#//anyway gonna go finish mission impossible with my ~+~brother~+~

[keeps-ache]

just wait til i remember how to turn properly, then it's all over for you losers [<- the steep hill i'm scared of rolling down at the park]

[sapphirelass]

Failure - Weasley Family x Weasley!Reader

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧I solemnly swear that I am up to no good✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

'Ello everyone! Once again it's been ages since I posted a story. I promise I am writing!!! I'm just... writing veeeeeerrrrrrryyyy slowly... But hey, what can one do?

Tbh, I'm not too sure about this one, but I have been working on it for weeks now, so I'm just gonna post it and hope someone likes it. I have some other fics coming up (hopefully) soon - and mainly HP actually! I started writing for Percy Jackson, Team Flash, Spider-Man and a few other characters, but I'm in such a Harry Potter mood at the moment (thanks to the 20th-anniversary reunion)... Ahhhh... I don't know! Anyways, I'll get back to writing for someone and let you all enjoy this sad thing for now! See yah!

Note: As always I'm finishing this late at night meaning I will probably have to reread this one more time and check for potential errors, but it's late, so I'm just going to trust Grammarly and post it for now! Enjoy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please note:

1: I don’t own any of the gifs used, nor any already established characters, so credit to the authors and original creators - You have done a phenomenal job :)

2: English is not my native language, as I was born and raised in Sweden. I have, however, studied English for almost a decade, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem, I just thought I’d let you know ;)

+ CEFR level C2 (due to passing the C1 advanced test with an A)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Word count: ≈ 3,1k

Warnings: Mild swearing, death eaters, cruciatus curse (not very descriptive), angst, feeling anxious

Enjoy! :)

Read as xOC instead of character insert

~~~Failure - Weasley Family x Weasley!Sister~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’m serious, dad, there’s nothing to worry about - the plan is fool-proof!”

(y/n) rushed furiously up the stairs of her childhood home with her backpack in her right hand. She had been trying to get everything packed for half an hour, desperately wanting to be 100% ready once her mother would wake up, as it would be next to impossible to prepare for her next job with Mrs Weasley around. (y/n) had however not expected her dad to be too much of a problem - it was usually him who would convince his wife not to worry about the kids every time they left the house - but clearly, the task she had been assigned meant taking a risk so big that even Arthur was hesitant about letting his daughter go.

“I know it sounds that way, sweetie, but this job is not like anything you’ve ever done before, it’s… It’s… It’s different, an-”

It felt both weird and oddly familiar at the same time. She had moved to her own flat a few years earlier and had gotten used to not having overprotective brothers and parents trying to prevent her from going on dangerous missions. Originally, she hadn’t planned to go back ‘home’ until after this job, but her mother had started driving her younger siblings mad, causing them to send a letter asking their older sister to PLEASE come home and help prepare for Bill and Fleur’s wedding. It had been a long time since (y/n) last had to handle this situation, but her father seemed to have no problem picking up where they left off.

“How, dad?” She turned around and violently pulled a hand through her red hair, desperately trying to keep her voice down. “Apprehending people who turned to the dark arts is literally my job, at least this time we know what to expect! We just have to transport the death eaters from point A to point B as smoothly as possible, and even if they should try to break free, there’ll be four of them, and twelve of us - surely three aurors could take down one wandless death eater?”

Arthur remained quiet for a few seconds, causing his daughter to put her backpack on the floor, walk a few steps back down the stairs, and pull him in for a hug.

“Look, Dad, I know it’s not without risk, but… I’ve got to go. I don’t think the question any longer is if you-know-who is gonna take control of the ministry, but when, and once that time comes we have to be prepared for anything. The best we can do is make sure the most dangerous people are in a secure place, and well guarded. As much as I hate it, Azkaban is the safest bet, otherwise, they’ll all be back out on the streets, and everything we have worked for these past two years will have been for nothing. We’ll just have to hope that the dementors won’t switch sides. I’m sorry... I love you.”

It wasn’t only a long hug, but a long-awaited one as well.

“I love you too, darling, which is why I don’t want you to do this. I understand your reasoning but…”

“Dad? (y/n/n)? You’re home already?”

(y/n) looked over her dad’s shoulder and immediately walked into the arms of the person who had called her name - her older brother.

“Bill…”

He hugged his sister tightly and put his right hand comfortingly on the back of her head. She was shaking slightly, but Bill pulled her in even closer and put his head on top of hers. This was why (y/n) always tried to prepare, pack and leave quickly every time she was assigned a mission - that way she left no room for any nerves and could focus on the task at hand without getting too scared or anxious. Don’t get it wrong, she loved protecting others and knew it was an important job, but overthinking things just made her realize how much she had to lose. Being around her extremely caring family made that even worse.

“Shhh… (y/n), breathe, easy, you’re fine.”

“Yeah, I know, I know… It’s just, I don’t like thinking too much about it. I’m good, though, and I’ve missed you.”

“I know… ‘n I’ve missed you too. Hey, not that I’m not happy to see you, but why are you home? And awake?”

“Mum needed some help with the wedding preparations, and…”

Bill moved his gaze from his sister to his father, silently asking for a response.

“Your sister is leaving for work.”, said Arthur slowly. “It’s just not an easy decision. It’s not-”

“-It’s not safe.”. (y/n)'s gaze wandered nervously around the living room - her parents’ house still being one of the few places where she felt properly at home. She smiled slightly when she noticed a brown plush rabbit sitting on a shelf. It was her favourite toy when she was younger and had been her father’s before her. “Heck, it’s really, really dangerous, but it has to be done. I don’t have a choice, and as much as I would love to stay here with you, the longer I do the harder it becomes to leave.” She sighed. “But I have to go. Bill, will you please tell mum I’m sorry when she wakes?”

Bill looked at his sister, not really wanting to let her go, but understanding exactly how she felt. “Of course.” He grabbed the backpack and handed it to her before placing his hands firmly on her shoulders. “Stay safe, okay? Promise us that!”

“Bill-”

“(y/n/n)!”

“Stop it! You know I can’t promise something like that. I swear I’ll do my best, though.”

“Good. Then go, I’ll see you next week?”

(y/n) smiled. “Yeah, around lunchtime on Wednesday. Bye, Bill. Bye, dad.”

Arthur looked out the window and sighed sadly as his daughter disapparated. “I remember when I feared for her life because she kept climbing the big apple tree… Now I almost wish she was there, hanging on to one of the top branches, swinging back and forth.” He closed his eyes and leant against the wall behind him. “At least then I could see her. Make sure she didn’t fall.”

“I know, dad. But she’s not a kid anymore.”

“She’ll always be my kid.”

“She’ll always be short.”

“Bill!”

“Jokin’! C’mon, dad, let’s go have a cup of tea, yeh?”

————————

‘The plan is fool-proof!’ (y/n) coughed slightly and regretted her words as she was hit with yet another curse. The plan had been fool-proof… apart from the fact that someone at the ministry clearly had leaked information to the death eaters. The mission had relied on secrecy. It had been planned in secret and only the 12 aurors and a few ministry officials had known the details. Despite that, around 30 death eaters attacked as soon as the transport had left the city, and due to their numbers, the aurors barely stood a chance.

“Jackson, we need to get out of here as soon as possible! There’s no way we’ll be able to fight them all off.”

“You’re probably right, Weasley.”, he shouted while sending a death eater flying off his broom. “But how did this happen? We were so careful!?”

“Yeah, I don’t know.” (y/n) swiftly flew out of the way as a flash of green light almost touched her side. “But that doesn’t really matter right now. Wilson’s wounded, can you help him.”

“Sure.”

“And then get out before anyone’s killed.”

He frowned and nodded towards her. “You too.”

“Yeah, course. I’m just gonna try to take Dolohov down. I really don’t want him out and about again.”

The auror seemed to doubt his college’s decision for a second but was familiar with her family’s history with that particular death eater. “Fine, but be careful! I mean it, (y/n/n).” He looked straight into her eyes. “Don’t take any unnecessary risks!”

“Oh, you know me, Jacky. Careful planning, no risktaking.”

“Good. See you in the office tomorrow, then. Good luck.”

————————

(y/n) battled her way through a few death eaters and eventually found herself sneaking up on Dolohov.

“Expelliarmus.”

He turned around in surprise as his wand flew out of his hand.

“Incarcerus.”

Thick ropes bound the death eater, effectively preventing him from escaping. However, (y/n) was so focused on arresting the man who murdered two of her uncles that she completely missed someone approaching her from behind.

“Crucio”

She fell and dropped her wand as intense pain spread through her body. It was pain beyond anything she could ever have imagined. She unwillingly let out a scream as the pain intensified before suddenly lessening. Despite coughing and struggling, she tried to get back up on her feet but fell yet again as the same kind of agony, only a hundred times worse forced her to focus solely on not passing out.

“Well, well, well… We counted on a few random aurors to stand in our way, but who knew we’d stumble upon a blood traitor as well, huh?” The death eater, Augustus Rockwood, leant forward and spat on the ground, right by her face where she lay twitching in the mud. “How does it feel down there, Weasley? Feel at home?” He pulled (y/n) to her knees and Dolohov, who had managed to untangle himself from the rope, walked up to her and grabbed her face roughly. “Striking resemblance”, he whispered before letting her fall again. She fought to get up but failed due to the horrendous curse still causing her pain. Her eyes slowly closed as she passed out on the cold, hard ground.

————————

“Good morning, dears.”, said Molly, cheerfully entering the kitchen after having forced everybody to get up at first light. She had been under extreme stress lately but seemed to be in a much better mood today and the rest of the family knew why - (y/n) was coming home. Sure, that didn’t take away from the fact that the upcoming wedding meant a lot of hard work and careful planning, but having her oldest daughter home would at least help ease Mrs Weasley’s worry. “She’s not back yet, is she?”

“No, mum”, yawned Fred. “but-”

“She said she wouldn’t be back before lunch.”, finished George tiredly.

Their mother didn’t answer, but muttered something incoherent and went to prepare breakfast.

————————

Hours passed as the family worked to get everything ready, both for the wedding and for Harry’s birthday. Molly was so busy with preparations that she completely lost track of time, however, Fred & George started sharing worried glances around 10 am. Bill eventually noticed and had, a few hours later, become way too curious.

“Why do you two keep looking at the clock every other minute?”, he asked. “She said ‘lunch-time’, that could mean another 2-3 hours? Besides, it’s not like you to worry?”

“Well…it’s just…”

“Whenever (y/n/n) lets mum know when she thinks she’ll come home, she usually adds a few hours, sometimes an entire day.”

“That way, when she ends up being slightly late, mum doesn’t immediately lose it…”

“To be honest, we were kind of expecting her in time for breakfast, definitely before noon.”

Bill pulled his hand through his long hair (which he had not allowed his mother and her scissors to come close to) and glanced quickly out the window before looking back at his younger brothers. “Well, there’s not much we can do at the moment, is there? She’s smart and strong. Besides, it’s best not to get worried too easily, it’s probably just that dim-witted head of the department forcing her to work overtime.”

————————

(y/n) groaned loudly as she slowly pushed herself up. She felt dizzy, her entire body hurt and she had no idea where she was. Actually, scratch that last bit. Looking around, she realized she was in a field of some sort and could see burned parts of the now broken carriage they had used to transport the prisoners. Her hair was dripping wet due to the heavy rain and she was freezing. (y/n) struggled to stand and tried to determine roughly where they could have been when they were attacked. She knew that they had travelled northeast from London, towards Norwich, and that they probably hadn’t made it much further than Chelmsford. Her exact location didn’t really matter, though. It’s not like she could walk from London to Ottery St. Catchpole. That would take like two, maybe three, weeks in her current state - and that’s if she made it at all. No, she’d have to apparate, just not the entire distance in one go.

————————

“Bill, dear”, said Molly worriedly. “When did your sister say she’d be back from work?”

“I- I’m not sure”, Bill stuttered, as he sped down the stairs. “Around… dinnertime, I think?”

“What?”, asked Ron. “You said she said lunchtime!?”

Bill threw his head back and sighed as Fred kicked his younger brother under the table.

“Oh”, mumbled Ron, finally understanding. “Yeah, Bill’s right. She definitely said the evening.”

————————

But, dinnertime came and passed. Still no (y/n). When she still hadn't made it home a few days later, the Weasleys were forced to simply accept that something more serious had happened and just try to keep their hopes up. Molly, naturally, refused. Arthur had, while at work, done his very best to contact the other aurors that had been working that night, but unfortunately remained unsuccessful due to the now tense and strained situation at the ministry. Fleur had suggested delaying the wedding, but Bill insisted, claiming that this gave them even more of a reason to do it while they still had the chance. He could, however, barely stand the thought of not having one of his sisters there; it was difficult enough that Percy refused to come…

————————

She didn’t know how much time had passed, maybe a week, but eventually found herself slowly approaching her childhood home. After taking a few heavy steps, she stumbled slightly and would have tripped if not for two strong arms firmly grabbing her shoulders to keep her standing. She should probably be scared but somehow knew not to fight them.

“(y/n/n)!? Bloody hell, what in Merlin’s name happened to you?”

“Charlie?”, she gasped and grabbed her older brother’s coat as her legs suddenly gave out. “Is it really you?”

“Yeh, of course, it’s me.”, he put his sister’s arm over his shoulders. “(y/n/n), I literally just came home, where have you been? What happened? Who did this to you?”

“Work, attacked, Rockwood”

He looked her up and down with a pained expression on his face. “Okay, come on - let’s get indoors.”

They walked slowly, Charlie carefully making sure that (y/n) didn’t fall and simultaneously pepping her with questions. “How long have you been away? When were you supposed to get back to mum and dad’s?”

“Ehhh… I-I don’t know… A couple of days ago, maybe? It’s all kind of hazy right now, to be honest.”

“Holy Merlin… But wha-”

“Charlie, sorry”, she coughed slightly, “but would you mind if we wait? Mum and dad are going to want to hear everything and I don’t wanna have to relive it more times than needed…”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

He knocked carefully on the door, and it was only a matter of seconds before Arthur slowly opened it. He had his wand in a tight grip and was about to have Charlie confirm his identity when he noticed the state of the person standing next to his son. Their father’s eyes widened in shock and he looked absolutely horrified.

“Molly! Bill!!”

(y/n) hadn’t heard such fear in her father’s voice since Ginny had been taken into the chamber of secrets four years earlier. He swallowed deeply. “Come in, quickly.”

Charlie put his sister on the sofa just as their mother, older brother and the twins came running down the stairs. They all grinned happily when they saw Charlie, but the smiles faded almost instantly.

“(y/n/n)?” George effortlessly jumped over an old armchair and kneeled by the couch. “Are you okay?” He removed some blood from her face using the sleeve of his jumper.

She smiled and nodded weakly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t” *cough* “don’t worry. What happened to your ear?”.

Bill and Charlie embraced each other quickly while Molly joined George on the floor. The two oldest brothers both glanced at their sister. She lay so incredibly still; completely motionless save for her steady breathing. Just as those thoughts crossed his mind, Charlie noticed something and was about to point it out when Bill beat him to it.

The oldest brother had walked over to join his family by the sofa and placed a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “(y/n/n)? You’re twitching.”

“I know.” She sighed deeply. “It’ll pass, though.

He looked deep into her eyes and fought to keep eye contact when he whispered, “was it-”

“Yes”, she answered honestly. “But, Bill, I’d rather not talk about it, if that’s okay. Besides, it was way worse a few days ago… Speaking of which, what day is it?”

“Wednesday”, said Molly bitterly, obviously understanding the meaning of the words just exchanged between her oldest son and daughter, but deciding not to push it further. “10 days. 10 days, (y/n/n). Not a word?”

“I’m sorry, mum. Truly.” She then explained everything, from the detailed plan to the overwhelming defeat. “Imagine if we had taken them down instead?” She put her head in her hands and sighed sadly. “Imagine how many people will die now, because we let them all go.”

“Sweetie”, sighed Arthur, taking her hands in his. ”You didn’t ‘let them go’. You did everything you could.”

She closed her eyes sadly. “Not enough, dad.”

“(y/n/n)”, said Bill seriously. “You can’t think like that. We’re at war, we can’t go in expecting to keep everybody safe. There will be casualties. Some of the death eaters didn’t make it either. Think instead of all the people who will survive the war now thanks to you.”

“Bill, I know for a fact that Rockwood and Dolohov got away. We’re all…”, she glanced carefully at her mother. “All aware that they won’t hesitate to kill. A-”

“It’s not like they’re invincible now?”, Fred interrupted. “(y/n/n), you’ll get another chance. Just rest now, please. You’ll be back in the field in no time, and it’ll be like this never happened.”

“Sure, bu-”

“No!”, said Molly with a firm tone. “No buts! Fred is right, you need to rest, dear.” She kissed her daughter on her forehead and left the room. The others took that as a sign and left the room with a quick ‘sleep tight’ or ‘g’night’.

(y/n) Weasley tried to listen to her family and put this minor setback behind her. She managed it for a while. At least until that fateful day of the final battle between good and bad. The day when the consequences of her failure became clear. The day her younger brother lost his life because of her.

~ L

Masterlist

Mischief Managed

Nox

[watermelonlipstick]

Distraction (Request)

This was a request for @sergeantsea​, who asked:

Hi angel!! I was wondering if you could write something with the reader slow dancing w Sam? Maybe they have to pretend to be together to do a mission? 

It was a total blast to write--SUCH a cute idea. I hope this is something like you were thinking.

Title: Distraction

Pairing: Sam Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 1673

Summary: A misstep during a case requires a distraction and some quick thinking. 

Warnings: canon-appropriate threat of violence, mention of alcohol, fluffy fluff fluff, a little teaspoon of smut-adjacent action 😜

           You tried to make the quick strides across the room look purposeful rather than frantic and resisted the urge to check over your shoulder for whether the pair had followed you across the bar. It had been stupid to try to eavesdrop without the pretense of another conversation to cover, and when the vampires had both looked up at the same time, you were sure you were done for.

           “Look alive,” you hissed, grabbing Sam’s hand and yanking him up from the cracked leather stool he was leaning on. He had to stretch against your grip to rest his pool cue on the wall, giving an apologetic smile to the denim-clad guys he and Dean had been playing. Didn’t matter much, Dean could hustle the two of them by himself anyway.

           “What’s going on?” Sam muttered, low and serious as he caught up, trailing just barely behind you so that the words played against the back of your neck, the delicate heat of them along your skin already easing some of the panic you had been feeling.

           “I might’ve just gotten us made—don’t look,” you said with a smile you hoped would look flirtatious to a bystander, turning to curl a hand around the back of his neck as a safeguard to prevent his inevitable impulse to check it out.

           “Uh, okay. What’s the plan?”

           “Just two regular people in a regular bar doing some regular dancing.”

           You could feel Sam’s neck tense under your palm.

           “You know, I’m really not so good at—”

           “Sorry, you’re going to have to pretend unless you’ve got a better option. Smile, please,” you said through the gritted teeth behind your put-on smile, and Sam gave a tight-lipped facsimile as the song shifted, Lionel Richie singing “know it sounds funny but I just can’t stand the pain,” smooth as silk even over the dive’s old speakers . You took Sam’s hand and set it on your hip before floating your free fingers behind his neck. He followed suit somewhat tentatively, holding you with big paws as carefully as if you were some antique Christmas ornament.

           “Can I look yet?” he smiled down at you, grin only partly exasperated. You moved a misplaced lock of hair back to the right side of his loose part and tried not to flush at the way he deliberately closed his eyes while you did.

           One of your hands traced down the collar of his flannel, resting on his lapel and closing a few more inches between your waists. “Sure. Stocky guy in blue and a blond guy with a goatee.”

           Sam checked back from where you’d come under the pretense of tucking you under his chin. When he spoke it was like stepping into a hot shower, soothing warmth flowing over the crown of your head. “They’re definitely watching. You sure it’s only those two? They’re sitting with a bigger table and no one’s talking.”

           “Fuck. How many?”

           “Uh, how fast do you think you can get to the car?”

           “That bad? Spin me, I wanna see.”

           He obliged, slipping his hand into your lax grip on his neck and guiding your hips around a small spin that was just enough for you to see the overflowing booth the two had slid into, at least 7 or 8 angry-looking probably-vamps with eyes trained on you and Sam.

           When you turned back toward him, an easy, cheeky grin spread over his face as Sam slid an arm to your lower back and interlaced the fingers of his other hand with yours. “I didn’t realize you were this much trouble. What’d you do, spit in their beer?”

           “Very funny. Are they buying this?” You rested your palm on his shoulder, feeling the ripple of the muscles as his fingers spread out over your back.

           Sam chuckled and you felt the vibration of his chest into your forearms, starting to feel like a competition cheerleader with the plastered-on smile. “Gimme a sec, I don’t want to look suspicious.” He started incrementally rotating the two of you and you knew it was tactical, so he could see both Dean and the booth. Didn’t really help you either way, field of vision pretty much entirely blocked by the broad span of Sam’s chest. Knowing that he was trying to better his position signaled to you to get ready, and you held a deep breath in an effort to calm your racing heartbeat. He leaned back a touch. “You okay?”

           “Yeah, sorry. Just such a fucking rookie move, I feel like an idiot.”

           “Don’t sweat it. If it’s a rookie move, I must be a rookie too. And usually the warning Dean gives me for shit like this is yelling for me 6 punches in.”

           You snickered a little into the flannel of his shirt despite yourself. “Thanks.”

           The two of you swayed together through a chorus. “Come on Dean, you idiot, look up,” Sam murmured to himself. Dean was lining up a shot he could hit backwards with his eyes closed like he needed laser precision, blissful ignorance allowing him to concentrate only on hustling the guys he was playing for a couple hundred bucks and not the imminent danger. A few people got up from the booth and began making their way across the bar. You could see them in your peripheral vision and knew even if Dean miraculously glanced up now and got with the program lightning-fast you’d be in trouble based on sheer numbers alone.

           “You trust me?” he asked fervently.

           “Yeah, of course I—” you stammered, immediately cut off by the plush crash of Sam’s lips into yours, the deepened pressure of his hand sealing your torsos together. After the briefest stunned moment you got the picture, kissing Sam back cautiously. You let him pull you closer, relaxed into his arms and dragged the hand you had on his shoulder down to gently hold onto his lapel, feeling a little dizzy even through the relative chasteness of the kiss. He disentangled his fingers from yours and slid them to your neck, the tiny chill of each of his wintry fingertips sending goosebumps down your spine as he cradled your head. Hands on his collar, you didn’t even think to stop yourself when you wrapped the flannel up, pure instinct driving your motion. Sam wound through the hair at the back of your neck and those instincts betrayed you again, nipping at his bottom lip on reflex and slipping your tongue into his mouth, somehow sweet over the cheap beer you’d all been drinking throughout the night—perfect—and Sam was much less nervous than you would’ve thought when he took a sharp inhale in surprise but didn’t back down, met your escalation as readily as he supported your weight against him.

           And then you were well and truly in it, Sam’s hand hitching up the back of your tee as he reached for a better grip on you, your grabbing at his shirt popping open a button so you could feel the impossible heat off his chest and get towed under by it like a current, like a magnetic field, and you couldn’t stop, needed more and more, mind a fuchsia cloud of want totally void of intelligent thought or awareness of your surroundings even as you had been so panicked minutes before.

           The spell was broken by a wolf whistle from one of Dean’s opponents, and you broke apart with a lascivious pop of suction. Inches from you, Sam’s eyes were half lidded and kissed stupid, the pink of his lips feathered out to match the flush in his cheeks. You glanced toward the pool table to find the almost-hustled men leering at you and Sam from where they stood next to Dean, whose face had landed exactly halfway between stunned and disbelieving.

           Addressing his brother, Sam cleared his throat and breathed, “We were just—” looking back toward where the crew had been closing in and finding nothing, the group now playing some rowdy game and crawling all over each other to stay in the booth, not paying any attention to you or Sam. “We were, uh, just—” he tried again, still at a loss for words.

           “Get a room,” Dean teased, play-nauseated, eyebrows twisted so far up on his forehead you were surprised they weren’t pushing his hair back.

           “No, it wasn’t—”

           “In front of God and everybody,” he continued, roguish twinkle overcoming the surprise in his eyes. You could feel the heat rising in your face and hastily stepped back from Sam, yanking your shirt down the few inches it had risen. Sam seemed not to notice his open buttons as he froze, still facing Dean. “By all means, don’t let us stop you.” He supported his weight on his pool cue, face as clear a challenge as anything.

           Sam ruffled the back of his hair sheepishly and took the ribbing with tightened lips. “Yeah, okay. Ha-ha.”

           “I’m going to, uh, grab another beer. Do you want one?” you asked Sam quietly, hoping Dean and the pool players might lose interest.

           “Sure, yeah. I—ah, I’m gonna—” he stuttered, face screwing up in a silent, bashful “help me?” smile while his shoulders bunched around his neck. You started to giggle, nerves finally catching up to you, and bit your lip to hold your smile together.

           “Go finish your game?”

           Sam chuckled and nodded, looking at his feet.

           You took a deep breath. “Um, thanks for saving me back there. I won’t make the same mistake again, I promise.”

           He flicked his gaze up, grin split open at the side to show a few teeth as he ran his tongue over his molars, framed by an impossibly sliced dimple. “I—ah, I wouldn’t mind if you made that mistake again.”

-

Thanks again for reading! If you liked it, check out my Masterlist or send me a request!

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[ahsokasleftbicep]

Name and Soul: Chapter 3

AH! Here we go! Enjoy!

@mqgriett @darkangel4121 @thelambandthewolffe @maulscrosshair @trash-dino-5000

Crosshair x F! reader

Word Count: 2091

Warnings: SPOILERS for episode 3, Wrecker being best uncle, Sad Crosshair stuff, internal conflict, Tarkin being awful

“That doesn’t look very comfortable, kid.” You crouch down to Omega, who set herself up against Gonky and a wall.

“It’s okay, we’re fine.” The girl smiles up at you before looking back to her datapad.

You sit down next to her, patting the droid behind her. “How’s that diary coming along?”

Omega smiles and reaches next to her, opening the diary excitedly. “Really well! I can’t wait till we get him back. Do you think I could be as good of a shot as he is?”

“Oh I know you can,” You lean down to her ear, “And don’t ever tell him this, but I think you could be better.”

“No way, you’re lying.” Omega smiles and pushes your arm, laughing.

“Omega, I swear on my life, that I would never lie to you. You have talent and you're smart. You have a lot of opportunities out there.”

“Y/n! Can you give me a hand over here!” Echo pokes his head out from the cockpit.

“Yeah, one sec.” You rest your hand on the girl's shoulder, “I’ll be right back.”

“Y/n!”

“Alright alright, I’m coming!” You roll your eyes as you walk over to the man.

“The ship got hit hard when we left Saleucami. Everything has been glitching ever since. Things would go faster if I had some help.” Echo glares at Tech, who’s fiddling with… something.

“As soon as I finish this scanner.”

You lean on Tech’s chair. “But if the ship crashes, you won’t have the tools to finish your project.”

The man raises his eyebrow and glances at you. “If the scanner isn’t finished, we might have a repeat of Kamino’s events.” The three of you go silent before Tech changes the subject. “Besides, the ship's diagnostic report indicated no critical systems were compromised.”

The ship rumbles and you and Echo are thrown to the floor. When you look up again, you no longer see the blue of hyperspace.

“What were you saying about the ship being fine again?” Tech glares at you before grabbing the controls. The ship rumbles, nearly knocking you down again. “We’re crashing.”

You strap yourself in across from Wrecker and Omega. The internal lights start flashing red.

“We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die!” Wrecker grips his seat.

“Wrecker!” The man looks at you, following your eyes to Omega, who looks terrified. She frantically looks between the two of you.

“We’re gonna… be fine. We’re gonna be fine.”

--

“Is it over?” Omega looks at you, still shaken up.

You walk to her and squeeze her hand, “Yep, it’s all over. Are you okay?”

The girl nods hesitantly, “Y-yeah, I think.”

“... we have one spare capacitor onboard.” Tech states to the rest of you.

Omega walks over to a shelf and pulls out a box. Something you recognize.

“Omega…”

“Is it in here?” The girl looks at you all, stopping on your mute expression. “What?”

You straighten up, “That’s Crosshair’s weapons kit.”

Wrecker groans, “I’ll say it. I kinda miss him.”

Tech begins to describe what the inhibitor chip can do, but Hunter cuts in. You furrow your brows at his actions.

“Look, debating this won’t fix the ship.” Hunter glances at you before continuing. “We need to get off this rock.”

--

“Is it possible to implant a chip into a natural born?” Tarkin stares at the clone through the glass.

“It is.” Nala Se speaks quietly. “Why do you ask?”

“Private L/n is a very skilled soldier, those skills would be useful. Once she is caught, I need her unwavering loyalty.”

“Governor Tarkin.” Rampart walks into the room. “I have the report on Private L/n.”

“Very good, what did you find?” Tarkin turns his attention to the man for a split second.

“She’s as skilled as any clone, if not more. She graduated top of her class as a marksman at the Academy of Carida. If I may, L/n’s skills would be incredibly useful for Project War Mantle.”

“My thoughts exactly, Rampart.”

--

You stuck your hand out from the floor of the ship, Omega handed you a tool, curiously looking down at you.

“Where did you learn all this stuff?”

“Oh way before the war, this isn’t my first.”

“It’s not? Where were you before?”

You take off Tech’s spare goggles and sigh, “I think that’s a story for another time.”

Wrecker walks by, rubbing his head. “Ow! Ow”

You stand up and tap Wrecker’s leg. “What’s up with you?”

Wrecker winced again, “I must’ve hit my head in the crash. Ow.”

You hop up, setting down your tools. “I have an ice pack, that’ll help.”

“Thanks, Y/n.” Wrecker follows you back, “Y/n?”

“Hm?”

“My head doesn’t hurt that bad. But I wanted to ask you something.”

You turn around, confused. “Go ahead.”

“Well, you know how Omega has no room, like one of her own? What if we made her one? Make it a surprise.”

You smile widely, “I think that’s a great idea, Wrecker. We need to distract Omega though.”

“Guys, you need to come see this!” Hunter calls out.

As you walk out, you see a large shadow cross the window. “Woah! What the heck was that?”

Omega looks at you wide-eyed, “Some creature with a huge tail!”

Tech clears his throat, “Most likely an Ordo Moon Dragon, it took the part.”

A moment and some banter later, Hunter and Omega are getting ready to go after the creature. You look at Hunter, “Be careful.”

“Will do.”

You then look at Omega, “And you stay close to Hunter.”

“I promise! Cross my heart!” The girl responds happily.

You chuckle and wave as the two walkout. You glance at Echo and Tech arguing in the cockpit. You roll your eyes and walk to Wrecker. “Okay, let's get started! With Hunter’s senses, we don’t have a lot of time.”

--

Crosshair stands at the door, “Sir, you called me again.”

“Yes, you will have to abandon your search for Clone Force 99 for a moment. Onderonian insurgents have been found again, I will introduce you to your new squad. Find the insurgents and eliminate them. After you complete this, then you can continue your original task.”

“Yes sir, find Private L/n, terminate Clone Force 99.” The man walked out and back to his barracks. He sits on his bunk, grabbing the same necklace that he’s looked at more than a dozen times before.

Why do I care? I don’t know this woman. I love her… Wait, no. She’s a traitor. Don’t hurt her.

Crosshair lifts the ring into the light. He falls back onto his bed, clipping the necklace around his neck, completely unaware of what he did. I miss her. She betrayed the Empire. I miss my brothers. They left me. I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.

--

“What’s this?” Wrecker picks up the diary from the floor. You look back from the blankets you tie up to the top of the ceiling.

“Omega is writing all the stuff that happens in there. She said it’s for when we get Crosshair back.” You turn back, looking out the window of the gunner room.

“You don’t believe her?” Wrecker places the diary on the gunner chair.

“I do. But every day we leave him there makes it feel like it’s impossible. And no one acknowledges what happened. Not even Hunter…”

Wrecker places his hand on your shoulder, “I know, but Hunter misses him. You know how he is, he can hide that stuff easy.”

“I know, but I wish he would talk about it.”

--

This man was pissing Crosshair off. He’s arrogant. And chatty.

“Hey clone, what’s that around your neck?”

“None of your business.” Crosshair glares at the blonde man.

He smirks, “A little lady, maybe?” He scoffs, “Why would someone go with a clone.”

The group steps out of the ship, sneaking through the woods. Crosshair straightens his back.

“Move out.”

--

“Wrecker, I think we need one more blanket, just to be safe. And do we have any lights?” You jump down from the room, waiting for Wrecker.

“We have lights.” The man lifts a string of them up. “I’ll get 'em.”

“I’ll go get another blanket.” You walk to your room, glancing at the bunk. Crosshairs blanket is folded at the end, just like you left it that morning. You pick it up and hold it to your face. You smell him. It’s comforting, warm, and very uniquely Crosshair.

“Here we go, one blanket.” You place the blanket with the others. “It looks great so far.”

--

“Where’s Gerrera?”

“I don’t know, I wouldn’t tell you anyway.” The insurgent sneers at the helmeted man.

Crosshair tilts his head, “I believe you.” He lifts his blaster. NO! He pulls the trigger and the woman falls to the ground.

He lifts his weapon to the civilians. STOP!

“What are you doing? Gerrera’s fighters are dead. We should bring civilians in.” The blonde man steps forward.

“Those weren’t our orders.”

“Forget it, this is wrong.”

Crosshair walked up to the man, stopping toe to toe.

“You want to know why they put me in charge?”, stop it… please. “It’s because I’m willing to do what needs to be done.” He pulls out his blaster and pulls the trigger. The man drops. No, no, NO! Good soldiers follow orders. “Finish the mission.”

--

You are finishing up the room when Wrecker comes up. He’s holding something. Lula?

“What’s Lula doing here?” You look at the large soldier, who rubs the back of his neck shyly.

“I thought that Omega would like it, something to hold onto.”

“I think that’s great, Wrecker. She’ll love it.” You hold the doll and place it on the bed… next to her diary.

--

Crosshair looks at what’s left of his “squad”.

“If any of you tell higher-ups about this,” He pulls the necklace from under his armor. “I will kill you all.”

The soldiers tense up and all nod at the same time.

“... good.” I- I killed them. Innocent people. The ship lands, he goes through another lengthy debrief, he goes back to his barracks. Ignoring the others, he sits on his bunk, completely silent. Images flash through his head… of you. This woman. Y/N! Your smile, your hair, everything about you. He looks at the ring around his neck. He was right. Why would she be with me… who could love me?

--

“Tech! Can we please leave?”

“Gladly.” The man flips a few switches and the ship starts moving.

“Y/n!” Omega runs up to you.

“Omega! I heard you completed the mission? How’d it feel?”

“Well, I was really scared at first, but then I was able to get the part by tricking the creature!” The girl smiles up at you.

“I knew you’d be fine! And you saved Hunter.” You put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Omega.”

The girl hugs you, “Thank you, y/n.”

Wrecker walks up behind you, “Hey kid. Come with me.”

Omega raises her eyebrow, looking at Wrecker, then you.

You and the man chuckled, “Just cover your eyes.”

Wrecker guides Omega to the back of the ship, you following behind. He stops in front of the gunner room.

“Okay, open ‘em.”

Omega gasps at the view, looking from the room to Wrecker, back to the room, then you.

You walk up with a smile. “Well, what do you think?”

“I- I love it. You guys did this?”

“Yep! Y/n picked out the lights. We put it together when you guys left.”

“It was Wrecker’s idea. A great one at that.”

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” Omega jumps up and down before climbing up the ladder, sitting on the blankets. “I never had my own room before.” She picks up Lula, then sets the diary on her lap.

“You’re a part of this squad now too. You deserve your own room.”

--

You are lying in your bed, staring at the ceiling. The door swooshes open, revealing Omega, holding the diary loosely in her hand.

“Omega, it’s late. Why are you up?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” She walks across the floor and crawls up onto your bed. “Can you tell me a story? Please?”

You look at the girl and nod. Omega scoots into your side and rests her head on your shoulder.

“Hmmm, how about another mission story?”

The girl nods, paying attention.

“So, we met with a Jedi, Anakin Skywalker…”

Hunter walks to your room the next morning, finding you asleep against your headboard, Omega asleep, snuggled into your side.

[mythicandco]

A Random Rant About Belos (Again)

I have a headache so instead of sleeping to make it go away I’m gonna drink some water and drink some TEARS

(Side note: Belos’ tears taste like pencil shavings and bird crap. Would not recommend.)

Anyways I’m just gonna ramble about the Edward/Philip/Belos/Hunter dynamic for a little while, including my own version of events (which is pretty much shared by eighty-five percent of the fandom) and some stuff that is so obvious but I want to talk about it so that I don’t have to think about it anymore. Why didn’t I just put this into a Google Doc-

Spoilers so everything is under the cut

For the sake of my sanity we’re calling the unnamed Wittebane brother Edward. Edward Carlos Wittebane. Why not, the TOH team can’t prove us wrong for another couple of months so we can do what we want.

Alright, lets start with the relationship between Hunter and Belos. It’s FUCKED UP, people. I am I firm supporter of the Philip = Belos theory (if you couldn’t already tell ;w;) and Hunter being a Grimwalker means that Belos had “the bone of ortet” (EDWARD’S BONES!!) ready for use. WHO KEEPS THEIR BROTHER’S BONES JUST LAYING AROUND?! I mean, Belos does, I guess. 

There is no doubt in my mind that Hunter is a Grimwalker. I will be seriously surprised if he doesn’t end up being one. (I’ll be surprised in a good way. But still very surprised.) His reddish-violet eyes, the check mark on the adolescent stage that Belos had in the book, it’s very unlikely he’s writing about a different Grimwalker (oh brain please no). The nose shape of the Grimwalker also matches Hunter’s, which I’m wondering is a coincidence given that Edward’s nose also just happens to be shaped like that. Makes me wonder if Hunter is the first Grimwalker (at least in a very long time), and those are Belos’ notes. It’s not impossible. 

Either way the way Belos treats Hunter is not okay. It’s practically unanimous that Belos is a terrible parental figure and is manipulating Hunter in one way or another. Personally I think that he’s mainly keeping Hunter alive for the Day of Unity, and doesn’t care about his feelings as long as he does what’s supposed to get done. Heck, Belos outright says that Hunter can be replaced! Even if he says it’d be a hassle. Still. He doesn’t feel guilty about abusing the poor kiddo and that’s why we see such deepset issues with Hunter’s character. 

However there does seem to be a tiny sprinkle of genuine emotions in Belos’ one not-outwardly-violent interaction with Hunter. Unless it’s all completely emotional manipulation and I’m just seeing stars. But while Belos does seem to have little care what happens to Hunter in the long run, he appears to have a slight fondness for the kid. He shares a brief story about the Human Realm, Hunter is the only person we’ve ever seen him take his mask off for, and I think he likes seeing Hunter happy, even if it’s near the bottom of his “Most Important Emperor Things” list. If his ultimate plan for Hunter isn’t “Have a Sacrifice for the Titan” or “Have a Host for the Titan”, then I imagine he’d like to see Hunter make it past the Day of Unity and rule at his side. 

What I’m wondering about is what leads Belos to be so terrible to Hunter, the literal CLONE of his brother who, as far as we can tell, he cared about and had a good relationship with? Who knows, maybe the TOH team with throw a huge wrench in our plans and make Edward an abusive brother or something, leading to Belos continuing that cycle by taking it out on Hunter (WHO HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT AT ALL!!). When Hunter finds out, or smol depressed man is gonna have an existential identity crisis and we’re all going to cry. We know we are. Either way, just my thoughts on that big ol’ mess. Everyone in that family has ISSUES. (And insomnia. You’ve all seen Belos’ eye bags, right?)

Now moving onto Edward, Li’l Rascal, and Hunter. (I’m probably gonna call the palisman “Red” more than once, so don’t get confused by that.) If Rascal is the former palisman of Edward, then it makes me wonder how they got that scar over their left eye (wait who else has a scar on the left side of their face that’s right BELOS) (I mean there’s really only two sides of a face that you can put a scar on, but still). It’s possible they got it in the cave-in during the disastrous Titan’s blood mission, but it’s also possible that if we’re taking the abusive brother route that Edward himself inflicted those wounds. 

I’m not sure how that would make Red want to be Hunter’s palisman, but I guess it’s possible they sensed Hunter wasn’t as dangerous as he seems. I don’t have much else to say on this subject other than the idea that Rascal was probably gonna become Luz’s palisman until it spotted GG.

And finally an overlook of how Philip become Belos, because once again I believe in Philip is Belos supremacy--

Before continuing read this because it’s written and explained very well and covers a couple of the main options. I’ll wait. I don’t care how long you spend reading it, it’s worth it. 

Okay so now that you’ve read that, I’ve narrowed the options down to five. 

- Philip pulled a Science Man™ and either drank a potion or had a spell cast on himself so that he could preform magic without the use of glyphs or palismen. Since he’s human, he needs a source to take magic from, and that happens to be palismen. However the longer he goes on, the more “source magic” he needs, and 400+ years later he’s so degraded that he needs palismen just to stay stable, let alone preform magic. 

- Philip pulled a slightly different Science Man™ and got himself trapped between realms. Whether it was accidental or Edward or someone else deliberately staged it, that’s up to you, but one way or another the weird black in-between goo slowly erodes away at his human form and, once again, he needs palismen to stay stable. 

- Philip got himself cursed the good ol’ fashioned way! Either he angered a witch/demon or opened a magical box that was never supposed to be opened, or maybe the Collector was involved somehow, who knows (The writers know. The creators know. But they’ll never tell us.). The Collector could actually be applied to any of these scenarios with the right context, as seen here. 

- The Titan somehow fucked stuff up. I saw this theory floating around a little while ago and it doesn’t seem too unlikely that Belos is only doing what the Titan says so that it will leave him alone. Or maybe he believes that his affliction is the cost of communicating with the Titan, and it’s a price he has to pay in order to stay in power. 

- This is the most likely option: the writers sic a whole new idea at us and we love it. I have no idea what that could be, but I’m all up for new stuff I wasn’t expecting!

And thus concludes this almost TED-Talk, now if you don’t mind me I’m going to lay down for a little while and finish drinking my water. Good night/morning/afternoon/evening to you all. 

[gellavonhamster]

ghost stories

Suicide Squad (2016) || characters: El Diablo feat. everyone else || post-canon, sort of a fix-it

ao3 link eng || this was first written and published on ao3 in Russian in 2016 but I didn't attempt to translate it into English back then.  

Harley is the first to see him.

She catches the smell first. Something appears to be burning, and she checks cautiously if there is something wrong with the coffee machine. She doesn’t find anything suspicious – not that the appliances about to flame up smell like that anyway. Could it be that there’s a fire starting? That would be funny, but seems like there’s hardly a chance. It is the smell of a bonfire at the beach, of the fallen leaves being burned in the yards in fall, of a melting candle in the church; weirdly, all this at the same time. A smell that seems too pure for Belle Reve, for Gotham, for everything that makes up her life these days.      

Harley looks around once again – and springs to her feet like she’s been stung.

Chato Santana is standing next to her cage.

“Diablo?” she whispers, unable to believe her eyes. She would’ve thought she’s lost her marbles if there were any left to lose.    

“Harley,” says Diablo, and it’s his voice, his shy, sad smile, his eyes and his tattoos, and Harley squeals in delight as she rushes to him. The bars of the cage are live, so she only dares to stick out the tips of her fingers. He touches them with his hand – certainly alive, certainly not a product of her mind being tortured by boredom and monotony – and she laughs.

“You’re alive, alive, alive! How did you survive? And how did they let you in?”

“It’s a long story. And I don’t think I have much time,” Diablo looks guilty. He’s still holding her hand and looking at her so earnestly it’s almost worrying.  “Harley… don’t go with him.”  

“Huh? What do you mean, honey?”

“He’s coming here. Don’t leave with him, Harley, stay. It sounds strange, but this would really be for the best.”  

“Don’t leave with whom?” she can’t follow him. He gives her a melancholic look – and suddenly disappears. Without any smoke or flames or any other special effects. She can’t wrap her head around how it happened – it’s just that he was here a moment ago, and now there’s no one beside her, and she’s reaching out towards nothing.      

“Diablo?” she calls, and when she gets no answer, she decides to get things straight by asking the guards. What kind of cruel joke is this? Only one person is allowed to joke here, and that person is her. “Hello there! Mister jailer, yoo-hoo! Where’s my friend?”  

No one is in a hurry to respond. Finally, one of the armed-to-the-teeth guards approaches the cage.

“Why are you yelling, lady?”

“Where’s my friend?” Harley asks petulantly. “He was here just now, and we didn’t finish talking. Where did you take him?”  

“There was no one here.”

“What do you mean ‘no one’? I just talked to him!”

The guard examines her from head to foot. Looks like he’s chewing gum, which, combined with his empty apathetic stare, makes him look like a cow.

“Definitely crazy,” he sums up, and leaves. Irritated, Harley forgets to take caution, hits the bars and falls down on the floor right away, writhing in pain.    

“Well, well, well,” she whispers, playing the recent events over in her head. Chato was very much corporeal – not a ghost, then. Yet the guards didn’t notice him, and then he vanished into thin air. Harley thinks about the being Chato transformed into by the end of the battle – an ancient one, as if straight from the walls of some Aztec temple. Could some petty bomb kill such a being? Could the Enchantress’s brother have survived too?  

“I am friends with a god,” she informs the ceiling. “Incredible.”

About an hour later, her Puddin’ comes for her, and she forgets the advice Diablo gave her.  

  Croc sees him on the night of the same day. He knows for sure that it is night thanks to the TV listings – the only reference point for time and days of the week that he has. Not that it was bothering him too much, truth be told. Monday or Sunday, every day in Belle Reve is a carbon copy of the day before. However, Croc doesn’t complain. He has a roof over his head, water, food – even better food than he used to have in the sewers in days gone by – and a TV, and it is honestly not too hard to do without such extras as companionship and fresh experiences. Still, he is glad to see Diablo. Even though first he lunges at him with his fangs bared, because he doesn’t immediately recognize him and supposes that Waller and company are sick of feeding him and decided to kill him. Or to put someone else in his quarters, which would have been no less audacious.        

“Croc, it’s me,” Diablo hastens to say, and lights up a flame over his left palm – so unusual and out of place in the dampness of Croc’s cell. Croc freezes and watches the flame for some seconds. That must really be Diablo; there are hardly many people in the world capable of such tricks.

“Hey, man,” Croc says. “Whatcha doing here?”

“Just checking up on you.”

Well, that must definitely be Diablo. Croc knows that there are hardly many people in the world who’d care to check up on him, but that sounds like something El Diablo would do. Back then, during the mission, he was friendly, asked “You okay?” after each skirmish, and could clap him on the shoulder without shuddering. And there are definitely even less people in the world that would touch him willingly.      

“Did they just let you in like that?” wonders Croc. Diablo gives him a slight smile.

“They don’t know I’m here.”

“So you’re, like, a ghost?” Croc asks. It occurred to him from the very beginning, but it sounds particularly joyless when said out loud.

Diablo gestures vaguely. “I’m still figuring it out myself, to be honest.”

“Hmm,” Croc glances over his cell. A bag of food on the cot catches his eye. “You want a burger?”

“Nah, I’m good. Save it for yourself.”

“They’ll bring more today, I’m telling ya.”  

“Then I want one.”

“Then you’re not a ghost,” grins Croc, and the fact that Diablo doesn’t flinch or try to look away also proves that this is the real Chato Santana, because most people don’t like seeing Croc smile.

And so he and Diablo, who kind of is a ghost but kind of isn’t, sit there eating burgers and watching some crap on MTV. Life has taught Croc not to be surprised by anything, so everything’s fine.  

“So what happened after the bomb went off?” Croc asks. Diablo opens his mouth, and then closes it again, apparently at a loss how to explain.

“I was smoke,” he speaks finally. “Then I was flames. Then I became myself again.”

“I see,” Croc replies, although, of course, he can’t see shit.

“Who are you talking to?” comes the guard’s voice from behind the door. “Hey, scum!”

Croc puts the burger aside.

“Wait a bit,” he tells Chato, gets up, and heads for the door.

When he comes to the bean hole, the guard already looks like he regrets calling him.  

“No one,” Crock smiles as widely as only he can, and the guard, who isn’t among the people able to watch him smile without blinking an eye, steps back reflexively. “But come inside, and I’ll talk to you if you wanna. How about that?”   

When he turns around, Chato has already disappeared, and Croc could have assumed he has dreamed it all, but there are two half-eaten burgers on the cot, not one.

  Digger sees him next, and he isn’t even amazed. The bastards keep drugging him with all sorts of shit to calm him down. Usually after the shot he just lies there, feverish, and can’t even move, let alone stand up, but who knows, perhaps they’re testing some new poison on him. Or they’ve started using something stronger because they noticed that a couple of hours after the usual stuff he’s already able to yell, bang at the door, and do everything he can to get the best of them while cooped up inside. Or it’s simply that there’s already so much of this shit in his blood that it’s impossible not to have any screws loose, try as he might to keep them in place. In any case, he’s not exactly shocked when, as he tosses and turns on the floor after another injection, he turns his head and sees El Diablo, large as life and twice as ugly.

“Fuck me sideways,” Digger says. He doesn’t have any energy to be mad yet. “I must be tripping.”

“You’re not tripping,” Diablo objects.

“You died. So I must be.”  

“I didn’t die either.”

Diablo sits down cross-legged on the floor next to him.

“Has it crossed your mind that if you stop getting on their nerves, they might start treating you better?” he asks.

“Go to hell.”

“Message received.”

There’s a footfall outside; a whole bunch of people must be running somewhere.

“They’ve turned the entire joint upside down,” says Digger, because it’s been ages since he has spoken to anyone who’d at least pretend to listen, so a hallucination will do. “Blondie escaped.”  

“I know,” Diablo replies gloomily. “I tried to warn her not to go with the Joker, but she didn’t listen to me.”  

“Why warn her?” Digger asks. Harley Quinn is no bosom friend of his, but she kind of tore out the heart of the witch who kind of tried to end the world, and anyway, teammates probably should take interest in each other’s lives. Probably. He’s never really made sense of that teamwork stuff. “What’s he gonna do to her?”    

“At best, what he always does.”

Two tiny figures of fire appear on Diablo’s open palm – a man and a woman. The man backhands the woman across her face, and she falls down. Digger watches the dancing flames with fascination, and meanwhile in his head, bit by bit, stroke by stroke, a plan starts to take shape. He wouldn’t be Captain motherfucking Boomerang if he fails to use any opportunity that turns up – even a ghost of one. 

“Listen, mate,” he begins cajolingly. “If you’re really here and it’s not just me tripping… help an old friend out, won’t you? I’m fed up with being stuck here, you know.”

“I’m not gonna help you escape,” Diablo says calmly. “How do you imagine that would even happen?”

“Can’t you just burn the entire Belle Reve to the bloody ground?”

Diablo smiles.

“I can,” he admits. “But I won’t.”

The next thing he knows, the son of a bitch is gone without a trace. Anger and offence must be giving Digger strength, because he manages to leap to his feet. Like a lunatic, he thrashes around the cell, looking for at least some kind of proof that someone else was here a moment ago.  

“Oi!” he shouts, knowing damn well that the guards have long stopped listening to what he has to say. “Grab the devil! A convict escaped! Hey, wankers!”  

But he’s feeling lightheaded, and this shit must be really strong, and he collapses, badly hitting his head.  

  Tatsu sees him next – late at night, in her apartment. She’s a light sleeper, and wakes up as soon as she hears footsteps. The sword is close at hand, and she grabs it instantly, blade swishing through the air.  

“Who’s there?” Tatsu asks, and then repeats in English. “Who’s there?”

There is nowhere to hide in her bedroom. The only furniture is the mattress and the pair of chairs she uses to hang her clothes on. Everything is on the floor or on the windowsill – weapons, her laptop, the book she tried to read before going to sleep but could not concentrate on. It is an ascetic, comfortless dwelling that does not look permanent and is not supposed to become so. Fate and Amanda Waller, though, seem to have other plans in this respect.  

There is nowhere to hide in her bedroom – but someone’s definitely walking in the antechamber; she flings the door open – and sees El Diablo, standing by the entrance and looking around. In a blink of an eye Tatsu is next to him, and the blade of the Soultaker is pressed to his neck.  

“Katana, it’s me,” Diablo says, unfazed. “Chato Santana.”

“Chato Santana is dead,” she says through her teeth. Chato Santana was a gangster who killed, albeit by a tragic accident, his own family – but she fought side by side with him, he sacrificed himself to save the world, he called their squad his family and died for them. That is enough for her not to let anyone use his name as a cover. “Who are you?”    

“I’m alive,” Diablo replies. He puts his hands up to show he’s unarmed, and forks of flame appear on his palms. “Or sort of.”  

Sort of.

Tatsu lowers the sword and looks warily at the man standing in front of her.

“How did you…”

“You’re gonna have a new mission soon. Demand that Waller tells you everything.”

“About what?”

“I couldn’t overhear that,” he says with regret. “But…”

Something knocks on the window. Tatsu turns around quickly, but that must’ve been just a tree branch hitting the windowpane. When she turns back to Chato, he’s already gone, and her apartment is silent.

It’s just four in the morning, but she can’t make herself fall asleep again. Having poured a cup of tea, Tatsu sits down on the mattress and thinks, think, thinks about what just happened. Tatsu believes in ghosts – her sword is teeming with them, so she wouldn’t say that her worldview is shaken. Still, this is strange, very strange. What did he want to tell her? Why did he disappear so abruptly? Like… a broadcast was interrupted.    

Colonel Flag calls her at daybreak and tells her that there’s a shoot-out between two gangs on the outskirts of Gotham, with metahumans on both sides. When Tatsu arrives at Belle Reve, it turns out they must have considered it to be not enough to ruin her Saturday morning, because she is asked – more like ordered, actually – to escort an inmate from his cell, an inmate who attacks anyone who tries to enter and has already injured three guards with his bare hands, and it’s not reasonable to sedate him before the mission, and “he’s likely to obey if it’s you, Katana” – the last is Rick’s argument, and if he told that to her face and not on the phone, she would have had to strain every nerve not to hit him with something.    

No one tries to attack her when she enters the cell of Captain Boomerang – Harkness is sitting on the floor quite still, his arms around his knees, and when he notices her, he even smiles with bruised lips.  

“Hello, gorgeous,” he says. “Am I hallucinating you too?”

“No,” the question is unexpected and confuses her. “Why?”

“Well, they keep injecting me some crap, and lately I’ve been seeing things,” Harkness explains peacefully, even eagerly. His voice is quiet and hoarse, which, combined with his Australian accent, leads to Tatsu being barely able to make out half of what he’s saying. To hear him better, she crouches down next to him, still gripping the sword hilt – there is no telling if he isn’t just making her come closer to take her down and bolt. “Saw the devil yesterday.”      

“The devil?”

“Our devil. Día… de fucking Muertos. Chato Santana.”

Tatsu gives a shiver and, having lost her balance, half sits down, half falls on the dirty floor.

She isn’t the only one to have seen him. She isn’t the only one he wanted to send a message to.

“Hey, luv,” Harkness frowns and reaches out to touch her knee lightly. “You all right?”  

“Same as you, more or less,” she wants to reply, which of course would mean she isn’t, not at all.

“What did he tell you?” she asks him instead.

  When Floyd sees him, he is hardly surprised, since the others have already warned him. Boomerang, Croc, and Katana tell him everything while they’re waiting for the helo, and had it been just Boomerang, who believes inexplicably that he has a sense of humour although he certainly doesn’t, Floyd most likely wouldn’t have believed his ghost stories, but it is even harder to believe that Croc, let alone Katana would agree to take part in such pranks. Which is why he listens to them closely and takes note: okay, then he doesn’t have to worry about his mental heath if the late Santana suddenly appears out of nowhere to give some advice or share some news or simply ask how he’s doing. So the four of them keep whispering to one another like kids at the back of the class until their transport arrives – just the four of them, which is a pity. If there is anyone on the team that he had missed a little, it’s Harley. Floyd knows some things about the Joker, for it isn’t possible, as they write in the papers, to belong to the criminal world of Gotham and not know anything about the Joker. Floyd knows what Flag had spilled to him when visiting him in his cell or escorting him there after a visit to Zoe. Floyd thinks that in his entire lifetime he hasn’t understood a thing about love – is it even possible to understand it, on the other hand? – but he feels like the mad and brilliant Harley, Harley the whimsical, Harley the loving deserves better.                

“What’s with the gossiping?” Flag inquires suspiciously.  

“Nothing!” Croc and Digger answer in unison, in unison, and Floyd facepalms because seriously, are they in some cheesy movie or what? They don’t tell Flag anything yet, but Floyd is almost sure that sooner or later Santana will visit him as well, because Flag is one of them too, after all. Not that he’s even trying to deny it; no one’s making him drop by Floyd’s cell every other day to chat about some nonsense through the steel door.          

So Floyd is hardly surprised when, as he makes his way behind the dumpsters loading one gun after another, he notices a familiar, head-to-toe-tattooed figure standing nearby.  

“There are snipers on the roof over there and around the corner of the shop,” Chato says instead of greeting. Floyd nods.

“I noticed.”

“Eight men in the drugstore on the other side of the street. Each with a machine gun.”  

“How do you know?”

“I’ve just been there.”

“Got it,” there’s no time for lengthy conversations. No time to say: glad you’re alive, man. No time to ascertain: are you alive, though? So he thinks over the plan of action, making a mental note to ask all these questions later, when there are no bullets whistling past their ears.  

People like them deserve no guardian angels, frankly speaking, but they may have managed to earn one for all of them.

[jessiebanethedragon]

so i randomly thought about a fic with crosshair with his iconic line "you miss me? how touching" and im kinda shocked about how it doesnt exist! so i went to you to request this 👉👈 bcs you're one of my fav fic writers and i'd like to see it from you, no pressure though! bcs i know you dont exactly have all your hours to provide us with fan content :] <3

Hello! thank you so much for this request i’ve been in love with the idea for so long sorry it took me ages to get it written! anyways here it is! 

love ya oxoxox Jessie

Miss you (Crosshair x separatist!Reader)

You met Crosshair in a hurricane of cruses, punches and a bloody nose on his part. And from the glare he sent you way after Hunter had wrestled you into binders, you knew the mutual feeling of hatred was obvious. And of course, when the republic so graciously offered to help you make amends, in return for separatist intel and a forgoing of your prison sentence they put you back into the clutches of Clone Force 99. 

Crosshair could not stand you. With enough cheek and sass to rival his own, and looks that were infuriatingly good, the resident sniper had it out for you. 

But to be fair, you hated him as well. You hated how tall he was, how his deceivingly slim frame gave way to sturdy muscle that your hands had been over top of on a singular occasion that you couldn't get out of your head. 

“Tell me the layout again.” Sergeant Hunter demanded, standing over a disastrously incorrect map of a separatist base. 

“You’d be better off without a map at all!” Exclaimed throwing your hands up in defeat, “the weapons room is here, on the west side of the basement. Not on the east side of the top floor.” You went through the entire map again and again, in order for Hunter to relay it to Tech when him and Crosshair got  back from intel. 

“I still don't understand why we have to be out in the middle of nowhere.” Tech’s voice crackled through the comms. 

“Because She can’t be trusted.” Crosshair hissed. 

“She has been completely honest with us thus far.” Tech retorted, 

“She has a name” You called into your vambrace, 

“Fine, The separatist cannot be trusted.” Oh you could hear the smirk in his voice now. And the damn sniper wore it so well… 

“Ex-separatist.” Wrecker kindly pointed out in your defence. 

“Enough. All of you, Tech what's your status?” Hunter cut in, giving up on the holo-map completely. 

“Approaching the south entrance stand by.” You furred your brows, south, why did they go to the south. You distinctly remember telling them to go North… oh, oh shit. 

“Tech! Abort mission!” You said into your comm, grabbing your blaster and pack off of the walls of the ship. “Tech! Do not approach the south entrance. I repeat do not engage at the south entrance!” Why, Why did they never listen! You looked at Hunter and Wrecker who seemed unbothered. 

“Where do you think you’re going, Spitfire?” Wrecker asked teasingly, “South entrance is unguarded.” 

“According to your map, but according to me the south entrance is next to…” “The Barracks.” Hunter finished for you, before running into the cockpit shouting into his comms. You and Wrecker shared a look of panic. 

“Are you coming with me or not?”  You asked him, and his eyes darted to the cockpit where Hunter was currently firing up the engines and the ramp that was beginning to close. 

“I’ll meet you there Spitfire.” He promised, brothers come first, you could understand that. And even though you knew the Havoc Marauder could get there faster, something other than your brain told you that you had to go on foot. And so you threw yourself out of the rising ship, and onto the forest floor of a separatist planet. 

And that, well that brings us to the present situation, finding yourself once again in a pair of binders and your comrades nowhere to be found. In hindsight, trampoline through the undergrowth like a bantha on spice wasn't the best idea. But maybe you cared more for Clone  Force 99 than you’d like to admit. 

“Where are they?” Whorm Loathsom sneered, far too close for comfort. 

“The term ‘they’ is pretty ambiguous, could you perhaps speci-fy” your sentence was cut off as his clawed hand met your throat, your own hands fumbling at his face as you struggle for air. 

“I’ll ask you again, traitor. Where are the clones you’ve been travelling with?” Loathsom didn’t let up on his grasp, and the corners of your vision were beginning to blur. 

“At... your... mother’s.” You choked out, still trying to wriggle out of his grasp. His claws were beginning to cut into your skin, and you knew blacking out was imminent. 

“I don’t think you have the time for sarcasm.” He hissed, increasing the pressure causing you to flounder in his grasp. “Now, i’m giving you a chance for redemption here. Tell. me. Where. They. Are!” Maker, you realized, he’s going to do it, he’s actually going to kill you. And just as yours eyes fluttered closed and you began to black out, you hit the floor with a resounding thunk. Only to be pulled onto your feet again and into something familiarly solid. 

“Miss me?” Crosshairs voice was heaven layered honey over the sounds of wheezing and laboured breaths. 

“Crosshair?” You gasped up at him, his arms around your frame moving to pick you up. 

“How touching, you almost look pleased to see me.” You blinked repeatedly at his smirk, before wincing as he began to move. 

“Where?” He asked, setting you down again. You tried to speak again but your lungs were still working double time. “What did they do to you?” He whispered, “I should've been faster.” 

“Crosshair,” you tried again, essentially mewling into his chest, “I can’t…. Can’t” you were panicked, scared, trying to chase a breath you just couldn't catch. 

“I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill them all.” He snarled, standing up again with you safely in his arms. Maybe Clone Force 99 cared for you more than you thought. 

Bed rest sucks, you decide about one day into Techs mandated recovery schedule. What sucks more is him and Hunter marching you back to you bunk every time you try to get up. So, naturally, you resort to sneaking around during the night when the self-proclaimed medics of the Bad Batch are asleep. 

You clutch a cup of some kind of herbal drink, Wrecker and Tech keep them by the box load so you figured they must be at least decent. But right now you’re wondering if you missed something because the stupid wet herb-flower bag thing keeps flopping around in the cup every time you try to take a sip. And the thing is way too hot, so you resort to blowing the steam away as it rises. 

“Shouldn't you be in bed?” Crosshairs voice comes from the doorway into the hull of the Marauder. 

“Miss me?” You ask, mimicking him from before, enjoying the irony. 

“Nope.” He says, popping the ‘p’. You scoff at your mug of hot herbal whatnot. “Wrecker was beside himself though.” 

“Was he?” You tease your sniper, and a part of you wonders when he went from being ‘the’ sniper to ‘your’ sniper. 

“Yeah, inconsolable in fact.” Crosshair moves from the doorway over to your spot  in the hull of the ship. 

“Really?” you arch an eyebrow, standing in an embarrassing attempt to meet his height. But he’s closer than you calculated and in your adjustment you fumble and find yourself against the wall. 

“Aw, little Spitfire’s all choked up, mind the pun.” Crosshair sneers at you, stepping firmly into your personal space. 

“I do in fact.” You retort, “mind the pun, i also mind you in my personal bubble.” You go to plant a hand on his chest to push him away, but he’s so solid. Maker, why is he so warm and firm under your hands. Why, oh why, does he have to feel so perfect to your palms. And in the three times you’ve now touched him, Crosshair’s starting to feel familiar. 

“You gonna push me or just cop a feel?” He raises an eyebrow, but you miss it under the blush on your cheeks and your gaze hits the floor. His hand comes to your chin, index finger underneath while the thumb caresses your cheek. 

“I didn't get to thank you… for coming back for me.” You’re not sure where this is coming from, but it happens anyways. 

“You’ve got a weird way of apologizing Spitfire,” He murmurs looking back to your hands in his chest, watching your eyes react as he moves his other hand to your hip. He smirks oh so proudly when you sigh and relax into his hands, and move yours to hold his face and lightly  scratch at the short hair on his neck. 

“Crosshair…” You exhale looking at him, and the energy between the two of you does the rest of the talking as he leans down to connect his lips to yours. 

Kissing Crosshair seems to contradict everything else about him. It’s slow and soft, he takes his time memorizing the feeling and shape of your lips of his. And with all the time he’s spent pushing you away, now he’s pulling you impossibly close. Your kiss is akin to the second half of your nickname. Crosshair is on fire, but he can't bring himself to care. For you, he tastes of a forest after rainfall, crisp with mist and peaceful. You don't want it to ever end, but the burning in your abused lungs forces you to pull away. Immediately he pulls your foreheads together, a Keldabe kiss, because it’s the best he can get as you both heave for air. 

“I did miss you. And I was worried.” He tells you, lips brushing against your own  as he speaks. 

“I know,” You say, pressing a second kiss to his lips where you can both feel the other smile. 

[voxmyriad]

Ok a prompt if I may:

The 501st are on leave, Ahsoka finds Rex as he’s leaving the barracks, asks him what he wants to do after the war, they wander around the city chatting and end up in a spot that Rex likes to go to between deployments because it’s peaceful

I just love their brother/sister BroTP vibes and I think they’d have good conversations

- @anstarwar

This ended up not being on Coruscant, but I still want to hit up this food market. Set sometime before things get really awful everywhere. || Send in prompts

Sometimes, they got lucky. Sometimes, a mission wound up not being a mission at all. They'd been sent to give support to a group of city-based freedom fighters, but by the time they'd arrived, guerrilla forces had pushed the Separatists to the fringes of the city, easy targets for the 501st air support. They hadn't even needed to land troops.

They hadn't been responsible for the victory either, but the leaders of the people had invited them into the city anyway, a gesture of solidarity toward their intention of joining the Republic. The Resolute wouldn't be running with a skeleton crew, by any means, but every trooper not currently on duty was being released for some overdue shore leave.

So was Ahsoka, and as soon as Anakin let her go, she ran toward the barracks, full of ideas, and skidded to a halt as Rex emerged. "Hi," she said, grinning, a little out of breath. "I got a tip about a good dumpling place."

"When did you have time to get a tip about a good dumpling place?" Rex asked as he fell into step next to her, helmet propped on his hip. They were off-duty, but he wasn't going anywhere without his armor.

"Okay, I don't have a tip about a good dumpling place," she admitted. "I was hoping you'd want to come look for one with me."

Rex laughed, tension unspooling from his shoulders as they hopped aboard a LAAT/i with a group of shinies for quick transport to the surface. "Yeah, let's look around. Maybe we'll find something even better."

"Better than dumplings?" Ahsoka asked skeptically.

"I don't trust dumplings," a trooper said. There was barely a scratch to his armor yet. Could probably count the meals he'd eaten planetside on one hand. "Could be anything in there."

"They could hide anything under a bowl of noodles, too," the trooper beside him pointed out. Another shiny, but he looked like he'd at least seen a battle or two. The easy camaraderie between them could mean they were squadmates, but Ahsoka didn't know them yet.

"At least with noodles you can dig around and make sure you're not gonna eat something with too many eyes."

"How many eyes have you ever found in a dumpling?"

Ahsoka and Rex fell silent, grinning at each other as the rest of the troopers joined in and the great debate about the perfect food rose around them.

"Something even better" turned out to be an entire small marketplace filled with stalls serving an array of foods for a few credits. Rex and Ahsoka split up, the better to collect as much variety as they possibly could, and perched at a table toward the edge of the market. From here they had a view overlooking a busy park. The native vegetation here was a delicate purple, but otherwise, it looked like dozens of others, filled with citizens strolling the paths, children running across the trimmed grasses. The war had hardly touched them, to look at them now.

"Do you ever think about the end of the war?" Ahsoka asked, contemplating one more tiny dumpling.

Rex finished the one he'd just taken. "Sometimes. I don't really know what to think about the end of the war."

"How do you mean?" Reluctantly, she set the dumpling down again. It was tiny, but it might have been one morsel too many. Maybe in a few minutes she'd have room for it.

Dipping a small cube of unidentified but delicious protein into a fiery sauce, Rex shrugged a shoulder. "Well, we're not citizens. We were created for this war, but they didn't exactly write in pension plans for all of us." He took the bite and washed it down with a bottle of juice the vendor had squeezed in front of him. He didn't know what it was, but he knew it was fresh.

Ahsoka frowned, thoughtful, as she set her flimsy tray aside and watched three children playing some complicated ball-tossing game. It was impossible to determine the rules, if there were any rules, but all three of them were laughing, darting back and forth. "Well, what would you like to do? If you could do anything."

"Anything, huh?" Rex watched the game-playing, tracking movements of the ball and the players, and started to piece together the strategies. "I thought once I might try my hand at farming. I, ah. Met someone who came to it late. Seemed pretty contented with the life."

"Farming?" Ahsoka wrinkled her nose.

Rex elbowed her, laughing. "What's that face for?"

"Nothing," she said quickly. "It's—it's not important."

He waited. He knew that tone. Whatever it was, it was at least a little important, or she would have just come out and told him.

". . . well." Ahsoka picked up a skewer that had once held meatballs and bent it lightly between her fingers, testing the tensile strength before it would splinter. "Every youngling in the Temple wants to be a Padawan. But we all know not everyone will be chosen. Of course, there are a lot of other duties, and they're all important!" she added hurriedly. "But . . . being passed over by a Master and sent to the AgriCorps always felt like it would be more of a punishment than a calling. To me, anyway. That's what I think of when I think about farming. It almost happened to Master Kenobi."

"Really?" The children had tired of the game now and were sitting in a triangle on the grass, tossing the ball from one to the next while they talked. Rex wondered what they were talking about, but they were too far away to overhear. "Never heard that story."

"I only know it because Anakin mentioned it once." She paused, uncertain. "I don't think it's my story to tell."

"What would you do, then?" Rex asked after a few moments of thoughtful silence. "If you weren't a Jedi?"

"Me?" The skewer splintered. Ahsoka set it down again and brushed tiny spicules off her legs. "I really don't know. I can't imagine not being a Jedi. . . . but I suppose after the war, I'll still be one. And you'll be . . ."

"A farmer. Yeah, I've decided. I like the sound of it. Besides, who knows? You might come visit me and find out you'd've loved it in the AgriCorps," Rex teased, tweaking the chain that served as her Padawan braid. "Be begging me to stay on and help with the crops, or the livestock, or the orchard, whatever I've got."

"I doubt it," Ahsoka countered, but she was laughing again, thoughts of someday not being a Jedi neatly banished at the image of Rex working his farm. It took shape in her mind, rows of crops, a hill of crooked fruit trees, fenced-in animals peacefully grazing. "I'd like that for you," she said at last, softer now, more serious.

Rex glanced down at their empty trays and plucked up that one last little dumpling. "It's a nice thought," he said, and his tone was . . . pleasantly neutral. It was a nice thought, a nice thought that wouldn't be happening. "C'mon, see if you can catch it. No cheating."

"See if you can throw it straight," she teased right back as she scrambled off the table and backed up to the railing.

He threw it straight and she caught it, right on target, no cheating. The three children looked up toward the balcony at the dual hollers of triumph, but Ahsoka and Rex had already gone.

[shipskicksandgiggles]

Alright this one is gonna be a bit weird if you’ve never watched the Impossible but in case you haven’t it’s a movie that Tom Holland was in when he was younger which is based on the true story of a family who is on vacation when a tsunami hits. It’s super super angsty and Tom gives a gut wrenching performance of thinking he’s lost his brothers and his father and then also his mom only to be reunited with them all in the end. It’s honestly a really good movie and I keep having the urge to rewatch it which is where this idea came from. The last thing that you’ll need to know for this to make sense is that in this one shot/head cannon thing Tom Holland is an actor who is probably around ten years older than Peter. Peter just happens to look a lot like Tom did when he was younger and is constantly told about how similar they look but Peter doesn’t really see it. Anyway here we go!

It was no secret to anyone that knew Peter that teen was constantly being told that he shares an uncanny resemblance with Tom Holland. Peter always claims that he doesn’t really see the similarities but Harley does. Now that Tom is getting older, he and Peter are starting to look less and less similar but that doesn’t change that young Peter and young Tom look strikingly similar.

This is how Harley found himself on the couch watching The Impossible one day when Peter was out on patrol. Harley was benched while his Iron Lad suit was down for repairs after their last mission with the team and needless to say the teen was bored out of his mind while waiting for his boyfriend to get back.

So Harley had done what anyone would have done and asked Friday to find one of Tom Holland’s movies from early on in his career so that Harley could collect more evidence to prove to Peter that the enhanced teen does look like Tom.

Harley had not recovered to get so wrapped up in the story playing out on the screen in front of him and he certainly had not expected for his heart to clench so painfully as he watched the young boy on the screen, who looks nearly identical to the pictures he’s seen of Peter at that age, go through such terrifying and sad experiences. It did not help Harley’s care that his mind was reminding him that Peter has been through hardships similar to those in the movie, Peter had in fact lost his parents at a young age and then his uncle too.

Harley had started crying at some point but wasn’t aware of it until a quiet sob escaped his lips, making the weight of his own emotions known. Harley asks Friday to pause the movie in a wavering voice and wipes his wet cheeks with the sleeves of the sweater he’s wearing. He takes a deep breath to try and collect himself and reminds himself that the boy on the screen is not Peter and while the events of the movie are true but the family did survive and most importantly, at least to Harley, his boyfriend would be home soon.

Harley quietly implored Friday to resume the movie for him as he settles back down into his place on the couch to finish watching. His heart continues to break as he watches young Tom gives a scarily convincing performance of a terrified, hurting, and heartbroken kid which only makes Harley picture what Peter must have been like as a child when he’d lost his parents and then had to relive the trauma of losing his parental figures when he also lost Uncle Ben.

The movie finally comes to an end and Harley is left feeling just a bit breathless. He gets up and makes his way to the kitchen for a glass of water. He’s a bit surprised to find Peter sauntering into the kitchen after having let himself into their floor through the balcony door just a few moments before.

Peter lets out a surprised gasp when he sees the tear tracks running down Harley’s cheeks and the red tint lining Harley’s slightly swollen eyes.

“Harls, what happened? Are you okay? Is everything alright?” Peter rushes out in one breath as he quickly checks Harley over for any signs of injuries.

“I’m fine, Petey. I promise everything’s alright, I just got a little too involved in the movie I was watching. It uh had young Tom Holland in the cast and he really does look like you when you were that age and the movie was really intense and it just made me think of all you’ve been through and I just couldn’t stop myself from crying because you don’t deserve all the bad things that have happened to you. And somehow you still manage to be one of the kindest and most selfless people I know.” Harley explains and feels tears once again starts to fill his eyes.

Peter’s expressions melts from concern into a fond sort of exasperation as he listens to Harley explain. “Well, I’m very glad that you’re alright. You really had me worried for a moment there. I’ve learned a long time ago that bad things happen to people who don’t always deserve them and while a lot of bad things have happened in my life I haven’t done anything to deserve them and I shouldn’t blame myself. You helped me learn that, Harls. Now, how about we make a little snack and then we watch some light hearted movies to cheer up?” Peter suggests and smiles softly at his lover.

Harley nods slowly and takes another deep breath. He took a moment to swear to himself that we would do everything in his power to stop Peter from experiencing anymore heart break but for now all he needed to focus on was making a snack and getting cuddles from his boyfriend.

Well I think I hate how this turned out bug oh well. -🌸

sweetheart do you need a hug? because after that I certainly do what the fuck man that’s a lot of emotions okay let’s take a minute-

first of all, MCU actors existing in the MCU is one of my all time favorite tropes and I wrote a silly fic about it once that I’m too lazy to find now but I used TDATT in it and Peter being embarrassed. I have not seen the impossible as I haven’t had the energy for new things in over a month but I’m working on it not to worry and it’s on my list if I can find it. it sounds incredible and this take is >>>>>>>> 1000/10 babe i love your work as always

[amintyworld]

Falling In Love With You - Dream SMP Drabble

Prompt: DSMP Valentines Fanweek: 8th: Food/Music

A/N: Hey so if you haven’t been aware there’s a fanweek going on for Dream SMP that involves Valentines Day prompts, and I’ve always wanted to participate in one of these, so I’m gonna try to post drabbles when I can this week. ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ by Elvis Presley. Today we’ve got some Mermaid!Sally, so I hope you enjoy! - Minty

Tagging: @dsmp-fanweeks

TW: mention of vomiting, mention of miscarriage, memory loss, mention of death.

-------------------------------

Wise men say 

Only fools rush in

But I can’t help falling in love with you

Sally lugged the passed out man onto the beach, checking to see thankfully he was still breathing. She would admit it was a shock to her when a human sank deep into her part of the ocean and for some reason or other did not seem to want to swim up. At first, the mermaid considered maybe just letting the human drown - after all, humans were always after her scales for their strange potions and often wanted to kidnap her anyway. Sweet revenge.

But her heart didn’t want revenge, instead, it urged her to show him mercy and be kind, and maybe in return, he’d be the same. Now, changing into her human form as her necklace flashed around her neck, she looked down at the human, watching him slowly breathe in and out, his dark brown locks messed and halfway covering his right eye. When suddenly his eyes snapped open as he looked around, they made eye contact as they both let out a loud scream, scrambling for weapons. “What.. what are you?!”

“Gee, a thanks would be nice for saving your life.”

“Saving my… where’s Tommy and Tubbo?!” The human said, looking around desperately for the two people he was asking for.

“Who?”

“My brothers, they were with me when we got cornered and had to jump. Where are they?” He asked, panicked.

“If they weren’t with you they must be upstream. They’re probably looking for you, come on.” She huffed, throwing down the rock she used as a makeshift weapon and walking over to hold her hand out and help the man to his feet. He hesitated before taking hers, both just staring into each other’s eyes for a moment before she began to walk past with a huff.

“Thank you.”

Sally turned around, surprised to hear the human say that as she absentmindedly tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Uh… thanks.” She said, a smile spreading across her lips.

----------------------------------------------

Shall I stay?

Would it be a sin

If I can’t help falling in love with you?

“Alright Wilby, you’re going down,” Sally smirked as she adjusted her grip on the wooden sparring sword, her long hair up in a ponytail. Wilbur, on the other hand, smirked confidently. 

“Oh really? You underestimate my power, young padawan.” They both chuckled a bit at the joke before rushing forward, swords clashing together. Wilbur pushed against Sally’s sword as she lost balance and stumbled backward, Wilbur rushed to pin her to the floor before she jumped, just missing his strike and holding her wooden sword above her head to bring it down in a downward strike. Wilbur moved back just in time to dodge as he dashed forward, pinning her against a tree. “It’s no use - you’re a trapped sardine, or salmon more like.” He chuckled as she struggled against his grip, her sword on the ground.

Just a few feet away in some bushes, two teenage boys watched intently. “What are they doing?”

“Sparring, duh.”

“Why is she blushing then?”

“Huh…?”

Sally bit her lip as she weighed her options, a smirk appearing on her lips. “I know there’s only one way out of this one, Wilby. One way you’ll never resist.”

“Oh yeah, what’s-?” Sally pushed her lips against Wilbur’s, making him weak in the knees as sally effortlessly tossed his sword to the ground as well, focusing on the kiss before Wilbur grabbed her wrists and pinned them up against the tree trunk. “That’s cheating!”

“Yeah, I’d like to see the rulebook!”

Back in the bushes, Tubbo’s eyes lit up. “I know what this is: They’re flirting.”

“What’s flirting?”

“I think it’s when you try to make someone blush. They’re blushing because they’re sick. Philza told me.”

“Sick?”

“Yeah, lovesick. I think it’s like the flu.”

-------------------------------------------

“Like a river flows

Surely to the sea

Darling, so it goes

Some things are meant to be.”

Wilbur’s voice echoed through the dusk as Sally walked through the candlelit path, hearing Wilbur’s singing. Tubbo had passed her a note that said to meet Wilbur at the mountain before the messenger promptly jumped into the bushes humming the Mission Impossible theme. Walking up the mountain, the wind whipped her long hair around as Sally pulled her sweater closer to herself to get warmer. What in the world did Wilbur want with her all the way up here?

As she turned the corner she felt like she couldn’t breathe, as her world stopped and slowed. There Wilbur sat in what looked to be a worn grey suit, playing his guitar with a white lily, her favorite, wedged tightly in between the strings. Seeing her, he smiled, moving closer and leaning his guitar against the tree as he freed the lily, brushing her hair back behind her ear and safely tucking the lily in her hair. Her breaths caught in her throat as his hand moved to cup her cheek. “You look beautiful.”

“I-” Sally felt her cheeks heat up at the comment as she stammered, trying to change the topic. “You sent for me?”

“I had something to ask you, yes,” Wilbur said, lightly taking her hand in his as he leads her toward the edge where he was to see the stars begin to blink into existence. Wilbur took a deep breath. “We’ve been dating for a while now, and I was wondering… do you want to be my girlfriend?”

“Yes… I… nothing would make me happier than being with you, Wilby.”

-----------------------------------------------------

Take my hand

Take my whole life too

For I can’t help falling in love with you

“Wilbur, I’m pregnant,” Sally admitted, her hand still not letting his move from her belly. “It’s yours, Wilby.”

Wilbur brushed his hands through Sally’s hair, moving to cup her cheek, eyes darting back and forth. “Pregnant…?” He said, hopeful. It was their third day in Dream SMP - they’d been together for so long and had always wanted a family, but it never seemed to work no matter what they did. It seemed almost impossible to hear those words out of Sally’s mouth because for a long time Wilbur thought he’d never hear them. But here they were.

“We’re having a baby, Wilbur.” Sally smiled, leaning in against Wilbur’s chest and snugly putting her head between his neck and shoulder, wanting to be as close to him as possible. “You’re gonna be a Dad…”

Wilbur felt tears of joy go down his cheeks as he laughed softly, pulling Sally closer to rest her body against his fully, cuddling her close. His hands rubbed gently on her stomach, and he leaned up to kiss her softly on the neck. Their other hands interlocked tightly. “How… how long?”

“Three months. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a fluke before I told you.”

“I’m gonna be a Dad…” Wilbur sighed, kissing Sally’s cheek softly. “You’re gonna be a Momma.”

“I know. I didn’t believe it when I found out either. I was worried they’d… but they didn’t. They’re still here.”

“My little champion, my little warrior…” Wilbur smiled, tears going down his cheeks as he looked down at Sally’s stomach. “Don’t stop fighting now, okay? You’ve got so many people who’ve been waiting so long to finally meet you. I can’t wait to meet you.”

“I love you, Wilby.” Sally smiled, content. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Sally.” Wilbur breathed, holding his girlfriend close and not prepared to let her go anytime soon.

------------------------------------------------

Like a river flows

Surely to the sea

Darling, so it goes

Some things are meant to be.

“Fine, I’ll go with you. Just leave the baby, please.”

“A wise decision. The Queen will be pleased to hear of your arrival back into the Pod.”

“You’ll leave the baby alone, and the humans?”

“Humans?” The guard with a necklace like hers smirked, holding back a laugh. “Why would we possibly care about humans?”

Sally held her baby close one last time as she ran her fingers through the small child’s fur. She still hadn’t even opened her eyes yet. She’ll have no idea what her own mother even looks like. She moved to kiss her daughter on the forehead as her black nose sniffed intently at her scent, not knowing it would be the last time she’d smell it. Her daughter, her little miracle. “I love you, don’t forget your mother loves you.” Carefully, she set the basket in the pond and with a little magic from her necklace, moved the water to drift the baby down a small river toward L’manburg. They’d all be safe, that’s all that matters now.

“Come on, Salaria. The Queen is awaiting your presence.”

“Of… of course.” Sally turned with a sigh as she sorrowfully followed her captor through the trees and away from her home. Her real home.

------------------------------------------------------

“Take my hand

Take my whole life too

For I can’t help falling in love with you.”

Sally sat near the water with Ghostbur, her heart shattered seeing him but was happy that she was able to, at least one last time. She sat with her arms crossed on the beach, her tail submerged in the water, her necklace gone. As punishment for ‘abandoning’ the Pod, she was no longer able to shift like the others and able to travel to the surface again. Her necklace was smashed, along with her hopes of ever seeing her real family ever again. At least now she could properly say goodbye to him, maybe even apologize. She slowly finished the song as Ghostbur continued to strum, listening intently.

“For I can’t help falling in love with you.”

“I… sang this for you?”

“All the time back in the day. You were very romantic.” Sally reassured Ghostbur. “We’d sing it together sometimes, other times you just strummed it on your guitar. It’s our song. Don’t you remember?”

“No, I…” A dark blue tear slid down the ghost’s cheek. “I don’t. I really want to, though. I want to remember you. I want to remember how it felt to love you, I’m really trying, but… but I can’t.”

Slowly, as Ghostbur sobbed Sally’s hand found its way into the ghost’s. “It’s okay. One day you’ll remember, I know you will. Whenever you do, I’ll be waiting right here for you. I love you, Ghostbur.” Sally said, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. “I love you no matter what.”

[fangirlwriting-stories]

Reflecting Light

Chapter Three:

Roman had never really left the base before.  Sure, he’d gone on missions before, but he hadn’t ever been in an actual town, and the one with all the night missions was Remus.  All of this meant that Roman wasn’t really sure how to act around these people.

He’d decided after the third staring person to just stick close to Shane, no matter how irritated it made him.  He therefore spent most of the morning watching from behind as Shane talked to shoppers and shop owners about whether or not they had seen Roman.

It was after Shane left the sixth shop with no information looking more than a little irritated that Roman finally made some progress himself.

“No one’s gonna tell you.”

Roman turned and found himself face to face with a girl who looked about eight.  “What?”

“No one knows.  And no one’s gonna tell you even if they did.  They don’t like you guys.”

“Rosey!” a woman called desperately, running for the girl from a little ways away by a garden and pulling her back.  “What have I told you about talking to the guards?”  The woman looked up at him.  “I am so sorry… sir.”

Roman raised an eyebrow.  This woman looked like she was ten years older than him at least, she didn’t have to call him sir.  He considered a second before waving the matter off, and the woman pulled Rosey back over to the garden and crouched down, clearly giving her daughter a talking to.

Roman looked at them for another moment before he walked away, considering what she said.  He looked for where Shane had gone and couldn’t find it anywhere.

Roman bit his lip and thought for another second.  He looked down at his uniform and frowned.  After a second, he pulled Patton’s cat hoodie out of his backpack and pulled it on, making sure to cover the insignia that declared him as part of The Light.

He walked a couple steps to a nearby alleyway and headed down to a different street that looked like a marketplace.  He headed up to the first booth he saw.  “Hi.”

The man inside looked up and smiled at him.  Woah, that was the first time anyone had done that so far.  “Well, hello there.  Would you like some bread today?”

“Oh, I’m not here to shop, I’m just looking for my brother,” Roman said.  “He seems to have vanished overnight.  He looks like me, like exactly?  We’re identical twins.  You wouldn’t happen to have seen him, would you?”

The man gave him a sympathetic smile.  “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I haven’t.  If you want better luck, I would try the help booth down at the other end of the marketplace.  It’s specifically for tourists, if someone saw your brother, they’d know.”

“Thanks,” Roman said, deciding to ignore the insane fact that people actually came to this town as tourists.  He headed over to the booth the man pointed out and waited as a group in front of him finished their conversation.  As they walked off, Roman stepped forward and was met with an old woman smiling at him.

“Hello, sir, how can I help you?”

“I’m trying to find my brother,” Roman said.  “He disappeared last night, and the last time someone saw him was in this town.”

“Do you not live here?” the woman asked in confusion.

“We live in the next town over,” Roman lied.  “I’m just worried something happened to him.”

“Oh, poor dear, I’ll see what we have.  What does your brother look like?”

“We’re identical twins.”

The woman nodded a little and pulled out a notebook that she flipped to the end of.  “Oh!  Your brother’s in the rebellion?” she asked in surprise, looking up a second later.

Roman took a step back.  “Excuse me?”

“Well, I have one account of someone saying they saw someone who matches your description on a rebellion pirate ship.  He must have been a new member of the crew or they wouldn’t have thought it worth noting.”  The woman looked up at him.  “It’s Janus and Virgil Picani, which is of course why we know them.”

“Of course,” Roman said with a nod like that made any sense.  “You said someone saw Remus on that ship?”

“Yes.  I don’t know when they’ll be back, but I would imagine it would be rather hard to catch up with a flying pirate ship.  They’ll be back here eventually if you’d want to wait here for your brother.”

“I don’t have time,” Roman said, brushing right past the flying pirate ship what the hell?  “I have to find him soon or—” he stopped.

“Or?”

“Nothing.  It’s personal,” Roman muttered.  “Do you have any idea which way the ship went?”

“Of course.  They headed south.  They’re making their rounds?” the woman asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh!  Right, duh!” Roman said, smacking his forehead as if he should know that.  “Sorry, just… worried.”

The woman’s gaze softened.  “That’s understandable,” she said.  “Let me know if I can help you with anything else.”

“Will do,” Roman called, waving as he turned to head back for the street he came from.

Remus was on a flying pirate ship?  He had to be hundreds of miles away by now!  What was he going to do?

“Roman, where have you been?”

Roman spun around to find Shane marching towards him with his arms crossed.

“And what are you wearing?” Shane asked when he stopped right over him.

Roman looked down at Patton’s hoodie and pulled it off.  “No one was giving us information because we’re Light soldiers,” Roman said.  “So I disguised myself, and uh, I figured out where Remus went?”

Shane hummed thoughtfully.  “Impressive.”

Roman smiled despite himself.  “Thanks.  But the news isn’t good.  I think Remus was kidnapped.”

“Oh?  What makes you say that?”

“The woman I talked to said he was on a rebellion ship owned by Janus and Virgil Picani, and—”

Shane suddenly laughed, and Roman stopped talking.

“You think two of the highest ranking members of the rebellion kidnapped your brother specifically?”

Roman blinked in surprise.  Highest ranking members?  Remus, what the hell did you get yourself into?

“It’s… not impossible,” Roman said weakly.  “Maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Hmm.  He is good at that,” Shane mused.

“Yeah, exactly!” Roman called.  “But uh…”  He bit his lip.  “The real problem is they have a flying pirate ship.  And the woman I talked to said she wouldn’t be sure when he’d be back.”

Shane nodded.  “We’ll have to go back for a ship of our own then.”

Roman blinked.  “We have a flying pirate ship?  And we’re going to use it to get Remus?”

“Roman,” Shane said, looking back at him.  “I said I would help you look for two months.  I’m not going back on my word.  And I have… very strong emotions regarding your brother.”

Roman’s eyes widened.  He hadn’t realized Shane cared that much.  Well, he’d been around for most of Remus and his childhood, so he supposed that could easily result in caring about someone.  “…so do I,” Roman replied lamely.

Shane gave him an amused look.  “Yes, I know.  He’s your brother.  Come on, we have a ship to go get.”

…

Roman had been kind of hoping for a chance to see Patton and Logan when they got back, but Shane headed them both straight for an area that Roman had never seen before.  Which honestly was a little surprising.  There weren’t too many places in their base that Roman hadn’t seen.  He had grown up here, after all.

It made more sense when he saw where specifically they were going.  He was barred from the area that belonged to people who had a leadership position.  And Shane led them straight through there, past rooms and the nice cafeteria, and into a massive room that was filled wall to wall with various kinds of vehicles for travel.  Most of the ships were kept at the docks nearby, but there were plenty of carriages and carts in here, and one ship that Shane led them both to near the back.

“This isn’t on the docks?” Roman asked in confusion.

“Why would you keep a flying ship on the docks?” Shane asked.  “We can just as easily open the roof.”

Roman looked upwards to try and process that statement.  The roof did appear to have some kind of large split down the middle.  Was Shane saying that opened?

“Roman, run to the cafeteria and tell them we need supplies for two months.  They’ll give us a week’s worth of food that we’ll stock up at a town and two months of supplies for everything else.”

Roman nodded and headed back towards the cafeteria he’d seen before.

The guard standing in front of the door stopped him as he approached.  “Hey, you’re not allowed back here.”

“We need supplies for a two month trip,” Roman said.  “Shane and I.”

The guard must have been familiar with what they were doing, because he nodded and opened the doors.  Roman was about to start heading in when he was stopped again.  The guard said something aside to the person who was immediately inside, and that person jogged off.

“You wait here,” the guard said, turning back to Roman.  “We’ll get your things for you and help you carry them back to your ship.”

“Oh.  Thank you,” Roman said, moving to stand back against the other wall.

It was quiet for a couple seconds when the guard huffed a laugh and shook his head.

Roman looked back over at him.  “What?”

“You’re wasting your time,” the guard said.  “Your brother clearly doesn’t want to be found.”

Roman grit his teeth and squeezed his hands into fists.  “And how the hell would you know?”

“Because he’s running.  People can’t be kidnapped from this facility, idiot.  Many have tried, all have failed.  He’s clearly trying to run from something.”

Roman narrowed his eyes.  “Don’t pretend like you understand my brother.”

The guard snorted.  “Please.  Does anyone understand your brother?  Do you even understand your brother?”

“Of course I do!” Roman snapped, ignoring the way that the statement felt much less true than it would have yesterday.  “How the hell do you know where I’m going anyway?”

The guard smirked.  “You and Remus are all anyone’s talking about.  The scared soldier who got down on his knees and begged for his traitorous brother’s life to be spared?  You’re pathetic.”

Roman was getting very close to storming across the room and smacking the guard.  Which would be a terrible idea.  Roman was far from helpless, and very in shape from the fact that he worked out all the time, but that guard was massive.  He could easily crush Roman like a bug.

Luckily, before either of them even had a chance to say anything else, the doors opened behind the guard and another three emerged, each carrying a crate of supplies.  They looked at Roman like they were expecting him to lead the way, so he headed back towards the other room, trying to ignore the anger still rising in his chest towards the other guard, who stayed behind to keep watching the door.

Shane had finished setting up a small ship that looked like it could easily be run by the two of them.  He also had in fact opened the roof by the time they walked back inside.  Roman looked up at the open roof for a couple seconds as the guards carried the supplies over to the ship.

After a second Shane called his name and Roman jerked back to attention and jogged over to the ship.  He climbed on just as the guards finished setting the crates in what looked like a small cargo hold.  Shane was adjusting something by the navigation tools and the wheel that would steer, and waved all the guards off as he started adjusting mechanisms.

Roman walked over to where Shane was standing as all of the other guards were moving to stand back from the ship.

“Have you ever flown before?”

Roman shook his head.

Shane chuckled.  “Then hold on tight.”

The next second the ship shook lightly and started to rise into the air.  Roman cried out a little in surprise and held onto the side of the small vessel.  They rose straight up until they had moved past anything else they could hit, and then Shane moved the wheel and they started turning.  It took only a couple seconds after that for them to rise above the base, and… woah.

Now that was a view.

“Alright, get ready to move fast,” Shane said, and a second after that they flew off into the distance.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Roman called over the wind.

“I’ve had suspicions about Janus Picani’s regular travel paths for a while now.  No one has ever thought I have strong enough proof for it to be worth looking.  Guess it’s time to test my theory.”

“It’s a place to start,” Roman muttered, moving towards the side of the ship to watch the land pass underneath them.

“Okay, Remus,” Roman muttered.  He looked off into the distance and sighed.  “You better not be a fucking traitor.”

Chapter Four

[leelysian]

Changbin as your older brother AU 💖✨

genre: fluff, bullet point fic

word count: 2.3k

warnings: swearing

Disclaimer: I do not personally know Changbin. This work is purely fiction and my own idea. I took inspiration from his on screen persona. Please do not translate or re-upload my work.

A/N: hi :) Sorry if this is kinda bad. I’m running out of ideas for this series(?). It’s really hard to write these aus for the members when there’s limited knowledge about them and when you’re trying to make everything seem different without making it seem like they’re all one dimensional and cut from the same cloth. Thank you to everyone who has been reading these older brother aus and thank you for being patient. Please leave some feedback, it really keeps me going. ❤️

☆ Let’s start with you as babies.

☆ Changbin would for sure as kiddy questions like “How did the baby get inside mummy’s tummy?” “When will baby come out?” “How does baby poop?”

☆ Your parents either answered him vaguely or somehow dodged his questions.

☆ Would sleep in your parents bedroom close to your mum to protect her baby bump.

☆ Would be hella excited to feel you kick in your mum’s tummy.

☆ Would say cute things to the baby bump. “Come out quickly baby I can’t wait to play with you.” “We can play with *insert favourite toy* together.” “We’re going to have a lot of fun together.” I am close to tears

☆ Doesn’t care about the gender.

☆ When you were born, he was extremely excited to see you but little Binnie patiently waited till your parents had their moment first until they ushered him to the hospital bed.

☆ He was wide eyed as he held you as if scared to hurt you. He smiled when he stroked your cheek with a finger and smiled wider when you grabbed onto his finger.

☆ CUDDLES, CUDDLES AAAAAAAND MORE CUDDLES

☆ Tried to help your parents take care of you but most of the time failed.

☆ *tries to put pants on you* *gets kicked in the face instead*

☆ The only thing he could properly do was cuddle you as he fed you a bottle and somehow you ate properly if he was the one feeding you when you were being fussy.

☆ *you two fall asleep while he’s holding you*

☆ Adoring/curious stares.

☆ Fed you a bit of lemon for jokes when you were starting to grow teeth and had the time of his fricking life when he saw your reaction.

☆ I’m talking the kind of laughs he does with his whole body.

☆ Helped you learn how to walk patiently. Just laughed when you fell on your butt.

☆ Taught you how to high 5 at a very young age.

☆ You talked to him a lot. Not like he understood what you said because it was mostly babbling but it was fun for both of you.

☆ You broke a lot of his toys. He’d get upset until he got new ones.

☆ The one toy he never shared with you was Gyu, his plushie.

☆ Fast forward you’re older and know how to walk and talk coherently, Changbin is a kid.

☆ Changbin wants cookies but they’re on the top shelf and your mum purposefully put them there so neither of you could reach.

☆ “Changbin what are you doing?” 

☆ Changbin: 👀

☆”I’m gonna tell mum~”

☆ “NO DON’T. If you help me, I’ll give you a cookie then you have to promise me you won’t tell mum.”

☆ Your smart ass contemplated for a few seconds before you agreed, “Ok what do we do?”

☆ “If I lift you up can you grab the jar? Don’t drop it.”

☆ “Yes.”

☆ Somehow both of you managed to retrieve the jar unscathed. Why none of you thought to grab a chair and do it, I don’t know.

☆ One cookie turned to two then three until the jar was half empty and your dad caught you. 

☆ Everyone except you two with crumbs around your mouths in the room:️  

👁️👄👁️

☆ Your dad walked in with brooding eyes. He grabbed a cookie and started eating quietly, “It’s a secret.”

☆ All three of you smiled happily and continued munching on the cookies.

☆ Until a while later your mum walked in and gasped, “YOU ATE ALL THE COOKIES?! *insert dad’s name* YOU WERE IN ON THIS TOO!”

☆ The three of you gulped nervously until you said, “No mum look! We saved a few for you!” The three of you smile innocently.

☆ Your mum sighed and smiled exasperatedly. “This is the last time.” A chorus of agreement sang throughout the room yet nobody meant a single word.

☆ Most of the time you two were hyperactive and played around so much you’d be knocked out cold by the time it was around 9 pm. 

☆ Your parents had to lug you to your shared room.

☆ You two played tag a lot, he was really fast so you’d always get tagged very quickly.

☆ HIDE AND SEEK

☆ Running. So much running. You’re the hyper kids.

☆ Rock paper scissors. Winner flicks the loser’s forehead. Changbin always took the penalty but never really doled it out on you, if he did it wasn’t too hard. 

☆ Races. “LAST ONE IS A ROTTEN EGG!” 

☆ Changbin could easily win, but sometimes he slowed down purposefully to let you win for a change.

☆ Giggles. Giggles everywhere. Giggles all the time.

☆ Pillow forts in your room. 

☆ Tickle fights.

☆ Cuddling together while watching cartoons.

☆ You thought he was cool.

☆ He liked you thinking so highly of him.

☆ Made him want to be even cooler for you.

☆ He’d ruffle your hair playfully.

☆ He’d pinch your nose. “AAAAHHH”

☆ He’d pull your hair.

☆ PIGGY BACK RIDES!!!!!!!!!

☆ Such a joker. It was harmless fun.

☆ Once you doodled on his school notes. He got mad and stopped talking to you.

☆ He rarely got angry at you, sure you two bickered sometimes and sometimes got whiny at each other.

☆ You apologised with a treat you got, instead of eating it by yourself, you gave it to him as a peace offering. 

☆ He didn’t eat it himself, he shared. “It’s okay just don’t do it again. These are important. You’ll know when you get older.”

☆ “Ok. I’m sorry.”

☆ Things became alright again.

☆ Fast forward you’re tweens/teens/young adults.

☆ The dynamic is wild.

☆ You two would always goof around like idiots.

☆ Changbin annoyed you a lot.

☆ “Y/N look over there!” you’re stuck in visible confusion. *smacks your head and runs* 

☆ “CHANGBIN!”

☆ You’re eating chips. “Y/n what’s that?” “What’s what?” *steals bag* 

☆ “When are you gonna stop tricking me?”

☆ “When are you gonna stop falling for that?” 

☆ You get pissed.

☆ Then it escalates into a wrestling match until ultimately you get hurt and start nearly crying in pain.

☆ “FUCK! SHIT SHIT SHIT I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY HERE YOU CAN HIT ME BACK. PLEASE DON’T TELL MUM! PLEASE STOP CRYING!” 

☆ You’re watching tv peacefully. Changbin walks in with a nerf gun/water gun. “REACH FOR THE SKY!”

☆ The living room turns into a warzone or a set for mission impossible.

☆ You ‘borrow’ his clothes. “Y/N STOP STEALING MY SHIT!”

☆ He ‘borrows’ your charger. “GET YOUR OWN CHARGER CHANGBIN!”

☆ He casually strolls into the living room, sits next to you with feet propped up on the table, snatches the remote when you’re not looking and changes the channel. 

☆ “HEY I WAS WATCHING THAT!”

☆ “Well too bad. I don’t wanna watch it.”

☆ “GIMME THE REMOTE!” “No :}”

☆ Another wrestling match for the remote.

☆ You hide his glasses. Basically keep them with you.

☆ “Hey y/n have you seen my glasses?” “Nope.”

☆ He looks EVERYWHERE. 

☆ You keep them on top of the tv when he’s away. “Hey Changbin found it on the tv.”

☆ “That’s weird I don’t remember putting them there. The heck?”

☆ “Maybe you’re just losing your mind. Already becoming an oldie?”

☆ “I may be old but I can still kick your ass.”

☆ You’re the younger sibling that either grows up to the same height as him quicker or grows taller than him somehow.

☆ He hates it. You thrive on it. “Hehe shortie. Can you even reach?”

☆ So he started working out to tone up.

☆ You’re barely able to lift a heavy box. He picks it up with ease. “Do you even lift?”

☆ He’s washing the dishes. You leave your dish for him and sneak out. “Y/N! I SWEAR-”

☆ You have a lit music taste because of him. 

☆ You’re sleeping, he’s up early. You need to go to school. Instead of waking you up like a normal person, he pulls the blankets completely off of you and tackles you. “Y/N WAKE UP!”

☆ “CHANGBIN YOU CRAZY BASTARD! DO YOU WANNA DIE?!”

☆ You two are eating. He’ll finish eating seemingly at the speed of light and stare at you eating. “I’m not sharing.”

☆ “I didn’t say anything.”

☆ awkward silence

☆ You pass your food to him. “You owe me, pabbit (pig + rabbit)”

☆ Both of you forget about it later on.

☆ He’s hella clumsy.

☆ He’d definitely break a glass or plate or vase.

☆ He’s the type to fix something just enough to make it seem not broken so the next person who uses it would think they broke it.

☆ Anything to not get his ass handed to him by mummy dearest.

☆ You do this thing to annoy him which is basically mock/copy him when he tells you something. 

☆ “Hey you know-” “Hey you know-” “you know that-” “you know that-” this continues a few more times until he screams and tackles you.

☆ You did this thing where you literally jumped on his back when he was unaware and you'd stick to him. The scream was worth bursting your eardrums. Worked every time.

☆ He was built he could carry you.

☆ Another thing is copying his actions.

☆ He yawns, you yawn. He scratches his nose, you copy. He stretches, you stretch. He shifts, you copy. 

☆ “STOP COPYING ME!” “Stop copying me” “I said STOP COPYING ME!” “I said stop copying me!”

☆ “I hate you.” “I love you too bro.”

☆ His friends like you and a lot of times you hang out with him and his friends.

☆ He wears the weirdest stuff just for shits and giggles.

☆ “Hey y/n.” “What?” you look at him and burst out laughing.

☆ Where he got a shark head mask, you had no idea. You had tears running down your face as he started to sing and sexy dance to baby shark.

☆ “STOP I’M GONNA PEE!”

☆ You two say the darndest things.

☆ “I just realised- if vampires can’t go out in the sunlight then wouldn’t the moonlight kill them too?

☆ “How?”

☆ “Moonlight is just the sunlight shining from behind the moon dumbass.”

☆ “Oh shit you’re right.”

☆ Another example of this would be:

☆ “The hospital is the only place you leave without entering.”

☆ Both of you:  👁️👄👁️

☆ You’re eating watermelon. You bite some of the white bit.

☆ “I just realised the worst part of the watermelon tastes like a cucumber.”

☆ awkward silence “wait you’re right.”

☆ “Anyways, here you can wash the plates.”

☆ “Y/N!”

☆ AEGYO FLUFFY GOODNESS

☆ Will use everything in his cuteness arsenal to get what he wants.

☆ You hate to admit it actually works sometimes.

☆ “Y/n~ pleeeaaaseee get me some cookies.”

☆ “No.”

☆ He keeps whining and rocking or shaking you. “PLEEEEAAAAAASEEE”

☆ “FINE!”

☆ Who’s really the older sibling and who’s really the younger sibling?

☆ “You know you could’ve just gotten them yourself with the time it took you to annoy me into getting them for you?”

☆ He just smiles toothily. 

☆ “If you could choose between a giant me or 5 mini me’s which would you choose?”

☆ “Neither I’d rather die.”

☆ “Y/N! WHYYYYY” he whines and shakes you.

☆ He’s always there for you when you need him the most. He’ll always comfort you with tight hugs. 

☆ He’s the type of person to make silly jokes and make you smile or laugh to make you feel better instead of sort of brooding with you.

☆ This is only acceptable with him, if anyone else tried to be goofy when you were upset it wouldn’t work.

☆ Because it’s Changbin’s thing. Only he has that power.

☆ You rarely see him upset. He’s always smiling, joking around and acting cute.

☆ One time, really late at night you saw him in the kitchen sitting with a glass of milk. He hadn’t noticed you. 

☆ This was off putting because you rarely saw him this quiet. He’s always laughing and loud.

☆ He was staring off in the distance, the glass gathering condensation from being out of the fridge and into warm temperature.

☆ “Can’t sleep?” He was startled and shook his head no. “What’s on your mind?”

☆ “It’s nothing.” You sat with a glass of water. “You know you can tell me, right?”

☆ “I know I just don’t wanna bother you.” he said and this confused you. “Why would you be bothering me? That’s absurd.”

☆ He shrugged, “I dunno, seems like all I do is annoy people these days.”

☆ You pat his back. “Hey, that’s not true. Well it only applies to me because you’re my sibling. That’s a thing. Is there anything specific you’re talking about?”

☆ He stays quiet for what seems like the longest time until he unloads. 

☆ You’re not good with words like he is. You try your best to listen and give sensible input. 

☆ Changbin admired that about you. Despite being younger, you were sometimes mature and understanding. You were authentic, you never tried to be something you weren’t.

☆ Which is why he always valued your words. 

☆ Afterwards if he had anything on his mind, sometimes he’d vent to you.

☆ You the ability to make his insecurities disappear simply because he feels stupid for the way he thinks when he talks to you. 

☆ You make his problems miniscule, not in a belittling way but in a way that makes him realise how things could be different or done differently.

☆ Your sense of perception was something amazing.

☆ This is why Changbin believed you were the best sibling he could ask for.

☆ But little did he know, you wouldn’t be able to function properly if he wasn’t the goofy, silly, clumsy, idiotic Changbin who exists today.

☆ He’s just the right type of flavour you need in your bland life.

☆ don’t be shy put some more.

☆ He’s the right balance of a clown, a baby and a guardian angel.

☆ He’s extremely caring, loyal, kind hearted and annoying.

☆ You’d change absolutely nothing.

[sapphirelass]

Failure - Weasley Family x Weasley!Sister

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧I solemnly swear that I am up to no good✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

'Ello everyone! Once again it's been ages since I posted a story. I promise I am writing!!! I'm just... writing veeeeeerrrrrrryyyy slowly... But hey, what can one do?

Tbh, I'm not too sure about this one, but I have been working on it for weeks now, so I'm just gonna post it and hope someone likes it. I have some other fics coming up (hopefully) soon - and mainly HP actually! I started writing for Percy Jackson, Team Flash, Spider-Man and a few other characters, but I'm in such a Harry Potter mood at the moment (thanks to the 20th-anniversary reunion)... Ahhhh... I don't know! Anyways, I'll get back to writing for someone and let you all enjoy this sad thing for now! See yah!

Note: As always I'm finishing this late at night meaning I will probably have to reread this one more time and check for potential errors, but it's late, so I'm just going to trust Grammarly and post it for now! Enjoy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please note:

1: I don’t own any of the gifs used, nor any already established characters, so credit to the authors and original creators - You have done a phenomenal job :)

2: English is not my native language, as I was born and raised in Sweden. I have, however, studied English for almost a decade, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem, I just thought I’d let you know ;)

+ CEFR level C2 (due to passing the C1 advanced test with an A)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Word count: ≈ 3,1k

Warnings: Mild swearing, death eaters, cruciatus curse (not very descriptive), angst, feeling anxious,

Enjoy! :)

Read as reader insert instead of xOC

~~~Failure - Weasley Family x Weasley!Sister~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’m serious, dad, there’s nothing to worry about - the plan is fool-proof!”

Melanie rushed furiously up the stairs of her childhood home with her backpack in her right hand. She had been trying to get everything packed for half an hour, desperately wanting to be 100% ready once her mother would wake up, as it would be next to impossible to prepare for her next job with Mrs Weasley around. Melanie had however not expected her dad to be too much of a problem - it was usually him who would convince his wife not to worry about the kids every time they left the house - but clearly, the task she had been assigned meant taking a risk so big that even Arthur was hesitant about letting his daughter go.

“I know it sounds that way, sweetie, but this job is not like anything you’ve ever done before, it’s… It’s… It’s different, an-”

It felt both weird and oddly familiar at the same time. She had moved to her own flat a few years earlier and had gotten used to not having overprotective brothers and parents trying to prevent her from going on dangerous missions. Originally, she hadn’t planned to go back ‘home’ until after this job, but her mother had started driving her younger siblings mad, causing them to send a letter asking their older sister to PLEASE come home and help prepare for Bill and Fleur’s wedding. It had been a long time since Melanie last had to handle this situation, but her father seemed to have no problem picking up where they left off.

“How, dad?” She turned around and violently pulled a hand through her red hair, desperately trying to keep her voice down. “Apprehending people who turned to the dark arts is literally my job, at least this time we know what to expect! We just have to transport the death eaters from point A to point B as smoothly as possible, and even if they should try to break free, there’ll be four of them, and twelve of us - surely three aurors could take down one wandless death eater?”

Arthur remained quiet for a few seconds, causing his daughter to put her backpack on the floor, walk a few steps back down the stairs, and pull him in for a hug.

“Look, Dad, I know it’s not without risk, but… I’ve got to go. I don’t think the question any longer is if you-know-who is gonna take control of the ministry, but when, and once that time comes we have to be prepared for anything. The best we can do is make sure the most dangerous people are in a secure place, and well guarded. As much as I hate it, Azkaban is the safest bet, otherwise, they’ll all be back out on the streets, and everything we have worked for these past two years will have been for nothing. We’ll just have to hope that the dementors won’t switch sides. I’m sorry... I love you.”

It wasn’t only a long hug, but a long-awaited one as well.

“I love you too, darling, which is why I don’t want you to do this. I understand your reasoning but…”

“Dad? Mel? You’re home already?”

Melanie looked over her dad’s shoulder and immediately walked into the arms of the person who had called her name - her older brother.

“Bill…”

He hugged his sister tightly and put his right hand comfortingly on the back of her head. She was shaking slightly, but Bill pulled her in even closer and put his head on top of hers. This was why Melanie always tried to prepare, pack and leave quickly every time she was assigned a mission - that way she left no room for any nerves and could focus on the task at hand without getting too scared or anxious. Don’t get it wrong, she loved protecting others and knew it was an important job, but overthinking things just made her realize how much she had to lose. Being around her extremely caring family made that even worse.

“Shhh… Mel, breathe, easy, you’re fine.”

“Yeah, I know, I know… It’s just, I don’t like thinking too much about it. I’m good, though, and I’ve missed you.”

“I know… ‘n I’ve missed you too. Hey, not that I’m not happy to see you, but why are you home? And awake?”

“Mum needed some help with the wedding preparations, and…”

Bill moved his gaze from his sister to his father, silently asking for a response.

“Your sister is leaving for work.”, said Arthur slowly. “It’s just not an easy decision. It’s not-”

“-It’s not safe.”. Melanie’s gaze wandered nervously around the living room - her parents’ house still being one of the few places where she felt properly at home. She smiled slightly when she noticed a brown plush rabbit sitting on a shelf. It was her favourite toy when she was younger and had been her father’s before her. “Heck, it’s really, really dangerous, but it has to be done. I don’t have a choice, and as much as I would love to stay here with you, the longer I do the harder it becomes to leave.” She sighed. “But I have to go. Bill, will you please tell mum I’m sorry when she wakes?”

Bill looked at his sister, not really wanting to let her go, but understanding exactly how she felt. “Of course.” He grabbed the backpack and handed it to her before placing his hands firmly on her shoulders. “Stay safe, okay? Promise us that!”

“Bill-”

“Mel!”

“Stop it! You know I can’t promise something like that. I swear I’ll do my best, though.”

“Good. Then go, I’ll see you next week?”

Melanie smiled. “Yeah, around lunchtime on Wednesday. Bye, Bill. Bye, dad.”

Arthur looked out the window and sighed sadly as his daughter disapparated. “I remember when I feared for her life because she kept climbing the big apple tree… Now I almost wish she was there, hanging on to one of the top branches, swinging back and forth.” He closed his eyes and leant against the wall behind him. “At least then I could see her. Make sure she didn’t fall.”

“I know, dad. But she’s not a kid anymore.”

“She’ll always be my kid.”

“She’ll always be short.”

“Bill!”

“Jokin’! C’mon, dad, let’s go have a cup of tea, yeh?”

————————

‘The plan is fool-proof!’ Melanie coughed slightly and regretted her words as she was hit with yet another curse. The plan had been fool-proof… apart from the fact that someone at the ministry clearly had leaked information to the death eaters. The mission had relied on secrecy. It had been planned in secret and only the 12 aurors and a few ministry officials had known the details. Despite that, around 30 death eaters attacked as soon as the transport had left the city, and due to their numbers, the aurors barely stood a chance.

“Jackson, we need to get out of here as soon as possible! There’s no way we’ll be able to fight them all off.”

“You’re probably right, Weasley.”, he shouted while sending a death eater flying off his broom. “But how did this happen? We were so careful!?”

“Yeah, I don’t know.” Melanie swiftly flew out of the way as a flash of green light almost touched her side. “But that doesn’t really matter right now. Wilson’s wounded, can you help him.”

“Sure.”

“And then get out before anyone’s killed.”

He frowned and nodded towards her. “You too.”

“Yeah, course. I’m just gonna try to take Dolohov down. I really don’t want him out and about again.”

The auror seemed to doubt his college’s decision for a second but was familiar with her family’s history with that particular death eater. “Fine, but be careful! I mean it, Mel.” He looked straight into her eyes. “Don’t take any unnecessary risks!”

“Oh, you know me, Jacky. Careful planning, no risktaking.”

“Good. See you in the office tomorrow, then. Good luck.”

————————

Melanie battled her way through a few death eaters and eventually found herself sneaking up on Dolohov.

“Expelliarmus.”

He turned around in surprise as his wand flew out of his hand.

“Incarcerus.”

Thick ropes bound the death eater, effectively preventing him from escaping. However, Melanie was so focused on arresting the man who murdered two of her uncles that she completely missed someone approaching her from behind.

“Crucio”

She fell and dropped her wand as intense pain spread through her body. It was pain beyond anything she could ever have imagined. She unwillingly let out a scream as the pain intensified before suddenly lessening. Despite coughing and struggling, she tried to get back up on her feet but fell yet again as the same kind of agony, only a hundred times worse forced her to focus solely on not passing out.

“Well, well, well… We counted on a few random aurors to stand in our way, but who knew we’d stumble upon a blood traitor as well, huh?” The death eater, Augustus Rockwood, leant forward and spat on the ground, right by her face where she lay twitching in the mud. “How does it feel down there, Weasley? Feel at home?” He pulled Melanie to her knees and Dolohov, who had managed to untangle himself from the rope, walked up to her and grabbed her face roughly. “Striking resemblance”, he whispered before letting her fall again. She fought to get up but failed due to the horrendous curse still causing her pain. Her eyes slowly closed as she passed out on the cold, hard ground.

————————

“Good morning, dears.”, said Molly, cheerfully entering the kitchen after having forced everybody to get up at first light. She had been under extreme stress lately but seemed to be in a much better mood today and the rest of the family knew why - Melanie was coming home. Sure, that didn’t take away from the fact that the upcoming wedding meant a lot of hard work and careful planning, but having her oldest daughter home would at least help ease Mrs Weasley’s worry. “She’s not back yet, is she?”

“No, mum”, yawned Fred. “but-”

“She said she wouldn’t be back before lunch.”, finished George tiredly.

Their mother didn’t answer, but muttered something incoherent and went to prepare breakfast.

————————

Hours passed as the family worked to get everything ready, both for the wedding and for Harry’s birthday. Molly was so busy with preparations that she completely lost track of time, however, Fred & George started sharing worried glances around 10 am. Bill eventually noticed and had, a few hours later, become way too curious.

“Why do you two keep looking at the clock every other minute?”, he asked. “She said ‘lunch-time’, that could mean another 2-3 hours? Besides, it’s not like you to worry?”

“Well…it’s just…”

“Whenever Mel lets mum know when she thinks she’ll come home, she usually adds a few hours, sometimes an entire day.”

“That way, when she ends up being slightly late, mum doesn’t immediately lose it…”

“To be honest, we were kind of expecting her in time for breakfast, definitely before noon.”

Bill pulled his hand through his long hair (which he had not allowed his mother and her scissors to come close to) and glanced quickly out the window before looking back at his younger brothers. “Well, there’s not much we can do at the moment, is there? She’s smart and strong. Besides, it’s best not to get worried too easily, it’s probably just that dim-witted head of the department forcing her to work overtime.”

————————

Melanie groaned loudly as she slowly pushed herself up. She felt dizzy, her entire body hurt and she had no idea where she was. Actually, scratch that last bit. Looking around, she realized she was in a field of some sort and could see burned parts of the now broken carriage they had used to transport the prisoners. Her hair was dripping wet due to the heavy rain and she was freezing. Melanie struggled to stand and tried to determine roughly where they could have been when they were attacked. She knew that they had travelled northeast from London, towards Norwich, and that they probably hadn’t made it much further than Chelmsford. Her exact location didn’t really matter, though. It’s not like she could walk from London to Ottery St. Catchpole. That would take like two, maybe three, weeks in her current state - and that’s if she made it at all. No, she’d have to apparate, just not the entire distance in one go.

————————

“Bill, dear”, said Molly worriedly. “When did your sister say she’d be back from work?”

“I- I’m not sure”, Bill stuttered, as he sped down the stairs. “Around… dinnertime, I think?”

“What?”, asked Ron. “You said she said lunchtime!?”

Bill threw his head back and sighed as Fred kicked his younger brother under the table.

“Oh”, mumbled Ron, finally understanding. “Yeah, Bill’s right. She definitely said the evening.”

————————

But, dinnertime came and passed. Still no Melanie. When she still hadn't made it home a few days later, the Weasleys were forced to simply accept that something more serious had happened and just try to keep their hopes up. Molly, naturally, refused. Arthur had, while at work, done his very best to contact the other aurors that had been working that night, but unfortunately remained unsuccessful due to the now tense and strained situation at the ministry. Fleur had suggested delaying the wedding, but Bill insisted, claiming that this gave them even more of a reason to do it while they still had the chance. He could, however, barely stand the thought of not having one of his sisters there; it was difficult enough that Percy refused to come…

————————

She didn’t know how much time had passed, maybe a week, but eventually found herself slowly approaching her childhood home. After taking a few heavy steps, she stumbled slightly and would have tripped if not for two strong arms firmly grabbing her shoulders to keep her standing. She should probably be scared but somehow knew not to fight them.

“Mel!? Bloody hell, what in Merlin’s name happened to you?”

“Charlie?”, she gasped and grabbed her older brother’s coat as her legs suddenly gave out. “Is it really you?”

“Yeh, of course, it’s me.”, he put his sister’s arm over his shoulders. “Mel, I literally just came home, where have you been? What happened? Who did this to you?”

“Work, attacked, Rockwood”

He looked her up and down with a pained expression on his face. “Okay, come on - let’s get indoors.”

They walked slowly, Charlie carefully making sure that Melanie didn’t fall and simultaneously pepping her with questions. “How long have you been away? When were you supposed to get back to mum and dad’s?”

“Ehhh… I-I don’t know… A couple of days ago, maybe? It’s all kind of hazy right now, to be honest.”

“Holy Merlin… But wha-”

“Charlie, sorry”, she coughed slightly, “but would you mind if we wait? Mum and dad are going to want to hear everything and I don’t wanna have to relive it more times than needed…”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

He knocked carefully on the door, and it was only a matter of seconds before Arthur slowly opened it. He had his wand in a tight grip and was about to have Charlie confirm his identity when he noticed the state of the person standing next to his son. Their father’s eyes widened in shock and he looked absolutely horrified.

“Molly! Bill!!”

Melanie hadn’t heard such fear in her father’s voice since Ginny had been taken into the chamber of secrets four years earlier. He swallowed deeply. “Come in, quickly.”

Charlie put his sister on the sofa just as their mother, older brother and the twins came running down the stairs. They all grinned happily when they saw Charlie, but the smiles faded almost instantly.

“Mellie?” George effortlessly jumped over an old armchair and kneeled by the couch. “Are you okay?” He removed some blood from her face using the sleeve of his jumper.

She smiled and nodded weakly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t” *cough* “don’t worry. What happened to your ear?”.

Bill and Charlie embraced each other quickly while Molly joined George on the floor. The two oldest brothers both glanced at their sister. She lay so incredibly still; completely motionless save for her steady breathing. Just as those thoughts crossed his mind, Charlie noticed something and was about to point it out when Bill beat him to it.

The oldest brother had walked over to join his family by the sofa and placed a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “Mel? You’re twitching.”

“I know.” She sighed deeply. “It’ll pass, though.

He looked deep into her eyes and fought to keep eye contact when he whispered, “was it-”

“Yes”, she answered honestly. “But, Bill, I’d rather not talk about it, if that’s okay. Besides, it was way worse a few days ago… Speaking of which, what day is it?”

“Wednesday”, said Molly bitterly, obviously understanding the meaning of the words just exchanged between her oldest son and daughter, but deciding not to push it further. “10 days. 10 days, Mel. Not a word?”

“I’m sorry, mum. Truly.” She then explained everything, from the detailed plan to the overwhelming defeat. “Imagine if we had taken them down instead?” She put her head in her hands and sighed sadly. “Imagine how many people will die now, because we let them all go.”

“Sweetie”, sighed Arthur, taking her hands in his. ”You didn’t ‘let them go’. You did everything you could.”

She closed her eyes sadly. “Not enough, dad.”

“Mel”, said Bill seriously. “You can’t think like that. We’re at war, we can’t go in expecting to keep everybody safe. There will be casualties. Some of the death eaters didn’t make it either. Think instead of all the people who will survive the war now thanks to you.”

“Bill, I know for a fact that Rockwood and Dolohov got away. We’re all…”, she glanced carefully at her mother. “All aware that they won’t hesitate to kill. A-”

“It’s not like they’re invincible now?”, Fred interrupted. “Mel, you’ll get another chance. Just rest now, please. You’ll be back on the field in no time, and it’ll be like this never happened.”

“Sure, bu-”

“No!”, said Molly with a firm tone. “No buts! Fred is right, you need to rest, dear.” She kissed her daughter on her forehead and left the room. The others took that as a sign and left the room with a quick ‘sleep tight’ or ‘g’night’.

Melanie Weasley tried to listen to her family and put this minor setback behind her. She managed it for a while. At least until that fateful day of the final battle between good and bad. The day when the consequences of her failure became clear. The day her younger brother lost his life because of her.

~ L

Masterlist

Mischief Managed

Nox

[vampiregirl1797]

When You Have a Breakdown at Work

Jake Peralta x Reader

 GIF Not Mine

 Word Count: 3,184

 Warnings: maybe a little angst, & so much fluff

 Click Here For Masterlist

 Summary: Y/N’s having a bad day at work. The brother she hasn’t heard from in five years called to ask for bail money, and it brings back a lot of painful memories. More specifically, the memories of her parents turning her away after she removed the presence of her toxic brother from her life. Work isn’t the best place to have a breakdown, but the evidence room offers some privacy as she slowly falls apart, and when her partner finds her, his warm embrace provides some much needed comfort. As Y/N tells him what happened, he finds himself unable to hold his words back and ends up confessing how much she means to him. How will she react?

 I took another deep breath and forced myself to gently place my phone back on my desk, instead of throwing it through one of the precinct windows like I wanted to. Now wasn’t the time to express my anger and complete frustration—I was at work. Now was the time to be professional and get on with my job, no matter how unbelievably annoying my brother was.

He’d done it again. Gotten himself arrested for having drugs on his person and in his system evidently. His sentence was going to be higher than it usually was because the high quantity of illegal substances he had on him led the cops who arrested him to believe he had the intent to distribute. Hell, I wouldn’t even be surprised if he had turned to dealing—he couldn’t hold down any other work so why wouldn’t he try and make some money to ensure he could keep up his habit.

 I’d really tried with him, he was a year and seven months younger than me, and despite the fact that he towered over me and looked about forty five rather than thirty one, he was my little brother. But I’d disowned him about five years ago, after he’d gone off the rails for the third time, and I’d had to use what little savings I had to bail him out of jail, again. I realised then that I wasn’t family to him. I was a bank that he called up when he needed someone to come and save him because he couldn’t face the repercussions of his actions.

 That was the last time I’d saved his ass, and I told him that from that moment, as far as I was concerned, I no longer had a little brother. I was officially an only child. He hadn’t taken it well and my parents had taken it worse—they’d retaliated by disowning me. It had been hard for a while afterwards, but when I got transferred to the 99th precinct in Brooklyn, I found a new family. One that was better than the one I’d had, and I was incredibly grateful to have them all in my life every day.

 So, after all of this time, it came as a shock to receive a call from him. He’d gotten himself arrested again and apparently mom and dad couldn’t afford to bail him out this time. I idly wondered exactly how many other time’s they’d had to cough up some bail money for their perfect son, especially if it had gotten to the point of them having nothing left this time. I knew mom and dad had a nice little nest egg they’d put aside for their retirement—had he drained it all? I felt my heart clench at what that meant for them, but I didn’t let myself linger on it—it was their choice to keep him in their lives and ignore his toxic tendencies. I was not responsible for their choices and I was certainly not going to suffer the consequences of their actions.

 ‘Hey, Y/N did you finish the report for that B and E?’ Jake’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

 ‘Uh, yeah it’s on Holt’s desk.’ I forced a smile, grabbing some extra files I needed to finish and standing up, ‘I’m gonna go and finish these somewhere else. It’s a little loud in here, I can’t concentrate.’

 I fled before Jake could say anything in response—if I gave him the chance to talk he would comment on the fact that the bullpen was quieter than it ever was because him and I were the only ones there. Well, aside from Sarge and the Captain, but both were always quiet because they had their own paperwork to be getting on with. Rosa and Charles were out on a case and Amy was off for the weekend—apparently she was going to see a TED talk on body language…at least I think that’s what she’d said. Gina was out on lunch, but she’d been gone for at least two hours now—I was anyone’s guess if and when she was coming back.

 So really, needing quiet was a bogus excuse and Jake would pick up on that and start asking me what was wrong, and I didn’t want to talk about it. At least, not here anyway. Jake already knew about the non-existent relationship I had with my family—he was my partner and the stake outs, undercover missions and late nights filling out paperwork led to a lot of time for bonding. It was safe to say that the hyperactive man knew me better than anyone on the squad, or rather, anyone ever. There was just something about the brown haired, brown-eyed boy that made it impossible not to feel comfortable around him. I didn’t know if it was just a part of his personality, or if he was just the first and only person I’d ever clicked with so fast. Either way, I was lucky to have him in my life, as someone I could tell anything to, as someone I knew I could call at three in the morning because I needed to talk to someone who would listen… as someone I was starting to care for as more than a friend.

 I shook my head free of those thoughts and took a seat at the desk in the evidence room. I will only focus on my paperwork. With a determined nod I opened my files and started filling out the relevant information, placing sticky tabs onto the pages I’d need to get Peralta to sign too. It didn’t take as long as I’d thought and in no time, I’d finished the four lots of reports and I was staring blankly at one of the many plain brown boxes piled on the shelves of evidence lock up.

 These were times when I’d distract myself, refusing to linger on the pain and abandonment that sprang up inside of me whenever I thought about my family. Usually it worked great, and I got to a point where I could go months without them even crossing my mind. But I guess hearing my brother’s voice earlier was making it more difficult—he’d opened up the wound and I was going to have to wait for the skin to stitch itself back together.

 I knew I’d made the right decision for me—my brother was toxic and even though it hadn’t been easy, I’d cut him out of my life, because I just couldn’t be happy while I was constantly waiting for the phone to ring to bail his ass out of whatever problem he’d managed to get himself into. The thought of that isn’t what hurt; what hurt more than anything was how easily and quickly my parents had turned their backs on me. How couldn’t they see how poisonous, how selfish he was? Why couldn’t they understand why I had to do what I did?

 I took a deep breath and when it turned into a sob, the tears in my eyes spilled over. I leaned back in my chair, pulling my knees up to my chest and decided to indulge in a good cry. Everyone needed that once and a while, right? I hid my face in my knees and just let the tears, the sobs, all of it out. I’d been holding it in for a long time—while I’d shed a few tears over this predicament over the last five years, I’d never let myself go this much. And while my heart was throbbing painfully and my throat was starting to feel raw, it felt good to purge all of the feelings of abandonment, anger and hurt from my body.

 Being so lost in crying I hadn’t heard someone join me in the evidence room and I just about jumped a mile when I felt a hand on my back. I looked up to see Jake, his hands held in front of him defensively and his brown eyes shining with concern. Without much thought I practically leaped into his arms and buried my face in his chest, the sobs and tears continuing to fall from me—I was too far in to stop now, I had to let it run its course. Jake’s arms wound around me and he rested his chin on top of my head, murmuring soothing things to me. Eventually he sat in the chair I’d been on when he’d arrived, pulling me onto his lap and allowing me to nuzzle further into his warmth. He started to rub the bottom of my back comfortingly and I just about melted into him as the tears finally started to subside.

 I don’t know how long we were sat there for, but he never once complained or pushed me to talk about what had caused this reaction, even after the tears stopped. He just kept rubbing my back and occasionally placing a chaste kiss to my hair, which made my heart skip in my chest every time. I nuzzled my way up to the crook of his neck, inhaling his cologne and not fighting as my eyes fluttered shut at the comfort and security that intensified around me.

 ‘Thank you, Jake.’ I murmured, my voice was low but even I could hear how weak it sounded.

 ‘It’s no problem, Y/N.’ He kissed my hair again and I could sense that he was bracing himself to ask me something that he was worried I wouldn’t want to hear, ‘did something happen?’

 The question didn’t make me stiffen defensively like it would have if anyone else had asked. But coming from him, I didn’t mind, and so instead I sighed and melted further into him.

 ‘My bother called.’ I felt him stiffen momentarily—he knew that couldn’t mean anything good, especially with the state he’d found me in, ‘he was arrested for possession and intent to distribute. Mom and dad couldn’t afford to bail him out this time, apparently I was his last resort.’

 ‘What did you tell him?’ he asked, a little hesitantly.

 ‘I told him that I didn’t care and that it was about time he faced some repercussions for his actions. He told me I was a bitch and that I was dead to him. I told him he’d been dead to me for five years, harsh but true.’ I shrugged and Jake’s index finger tilted my chin up so he could study my eyes. I assumed he was trying to figure out if I was actually feeling as casual and dismissive as I was acting over the conversation I’d had with my brother.

 He frowned in confusion, ‘you don’t seem upset about that, so what’s bought this on?’

 Another sigh fell from me, my eyes fluttering closed as his hand caressed the side of my face, ‘over the past five years I’d gotten good at not thinking about my family, I’d just distract myself whenever a thought about them popped into my head.’ He nodded, but the crease between his brows hinted that his confusion lingered, ‘and I got to a point where they wouldn’t cross my mind for months, but that phone call, hearing his voice just bought it all back. Tore open the wound all over again, and while I honestly don’t care about my brother no longer being in my life… it still hurts that my mom and dad just disowned me so easily. I still don’t understand why. I get that they were pissed at me for disowning him, but why can’t they understand that with him in my life I was only ever on edge? That I couldn’t be truly happy while I was waiting for the phone to ring with him asking for more money to bail him out of whatever trouble he’d gotten himself into?’

 The pain in Jake’s eyes made my eyes tear up all over again, touched that he seemed to care enough that my sadness affected him so deeply. I took a deep breath, determined to get it all out.

 ‘My anger has stopped me from shedding more than a few tears over the years, I never let it out, never let myself properly grieve for the parents I lost. And for some reason I decided that here in the evidence lock up was the best location for that to happen.’ My tone turned a little light-hearted at the end and Jake acknowledged my effort by smiling a little, but the pain still lingered in his eyes.

 ‘I’m so sorry, Y/N.’ He said, his words coming out so quickly that I had to concentrate to catch them all, it was as if he’d been holding it in for a long time and now he was rushing to get it all out, ‘I’m sorry that your parents and your brother didn’t realise how lucky they were to have you in their lives. I’m sorry that they just disowned you so easily, without recognising what a loss it would be and how empty their lives must be without you in it. I’m sorry that they hurt you.’ His eyes were shining with such intensity as he spoke and when he paused to take a breath, a softness appeared in them that made my breath catch, ‘I’m sorry they didn’t appreciate how incredible you are when they had the chance, but I’m not sorry that they’re never going to get the chance again. Because they don’t deserve it, they don’t deserve to have you in their lives. They don’t deserve to know the person you are now because they didn’t realise how kind, sweet, caring and loving you were then. They don’t deserve to know all of the achievements you’ve accomplished in your career and your personal life.’ He gently wiped away the tears as they fell down my cheeks, ‘the truth is, Y/N, I don’t understand how anyone could ever turn their back on you, because I cannot imagine my life without you. It would be empty, a lot less fun, I wouldn’t be as enthusiastic to come to work because I wouldn’t have the fact that I would get to see you to motivate me.’

 ‘Jake,’ I whispered, overwhelmed and I feeling myself fall that little bit more in love with him.

 ‘I know I’m being a little intense here and I hope that it’s not freaking you out, but I wanted you to know that I and everyone in your life now, would never be able to abandon you like they did. You have a family, you have a home here.’ He kissed my forehead.

 His proximity didn’t diminish after, as he rested his forehead against mine, close enough that I could feel his breath mingling with mine, both of us suddenly breathing sporadically. I knew he wouldn’t move close enough to kiss me, he would leave the power in my hands, and if I pushed him away he would immediately get off me and give me space. But I didn’t want space; I wanted to feel his lips moving against mine, I wanted to taste his skin on my tongue. My hands trailed up either side of his neck and moved through his soft brunette hair, Jake’s eyes darkened with lust and I felt my knees go weak—if I’d still been standing I would have crumpled to the floor. I gently pulled him towards me, close enough to close the small gap between us.

 The kiss started off tender, his soft lips dancing gently with mine as we tentatively learned how to move together. Once the shyness melted into the heat of our lust, the kiss became more passionate, me shifting in his lap to straddle him, my hands tightening in his hair when he gripped my waist tighter to pull me closer. I felt a moan tumble from me when he flicked his tongue against mine—I’d never had that kind of reaction when kissing anyone before, but no one had ever kissed me so expertly, so effortlessly as if he knew what I wanted when I didn’t. I felt myself melt into him as his tongue dominated mine, another sound of pleasure leaving my throat. I was overwhelmed with the affect he was having on me—my whole body was tingling with electricity, my bones felt like they’d melted and a knot of pleasure was forming in my belly and growing so quickly that I felt like I was going to burst into flames at any moment.

 Eventually we reluctantly pulled apart, our bodies needing the oxygen we’d been denying it for too long. My forehead fell to his shoulder as I tried to get my breathing under control, and when I felt like I could speak again a breathy, ‘wow’ was whispered into the skin of his neck.

 ‘That was the hottest moment of my life.’ His voice was breathy too and I lifted my head to look at him, a teasing smile on my face.

 ‘Title of your sex tape.’ I winked, laughing with him, though I stopped abruptly when he sat up straighter, his hands tightening on my waist to assure he didn’t drop me.

 He gasped, ‘title of our sex tape!’

 I threw my head back, a loud laugh tumbling from my throat as I slapped the hand he held up for a high five. He entwined our fingers together and pulled me closer, placing a short but passionate and loving kiss to my lips. His eyes were soft when we pulled apart, and I knew that I was observing him in the same adoring way as my free hand fell to the back of his neck, playing with the longer strands of his soft hair.

 ‘I’m so lucky to have you in my life, Jake Peralta.’ I murmured, kissing his nose when he bashfully grinned, his eyes softening even more.

 ‘Not as lucky as I am.’ His hand caressed the side of my face, his eyes tender with adoration and sincerity, and he bought our lips together once again.

 As our lips moved together once again, I couldn’t help but thank whatever deity had bought Jake Peralta and the rest of the squad into my life. Because Jake was right, I did have a family here, one that was better and stronger than the relationships I used to have with my mom, dad and brother. But I was especially grateful for Jake. For his kindness, generosity, for caring about me, for loving me. We might not have said it, but I knew he felt it, just as I knew he was sure that I felt the same for him—it was clear in our eyes as we looked at each other and our touch as we held one another.

 And as our kiss deepened with fervour, I was certain that I would go through all the pain that came with my parents disowning me a thousand times over, if it meant that I would be blessed with having Jake Peralta in my life when it was done.

[armandyke]

Blood and destruction because of one man

Summary: Klaus is seventeen, and currently barred from all Academy business due to his... questionable lifestyle choices. Oblivious to the tragedy unfolding on his siblings’ latest mission, he finds himself being visited by a gruesome and hauntingly familiar ghost. 

Word Count: 2604

Square Filled: Free Space

Characters: All the siblings, Reginald Hargreeves, Grace Hargreeves, Pogo

Warnings: Drug use, gore, swearing, death

A/N: The fourth of nine entries for @tuacreatorsbingo !

You can read it here, or on my AO3

It had been thirty seven minutes and sixteen seconds since Klaus had swallowed two of the rather ominous looking red pills he’d managed to score the night before, and he was starting to think he might have been ripped off. Sure, the room seemed to be spinning just a little bit, but other than that he just felt… Normal. 

Thirty seven minutes and thirty two seconds.

The thought occurred to him that maybe being high was his normal now, and the more he thought about it, the more he realised that he couldn’t quite pinpoint what being sober actually felt like anymore. 

Thirty seven minutes and forty five seconds.

With a deflated sigh, he rolled himself off the bed, barely registering the pain in his side as he hit the floorboards with a heavy thud. He reached under the bed, feeling blindly around until his hand found the soft toy unicorn, repurposed last year into a makeshift cigarette stash. His heart sank when he pried the toy's torso apart, finding nothing but a few remnants of cotton stuffing. 

Thirty eight minutes and twelve seconds.

He was sure there’d been at least twenty when he counted last night. Had he really smoked that many since then? He did tend to smoke more when his siblings were away on a mission, but twenty? Unfortunately, his memory of the past twelve hours was hazy at best, so he just shrugged to himself, getting to his feet and padding down the hall to Allison’s room. 

The silence of the empty house was comforting. Obviously he worried about his siblings while they were away, but dad being out of the house certainly made life easier for a few blissful hours. 

He grabbed a vibrant purple and gold scarf from Allison’s closet as he walked past, twirling it around his neck and admiring himself in the mirror. It didn’t quite match the pyjamas he was wearing, but then, when had that ever stopped him before? Allison kept her cigarettes on the shelf above her dresser, so he clambered on top of it, sending a few brushes and perfume bottles crashing to the floor in the process, and balanced precariously on his toes to reach the ornate pink box. He took a couple, placed the box back on it’s shelf, and made his way back to his own room, stopping to pocket a bottle of deep blue nail polish along the way. 

One hour ten minutes and nineteen seconds.

The sound of Vanya’s violin flooded the house as Klaus lit the second of his stolen cigarettes, letting it burn his lungs while he finished painting over the chipped pink polish on his toes. He flopped back against the mattress and closed his eyes as the music filled his ears. The song was unfamiliar, maybe even improv, which was his favourite to listen to. He liked not knowing what was coming next. 

The music washed over him, and he felt as though a thick, heavy blanket had been laid over him, pushing him deeper into the mattress. It was the most relaxed he’d felt all day, letting out a deep breath and stubbing his cigarette out on his bedside table. Gradually, the sound drifted further and further away, until all he could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. 

One hour twenty one minutes and eleven seconds.

He was pulled out of his daze by the sound of footsteps. Cracking one eye open, he glanced over at his open door. It was a wet, squelching sound, like somebody tracking muddy boots across the hardwood floor. Definitely not mom, then. She never went outside. Vanya was still playing her violin, seemingly oblivious to the approaching sound, and Pogo never went anywhere without his cane. 

“Diego?” He called, wondering if maybe the others had snuck back in without him noticing. 

No answer, and now he could hear the footsteps heading up the stairs. Rolling his eyes, Klaus hopped off the bed and made his way towards the door. 

“If you’re trying to scare me, it won’t work,” He said as he poked his head around the door frame. “Because nothing you do can compare to the nightmare that is my actual life.” 

He was fully expecting to see his siblings crouching on the staircase, waiting to jump out and scare him, but the whole hallway was empty. The footsteps started again, this time overhead, and he let out a loud, dramatic sigh. 

“You guys are assholes,” He muttered, trudging up the stairs.

The corridor was empty, and the noise had disappeared. With a frustrated huff, he made his way quietly across the floor, pausing, and backtracking two steps to Five’s bedroom door. An impossible thought flashed across his mind, before being quickly extinguished by another muffled sound coming from behind Ben’s door. 

Charging across the hall, he threw the door open, ready to cuss his siblings out for being massive jerks and really shitty pranksters. Only it wasn’t his siblings, it was a ghost, at least he hoped that’s what they were, given the state of them. 

He made a mental note to flush the rest of those shitty pills down the toilet later before looking the ghost up and down. The “muddy” shoes he’d heard squelching across the floorboards were drenched in blood, with one leg looking almost as though it had been blown up, ripped completely open with fleshy ribbons hanging down around the exposed bone. Their stomach was shredded to pieces, oozing blood and guts and fatty tissue that squelched and made Klaus’ stomach turn every time the ghost moved. One arm appeared to have been torn off completely, while the other hung limply with a piece of bone jutting out from the elbow, and their face… well, what was left of it, was bloody and shredded, as though it had been practically torn off. One eye was missing, or maybe just sunken behind the swollen exposed flesh, while the other peered out at him, watching him blankly. 

“Uh…” Klaus said, swallowing thickly as he fought to keep the contents of his stomach down. “Look. I can see you’re going through a bit of a rough time, but I do have some ground rules around here. Numero Uno being that my siblings’ bedrooms are strictly off limits.” 

The ghost made a grunting noise and opened their mouth in an attempt to speak, but one side of their jaw appeared to be almost completely detached and the only sound that came out was a sickening gurgling noise as blood dribbled down their chin. They took an unsteady step towards Ben’s desk and he frowned, folding his arms and clearing his throat. 

“Okay, clearly you’re new to the whole… being dead thing,” He said as he watched the ghost swiping their hand through the furniture they were attempting to touch. “And you probably have a lot going on. But my brother Ben? He has kind of a nervous disposition, and a creepy ghost tracking blood all over his bedroom isn’t gonna make him feel any better. There’s a million empty rooms in this stupid house for you to haunt. Just not this one. Okay? Please?”

That seemed to capture the ghost’s attention again and they turned back towards him, making what sounded like a whimpering noise. He wasn’t sure if it was the way the ghost stood, or how they looked at him, or what, but something felt familiar.

“Klaus?”

Shrieking, Klaus spun around, very nearly smacking his sister in the face in the process. Vanya blinked at him for a moment before standing on tiptoes to look over his shoulder. 

“Who are you talking to?” 

“Me? Nobody. No talking going on here. Silent as the grave.” 

He cringed at the poor choice of phrasing, pulling Ben’s bedroom door shut and giving her the most innocent smile he could muster. 

“What are you doing up here anyway?” He asked. “I thought you were practicing.”

“Mom told me to find you. The others will be back soon and I think…” She trailed off, looking uncertain for a moment. “She was acting really strange.” 

“Our robotic mother, built and programmed by our sociopathic father to provide the love he is incapable of feeling, was acting strange? What a turn up for the books.” 

“I’m serious, Klaus,” She hissed. “What if something bad happened on their mission?”

“Nothing bad ever happens on missions, Vanya. They show up, they save the day, the city is once again indebted to us. Hip hip hooray. You’re just being paranoid.” 

Draping his arm over her shoulder, the two of them made their way down the stairs and through the winding corridors to their front door where mom and Pogo were waiting. 

“Hey, Pogo,” He said cheerfully as he strolled up next to him, frowning when Pogo gave him a sympathetic look and placed a hand on his shoulder. 

Next to him, Vanya gave him a strong “I told you so” look before nodding up towards mom, who was staring blankly at the wall opposite. 

“Mom?” He prompted, with no response. “Mom.”

The doors flung open and their father strode in, looking just as stony faced as usual. He didn’t spare either of them so much as a passing glance as he marched across the hall, stopping and turning at the foot of the stairs as he always did to wait for the others. The wait was agonising, but finally the door opened again, and Luther walked in. 

His hair was drenched with blood that ran down his face and onto his uniform, and his eyes were red and puffy with tear tracks streaking down his cheeks. Klaus had never seen him take his mask off before the mission debrief. It made him look strangely young, a far cry from the usual stoic Number One. He paused at the door and glanced over at them, making eye contact with Klaus for a second before looking back down at the floor and hurrying over to stand in front of dad. 

Diego came in next, his jaw clenched tightly as he marched purposefully across the room without a second of hesitation and tracking blood across the tiled floors. There was blood on his hands. The right was dried but the left… Klaus could see it dripping in spots on the floor where he stood, oozing through his fingers as they pressed tightly on the blade in his hand. 

The door swung open again and Allison walked in, making it two paces across the floor before looking over at him and Vanya and bursting into tears. Mom hurried across the room to her, squeezing her shoulders and whispering hushed comforts to her as she guided her the rest of the way. 

Klaus turned back towards the door expectantly and waited for Ben, desperate for the debrief to start so he could find out what the hell happened. The seconds ticked by, and the door stayed shut. It wasn’t like Ben to delay the debrief. 

He felt Vanya take his hand, and when he turned towards her she was staring at the ground, her eyes squeezed shut and tears rolling down her cheeks. 

“I don’t…” He turned to Pogo, who squeezed his shoulder and looked up at him sadly. “Where’s Ben?” He looked over at their father. “Where is he!?” 

“Silence!” He said sharply, tapping his cane on the ground in front of him. 

Luther straightened his shoulders. Diego’s fist started shaking with the force of his grip on his knife. Allison sobbed into mom’s arm. 

“Children, the city is once again indebted to you,” He announced, looking down his nose at the three of them. “Although the loss of Number Six proved to be… an unfortunate distraction, this was a successful mission, and I congratulate you.”

With that, he turned and began making his way up the stairs. Klaus saw Diego’s hand twitch, and before he could open his mouth to shout there was a sharp crack as his knife hit the handrail their father was holding, splintering the wood an inch above where his hand rested. 

“Is that it?” He asked when their father turned back to face him. “That’s all you have to say?” 

“Nothing more needs to be said.”

“No, there is plenty more that needs to be said.” Diego jabbed a finger at him accusingly, taking a step towards him. “I just watched my brother get ripped apart.” 

“As I said, Number Two-”

“Don’t call me that,” He said through gritted teeth, taking another step until they were standing toe to toe. “You killed him. You sent him in there, to die.” 

“I was not your leader on this mission.” 

Behind them, Luther hunched in on himself and Diego slammed his hand against the railing. 

“No, you don’t get to pin this on Luther. You lied to him. You lied to all of us. The only reason any of us got out of there alive is because B-” Diego stared at him, shaking with rage as he tried to get the word out. “B-B-Because B-”

“Spit it out, boy,” Their father said, drumming his fingers on the top of his cane impatiently. 

In a flash, Diego whipped another knife from his belt, holding the tip against their father’s neck. 

“Diego, no! ” Vanya screamed, while Allison hugged mom tighter and Luther threw his hands over his face. 

Klaus stood there, frozen to the spot, watching Diego’s shoulders rise and fall with each quick, shaky breath he took. Their father stood confidently, unphased by the knife pressed to his throat, with an almost bored expression on his face as Diego stared him down. 

After what seemed like an eternity, Diego yielded, hurling the knife at a painting on the opposing wall. 

“Fuck you,” He spat, his voice thick as he ripped the umbrella patch from his uniform and threw it at his feet before turning and storming away. 

“Diego-” Klaus tried to reach out for him as he walked past, but his brother shoved past him wordlessly and disappeared down the hall. 

“Dismissed!” Their father said sharply, tapping his cane against the tiles and marching up the stairs to his office. 

Slowly, Grace guided Allison across the hall towards her bedroom. Luther followed, then Vanya, then Pogo, until Klaus was the only one left standing there. 

He trudged across the floor, following the trail of Diego’s blood up to the stairs where he sank down and stared ahead at the door, hoping that maybe, just maybe this whole thing had been one really bad trip, and that any minute now Ben would come through the door, and they could go back to his room and Ben would fill him in on everything that happened on the mission. He heard something dripping on the floor and realised he was crying. How long had he been doing that? Sniffling, he wiped his face on the back of his sleeve and wrapped his arms around himself. 

Down the hall, he could hear the sound of furniture crashing and glass smashing, and then the sound of Vanya’s violin playing. He was aware of a presence stood next to him on the stairs, but it was a few minutes before he could bring himself to look up. 

The ghost had finally made his way out of his bedroom. In the light, Klaus could make out a few more features. Dark, blood soaked hair, a dark brown eye staring wordlessly at him, and the umbrella patch stitched to his uniform. 

One hour fifty eight minutes and thirty two seconds. 

Sighing, he fished the bag of pills out of his pocket and tipped a few into his hand. Three this time? Sure, why not. 

One second. 

A crash as Luther tore one of his models down from the ceiling. 

Two seconds. 

The sound of Diego’s mirror smashing. 

Three seconds. 

Muffled screams as Allison wailed into her pillow. 

Four seconds. 

Five seconds. 

Six seconds. 

Silence.

[lessonsfrommadamexmas]

Spite and Temptation

Summary: Brigadier General Armstrong needs competent snipers for Fort Briggs and her eyes are set on a certain hawk. While Lieut. Colonel Mustang knows she doesn’t stand a chance, the dispute seems too entertaining to pass.

Gen. 1.5k words.

Link to AO3 (updated: all three chapters are up now)

Hello, @meridianheroine, I’m your secret santa for @fmasecretsanta2020 and I wish you a Happy New Year! Would you accept half of a story and the promise of finishing it real soon? I’m so sorry I couldn’t wrap it up in time and I wanted to edit it properly. There’s only one or two chapters left. I hope you find it entertaining. 

- - - -

Olivier Mira Armstrong studied the men in the room, all sitting around the large rectangular meeting table. It seemed she had lost the fight before it even began.

— Sir, Fort Briggs has requested an alchemist as soon as the war ended.

As a Brigadier General, she was the lowest rank around, sent to represent the soon-to-be-deceased Major General Solon. Well, that might be a harsh thing to say, but who was she fooling? The men of Briggs were, indeed, tough, to the point of not knowing when to retire. The fort was ready for her and she was ready for it, yet the General remained skeptical due to her young age.

That’s how she found herself in charge of getting the first alchemist for Fort Briggs.

— Indeed, I have read General Solon’s letter.

King Bradley, the highest authority of Amestris, always made himself directly involved when the subject was State alchemy. It didn’t surprise her that the Führer would come all the way to East Headquarters to join the meeting, and it certainly didn’t intimidate her to discuss business with him. Nevertheless, she couldn’t ignore the man’s decisiveness as he stood tall across from her continued to speak:

— However, a war of the dimensions of Ishval leaves us with several losses. From retirements to unfortunate cases of suicide, we cannot open hand of any State Alchemist as of now. That is why I myself have cared for this issue and decided, before we even returned from Ishval, to assign all alchemists back to their previous headquarters, with very few exceptions.

The ultimatum was evident, transfers were out of question. She jumped to her final attempt.

— I comprehend, sir, however, I’m certain there are gaps yet to be filled after said losses, and we’re going to need new exams. I, then, ask your permission to run a State Alchemist Exam in Briggs. Although the Extermination War has left us with one less enemy to face, Drachma remains as one of the country’s most challenging enemies and their forces are restless. The creative input of alchemy would greatly benefit Briggs’ battle strategies.

King Bradley turned his attention to the redhead man sitting a few chairs to her left.

— You can always count with the support of the Northern Headquarters, isn't that right, General Valdo?

— Of course, Führer. It is our duty to provide the best men we have whenever requested.

Major General Valdo was a cowardly little man who would always take as few responsibilities regarding the border as he could. It was undoubtedly of his interest to provide men and leave the rest to Briggs whenever possible. Olivier couldn’t wait to do business with him rank to rank.

— As well as any other place in Amestris — Bradley continued. — Fort Briggs isn’t fighting our battles alone, Brigadier General. The place isn’t a research center and it isn’t what it’s meant to be. You’re our raw power, that’s what we need you to be. A State Alchemist is better assisted in the headquarters, and they’ll be ready to join your forces whenever required. Since most of the manpower in the Ishval War came from the East, along with some of the best Human Weapons from Central, I’ll only be receiving the documentation from East and Center commands, where the exams are of utmost importance. If there aren't any more questions, I’ll be leaving you all to General Grumman.

Armstrong eyed instinctively the exam protocols she had helped her superior write while the other generals addressed started to collect their own paperwork.

— Can Briggs count on your consideration of our issue in the future, sir?

— Trust me, General Armstrong. You aren’t the only one disappointed. I’m sure some State Alchemists expected a guaranteed spot in Central Command after their outstanding performance, but that’s how it is. Amestris cannot stop. Still, it was a pleasure to know Briggs remains dedicated and brave enough to face the Führer himself. You can rest assured you have left me with something to mull over for the next few years.

The Fuhrer's voice was lighthearted although she couldn't notice any smile behind his thick mustache. Fort Briggs was one breathing organism and outsiders, despite necessary and helpful, were simply crutches. However, the two of them were on good terms, so she limited herself to a brief, respectful reply.

— Thank you for your attention, sir.

Lieutenant General Grumman stood up and circled the table, handing in his and the other General’s documents. King Bradley gave him a polite pat on the shoulder as if passing the torch, to which Grumman responded with a nod. He restarted the meeting as soon as the Führer closed the door.

— Well, as you all know, we're here today to discuss transfers and assignments regarding the East personnel. Let us treat of each headquarters’s pressing needs. Brigadier General Armstrong, you didn’t come just for an alchemist, am I correct?

The head of East Headquarters carried a joyful aura and seemed to be a malleable man, not that Olivier would underestimate the accumulated wisdom reflected in his wrinkles and white hair.

— Snipers are one of our greatest weapons. We depend on versatile soldiers who can disguise, attack from afar and patiently face our foggy, snowy conditions. There’s no place that could make better use of a soldier like the Hawk’s Eye than Briggs.

Olivier Armstrong left the meeting with her confidence restored. General Solon didn’t have many hopes when it came to alchemy anyway, but she had succeeded in everything else. The woman knew that an important part of her mission was to find balance between her assertive nature and diplomacy, and she was thankful for the opportunity. Today, she had been able to blend in with the other Generals smoothly and defend the Fort’s needs. She also seemed to have earned the Fuhrer’s respect, a feat that would add points to her promotion.

That, along with taking the Hawk’s Eye to the North. All that was left was to reach out to the young woman through her field superior, Sergeant Megan Dorovan, who was likely mentoring her on her next steps.

Olivier walked the hallways enjoying the warm weather and watching the garden over the wide window. There was only grass and stone. As plain as her snowy place.

— Good morning, Brigadier General… Armstrong?

Her eyes turned to the man who wasn’t simply passing by, but had stopped in front of her. Raven hair outlined a face that couldn’t be older than early twenties. She checked on his shoulder the insignia of Lieutenant Colonel.

— Morning — she frowned.

— Lieut. Col. Roy Mustang, sir — he hurried to introduce himself with a smile. Upon no reaction from her, he added: — The Flame Alchemist. Hero of Ishval. Honored to meet you.

The man puffed his chest as he spoke. The type who likes to impress, then. Hopefully she wasn’t dealing with a bootlicker, but merely a soldier seeking connections. Either way, she would cut his crap.

— You look like you barely left the diapers, not a war veteran — she remarked, dryly.

In truth, it was impossible to ignore the mark of war in a veteran, but he might be putting some effort into hiding it. Although he was taken aback for a second, Mustang didn’t let himself be intimidated by her words like most men.

— You also seem very young for someone who is listed to take charge of Briggs, sir. I guess our competencies speak louder than our ages.

Ah, yes, the expected flattery was as amusing as it was annoying. Olivier didn’t agree with the idea of giving State Alchemists the title of Major despite their lack of experience. It created incompetent soldiers like her brother or overconfident ones like the man in front of her.

— I wonder if there’s anything to you beyond your alchemy, as it often is with Dogs of the Military.

— Rumor goes Briggs is looking for a Dog of the Military, sir. How is it going? Oh, if you’re on your way to the cafeteria, we could go together.

He was a quick one, she had to admit.

— Alchemy can wait, for now. I have other things to take care of, so I’m gonna have to pass.

The woman adjusted her coat to signal the end of the conversation. Mustang seemed to understand, because this time he was simply polite to ask:

— Looking for someone specific, sir? If I could give you any directions…

— Yes, actually, Sergeant Dorovan. I’m taking a hawk to the North.

— Hawkeye?! — he asked in utter surprise. For some reason, that simple implication had pierced through the man’s facade quicker than any of her teasing. The smirk that formed on his lips next had been his most genuine expression so far. — Too bad she’s already applying to the Warrant Officer’s position, on my team.

No way.