#{ vanishes but technically stays exactly where i am | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

skellebonez · 3 years

Note

How's about 45 and 54 where canon MK finds himself in the Inverted AU Universe? Because I think that'd be funny

Poor MK is having the second worst day of his entire life. This is not the situation he should be in AFTER THE FINALE. This would have been way different if I wrote this when you sent it in, but now you get a very sad Monkie Kid.

You may technically be an adult, but you’re still my child./ Yeah well dying generally puts a damper on things.

When MK was knocked out they were on the deck of the drone ship, fighting off some kind of demon that the White Bone Spirit had taken under her control.

When MK woke up they were on the sandy shores of Mount Huaguo surrounded by baby monkeys and one Six-Eared Macaque looking down at them with a face of great concern.

“Are you-” Macaque started to ask them, unable to finish his sentence when MK screamed and kicked out and just barely missed making contact that would have sent him flying backwards into the nearest tree. “Whoa, no, it’s alright! I’m not-”

“What did you do to me this time, Macaque!?” MK yelled, looking around for a weapon, any weapon, something they could use to defend themself. Their eyes fell on something familiar, something that shouldn’t exist anymore and they froze at the sight of red and gold.

“Little one, is your name MK?” Macaque asked softly, holding up his hands as he slowly walked forward back toward the started and confused young adult before him. “I found you washed up on the shore. You need to lay back down, you’re still-”

Macaque let out a yelp of surprise as MK dove, hand firmly grasping the familiar warm-cold center of the staff.

But it felt... wrong, somehow.

They didn’t let go.

"OK, WHAT IS HAPPENING!?" MK shouted, holding the stolen staff in front of them as they turned on the immortal monkey that was their one time mentor. "Is this Jin and Yin again? Is this the Calabash!? Did they change it so my stuff doesn’t work in it anymore!? I'm not falling for that again!"

"I'm sorry, the what?" A new voice rang from behind him. One a little... too familiar...

It was MK. It shouldn't be possible, not if the Calabash was working the same way it had worked before, but it was them. But not.

Like... the way the staff felt.

The Other MK standing in the too bright sun wore a stark sky blue and black instead of his signature orange and red, a large hefty backpack in that same blue slung over his back. And he was... tall. Not unusually tall, just taller than MK was. And also looked incredibly angry as he carried a box of medical supplies.

"The... Calabash..." MK repeated, holding the staff closer to their chest with a nervous gulp. Their hands twisted around the staff nervously, hoping the repetitive action would ground them against the repeating 'THERE IS ANOTHER YOU STARING AT YOU WHAT THE HELL' whizzing in their head. "This... this isn't Jin and Yin again after all, is it?"

MK gulped again, blinking as their vision swam suddenly and their head felt like it was filled with... something. Like liquid but if it was as light as air.

"I don't know which answer would be better for you," Macaque said softly, honesty palpable in his tone. Something so odd for the Monkie Kid to hear in their ears with that voice. "But no. We are very much real."

"Oh..." MK said plainly. "Oh that's bad. That's... Oh boy..."

Before their eyes rolled back in their head and they passed out they were pretty sure they saw a few more overly familiar faces rushing to them.

When MK woke a second time they were once again moved, but to somewhere else far less familiar than the shores of Mount Huaguo and the drone ship... but also too familiar. They also now realized that their head hurt... a lot. Like, a lot a lot.

“Finally, you’re back from the brink of death,” that same overly familiar voice rang our in their ear. They snapped their head to the side, regretting it instantly as it made their vision swim again and lights pop in front of their eyes. “Hey, no, don’t do that!"

The other MK jumped up, kneeling down in front of them and poked them in the forehead. His scowl didn’t seem to let up in the slightest, but it tilted in a way that felt more concerned than angry.

"... why am I looking at my own face?" MK asked, not sure whether they should continue to stare at their own face or to look anywhere else to keep their brain from short circuiting trying to process what the actual hell was happening.

“Considering you were able to pick up my staff,” the other MK said, removing his finger and gesturing to the rod that was still across MK’s chest (how had he not noticed the extra weight of it still in his hand?). “I’d say we have some kind of multi-dimensional bullshitery going on here. Unless you’re, somehow, a robot made of the same shit Red used to get the that thing in the first place, but I don’t think robots bleed from head injuries.”

Ah. That would explain why his head felt like someone had cracked it open and shoved cotton balls into it.

MK looked around, taking in the stark white walls and the overly clean smell and the clean white sheets they were laid on.

“... am I at the hospital?”

“Oh, absolutely!” Other MK yelled, raising his arms in frustration as he paced the room in a familiar excess of energy. “But unfortunately for us you don’t exactly exist here! So we’re figuring out a way to make them believe you’re me with some really fucked up memories my dude! Which is easier with, you know.”

The other MK knocked on his head twice, wincing a bit as the second knock seemed to be harder than intended.

“... but you’re..?”

“I snuck in.”

“OK, well, thanks for the help,” MK started, sitting himself up with more than a little struggle. “But I need to figure out what the heck happened and get back to-!”

“Oh no you don’t!” Other MK said, jumping on the bed and standing over him. That was... well, MK would definitely say that was a very weird but effective way of keeping someone from getting up. “Macaque already ran off without letting me stop him, I barely got him to take some backup, to figure out what in the hell is happening. You are me and I know myself and if you ever tell anyone this I will end you, but you are way too injured to be doing anything right now!”

“I have to do something, Other Me-”

“No, oh no I hate that, just call me Blue,” the other MK said, the scowl on his face softened ever so slightly once again. Just slightly. “It’s a lot better than ‘other me’. And there’s nothing we can do until Macaque gets us some answers.”

"So... what, Blue? Am I just supposed to sit around and wait for someone to come and rescue me if he finds nothing!?" MK snapped, grip on their staff tightening so much that their knuckles paled and creaked in stress. "Just do nothing while who knows what happens to my friends!?"

"No," Blue said, placing his hand on MK's shoulder and frowning when the other shrugged it off and curled in on themselves. "But hurting yourself isn't going to help you get back to them. And as long as you’re here you’re my responsibility.”

“I’m a grown ass adult, you should know that.”

“Yeah, well, dying generally puts a damper on things and you’re not so adult that you can’t escape death,” Blue said, letting himself fall back into a sitting position on the bed. “Unless you got to keep your invulnerability or something, but given the crack in your noggin that doesn’t seem... like...” Blue trailed off, looking at MK with an odd expression. “... are you ok? Like. Emotionally?”

“Huh?”

“You’re crying.”

MK wrestled with one of their hands to free it’s iron grip on the staff (not their staff, their staff was gone, they had to remind themselves that their staff was gone and... and so was so much else), raising to their cheek to discover that at some point in Blue’s retort they had indeed started crying.

“... what happened to you?”

“It’s a long story,” MK said, wiping their face on their arm (they now realized they were wearing hospital dressing). “I...” They grabbed the staff with their now free hand again, twisting the grip carefully and freeing the iron hold their other hand had. “Can I just... keep this for a bit longer?”

Blue looked at MK, looking between the other him and the staff that was rightfully his before sighing and rubbing the back of his neck.

“Not like I need it right this second,” he said, his scowl vanishing completely as he stood and yanked over his backpack and put it back on after he pulled a baseball cap out and squished his hair into it and pulled it down to cover his face. “There’s gonna be someone here with you at all times until you get out, just to keep you in the loop of what’s going on here. We’ll figure out where you’re staying if Mac doesn’t figure out a way to get you home by tonight.” He moved toward the entrance to the room, turning back before opening it. “I’ll be back, I gotta restock my bag. There’s a couple people who wanna talk to you already... don’t... freak out.”

Before MK could ask what Blue meant the young man opened the door and slipped out, talking to someone just out of his line of vision before running off down the hall.

And then they saw the overly familiar sight of Pigsy and Tang... except they weren’t.

Pigsy, their Pigsy, was always in a chef’s uniform unless he was sleeping. Rough edges softened when he smiled or looked at MK or Mei with that exasperated look that MK knew meant he cared. Tang, their Tang, was a scholar who looked the part in every way, old fashioned clothes and books in hand. Always smiling when he could manage it and carefree.

This Pigsy was.. soft. And fluffy. Literally soft and fluffy. And wore oversized sweaters and smiled in a way that fit more on someone else’s face but felt right at home on his. This Tang was...

Well, the only way MK could think to describe the man before them was “skinny biker with probably hidden muscles who would kick your ass”. He looked the same but his hair was more wild, sunglasses pushing his bangs up, decked out in a (probably fake) leather jacket... but he had the same scarf.

And he and Pigsy were holding hands.

“I suppose you already know who we are,” the biker version of Tang said, smile on his face very awkward and seeming somewhat forced in a “I don’t know if this is helping but I’m gonna try” kind of way. “And we know who... you are. Kinda.”

“Yeah,” MK responded, thinking for a moment back to when he was found on the beach. “Were you... were you the ones with Blue, the other me, on Mount Huaguo?”

“Yeah,” the soft Pigsy said and... wow, hearing that voice say something so gently so casually was throwing him through a loop. “M-Blue was convinced we needed to get out of the city for the day and brought us along for his training. We didn’t expect to find... well, another him...” Pigsy frowned, the first one MK saw on his face and it felt so much more openly worried than their own Pigsy’s scowls. “How are you feeling?”

MK looked down at the staff in their hands, then back up to the two men in front of them.

They weren’t the two people MK considered father figures. They weren’t. But they were. And as MK tried to process this they felt their breathing speed up faster and faster and faster until-

“Hey,” Tang said, gentle and soft voice breaking MK from their racing thoughts as he reached out to put a hand in MK’s hair but stopped himself short. Probably in remembering that they weren’t Blue. “You can stay with us if you want. Once you’re discharged and if you need somewhere to stay.”

Well... that didn’t help at all.

No.

Instead it opened the floodgates and MK started crying harder than they had since the final fight with the White Bone Spirit, curling in on themselves as the last few days and what had transpired really hit them.

“What the FUCK did you do!?” He heard his own voice shout from the doorway.

It looked like PIgsy’s apartment. But not.

MK’s hands clenched at air, wishing they still had the staff for comfort. But no, they insisted that Blue take it back when they were discharged.

Blue was still the Monkie Kid after all. He needed the staff to fight.

MK... was just MK here. And they couldn’t fight, not while recovering from their injuries anyway.

But oh how they wish they hadn’t given it back. It felt so right and yet so wrong to hold it. They didn’t realize how much they had grown attached to the object until it was...

“MK?” Once again Pigsy’s voice startled him, not for the first time since they arrived at the apartment and MK took up the extra bedroom that this world’s counterpart had once stayed in until the apartment above the shop opened up for them. “Do you need anything?”

“No,” they responded, hands gripping the edge of their jacket in an attempt to hold something solid. It wasn’t the same. “I can handle myself.”

“I know you can, but you don’t have to,” Pigsy said, coming into the room holding a cup of water and putting it on the nightstand. “And you don’t have to talk to us, if you don’t want to... but it’d probably help. Even if you just ramble about something.”

Had this been the other Pigsy he probably would have something something like “You may technically be an adult, but you’re still my child”. Something firm and gruff and filled with underlying affection for the younger adult. But this Pigsy... there was some of that there. A firmness to his words, though the gruffness was missing. But he could feel the affection he must have had for Blue transferring to themself, the knowledge that they weren’t the same person holding most of it back.

But it was still there.

And MK hadn’t really talked to anyone since the short lived argument with Blue.

“... You uh...” they started, chuckling quietly as they twisted their fingers together. “You said you own a flower shop? My Pigsy, uh... he, runs a noodle shop.”

It wasn’t going to help. MK was certain that talking about their family and friends and how different they were would probably make how he felt worse.

But sitting there and ignoring it would make it worse far quicker in their mind.

So MK talked. For hours. Eventually Tang joined the two, both listening as MK recalled all the differences and similarities and...

Well. They listened. Just like their own Pigsy and Tang would.

... they wondered if they would ever get to go back.

#monkie kid #lego monkie kid #fanfic #gen fic #inverted au #crossover #mk #Qi Xiaotian #six eared macaque #pigsy #tang #freenoodleshipping #(implied)#MK is having a BAD day and eventually all your emotions catch up to you and you break like a dam #i used they for mk and he for Blue because it got very confusing writing the two of them without referring to their clothing color constant

149 notes · View notes

a-small-batch-of-dragons · 3 years

Text

Laugh

Prompt: Hi!! I really love your writing and always look forward to when you update, I can’t tell if your prompts are open (please ignore this if they aren’t!) but if they are I have a prompt for your (un)wanted series; each of the fae making Virgil laugh for the first time, at first he’s insecure/scared to laugh because of experiences in the village but he slowly learns to be ok/comfortable laughing thanks to the fae; again, if your prompts aren’t open I apologize and hope you have a nice day!! - anon

so uh

hey

did you guys know that this past Friday was the one year anniversary of the first chapter of (un)wanted

'cause wow

uhhhhhh I'm not good at speeches so have fluff

Read on Ao3 (Un)Wanted Masterlist

Warnings: none!

Pairings: DLAMPR, it’s found family nonsense

Word Count: 5419

Whether or not they agree on who made Virgil laugh first is irrelevant, the point is that they’ll find something to argue about sooner or later, and when they do, Virgil’s learned enough to curl up with Oliver and just watch. Preferably from the safety of the kraken’s head, a little bit away from the shore, where he’s close enough to hear the things they say but not close enough to be in the way.

It was Oliver’s idea to do that, actually. Virgil…hasn’t been the best at learning how to deal with anger. Other people’s anger, in particular, for completely understandable reasons.

It had been Logan who spotted it, coming over to his side when the twins were having an argument over what side of the lake they were each taking jurisdiction for that decade and Roman’s voice had risen, Remus’s voice had multiplied, and Logan had seen Virgil curl in on himself, clutching his tunic tightly around him and trying desperately to vanish into the wall.

Once the twins realized what was happening—namely, Virgil breathing heavily in Logan’s arms as he glared at the two of them for being so oblivious—they’d stopped right away, calming down and crouching to be smaller so that Virgil could see them, see them, not their anger, and apologize. Remus had tugged Virgil into his lap as part of his apology and Roman had ruffled his hair and promised that he’d never raise his voice around him again.

Logan had been quiet as Virgil clung to him, only later working up the courage to ask what was wrong with him.

“Nothing is wrong with you, little one, you’re experiencing symptoms of your trauma.” A cool hand had passed over his forehead, smoothing his hair back from his face. “Your experiences with human anger have not been good, it stands to reason that you react to it.”

“But—it’s stupid,” Virgil had spat, “I know—I should know you guys won’t—won’t—“

“Shh, shh, hush, now…that’s it. Come back here for a moment. There you go.” Logan’s chin had come to rest on top of Virgil’s head. “Knowing something theoretically and properly internalizing it are two different processes, little one. It’s going to take time.”

“But I’ve given it time.”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. There’s no textbook on healing from trauma.”

“There should be.”

Logan had chuckled. “I don’t think even with our combined lifetimes we would be able to read it.”

But that didn’t mean that they couldn’t start trying to help Virgil work through it. It had been the twins who started taking the bigger steps; sometimes Roman or Remus would be spending time with Virgil and the other would bustle in, muttering about something or other gone wrong. A patch of kelp that kept getting infected, a herd of deer that insisted on trampling half of the garden, something. And as they talked, the other would coax Virgil into their lap, keeping him grounded. Their voices might raise, just a little, but they were very careful not to yell and the warm weight of arms around Virgil and a head on his shoulder kept him safe.

When someone couldn’t hold him, Oliver does. The kraken made no secret of how much he liked to hold Virgil—Remus muttered something about how he wasn’t jealous of a kraken, shut up, Roman—and had no reservations about extending an arm for Virgil to step into to wrap him up and carry him to safety. The others made sure not to yell, of course, but that meant that it manifested in other ways.

Logan’s hands turned blue.

Roman’s magic started to tingle from his fingers.

Remus’s tentacles came out.

Janus started hissing.

Patton’s chest glowed.

And sometimes, when he’s safely in someone else’s arms and high away on top of Oliver’s head, that was fine.

Virgil shuffles a little, careful to keep his weight squarely on top of Oliver, not shifting too much either side. Of course, that’s easy when Oliver is really fucking huge. And the kraken burbles every now and then, shifting slowly from side to side in the water, careful not to jostle him too much. He pats the spot next to him in thanks and the water thrums with Oliver’s purr.

Onshore, about twenty feet away, he makes eye contact with Logan. Logan rolls his eyes dramatically, the sheer exasperation on his face making Virgil snort. When he looks back, Logan’s face has softened considerably into such fondness that he can feel the tips of his ears flush.

“I don’t know why we’re still fucking arguing about this,” Remus says, drawing their attention, “I won! I got him to laugh first! So I win!”

“You have no proof of that,” Roman says immediately, “besides, you haven’t even told us what it is, how are we supposed to trust that?”

“Just because we’re not all Lolo with his meticulous journals and note-taking methods doesn’t mean I’m not right, you absolute—“

“Language!”

“Oh, I’ll show you fucking language—“

“How is it,” Virgil mumbles at Oliver, “that they’ve been arguing for so long and Remus hasn’t said what he thinks it is yet?”

The kraken just shrugs. Carefully, not moving Virgil, but he does shrug.

“Well, since you’re so adamant that you’re correct,” Janus drawls, effectively cutting off Remus and Patton’s tangent about swearing—which is something they never can quite put down—“why don’t you tell us what it is?”

“Roro and Pat were there,” Remus huffs, putting his hands on his hips, I don’t see what there is to argue about.”

“We were—oh goodness,” Patton sighs, “are you talking about the first time Virgil met Oliver?”

Remus beams. “Sure am!”

“Was that when I got absolutely covered in that voracious green slime that was determined to consume me?” Roman scoffs and wipes his sleeves at the memory of it. “Absolutely dreadful.”

Remus throws his head back and cackles.

“It was a wonder I was able to get clean,” Roman mutters, glaring at his brother, absolutely splitting his sides.

“Ah,” Remus sighs after a moment, wiping his eyes, “good times, good times.”

He points victoriously at Patton.

“See? You were there! You remember!”

Patton sighs. “I do…but that doesn’t count.”

“What?” Remus whirls around and gestures at Oliver, who stick up two tentacle tips and waves. “Are you discounting this magnificent, glorious beastie from our debate?”

“Technically that would be Oliver getting Virgil to laugh, not you.”

“Or,” Roman says, puffing his chest out, “it would be me. Since I was the one to get so egregiously wounded—“

“You were covered in slime,” Logan points out, “calm down.”

“—then it was me that sparked that reaction.”

Virgil rolls his eyes and pats Oliver’s head again. “You’re not just a beastie, you know that, right?”

Oliver rumbles under him.

“Okay, good.”

“Besides, that was barely a laugh.” Patton pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “It was…okay, yes, it’s one of my favorite memories since Virgil has come to stay with us—“

Remus turns and shoots Virgil a wink over his shoulder.

“—but a laugh?” Patton looks at Logan. “What’s the definition of a laugh, Lo?”

“Technically, it’s to express certain emotions, particularly mirth or delight, through a series of spontaneous and usually unarticulated sounds.” Logan crosses his arms. “Which means that as long as it wasn’t planned and it wasn’t articulated, anything counts as a laugh.”

“Thank you!”

“Alright, alright,” Patton huffs, “always with the technicalities.”

“You were the one who asked me for the definition.”

“So what do you think it is,” Janus asks, examining his gloves with feigned disinterest, “since you’re so insistent that you know the correct usage of the word ‘laugh?’”

Virgil can see Patton’s grin from Oliver’s head.

“Why, the bread day, of course!”

As if on cue, several groans go up around the clearing.

“Patton, none of us were there for that—“

“You can’t just keep insisting on that one, it’s not like—“

“You can stop rubbing it in, Pat—“

“Of course, you need—“

“It was wonderful,” Patton says, raising his voice just a little to speak over the others, “he looked so happy.”

Virgil does actually remember that one too. And yes, okay, maybe he’s glad that he’s far away from the others so they can’t see the small smile spreading over his face at the memory. The warm kitchen, the smell of the bread, the soft warmth of Patton’s presence next to him…

Yeah, that’s a good memory.

Oliver thrums under him and he pats the kraken’s head absentmindedly. Patton sighs over on the shore as the others mutter amongst themselves. Then he claps his hands.

“Well, I think that’s me winning, so—“

“Hold on,” Logan says, holding up his hand, “as we said, you are the only one who was there. I would argue that a laugh where all of us were present is much more significant.”

He glances up at Virgil and his gaze softens.

“Considering the incredible amount of work that Virgil has done since arriving to stay with us, I’d say that marks…quite an achievement.”

Of course, as soon as one of them starts to get all sappy, the rest quickly join in. Virgil is incredibly glad that he can use shifting on top of Oliver’s head to duck away from the blush he knows is spreading all over his face. Mostly so he doesn’t have to look at the fondness and pride on their faces. Partly because he knows Roman would immediately become insufferable.

“So,” Roman says after a while, which means it’s safe to look up again, “what exactly did you have in mind?”

Logan crosses his arms, using one hand to adjust his glasses on his face. “Do we all remember the first time Virgil began to experiment with his webs?”

Virgil’s breath catches in his throat. Oh, he knows what Logan’s talking about.

The seasons had been turning, fall creeping in through the tendrils of the forest. The leaves had begun to change, dislodging themselves from their branches and twisting down through the air to land in massive piles on the ground. Carpets of red, orange, purple, and brown had covered the paths they would walk, fruits growing heavy and ripe. Roman and Patton had spent hours out in the woods near the lake with him, plucking berries off the trees and eating them until their mouths and fingers were stained with the juice.

The trees around the clearing had lost their leaves a little quicker than the others, leaving their limbs bare, the naked wood gleaming in the sun. The light had warmed the leaves during the day, leaving them dry and crunchy as they walked over them. Something Virgil hadn’t minded at all during the day—he had gotten into more than a few playful encounters with Remus, crashing through the leaves just to hear them crunch—but when night had rolled around…

The thin limbs blowing in the breeze hadn’t been pleasant reminders that the seasons were changing. No, they were fingers tapping threateningly on the windows, or looming there to scratch him if he moved too much.

Logan had noticed him hovering just outside the clearing the next day, softly placing a hand on his shoulder after alerting him to his presence and asking, gently, what the matter was.

“The…the trees,” Virgil had muttered, balling his fists up in shame, “I, um…they…”

Logan had taken one look at the way the shadows fell around the clearing and nodded firmly. “I understand, little one.”

He’d tucked Virgil up in his arms when Virgil asked, rubbing his back gently.

“Would you like to talk about it, or be distracted from it?”

“Distraction, please.”

Logan had smiled. “Have you had a chance to practice with your webs yet?”

“No.”

“Would you like to try now?”

“Uh, sure. What do we do?”

Logan had started to walk them toward the center of the clearing, explaining how spiders use their webs as a part of their consciousness.

“Wait, they what?”

Logan had nodded. “There is a theory of mind known as ‘extended cognition.’ It states that whilst humans—and most sentient beings—use their minds as a great deal of their processing of thought and feeling, we rely on a lot of external structures outside of our minds to help us think. Sometimes outside of our own bodies as well.”

“Whoa…” Virgil had looked down at his hands. “What do you mean?”

“Think of the way you organize your room.” Logan had gestured to Virgil’s door. “It’s laid out in a way that helps you think, helps you process information. It informs your decision-making sometimes, does it not?”

At Virgil’s nod, Logan had asked softly for his hand, beginning to make small circles in the air as Virgil started to let his webs slip.

“The same is true of a spider’s web. Picture the web as something of a hub.”

“A hub?”

“Yes. Do you remember talking about how spiders use their webs?”

“Yeah, as like a sensory extension. They can feel the vibrations of different strands in order to track their food or sense what’s coming for them.”

Logan had smiled. “Very good memory, Virgil, that’s excellent. Yes, they can tell the difference between different types of vibrations too, from different types of prey to debris to predators.”

A small web starts to form between the gaps in Virgil’s fingers.

“But what else they do is fascinating.” He tugs very gently on one of the strands. “The spider isn’t idle when it sits in the middle of its web. Rather, it’s constantly moving, checking each individual strand. Pulling this one a little tighter, tugging that one.”

Virgil watches as the light gleams off of the strands. He moves his fingers a little to watch them. “What for?”

“Pulling a strand tighter makes it more sensitive to vibrations.” He reaches up to Virgil’s head. “Like cupping your hand around your ear to hear things more clearly.”

“Whoa, that’s cool.”

“Mm. An external way of filtering what information the spider receives in order to better process it.”

Virgil had looked up at Logan. Logan had smiled softly and stepped back, letting Virgil spin the web between his own hands.

“…you think this will help me too?”

“I think that my research has shown that taking a spider’s web away from them severely impairs their ability to function,” had come the quiet reply, “and that you haven’t had much of a chance to spin freely.”

Virgil had looked down at his hands. The web had looked so small, too small. He had looked back up at Logan, chewing on his lip.

“Can I…?”

Logan had smiled and folded his hands behind his back.

Virgil had closed his eyes and reached.

There was something strange, he had realized, about being in your body without being in your body. Something like a wall, sometimes thick, sometimes only static, between you and whatever you sense. Hiding somewhere in a corner of your mind where you were in the world, but not really with the world. As if you were existing but just…slightly to the left.

His body didn’t need to do anything spectacular, it just needed to exist. He was a shape. Just a shape. Nothing more, nothing less.

And that was okay.

Without even realizing it, his four legs had lifted him up, suspending him a few inches off the ground as his hands continued to spin. He had felt them taking the web produced and moving it from place to place, but he wasn’t thinking about it.

He had just…done it.

He had been the slight crack in his left finger as he wrapped his hands around and around the threads of the web.

He had been the very tip of his upper left leg as it took the web and tossed it into place.

He had been the last strand that decided to stick to somewhere and make that its home.

When he had opened his eyes, an unknown amount of time later, his mouth had dropped open in awe.

The clearing, previously empty save for the bare-limbed trees and scattered leaves, was draped and covered in spiderwebs.

Logan, who must’ve been standing there quietly, had looked up and around him, eyes wide with wonder. He had turned slowly, spotting Roman, Remus, Patton, Janus, all staring around with wide eyes at the mass of webs that clung with gossamer elegance to the fabric of the world.

Virgil had hung there, suspended amidst the web, spinning slowly as he felt the world breathe.

Dusk had fallen, bathing the clearing in a soft light that reached gentle fingers out to paint thin blue shadows along the ground. The cool air had been weightless, blowing effortlessly through each strand and setting it to tingle. Everywhere a strand vibrated, a single drop of dew had formed, a single crystal in the half-dark.

A glittering hub.

And for the first time, Virgil had looked at something he’d made not with fear, not with anger, but with wonder.

And he’d laughed.

Giddy, child-like, bemused entirely by his creation and the way his body molded to the soft chimes of the web, spinning, spinning, unspun in the comfort of the mist.

Virgil’s legs twitch behind him at the memory of the first web, and as he looks down, he realizes he’s been idly toying with a web on top of Oliver. The kraken, of course, is more than delighted to realize he’s received a present, burbling happily as Logan finishes his quiet recounting of that evening. A lull hangs over the shore for a moment before Logan adjusts his tie.

“I believe I win.”

“Hold on,” Roman says, “let’s not be too hasty, here.”

“I do remember that,” Patton murmurs, glancing over at Virgil, “that web was so pretty.”

“Pretty enough for Logan to win?”

“Maybe not that pretty.” He sends a wink at Virgil.

Rude.

“Well,” Logan huffs, turning to Roman, “if you’re so certain, Roman, what on earth do you think it is?”

Virgil can hear the fucking smirk on his face from here.

“Have you all forgotten so quickly?” He spreads his arms. “Has the image of our sleepy little spider left your minds so soon after it happened?”

Oh.

Oh, no.

Virgil knows exactly what Roman’s talking about.

Okay, in his defense—who is he kidding, he knows damn well he set himself up for this. But it had been such a long day! He’d been working with Logan, trying to get the garden set up properly and that was hard, okay? Trying to manage the three different notebooks, the planters, the pots, the tools, it was a lot, and he still wasn’t used to using his new legs so he kept bumping into things and it was a lot. Then he had to help Patton with clearing out another section of the kitchen to make room for all the new baking pans and they were so loud and hard to manage and get the things in all the right places took so long and ugh. And then to top it all off Janus had promised to go with him on a walk and—listen, okay, the day was long.

And Roman is really, really warm.

He’d been walking back from the portal, drained from the effort of keeping his magic under control on the other side of the garden, panting slightly as he rounded the corner. He’d looked up just in time to see Roman shutting his red door behind him.

“Ah,” he’d said, coming over with a smile, “there you are, little honeybee, I’ve been looking for you.”

He’d taken one look at Virgil’s demeanor, however, and quickly softened his voice, coming a little closer, hands at the ready to ensure he was alright.

“What’s happened, little honeybee, are you alright? Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine, Roman, I just—oh—“

“Shh, easy, hey, come here…” Roman had leaned Virgil gently against the side of the house. “Too much?”

Virgil had nodded wearily. “Think I just…pushed it a little too hard today.”

“It happens.” He’d run his hand gently through Virgil’s hair. “Magic-wise or just existence-wise?”

“Bit of both?”

“My poor little honeybee, you must be exhausted.” Virgil’s eyes had slipped closed for a moment as Roman had carded his hand through his hair again. “Do you want to be left alone, or can I take care of you?”

Virgil had leaned into Roman’s touch and mumbled something. Roman had chuckled.

“Those aren’t words, little honeybee.”

“Mm.” Virgil had managed to crack one eye open. “C’n I come with you?”

“Of course, Virgil, let’s get you somewhere warmer.”

Roman had guided him carefully through the red door, sitting him down and producing cloth and bottle out of seemingly nowhere. He had shushed any protests gently, saying that it didn’t matter that Virgil hadn’t been crying, he can still let Roman clean his face off. He’d cupped Virgil’s head and asked him quietly to look at him.

“I don’t want you to fall asleep here, little honeybee,” he’d murmured, “so try and stay awake until we can get you somewhere comfortable, alright?”

“I’m not that tired,” he’d protested, “I’ll be fine.”

Roman had just smiled.

And Virgil really didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing him be so tired that he’d tried really hard to keep his eyes open. Even when Roman’s hand under his chin had been so warm, so confident in holding his head right where it needed to be. Even when the soothing repetitive motions of the cloth had coaxed his gaze not to Roman’s face but to the way the fabric moved in and out of his vision. Even when Roman had to pause and rewet the cloth and he’d let his eyes drift shut for a moment, just a moment.

Only to realize later that Roman had stopped completely, and was watching him with a quietly smug smile.

“Stay awake for me, little honeybee,” he’d whispered, “I’m almost done.”

“‘M trying.”

“I know, I know,” Roman had soothed, finishing cleaning his face, “and you’re doing a wonderful job for me.”

Then, of course, everything had gone wrong.

Because just that one little word of praise had been enough for the very tips of Virgil’s ears to go read, and of course, Roman had spotted it.

“Little honeybee,” he’d murmured, tilting Virgil’s chin up just a little higher, “what’s got you so flustered?”

“Nothing.”

“Hmm, nothing? Are you sure? Your ears look awful red.”

“It’s fine.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Roman had said lowly, still cleaning off Virgil’s face with gentle swipes of the cloth, “I’m sure it’s fine, little honeybee, I trust you completely, I’m simply worried. If I’m doing something wrong, then I’d hate for you to be uncomfortable.”

He says, as he’d looked directly into Virgil’s eyes.

“Why,” Virgil had whined out as Roman had chuckled, watching him cover his face, “are you so mean?”

“Sorry, little honeybee,” Roman had murmured, not sounding very sorry at all as he leaned forward to press a kiss to Virgil’s forehead, “I couldn’t resist, you’re too cute.”

“I am not!”

“Oh, little honeybee—“

“No,” Virgil had said—said, definitely, not pouted, “don’t respond to that.”

“If you insist.” Roman had given him another moment before reminding him that he still needs to finish. “I’m really almost done, I promise. It won’t take much longer.”

Of course, having someone hold your face when you were already flustered is not easy, and it was Roman, so…

“What happened,” he had asked as though he didn’t know damn well what had happened, “why aren’t you so sleepy anymore, little honeybee?”

Virgil had been quite impressed with the glare he’d managed to give Roman through the remaining blush on his cheeks. Roman had simply laughed.

“Alright, I deserve that.” He’d stroked a thumb carefully over Virgil’s clean cheek and leaned in to kiss him lightly on the other. “You did wonderfully, little honeybee, thank you. I’m all done now.”

Roman had turned away, putting the cloth and the bottle back into whatever aether he’d pulled them out of and offering his hand to Virgil.

“Come on, do you want to change into something else?”

The sleepy haze had returned by the time he’d managed to get into the softer clothes Roman had offered, all but stumbling into Roman’s arms as they retreated to the large mess of cushions and pillows. Roman had laid down first, Virgil on top of him, one hand tangled in his hair, the other scratching lightly at the center of his four legs.

“Shh, shh,” he’d coaxed when Virgil had started to whine, “none of that now, little honeybee, just relax.”

A soft knock on the door.

“Yes?”

“Roman, have you seen…” Logan had trailed off the instant he spotted them. “Ah. Nevermind.”

“Have I seen our little spider?” Roman had lightly knuckled Virgil’s jaw. “Yes, I believe I have. Did you need something?”

“Only to join you, if you’d allow me.” He’d glanced behind up. “Or rather, allow us.”

Virgil hadn’t been able to fully recognize the others coming in to join them around the mass of pillows, but he had registered the soft weight of Patton asking if he could dust him off a little and the soft gurgle of Remus as he settled in above them on the wall.

“My, my,” a voice had drawled, Virgil too tired to look over at Janus, “what a sleepy little spider.”

“Mm.” Virgil had felt Roman’s chest warm as the hand on his back continued to scratch gently. “Precious little spider.”

“Are you two just going to fuss at him until he falls asleep?”

“Why shouldn’t we?”

“Well, if you fluster him too badly he might not be able to sleep.”

“Why, Logan, I’m hurt. Surely you know we would never.”

Virgil still isn’t sure what it was, whether it was the drawl of Janus’s voice, Logan’s disbelieving scoff, or the very real memory of Roman enjoying driving him out of his mind a few minutes ago, but whatever it was, it bubbled up in the pit of his stomach and he started to giggle.

The room had gone quiet, just listening to Virgil lying on Roman’s chest, absolutely stunned.

“You’re so giggly, little spider,” Roman had teased, “so giggly, so adorable, I’ve never heard you giggle before. It’s so cute!”

“Giggle spider, is that a thing, Logan?”

“Well, it certainly is now.”

Roman had rubbed his back soothingly, still teasing, trying to lull Virgil back to sleep. Janus had reached over and tucked a blanket over the two of them, leaning down to kiss Virgil’s hair and murmur something about getting it out, little spider, it would be alright.

Virgil isn’t sure if that was the first time he’d fallen asleep with a smile on his face, but it wasn’t the last.

“…yes, alright,” Logan concedes, “that was adorable.”

Roman throws his hands up in triumph. “See? Everyone’s favorite is our giggle spider.”

Yeah, Virgil’s really glad he’s not standing next to Roman right now, and that he’s far enough away that they can’t see his blush if he ducks his head. He still gets all giggly when he remembers it, no use in reminding everyone of that now.

“Janus? Are you going to try and compete, or…” Roman strikes a dramatic pose. “Shall we commence with my victory already?”

Janus is quiet for a minute. Then he raises his hand and lets a little bit of the golden glow of the Claim flicker up around his hand.

“Virgil,” he says softly—oh, he’s using it so he doesn’t have to raise his voice, that’s clever— “would you come over here, please?”

“Uh, sure.” He pats Oliver’s head and the kraken burbles, wrapping an arm tightly around Virgil’s waist to set him on the shore near Remus. Remus reaches out to steady him, make sure he’s alright. “I’m good, thanks. I’m here now.”

“Yes, thank you, little mouse.” Janus tilts his head. “Do you have a favorite?”

“…favorite?”

“A time you laughed,” comes the soft voice, “do you have one? It’s alright if you don’t.”

Virgil glances around the circle, expecting to see scoffs or playful challenges or maybe—just maybe—someone will whisper that he knows theirs is the correct choice. But he doesn’t.

All he sees are curious expressions, even a few encouraging smiles.

“Wait, really?”

Janus nods. “Anything? It doesn’t have to be much.”

Virgil thinks. Does he? He remembers meeting Oliver for the first time, remembers making bread with Patton, remembers spinning in the clearing, remembers falling asleep on Roman’s chest.

Something else…something else…

“I remember,” he starts nervously, “it was one of the first times I went for a walk at night by myself.”

He looks around, maybe he wasn’t supposed to do that, but no judgment meets his gaze. He swallows.

“It was dark outside but the moon was really bright. I could see perfectly, even with the trees, all the way to the lake.”

He glances behind him, at Oliver, playing in the reeds.

“Oliver was asleep. He—I think it was after you guys spent the day cleaning out the underbelly of the caverns down there, he was really tired. So the lake was, like, super flat.”

He remembers little ripples, just the barest touch of the breeze to the surface of the water.

“And I, um, I realized that I’d never actually seen anything be that…” He struggles for a moment for the right word. “…still before.”

He shifts a little.

“Everything was always moving. Even when it was quieter, the water was never completely flat. There were waves, there were—there was always something.”

But not that night. No, that night it felt like the lake was breathing, not like the wind was blowing across it. If he sat still enough, it was almost as if he could watch it inhale and exhale, at peace in the moonlight.

“And I…I dunno, I really liked the way the moon looked.” He looks down at his hands. “It, uh, reminded me of what the Claim looks like.”

He’d sat there for a while, just staring at his hands, wondering how the gold of the Claim would look bathed in silvery light. He’d rubbed them together, trying to see if he could feel it, only for something else to emerge entirely.

He hears the gasps of Roman and Patton as a purple orb begins to form in his hands.

“I, uh…made this for the first time that night,” he murmurs, watching it spin and dance in his hands, suspended there, floating like some great bubble, “and it looked…like me.”

He remembers staring into it and not seeing anything but energy. About looking at it the way he used to watch the moon, the stars, anything he could never understand but wanted to, so desperately.

Only to realize that he already understood it.

Gone were the gauntlets, gone were the strings, gone were the threats of torture and hurt and pain.

All that was left was this.

And feeling that relief, seeing this orb as a manifestation of the fact that it was free…

In that release, he’d laughed.

“It was…the first time I think I realized I was me.”

Virgil looks up at them. The orb fades back into nothingness, leaving his hands empty. After a pause, Janus reaches forward and gently draws him in.

“That,” he says softly, “that is my favorite.”

“You fucking sap.”

“He has gone soft.”

“Oh, like you haven’t?”

And just like that, the petty bickering is back, but filled with fondness and barely concealed amusement and it’s so perfect, it’s so right, that Virgil can’t help himself.

Virgil can’t help it, he laughs.

General Taglist: @frxgprince @potereregina @reddstardust @gattonero17 @iamhereforthegayshit @thefingergunsgirl @awkwardandanxiousfander @creative-lampd-liberties @djpurple3 @winterswrandomness @sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes @iminyourfandom @bullet-tothefeels @full-of-roman-angst-trash @ask-elsalvador @ramdomthingsfrommymind @demoniccheese83 @pattonsandershugs @el-does-photography @princeanxious @firefinch-ember @fandomssaremysoul @im-an-anxious-wreck @crazy-multifandomfangirl @punk-academian-witch @enby-ralsei @unicornssunflowersandstuff @wildhorsewolf @thetruthaboutthesun @stubbornness-and-spite @princedarkandstormv @your-local-fookin-deadmeme @angels-and-dreams @averykedavra @a-ghostlight-for-roman @treasurechestininterweb @cricketanne @aularei @queerly-fluid-fan @compactdiscdraws @cecil-but-gayer @i-am-overly-complicated @annytheseal @alias290 @tranquil-space-ninja @arxticandy @mychemically-imbalanced-romance @whyiask @crows-ace @emilythezeldafan @frida0043 @ieatspinalcords @snowyfires @cyanide-violence @oonagh2 @xxpanic-at-the-everywherexx @rabbitsartcorner @percy-07734 @triflingassailantofmyemotions @virgil-sanders-the-gay-emo @cerulean-watermelon @puffed-up-bees @meltheromanstan

(Un)Wanted Taglist: @deafeningdeppresedvoidthing @myrandomfandoms12 @i-love-books-and-so-do-you @homodetector @cohesiveanxiety @extrageekytrashofthething @beyondthestacks @lizzy-lineart @imknittingahat @twilight--trix @/nofurtherquestions-smirk @ray-does-stuff @lunatatic @our-bloody-mari666 @what-aboutno

If you want to be added/taken off taglist(s), let me know!

#dragonbabbles #sanders sides #virgil sanders #roman sanders #remus sanders #sympathetic remus #janus sanders #deceit sanders #sympathetic deceit #patton sanders #logan sanders #fae sides #fic

74 notes · View notes

inkmemes · 3 years

Text

ryan ross lyric sentence starters ↪ taken from various songs he’s written, lyrics he’s sung, & poetry he’s penned. trigger warnings for mentions of sex, cheating, drugs. alter as you see fit ♡

“so close …”

“i am composing a burlesque.”

“i'm all alone in an afterglow.”

“but we haven’t even met yet.”

“this war ain't gonna fix itself.”

“you can’t be lonely.”

“you're gonna have to dig your way out.”

“she was nowhere to be seen.”

“some people never change.”

“i know i broke your heart. mine is broken too.”

“i'm carving pumpkins.”

“i'm afraid that i may have faked it.”

“though you tried to cut me down it wasn’t deep enough.”

“this may call for a proper introduction.”

“i know it’s mad.”

“all the lights are on, but no one's home.”

“a year ago, i was dreaming of where i am now.”

“charm your way out.”

“we're all too small to talk to god.”

“you’re invited.”

“it's not so pleasant.”

“if you're going, then go.”

“i was suspicious and naive.”

“we're still so young, desperate for attention.”

“things have changed for me, and that's okay.”

“that's the spirit.”

“watch your mouth.”

“it started with a simple kiss.”

“don't you move.”

“what a wonderful caricature of intimacy.”

“we'll never go hungry.”

“praying for love in a lap dance and paying in naivety.”

“i lie in silence and feel like a fool.”

“grab your hat and fetch a camera.”

“your eyes are the size of the moon.”

“it's time for us to take a chance.”

“you should take this heart of mine.”

“how did i get here in the right from wrong?”

“i know it just doesn't feel like a night out.”

“it just made her more interesting.”

“she didn't even see me.”

“do you know what i mean?”

“i'm wrecking this evening already, and loving every minute of it.”

“i sure do make an easy target.”

“someone i love loves someone else.”

“don't bother waiting up.”

“don’t you go down.”

“you vanished when you'd gotten what you came here for.”

“would it be alright if we just sat and talked for a little while?”

"when did he get all confident?"

“you know it will always just be me.”

“i feel the same.”

“all my forgotten poems are a joke.”

“she'd wanna kiss you all the time.”

“i want a big celebration.”

“i'll ignore my heart and lie to the truth.”

“film the world before it happens.”

“that's just ridiculously odd.”

“it grows like fancy flowers.”

“he tried to save the calendar business.”

“i wonder if this was physical or if it could have been in my head.”

“i wouldn't be caught dead in this place.”

“you're pulling the trigger all wrong.”

“i saw you, i met you, i loved you.”

“so let me set you free.”

“i'm aware that you're scared of my heart, but it's here.”

“northern downpour sends its love.”

“you better put that pen to paper.”

“if you're gonna preach, for god sakes, preach with conviction.”

“haven't you heard that i'm the new cancer?”

“i know i broke your heart.”

“i am something velveteen.”

“we're locked inside.”

“just don't put your teeth on me.”

“when i’m good, i’m the baddest.”

“i’m up, looking for you now.”

“you can call me tonight.”

“it sure as hell ain't normal.”

“haven't you people ever heard of closing the goddamn door?!”

“we sure are in for a show tonight.”

“can't take the kid from the fight.”

“she's got me twisted in love.”

“i could've waited for the train to come.”

“you could love me if i knew how to lie.”

“if it were me, i'd write another song.”

“i fell from the heavens as a fetish.”

“i am renewed.”

“i hope that i've still got your help.”

“take a look at what you got me into.”

“we should feed our jewelry to the sea.”

“who could ask for any more?”

“i'm pouring out my heart for paper.”

“i need to leave you but i never will.”

“i forgot how to call you.”

“just stay where i can see you.”

“it's the greatest thing that's yet to have happened.”

“i’m doing my best.”

“she didn't choose this role.”

“life is not a fairytale.”

“our loneliness will keep us warm.”

“i don't mind taking a photograph.”

“you're gonna bend until it breaks.”

“maybe something in my blood could lift my spirits up.”

“i am out of my mind.”

“imagine knowing me.”

“i hope it's where i belong.”

“is it still me that makes you sweat?”

“your speech is slurred enough that you just might swallow your tongue.”

“i must be lucky to have you be the one who loves me.”

“but who could love me?”

“you clicked your heels and wished for me.”

“give me your attention.”

“you set the house on fire.”

"man, it feels good to feel this way."

“i've got more wit, a better kiss, a hotter touch, a better fuck then any boy you'll ever meet.”

“if the clouds were singing a song, i'd sing along. wouldn't you, too?”

“i know i've been wrong.”

“kissed a girl in the lobby ‘cause she asked so politely.”

“i can't get out by myself.”

“true love like ours is worth so much more than a diamond ring.”

“it never made her happy, 'cause she couldn't ever have me.”

“i do drunk dialing minus the alcohol.”

“i hope to god he was worth it.”

“he looked like he was barely hanging on.”

“why do i find myself outside at your window in the night?”

“i'd put a statue of myself upon the shelf.”

“they spill unfound from a pretty mouth.”

“ i'm going to need you to keep time.”

“you better back your shit up.”

“i think i owe it to you to try to be every hallucination you see in me.”

“you do this all the time."

“you're not what he's thinking of when he's with the other girl.”

things have changed for me.”

“this was no accident.”

“it's much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality.”

“just sit back and relax.”

“i, for one, won't stand for this.”

“we play by donner party rules at all times.”

“the glitter is gone.”

“boys will be boys.”

“you're all that's left for me.”

“my mind is all mixed up.”

“who knew that love was a dangerous drug?”

“'she couldn't ever have me.”

“isn't this exactly where you'd like me?”

“we can play normal for a few days.”

“i ground my teeth and you bite your tongue.”

“in case i lost my train of thought where was it that we last left off?”

“it seems i’m someone i've never met.”

“i think i made you up.”

“it never gave a damn about me.”

“perhaps, i was born with curiosity, the likes of those of old crows.”

“i'm cold, i'm hungry, but i'm bored.”

“i don't want no gifts.”

“the monster mash is playing.”

“do you really even live here?”

“this kind of thing always happens.”

“you were right. i was wrong, like i always am.”

“i missed your skin when you were east.”

“i feel as if i’m a figurine.”

“every night is the same.”

“ i'm sure i didn't ruin her.”

“i could have sworn we danced slow before.”

“i'm seated and sweating to a dance song on the club's pa.”

“it's nice to think that you are always wanted.”

“am i who you think about in bed?”

“you'll never know until you're there.”

“come on, this is screaming ‘photo op’.”

“you and i will always be ‘the dream’.”

“any practiced catholic would cross themselves upon entering.”

“it was a scream when we were young and dumb.”

“i know i should've never left.”

“who can i believe?”

“she always had her fangs at my jugular vein.”

“and a few more of your least favorite things.”

“in matters of opinion, love has gone insane.”

“if i go to hell will you come with me or just leave?”

“in the house of mirrors, ain't nothing keep you safe.”

“you know that you feel it too.”

“now we're making some progress.”

“god damn, i’d hate to see what i’d do under the influence.”

“i’m only reflecting your perfections.”

“just a first kiss to face the new year.”

“we’ll sit in silence.”

“you're a regular decorated emergency.”

“euphoria is a risk on the floor.”

“she could never win me.”

“love is all i'm really after.”

“have some composure,.”

“this was a therapeutic chain of events.”

“on the hotel floor, drinking warm champagne.”

“we need to talk.”

“every word gets you a step closer to hell.”

“let me help you please.”

“i never said i missed her when everybody kissed her.”

“now i know it's just a matter of time until i make her come.”

“if the world were ending, would you kiss me or just leave me?”

“forgive me if i’m not quite ready to give them to you.”

“i want to know what everyone knows.”

“you told me not to fear the dark.”

“the weather is impeccable.”

“i don't love you, i'm just passing the time.”

“i can't help but to hear an exchanging of words.”

“love is established philosophy.”

“but it might’ve been the calm that comes before the storm.”

“let's sing it like you mean it.”

“there's a devil in the corner.”

“there’s never anything good on tv.”

“everything goes according to plan.”

“i ran from love like it was laced.”

“i guess we're back to us.”

“we can't help ourselves.”

“i remember fuckin' in the falling rain.”

“i wasn't born to be a skeleton.”

“i couldn't quit her.”

“everything's gone missing.”

“we must reinvent love.”

“i know it's sad that i never gave a damn about the weather.”

“what do i know?”

"the best part about you was me."

“check the pocket of my leather jacket.”

“i am truly made of one million glowing constellations.”

“i mean, technically our marriage is saved.”

“she's a dangerous place.”

“even the truth is wrong sometimes.”

“was it god who chokes in these situations?”

“i feel like something on strings.”

“she couldn't ever catch me.”

“i try not to think about it and you.”

“i know it's just a matter of time.”

“i can't prove this makes any sense, but i sure hope that it does.”

“you know you should take it a day at a time.”

“i never said i’d leave the city.”

“it's the greatest thing you'd ever imagine.”

“i might have lost control.”

“i'm in a rut but still adored.”

“i'll keep my distance.”

“i need to take a vacation.”

“it's almost halloween.”

“is it a fairy tale?”

“well, this calls for a toast, so pour the champagne.”

“you can't stand it.”

“i'm exactly where you'd like me, you know.”

“we were always thick as thieves, you and me.”

“maybe i will, maybe i won’t.”

“all i want to do is dig a hole with you.”

“stop stalling.”

“it truly is enough to be alive and be in love.”

“i can't believe my eyes.”

“if i were to die tonight, would you cry, or deny my place in your life?”

“you are at the top of my lungs.”

“things do like to build up and fall apart at the same time for me.”

“why can't we just be friends?"

“i never know where the evening goes.”

“i want to go where everyone feels the same.”

“i fell in love again.”

“all i do is lie.”

“they asked for it.”

“was it all a dream?”

“all your wishes, they will sink like stones.”

“i wandered through the sunshine.”

“living even one minute without you is a moment i'd rather not have to live to see.”

“i want to go where everyone goes.”

“i think that i have had enough.”

“asked to be her husband; she already had one in prison.”

“true love is scarce.”

“somehow it still came undone.”

“things are shaping up to be pretty odd.”

“is ‘young’ a word for ‘dumb’; a word for ‘fun’?”

“said i'd let you keep it forever.”

“i never said i’d leave this town.”

“guess i'm going to a party.”

“damn, this is rough.”

“someone should have told her that pretty ain't a job.”

“something changed along the way.”

“i can't convince myself that you were good for more than cheap thrills.”

“now i’m the only one to blame.”

“let's not get selfish.”

“i hardly knew a thing about you.”

“give your feet a chance, they'll do all the thinking.”

“make a name for yourself.”

“it's useless searching in the cupboards.”

“i won't cut my beard and i won't change my hair.”

“it’s just the end of the world.”

“back to the room where it all began.”

“what was it that you put into my guts?”

“what a shame.”

“we'll leave the past out to pasture.”

“i know the world’s a broken bone, but melt your headaches, call it home.”

“everybody knows it but you.”

“it looks like the end of history as we know.”

#rp meme #rp prompt #rp starters #rp sentence meme #rp sentence starters #'ink ...' u say. 'i know' i say #if u know my newest rp blog and u see this ... simply Do Not Perceive Me #im having me time get OUT #let me live my LIFE

163 notes · View notes

everythingharrypotterblog · 4 years

Text

charmed [7]: ‘night changes’ (remus lupin x reader)

a/n: i got rejected from my top choice university program today so if im gonna be unhappy, might as well make u guys happy and release parts 5 and 7

brief summary: y/n and remus are both teachers at hogwarts and this is his first transformation where he is under wolfsbane. y/n remains in human form as he transforms. werewolf or not, all y/n ever feels is him.

series summary: set in the prisoner of azkaban, including its major plot points. remus and y/n get hired by dumbledore last minute to teach at hogwarts, defense against the dark arts and charms respectively. not wanting the students to know they are married, they navigate the challenging year through hidden glances, hand holds underneath the table and loving moments in their offices. even with all their efforts to conceal their relationship, their chemistry does not go unnoticed by the student population of hogwarts, who grow fond of the pair as they offer them some of the best classes they’ve had in a while. their relationship as newlyweds is strengthened as teaching the next generation of wizards unlocks a sea of memories of their love story. for the second time in his life, remus holds hogwarts responsible for some of his happiest memories. he’s given the chance to create them with the love of his life, y/n, who has taught and continues to teach him that every part of him is lovable, remaining forever under her charm.

series masterlist here

join taglist here

previously, in part 1:

“No, you don’t understand, it’s incredibly, extremely dangerous for a human to be around a were-“ Remus had tried to say, before Y/N had stood up and with a crack, disappeared. A single white dove hovered where she had stood, its wings flapping slowly to stay afloat.

“Y/N?”

With a crack, Y/N had appeared again.

“I didn’t know you were an Animagus.”

Y/N grinned.

“What, you thought James, Sirius and Peter were the only ones to ever succeed at it?”

Remus still grimaced, shaking his head and looking down.

“It’s still too dangerous, I won’t risk it. I couldn’t possibly think of hurting you, I’m too dangerous-“

“Remus, stop it. You didn’t hurt Peter as a rat back in the day, you wouldn’t hurt a flinging bird either. Plus, I got a serious height advantage on you anyway.” Y/N raised her eyebrows at him teasingly, transforming back again into the dove and flying up to the ceiling. Lupin wasn’t convinced.

“Y/N, you shouldn’t-“

The dove reappeared as Y/N and kneeled between Lupin’s legs, taking his face into her hands carefully.

“Please? Let me be there for you. Let me try-“

“I-“ Remus winced in his crippling self-doubt.

“I promise, if I ever feel unsafe, I’ll fly away. I promise.”

Remus nodded. “I love you.”

Y/N was taken aback, but surged forward to press her lips against his.

“I love you too.”

It was the first time they had said that to each other.

The first full moon of the Hogwarts term was now but a day away. As it drew nearer, Remus got paler and grew more irritable, as it always was.

The students never noticed, as he remained their kind Professor Lupin to them. Remus valued the staff and Dumbledore in extremely high regard, so he mainly kept to himself to avoid conflict.

However, his short temper was not 100% appeasable.

He was presently in his office, leg anxiously bouncing. He couldn’t help but jitter as restless energy coursed through him. The door opened, and he jerked his head in its direction, to see Y/N walk in, slightly anxious as well.

“Hi, love.” She said, making her way to him.

“He’s late.” Remus muttered.

“It’s Albus Dumbledore, what do you expect- maybe he had a Wizarding War in Luxembourg to stop before this or something.” Y/N joked, dragging a chair beside her and taking Remus’ hand.

His leg stopped bouncing.

1980.

Remus sat in an armchair in the House of Black’s library, attempting to distract himself before the night would come, a transformation night.

Loud voices reverberated across the walls, and he usually wouldn’t have minded, but the full moon made him more irritable.

“Will you guys stop yelling!” He called out across the hallway to the room where James, Sirius and a couple other Order members were talking over each other.

Sirius shared a look with James and they shrugged, making a motion with their hand asking the others to lower their voices.

“Hi, guys!” In came Y/N’s voice, as she walked through the door after a day of work, setting down her jacket. She joined the table for a few snacks, before inquiring, “Where’s Remus?”

“Ah, in the library.” James said mindlessly, shuffling the pack of cards they were playing with. He spotted Y/N head for that direction, and attempted to add, “But I wouldn’t disturb him if I were-“

But Y/N already walked in the library, wanting to see her boyfriend. She found him buried in a book, sitting slightly uncomfortably in his clothes, as if his body was having pre-transformation aches.

“Hi, love.” She said gently.

Remus peered up from his book and instantly smiled, uncrossing his legs and patting at his lap. Y/N took a seat on him, and he wrapped his arms around her comfortably.

“How was work?” He grumbled, mouth kissing up her arm and shoulder.

“Oh, just the usual.”

He listened to her talk about her day, hugging her as she sat in his lap.

James heard faint sounds of their light voices from the other room, and laughed. Sirius shook his head, both of them amused by their friend’s drastic change in demeanor.

“Little fucker.”

Dumbledore appeared in Remus’ office not long after Y/N joined, with a goblet of familiar-looking blue smoke.

“Remus, Y/N. I took the liberty of bringing you your last dose myself, Severus has already done so much. So, you wanted to talk about the logistics of your upcoming transformation.”

Remus nodded, leaning forward and taking the potion.

“This is your first time with Wolfsbane, so we cannot be sure on how it will affect you. However, I trust that it has been brewed properly, so it should do its function, which is to maintain your mental state when you transform.”

“So technically, he could just stay and hide here in his office and wait for the night to be over?” Y/N asked Dumbledore, thumb rubbing over Remus’ hand.

“Yes. If the potion has been brewed correctly, which I am sure it has, Remus should transform into nothing but a harmless wolf. Of course, because this is your first time, if you still wish to go outside and-“

“Yes.” Remus interjected, once he finished the last of the potion. “I wish to still use the Whomping Willow, just to avoid all potential risk.”

“Very well.” Dumbledore smiled, bowing his head. “I have complete trust in you, so you do as you please.”

“And I should… I won’t forget who I am, I won’t lose my mind?” Remus asked.

“No.” Dumbledore confirmed. “Your mental state will stay intact.”

“Then, I can technically be in human form with him.” Y/N gasped as the idea jumped into her head. She was immediately met with startled looks from both Dumbledore and Remus, Dumbledore merely intrigued and Remus looking downright terrified. “I mean, I could be with him. Me, a human.” She added hastily.

Glancing at Remus’ fervently opposed look, Dumbledore merely stood up.

“I will leave that between you two to discuss. Goodnight, and good luck.” He said. “Oh! And one more thing.”

His eyes twinkled. “I hear talk amongst the students since the start of term. About you two.”

Remus and Y/N looked at each other nervously.

“Something about spotting their Charms and Defence teachers always being present in each other’s offices…”

Y/N mouth dropped in shock, trying to figure out how students could even know where they spent their nights, before Dumbledore laughed heartily, shaking his head.

“I kid, I kid, I have heard nothing of the sort. All that has reached my ears are the raving comments about your classes and subjects. Keep up the good work, Professors.” Dumbledore chuckled, and vanished into the fireplace.

Y/N stared dumbfounded at the spot he disappeared, before letting out a laugh.

“I-“ She blinked. “He is so weird, and can you believe, I almost let slip that I’m an Animagus-“

She stopped once she looked at her husband, whose expression was grave.

“Wha-“

“You cannot stay in human form with me.” He shook his head.

Y/N stayed silent for a second. “Why not? If this potion works, and we know it will, your-“

“We can’t be too sure!” Remus sighed. “Werewolves, we hunt for humans. We look for victims to bite, to… to-“

“If the potion doesn’t work, then I’ll just transform into a dove, like always.”

Remus met her eyes in a worried gaze.

“I’ve been a bird countless of times on your transformations, you’re still gonna let me do that, are you?” Y/N raised her eyebrows. “You even said, werewolves look for humans, animal companions are harmless-“

“Which is exactly why you can’t be in human form, darling! The extreme danger that would put you in, you have no idea.”

“I have no idea?” Y/N pursed her lips, instinctively reaching out to her bicep, on which lay a tiny white scar.

Remus glanced at it too, with almost hatred and remorse in his eyes, as he sighed, hand tracing over it and kissing it.

“Maybe you should transform right now, my love.” Remus said anxiously as he, Y/N, James, Sirius and Peter walked through an abandoned part of the woods.

The sky was dark, and the clouds radiated a faint shimmer indicating the full moon would appear soon.

“I won’t transform until I absolutely need to.” Y/N said firmly, hand holding onto Remus’ tightly.

“She’ll follow our lead, Moony, don’t worry.” Sirius said.

Unintentionally, they stopped at a small hill, deeming the timing to be right.

“Y/N, it’s not too late, you could just Disapparate away, I-“ Remus said to Y/N.

“Remus. Stop. I’m not scared.” Y/N smiled at him, cupping his cheek. “You’re still you. And I love you, all parts of you. Nothing will change that, or you and me.”

Remus nodded, breathing quickly and pulled her in for a kiss, before the other Marauders beckoned Y/N to back away slightly as the moon started to peak.

The night changed in an instant.

The opal orb shone in the sky and in the moonlight, Y/N watched as Remus’ tall silhouette trembled, his body morphing into a werewolf.

Y/N was in awe. His body lengthened. His shoulders were hunching. Hair sprouted visibly from his head and neck and his hands curled into clawed paws. Straightening up, he howled to the sky, the sound echoing into the rest of the night.

Y/N’s mind went blank. The Marauders had transformed as she kept her eye on Remus. For a second, the werewolf’s eyes met hers, but before she could do anything, he lunged for her.

Adrenaline shot through her body as the werewolf made a swipe towards her, a big black dog jumping in between them just in time for Remus’ sharp claw to slightly graze her shoulder before she transformed with a crack, into a dove and flew up, batting her wings.

“I’ll never be able to forgive myself for that.” Remus whispered painfully, finger tracing over the small permanent scratch near Y/N’s shoulder.

“But I’m fine.” Y/N pursed her lips, eyes looking into Remus’ face imploringly. “Because I knew that it wasn’t you. And after the night ended, you cared for me so tenderly and lovingly. Gently. Because that is the real you.”

Remus soaked a warm towel for the millionth time as he sat Y/N on the toilet next to the sink to tend the small scratch she had acquired from him.

“Rem, it’s okay, do you realize that I’ve broken literal bones before! This is nothing.” Y/N said, letting him clean the patch of skin before taking both of his hands in hers. He kneeled in between her legs.

“I could never forgive myself for this, I’m so sorry-“

“Please. In the best way possible, shut up.” Y/N smiled, eyes welling up at the unnecessary look of remorse plaguing Remus’ face. “That wasn’t you. And nothing that I saw or felt last night changes who you are to me now.”

“You don’t…see me as a monster? You don’t even feel a tiny bit scared being with me right now?” Remus teared up.

Y/N smiled, eyes crinkling and letting tears fall down her cheeks. “I just feel you.”

Y/N woke up from her nap the night of the full moon to find Remus’ side of the bed empty. Eventually, she had gotten Remus to agree to let her accompany him as she always did, but in human form this time.

Getting up, she spotted Remus already at the door. She crossed her arms.

“Are you running away?” Y/N frowned, her husband jumping at getting caught.

“No, I-I figured I’d head out earlier.”

Y/N walked towards him, squeezing his shoulders.

“We talked about this. It’ll be okay.” Y/N reassured him. She saw the fear still in his eyes but he nodded, blinking some away and reaching to get Y/N’s coat for her.

They walked in the chilly night air, making their way to the Forest. Although this felt completely new, they had never done this at Hogwarts and they were expecting new results tonight, there was also a sense of déjà-vu present in the air.

Y/N had been helping Remus with every one of his transformations during their entire marriage and before, ever since she was 18. It’s been almost 13 years that they were in this together.

We're only gettin' older, baby

And I've been thinkin' about it lately

“Thank you for being here.” Remus said, squeezing her hand. “And I don’t just mean tonight.”

Y/N squeezed it back tightly, beaming at him. The moon was close to being fully out, and they stopped on a small hill overlooking Hagrid’s Hut where it would appear in full view.

Does it ever drive you crazy

Just how fast the night changes?

“Remember, if I make any sudden moves, you transform on the spot, okay?” Remus looked down at her, eyes full of conviction. Y/N nodded.

They both stood there, waiting, anticipation through the roof. They felt nauseous, from nervousness. The clouds began to fade, and more moonlight shined onto them. Slowly, they let go of each other’s hands and took a couple steps back from each other.

Everything that you've ever dreamed of

Disappearing when you wake up

The first beam of light hit Remus as the full moon emerged.

But there's nothing to be afraid of

Even when the night changes

His neck began elongating, thick hair growing from his head and covering his back. His shoulders hunched as he grew taller, breaking through the material of his clothes.

It will never change, baby

Y/N watched from a short distance as Remus morphed into a towering creature. Her incantation was ready in her head, just in case she had to transform into the dove.

It will never change, baby

Slowly, the full-fledge werewolf straightened up from its hunched over position. His eyes met Y/N’s and her body tensed, remembering. Instead of lunging at her, he sat down, his human-like eyes expressing gentleness. Y/N took a tiny step towards him.

“Remus?” She said, voice trembling.

The werewolf nodded.

Taking steps closer, she shakily got down onto her knees to join him on the ground. She lifted a hand, tentatively, and inch by inch, approached it to cup his cheek. At the contact, they both breathed out in relief.

“I just feel you.” Y/N smiled, tears flowing from her eyes.

It will never change me and you.

to be continued

a/n: as always i’d love to hear what u thought or what ud like to see of the series:)

tags @bicyhot1 @pink-hufflepuff @legitlaughingflamingo @brod16 @gerardonmyway @blueleonor @suranne-doesstuff @rxmusblxck @spxllcxstxr @littleemo477 @just12randomfandoms @svnkissdd @norrreee @m4r13l3y @jess6578 @rorysreallyrandom @the-nightingale-not-the-lark @archeve19 @wolfstarslovechild @pan-pride-12 @x4kai4x @chrrybmb-mp3 @reggieluna @happyslittlekitten @missemilygilmore @all-things-fictional @strangefirething @abitofeverythinggg @yeahshewayout @imfreeeeeee123 @harold-pothead @lunnybunny12 @ellieblack11 @tugabooos @joyfulbiscuit @justonemorechapter07 @wonderwoman292 @skateb0red @secretsthathauntus @siriusblackswhoree @sabonbonn @untraveled-road @annabeljareau @valiantobservationkitty @diffbeanofbrand @theeicedamericano @spencerreidlove @flannellover67 @wishiwasdeadric @becks7401 @katsav17 @emmy-kitty13 @purritoqueen @girl22334 @monicafebyana @talsiaa @sierrax023 @axva03 @uhh-dk @nataliahgrace

#remus lupin fanfiction #remus lupin fanfic #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin imagine #remus lupin fluff #remus lupin x y/n #remus lupin x you #Professor Remus Lupin #professor lupin x reader #professor! reader #charmed

323 notes · View notes

thenextchapter22 · 3 years

Text

PART SIX!!

Description: You were an Angel who went to the human world to escape punishment for loving Lucifer only to be brought back into his life, this time in the Devildom where you pretend to be human.

In this chapter: You are back at the HOL...

Tags: Unrequited Love, Fluff, Angst, WIP

Pairing(s): Lucifer/Reader

Word Count: 2.5k

Link to my AO3: Click Here

Authors Note: It’s been a month and my hiatus is over now, so please enjoy this next part!! Love you guys so much ~~

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five

_+_

Being back in the House of Lamentation was a little strange. After a few extra days at Diavolo’s in that admittedly larger bedroom than yours, Lucifer had taken you back home. He bid you a quick farewell, a single hug and hair ruffling with his smirk, before he said he had duties to attend to. And things seemed back to normal with that. It was a little anticlimactic but…

Home. This was your home. Lord Diavolo gave you, an Angel (and were you still technically one, without your halo? Only wings and some leftover magic?), permission to live in the Devildom. A place for Demons, not… you. He called you ‘family’. Even Barbatos, when leaving the Castle, had smiled at you and given you a happy goodbye and an invite to tea whenever you’d like.

“Your company is always welcome,” the demon butler had said.

You stood just outside your doorway, as if turning the handle would transport you somewhere else. Maybe this was a dream. It was all too surreal to have actually happened.

Once you were inside, barely two steps in the bedroom, an invisible weight lifted off you. This was where you spent your nights, either totally alone and at peace, or with your housemates to keep you company. Studying with Satan or reading a novel and talking about the characters while sitting in your bed, or watching DevilTube with Mammon and laughing at the rom-coms because he was a sucker for those. If Asmo came back late from a party or if he was lonely and needing cuddles, you both would stay up late gossiping about everyone, and you would hear funny stories about Solomon or the brothers. When Levi would come out of his cave, and bring his handheld games, and you would battle each other for hours (you usually won only a few times but it was still fun). Eating midnight snacks you and Beel snuck out from the kitchen, waking up with crumbs in your bed and a different demon boy in your bed, Belphie, who was cuddling you and mumbling in his sleep, warm and soft, like the twins had traded you off.

The only demon brother who never came in your room was Lucifer… That man was always in his own bedroom, up late doing paperwork or wandering around doing things for Diavolo. He overworked himself constantly.

You smiled, recalling the first time you had ventured in his bedroom at night to give him some coffee and poison apples to snack on. He was grateful for it, and he smiled with crinkles in his eyes and warmth radiating from him, and he thanked you. It was one of your best moments here, with him. A small one, but still perfect.

“You’re back!!”

You jumped in surprise as your legs were attacked and you very nearly fell over. Your train of thought vanished immediately. Looking down, then seeing the mop of blonde, you realized it was just Luke.

He was a sweet Angel, still learning and growing, and he had a heart of gold. Sometimes he was a bit sensitive to the demon brothers teasing (mostly Mammon’s). It was funny to watch him get all flustered and red-faced when that happened and insult back to the best he of his abilities.

“Hi Luke,” you greeted, returning his hug. “I’m happy to see you.”

He grinned up at you, head just reaching mid-level, his chin resting on your abdomen. “I missed you. Are you feeling better? Simeon told me everything and I’m so excited to hear you’re an Angel just like us! You have to tell me all about when you lived in the Celestial Realm, please?”

Simeon chuckled from behind Luke, tugging him away gently. “Let’s leave her alone while she gets settled back in, okay? We can visit another time. We came to see Lucifer.”

Luke pouted, but sighed and nodded. He took your hand and squeezed it once. “I want to hear all about it, okay?” he asked with determination.

That was Luke, always adamant and cute. You smiled and ruffled his hair, the youngest Angel huffing. “I promise I will, Luke.”

Simeon waved goodbye, shutting the door behind him, and that left you alone in your little room. You fell onto your bed face first and inhaled deeply, rolling on your side and clutching a pillow to your chest.

Now what would happen? Things seemed to be returning to normal, but would everything?

A knock. “Are you in there Angel girl?” Belphegor’s voice came through the door.

You were a little nervous to see him, but he was the last demon brother you’d thought you’d see first. Seeing as he was usually asleep somewhere.

But when you opened the door, it wasn’t only Belphie. It was all of the brothers, minus Lucifer, and they had wide silly smiles on their faces. And then they tackled you in hugs, squeezing you and overwhelming you with their tight holds and back rubs. You just laughed and let them, knowing they probably had been worried about you after all.

“Guys—please, guys stop! I can’t breathe,” you laughed, shoving at the arms and torsos around you. Once you were free, you stepped back and smiled. Seeing all of their happy faces had your insides twisting in joy. “I missed you guys so much, it’s good to see every one of you.”

Mammon spoke first. “Damn right! We’ve been totally freaked out about you. We-well, I-I mean, I haven’t been losing sleep or anything, but they all kept asking Lucifer where you were and when you’re gonna come back. Ch, losers.” His face was flushed when he finished. Why was this white-haired demon so damn cute when he was trying to not care, you would never know the reason.

“I lost no sleep,” Belphie stated.

You chuckled. Typical Belphegor. “Well, I am sorry for worrying everyone…” You frowned, and looked at the floor. There was that inner voice telling you that even if they were all here and hugging you, it was still possible for them to dislike you for lying, hiding this entire time. “But… You don’t… hate me?”

Asmo gasped. “No, dear, we don’t hate you at all! We love you!”

That made you tear up a little bit, and Asmo cooed and hugged you. Mammon grumbled and Asmo gave you one last squeeze then let you go. Your face was a little bit red but only from the embarrassment of nearly crying when being told you were loved.

“How could we hate you? You’re still you,” Beel said.

Satan agreed. “Yes, exactly. Only now you have wings and magic we didn’t know about. You’ll have to show us sometime, I’ve never seen an Angel’s wings in person, only in textbooks. It makes sense why your grades in Celestial History are on par with my own.”

You smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, well… only up until a certain point…”

Satan chuckled. “Yes, I suppose that is true. I do want to see your wings, but we were told you’re still healing so there’s no rush.”

“Yes, we want to see them too, darling~”

“The Great Mammon should get first look.”

Waving your hands to calm them down, you nodded and agreed. “Okay, I promise I’ll show you eventually. But like Satan said I do have to take it easy for a while.”

You were planning on going for a midnight fly session tonight, though… But that was a secret that you felt comfortable keeping, like a small white lie. Hopefully no one would find out.

There was one demon who hadn’t said a word, in fact he barely hugged you like the others did. Leviathan. He was quietly standing in the doorway, fidgeting on the balls of his feet, probably waiting for his turn to say something but too shy to speak up.

“Levi? Do you have anything you want to tell me?”

He jumped in surprise, but nodded after a moment. His face flushed and he fumbled with his hands, he usually did that when he didn’t have a phone or device in them. “I-I just want to say… Please don’t ever ever EVER leave us again. I don’t know what I’d do without my midnight gaming buddy. And, well, I just—I love you, okay? You’re my Henry and you aren’t allowed to leave like that!” He was flustered when he finished and avoided eye contact with everyone.

The other boys ‘aw’ed and you smiled in happiness. It was incredible to know that no one hated you for hiding this from them.

“I won’t ever leave you, Levi.”

That was a promise you hoped to keep. These 6 demon boys here were family, your own siblings, and you loved them and all of their weird quirks.

“Hm, I want to ask you something,” Beel’s voice rang out.

Oh no, this was it. The dreaded questioning. They would want to know everything, why you left, where you were, why you lied. And you didn’t know if you had to courage to speak up.

“How did we not remember you?”

Oh thank the Heaven’s. Good kind Beel, nothing bad ever seemed to come from him. Shoving the urge to sigh appreciatively out loud because that would cause actual questions that would be difficult to answer, you instead pondered the question. Would it be against Lucifer’s wishes? He never mentioned keeping it a secret from his brothers.

And so, you told them. About Michael and their memories being tampered with. And they were livid. So livid in fact, they all transformed into their demon forms. And your room was filled with infernal magic and wings and tails flickering. It was intense, but you knew it all came from a place of love. Even Satan, who had yet to be born at the time this happened, was upset, his green tail twisting around. In the tiny space, it was a lot.

Holding up your hand, hoping this calmed them down, you spoke softly, “Please relax everyone. I’m okay now. Simeon and Lucifer helped me. No one can hurt me here.”

“And… you’re staying?” Satan asked.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

They all relaxed, and changed back to their ‘human’ forms. You felt that you could breathe again.

The silence was tense, and you swallowed thickly, trying to think of something to say. Luckily, someone else did.

Asmo clapped his hands and exclaimed, “Let’s have a movie night! Popcorn, blankets, cuddling. It’ll be so fun! It’s the perfect thing to reconnect.”

Good ole’ Asmo, you would kiss him if you didn’t think it would cause a disaster. “Yeah, let’s do it,” you agreed. “But I pick the movie. We’re watching a scary movie.” You wiggled your fingers, chuckling.

Mammon’s face dropped. “Uh, we—we should watch something else, like an Action movie. A superhero movie, those are awesome!”

“Why, are you gonna cry if we watch a horror film?” Satan teased.

“Yeah, poor Mammon’s gonna wet himself,” Belphie joked.

“He probably already has,” Levi chuckled.

Mammon growled, and reached for them with his hands, probably to strangle them, but you stuck out your hand. “Please, no fighting. We can watch a funny movie then.”

Mammon relaxed. “I didn’t care either way!” he declared.

So your bedroom was transformed into a fort of soft pillows, blankets and sheets. Satan used a spell to make the bed larger for everyone and he TV was enlarged, too. Very handy spellcasting. Beel and Levi went to get snacks and drinks, and everyone else got the room set up with pillows for everybody.

After the movie started, and everyone was situated on the huge bed, it was quiet. Everyone was scattered around with their own pillows and you felt surrounded by warmth. This was exactly what you needed, just some time with them, feeling at peace.

But the comfortable quiet did not last long.

From where Mammon was snuggled beside you, he nudged your arm and said, “So… are you gonna tell us about it?”

You blinked. “About what?”

“Your life with the humans. We want to know everything. What it was like, who you met. Oh, did you meet anyone famous?”

Satan sat up straight. “Yes, did you meet any historical figures?”

Everyone seemed to be listening in instead of watching the film now.

You thought it over, and nodded. “Yeah, a few I guess… they were ordinary people to me at the time, though… Just your fellow human helping out other humans. I tended to keep out of any major conflicts so not to affect too much. I guess just part of what I’d been taught growing up in the Celestial Realm: don’t do anything to change the path humanity will take.”

Mammon nodded. “What was one of your favorite memories?”

Wow, that was a hard question to answer. You even said so. “I lived on Earth for a long time... I have a lot of stuff packed in my head,” you chuckled.

“Aw, c’mon, there’s gotta be somethin’ that sticks out,” Mammon said. “You can’t think of one thing?”

“Oooh, what was your favorite style of outfit? Maybe those pretty dresses from the 18th century?” Asmo asked.

“Anything before the invention of the internet has to be the worst,” Levi commented.

Beel, while chewing on some popcorn, said, “The food is always gonna be good, but when the cheeseburger was created was probably my favorite time in history.”

You chuckled at each of their comments. But you did go through your favorite memories, friends’ long past and different towns flashing through your mind’s eye. Overall they were happy memories but in the end, it was always the same endgame. They died, and you moved on.

You must have made some noise or done something because Asmo made a cooing noise at you. “Oh, sweetie.” He immediately pulled you into his arms, tucking you into his neck to pet your hair. A few tear drops fell but you did sob or cry at all.

There were hands rubbing your back and arms, and you looked up to see the brother’s saddened smiling faces.

“We are here for you,” Satan reassured you, stroking his hand up and down your upper arm. His hand was warm and comforting.

Levi sniffled, and squeezed your hand. “Don’t cry anymore, you don’t need to when we can protect you now.”

Beel reached behind himself, and held out a candy bar towards you. “Hey, do you want some of my chocolate? It’s got small crunchy bits in it. And chocolate makes you feel better.” He smiled, and handed you the candy bar. It had a bite out of it, but the thought was nice.

“Thank you, Beel.”

“And here, take my blanket, you look cold.” Belphie put his small throw blanket over your lower half, making his brothers curse when it buried their own arms or hands.

You smiled up at him. “Thanks, Belphie.”

Asmo made a huffing sound. “Well, I want to play with your hair. Can I braid it, please?”

You giggled. “Go ahead, Asmo.”

You let them pamper you up, while the movie played in the background. Eventually the movie ended and Levi set up a racing game, and you all selected your characters and played together. It was a perfect first day back home.

67 notes · View notes

ironlime · 3 years

Text

60 Years After

So somebody in the tumblrverse posted about their headcannon in which Ned Coats was Sam Vimes' kid having traveled through time. I am a fan of this. It explains a lot. So when I read it back in... April? I then sat down and wrote up this little fanfic thing. And assumed that I could not only get it posted today, but also edit it so that it's not filled with so many of my own headcannons. And is closer to the original material. But L-Space is my job, and it really does do crazy things to time (and space.) On top of that I was really hoping I could post this to that original headcannon post but... I can't find it. So, OP, if you come across this... Well, I'm sorry. I'm more sorry to Sir Terry (GNU), though.

Quick note: my friends and I have found it easier to call Vimes' kid "Wee Sam" than "Young Sam" because "Young Sam" is one of the names (along with Vimesy and Lance Constable Vimes) that Vimes calls his younger self and... yeah. We find it confusing when nerding out about a single series with two different characters called 'Young Sam'. So we Feegle it up. Even though I wouldn't be surprised if 'Wee Sam' is actually a bit taller than his dad.

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

“What happened just then, Sarge? You blurred.” Wee Sam said, while he thought Oh so that’s what that looks like.

“You only get one question, Ned,” The man who would be his father looked a little seasick, and Wee Sam knew exactly how he felt. “Now, let’s show Snapcase where the line’s drawn, shall we? Let’s finish it--”

To the majority of people there that day, Sergeant-At-Arms John Keel stood, turned towards the enemy, and charged. To two people, Commander Sam Vimes ran towards Carcer, ready to drag him kicking and screaming into the past. Or the future. Depending on who you asked.

That was what gave Wee Sam his frame of reference, actually. He remembered hearing stories about Carcer, about how his dad had arrested the bastard the day Wee Sam was born. But was this actually May 25th for his dad? Was this weeks before the arrest? Hours? He couldn’t ask. Not yet.

“Glad to see you’ve joined us and are getting along with the Sarge, Coats.” Fred Colon said, touching him on the shoulder as they ran towards the fight.

“Yeah, Fred.” Oh, Fred. Fred Colon had died a few years ago, happy and surrounded by great-grandchildren. But here and now he was young and actually capable of running. And he was running towards the fray.

Sweeper had told Wee Sam to stay away from the center of the fight, and to try not to actually kill anybody, so he stayed on the edge near the unconscious Lance-Constable Sam Vimes who had been hidden by his older, more cynical self. Three men in a battle with the same name, and two of them were the same person. Good thing Wee Sam was the only one who had to really keep track of which of them was where. He certainly didn’t trust anybody else to.

So he fought, in a very curbed way, knocking his adversaries unconscious when he could and doing his best not to step on Nobby Nobbs, who was doing his best to very slowly inch away from the battle while simultaneously pretending to be a corpse. Over by the Watch House, Reg Shoe was doing a much better impersonation of a corpse, seeing as how he was one, but in a couple of hours he’d discover that it just didn’t work for him.

“You’re nicked, my ol’ chum.” It was probably because he had been listening for it, but his father’s whisper carried. Nobody else seemed to hear it, and nobody but Wee Sam turned in time to see the two men vanish. In the same instant, a single body appeared on the ground near where they had been. So, now that he had seen that through, there was one more…

A dark grey-green shadow passed by his shoulder, and his mind registered Uncle Havelock before adding the word Young.

Havelock Vetinari ran into the fight, cutting down Carcer’s men much more brazenly than the Assassin's Guild would like, a lilac bud between his teeth. Even in Wee Sam’s time, when Vetinari’s wardrobe consisted entirely of black and everything he did was in moderation, the Patrician indulged in a little drama on a regular basis.

He chose to have Commander Sam Vimes in his life, after all.

There was a sound to Wee Sam’s left, which he recognized though his mind didn’t associate any words with it. It was a sound any human would recognize, even those who first approached the Delta where the Ankh River met the Circle sea thousands of years ago. If Wee Sam had to find Morporkain words for it, and as a Vimes he did like to use his vocabulary, they were Confused, followed by Hurt followed by… wait for it… there it was. Anger.

Wee Sam could make that noise, though he rarely did. His father’s upbringing, on the other hand, had been considerably less balanced. The kid who was the source of the sound ran into the center of the fight, and Wee Sam deftly stepped out of his way while pushing an adversary in his way. The boy chopped down the Unmentionable with one graceful movement, and Wee Sam felt that he could safely say that he hadn’t been the one to kill the bastard. And nobody had been so foolish as to tell him to prevent his father from killing anybody.

Vetinari didn’t pause, but he did turn to look at this vengeful newcomer. Vetinari hadn’t been there when young Sam Vimes participated in the first part of the battle, and Wee Sam recognized the young assassin’s look of interest.

Tell me, Uncle Havelock, will you recognize him in 15 years? Or will you need to get him well and truly angry to realize you’ve found him?

Wee Sam knew this wasn’t the first time Havelock Vetinari saw Sam Vimes, but this was probably the first time he saw the potential. That he was more than just That Kid Who Follows Keel Everywhere. I bet you didn’t actually expect him to be so damned smart. His father still didn’t think of himself as intelligent. It was infuriating, especially when he and his father were having a disagreement. A drawn out, decade-long, disagreement.

Young Sam Vimes sent a lot of the Unmentionables running, and Wee Sam cut down any of them which could be seen as ‘coming towards him with a drawn weapon’. Since they were escaping a fight, that was anyone who came within reach not wearing a lilac.

Time travel really can get to a man. He thought, feeling a little cold. There would be no arrests here, just death and fleeing and at the end of the day Sam Vimes, Havelock Vetinari, Fred Colon, Gaskin, and, less literally, Nobby Nobbs and Reg Shoe would all be left standing. That was all that mattered.

He saw Vetinari turn away from young Sam Vimes, who then spun, and for the briefest moment they had their backs to each other, and Wee Sam wished he had his paints. It was a gods awful place to paint, there was a reason battles were always ‘immortalized’ after the fact, but the color and everything was just perfect--

And then the color faded.

“You should have fallen by now.” Sweeper observed from behind him.

“I wanted to see them fight together.” Wee Sam admitted, not turning. He had a notebook on him, and a pencil, but he knew that even with Time paused he didn’t really have it. Not to sit down and do a proper preliminary sketch. He was just going to have to remember.

Vetinari had a stiletto, an assassin’s weapon used to kill up-close. Young Sam Vimes hadn’t learned to dual-wield yet, but he had good instincts for the sword. Wait until you discover the axe.

Sweeper sighed. “Fine, and now you’ve seen it. I’m going to put the time back on and you had better be prepared to drop.”

“Yes yes alright.” Wee Sam shifted slightly, so he could seriously inconvenience the man who he was blocking before he dropped.

“Oh and stop killing people.”

“I’m a Vimes. You knew that when you hired me.”

“Indeed.�� Sweeper said, and it took Wee Sam a moment to realize it was an attempt at a Vetinari impression. Before Wee Sam could reply, the color came back, and his adversary frowned in confusion.

“Oi, you blurred!” The man cried.

“This just isn’t your day.” Wee Sam gave the man a wound which might heal, if somebody tended to it within the next 10 minutes, and then fell over in a needlessly complicated way, specifically so he wouldn’t hit Nobby Nobbs.

And when he landed, the boy was looking right at him, frowning. Damn, Nobby was always the brains of Colon & Nobbs.

“You ain’t injured.” The boy hissed at him.

“Try to pick my pockets and you’ll regret it.” Wee Sam whispered back. Of course he wouldn’t dream of hurting Nobby, but the kid didn’t know that. Besides, picking the contents of his pockets back would be a relaxing way to end the day.

Nobby was still frowning at him. “You got eyes like the Sarge...”

“Nobby, get out of here before you get stepped on.” Wee Sam growled in his best imitation of his father, the Sergeant, within the past three days. The kid’s eyes went wide, and he took off running. Wee Sam glanced over to where Vimes and Vetinari were taking care of the last of Carcer’s men, and the color faded once more.

“I hope you are pleased with yourself.” Sweeper said, which Wee Sam took to mean he could stand up and dust himself off.

“Young Vimes and Vetinari live to grow up and become two of the most powerful men in Ankh-Morpork history, Carcer went back to his time more or less accompanied by my my dad so the one can be arrested by the other, your rogue ‘Time Vigilantes’ have been sorted out, oh and I don’t cease to exist either. My work here is d--” He stopped, and watched as Q and some other Technical Monks lay down a man about the same age, size and coloring as Wee Sam. “Wait, so there really was a Ned Coats?”

Sweeper had walked off without him, and Wee Sam jogged to catch up. The old monk didn’t turn to look at him when they were side-by-side, but he did start talking. “Of course there was. He was also from Psudopolis and knew the real Keel.”

“How’d he die?”

“The Agony Aunts, on his first day here. He was the real reason the real Keel accepted a job in Ankh-Morpork. The real Ned Coats was not a good man.”

“Keel... left his home to track down a criminal…” Wee Sam slowed. “That’s what my dad did! As Keel! Only, it was Carcer he had to catch.”

“Time likes continuity.” Sweeper nodded, and thanked Wee Sam quietly for holding the door open as they entered the monastery. Once in the building, color returned, with motion and sounds and smells. They were back in the Present.

The walk through the building was in relative silence, the rumbling of the procrastinators keeping it from ever becoming truly quiet here. Wee Sam could sleep almost anywhere, but the rumbling reminded him of the steam engines back home and Susan’s offer to help him find a job in Sto Lat ‘if he really couldn’t stay in Ankh-Morpork’.

Not long after his parents first met his dad had gotten fired for a couple of days, and his mom had offered to get him a job working for Susan’s parents. Susan had been young then, and sometimes he wondered what kind of person she would have grown up to be with his dad as part of her household staff.

Of course, with his parents living in two different cities, he would have never been born.

His mother would have never left Ankh-Morpork.

Then again, his father had chosen not to leave. He had stayed on the case. He… sorted it out, more or less. He kept Vetinari from getting killed. Had he done that during the battle? Young Sam and Vetinari had been facing opposite directions, had Vimesy blocked any blows aimed at the future patrician?

There was the crunch of stones under his feet, and Wee Sam consciously acknowledged they had arrived at the Garden of Inner-City Tranquility. His eyes swept the space, falling on and acknowledging the Cigarette Pack of Air, the Cat Doings of Disharmony, the Sonkie of Organic Harmony, the Cabbage Stalks of Dim Comprehension, the Discarded Fish-And-Chip Wrapper of Infinity, the Beer Bottle of Pissing Off Sweeper, and….

“The Cigar of Capriciousness is still here.” Wee Sam said, stopping between the door and the bench Sweeper always went to. He tilted his head slightly. “Or… Another cigar. Same brand, same style, smoked the same amount, probably by the same man, at the same angle... but it’s wrapped just a little differently.”

“Is it? I’ve stopped noticing.”

“You haven’t noticed the cigar that’s been smouldering here for the past month?” Wee Sam turned to Sweeper in disbelief. “I understand not paying attention to the condoms and cat doings, but time passes in here!”

Sweeper shrugged. “There is always a cigar. Even if we get rid of it, a new one shows up. If the new one lands closer to the wall, the garden always pushes it to the center.”

“Always? Since, what, the dawn of time?”

“Oh no. Since the day you were born. Or thirty years before. It’s hard to say.” Sweeper was looking at him evenly, and Wee Sam suddenly realized his reaction was being gauged.

“My dad. But…” Wee Sam looked at the cigar. “He doesn’t smoke them anymore.”

“He does. On special occasions.”

“Like what?”

“Your birthday. And when he pays certain visits.”

“He talked you into not keeping me on?” His gaze moved swiftly from the old man to the cigar, and with purpose he stalked into the middle of the garden and brought his foot back, prepared to give the thing a swift kick.

“You did that just fine without his help.” Sweeper’s voice was quiet, but it froze Wee Sam where he stood. “Corporal, we both know you don’t want to do this.”

“The mission is over. Coats is dead. I’m not a corporal anymore.” His foot fell heavily, not coming into contact with the cigar but still sending a spray of stones ahead of them. He scowled as they came sliding back towards him, settling where they had been around his foot. “This job is the closest I’ve ever gotten to what I was made to do.”

“I realize that. I’m sorry.”

There was some silence as the last of the stones slid into place. The procrastinators here were small, used only for the bathrooms in the far right corner, even though the city’s sewer pipe system now meant that they were just inconveniencing themselves in exchange for saving very little money. Wee Sam had done the math.

“Did you tell Susan?” Wee Sam didn’t want to be the one to tell her, but he also didn’t want anybody else to explain that he had squandered this opportunity.

“No. That is your problem, my boy.”

“Good.” Wee Sam squatted down, getting a closer look at his father’s cigar. The smell brought him back to his childhood, and it was comforting if not at all healthy. His mother had never allowed them in the house, but his father smoked them all the time outside and in his office, so the scent clung to his uniform like… Well like Wee Sam had back then. “Please don’t hold… me... against her. She was just looking out for me. She does that. Wish I knew why.”

“She is aware of your potential.” Sweeper said, and Wee Sam was so surprised he looked over his shoulder at the old man. “You’re good at investigating and putting the pieces together. And, some day, you will once again make a very good cop.”

“Someplace other than Ankh-Morpork.” Wee Sam grunted, but the old man shrugged, and he asked, hopefully “In Ankh-Morpork but in the future?”

“That is not for me to say.”

“No, it’s for my father to say.” He glared at the cigar, and then pushed himself to a standing position.

“You know, I didn’t just take you on because Susan asked and there happened to be another Vimes-shaped opening.” Sweeper said as Wee Sam turned towards the door.

“No?”

“I wanted to get to know the man the Theives Guild deemed ‘too dangerous’ for membership.” Sweeper sounded amused, and Wee Sam turned to look at him.

“I keep killing people. Assassin's school graduate, and all.” Wee Sam reminded him, but Sweeper waved the comment away.

“We both know neither of those things are relevant to today’s theive’s guild.” Sweeper shook his head. “Your father is afraid of you becoming him; and, well, so is everyone else. Vimeses walk in and take control. Especially under Vetinari’s influence.”

“And how do you know what my father is afraid of?” Wee Sam asked, narrowing his eyes. He was choosing to ignore the comment about Vetinari’s influence because it was true. After 300 years of cops and / or drunks it took Havelock Vetinari telling his father ‘not’ to investigate three deaths to bring his family name back to the list of the city’s gentry.

“You should ask him.” Sweeper did not ignore the narrowed eyes, but he did meet them evenly. “What he’s afraid of.”

Wee Sam turned towards the door, intending to stalk out, then thought better of it and spun so he was completely facing the old man. “You know what? I think I will.”

Then he ran, took a leap to place one foot on the bench beside Sweeper and jumped so his hands easily grasped the top of the wall. His own momentum brought him sideways, and he hurtled over the top. There was an alley on the other side, and he landed lightly. He was exactly where he expected to be, of course, and took off at a run towards the Cemetery of Small Gods.

And slowed to a walk before he reached the gates. It would not do for him to be out of breath when he arrived at the graves.

Twilight was falling, so his dad would be there, but so would Uncle Havelock and maybe Reg Shoe. Wee Sam was less concerned about how Reg saw him, especially now that he had seen Reg alive, but as far as his family was concerned he wanted to take steps towards appearing dignified. Even though they had known him his whole life, and knew better.

Sure enough, he passed Reg first. The Zombie was carrying a long-handled shovel over his left shoulder, and nodded in acknowledgement. Wee Sam managed to nod back before they passed each other.

He had expected Reg to recognize him. Reg had never noticed him behind the barricade, his father never noticed him behind the barricade, but Wee Sam had been playing Ned Coats for a full month before Sam Vimes had shown up as John Keel. Maybe Reg had never noticed that his father was Keel? How did Zombie memories work, anyway? Their brains certainly weren’t making new pathways… Did vampyre brains make new pathways?

This train of thought kept him pretty well occupied, along with the question of how he could politely go about getting some answers, when he noticed Uncle Havelock and his ‘cane’ striding silently towards him. A simple nod wouldn’t do.

“Good evening, Uncle Havelock.” Wee Sam called, since his mother had drummed into his head that you always greeted your superiors first. Admittedly, this sometimes meant that he approached his uncle with a question about what he would call the color of the sunset above a specific building at that exact moment, or if there was a poison which exploded in a particularly satisfactory fashion, but the patrician never complained. Nor did he complain if Wee Sam wandered in his office and started talking about alternative methods for coding clax messages or an unusual bird he had noticed riding the thermals above the University. And, thank gods, Havelock Vetinari knew that a formal greeting from Wee Sam Vimes meant that he didn’t want to talk.

“Happy Birthday, Wee Sam.” His uncle replied, “I trust you’ll be on time for dinner?”

Oh. That was a reminder. And a warning. “Thank you. Yes, we won’t be long.”

“Good. See you then.” The Patrician nodded, and then passed him.

“Yes.” Wee Sam muttered, and then reached for his pocket watch. When he pulled it out, he saw the time was all wrong and swore quietly. Well, from the graves he would be able to see the Tower of Art, and set his watch to the present. The battle of the lilac boys had been in the mid-morning, and it was most definitely not a quarter to noon.

John Keel’s grave marker was wood, and though it had been replaced often it had never been strong enough to support the weight of an average-sized man. Reg’s, on the other hand, was granite, and he apparently didn’t mind that Commander Sam Vimes leaned against it more and more every year.

Wee Sam didn’t make any noise, he never made any noise, but he could never sneak around his father. Commander Sam Vimes turned his head ever so slightly, and Wee Sam tooka good look at him.

Oh gods, he was so old. When had that happened? True, the last time he had seen his father he must have been about 50, but before that Wee Sam had spent three decades watching his father age and yet… It had never struck him so hard. He never could quite reconcile his memories of young Sam Vimes, that kid who had joined The Watch for three square meals a day and a little extra cash for his family. But he hadn’t thought his father had changed so much.

The old man looked him up and down. “How’d the battle go? After I left?”

Wee Sam stopped abruptly, and looked down at his outfit. He had forgotten to change into the clothes he had left at the monastery. This outfit was a uniform the Monks had given him, so he wouldn’t have the problems ‘accidental’ time travelers experienced with their clothes and meals and things staying in the time they came from. He even still had his lilac, somehow, even though that had come from the past.

“Don’t you remember?” You kicked ass.

His father shook his head. “I remember the original timeline, when Keel died at the barricade. I was pretty sure Coats wasn’t there.”

“Yeah, I don’t think he was, either.”

“I guess Vetinari showed up?” His father smirked. “Had a lilac in his teeth and everything?”

“I thought you didn’t remember it.” Wee Sam frowned.

“I don’t, but he tells me about it sometimes. I think he’s waiting for me to remember, or maybe now he’s wondering why I don’t.”

“Because time travel is a mess.” Wee Sam turned away from his father and looked across the city. He could see his family’s house from here.

“So Sweeper explained it to you?” The interest in his voice was practically tactile.

“No, but I had to run around for a month foiling somebody who had been sent to kill Havelock Vetinari. And it gave me time to wonder.”

“Why it was different the first time around?”

Wee Sam shook his head. “Would I have survived being born if you didn’t go back and meet Lawn?”

There was absolute silence between them, until Commander Sam Vimes quietly swore.

“Sweeper told me you have to think of things as one event in front of another, which is fine, except if you hadn’t gone back in time you wouldn’t have known Lawn was competent. You had heard of him, sure, but he would have never crossed your mind.”

“So we owe your existence to the damn time monks?” There was an angry edge to his father’s voice, but Wee Sam already knew his father was protective as hell. That was how he had gotten into this mess. Sort of.

“No. As far as I can tell, we owe it to some modern young idiots who thought they could go back and kill Vetinari. Time tries to fix things, and so you were sent back in time, to meet Lawn and Carcer went with you and killed Keel so there was a place for you to be and when you were done my life got saved and the monks were able to send me back to save Vetinari’s life and… Time is what it should be. Go us.” There was something about owing his life to terrorists that made him feel sarcastic.

“For all we know Vetinari or Rosie Palm might have recommended Lawn.” His father pointed out, which wasn’t a bad alternative. But it wasn’t what had happened, and there wasn’t really anybody they could ask. At least, nobody who they could ask who would give them a meaningful answer. They both knew Vetinari was a capable doctor, but apparently neither of them could imagine Vetinari getting involved in a problematic birth when there were other competent people around to do it.

More silence. Wee Sam noticed the time on the Tower of Art, and pulled his watch back out. If they were going to avoid talking about the massive argument they had that morning, he may as well take the time to re-set his watch.

“There was the sound of dice.” His father said so quietly that it didn’t initially register.

“Hm?” Wee Sam pushed the pin in, and watched with satisfaction as his watch and the tower struck the time at the exact same minute.

“Before the Library got struck by lightning. There was the sound of dice. Were the people who wanted to kill Havelock associated with a specific god?”

“I… Don’t know. They didn’t say anything about one.” He shut the watch, and shoved it in his pocket. ‘Havelock’ meant his dad was worried. “But there was a thunderstorm, right? Was the sound of dice rolling at the exact moment as the thunder?’

“Yes.”

“Io!” They both said it at the same moment, and Wee Sam felt his heart fall to his stomach. The self-proclaimed King of the Gods had been trying to subjugate their family for a long time. The only reason he had eased up lately was because Wee Sam had trained with the witches in Lancre. And so, to a lesser extent, had his father. It made them harder targets. But Io was still The Thunder God because he had murdered all the others. And then there was the question of who he would be forced to answer to. And how. Neither of the Vimes men had an axe sharp enough for that.

“Damn, why didn’t I realize that?” His father asked the night at large.

“The gods are always playing games. And besides, you had no reason to think Io was responsible for… Well he’s probably not responsible for the Dragon Incident, at least. Or the Goblin Incident.”

“Yeah, but we’ve been operating under the assumption that he was involved in that Dam Slam.” He was rubbing his thumb thoughtfully over the inside of his left wrist, where the Mark of the Summoning Dark had been. When Wee Sam was 8 it had changed, to a symbol generally called the Guarding Dark by anyone who cared to reference it. His father never talked about either Mark, but Wee Sam didn’t blame him. The Marks were indicative of 7 year period which did a number on his view of magic, and his identity.

Speaking of.

“I haven’t told Susan yet, but the monks kicked me out.” He tapped his toe against the grass, bringing it down as softly as he could so it wouldn’t damage the grass. Leggy would be so mad if he damaged his precious ‘terf’.

“Do you want to be a Monk?” His father asked quietly.

“No, I want to be a Watchman.” He whispered. Today was his 30th birthday, though technically he was a month older than that. He felt so much older than that. “But you’re apparently so terrified of me getting myself hurt that you’ve been doing Every Damned Thing you can think of to get between me and that and so I went ahead and tried to join almost any guild in the city and quite a few refused me and I’ve been kicked out of Each. And. Every. One. which would take me and now the only thing I can think of is taking Susan up on her offer to put in a good word for me with the Sto Lat Watch unless you’re going to step in and mess that up too and I wish you would knock it the hells off because as much as I love mum and her dragons I cannot spend the rest of my life working at the damn dragon sanctuary so--”

“Corporal.” His father’s voice was conversational, and somebody who had spent less time listening for the Commander’s voice probably wouldn’t have heard it.

“I’m not finished! Will you--” Wee Sam stopped abruptly. “Is that why you made me a Corporal? You couldn’t have recognized me. I hadn’t been born yet!”

“I recognized potential. And I was right, though you didn’t have as much control as I originally thought. Was all that sparring really necessary?”

“You’ve been standing between me and what I’ve been made to do!”

“And how would 50 year old me have known that?”

“It was easier to fight… him… than you.” Wee Sam grumbled, then realized he was starting to dig up the sod with his toe. Feeling bad about the grass, he brought his toe down in the other direction, to flatten it back down.

“Easier? I kicked your ass. I’d probably have a harder time of it now.”

“I never wondered if I should hold back.” Wee Sam admitted.

“Ah.” The 80 year old nodded. “I know that feeling. I’ve often wondered what it would be like if Vetinari and I had a proper fight when we were young.”

“You could sell tickets and solve all the city’s financial problems.” Wee Sam shifted his gaze to his father. “Actually you probably still could--”

“No. Your mother would have a conniption.”

“Oh right. Yeah, she would. Shame.”

“Do I want to know who you think would win?”

“No.”

“Your faith in me is staggering.”

“Well I figure either it would be a draw or he’d kick your--”

“Yes I understood your answer to my question, thank you.” But he was smiling ever so slightly.

And then the city’s clocks started chiming 9 in the evening. His father pushed himself slowly to his feet, and Wee Sam offered his arm. Cheery had offered to get his father an axe to use as a cane, but Commander Vimes would not hear of it. He did touch Wee Sam’s arm briefly, but once he was standing straight he let go, and the pair of them headed towards the exit.

They didn’t bother to try talking until the clocks had stopped, about five minutes after Wee Sam’s watch struck the hour.

“Did those people who tried to kill young Vetinari have any friends who stayed in our time?”

“I believe so.” They were walking slowly, and Wee Sam waited a full block before he added. “You want me to turn all my information over to anyone in particular?”

“I’m not afraid of you getting hurt.” It didn’t seem like a related response, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t. “I mean, of course I am, but that’s not why I’ve been saying no.”

“Really?”

“I don't want people treating you like a target for their hate for me. If you could join the way Carrot or Angua or Cheery did, that would be fine. But it’s gotten so big since they joined up.”

“Ah.” He didn’t know what else to say.

“I don’t think it would be any better if you joined anywhere else within the Clacks network.”

“Which is pretty much the whole world at this point.”

“And there’s all this scrying now.”

“Which doesn’t need towers.”

His father glared at him, but didn’t tell him to knock it off. “So I suspect your joining a Watch anywhere would ultimately be just as risky.”

“Which is your reasoning for why I shouldn’t bother with Sto Lat.”

“No, my reasoning for why you shouldn’t bother with Sto Lat is that we pay better and have the best medical benefits on the Sto Plains.”

Wee Sam stopped abruptly. “What.”

“You survived the Watch I started out in. As far as I’m concerned, you can handle today’s watch.” The old man stopped and looked back at him. “You’re going to be the oldest cadet though. Because I’m not going to let you jump straight to Corporal. We’re not at war.”

“Right. Yeah. That’s fine.”

“We’re going to be late if you don’t get moving.”

“Right.” Wee Sam managed to keep himself from skipping, so the pent up energy became a jog to his father’s side. They walked in silence, Wee Sam’s mind racing as he wondered if there was some way for him to accidentally mess this up.

“You should give your mother two week’s notice though. It’s only fair.”

“You didn’t run this by her first?” Wee Sam turned to him, shocked.

“Oh we’ve been talking about this for years.” The unspoken word ‘decades’ hung in the air between them. “Her, Vetinari, Carrot, Angua, Cheery--”

“Cheery?”

“She and Igor think you should be in forensics. I mean, it’s your choice of course-- after you pass the tests.”

“Forensics would be great.” He agreed, and thought about how fun it could be to put his Medical and Alchemical and Assassin training to something useful for once. Which reminded him “You know, there is a smouldering cigar in the center of The Garden of Inner City Tranquility at the Monastery.”

“Yeah, it hit me after you left. I had called you ‘sunshine’ during our fight, and Vetinari basically asked how you were handling turning 30, and seeing him standing there with the lilac pinned to his shirt it hit me.” He paused for a moment. “He wore it in the original timeline too, you know. I wish I had asked, but we didn’t get along as well then.”

Wee Sam felt his mouth tug into a half-smile. For his father and the patrician, ‘getting along as well’ involved an increased number of arguments. Also, he remembered ‘Keel’ using that ironic term of endearment during their spar. “You realized I was Ned Coats.”

“So I… walked as fast as I could… to the Monastery and… knocked on the damned door… And threatened to make one hell of a scene if Sweeper didn’t let me in.”

“So of course he did.”

“Of course.”

“And he took you to the garden. And… you told him what you worked out?”

“Actually I just told him that if anything happened to you I was holding him personally responsible. I knew Ned Coats died. I just didn’t know if he died the way John Keel died. I hadn’t stayed long enough to find out.”

“And what did he say?”

“He asked if my holding him responsible was more or less lethal than Susan Sto Helit holding him responsible.”

Wee Sam laughed. “Sweeper hasn’t met mum.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” His father chuckled quietly. “Anyway, Susan will be at dinner so you can tell her all about how the monks kicked you out with an audience. Your mother will find it interesting, I’m sure.”

“Does mum know about you going back...”

“Oh yes. Vetinari can’t keep a secret from her.” And neither could her husband.

“Will there be anybody at the dinner who doesn’t know?”

“Hm, no. I don’t think so. You were the only one who wasn’t in a position to make conversation then, and while Susan wasn’t involved in my adventure as far as I can tell…”

“But with Susan who knows. In any case, I think I’ll wait until we can get some privacy.”

“Suit yourself, but be warned. Everyone knows I told you I was ok with you joining the Watch. They’ll make a big deal about it. You know how they are.”

Wee Sam looked up at the big, brightly-lit, house as they waited for his dad to fully get his breath back. “I’ll try to be strong.”

Commander Sam Vimes snorted. Wee Sam opened the door, held it while his father entered the house, and followed right behind him.

#the glorious 25th of may #night watch #discworld #sam vimes #gnu terry pratchett #fanfiction #john keel #terry pratchett #writing

56 notes · View notes

ka-writes · 3 years

Text

——————

Notes: READ WARNINGS!!

Please I really want you to be safe.. anyways, this is mainly a set up for the next chapter.. it has a shit ton of angst prepare yourself.

Also am very sorry it is late!! ‘‘Twas very hard for me to start writing it, btw I started another AU please go check it out, thank you <3

——————

Warning: Torture I go into detail, gore, cussing manipulation, characters lose sense of reality.

——————

In case you missed:

Chapter 1:

Chapter 6:

——————

Inspired by:

Humans are Space Velociraptors

By:FreshRoses_InMyGarden_NeedTheRain

Some kids come from storks, others come from crashed spaceships

By: mmmajora

Home Again, Home Again

By: teeth_eater

All works can be found on Ao3

——————

Ao3 link for this work:

And my other AU:

——————

Change 7: This is a dream… right?

——————

He was back where he started this whole thing.

In a cage.

One cage over from the door and now in the middle of the room. It felt empty and bare, yet full of an uncomfortable sense of dread and fear, though he would never admit that aloud.

This time there was only one other cage in sight. The room had changed as well. It was no longer covered in grime, or smelled of blood. Instead it was a sickly white and smelled of rubbing alcohol. Which caused his nose to burn with the overwhelming scent of the cleaning supplies, making the entirety of the room feel more and more like one of those horror stories in hospitals, the only difference being that this one was real.

The thing that replaced the other cages and humans was an operating table with vials and tools that Tommy couldn’t identify.

There were no lights currently, except for the same small door window, which was the only thing that really stayed the same.

It was cold, it felt empty. There was no description fit for the amount of dread Tommy felt. It was built up after laying in the dark for so long. It burned his gut and made his head swirl with thoughts of what would happen next.

He wouldn’t ever admit he was scared, but the situation kinda explained itself.

Without warning the door swung open. No squeaks like last time, just a smooth motion allowing the room to be basked in yellow light from the hall.

Then the lights turned on, immediately causing Tommy to shut his eyes. His head started throbbing and every fiber in his body screamed at him to run. The lights turned into blurry blinding blobs that lit everything in a white fire, making it apparent that the room was indeed scrubbed of any stains or blood. Once his eyes finally adjusted, his migraine caught up to him, making the entire thing unbearable.

“Hello there!” An alien stepped in the room. Their features were outlined in white and their skin wasn’t even recognized, simply because it looked like a shadow. They had claw-like hands and wore glasses over their white to red eyes. They had a black doctor’s coat and wore black pants with white knee high boots. They had a devilish tail along with devil horns and a floating white halo. Their fangs poked out from a blinding white mouth, which was curved into a practiced smile.

“My name is BadBoyHalo, but you will refer to me as Dr. Halo.” They finished with a sickly sweet tone and a side smile, “My pronouns are he/him, and I will be taking care of what happens while you’re here.. not that you will ever leave of course.”

His mind was racing. Everything told him this was real, but he couldn’t help but pray that it was all a sick dream.

“Now we will start off easy and move onto the harder stuff later! Please refrain from trying to run, we have a shock function attached to your translators.” This caught him off guard. Why was he using plural tenses?

He looked towards the other cage, that’s when he noticed the strange bee alien also wearing a petrified expression. His eyes didn’t wander to the other cage, only watching Dr. Halo.

“Now who do we start with?” The doctor asked, even though he clearly already knew. A twisted smile shone on his face letting the light catch the awfully amused glint in his eyes, “Let’s start with the droneling!”

——————

There was no explanation for where the two went.

They simply vanished. No traces to follow or reasons to run.

The only logical explanation was Dream catching them. Which meant Techno would have to ask around for where the ship was harboring. The only problem being, he was awful at talking to people.

“So what do you wanna know?” A tall Wollylock person asked, she was the only known person to know anything about Dream, being his mother and all.

“Er- information on the Dream Team Ship.” Techno stated rather awkwardly.

“Why?” The captain asked, impatience clearly visible with her expression.

“They took two starlings from my crew.” At that the captain practically fumed with furry.

“I will help. After all, that boy needs to learn some manners.” The captain stated, her determination was infectious. “What is your craft’s name?”

“The SBI Craft, piloted by captain Philza.” He said robotically.

“Course it has to be Phil. That man has what, four kids he claimed to his crew..”

“Technically, I am not a kid, neither is Wil- Er our scientist, so really he’s only harboring three kids, now one since two were taken..” Techno decided that was the best explanation he could come up with, though there was really no point.

The captain chuckled and brushed off the other’s attempts at defending the crew. “Just send me the ship’s cords and your captain’s contact and I will be in touch.” With that the captain slid a communicator over the table and walked out of the sketchy bar.

Techno made his way back to the ship and delivered his captain the news. He tried to ignore the gut feeling that everything was wrong…

———��——

(The next section has graphics depictions of torture and gore, please skip this section if it could or will trigger you in any way, there is a summary at the end. Thank you <3)

The world moved unbearably slow. The cage opened ever so smoothly, making him want to throw up. It was the sign that everything was going to go to hell.

That’s what this has to be right? A hellish nightmare that wasn’t real..

No that wasn’t right..

Did it matter?

A hand yanked his wrist out of the cage and into the blinding white room, that felt like fire surrounding him as he stepped to the operating table.

Needles and scalpels were set neatly on a silver tray. The restraints were heavy and felt like they burned his wrists and ankles. He was pushed onto the table as the ‘doctor’ slapped on gloves. More restraints were clipped over his waist and thighs.

Then something pinched his leg. He felt the blood rushing it’s way down to the cut, as a scalpel carved out a rectangle. He could hear scissors cutting something, and distant screams… were they from him?

He didn’t know at this point. More agonizing cuts on his legs along with a couple of needle pin marks.. a couple snaps of an illusion disk and a bit of writing, on both his skin and paper..

He couldn’t really feel anything after the first one, only simply knowing that his body was reacting to the pain yet his brain hadn’t quite caught up with reality.

It was like he wasn’t exactly controlling his body, just simply existing in the dream-like state. Time didn’t exist there, neither did recognition of the pain. Emotions ran wild. Turning all of his thoughts sour as he attempted to remember what happened.

It wasn’t until the doctor un-clipped him and put him back into the cage that he noticed the other.

That’s who did this to him. That’s the person that pushed him through pain.

The human wore a terrified expression as the doctor took him out for his turn.

He couldn’t help but smile at the other’s pain. The other deserved it..

Right?

(If you skipped this, Tubbo got tortured and blamed Tommy for the situation.)

——————

“IT’S BEEN A FUCKING MONTH! And you still haven’t found your son’s damn ship?!” The man on the other line was furious, and rightfully so.

Puffy undoubtedly understood the anger the man had. I mean she had been in the situation before when her youngest was kidnapped by another crew of pirates. The only difference in this situation was she was fighting against her son, her duckling… when did her duckling turn sour?

“You’re right about that, Phil. I can assure you Niki is doing everything in her power to track them down, along with Jack.” Jack joined the team after Puffy met Niki.

She must admit that having someone working in the ISF had its perks. Though no one could fully trust him. For good reason of course.

“Ponk is ‘talking’ to Sam, he sure as hell ain’t cracking yet.” She finished bitterly, “Like I said Quakity is waiting for his monthly letter from his fiancé, which would hopefully give us a clue at where to look.”

“I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it’s been a month.. Wilbur said the humans barely last a full week if they aren’t treated..” The worry was lining his face and causing the bags under his eyes to look more like nasty black eyes. His face was sullen making it apparent the man hadn’t been eating properly. His wings ruffled at every noise and he seemed to be running purely on coffee. Puffy wanted nothing more than to return the man’s unofficial sons back to him.

——————

Everything was great!

The plan worked perfectly, and Sam hadn’t cracked yet.

Meaning he could easily start on the next faze. The only issue would be he’d have to gain both of the starling’s trust.

Even if the present was a bitter reality lined with things that would annoy him, the end result would be worth it.

Having a human and a nuke expert by his side would allow him to have everything he ever wanted.

Power.

Not just power, but all the things that came with it. He wouldn’t be questioned again, and everything and anything he said would be the final word.

It would be hell for those who crossed him, and even worse for those who abandoned him.

Wilbur, Sam, Ant, Quackity, Foolish, and even mother dearest, Puffy. They would all pay for their disloyalty. Once this is all over, they would never cross him again.

I mean he did give up everything to gain this life.

There was nothing to lose and everything to win, and he’d be damned if he didn’t win.

I mean he sold his soul for this!

It was all worth it.. right?

Of course it is. Stop doubting me child.

——————

28 days of torture, and now they were sitting with their captors playing house.

It was wrong. So utterly wrong.

“Eat your food Tommy.” The captain commanded.

Tommy complied not wanting to go back in the cage. Every day he woke up there, more things were shoved into him and more pain was given.

“You too Tubbo.” The command was given and the other complied, the same fear visibly shown.

“Reports.” Dream stated sternly, the rest of the crew compiled without hesitation.

It was a bunch of regular reports of how no one knew where they were, what supplies needed to be restocked, the current condition of the ship, and any developments with the news. A bunch of boring bullshit. He bit back any sarcastic remarks that threatened to spill, but refrained in fear of what they would do to him.

The crew was dismissed leaving Tubbo, Tommy, and Dream alone.

“I want both of you to listen.” Dream started his tone raising all hairs on the back of Tommy’s neck, “Phil and his crew led you to us. They didn’t comply the first time and poisoned your minds. We did the right thing, and fixed you. Now, there are some rules you have to follow. You may not wander the ship, only go anywhere with one of the crew members. You will both share a room and follow the same schedule. Anything you do that is not an order deserves a punishment, for it is proof of what the other crew poisoned you with. Now! Go to your room, it has a black door.” With that the man finished and the pair headed towards their room.

The speech sounded right, yet felt wrong. But everything was justified, therefore it was fine. Plus the worrying was just a problem for future Tommy, maybe that’s what Dream meant by the other crew poisoning him.

The other said nothing as they entered the room, only fixing Tommy with a bitter gaze which turned into something of confusion. Neither one slept, they couldn’t bring it in themselves to sleep, especially since Dream hadn’t told them to.

Instead both of them settled into a silence as they lay on their bed, only getting up when the man told them too. This was all they could really do as they faced their new reality. Slowly but surely their brains began to believe every word of the speech. Finally when the man asked to join him, a bubbly sickly joy gave them the grace to finally help their rescuer.

Six months after the initial capture, one month of torture and five months of vigorous training, consisting of fighting, weapon design, and hours of studying blueprints, they were finally able to go on their first mission with their rescuer, not questioning anything any of the crew said at this point. Sick months of training and they became living weapons ready for whatever the cruel world threw at them…

This is a dream.. right?

——————

Chapter 7- End

Words: 2221

——————

Notes:

Hahahaha I am in pain from writing this... please bare with me.. ;-;

——————

Dream is being a manipulative bastard... I mean the character. More specifically my take on Dream’s character in this situation... ahhhhh

——————

I hope you’re staying safe, don’t forget to take care of yourself!! <3 also likes are appreciated but reblogs are always better! <3

——————

23 notes · View notes

discoscoob · 3 years

Text

Praise Him | Loki x Female Reader

Loki (Marvel) x Doctor Who

Getting tired of the tension on his ship, the Doctor threatens to take you all home if you don’t go on an adventure with him but the TARDIS gets thrown off course and you end up trapped in a hotel where the personal fears and bad dreams of every visitor are hidden behind each room.

Part Twelve | Part Fourteen | Chapter Index

Words: 8.8k

Warnings: death and angst

Read on AO3

A few days had passed since your argument with your auntie and you had spent the whole time avoiding her. Loki knew all the perfect places to hide in the TARDIS, which he had found when he was avoiding you after the Dark Ages. The pair of you had been enjoying each other’s company completely undisturbed, until the Doctor grew tired of the tension on his ship and called an intervention in the control room.

“This can’t go on any longer. I am taking you all on an adventure.” The Doctor had said once he managed to gather you all together.

“Thanks but I’d rather not.” You attempted to decline, you didn’t mean to sound rude towards the Doctor, you realised he was only trying to help and you appreciated that, however you couldn’t pretend everything was okay while Donna kept scowling in Loki’s direction the whole time.

“You can all either come on this trip with me or I can take you all back home right now, your choice.” The Doctor shocked all three of you with an ultimatum, knowing none of you would want to give up the freedom of space and time travel and return to your mundane lives.

The Doctor also knew that you had to consider your relationship with Loki, where would the Doctor take him, what was ‘home’ to Loki? Would he return him to Asgard or would he take him back to Earth with you? Technically he was still on the run from the TVA and staying put on one planet would likely only make it easier for them to track him down. You knew you couldn’t risk getting separated from Loki just to avoid the awkward tension with your auntie.

“You can’t do that!” Donna argued against the Doctors ultimatum.

“She’s right, it’s not fair.” Loki agreed with Donna who scowled at him as soon as he spoke up.

“I can. This is my ship and I can decide whether or not I will allow you to stay on it.” The Doctor threatened to display just how serious he was, practically daring any one of you to call his bluff. “So what will it be? An adventure or home?”

“Fine.” You were the first to yield, Loki and Donna looked at you with surprise but they knew that going home wasn’t an option. “We’ll go on an adventure.”

“Brilliant!” The Doctor celebrated his small victory with himself, “this might be exactly what you all need.” He optimistically assured the three of you as he pulled down the handbrake and sent the TARDIS into turbulent flight.

***

You all leaned over the brown wooden bannister of a red carpeted stairwell to look up and down at the many floors above and below you, the distinct scent of a hotel filled the air. So far your interest hadn’t been spiked and from the looks of it, neither had Loki’s or Donna’s as they wondered what sort of adventure could have been found on a seemingly abandoned hotel on Earth.

The only one who seemed excited was the Doctor, who enthusiastically bounced up the stairs with a wide smile on his face, but it didn’t usually take much to impress the Doctor.

“This could be the most exciting thing I have ever seen!” He said with genuine delight and you thought even that was a bit of an overreaction even for the Doctor, as he ran almost two flights above you.

“What’s exciting about an empty hotel on Earth that looks like it has a three star trip advisor rating at the most.” You asked, already wondering if you could call it a day and return to the TARDIS.

“Because, my friends, this is not Earth.” The Doctor told you as he leaned over the bannister above you all. “This has just been made to look like Earth. The craftsmanship involved... can you imagine?”

He ran back down the stairs towards you, now he had managed to grab your interest as you all wondered where you actually were.

“Then where are we?” Loki asked as the Doctor ran passed you all and you automatically followed after him, you were stood in front of the TARDIS which stood between two rows of stairs on the stairwell, against a wall.

“I don’t know, something must have yanked us off course.” The Doctor vaguely answered. “Look at the detail on that cheese plant!” He gasped as he stroked and sniffed the leaves.

“Why would someone mock up an Earth hotel?” Donna asked.

“Colonists perhaps,” the Doctor suggested as he turned back around to face you all. “Trying to recreate a home away from home, like when ex-pats open English pubs in Majorca. Whoever did this I am shaking their hand or tentacle or paw or... fin.” The Doctor trailed off.

“Have you seen these?” Loki spoke, drawing your attention to a bunch of framed portraits which were neatly lined along the walls above, below and alongside each other in thin gold frames.

“Look at the labels underneath. Commander Halke, defeat. Tim Heath, having his photo taken. Lady Silver-Tear... Daleks, I hope there aren’t any of those here.”

“You have encountered Daleks?” The Doctor looked at Loki with interest.

“Not personally, but they’re always attempting to invade the nine realms.” Loki answered while you and Donna kept looking at the portraits and reading the labels.

“What do they mean?” You wondered out loud.

“I don’t know. Let’s find out!” The Doctor was already running away in search of the lobby before anyone could ask anything else.

When you reached the abandoned reception desk of the hotel lobby, you could hear elevator music quietly playing on repeat and the Doctor hit the gold service bell, immediately giving you flashbacks to the TVA and when you looked around you realised the hotel had a strikingly similar dated decor.

You screamed and jumped back with fright when two strangers leaped out from around the corner with a battle cry. One of them, a woman dressed in blue hospital scrubs, swung a broken off chair leg at the Doctor, who managed to duck out the way just in time. The other one, a man with a head of messy curls and wearing thin silver framed square glasses, held a lamp upside down and waved it around wildly in front of him.

“What was that for?!” The Doctor cried as he moved behind your auntie for protection, while Loki was already pulling you behind him.

“Blimey, chill out!” Donna shouted at them.

“Why are you swinging about a chair leg?” The Doctor shouted from over Donna’s shoulder.

“Who are you?!” The woman in scrubs demanded.

“We’re back in reception.” The man next to her commented and you noticed the way his voice trembled as he looked around with wide eyes and you suddenly felt very uneasy.

The woman in the scrubs hesitantly stepped towards all of you and looked at each of you in the eyes.

“Rita, be careful, yeah.” The man told her.

“Their pupils are dilated. They’re as surprised as we are. Besides which, if it’s a trick, it’ll tell us something.” Rita told the man as she returned to his side.

“I’m the Doctor,” he said as he calmly stepped around Donna, “these are my friends,” he extended his arm towards the three of you and introduced each of you by your names.

“You with the glasses-“ The Doctor approached the curly haired man.

“Howie.” He introduced himself.

“You sounded surprised to be back in reception. Why?” The Doctor ask.

“The walls move, everything changes.” Howie answered.

“The corridors twist and stretch, rooms vanish and pop up somewhere else. It’s like the hotel’s alive.” Rita continued.

“That’s quite enough of that.” The Doctor stepped towards the old radio and flicked the switch to turn off the repetitive elevator music.

“And it’s like huge, with, like, no way out.” Howie added.

“Have you tried the front door?” You asked.

“No, in two days it never occurred to us to try the front door. Thank god you’re here!” Rita sarcastically answered and you frowned.

“Right. That’s not good.” You heard the Doctor say and you looked in his direction to find he had pulled the front doors open only to reveal a white brick wall completely blocking the exit. He walked over to a pair of shut curtains and pulled them open to reveal no window just another brick wall. “Definitely not good.”

“It’s not just that. The rooms have... things in them.” Rita explained.

“Things? What sort of things?” The Doctor asked.

“Bad dreams.” Rita answered hesitantly, almost like she was certain he wouldn’t believe her.

“Doctor, I think we should leave.” Loki suggested.

“I already told you, there’s no way out.” Rita reminded him.

“We have a ship.” Loki smugly smiled.

“Wait, how did you two get here, then?” The Doctor asks the pair.

“I don’t know, I just started my shift. I must’ve passed out, because suddenly I was here.” Rita answered.

“I was blogging, next thing, this.” Howie said.

“So people are being snatched from their lives and dropped into an endless, shifting maze that looks like a 1980s hotel with bad dreams in the bedroom.” The Doctor concluded.

“But you have a ship, we can finally leave.” Howie pointed out, sounding relieved.

“Yes we do, follow me.” The Doctor once again sped off back towards the TARDIS and the rest of you rushed behind to keep up. “We’ll all get into the TARDIS, I’ll do a planet-wide diagnostic sweep and then I’ll return you back safely to the exact moments you got snatched away...”

The Doctors voice trailed off as he stopped in his tracks in front of an empty space where the TARDIS once stood. He held his arms out and felt around like he was checking it hadn’t somehow turned invisible but you could tell there was absolutely nothing there.

“Don’t tell me the TARDIS has gone.” Donna sighed.

“Okay.” The Doctor muttered, still stunned.

“Where is it then?” She asked.

“You told me not to tell you.” The Doctor turned around looking genuinely confused.

“Don’t get clever with me.” She warned him.

“What’s a TARDIS?” Howie asked.

“Our way out. And it’s gone.” Loki groaned.

Suddenly you heard the elevator music from the lobby begin playing again by itself and the uneasy feeling spread deeper through your chest.

“Okay. We all just need to remain calm.”

The Doctor could sense how you were all on edge, “Rita, are there anymore of you?”

She glanced at Howie and down the stairwell before she looked back at the Doctor, “Joe, but he’s tied up right now.”

“Doing what?” The Doctor asked.

“No, I mean he’s... literally tied up.” She clarified.

***

You all slowly entered a large room, one by one, that was filled with round tables covered in white cloths. Around each table, there sat identical creepy ventriloquist dummies, their chins lifted up and down as they all laughed.

Once you all entered the room, their laughter subsided, leaving you in complete silence. Slowly their heads began to turn by themselves, as they followed you with their large, vacant, painted on eyes.

You felt as though you had been dumped straight in the centre of a horror story, the eerie atmosphere of the room sent dreadful shivers through your spine and quickened your heart rate.

Loki had immediately sensed your trepidation and secured his arm around you as a form of comfort as he whispered in your ear reassurances that they were just puppets and could not hurt you and he would keep you safe. You had leaned into Loki’s hold in pursuit for more of his comfort.

Neither of you had noticed the way your auntie was observing your interaction from behind the pair of you, for once she wasn’t looking at you with judgement but with contemplation instead, Loki’s behaviour seemed natural and genuine, she still didn’t trust him but she appreciated the way Loki had managed to sooth you.

In the centre of the room, a dazed man sat at one of the tables, with rope across his chest which restrained him to his chair. He stared blankly ahead, as if he hadn’t even noticed anyone enter the room, as the Doctor tentatively approached him.

“Hello. I’m the Doctor.” He introduced himself.

“You’re going to die here.” Joe answered bluntly.

“Well, they certainly didn’t mention that in the brochure.” The Doctor muttered. “Is Joe there? Can I have a quick word?”

“Oh it’s still me, Doctor, but I’ve seen the light. I lived a blasphemous life, but he has forgiven my inconstancy, and soon he shall... feast.” The way Joe spoke reignited the shivers down your spine.

“You’ve been here two days, what’s he waiting for?” The Doctor asked as he pulled out one of the chairs and sat opposite Joe.

“We weren’t ready. We were still raw.” Joe smiled.

“And now you’re what? Cooked?” The Doctor guessed.

“If you like. Soon you will be, too. Be patient. First, find your room. There’s a room here for everyone.” His eyes shifted over to you, as did the dolls heads and you shuffled closer into Loki’s side.

“Nothing else matters anymore. Only him. It’s like these things.” Joe looked around at the puppets which surrounded each table. “I used to hate them! They make me laugh now.” Joe began laughing to himself.

“Gottle o’ geer! Gottle o’ geer!” Joe cheered as his laughter increased and the dummies began joining in again, their slack jaws chattering up and down.

“You should go. He’ll be here soon.” Joe told the Doctor.

***

You had all returned to the reception, the Doctor had managed to find a stack barrow, to wheel Joe around in while keeping him tied to his chair as the Doctor went over his plan.

“First, we find the TARDIS. Quick thing before we go. If you feel drawn to a particular room, do not go in, and make sure someone else can see you at all times.” The Doctor instructed.

You ended up searching through the hallways of the hotel, they were decorated with a red floral carpet and white floral wallpaper, all the numbered doors to the different rooms were white and between each door there was a wall lamp, which kept the hallways bright, since there were no windows to let in any natural light.

You and Loki walked side by side at the back of the group, Rita was pushing Joe in the stack barrow, by now he had some duct tape over his mouth to quiet his nonsensical ramblings. The Doctor lead the group at the front and Howie was muttering to Donna about his theory on how whole thing was a conspiracy, she didn’t appear convinced but she just smiled and nodded before she stepped on ahead to walk beside the Doctor.

You suddenly heard a school bell ring as a man stepped out of one of the rooms in front of the Doctor, dressed in a white vest and white shorts with a whistle around his neck.

“Hello?” The Doctor spoke.

“Have you forgotten your P.E. kit again?” The man yelled, the Doctor had no answer as he glanced around in confusion. “Right, that’s it, you’re doing it in your pants!”

With that the man stormed back into his room and slammed the door behind him, the Doctor looked around at all of you in silence and you realised that must’ve been someone else’s bad dream.

“Hey! Don’t!” The Doctor shouted as he ran past you and Loki, you both jumped out the way and watched as Howie opened one of the doors to a room before the Doctor could reach him.

Once the door swung open you heard the sound of girls laughter.

“Oh look girls, it’s H-H-Howie.” You heard one of them tease, causing the others to burst into giggles.

“What’s “loser” in K-K-K-Klingon?” Another added encouraging another round of laughs.

“Shut the... d-d... the- the door!” Howie told the Doctor as he began backing away and the Doctor quickly slammed it shut as Howie stood behind him, nervously pulling the sleeves of his striped hoodie over his hands. “This is just some... m-m-messed up CIA b-b-bullshit, I’m- I’m telling you.”

“You’re right, keep telling yourself that. It’s a CIA thing, nothing more.” The Doctor told Howie as he put an arm over his shoulder and encouraged him to keep walking down the corridor and you all continued to quietly follow.

You felt as though you were walking around in circles as every hallway looked exactly the same, the same carpet, the same wallpaper, the same wall lamps and doors. There were no signs which told you what floor you were on, the only thing which was different was the numbers on the front of each of the doors.

There was a dip in the ceiling, which ran along the top of the corridor, it looked like a beam, the Doctor ran his finger over it to trace some large scratch marks that had been left behind. While Donna stopped and bent down to pick up some small notebook sized pieces of paper which she had found on the floor. You glanced over her shoulder to look at the words scribbled in pencil which were written over it.

Loki had fallen to the back of the group and he slowed as he passed one of the doors, until he was stood in front of it. Everything in him was screaming at him to walk away but he couldn’t, it was as if he were stuck, as the urge to open the door before him overpowered him.

Hesitantly he lifted his hand, which had begun shaking, to the doorknob. He was overwhelmingly curious about what his bad dream might be, many nights he had been plagued with nightmares of being back at the sanctuary, tortured by The Other. He wondered if that’s what was waiting for him behind his door, or perhaps it was Thanos himself, come to kill him just like in the projection the TVA had shown him.

No one noticed as Loki pushed his door open and peaked inside his room, to find the last thing he expected, it was empty. Apart from two single beds against the wall, a table between them with a lamp on top of it, much like a normal hotel room, there was nothing. Loki drew his brows together, he wasn’t sure whether he should’ve been relieved or worried.

Loki retreated and stepped back into the hallway, as he gently pulled the door back shut he glanced at the number on the front of it to find it was room 13 and he narrowed his eyes.

You had turned around just in time to see him with his hand on the doorknob and you called his name as you ran towards him.

“Loki, don’t go in there!” You grabbed his arm and dragged him away from the door.

“It’s too late.” Loki mumbled as his eyes remained on the door and you put both your hands on the sides of his face to force him to look at you.

“What did you see?” You asked him and he slightly shook his head.

“Nothing.”

“It’s okay, you can tell me.” You encouraged him, believing he was trying to protect you.

“No, I’m not lying... there- there was nothing.” Loki told you, you could see the genuine confusion in his eyes and you realised he was telling the truth.

A sudden growl grabbed everyone’s attention, it was a low and thunderous sound that could only come from a dangerous beast. Joe began squirming in his chair as he tried to break free from his restraints as the growling grew closer.

“Okay, whatever that is, it’s not real, yeah?” Donna asked the Doctor.

“No, no, I’m sure it isn’t,” you heard him assure her, yet the way he was backing away betrayed him, “but just in case, let’s run away and hide anyway, in here.”

The Doctor encouraged you all to pile into one of the rooms, some of you got separated, while you, Loki, Donna and the Doctor entered one room, Rita and Howie ran into another, abandoning Joe in the middle of the hallway.

When you looked into the room, you saw two stone statues of angels with their faces hidden behind their hands as if they were crying.

“Oh god. Okay, whatever you do. Don’t blink.” The Doctor ordered you all as he stared with wide eyes at the stone statues in front of him.

“Why not?” You dared to ask.

“They’re Weeping Angels, they can only move when they’re not being observed, a single touch from one of them will make you disappear forever.” The Doctor quickly explained to you and your eyes began to burn as you stared at the stone sculptures in front of you.

The light of the room began flickering off and on, every time the room was plunged into completely darkness the light came back on to reveal the angels had moved closer. Now they had removed their hands from their face as they reached out for you with their mouths open wide to reveal sharp teeth.

Your pulse raced as you backed yourself up against the wall each time they came closer, you wanted to scream but you were too frightened, your eyes watered from the sting of forcing them open too long and you clung on impossibly tight to Loki’s arm.

“Why haven’t they got us yet?” The Doctor asked once the angels stopped coming any closer.

The Doctor bravely stepped forward, while the rest of you remained against the wall.

“Doctor, be careful.” Donna warned him, as he reached his hand out towards the stone angel but once he touched it, nothing happened and the Doctor sighed with relief.

“They’re not real. They would’ve got us by now. They’re not real. Just someone’s bad dream.” The Doctor turned around to assure you all and each of you slumped against the wall in unison, as you let your eyes finally fall shut, you wiped away the moisture that fell from your tear ducts, as your eyes watered heavily to replenish their irritated and dried surface.

From the hallway you could hear the growls grow closer, as they were accompanied by heavy footsteps. On the floor, where light from the hallway leaked through the gap of the door, you saw the shadows of the beasts legs as it stomped past. You held your breath as you tightly closed your eyes and you felt Loki’s arms tighten around you.

The Doctor quietly stepped up to the door and spied through the peephole, but quickly jumped back when the beast banged against the door from the other side.

“Oh dear.” He glanced nervously at the rest of you before he returned to the door to take another glance through the peephole. “I think it’s going after Joe.”

He watched as Joe managed to struggle free from the ties which bound him to the chair, as he stood and held his arms out wide at his sides, with a large smile on his face.

“Come to me. Come to me.” He welcomed the beast. “Praise him.”

Suddenly it fell silent and you all glanced at each other, wondering if it was safe to leave the room yet. The Doctor was the first one to step out of the room as he looked up and down the empty hallway, the only thing left behind was the chair, the stack barrow and the ties which were left discarded on the floor. The Doctor looked to the top of the hallway just in time, to see Joes legs disappear behind the corner, as the beast dragged him away.

“Leave him alone!” The Doctor shouted as he ran after him. As you all ran out the room after him, Rita and Howie emerged from the room they had hidden in.

Once you all turned the corner, you found the Doctor crouching beside Joe, who was perched in a kneeling position against the wall, his head lulled lifelessly and his vacant eyes stared at nothing, as the Doctor patted at his cheek. The look on the Doctors face as he solemnly glanced back up at all of you, told you everything you needed to know.

***

The Doctor and Loki had managed to carry Joe’s body to one of the hotel’s bars, where they rested him on the floor and covered him with a white cloth from one of the tables, while you and Donna wedged chairs underneath the handles of all the doors in an attempt to stop anything from getting into the bar where you sought refuge.

The only sound that filled the room was the ear piercing whistle of an old kettle coming to a boil, as Rita made cups of tea for you all and Howie quietly sat at one of the tables by himself.

“What exactly happened to him?” Rita asked the Doctor as she approached him with two cups of tea in her hand, one of which she handed to him.

From where you sat on a nearby table, next to Loki, you listened in on their conversation.

“He died.” The Doctor answered plainly as he held his mug full of tea in front of him.

“You are a medical Doctor, aren’t you?” Rita checked, “you haven’t just got a degree in cheese-making or something.”

“No! Well, yes, both, actually.” The Doctor answered. “I mean, there is no cause, all his vital organs simply stopped, as if the simple spark of life, his loves and hates, his faiths and fears were just... taken.”

“So you believe this to be a fake alien hotel?” Rita pointed out. “I heard you talking when you arrived.” She confessed after the Doctor silently tilted his head, wondering how she knew that. “Look, it’s no more ridiculous than Howie’s CIA theory or mi... or mine.”

“Which is?”

“This is Jahannam.” She stated.

“You’re a muslim? You think this is hell?” The Doctor asked curiously and Rita nodded.

“The whole ‘80s hotel thing took me by surprise, though.” She added.

“All these fears and phobias wondering about, most are completely unconnected to us, so why are they still here?” He asked her as if she had the answers.

“Maybe the cleaners have gone on strike.” She joked which made the Doctor laugh.

“I like you, you’re a right clever clogs. But this isn’t hell, Rita.” The Doctor told her.

“You don’t understand, I say that without fear. Jahannam will play its tricks, and there’ll be times when I want to run and scream, but I’ve tried to live a good life and that knowledge keeps me sane, despite the monsters and the bonkers rooms.” She explained before Donna approached the Doctor, holding in her hand the pieces of paper she found on the floor earlier.

“Doctor, look at this. I found it in a corridor, I forgot I had it.” Donna told him as she handed over the pages to him. The Doctor took them in his hands and leaned against the table you and Loki were sat at as he read the scribbled writing on the paper out loud.

My name is Lucy Hayward and I’m the last one left. It took Luke first. It got him on his first day, almost as soon as he arrived. It’s funny, you don’t know what’s going to be in your room until you see it, then you realise it could have never been anything else. I just saw mine. It was a gorilla from a book I’d read as a kid. My god that thing used to terrify me. The gaps between my worships are getting shorter, like contractions. This is what happened to the others... and how lucky they were. It’s all so clear now. I’m so happy. Praise him.

“Praise him.” Howie repeated from where he was sat, grabbing everyone’s attention.

“What did you just say?” The Doctor asked.

“Nothing...” Howie innocently answered before he looked like he was fighting against himself as the words rose to his tongue. “Praise him.” He said again before he slapped his own hand over his mouth.

“This is what happened to Joe.” Rita told you all, as Howie rose from his chair and began to pace back and forth.

“God, it’s going to come for me now.” He worriedly muttered to himself.

“I won’t leave you, I promise, you have my word.” The Doctor swore to him.

“I don’t want to get eaten!” Howie grew more anxious.

“Howie, calm down.” Rita tried to tell him.

“He’s going to lead the beast right here.” Loki said.

All their voices jumbled together as the spoke over one another, before the Doctor raised his sonic screwdriver in the air and it emitted a shrill sound which rung through your ears, you quickly covered them with your palms and everyone fell silent.

“Thank you.” The Doctor said once everyone had stopped talking.

“Don’t you see? He will lead the monster right here!” Loki was the first to speak.

“What do you suggest?” Rita turned to him and Loki silently looked around at everyone, until his eyes fell on you.

“We have to keep ourselves safe and find the TARDIS,” he told the room, “tragic though it might be, now is not the time for sentiment. The beast is coming for Howie and if we all remain here it might take us too.”

“Of course you’re thinking about yourself.” Donna snidely commented.

“I’m thinking about the safety of your niece, actually.” Loki corrected her and she frowned regretfully.

“It’s okay, I’ll stay with Howie. You take the others and go.” Rita offered.

“No. We stay together.” The Doctor said with finality. “Howie, any second now, it’s going to possess you again. When it does, I’m going to ask you some questions. Please try to answer them.”

The Doctor sat Howie down at one of the tables and you all sat down opposite him. The Doctor tapped his fingers on the surface of the table as he waited for the possession to wash over Howie again. You noticed it seemed to have come over him when his eyes widened and he gasped in a breath of air.

The edge of Howie’s lips lifted into a smile and he raised his large brown eyes to look at you all from under his dark eyebrows, the sinister look unsettled you.

“Howie, you’re next! We’re all so jealous, so tell us... How do we get a piece of the action? Why isn’t he possessing all of us?” The Doctor baited him.

“You guys have got all these distractions, all these obstacles. It’d be so much easier if you just it let go, you know, clear the path.” Howie explained, his demeanour completely changed, he became lucid and relaxed.

“You want it to find you? Even though you know what it’s going to do?” You asked.

“Are you kidding?” Howie asked you directly. “He’s going to kill us all! How cool is that?!”

The Doctor abruptly stood up and you did too, followed by Loki and then Donna and Rita as you huddled into a group with your backs turned to Howie.

“It’s as I thought. It feeds on fear.” The Doctor whispered. “Everything, the rooms, Lucy’s note, even the pictures in reception, has been put here to frighten us. So we have to resist it. Do whatever you have to, cross your fingers, say a prayer, think of a basket of kittens, but do not give in to the fear.” He instructed.

“Guys... where’s Howie?” Rita asked and you all turned around and looked at the empty chair where he was once sat.

“My master, my lord. I’m here! Bring me death!” You heard Howie’s voice faintly cry from the stairwell.

“No!” The Doctor yelled as he ran out the exit of the bar, in search for Howie, Donna and Rita followed after him and you followed after them, ignoring Loki who called after you.

Somehow you all got separated as you ran through the corridors in search for Howie and each other. Rita had said that the corridors twisted and stretched, it likely did this on purpose. You found yourself alone in one of the empty hallways, the door at the end of it called to you. Number 7. Without moving the wall slid closer to you, until all you had to do was reach out your hand and turn the doorknob to find out what awaited you.

You know you shouldn’t have, you really tried not to, but you couldn’t help yourself as you slowly pushed open your door and glanced at what was inside.

Your eyes widened when on the edge of the bed you saw a dark figure, the only light in the room was the one which leaked through from the hallway, but you recognised it immediately. The figure haunted your dreams often as a child, it became less frequent as you grew older until you had forgotten about it completely. The nightmares used to petrify you, often you would wake in the middle of the night screaming and your mother would have to come running into your bedroom to comfort you and tell you it was just a bad dream.

You yelped when you felt someone yank you away from the door, before they slammed it shut.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” Rita told you. “What did you see?”

“Nothing.” You said defensively, you didn’t want to explain it, “I didn’t see anything.”

Rita could easily tell that you were lying, but she didn’t call you out on it, respecting the fact you didn’t wish to share your bad dream.

“Come on.” She urged you, taking you to find everyone else.

As you ran through the endless maze of corridors, you eventually ran into Donna, all three of you remained together until you turned down a corridor and found the Doctor standing in front of Howie’s body which was presented in a kneeling position against the wall, just like Joe’s had been.

The Doctor silently stared back at the three of you, regret evident in his eyes at the fact he was unable to save his life. Just as you began to wonder where Loki was, he appeared at the other end of the hallway, as soon as you saw him you rushed towards him. He pulled you into his arms without hesitation and planted a chaste kiss on the top of your head.

***

The Doctor was walking up the stairwell, having just returned from the bar where he and Loki had placed Howie’s body alongside Joe’s and put another white table cloth over him. He had decided he needed to go for a walk, he was beginning to feel the pressure of time running out and if he didn’t come up with a plan soon he was going to lose all of you.

As he walked up the stairwell, he ran into Rita, who was walking in the opposite direction.

“Rita! How are you?” He greeted her, “not panicking, are you?”

She shook her head.

“Good. That’s very good. Because I’m on the verge of getting us out of here.” He assured her, despite the fact he wasn’t entirely certain if he actually was.

“Why is it up to you to save us?” Rita asked him. “It’s quite a god complex you have there.”

“I brought them here.” He told her, “I didn’t really give them a choice in the matter. I threatened to take them back home and take the freedom of all of time and space away from them if they didn’t join me on one adventure. How much safer they would’ve been if they had’ve decided to go home.”

“All of time and space, eh?” Rita grew interested.

“Oh, yeah. And when we get out of this, I’ll show you, too.” He promised her, before his eyes landed on a security camera above her head and he smiled as he suddenly got an idea. “Right down to the smallest detail. Got you, Mr Minotaur.”

With that, he ran off down the stairs and Rita was left staring at the security camera. Curiously she stepped up the stairs and stood right in front of it as she looked directly into it.

“Praise him.” She smiled as she closed her eyes.

***

Loki studied you as you both sat in silence at one of the tables in the bar, you had been quiet ever since you reunited after you all got separated. He understood you were frightened, even he was too, but there had been a change in you and it didn’t take him long to figure out what it was.

“You’ve seen your room, haven’t you.” Loki quietly said as he took your hand in his to get your attention.

You had been staring into nothing and you rapidly blinked as you zoned back in and looked at Loki, his face was filled with nothing but concern for you as you silently nodded before dropped your head in shame.

Loki placed the tips of his fingers under your chin and gently encouraged you to lift your head.

“What did you see?” He asked you.

“There was a figure sat on the bed,” your eyes gently filled with tears as you retold Loki of the nightmares that plagued you as a child. “I’m next, aren’t I? It’s going to come for me. I’m sorry, Loki. I’m so sorry, I tried to resist it, I’m sorry.”

Loki tenderly shushed you as you began to cry and pulled you into his chest, where you sobbed into the front of his shirt as you let his comforting warmth and scent surround you, never wanting to leave the safety of his embrace. You whined as Loki pulled back and he left a soft kiss on your salty lips before he took your face in his hands and wiped away the tears which ran down your cheeks.

“I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise. I will do whatever it takes to protect you.” Loki swore to you, before he let you hug back into him as he tried his best to sooth you.

Unbeknownst to the both of you, Donna watched on from the doorway to the bar, she had missed the part where you revealed you had seen your room and only caught the pair of you as Loki promised to protect you, she was beginning to believe that he truly meant it.

***

After Loki had managed to calm you down, you decided that you should go find the Doctor, Donna had revealed herself to the both of you once you exited the bar and to your surprise she didn’t have anything to say about you and Loki.

“Where’s Rita?” You asked your auntie when you realised she wasn’t with any of you.

“Maybe she’s with the Doctor.” Donna shrugged.

Donna joined you on your way to find, Rita and the Doctor, she remained silent the whole time and didn’t even send any hostile glances in Loki’s direction when he took your hand in his, you were slightly confused but didn’t question it as you were just grateful that she was giving the pair of you some peace.

You were walking down a corridor when you heard the Doctor’s voice, from behind a door that was wedged open slightly and you rushed through it with Loki and Donna close behind you.

“What’s going on? Rita’s disappeared.” You told him once you entered the room, you saw all the black and white TV’s in front of the Doctor, which displayed live security footage and you noticed he had a phone to his ear, while on one of the TVA’s Rita looked directly into the camera as she, too, spoke into a phone from one of the bedrooms which she had brought out into the corridor.

“Rita. Rita, please. Let me find you.” The Doctor urgently pleaded.

“Stay where you are.” She ordered him. “Please, let me be robbed of my faith in private.”

“Listen, Rita. Go into the room, lock the door.” The Doctor instructed her after he saw the beast walk by on the security footage displayed on one of the other TV’s and saw it was closing in on Rita.

“I’m not frightened. I’m blessed, Doctor. I’m at peace.” She told him. “I’m going to hang up now.”

“No, Rita, Don’t!” The Doctor begged.

“Goodbye, Doctor.” Rita spoke directly into the camera, it was almost as if she was looking right into the Doctors eyes. “Thank you for trying.”

“Rita! Rita, please!” The Doctor shouted, but he knew he couldn’t hear her as she pulled the phone from her ear and placed it back down on the receiver. The Doctor still hadn’t removed the phone from his own ear, as the dial tone and his useless pleas were the only sounds that filled the room.

“Doctor, it’s too late.” Donna gently told him as she slid the phone from his hand and returned it to the receiver, the Doctor couldn’t tear his eyes away from the security footage as a large shadow began to loom over Rita and she smiled.

“Doctor!” Donna called after him as he abruptly stormed out the room. You jumped when you heard the sound of glass smashing and tables being thrown over, as the Doctor unleashed his emotions, you knew he had grown close to Rita during their short time together.

Watching the beast take her had only made it all the more real, as you realised that was your unavoidable fate. You looked up at Loki, your vision blurred as moisture gathered in your eyes, he had vowed to protect you and you didn’t doubt he would but you were trapped here with no way out, even the TARDIS had disappeared, you knew that the odds were not in your favour and that realistically you didn’t have long left.

***

You, Loki and Donna quietly sat at one of the tables which the Doctor hadn’t flipped over in the now trashed bar. As the Doctor paced around in front of you all, desperately trying to figure it out.

“It preys on people’s fear and possesses them. But Rita wasn’t afraid, she was brave and calm. Maybe it’s something to do with the people, some connection between you that will tell me how to fight it.”

“Yes. You keep saying that, but while we wait, people keep dying and she will be next.” Loki criticised the Doctor and you looked at him with wide eyes as he referred to you.

“No, you won’t let that happen.” You told him, as you took his hands in yours.

“I know, darling, I know.” He turned to you in his chair, “don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“You saw your room?” Donna realised.

“I’m sorry.” Your voice trembled as you spoke to her and she instantly rose from her seat to pull you into her arms and shushed you.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for, you’re going to be okay.” She assured you.

“Oh, no. Oh, no, no.” The Doctor mumbled. “It’s not fear. It’s faith.” He realised.

You pulled away from Donna as you watched the Doctor have an epiphany.

“Not just religious faith, like Rita’s, but faith in something. Howard believed in conspiracies, that external forces controlled the world. Joe had dice cufflinks and a horseshoe pin on his tie. He was a gambler. Gamblers believe in luck. They all believe there’s something guiding them, about to save them. That’s what it replaces. Every time someone was confronted with their most primal fear, they fell back on their most fundamental faith. And this whole time, I’ve been telling you to dig deep. Find the thing that keeps you brave. I made you expose your faith and gave it exactly what it needed.” The Doctor said with regret.

“What about me?” You asked, “What does it want from me?”

“Your faith in Loki.” The Doctor answered. “That’s what brought us here.”

You all fell silent and Loki realised that the one thing putting your life in danger was your faith in him. Which meant if you died, it would be his fault, he concluded in his own mind.

“But why do they lose their faith before they die and start worshipping... “it”?” Donna was the first to break the silence.

“It needs to convert the faith into a form “it” can consume. Faith is an energy, the specific emotional energy the creature needs to live.” The Doctor explained. “Which is why at the end of her note, Lucy said...”

“Praise him.” You said.

“Exactly.” The Doctor nodded, until his eyes widened when he realised you weren’t finishing his sentence for him, you had began worshipping the beast.

“No.” Loki said to you, having realised the same thing. “Please, no.” He pleaded as he took your hands in his own.

Suddenly you began to hear a distant growl and the sound of heavy footsteps from the floor above. The beast was coming for you.

“We have to get her away from here.” The Doctor announced and Loki urged you out of your seat as you all began to run out of the bar and back into the endless maze.

As you ran through the corridors with a tight grip on Loki’s hand, you heard the footsteps coming closer behind you, until when you glanced over your shoulder, you finally saw it chasing after you.

You slipped your hand free from Loki’s and turned to face the beast, you thought it was beautiful and you didn’t understand why you were ever running from it, you wanted to welcome it and the glorious death it would bring you.

But you felt two pairs of hands dragging you away, you tried to fight against them but they were stronger, as Loki and Donna both pulled you along the hallway, away from the beast which was quickly catching up to you.

“Over here!” Loki shouted towards the Doctor when he saw door number 13, “it’s my room, there’s nothing in here!”

The Doctor pushed open the door and Loki and Donna pulled you into the room before the Doctor slammed the door shut and leaned his weight against it in an attempt to keep the beast out.

“What do we do now? We’re trapped.” Donna looked to the Doctor, Loki turned to him for answers as well, as you crouched to the floor with your back facing everyone.

Suddenly the beast slammed against the door, trying to get through, but the Doctor continued pushing his weight against the door trying to keep it out.

“You have to destroy her faith in you,” the Doctor told Loki urgently, as the beast kept beating against the door. “It’s the only way you can save her.”

Loki swallowed as he felt his throat tighten and he lowered his eyes to you where you knelt on the floor with your back to him, another hit against the door from the wild beast behind him urged him to step towards you, until he crouched by your side.

“Loki, it’s happening, it’s changing me, it’s changing my thoughts.” You told Loki, still believing he could save you.

Loki fought back his tears, throughout his entire life he had been told to control his emotions, despite that, he had never been very good at it, but now your life depended on it and he tried to remain as emotionless as possible. He gulped down the lump in his throat and controlled the tremble in his voice, so it wouldn’t give him away as he spoke.

“I can’t save you.” Loki told you and he felt the first unbearable rip in his chest as you looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes, expecting him to be your hero.

“What? No, you can. You promised.” You desperately encouraged him.

Loki had to momentarily divert his gaze to stop himself from breaking. He masked it as a bored sigh as he wiped his palm down his face before he looked back towards you, ensuring that his eyes lacked any of the adoration, trust and love that he held for you in his wounded heart. Shadows cast over his eyes, making them darker in the already dimly lit room as he stared at you from beneath his eyebrows. The only time you ever recalled him looking at someone like that was when he confronted Cassandra, back then the look had sent shivers through your spine, but now it made your chest cave as you wondered what you had done to the person you love to make him look at you like that.

“I lied.” Loki lied. “I tricked you. I’m the God of Mischief, it’s what I do best, and you fell for it so easily.”

“You’re lying. It’s not funny.” You shook your head, refusing to believe him, your faith in him remained strong. Loki decided to try another tactic which caused a sick feeling to stir in his stomach, but he had promised he would do whatever it takes to protect you and he wasn’t going to break his promise, even if that meant he had to make you hate him.

“You should have listened to your auntie,” Loki continued. “She was right, I’ve been lying to you this whole time. I wasn’t controlled by the mind stone when I attacked New York, I brought death and destruction and enjoyed every second of it.”

“No, stop.” You pleaded as you began to sob, “why are you saying this?” You tried to hold onto him but he shoved you away as he stood up straight above you and you grovelled at his feet, clinging onto him and your belief in him for dear life, like it wasn’t the one thing endangering it.

By now the beast had managed to overpower the Doctor and the door was wide open. It’s shadow loomed over you and Loki realised that if he was about to lose you forever, he would rather it be in the way where you survived in the end. He had to truly hurt you.

“I told you a made up sob story and you fell for it, like a fool... or perhaps you were just so desperate for some affection, you didn’t care who it came from. I’d expect nothing less from a pathetic human such as yourself. You asked me once if I thought you were a worthless creature,” Loki noticed the monster finally stopped in his tracks half way into the room, as you finally let go of his legs and began to shuffle away from him, dreading what he was going to say next. Loki knew that this was the final blow that would completely shatter your faith and trust in him and save your life. So with his heart already torn in to shreds, he prepared to reach into his chest and rip out the broken pieces of his heart and throw them away, destroying any chance of it ever being put back together again after this. “Truth be told, I think you’re the most worthless of them all.”

With that the beast collapsed to his knees and you scrambled to your feet to get away from Loki as you looked at him with so much betrayal, he had to avoid your eyes to stop himself from breaking down right there in front of you and start begging for your forgiveness.

You rushed to your auntie for comfort, while the Doctor crouched by the creatures side as it let out it’s final breaths.

Once it was dead, the hotel around you began to collapse like a house of cards, you were all left unharmed as everything around you vanished into nothing, until it revealed that you had been on a spaceship this whole time as you were surrounded by futuristic electronics and a round window which revealed the vast vacuum of space and a nearby grey planet. The ship was quiet and it seemed to be abandoned, but you weren’t going to stick around long enough to double check as you finally saw the TARDIS, stood in the far corner of the dark room. You wanted to get as far away from Loki as possible, so as soon as you had laid eyes on the Doctors ship, you had ran towards it and disappeared behind its blue doors.

It was then that Loki realised why his room had been empty, it was in his room where he had lost you, and that was his biggest fear.

#loki #loki (marvel)#loki x reader #loki x you #loki x female reader #loki imagine #doctor who #tenth doctor #10th doctor #donna noble #tom hiddleston

48 notes · View notes

mochees · 4 years

Text

"𝗶 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗜𝗜"

-> headcanons, how they tell you they love you for the first time, part two!

characters: sakusa, iwaizumi, x fem!reader

warnings: fem reader, ✨healthy relationships✨, oikawa being oikawa

wc: 3.6K

a/n: WOAH okay uh did NOT expect that last set to be that popular,,,, y'all thirsty for love huh? me too anyway i thought id do a part two since i honestly really enjoyed writing the first set and my brain is vibrating with ✨thoughts✨ and seeing how much love it got really made me feel how i haven't felt in so long, so thank you! maybe ill turn this into a series so lemme know if u wanna see someone specific👀👀😏 also sorry for like posting and then dipping again lmao thats just my social media brand i have the attention span of a fucking worm

read part 1 here!

Sakusa Kiyoomi

okok i know its like common for sakusa to be shown as not interested in PDA (in private or public) unless hes feeling "needy"

BUT i believe that after a few weeks, maybe months if he's still unsure, he would definitely be much more comfortable with PDA

like, if its been a long time and your both serious about it and not just in a relationship to be in a relationship he starts to notice your routine

he notices the changes you make so that he's comfortable and so that you can be close to him without him being worried about icky yicky germy wormys (someone take away my thought privileges)

so now that he knows that you take care of your hygiene and exactly what you do for it, slowly he's wrapping an arm around you in 30° heat while you're both sweating

slowly he's "forgetting" his mask in the car for dates

slowly, but surely, he understands that a little bit of exposure, isn't a bad thing.

"kiyoomi?" your voice brought sakusa's eyes to yours where he could see the concern behind them.

"are you okay y/n?"

you'd decided, after three weeks of intense training and barely seeing your boyfriend, that you wanted just one day and one night with him. just the two of you, you know he'd never admit it, but he needed a break.

after atsumu decided to try out some new plays that didn't start off to well, sakusa had been silently groaning everytime he had to reach for something. he was excellent at making sure he wasn't overworking himself, and he wasn't, its just that the human body is an absolute wonder, and not in a good way. sometimes things that should have mildly injured you, left you with a tiny scrape, or a bruise or a very quick-to-fade red mark, and sometimes you drop a phone on your face and break your fucking jaw.

you offer him a gentle smile that completely washes away the concern in your eyes.

"im fine omi! but you," you reach your hands up to rest on both sides of his face turning his head side to side, studying it intensly.

"you're looking a little pale. and possibly grey."

"how do you mean y/n-chan?"

for such an intelligent man sometimes he really could be a himbo.

"i mean that i think you might be sick, baby."

sakusa stared blankly at you, as if he couldn't fathom the possibility of 'himself, sick?'

"omi? kiyoomi!" you nabbed his attention, "i think you're sick, and we best go home."

"but-" he started, but you were quick to cut him off knowing exactly what he was about to say.

"kiyoomi, it's inevitable. even if you were the worlds most decked out with ppe, and the worlds leading force in hygeine, you'd still end up catching a cold at least once. that's just how the world works baby. and don't worry about the date, all i want is to spend some time with you."

you ended up practically dragging your sad little puppy of a boyfriend back up the complex stairs and into his unit before settling him on the couch and getting to work.

"ill get you some water, you just sit here and relax. i don't want to think about what would happen if those dumbasses didnt have you there next week, bokuto and hinata would probably crack their skulls!" your attempt at a little light hearted humour helped sakusa forget for a moment, but he was quick to go back to not understanding how he was sick.

"thank you." he took the glass from your hand and rested it between his legs, when he noticed the rubber gloves you had clutched at your side. he knew what they were for, those were his cleaning gloves.

"what are you doing? you can't stay you'll..." he paused. "you'll get sick too."

"i'll be fine omi-omi! you just relax and drink lots of water, ill take care of this." you turned towards the wall with a soft smile before muttering, "ill take care of you."

sakusa watched you clean, the bucket full of diluted bleach, the duster, a cloth, and his cleaning gloves. he loved the way that they were too big for you, the way you kept having to pull them up every so often to keep them on. he loved the way that everytime he finished his glass of water, you were right there to fill it back up.

you don't even remember seeing, or hearing him lift himself from his spot on the couch and make his way over to where you were humming and covering the counters in the diluted solution. you felt a pair of big arms wrap around you, a chin on your shoulder and a kiss on your cheek.

"thank you, y/n. i love you."

thank god he caught a cold, or he might never have realized just how lucky he was.

Iwaizumi Hajime

family man

is a family man but not just ANY family man

yes, it's important to him that you like and respect his parents and vice versa

but its just slightly more important to him that you get along with his friends, his found family because im a SUCKER for the classic lilo n stitch trope

he knows that many people say that its his life and he doesn't need anyones approval etc.

but iwaizumi believes different, he believes that he doesn't need approval in the literal sense but rather approval through watching you interact with his friends and his family and how you do your best to learn about them and make time for them, even though you dont have to

and he thinks it's absolutely enthralling

the way your eyes light up when you see that book his mom has been talking about wanting to read and picking it up with no hesitation

how you're able to almost flawlessly keep up with issei and takahiro's antics while also making sure they don't go too far, something even iwaizumi struggles with

and most importantly, how effortlessly you connect with his childhood best friend.

there were many things that Iwaizumi Hajime enjoyed, volleyball, athletics, godzilla of course, spending time with three dumbasses (but he’ll never admit that) and a little while ago, he added you to that list.

you were so effortlessly able to connect with his team, his friends, and his family but most importantly, the way you were able to connect with Oikawa brought a smile to his face.

“oh, iwa-chan~, what are you admiring?” there he went again, Iwa thought, Tohru Oikawa’s dumb smirk and hyper awareness of his team, both on and off court. how he wated to head-butt him in the face. but, he showed restraint. after all, he wouldn’t want loserkawa to use you as a human shield from his head. so, he ignored the urge. but it passed as soon as he saw tohrus arm arond your shoulders, crossed feet and leaning on you ever so slightly while he took a few occasional swigs from his water.

and just like that, the incredible restraint vanished like morning mist.

you could practically see the steam coming off of his hot skin, and the vein popping out of his forehead, when you noticed what had him so heated. “trashykawa get your filthy hands off of my girlfriend!”

“excuse me!” he pouted, “my hands are clean and tailored! just like any responsible setters would be!” he stuck his lip out farther and gave you his irresistable puppy-dog eyes. “y/n-chan, i’m not filthy! am i?” he whined.

and, as the word suggests, his look was truly irresistable and you stumbled over your words. “n-no! of course not tohru!”

“see, iwa-chan! y-n thinks i’m squeaky clean!” his dumb smirk appeared again, and rather than continue with flirtykawas obvious games, Iwa opted for the less violen approach.

“don’t flatter yourself, dirtykawa. she’s just being nice.” he growled. “I’m done for the day, i have a project due. y-n.” he offered his hand to you like the gentleman he is not forcing you to take it, but the look in his eyes told you that he wanted you too.

“see you later, tohru!” you gave him a quick hug and intertwined your fingers with iwa’s.

now, technically, girls aren’t allowed in the boys locker room but since it’s after hours and just you and iwaizumi no one cared. to be fair though, literally no one knew except the team so, whatever you didn’t complain you got to watch yout ultra ripped boyfriend change. quality time. you thought, when you noticed him mid-change with his shirt over his head, resting on his arms. as any good girlfriend would, despite the devil on your shoulder, you came up behind him placing your hands on his seriously broad shoulders. taking notice of the tension, you started to work at the muscles. your care was quickly rewarded with a quiet sigh, and relaxed shoulders.

“hajime?” you continued rubbing at the tight fibers, “are you alright? you’re usually the one telling me im holding too much tension.” you giggled and he turned to face you placing one hand against the side of your face.

“hajime?” it came out shaky and worried.

“i’m okay,” he smiled “it’s just,” hesitation. he was never one to hesitate.

“i know i have no right to be but seeing oikawa so clingy with you it just, i dont know, it really gets to me i guess? he, just, he gets all the girls, all the attention, and i don’t want to-” you stopped him.

“sweetheart, it’s okay to be jealous or upset i’m not going to be angry, you have a right to your feelings. I understand how you feel, i never mean to flirt with him, if i ever have, i mean i don’t know, you know how bad of a flirt i am,” he chuckles at that. “it’s just that i know how important he is to you and you are so, so important to me and i want to be able to understand whats important to you, so you never have to choose between us, because that wouldn’t be fair. i love you, hajime iwaizumi, and everything about you.”

you expected him to be shocked, hell, he thought he would be shocked when or if you said it, but he wasn’t. and that’s exactly how he knew what to say next.

“i love you too, y/n l/n.” pressing a soft kiss against your lips.

“geez, it only took you two a century and forever.” someone snarked.

hajime chucked a towel at him “get out assykawa!” and he did, he bolted through the door laughing like the demon matchmaker he thought he was.

do not repost, copy, or claim.

previous | next

#haikyu #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyu!!#haikyuu reader insert #haikyuu headcanons #iwazuimi #iwaizumi x y/n #hajime iwaizumi #iwa x reader #sakusa x y/n #sakusa kiyoomi #sakusa x reader #hq iwaizumi #hq headcanons #hq anime #hq sakusa #hq fanfic

69 notes · View notes

dr-spencer-reids-queen · 3 years

Text

Riding the Lightning: Final Part

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Word Count: ~1.9k

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill, fluff and angst

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there is any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated.

Feedback is gold, and it’s the only currency I take

There are only two hours left, so if you’re going to do something, then you need to do it now. Penelope has been working overtime to see if she can’t track down Riley without the help of Sarah, but she really made sure he wouldn’t be found. She really doesn’t want Riley to surface.

“Check all police and hospital records dating back to September 1990,” Gideon asks of Penelope, and she gets straight to work.

“You know, you should check local newspapers to see if anyone reported any abandoned babies,” Spencer suggests.

“Yeah, I don't give a damn where the governor is, we may have found proof that Sarah Jean is innocent,” Sam Shapiro says over the phone.

“She really only had a maximum of three hours between police visits. It was four p.m. so traffic was pretty heavy. Whatever she did with Riley had to be local,” Spencer theorized.

“In 1990, there were three babies that were abandoned in Septemeber,” Penelope reveals.

“Three-year-old boys?” you ask.

“None.

“Why doesn't she just tell us where Riley is?” Spencer says in frustration.

“She is protecting him against Jacob. She refuses to let him be Jacob’s last victim. If he knows who his real parents are, then he’s haunted for life, and that’s exactly what Sarah doesn’t want.”

“Look, they are being executed within an hour of each other. What hope do we even have to finding him in time?” JJ asks.

“You know, it's quite possible, she doesn't even know where he is anyway.”

“No. she knows. We’ve got to get into her cell. Y/N, come with me.”

You follow Gideon to find the warden since he is the only one who can grant her access outside of her cell. He’s right outside of Jacob’s cell, and as much as you despise being around him, it’s for Sarah. Once he sees you, he smiles evilly, but you ignore him as best as you can.

“You've come to see the show?” Jacob asks.

He’s in the process of being shaved for the electric chair, but you ignore him.

“We need to get into Sarah Jean's cell. I believe the proof--”

“I can't do that!” Charles Diehl hisses and takes you two off to the side. “All official lines of communication are now over.”

“We just need five minutes,” you beg.

“Agents! They want the memory of these two individuals erased.”

“Five minutes. Please. That’s all we need,” you plead.

Charles sees the desperation in your eyes, and he just sighs with a gentle roll of his eyes.

“Five minutes.”

“Thank you. Come on,” Gideon urges.

He takes you to Sarah’s cell once it’s clear to go inside and look through everything she has. It isn’t much, but you don’t have a lot of time. Gideon goes straight to work in rifling through the books and mattress for something, but you’re drawn to the painting of her son in the field. He’s running happily, and you realize there is something pulling you to that specific painting. Gideon notices you just staring at it, but he doesn’t yell at you to keep looking. He knows you have something.

“What is it?”

You reach for the painting and take it off the wall, turning it over to reveal a newspaper clipping of a teenage boy. It’s about an award that he won, but there is no mention of what the award is, where he got it, or his name. However, you take one look at this picture and know it’s Riley.

“This is Riley. He’s alive,” you say and show him the picture.

“Let’s go.”

Gideon puts everything back the way it was before leaving the cell. You can’t be here when Sarah Jean comes back, and luckily, Penelope isn’t that far from her cell. As soon as the technical analysis sees the picture, she freaks just a little.

“That's Riley. It's her son, isn't it? Someone tell me it's him, please,” she begs.

“Yes, it is,” you nod.

“JJ, circulate this photo to the press. See if anybody recognizes this boy,” Hotch orders.

“Do I say who we think he is?”

“No just put him out as the missing persons.”

Before she can leave, a loud noise goes off that signals something. It’s not a good noise, you know that for sure.

“Okay, what does that mean?” JJ asks.

“It means Jacob is being moved to the execution chamber,” Spencer says.

You grab the photo of Riley and inspect it. There is nothing on here that suggests where he is because Sarah cut out the words. All she wanted was a picture of him, and that was enough for her.

“She cut around the photo so no one can read the text. He was two when he disappeared. This boy is sixteen or seventeen. If he's Riley, it would mean it's a recent photo.”

“Once Jacob's dead, do you think Sarah Jean would tell us if this is Riley?” JJ wonders.

“No, she won’t,” you shake your head.

“Gideon, she has to know we know.”

Gideon gives one single nod as the two of you head over to Sarah’s cell where she is finished being prepped for the execution chamber. She knows you took her photo which means she knows you know Riley is alive and well. It doesn’t take long for Jacob to be killed, and as soon as he is, you hope Sarah will tell you where Riley is.

“Jacob is gone. He's no longer any threat to Riley. Tell me where he is. We can stop this madness,” Gideon says when he sees her.

“There is no greater gift in life than that of being a parent. Yet so many of us abuse and squander that gift. You can deny being a parent all you want, but I know you are one,” she says to you. “I made my decision fifteen years ago. This has never been about Jacob. It's always been about Riley.”

“That's why we can't let you do this,” you beg.

“This isn't about you and me.”

“I know it isn't. That's why I'm not going to let Riley lose the greatest gift he knew he had,” Gideon declares.

“But that is my gift to him, and I'll not let you destroy that.”

You two leave her cell, and Gideon looks at you with a curious gaze.

“Are you a parent?”

“No. She’s lying,” you shake your head. You refuse to open the locked parts of your mind. There are a lot of secrets back there, and they are locked away for a reason. “We have to find Riley. Come on.”

You two head back to where Penelope and the rest of the gang are.

“Only people Jacob allowed Sarah Jean to know were the family she cleaned for,” Gideon thinks out loud.

“Sarah Jean worked for wealthy families all over Hampton. Let's go over all the families in the state of Florida who were looking to adopt in 1990, and let's see how many lived in Hampton,” Hotch orders, and Penelope goes to work.

“Families looking to adopt... hundreds.”

“How many from Hampton?”

“Uh, three families. The James', the Coulfied's, and the Sheffield's.”

“Looks like the Sheffield's removed themselves from the list in October 1990, and then moved out of Hampton,” you note when you read what’s on her screen.

“That's one month after Riley vanished where did they go?” Gideon asks.

“Uh, Keystone Heights. We got a match on the photo. It was in a piece of local daily news.”

“Call Morgan and Elle and tell them to get to the Sheffield's house.”

You take out your phone and dial Derek’s number with waited breath.

“You got something?” Derek answers.

“Get to the Sheffield’s house. We found her son. Keystone Heights,” you say and give him the address.

“That’s not far from here. We’re on our way.”

“Thanks. Call when you get there,” you say to him and look at Gideon. “He’s going there now.”

“Byran Sheffield,” Spencer reads from the real article the picture came from. “Local cello prodigy, seventeen-year-old Byran Sheffield won a scholarship to play the cello.”

“Let’s go,” Gideon motions for you to follow him.

You rush over to where Charles Diehl is taking Sarah to the execution chamber. They haven’t gone in yet, and you arrive just in time.

“We found him. We found her son,” Gideon reveals to the warden.

“Unless I receive an official stay of execution from the governor, I'm duty-bound to see this through,” he sighs.

“My son is dead, agent Gideon,” Sarah tries.

“I have agents on the way to his house as we speak, and the governor is standing by.”

“Why can you not accept the truth?”

“We can't. This isn't it,” you say emotionally.

“Agents are with in minutes of finding her son, alive,” Gideon says to Charles.

“I am truly sorry,” he sighs and pauses right outside the door. “Hold here.”

“What wouldn't you do for your son to give him a life you could never hope to dream of? I am at peace in the knowledge that my son is free to be whatever he chooses to be.”

“If he knew who you were, do you think he'd choose to allow you to walk in there?” you ask.

“If he knew who his parents were, can you imagine the damage my legacy would leave him?”

“Can you imagine what he would feel? Knowing his mother spent fifteen years on death row, innocent of all charges, just so he can be free of her?” Gideon argues.

“Not me, Jacob. It isn't just my life you have in your hands. It's Riley's life, too. You have the chance to save my son's life.”

“We choose to save yours, too,” you sniffle tearfully.

“My life ended the day I met Jacob,” she repeats herself.

“Gideon, I've got Elle. She says they're at the Sheffield's house,” Penelope says over the earpiece.

“It’s time,” Charles sighs and reaches for Sarah Jean.

“Take your hands off her,” Gideon snaps and speaks into the earpiece next. “Tell Morgan to kick the door and get in the house… whatever it takes. I said take your hands off her.”

“Agent Gideon!”

“A few moments, please,” you beg.

“Gideon, they've got him. What do are we doing here?” Hotch says from next to you two.

“I'm standing here because of choices I've made. Don't let my son be Jacob's last victim. Let me go. Let us both go,” Sarah begs with tears in her eyes.

You can’t help but cry at this because she is an innocent woman being killed for something she never did. Gideon sees this, but he knows he can’t do that to her. It’s all up to Gideon right now, and he makes the right choice.

“Tell Morgan... it's not her son. That we've made a mistake,” he sighs sadly.

“Let him go it's not the boy,” Hotch says into his earpiece.

“Would it be too much to ask if you two are the last faces I see?” she asks of you and Gideon.

“No, it wouldn't,” you whisper.

She gets taken inside the room, and you and Gideon make your way to the gallery where there are other people. You can’t believe they are here to watch a monster die, but you know she is completely innocent. You’re full-on crying right now, but Gideon is keeping it together better than you are.

Sarah Jean sees you two, and she just smiles at the thought of going in peace. You hold eye contact until the black cloth is placed over her head, and you just continue to let the tears fall for the woman who did what she thought was right.

“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world, remains and is immortal." - Albert Pine

wanna be tagged? add yourself to this document! if your tag doesn’t work, find out why!

@averyhotchner @lets-be-gay-for-the-angel @fan-girl-97 @paulaern @inkstainedwritergirl @estrela-rogers @abitchforjay @kwbaby24 @redsalv20 @joonie-centric @spencerreid-mgg @sixpencespencee @boygenius-reid @reidemandweep @prophecyflame @happynekochan1 @babydee17

#riding the lightning #series rewrite #criminal minds series rewrite #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid angst #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fic #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #cm #cm fanfiction #season 1 episode 14 #s1e14

47 notes · View notes