filled himself with Load Pills instead.

It was the way he pushed people away even as he longed for their company.

But Albus couldn’t bring himself to let her in. Not fully.

He leaned against the doorframe, a half-smirk still playing on his lips. “Maybe one day you’ll teach me how to cook like that,” he said, nodding toward the stove.

Faith smiled without looking up. “I’m sure you’d ruin it.”

He chuckled softly, but the weight of her words, the ease of the moment, lingered in the air. The truth was, he was already ruining things. Ruining himself.

But for now, he’d settle for this—this fragile, unspoken truce. Just being here.

Just being home.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The door swung open with a thud as Kerano stormed into the kitchen, her little legs stomping on the wooden floor in dramatic fashion. She was clutching Fluffal tightly in her arms, the bunny still showing signs of all the battles it had endured over the years. The plushie had seen more action than most warriors, and Kerano treated it like a true comrade.

She paused when she saw Albus standing near the door, her face going from fiery frustration to a more reserved, shy expression. Albus had always been there for her—another father figure in her chaotic little world—but she still wasn’t fully sure how to act around him. She had a little habit of calling him “Mr. Albus,” as if she were still trying to make sense of the fact that he was part of her world now.

Kerano waved her free hand excitedly, her voice high-pitched and eager. “Mr. Albus! Guess what! I finally won against the mean desert rats!”

Her eyes sparkled with pride, and she held Fluffal up as if the bunny had helped her win the fight. “They kept eating our raspberries, but I showed them! I told them, ‘No more! You’re not taking my mom’s berries!’”

She puffed out her chest, as if she had just saved the entire family from a great catastrophe.

Fluffal’s floppy ears bounced with every dramatic gesture.

Albus couldn’t help but smile, the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth despite himself. His usual playful demeanor softened as he looked down at Kerano, the shy little girl who had changed everything.

“Is that so?” Albus said, his voice light but warm. “You took down all the rats by yourself?”

Kerano nodded enthusiastically, spinning in a small circle as if reenacting her victory. “Yep! All by myself! Fluffal helped too!” She glanced at the bunny, holding him up like a trophy, as if Fluffal had somehow dealt the final blow.

Faith, watching the exchange from the stove, smiled softly to herself. Her heart warmed as she glanced at the two of them, knowing how much Albus meant to Kerano—and how, despite his walls, Albus had become more than just a protector to the girl. He was family.

She turned back to her work, letting the moment play out. The kitchen, once quiet and solitary, was now filled with a hum of life.

Delvin walked in, wiping his hands on a rag as he stepped through the door. His brown hair, usually messy from long hours spent working, was now streaked with a bit of muck and dust from his latest project. His green eyes flicked over the room before landing on Faith, who was busy at the stove, and then to the little whirlwind of energy that was Kerano, proudly showing off her victory over the desert rats.

He froze for a moment, looking at the kitchen floor, which had just been cleaned not long ago. His lips pressed into a thin line as he glanced at his hands—definitely not clean.

Faith caught the look and sighed, wiping a hand over her forehead. She had just cleaned the floors, and now it looked like they were all covered in dirt, muck, and whatever else they had dragged in from the outside. The joys of living in a desert, she thought, slightly amused at the chaos.

Delvin chuckled sheepishly. “Well… I guess that’s my cue to leave my boots outside next time, huh?” He glanced down at his boots, now caked with dust from the day’s work.

Kerano, hearing him, darted over and quickly grabbed onto his leg. “Daddy!” she squeaked, her eyes wide with excitement. “I beat the rats! I’m a hero!”

Delvin looked down at her, his heart swelling with affection. He’d never get used to hearing her call him Dad—but it was a word he would protect with everything he had. He ruffled her messy black hair, a smile tugging at his lips. “A hero, huh? Well, I guess I’d better start calling you ‘Captain Kerano’ from now on.”

Kerano grinned brightly, then immediately ran to show Fluffal off to Delvin, her stuffed bunny now her proud trophy.

Faith watched the interaction quietly, a soft warmth filling her chest as she turned back to the stove. She had built this little family out of what she had left—what they had left—and every day it grew a little stronger. It wasn’t perfect, but in this place, with the dust and the heat, she had everything she needed.

Delvin, wiping his hands once more, looked at Faith with a knowing expression. “I’ll take the blame for the floor later,” he said, a bit of humor in his voice. But his eyes lingered on her, and for a brief moment, something more than just friendship flickered between them. He knew his place now, though—he wasn’t blind to the connection that Faith and Albus had, even if neither of them had the guts to admit it.

Faith caught the look and smiled faintly. “You’re a good dad, Delvin,” she said softly. “Kerano is lucky to have you.”

Delvin didn’t reply at first, his eyes softening as he watched Kerano run around, her laughter filling the room. He had accepted the fact that Faith had moved on, but he would never stop caring for her—and for Kerano, who had stolen his heart just as quickly as she had stolen Faith’s.

“Maybe. But it’s her that’s lucky to have you as her mom,” he muttered, almost to himself.

Faith didn’t respond right away. She just smiled quietly, her back turned as she chopped more vegetables for their meal. Delvin had been her closest friend for so long—he understood her, and she understood him. Even if their paths hadn’t crossed the way either of them expected, they had made something real together.

Outside, the wind howled over the desert, the heat pressing in from every angle. But inside this little home, amidst the dirt, the dust, and the mess—this was where they were meant to be. This was their family.

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