#For the lies of a small town boy with superpowers

[patheticblorbloscholar]

Clark Kent could have stopped the trajectory of Lex's downfall simply by being honest. Like dude, he's your friend, he loves you, JUST TALK TO HIM.

[galahadwilder]

The Scars War Leaves Behind

Chapter 2

AO3 is Linked in Bio

~

When he was a boy, Simon had loved comics. Knightowl had been his favorite—he'd related, in a lot of ways, to Sparrow, and he'd been inspired by the Dynamic Duo's insistence on doing the right thing, even in the face of overwhelming odds. Before Hawkmoth, Monarch, reading about the adventures of those superpowered Americans, how evil always lost and problems were always solved and villains always defeated, had been calming, inspiring—until Hawkmoth had terrorized Paris for half a decade without any sign of getting caught.

But before that, he'd read one comic that had been very... different. Darker, full of failure and loss, of broken heroes who sacrificed everything to win, and sometimes the wins weren't even worth it. Violent, bloody, desperate. He probably shouldn't have had his hands on it, not at that age, but he'd been fascinated. Horrified, but fascinated. And there had been some elements that had stuck out to him, that he remembers even to this day.

In the first chapter of the comic, there'd been an old joke about a therapist and a clown. He knows there’s an earlier version of the joke, but the one from the comic is the one he remembers:

A man goes to a therapist about his depression. He tells his therapist that life seems harsh and cruel, that he feels all alone in a threatening world, that what lies ahead is vague and uncertain.

The therapist thinks for a bit, then tells him, "I have an idea for you. The great clown Grimaldi is in town tonight. You should go and see him—that should pick you up!"

The patient bursts into tears. "But Doctor," he sobs, "I am Grimaldi!"

Looking at Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng—at Ladybug—the joke seems a lot less funny. With a lot of his patients, he frequently recommends calming their flashbacks or their panic attacks by imagining their fear as an Akuma and then visualizing themselves as Ladybug or Chat Noir, invincible, unstoppable, powerful enough to take on anything. It helps a lot of them—his whole generation grew up idolizing Ladybug, believing in her, looking up to her as the ultimate hero.

It doesn’t take a genius psychiatrist to recognize that, with this patient, that approach would only trigger her worse. One look in those haunted eyes and he knows, Ladybug is a trigger. Akuma aren’t something easily conquered, not to her—they’re fear and responsibility and pain and panic. Now that he’s looking for it, it’s pretty obvious that her glances around the room at his various superhero pictures and collectibles aren’t grounding her, they’re agitating her. And he’s not entirely sure what to do with that.

So he does the only thing he can.

”Start from the beginning,” he says, leaning forward and steepling his fingers.

Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng takes a deep, steadying breath, pulling her legs onto the chaise and crossing them under herself. “When I was 13,” she says, shrinking into herself, “I was late for my first day of school.”

Hearing that feels like queuing up for the bathroom at the back of an airplane and then suddenly getting hit by a train. It’s such a mundane thing to say, such an average, run-of-the-mill problem, he’d never have expected that to be the start of it. He’d figured it would be something bigger, something momentous, some moment where she’d found a secret cave behind a waterfall or met a wise old mentor who bestowed upon her the magic jewels. Not something as simple, as prosaic, as being late for school.

But if there’s one thing Simon has learned from this work, it’s that it’s the small things that stick in someone’s mind sometimes. And if something like that stuck… it would be because it was part of something very big. And sometimes starting small, starting with the mundane, is how his patients ease themselves into talking about the big, damaging stuff.

The way she tugs on her own fingers, not looking up at him, but staring resolutely at the Ladybug-red carpet—he'll have to do something about that for her visits, that's probably not a good color for her—only reinforces his assumption.

"I lived in my parents’ bakery, back then,” she continues. “It was right across the street from the school, but I was a chronic oversleeper.”

That’s another unexpected detail to file away about Ladybug, then. Not a morning person, probably very tired. More tired than she ever let on to the public. Even without the Akuma to keep her awake some nights.

”I was running across the street, and…" Her voice starts to grow more ragged as she speaks. "This... little old man." Her hands go completely still at the mention of this person. "He dropped his cane and fell, in the middle of the crosswalk. There were cars coming.”

Simon's stomach drops, knocking him back in his chair. The way she's speaking, the way she's moving, something clearly happened to this old man, something she's still dwelling on to this day. He remembers, in the comics he loved, how frequently the superhero would have some kind of tragedy in their backstory, some trauma that drove them. Did Mme. Dupain-Cheng watch this man get hit by a car? He knows full well the kind of effect something that violent would have on a 13-year-old—he's seen the haunted looks in patients who'd had to watch their parents or friends or siblings die, only to be magically brought back again. But this accident would be pre-Ladybug. Pre-cure.

Simon's mind spins, thinking about possibilities. Maybe this man been carrying the magic jewels, the Miraculous, and they'd spilled across the street for anyone to grab. Was that how Ladybug had gotten hers? Was that how Hawkmoth had gotten his?

"I ran back to help him up," she says, and Simon feels the tension in his shoulders release. Not that, then. Not the worst-case. Still, though, something bad happened to this man, something she still hasn't processed.

She brushes a bit of hair out of her face, still staring at the floor. "Apparently, that was the test!" she says—she's laughing, but there's no humor in it. "He purposely fell down in the street, and... whoever stopped to pick him up..."

It's not hard to notice her word choice. Whoever, she said. Implying that she felt like it could've been anyone. Implying two very different statements: I'm not special, and Why did it have to be me?

Then her face softens. "Adrien had a similar test, apparently," she says, and for the first time since she revealed her identity, she finally looks up and meets his eyes. "Master Fu fell down in front of him, too. He had to choose between his own freedom, or helping a stranger."

"Freedom?" That’s a concerning word, especially if this Adrien was the same or similar age to her when it happened.

"His dad..." She stops, starts picking at her fingers again. Her gaze shoots to the left, at the picture of the victorious super team taken less than an hour after Monarch’s arrest. "His... his father..." 

"You don't need to tell me anything you don't want to," Simon tells her, gently.

Marinette swallows, tearing her eyes away from the picture and back to Simon’s sweater. "...Okay."

"Adrien." Circling back to that. Talking about Adrien is the most comfortable, the happiest, he's seen her since she entered his office, and he wants her to be at ease. "This would be... Chat Noir?"

Marinette nods. "I think Fu was testing whether Adrien would use his power selfishly, or whether he'd put others first." She purses her lips. "I... my test was... it was so simple, in comparison. I don't even know what it was for."

Translation: I don’t know why I deserved to be Ladybug over anyone else. He suspects she does know, or at least did at one point, but it’s been buried under so much pain that she can’t retrieve the memory. But he does have a suspicion.

"How close were the cars?" he says.

Marinette blinks, startled. "I, um." She swallows, uncrossing her legs and pressing her feet down into the plush if the carpet. "I don't know."

Simon nods. He wouldn’t expect her to, but he’s willing to bet that there had to be at least some danger. "Maybe this... Master Fu?"

Marinette nods.

"Maybe Master Fu was testing to see if you'd put yourself in danger to save someone else."

As soon as he says it, he can see in her face that it's absolutely the wrong thing to have said. All of the shaky, nervous, extraneous movements suddenly stop; her face turns ashen as her eyes sink further into her head. He knows she's not in his office anymore—she's somewhere far away, somewhere dark and painful, and the hitch in her breath is the only way he can tell she's still alive.

"Mademoiselle?" he ventures, hesitant. He's tripped over a trigger, and he's uncertain as to how to proceed until he knows what it is.

"If—" she begins, then halts. Closes her eyes, tears squeezing out from the corners of her eyes. "If... if I'm the one who's supposed to be in danger..."

Simon's eyes widen as he straightens in his chair. Oh. Oh no. Oh no, he knows where this is going, this was just supposed to be a gentle introduction to—

"He... he k-keeps..." Marinette sobs, before slamming her fist into the couch's armrest, her voice rising to a tear-filled, grief-stricken scream. "S-s-stupid fucking bastard cat won't! Fucking! Stop! Goddamn! Dying!"

@ravnskold @shinyredjacket @bitterblue-city @bugaboooooooooo @steelblaidd @naresar @flightfoot @gentil-minou @mari13606 @trippingovermyfeet @caissa2021 @s-n-arly @dorkwingdad @ineedabettername2124 @fandomthoughts0620 @placeholdernr57@turtle-gem @sadwinistic @onenerdymoth @booksfoodmusic-minion @lady-charinette @backyardbob01 @turandont @mishkamitsukuni @northernbluetongue

[milkhoney531]

Sanders Sides Fanfic Masterlist

OMaM Series:

Ships in Series: Roman x Virgil, Logan x Remus, Patton x Janus

Of Monsters and Men (omam): Not everyone can pay for college, so it's not unheard of to join the military for the expenses. But despite careful planning and no real interest in the military, plans can go awry. The rise of the zombie apocalypse and vampire attacks were definitely not in these boys plans, especially since they can no longer persue their dreams, right? We'll see.

Neither Deity nor Man (ndnm): (SEQUEL TO "OF MONSTERS AND MEN") Death isn't always the end. It can be a new beginning as well. This is true for Janus. But even in death, there is trouble that lies in wait. Hiding in the dark. Can our boys come out on top? Or will they face a Fate worse than death?

Neither Gone nor Forgotten (ngnf): (TAKES PLACE AFTER "NEITHER DEITY NOR MAN" THIRD BOOK IN SERIES, FIRST BOOK IS "OF MONSTERS AND MEN") After choosing to be reborn, our favorite boys are scattered apart without their memories. Reborn in a new world where some are born with a superpower gene, or created to be supers. Will our boys survive such a world? Will they meet again? Or, once again, will their lives end much too soon?*

Easter Eggs and Epilogues (eeae): Having become deities and gaining access to the multiverse, our favorite boys now witness other universes and guide them to the afterlife as they discover what it means to no longer be human and navigate through issues they had ignored as new issues erupt around them. Fans of my stories might find this infrequent epilogue mini series a nice read. Especially if they have read my sanders sides au Of Monsters and Men, its sequel Neither Deity nor Man, and the triquel Neither Gone nor Forgotten, as these characters might have little easter egg appearances in some of my other works. This does contain spoilers to my other works, so proceed with caution. Due to the nature of this mini series it will have extremely infrequent updates due to it being full of epilogues of specific stories.*^

HoE Series:

Ships in Series: Roman x Virgil, Logan x Remus, Patton x Janus

Hell on Earth (hoe): In a small town isolated by mountains, demon possession is on the rise. Right when two kids find themselves in the town after the suspicious death of their parents. Convenient timing or total coincidence, the town has its eyes on Roman and Remus. Are they connected to the rise in demonic activity? Will they be safe? No one knows.

Heaven on Earth (hoe2): (SEQUEL TO "Hell on Earth) Having escaped from a recluse town known as Hell's Portal and a murderous priest, their friend died as they made it to the safety of a town known to be Heaven's Gate. But danger is still out there. Secrets have still yet to be uncovered. A friend back from the dead. But is everything as it seems?*

RaF Series:

Ships in Series: Roman x Virgil, Remus x Janus, Logan x Patton

Rise and Fall (raf): After getting hired to capture a wandering merchant suspected to be a monster, Roman sets out to find him. Taking on his first task as a monster hunter, he must travel far and fast to catch up with the merchant. With his best friend at his side, who will he meet on his journey and what secrets will he discover?

Risen to Fall (raf2/rtf): (Sequel to Rise and Fall) Having found a promised land, the twins raise their families in safety until danger knocks at their door. Secrets of the past and cults alike will force them into action to save themselves and future generations.*

FoF Series:

Ships in Series: Roman x Virgil, Logan x Remus, Patton x Janus

Fact or Fiction (fof): An isolated mountain town surrounded by deep forests has some interesting rumors and tourist attractions. Tales of an inhuman creature terrorizing those who come across it, if they leave alive. Logan decides to move in and discover the truth.

Everyone Fucking Dies (efd): (SEQUEL TO FACT OR FICTION) In a new dimension, scattered and hunted, who survives? Who dies? Will they ever return home? Or will they have to live in a world if eldritch monsters?

Strange Happenings (shtl): Janus and Virgil move back to their hometown. While Virgil is at college, Janus has an investigation to conduct under the strict orders of his mother. He knows what will happen if he refuses her. What will he discover? What secrets will unravel? (an alternate timeline for Fact or Fiction and Everyone Fucking Dies)

SOS Series:

Ships in Series: Roman x Virgil, Logan x Remus, Patton x Janus

School of Secrets (sos): A secret boarding school in the center of the Bermuda Triangle has accepted a new batch of students. Each one harbouring a secret or two that could get them killed outside of the school. Although not every child taken to the island attends the school, the island is protected by school staff from impending doom. Hunters and war alike threaten the children, will they be able to see a future free of harm, to be themselves?

Unintended Consequence: Things have changed. One decision with unintended consequences made Remus immortal, with only Virgil at his side, they watched their friends die. After countless years, with their mental health deteriorating, they see a familiar face. What happens when two immortals meet their friends' reincarnations?

GaG Series:

Ships in Series: Roman x Virgil, Logan x Remus, Patton x Janus

Gifts and Gifted (gag): After the tragic death of their parents, brothers Roman and Remus moved to a new state, new city, to get a fresh start. They try to assimilate in this odd historic town, getting new jobs and friends, but they also find some people they can't stand or are simply suspicious. But circumstances force them together and many secrets come to light.

Fae and Man (FAM): Sequel to Gifts and Gifted, Fae and human relations are difficult. Patton has taken over his grandma's business of finding and helping the fae home, Remus helping in hiding them after taking over the mortuary from Logan's uncle. If that wasn't difficult enough, Remus is going through strange changes and Virgil is struggling to adjust to being human. Will they suffer in silence or ask for help? What conflicts will arise?

New Normal (NN): (Takes place after Fae and Man, third book in the GaG series) After secrets have been unveiled and the world forever changed by the merging of realms, how will everyone fare under this new normal? Will the Fae still be hunted? Will humans be subjected to abuse? Will selkies still be at risk of being trapped? How will so many different species interact with each other? Will there be peace or war?

SOAB! Au:

Ships in Series: Logan x Patton x Janus

Son of a Bitch (soab): Patton and his son have moved into a new town. The once hopeful move turned sour when two chance encounters throws everything off course. A fight and a mix up leading to three single dads making an unfortunate acquaintance. (Where everything started)

SOAB! Rocky Start: Virgil is sent to a new foster parent. Logan does his best, but it's a rocky start. (Takes place before Son of a Bitch)

SOAB! Yuletide Fun: The kids are on winter break and Logan and Janus are feeling the holiday blues. They miss their families despite everything, luckily, Patton has an idea and a good relationship with his own family. So he decides to introduce his parents to his partners and their kiddos. What holiday mischief will happen? What stories will Patton's parents' tell about their now grown little boy? (Takes place after Son of a Bitch)

SOAB! Take a Bite out of Life: (Takes place before the events of Son of a Bitch) Janus has been running his restaurant for nearly two years in the town he grew up in. Stressed, depressed, and having recently cut off his family, he has thrown himself into his work. He doesn't know what to do with his life or himself, but when he gets his first catering order for the local orphanage, everything changes for the better. He never planned to be a father, but maybe it's time for him to take a bite out of life?

SOAB! Surprise Attack: (Takes place after Son of a Bitch) Virgil is still getting used to his new family and being part of a family that genuinely loves him. But it is nearing November 8th, his birthday. A day he is certain will be forgotten. With how his family is acting and the hushed whispers that cut off right when he enters the room, he fears the worse. No one mentions the whispers or his birthday, he's afraid and trying not to show it as his anxiety eats at him. As he questions if they still want him to be part of their family. What will ensue?

SOAB! Police Station, Fire Station, and Apartment: (Takes place before the events of Son of a Bitch) How did the twins end up in separate orphanages? Why was Virgil placed in foster care? Who were their family before they were adopted? Let's take a peek into the past.

SOAB! Gender? Fuck!: (Takes place after Son of a Bitch) Gender can be confusing and hard to navigate. Virgil and Roman are struggling, Remus forgot something important, and they navigate it together. Some changes, confusion, and stress won't stop them from supporting each other.

SOAB! Cupcakes and Dragons: (takes place before Son of a Bitch) How did Roman come into Patton’s care? Patton Cross wasn’t always a baker. One night of work changed his life. He’d always say it was for the better. And it was. He discovered a passion and discovered his little Star.

Stand Alone Stories:

Win or Lose (wol): Ships: Roman x Virgil, Logan x Remus, Patton x Janus Life was a series of battles, win or lose, they would have to fight again. Sometimes, they could rest before they fought once more, sometimes they could not. One day, they face a new discovery, a new challenge. Will they win or lose?

Out of this World (ootw): Ships: Roman x Virgil, Logan x Remus, Patton x Janus In a small desert town, a UFO has landed. While the local government explores the crash, an extraterrestrial being is on the run with time sensitive information trying to leave and stop an intergalactic war. An unlikely group of friends might be the key to saving thousands of lives. Secrets will be revealed, some new, some old. Lies will come undone. Will this group of unlikely friends survive it all?*

Knife to Meet You (ktmy): Ships: Roman x Virgil, one sided Virgil x Patton, one sided Patton x Logan, Remus x Janus x Logan Four years ago, a steady but concerning statistic rose. Murders. New information comes to light, revealing that these seemingly unconnected murders are actually the product of an infamous serial killer. Tensions are high, stress is high, and there's something in the air. What will happen? Who is this mysterious killer? And who is next?*

Ghost of You: Ships: Logan x Virgil, Remus x Patton, Roman x Janus Karma comes in many different forms, sometimes it is even passed down. When an old house is passed down, more than just a new home is inherited. Surely an old house only needs some repairs? But its new occupants will wish they'd hired an exorcist. Will the ghosts and mortals learn to coexist or will they destroy each other?*

Running Out of Time (root): Ships: Remus x Logan, Janus x Patton, Roman x Virgil Time is unraveling. A time traveler is trying to save the known universe, but at what cost? Will the world be saved? Is the world even worth saving? Six people will have to make that decision.

Body in the Water (bitw): Ships: Remus x Logan, Patton x Janus, Virgil x Roman Summer school is supposed to be easy. But with strange deadly accidents and rumors of ghosts filling the air, maybe hope for a decent college is a farther reach than Roman bargained for?

Son of a Witch (soaw): Ships Janus x Patton x Logan On the run from the king's guards, Janus finds refuge in a dangerous neck of the enchanted woods. But he isn't alone. What else lurks in the woods? Will he get out alive? Is he in for more than he bargained for?

Forgotten Gods (fg): Ships: Remus x Janus, Patton x Logan, Roman x Virgil The gods of old are no longer needed, no longer known. Did they simply fade away or do they still lurk around the corner? What happens when a god is forgotten? What happens when a new god appears?

Stolen? Borrowed? Same Thing. (sbst): Ships: Janus x Remus, Patton x Logan, Roman x Virgil Borrowers, Pixies, and Brownies have always lived under human's noses. Each one thinking the other is a myth. Each one views humans as an enemy, a tool, or a friend. What happens when they all meet? Will the four species get along?

Coffee and Zombies (CaZ): Ships: Janus x Patton Life and Death, two very contrast things. Or are they? In the zombie apocalypse, what is death? What is life? Is anyone truly living? A scientist searching for a cure to his mistake, a firefighter bent on helping survivors, two supernatural brothers struggling to adapt and survive, and two brothers who desperately want to rest and find safety. Will they survive?

Currently Writing:

Coffee and Zombies (CaZ): Ships: Janus x Patton Life and Death, two very contrast things. Or are they? In the zombie apocalypse, what is death? What is life? Is anyone truly living? A scientist searching for a cure to his mistake, a firefighter bent on helping survivors, two supernatural brothers struggling to adapt and survive, and two brothers who desperately want to rest and find safety. Will they survive?

New Normal (NN): Ships: Patton x Janus, Remus x Logan, Roman x Virgil (Takes place after Fae and Man, third book in the GaG series) After secrets have been unveiled and the world forever changed by the merging of realms, how will everyone fare under this new normal? Will the Fae still be hunted? Will humans be subjected to abuse? Will selkies still be at risk of being trapped? How will so many different species interact with each other? Will there be peace or war?

Strange Happenings (SH!tl): Ships: Janus x Patton, Virgil x Roman, Logan x Remus Janus and Virgil move back to their hometown. While Virgil is at college, Janus has an investigation to conduct under the strict orders of his mother. He knows what will happen if he refuses her. What will he discover? What secrets will unravel? (an alternate timeline for Fact or Fiction and Everyone Fucking Dies)

Back Burner:

Stories in this section are on hold and may be rewritten

Easter Eggs and Epilogues (eeae): Having become deities and gaining access to the multiverse, our favorite boys now witness other universes and guide them to the afterlife as they discover what it means to no longer be human and navigate through issues they had ignored as new issues erupt around them. Fans of my stories might find this infrequent epilogue mini series a nice read. Especially if they have read my sanders sides au Of Monsters and Men, its sequel Neither Deity nor Man, and the triquel Neither Gone nor Forgotten, as these characters might have little easter egg appearances in some of my other works. This does contain spoilers to my other works, so proceed with caution. Due to the nature of this mini series it will have extremely infrequent updates due to it being full of epilogues of specific stories.*^

Coming Soon:

SOAB! One shots

Dragons, Krakens, Unicorns, Oh My! (DKUOM!TL): Ships: Roman x Virgil, Logan x Remus, Patton x Janus (alternate version of Fact or Fiction and Everyone Fucking Dies) Six children are separated from their parents and once peaceful lives only to discover they aren't as normal as they thought, that they're part of not one dimension, but two.

Meet Again (MA): Ships: Roman x Virgil, Patton x Janus, Remus x Logan (Takes place after School of Secrets and Unintended Consequences) Centuries of waiting and careful planning have bared their fruit. Years of glimpsing a mysterious figure. A strange invitation leads four strangers to the palace. The King has waited long enough.

Put the Rom in RomCom (PtRiRC): Ships: Roman x Logan, Remus x Virgil, Patton x Janus Sometimes, you stumble into something unplanned for, unexpected. It can be life changing in the most unexpected ways. Changing who you are, what you are, or even just your plans. Three different people stumble into these changes unexpectedly and love is in the air.

More Than Blood (MTB): Ships: Patton x Logan x Janus Son of a Bitch sequel, They say family is more than blood. What happens when the twins and Virgil's biological parents come back into the picture? Struggling with high school was hard enough, now it's getting more and more complicated as the days go by.

Accruing a Crew (AaC): Ships: Logan x Remus, Virgil x Roman, Patton x Janus Remus went out on his ship, The Morning Star, and never returned. Roman searches the seven seas for his brother when he sees The Morning Star once more, but his brother’s vessel is led by a filthy pirate. He must arrest this man, as is his duty, and hopefully he can discover the whereabouts of his dear brother, even if just to know if his dear brother was met with a watery grave.

Saving Time (ST): Ships: Roman x Virgil, Logan x Remus, Patton x Janus rewrite of Running out of Time, info coming

Space Unfilled (SU): info coming

Resident Sides (RS): (name may change) Resident Evil au, info coming

First Murder and the Grief that Follows (FMatGtF): Blood of a brother on his hands, he is cast out from his home and the afterlife. Cursed to walk the world alone, immortal and unchanging. One day, he sees a familiar face. His brother. What will he do?

My Ao3:

* = Has a chapter reference in Easter Eggs and Epilogues to read after the story

^= On the back burner

[softprelude]

On Patricia Perkins

(P is for Perfection)

A short compendium of events Daniel does not remember from his early childhood:

It starts in 1966 with his birth. Yes, '66. At the time Patricia Perkins is not yet his mother. She's not even Patricia Perkins, but some obsolete form of Patience Wright, a rather unhandsome name given to her without consent by catholic parents who hold more regard for their faith than the plight of a child named after a whimsy. Years later she has a few musings on the matter - of course, where else could a woman like her go than in the very opposite direction and straight to the scions of science. Her ambition takes her far, she chews her way through several ranks of a cushy law enforcement job and at last establishes herself as a field agent before being promptly shipped off to Indiana. By the time '65 roll around she's four years deep into Brenner's little science project.

It's then that she meets the mother of her future child. Stephanie Riggs is troubled, disowned and pregnant, one year away from graduation, and Brenner's agents have her in their net of lies in no time - she's promised a cushy term in the lab under the guise of a gap year, a good family for her child and, in exchange for some very minor experimentation, a hefty sum of money to rebuild her life with. She is one of many. Patience pities her.

Four months of dosing the poor girl with psychedelics pass without a hitch before Stephanie develops a surprising tolerance, a sudden ludicity and an ardent desire to see the father of her child again. They let her, trusting the small-town 19 year old hick won't want a pregnant shotgun bride with a drug problem. Only he does and, with Stephanie withdrawing her consent, the lab can no longer hold her. She hasn't looked promising as of late, but she's a loss nonetheless. Stephanie and Robert Riggs settle in Greensburg, Decatur county, in a small run down mess of a fixer-upper and welcome home a healthy little boy come September 2nd of 1966. Charlie Ray Riggs is born. Patience watches him grow.

Stephanie heals, the two newlyweds take up nice jobs, their son grows, learns to walk. All seems well with the little family two years in, to the point Brenner considers withdrawing surveillance, until Charlie speaks his very delayed first words and makes the windows rattle. He deviates from what they've all expected, but he is an undoubted success the lab can't pass up, and Brenner's agents soon come for him in the late spring of 1969.

They plan the recovery during a period of work-related absence for Robert. Fewer people present means fewer to cajole. Alternatively, it means fewer casualties. Patience leads the repo team per her own request.

But they've underestimated young Stephanie, assumed too fast she'd remember little of the lab through the haze of psychedelics, assumed her easy to fool. She recognizes Patience on the spot and the task soon changes from infiltration to a break-in. And even then, they enter only to be met with a cocked revolver and a mother pissed to hell, well aware what they're here for. She doesn't go down without a fight. Even disarmed, even facing the barrell of her own gun. It almost pains Patience to dispose of her. She never quite forgets that final look of brave fury for as long as she lives.

Next they get to Charlie, who is too young to understand what's happening and too small to be much of an obstacle. But he is scared and that means a lot more coming from a superpowered child. Patience finds him crying, hidden in a closet under a laundry pile and fights through the sudden headache to approach him alone. She's still young and beautiful at the time, sympathy still looks genuine on her, so she smiles for him; coos.

It strikes her how little he is. A rare early bloomer at two and a half years old, with a power so unique her heart nearly breaks for him. Destined to be thrown in a white 2x2 cell, pushed to capacity and at last forced to repeat the fate of poor, poor Henry and his microchip when Brenner inevitably fails to control him. The man never did learn how to inspire loyalty and obedience. Never did learn a thoroughbred must be trained too, after it is created. In his grossly incompetent hands, 003 would amount to another failure. In Stephanie's, Charlie would have become but a pale memory of the shining potential he was born into.

Between a rock and a hard place, poor thing. Just like her. She is neither humble, sweet little Patience, nor Wright, inconsequential and creditless agent 12 of 70. The both of them are meant for greater things.

"Come, darling." she tells him. "I will protect you from them."

She does. They escape in the night and leave behind a burning house, several dead agents and the body of his mother, never to return again. Patience clutches a beat up old lighter close to her heart, looks at the passenger's seat occupied by a small sleeping bundle and thinks of the future.

They arrive in Washington come morning and Patience makes sure to catch the news as it breaks the next day. A woman and child, a great big tragic fire and the government itself involved in the investigation. She knows Brenner isn't one to leave his messes uncleaned and, sure enough, the only official casualty is Stephanie herself, all other bodies removed and covered up before the final report is released. Patience wonders how long they'll consider her dead for, how long she has before some agent gets curious when the only bone fragment from the whole massacre, a finger she left behind, turns out to be hers. She follows the publicized case through the autopsy, the consequent murder investigation, the suspicion that falls on Robert Riggs, mourning widower and father, for the revolver bullet registered under his name found on the crime scene, before the whole thing is settled and pinned on some witless random man. All the while, she cautiously builds. A new life. An identity of her own brilliant design.

They settle in Washington. Buy a house and a dog. And at last begin living as they were meant to.

From the fiery embers of that faithful night emerge Patricia and Daniel. Powerful. Regal. Reborn.

Hawkins Plot Tie-In

Stranger Things verse s3-s4

- 1983 - Patricia becomes restless. he's already gleaned that she's somehow connected to the people they're running from, he's peeked personal documents about an experiment called MK-Ultra and surmises her stress is about Dr Brenner, the leader of the project. She sits him down one day and tells him she needs him to do something for her. She has insider news that 001 is dead and Brenner is up to no good, that he's trying something dangerous. So he needs him to try the same. They build a sensory deprivation tank for him and she instructs him to try and reach out to Hawkins, Indiana. He is to look for a particular little girl who's just escaped Brenner's clutches. He doesn't manage. His powers are nothing like Eleven's and days later the project is pronounced unsuccessful. His mother's disappointment and anger are immeasurable. He is a failure.

- 1984 - they lay low. Thanks to her own personal mole, his mother is aware the lab's still operational, knows Brenner hasn't gone away for good and worries about being found again. They sit quietly on the sidelines, catching only vague news about Hawkins until the articles come out and the lab is officially shut down. Patricia breathes a sigh of relief.

- 1985 - they return to Hawkins at last. Daniel is enrolled into high school at 18 as a junior, to continue his education in a public setting. Patricia is still obsessed with 011 in the absence of 001, and he is to keep an eye out for her. The quaint little town is... loud. Too loud. Besides the noises of day to day life, he hears stranger, out of place ones, like invisible echoes. He catches disembodied vibrations and clicks, odd animalistic sounds in the night, but when he searches for a source, it always comes up empty. It makes him feel like prey. Something lurks and he can't see it... Being jumpy and on edge doesn't help his school popularity - he earns the nickname Crazy Dan on the spot. Still, all things considered, he handles it very well. Until one day the lights in the whole city go out and Daniel is hit with an infrasound wave that locks his muscles and punches the air out of his lungs. He has the biggest, quietest panic attack about it, then sets to investigating without telling his mother. Something Big and Bad has just happened, he knows as much and seeks to unravel the mystery. He figures out it's the rats pretty quickly, they're obvious and creepy and he hears hordes of them travelling at night through the streets. It's a sound that makes his skin crawl but he follows it nevertheless. They lead him to a steel mill at the edge of town where he meets... a familiar face. His name is Billy and Daniel's seen him around school. It's odd he's here. Before he can realize what's happening, the Mind Flayer is on him. Grimy, awful tentacles wrap around his limbs and a thick, acidic mass forces itself down his throat, aiming to intrude in more ways than one. And for the second time in 18 years, Daniel SCREAMS. It rips from somewhere below his diaphragm, panicked and deafeningly loud, and TEARS everything on its way up. Billy, on the sidelines, remains mostly unharmed, while the creature is torn to shreds. Something he can't see wails in pain from the Other Side. The slimy globs of flesh on the floor start crawling towards each other again but he runs before they can start regaining shape. He returns to his mother coughing up blood, unable to speak, vocal cords, laryngeal nerve and trachea severely damaged. It's in his hospital room one week afted surgery that he finally learns about the Upside Down. Though he's narrowly avoided death, he feels like something is now acutely aware of his presence.

- 1986 - He returns to school half mute and in pain. For all he knows, whatever it was that hurt him somehow burned to a crisp alongside Starcourt. He no longer hears phantom beastly sounds after the fact so he assumes the best. His mother knows more than she lets on but she keeps her secrets and he gladly lets her. Hawkins remains peaceful. Until one night halfway through the year when the chime of a clock wakes him up from a deep sleep and a dead girl is discovered come morning. Then the ticking starts. A countdown. A deadline.

[littlegreenmp3]

Okay so imagine being Will Byers. You’re a 12 year old boy that likes to play dungeons and dragons, bike around town with his friends, and is in his middle school AV club. You love your mom and older brother. Due to being in the wrong place and the wrong time, through no fault of your own, you are captured by an interdimensional creature that wishes you and your loved ones nothing but harm. You have to communicate with your mom through fucking Christmas lights. Some girl with superpowers and a shaved head is able to save you, but you don’t get to meet her before she disappears. Life goes on.

Your mom starts dating this guy whose kind of dorky but he’s funny and nice to you and your mom and he founded your AV club and your biological dad was a deadbeat who called you slurs. He’s a step up! You dress up as a ghostbuster for Halloween. And all of a sudden the inter-dimensional beasts are back but this time they posses you instead, causing unbelievable mental and emotional trauma before fucking off again, but not before killing off your shiny new father figure. Great.

Now it’s later and the summer and you want to play dnd. Why does no one want to play dnd with you, can your friends please play dnd, can you please be a kid again, can you please be 12 again, can you please be who you were before you had to wonder if you’re mom was going to have to bury you. What’s most crushing is your best friend only wants to hang out with his new girlfriend, the girl with the shaved head and the superpowers. Which like, specifically sucks because it turns out you’re a 13 year old gay kid in the 80s who lives in a small ass town that might also be Hell and you have a crush on your best friend. Your father was right about you all along. The horrible monsters come back, now with Russians, and your best friend/crush’s girlfriend is able to kill off the same threat that possessed you earlier. Then it turns out you have to move because the town is probably cursed and your mom has been through so much, but you have to leave all your friends behind including your crush except surprise! You get to bring along your crush’s girlfriend because your mom adopted her because her father figure got fucking vaporized.

So you start at a new school and watch as your best friend/ crush’s girlfriend is bullied and teased and you keep trying to reassure her that it’s okay, it’ll be okay, but it feels like you’re lying through your teeth because she’s already been through so much and now she has to deal with this? Over time it feels like less and less of a lie to call her your sister the longer she sits at your dining table and wears your mom’s hand me down clothes and your eyes meet when your older brother comes home obviously stoned and you both can’t help but crack up and the bullying gets worse but at least you have each other. Then it’s spring break and your crush visits, dressed like a tropical dipshit. And obviously, obviously he’s here for his girlfriend but maybe you thought he’d be here for you too? Because you’re friends? But he ignores you and your sister keeps lying, your sister never lies, about all the wonderful things she’s been experiencing and all the friends she has that are most certainly not her friends but vicious bullies. And yeah you’re being a little jealous, but it’s not right, nothing’s right, you want your sister to be okay and you want your crush to pay attention to you and your sister drives a roller skate right into the nose of her bully in front of what seems to be the entire teenage population of Lenora.

This is one piece in an already ongoing chain of events that leads to your brother and his stoner friend driving you and your crush in a pizza delivery van frantically through the Nevada desert trying to find your sister whose in a secret underground bunker while your mom is in Alaska supposedly selling Encyclopedias. Your crush is sad about not being good enough for his girlfriend and you give him the most gut-wrenching, heartfelt speech about how much your sister obviously loves him and is afraid of being different and it’s about you. You’re talking about you. You’re sobbing staring out at the Nevada desert. Your older brother is looking at you concernedly through the rear view mirror. And your crush just takes that all in and is obliviously like hmm, that’s great advice, thanks : ) because the men who created your story somehow completely forgot your best friend’s entire character. And THEN your best friend uses your speech to uplift and empower your sister who is alive, she’s alive thank god, and you love your sister and you’re in love with her boyfriend whose your best friend and you want them both to be happy but also it’s never your turn to be happy. Imagine being Will Byers.

[ardent-musings]

Manipulation and Mechanics

           A Murphy McNully Smut

           Warnings: NSFW 18+

            You had no idea what you were getting yourself into when you first decided to start teasing Murphy on the daily. One week you had accidently missed doing your laundry, leaving you with a tiny selection of clothing for you to choose from. Most of the items you wore on the daily were comfortable sweaters, something cozy and laidback. However as you shuffled through your unimpressive amount of clean clothes, you were forced to wear a slightly more risqué top than you usually did. Having to wear it didn’t bother you, but you did miss the simplicity of your common style.

           At some point when you were wearing a low cut top and hugged Murphy you couldn’t help but notice how his eyes lingered on your chest as you dipped down. You hadn’t noticed it before, but his wandering stare only amplified every time you chose a plunging neckline over any other. It became incredibly fun for you to bend down to give your handsome boy a kiss, his cheeks glowed a cherry hue each time you did so. This newfound discovery felt like a superpower, and Murphy was beginning to grow more and more frustrated, watching as you so effortlessly turned him on day after day.

           Murphy was always a sweet and giving lover, but you wanted something more. You wanted him to absolutely lose control over you, but he remained composed no matter how many times you teased him. No matter how low or tight your shirts became he would stare but otherwise he went on about his day like normal.

           Nevertheless, when Murphy returned home one day, you went to give him a kiss as usual; the blouse of the day was low cut red silk. The color and fabric made you feel powerful, even if you were starting to question your effect on your favorite boy.

           You bent at the hip to kiss him and was about to pull away until you felt his strong fingers rake through your soft hair, making you gasp as his fingers tugged at your hair, holding you face close to his. Murphy’s soft gray eyes were dilated, his glare was so intense that you let out an involuntary whine. He hummed at your expression and smirked knowingly.

           “What little game do you think you’re playing, my sweet?”

           His words were loving like always but his tone was downright condescending as he licked his lips and once again ogled over your ample chest. The sweet boy that would always treat you so kindly was replaced by something stronger, something darker.

           You were about to answer him, but his hand trailed from your hair down to the base of your throat, he started to test the waters a bit as he gripped lightly. Murphy pulled you in by your neck, just ghosting his lips over yours.

           “Did you think I wouldn’t notice? I’ve been watching you all week, love,” he chuckled lowly which made your eyes roll back, his grip tightened a bit making it even hard for you to catch your breath. “You are stunning, my girl.”

           Even though your mind was buzzing at the words he was saying, you revealed to him a gentle smile at his compliment. He pulled you to him and kissed you deeply yet so slowly. This flip in him was everything you wanted from Murphy and from his smug expression, you could tell he was living for it.

           “But you already knew that,” his voice growled as his lips took the place of his hand, his teeth grazed at your neck which only made you even more desperate.

           “Murph-“

           “What do you want?” He groaned at the way your chest was heaving each and every time he nibbled on your collarbone. “Cause I won’t go any further until you tell me.”

           And like that he rolled back from you, almost making you tip due to your wobbly knees and racing heart. He looked so cocky, slouching in his chair with his head tilted to the side as he awaited your answer. Every second that passed where you tried to collect your thoughts was filled by his hungry eyes as they took in the sight of you.

           “I want you to touch me,” you admitted with a tiny smirk, looking bashful yet flirty. This was so new and exciting, you never wanted it to end. And it had barely even started.

           “Do you want me to make love to you?”

           His answer was met with silence as you took a moment to breathe, ultimately shaking your head no.

           “Interesting,” he began to nibble at his lower lip while staring at you admiringly.

           Your body grew warm under his gaze and while you loved the intensity of what was happening, you needed more of whatever he was willing to give you.

           “So what I’m hearing is you want to get fucked, yeah sweetheart?”

           Without hesitating you nodded your head, eyes glowing at his question. His words were unbearably nasty, each word and lustful look made it harder for you to stand. It made you feel dirty, but so incredibly empowered at the same time. Maybe it was because it was Murphy saying all of this that made you believe every word.

           “Okay, honey. I can do that. But don’t think you’re off the hook for teasing me all week. If you wanna get wrecked, we’re doing it my way. Understand?”

           Once again, you nodded enthusiastically, almost shaking at the boy’s crude warning.

           “Good. Now, I want you to be ready for me: go to our room, strip down entirely, and lay on the bed.”

           You all about ran to your bedroom, tearing off your clothes as quickly as possible. It wasn’t everyday where Murphy got so domineering. Shaky hands ripped at the debauched low cut top that started this whole game. Once every thread of fabric was on the floor, you lied down on the bed, trying your hardest to catch your breath. Your body felt like it was on ice as you shivered each time a gust of air passed over you.

           After a few minutes of waiting for your boy, he returned with a tempting smirk once he noticed your bare body wanting and ready. It made you groan, just seeing him creep up on you with nothing but pure lust in his eyes.

           “Good girl, baby,” he cooed as he rolled himself to the side of the bed closest to you. “But let’s not forget how badly you’ve behaved all week.”

           Murphy bent down to collect the discarded red blouse and he waved it in front of you, “I don’t want this to go to waste. Hands up, love.”

           You were surprised by his command, with a shaky breath you complied and brought your hand over your head, resting them on your pillow. Murphy then took your shirt and used the sleeves to tie your wrists together and then to the headboard. It wasn’t too tight, but tight enough for you not be able to escape. Your eyes widened when you gave an experimental tug, whining at thought of not being able to touch your strong boy. In this position your breasts were pushed higher, begging for the attention of your boyfriend.

           He looked so damn good, smugly staring down at your chest which made him wiggle in his chair. Air was harder to come by once he began placing gentle kisses to your cheek, grabbing at your jaw to hold you steady.

           “I want this to be good for you,” his harsh façade dropped for a second, his thumb rubbing at your bottom lip, “If at any time things get too intense, you’ll tell me, yes?”

           You nodded lazily at the beautiful blonde boy, but that wasn’t enough.

           “Use your words, darling,” he mocked lightly. “I need to hear you say it.”

           “Yes,” you gasped as his calloused hands began to trail down your throat, then down your collarbone, barely grazing your hot skin.

           “And you remember the stoplight system?”

           “Green means go, yellow means slow down, red means stop,” you gasped as he began to kiss at the side of your breast.

           “Good girl, my perfect little slut, huh?” A shiver spread throughout your whole body once his arrogant persona returned.

           It felt wrong to be entirely naked while he was still fully clothed, his light blue shirt was pulled taut around his strong shoulders. His hair was perfectly placed and if your hands weren’t bound to the headboard, you would surely be gripping his biceps or tugging at his blonde locks.

           “I’ll have you know, darling, that because of you, I have a newfound appreciation for some things that are muggle,” he chuckled as his teeth nipped beneath your breast, admiring the way your hands struggled against the binds. “The muggles really have some fascinating inventions that I had to get my hands on.”

           You had absolutely no idea what he was going on about, the only thing you could focus on was his dark gray eyes that bore into your own as he rubbed your hardened nipple with his nose. Before you could enjoy the small touches, he pulled his head away from you entirely.

           From behind his back, Murphy revealed to you a bright purple vibrator, which made you squeeze your legs together in order to get any bit of friction. This was not something you’d ever imagine your boyfriend picking up on his own and you moaned at the mere idea of what the strategist was planning for you.

           “Grabbed this bad boy when I went into town the other day,” he chuckled as he placed the toy down on the bed before lifting himself to lean beside you. Having him pressed against you was sinful, and you could do nothing to him. “I’ve been fantasizing about using this on you.”

           He grabbed the toy once again, turning it on and pressing it against your stomach. The vibrations were already so strong and your hips bucked at the feeling it brought. Murphy held himself up on an elbow, laying on his side as he watched your body’s reactions and chuckling every time you shook.

           “This whole week you’ve been parading around the flat, looking positively gorgeous,” Murphy groaned, dragging the toy further up your chest, resting it between your boobs. “I’ve wanted to rip off those goddamn shirts you’ve been wearing. You know how much I love your tits.”

           You whined loudly once he held the tip of the vibrator against one of your nipples while Murphy wrapped his perfect lips around the other and started to suck gently. Once again you pulled at the restrains, you would do anything to touch him and yet knowing he was in full control made your head spin.

           “Is this what you had in mind, my good little whore?”

           He laughed against your nipple at your relentless wiggling beside him, you looked exquisite with your chest turning red with his biting and sucking. Like a masterpiece.

           “Can you,” your breath hitched when he brought the vibrator down between your legs, just not where you needed it.

           “Can I what, sweetie?” Murphy started trailing the toy along your inner thighs, tortuously allowing you to feel the vibrations without being able to enjoy it as intended. A rather surprising bite to the underside of your breast caused you to scream out his name, which made your boy smirk cockily.

           “Please, baby, please take off your shirt,” you gasped as he started biting at the side of your neck, not caring if little bruises would be left behind for everyone to see.

           “Yeah? And why should I do that?” He taunted, “Do you think you deserve it after what you’ve been doing to me?”

           You didn’t deserve it, but god, did you want it. His body was gorgeous and it felt even better when you could grasp and scratch at his skin, unfortunately that wasn’t going to happen tonight. This was supposed to be your punishment, and after teasing him like you did, you knew you didn’t earn it.

           With a pout you shook your head sadly, crying out when he brought the vibrator back up to play with your nipples, “No, baby, I don’t deserve it.”

           He hummed approvingly at your answer and dipped down to nibble below your ear, “That’s right, sweetie. You don’t.”

           God you hated how badly he was teasing you, and yet you prayed that it wouldn’t end anytime soon. Seeing him so confident and in calculated made you crave him even more. It was like how he commanded the whole pitch when he announced a game, he spoke with such assurance and skill that it was impossible to not be charmed by him. That also meant that you couldn’t help how turned on you were becoming at his gruff tone.

           “But since you asked so sweetly, I think I’ll award you this one thing,” he sat up for a second, before smirking darkly at your needy body.

           Murphy took the vibrator and laid it between your legs, letting the head of it press up against your clit. You yelped loudly, arching your back at the sudden sensation after being denied for so long.

           “Fuck!” You moaned as you thrashed your head to the side, watching him as he slowly began undoing the buttons of his crisp shirt, his eyes never left yours. It was sensory overload, with him displaying more of his toned chest and strong biceps as the toy teased you mercilessly.

           “Like what you see, darling?” He asked as he pressed down on the vibrator once his shirt was off, reveling in the way you screamed out. Your moans sounded so frustrated and needy, which only spurred the boy on even more.

           “Yes, fuck,” you could hardly breathe with how impactful his small acts were on your body, crying out as he was now holding the vibrator in one hand as his other cradled your face.

           “God you’re such a pretty mess, aren’t you?” he mocked as he dragged his thumb across your bottom lip again, except this time you greedily took into your mouth and began to suck on it. It was the smallest act of defiance you could display given your position, and you felt alive once his eyes rolled back at your sucking lips. The move made him growl lowly at you, which felt like electricity against your skin.

           Before you could celebrate for long, he took the vibrator away from your clit, making you whine at the loss. Murphy loved when you got like this, so pretty and pouty as your hips tried to find the toy.

           “What is it, baby?” Murphy laid back down, his now naked chest pressed against your side as he held your wrists in one of his large hands. He smirked down at you, your skin was glowing and sticky, burning up from head to toe as he committed to teasing for as long as he wanted. “You have no idea how hard I am for you, honey. Seeing you so wrecked from this little toy is perfection.”

           He brought the toy back down to your clit, holding it there firmly, which made you cry out from the teasing. Murphy chuckled next to your ear, sending sparks down your body. You didn’t think it could get any better; that was until he started nibbling at the base of your neck as he rubbed the vibrator in tiny circles against you.

           The constant vibrations and biting was overwhelming, a tear had escaped your dazzling eyes; you hadn’t even noticed you started crying, but Murphy did. When he saw the mascara drip, he brought his attention back to you, wanting to check in for a moment.

           “Are you enjoying this, my love?” His eyes were heavy, drunk off the pleasure he was able to bring to your body. This was punishment, sure, but he needed to know that you were okay.

           “God, yes,” you began to chant breathlessly, which eased any concern in your dominant boy.

           “Good,” he grinned down at you cheekily, “cause, I think it’s about time you cum, yeah?”

           All you could do was nod, your hips were already bucking, trying to get as close to the torturous hum that the toy provided to you. It was a marvelous sight, seeing how Murphy’s muscles flexed with each ministration he made to the toy. You turned your head to press soft kisses to his hard chest, moaning against his skin as the vibrator kept bringing you closer to the edge.

           “That’s it, baby doll. Roll your hips for me,” he whispered in your ear, leaving no room for disobedience. “I wanna see my beautiful girl cum for me like the dirty little plaything she is.”

           It was too much. His words, the smell of his skin, and the rumble of the toy against you made your back arch, moaning desperately as you came with a cry. Your heart felt like it was going to pound out of your chest, it felt too good.

           But Murphy didn’t stop. He grinned confidently, finding the look on your face when you came the most beautiful sight in the world. And he made it his mission to see it again.

           “You didn’t think I was done with you did you?” Murphy tutted at you as you pulled against your binds. He placed one final kiss to your lips, enjoying the moans you let escape as he shuffled down the bed, resting between your legs as he removed the toy from your clit and began rubbing the wet toy along the insides of your thighs. “No, darling, I am going to worship this sweet pussy until you can’t take it anymore.”

           And he lived up to his promise, wrapping one of his strong arms under your thigh using that hand to hold the vibrator against you while the other hand rubbed up and down your wetness. His smile was beautifully wicked, elated in the way you couldn’t stay still even for a second.

           “Baby, your dripping for me. You might be enjoying this too much,” he groaned disapprovingly, once again removing the vibrator from you. But before you could protest, he dropped his head and nudged your clit with his tongue. He braced himself, lapping at your clit lick a starved man as he brought the toy up to your breasts, teasing one nipple at a time. “Wanna feel you squeeze my fingers, sweetie.”

           Your back arched almost painfully, his fingers now pumped into you, hooking and rubbing filthily as he sucked on your clit and played with your tits. Never before had you felt so taken care of, so wrecked by the hands of your love. The familiar feeling of another orgasm was quickly approaching and you couldn’t stop yourself from tensing your legs around Murphy’s head which made him growl into you, making you shudder. Chanting his name like a prayer was the only thing you could do, his name was all you could remember as he took his tongue off your clit to bring back the vibrator.

           “Shit you’re gonna cum again aren’t you? Dirty fucking angel, you are,” he smiled sweetly despite how brash his words were. “Let me see you cum again.”

           Looking down at him in between your thighs was a mistake. The boy was staring at the way your tits were bouncing from your bucking hips, which only made him crave your release that much more. It was sinful how gorgeous he looked as his fingers kept massaging you perfectly as he rubbed the toy expertly against your clit, continuously encouraging you to let go. You wished you could take a snapshot of this moment to relive at another time, but you couldn’t think about that for too long as you could feel yourself growing too sensitive.

           After a few more rubs at your clit and swears from your sweet boy’s lips, you grabbed at your restraints, and let go. Murphy found the image of your shaking and writhing body both the most delicious and dirty thing he had ever witnessed. He turned off the toy and began to massage your legs, helping relieve the tenseness there after how hard you had come.

           Focusing on anything but the regulation of your own breath proved to be hopeless. The way Murphy knew how to tease and tweak your body never failed to amaze you, and you had to will your body to calm down.

           Murphy began to shift up the bed, placing kisses to both sides of your hips before biting down on the soft flesh and then calming the bruising skin with baby kisses. He continued to pepper kisses up your stomach, between your breasts and to the muscle in your neck. Murphy hummed against your sticky skin, inhaling the scent of you as he turned your head to kiss his neglected lips.

           It was soft and languid, the way your kisses molding into each other. You couldn’t touch him, but you angled yourself so your aching chest pressed against his. Murphy held your body firmly against his own, loving how you instinctually hitched a leg over his hip and began to rock against him.

           “Damn, darling,” he choked as you started to grind over his trousers. “You truly are desperate aren’t you?”

           At this point, you should’ve been done; called it a night after getting off twice Your body was already tired and sore from his unbelievable teasing and yet you craved him more than ever. It didn’t matter how often you got off on his tongue or in this case a toy, you yearned for him to claim you.

           “Fuck me, Murphy,” you whimpered, getting lost in the friction of his pants against your naked body.

           His eyes widened at your demand, and within a second his soft kisses disappeared and instead he grabbed your chin firmly, enjoying the way your lips pouted the more he squeezed. “Oh, trust me,” Murphy growled against the column of your throat, “My plans always included pounding your pretty little pussy into the mattress, baby.”

           “Goddamn!” You whined, it was extraordinarily filthy the way he could effortlessly turn you on with his words alone. His body was an extra bonus, and you couldn’t help but marvel at it.

           Murphy released you from his grip and began to undo his belt, quickly chucking his clothes off. Your eyes fell to his strong thighs, the sharp v-line that led to your favorite sex toy. No manmade thing could ever compare to the way his cock could rip countless orgasms from you.

           Your staring didn’t go unnoticed, so Murphy gripped himself with his strong hand, slowly beginning to pump himself. The most desperate and almost jealous whine escaped you which made your boy chuckle against your throat.

           “I bet you wish you could be the one touching me right now. But unlucky for you, but fun for me, your just a bit too tied up.”

           His joke made your eyes roll, but the sound of his low groan only reminded you how badly you wanted to feel him again. Murphy’s body was an addiction.

           After a few more strokes, he brought your leg back over his hip, pulling his body flush against your own breathless one. He was so close and yet so far.

           “I think it’s time, my love. I need to fuck you. God, I’m gonna fuck you so good.”

           Without missing a beat, he positioned himself at you, just grazing your pussy which felt cruel. It wasn’t enough. Your desperation hit an all-time high, so you used your leg to push him further into you. The feeling of him was perfect and even Murphy couldn’t take his own teasing anymore. The game was over.

           With your hands still tied above you, Murphy grabbed at your back, making you arch your chest onto his wanting tongue. He nipped and bit and sucked on your breasts like a man starved while you rocked yourself against him. You adored how overwhelming his love was, it was in everything he did. But you didn’t want his love at the moment. You wanted Murphy to wreck you.

           “Please,” you whined as another tear escaped you.

           “Please?” his eyes darkened even more as he groaned against you. “Please what? Does my pretty little slut want more?”

           His charming smile was cut short by your harder grind which made his whip his head back. Given the opportunity, you latched your teeth into his skin, hoping your act of disobedience would get him to lose all inhibitions.

           “Fuck. Alright, my girl,” he chuckled, “If my baby wants to get fucked, then who am I to deny her?”

           One of the arms that was wrapped around your back now grabbed at your soft thigh, bringing your leg up higher, giving him the leverage he needed to fuck you the way you needed. His usual never ending dialogue halted as he placed all his attention to the rhythm of his thrusts, noting what made you scream his name. He didn’t stop for a second, his own need to get off battling with his want to tease you.

           It was dirty, quick, and rough, something that you didn’t know would be so earth shattering. But your quickly returning high was building back up, and it was almost unbearable how good he felt fucking you like he promised. It was so intense that you didn’t even notice Murphy untying you. Your arms just instinctually wrapped around his strong shoulders as they flexed after every thrust. He couldn’t use his legs to help bounce you on his cock, but his impressive upper body had no issue grabbing at your shoulders to drive you deeper into your high.

           Your eyes rolled back, whines dripping from your mouth which made Murphy smirk with pride. His hips were reckless, doing his best to hit that spot that made you beg and pout for him. You almost complained when he let go of your leg until he told you to hold it up yourself. Denying him was not an option, since your orgasm was so damn close.

           “Let’s get you there, my girl,” he moaned in your ear. Without warning, you screamed at the buzzing vibrator that once again returned to your overstimulated clit. The only thing you could do was run your fingers through Murphy’s hair to grip as he toyed with you so well.

           After a few more pumps, your back arched into him, shaking in pleasure as he chased his own high. He looked beautiful as he did it: his mouth was panting, searching for air as he continued to buck into you wildly. You were almost too achy for him, but you wanted nothing more than for him to get off.

           With a few more slaps of skin against skin, he came down whining with his lips around your abused nipple. Murphy was breathless, moaning against your chest as you raked your nails through his now ruined blonde hair.

           Both of you were left speechless which was more surprising considering your boy could talk for hours on end, spewing stats and percentages. But right now, you admired the way he nuzzled his face on your chest, using you as a pillow with a satisfied smile on his face. It was such a stark difference to the boy who taunted and mocked you earlier; he was now opting to hearing your calming heartbeat.

           “Was that good?” he sighed against you with a smile.

           A tiny giggle sounded from your sore throat, “Baby, that was unbelievably good.”

           “Perfect. And now we have a fun toy that we can bring out whenever, darling.”

           You hummed at his excitement, bringing your hand to cup his tired face, “You know, we can always pick up more if we need to.”

( @kc-needs-coffee I hope this lives up to your expectations wifey. Had a lot of fun with this one.)

[kaichan24]

Favorite Royalty AUs

1. Taking Back the Reigns. King Victor Nikiforov was King in name only. A puppet of Parliament - alone, orphaned, and ostrazcized, he floundered through life with no direction and no one to share it with.

With his country teetering on the brink of WWIII, Victor must shed his playboy image and battle a generations-old political party to seize his rightful power from a corrupt Parliament. Finding himself in a morass of treason, violence and dirty secrets,Victor comes to terms with the past and finds a way forward.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15640674/chapters/36323028

2. The Dragon Prince and the Winter Swan. Yuuri Stark is a noble son of the north, returning to Winterfell in disgrace after the latest disappointment in his checkered tourney career. He hasn't given up his dream of becoming a knight, but maybe it's time to find himself a new path, settling down at home.

Prince Victor Targaryen is the greatest swordsman in Westeros, but he no longer finds joy in competition. Things are uneasy in King's Landing, where politics are shifting and dangerous, and he seizes the chance to escape north in search of the young man who came so close to beating him in a tourney last year — and was so beguiling at the banquet afterwards.

Together they begin a journey to the great tourney of Harrenhal, with intrigue, honor, friendship and love along the way...and inevitable political conflict ahead.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11951052/chapters/27019995

3. Through the Eyes of a King. “He was the first Japanese man that I saw in my life. At first glance, he seemed ordinary in appearance, the kind of man one easily overlooked in a crowd. But in his eyes lay passion, and the force of an oncoming storm, revealing the force of nature that he was. A man not to mess with, but to admire.

”These words, written in the diary of the young man that would one day become king of Russia, had burnt their way into the hearts and memories of the people, Russian and Japanese alike. For Katsuki Yuuri had never thought that he would ever leave his home behind. Called to a foreign court to become the teacher of the crown prince, Yuuri soon finds himself in the midst of a world so very different from his own - and in it King Victor the Divine that tolerates no dissent.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18791056/chapters/44583775

4. The Rules For Lovers.  Prince Yuuri Katsuki has a duty to his country, above all else (his desires, his dreams, and his happiness included), and he knows this alliance will help to ensure the safety of his people. That’s the only reason he accepts Prince Nikiforov’s hand in marriage. The pleasant surprise, of course, is the part where they fall in love along the way. The unpleasant one, well…

https://archiveofourown.org/works/9645131/chapters/21790376

5. when it lasts.  It’s been three years since King Victor fell fast and hard for his Yuuri in the sleepy, seaside town of Hasetsu, and the time has finally come to pop that ever important question. However, asking Yuuri to marry him is easier said than done, especially when all the forces of the universe seem to be working against him. Will King Victor be able to overcome the obstacles in his way and make his beloved his betrothed, or will he be crushed by the powers that be?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14707139/chapters/33987668

6. The Elusive Vermilion Rose. As the revolution builds in Larussia, a masked vigilante appears to whisk those destined for execution to safety. Not about to have his plans ruined, the king gives his two sons an offer they can’t refuse: discover this masked man’s identity if you wish to be heir to the throne.

The youngest prince knows this is his only chance at the throne, while the older prince, Victor, finds himself caught in the middle; as his curiosity about the elusive Eros dances ever closer to affection.

Meanwhile Yuuri Katsuki, a tailor from the neighboring country of Yamato, has been traveling back and forth more than usual... clearly because of the nobility clamoring to have the emperor’s own tailor make their clothes. And Yuuri and his three friends definitely don’t have anything to do with the so-called masked vigilantes in the Society of the Vermilion Rose. Nope, not at all.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16158239/chapters/37754681

7. Chrysanthemum Petals. Yuuri Katsuki woke up one day to receive a fancy letter to tea; from his absentee father. That one moment changed his life from just being Yuuri Katsuki, sleep deprived, awkward high school student to Yuuri, Crown Prince of Japan.

Hesitant to become Heir Apparent to the Chrysanthemum Throne, Yuuri will find reason to abandon all sensibilities in the most charming Duke of Kent.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14453952/chapters/33389637

8. And A Shimmer Takes My Eye. Walking through the streets of New York, Yuuri balances the phone call on his bluetooth headphones alongside errands for his day off. “I don’t know, Chris— 

“You’ve been alone too long, schatzi, his friend chides him. Chris met Yuuri when he was in the costume department at the Met, but since he got a coveted position at the Paris Opera, they can only FaceTime or cross an ocean for quality friend time. Orfeo closes soon, he’ll be in New York for business… at least enjoy a glass of something beautiful while exchanging a bit of small talk, yeah?

Yuuri enters the cake shop, walking past case after case of treats and pastries. A lovely cassis and white chocolate mousse cake catches his eye, and his conversation lags as he contemplates purchasing it as a gift to his cast mates for their final bow in a week. “Well. Before I grudgingly agree—

”That’s the spirit, Chris jokes.

“Is he at least… nice?” Yuuri asks.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18991204/chapters/45095746

9. King in Disguise. Yuuri is a low-ranked Ability User with a useless power, considered one of the weakest in the Terra Stellata – the institute to unlock a User’s true potential. But what lies beneath his power was an unfathomable amount of strength unseen by the eyes of others. He dreamed to fight alongside his idol; Victor Nikiforov, one of the strongest Ability Users in existence. He finds Victor willing to protect him at whatever cost.

Will Yuuri ever discover the true worth hidden within him?

Yuuri -- "I've admired you since I was little. You are my hero and will always be." Victor -- "I will always protect you no matter what it takes. If you are my king - then I'll be your knight.

"In a world where demons freely roamed, humans were bestowed with powers beyond imagination - when things went out of control, destiny awaited for a slumbering king to claim his throne.

(Magical/Superpower Fantasy AU taking place in the modern times)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13525623/chapters/31026489

10. moods, states of grace, & elegies. Victor Nikiforov has traveled far and wide in the company of trader Christophe Giacometti on the silk roads to arrive at Hasetsu, capital of the Great Nihon Empire. He expects to stay a winter, until the seasons change again, and fairer weather and the changing of seasons can return him to his wanderlust.He does not expect to fall in love with the Crown Prince.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14632119/chapters/33817776#workskin

11. in my head, in my heart, in my soul.  Drawn into a conflict outside of his responsibility, Victor Nikiforov, the greatest general of the age, appears to have met his match in the shy Prince of Japan who surrenders on the fields of Goryeo.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15994100

12. Victor the Great.  At the age of nine Victor became the Tsar of all the Russias with Lilia as regent. One day he will be the sole ruler of Russia, the man who makes all the decisions and gets to do what he wants, with one exception: he has to marry a woman from a Russian aristocratic family. Except that he falls in love with a boy who is a foreign commoner. Will he risk the throne to be able to marry the one he loves?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12740541/chapters/29055912

13. Our Love will Always Prevail. Almost 10 years ago, Lord Yuuri of the house Katsuki was taken as a ward of the house Nikiforov. A romance blossomed between him and the eldest heir of the house, Viktor Nikiforov. But the path to happiness is not always an easy one, Yuuri and Viktor will have to fight hard to obtain the happy ending they both desperately wish.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14636100/chapters/33828141

14. Chosen Path.  To end a century long struggle between Rus and Nihon the two Imperial families have come to a possible treaty. The only catch, the Emperor of Nihon wants the oldest Son of Rus to marry one of his retinue when he comes to Rus to sign the papers. Victor as oldest of 11 is not looking forward to getting a wife. So together with his siblings, parents, and the help of all his cousins and Palace staff, he sets out to get the one from the retinue he wants. Katsuki Yuuri never thought he stood a chance.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16161911/chapters/37763492

15. Le soleil est près de moi. The prince moves across the grounds in robes the same shades as sapphires. He walks astride the King, not behind, as he proudly conducts the tour of the incredible grounds with ease. An austere woman follows at a respectful pace in gray and violet. She and the prince both have wide fabric belts in contrasting colors tied at their waists, and the prince’s ebony hair is styled similarly to his companion’s, though hers is vastly more complex.

“He’s quite comely up close,” Christophe continues with a wicked grin. “Though he seems a touch aloof in humor. Perhaps if I treat him to a little wine, a little of my solitary attention—

“Victor gives him a startled look. “No,” he manages, his eyes immediately locking back onto the prince. “Not…not this one, Christophe.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17486264

16. Serendipity.  Yuuri never imagined himself to be anything other than ordinary, but a visit from his mysterious Aunt Minako leaves him dealing with his apparently royal destiny. With it comes many trials and tribulations, and love in the way Yuuri least expects it.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18212267/chapters/43084823

17. Fires. Victor and Yuuri are kings that govern Rossíya. They try to demonstrate, at the slightest opportunity, the love and devotion they feel for each other.

However, although almost the entire kingdom is happy and pleased by this marriage that ended with years of war against Hasetsu, Christophe, advisor of his majesty, doesn't welcome the constant trips the king makes to his homeland, for what is more than willing to discover what Yuuri hides behind them.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20826122/chapters/49507334

17. Interpersonal Diplomacy. For the sake of ending a centennial war and protecting the lives of his family and people, Prince Imperial Yuuri of Shanjia makes an unexpected sacrifice, placing his life in the hands of King Viktor of Nova. For the survival of their nations' fledgling peace, Yuuri must live on Novan soil alone, surrounded by people his nation just recently considered enemies, and tied to their monarch by the bonds of diplomacy.

However, Yuuri will also find allies, individuals willing to welcome the peace-loving regardless of past history. If Yuuri is to carve a home in this foreign nation, he must earn the trust of the war-weary Novan people.

And in time, Yuuri may find himself drawing closer to the sympathetic but enigmatic King Viktor.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16072742/chapters/37529747

18. Love Is Beautiful Fear. To become King, Prince Victor has to hold a Selection, to find a man or woman to marry. Yuuri is selected, but will his anxiety keep him from winning Victor's heart?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/9094546

19. love like fools. When Crown Prince Yuuri of Japan escapes his army of minders at his Saint Petersburg hotel, he thinks he’s found the opportunity to explore the city as a commoner.

When investigative journalist Viktor Nikiforov discovers the Crown Prince of Japan on a park bench in Saint Petersburg, he thinks that he’s found his ticket to redemption at the magazine he writes for.

But like the stories of those stranded during the White Nights after the bridges go up, neither of them had anticipated falling in love. (Roman Holiday AU)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12039732/chapters/27258912

20. Like Magic Woven Through Me.  Victor was quiet about it of course, but his love for the Prince had burned bright in his chest ever since he first met him, years before, when Yuuri was just twenty and Victor twenty-four. From the moment Victor had seen the Prince, he knew he was in trouble. Raven hair, big expressive eyes, smooth skin and cherry pink lips. But above all that was Yuuri’s unending kindness, how funny he could be when he let his guard down, his intelligent conversation, the way he used magic like he was dancing. How could Victor not love him?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21977671

21. On My Life, Love. When Prince Yuuri and Prince Victor were children, they secretly got engaged. Alas, their friendship soon fell apart.

After 14 years of separation, Victor asks Yuuri for his hand in marriage, for it turns out that his childhood promise was a magically binding oath, and now his only options are to marry Yuuri or to remain unwed forever, lest he forfeit his life.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11844423/chapters/26738385

22. if there's a will, there's a way.  Two neighbouring countries in a state of tentative peace. Two royal families trying to protect their own people. And only one thing that can save them all from the war that is knocking on their door – a royal union that will cement loyalty, breed forgiveness and maybe somehow fix things.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12506060/chapters/28473052

23. And all at once, you are the one I have been waiting for. “The law clearly states that the regent shall have a mate. It is widely known that being mated keeps one’s head clearer, brings joy and strengthens relations, both in one’s professional and personal life. Since I do not have a mate, nor do I have anyone in my life as of right now that I would want to spend my life with in that way, I have chosen to evoke the ‘Catarina praxi. “Lilia will give out the specific details how it will be conducted, but it will be a nationwide search for a mate for me and will require scent samples. As those of you who are familiar with the praxi knows, this means that all omegas that fall into the chosen group are prohibited from entering a mateship until an engagement between me and a chosen omega has been announced. This results in that all unmated omegas from the age of eighteen to twenty eight are now legally arranged to be mated to me, until an official engagement has been made."

The Nicholai Hall explodes with questions from the reporters as Lilia steps up to the microphone, while Yuuri keeps completely still, eyes wide and mouth hanging open, heart pounding in his chest.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19727131/chapters/46687906

[quixoticnexus]

Day 10:

10.) Can you define a turning point in your character’s life? Multiples are acceptable.

“Anyone can sit on their ass and complain about how the world is. I spent my whole life getting treated like shit and just assuming the world was awful and there was nothing I could do about it. I spent a lot of my early life just bouncing around from town to town trying to steal enough to survive off of. But one day as I was headed to the next town, I cam across this small family getting heckled by some bandits on the road. It just felt like... Something in me snapped. I damn near blacked out with rage and went off, attacking the cretins with a life’s worth of pent up anger.” 

“When I finally came to, the bandits had all fled, and the family was all looking up at me with... Shock, I guess. I’d transformed without even meaning to, and most of my clothes were in tatters. I expected them to start screaming at me to leave, too, but... instead, the little boy called me a ‘good puppy’ and gave me his favorite blanket. It was a little small for someone like me to sleep under, but I still kinda wear it like a cape. And then he gave my head a pat and he and his parents left without... calling me a freak or anything.”

“I guess that’s when I decided I was gonna do everything I could to make this world a better place. It’s stupid and pointless, but if everyone would just TRY instead of accepting things the way they were... Well, we’d all be a lot better off. Even runts like me...”

“Hah... I know you’d never know it just looking at the stud I turned out to be, but uh... I actually used to be really shy, especially around girls... Can you believe that? It wasn’t until I joined the guard that I heard from some of my ‘buddies’ that the quickest way to get over your fear with girls is to flirt with ‘em... And I’ve never stopped ever sense! It really helps a lot... You’ve just gotta BE the stud in your MIND and then it’s like nothing in the world can ever bother you! It’s awesome! Like a superpower!”

“I was tired of hiding. Tired of growing resentful and hateful of what I’d become. I knew I could never again become human, but that didn’t mean I had to lock myself away from all hope of contact. If I closely monitored my condition... Everything might work out in the end. I always wanted to travel the world as a girl... It was finally time to realize that dream.”

“I think I’ll pass on this one, too.”

“My decision to quit the ninja profession was actually quite controversial... This isn’t the sort of career you can just put a two weeks’ notice in and apply elsewhere. But at the same time, no one in my family had ever tried juggling being a single parent of an infant along with espionage work. I simply couldn’t do it all by myself. I decided to live with my extended family and pour all of my effort into maintaining the fields so that everyone else could spend more time away without worrying about our crops. It was backbreaking work, but... Someone had to do it.”

“Whilst spending time at home recovering from my... ailment. I read all sorts of books to pass the time and to keep myself from spiraling into madness from sheer boredom alone. A series I happened upon was of the exploits of a master thief. It was branded as fiction, but it was so fascinating to me... It spurred me to learn all the tricks of the trade, myself, and to spend many nights practicing creeping around my estate, scaring the dickens out of the help and practicing breaking into rooms I wasn’t supposed to be in. Once I felt I had enough practice under my belt, I left to experience the world.”

“Weirdly? It was the first time I found out my Pops could be wrong about stuff, haha... I grew up thinking he knew everything -- he had the secrets to the universe and stuff -- he had divine powers... Anything he got wrong wasn’t ACTUALLY wrong -- just interpreted differently. He had a way of making you believe him more than your own eyes. But... In the end, he’s just human like the rest of us. Made me wonder what else he could get wrong...”

“Growing up in a smaller than average village has a way of... warping one’s outlook on life. The first time I went to a big city to fully study the magical arts... Well, it was quite a... shock. I can’t say it was a very pleasant one. I realized I had been lied to... I wasn’t the most handsome man to have ever lived. I was merely... More handsome than average. It nearly drove me insane to find out... Luckily, I was also blessed with tremendous intellect and was able to formulate a way to right the wrongs of the world.”

[badsext]

For Asgard! : Klaus x Valkyrie

⚠️: Smut

Klaus is rifling through some antiques in Reginald’s study when he comes upon a strange object, a golden geometric sculpture with interlocking shapes like pieces of a puzzle. Klaus immediately thinks of pawning it for cash, but then he hears something. At first he thinks he’s imagining it, but the object is humming. He picks it up and attempts to rearrange the pieces, but it won’t budge.

“Where’s the goddamn off button?,” he mumbles to himself. He struggles with it a bit more before giving up and throwing it against the wall. It comes to rest on the floor and produces a clicking sound before going silent. Assuming he must have broken it, he stoops to pick it up. Then a bright beam of refracted light comes streaming out of a small hole in the top. The light is so intense it makes him shut his eyes tight.

When Klaus opens his eyes the study is gone and he is standing on an open road by the sea. A pickup truck swerves to avoid him. It’s not unlike the time a mysterious stolen suitcase transported Klaus into the Vietnam war. Fortunately, this time his destination is a peaceful fishing port. The sign reads ‘New Asgard’ and in the distance he spies a pub. “Eh, what the fuck,” he says to himself. Klaus lights a cigarette, shoves the puzzle device into his pocket, and marches into town.

The bar is full of fishermen, drinking and chatting amongst themselves. No one even blinks at Klaus as he saunters up to the bar. He orders whisky then rotates himself 360 degrees on the barstool to take in his new surroundings.

He observes the woman resting on her elbows at the other end of the bar looks like she could kick his ass, which was exactly Klaus’ type when it comes to women. And she is gorgeous. Her thick utilitarian clothing and dour expression can’t hide it.

“The sea was plentiful today, your majesty.” A robust bearded man hails her as he collects his drinks from the bar.

“Aye, Harek. I’ll drink to that!,” the woman smiles and lifts her beer stein, then goes back to her beverage. Klaus leans in, his mind full of questions.

“Excuse me, barkeep? Where am I?”

“New Asgard.”

“Well, yes, that was on the sign, but…What year is it? What is today’s date.”

“Are you alright, my friend?”

“Just tell me.” Klaus insists.

“Tuesday, May 10th, 2023…and it’s just about noon.”

“Oh, boy,” Klaus’ eyes grow bigger as he fishes around in his coat pocket for payment.

“I’ve got this one, Bjorn. Put it on my tab.” It is the beautiful woman from the end of the bar. She looks Klaus over, commenting with a soft, ambiguous grunt.

“Many thanks for the drink, your majesty.” Klaus opens his coat like a dress and curtsies.

Valkyrie stifles a chuckle. “You can skip the formalities. That’s just Harek, he’s stuck in the old traditions. I am Brunhilde, last Valkyrie of Asgard, and king of New Asgard, but you can call me Val. What’s your name, stranger?”

“I am Klaus, 4th son of Hargreeves and irresistible bad boy at your service.” He winks. “If I may, why is the monarch of a small country drinking in a pub at noon on a Tuesday?”

“No, you may not,” she snorts. “But today is your lucky day because I’m bored and this ale makes me chatty.” Klaus moves to the empty stool next to hers and rests his chin in his hand, ready for Val to spill the tea. “I was part of a squadron of fighters, the Valkyrie, defenders of Asgard, but I am the last. My sisters in arms were slaughtered in battle including the one I loved. Her voice trails off for a moment as she stares off into the distance. “Then Asgard was destroyed.”

“Moon exploded by a telekinetic?” Klaus offers a guess.

Val furrows her brow at him. “Fire giant. The people of this town are the survivors of genocide and I am their leader. THAT is why I drink. What’s your story, Klaus?”

“I grew up in a family with superpowers and I’ve got the worst one. I communicate with the dead, and yes, that’s just as much fun as it sounds! I was kidnapped by assassins and tortured, escaped back in time to the Vietnam war where I fell in love with a soldier who died in my arms. Then my siblings and I tried to stop the apocalypse and failed. We’ve traveled back in time…let me see…six times now? We always manage to fuck it up. That’s why I drink.”

Valkyrie tips back the last of her ale and slams the empty stein on the bar, then holds up two fingers. “Shots for me and this miserable bastard!” The shots arrive and Valkyrie clinks her glass with Klaus.’

“Have I started to grow on you?,” he asks, making the shot disappear down his throat.

“The jury’s still out,” she replies, following suit.

Klaus stands up and walks over to the juke box. “Hey, you got a quarter?”

Valkyrie tosses him the coin. He snatches it out of the air with precision that surprises them both. He makes a selection, then comes shimmying back to the opening chords of ‘Immigrant Song.’ Valkyrie smiles. “You’re kidding me, right?”

Klaus shakes his head “iiieeeaaaaahhhh!,” he sings along, pleading with her to join him on the dance floor. She obliges, reluctantly at first, moving to the music, enchanted by Klaus’ goofy charm. The song fades. Something slower begins to play. Valkyrie captures Klaus by the collar and pulls him in close. Her rich brown eyes search his green ones.

“I’d like to take you home and….,"she reaches down and wraps her hand firmly around the bulge in his pants. He shudders in anticipation. Valkyrie tosses some money on the bar and heads for the door, pulling Klaus behind her.

“Don’t wait up,” he announces to no one in particular.

Valkyrie takes Klaus back to her modest cottage not far from the rocky shore. They stand at the foot of her bed. She removes her vest, then starts working on his belt.

“Your majest- um, Val?…I love the fisherman gear: puffy vest, rubber boots, cable knit sweater…it’s hot, but I was wondering if you had anything tighter…perhaps made of leather?” He bites his finger, anxiously awaiting her response.

Valkyrie narrows her eyes at him. “Alright, pretty boy, but be careful what you wish for.” She disappears into the closet and emerges wearing her armor. Klaus’ jaw drops.

“Does this excite you?” She rips open his shirt to feel his heart.

His breath catches in his throat. “Y-you didn’t mention it had a cape!”

Val kisses his neck and whispers sensuously in his ear, “I also have a pegasus.”

“Oh dear god.” His eyes fall shut and his head rolls back.

“Enough talk.” She rips off the rest of his clothes. “Down on the bed.”

Klaus lays down facing her. He watches her lustful eyes roving his body’s topography, but then her expression snaps back to one of severity. “Roll over,” she says. His face lights up. He rolls onto his stomach with his face in the pillow. Val slaps his tight little ass. “Mmm…,” Klaus relishes the sting. Val soothes his sensitive pink cheek with a caress. Klaus lifts his pelvis up to make room for his stiffened cock.

Val reaches under the bed for one of her toys. This one has Klaus’ name on it. She turns it on. Klaus immediately recognizes that sound. He perks up and practically wiggles with excitement. She glides the toy over his ass. His skin has goosebumps. She pauses to put a bit of lube on the tip then she uses it to stimulate his tight little hole. “Oh!,” he shudders at the sensation. “Are you ready for me, pretty boy?”

“Yes.” He is breathless. The waiting is so hard. She slowly inserts the toy. Klaus whimpers and groans until she is fully inside him. She increases the vibration. “Ah,”. Klaus pushes back against her hand. She pulls him by the hair so she can see his face while she fucks him. His face is twisted in pleasure and pain, only seconds from release. She turns off the toy, takes it out. “Don’t you come until I tell you to.” She scolds. “Only good boys get to come.”

“Oh, I promise to be a good boy. I do.”

She pulls off her armor and lies back with her head resting high on a stack of pillows. “Shut up and satisfy me with that pretty mouth.”

“It would be my pleasure, your majesty…For Asgard!.” He dives between her legs to devour her. His tongue glides over her clit, back and forth. His lips wrap around her most sensitive flesh to suckle her throbbing bundle of nerves. He sinks two fingers inside her. She moans, grabbing the back of his head. He takes the encouragement and focuses his movements. She comes in spectacular fashion, crying out and squeezing his head between her muscular thighs. He rises with traces of her essence on his chin. “Was I a good boy?”

“A very good boy.” She flips him over on his back and takes his cock in her hand. She pumps it a few times until it is fully erect. Her other hand slides over his smooth chest up to his neck. She looks into his eyes to gage his reaction. He whimpers and bites his lip, his sparkling green eyes pleading. Her fingers wrap tighter around his throat, squeezing with light pressure. Then she straddles him, sliding her slick pussy over the tip of his cock. He groans and bucks his pelvis. “Not yet, pretty boy. It’s sweeter if you suffer.”

She kisses him, drawing his bottom lip into her mouth and biting it gently. Then she rakes her teeth over his nipple. First one and then the other.

Klaus’ eyes roll back in his head. “Fuck,” he rasps.

Her hand grips tighter around his throat and the other rests against his chest as she lowers herself onto his cock. She bucks forward, slowly at first then picks up speed, her little tits bouncing as she rides. Klaus is in ecstasy, looking up at her in awe. Her brown skin glistens with the sweat of her labor. She leans into her climax, moaning and spasming with her eyes shut tight. When she regains control, she can see that Klaus is about to come, so she climbs off and grabs his wet cock. “Now, pretty boy. I want to watch you come.” She pumps him until he gushes over her hand and makes a mess of himself.

Her whole demeanor changes. She kisses him tenderly then runs off to the bathroom, returning with a warm damp hand towel and a dry one. He smiles up at her, cleaning himself off. She smiles back. “Looks like we manage rather well together, don’t we?”

“You are a goddess.”

Valkyrie laughs.

“What? What did I say?”

“Do remember us when you go back, will you?” She sits next to him nuzzling his ear.

“That’s the thing. I don’t know how to get back. In fact, I’m not a hundred percent sure how I got here.”

“You had the power all along. Just click your heels together three times. Haha! 'There’s no place like home.’”

“How can you be so cavalier? I might be stuck here!”

“Klaus, don’t be ridiculous!” She gets up, reaches into his coat, and tosses him the puzzle device.

“You’re going to have to show me how this thing works.”

“Might want to put your clothes on first.”

Master list

@elliethesuperfruitlover @miraclesoflove @bitch4bagels @bi-satanist @punknatch @ringpopdust @valkyries-for-valhalla @dandycandy75 @vinawyatt

[grailbot143]

Welcome Back Everyone!

If you would like to submit art work for this week’s episode please do so before Friday when I will post the recap and update the Master List. Just click here to submit! If you would like to ask me anything or comment on my commentary. . . all asks are screened for spoilers. Just click here to send an ask

Yeah. . . I'm not even gonna briefcap that

What did we learn?

I'm not interested in watching Uncle Grandpa

Steven can summon his shield when he wants to protect his family

Amethyst looks uber cool in them sunglasses

** And So On To The List Of Lists **

Consolidated lingering Questions

The Gems:

Where do they come from? I now know they are not from Earth, they are from somewhere in spaceHomeworld, further away than our ocean can get in a 30 foot (10ish meters) diameter cylinder from the ocean floor.

How is power derived from them?

What about the gemmed enemies? the monsters used to be humanoid, how does that work, why??

What are Amethyst's unique Powers? Ball-rolling. Fire attack? Uses shapeshifting more.

During Ocean Gem it is mentioned by Lapis Lazuli that the only thing the Crystal Gems care about is Earth, but Pearl showed her complete disdain for humans on multiple occasions particularly Keep Beach City Weird where she said humans were insignificant. . . . so what about Earth do they care about so much? Pearl, at the very least, doesn't care about humans or Earth. She's only here because she was following Rose. Amethyst was born here.

What’s the deal with Amethyst’s strange relationship with gravity? seriously, did this just go away?

Who all can fuse? Pearl and Amethyst = Opal and Amethyst and Garnet = Sugilite and Garnet and Amethyst and Pearl = Alexandrite and Steven and Connie = Stevonnie

How old are each of them? It’s suggested that they’re centuries millennia old. Amethyst acts a bit like a teenager. Is she that much younger than Pearl? Where does Garnet fall? Pearl and Garnet are more than 5000 years old, probably much older. Why is Steven the only boy? Amethyst is around 4 to 5000 years old. Due to his dad's age and the fact that his dad is human, Steven must be less than 20. Based on his relationship with Connie, I'm gonna put his age at around 12.

How many boy gems are there everywhere?

Why did the Gems destroy the Galaxy Warp? It seemed like Pearl wanted to go home during Space Race, but she obviously can't deal with any possible relations with the other Gems in Warp Tour.

What happened between the Gems from the homeworld and the Crystal Gems? There's gotta be a HUGE backstory here. . . .

Does all that Crystal Gem vs Home Gem battle have anything to do with Rose's decision to create Steven?

The World:

Everything seems to be happening in Beach City. Are there other Gems in other towns? Like every town has a team of Crystal Gems protecting it? Or is this town some center for universal negativity, so the Gems are focused here? It seems pretty obvious that the Crystal Gems are the only ones on Earth. . . They stated no one else on Earth can use the warp pads.

Why on Earth are the Crystal Gems on Earth?

Where did Lion take Steven and Connie for training? To Rose's Armory Is that place, or a similar one, available to all gems? There's been no evidence of other Gems having similar places. Do you need a familiar to take you there? Apparently not. Pearl can take you there. How does Lion know the way? It's pretty obvious that Lion was sent to Steven by his mom. . . but still not understanding his powers and knowledge

Warp Pads. . . . Galaxy Warp. How did the Galaxy warp get here? Why is it here? Why is it broken? The Galaxy Warp is the only warp pad on Earth that leads off Earth. So it's obvious why it is here. I'm thinking the Crystal Gems broke the Galaxy Warp to avoid dealings with the other Gems. . . BUT WHY?

The House on the Beach:

This is more a curiosity, but I wouldn’t mind seeing the fight that took off that statue’s hands. I bet it involved Sugilite.

What is up with the living temple inside the house? Beating hearts, waterfalls, a pool for getting rid of evil spirits, a holodeck run by the imagination, dimensional shenanigans. Need much more history and understanding here.

Townies:

What’s up with Onion and his dad? Are they from some other planet?

Why would you make a place called Fish Stew Pizza?

What would make one believe a potato can provide protection from a multi-dimensional being. .. . also, are the Gems multi-dimensional? I don't see that.

Rose Quartz:

Why does Rose have to die to give Steven his superpowers?

Is Rose even dead? _pretty sure this is answered_ (-doubts-)

What would make her choose that? a prophesy? desire to give Greg a kid? gonna die anyway?

Did she give up her gem to HAVE a kid or to IMBUE a kid with the gem? My current theory is that the gem is a being that creates a physical form, and that Rose stopped being Rose in order to be Steven (sorta) as I think Rose is still part of the gem (not dead). So essentially Rose's physical form is gone, replaced by Steven's physical form.

Would removing the gem from Steven give Rose back her form, leaving Steven as a common human 12-year-old?

Lion:

What all does Lion know? How did he get his powers? He's a creation of Rose's, so she gave him his powers. He might even still be connected to her somehow.

Characters

The Crystal Gems

Pearl

Garnet

Amethyst

(dead?) Rose Quartz

Steven

Other Gems

Lapis Lazuli

Peridot

Fusions

Opal

Sugilite

Alexandrite

Stevonnie

The Townsfolk & Other Humans

Sadie

Lars

FryMan

PeeDee Fryman

Ronaldo Fryman

Greg

Mailman

Barb (not seen)

Nanafua Pizza

Kofi Pizza

Jenny Pizza

Kiki Pizza

Sour Cream

Buck Dewey

Onion

Onion’s Dad

Mr. Smiley

Suitcase Sam?

Mayor Dewey

Connie

Connie's Mom (Dr)

Connie's Dad (Security Guard)

Kevin

The Mayor's 2 bodyguards

Monsters/Creatures

Centipeedles and their mother

Red Eye

(offscreen) A giant bird with a giant polka-dot egg

The Spirit from the painting that possessed Together Breakfast

The Crystal Shrimp

(deceased) Frybo

Steven with Cats

The Eel that liked shiny stuff

Lion

Starfish Drills and their MOM?

Giant Bird from Giant Woman

The Geode Beetles of Heaven and Earth

The carnivorous moss that turns into beautiful flowers

Holo-Pearl

Training Robot from the cavern

Blow/Pufferfish

Blood Polyp (offscreen)

Ice Monster

Gem Shard Animated Body Parts

Invisible Monster

Sneople

Watermelon Stevens

Dogcopter

Peridot's Robots

Bees (They're magic!)

The lighthouse

Prop Bats

Scarecrows

Peridot's bigger robots

The Wind Lizard

Places

Around Town

Big Donut

Beach City Walk Fries

Funland Arcade

the boardwalk

Fish Stew Pizza

Greg’s van

It’s A Wash

the storage facility

the Crystal Gem’s house on the beach

Suitcase Sam’s T-Shirt store

Funland

Dock

Warehouse (Wrestling Arena, Rave, and Mayor Dewey's Campaign HQ)

Movie Theatre (in town?)

Pearl’s favorite tree (deceased)

Under the Ocean

Lars’ House

The Lighthouse

Greg's Aunt and Uncle's Barn

Crab the Shack

Beanch City

Mystical

The Temple with a beating heart

the storage unit? Greg said it was magical

(destroyed) The Lunar Sea Spire

Warp pad in Steven’s living room

The Training Cavern

Upside down Pyramid in the Strawberry Fields

Sand Castles that the Dessert Glass built

The cave in Arcade Mania

The Sky Spire

The Lava place where Garnet retrieved the Geode Beetle of Earth

Deadman’s Mouth

The cloud/Pillar place in Steven The Sword Fighter

Rose’s Room

The Communications Hub

The underwater place the Glass of Time was in

The ice cavern the Shooting Star was in

Rose’s Fountain

The Geode

Galaxy Warp

Tropical Island of Geodes

Inside Lion's Mane

The Kindergarten

Warp Stream

Kindergarten Basement

Other

Space

The Pollen Field Flower Fields

The Train

Connie's House

Things

Gems

Rose Quartz

2 Garnets

Amethyst

Pearl

Centipeedles’ Mothers gem

(pants animating) Gem Shards

(maybe? pretty sure) The Lunar Goddess Statue

Eel’s Gem

Gem from Upside Down Pyramid

Dessert Glass

Starfish Mother Gem

The ROC in Giant Woman

Blowfish Gem

Ice Monster from Monster Buddies

Lapis Lazuli

(Animated Body Part) Gem Shards

Invisible Monster Gem

Unknown Gem from Garnet's Universe

Mr. Gusite (This is only thing I'll include from that episode)

Mystical Items

Summoned Weapons

Laser Light Cannon

Red Eye?

Lunar Goddess Statue

Cursed Painting

Replicator Wand (destroyed)

Button in the Cavern (and all that stuff)

Fire Salt

Glass of Time

Shooting Star

The Mirror

Warp Whistle

Warp Pads

The Protective Potato (according to Ronaldo)

Wailing Stone

Food (as it’s seemingly important to our little hero)

(discontinued) Cookie Cats

Lion Lickers

Fry Bits (Cat Fingers enjoy this too)

Hot Dogs (you wouldn't have them if all Pork Chops were perfect)

Together Breakfast

(offscreen) Pizza

(unmentioned) Cupcakes in jars

(not food) Cheeseburger backpack

Donuts

Fish Stew Pizza <-- Be sure to join the rewards program!

Giant Strawberries

Margarine to slick hair back

Sodas that he threw all over the place in Tiger Millionaire

Coconuts Sandwich Cereal (Arcade Mania)

Steven (for the bird in Giant Woman)

Cake

Aqua Mexico Burrito

Cream Pies (more a prop than food)

Bag of Chips

Burger for Onion’s Dad

Seagull’s banana peel and pizza

Cheeseburger Backpack full of snacks for the movie

Popcorn

Burgers (with a ridiculous amount of buns, lettuce, and silverware)

Creamed Corn

Cloud Donuts

Cloud Fry Bits

Fire Salt

“Special” Fries

Fire Donut

Kamikaze (directly in his mouth)

CHAAAPS

Mi Torta

Durian Juice

Sandwiches

Blow torch Grilled Cheese

Crying Breakfast Friends

Fish (caught by Sadie, Cooked by Lars)

Potatoes

Bread Sticks (Crab the Shack)

Shrimp (Crab the Shack)

Ringo's Onion Rings

Watermelon

Sadie's Lunch Bags

Sandwiches, cut into triangles (the only way a sandwich should be)

Star Shaped Cookie (you could say they're out of this world)

Chess piece for Dogcoptor in Steven's dream

Macaroni 'n nothing

Cheese packet

Moldy Sponges (Amethyst. . . 'nuff said)

Coffee ( how is this so far down on the list? Garnet drinks it for breakfast. . . )

Jar of Mayo sandwich. . . knives are good.

Packed in the bindle

Marshmallows (BONE MARROW)

Breakfast Only Breakfast Specials (hashbrowns)

Rebel Turkey Legs

Caprese Salad

Media

Let Me Drive My Van (Into Your Heart)

Lonely Blade

Dogcopter 3

Golf Quest

Crying Breakfast Friends

Training Video

Keep Beach City Weird

Under The Knife

For Steven

Citchen Calamity

Ninja Squad

New Ninja Squad

No Home Boys

Evil Bear 2: Bearly Alive (Come scream with me tonight.) (Uncut Version)

Li'l Butler

Passions of Xanxor

Unfamiliar Familiar series

Other

Guitar Dad T-Shirt

Vote 4 My Dad T-Shirt

T-Shirt Cannon

Likes and Dislikes So Far

Dislikes

Not a fan of the important role junk food plays in the show not as prevalent as it was before

I don’t relate to Steven much. He mostly annoys me. He's getting a bit more lovable. . . now it's Pearl that just really rubs me the wrong way (Probably because she thinks humans are insignificant).

Why is there not a main antagonist? Possibly Peridot or Homeworld Gems

Season 1: Episode 5 Frybo

Season 1: Episode 6 Cat Fingers

Season 1: Episode 18 Beach Party

Season 1: Episode 27 House Guest

Season 1: Episode 32 Fusion Cuisine

Season 1: Episode 48 Say Uncle

Likes

I like that all the answers to everything are not conveniently packaged in a single episode

I like Garnet…

and sometimes Amethyst…

Steven's constant struggle to figure out how to fit into his place in the Gems and complete lack of struggle to feel right at home with the humans. . .

I like Greg and his super awesome van

I like that it seemed like we landed in the middle of a life, rather than the beginning of a story… this continues to be true through every episode.

I like most of the townspeople and their relationships with Steven

I like Connie a lot. She is funny and smart and a perfect non-super for the story.

I like arcade games…

I like that there are so many details in the background like everywhere…

and it’s obvious the creators are nerds

I like Sour Cream

I like the representation of emotions related to motherhood that each of the Gems go through in their own ways.

I like that the makers of the show know what customer service is like. Either that or they have really disturbing imaginations.

I like that the show encourages people to think critically and discuss large questions.

I like that there is a whole dark seedy side that I’m only just peeking into.

Shh. . . Don't tell anyone. . . I also like Peridot       She seems like a misunderstood geek girl       just saying

I just want to remind everyone, I write these recaps after having only seen the episode once, a week ago, and often interrupted by my whole blogging thing. I mainly do it for myself to refresh my memory for the next episode, but since I post it, I thought I should ask your forgiveness if it isn’t exactly perfect (or even close). Don’t forget if you have a submission for artwork for today’s episode, submit before Friday using the link above, and I’ll pick one to use as the cover art.

[stahlop]

Once Upon a Time 2x13 “Tiny” Review

Reviews 1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07 1x08 1x09 1x10 1x11 1x12 1x13 1x14 1x15 1x16 1x17 1x18 1x19 1x20 1x21 1x22 2x01 2x02 2x03 2x04 2x05 2x06 2x07 2x08 2x09 2x10 2x11 2x12

This was a cute episode. I wouldn’t say it was of the caliber of the rest of the season. More like some filler and a little bit of exposition for something bigger looming on the horizon. We did find out that Jack was short for Jacqueline and that James was as much of a bastard as his father. We also find out David’s cursed name is his actual real name. We also now have confirmation that Greg lied to Emma about not seeing anything (I wonder why her superpower didn’t catch that).

Summary: Prince James and Jack befriend Anton when he goes down the beanstalk to find out how friendly humans really are with dire consequences. Emma, Henry, and Gold head to NYC, while Anton wreaks havoc in Storybrooke after Hook reveals that Cora brought him along (shrunken for traveling). 

Opening: Giant pulling a tree out of the ground.

New Character Observations:

Jack: The fabled giant slayer, who is usually a young boy, but in this iteration is a buxom woman who is sleeping with Prince James, but also an accomplished monster slayer (as she has apparently killed a Jabberwock). She and Prince James pretend to be Anton’s friend, but really they just want to attack the giants, steal their gold, and take their beans. She is killed by Arlo.

Character Observations:

Anton/Tiny (SB): Contrary to what we were told in Tallahassee, Anton is not the meanest and the fiercest of the giants. He is actually the runt of all his brothers. He is constantly made fun of for his stature (they call him Tiny), and for dreaming about going to make friends with humans. His brother, Arlo, reminds him that humans took their beans and used them to conquer far away realms, which is why they stopped trading the beans with them. Anton is determined to prove that not all humans are like this (he says that just because a few went conquering doesn’t make them all evil, very contradictory to his thinking the last time we saw him,) so he goes down the beanstalk to meet some. He looks into a tavern and is stopped by James and Jack. Anton tells them he’s always been fascinated by their customs and James and Jack (who just happens to have part of a magic mushroom to make him human-sized) offer to show him around. Anton complains about his family to James and Jack who make it sound like they are abusive to him. At first Anton disagrees, but then realizes they are horrible to him. James tells him sometimes you have to leave home to find the people you’re meant to be with (damn he’s laying it on thick). And poor Anton is eating it up with a spoon, having never been appreciated by his own family.  Anton notices James arguing with someone and Jack tells him the kingdom is broke, but she does it in a way that makes him sound really noble about it. Which makes Anton want to help. Jack suggests magic beans, but Anton is smart enough to not reveal he has those. He does say he has gold he can give them though. Jack kisses his cheek and calls Anton her hero, which is something he’s never been called before. Anton goes to get gold for James and Arlo is in shock that he went down to the human world. Anton insists they’re nice and he’s made friends. But then the sentry birds take off and Anton wonders if he made a mistake. James and Jack are up at the top and Anton says he has the gold for them, but James says they’re there for the beans. Anton is confused, he thought they were friends. Jack sets him straight and says they’ll kill everyone if they don’t bring them to the beans. The giants are being attacked by some kind of army? There’s some kind of fireball in the sky (are they catapulting flaming rocks or something). Anton blames himself for trusting James and Jack. Arlo tells him to raze the fields to get rid of the beans so the humans can’t take them. Arlo goes down after Jack stabs him with her poisoned sword. He dispenses some life advice to Anton about knowing what path to choose, and then gives him a cutting from one of the bean plants, letting him know that he’ll find the right place to plant it and then they’ll have beans again.

Which is apparently Storybrooke! Anton (or Tiny as I’ll be calling him) is shrunk down and has been brought over on Hook’s ship in a cage. Hook just happens to have the key to the cage, so David, Mary Margaret, and Leroy get him out. But Tiny takes one look at David and freaks out. He knocks him and Leroy to the bottom part of the ship before Mary Margaret threatens him with her arrows. Tiny runs off telling David that he’ll pay for what he did. Tiny is at the lake when Regina comes upon him. He threatens to kill her, but she just laughs. She hands him a piece of mushroom that will make him bigger. Tiny is now in town throwing cars around and causing general mayhem. Tiny runs across David and tells him he’s going to destroy everything like he destroyed everything for him. David explains that it was his twin brother, James, that did that. Not him. Tiny wants to know where James is; David tells him he’s dead. Mary Margaret lets him know that Emma is their daughter. He wants to talk to her so she can confirm, but, of course, she’s out of town, so Tiny doesn’t believe anything they’re saying. Rampaging starts again. And then the funniest scene ever; while David and Leroy discuss David’s name, Tiny is chasing after them and runs into the power lines and doesn’t know how to get out of them. When he catches up to them later he ducks under them, because he’s learned. David makes a deal to sacrifice himself to save all of Storybrooke, and Tiny apparently decides he’s going to jump and stomp on David, but ends up busting straight through the ground, and then he conveniently turns small again. David, Mary Margaret, and Leroy see him hanging from a pipe that is running through there. Despite the fact that Tiny just partially destroyed their town, the whole town comes to help rescue him. When David reaches him Tiny thinks maybe death would be better than life, but David tells him he would’ve let go already if that were the case. He takes David’s hand and they rescue him. The town goes to Granny’s and Leroy tells Tiny he can stay there until they find him a place. Tiny thinks he should just go stay in the woods because he usually doesn’t fit in well. Leroy lets him know what types of people they have in town, and that he’ll fit in just fine. Mary Margaret says they all miss their land, but they’re stuck there. Tiny shows them the bean sprout and says he may have a way (but didn’t it take 100 years to grow the last crop?). They find a field and Tiny says it should grow the beans fine. But Cora wanted him in Storybrooke to grow beans. Leroy says the dwarfs will protect the crop and work on cultivating them (work is work, it’s what we do he says). They give him a pick axe and the name Tiny appears on it. Leroy welcomes him into the dwarf brotherhood. Tiny has found a new family.

James: Well, we get to see what kind of an ass James really is. We didn’t really see much of him previously. Just that he was an expert swordsman, but it seems he really does have George’s temperament. He goes after Anton specifically to rob him and most likely murder him, while acting like the nicest person in the world. He has no morals about what he’s doing to Anton and then, when Jack gets hurt, all he cares about is taking off with the treasure and running his kingdom. Too bad karma will get him in the end.

David/Mary Margaret: We start with David politely asking Gold to take care of Emma and Henry while they’re out of town. Gold promises no harm will befall his family and reminds him that they have a deal anyway. David comes out later wearing a gun holster. He mentions missing his sword, Mary Margaret thinks he looks hot with the holster (I kind of agree). They are heading out to find Regina, but she is at their door when they open it. They explain to Regina that Cora framed her and that they are truly sorry for not believing her. Regina wants to see Henry to ‘protect’ him from Cora, but they inform her that he left with Emma and Gold. Mary Margaret reminds Regina that they didn’t know where she was, but she also gets a little snarky by saying that Emma doesn’t have to run anything by her concerning Henry. Please see observations below for my rant about that. Since Regina has now been found and informed, they go to Hook to get information about Cora. Hook continues to piss David off by flirting with Mary Margaret. Hook claims that Cora won’t be there, but David’s convinced there will be something on the ship that will help them find her whereabouts. Hook shows them the giant in a box. He gives them the key when David starts to strangle him and then leaves (Hook knows what’s up with that giant). Mary Margaret tries to calmly let Tiny know he’s safe, but he sees David and freaks. Later on, David realizes that Tiny must think he is James. David tries to get all the townspeople to the town hall while he and Mary Margaret try to talk to Tiny. David goes to talk to Tiny, much to Mary Margaret’s consternation. David explains that Tiny is mad at his twin brother, James, who is now dead, and Mary Margaret tells him they just want to help. They bring up that Emma is their daughter, but Tiny wants to talk to her, which he can’t since she’s out of town with Gold. This makes Tiny madder because James is dead and Emma isn’t available. Leroy questions David about his name. He’s still confused by the end even though David makes it quite clear that his EF name was David as well as his cursed name. They try to lead Tiny away from the town but then realize that will get him to the town line and they can’t unleash him into the real world.David decides to give Tiny what he wants to save the town, himself. Which somehow leads Tiny to making a huge hole in the street that at first he is stuck in, and then he shrinks and is holding on to dear life in. David and the town rescue him and Tiny realizes humans aren’t so bad. When he shows then the bean sprout, David is elated, but Mary Margaret isn’t so cool about it (probably thinking how that will spark another argument between them eventually like last time). David contemplates what would have happened if he had been raised by King George instead of James. Ah, the age old questions of nature vs. nurture. But Mary Margaret thinks that their hearts were different enough that David wouldn’t have succumbed to evil like James did. Okay, Mary Margaret, whatever. There is no way you could know that. Mary Margaret changes the topic to say that she had a lot of fun and missed their old adventures. David brings up the beans again and how they could do this all the time if they went back to the EF. Mary Margaret tells him that home is where their family is, and that’s right here in Storybrooke. She doesn’t think Emma would go to the EF and she won’t be separated from her again. David figures that Mary Margaret is worried about Emma with Gold. He points out that Emma can take care of herself. I don’t think that puts Mary Margaret at ease.

Gold: He is still in total asshole mode when he goes to pick up Emma, especially when she informs him that she is bringing Henry along. He says the deal is only with her, but Emma refuses to leave Henry with Cora hanging around. Gold thinks David is trying to threaten him about his family and mocks him about not being able to cross the town line, but David just wants Gold to protect his family.  Gold gets it and promises no harm will come to them. Gold is driving them across the town line and hopes that his potion still works. Seems a little late to be thinking about that as they’re driving over the line. It works and they’re on their way to Logan International Airport. Once at the airport, Gold seems very vulnerable. Henry mentions that it must be hard to be like everyone else and not be able to use magic (in front of the whole security line, way to be discreet, kid), and Gold is definitely feeling strange about all this. Emma informs him he has to put his shoes and shawl in the security bin and he gets a little scared because he might revert without the shawl on. He threatens another passenger who’s basically mad because he’s holding up the line. Emma assures him her father is just nervous. Gold is not happy that she referred to him as her father. I mean, he’s old enough, I don’t know why he’s taking such offense to that, unless it’s just Emma in general he’s opposed to. He takes off the shawl and starts feeling woozy. They also make him put his cane through, which I find odd since he needs it to walk, but I guess they have to make sure it’s not carrying anything inside. The second he gets his shawl back on feels better. But Gold did not like the feeling that he had without the shawl. Gold is pacing in front of Emma and Henry waiting for the plane and he is not in a good place. After Emma asks him if he’s okay too many times, he heads to the public restroom. He’s taking a long, hard look at himself in the mirror and doesn’t seem to like what he’s seeing. Maybe he’s seeing the coward from centuries ago. Maybe he’s seeing the man Belle doesn’t recognize anymore. Either way, he’s frustrated, and he takes it out on a toilet seat cover holder. He tries to heal himself but nothing happens, as is to be expected in the Land Without Magic, but he’s still a little unnerved about it. On the plane, Gold is gripping the seat rests. Emma tells him they’ll find his son to make him feel better. Gold says he knows, but looks like he is scared out of his mind.

Regina: So she’s completely reverted, just making the town think she’s still trying to change. I guess once Henry’s away the Evil Queen comes out to play. I do wonder if when she comes to  Mary Margaret and David’s at the beginning of the episode if she really was trying to make amends and convince them that she was framed, or if the whole thing was an act. It almost felt like once she found out Henry was gone and Mary Margaret was so condescending to her, that old Regina came out to play. I mean, did Mary Margaret really need to antagonize her like that? Should you really try and antagonize the Evil Queen when she’s just been told her mother tried to frame her? It’s like kicking someone when they’re down. Anyway, we next see Regina when Hook tries to summon Cora. She appears instead and reminds him that he was supposed to kill her mother. She tells him he’s lucky that they’ve reconciled. Regina, acting as Cora’s proxy, wants to know if David and Mary Margaret found the ship and if Hook got Cora’s things off it. Hook informs her she’s been tied up in bed and not in the good way. He does inform Regina that a shrunken giant got loose and wants to murder David. Regina thinks she can work with that. She finds Tiny at the lake and offers him her help. He threatens to kill her but she just laughs. Way to make a shrunken giant feel good about themselves, Regina. She’s talking to him as if they’re just having a conversation about the weather or what to cook for dinner, except they’re talking about wrecking the town and killing people. It’s a little psychotic. She gives him a magic cookie that will make him giant-sized again. Regina laughs evilly as he gets bigger. She’s really embracing being evil again. Also, this is the happiest we’ve seen her since Daniel was alive. True joy on her face when Tiny became giant-sized again.

Belle/Greg/Ruby: Ruby goes to visit Belle in the hospital (complete with basket full of goodies) but Belle doesn’t remember her. She brings her some comforts from home, including a book, which doesn’t trigger anything. Ruby looks distraught that the book doesn’t help her remember. Belle wants to know if they were really friends and Ruby says they were. Belle asks about the magic Gold used, and Ruby blames it on the tranquilizers Belle’s on. Belle says she knows what she saw and that her name isn’t Belle. The nurse gives her a sedative and Ruby is upset to see her friend like this. So, they aren’t trying to acclimate her to the town, just pretend that it’s a normal town? I’m pretty sure Sneezy just thinks the other dwarfs are crazy but they still talk about everything in front of him. Greg witnesses the tale end of this and asks if everything is okay. Ruby says it is and asks how he’s doing. He says he’s mending. Then she puts on the most saccharine smile and attitude to tell him that he needs to finish healing so he can get out of their quiet little town. Because that doesn’t scream that they’re hiding something and they don’t want you to find out what. Greg goes to visit Belle later after her sedative has worn off to tell her he overheard her conversation. Belle thinks he’s there to tell her she’s crazy, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t think she’s crazy because he saw the magic fireball too!

Questions:

Why is Gold afraid the shawl won’t work? He’s already tested it. Does he think the potion will wear off? Also, why would he be driving the car if he’s afraid he might forget?

Why is Gold, not Emma, driving to the Boston airport? Gold has never been out of Storybrooke. Wouldn’t it make more sense for Emma to drive?

Why are Gold, Emma, and Henry driving to the airport in Boston and not Portland, ME? Boston is a 4 hour trip (as stated in previous episodes), which means Storybrooke has to be situated somewhere near Orland, ME (3 hrs and 54 mins from Boston according to Google, yes I mapped this out). They are adding an extra 1 hr and 45 mins to drive to Boston instead of going to the Portland airport.

Anton raises a good question: Why grow the beans if no one uses them?

How have humans never seen the beanstalk? It’s not as though it’s hidden or hard to see.

How is Greg up and about when he had surgery on his chest just that night? This is only the next day.

What are James and Jack doing in that tavern to begin with? Are princes usually hanging out with women in taverns?

When was James supposed to tell Anton about his kingdom being broke? Jack has been with him the whole time.

Are James and Jack the only humans that came up the beanstalk? How have the other giants fallen? There’s no one else there?

How does one grow things in a land up in the clouds?

Why does Cora want beans? To get back to the Enchanted Forest? To get back to Wonderland?

Observations:

Gold mentions the deal that he and David made in We are Both where they promised that they wouldn’t interfere in each others lives.

The town line that Gold, Emma, and Henry drive over is not the same one Gold and Belle were at the previous night.

Mary Margaret mentions that Emma doesn’t have to run anything by Regina regarding Henry. Technically, Regina is Henry’s legal parent. She adopted him, which means she is his legal guardian. Emma may be his birth mother, but (as Regina reminded her plenty last season), she has no rights to him. The fact that Emma just took Henry over state lines would get her arrested anywhere else. Especially because she doesn’t have any written documentation with Regina’s permission. She’s basically kidnapped Henry. And considering Henry brought it up to Emma last year in the Pilot when she threatened to turn him over to the police, Emma should know better. Just because they don’t like Regina doesn’t mean Emma, Mary Margaret, and David can do whatever they want with Henry.

The Jolly Roger is made from enchanted wood.

Ruby gives Belle a copy of Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island which is the same book Mary Margaret was reading in 7:15 AM.

Arlo mentions that it has taken a century for the beans to be ready to harvest.

How convenient that Jack has a magic mushroom that she keeps on her person for when they meet Anton.

Hook goes to summon Cora with a Queen of Hearts playing card.

James does the same sword twist that David does.

It looks as though Tiny busted through into the underground mines/caverns since there is a never ending looking hole underneath him.

I’m pretty sure dwarfs and giants are related. They both call each brother, they have no females, and they’re made to work (dwarfs mining fairy dust, giants cultivating magic beans). Plus, the dwarf axe gives Tiny a name, which Leroy points out only happens for dwarfs.

So, Emma, Henry, and Gold are heading to NYC where we know Neal is living. So, most likely they’ll run into him. Greg and Belle both saw magic and now know it’s being covered up. Regina is evil again, and Tiny is an honorary dwarf.

Please leave comments and reblog! Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future reviews.

@searchingwardrobes​​​ @thisonesatellite​​​ @justbecauseyoubelievesomething​​​ @laschatzi​​​ @profdanglaisstuff​​​ @mariakov81​

[timelordthirteen]

The Don’t Fall in Love Job 5/?

Mr. Gold/Lacey French, Explicit overall

Summary: Con artist Lacey never planned on staying in Storybrooke, just long enough to let the heat cool off in Boston from her last job. She also never planned on falling in love with the town’s eccentric pawn broker, Mr. Gold, but here she is living a life built on nothing but lies. Well, almost nothing… This is what happens after it all falls apart.

Chapter Summary: Lacey runs out of options and makes a tough choice, and Gold gets a surprise.

Notes: Sorry it took so long for this update. This chapter is a little rough in the beginning because Lacey is going through some shit right now, but all will be well. Please heed the updated tags and the warning below.

Warnings: Pregnancy, Unplanned pregnancy, Abortion references

[AO3]

Present Day…

The afternoon was gray and hazy with a light, misty rain that didn’t fall so much as hang in the air and wait for you to walk into it.

Lacey ran a hand through her hair, frowning at the dampness that came away on her palm, and then wiped it on her jeans as she crossed the street. She took a deep breath, grateful to be out of the sterile smell of the clinic. The lingering scent of disinfectant and the harsh fluorescent lights had combined into a vague throbbing in her temples. They’d offered her pamphlets and given her forms to fill out, poked and measured, but none of it really made a difference.

The nurse’s words kept repeating in her head. “You have choices, sweetie.”

Except she didn’t. She couldn’t got forward or backward, not while this was happening to her. There was some jewelry left from that thing down in Baltimore, the incident she’d come to Boston to get away from, but after that there would be nothing. It was a stash for an even rainier day than the one that had driven her to Storybrooke, but for once in her fucked up life, Lacey was out of options.

A woman pushing a stroller passed by her, and she looked away. Her mind kept trying to block out what was happening, the swelling in her lower abdomen that made her jeans fit tight, and the tiny blob of tissue inside that was making her feel a kind of bone deep exhaustion she’d never known existed. A wave of nausea made her stumble up the curb, and she closed her eyes as she paused by the bus shelter, leaning on it for support as she breathed out slowly and fought to keep down the cereal she’d forced herself to eat before her appointment.

Someone asked her if she was okay, but she waved them off and started walking again. She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket, squeezing the small blister pack against the creases of her fingers. Her life was no place for a child, and there was little doubt that she’d been a terrible parent on top of it. Her mother had died when she was ten, and her father was more of an example of what not to do than anything else. She wouldn’t even be in this situation if it wasn’t for Moe French.

“Remember to smile and look cute, Izzy.”

The nausea returned, twisting like a knot in her belly, and she picked up the pace of her steps. Two small white pills and all this would be over.

The water was blissfully cold, and Lacey scooped more with her hands, letting it run over her wrists and palms before splashing it against her face.

She leaned down and slurped some of it into her mouth, swishing a few seconds before spitting it out. Her tongue felt thick and dry, and her throat stung from both the harsh stomach acid and the violent retching. She’d barely made it in the door of her temporary apartment before she lost every last Cheerio.

The faucet squeaked as she turned it off, and she straightened with a heavy sigh. Everything hurt and her body felt heavy with fatigue. How anyone could be expected to put up with forty weeks of this shit she’d never know, and it gave her even more respect for the ones who did. She eased herself down to the floor and leaned against the tile wall, letting the cold seep through her clothes and soothe the feverish tingle that always plagued her after she was sick. Her jeans pressed painfully against her stomach and she popped the button with an exhale of relief. In just a short time her lower belly had swollen; not so much that anyone could tell what was happening to her, but enough for her favorite skinny jeans to be uncomfortable.

Her head lolled to the side, her eyes catching the small pill pack on the floor. She’d dropped it when she’d come running into the bathroom. Now it was across the floor next to the shower, sitting next to some weird stain she’d been ignoring. That was her life; dingy apartments, dodging the law, and nothing to offer a child. She should have already taken the pills, and she stretched across the floor, ignoring the stinging her eyes.

As soon as she moved, a stabbing pain lanced across her body from above her right hip to the center of her abdomen, settling beneath her navel. Her eyes closed as she rolled back and pushed herself up against the wall, letting out a low groan. Breathing steadily, in and out, the pain eventually receded, and she looked down at herself, running a hand back and forth over her side. The pills lay just to her left, in easy reach. She could take them anytime in the next couple of days, anytime she was ready. Maybe this pain was a sign, maybe the problem would take care of itself without her having to do anything.

Maybe…

Lacey sniffed loudly and pushed to her feet, letting her loosened jeans fall down before she wriggled them over her hips and kicked them off. She snatched up the pills, setting them next to the sink before she moved into the bedroom. Her hand idly rubbed at her belly.

Even though she would be a hot mess as a mother, Gold would probably be a decent father. He’d had a son before, and even though their relationship wasn’t as close as he might have liked, they still kept in touch. The love in his voice whenever he spoke about Neal made her hate her own father even more. She doubted Moe ever talked about anything but money with so much reverence and devotion.

If only she was a better person, maybe they could have made a go of it, co-parented or something like that, swapping off every other week, meeting in the park to exchange the kid. But she wasn’t, and they weren’t.

Another twinge hit her as she sat down on the bed, and she twisted to lay on her side, her knees bent and curled up towards her chest. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes, her throat so tight she could barely breathe. The pain passed, leaving a lingering ache that she felt all the way up to her chest. It would be easy right now, while it wasn’t as real to her as it might be in a few weeks. The pills were so small, so easily swallowed, but she could wait.

Two more days, just to see what would happen. Then she’d take them.

7 months and two days ago…

“Miss Belle!”

Lacey turned at the sound of her fake name, and smiled. “Grace! How are you, sweetie? Did you find a book you like?”

Grace made a face and shook her head, turning it all the way one way and then the other in an exaggerated no.

“Why not?” Lacey went down on one knee, bringing herself to Grace’s level. “Have you read everything already?”

That earned her a smile and a soft giggle. The girl could be sensitive and stubborn when things weren’t going her way, but she was a very bright child, and Lacey suspected that much of her angst came from frustration at the adults and other children around her. Her father, Jefferson, was a very eccentric man, and a good friend of Gold’s. Lacey had only met him once, but he seemed charming and sweet, and very devoted to his daughter.

“All the books about superpowers have boys in them,” she groused, her head flopping back as she huffed. “And I don’t want another story about princesses.”

Lacey bit back a smile. “I see.” She tapped her lip with her finger, and then looked over at the circulation desk where a stack of newly returned books was sitting. “You know I might have something you’d like…”

Grace’s head tilted, and Lacey took her by the hand, leading her over to the desk. At the same time, the library door opened, and Mr. Gold stepped through the door. He paused with his cane planted in front of him and looked around the space before his eyes settled on her. Her breath caught the second she felt the weight of his gaze. Sunlight streamed in behind him, and she blinked as he started towards her.

They hadn’t spoken since two days prior when she’d dashed into his shop to escape a rainstorm and they’d fucked in the back. Her legs pressed together as she licked her lips, her body recalling how good he’d felt inside her, and how ready it was to do it again.

“Miss Belle?”

Grace tugged on the hem of Lacey’s cardigan, and she looked away from Gold, giving herself a shake as she focused back on the little girl.

“Yes, sorry,” she said, flipping through the first few books on the stack. “Here it is!”

Grace accepted the book from her and stared at the cover. “Ma - Mat - Mat-ill - dah?”

“Matilda,” Lacey said, smiling as Grace repeated the name flawlessly. “It’s about a very smart little girl, who has a super power.”

Grace looked up at her wide-eyed. “Can she fly?”

She shook her head, tossing a quick glance in Gold’s direction. He was leaning on the counter a few feet away, smiling softly as she spoke with Grace. It was unnerving.

“No, she can’t fly,” Lacey said, dropping down to Grace’s level again. “She can move things with her mind!”

Grace let out a soft gasp and gave the book’s cover another once over, her eyes moving from top to bottom over the drawing of a little girl sitting surrounded by stacks of books. “That’s cool!”

Lacey grinned. “Right? She’s so smart she can move things just by thinking about it, and she uses her power to help her teacher, Miss Honey.”

“Her teacher?”

“Mmhmm,” Lacey hummed. “Miss Honey is the only adult who sees how smart Matilda is, and she’s very sweet.” She slipped the book from Grace’s hands and flipped it around, letting her fingers trace over the cover. “This was my favorite book...”

The idea of having a super power, of being able to escape your circumstances and leave behind people who didn’t want you or love you had entranced her as a child. If only it had been that easy. A noise drew her attention, and she watched Gold crossed to the small rack of magazines by the front sitting area. He started turning it around and around, without taking any of the magazines out, and she returned her attention to the process of checking out the book.

“There you go,” she said a few minutes later, handing Grace the book. “I hope you enjoy it.”

Grace beamed at her and opened the cover to look at the stamped return date on the inside. “Thanks, Miss Belle!”

Lacey blew out a breath and watched the girl go, her fingertips running back and forth over her bottom lip.

“Do you have a minute, Miss French?”

Gold’s voice surprised her, and she jumped, nearly knocking over the stacked books. She reached out to catch them at the same time he did, and their hands slipped over each other.

“Oh - I - um, I’m sorry…”

“My fault, entirely.” He flashed a tight smile and pulled his hand back, folding it over his cane.

She met his gaze and held it, feeling her cheeks flush. “Did you need something?”

“You’re very good with her,” he said, and then nodded towards the doors. “With all the children, I imagine.”

Lacey shrugged. She wasn’t, but Belle was. “I don’t know, I just try to treat them like people.”

“Well, they do tend to grow up and become people,” he agreed. “At least in my limited experience.” She gave him a look, and he shrugged. “I have a son.”

Her eyes widened and her head tilted slightly. “What grade is he in?”

“He’s twenty-five.” Gold chuckled. “He, uh, he doesn’t live around here. He’s down in New York.”

“I see, well…” She pressed her palms to her skirt and tried to ignore the heat creeping up the back of her neck.

His grin was crooked, and he looked down for a moment, as if remembering something. “I was looking for a book...”

“Obviously.” She was grateful for the change in subject and smirked at his raised eyebrow. “Any particular one, or will this one do?”

She held up the book on top of the stack, and he wrinkled his nose at the cover. “I love trashy vampire romances as much as the next desperate housewife, but no.”

Lacey’s lips twitched as she set the book down. “Then how can I help, Mr. Gold?”

He gave her an odd look and said, “Well, I need to translate some Spanish. A fellow collector in Boston thinks he has some original writings by Neruda and we’re trying to authenticate them.”

“Ooooh!” Her eyes lit up and she came out from behind the desk to lead him back to the language section. “I’m sure there’s something here that will help, assuming the writings are legitimate.”

Her fingers ran along the shelf, eyes searching for something that might fit. She hadn’t been at this very long, but walking among the books every day had given her a sense of the job, and a familiarity with the building’s contents. After selecting something that would do the job, they went back to the desk and she started the checkout process.

She could feel his eyes roaming up and down her body as she moved, and she nearly dropped the stamper. He hadn’t said anything about their encounter, and she was starting to wonder if he was going to ignore it entirely. He leaned in as she held out the book to him, but he took hold of her wrist instead, using it to pull her closer. Across the narrow counter, she could feel his warm breath on her face, and a flush of something washed over her as she turned her face towards his.

“I crave your mouth,” he said softly, his voice dropping low, his eyes drifting down to her lips. “Your voice, your hair.”

Lacey shivered. Her lips parted and her eyes fluttered closed as a flush of arousal washed over her, settling low in her core. She sucked in a shallow breath and caught a hint of Gold’s scent, aftershave or cologne maybe, warm and earthy like sandalwood.

“Silent and starving,” he continued, “I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.”

His mouth brushed her cheek, her jaw, and then his nose touched to hers, their eyes meeting before he pulled away. She swallowed hard and looked down to realize her hand was still outstretched, the book now tucked under his arm. The bastard was smirking at her, and she wanted to walk around the desk and kiss it right off him.

“Have dinner with me.”

She blinked hard. “What?”

He chuckled again, a low, dark sound that did nothing to stem the throb between her legs. “Dinner, Miss French?”

Lacey breathed slowly and folded her arms. “Where? When?”

“My place. Tonight.” Gold shrugged one shoulder. “Say...seven?”

She swallowed again and licked her lips. There was another invitation there, unspoken but clear, and she grinned slowly. “See you at seven. Mr. Gold.”

Two Days Later...

Gold turned the glass, watching as a drip of condensation ran down the side to puddle on the side table.

He pressed on the wet spot with his finger and wiped it away. Outside the rain patted at the window, a gentle, soothing white noise that annoyed him. He didn’t want to be soothed, he wanted to take his cane and smash everything in his reach to pieces. The only reason he didn’t, the reason he was sitting and drinking the most expensive scotch he owned, was because seeing the remains of his possessions in the morning would make him feel worse. He tried not to think about the shards of glass on the floor in the back of his shop, the remains of a crystal figurine that had been sitting on the cash register since Belle had put it there some months ago in an effort to tease him.

Belle.

Lacey.

Whatever.

The scotch slid down his throat smoothly, warming in his belly, and he leaned back in the chair. At some point he would get over her, just as he had his ex-wife. He was coming around to accepting that she had been doing nothing more in Storybrooke than biding her time, and that their tryst had been an easy distraction.. She wanted to be comfortable and protected, and he couldn’t blame her for that in the end. It was his fault for making everything into more than it was, for believing her soft touches and quiet words meant something. Inviting her for dinner, giving her space in his home and his heart, that was all on him. She’d never asked for any of it, never seemed to want it in hindsight, but he’d been too stupid and foolish in the moment.

Gold blinked as the fire in the fireplace lept upwards, glowing brighter and higher with a sharp snap and a whooshing sound. He frowned and looked down at the floor to see pieces of glass shining in the light, some so close to the fire they were melting, and a splatter of liquid trailing from the floor up onto the stone hearth. He slumped in the chair and stared at his hand as if it had betrayed him by caving to his emotions and flinging his glass into the fire. After a few minutes, he pushed to his feet and head towards the kitchen for a rag and something to put the glass in.

A knock at the door drew his attention, and he scowled down the hallway, his eyes narrowing at the colorful stained glass in the door. He could see a shadow of someone outside, and huffed as he made his way to it, assuming it was Sister Astrid or Miss Blanchard, out collecting for some cause or another.

Gold yanked open the door, ready to lash out at the poor unfortunate soul who disturbed his brooding, only to nearly fall over in astonishment. “Lacey…”

She shrugged, swaying the backpack that was slung over her shoulder. “Hey.”

His lips curled over his teeth as his hand pressed down on his cane. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“The traditional lover's greeting,” she mumbled looking down at the worn wood planks of the porch.

“There’s nothing here for you.” He stepped into the doorway, thumping his cane hard against the threshold. “Go back to Boston, or New York, or wherever the hell you ran off to.”

He started to shut the door, and she reached out, catching it with her hand and bracing hard. “Hey!” She gave it a hard shove, and he pulled it open again, glaring down at her. “Fuck you! I came all this way because I have something to tell you.”

“I. Don't. Care.” His jaw clenched, grinding his teeth together as he sneered through every word. “About you, or whatever you have to say. I'm not -”

“I'm pregnant.”

Gold blinked hard and frowned. Lacey stared up at him, her face calm, and he reached out to hold on to the door frame. His head felt strangely heavy and he let his eyes close for a moment. “You're - uh - you're - you’re what?”

“Pregnant.” Her mouth curled a bit. “And don't insult me by asking if it's yours. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't.”

“I - I wasn't.” Surprisingly, it was the truth. He didn’t believe she’d show up and tell him something like that without the certainty that it was his. “Lacey, what - why - why are you here? Why are you telling me this?”

Lacey shook her head and twisted the strap of her pack in her fingers. “Because it's yours and - and I thought you should know.”

He swallowed and leaned against the side of the doorway. His leg was throbbing along with his head, and his stomach felt like he’d been punched. A tiny ember of hope bloomed in his chest and he wanted to stamp it out and throw it in the fire along with every shred of emotion he had left for her. She shrugged again and looked down at her shoes, and his earlier anger returned full force.

“Why? So nine months from now you can sue me for child support?” She looked at him, her mouth twisting, wrinkling the skin on either side of her nose and across her forehead. “So you can weasel even more money and time out of me? What you got wasn't enough?”

Lacey’s eyes went wide and she wobbled backwards before catch herself. “What the hell are you -?”

He scoffed and shook his head, tossing his hair back from his face. “You're so dedicated to the con, you're playing the longest game possible with another human being’s life?”

“Fuck you!” she spat, slapping the door with her palm instead of his face.

Gold let out a humorless snort and looked her up and down, smirking. “No thanks. This time I'll pass.”

Lacey stepped back and shook her head, pressing her lips together. “You know what,” she said, her voice even as she shoved her hands in the pockets of her worn red leather jacket. “This was obviously a mistake.”

His eyebrows lifted as she took another step backwards, as if confirming her stupidity.

“I'm sorry,” she continued. “I just thought maybe this baby was wanted by at least one of us. That if there was anything left of this giant shitcake to salvage...this would be it. But I was wrong.”

She turned and walked down the porch steps, her boots making heavy thumps on the wood. Gold’s mind was still reeling, both from shock and anger, and some part of him was screaming to stop her, but his legs wouldn’t move and his throat felt too tight to form sound.

“Sorry, kiddo.” Lacey looked down at her belly. “You're O for two!” Then she looked back at Gold, digging her nails into her palms and swallowing hard. “You don’t have to worry. I'll be on the bus tomorrow. Have a nice fucking life, Gold.”

She continued down the sidewalk from the pink house, blinking as the tears stung her eyes. This had been another stupid mistake, a complete disaster just like most of her life. He was watching her leave, again, his eyes on her, burning a hole in her back straight through to her heart.

[marshmallow-phd]

The Wanderers

Part Two of The Experiments Universe

Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller, experiment au

Pairing: Fem!Reader x Jongin

Summary: After escaping the hell that was EXO Applied Sciences, Jongin was lost. While some of his brothers were able to settle down, he was restless. And his powers were still growing. Never staying in place too long, Jongin and a few others have been watching their backs, knowing that there were people still out there, wanting to take them back. Someone is closing in and you, an innocent, are sucked into the world you never asked to be apart of….

Warning: none

Part: Prologue I 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11 I 12 I 13 I 14 I 15 I 16 I 17 I 18 I Final

**

You woke up considerably warm. It was a nice feeling, one that you weren’t used to. Typically your apartment back home ran on the colder side and you piled on the blankets. At this moment, however, you were comfortable, hardly needing the sheet that covered the bottom half of your body. Still not fully awake, you snuggled in closer to whatever it was that was radiating the heat. Your senses slowly started to work themselves up to their normal functioning level. It wasn’t a pillow or a blanket or any other inanimate object. Blinking your eyes open, the blurry image in front of you came into focus. You were just barely able to choke back a gasp.

An inch or so away from your face was Kai. His plump lips and tan skin a mere breath away. If you moved in just a little closer–

No. This was wrong.

Truthfully, you should move away now that you were aware of the situation. But he was so warm and comforting, you couldn’t will yourself to move. Somehow, in the middle of sleep, both of you had made it to the middle of the bed, turning to face each other. Not only were you pressed up against his chest, using it like a pillow, but Kai’s arm was wrapped around your waist in a vice. You couldn’t move too far back if you wanted to.

A small moan escaped from him as he minutely readjusted his position, pulling you in closer. A broad smile refused to be suppressed. You closed your eyes again to go back to sleep.

The next thing you knew, you were being shoved away to the point where you rolled off the bed and landed hard on the floor.

“Ow,” you groaned, rubbing the shoulder you’d landed particularly hard on. Sitting up, you found Kai standing on the other side. His breaths came in quick huffs, his chest heaving up and down as if he’d just crossed the finish line of a marathon. 

“What the hell were you doing?” he snapped.

“What are you talking about?” You were going to feign innocence like your life depended on it. Honestly, it might given his reaction. Not that you thought he would actually harm you.But it wasn’t like you did it on purpose, though. At first.

“You were supposed to stay on your side of the bed!”

You moved your gaze to the messy bed. The sheets were everywhere, rustled, and the biggest indention in the mattress was right in the middle to which you pointed. “You didn’t stay on your side either.”

Kai opened his mouth to argue before shutting it again. In a quick motion, he swiped his shirt off the floor and marched off to the bathroom. The sound of running water told you that he had decided to take the first shower and you prayed silently that he would come out fully clothed, for the sake of your sanity.

Pushing yourself up from the floor, you sat quietly on the bed, legs tucked in close to your chest. Now you felt bad. You really should have moved away once you realized the situation. But it wasn’t your fault that the jerk was so… alluring. And he’d held onto you, too. Both of you were guilty of breaking the boundary. But of course, he put all the blame on you. 

Groaning, you dropped your head in your hands. Why couldn’t you have been teleported out of that factory with one of the other boys? One that didn’t hate you for absolutely no reason?

You weren’t left to search for an answer as Kai opened the bathroom door – fully clothed and hair dripping wet. Apparently the shower had cooled his temper down, his voice coming out softer as he said, “Go on and get cleaned up. There’s still plenty of hot water.” 

Nodding, you stood up and walked around him. Just before you could close the door, he called out again.

“Wait.” Kai reached down into his bag, pulling a black t-shirt out and tossing it to you. “Here. I don’t have any pants that would fit you, but I figured you’d feel better in a clean shirt.”

You smiled. “Thank you.”

Shutting the door, you looked down at the simple fabric in your hands.

This. This was the exact reason you wished you were here with someone else. Because Kai was so hot and cold with you. Because one second he was yelling at you and the next he was doing something kind. It made no sense. Granted, nothing about your life the past forty-eight hours or so really made any sense, but one thing being consistent would be nice. 

Sliding down to the tile floor, you leaned your back against the door, breathing in the humid air around you. Your biggest problem was that from the very beginning he’d made your heart race. The second they all walked into your bar, he caught your attention and has refused to let it go since. He was a mystery wrapped in an enigma and all you wanted to do was peel back the layers. To see if what you thought lied underneath was really there. But that path came at a cost. If you spent more time with him, you were going to fall for him. Even more so than you already were.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Yeah. That’s exactly what you were.

You stood back up, your bones creaking in protest. You knew that taking your time had the possibility  of aggravating him again, so you hopped into the shower and quickly washed up. Refreshed and dry, you pulled on your clothes, pausing only briefly to take in the scent of the shirt.

Great. It even smelled like him.

When you left the bathroom, Kai was sitting on the bed. His back was to you, reading over a few papers. You couldn’t tell what was on them; the print was too small and you were too far away. Hearing your presence, Kai quickly shoved the papers back into his bag. The sound of the zipper rang through the room like a signal telling you “no”.

“Don’t even ask,” he mumbled. It didn’t come out as harsh as you would have expected. At least he was still on the nice streak.

Kai checked out of the room in the front office and pointed you to a small diner across the street. Right, food. You should get some of that. 

The two of you ordered and ate in haste. You didn’t bother asking what exactly his plan of action was, thinking you would just go along with the superpowered boy. Whatever train of thought he was on, you were sure it had something to do with the military base he’d mentioned last night. You walked to the outskirts of the town in silence with Kai studying the map intensely. Once a safe distance away and out of prying eyes, he folded up the map, stuffing it into the bag, and motioned to you.

“Okay, get on.”

Nodding, you did as you were told, though you weren’t really looking forward to the motion of running so fast again. Difficult as it was, you tried to ignore where Kai’s hands were gripping your thighs. His rough hands radiated against your skin. Why did your bar uniform have to consist of a pair of shorts?

As soon as he took off, you closed your eyes again, not wanting the blurring background to make you sick. How he was able to see and maneuver at this speed was beyond you. If it had been you, surely you would have ran right into a tree or street light. Once the wind was gone, you deemed it safe to open your eyes again.

Judging from the high security gate in front of you, Kai had brought you to the base after all. Was he going to ask the friends he’d talked about for help? And if so, what kind of people were they?

“(y/n)?” Kai patted your thigh, signaling for you to get off.

“Oops, sorry.” All the gawking you were doing at the milling soldiers and tanks lined up in the distance had made you forget it was time to dismount. You jumped off his back and followed him to the verification window.

Kai spoke with the soldier behind the glass, showing him a plastic card you assumed was some sort of ID. The soldier took the card and typed on his keyboard and slid the plastic rectangle through a reader. Kai began murmuring again, pointing to you without looking back. You couldn’t hear whatever the men were saying, so you stood back, awkwardly but at least out of the way. Then, the soldier pressed a button that allowed the gate to be raised. Kai grabbed your hand and dragged you along.

“Come on,” he whispered. “You have to stay close to me. The security around here is tight and they won’t hesitate to throw you out.”

You struggled to keep up with his long hurried strides. Perhaps that was why he kept such a constricted grip on your fingers, to make sure he didn’t accidentally lose you. 

He bypassed the official looking buildings until the residential area came into view. His eyes scanned the numbers on the houses, searching for one in particular. In a cul-de-sac on the very edge of the neighborhood, he must have found it. You watched him nervously as you walked up the driveway and approached the front door. He took a deep breath and knocked. A minute passed by with no answer. Should you try again? But when you considered raising your fist, the door opens and your eyes widened.

The man who answered was around your age and – well – handsome was the only way you could describe him. His features were soft and welcoming, but there was a sense of trustworthiness to him as well. No wonder Kai came here.

Like a Christmas tree at midnight, the man’s face lit up once he took in the visitors. He threw his arms around Kai, pulling him in for a hug.

“Jongin, what are you doing here?”

Jongin?

That was the second time you heard that name. Tao had asked about a Jongin as well…

You blinked making the connection. He’d lied to you about his name. Had they all lied? First you found out about their pasts as experiments – possibly with powers – and now they had different names. What else didn’t you know? At this point, you felt like you deserved a more detailed explanation, but now wasn’t the time.

Kai – Jongin, or whatever his name was – returned the house owner’s hug. “Junmyeon.”

Pulling away, the man finally noticed you. “Oh, I’m sorry. Jongin, who’s this?” Kai flinched at his other name, but the other didn’t seem to notice. “Is she your–”

“It’s a long story,” Kai interrupted. “Can we come inside?”

“Of course!” The man stepped back, motioning for you to enter. You followed him to the kitchen where he held a chair out for you at the table. He poured two cups of freshly made tea while you fidgeted awkwardly, unsure of where to lay your eyes. Placing one of the cups in front of you, he sat down next to Kai. “I’m Junmyeon by the way.”

“(y/n),” you told him quietly.

His smile was friendly and genuine, but you still couldn’t help but wonder what the experimentation had done to him. He didn’t seem as bitter as Kai, as angry. Maybe he wasn’t one of the twelve. “It’s nice to meet you, (y/n).”

“Junmyeon,” Kai said in a serious tone, ignoring the steaming mug in front of him. “They found us.”

The smile was completely wiped from Junmyeon’s face. “EXO?” Kai nodded. Junmyeon sighed, shaking his head, “I told you all to stay here, where it was safe.”

“Nowhere is safe,” Kai scoffed. “Not even this base. They will find a way to get to you here. Trust me on that.”

“What happened?”

Kai growled, his fingers curling into a fist. “I was dumb. I drew attention to us. EXO found us in a town about a hundred miles from here. They attacked us on a bus. Out in the open. Wang must be getting desperate. Still, we got away. But then we found out that...,” his eyes flickered over to you, making you shrink in your chair. “That they took (y/n). The others wanted to go after her so we did.”

“Where are the others?” Junmyeon leaned, desperate for an answer.

Kai shook his head. “I don’t know.” He frowned. “Junmyeon, have you been experiencing any… changes lately.”

Straightening up in his seat, Junmyeon nodded. “Yerin spilt a glass of water last week. It was all over the table, but somehow, I was able to put it all back into the glass. Without even touching it.”

Your eyes grew at this new information. He could move water? So he was one of the twelve. 

Kai, on the other hand, didn’t show any reaction. “We almost made it out, but they cornered us at the exit. One of them, a Sergeant Kim, was about to shoot (y/n). I ran to her so she wouldn’t get hit by the bullet, but–” he took a deep breath. “I somehow… teleported. And we ended up in a field about fifty miles west of here.”

“That’s why you don’t know where the others are?” Junmyeon guessed.

“Yes.” Out of nowhere, Kai slammed his fist down on the table as you were about to take a sip, making you spill hot tea all over your hand.

A hiss pushed through your teeth as the pain. Before Junmyeon could even stand up, Kai had already grabbed a washcloth and an ice pack. Kneeling down beside you, he dried your throbbing hand and placed the pack over the reddened area.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to make you do that.”

“I-It’s okay.” You were in disbelief at the moment. Where was this level of softness coming from? Out of the corner of your eye, you see a small grin on Junmyeon’s face, making your own run hot. 

“I see you remember where everything is,” Junmyeon teased.

Clearing his throat, Kai placed your free hand over the pack before standing up. “Is Yerin here?”

The latter shook his head. “No, she’s working a twenty-four hour shift at the hospital on base. She won’t be back until tomorrow. (y/n)?”

You perked up at your name. “Yes?”

“Why don’t I show you to one of the extra bedrooms?” he offered. “You look like you could use some rest.”

Yes, a nap sounded good. Alone time sounded better. “Thank you.”

“Jongin,” Junmyeon looked to Kai, “I’ll be right back and we’ll talk about this further, alright?”

Kai nodded in reply. You followed Junmyeon out of the kitchen and up a flight of stairs that led up to the next floor. Several doors lined the long hallway with different sized picture frames scattered in between. You couldn’t help but stop and stare at life moments captured in a second.

Many of the pictures were of the boys you’d met: Baekhyun, Chanyeol, Xiumin, Chen, and Kyungsoo. There were none of Tao, but there were others you didn’t know of hidden amongst the photos’ subjects. Three very different, but very beautiful women were grouped together in one of the frames, smiling at the camera. They were draped in beautiful dresses, the sun shining brightly in the background as it lowered in the sky. 

Junmyeon noticed your halted steps and came to join you. He pointed to one of the women who was clothed in white, a bright smile on her face. “That’s my wife, Yerin. My miracle.” He chuckled. “Well, a miracle to us all, actually. She’s the one who helped get us out of EXO.”

“Really?” you exclaimed. You hadn’t met her yet and already you admired her. She must be very brave to have done something like that.

“Yes. She’s the reason we have any sort of life at all.” Junmyeon motioned with his head. “Come on. This one can be yours for now.” He opened the second door and waited for you to walk inside. The room was simple, decorated in a soft blue with matching comforter and white furniture. “If you need anything, just let me know.”

“Thank you.”

Left by yourself, you curled up on top of the bed, still clutching the ice pack although your hand wasn’t hurting as much as before. It didn’t take long for your mind to shut off and for you to slip into dreamland.

A few hours later you woke up to the sound of the bedroom door opening. Blinking away the sleep in your eyes, you sat up to see who’d come in.

“(y/n)?”

You frowned, still half asleep. “Kai?”

You heard him sigh as he closed the door behind him and then sit on the bed, still keeping a good distance from you.

“I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now, but my name is actually Jongin.” His voice was quiet, barely enough above a whisper for you to hear him properly.

You nodded, knowing that the light from the setting sun was enough for him to see. “Why did you lie?”

“A few of us took on new names to help hide who we are,” he said. “Junmyeon has convinced me to tell you everything. Can I do that?”

“Of course,” you replied, confused as to why he would even ask. You scooted over, leaving him plenty of room to sit next to you against the headboard. “Come here. You’ll hurt your back if you stay sitting over there with no support.” A lame excuse for wanting him closer.

Not saying anything, K- Jongin crawled up further on the bed, leaning back against the wooden board. He looked down, grasping your tea burned hand with both of his. “Does it still hurt?”

“No,” you said honestly. The stinging had died out before you even fell asleep and the ice pack was now long forgotten on the floor, a small puddle of water around it as it thawed. At the moment, it was simply his touch that was sending you into overdrive.

“Good.” Jongin took a long, deep breath and then released it all at once. “I told you that the twelve of us were experimented on by EXO, right?” 

Too focused to risk speaking, you stayed quiet, letting the silence be your answer. Jongin dived into his past, letting you in.

“For years, they combined our DNA with animal DNA, trying to give us all special abilities, to make us soldiers. None of us remember how we got there, just that we all woke up in a giant room together, barely teenagers with no memories of who we were before. The tests were painful, torture, constantly injecting us with serums and solutions.” The muscles in his jaw tightened as the memories came back to the surface. It was almost as if he was still living through the pain. “But they got what they wanted. We could all heal faster, we’re stronger than the average human, along with better reflexes and heightened senses.An unexpected side effect was that each of us developed unique abilities as well.”

He’d dropped your hand by now, looking off at nothing as he continued on. “Then one day, this woman came in, saying she was there to evaluate our state of mind, to talk to us. It was the first time someone actually sounded like they cared. Because she did. She got us out. She actually got us out of that hell hole and gave us the chance at life.”

That must have been Yerin. You tried not to be jealous from the way he talked about her. He was probably grateful to her, as he should be. There was no need to let the little green monster stoop on your shoulder.

“Some of my brothers decided to settle down here, like Junmyeon,” he went on, not noticing your moment of tension. “Some of us thought it would be better to keep moving. That EXO wouldn’t be able to find us that way. I still don’t believe that this place is an impenetrable fortress, but maybe it was the better option.”

“I get it,” you told him reassuringly. “You’d been cooped up your whole life, you wanted the chance to be free.”

“Monsters don’t deserve freedom,” Jongin said bitterly.

You jumped up to your knees to face him fully. “You’re not a monster, Jongin. Different, maybe, but not a monster. They did this to you; you never asked for this. You saved me from Don and then again from Kim. So, don’t you ever think about yourself in that way again. You are more human, more noble than anyone else I’ve ever met. Promise me you won’t think of yourself as a monster anymore?”

Something changed in Jongin’s face as he looked at you. Ever since you’d met him, even when he showed moments of kindness towards you, there was a hardness, an impenetrable wall. But – unless you were imagining, hoping for something that wasn’t there – it seemed like some of the cold façade was melting away.

He grasped your hand, looking up at you with an expression that was almost a smile. A half smile of sorts. “I’ll work on that.”

Your heart was pounding, drumming in your ears. It was fine, as long as you kept your face neutral. Until you remembered that he spoke about all of them having heightened senses.

“I’ll let you sleep,” he whispered, probably noticing how you were fighting to stay awake. Your eyelids fluttered in protest at being forced to stay open. That nap earlier wasn’t enough and your body was exhausted.

You wanted to whine when he let go of your hand and even more so to ask him to stay once he slipped off the bed, but given the experience from this morning, you thought better of it.

“Good night, (y/n),” he called softly from the door.

You hummed, already slipping down on the bed and pulling a spare pillow close to you. “Good night, Jongin.”

[blightarts]

POKÉMON SUMMER VERSION CHAPTER 15: Everything You’ve Got! Part 2

Previous Chapter: You Don’t Need to Prove Anything

Next Chapter: Bring Down the Thunder!

Disclaimer:  Pokémon is a property of Game Freak and Nintendo, while Endless  Summer is a property of Pixelberry. I do not claim any rights here.

Author’s Note: The next few chapters will be start to have scenarios similar to the Sports Festival Arc in My Hero Academia. I just want to disclaim that I do not own the rights to My Hero Academia. Kōhei Horikoshi does. I’ve also decided to split the chapter into 2 parts. Part 1 is here. The script is too long to fit in one chapter so…

If the “Keep reading” doesn’t work, go here for the full post.

@princesstopgun, @mechaspirit, @lovearyn, @kaitloyalist, @choicesmarvel, @sceptilemasterr, @hey-its-vy, @skyila, @choicesyouplayandmore, @mysteli, @helentwombly, @scgdoeswhat, @choicesaholic, @caroonfire, @not-so-freshman, @jakemckenzietrash, @xo-endlessmayhem-xo, @abhirio, @diego-vii, @daniela2510, @izzycheeese

Recommended Music: Your Power (MHA)

From the audience, Varyyn gives Taari a troubled look.

Varyyn: Taari... what are you trying to do...?

Back in the battlefield, Reginald is completely angered by Taari’s small speech.

Reginald: Taari... what are you planning? “Everything I’ve got”? Did my stupid old man tell you to “help” me?! NOW YOU HAVE CROSSED THE LINE!!

Metagross feels Reginald’s hatred and charges towards T’kal. 

Reginald: Use Hammer Arm!

Taari: Superpower now!

Metagross raises its arm and swings it down at T’kal, who quickly catches it using Superpower.

Taari: T’kal, use Flare Blitz next!

T’kal becomes engulfed in flames and tackles Metagross who is pushed back hard once again. The audience begins to comment on Taari’s recklessness.

Spectator 1: He got a hit on Metagross again!

Spectator 2:  ...Even though T’kal looks way more beat up.

Spectator 3: Why does he keep doing this?

Reginald grits his teeth once again.

Reginald: Why?!... Metagross, use Hammer Arm then Psychic!

Metagross breaks the ground, scattering rocks, and uses Psychic to send them towards T’kal, who manages to dodge the attack instead.

Taari: The attacks aren’t coming as fast as before...

Metagross once again rushes towards T’kal.

Taari: Superpower and Bulk Up again!

T’kal surrounds himself with a vermillion aura again and rushes to Metagross. The two Pokémon collide and are knocked back. Metagross gets pushed back farther while T’kal is knocked on the ground. He struggles to stand up and roars to use Bulk Up.

In the midst of all the chaos, Jake talks to Estela.

Jake: Should we stop this, Estela? Taari is probably thinking that Michelle’s Aromatisse could heal T’kal anyway, and is being reckless. T’kal is full of adrenaline right now and probably isn’t feeling much pain from his own attacks. But those injuries... probably can’t be fully healed in one go.

Estela: True... even if Taari wins, T’kal might not be able to fight in their next match...

The two umpires hesitate. Meanwhile, in the announcer booth, Blight wonders about Taari’s plan.

Blight’s Mind: T’kal’s power has gone down and yet he still isn’t giving up. Those two aren’t just fighting recklessly... this is the best they can do to win at this point. But... even if it can be healed, to be able to jump into intense pain like that requires a lot of resolve. What is stirring him up?

In the battlefield, during T’kal and Metagross’s melee combat, Taari’s words earlier begin to linger in Reginald’s mind.

Taari’s Words: Tyler and Taylor… I want to be like them. In order to do that, I have to be strong enough to become a champion. My motivation might seem trivial compared to yours…

Reginald is enraged once again.

Reginald: Use Ice Punch!

Metagross once again sends another stream of ice shards towards T’kal.

Taari: Use Superpower!

T’kal struggles to clench his paws but is unable to. Instead, he uses his head to hit the ice shards and breaks them apart. The air pressure pushes back Metagross again, but it manages to plant its feet quickly.

Reginald: Why... would you go that far?!

Taari: So I could live up to the expectations of those who have supported me!

Reginald is startled by Taari’s words.

Taari: I want to be able to smile at them and respond to them... To become a champion... THAT’S WHAT I WANT TO BE!

Memories from his early childhood start to flash in Reginald’s mind. He ignores about the match to try to forget these memories.

Reginald: Tch!...

Taari: That’s why...!

Reginald is caught by surprise when Metagross is pushed back right in front of him.

Taari: ...Everyone is giving it their all!

Taari grits his teeth and clenches his fists.

Taari: I may not know all of your circumstances or your resolve... but for you to become a champion without giving it your all; to completely reject your father... RIGHT NOW, I THINK YOU SHOULD STOP SCREWING AROUND!!

Reginald begins to remember the early days of his childhood.

Recommended Music: I Absolutely Won’t Use the Heat (MHA)

[FLASHBACK]

When he was four years old, Reginald and his Nidoran comes running up to Aleister with his arms raised.

Reginald: Papa!

The two embrace, while Nidoran jumps on the boy’s shoulder and nuzzles them both.

Aleister: Yes, my son?

Reginald: It’s just... you are the best father a boy like me could have! And nothing will ever change that!!

[END OF FLASHBACK]

As if he couldn’t get anymore angrier, Reginald bursts.

Reginald: SHUT UP!!

He starts to recall another memory

[FLASHBACK]

During his eight years of age, Reginald walks around town with his father. As they walk, Reginald eavesdrop on the conversations of the people around them.

Person 1: There they are; Aleister and Reginald Rourke...

Person 2: Stay away from them! They are just spawns of a madman!

Reginald begins to hear more negative comments towards him and his father. He looks at Aleister in fear.

Reginald: Papa, what are they saying? These... rumors... they aren’t true, are they?

Aleister crouches and pats Reginald’s head.

Aleister: It doesn’t matter if they are, Reginald...

[END OF FLASHBACK]

Aleister’s words now linger in the boy’s mind.

Aleister’s Words: ...it is up to you whether to prove them wrong or not.

Sharing Reginald’s panic, Metagross recklessly charges at T’kal, who’s preparing to use Flare Blitz one more time.

Taari: That is why I will win! I WILL SURPASS YOU!!

As Metagross is pushed back one more time, Reginald’s mind is drawn to his memories rather than the match. More memories start to appear.

[FLASHBACK]

Days later after the rumors, Reginald enters Aleister’s office, looking for his father. He is accompanied by his newly-evolved Nidorino.

Reginald: Papa?

No one appears to be in the room. Reginald looks around and sits on his father’s chair. He opens the laptop on the desk and curiously checks its contents. He finds a video feed of his father being interrogated by the police, just days after the events of Endless Summer Ending 3. Reginald remains frozen in place as he watches his father confess everything; what Everett Rourke has done and Aleister’s betrayal. The boy closes the laptop, refusing to believe that the rumors he’s heard are confirmed.

Suddenly, Aleister enters the room and spots his son.

Aleister: Reginald!

Reginald says nothing and instead storms out of the room, ignoring his father. Aleister and Nidorino stand by the door looking at him with worry.

More days have passed, during Reginald’s ninth birthday, the boy receives his gift from his mother.

Grace: Here you go, Reggie. A Pokémon you can trust just as much as Nidorino.

Grace gives Reginald a pokéball. The boy holds it as Nidorino opens it. A Beldum comes out and starts to play with Nidorino. Reginald weakly smiles and looks at his mother.

Reginald: Thank you, Mother.

He is then approached by Aleister. The boy’s smile quickly turns into rage. Aleister is holding a small box and opens it, revealing a Mega Stone and a ring. He struggles to speak in front of his son.

Aleister: And here’s... a Mega Stone to go along with...

Before he could hand it to Reginald, the boy swats it away. The Stone and the ring fall to the ground. Aleister, Grace and the guests are startled as they stare at Reginald.

Reginald: I will not accept the gift of a person who lies, betrays his friends and happens to be the son of a MONSTER!!

He grabs his pokéball and recalls his Beldum. As he starts to walk away, Nidorino follows him. Reginald stops and turns to his Pokémon.

Reginald: Stay with him... I no longer need you...

Reginald walks out of the room, breaking the hearts of both his father and his former friend.

[END OF FLASHBACK]

Metagross struggles to maintain its composure, sharing Reginald’s anger. The boy responds.

Reginald: I will... reject my father. People only see me as a grandson of a monster...

Taari grits his teeth and shouts at Reginald.

Taari: IT IS YOU WHO DECIDES WHO YOU TRULY WANT TO BE!!

The words strike Reginald like a knife as he starts to recall one last memory.

[FLASHBACK]

During his four years of age, he and Aleister are seated on the couch. They are watching a live interview of Grace. The interviewer asks her why she has gone a different path from her mother, Blaire Hall.

Grace: Yes, it’s true. I have gone a different path and I admit that I do not regret my decisions. I chose to be who I am today because the only person who gets to decide what I am is me. These words should also apply to my husband, Aleister. His father may have been a psychologically sick man, but my husband decided to move on and became a man who is no longer defined by his father, but a man who is defined by who he wants to be.

Reginald is awed by his mother’s speech.

Reginald: Wow... you and Mama are so cool, Papa!

Aleister: We are, Reggie. And you will be too.

The boy looks into his father’s eyes as he is patted on the head.

Aleister: Don’t let our actions define you...

[END OF FLASHBACK]

Recommended Music: You Say Run (MHA)

Reginald’s doubts have been cleared after recalling that memory. Something in his pocket glows. He pulls it out, revealing the ring his father gave him, with a Mega Stone equipped.

Reginald’s Mind: Before I knew it, I had forgotten...

His father’s words echo through his head when Taari reminded him of them.

Aleister’s Words: It is you who decides who you truly want to be...

Reginald closes his fist around the Mega Stone and Metagross starts to glow. The audience is blinded by a huge bright light as Metagross finally undergoes Mega Evolution. Elena marvels at the phenomenon.

Elena: It’s here...

In the recovery rooms, Kaitlyn and Mika watches the match in a live television broadcast. Kaitlyn starts to remember what Reginald said during their first gym battle against Diego.

Reginald’s Words: I must face my challenges at the most highest difficulty. And I’m going to do that without Mega Evolution.

Kaitlyn: He... used it...

Back in the audience, the rest of the ES gang are astonished by what was happening. Taylor comments...

Taylor: You made him use Mega Evolution. Taari, don’t tell me you were just trying to help Reginald.

Back in the battle field, Reginald comments on Taari’s plan.

Reginald: Even though you wanted to win... damn it... To help your opponent... Which one of us is screwing around exactly?!

Metagross finally finishes the process of Mega Evolution.

Reginald: You’re not the only one who wants to be a champion.

The two competitors grin at each other with understanding. Meanwhile, behind Reginald, Aleister finally steps up.

Aleister: REGINALD ROURKE!!

The boy turns around to see his father crying.

Aleister: I’m sorry for keeping my sins a secret from you! I’m sorry for lying to you just to protect you from my past! I’m sorry that I have made you what you are now! And... and... I’M SORRY THAT I HAVE FAILED AS A FATHER!!

Aleister kneels and looks down in despair, until...

Reginald: There’s nothing to forgive, father...

Aleister quickly looks back up to his son, grinning as tears start to fall from his eyes.

Meanwhile, Taari is amazed at Metagross’s Mega form.

Taari: It’s so cool...

Reginald: What are you smiling about?

Taari’s smile quickly breaks as Reginald continues.

Reginald: With those injuries on T’kal... in this situation? You’re crazy... Don’t blame for what happens next. 

Reginald: Metagross, use Hammer Arm then Psychic!

Metagross slams two of its arms on the ground and uses Psychic to control the shattered rocks. Meanwhile at the side of the battlefield, Jake and Estela call out Lycanroc and Garchomp, respectively.

Jake: Lycanroc, use Stone Edge!

Estela: Garchomp, do the same!

Lycanroc and Garchomp try to create a wall of stone shards between T’kal and Metagross in an attempt to stop them from wreaking havoc. Before the shards could reach the battlefield, Metagross fires the rocks towards T’kal, who swiftly dodges them.

Taari: Try to get close... and GIVE THEM EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT WITH ONE LAST FLARE BLITZ!!

Reginald: USE GIGA IMPACT!!

The two Pokémon charge at each other at full power. The Stone Wall is formed in between them and before the collision, Reginald speaks...

Reginald: Thank you... Taari...

The two attacks collide at the wall as it falls apart. An explosion of air pressure occurs. Everyone tries their best to hold on tight and see who won. After the smoke clears, a Pokémon can be seen out of bounds. It is revealed to be T’kal who is lying down right next to Taari. The Vaanti boy comforts his friend. Meanwhile, Metagross still stands, almost out of bounds. Reginald could not believe at what he was seeing. Estela ends the match.

Estela: T’kal... is out of bounds... Reginald and his Metagross wins the match!!

After a few seconds of silence, the crowd cheers.

Reginald has won the match. But what happens next? What will be the outcome in the match between Elena and Mika? FIND OUT IN THE NEXT EPISODE OF POKÉMON SUMMER VERSION!

[almostafantasia]

tenderly, tragically, beautifully

Summary: In which bad things happen to the people who deserve them the least and Lexa learns that although cancer can be treated, the scars it leaves behind take much longer to heal.

Read on AO3.

Trigger warning: Clarke has cancer in this fic but it’s non-terminal and she doesn’t die. There’s a fair amount of angst though.

She feels as though every pair of eyes is watching her from the moment that she steps through the school gates. Which is just paranoia at its absolute finest because the reality is that not a single person is actually looking at her, but with the very obvious way in which the other kids are deliberately trying not to stare at her as she walks up to the red brick school building, Clarke might as well have a giant flashing sign above her head.

A giant flashing sign reading this kid has cancer, with a vertical neon arrow pointing down at her.

Clarke knows that they all know. Even if Raven hadn’t already filled her in on everything that happened while she was in the hospital, this is high school so gossip spreads faster than a race car speeding around an asphalt track.

“Yo.”

Raven makes an unnecessarily loud entrance, clattering into the row of lockers beside Clarke’s and dropping her shoulder bag to the floor with an unceremonious thud. It catches the attention of those nearby, but upon realising that Clarke is there, those heads quickly turn away for fear of being caught staring.

“Everyone’s treating me like I’ve got a deadly virus. It’s cancer, it’s not contagious!”

She raises her voice with this last bit, startling the group of freshman boys who cross to the other side of the corridor in order to give Clarke a wide berth as they pass.

“Clarke,” Raven hisses, resting a comforting hand on Clarke’s shoulder.

“I’ve been here for two minutes and I already wish I was back in that stupid hospital,” Clarke complains through clenched teeth, taking a heavy textbook out of her bag and throwing it into her locker with slightly more force than actually necessary.

“They probably all heard the word ‘cancer’ and assume that you’re on your deathbed,” muses Raven.

“I’m not.”

“I know,” Raven agrees, as she reaches out to give Clarke’s fingers a reassuring squeeze with her own. “You’re going to be fine, you’ve just got a few shitty cells in your body.”

“John Murphy’s got more shitty cells in his body,” Clarke comments, as the shaggy-haired boy saunters past the two girls with his hands buried deep in the pockets of his leather jacket, giving Clarke the side-eye as he passes.

“Well unlike Murphy, your shitty cells are going to be killed by the chemo. He’s stuck with his for life.”

Clarke appreciates what Raven is trying to do, but that doesn’t mean that it works. As grateful as she is for her best friend’s insistence that she’s going to survive this new obstacle in her life, it doesn’t really detract from the fact that she has months of having her body pumped full of chemicals to get through first.

“Raven…”

“What? I’m just letting you know that I’m sticking by you no matter what.” With a wicked smile, Raven adds, “I’ll always be your best friend, even when you go bald.”

“Oh god, don’t remind me,” Clarke whines, shutting her locker and turning around to lean against it dramatically.

“You finish treatment just before Thanksgiving, right?”

“Yes,” Clarke nods, wondering in which unpredictable direction Raven’s train of thought is heading this time.

“So you’ll be rocking the cutest pixie cut in town by Christmas.”

Clarke lets herself imagine it for just a second. She hasn’t had her hair shorter than shoulder length since a disastrously bad haircut at the age of ten, but when she pictures herself with much shorter hair, barely long enough to curl ever so slightly around her ears and the top of her neck, she smiles slightly. Mostly at the realisation that with virtually no hair to have to deal with each morning before school, she’ll be able to get out of bed a whole fifteen minutes later than usual, but also at the thought that with minimal effort and a bit of strategically placed styling cream, she can probably make herself look hot as fuck.

“Thanks Raven,” Clarke smile gratefully.

But Raven’s brain is always moving way faster than Clarke is able to keep up with and she’s already onto the next thing.

“Hey, do you think the chemo is going to give you superpowers? Wouldn’t it be awesome if you got x-ray vision or invisibility or something even cooler?”

“Raven…”

Class is weird. Raven walks her to the door of her classroom like a mother dropping her young child off for the first day of kindergarten, and when Raven departs with a final wave over her shoulder, Clarke feels exactly like that scared five year old, out of her depth in a world that seems far too big for her.

It’s pretty much exactly the same routine in the classroom as it was out in the school corridors, except that now, in this more confined space, Clarke can’t really do much to pretend she hasn’t noticed how everybody is behaving around her. Each pair of eyes fall onto her as she passes, then glance away when they realise who has just walked by.

And then the hushed muttering starts. Clarke’s classmates must be seriously misinformed about the symptoms of cancer if they think that she isn’t able to hear the whispering as she makes her way to her usual seat on the far side of the classroom.

As the clock on the wall just above the teacher’s desk slowly ticks away towards the start of another day at school, the desk next to Clarke remains empty. Finn Collins, the desk’s former occupant, who Clarke is ninety-five percent certain was flirting with her in the few weeks leading up to the discovery of the tumour in her back, has moved to a previously empty seat in the back row next to Atom. It’s too much of a coincidence for Clarke to blame this on anything but the cancer. Who would want to flirt with her when there are plenty of other much prettier, much healthier girls in the school to flirt with, all of whom are still going to have a full head of hair in a few months’ time?

“Hey.”

Ten minutes into her first day back at school and already so used to being treated like a bomb that is waiting to go off, Clarke actually startles in her seat a little bit when the girl in the seat in front of her turns around to say hello.

“Oh, hi Lexa!”

Lexa Woods was Clarke’s elementary school best friend until the two of them slowly drifted apart as they grew up and their interests changed. Not to say that they no longer get along, but that they move in different circles now, with nothing more than a polite smile if they pass in the school corridors.

Until now.

“This is for you.”

Clarke’s eyes widen in surprise, then her entire face twists into a confused frown as Lexa places a thick ring-binder down on Clarke’s desk, upon which lies an envelope.

“Um, thanks,” Clarke replies tentatively, picking up the envelope and sliding her finger into the small gap at the edge to tear it open and remove its contents.

It’s just a card, white with pastel coloured butterflies surrounding the embossed words ‘thinking of you’ in a pretty cursive font. Surprised, Clarke flips it open to read the message inside.

Dear Clarke,

Wishing you all the best over the coming months for a speedy recovery.

Lots of love, Lexa xx

It’s pretty much exactly the same as the twenty other cards she has at home from various relatives and friends of the family, empty words that don’t really detract from the potentially life-threatening illness that resides in her body, but it somehow means so much more coming from Lexa than from anybody else. Coming from Lexa, who could quite easily have done exactly the same as Finn and everybody else in this godforsaken school and blatantly avoided having to go anywhere near the girl with cancer.

“And this is everything that you missed while you were in hospital,” Lexa continues, opening the folder to display the thick wad of handwritten notes inside, neatly colour-coded and underlined and separated into subjects by labelled dividers.

“Lexa, what the…?”

“You missed two weeks of school and you must be really behind in all your classes so I wrote out my notes again so that you could have a copy,” Lexa explains hurriedly, a pink flush rising to sit on her sharp cheekbones. “If there’s anything you don’t understand when you read through it, I’d be more than happy to go over it with you.”

“Lexa,” Clarke sighs, feeling a rush of affection for her former best friend as she flicks through page after page of Lexa’s impeccable handwriting, laid out under clear capitalised titles and broken up with nearly drawn diagrams and tables. “You shouldn’t have.”

“It was good revision for me,” Lexa shrugs, as if the gesture is insignificant.

“Wait,” frowns Clarke, as she reaches one of the coloured dividers and enters a different subject, “do you even take Chemistry?”

“No, but I know Monty through the debate club so I borrowed his notes and copied them out,” Lexa answers. “They might not make much sense because I didn’t understand a lot of it but I’m sure that Monty would be able to explain it if you need help…”

“Lexa, this must have taken you hours…”

“Yeah, well you’ve got cancer, it’s the least I can do to help.”

The word hits Clarke like a fist in the gut. It’s been two weeks since the diagnosis, two weeks where Clarke’s mind has been consumed with nothing but that one singular word going around and around in her mind until she’s half crazy. But Clarke realises that maybe the problem is that the word has only been in her head since the diagnosis – nobody around her has been brave enough to say the word aloud since the doctor who gave her the bad news two weeks ago. Even her mother, a doctor herself, skirts around the word at home, as if saying it out loud makes the whole situation far too real to comprehend.

It’s just a word, it shouldn’t hurt so much.

Except that it’s not just a word anymore, it’s a way of life. It’s chemicals being pumped into her body, and being ignored by even those who used to flirt with her, and the inescapable unsettling worry that despite the assurances of the oncology nurse, maybe she isn’t going to make it to the other end of this ordeal with her life.

“Sorry, did I say something wrong?” Lexa’s voice pulls Clarke out of her thoughts with a lurch, and she shakes her head to focus herself back in the real world.

“No, it’s just…” Clarke tries to explain, her voice just a croak as she tries to push past the lump that forms in her throat. “It’s still quite new to me.” Trying to articulate aloud for the first time, Clarke continues, “It’s weird because it’s all I think about but it still takes me by surprise sometimes. I’m so used to everybody skating around it like they want to pretend that it’s not happening, so it surprised me how forward you were.”

“Sorry,” Lexa mumbles, bowing her head apologetically. “I shouldn’t have…”

Reaching out a hand to touch Lexa’s shoulder in reassurance, Clarke says, “Lexa, it’s fine, I…”

But she doesn’t get the chance to finish. The classroom door clatters open as the teacher enters to start the lesson, and within an instant Lexa is facing the front once more with wide, attentive eyes.

The teacher’s eyes scan the classroom as his voice fills the room to get their attention, but he stumbles mid-sentence when he spots Clarke in their midst. There’s a moment that feels like an eternity, a moment in which Clarke knows the teacher is trying to decide whether to acknowledge Clarke’s return to his class, a moment in which Clarke wants nothing more than to melt into the hard plastic chair as if she has never even been here at all, but then it passes, and the class continues as if nothing has happened.

As if Clarke doesn’t have cancer.

But she does.

“Lexa,” Clarke hisses, when the teacher turns his attention to the computer and pulls up a powerpoint presentation for the lesson. Lexa turns around to frown inquisitorially at Clarke, who forces the resentment out of her mind and the sadness from her eyes as she smiles gratefully at her former best friend. “Thanks for the notes.”

Lexa thinks about it a lot, probably way more than she should think about somebody who she so rarely speaks to these days, but it really plays on her mind. Why somebody so young, somebody with such a bright future, somebody with so much joy and happiness and vitality should get diagnosed with cancer when there are so many bad people in this world that it could happen to instead.

It sucks, and Lexa isn’t even the one with cancer.

She almost wishes that she was. And yes, she knows that’s a terrible thing to think and that she should be grateful for her own good health, but it’s the truth. If there was a medical procedure that could suck the illness from Clarke’s body and transfer it to her own, then that’s exactly what Lexa would do. Clarke has everything; a big friendship group full of nice people that nobody in their year group seems to dislike, good grades, good looks, and an aspiration to be a doctor. Lexa, meanwhile, feels as though she has nothing in comparison - only a few people that she would consider friends, two parents who somehow manage to straddle the line between loving her too much and not loving her enough, and an unhealthy dose of anxiety. It should be her that has the cancer, but instead there seems to be an unjust system of reverse karma in place, where bad things happen to good people.

There are bad people in the world, and there are good people. And then there is Clarke. Clarke, who is so good and pure that Lexa isn’t entirely convinced that she isn’t an actual angel reincarnated in human form. Clarke, who on the second day of kindergarten, helped a tearful and bruised Lexa back to her feet after being pushed to the ground by John Murphy, then declared them to be best friends for life, though only after kicking Murphy in the balls for hurting Lexa in the first place.

Nobody deserves to be diagnosed with cancer less than Clarke.

Lexa almost wonders if Clarke’s illness is karma punishing her. Perhaps fate is saying a massive fuck you to her, not to Clarke, by forcing her to stand by helplessly as the girl she loves suffers. Because there is absolutely no doubt that Lexa does love Clarke. She’s known it for about a year, though she’s probably loved her since the day that six year old Clarke offered out a hand to help Lexa get back to her feet.

But what hurts the most is knowing that there’s absolutely nothing she can do to help Clarke, nothing she can do but sit by and watch as Clarke’s health deteriorates and the side effects of chemotherapy kick in.

Lexa has never felt more helpless.

Lexa almost doesn’t recognise the girl who walks into class the following Thursday morning with bright pink hair. Nothing has changed other than the hair colour – she wears the same worn out jacket she’s owned since freshman year, the same slightly pitiful frown that’s been on her face since the diagnosis a couple of weeks ago – and yet the vibrant pink that frames Clarke’s face makes it seem like she’s an entirely different person from the girl with the beautiful golden tresses that Lexa has known for most of her life.

“Clarke!” Lexa gapes, as Clarke drops into the seat beside her, Lexa having moved back a row now that Finn Collins has taken up his new seat at the very back of the classroom. “I – wow!”

Though Lexa, quite deliberately so, does not ask for an explanation for Clarke’s sudden and drastic makeover, Clarke gives her one anyway, as if she feels like she has to justify her new fashion choice.

“I’ve always wanted to dye it,” she shrugs, reaching up with one hand to play with a single pink curl, “and I might not have hair for too much longer so it seemed like as good of a time as any to get it done.”

As Clarke glances away, a brief moment of sadness passing across her face as she does so, Lexa’s insides lurch unsettlingly at the thought of Clarke’s hair falling out against her will. She quickly remembers that Clarke will be taking the day off school tomorrow for the first of many chemotherapy treatments, which explains the unexpected change of hair colour mid-week, and just tries to imagine for a second how terrified Clarke must be at the prospect of going into hospital for such a daunting treatment.

Lexa flails silently for a moment, wondering what, if anything at all, she can say that might ease Clarke’s mind ahead of her hospital visit but nothing comes to mind that won’t do more harm than good. Lexa settles instead for saying something a little different.

“The pink really suits you.”

Eyes wide with surprise as she lifts her head to look up at Lexa, as if she hadn’t been expecting the compliment at all, Clarke softly mumbles, “Thanks,” before reverting back into a glum silence for the rest of class.

Clarke’s absence on Friday, despite her only sharing a couple of classes with Lexa, feels somewhat akin to Lexa having to spend the day without one of her arms. She’s a mess for pretty much the whole day, distracted with pondering thoughts of where Clarke is, of what the doctors will be doing to her, and of hoping that none of it is as bad as the scary word chemotherapy makes it all sound.

When she arrives home from school that afternoon, Lexa collapses on her bed with her phone in her hand, the screen unlocked and opened on a message conversation with Clarke, but she hesitates with her thumb hovering over the keyboard before she sends anything. Nothing that comes to mind quite seems right for the situation - casual well-wishes seem too impersonal and asking how the treatment went seems far too invasive and unsympathetic.

Lexa exits the conversation and locks the phone with a sigh, shaking her head in dissatisfaction. She wants to be there for Clarke, she really does, but there’s no class at school for how to be a good friend to somebody with cancer and it’s not really something that Lexa can do on intuition alone.

She decides, forty minutes later and after some assistance from her mom, on a simple Facebook post; an old photo of the two of them with their arms around each other and toothy grins on their faces at Clarke’s eighth birthday party, which she captions “Found this looking through some old stuff - partners in crime since kindergarten!” and then tags Clarke in it. Nothing fancy. It’s simple, it’s irrelevant, and it will hopefully let Clarke know that Lexa has been thinking about her all day.

She definitely doesn’t spend the next few minutes eagerly refreshing her new feed, waiting for a notification that lets her know that Clarke has seen the post.

It never comes.

She doesn’t know what she was expecting, if not a comment then perhaps at least a like, but each time the little red bubble pops up in Lexa’s notifications, it is with somebody else’s name and not Clarke’s. A selection of school friends like the post, both from their high school and old friends who knew the girls back around the time that the photo was taken. Some names are ones that Lexa doesn’t recognise, presumably friends of Clarke’s from elsewhere. Octavia Blake reacts to the post with a red heart that Lexa wishes came from Clarke instead.

The first comment is from Raven; “Double denim? Griffin, you were such a style icon!”

It hurts more than it should, two minutes later, when Lexa’s post remains unacknowledged but the little blue thumb icon appears underneath Raven’s comment with Clarke’s name next to it.

Clarke is back at school on Monday morning, almost as if she was never gone. There’s no indication that she missed a day of classes for the first of many life-saving medical treatments, no missing hair, no hospital gown or big sign around Clarke’s neck saying I had chemo. And Lexa curses herself for even thinking that things would be different.

(She decides that Clarke’s pale skin and tired eyes are just a figment of the imagination that is looking for something different in Clarke’s appearance.)

“Hey,” Lexa greets Clarke in their first class of the day. “How was the … uh, the treatment?”

Raising a single eyebrow at Lexa, Clarke replies, “You can call it chemo. That’s what it is.”

“Sorry,” apologises Lexa, feeling the mild burn along her cheekbones that is no doubt accompanied by a pinkening of the skin there. “I’m just new to all of this.”

She regrets the words the very second that they leave her mouth. The way that Clarke’s face falls, disappointment filling her blue eyes as her brow knits into a furrowed frown, is enough to inform Lexa that what she has just said was insensitive on every level.

“You’re new to this?” Clarke asks, her voice soft but laced with bitterness.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Lexa says dejectedly. “That was insensitive of me.”

Lexa is more disappointed in herself that she would care to admit. She’s spent more than a little bit of time this weekend on her laptop, googling questions like what to say to a friend with cancer and the overwhelming number one piece of advice she could find was to not make it about herself and how she feels about Clarke’s diagnosis. And yet, all that research is for nothing as she lets herself down within the first thirty seconds.

“It’s fine,” Clarke assures her, though Lexa can’t help but feel that this isn’t fine at all, nor will it ever be until Clarke’s treatment finishes and she gets the all clear in however many months’ time. “I get it, you want help but don’t know how. The best thing you can do is to just act normal.” Lexa nods along earnestly as Clarke reaches out a hand and rests it tenderly on Lexa’s forearm, before continuing. “And Lexa, I appreciate what you’re trying to do. You’re treating me like a human, not like a time bomb. That’s more than I can say for most of the rest of the assholes in this school.”

“I’m sorry,” Lexa attempts to apologise a final time, but the arrival of the teacher for the start of the lesson means that she isn’t given the chance to take her apology any further.

“By all means, come on in,” Clarke says to Raven, pushing open her bedroom door as she leads her best friend inside. “But fair warning, it looks and smells like a hospital.”

Clarke wrinkles her own nose as she steps into her bedroom, the nasty smell of cleaning product invading her nostrils. Her bedroom doesn’t really feel like home much at the moment, the various medications prescribed to her for combatting the side effects of chemo scattered haphazardly across all available surfaces in the room. The smell, despite her desperate pleas, comes from her mother’s insistence of giving the room a thorough disinfect almost every other day so that Clarke doesn’t catch anything while her immune system is reduced.

“Jesus Christ,” Raven blanches as she follows Clarke into the room, lifting her hand up to her face to cover her nose and mouth. “Do you not have any air freshener?”

“I’ve asked my mom to get me some,” Clarke answers. “She insists on keeping this place spotless. I’m already sick, a few germs isn’t going to do any harm.”

Raven’s hand reaches out to Clarke’s, her fingers clasping around Clarke’s wrist to get her full attention.

“Hey. No. Mama G is a medical professional, you listen to what she has to say, okay?”

“Jesus, Raven,” Clarke whines, dropping onto the bed with a plop that rumples the freshly washed sheets. “Are you my mom now?”

Raven launches herself belly first onto the mattress next to Clarke, propping her head up with one elbow as she sends a wicked smile in Clarke’s direction.

“Shut up,” says Raven, rolling over onto her back, where she steals half of the pillows and cushions that decorate Clarke’s double bed and sets them up against the headboard behind her. “Are we gonna watch a movie or what? It’s so awesome that you’ve finally got a TV in your room.”

Shrugging and reaching for the remote control that sits on top of a pile of untouched pamphlets from the hospital, Clarke points it at the brand new television that sits on top of the dresser against the opposite wall and says, “Cancer perks.”

The end of the school year and the start of the summer break between Clarke’s junior and senior years of high school comes around two weeks later, shortly after her second chemotherapy appointment, and Clarke has never been more grateful to have a couple of months off school.

She can already feel some of the changes in her body – most notable is just how lethargic she’s starting to feel. Clarke has always been the number one advocate for power naps but since starting the treatment, she’s found herself passing out pretty much everywhere, including in class, though two hours of calculus on a Monday morning is probably enough to send anybody to sleep.

The other thing is her hair. It hasn’t started to fall out yet, not properly, but Clarke has started to notice a bit of thinning. Each pull of her hairbrush through the newly-dyed pink hair tugs strands out from her scalp that get caught around the bristles of the brush and when she showers, there is slightly more hair than usual to pull out of the drain at the end. It isn’t noticeable in the mirror yet, but Clarke knows that the worst part – when actual clumps of her hair start falling out in uneven patches across her scalp – is almost imminent, and she’s grateful that she won’t have to go to school during this in-between stage.

Lexa is thankful for the arrival of the summer break. Junior year has been a lot of work and she knows that her final year at high school will be even more tiring. As much as she’s looking forward to throwing herself headfirst into another year of challenging schoolwork and college applications, the two months she has before that to mentally and physically rest is exactly what she needs right now.

And yet, three days after the last day of school, she finds herself already missing the crowded corridors and the uncomfortable plastic chairs.

Well, maybe not those, per se.

She finds herself missing Clarke.

Their friendship is by no means rekindled to the level that it was at before they started drifting apart in middle school, but Lexa likes to think that they’ve reached the point once more where they can text each other and make social plans without it being weird.

Clarke, on the other hand, seems to disagree.

Lexa Are you free today? We could catch a movie or get lunch if you like! Or something else, I’m open to suggestions.

Clarke I’m pretty tired actually. Think I’m just gonna stay at home.

Not yet disheartened, Lexa is already prepared with another suggestion that might suit Clarke a little better.

Lexa I could come over and we could watch something at yours?

Clarke I think I just want to sleep tbh

Lexa tries to think of something to say, anything to let Clarke know that she’s always going to be welcome to hang out with Lexa later, but everything she tries typing out just falls flat. She doesn’t want to seem needy, doesn’t want to force Clarke to exert herself any more than she’s physically capable of doing right now, doesn’t want to make Clarke feel guilty for the way that the side effects of the chemotherapy are inhibiting their social interactions.

She just wants Clarke to know that she isn’t alone.

Lexa No problem!

Clarke stands in front of the mirror and adjusts the beanie on her head for what is probably the hundredth time in the last ten minutes.

“You look good,” Raven says. “Don’t worry about it.”

Except that Clarke is worried. Because Octavia is throwing a party tonight and Clarke has been coerced (by Octavia, by Raven, even by her own mother) into attending and it’s the first time she’s left the house for anything other than a hospital visit in the three weeks since school finished. And the first time in almost as long that Clarke has worn anything except for pyjamas.

Not to mention the fact that it’s the debut of her new hairstyle. If you can even call a patchy buzzcut a hairstyle. Hence the beanie.

“Are you sure people aren’t going to notice?” asks Clarke, turning to look at Raven, who is sprawled across Clarke’s bed, playing on her phone as Clarke gets ready.

Pushing herself up into a seated position, Raven grins up at Clarke and answers, “The only thing people are going to notice is how hot you look. Because damn girl.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“I’m not,” Raven insists, shaking her head. “Everybody is going to wish they were you.”

Clarke arches an eyebrow, because she’s pretty certain that there is not a single person in the world who would want to be a kid with cancer.

Raven doesn’t miss the look that Clarke shoots her and she jumps up to her feet, crossing the room to stand beside Clarke as they both look at Clarke’s reflection in the mirror.

“You’re hot,” Raven tells Clarke again. “The colours really suit you, your tits look great in that shirt, and you’re totally rocking that beanie. Fuck the cancer, you’re awesome!”

And for just a moment, Clarke believes it.

Parties aren’t always Lexa’s thing. She not a huge drinker, nor does she like big crowds of people, not to mention the fact that she doesn’t fall into the right social circles to get invited to most of the parties thrown by the kids in her year at school.

But for some reason Octavia Blake, who has never taken the time to talk to Lexa much off the soccer pitch that they share during training for the women’s varsity team, personally insisted that Lexa just had to come along to the party that she’s throwing tonight.

It’s not Lexa’s scene at all. Music thumps from two loudspeakers positioned on either side of the living room, questionable drinks are being poured into cups from a large keg being manned by Octavia’s college-aged brother, and sweaty bodies are crammed into every corner of the Blakes’ small house. But Lexa doesn’t get invited to parties often and she’s determined to at least try to enjoy this one.

(Her attendance has absolutely nothing to do with the possibility that tonight might be the first time she sees Clarke since school finished for the summer. Nothing.)

There’s a big shout from the already quite tipsy Octavia when Raven arrives at the party, and Lexa’s eyes desperately squint towards the door for Clarke.

And there she is.

Oh boy.

Lexa doesn’t know if it’s the jungle juice catching up with her or if the sight of Clarke entering the room behind Raven is really that mesmerising, but her head starts to swim a little bit. Clarke looks a little thinner than before, a little more tired, but Lexa hardly notices that because Clarke is still just as beautiful as ever. There’s a dark gray beanie pulled over her head, hiding her hair (or lack of it, as Lexa quickly realises may be the case), but it just emphasises everything else. The sharp plane of Clarke’s jaw. The blue in Clarke’s haggard eyes. The dip of the neckline on Clarke’s rather revealing tank top.

Jesus Christ, when did Lexa become so fucking gay.

Lexa’s heart is racing, and the only thing that stops her from passing out, or from locking herself in a quiet and soundproof room for the duration of the party, is that Clarke has an expression on her face that matches the same startled-slash-terrified feeling that Lexa has too.

And so Lexa pushes her own anxiety aside and makes it her main aim to make Clarke feel as comfortable as possible in this scary new environment. Lexa takes a sip from her drink for courage, then plasters a smile on her face as she pushes through the crowd to cross the room and welcome Clarke.

“Clarke!” Lexa beams, her smile genuine as she throws her arms around Clarke’s neck in a greeting. “I didn’t know if you’d be here tonight.”

Lexa didn’t know, but she hoped.

“Yeah, Raven came to my house and basically dragged me out of bed,” Clarke shrugs. “Also, my mom threatened to cut off the wifi at home if I didn’t leave the house. She’s worried I’m becoming a recluse. I swear parents are supposed to worry about kids going to wild parties and getting involved in underage drinking and sex, but apparently when you get cancer they actively encourage it.”

“Then why are you complaining?” Lexa teases Clarke. She gestures towards the kitchen, then asks, “Do you want something to drink?”

Clarke squints at the plastic cup in Lexa’s hand, inspecting its contents with a wary gaze, before she answers, “Sure. Why not?”

Clarke’s hand seeks her own so that they don’t get separated as they slowly navigate their way through the mass of drunk teenagers, and Lexa tries to ignore the erratic pounding of her heart in her chest and the feeling of Clarke’s warm palm against her own. It’s stupid to get so worked up about such meaningless platonic intimacy, but this is Clarke, who gets Lexa’s pulse racing by just looking at her. Lexa knows that being with Clarke in that way is beyond her wildest dreams, but even an act as simple as having Clarke’s hand squeezing her own as she leads Lexa towards the kitchen, is more than Lexa thinks she deserves.

“Are you having another?” Clarke asks, when they make it to the keg where Bellamy is pouring his homemade concoction into plastic cups and distributing it to the teenagers that surround him.

Lexa glances down at the cup in her hand and takes a moment to think, before knocking bag the dregs at the bottom and nodding as she passes it across to Bellamy for a refill.

“So,” says Clarke, when they both have their drinks, leading the way out of the kitchen and through the glass doors into the back yard, where the music is quieter and the air much cooler than the warmth indoors that feels heavy with the scent of cheap alcohol and teenage sweat. “You seemed surprised to see me here tonight, but I’ve never seen you at a party before.”

“Yeah, parties aren’t usually my thing.”

They reach the far side of the yard, where a rusty swing set stands under the branches of a tall oak tree, and Clarke sits on the seat, looping one of her arms around the chain to keep herself steady, while Lexa stands nearby.

“What’s different about tonight?” asks Clarke.

“Octavia was very persuasive,” replies Lexa. She takes a quick swig of her drink for courage, and then continues, “And I was hoping you’d be here. I wanted to see you. To know that you’re doing okay.”

The cover of the darkness, lit only by the crescent moon ad a few twinkling stars in the sky, does a good job of hiding the blush that rises to Lexa’s cheeks when she confesses that seeing Clarke was a motivator for pushing herself beyond her usual comfort zone.

“I’ve been bad at replying to your messages,” says Clarke. “And I’m sorry for that. Sometimes I just don’t have any energy and then I forget and…”

“No!” Lexa protests quickly, holding up a hand to stop Clarke before she can apologise any further. “You don’t have to say sorry. I probably text you way too much.”

“I like that you message me,” Clarke says in a soft voice. “It’s nice that you think of me.”

“Of course I think about you,” says Lexa, laughing softly under her breath, because there is hardly a moment that goes by where Lexa isn’t thinking about Clarke, even subconsciously. “You’re … I mean, you’re you.”

“What do you mean by that?” Clarke asks, an inquisitive smile on her face.

Lexa’s cheeks burn in embarrassment and she’s grateful that it’s late enough that the shroud of darkness hides her red-tinged cheeks.

“You’ve always been special,” Lexa shrugs as she answers, avoiding eye contact with Clarke out of fear that she’ll fluster and stumble over her words. “You were my first friend in Kindergarten. Do you remember that?”

“I do,” replies Clarke, and when Lexa finally looks up, it is to find Clarke grinning fondly at the memory. “Murphy pushed you over and I kicked him in the balls.”

“My hero,” says Lexa, mockingly fluttering her lashes in Clarke’s direction.

“God, even back then you were an adorable nerd,” Clarke teases, taking a swig from the plastic cup in her hand.

“Wait, you think I’m adorable?”

“I don’t think I said that,” Clarke denies resolutely, though Lexa can see that she’s trying to fight a smile that gives away the truth.

“You definitely said that,” insists Lexa.

“I also called you a nerd,” Clarke reminds Lexa matter-of-factly.

“Yes, but that’s old news.”

They fall into silence, and as Clarke gently pushes herself back and forth on the swing with her feet against the lawn, all Lexa can see are flashes of memories from years past, of two small girls chasing each other around the nearby playground and seeing who can fly the highest on the swings before losing their nerve.

“I’ve missed this,” says Lexa, smiling to herself at the memory. “Missed us.”

“So have I,” agrees Clarke, scraping her feet against the grass to bring herself to a standstill. “We should do this more often. Hang out, I mean. If you’d like to.”

Lexa’s eyes widen in surprise.

“Yeah, I … I’d love to!”

Lexa can’t remember why she was ever so worried about coming to this party in the first place.

The thing about promises is that they are easy to make and even easier to break. So when Clarke and Lexa promise to spend more time together, to rekindle a friendship that has been not much more than a pile of ashes since middle school, it’s far too easy to just let things continue how they did before the party.

It’s not that Lexa doesn’t try. Because she does. She sends Clarke occasional messages, links to things she’s seen online that she’s found funny, photos of the mundane happenings in her day to day life, little anecdotes that she thinks Clarke might enjoy. And Clarke replies most of the time, but it’s very rarely more than a one word answer or a laughing face emoji. When it is something more, the conversation fades out within the two or three messages after that.

Lexa tries her best not to push Clarke, because as much as she wants Clarke’s friendship to be the same permanent fixture in her life that it used to be, she also knows that Clarke is having a difficult enough time right now without having to fend off the unwanted attention of a former best friend who has a massive fucking crush on her.

When three weeks have passed since the party, three weeks since they promised to spend a little bit of time together, three weeks in which virtually nothing has changed since before their conversation at the party, Lexa decides to attempt to initiate a face-to-face meeting.

Lexa Woods Do you want to hang out later? We could have a movie night? You wouldn’t even have to leave your bed!

She doesn’t have to wait long for Clarke’s reply.

Clarke Griffin Yeah, might be fun

Lexa Woods Cool! I’ll bring popcorn! What time do you want me to come over?

And that’s it. There isn’t a reply to that message. Lexa checks her phone over and over again, just in case she has accidentally missed the ping of her text tone, but there’s still nothing. She assumes that Clarke has fallen asleep, that her message goes unanswered for a completely legitimate reason, but Lexa soon starts to second guess herself and doubt begins to creep into her mind.

Maybe Clarke doesn’t want to hang out with her.

Maybe Lexa is being too pushy.

No, Lexa tells herself. Clarke likes you. Clarke wants to spend time with you. It’s not her that’s pushing you away, it’s the cancer.

With that in mind, Lexa slips into her shoes, grabs a jacket, and decides to head over to Clarke’s house.

When Lexa arrives at the Griffin house, she is nervous.

Nervous that Clarke won’t be in the mood for socialising and that she’ll be turned away at the door.

Nervous that she’s going to be invited inside and will have to somehow find a way to cope with spending two hours watching a movie with a girl that she’s basically in love with.

The fluttering of her heart is almost enough to make Lexa go home of her own accord before she can enter the house.

Lexa musters all of her courage and raises her hand, tapping on the front door sharply with her knuckles. While she waits for somebody to answer the door, Lexa’s heart pounds so hard that she can hear the blood rushing through her ears.

It feels like an eternity that Lexa is waiting on that doorstep, but the door finally swings open and Abby Griffin peers inquisitively at her.

“Hello, can I-?” Abby stops mid-question to peer closer, and recognition seeps across her face as she realises who is on her doorstep. “Lexa?”

“Mrs Griffin,” Lexa nods, smiling politely.

It’s been years since Lexa has been to the Griffin house, years since she’s seen Abby, and though things have changed – there are different cars on the drive, a new rug in the hallway just behind Abby, more gray in Abby’s hair and more crinkled lines around her eyes and mouth – Lexa feels like no time has passed, like she’s still a bright-eyed middle-schooler visiting for a slumber party with stolen candy and whispered secrets beneath the sheets long after the rest of the house has fallen silent.

“Please, call me Abby. And come in!” Abby steps aside, welcoming Lexa into her home and closing the front door behind her, before she continues, “It’s good to see you. It’s been far too long since we had you in this house.”

Lexa nods in agreement, and then asks, “Is Clarke around? We said we’d have a movie night.”

“I haven’t seen her for a while,” Abby answers with a frown, pausing to think before she speaks again. “She came down and made herself some toast just after two but it’s been quiet since then. She’s probably been sleeping.”

“Oh, okay,” says Lexa, trying to mask her disappointment.

“You can go up and see her if you like,” suggests Abby. Abby’s eyes widen as she has an idea, and she explains to Lexa, “I tell you what, I haven’t planned any dinner tonight so we could order pizza for your movie night. How does that sound? Why don’t you go and wake Clarke and ask her what she wants on her pizza? You remember where Clarke’s room is, don’t you?”

“That sounds great,” says Lexa, the anxiety from earlier starting to be replaced with comfort as Abby makes her feel welcome in the place that used to feel like a second home.

She can only hope that Clarke does the same.

Leaving Abby alone downstairs, Lexa ascends the staircase to the upper floor of the house and makes her way to the door that she knows leads to Clarke’s bedroom. And yet again, she hesitates outside the door as nerves begin to rise within her gut at what she might find inside.

After two deep breaths, Lexa knocks lightly on the door and then, when there is no response, she pushes it open and peers inside.

Clarke is asleep. That much is apparent straight away. Her eyes are closed, her mouth slightly agape, and she snores softly. One of her arms is flung casually above her head on the pillow, while Lexa can just see a few toes decorated with chipped red nail polish peeking out from beneath the covers at the foot of the bed.

The most glaringly obvious thing in the room, and Lexa tries her best not to stare at it for too long, is that Clarke has no hair.

Lexa always knew that Clarke was going to end up losing her hair at some point, but she immediately regrets not preparing herself for the sight. Clarke’s scalp is stubbly, like the hair has been shaven close to her scalp at some point in the last few weeks, but the little hair that remains is thin and wispy, like that of a newborn baby before their proper hair starts to grow in thick. It only adds to the childlike image that Lexa gets of Clarke, sprawled out on her bed like an infant taking a nap, and Lexa wants nothing more than to wrap Clarke up in bundles of blanket as she presses soft kisses to her forehead and whispers promises to keep her safe.

Grateful that Clarke is asleep and therefore unable to witness Lexa staring at her almost-hairless head, Lexa forcibly drags her eyes away from the sleeping girl and takes in the rest of the room. Though it’s still the same room that Lexa remembers from her childhood visits, it’s much different. The room feels smaller and less inviting, is Lexa’s first impression. It smells clinical in here, but that’s not it. Across the dresser, there are an assortment of medicines in bottles and boxes, labelled with names that are just as terrifying as they are long. Lexa had no idea that cancer treatment required so much medication.

A giant corkboard leans against Clarke’s closet door, upon which Lexa can see various information pamphlets from the hospital pinned up with brightly coloured pins. Most of the corkboard is dominated by a huge yearly wall planner, which Clarke has decorated with coloured stickers to denote which medicines she needs to take on which days, as well as written in all of her hospital appointments. At the bottom of the board, there’s a handwritten sign that says 12 days to next treatment, with a homemade flip chart to change the numbers as she counts down. Around the edge of the board, Clarke has pinned up a few inspirational quotes, and Lexa smiles to herself as she reads one in particular - scars are like tattoos but with cooler stories.

It’s all very strange to Lexa, seeing the evidence of Clarke’s cancer all over the same bedroom that she used to have playdates and slumber parties with Clarke in, but the reality of it sinks in a little more that it has before. Lexa feels a tinge of sadness at the realisation that this is what Clarke’s life has become now, but also a huge swell of admiration for how Clarke is refusing to let the cancer take her down without a fight.

When Lexa glances back at the girl still soundly asleep in the bed, she feels as though she’s looking at her in a different light.

“Clarke?” Lexa says in a hushed voice, crossing the room and sitting down gently on the edge of Clarke’s bed, trying not to cause the mattress to jolt suddenly under her weight as she takes a seat. Lexa is torn between wanting to wake Clarke up to spend time with her or leaving her to continue her peaceful slumber, but it is the selfish part of her brain that wins out in the end. “Clarke, it’s me. Lexa.”

Clarke stirs ever so slightly and Lexa reaches out with one hand to brush the back of her fingers against Clarke’s warm cheek, stroking the soft skin tenderly. Clarke leans into the touch, and her bleary eyes flicker open just a fraction.

“Your mom is going to order pizza for dinner,” explains Lexa. “Does that sound okay?”

Clarke lets out a little grunt that Lexa assumes is an affirmative, and so she continues her line of questioning.

“Great, what do you want on yours?”

“Cheese,” mumbles Clarke sleepily.

“Just cheese?” Lexa asks for clarification. “No other toppings?”

“No.”

Clarke rolls onto her side towards Lexa, tucking her legs up to her chest as she curls up and pulls the covers over her shoulder. Her eyes are closed once more, as if she never stirred at all.

“Do you want me to leave you to sleep?” asks Lexa, her voice just a whisper as she tries not to startle the sleepy girl beside her.

Clarke lets out a low hum that Lexa interprets as an affirmative, and Lexa slowly gets to her feet, careful not to disturb Clarke as she crosses the room and backs out into the hallway, closing the bedroom door with a soft click.

Once she is back downstairs, Lexa relays Clarke’s pizza order to Abby, as well as her own, then takes a seat on the couch in the Griffin’s living room.

“She’s fast asleep,” Lexa says, once Abby has phoned the pizza restaurant and placed their order. “It was almost like she was talking to me in her sleep.”

“She does that,” nods Abby. “Sometimes I can go into her room and have an entire conversation with her and she’ll have no recollection of it when we speak later in the day.”

“Wow,” gasps Lexa. “She must be really out of it. Does she spend a lot of time asleep, then?”

“You could say that,” Abby laughs softly under her breath. “Now, Clarke has always enjoyed her sleep. It’s difficult enough to get her out of bed in the morning at the best of times, but since she started the treatment, she spends most of the day in bed. She’ll surface a couple of times a day for a snack, but it’s rare to see her awake for more than a few hours at a time.”

“I…” Lexa starts, but then trails off, wondering if the way her thoughts are going aren’t appropriate for a conversation with the mother of a cancer patient. But Abby looks at her with warmth in her eyes and an encouraging smile on her face, and it makes Lexa feel a little like there isn’t a wrong thing that she can say, and so she continues, “This is probably going to sound really ignorant, but I’ve never known anybody with cancer before, and seeing somebody go through all of this is so different to how I imagined it to be. I don’t mean that to sound so…”

“No, Lexa, there’s no need to say sorry!” Abby is quick to shut Lexa down for she can start apologising. “I’m a doctor – I deal with people suffering from all sorts of things on a daily basis, and I even did a placement in an oncology ward when I was a student doctor – and there are things about Clarke’s treatment and the side effects that surprise me.”

Lexa smiles gratefully at Abby’s words, and then continues, “It’s just, media makes it seem like cancer is about your hair falling out and being connected to a machine by a tube.”

“And there is an element of that to it,” Abby interjects.

Nodding, Lexa adds, “But it seems like it’s so much more than that.”

“There is,” agrees Abby. “You also have to remember that not everybody experiences cancer in the same way, so the way that Clarke’s body responds to the chemicals fighting off the disease is not necessarily the same way that mine would, or yours.”

“Clarke is … I know it’s stupid for me to be saying this when it’s mostly my fault that we aren’t as close as we used to be.”

“Lexa,” says Abby, reaching across the space between them on the couch and resting a comforting hand on Lexa’s arm. “You and Clarke have been an important part of each other’s lives. It’s perfectly natural for you to be affected by what she’s going through.”

Lexa smiles gratefully, Abby’s words doing a little to quell the guilt that Lexa feels for finding it difficult to talk or even think about Clarke’s health.

“Clarke is special,” Lexa confesses to Abby. “Clarke has always been there for me. She’s been looking out for me since the day that we met, and it feels like it’s my turn to repay that favour, to look out for her.” Lexa pauses, before she admits, “And I’m worried about her. She doesn’t seem the same as she used to be.”

Lexa wonders for a moment if she has said the wrong thing, when Abby’s brows furrows and her eyes fill with sadness at the changes she’s seeing in her only daughter.

“She’s not,” agrees Abby. “And she may never be. But whatever she may seem like now, she’s going to be a much stronger person when it’s all over.”

Lexa is reminded of another one of the quotes she saw pinned to Clarke’s corkboard up in her bedroom - Cancer is always going to lose, because though it tries to make you weaker it only ends up making you stronger.

“To quote Kelly Clarkson; what doesn't kill you makes you stronger,” says Lexa, and Abby laughs softly at her words.

“Mom?”

They both startle at the sound of Clarke’s voice, having not heard her descend the stairs, and look up to find Clarke rubbing her tired eyes as she enters the room,  wearing pyjama pants and an oversized hoodie.

“Who are you talking to? I thought Dad was away toni-” Clarke stops mid-sentence when she notices Lexa. “Lexa?”

Lexa gives a meek little wave. Clarke looks completely surprised to see Lexa in her living room, as if she doesn’t remember either inviting Lexa over or even the short conversation that they shared in her room earlier. Lexa remembers what Abby said about Clarke often having entire conversations that she’s too tired to remember later and realises that must be the case.

“Told you she wouldn’t remember,” Abby's says, quiet enough that only Lexa can hear her.

“I came up to your room earlier to ask you what you wanted on your pizza,” Lexa explains to Clarke, smiling kindly in an attempt to reassure Clarke that it’s completely fine if she doesn’t remember. “We had a conversation.”

“We did?”

“Pizza is on its way,” says Abby. “Probably about half an hour.”

“I don’t know if I’m hungry,” Clarke protest, her voice feeble. She drops into one of the armchairs and curls her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them to keep them close to her body as her head drops back against the cushion behind her.

“That’s fine,” Abby tells her. “But it’s there for you if you want it. Lexa says you two are having a movie night.”

“Oh shit, I totally forgot about that!” sighs Clarke, eyes widening as she remembers inviting Lexa over.

“Language, Clarke!” Abby scolds Clarke, though there isn’t actually any trace of anger in her voice.

“Sorry,” mumbles Clarke.

“I can go if you want me to,” says Lexa, trying to mask the disappointment as she makes to get up onto her feet.

“No!” says Clarke quickly, leaning forward in her seat slightly and letting her feet slide onto the floor as if preparing to chase Lexa if she tries to leave. “Stay! Please?”

Lexa drops back into her seat perhaps a little too eagerly, just pleased that she’s finally going to be able to make true of the promise they made at Octavia’s party and spend some time with Clarke. If her heart picks up its pace in her chest, then Lexa vehemently ignores it.

“Let’s use the den,” says Clarke. The Griffins have a room at the back of their house that they call the ‘den’, a small-ish room with a couch, a television, and several towering bookshelves along one wall, and Lexa remembers the room well from her childhood visits here, she remembers eating chips in front of cartoons, and making a fort to hide from the grown-ups. “My bedroom is too much like a prison.”

Lexa nods, her only concern being Clarke’s comfort at all times. If Clarke would rather host their movie night in the den, rather than the bedroom that has become almost like her own private hospital ward at home, then Lexa isn’t going to put forward any complaints.

“That sounds like a great idea,” says Abby. “Why don’t you girls go and set up in there? There’s some spare blankets and pillows up in the spare bedroom if you want to make it more comfy in there. I can bring the pizza to you when it arrives.”

“Thank you, Mrs Griffin,” says Lexa.

“It’s Abby,” replied Abby, a twinkle in her eyes, “and you know that, Lexa!”

They build what can only be described as a nest on the couch in the den, cocooning themselves in a warm bundle of blankets and cushions while they choose a movie from Netflix. When the pizza arrives, Abby brings it through to them and smiles at the sight of their heads peering out from under all the blankets.

The pizza box sits between them on the couch, resting on a small cushion, and they help themselves to cheesy slices while the movie plays in the background. Despite her earlier protests that she wouldn’t be hungry, Clarke’s stomach gives a traitorous growl when they lift the lid, and she manages almost two slices before she gives in and says that her appetite has gone.

Clarke falls asleep about halfway through the movie, and with her stomach full and the nest of blankets keeping her cosy, Lexa can feel her own eyes drooping with the onset of drowsiness not too long afterwards. She tries to fight it, to stay away and watch the movie, but her eyelids are heavy and she quickly succumbs.

When Clarke wakes up, she is uncomfortable.

Which is weird because she’s bundled up in blankets on the soft couch cushions in the den, with Lexa fast asleep against her side. She should be the epitome of comfort.

There’s an unsettled feeling in Clarke’s stomach, and it takes her a few sleepy moments to realise that she feels nauseous. The need to be sick is not an urgent one, but it is there, but as soon as she realises that she’s feeling queasy, it takes over her entire body and she can’t think of anything else.

Clarke tries to extract herself from the blankets without disturbing Lexa, but with the other girl asleep against her side, her head resting on Clarke’s shoulder, it’s a harder task that it seems. The blankets are tangled around their limbs and as she tries to remove herself from their warmth, Lexa stirs against her and her eyes blink open.

“Are you okay?” Lexa asks, her voice raspy in her newly awakened state.

“Just gonna go to the bathroom,” Clarke says, trying not to let her discomfort show. The last thing she wants is for Lexa to worry about her.

Lexa looks on in concern, but she nods silently and lets Clarke leave, helping to remove the blankets so that she can make her escape.

Clarke knows the drill by now. She reaches for a hair tie and pushes her hair back into a loose bun, then sits on the edge of the bathtub within reach of the toilet basin. She takes deep breaths, trying to stop the bile from rising in her throat, but by this point she knows it’s going to happen.

When she can’t fight it anymore, Clarke leans over the basin and retches, emptying the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl. When she doesn’t think she can be sick any longer, when there is nothing left to throw up, Clarke scrabbles with one hand for the flush, while the other reaches for a square of toilet paper to wipe the disgusting dribble from her chin and lips.

“Clarke?”

As if things couldn’t get any worse, Clarke glances up from where she is huddled on the bathroom floor to find Lexa leaning against the doorway with concern on her face. The very reason that Clarke rarely has friends over at her house is because she doesn’t want them to see her like this, but the illusion that she’s dealing with cancer with her dignity still in tact is lost the moment that Lexa lays eyes on the way that Clarke is clinging to the toilet seat with her own drool coating her lips.

“Go away, Lexa,”

“Can I do anything to help? Do you need anything? Water?”

Clarke is loathe to ask for help, but her throat burns and there’s an acidic taste in her mouth and water sounds like heaven.

“There’s a bottle of water that I left in the den,” Clarke reluctantly says to Lexa.

“I’ll go get it.”

Lexa hurries out of the bathroom obediently like a dog rushing to fetch a ball, and Clarke is only left alone for a moment because the commotion brings her mom along in Lexa’s absence. Abby enters the bathroom and takes a seat on the edge of the bathtub, rubbing a soothing hand up and down Clarke’s back.

“Clarke, are you okay honey?” she asks.

Clarke glances up and puts on a forced smile, as she replies sarcastically, “Peachy.”

Lexa returns with the water bottle, filled with fresh water, and gives it to Clarke with a worried expression still on her face. Clarke accepts the bottle with a grateful nod of her head and takes a huge gulp, swilling the water around her mouth to wash away the taste of her own vomit, before she spits the water into the toilet basin and takes another sip to actually drink.

“Lexa, I don’t want you to see me like this,” says Clarke, now that her throat isn’t quite so dry and scratchy.

Though Lexa looks as though she wants to say something, she remains silent.

Pushing herself up into a standing position, it is Abby who comes up with a solution, leaving Clarke on the bathroom floor beside the toilet as she says to Lexa, “Lexa, how about I make up the spare room for you and you can sleep there tonight?”

Lexa keeps staring at Clarke with a frown on her face, eyes full of pity and something else, before she finally glances up at Abby and nods silently. Abby ushers Lexa out of the bathroom, leading her down the hallway, and it is only when Clarke has been left alone in the bathroom that she lets herself break down, tears cascading down her cheeks and her chest heaving with sobs as she collapses on the bathroom floor and just cries.

School starts up again at the end of the summer and so begins Lexa’s senior year.

Clarke doesn’t show up on the first day, nor on the second, and when she does finally show her face on the third day, she looks wearier than Lexa remembers, and her words are much more negative.

“I just don’t want to be here,” complains Clarke, when Lexa meets with her during morning break to give her a copy of Lexa’s notes from the two days she’s missed. “I don’t see the point.”

“Of course there’s a point!” Lexa tries to assure her. “This is senior year, your last year!”

“And what?” shrugs Clarke dejectedly, slumping against her locker. “I have to miss school for appointments but what about the days like yesterday where I physically couldn’t get out of bed? I’m tired all the fucking time!”

“I’m sure the teachers will be able to help you catch up on the work you’ve missed,” Lexa suggests.

“The teachers don’t give a shit,” replies Clarke. “I’m not in school enough for them to care. They’ve already written me off as a hopeless case. I’m just a kid they’ll talk about in a few years, like ‘remember when we taught that girl with cancer, such a sad story’. That’s all I am to them, a story.”

“Then I’ll help you!” promises Lexa. She hates seeing Clarke like this, hates how the cancer seems to have drained all of Clarke’s positivity. “I can come over to yours and help with the stuff that you miss and it’ll even help with my own revision.”

“I can’t ask you do so that.”

“I want to,” Lexa shrugs, her voice soft.

Clarke looks at Lexa in confusion, her eyebrows furrowed into a frown, like she’s trying to work out why Lexa hasn’t written her off in the same way that nearly every other person in the school has.

“But why? There’s no point. My life lost all its worth the moment they did the scan and found a tumour.”

Clarke chokes on her words towards the end, and Lexa catches her reaching up to rub at her eyes, as if wiping away tears. Within a few seconds, Clarke’s chest is heaving with sobs and her cheeks are damp.

“Come on,” says Lexa, putting an arm around Clarke’s shoulder and guiding her into the nearby girls’ bathroom.

There are two girls in there when they enter, standing at the mirrors touching up their eyeliner, but upon seeing Clarke in tears, they seem to sense the need for privacy and quickly gather their belongings, vacating the bathroom to leave Lexa and Clarke alone.

“It’s okay,” Lexa soothes Clarke. “Let it out.”

“Why me?” sobs Clarke. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“Nothing” says Lexa, as she pulls Clarke in for a hugs and wraps her arms around Clarke’s shoulders. Clarke’s own arms circle loosely around Lexa’s waist and her head falls on Lexa’s shoulder, her tears soaking the sleeve of Lexa’s t-shirt. “You did nothing. You don’t deserve any of this and it makes me so mad that it’s happening to you.”

“I had it all planned out,” says Clarke, another sob tearing through her body as she trembles in Lexa’s arms. “I was going to get a good GPA and go to med school and become a paediatrician but none of that is going to happen anymore.”

“It can still happen if you want it to,” Lexa tries to reassure Clarke.

Clarke pulls herself out of Lexa’s embrace and walks into one of the toilet stalls, emerging a few seconds later with some toilet paper scrunched up in her hand, which she uses to dab at her eyes and then blow her nose.

“That’s the other thing,” Clarke says to Lexa, tossing the used tissue in the nearby trash can. “I’m not sure I even want to be a doctor anymore. Why would I want to spend the rest of my life working in a place that reminds me of what I’m going through now?”

“Then that’s fine,” Lexa answers without hesitation. “There’s still so many other things you can so. You can still go to college without deciding what you want to major in yet, or you don’t have to go to college at all if you don’t want to.”

Clarke’s eyes narrow and she looks at Lexa with an expression on her face like she doesn’t understand why Lexa is so insistent that Clarke’s life isn’t as bad as she thinks it is.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?” asks Lexa.

“Being so nice to me.”

Clarke still looks at Lexa with incredulity in her eyes, like the very idea of somebody showing her kindness is one that she can’t begin to fathom.

“Do you remember in Kindergarten when you helped me up after Murphy pushed me over and then kicked him in the balls?” asks Lexa, and Clarke’s glistening blue eyes soften with traces of amusement as she nods through her tears. “You’ve always had my back and now that things aren’t so great for you, I want to have yours.”

Lexa omits the part where she’s basically in love with Clarke and would do anything to ensure her happiness.

“I mean, Murphy hasn’t done anything but if you want to kick him in the balls anyway, it would really cheer me up.”

“Noted,” smiles Lexa.

Though her cheeks are blotchy and there are red rings around her eyes as evidence of her tears, Clarke is no longer crying and Lexa is grateful that she seems to have cheered up a little. She thinks that seeing Clarke like that, seeing the emotional impact that the cancer is having on her, is far worse than it is to see all of the physical changes on Clarke’s body. Even seeing Clarke hunched over a toilet bowl emptying her stomach that time Lexa went over for a movie night was more bearable than this, because at least Lexa knew that the nausea would pass. Seeing Clarke so upset and feeling like there is nothing she can do to help only leaves Lexa feeling completely helpless, and she wishes that there could be steps for her to take to ensure that Clarke doesn’t have to feel like her life isn’t worth anything now that she’s sick.

“Seriously, though,” Lexa tells Clarke, who has now turned to the sink and is splashing water over her face from the faucet. “I’m here for you. I know that things aren’t going your way at the moment, but I don’t want you to ever feel like you’re alone, because you’re not.”

Clarke’s eyes are still red and the skin around them puffy from her tears, but there’s something much deeper in them as she looks at Lexa, like maybe she might be finally starting to believe that what Lexa is saying is true.

Something changes in Clarke.

Lexa hardly notices it at first, because in many ways nothing changes at all. Clarke still misses a lot of school and when she does show up, she is still just as weary and down about her situation as she was at the start of the school year, keeping her head down on her desk for often entire lessons and secluding herself from most of her peers during break and lunchtimes.

But there’s definitely something different too. Something in the way that Clarke’s eyes seek out Lexa’s in the school canteen and her tense shoulders relax visibly as she comes to sit at Lexa’s table. Something in the way that Clarke will always choose to sit next to Lexa in the classes that they share, even if she ends up sleeping on her desk for the entire lesson. Something in the way that Clarke has started inviting Lexa over to hers after school every now and then so that Lexa can help her with the work she’s missed, even though their ‘study sessions’ usually end up with them binge-watching TV and reminiscing about memories from years past until their cheeks hurt from smiling too much.

Lexa likes it. Well, she doesn’t like that Clarke is still struggling, but she likes the way that even though Clarke is having a tough time, she’s giving Lexa the chance to try and make it a little less difficult.

Clarke has her last treatment in early-November and Lexa spends the entire day glued to her phone. Or at least as glued to her phone as she can be at school without the teachers noticing it and confiscating it from her. She checks it as often as she can, waiting for a message from Clarke to say that she’s out of the hospital so that she can congratulate Clarke on making it to the end of a gruelling six months of chemotherapy.

There isn’t a message, but when Lexa checks Facebook during her lunch break, there’s a post from Clarke at the top of her feed, dominated by a goofy selfie of Clarke at the hospital with a dumb filter that distorts her face and gives her a pair of animal ears.

Lexa taps the ‘like’ button instantly, then scrolls down to read the caption that Clarke has posted below.

Clarke Griffin 34 minutes ago Last ever chemo today! It’s been a difficult six months but I’m coming out the other side stronger and I couldn’t have done it without the most incredible support from the best friends and family I could ask for. Thank you to each and every one of you for sticking by my side during these tricky months. I love you all! All there’s left to do is to wait for the scan to confirm that the cancer is gone and then I can start growing my eyebrows back!

Lexa’s eyes prickle with tears and she wipes them away immediately, before anybody else can see her crying in the middle of the school canteen, but Lexa can’t stop the smile that spreads across her face with the growing pride that she feels for Clarke and the struggle that she has overcome as she types out a comment on Clarke’s post.

Lexa Woods So proud of you and the strength that you’ve shown! <3

It doesn’t come close to expressing what Lexa is really feeling, but when the notification pops up a few seconds later telling her that Clarke has replied with a heart emoji of her own, Lexa hopes that maybe it’s just about enough.

On the day that Clarke goes for her final scan and gets the all-clear from the doctors, who tell her that the chemotherapy has been successful and that she’s in complete remission, they go for milkshakes and donuts to celebrate.

“To you,” says Lexa, holding up her milkshake glass when the waitress brings them their drinks, and Clarke meets it with a soft clink of her own against Lexa’s, “for being the strongest and bravest person I know and kicking cancer’s butt.”

“To you,” adds Clarke, keeping her glass raised even after Lexa lowers her own, “for sticking by my side when so many others turned their backs.”

Lexa wraps her lips around the straw and sucks up some of her milkshake, sighing at how refreshing the drink is, before she puts the glass down on the table.

“Of course I stuck by you,” Lexa shrugs. “I just didn’t want you to feel alone.”

“I appreciate it,” smiles Clarke. “As long as we’re still going to be friends now that I’m healthy again?”

Clarke has genuine concern in her eyes, like she actually thinks that Lexa might stop being her friend now that she no longer has the excuse of wanting to help Clarke through her difficult times.

“Of course we are,” Lexa promises Clarke. “I’ll always be your friend, even when you have hair again!”

Clarke’s face cracks open into a grin and Lexa flushes with delight at having made Clarke smile, a sight that has been so rare over the last few months. It’s nice to see Clarke relaxed for once, instead of exhausted and void of hope, and Lexa can’t tell if Clarke is actually more radiant than before or if it’s just Lexa imagining things. Either way, Clarke looks beautiful as she sips on her milkshake, even more so when she smiles, and Lexa is reminded of all the un-friendlike feelings she has for Clarke as her heart stirs in her chest and makes its presence known by thumping rhythmically against her ribcage.

To distract herself from her racing heart, and to stop herself from doing anything stupid like telling Clarke that she looks beautiful and accidentally confessing her love, Lexa gestures to the box of donuts on the table between them and asks, “Powdered sugar or chocolate sprinkles?”

“Like you even have to ask,” grins Clarke, reaching for the donut decorated with chocolate icing and multi-coloured sprinkles.

The cancer might have gone, but Clarke’s social anxiety definitely has not, and the nerves that she feels upon entering the party that Octavia is throwing at her house for half their year is almost overwhelming. Her hair, barely starting to grow back and still a closely shaven fuzz on her head, is hidden beneath a comfortable gray beanie, and even though it has been months since she had long hair, Clarke still feels self-conscious about her current look.

The other partygoers greet her as if nothing has changed, as if she hasn’t spent months going in and out of hospital appointments and barely showing up to school. There’s the people who have always been her friends, even through it all - Raven wraps Clarke in a tipsy hug when she first sees her, Jasper greets Clarke with a fist bump and offers to pour her a drink from a suspicious-looking homemade concoction stored in an old plastic water bottle, Octavia drags Clarke straight into the middle of a makeshift dance floor in the living room and starts grinding up against her instead of Lincoln - but there’s others, people who have barely acknowledged Clarke during the last six months, who greet her and smile as she passes as if she has never had cancer at all.

It’s weird and Clarke doesn’t like it.

When Clarke has finally managed to escape from Octavia’s inappropriate dancing, using an excuse of needing to go somewhere a little cooler, Clarke makes her way to the slightly quieter kitchen and pours herself a drink.

“So the cancer is gone, huh?”

Clarke glances up, bottle of soda in one hand and a red plastic cup in the other, to find Finn smirking across at her. Finn, who was definitely flirting with her before the diagnosis, but who hasn’t even looked her way since, let alone spoken to her.

“Well,” says Clarke, trying not to let her disinterest in conversing with Finn creep into her voice. “I’m in complete remission, so…”

“So you’re basically cured.”

Clarke knows that she used to be attracted to Finn, though in this moment she can’t possibly remember why. Perhaps the chemotherapy has killed all traces of the former attraction along with the cancer.

“Finn, it…”

“When is your hair going to grow back?” asks Finn.

He must think that he’s flirting, because he wears a smirk on his face and leans closer to Clarke. Clarke decides that they must be living in alternate universes, because Finn clearly thinks that his advances are wanted, while Clarke is struggling to think of anywhere she would rather be less than here with Finn.

Except for perhaps the oncology ward with a tube pumping chemicals into the port on her chest, but it’s an incredibly close call.

“What if I like it short?” Clarke replies haughtily, folding her arms indignantly across her chest.

Still undeterred, Finn says, “I think you look really pretty with long hair. You know, how it was before.”

“Well, if you like it short then I guess I have to grow back.”

Finn completely misses the sarcasm in her voice because instead of getting the idea that Clarke doesn’t care about what he has to say and backing off, he instead leans yet closer and says, “How about we go and talk somewhere a little more private?”

It takes all of Clarke’s self-restraint to stop herself from rolling her eyes.

“And by ‘talk’, you mean hook-up?” she asks him, raising her eyebrows in disbelief.

“Well, I guess. If you like.”

Clarke loses it.

“No, Finn,” she snaps, spitting his name out like it’s a nasty taste on her tongue that she can’t wait to be rid of, “I don’t like. I don’t like the way that you think you can ignore me for six months and then as soon as I finish my treatment, you decide that it’s okay to start flirting with me again because you no longer have to deal with a girl who has cancer.”

“Clarke,” whines Finn, “I only meant that…”

“Well, guess what, Finn?” continues Clarke, barely allowing herself time to take a breath before she launches off again, not giving Finn the chance to try to wriggle his way out of this one. “I’m always going to be the girl who had cancer! You don’t go through something like this and just forget about it. This experience has changed me and I’m not the same girl who had a crush on you last summer. And if you didn’t want to be around for that change then that’s on you.”

“Clarke…” protests Finn.

“Finn, I don’t care,” Clarke tells him bluntly. “If you didn’t want to be my friend when I had cancer, then you don’t get to be my friend now that I don’t.”

Clarke is pretty proud of herself for that one, but she becomes aware that her rant at Finn has drawn a little bit of attention from the handful of other people in the kitchen. They watch her with mild fear on their faces, as if worried that she’s going to turn on them next and give them the same kind of treatment that she’s given Finn.

But Clarke is done ranting, and from the way that Finn is finally silent, Clarke thinks that maybe she might have got through to him.

Clarke decides that she has to make a quick exit to escape the judgement of the other people in the kitchen, but when she looks up at the door out of the kitchen, she notices that Lexa is standing there watching her, and Clarke realises that she must have seen the entire exchange with Finn.

With her conversation with Finn fresh in her mind, Clarke realises that Lexa is the only person outside of her tight-knit friendship group who has even looked Clarke’s way during the last few months, let alone tried to support her through the biggest challenge of her entire life, and the realisation has everything clicking into place.

Clarke pushes past Finn and walks towards Lexa, grabbing Lexa’s hand with her own on her way out of the kitchen and pulling Lexa with her.

“Come on, Lexa. We need to talk.”

We need to talk.

Put together in that order, they are probably four of the most ominous-sounding words in the English language, but Lexa has no time to process what they might mean or what Clarke wants to talk about. Clarke’s hand grips her own and Lexa is being dragged down the hallway of Octavia’s house, past a few other kids in their year, until Clarke opens up the front door and leads Lexa outside into the chilly December air.

“Clarke, what…?”

Clarke kisses her. Like actually kisses her, lips gently moving against Lexa’s while one of her hands comes up to tangle itself in Lexa’s hair.

It’s not at all what Lexa imagined their first kiss to be like - and Lexa has probably imagined and re-imagined a thousand different scenarios in which she and Clarke share a first kiss. Lexa has pictured it being tentative and clumsy, she’s pictured it being fiery and fuelled by lust, she’s pictured it taking place right after Lexa has delivered a smooth line to knock Clarke off her feet, and she’s pictured it happening in the darkness of her own bedroom late at night during a slumber party. In fact, had you asked Lexa just thirty seconds ago, she probably would have said that there is not a single version of their first kiss that she hasn’t already imagined.

But she never once imagined it to be like this, never thought that it would happen on Octavia Blake’s front step while a party rages on behind the closed front door, never expected that Clarke’s lips would be so soft or that her hand would caress Lexa’s scalp in the way that it does, never once predicted that Clarke kissing her would make Lexa’s heart beat in her chest like it’s having its very own high school house party in her chest.

Lexa tries to be as present as she can be, a task which is a lot harder than it seems when her entire body feels like it’s floating off the ground and soaring into space. She tries to kiss Clarke back, and she lifts her own hand to cup Clarke’s jaw, where her fingertips dip just beneath the soft material of the beanie that Clarke wears and her thumb traces patterns along the bone of Clarke’s gaunt cheek.

The kiss is a bit of a surprise - as far as Lexa is aware, her feelings for Clarke have been entirely one-sided until now - and Lexa can’t help but wonder what has changed in Clarke’s mind to bring them to this point. When Clarke draws back from the kiss to change the angle, Lexa pulls back from the kiss, though she keeps her hands on Clarke to hold her close, trying to let Clarke know that this is just a temporary pause, not a permanent halt on their kissing.

“Clarke, what…?

“Finn was hitting on me and it made me realise that there’s only one person I want to be doing that,” explains Clarke. When Lexa stares at her dumbfoundedly for a few seconds, not quite believing what she’s hearing, Clarke elaborates by saying, “You.”

Lexa’s jaw drops open like she can’t quite believe what she’s hearing, even though she already has the physical evidence that Clarke wants her from the way that her lips are still tingling from the recent pressure of Clarke’s mouth sliding against her own.

“Listen, this isn’t going to be easy,” says Clarke, dropping the hand that is buried in Lexa’s hair so that it’s draped around her neck and bringing the other one up to match it. “I still have to go to the hospital for tests every few months and there’s always a chance that the cancer could come back. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but mentally I’m a bit of a fuck up right now.”

“Clarke…” protests Lexa, shaking her head.

“What?” shrugs Clarke. “It’s true! I’ve still got a difficult journey ahead of me but I want to make that journey with you. I want you to still be by my side, because I can deal with the cancer - not very well, I admit - but I can deal with it. I don’t think I could handle not having you in my life.”

There’s a question in Clarke’s eyes, as if she’s waiting for Lexa to promise that she’s never going to leave. Lexa can’t find the words to do justice to the way that she’s feeling, so she decides to do it with actions instead. Her hands tighten on Clarke’s waist, pulling her closer as she leans down for a second kiss that feels like Lexa is arriving home.

“Just to be clear,” Lexa mumbles against Clarke’s lips, “are you asking me to be your girlfriend?”

Clarke lets out a little noise, something that Lexa decides must be the audible version of an eye roll, before she answers, “Yes, idiot. Be my girlfriend?”

Lexa doesn’t know how she manages to keep kissing Clarke when her mouth is threatening to crack into a huge grin, but she manages it, only pulling back for long enough to say, “Yes.”

[bizarre-dollhouse]

My Top 10 Favourite Anime (And Why You Should Watch Them)

This is normally something I would put on my main blog, but I wanted to celebrate a follower milestone and also I know this will reach a significantly wider audience on this blog.

Consider this both a list of recommendations and a *get to know me* thing, I guess.

Honourable Mentions:

Bakemonogatari: A really stylized show about a semi vampire helping people with their supernatural afflictions born from emotional issues. The subsequent seasons get a little questionable, but this is definitely a standalone story with great dialogue and visuals. (15 eps)

Shiki: Creepy story about a small town infested with vampires. Really brutal and sick, but it has fascinating themes. The pacing is a bit slow and it has a kind of bad scene towards the end, but the show is 100% worth it. (24 eps)

Cardcaptor Sakura: Because this is mostly aimed at younger viewers, I would only really recommend this show for either magical girl fans, or people who watched the extremely altered dub as a kid. That being said, its a cute, fun show about magic with a likeable cast and surprisingly creative and original ideas, especially towards the latter half. (70 eps)

Jojos Bizarre Adventure 4: Diamond is Unbreakable: Full disclosure, I have not seen the first 3 jojo series, but its not necessary to enjoy this show. This is a super creative and really fun series about superpowered badasses in a strange city fighting each other and trying to solve a murder mystery in the background. Weird, but in the best way. (39 eps)

Kuroshitsuji: Book of Circus: This should be higher on the list, but in truth I would recommend the manga way over the show. But, if you want to watch a supernatural horror/comedy without reading a 138+ chapter manga, OR you were a fan of the original Black Butler seasons and want to see something way better, give this a watch. (10 eps)

*drumroll*

10. Trigun

So Trigun takes place is this old west, yet mysterious science fiction-y world where, through a bunch of complicated scenarios, a pacifist is the most wanted criminal known to man. Due to his status as a “natural disaster,” two insurance workers are tasked with reining him in to save their business. It’s an incredibly charming series, and the protagonist is really likeable. It’s extremely creative, funny, and emotional near the end. I do have some problems with the ending because it almost seems like the final conflict just...solves itself, but that’s a nitpick. The first episode is basically a short film, so give that a watch and see how you feel. (26 eps)

9. Paranoia Agent

This was directed by the late and great Satoshi Kon and has his usual themes about the blurring between fiction, dreams, and reality. It’s about a string of mysterious assaults committed by a kid with a baseball bat, and how these assaults seem to solve the problems of the victims. It’s very arthouse and has a twist that makes me ball my eyes out even though it’s not sad it’s just...odd and overwhelming. It drags a bit near the middle, but if you like kind of surreal stuff that’s also just really good, you have to watch this show. (13 eps)

8. Baby Steps

The amazing thing about this show is that its premise is specifically designed to make me hate it. It’s about a nerdy teenager who starts to play a sport for the sole sake of getting fit and having a more well rounded life style, and also he has a crush on this really popular girl. That sounds fucking awful, but the main character is actually really likeable (he reminds me a lot of Deku from BNHA) and I swear to fucking god every time I thought this show was going to do something awful and cliched with its romantic comedy plot, it doesn’t. The beauty and the geek trope is still there, but all of the bullshit that comes with it is omitted in a way I feel was kind of self-aware. The sports aspect is really good too: it’s well paced and there’s lots of tension even though the show as a whole is really upbeat and pleasant. I had a blast watching it, and if you can make it past the fact that is has god awful animation, give it a watch.

7. Higurashi: When They Cry

Yet another great show with absolute garbage animation. Anyways, this show is about a group of teenagers in a small town who are unknowingly trapped in a time loop. In each loop there’s a bunch of new mysteries, as well as some extremely brutal murders and tortures experienced my the main cast. I’ve seen a number of Western shows (Orphan Black, BBC Sherlock, Lost, Supernatural, etc.) fall apart because the writers want a really clever and intricate mystery to play out, but they don’t want to actually put the time into crafting one, so it’s just a bunch of cliffhangers with no answers or pay off. THIS SHOW SUCCEEDS AT WHAT ALL OF THOSE OTHER SHOWS FAIL AT. While not all of the answers are great (the second season isn’t as good) the original author somehow made the world’s most ludicrously complicated mystery story work, with a lot of it relying on the audience to put all of the pieces together even when the characters can’t. Its very clever in doing that: it makes its audience feel smart. It also has themes that don’t really show up in other horror stories, even though they’re incredibly relevant to fear and violence. Great show, go watch it. (50 eps)

6. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Everyone knows about this show, everyone says it’s great, and everyone’s right. If you’ve been living under a rock for ten years: the show is about two brothers who break an alchemy taboo, which destroys their bodies, They’re on the hunt for something to restore them to normal and along the way they meet like 8990354578579 characters with interesting stories. It’s tightly written and really gripping. It’s fun, but also really dramatic and emotional when it needs to be. My only problems with it are that the ending is reaaaallllly convoluted, and there’s a minor plot point earlier on that gets weirdly dropped, but everyone kinda forgets about those things because the show’s so good. Also the brotherly bond makes me cry. (64 eps)

5. FLCL

I honestly don’t even know where to start with this show because it has the unique property of being the only show I have ever seen that I have literally no problems with. Not even nitpicks. There is nothing wrong with this show; it’s perfect. The only reason it’s not number 1 is because some other shows have more ideas or more fleshed out characters. So this arthouse spastic comedy is about a boy who is disappointed with all of the adults in his life, then some chick hits him in the face with a guitar and giant robots from a secret facility start coming out of his head. It’s fucking wild and has like 30 different aesthetics and I love all of them. It’s the best looking show I’ve ever seen and one of the best directed. It feels like someone read a really weird poem and turned it into a 6 episode show. It’s funny, it’s emotional, it’s cartoony, it’s beautiful, it’s raunchy, it’s poetic, it’s silly, it’s creative, and it’s got strong themes. The wtf visuals, the nonsensical plot, and the amazing soundtrack make an aesthetic experience more than anything. (6 eps)

4. Princess Tutu

I already made a post about this show and why it’s good, which you can check out here, but the gist is it’s a meta fairytale about a duck that turns into a girl to help a storybook prince find his emotions. I used to love stories that were “twists on fairytales” or whatever, but after watching this show I realized that the genre is pretty derivative. This show is so amazing it honestly made me reevaluate an entire genre and come to the conclusion that this is the only member of that genre worth watching. It’s truly creative and well crafted with fantastic characters. (26 eps)

3. Hunter x Hunter (2011)

This show is basically a bunch of creative ideas, unique set pieces, and interesting characters stacked on top of each other in a trench coat disguised as a narrative. It’s about a perky shonen protagonist and a child assassin becoming friends while also trying to become hunters (a position involving vast wealth and adventure). It’s in a modern fantasy setting so literally anything can happen. In one arc they have to play life-or-death dodgeball against robots, and another is an insanely epic tale about the intense evil that people are capable of (feat. a 25 episode climax). I can’t even talk about all of the themes or ideas because there are just too many. Because of it’s wild, sprawling story, it has a lot of ass pulls and retcons, but in the grand scheme of things they don’t really matter. It’s long, but super easy to watch in huge chunks. (148 eps)

2. Neon Genesis Evangelion and The End of Evangelion

The most efficient way to describe this show is to say that it’s the most interesting show ever made. It’s about an apocalyptic future in which emotionally disturbed teenagers must pilot giant bio-machines to fight monsters which are referred to as angels. It’s got deep characters, a creative story, and is probably the most well directed show I’ve ever seen. The ending infamously fell apart due to production problems, so there’s a movie called The End of Evangelion to conclude the story. It’s a very disturbing arthouse movie, so watch out for that, but the show as a whole is moooosssstly more straightforward and fascinating, This is an absolute must watch. (26 eps and 1 movie)

1. Baccano!

Baccano! takes place in 1930s New York, and is about thieves, gangsters, criminals, terrorists, alchemists, and immortals interacting in this nonlinear comedy/action thrill ride. I felt like I was on a rollercoaster while watching this show. It’s the perfect blend of action, comedy, romance, drama, horror, and creative storytelling. It’s fantastic to rewatch since the first episodes barely make any sense without context (but are still an absolute joy to watch). It’s got great characters and it’s a great story. Go watch it. And then watch it again. (13 eps and 3 OVAs)

That’s it for this list! Check out my MAL page for more recommendations if you’re interested and have a great night!