#I don’t have room to lay down cause Squid is RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE

[elysiumcalled]

they’re adorable and I love them but I CANT SLEEP

[weasleydream]

By the water

Hi! This is my second Bill imagine and I can offically say I’m fond of him (too)! Guess you don’t care about how I’ve had this idea but I’ll tell it anyways 😂 So it was a really sunny day and I was home feeling like I was going to explode, so I left and went to the harbor of my village, and seeing the water under the sun gave me this idea... All the first part of the imagine has been written back there. 

So, enough of my uninteresting blabla and enjoy!

Masterlist 

(photo is mine! this is the place that inspired me, it was taken the same day and look how beautiful it is!!)

The Hogwarts Lake was more than just a part of the landscape. Its surface, sometimes smooth, sometimes agitated, reflected the world around, giving a surreal image of it. When the sun was getting down, the body of water coloured in a crimson tint, and whoever looked at the lake could swear it was the entrance of a magical world like the ones imagined by the muggles. 

Some of its shores were hidden in the forbidden forest, mysterious places that appeared beautiful to the ones who dared face the forest dangers. The others were more reachable but as beautiful in their own way. From them, the view was incredible. The castle was behind, and the luxuriant nature stretched as far as the eye could see. When the sun was high in the sky, its light reflected on the water, and the stains so formed danced on the water, in the very same way glitters dance in the air when the wind blows. 

It wasn’t rare to see birds flying above the lake and disappearing behind the trees after a few flappings, nor was it rare to see a tentacle lazily grabbing a fish and dragging it in the depths of the lake. The giant squid emerging from the water was one of the reasons why the surface of the lake could be disturbed. Sometimes, it was only ripples who could soak the bottom of your pants if your feet were in the water, but other times, when the squid felt like doing its show, immense waves crashed onto the shore. 

Except these days, the lake was a peaceful place who had the chance to be preserved from the activities muggles usually put in place to exploit nature's richness. It was so peaceful that it was the students’ favourite place for their dates. 

I knew perfectly that as a Hogwarts student I had to respect the curfew, and that as a result, I shouldn’t be laying on a thin blanket on the shore of the lake whereas the sun burning the june sky was getting down. However, I was in the middle of a date with no one else than Bill Weasley, who had the little advantage of being the Head Boy. 

Bill had wrapped his arms around me, holding me tightly against his chest as I listened to his heartbeat. It was silent and so peaceful… 

“Look, love.” whispered Bill. 

He extended his arm and showed me a bright white point on the shore across the lake. It was a unicorn quietly grazing, its silver horn shining in the evening light. Something moved in the bushes and the purest creature I had ever seen appeared. The baby unicorn’s horn wasn’t here yet, and its golden colour was as bright as its mother’s white one. 

“They are beautiful…” I whispered in awe, so caught in the contemplations of the unicorns that I didn’t notice Bill’s gaze on me. 

“You know, my view is prettier than yours.” he murmured in my ear, which caused me to shiver, either because of his breath on my skin or the desire in his voice, I didn’t know. 

“Merlin, you can be so cheesy!” I laughed softly before leaning in and kissing the corner of his lips. 

A crystalline whinny disturbed the silent atmosphere for a brief moment and Bill and I simultaneously looked up to see a glimpse of silver disappearing between the trees. 

“Well done you noisy girl, you scared them!” exclaimed Bill. 

“That’s because of you!” I pretended to be vexed but I couldn’t contain my laughters when Bill chuckled. He grabbed my waist and pulled me once more all against him before murmuring in my ear.

“You’re so cute when you pout like that… I really am a lucky man.”

“I guess you are.”

“You were supposed to say you are the one who is lucky to be with me!” retaliated Bill while hitting playfully my arm. 

“You already know that, love.”

We kissed once more, our lips gently colliding in one of the sweetest moments Bill and I had ever shared. Usually, we went off in search of adventure and most of our dates were either in a forbidden place or at the Three Broomsticks. But soft moments like that were rare, and it was also very unusual for Bill to show his romantic side. I guess it didn’t fit with his adventurous reputation, though I had always loved when he was all cuddly like this. 

We made ourselves comfortable on the blanket, none of us wanting to go back to the common room yet. We watched in silence as the sky became dark and the first stars appeared. They reflected in the water of the lake, and the result was truly magical. 

“There’s a legend about this lake.” suddenly said Bill. “Do you know it?”

I shook my head and urged him to tell me. Bill was excellent in pretty much everything he tried, but the way he made stories live when he told them was a gift.

“The legend says that a very long time ago, fairies lived here. They weren’t like the fairies we know today; they were beautiful women and magnificent men. They were taller than us, you know, and they lived in the forest. They were friends with the unicorns and the centaurs, but they didn’t really get along with the other members of their people. They lived in clans, and arguments were frequent between them, but that didn’t prevent them from living quite peacefully for centuries.”

“What happened to them?” I asked quietly, already absorbed by the story. 

“One day, a girl, Melia, fell in love with a boy of a rival clan called Eric. They saw each other in secret, they never told anyone about their love story, but even then they knew it was doomed to failure. Their clans hated each other more than you could imagine, and a year after their first kiss, a terrible war broke out, a war that involved absolutely all the fairies.” Bill marked a pause and tightened his grip around me, probably not knowing that I had shivered not because of the cool air, but because I was imagining this devastating battle. “The fairies fought for two days and two nights. Eric had begged Melia to hide, he had told her he couldn’t bear to see her hurt or worse. When the noises of the fights ended, Melia joined what had been the heart of the battle and she found Eric’s body. All of her people were dead, destroyed by a deep hatred they had kept locked during centuries, and the boy she loved more than anything was gone. She was alone, and she cried for hours, desperately embracing Eric. Her tears were pure, so pure that a unicorn eventually came to comfort her. As soon as its horn touched the girl’s shoulder, Melia disappeared and with her all the fairies. Eric and Melia were eventually reunited, and Melia’s tears had formed a lake, the one right here.”

A long silence followed, during which I felt the urge to make sure Bill was still here, safe and sound in my arms. I only noticed the tears rolling down my cheeks when he gently wiped them away, and the trembling of my lips only stopped when he crashed on them. 

“I don’t understand why she did this…” I murmured. “Why she let him risk his life alone, why she didn’t insist on going with him. Waiting so long, not knowing if Eric was still alive, it must have been horrible…”

“I would have done the same,” said Bill. “Asking you to stay safe, I mean. It would have been the only way for me to be happy, knowing that whatever happened to me, you’d still be here to remember me, to remember us.”

“But I wouldn’t have stayed hidden.” 

“I know,” he sighed, “and that’s why I would have made sure nothing happened to you. I would have given my own life for you, love.”

“And I would have done the same for you.”

“Then we’re lucky this will never happen to us.” Bill smiled softly. 

If only...

[halothenthehorns]

All in the Family

Chapter 92: Priori Incantatem

Lily was still crying as she crash landed once more, rolling several times and coming to a painful halt. Even as her impact caused what felt like bricks to fall all around her, she merely lay where she was, curled into the fetal position, trembling fingers pressed against her lips as another sob broke free. She hadn't stopped for so long now, it seemed impossible she ever would. It was too much, all too much to take in, and yet a fourteen year old boy, her boy, would be going through it all alone.

"Oh come now dear, it can't be all bad."

Lily sat up with a painful gasp, shuddering in fear and just a few more lashes of pain at her own stupidity for letting her guard down. Just because it had been so long since they'd seen another person didn't mean it couldn't inevitably happen! She was now far more familiar with her seven companions voices than she ever would have believed possible, could pick any of them out in a crowded corridor now, but she didn't know that one!

She forced her bleary eyes to focus, she had to know if there were anymore dead bodies around, nobody had started reading yet and Merlin knew what was happening- then she gasped a wet, snotty, painfully disgusting noise in relief to see it was a portrait. Tisking away at her, eyeing the mess she made.

It was not the only one in here, but the one speaking to her nonetheless in a kind, gentle voice. Despite her aged face, it held a hint of youth in it Lily didn't quite understand until she wiped yet more tears from her burning cheeks and saw the now familiar, kind hazel eyes shining out. The name plate underneath read Carinthia Potter- Nee Greengrass. Coughing slightly, shoulders still shaking with the force of it, she looked around again to find herself in an opulent library. She'd knocked over almost an entire bookcase, the evidence scattered all around her. Portraits of other Potters that had married into the family scattered the rest of the free space, and as she looked over her shoulder, she saw a tapestry woven together pyramid style right into the wall from floor to ceiling, of the far more direct line. There, on the bottom line where the last strip showed James Fleamont Potter, there was a piece of red string tacked on, and a sticky note proudly bearing the name Sirius Orion Black right next to it.

She tried, and failed, not to laugh. She sat down back on her bum, feeling like one as she buried her face into her knees. Of course they'd wind up here eventually, James Potter was probably going to be as miraculously alive as his friends and swope in to save young Harry and probably bring Cedric back to life and defeat You-Know-Who all while hopping on one foot. She sighed in exhaustion as the sounds of ruckus finally reached her ears, even the faint echo of someone calling out her name. She tipped her head to the side and peeked out through her hair at the door, waiting for someone to come barging in even as a few more tears trickled out. She wasn't going to bother to hide them. She was too exhausted to do much of anything else.

It was finally Lupin who stumbled through the door, like he was trying to see how fast he could dart in and out, but came to an outstandingly poor halt when he actually caught a flash of her. They stared at each other for a solid thirty seconds before he turned around and bellowed over his shoulder, "I found her!" Then he turned back to her, still rubbing his lined face in exhaustion. "Merlin Evans, you could have at least come and told us you were still alive before being alone."

She didn't understand the snappy tone he used, or why he even cared. She was well past that point, as Cedric's body still flickered behind her eyes every time she blinked. She just sat there like a useless, hopeless lump.

He stood there for another few awkward moments before finally turning to leave, she heard a quiet, muttered conversation not far down the hall now, but whatever he'd said to deter Potter had worked no better this time than any other time he'd ever tried. Yet when he came in, Potter was sanse swagger, for once. She wondered if it was due to his still limping, that instead of strutting around like usual, he walked almost casually to her side. "Alright Evans?" He asked softly.

"No," she managed through a still clotted throat.

He nodded, like that didn't surprise him, and instead looked around with bemusement. "Ah, sorry you had to wind up in here, not exactly my favorite room. Tradition and all that it even exists," he gestured vaguely over his shoulder to the family tree. "I think your portrait would have been the only thing I liked about this place," he added with a self congratulatory grin.

"Brilliant Prongs, really," Lupin called from where he was still listing on the door jamb. "Why don't you add a glib comment about Smith landing in your room of all places, I'm sure that'll also brighten her day."

"Don't be crass Moony," Potter rebuked cheerfully, "obviously we'll be going on our date through the secrets of Hogsmeade before she ever sees that!"

The snap came easily to her lips. "Not if it was between you and the giant squid!" Even to her own ears, it sounded far more exasperated than belligerent as usual. She almost couldn't believe what she was hearing, how did he still manage to smile like that despite everything? Maybe he was touched in the head, like she'd said many a times long before now.

He smiled unrepentantly and promised, "that can be arranged on the tour. Until then Evans," he gave her a grand, sweeping gesture worthy of the highest monarchy as he bowed to her, and then turned and grabbed his friend's shoulder, steering him from the room.

She didn't know if he'd had the book this whole time, or if he'd found it in here while she'd been distracted, but only moments later Lupin's tired, strained voice enveloped her and the whole mansion with the words, "Priori Incantatem."

A charm, she recognized at once, to show the last spells a wand had used. What could that have to do with Harry? Were they going to get a highlights of his last moments, his last desperate bids for survival before You-Know-Who finally killed him too, extinguishing the Potter line? Would his body materialize in this very room, like his name on the tree would in only a few years time?

Sirius looked around in surprise to find himself in 'his room,' or so James had dubbed it since his first visit here. He really didn't know why Prongs bothered, Sirius actually preferred to sleep at the foot of his bed most nights when he stayed over. Still, his personal things did seem to end up scattered in here more often than naught.

Several of his limited edition Chocolate Frog Cards were being used as bookmarks in his Muggle magazines he hadn't dared take back to Grimmauld place for their personal value, an old letter to Moony sat innocently on the windowsill, and several piles of clothes had turned into freshly laundered and folded piles of clothes since he'd last been here. It was exactly where he'd needed to be, he felt safer in this spare room than he ever could have dreamed he would in Grimmauld place. The effect was ruined by Regulus' surprised black eyes flitting around, taking in everything same as him.

He didn't dare look at him or he'd burn the little twits face off. He couldn't stand to be around anyone but his friends right now with how furiously murderous he was, the last thing he needed was hearing Regulus trying to defend Peter's future actions! Peter! He had to go check on him, could barely stand now to let him out of his sight until he found a way to fix this permanently.

"Sirius-" but Sirius didn't stop and acknowledge him this time, he had to find his real brothers. He grabbed a shirt at random from the pile as he stalked out without a backwards look.

He breathed only mildly easier when he heard Moony start reading as he traversed the wide, brightly lit hallways of the Potter Manor. What they were still hearing of was monstrous, he already knew he'd have been there for Harry to keep him away from those Death Eaters if he could! Being in this home only reinforced the boiling hatred he had for every one of them out there, laughing as his fourteen year old godson was sent to duel V-Voldemort. He had to find a way to fix this, for Harry to grow up knowing this as his home as surely as Sirius now did.

He froze in fury as he passed Mr. and Mrs. Potter's room to see Frank standing awkwardly in the middle. Some small part of him recognized this wasn't his fault, but that didn't stop him pushing the ajar door all the way open and coming inside to shoo him out.

Frank only had to look at him to take the hint, not speaking a word to each other as they went down opposite ends of the hall.

Regulus found he was still sniffling and trying not to cry, still wanting to beg Sirius to come back and not leave him in this strange place even if he was long gone, had been for years now. He felt open, exposed in this brightly lit room, in a stranger's home that Sirius had looked upon with more love than anything he'd ever seen.

He didn't know what to do, there was only a hopeless feeling left clinging to his curdled stomach. Listening to Harry duel the Dark Lord was a true nightmare, the only boy on earth who could ever survive such a thing certainly wasn't now, being used like a play thing instead with the Imperius Curse upon him. Once Harry died though, would they really be free of this? What hope did he have to go back to? He had nowhere else to turn to, not like Sirius did. Would Peter just laugh at him and tell him to figure it out while he and his friends went back to Gryffindor tower? Would he have any choice but joining the Dark Lord's inner circle? He couldn't decide if he'd been relieved, offended, or terrified to find himself not even mentioned like many of his cousins had been during the previous part.

Sirius finally sighed in relief to find him in the Potter's kitchen, stuffing his bags and pockets full to bursting with more food, though an entirely absent look on his face. He was clearly manhandling the peanuts into a side pouch on autopilot, though it was odd still not to see Pippit, the Potter's house-elf, wandering around helping him. It had been weird enough not to see them flitting about the Hogwarts kitchens.

A bit of shame welled up in Sirius as he watched him, his right arm in particular, confirming to his own head repeatedly there really was no Dark Mark there. His imagination had run wild with him while he'd gone around here, the graveyard they'd just left still clinging to his mind like mist. This was still his Peter though, not the mangled creature of the future doing nothing to help Harry as he should.

Peter looked up then and caught him staring. He gave an awkward sort of grin and held his hand out expectantly, and Sirius wordlessly handed his bag over to be shoved full of food next, the silence still odd between them, but no longer as awkward as it could have been. The ghost of Prongs and Evans having a hand in rescuing Harry, possibly the oddest peace maker they had, as a reminder of what they had to lose.

[roman-apples]

the ballad of me and my brain | roman angst ( wip )

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26308567

this is much less a wip, and more of an unfinished mess. but here it is- 

--

❝ and well, I think I've gone mad. isn't that so sad? ❞

in which the signs of warning can't be visible if there is no one there to notice. and thankfully, there are.

-

❝ and, what a shame, you've lost a brain that you never had. oh, mum, check the car, it can’t have gone far! ❞

It starts with a bang. Literally.

On the other side of a deep purple door sat a usually darkened room, which belonged to the embodiment of anxiety. Virgil laid on the bed, scrolling through his phone when he heard it. The loud, crash and bang coming from down the hall. He sat up, startled, before deciding to check it out.

He felt worry spark up within his chest as he realised where it had originated from. A rose-red door.

Virgil had took note of how the anxiety levels of the hall increased as he slowly approached the door. It being 4am, he figured the others were asleep, so they wouldn't hear the noise.

He reaches for the door. Though, as he put his hand on the knob, the anxiety is gone. All that is left is pure sorrow.

The knob is turned before he can process he had done it, and looks around the room before him. There stood the exaggeratedly fanciful room he'd been used to. In shambles.

Virgil gasped as he looked around. Paper was cluttered around the floor, all filled in with words of black ink. However, that seemed to be the least of his concerns, as there, kneeling on the floor with his head rested on the bed was Roman. As the anxious side walked closer, he noticed tears staining his rosy-red cheeks. A poor sight to be seen.

He sighed, before putting a blanket on the sleeping man's shoulders. He turns the light off before he leaves.

He'd tell the others later.

❝ I must have left it in a train, or lost in a bar. It’s likely in a sainsbury’s, flirting with the boys and waiting for me. ❞

He didn't tell the others.

And so, it was followed by a silent refusal.

As the resident chef, the embodiment of morality would be tasked with trying to get the other sides to come down to the dining room for a family meal.

It was a few days after the come-in with Virgil, and Roman decided he would skip today's dinner, apparently. Patton looked at the table before him, with everyone except Roman. He raised an eyebrow, before sighing tiredly. He walked up to the creative trait's room.

A knock, "Roman?" He called. He received no reply.

Patton knocked again, "Roman? Are you there?"

He heard nothing except the soft whirl of a ceiling fan. He closes his eyes, before reopening them. Knock, knock, knock.

SIlence. A soft whirl. Silence.

Patton retreated back downstairs with nothing to tell the others.

❝ I jumped on the bus, declared my name, and asked if anyone had seen my brain. ❞

It is accompanied by a withdrawal of voice.

This humanised form of logic was an observant one. It was no shocker, really. He was meant to know most, if not all things. 'The Smart One' was a strong title with a lot to live up to. He managed.

Going back on his observations, Logan began to notice just how much Roman took himself out of their conversations and debates. The princely side used to happily and eagerly throw in his opinion, wanting all eyes on him. He had an ego, and would do anything to fuel it. That was his role.

Though, when it comes to debate, compliments are only thrown around sarcastically. Roman obviously knew this, Logan decided, and had hypnotised that after the courtroom episode with a certain liar that he understood it was a manipulation tactic. However, even days after the trial, Roman wouldn't join in normal small talk, either.

Logan would confront him about it.

"Roman?" The side looked up from the ground, a smile quickly plastered onto his face. And, if Logan hadn't been so observant, he would've shook it off. However, this time, he tipped his head back lightly. The others seemed to be in a conversation of their own with the host, Thomas.

"Why is it that you stay so silent?" He asked, quieter than he normally would, "I am only asking for, I have noticed you don't seem to want to input your own opinions lately."

Roman's eyes flashed a tinge of panic, before going back to normal. A plastic brown. "Why, my dearest nerd, I don't seem to get what you mean?"

"It's just—"

"I believe i'm doing just wonderful, Lo'. Now, if you'd excuse me, I'm going to fetch myself a glass of water. My throat is scarily sore, and a prince's throat must be in tip-top shape in order to sing beautifully!" He declared, before sinking down quickly.

Logan stood there, slightly dumbfounded, which is concealed with the mask of a deadpanned expression.

Roman's throat sounded fine. However, he didn't come back.

❝ I stepped outside, it hurt my eyes. well, what do you expect when you’ve got no mind? ❞

It is trailed closely by an episode of apathy.

Remus was never one for secrets, nor was he ever one for falsifications. He also wasn't one for boring, being intrusive thoughts.

Coming with the role, he'd usually pull tricks on the sides, or sometimes, the creatures Roman created in the imagination. Sometimes as experiments, and sometimes for his own enjoyment. Usually, it was for the dramatic reactions his brother would give him.

However, lately, those reactions would never come.

Before, Remus would try to burn down a farm one of the villagers had owned in Roman's side of the imagination, and Roman would yell at him, laugh, say something witty in return, and change it back.

Now, Remus would try to burn down the castle, and Roman would only watch. He would stare with a blank expression on his face, only moving it to blink.

The normally loud side stood there in confusion and silence, as his brother changed it back to a full castle, before walking away to do something else.

"Ro-Bro?" He followed, "You're silent. Ooh! Did the princess die from starvation in the tower before you could save her? Was she eaten by the rats?"

Roman only looked forward. A shrug.

Remus rolled his eyes, "Ugh, how boring. Do you wanna slay something with me? Like, maybe, a giant kraken!" A large squid appeared in front of them, flopping around, needing a body of water. It smelled horrible.

"I gave it utters!" The side said excitedly. He pointed to the giant cow utter on the sea creature, a drop of white milk spewed out of it.

Roman only looked at It, before sinking off.

Remus huffed, but looked at the space where Roman was standing.

His concern faded away as the kraken let out a loud "moo!"

He giggled, taking out his morning-star and ran towards it happily.

❝ I searched all day, it drove me insane! where would I be if I was my brain? ❞

It continued with a lie.

Being the embodiment of Deceit, Janus knew immediately when it began. He felt it. Like a little sense of alarm, it was a feeling that bloomed whenever someone had lied. Normally, he'd ignore it. But when it came to Roman, whenever the lies became greater, so did the amount of time the feeling stayed in his chest. After a while, it began to hurt.

They all stood in their respective spots. Virgil sat on the stairs, Patton by the window, Logan by the railing, Janus near him, Remus having in the middle of Patton and Roman, who was near the corner.

Thomas seemed to be speaking, but Roman didn't seem to notice. All there was, was a pale look on his face. That was what Janus could see. Though, he knew there was more.

"Roman," He called smoothly. Everyone's attention now was pulled onto the side mentioned, "You've not gone pale. Are you doing alright?"

Roman smiled, "Well, of course I am, Mr. Pants-On-Fire! You're just mistaken, perhaps it's the lighting."

Janus nodded after wincing, "Obviously not because I don't know that you're lying."

Roman huffed, about to shoot something back, before being cut off by Patton.

"Kiddo, you know, it's okay to not feel alright," He said kindly, "Just tell us what's wrong!"

"Nothing's wrong! I can assure you," The creative side looked at the deceitful side's flinch, "Just- Just lay off it."

"Princey, you're not okay, all you have to say is what's causing it. You're panicking." Virgil explained calmly, trying his hardest to tip-toe around the subject, as to not step on a mouse trap and set it off.

"I'm fine! Please, just, let it go." Roman stepped back. All eyes were on him. But he didn't want that, not now, not now, not now, not now—

Oops, the trap closed.

He shook as he felt himself fall to the floor. Wait, he's on the floor? He can't feel it. Why is everything so loud? Why does it feel this way? Why can't he actually hear them?

Oh, god, are they even there? Have they finally realised how bad he was and left him? Oh, god, oh god, oh god, oh god—

Suddenly, everything was silent. And dark.

❝ the nice nurse told me she felt my pain, but she couldn't find a single trace of my brain. ❞

It ended with a truth.

When you were creativity and ego, you had quite the job. You were to create new ideas that wouldn't get denied because they suck and are unrealistic and just "Aren't achievable, Roman." You had to make sure your host's mood was in tip-top shape, which meant your mood had to be in tip-top shape.

You strived off of compliments, practically begged for recognition, and hunted for approval. You wanted to be good.

Because if you weren't good, that meant the work you did isn't. And if the work you do isn't, then what's the point? You might as well disappear.

Oh, with this mindset, Roman might as well sob.

He was laid down on the couch. Or, that's where he was placed, because, he didn't remember then he got there. When he awoke, he let out a groan, "Ow!"

All eyes were on him.

"Roman!" Someone exclaimed. He thinks it's Patton, but everything is just so blurry. He closes his eyes, before opening them once again. Yup, his bones were being broken in by Patton.

"Um, padre, please—"

"Oh! Right, sorry." Roman let out a breath. It felt refreshing. He turned to face the others concerned faces.

"H—"

"Oh, you stupid idiot!" Virgil exclaimed, jumping off of the couch's arm and scolding the tired side. "You should've said something."

"I don't know, it's a bit hard to come clean about my on-going mental breakdowns." Roman joked, trying to get a laugh out of the serious side. He didn't succeed.

"You've been having them?" Virgil stepped back, "What the fuck, Roman?"

"What?" He argued, throwing his arms up. The other sides and Thomas stare at him, before Remus speaks up, "Are we really that oblivious, or—"

"Wait, so, is that why I've been so. . . sad?" Thomas asks, quietly.

Roman looks up, before looking away. His eyes fall to anything other than those around him. Thoughts begin to race as silence eats him alive.

He messed up again, what a surprise.

The side looks up, meeting his host's downplayed eyes. Oh, he messed up. A lot. Thomas was in distress over this, and it was his fault. It's always his fault. Nobody else was to blame. Only cowards would put the blame on others, and that's not a good trait to posses.

"Roman, you can't keep forgetting to breathe."

Inhale, exhale, he sighs. "I'm sorry."

"For?"

Roman closes his eyes, wasn't it obvious? "For messing up? For being an idiotic, narcissistic prick? For making things harder than it already is? For—"

He reopens his eyes they stare back at him, drowning in worry. "You haven't messed up!"

Oh, how he wishes he could believe that.

-

[agentblyeanddeeks]

Chapter 1

Finally happy enough with chapter 1 to share it with you all. Still deciding on a title, then I will post to ff.net. A HUGE HUGE THANK YOU to @mashmaiden​ for listening to my indecisiveness until I finally got to where I wanted. And for the constant motivation to keep going.

AU of the team first meeting Deeks. What happens when Kensi gets caught up in one of Deeks undercovers. Will contain flashbacks.

August 17, 2010

“Mr. Callen. Nice of you to decide to finally come into work this morning.” Hetty stood in the archway of the mission entrance as the senior agent arrived.

“We live in LA. You know the traffic is always unpredictable.” Callen responded.

Hetty folded her arms, “Mr. Hanna and Mr. Beale don’t seem to have any trouble being on time. Might I suggest an earlier departure from now on?”

“I will do my best, Hetty.”

“That you will, Mr. Callen. That you will. Now, up to Ops you go. There’s a case to be solved” Hetty shooed him towards the stairs.

————-

“Well, well, well. Third time this month, G. Let me guess, you were busy switching apartments because this one was too relaxing.”

“Too relaxing? What does that even mean?”

“It means you need to stop making excuses and just settle down in one place. It will be good for you.”

“Or I could just stay with you, Michelle, and the kids.”

“We tried that once before, remember? By the way, you still owe me a toaster.”

“Hey, that was not my fault.” 

Um, guy. We have a case.” Eric interrupted the partners bickering.

“Sorry, Eric.” Callen noticed the room was still one Agent short, “Where’s Kensi?”

The automated doors opened again revealing their operations manager, “It seems your tardiness is beginning to rub off on your teammates. Rest assured I will have a talk with her later. Now let’s not waste anymore time. Eric.”

Eric swiveled his chair around towards his computer. After a few clicks on the keyboard, an image appeared on the main screen. “Meet Petty Officer 3rd Class Evan Wade. He was stationed at Point Loma until a year ago when he received an other than honorary discharge.”

“What was his offense?” questioned Sam.

“Multiple failed drug tests. His CO said he had been to rehab twice but only stayed clean for about a month before relapsing.”

“Did he have drugs in his system when he died?” Callen asked.

“Yes. The coroner found traces of heroin. She also said the body had been there at least three days before hikers discovered it.”

“I’m guessing from the amount of blood on his body, the cause of death wasn’t an overdose.” Callen concluded.

“That would correct.” Eric grabbed his tablet and zoomed in on the picture, “Wade was killed by multiple gunshots to the torso.”

Sam took a minute to study the image, “Looks like they could be from a 9mm.”

Callen shook his head, “Pretty common caliber. Doesn’t really narrow it down.”

“This might.” the tech operator chimed in. “After the petty officer was discharged, he began working at Crescent Creek. They are a beer distributor that have been on the LAPD watch list for a while now. Most of their employees have pretty impressive rap sheets. B & E’s, assault, you name it.”

Sam scanned the employee photos on the screen, “Are any of the other employees former military?” 

Eric nodded, “Two. But no connection so far to Wade.”

“Ok, keep digging. See if anything sticks out.” instructed Sam.

“On it.” Eric returned to his computer desk and began a new search algorithm.

“What about a few days before he died? Anything out of the ordinary?” asked Callen.

Another file appeared on the screen, “Let’s see. The last credit card transaction was at Mariasol’s on the Santa Monica Pier the day he died. Pulling up the pier security cameras now.”

The video of the pier began to play. Eric increased the speed until it was close to the time of the transaction.

Callen pointed to the screen, “There’s Wade.”

“What’s he doing?” Eric asked, curiously.

“Probably nothing good. He keeps watching over his shoulder. He’s nervous about something.” Sam observed.

While Eric and Sam were focused on their victim, Callen was more interested in the other guy in the frame, “Eric, can you get a better angle of the guy he’s with?”

Eric pulled up a second camera from the pier as Callen stepped forward to get a better look at the blonde gentleman. “I know that guy.”

“From a previous case?” Sam asked.

Callen shook his head, “No. It’s the owner of the bar that Kensi took us to a couple months ago.” He snapped his fingers a few times til the name came to him, “Squid & Dagger.”

Eric types the name that Callen gave him, hoping it would provide them with a lead. “The owner of Squid & Dagger is listed as Max Gentry. He’s owned the bar for six months. Single. Address is listed in Culver City. No military background. No criminal records.”

“We need to find Kensi now and see what she knows about him.” Hetty suddenly spoke up.

“I’ll call her.” offered Eric.

“Ok, Sam and I will head to Max’s place and find out what his connection to Wade is.”

They two agents turned to leave but stopped when they heard a familiar warning beep coming from the main screen. 

“Kensi’s cell is offline.” Eric announced as he began to worry.

“Well, turn it back on!” Sam ordered.

“I can’t. Either the battery has been taken or the phone has been severely damaged.”

The scenario playing out in front of them reminded Sam of what the team had gone through earlier in the year with Dom. “What about her car?”

Eric brought up a map of Los Angeles on the screen. After a few seconds, a blinking icon appeared. “GPS location has it at Pico and Sixth since midnight.” He paused when the realization hit him, “Guy, that’s Max’s bar.”

Hetty moved to the front of the room to face her staff. “Eric, find out everything you can on Max. Gentleman, go to Santa Monica and figure out what the hell is going on.”

——————-

As the Challenger turned onto Sixth Street, Sam and Callen were met with red and blue flashing lights. An officer walked around the building, dragging yellow caution tape behind him

“This is not good.” Callen said as the car came to a stop. Their arrival didn’t go unnoticed by the man in a suit by the bar entrance. He made his way up to the yellow tape, meeting the agents halfway.

“Can I help you gentleman?”

“NCIS. I’m Special Agent Hanna. This is Special Agent Callen. What happened here?”

“Detective Danny Hall. Neighboring business called it in this morning. The door was kicked in and the inside shows definite signs of a struggle. One victim.”

Callen pulled out his phone and clicked on the DMV photo of Max Gentry, “This him?”

“No.” The detective shook his head then reached down for the caution tape, raising it up, “Follow me.”

The three men walk into the bar and take in the chaos in front of them. The front door laid to their right, no longer on the hinges. Multiple tables were upturned and the chairs were scattered and broken throughout the business.

“Woah, you weren’t kidding about the struggle. It’s a wreck in here,” Callen said. While he assessed the furniture damage, Sam made his way to the body laying near the bar, covered by a sheet.

“Looks like blunt force trauma to the head. Probably from being slammed into the bar.”

Detective Hall took a small notebook from his pocket, “According to the tattoo on his arm, he is a member of the Sanguine street gang.”

“Guns for hire.” Callen assumed.

“Can I ask why this interests NCIS?” the detective asked.

“The dead body of a marine was found this morning. Gunshot wounds to the chest. He might have had a connection with the owner. Plus we have an agent that we have lost contact with that frequented this bar.” he told the detective.

“My guys didn’t find any shell casings. They most likely kept it hand to hand. A gun fight in this area would have caused attention right away. They wouldn’t have been able to make a clean getaway.”

Sam rejoined the others, “I wouldn’t exactly call leaving a man behind a clean getaway.”

“We also found blood on a pool stick and some leading out the back door to the alley.” Hall informed them. Another officer appeared in the doorway and signaled him over. 

“Excuse me for a moment, Gentleman. Forensics is done here. Feel free to look around. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Thank you.” Sam shook his hand.

“So is Max still a suspect or is he our next victim?” Callen began to theorize.

“He could be both. Max kills Wade, then bad guy send the gang after Max. Or Max could be innocent and our suspect is tying up loose ends.”

“For Kensi’s sake, I hope it’s the second one.”

“Me too.” Sam thought for a moment, “If they wanted to kill Max, they wouldn’t have ambushed him here. Like Hall said, attracts too much attention.”

“They obviously wanted him alive for a reason. But for what?”

Sam looked around the room, trying to envision what might have gone down. “Ok, so the gang members come through the entrance. Chaos ensues. Max shoves the dead guy into the bar.”

Callen removed the black gloves from his pocket and put them on his hand. He then grabbed the broken pool stick the detective had mentioned. “Someone defended themselves with the pool stick. Whoever it was, was bleeding,” noting the bloody fingerprints.

“G, over here.” Sam crouched down near the back exit. “There is blood smear leading to the door. It’s probably Max’s. They hit him from behind, knocking him out and they take him out the alley door.”

Following Sam’s hunch, the men go out the backdoor. “Easy get away. Especially in the middle of the night.”

“It still doesn’t explain where Kensi is. Or what she was even doing here. The bar is closed on Monday nights.” Callen said, bringing the focus back to their missing colleague.

“We need to look in her car.”

The car was parked in a community lot outside of the crime scene. Thankfully the other detectives hadn’t known it was related to the crime at the bar. Callen pulled out the spare key and unlocked her car. Sam opened the driver side door and began searching for clues. Callen did the same from the passenger side.

“Nothing seems out of the ordinary.” Callen said, looking in the glove compartment. He leaned forward to feel between the seat and console and  pulled out something mushy and brown, slightly disgusted, “Looks like I found Kensi’s stash of Reese Cups.” 

Sam shook his head, “When we find her, she is getting an intervention about her refined sugar addiction.”

Callen removed his chocolate filled glove and searched through the center console with his other hand. 

“Her badge and wallet are both still here.”

Sam straightened up after checking under the driver seat. “Her gun is not.”

“Agent Callen! Agent Hanna!” Detective Hall yelled as he approached. “Does this vehicle have to do with the investigation?”

“It’s our missing agent’s cars. She left her badge but took her gun.” Sam explained

“And you think she’s got something to do with this?”

“I hope not but I’ve got a bad feeling about it.” Callen noticed the surveillance photos in the detectives hand. “Can I see those?”

“Oh yeah. That’s why I came over here. One of the officers found these in the office. Anyone look familiar?”

Callen took the photos and started flipping through them.“That’s Petty Officer Wade and our bar owner Max Gentry. Someone was definitely watching them.”

Sam moved beside Callen to have a better look at the photos. “They're not the only ones they were watching.”

The next photo in the pile was that of Kensi and Max. It was taken at night and they appeared to be on a rooftop. As they flipped through more photos, they became more concerned. Whoever took these photos had continued to follow Kensi without Max. Some were even taken near her house.

“We’ve got to find her now. She might be compromised.” Callen said.

“Which means so are we.”

Sam took the photos and laid them out of the car hood. He took out his phone and took pictures of them to send to Ops.

“Call us if you find anything else.” Callen asked of Hall as he handed him his card.

“Same to you.”

Sam handed back the photos and they headed to the Challenger. “Eric, pull the security camera from the Squid & Dagger and surrounding areas. We need to see where Kensi went. We’re headed to her house to see if there are any clues.”

“I’ll pull the feeds but Hetty wants you guys at the boat shed.”

“We don’t have time, Eric. We need to find Kensi before it’s too late.” Callen spoke into the earwig.

Hetty’s voice interrupted, “Gentleman. Please redirect yourselves to the boat shed immediately. There is someone here that might be able to help.”

———-

Callen and Sam arrived at the boat shed to find an older, grey haired man standing next to Hetty.

“Agent Hanna, Agent Callen. Meet LAPD Lieutenant Roger Bates.”

“To what do we owe the pleasure, Lieutenant Bates?” Sam greeted him.

“I got a call from Detective Hall saying NCIS had taken an interest in his crime scene this morning. I put a call into my old friend Henrietta and thought I would brief you all myself.”

“Oh, Roger. I’d say old foes was more like it.”

“Eh, bygones.” Bates shook her off. “Six months ago we began an undercover operation to get close to the people inside Crescent Creek. The business had been around since the early 90s. Very reputable and what you would expect from a beer distributor. Until two years ago, when they started distributing things of illegal proportions.”

“Drugs.” Callen guessed

“Bingo. Specifically heroin, ecstasy, cocaine.”

“Petty officer Wade had heroin in his system when he died,” added Callen.

“When he was murdered.” Sam corrected.

“That’s unfortunate to hear. I had thought we really broke through to him this time. Our man inside quickly bonded with Evan. They both came from broken homes, abusive dads, and a no good childhood. It wasn’t too hard to convince him to become our informant.”

“Do you know who killed him?” Callen asked

Bates grabbed the remote from the table, hitting the center blue button. A picture of a Hispanic man appeared on the screen.

“Ramon Murillo. He took over the company in 2007 when his father Arturo passed away. The problem is Ramon has his finger in just about every gang in West LA. They do his dirty work so we can never get anything to pin on him.”

“So why did he kill Wade?” Sam questioned.

“Evan wanted out. He said he was finally ready to turn his life around. But he was worried that Ramon wouldn’t let him go that easy. And he was right. Three days ago he met with our undercover in Santa Monica and …..”

Callen interrupted the Lieutenant “Wait. Max Gentry is one of yours?”

Bates hit the remote again. A picture of Max filled the screen. Only this time it was a photo of him with his hair kept and wearing a suit and tie. Much different from the DMV photo they were given.

“One of the best. His real name is Martin Deeks. We backstopped him as the owner of the Squid & Dagger. He was oddly proud of the name he created for the bar. Anyways, Deeks met with him on the pier that morning to give him the address to one of our safe houses. The investigation was coming to a head so Evan was to stay there until we arrested Ramon and then he would be put in WITSEC. Deeks said when they met Evan seemed really jumpy and paranoid, like someone was watching him.”

“That’s because someone was.” Sam added.

“Right. Evan never made it to the safe house and until this morning, we had no idea where he was. Yesterday, Deeks found an envelope slid under the door at the bar. Written on the front was Detective Deeks. Inside were the surveillance  photos Detective Hall and his team came across this morning.”

“But Hall saw Deeks in those photos but didn’t say he knew him.” Callen questioned.

“That’s because he wouldn’t know him from Adam. Deeks was a loner. He never played well with the other cops. Always preferred to work alone. That’s why deep undercover was perfect for him. He didn’t have anyone else to worry about.”

“Until Kensi.” Hetty added.

Until Kensi.” Bates repeated “Deeks was freaked out enough that his cover was blown and his informant was missing but when he saw those photos of Kensi, he was furious. He called me to ask if I could help him track her down. She wasn’t answering her phone so he left her voicemails saying she was in danger and needed to leave town. He told me her name was McKensi Cole. But the name lead nowhere. I didn’t hear from him after that. I had hoped he had found her and went into hiding but unfortunately that wasn’t the case when Detective Hall called me this morning.”

After working with Kensi for over a year, Sam was getting familiar with how she operated “That explains how she ended up at the bar last night. If Kensi heard those voicemails from someone she cared about, she wouldn’t have run the other way.” 

Hetty nodded, “She would have stood and fought. That’s who she is.”

“And now Kensi and Deeks are both missing.” Callen concludes.

The images on the screen suddenly disappeared and were replaced by a video feed of Eric from Ops. 

“I might have a lead on that. Now the security cameras at the bars had been disabled but I was able to pull a traffic cam from the north east corner that shows the alley behind the building.”

The feed from Ops shrunk to the top corner of the screen as the traffic cam feed filled the rest.  Just as they feared the team saw an unconscious Deeks being dragged out the back exit and into a van. Movement at the bottom right of the screen caught their eye. Kensi was watching from around the side of the building, both hands on her gun at her side. They watched in horror as the shadow behind Kensi grew closer and then grabbed her, placing a white cloth over her mouth. After a moment of struggle, Kensi’s body went limp and she too was thrown into the back of the van. Landing right next to Deeks.

[artificialqueens]

papillionlisse 2/? [gigi x nicky / jan x jackie] - pinkgrapefruit

[ chapter two ]

Gigi wakes up from a fitful sleep (mostly caused by the cat laying across her chest) to the sight of Nicky in warrior two - her eyes blissfully closed as her taut stomach twists, muscular thighs tense as she pushes herself into downward-facing dog. She spots Gigi’s staring as she looks up and pokes her tongue out in jest - the brunette giggling slightly too loud for the early hour as Crystal throws a stuffed honey badger across the room before burying her face back into her pillow.

[harry potter hogwarts/beauxbaton au]

A/N - hey! we’re back in the easiest to write multi-chap I’ve ever done! i don’t even care if you guys like it anymore because I’m so in love with these gals. (i still need the validation that you all like it though <3) thanks to frey for being a magnificent beta and let’s get down to it!

*

They learn remarkably quickly that Nicky is unbearably peppy on a morning - the blonde girl rolling out of bed at 6 a.m. while Jan is still drooling on Jackie’s shoulder to practice some light morning yoga in only a pair of tight gym shorts and a sports bra. Her loosely curled hair is tied into a loose ponytail, and sweat forms in droplets in the dip of her spine.

Gigi wakes up from a fitful sleep (mostly caused by the cat laying across her chest) to the sight of Nicky in warrior two - her eyes blissfully closed as her taut stomach twists, muscular thighs tense as she pushes herself into downward-facing dog. She spots Gigi’s staring as she looks up and pokes her tongue out in jest - the brunette giggling slightly too loud for the early hour as Crystal throws a stuffed honey badger across the room before burying her face back into her pillow.

Nicky winks and Gigi smiles back, sitting up as she gives up on the idea of going back to sleep. She pulls Quaffle onto her lap with a sigh, pushing her fingers into his fur until he unfurls happily, stretching out between her legs.

“Morning,” she whispers, but it’s hoarse with sleep and it makes Nicky chuckle as she rolls into a handstand.

“Bonjour, mon chou,” she responds with a smile - her voice tense as she lowers back down. She stands up finally, grabbing her wand off the end of her bed to roll up the yoga mat and fire it back under the bed - her morning laxity getting the better of her as she lazily sends Gigi’s glasses onto her face with a snap of the wrist. Checking the time, Gigi realises it’s quarter to seven and motions for Nicky to flick the curtains off the thin windows that stand in between each bed.

She watches, as she does every morning, as Jan recoils from the sunlight, hiding her head in the crook of Jackie’s neck with a moaning noise causing the sleepy dorm to erupt into quiet laughter. Crystal makes a nondescript noise as she pats her hand vaguely on her bedside table, looking for her glasses, which she finally finds once she lifts her head and realises Nicky is holding them for her. She flops onto her back with a snort.

“Monday, right?” Asks Crystal, as she fumbles her way into the bathroom - coming out with a toothbrush hanging out of her mouth a few seconds later. She takes one for the team and hits Jan’s foot with a cushion, forcing the girl to actually look up as Jackie busies herself with the last few pages of her book on full moon astronomy to avoid her wrath. Nicky braids a silk scarf into Gigi’s hair as the two watch Jan walk like a zombie into the bathroom, only coming out twenty minutes later having showered and put on some makeup.

“Is she always like this?” Nicky asks, gesturing very generally towards the girl who’s resumed her position tucked against the now clothed Jackie until they all decide to go to breakfast.

“In the morning? Yes.” Gigi responds bluntly. “She’s an absolute zombie before nine unless there are waffles for breakfast, but it’s not a Thursday, so, unfortunately, we’re stuck with this until Jackie can force a cup of tea down her, and then she’ll perk up.”

Crystal joins the two of them and sits on Gigi’s bed. “Almost eight,” she notes, which sparks the group into motion. Nicky watches in amusement as they come together like a well-oiled machine - all ready to go and standing by the door in seconds, each in their robes and choice of shoe - bags slung over their shoulders and wands holstered. She’s pulled out of her staring when Gigi snaps her fingers at her.

“C’mon, Nicks,” she says quickly and Nicky slips her feet into her patent black brogues - sliding the unfamiliar black robes over her white oxford shirt. The robes hold the symbol of Papillionlisse - a purple butterfly alighting a leaf - and they feel homely even though they’re brand new. She slings her powder blue Beauxbaton tote over her shoulder and runs to the door so they can all exit together, making sure to remember the code of knocking that Gigi shows her on the barrel outside the common room door.

She finds she rather likes the look of Hogwarts in the morning - the sun shining through old stained glass in a way that lights up the whole main hall with twinkling lights. The enchanted ceiling is sunny today, and even Jan smiles at the sight of it. Gigi calls her a cliché as she picks two or three flavoured croissants from the platter in front of them and she tries to defend herself with crumbs spraying out of her mouth, giving in as Crystal attempts to shoot her a disapproving look ending in them all falling into warm laughter.

She looks around, trying to spot the other Beauxbaton students, camouflaged from view in their billowy black robes. She identifies a couple by their blue bags and pristine blonde hair and finds she hasn’t really missed them yet - she wonders idly if she will, as she watches Jan enthusiastically explain something about Kneazles to Jackie who softens under her girlfriend’s eyes.

*

They’re all making their way down to the dungeons when a burly looking guy bodychecks Crystal - her shoulder jerking back in a way that forces her off kilter and she ends up on the floor. The large brunette seethes ‘Mudblood’ through his teeth and Nicky watches in horror as Crystal’s eyes well up.

“Le con,” she lets out - the words scathing as they fall from her lips. He looks at her - eyes narrowing before he leans forward. She reacts on impulse, a firm fist to the lower jaw and he staggers back in shock, barely calling her a bitch before running on up the stairs.

Crystal is back upright now - looking shocked and slightly sick, but held upright by Jackie and Gigi, who look like they’re trying to lower their own anger levels by breathing very poorly and whispering kind thoughts to Crystal.

“Damn, Nicky,” Jan exclaims with a bemused smirk.

Nicky takes a deep breath, pushing the air out through her nose as she shrugs. “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” she quips - “Now, Crys, how about we prove his, uh, préjudice wrong.” She links arms with the brunette, leaving the rest of them to wander behind.

“You okay?” She asks quietly, chin resting on the girls shoulder for a second.

“Dicks will be dicks,” Crystal replies, voice more solid than it had been. “I’ll be fine. They’re a rarity nowadays.”

“Good,” Nicky says forcefully. “Dicks will be dicks.”

*

It’s a few weeks later - the late spring tumbling into early summer and the sky is a glorious blue, not a cloud in sight - they spend the afternoon lounging on the grass on the edge of the Black Lake.

“I saw the Giant Squid once,” Crystal tells them all as she shields her face from the Sun by waving one hand in its vague direction.

“You did not.” Gigi scoffs from her position, laying on her front, body propped up on her elbows. Nicky giggles, in the same position as Gigi, but with her head resting on her folded arms - face illuminated by the sun that filters through the branches of the nearby elm tree.

“We only have horses that drink whisky,” she whines - making the group laugh together.

“I’ve heard of those,” Jackie pipes up from where her head is on Jan’s lap - the blonde braiding wildflowers into her hair.

“Of course you have,” Nicky jokes and the brunette holds up her middle finger much to the French girl’s amusement. “Have they always been like this?” She asks Gigi quietly, as the group goes back to their own separate conversations for a moment.

Gigi hums in contemplation, brushing a strand of hair off Nicky’s face before she answers - the blonde’s striking blue eyes catching her off guard in a way that shouldn’t shock her anymore.

“Not always this disgustingly cute, no, but they’ve been a thing since third year. We’ve shared a dorm since first year, but they sorted their shit out in the summer of third, thank god. You know what we went through?” Gigi asks sardonically, and Nicky shakes her head in a motion for the girl to continue, letting out a giggle at the matter of fact way Gigi tells this clearly nostalgic story. “God, they were painful for a while. Jackie was our go-to homework help and then she got all sad about Jan, and wouldn’t help any of us, so guess who wasn’t doing great in divination that year.”

“It’s literally making shit up,” calls Jan from where she’s sat - choosing to ignore everything else being said. “And I’m the one who likes it.” She pats her divination textbook affectionately as Gigi goes back to explaining.

“But they got together in Hogsmeade and it was all cute, and now they’re this.” Nicky coos like you would at a small dog, before returning her attention to the brunette.

“Will you take me to Hogsmeade?” She asks, eyelashes fluttering and Gigi has to stop herself from swooning.

“Of course, mon Cherie,” she responds in an awful French accent that makes Nicky laugh so hard she rolls onto her back, letting the sun hit her face in a way sure to pepper her nose with even more freckles. “You didn’t have to go all veela on me,” Gigi whispers, and Nicky just winks.

“HONEYDUKES!” Crystal butts in from where she’s studying for charms - lazily trying to perfect the wand movement for one of her nonverbal spells. A spark shoots up from the lake causing Jackie to raise an eyebrow from where she’s laying, absorbing the sun, and Crystal just cackles in response, dropping her wand in defeat.

“Yes, Crys, we can go to Honeydukes,” Gigi appeases. “Any other questions that don’t involve me being a lonely lesbian?” She asks Nicky, and the blonde blushes at the phrasing. She twirls an already perfect blonde ringlet around her finger before looking up to Jackie.

“What exactly do you want to do, Jaqueline?” She asks - the nickname a joke she’s chosen to stick with out of pure enjoyment of the look on Jackie’s face.

Jackie props herself up on her elbows - Jan pouting as a few flowers flutter out of her hair and onto the grass.

“I want to get a mastery in astronomy and arithmancy, and then probably become an arithmancer or a potions astronomer - maybe a code breaker. Something like that,” she muses as she relaxes back down onto Jan’s lap. Nicky watches on, impressed.

“Damn, that���s cool.”

“Well, I’m pureblood, so I either do something insane or I live off my family’s fortune, and the only way I can do something insane is if I work hard as hell for it.” They all hear Jan mutter something about ‘fucking aristocracy’, but they choose to leave her be as she, perhaps slightly more angrily, threads daisies together to make a crown.

“Jan?” Nicky asks, falling back so she can fully sunbathe, her hair forming a halo on the greenery.

“Oh, easy,” Jan claims with excitement - any anger at her girlfriend’s family having passed as quickly as it arrived. “Magical creature healer.” She says it brightly and with enough whimsy that it almost masks the danger they all know the job poses.

“I can imagine you doing that,” Crystal claims, airily. “You’re making my hopes of a normal healer sound boring though.”

Jan giggles. “You can heal me!” She effuses with more excitement than the topic warrants.

Nicky looks to Gigi with a question in her eyes, and Gigi flops down next to her before she answers - watching the sliver of a white cloud pass through the cerulean of the sky.

“McGonagall’s mentioned taking me on as an apprentice,” she admits quietly. “I mean I’d love to. I’d love it.”

“Gigi, that’s amazing,” Nicky says, and Gigi feels how much she means it like an aura washing over her. She feels the love as it trails through every vein in her body, and she assumes it’s a veela thing, because it feels like this unbreakable connection even if it only lasts a second.

“Thank you, Nicky.”

*

They end up in the library, late at night a few days later. It’s a Saturday, and she and Nicky are pouring over textbooks - barely talking except to pass notes full of badly drawn wand diagrams and the occasional quip.

Gigi has spent the last five minutes watching as Nicky (totally innocently) sucks on a sugar quill and she thinks she might explode, so she practices what she’s trying to write and wordlessly charms her notes page into a paper butterfly, knocking the quill out of Nicky’s mouth, so she can sit comfortably for a minute or two.

“Dieu, you’re so distracting,” Nicky moans as she looks up to Gigi’s smirking face.

“Only for you, mon Cherie,” she schmoozes, eyes half-lidded as she lets her teeth trail her bottom lip.

“Mon chѐri,” Nicky corrects, although her smile is softer, less playful now. “D’amour.” Her tongue darts out to whet her lips. She stands up from where she’s been sitting cosy in a large wooden chair and slides onto the table, so she’s sat right in front of Gigi. The brunette almost short circuits at the way Nicky towers over her like this, but she rolls her shoulders and tries to pretend to be a Veela - just for the confidence.

She pulls her onto her lap, thanking the smoothness of the table and the lack of friction posed by Nicky’s leggings as the blonde lands happily on her thighs.

“Embrasse Moi,” she asks, breathless from the suspense, eyes barely open. “S'il te plait.”

If she looked, she’d see the way Nicky’s ears turn pink when she’s flustered, her pupils the size of saucers, lips full.

“Yes.”

Gigi’s pretty sure she’d be happy to let Nicky do anything to her. Especially in a library.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 46-47: We Have an Extra Episode, Just Blow Up the Island, I Dunno

Yo can you even believe this season is over?

It was honestly a two-season season, when you think about it. This tournament that was only like a week in showtime but two years in watch time if it was 2001 and I was tuning in every week. Kinda nuts when you think about it.

Anyways, it’s over, and not even the Kaibas are willing to really let it end. They’re camping out in their bunker they just set to explode, just watching everyone run around like ants while the sirens wail across the island (do you NEED emergency sirens if no one else lives on this island?)

And we get one more time for the writers of this show to flip over the Kaiba timeline like pancakes and I just...

I can’t believe they did this to me, but at the same time I can totally see how they just let this one fly under the radar, just wait for it, it’s coming.

(read more under the cut)

So this sort of explains a little bit more of why Kaiba insists on building Kaibaland when it already exists, as apparently the Japanese Kaibaland was just the first of a franchise. Like seriously what child dreams of Franchising? He has Kaibaland but is like “I won’t be truly happy at all and I will try to cut people up with card games until there are more Kaibalands. That will surely make me happy. More Kaibalands.”

But then, sitting in the middle of the orphanage, he stands up in his 70′s ass sweatervest and proudly proclaims:

This borked timeline.

Back in the present Joey is feeling stressed out so he’s turned to his only coping mechanism, that’s right, he’s hassling people.

Duke, who has a million motivations to want to kill Kaiba, since he works for Pegasus, brings up the bright idea of “or I dunno, we could leave them? Like they very much caused every event of the last week to happen outside of the random ass cultists.”

And so, now that Joey has exhausted things to hassle, let them be Roland or the massive engines on the blimp-plane, he decides to board the helicopter. I kid you not, Tea turns to Joey as they’re boarding the copter and says basically along the lines of this:

WTF, show. Like what? Like whaaaat? Anyway, don’t think about how big a helicopter is on the inside, because we’re just gonna shove everyone in here like it’s a mosh pit. Good thing that no one actually packed any luggage or pajamas, so at least that will keep the weight down.

Please admire the height of Yugi compared to Roland.

What followed was an explosion that the show did for...some reason. This didn’t need to happen. This was needless anxiety and it’s like..the season’s over why are we doing this???

So this is just a very Yugioh moment where...they didn’t really HAVE to blow up the island at the last minute. They didn’t HAVE to break the engines on the blimp-plane and they absolutely didn’t HAVE to put Seto Kaiba in a jet in the same very un-aerodynamic shape of a blue eyes white wife.

But they did.

If I’ve learned anything from watching Yugioh is that you must always, at every moment, be going 400%.

Seto just wanted to make a simple visual statement of “I want to move on from the past” so he decided to uh...do a very theatrical statement that was so theatrical that everyone thought that not only he and Mokuba had died, but that they, themselves, were about to die (and they were, they absolutely were)

Please admire the way they drew Seto from the side in this scene.

Anyway, now that the completely unnecessary “lets blow up the island and destroy the ecosystem” drama is over, and Kaiba’s off to encourage Global Warming in some other part of the globe, it’s time to send Marik off on his boat. It’s time for him to go have Marik Boat Time and never ever become a spinoff series although you know I would absolutely watch the hell out of that.

So, they choose the most idyllic landscape to do it, here in the abandoned warehouse district, surrounded by shipping cranes and strangely empty cruise liners. Ah, that twilight hour sunset. The way the sunlight kisses the corners of the abandoned warehouse’s windows.

I am absolutely shocked our background artist didn't use the chance to paint it neon orange. They love neon orange so much but I guess they save the neon for dramatic scenes. This one they left a more natural Instagram creamy color palate.

(PS at this point I guess Bakura decided to go home or go to the hospital. Whichever reason he decided to bounce, he bounced without saying goodbye to anyone apparently. That or the show just decided that no one cares about Bakura so he was the only one we didn’t say a farewell too, which is hilarious since he’s one of the most popular characters on this show.

Bro broke it to me, this whole story line of the puzzle and the tablet and all that--nah. By the time we get to it I’ll have forgotten all of the lore, pretty sure. Bro did ask me if we could skip S4 and I said no we are here for the worst parts first, Bro. When it gets horrible is when we’re finally getting to the good stuff.

Then, Duke suddenly remembered that before this tournament, he was only going on a walk between laundry loads but ended up abducted twice over, stranded on a submarine, an island, and nearly exploded. That and he had to sleep on one of Kaiba’s weird cube couches and that probably sucked. But it’s time for him to pull out his colors and add some bounce sheets to his whites for the dryer.

Can you believe they had Duke Devlin for two seasons but he only dueled once? Lol.

I can’t believe there was never a purpose for Duke Devlin other than to be eye-candy. I’ve only ever really seen this trope done to girls.

Mai also suddenly remembers that she doesn’t live here.

TBH, if Mai wasn’t put in a coma, I think she would have just left the tournament after she lost. She’d have pulled out a hang-glider from her pack and just sailed away rather than spend another minute with people she isn’t absolutely required to hang out with. That seems more her jam.

And then they had to frame up this Joey/Mai ship and...it’s just so funny when you remember that Mai is like waaay to old for Joey. She’s like 24 and he’s a baby but he’s pretty sure that he’s disappointing her so much by not telling her all about how he’s crushing. He’s pretty sure she just has no idea when it’s like, no, she does, and she does not want you to acknowledge it.

As she goes off, Tea for some reason decides to make it her responsibility for Joey to go out there and I guess...mortally embarrass himself in front of his much older crush? I mean you don’t really have to admit to your teachercrush that...you like her? Like, Mai is just a teachercrush right? Like he respects and admires her, she’s pretty, and there’s no other girls but Tea and Miho? Like that’s it?

This weird ass couple. And I mean it’s a weird pairing just because it can never happen on screen, but as some of you have pointed out--it is probably the healthiest couple in Yugioh. Mostly because we know that it will never happen. Unlike everyone else where it’s like, Joey better go eat both those pieces of paper with those phone numbers on it because holy hell a 16 yo dating a 12 yo is pretty freakin wild. What are those boys even going to talk about with Serenity? How wild fractions are? How to make a replica of a cell out of Jello for the science fair? Because that’s the level she’s at.

I was an architecture student once (I know. Ya’ll who’ve read many of these have probably noticed I attempted to major in nearly every art alignment so it’s probably very confusing to figure out wtf I actually ended up finishing in school (it was Illustration) ) so I just can’t with Yugi’s house. We have seen several rooms inside this house and none of them, absolutely none, line up with the outside of Yugi’s house (which is smack dab in the middle of the inner city for some reason??? Like does Yugi have PARKING? This is the most expensive two story house in Japan, it comes with free parking.

And like...I have tried to lay it out but it doesn’t make sense. The stairs of the shop go directly into the front door. The second floor would be half a staircase, so where is this living room? And assuming that Yugi is on the top floor with the slanted roof window...how? Is it the entire floor? what is going on here?

It’s a cartoon, I shouldn’t think about it, but this house is a Dr. Who police box. Anyways, Yugi decides to sneak out of the house by going down the stairs that are again, right in front of the front door. You cannot go through the front door of this house because these damn stairs are directly in the way.

Hey check out who’s alive, it’s Grandpa. I guess he’s...fine? I guess he just woke up on the floor of Bakura’s hospital room and was like “Screw that, I’m going home.” and then just peaced out here until Yugi came back.

I respect his moon pj’s to go with Yugi’s star pj’s.

I can’t imagine being in Grandpa’s position and seeing your boy go out there and get nearly killed by crazy ass cultists again and Seto Kaiba (who put him in a coma), and then catching him Sneaking Out. Like if I were Grandpa I’d just set up camp right outside of the front door because holy hell Yugi is so attracted to danger he’s just gonna waltz around the city in the middle of the night to play cards.

++++++++++RANT ABOUT TACO BELL, FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS IS JUST ME TALKING ABOUT THE TACO BELL MENU+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Also I looked up Taco Bell in Japan thinking that this wouldn’t be a thing (from what I’ve heard, the only food Japan cannot do is Mexican) but not only does Taco Bell in Japan completely exist, guess what the menu is like? Just go ahead and guess in your head, I’m gonna go over the menu right now because this is very important.

I was expecting it to be pretty wild with a black taco shell made out of squid ink or something but surprisingly, it’s mostly the freakin same but different meats. Like they have a few more pork options (I guess instead of chicken?) and they have a shrimp taco--which I feel like we’ve done in the States before but everyone didn’t like that. Also, you can apparently get a crunchwrap, but it’s in a triangle shape instead of an octagon. They just changed the shape and called it a “stuffed grilled giant nacho”.

Obviously, they do not have a Ranch Doritos taco since America is the only place that is fully obsessed with Ranch. I have heard from so many people from Asia that “can we just not have Ranch today? Can we have a single spread without this weird garlic sauce? And...are you dipping your pizza with it? Is there one thing you haven’t coated with Ranch Dressing?” and it’s like no. There isn’t. Would you like to try our taco bell taco that is frosted in messy Ranch dust?

Like it really feels like this is the one fast food joint where everyone else has the normal Taco bell, and weirdly WE are are the people with the weird ass version of Taco Bell. Even Japan was like “you guys do you over there with your pink Starburst flavored frozen icee and your Quesarito...we’re just gonna put some extra cheese on a taco and call it ‘double cheese.’”

But here’s the craziest thing on the menu--the Taco Bell in Japan has FRIES.

I KNOW.

WHAT????

What would Taco Bell fries even taste like? Would they taste...tacoey? I mean I know that nacho fries are a thing that kinda comes and goes but I’ve never had them actually. Its never the right moment for nacho fries when Nacho fries are still on the menu.

but, I will say they do have one kind of weird thing on the menu I see online. I say “kind of” because it’s...just weird, it’s not actually all that out there as compared to our weird things in Taco bell. They got something called the “honey cheese pocket” which was a small plain flour tortilla filled with melted Monterey Jack cheese rolled into a cigar that you dip into honey.

...I mean...it probably tastes good, but if you released a honey cheese pocket in the States and pretended that’s Mexican food, I’m pretty sure every state touching the south border would cry a single Zesty-ranch-doritos-taco-shaped-tear. I know I would, at the same rate I’m stuffing honey cheese pockets directly into my mouth.

AND...apparently you can just serve alcohol in a Japanese Taco Bell. Which is interesting, because we had that episode of Season Zero where Yugi had to find alcohol in a burger joint, which seemed really odd to me at the time, but I guess you can just serve alcohol in whatever restaurant? Anyways, Taco bell has alcohol so now Yugi can light people on fire in a Taco Bell, if he really felt like it. Go ahead and append your fanfictions accordingly.

+++++++++END OF TACO BELL RANT, BACK TO CARDS ++++++++++++

So, can you imagine having a friend who forces you to wake up at o-dark hundred in order to play cards when you already attend all of the same classes and see eachother every minute of the day otherwise? Can you imagine having a friend like this?

Then again I’m not 100% on whether Pharaoh needs to sleep. It’s pretty clear that Bakura’s ghost doesn’t sleep much (or apparently eat much) so maybe it goes the same for Pharaoh as well that he needs Yugi to remind him how to be human.

Then there was this weird review episode they slapped on at the end. I...don’t know why they put it there, it was really more of an afterthought since nothing really got added or taken away from the finale. It was just a review episode of “in case you didn’t watch this season, here’s what happened this season” But the episode wasn’t over before Tea angsted the hell out about this kid that I guess she’s...

Tea thinks in her head about Yugi more than she talks directly to Yugi. That’s really my biggest issue with this couple. Tea can be so lukewarm towards Yugi and visa versa and then occasionally Tea will just snap and obsesses over this boy, but never tells him about it directly. Except for that one time in the blimp, which was more about “please don’t die”. But have they talked about how freakin anxious she is about how he’ll die? Nah.

It just feels like the writing team had one person who really liked Tea/Yugi, and then the rest who were like “fine, wtv” and so we get a real inconsistent narrative of this pair, that only seems to come up for drama, but then goes right back to being invisible moments later. Like sightings of a giant squid.

Ah, back where they started, on a date with a ghost. I think. This might be a date? It started at 2 PM so I don’t know that counts as a date yet.

These two are a lot.

And honestly...If it was going to happen it should have happened at some point in the end of this arc. She made such a big deal about him going off to card war, and now he’s back and she’s like...ok, cool.

They’re not gonna even talk about it? Or like...maybe high five it out? High five out those feelings? Man I feel so bad for anyone that shipped these two.

But anyway,

I’d add it to the Yugioh Death Count but that’s assuming that I don’t find an excuse to use this font again.

So yeah, that’s it for Season 3 (I wrote in Season 4 just now and had to really think about it because like...it really does feel like I went through 4 seasons, at least, of this show since every season is like 50 episodes)

Originally, when I started this, I thought there were only 3 seasons of Yugioh total. This was the end goal.

But I guess I’m committed now, so we’ll start up Season 4, which bro tells me is “completely different and not what you expected” but I probably won’t post until 2 weeks from now because this is a side hobby and I don’t need to wax long about my main-life stress, but youknow how it is: the more stuff I add the more stuff adds up. However, I do cope with stress by typing, so maybe I’ll just make sooo many updates to combat it? I dunno. But the blog will be back for S4. Eventually. When I get to it.

Many thanks to all y’all who’ve left many kind comments, I’ve been kind of tasked for time lately, so I haven’t really responded to many, but know that I see them and I’m thankful for them and I tell bro about them and he finds many of them amusing and y’all are just very, very nice. Wish Tumblr had an actual comments system since the only way to reply is like...it’s weird. If I reblog my own post I run the risk of it then being out of chronological order for people wanting to read that link I put at the base of each post so...I have to either make a new post to reply or reply within the post and I dunno if y’all can even see that type of reply...it’s tumblr problems.

Anyway, I’ll have a Graveyard for next weekend, maybe an art post, I dunno. But, I’m not dead, just watching how weird the next season is and making a buffer.

And here’s that link to read all these recaps in chrono order from the beginning

[hnrywinchester]

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Better late than never?

Summary: Gabriel’s planned an elaborate Valentine’s Day evening, every t crossed and i dotted, or so he thought.

Gabriel x Reader

Words: 2,182

Warnings: Fluff, a disaster at every turn, implied smut.

Prompt from @aquietuniverse

No beta, all mistakes are my own.

The plan was simple, he’d been devising it for weeks. It involved a few phone calls, a little trickster magic and a whole lot of charm, three things he happened to have very easy access to. Everything was laid out, bought, reserved and ready to be put to action, the last piece of the puzzle set to turn into the driveway in three… two… one…

STEP ONE: THE WELCOME HOME SURPRISE

“Well, hey there sunshine, have a good day?” Gabriel inquired from the kitchen, finishing the final preparations for the beginning of his elaborate scheme.

“No!” she snapped in response, his hands freezing in the middle of their task, “I swear to fucking God above if I see one more fucking PIECE OF CHOCOLATE I will vomit.”

His face hardened into a thin line as he dropped the wooden spoon into the pot. Okay, this technically wasn’t a piece of chocolate, it was a pot, meant to dip the various not-chocolate fruits and marshmallows and candies he’d ornately placed on a tray he intended to deliver to her upon arrival. So that didn’t count, did it? She probably meant boxes of chocolates, those terrible, cheap, over-processed clumps of sugar that people exchanged half-heartedly so they didn’t get put in the dog house assortments. This was a whole-hearted endeavor, classy and well-devised, as all his efforts were of course. It would be exceptionally well received, as it was completely unrelated to ‘pieces of chocolate’.

“Oh shit!” he mumbled under his breath, snapping out of his thoughts to find his very expensive dark chocolate fondue becoming a very burnt batch of fon-don’t.

Well there went that idea. *Snap*

STEP TWO: THE DRESS

Rounding the corner from the now spotless kitchen he found her laying face down on the couch, shoes still on. He felt bad, but the fact that she had had a bad day was seemingly going to play to his favor. A thoughtful, well-planned evening out after a hard day? Sounded like a chance for some bonus points.

“Why don’t you head into the bedroom? I think there may be something in there for you,” he chimed, giving her bottom a light smack.

“What did you do?” she asked, her voice muffled by the cushions.

“I have relaxing, extravagant evening planned for us, step one (two) is waiting for you in the room, get a move on, cause we’re on a tight schedule.”

That seemed to perk her up. She lifted her head from the couch with a curious little smirk, her eyes glinting at him with a little bit of that bit of magic that kept him coming back for more. He gestured with his hand towards the hall, hurrying her along. They were now down to less than an hour until step three.

Waiting patiently in the living room, thumbing through his phone, he heard her call out to him from their bedroom. Well, she did not sound all that impressed. Must be the way the sound traveled through the house because there was no way she was anything less than enthralled by what was waiting for her laid out on the bed. He crept through the hall, expecting to find her waiting for him, the zipper of that little black number still hanging open exposing the smooth, soft skin of her back…

“Oh come on,” he whispered angrily, hanging his head til his chin hit his chest.

“Bit big,” she admitted, biting her lower lip in pity.

He’d checked the sizes on everything in her closet, how did he pick the one thing that ran seventy-two sizes too large. It hung awkwardly around her frame, falling down her shoulders, this was not going to work.

“Can’t you just, snap it to fit?” she suggested, shrugging, causing it to drop completely off her arms and down the floor.

He groaned, okay, this was fine. *Snap*

STEP THREE: A SEAT WITH A VIEW

One thing had gone exactly as planned, the car showed up right on time… smelling like cigarettes and cheap pine air fresheners, but shown up nonetheless. She looked stunning in her now perfectly fitting attire, her hair styled and the tiniest bit of makeup on to accentuate her already perfect features. He’d reserved a table at one of the most sought after restaurants in town, ensuring a seat with a view. As the host led them through the bustling dining area, he was happy they’d guaranteed him this nice, quiet back corner.

The table was perfectly set, a single candle burning in the middle, surrounded by white and red petals, finally, something just as he’d arranged. The window gave a perfect sunset view of the gardens, a fountain cascading in the center of the various plants and flowers. He knew she would love it, she had to, right? They slid into the booth, the grateful smile that graced her lips washing away the shame of his previous faux-pas’. Yet no sooner than their seats beginning to warm, did a baby cry out from the bench behind them.

“There is no way,” he murmured to himself as the cries turned to ear-piercing wails.

Now, he had no issues with children, they were great, the future, pure innocent little souls. However, he did have an issue with them at a five star restaurant, on Valentine’s Day, where everything was already going wrong. He opened his mouth to speak, but was abruptly cut off by another screech. When he looked over at her, her face was lifted in empathy. At least she wasn’t mad? Or was she?

STEP FOUR: DINNER

Drinks were ordered, the champagne was popped, glasses full, baby consoled. Things were back on track. Her eyes scanned the menu and he watched as her eyebrows furrowed. Nope, this wasn’t happening.

“Is this… a sushi place?” she questioned softly, he could just hear the sympathy in her tone.

“Uh… yeah…” he answered, his distress very evident.

“I’m… I’m allergic to shellfish.”

“Oh. Well, I mean, that’s fine, we’ll just get stuff without any shellfish. There should be something…”

Shrimp. Crab. Lobster. Why did everything need some form of crustacean? Oh there was some… no way she ate sea urchin. Was that a shellfish? He couldn’t remember. He was too busy cursing himself internally to actually care. How did he not know she was allergic to fucking shellfish? Probably because they’d never eaten anywhere where this was an issue. Until now. Until the one damn day it counted.

“For the love of all things,” muttered, hiding his lips behind the heavy, leather-bound menu.

“It’s fine. It looks they have… one?” she suggested, trying so hard to appreciate his efforts, “is squid a shellfish?”

He huffed out a sigh. Yes. Yes it was. He was going to punch the next Cupid he saw.

STEP FIVE: DESSERT

Thankfully, by some high and holy grace of heaven (that was not his own) he’d managed to convince the chefs (convince as in a little snap here, a little smack there) to concoct something shellfish free for his delicate, little Chèrie. It was time for dessert. They didn’t put shellfish in dessert, not even here. This was going to go flawlessly.

Crème Brûlée was the dish of choice. A little out of place in a sushi joint but who was he to judge. Her spirits were still high, how he wasn’t sure but he’d be damned if anything was going to dampen them. She laughed at his bad jokes, blushed when he brought her hand up to his lips to kiss and smiled at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. His desire for a perfect night had seemingly finally been granted. When their dessert was delivered, she grinned from ear to ear and his heart swelled, her lips mimicking that feeling, but physically.

“Uh… Gabe…” she choked, her airways starting to close.

“Oh fuck,” he whimpered, jumping to his feet.

His fingers fell to her forehead, stopping the reaction in its tracks. Where the hell was there shellfish in dessert? With a sigh his forehead fell to her shoulder, what a terrible, no good, piss poor attempt at a date this had turned out to be. At least it couldn’t get any worse.

STEP SIX: TAKE HER HOME, BLOW HER MIND

He had half a mind to not even pay the bill. If it was real money he was using he may not have. He led her outside, the pings form his phone signaling their ride had arrived and he was so beyond ready to get her home. If there was one thing he knew he couldn’t screw up, it was sex. Tonight was going to be extra special because one, Valentine’s Day and two, he was a royal fuck up who had to fuck his way back into good graces.

“Okay… red Honda Civic, see it?” he searched, the cool night air refreshing on his embarrassment flushed skin.

“Yup…” she replied flatly and he followed her eyes to see two other couples getting into their ride.

“I shouldn’t even be surprised at this point.”

He could cry. Like actually physically cry, and bonus, you wouldn’t even be able to tell because less than two minutes after watching their lift drive off, it began to rain. Not that cute, oh we can kiss and it’ll be so romantic rain, it was torrential downpour, soaked you down to the bone in thirty seconds flat rain. She shrieked, covering her head with her bare arms and he mentally kicked himself for not grabbing a jacket to wear over his button down shirt. It was just she loved him in a white button down, had told him on many occasions, but just like every other thing he’d done to try and please her, it backfired.

Wrapping an arm around her shoulders he pulled her back into the lobby of the restaurant, completely uncaring that they were dripping all over this shellfish- obsessed establishments pristine flooring. Was she laughing? His eyes floated back to her and he could hardly believe it. There she stood, soaked, her dress clinging to her in all the right places, her makeup running down her face in black streaks and she was laughing.

“This has been some night…” she snorted, hugging his arm with hers, “can’t we take a shortcut?”

Magic. That’s all she was. *Snap*

STEP SEVEN: BLOW HER MIND ACCEPT DEFEAT

They landed in their living room, still wet, still a mess. He couldn’t even be around her at this point, this was quite literally the worst evening he’d ever had. With a sigh he took off in the direction of the bathroom, where he could lock the door and hide for a week until his shame dissipated.

“Where ya goin’?” her sweet as honey voice called as she padded along behind him.

“Bathroom,” he grunted back.

“You don’t use the bathroom.”

To cry he did! To wallow in self misery, drown himself in pity and self-loathing, he absolutely did, but he couldn’t walk away from her. He stopped, keeping his back to her, still not quite ready to face the victim of his horrible charade. When she realized he wasn’t turning, she ducked around him to come face to face, her lips turned up into a satisfied little grin and her eyes alight.

“Thank you,” she bade softly, grabbing his hands.

“Thank me? For what? This was a disaster. I had to give you a celestial epi-pen…” he chided, scoffing at her gratitude for absolutely nothing.

“Yeah. Better than an actual epi-pen though. No bruised thigh.”

How was she seeing anything positive in this situation?

“Unzip me?” she requested, turning her back.

Slowly, he pulled the little black zipper down, peeling the soaked fabric from her skin. She was a wonder to behold, sopping wet or not. When she faced him again, her bare upper body causing his breath to catch in his throat, she slowly began plucking at the button of his shirt, her fingers trailing down each new inch of exposed skin.

“It may not have been what you planned, but it’s still more than anyone else has ever done for me,” she confessed, pushing the shirt from his shoulders, “so thank you.”

Leaning up on her tiptoes she captured his mouth with her own, winding her fingers into his rain tousled hair. He whined into her kiss, running his hands along her sides as he deepened it, his tongue pressing and begging against her lips. Her skin was cold beneath his touch, still damp and he thought, maybe he could give one more thing a shot.

“Why don’t I run us a bath,” he suggested, lips still feathering against hers as he spoke, “warm you up. Then give you somethin’ to thank me for.”

“Oh? And what might that be?” she purred, reaching her hands down to undo his belt.

“I’ll give ya the arrow that sent all the Cupid’s packing.”

With a coy smile she pulled at the waist of his pants, forgoing the bathroom and heading straight into the bedroom, “Why don’t you do that first.”

[bestmemechild]

Prinxiety at Kings Island - Part Two

Now Roman and Virgil were towards the back of the amusement park. The two of them got into the short line for the Windseeker. It was a tall swing ride that went hundreds of feet up into the air. Virgil found it terrifying every time he rode it because he always imagined himself falling from that height. He somehow always ended up riding it despite his fears.

The Windseeker may be a scary attraction, but cool music always played on the way up and down. It somewhat calmed people’s nerves, but it never helped Virgil. He saw past the fake charade that they were putting up. The park was trying to make it seem less horrifying, and he didn’t find it working.

Once they were back on the ground, Virgil found himself feeling a bit dizzy. Trying to jump out of the seat didn’t help because the bottom of his feet now stung. When he took a step forward, he stumbled a little bit. Roman chuckled as he gently grabbed Virgil’s arm and helped guide him out of the ride and to a bench to sit down.

“Are you alright?” Roman asked.

“I’ll be fine,” Virgil said, “The Windseeker always makes me dizzy. I think it’s because of how high it is. It causes me a lot of anxiety, but I still like to ride it.”

“Are you afraid of heights?”

“Not that much. I can do all of the roller coasters and go to the top floor of tall buildings, but the Windseeker is different. There’s nothing I can do if it breaks and there are cases of some Windseeker rides getting stuck at the top. I could also die if I fell from that height.”

“Yeah, I can understand why you would be nervous.”

Virgil soon got over his dizziness and stood up to signal that he was ready to continue. Roman was glad that Virgil felt better. He had immediately felt worried when he saw Virgil stumble around. He was having a lot of fun and didn’t want it to be ruined for Virgil if he felt sick. He knew that Virgil would feel bad about it, even though he wouldn’t have been able to help it. Smiling, Roman walked alongside Virgil as they went to the next ride.

The Vortex was another roller coaster that they skipped. Neither of them liked it that much since it made them very uncomfortable. It was okay to ride once in a while, but not every trip. Their heads always got banged around on the restraints by their heads, giving them bad headaches sometimes. There were a lot of loops, but they were annoying.

Instead, they made their way to their favorite ride at Kings Island: The Beast. When it opened in 1979, it was the tallest, fastest, and longest wooden roller coaster. While it wasn’t the tallest anymore (having been beat out by Goliath at Six Flags Great America) or the fastest (which was now Lightning Rod at Dollywood), it was still the longest. The Beast was very intense. When they first built it and had it tested by a few people, they were absolutely spooked when going through the end tunnels because there were no breaks used during the swift turns. They added them in and that part of the ride was still the most intense. The coaster zoomed through the woods at a very high speed, and it was the best at night since it seemed to be spookier and faster. It was by far the best thing to happen to the amusement park.

“The Beast really is a beauty,” Virgil commented.

“You could say that the story is wrong, it’s actually called Beauty is the Beast,” Roman joked.

“Shut up.”

Next, they rode the Backlot Stunt Coaster. Before, it was called Italian Job: Stunt Track, but it was obviously renamed. It was a smaller coaster, but it was still fast and exciting. The cars turned rapidly, passing the different road signs and cop cars. In the middle, the cars stopped and waited as helicopter sounds were played and fire lights around them. Then, they were plunged into darkness and then exited the wall to the outside world as if they crashed through it.

Virgil and Roman decided to take a small break from the thrill rides and head towards Kiddie Land. They wanted to ride a few of the more childish attractions, such as Boo Blasters on Boo Hill, Surf Dog, and the Woodstock Express.

“I miss this being Nickelodeon and not Snoopy,” Virgil mentioned. “That was my childhood in this place and, frankly, it was a lot better. I remember being really sad when my mom told me that Cedar Fair had bought out this place. Don’t get me wrong, I love Cedar Fair parks too, but I preferred Kings Island being owned by Paramount.”

“I know!” Roman exclaimed. “Boo Blasters used to be Scooby Doo themed and the Woodstock Express featured the Fairly Odd Parents. The trains were even painted as Cosmo and Wanda! I also loved running through that Spongebob splash pad.”

“Yeah, and that yellow roller coaster over there, I think it’s called Flying Ace Aerial Chase, was the Rugrats and the log ride was the Wild Thornberrys. I also miss the one where you lay on your stomach being Danny Phantom. My favorite one was what Surf Dog used to be, though. It was Avatar the Last Airbender before!”

Obviously they were bitter about Cedar Fair buying Kings Island from Paramount. Who could blame them? Everything was changed to Snoopy this and Snoopy that! There was nothing wrong with The Peanuts, and they still loved Charlie Brown and his lovable dog, but those characters were already used at Cedar Point, which was another amusement park in Ohio. They liked how there was a more variety in characters and themes going on before, but now that was missing.

As they were in Kiddie Land, Virgil ended up beating Roman at the shooting game in Boo Blasters on Boo Hill. Roman claimed that his blaster was broken and that was why he didn’t get at many points, but they both knew that that was not the case. Roman was just really bad at it.

They also rode the other two rides that they had come there for, but nothing significant really happened while they were doing so. They mainly just teased one another the entire time. They did see a few of the kids from Sanders Summer Camp, but most of them were too busy running around and having fun to stop and talk to them.

When they were tired of the lamer rides, they went to ride Mystic Timbers. The line was a tiny bit longer because it was the newest roller coaster in the park, but it still didn’t take much time at all. The crowds had stayed away that day like they hoped, so the lines weren’t too bad.

Mystic Timbers was wooden, but it was not nearly as long as The Beast. There were lots of twists and turns that led to a fun ride, but the ending was pretty weird. The train slowly entered and stopped inside of a shed. A voice recording warned them not to go in, but they did anyway. After a few seconds, some music started playing on its own. Everyone focused on a large screen on the wall in front of them, wondering what would happen. They waited there for what seemed like forever before they started to move forward again. As they did, a giant tree creature popped up on the screen. The monster was supposed to be frightening, but Virgil and Roman thought that it was lame. The tree was one of three things the screen could have showed. The other two could have been snakes or bats, possibly representing the Diamondback and The Bat. The tree represented Mystic Timbers.

The only roller coaster that they hadn’t ridden yet but wanted to was the Diamondback. Since it was after dinner time, they grabbed some chicken tenders and fries from a nearby food stand and ate while waiting in line. When they were in the front, they threw away their trash and got on. The seats were very different than on other roller coasters. Each car on the train had two seats close together in the front and two spread apart on the back. The last pair of seats had a long line, so Virgil and Roman sat in the second to last pair of seats.

Diamondback was a tall coaster that made one’s stomach drop. It smoothly ran over the tracks, moving through a lot of wide turns. At the end, it plummeted towards the water and almost seemed to glide across the water. As the train passed, water shot into the air due to the last car on the train having a piece that went into the water and caused it to spray up.

Finally, once they got off, they found that they only had an hour and a half left. They rode The Beast one more time before settling with walking around some. Roman really wanted to play some games for some reason, so they did just that. Virgil lost the two games he let himself be talked into playing. He was actually a little disappointed because there was a squid hat that he really wanted. He didn’t tell Roman about wanting one, though, especially as he watched Roman win a pink one for himself.

However, he was very surprised when he played the game he won the squid hat at again. He won another time and got another squid hat, this time blue. Virgil felt a little jealous until Roman approached him and placed the hat on his head.

“There!” Roman grinned, “Now we are squid buddies!”

“You didn’t ha-” Virgil started before Roman cut him off.

“Nonsense! I wanted to! I thought that you would look cute in it...and I was right! Besides, I felt bad that you didn’t get a prize too, so of course I needed to win one for you! What type of prince would I be if I didn’t?”

“Well, first of all, you’re not a prince-”

“Hahahaha that’s a funny joke, Panic! At the Everywhere!”

“Okay, whatever...but thanks…”

Roman grinned as he told Virgil that it was no problem. He then proceeded to drag him over to another game. It was one of those games where you had to shoot the water into the target to make a balloon pop. Roman beat a few people who were playing a few times and ended up getting the big prize. He picked out a giant stuffed Pikachu.

“Virgil,” Roman said slyly.

“What?” VIrgil questioned.

“I seem to have won this Pikachu here, but my room at home already has an abundance of stuff animals.”

“Of course it does.”

“I don’t think Pikachu would be very happy in my room. Would you mind keeping him for me?”

“Roman, you just spent a bunch of money playing that game for that prize!” Virgil yelled. “I can not take him because you won him. You’ve already given me this squid hat.”

“But Viiiirgiiiil, I specifically played that game to win Pikachu for yoooou!”

Virgil sighed, a deep blush on his face. “Are you really sure? I don’t want to owe you anything more.”

Roman gasped. “You don’t owe me anything! I really just wanted to win you another prize to make you happy. Please, Virgil, I really like you.”

“You-You do?”

Roman felt his own face turn pink. “Well, yeah. You’re really cute Virgil. I know that I just moved here and that we barely know each other, but I’ve noticed you from the first day of camp. I would love to hang out with you a lot more. This day was really fun and it made me realize how much I want to stay by your side.”

Virgil was shocked, “I-”

“Wait,” Roman interrupted, ruining the moment, “this has to be done in the perfect place. Come with me!”

Roman shoved Pikachu into Virgil’s arms, grabbed the emo’s hand, and pulled him towards the front of the park. They soon ended up in line to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower replica. Only the very top was available, not the lower 50 foot level. The reason for that was because a guy once tried to climb the elevator shaft from the 50 foot level during an after hours graduation party. He ended up falling and getting killed. Since then, the stairs that led to that level had been closed off and nobody was allowed up there. The elevator only went up to the top level.

Anyway, they took the elevator to the top and stood where they could overlook the park. The height didn’t get to Virgil like it did on the Windseeker because there were railings and they weren’t trapped on a seat suspended from a thin pole. It was very peaceful up there, save for the occasional roar of a roller coaster. It was hard to hear the laughter and screams from people riding them since they were so far up.

The night sky was very pretty. The moon was out and there were only a few clouds. The stars could not be seen very well due to light pollution, but they could imagine that they were still there. The different rides littered around Kings Island were lit up with bright, colored lights in order to make everything look beautiful.

“This is wonderful,” Virgil said in awe.

“Yeah, it is,” Roman agreed. Both of them were nervous to continue their conversation from earlier, so Virgil spoke up about a different matter first.

“Thank you for coming with me today. Usually I’d have to hang out with one of the groups of kids since they didn’t want me going off on my own. I knew Patton felt bad, but there was nothing he could do about it. Not even Logan, who the other volunteers are scared off, would force me to hang out with people who hate me. I would have had to skip out on all of these roller coasters and be bored all day.”

“It’s no problem at all,” Roman replied. “I don’t get why the others don’t like you. Virgil, you’re so amazing! I had so much fun today, but it wasn’t just because we were here. No, I had fun because I was with you.”

Virgil turned to face Roman, only to find him already staring at him.

“Did you mean it when you said that you liked me?” Virgil asked.

“Of course I did! You’re beautiful! You’re funny! You like some of the same things that I do! I like everything about you and it drives me crazy! I just want to be with you…”

Virgil was blushing hard now. He wanted to respond, but he didn’t seem to be able to muster up any words. He was afraid that he would say the wrong thing.

“Virgil?” Roman asked.

“Yeah?” Virgil whispered as best as he could.

“Can I kiss you?”

Now Virgil was really shocked. He had not been expecting that at all. He nodded after a moment, not wanting to be silent for too long in fear that Roman would take it negatively.

Roman grinned as he cupped Virgil’s cheek. He leaned in slowly before pressing his lips gently against the other boy’s. It wasn’t very deep or long. Actually, it was rather clumsy, but it was perfect to them.

When they pulled away, Roman dropped his hand from Virgil’s cheek in order to grab his hand instead. Virgil was careful not to drop his Pikachu as he listened to what Roman had to say.

“I hope that you believe me now when I tell you how much I like you. I really want to give us a try, but only if you want to. What do you say, sunshine? Would you be my boyfriend?”

“Of course, you idiot!” Virgil exclaimed as he nodded enthusiastically. “I like you too!”

Virgil was the one to take the initiative this time to kiss Roman. It was more passionate, more emotions coming through. Virgil was really happy because somebody finally wanted to be with him. Somebody finally liked him and not those who bully him. He felt joyful tears run down his cheeks as they pulled away again. Roman just smiled before kissing them away.

“But you can’t call me sunshine,” Virgil ordered.

“No promises, My Chemically Imbalanced Romance,” Roman teased.

“Ugh, whatever Sir Sing-a-Lot.”

“I like that one! Feel free to keep calling me that.”

Virgil just rolled his eyes and decided to shut his new boyfriend up with another kiss.

About 20 minutes before closing, they returned to the ground in order to head back to the bus. They didn’t want to be the ones to keep everyone else waiting. As they walked, their hands were intertwined with one another.

They got back to the bus with 10 minutes to spare. They paused before reaching it fully, turning back around to watch the fireworks that lit up the sky. Kings Island sure knew how to end a night. They looked at each other with smiles on their faces, sharing another small kiss in order to help remember that moment.

They knew that they would have a lot of annoying teenagers to ignore once they got on that bus. They also knew that the summer would be filled with those teens annoying them and making fun of their relationship. However, the most important thing they knew was that as long as they had each other, they could get through all of that and more.

El fin

[gruumpy-cat]

The Art of Being Nonchalant (Or Not) / Chapter One

It was the night of my seventeenth birthday party. I was trying to fall asleep in the Potters' guest room, which is conveniently nicknamed Quinn's room since I was the one who mostly spent the nights there as opposed to any other guest, but I was too buzzed from drinking and dancing and thinking, so sleep eluded me.

One of the drawbacks of drinking, I guess. Though I don't remember ever hearing other people complain about sleepless nights after a night out. I'll have to ask around.

Deciding that sleep is just not in the cards tonight, I rolled out of bed, threw on my shorts and a loose T-shirt since I didn't want to walk around in my underwear, and gently opened the door of the bedroom.

Looking out into the hallway I could see that everyone's rooms were closed and I guessed they were probably asleep like normal people. Ignoring the obvious problem with going into another person's room at night uninvited, I tiptoed into the hallway and did my best stealthy Faceless Man impression until I got to the door of the room next to mine. I was honestly surprised I managed to do this without making a sound due to my buzzed state, but I guess luck was on my side tonight.

Carefully opening the door, I snuck in and was engulfed in almost complete darkness, the moon the only thing illuminating the room since the Potters' home was pretty isolated from the rest of Godric's Hollow.

"James?" I whispered. "You awake?"

I could hear faint grumbling from the direction of his bed. I stepped around the clothes on the floor, probably unceremoniously dumped before he crashed, and came over to where I could see him sprawled across the bed in a position any sane person would classify as impossible.

But James Sirius Potter always did do things the impossible way.

I sat down on the bed and poked him. My poke was awarded nothing more than an almost imperceptible grumble. It was time for drastic measures. I scooted over next to him and sat on his torso. That woke him up.

"Merlin's beard, Quinn, why are you bothering me in the middle of the night?" James looked at me through half closed eyes as he said this. He obviously forgot that we do something like this every year. Or he was still a bit drunk, which was probably closer to the truth. I was in no position to judge him. But I could blame grandad and Ethan for buying the booze for the party.

"Bothering you?" I looked at him as his eyes cleared and he realised that it was well after midnight and what that meant. He quickly sat up and engulfed me in a tight hug. I could smell the familiar minty smell of his shampoo on his still damp hair and the Firewhisky on his breath even though he brushed his teeth. The smell of alcohol is not something cured by toothpaste.

He drew back and smiled at me. We were so close that I could see the specks in his hazel eyes even in the low light. I returned his smile.

"Happy birthday, Quinn," he said in a low voice as he turned towards his end table and took out what I presumed to be my real birthday present. We usually got something jokey for each other to give out with the rest of our friends and family, but the real presents came after.

James gave me a fairly thin, neatly wrapped present and excitedly looked at me while I tore at the black wrapping paper.

The wrapping paper revealed a cardboard box. You could count on James to wrap his presents the right way, no messy cuts or badly taped Spellotape and definitely no presents outside of a box if they didn't come in their own. I, on the other hand, was a lost cause.

As I opened the box, a cloud obscured the moon and suddenly, we were in complete darkness. I could feel the familiar shape of a vinyl record sleeve but on top of it was something else I couldn't recognise by touch.

The cloud passed and moonlight streamed in, allowing me to actually see the presents. As soon as I saw the vinyl I nearly squealed but managed to stop myself before I woke anyone up.

"You found it! I can't believe you managed to get me the first LP Sons of Tyr ever recorded," I exclaimed, "they're incredibly rare."

James just grinned at me "It helps when your dad knows Mundungus Fletcher."

I looked at him with a horrified expression, "Tell me this didn't fall off the back of a broom!"

"Nah, he just conveniently knows a lot of people selling a lot of rare stuff, including records. He managed to get me a discount on account of you being easy on the eyes," he laughed at what I was sure was a disgusted look on my face.

Taking the other present in my hand and seeing it for what it was - a black picture frame decorated with little silver Beater's bats and Bludgers and the two of us, aged eleven, flying together in my parents' backyard during Christmas holidays. I could remember grandad taking the photograph right before my brother Ethan threw a snowball at his head. I was pretty sure this was the first photograph of the two of us together. James probably had to collude with my grandfather for this present.

"Do you like it?" James asked after I didn't say anything for a while, just looking at the moving photograph. I looked up at him and grinned.

"It's perfect, James. Thank you!"

He smirked, wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and said, "You know, I did like the other presents you got earlier."

I got up and put the vinyl and the photograph on his desk before lying down next to him.

"Oh really? Which one did you like the most?" I asked, turning on my side so I could look at him while we talked.

"My favourite was the one Ash got you," he blushed while he said this which was unusual since James almost never blushed unless his mum said something really embarrassing, like how he used to have a toy rabbit he slept with at home until he was twelve. He named the rabbit Fluffy and his dad found that hilarious for some reason.

"You mean the red slutty dress I would probably wear once a year?" I mused. My usual choice of attire was black jeans and a black T-shirt. I like the colour black. I would make a great woman of the Night's Watch if they accepted women and I lived in the A Song of Ice and Fire universe. Ashley Thompson, one of my dorm mates at Hogwarts, liked to give me presents that I would probably never buy for myself. I'm pretty sure all the dresses I own came from her one way or another.

He nodded, "Yeah, that's the one."

I lightly punched him, "You're just teasing me."

"Maybe. But I bet Al loved it. I think his jaw actually dropped," he said this in a lower voice.

At the mention of Al's name, I remembered what I was thinking about that possibly had a hand in making this night sleepless. I turned again so I was on my back staring at James' ceiling which was charmed to show the night sky.

"I broke up with Al tonight," I said with a sigh. Albus was my boyfriend for a total of two months which was certainly a record for me.

James snickered at that and asked, "Did you break my little brother's heart? I did tell him you probably will."

I thought about his question and felt the tiniest stab of guilt. Maybe I let it go on for too long before I broke it off.

"Of course I didn't! Al knows me and he was fine with, you know...me...," I trailed off.

"Merlin, did he break yours? I'll kill him if he did!" James' face was one of bewilderment and confusion as he looked at me with wide eyes.

"You know he couldn't," I replied with an eye roll. I was surprised he'd even think that.

"Why not?" He propped himself up on his elbows so he was looking down at me as he asked the question.

"Because I don't have a heart, James," I stuck out my tongue at him.

"Nice comeback, Quinn. So...why did you leave him? When did this even happen because I don't remember you missing any part of your party?"

I made a face. "What's with the third degree? It's not like you don't already know."

He plopped down on the bed again. I could see he was having a hard time between being my friend and being worried about his brother, however hard he tried to hide it. Al might be cool as the Giant Squid but James loved his siblings and he didn't like it when something was wrong with them.

I squeezed his hand in the hopes it would make him feel better. He squeezed back.

"We snuck out for a little while when you were doing your Gandalf impression," I said and winked at him, "but, unfortunately for Al, he and I had quite different things in mind when we snuck out."

"It wouldn't have been fair to stay with him. It was fun but he decided he wanted to talk about us and his feelings for me so I cut him off. This thing with him was just ... me passing time. Feelings didn't really have anything to do with it and you know it."

As I said this, James turned on his side, gave me an intense look and hugged me to him. We lay like that for a while in silence. I could hear the steady rhythm of his heart beating and it was soothing. The tiny pangs of guilt I felt about Al disappeared.

After what seemed like an eternity I could hear him as he whispered in my hair, "I know everything about you."

"Yeah. You do."

I woke up in James' bed the next day. The sunlight was streaming in through the window and I had to blink a few times to get adjusted to the light. James was still asleep with his arm around me. Waking up in his bed was not unfamiliar but remembering that just the night before I broke up with his brother made me realise it wouldn't look good if one of his family members happened upon us right now no matter how many times we had sleepovers before.

So I did what any sensible girl would do. I forcefully woke up James by alternatively poking him, whisper-yelling at him and tickling him until something of the three yielded results.

He had a grin on his face when he woke up.

"Happy birthday, Quinn."

"Yeah, yeah, you said that already. Now get up and Apparate me home!" I'll have to take the Apparition test soon now that I turned seventeen. James passed his a few weeks ago.

"Bloody woman, why are you so bossy?"

I frowned at him.

"I like things being done a certain way. Stop talking and turning around in a confused state so we can get going. I'd prefer it if you could bring me to my room but I guess the vicinity of my house would be good enough," I got up as I said this with a small smile and took both the vinyl and the photograph.

He made a pouty face and put a hand over his heart, "Are you suggesting I wouldn't be able to Apparate accurately? You deserve to be splinched!"

"You wouldn't splinch me! You like me too much," I smirked at him.

"Naah, I think I should after that insult. Maybe just a small splinch to teach you a lesson...how about your pinkie? Or your ear? Hm...," he touched my ear like he was seriously considering this and then he started tickling me. I was seriously ticklish and I just prayed to Merlin he'd stop soon or I'd start shrieking and probably cause the whole house to wake up.

Finally, he stopped but he had me pinned on the floor. He looked at me intensely like he was trying to figure out a particularly hard Arithmancy assignment but he soon changed his expression to a teasing one.

"Say I'm the best at Apparition!"

I rolled my eyes and sighed. He knew I was defeated.

"You're the best at Apparition, James. Can we get on with it now?"

As I said that everything went black and I felt the pressure all around me. Soon it was over and we were on my bed in the same position as before, with me pinned down under James.

I wiggled under him, "Get off, you hippogriff, I'm trying to breathe here!"

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks," he smirked, again.

"Yeah, yeah, okay. But seriously, I need to -," I was cut off by a huge ball of grey fluff jumping on top of James causing him to literally stop my breathing with his body as he collapsed on top of me from shock.

"Argh," was the only sound I could make.

James rolled off me and fell on the floor with the ball of grey fluff, namely, my cat Ziggy, staring at him viciously and hissing. I guess Ethan and grandad forgot to feed him. And by feed him I mean refill his bowl when it was half full (Ziggy would probably call it half empty because he's a pessimist like that).

Looking at Ziggy with a slightly horrified expression, James turned to me and said, "Quinn, I said this already and I'll say it again, but your cat is psychotic!"

I tentatively extended my hand towards Ziggy so I could try and pet him but he jumped off my bed in a huff and threw me a scornful look as he stood next to his half-full bowl.

Such theatrics.

"He's not psychotic, he just doesn't like anyone. Or anything. Well, he sometimes likes me but I'm sure that's just because he sees me as a constant food source. And he liked you that one time when he allowed you to pet him!" I felt the need to defend Ziggy even though he was a little bit, well, evil. Sometimes. I adopted him from a Muggle shelter nearby three years ago when he was just a tiny kitten. Even as a kitten he wasn't particularly friendly and his first adopted family brought him back to the shelter because of it.

James got up and gave him a few cat treats I had on my desk. Ziggy purred at that. I could swear he smiled. But cats don't smile. They do love bribes, apparently, because Ziggy allowed James to pet him for a second before prancing over to my window and jumping on the sill to look at the birds flying around a nearby oak tree.

"You're coming over later, right?" I asked, "Everyone is going to be there for lunch, even mum and dad, but they're leaving tonight because they both have practice tomorrow morning. We could do a movie marathon."

James sat down next to me on the bed and bumped my shoulder, "Of course I'm coming over. What kind of a birthday evening would it be without me?"

I smiled gratefully at him and hugged him, "Great!"

He stood up and said, "See you soon, Quinn," before Disapparating with a quiet pop.

Looking around my room, I realised I seriously needed to tidy up because the only remotely neat things in here were my Quidditch kit and my record collection. My school trunk was still sitting relatively unpacked even though I was going back to Hogwarts in two weeks and my clothes were in two different piles, the clean one near my closet and the dirty one on the floor next to my bed. I wasn't usually this messy, and grandad surely wouldn't tolerate it under normal circumstances, but I've been spending almost all my time at the Potters' house during the last few days so he turned a blind eye. He had a soft spot for me. Feeling lucky I could finally use magic outside of school I decided to try my hand at some of those household spells I've seen grandad using after I've had breakfast.

After changing into something I dug out of the clean clothes pile and filling Ziggy's bowl, I tied my dark hair into a messy bun and went downstairs. I could hear my grandad in the kitchen, hopefully making breakfast, and talking with somebody.

"Good morning," I said as I entered the kitchen. Immediately I could see my dad's face in the kitchen fireplace. Grandad turned around and they both exclaimed, in weirdly similar voices, "Quinn, love!"

Grandad came over and engulfed me in one of his bear hugs, "Happy birthday, my favourite granddaughter!"

"I'm your only granddaughter!"

I could hear dad alternating between yelling birthday wishes and singing the birthday song in a horribly off-tune voice. He could be really silly sometimes. Or all the time. He liked to say he got hit one too many times in the head with a Bludger but that wasn't even close to the truth.

"Dad, please stop, I just woke up," I said with a yawn.

He just snickered, "Don't lie, dad told me James just brought you home so you've been awake for at least half an hour."

I threw my grandad a look and muttered, "How in the seven hells did you even hear us, James' Apparating is freakishly quiet?"

Grinning, he just said, "Magic." He turned around and continued frying the omelette he was making when I interrupted.

"Quinn, I've got to go because practice starts soon and the Captain can't be late. I love you and I'll see you at lunch," dad said with a sad expression, which in turn made my grin disappear. I was hoping to at least exchange more than two sentences with him. I couldn't blame him really. Being a Captain of the Ballycastle Bats and also a Chaser on the English National Quidditch Team meant he had very little time for family. But he was living the life I hoped I would someday so I was quick to forgive and forget.

"Love you, dad," I said as I gave him my best smile and waved at him. His head disappeared from the fireplace. My grandad was muttering something to himself, but since I didn't have his unnatural hearing, I couldn't decipher what he was saying. He looked a bit angry.

I sat on the barstool at our kitchen island while I waited for him to finish breakfast.

"Did mum Floo while I was in my room?"

He turned around and put a plate full of food in front of me, "No, but you know she's as busy as Dylan is."

I rolled my eyes at that, "Oh yeah, she's so fucking busy she can't even Floo to wish me a happy birthday."

Grandad frowned and said, "That's the life of a professional Quidditch player. Your parents love you and they try their best...," he trailed off, "But I have no bloody idea what would've become of you and Ethan if I wasn't here."

"Right. We would've probably dropped dead."

"I was thinking more in the line of both of you becoming completely wild and untameable. It's not like you're much better even with me here."

I made a face. Grandad was one of those people that can't help being blunt. As I munched on my food, I realised Ethan wasn't here.

"Where's Ethan, anyway?" I asked.

Grandad shrugged his shoulders, "I expect he's at his flat."

"But he's never at his flat...unless he has a girl there!" I was grinning at this. I loved to tease Ethan's girls because he usually had a type. I don't know how, but he always managed to end up with one who didn't believe in one night stands (even though she just had a one night stand with him) and quickly became more and more crazy as the morning after dragged on. Though I wondered who the hell would go off with my brother out of the Weasley girls (I knew it wasn't Lily Potter since she was way too young). I couldn't remember seeing him with anyone in particular last night, but then again, some parts of the party were a little hazy.

"I know what you're thinking, Quinn, and I have no idea who the girl is. I always mix up all those Weasleys anyway," grandad said this with a huge smirk on his face. Even though he never looked at another woman after my grandma died, he fully supported Ethan in his conquests. He also supported me in mine. I guess he was pretty supportive.

"So, what's the plan for today?" I knew it would be pointless to ask for my presents right now because it was tradition to do a family birthday lunch and then get presents. The fact that birthdays are one of the rare days we're all in the same place at the same time makes them extra special.

"Your dad is going to cook and your mum is baking the cake and I'll finally have some well-deserved respite from all the cooking around here," he said this as he sipped his black coffee. Grandad woke up crazy early every day and by the time I got up he'd already spent half a day doing his thing. But he liked to keep me company while I ate. I think he was pretty lonely while I was at Hogwarts and that's why he didn't mind the fact that my twenty-four-year-old brother spent most of his time here instead of at his own flat.

Grandad looked at me teasingly, "So, what did your boyfriend get you? I don't want to know if it's anything that has to do with shagging."

I almost choked on the last piece of my omelette.

"You're fine talking to me about shagging but don't want to know the details. Got it, thanks grandad, that wasn't embarrassing at all."

He just laughed at me. Wonderful.

"Sometimes I think I'd be better off if you or Ethan were even a little embarrassed about your escapades but then I remember I'm the cool grandad and the thought quickly disappears. So, what did Al get you?"

"You're our only grandad!" I exclaimed.

I never met my mother's parents. They were Muggles and she talked about them a lot. Said they were free spirits which I understood to be a bit weird and unconventional and made me feel sorry I never met them. They died a pretty conventional death, though. They were going to a Black Sabbath concert on their bikes and a driver who fell asleep at the wheel crashed into them. Sad story.

"Al got me concert tickets to see Sons of Tyr in February and he's not my boyfriend anymore," I said, not meeting his eyes. He liked Al. Grandad, Ethan and Al had that Slytherin brotherhood going for them.

I'm not sure why I didn't meet his eyes because grandad is always on my side. He just shrugged his shoulders, "Another one bites the dust, eh?  Ethan owes me 20 Galleons!"

"You bet on my relationship?" I was more amused than surprised.

"Can you even call it a relationship if it lasts for just a few weeks?"

"Few weeks! It lasted for two months. Give or take."

He laughed at me again. I love it when people laugh at me. Not. Maybe being a stand-up comedian should be my backup if I fail at professional Quidditch. But I'm honestly not that funny.

"It lasted exactly six weeks, I should know since I bet on it."

I stood up and washed my plate for the first time using magic. I could get used to this. We never had house elves or nannies or anything like that because grandad was a firm believer in doing things on your own so you don't become spoiled and incompetent. I'm not convinced he succeeded in not spoiling me but eh, at least I could wash my own plate.

Spending my birthday cleaning my room wasn't ideal but I really couldn't stand the mess any longer. I put the Sons of Tyr LP James got me on my turntable and started. By the time I was finished, I managed to find two T-shirts I thought lost forever and one of Ziggy's favourite toys. After taking a shower I heard two distinct pops. I ran out of my room and down the stairs until I finally saw my parents after I don't know how many weeks of only communicating by owl or through the fireplace.

"Quinn! Happy birthday, honey!" My mum hugged me and I forgot about my annoyance with her from this morning. I missed her. I missed my dad.

"Hey mum, dad," I mumbled because I couldn't talk like a normal person since my dad decided that a group hug was in order so I was pretty much getting crushed between the two of them. Dad towered above both me and my mum and she was pretty strong for her slight Seeker build.

They finally released me and I grinned at them.

"Nice of you two to show up," I said with a wink. They started talking over one another trying to explain their busy lives and I had to stop them before they started arguing because that's how these things usually end.

"Stop, stop! I was just kidding, Merlin's pants!" As I said this grandad came into the living room.

"Son, Ivy, good to see you."

Mum turned towards him and hugged him. I don't know why but she likes to give out hugs.

"Ian! How are you? Did everything go alright yesterday? Is...," and off she went with the questions about everything. I tuned out. Dad was already in the kitchen starting with the meal and mum soon joined him. I kept them company. We chattered about my party and Ethan and even Al, though apparently, they thought I was kidding back when I told them in a letter we were together. I have no idea why.

Sometime while they were cooking, we heard a loud crack and Ethan entered the kitchen. Mum immediately attacked him with questions about his job, his (lack of a) girlfriend (at this I sniggered) and so on. I gave him a sympathetic look.

After the lunch was over it was time for my presents at last. Dad gave me a small silver box.

"This is from your mother and me," he said. I opened it and found a watch inside. It was black instead of gold, with silver Roman numerals and stars instead of dials. It would've been quite traditional (except for the material) had it not been for the engraving on the back - Fuck Fear, which was something of a Jones family motto, and yet, only dad and I were Gryffindors, and grandma Olivia, too, but she was killed by a dragon so I'm not sure fearlessness was to her benefit.

Dad was just about to say something else when mum cut him off, "You better like it, Quinn. I swear we bickered for the past month until we settled on the design we thought you'd like. So even if you don't like it, pretend that you do and wear it for our benefit, and I don't care how ridiculous that sounds," she drew a breath and continued, "You like it, right?" she said this with a slightly psycho-looking smile.

Ethan was trying not to laugh, grandad was smoking his pipe and pretending not to listen to her, or maybe he wasn't pretending, he liked to tune her out sometimes, and dad looked exasperated.

"Yeah, I like it, thanks!" I nodded my head up and down as I tried to be as enthusiastic as possible because mum was still psycho-smiling. I did like it but she was a crazy perfectionist who couldn't stand the thought of something being, well, not perfect. If it wasn't then she'd go off on a tangent and yeah...We learned to live with it.

Ethan took out a pair of blood red Quidditch gloves from his bag and shoved them at me.

"Here you go, little demon. They're dragon hide gloves, Vipertooth model, tailored for Beaters so they'll give you a little extra kick when you swing the bat -"

He was interrupted by a wolf Patronus that appeared in our dining room. It spoke in a voice I haven't heard before but it was obviously familiar to Ethan.

"Jones, we need you at HQ right now, bring your heavy-duty kit," as soon as the wolf said this, it disappeared.

Ethan got up from the table and gave me a small smile, "Duty calls, little demon, but I hope you'll make good use of my present. I'll see you all later." He turned on the spot and Disapparated with a crack.

Mum looked slightly worried but she quickly masked her expression. She was too proud to admit she worried constantly about all of us, especially Ethan since he worked as a Hit Wizard, but we all knew it. That's why grandad kept most of my Quidditch injuries a secret from her. She'd go mad with worry and she'd feel guilty for not being there. Dad was slightly more reasonable, or he was just very good at keeping up the appearance of being cool all the time.

"He's going to be alright, Ivy," dad said this as he covered mum's hand with his own and she nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, I know...Merlin, is that the time? I have to be back in Appleby for the afternoon practice," she rolled her eyes at that. "Bloody Orlov is convinced I'm giving out team secrets to Dylan. I fucking hate that guy, why the fuck did they make him Captain instead of me? I'm the fucking better strategist, that's fucking obvious..."

Luckily, grandad decided to interrupt her before she could go on another rant about Ivan Orlov, one of the best Keepers in the League and my mum's Captain.

"I'll clear the table," he said as he waved his wand around and all the dirty dishes followed him out of the dining room.

Dad was suddenly very interested in the gloves Ethan got me and I pretended I was interested in my new watch.

"Okay, I'll stop talking about Orlov, I get the message. You lot aren't exactly subtle," she glared at us as she said this. "I still do need to go. Quinn, I love you and I'll see you before you go back to school," she narrowed her eyes as she turned to dad, "and you, I'll see you tonight." I couldn't decipher if that was a booty call or if she was angry at him about something. It was probably both.

"Ahem, hm, yeah, right, okay," dad was red in the face. For a star Quidditch player who dealt with journalists all the time, he was painfully unable to hide his feelings. It made his interviews funny to read because he'd often get angry and start hexing the journalist who did the interview. More often than not, the journalist in question was Rita Skeeter. She held a huge grudge against him after he turned her into a toad one time.

"I'm going, too, sorry Quinn but you know, I've got that fundraiser later. We'll see each other soon, yeah?" he asked.

"Yeah."

Grandad came back from the kitchen and looked around, "They're gone, then?"

I nodded. He frowned.

"You still haven't seen the present I got you, come on, it's in my study," he put an arm around my shoulders and guided me to his study room. It was bright with diffuse light that came in through the big glass double door facing the north side of my parents' property and overlooking the Quidditch pitch grandad put up shortly after five-year-old me zoomed past him on a toy broom while he was gardening. We lived in a small wooded area near Bath and grandad put a lot of Muggle repelling charms around the property so they wouldn't stumble upon us, especially with the Quidditch pitch being obviously out of place.

He opened his closet, took out a broom and gave it to me. I nearly jumped from joy when I saw it but I managed to keep my cool and just hugged him tightly.

"The Stormwind! It's not even in the stores yet!" The broom was black, made from world-class ebony with numerous protective and aerodynamic spells woven into it. It was going to be the fastest broom on the market, faster by five seconds than the newest model Thunderbolt. But it wasn't the speed that was its prime characteristic, it was the incredible balance it provided. The Stormwind was the only broom in the world that adapted to its rider and the spell that made it so was the best-kept secret in the Quidditch world. Rumour had it that Selene Zhang, the Stormwind designer, didn't even reveal the secret to her board of directors.

"Selene is a close friend," grandad said it like it was no big deal.

"I didn't even know you knew her. How do you know her?" I asked.

"How did you not know that her mother was one of my best players in the Tornados?" He was genuinely surprised.

"Jessica? I don't know, I don't keep tabs on players after they retire. But anyway, thanks grandad, you know it's like, the best present ever, right up there with James'."

"Yeah, well, don't just count on your fancy new broom to win the Quidditch cup," he said gruffly, "you still need to practice your Backbeat!"

I grinned at him and teasingly said, "My Backbeat is going to be better than yours!"

"I expect nothing less."

I was alone at home when James came over in the evening. Grandad went out with his friends down to the pub and Ethan was still MIA. We were now lounging in the living room contemplating which movie marathon we were going to have. Both James and I were big fans of Muggle movies.

James was sitting on the fluffy white carpet and playing with my hair that fell down the sofa since I was lying down. Ziggy was sleeping on the armchair.

"So, Lord of the Rings or The Godfather?" he asked.

"Don't make me choose, you know I'm indecisive as hell."

"The Godfather, then. We haven't watched that in a while. Pancakes or popcorn?"

"James, you're trying to make me choose something again!"

"Both?" he chuckled.

"James Potter, you are brilliant!" I beamed at him and got up from the sofa. He followed me to the kitchen. James was terrible at cooking so I waved my wand and the ingredients for the pancake batter started to stir in a bowl. I sat up on the kitchen island he was leaning against.

"How was lunch with your family?" he asked me. I showed him the presents my family got me as soon as he Apparated. He was just as excited as I was by the fact that I now had the Stormwind. He even said he'll ask his parents to buy him one when it hit the market even though they just recently bought him the new Firebolt. Lily can have the Firebolt, apparently.

"Eh, okay, but I think my mum made a booty call to my dad in front of me."

James raised his brows, "Lucky Dylan!"

"Ew, what? That's my mum!" I made a disgusted face at him but he just wiggled his eyebrows.

"Says the girl who shagged my little brother for the past two months."

That shut me up. I took out the pancake pan and turned on the stove. When the pan heated up, I started frying the pancakes in silence. James came over from behind me and hugged me around the waist.

"I was just kidding, Quinn, don't be angry at me," he said in a low voice. I turned my head so I could look him in the eyes and smiled at him. That seemed to reassure him.

"I'm not angry, I'm just plotting my revenge!" He grinned at that and kissed my cheek.

"Okay."

In the middle of the third movie, Ethan Apparated in the living room which made me scream since I wasn't expecting it and, more importantly, because he was covered in blood. I rushed over to him, James following with a troubled look. Ethan just waved us away.

"Not my blood," his breath smelled of Firewhisky and his words sounded slightly slurred, "let me just get another Firewhisky before I crash."

James threw me a look and I just shrugged my shoulders. He went over to the fridge and brought the bottle of Firewhisky with three glasses. James and I settled on the sofa and Ethan on the armchair with Ziggy who promptly woke up, hissed at Ethan, jumped off and left to another corner of the room.

We drank in silence, neither I nor James knowing what to say. Ethan wasn't volunteering any information and there was no point in trying to pry it from him. If he didn't want to talk, he wouldn't talk.

After another three glasses, Ethan got up and went to his old room.

James put his hand around me and I leaned my head against his shoulder. I think I fell asleep in that position because I woke up in my bed in the middle of the night and James was lying next to me with his arm laid protectively around me.

It felt reassuring to have him here.

[thunderbirdcarebear]

Before the Tinsel

Before Scott took on the role, it was his father's. But he found out about his father's yearly trips in a way Jeff had hoped to avoid. A prequel to Of Tinsel and Traditions, might help to have read it. (Ages are purely ‘plucked them out of the air’)

Of Tinsel and Traditions chrono post / Of Tinsel and... Trouble

Scott always knew there was something special about his father. Right from an early age, he knew. Of course, many people knew of Jeff Tracy, they saw something special in him, too. What with him being an astronaut, famed for his work not only on the lunar base, but also in taking the first steps on Mars.

But what Scott saw even went beyond the natural hero worship and adoration a son often saw in their father, he just never quite understood what it was. All he knew was that there was something else, some other factor that he hadn’t yet worked out that made his father so special.

He finally realised what it was when he was around nine years old. It was Christmas Eve and Jeff had had to work late, yet again. So, there he was, trying to settle his three younger brothers who were all way too hyped to consider sleeping. Even seven-year-old John, normally so quiet, was bouncing around a little.

“Scott, I don’t wanna go bed!” Virgil whined.

Scott huffed an exasperated sigh. “Virgil, you gotta.” He felt a little frustrated to be dealing with them all, but he’d offered to help out. His mother, at about six months pregnant with his fourth sibling, was struggling with fatigue and Scott, being ever the helpful big brother, had offered to get them ready for bed while she had a rest. Boy, was he beginning to regret that offer considering they’d had chocolate cake after dinner.

Virgil crossed his arms, stubbornly. “Don’t wanna,” the five-year-old moaned. “I wanna stay up and see Santa.”

“Santa!” almost-two-year-old Gordon chimed in excitedly, wriggling around on Scott’s hip. “See Santa!”

“No, bed time,” Scott insisted, trying to refrain from rolling his eyes in irritation. “He won’t come if you’re awake.”

“No Santa?” Gordon asked, his big brown eyes sad as they looked up at Scott.

He hesitated. “No. No Santa unless you go to bed,” Scott repeated, sighing again. “You want Santa to come?”

“Yeah!” Gordon said, clapping his small hands and bouncing in Scott’s arms.

“Alright, alright,” Scott replied, laughing a little at the enthusiasm. “You gonna go to bed then?”

“Uh huh!” Gordon nodded, cuddling against his side.

The eldest smiled and kissed the top of his head. “Good boy,” he whispered, then looked at the other two. “You going to bed, too?”

Virgil frowned and looked at John as if seeking backup.

Scott sighed again then turned and walked out without another word, taking Gordon up to his room. “You’re being a good boy,” he said as he left, smiling at him.

Gordon’s smile in return was bright but disturbed by a wide yawn, his small nose scrunching up as his eyes screwed shut.

Scott chuckled. “See, you are tired. So, you go to sleep like the good boy you are, and Santa will definitely come tonight.” He laid Gordon down in his little bed, tucking his blankets round him and sitting on the edge. “Mama will be up later to kiss you goodnight, I’m sure, but she won’t mind if you’re already asleep.”

Gordon nodded sleepily, already beginning to doze off.

Scott smiled again, pushing his blond curls from his face. “Night, Squid,” he whispered, getting up and heading back out.

He walked into the kitchen where Virgil and John were still stood together and went straight past them, getting himself a drink of milk.

The younger boys exchanged a look as he sat down at the table, his back to them.

John elbowed Virgil, frowning at him as he nudged him towards Scott.

Virgil bit his lip and went over, standing next to Scott, trying not to look awkward. “Sorry, Scott,” he muttered.

Scott finished the last of his milk, glad his gamble had paid off. If ever he refused to back down in an argument with his father, Jeff would simply sigh and walk away, making it quite clear with his body language how disappointed he was. It always worked on Scott, because he hated to disappoint his father. That was always far worse than being yelled at. In trying to mimic his father, he’d hoped that his brothers might back down as he always did.

Putting his glass down, he looked up at Virgil stood next to him, shuffling his feet and avoiding his gaze. “I’m not trying to spoil your fun, Virge,” he said softly. “But you know how much the baby makes Mom tired.”

He nodded quietly. “I just wanted to stay up for Santa,” he whispered.

Scott smiled at him a little sadly. “I know. And that would be really cool, but you gotta go to bed or you’ll be too tired to play with your new stuff tomorrow.”

He nodded again, wiping his eyes.

“Com’ere,” he said gently, taking his arms and pulling him closer.

Virgil hugged against him. “I didn’t mean to make you cross, Scott,” he said. “Will Mommy be mad at me?”

“Not if you go to bed and let her get some rest. You guys ran her ragged today.”

“We were having fun,” Virgil murmured.

“And she’ll never tell you off for that, you know that,” Scott insisted. “But you do need to let her have some time to herself now.”

“Alright,” he said.

“Even if you don’t go straight to sleep, you do have to go to bed now,” Scott said. “But you need to try, ‘cause like I said, you don’t wanna be tired on Christmas Day, do you?”

“No.”

Scott nodded. “Alright. Now come on, give me a smile?”

Virgil looked up at him, those brown eyes so similar to Gordon’s shining with a few unshed tears which Scott used his thumb to brush away as they spilled onto his cheeks. “You lost your smile? Do I need to investigate where it might be with tickles?”

Virgil laughed a little, his smile forming. “No, Scotty,” he said, cuddling against him again.

“Oh, good,” he said. “Now go on, up to bed. Like I told Gordon, I expect Mom will be up later to kiss you goodnight.”

He nodded. “Alright, Scotty,” he whispered, squeezing him a little closer then standing up. “Night night.”

“Good night, Virge,” he replied, watching him leave before turning to John. “You should go up too, John. You share a room now they got Gordon’s ready for when the baby goes in with him.”

“But Dad said the baby isn’t gonna come for months yet, why did they have to do the rooms now?” he asked.

“You know what he’s like, he has to do these things while he has the time,” Scott said, shrugging. Their father was building up his own company and it was growing more and more successful which meant more and more work for him.

“But I liked sharing with you,” John complained. “Virgil is messy and noisy.”

Scott sighed, nodding. “I know. But we gotta do as we’re told.”

“You don’t mind ‘cause you get to have your own room,” John grumbled, turning his gaze away as he folded his arms.

Scott frowned, a little hurt. “Johnny, I liked sharing with you,” he replied. “Yeah, I guess it’s quiet and stuff having my own room, but it’s a bit lonely.”

John glanced up and noticed his expression so looked away again.

“John?” He looked back hesitantly. “You know you can always come to my room if you need me, right? It’s just that Virgil’s never had a room on his own before. You gotta help Mom and Dad look after him.”

“Why couldn’t we all share the room though?”

“D’you really think all our beds would fit in that room?”

“They did when it was just us three, before Gordon came along.”

Scott smiled gently. “But that was when Virgil was still in a little tiny bed and you were in a toddler bed, Johnny. Me and you are too big for kiddie beds now.”

“I guess,” he muttered.

“It’ll be alright, John,” Scott said. “If you teach him the right stuff while he’s still little, you might be able to stop Virgil being so messy and noisy.”

“You think so?”

“Of course,” Scott replied, trying to stifle a yawn.

John smiled at him. “Sorry, Scott, I didn’t know you’re tired too.”

Scott nodded. “Yeah. I’m gonna go to bed soon, too, but you going up?”

“Yeah, I’ll go up.”

“Good. Just don’t disturb Virgil if he’s already asleep, alright?”

“Not gonna make that mistake. Not again,” John replied. “Night, Scott.”

“Night, John.” He watched him head upstairs then went back through to the living room where his mother was lying on the sofa, a hand resting over her swollen stomach as she dozed lightly.

He smiled at her and looked around, spotting the blanket folded over the back of his father’s chair. He pulled it down, unfolding it and carefully draping it over her. “Night, Mommy,” he whispered. “Merry Christmas.”

As Scott left the room and began his ascent of the stairs, Lucy Tracy slowly woke from her slumber, smiling to herself. She noticed the blanket that had been draped over her, mostly over her front rather than behind her, suggesting one of her sons had given it to her, rather than her husband. Then she remembered he was out and smiled again.

Sitting up carefully, she lowered her feet to the floor, shifting the blanket round her shoulders as she checked her watch. “Your daddy is just about to leave Europe,” she muttered softly, her hand brushing over her abdomen as her baby kicked her, causing her to laugh. “Easy, Little One,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll fly safe. That old plane of his hasn’t let him down yet.”

She sat there a while longer, humming to herself as she rubbed her belly before eventually she sighed softly. Easing herself off the sofa, she made her way out of the room and upstairs to check on her children. She looked into what was once again the nursery and saw her toddler lying on his back, sound asleep with his limbs splayed out akimbo, his blankets discarded at the foot of the bed. She smiled at him, going over and retrieving the covers, laying them over him and pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Sweet dreams, my little Starfish.”

Closing the door behind her quietly, she made her way to the next room, that of her middle boys. Virgil was lying on his front, an arm dangling over the edge of the bed as he snored softly, while on the opposite side of the room, John had a book lying open across his chest, one hand over the spine. Clearly, her young stargazer had been reading when he fell asleep. She plucked the book from under his hand and placed it down on the unit next to his bed before gently kissing each of their heads and leaving.

She entered Scott’s room quietly, aware that he might still be awake as he often was, but was surprised to find him already asleep. She was even more surprised to see him curled up tightly in his bed, a frown creasing his brow. She sighed softly and approached him, lowering into a crouch beside his bed to brush his fringe from his face. “Oh, Scotty, sweetie. You look like you’re having bad dreams,” she whispered. “Mama’s here, sweetie. Mama’s here.” She kissed his forehead gently. “I might not have all of your daddy’s magic, but I can at least soothe your dreams.” She watched as he relaxed slightly, sighing in his sleep as his posture eased. “Sweet dreams, Scott,” she murmured, getting up and heading to the door. She looked back in as she reached the threshold, smiling, before heading back downstairs.

It was a sudden noise that woke Scott. He felt groggy and confused at first. He remembered he’d been dreaming about those mean kids at school and it had been horrible. But then his mom had appeared and made everything better, the dream changing to him flying around with his father in his plane.

But now he was awake, snatched from the dream by that loud sound. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, looking around to see if John had been disturbed as well, only to remember he was alone in his room now.

He was about to lie back down when he realised there was something on the floor. Frowning, he got out of bed and went to pick it up. It was the book his father had given him about the history of flight. How had this gotten on the floor? It had been on his table. He put it back on the side then froze, realising he’d seen something else out the corner of his eye. A figure crouched down, hiding at the foot of his bed. He turned slowly, feeling a little nervous.

The figure before him was wearing a bright red suit, trimmed with white fur, and had white hair and beard. “S-Santa?” he asked, incredulously, a smile beginning to form on his face. “I knew it! I knew those kids at school were wrong! I knew you were real!”

Santa lifted his head to look at him, a wide smile on his face which slipped as he saw that look of recognition in Scott’s eyes, the young boy’s own smile dropping instantly. “Dad?”

Tears filled his eyes as he backed away from him. “They were right,” he muttered, his tone full of devastation. “They were right. There is no Santa. They told me it was moms and dads who give the presents but I didn’t believe them.” He lowered his head, beginning to sob. “They were right.”

Jeff felt like his heart was breaking. “Scott?” he asked quietly.

Scott shook his head, going back over to sit on his bed, pulling his knees up to his chest and resting his head on them, crying. “I should have known it was true,” he whimpered. “The boys were so excited to stay up to see Santa but I got them to bed. Virgil even argued with me to stay up. I nearly yelled at him what they’d told me at school, but I didn’t want to upset them.”

Jeff got up and went over, sitting on the end of Scott’s bed. “Scott?” he asked again.

He looked up at him, tears running down his cheeks.

“Look at me, Scott,” he whispered. “Really look at me.”

“You’re dressed as Santa because it was all a lie,” he replied, frowning at him.

Jeff shook his head. “No, Scott,” he answered patiently, though he felt his boy’s despair. “It’s not a lie. I’m dressed as Santa because I am Santa.”

Scott continued to glare at him like he’d been betrayed, which caused Jeff to sigh. He reached up, removing his hat, then held out his hands to him. “Come here,” he said.

There was hesitation. He could see Scott really wanted to believe but the unkind words of his classmates still hung heavy on him and his presence now, in the middle of his yearly rounds, seemed to confirm every hateful word they’d told him.

“Please?”

Finally, he crawled across the bed towards him, sitting in front of him.

“Look at me, Scott,” he asked again. “This isn’t a costume, I promise. This is the real thing.”

Scott looked up at him through watery eyes. His father had never broken a promise to him, so studied him closely. He reached up a hand to put his fingers through the shiny beard, expecting to see an elastic holding it round his face like the ones in the mall, but frowned when he realised it looked like a proper beard, like one of his teachers had. A different colour, of course, but still, there was no line where hair was attached to a seam.

“It’s a real beard, Scotty,” he said softly. “And my hair really is this long and this colour now.”

As if to prove beyond a doubt, Scott wrapped his small fingers around some and gently pulled it. He didn’t want to hurt his father, he just wanted to see if it would come away.

Jeff leaned forward with the motion, chuckling softly. “See?”

“But how?”

“Magic, Scotty,” he whispered. “I have magic. Because I really am Santa.”

Scott looked up into his eyes, a small smile beginning to form at last, before he leaned against him, hugging him.

Jeff sighed in relief, his own arms wrapping round him.

“Daddy?”

“Mmm?”

“Did your magic give you a big tummy, too?”

Jeff chuckled again. “Yes, it did,” he replied. “Santa’s supposed to have a little round belly, so that old poem says, so my magic makes me look just as Santa should look.”

Scott giggled. “Your tummy is bigger than Mommy’s,” he said, prodding the shiny coat buttons over his stomach.

“I suppose it is,” he retorted, patting his middle.

Scott smiled up at him before climbing fully onto his lap and resting his head against him. “I knew I shouldn’t have believed those kids at school.”

Jeff leaned down, kissing his son’s hair gently. “My boy,” he whispered fondly as he held him close.

Scott looked up at him, a proud light in his eyes. “I always knew you were special, Daddy,” he said. “Now I know why.”

Jeff smiled at him. “Just like your Grandpa Grant before me. I received the magic when he got too old to continue.” He placed his red hat on Scott’s head. “And one day so will you.”

Scott smiled back at him, though he was beginning to look drowsy so Jeff wasn’t sure how much he was taking in now. Lifting him carefully, he took him back to the top of his bed, laying him down and tucking him back in. “Sweet dreams, my boy,” he whispered, taking back his hat. “I’ll explain it all to you better when you’re old enough to fully understand. But rest soundly in the knowledge that you were right.”

Scott drifted off to sleep, that little smile still on his lips as Jeff stood up. He watched him a moment longer before he returned to the foot of the bed, hanging the stocking he’d been attempting to leave when he knocked the book down, before leaving the room.

He left gifts for his other boys, watching them sleep a moment before he made his way to his own room. Unsurprisingly, his wife was awake.

“Hey, Lucy,” he said, going over to her. “You know you don’t have to wait up for me, right?”

Lucy smiled. “I know, but you know I always know when you’re here. I woke up when you arrived.”

He smiled back, resting his forehead against hers. “I woke Scott,” he mumbled after a moment, sitting back.

“Oh dear, is he alright?”

He nodded. “He knows now. Whether he remembers or believes he dreamed it, I don’t know, but he was so upset because kids at school told him about parents leaving the Santa presents.”

“Ah,” she replied. “That would explain why he looked like he was having bad dreams when I checked in on him earlier.”

Jeff nodded. “Quite likely. But I think he’s alright now. He’s sleeping soundly again.”

“Good,” she said.

Jeff smiled at her, leaning in to kiss her tenderly. “I love you, Lucy,” he whispered.

“I love you, too, Jeff, but you’ve got to get going. You haven’t finished your rounds. The West Coast is waiting.”

Jeff grinned and kissed her once more. “Yes, ma’am, Mrs Claus.”

Lucy chuckled. “See you in the morning, Santa.”

“Sweet dreams, sweetheart.”

[my-mystic-messenger]

Usually you would send these in as asks, but I still haven’t fully figured out how Tumblr works myself and I’ve been chilling on this platform for years! I also take what I can get, cause someone was actually nice enough to give me a request and I’m happy to please! I also kinda hella loved the idea :D so here you go, I hope you like it @animeawakens

|| REQUEST ARE (ALWAYS) OPEN!! ||

Zen:

♬ after you officially got together it took weeks until he let the two of you share a bed

♬ it's not that he doesn't trust you – although you do like to get hot and heavy – but that he mostly doesn't trust himself

♬ sometimes he even went as far as to send you home in the middle of a make out session because it got too much for him to handle

♬ whenever you did sleep over – because he just couldn't let you go – you slept in the bed and he slept on the couch

♬ meaning; you never got a good look at him sleeping

♬ after about two months he finally lets you stay over and you two share a bed

♬ sleeping with Zen is extremely comfortable

♬ he's a great big spoon but doesn't mind being the small one either

♬ his hair can get a little tricky when he opens it up, but if that means you get to cuddle him, you can endure a little hair tickling your nose

♬ what you can't endure is Zen's beauty

♬ one day you're awake before him and you decide to actually get up instead of trying to sleep again

♬ you roll out of bed and turn around to get one last glance at sleeping Zen, since you've never really seen that

♬ it's almost like a punch in the guts

♬ he is drop dead gorgeous!

♬ if you didn't know better you'd think he was posing for some sort of photoshoot right then and there

♬ one of his arms is resting on his chest while the other is effortlessly resting above his head

♬ his white hair runs down his chest like silk as he lays on his back

♬ on top of that his face is relaxed, peaceful, untouched

♬ just watching him breathe in and out like this is mesmerizing

♬ one part of you is almost angry at how effortlessly beautiful he is

♬ the other appreciates it enough to get out your phone and snap a quick pick

♬ “Jaehee will so appreciate this...”

Yoosung:

★ you and Yoosung moved in together much later than both of you would have liked to

★ he had to finish school and starting a vet clinic by yourself was near impossible at his age

★ after a while though, you couldn't stand being apart and while money was short, you moved in together

★ luckily Jumin invested as a wedding gift and so the clinic came to be

★ money was no longer an issue and so you moved into a bigger, nice apartment together

★ at first everything was great, even sharing a bed, which neither of you had ever done before

★ looking back on it you realized it was due to stress that your sleeping arrangements worked out

★ the second his head hit the pillow Yoosung fell asleep like the dead

★ however, once he'd gotten used to being a vet and the stress reduced, his annoying sleeping habits kicked in

★ for one, he's a horrible blanket hogger and you woke up more than once during the night because you were shivering without your blanket

★ at the same time you also found yourself waking up from being smothered and that was the biggest problem

★ it was easy to buy a separate blanket set, but getting rid of squid Yoosung was a near impossible feat

★ once he'd wrapped his arms, sometimes legs, around you, there was no getting rid of him

★ only only did you feel smothered, but you began growing hot rather soon as well

★ that boy felt like a hundred degrees wrapped around you

★ when you told him about it he felt extremely ashamed

★ you attempted to sleep in separate beds for a while, since you had work too and being completely drained of energy due to lack of sleep wasn't an option

★ it didn't work out

★ suddenly you felt cold and empty without your little octopus wrapped around you

★ after about a week you craved and climbed into back during night

★ about an hour later Yoosung had moved in his sleep and slung his first arm around you

★ half an hour later he was once more completely wrapped around you

★ you just sighed contently

★ “Much better...”

Jaehee:

♨When you and Jaehee first moved in together it was as 'best friends'

♨ you each had your room and did it for 'practical reasons'

♨ it was just 'easier to split the rent and chores'

♨ for anyone who didn't notice, those were all keywords for you weren't quite ready to admit to yourself and each other just how gay you were for one another

♨ eventually you got drunk and made out though and the cat was kind of out of the bag

♨ so you decided to confess and move into the same room

♨ the spare room remained a bedroom, but mostly for guests or just in case things got too much

♨ Jaehee is practical that way

♨ anyway, now that you were finally sleeping in the same room, arrangements had to be made

♨ the closet space had to be shared and a bigger bed had to be bought

♨ you went shopping together and Jaehee had so much fun you fell in love with her smile even more

♨ the first couple of nights you didn't really focus on how Jaehee slept, to be honest

♨ most of it was either spent cuddling or making out or...well you know what new couples do

♨ a lot of exploration, to put it that way

♨ the fun kind

♨ after all the excitement of a new relationship died down you finally settled and calmed a little

♨ really, that is where your relationship began

♨ it was also then that you first stayed awake for a while to just look at her

♨ Jaehee was always trim and tight, even now that she wasn't working for Jumin anymore

♨ she was organized and focus

♨ but when she slept, all of it went away and her face evened out, relaxing into something so pure

♨ she slept on her stomach, face buried into the pillow

♨ it looked utterly adorable

♨ she also drooled a little and you couldn't help but chuckle at how cute and innocent it made her look

♨ almost childlike, really

♨ she was very embarrassed when you brought it up, but you assured her you didn't mind

♨ after that night you put a box of tissues on her nightstand so she could wipe any remains off

♨ “You should always be as relaxed as when you sleep. I'll make that happen one day.”

Jumin:

♛ while Jumin was allowed to watch you sleep early on in the relationship, the sentiment wasn't returned

♛ you weren't allowed to share a bed for the longest time until he finally craved

♛ morals were overrated anyway, right?

♛ when you first shared a bed you couldn't really believe your eyes

♛ the second he laid down, it took him a maximum of five minutes to fall asleep

♛ frankly, you found that incredible

♛ sure, he worked until very late and was probably exhausted, but it wasn't just the speed that surprised you, but also the position he slept in

♛ it was a picture book sleeping position

♛ he lay on his back, blanket pulled up high with both his hands clasped and resting right below his chest

♛ through the entire night, he didn't move an inch

♛ Not. An. Inch

♛ you knew that some people called him heartless and cold, but you hadn't expected him to actually sleep like a goddamn vampire!

♛ you actually had nightmares about this

♛ dreaming about him sleeping in a coffin, suddenly waking up with red eyes and fangs bared at you

♛ in his defense, the dream did turn out quite nice

♛ another positive aspect, you totally used his chest as your pillow, arm thrown over his middle

♛ “Hmm, better than any silk pillow ~ ”

Saeyoung/Seven

☼ sharing a bed with him is a plain mess

☼ you love him still, of course, but you spend many nights waking up at least once

☼ at first everything is fine, when the two of you go to sleep

☼ you spoon or cuddle up face to face, the typical couple sleeping positions

☼ then you actually fall asleep and things start to get messy

☼ when it first happened you didn't think much of it

☼ you woke up the next morning and Seven had spread out over the entire bed, leaving you with close to no space

☼ it was alright though, you understood

☼ he'd been a single person and you were guilty of starfishing at home yourself

☼ you figured he'd eventually get used to sharing his bed with another person and adapt

☼ you figured wrong

☼ in fact, things became even worse from there on

☼ not only did he basically corner you on your own half of the bed, eventually you found yourself waking up to your face kissing the floor

☼ you tested out different things, from sleeping on the different side of the bed to giving him sleeping pills to knock him out

☼ it didn't work, you always ended up either corner or on the floor

☼ eventually you bought a pull-out bed so now when you fall, you fall onto another mattress

☼ on the plus side; you've learned to fall asleep really quick after

☼ you also learned to see positive things even in negative situations

☼ “Sometimes I don't even wake up anymore! How cool is that?”

Saeran:

☀ Sharing a bed with Saeran took ages

☀ he probably wouldn't have minded, but you did

☀ the therapist had said to give him some space, let him heal

☀ physical contact in general was a tender topic, let alone sharing a bed

☀ it was a rather intimate thing, even without having sex

☀ you really didn't want him to push you away or feel caged

☀ it was about half a year into your relationship that he asked you to sleep with him

☀ even in bed, you stayed on your side, not touching him at first

☀ especially when you first turned over too look at him sleep

☀ really, it broke your heart

☀ he slept in a fetus position, making himself so small it must have been uncomfortable

☀ he also didn't look relaxed or calm like you would expect a sleeping person to look like

☀ even in sleep, he looked troubled

☀ maybe even more so than in real life, where he constantly wore a mask, you realized

☀ you actually found yourself crying at his fate

☀ he woke up one night, hearing you sob

☀ for a moment he just stared at you in confusion, but apparently he understood

☀ without a word he scooted closer and cuddled up to you

☀ it almost made you cry even more, the way he tried to hide himself in your embrace

☀ from then on you held him every night, his face buried in your chest and your fingers brushing through his hair

☀ you didn't cry anymore, he didn't look as pained

☀ “I like our new sleeping position much better, you know?”

Jihyun Kim/ V

📷 moving in with V was equally easy as it was hard

📷 even with Rika out of the picture it still felt like she was present

📷 there was a side of the closet unused, a free shelf in the bathroom and decoration too feminine to have been chosen by V himself

📷 even when your things started to fill these spaces it didn't feel quite right

📷 it just felt so much like she was still there

📷 you hated that feeling, and it made you feel insecure

📷 especially when you first came home late and V was already sleeping

📷 you stepped in and it was obvious that he'd shared a bed before

📷 painfully obvious

📷 he neatly slept on his side of the bed, but his arm was stretched out, reaching for something

📷 you figured it was Rika

📷 you slept on the couch that night

📷 he asked you about it the next morning, but you dodged the topic

📷 when the same thing repeated itself again about two weeks later, he didn't let you off the hook

📷 so you explained

📷 he was shocked and embarrassed with himself

📷 there was a bit of truth to it, it had been the position he's slept in with Rika

📷 but he'd gotten over her thanks to you, and hated having hurt you like that

📷 without you asking him, he gets rid of everything that once belonged to her

📷 from there on he pulls you to his chest, holding you close through the night

📷 both of you finally have what you always needed

📷 “Thank you so much, V.”

|| REQUEST ARE (ALWAYS) OPEN!! ||

little side note, I’m sorry this took so long. I went to sleep shortly before I got your request and while the first couple of peeps were easy to write I constantly struggle with V so it took a while. I still hope you guys like it :3

[biteinsane]

Could we get a ficlet of the younger twins paying too much attention to Ford for Stan's liking, so he tells them embarrassing secrets of Ford's childhood and Ford gets back at him in petty revenge?

I am all for petty sibling revenge. Tis the only way. This took a bit as I was trying to think of a good petty revenge. So have an old prank cause I don’t know crap about pranks but Ford probably doesn’t either.

This came out long so I am putting it under a read more to not take up your whole page. Opps.

Word Count: 1174

The older twins were finally having a rest from their year of sailing and were glad to finally be back at the Shack to see everyone before they head off again.

They were staying at the now McGucket Mansion but they weren’t going to say no to seeing the old place still up and running though. Stan was filled with pride watching Soos go about his tours and trying in his own way to get more business into the tourist trap.

It left Ford alone from time to time.

Luckily the younger twins also came by for their summer visit so he spent much of his day recounting events on the Stan-O-War 2 and some of his more friendly adventures from his portal days.

It was becoming a calm he came to love.

He didn’t even realize Stan was plotting anything until he walked into the kitchen of Fidds’ new shed to find him and the kids talking at breakfast. Them trying to laugh quietly but all of them were failing horribly.

“What’s so funny?” Ford asked as he made his way to the coffee machine. At least Fiddleford still liked the old-style machines. Ford wasn’t sure he could use others.

“Just telling the kids some of the things I’ve been remembering when we were their age,” Stan said matter-of-factually.

Ford wouldn’t have been suspicious if the young teens weren’t trying to contain laughter. “I see, that’s good. Anything interesting? Or something you haven’t told me you remembered?”

Stan tried his best to hide his grin, but in the end failed. “I just remembered it recently when we were on the ship and I was watching you lean over the railing to look at the squids.”

“Yes…?” Ford poured the coffee into the nearest mug.

“And how you would have fallen in if I haven’t been there to grab your coat.”

“Yes…” Ford eyes him suspiciously. If anything, the kids shushing each other while they hold in laughter proved that something was up. And it wasn’t looking good for him. He took a sip from his mug trying to see where this was going.

“Well, Poindexter, I remembered a time when we were young teens and we were on the that old broken down boat fixing ‘er up and you say you saw something. Out in the water and I’m telling ya its just a fish, but you insisted it was something else. I ignored you and while I was fixing one of the loose boards, you went off to see whatever it is you saw.”

“Stanley,” the older of the two said sternly. He tried not to jump right on it, this could be anytime when they worked on that old thing. He wasn’t even sure where Stan was going with this.

“I’m getting to the best part, right kids?” He winked as he elbowed Mabel who quickly nodded her head eagerly waiting for him to continue. “Anyway, when I finally noticed you were gone, I got up to go find you. I remember being pissed at you for just leaving me there.”

“What is the point of this?”

“Quiet, Ford, I’m getting to it.” Stan waved his hand at his brother. “So I went looking for you knowing you went to search for whatever you saw in the ocean. And you did find it.”

Ford looked at him curiously. He was trying to remember the day himself but it was so long ago, he wasn’t sure which day it would be.

“I find your Great Uncle Ford here soaking wet, covered in seaweed and nothing else.”

It took Ford a few seconds to understand what Stan just said as the three set of eyes watched him. He almost dropped his mug when it all came back to him.

“Think we’ll ever see those seals that stole your clothes?”

“Stanley!” Ford covered his redden face with his free hand.

The younger twins started laughing again but not trying to hide it. They also tried to ask questions between the bursts.

“How did you get back to the house?”

“Why were seals in that part of New Jersey?”

“Did you ever find any seal skins laying around the beach before?”

“We’re they selkies?”

“Please don’t tell me a lot of people were around!”

Stan was still laughing when Ford left the room without answering any questions.

Oh, this war was on.

~ ~

It was few days later, everything pretty much forgotten as the kids try to help around the Shack like they did only a year ago. It wasn’t too busy that day which gave Stan a moment to be bored out of his skull. He rubbed under his eyes as he sat in his favorite chair as Mabel’s pig slept at his feet. Stan will never get use to actually relaxing.

“Grunkle Stan!” Dipper called from the gift shop.

“Be right there,” Stan groaned as he pushed himself up from his seat.

He came into the shop to see Mabel standing in the middle of the room and Dipper sitting down at the counter flipping through some book. “So what do you gremlins want?”

“Nothing much, Grunkle Stan,” Mabel said sweetly. Maybe too sweetly. “We’re just too short to reach some things. We’re way too short and Soos follows your lead in not having ladders in the Shack. So short.”

Stan stared at them for a moment. “Okay…” He walked up to them. “What do you need?”

They both pointed to one of the shelves that was out of their reach but hardly in Stan’s reach. He shrugged and went over to fetch whatever they were asking for.

“What is it?” Stan asked one more time before he tried to reach to the shelf.

“Oh, just a thing.”

“You got to work on your lying, kid,” Stan went with it anyway. “You can’t just con a conman that easily.”

“But she’s not,” Dipper didn’t even look up from his book. “We’re just doing what we’re told.”

“Dipper!” Mabel yelled but before Stan could turn to see what its all about, something knocked into his hand. Almost latching onto his hand. Okay, no, it was latched onto his hand and wasn’t letting go. He pulled his hand from the shelf and whatever it was came with it.

Stan saw a glimpse of some metal before something came down on him. Something wet and a bit sticky. He looked at the thing that was still attached to his hand. Looked like one of McGuckets’ robots. He tried to get the thing off but it was still holding on tight. He looked for some kind of off switch or something peering close to it to only have it blow smoke in his face.

Along with feathers.

The old man coughed hearing snickering behind him.

“Are you in the 3rd grade??” Stan yelled as Ford stood in the doorway laughing. “FORD!”

“S-Sor…” Ford had a hard time trying to say anything. He didn’t care how childish it was, it was the funniest thing at that moment.

[cramlingtono0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0-blog]

V__--__--___---

This is not a Sci-fi novel, this is an experimental short story.

  Take all notion of time or possible dating out of it!! IT should just be, time has become timeless, no more history. Fukyama.

 This story is about 9/11, this story is about conspiracy, collective unconscious, genetics, memetics, humanism, nihilism, the universal, neo liberalism, primeval regression, death drive.

 Add segment about the solar economy ( bataille), this is absolutely necessary, linked to the two collective unconscious segments, one relatively recent, 9/11, and one thee deepest of primeval, the sun, the universe etc.

 9/11 is the main point of this story. The deep trauma, the sleep walkers, turning up outside peoples houses, realatives of those involved, relatives of victims and perpetrators. Their young menstruating daughters then taken under hypnosis, their psyches filtered and deciphered, fragments of 9/11 found in them. All of them menstruate at the same time, all try and walk to 9/11, all walk to different clues in the lie. WRT 9/11 the subconscious just knows something’s not right, because the people that perpetrated the killings are still alive and thus are still effecting the group collective consciousness. Without being able to control it a guilty partys unconscious will project it to those around him, and they in turn will know that something is not right, they will then pass this message on, until it eventually travels from human to human. The lie is known, we unconsciously know the truth. That is why we cant stop making the 9/11 memes, cant stop revisiting the trauma , the scene of the crime. The perpetrators start to try and avoid society, kill off any unnecessary members of the group, lead line their clothing, lead line their house, use special creams to interfere with the collective unconscious transferring from person to person.

           This could also be linked to the collective unconscious of all people in all time and more specifically ancestors in your own lineage. My grt grt grt grt grt grt grt….. caveman grandfather was a passionate killer and his conscious will cannot stand the idea of such a bastard thing happening, so much so he causes these unconscious take overs of the self .

           Perhaps people who want to uncover the truth, drug themselves, hypnotise themselves to find out what the collective is trying to tell them.

 Perhaps these sleep walkers become more and more aggressive, start to have the characteristics of zombies.

 Free will needs to be fully explained as in where it stands right now, peter watts. should be pushed more, Varley should be more representative of the madness of humanity, its obsession with dominance over collective unconscious, genetics, memetics and eventually even consciousness itself.

 Varleys character should be unrecognisable perhaps? Unhuman, everything that we think of as human is gone, cut up, sectioned off. All that’s left is a slither of conscious thought, which is then useless on its own, what could be the purpose of life after that?

     The guttering woke Varley, water spilling over the edge, louder and louder. It had been coming away from the brickwork, it spilled out onto the dustbin 2 floors below.

 All the fastenings coming loose form the house, mortar now rotten, just sand, washed away by the heavy showers. 400 year old house, polymer upgrades would be expensive, and none of the tradesmen would want to touch it. The display systems flickered, audio splitting with cracks and stutters. The bricks glowed slightly, something about the clay, about the nature in them. It seemed to effect the wattage to pieces of hardware, increasing in areas, only a fraction, seemed to change the way things were processed, things take the long way round, a certain unpredictability within the cores.

 Not a bad time to wake, Varley prayed, forearm fizzed, leaped out of bed, the bedding, completely shocked, flung itself across the room. Its materiality, suddenly becoming strange as it crumpled against the wall, falling to the floor it resumed its regular physical properties. Stopping in the landing, placed their hand on the wooden balustrade and felt its vibrations. There was noise, the bin room, back of the building, the sound drifted up, stillness now, right hand against the plaster board wall, resident moisture met the specks from the skin.

 Varley switched on the Articles, started where they’d left off, volume 569, 4.5 billion years of natural, cosmological, cultural history shuffled and on loop.

 Article 8437:3894.1 Birdsong deciphered, 17 year research programme at the U.C.L.A COMA Institute of Animal Welfare. 97% of their language is directly translated as verbal abuse (bigoted, racist, death and rape threats), 3% is used to talk about shitting and the colour of shit. Their social structures seem to be some of the most bigoted and brutal to have been discovered. The Common Sparrow inspects its young within 3 minutes of birth, checking for ‘weak’ or ‘disloyal’ features. A male with the wrong shade of brown, the father will scream ‘Faggot’, the mother will push her beak into its soft chest to crush its heart. The father will scream ‘Faggot’ again before tossing it out the nest. Females deemed ‘un-sexy’, the mother will scream ‘Cunt Faggot’, the chick’s eyes gouged, raped by father, womb ripped out by mother before being thrown out the nest. The sparrow community is enraptured by these birthing rituals, adult females are raped repeatedly, and many males are killed in a frenzy of fights.

 Varley pushed off wall and banister, padded down the stairs, information was arriving, the monitor clicked on, messages piling up. Varley sat, chair towards the glass, a plane passing, 8 miles out. Its image starting and stopping.

 Second monitor clicked, dimmed as they focused. 1 pending job, Governmental, Financial, Swansea Council, Welfare and Pensions, 60mb/s, a Latency of 478, CPU share of 17%, a minimum 25% partition and an hourly of £73. Accepted, share was high but money was good, sat back to adjust to the new measures, prayed to account for increased latency, skin in between fingers itched. Via Sydney took a look at the work, data transfer, 7,643 seeds, so boring it had to be legitimate, disconnected and burnt the trail through the proxy. Head lolled from side to side. Four hours was worth it, you don’t even notice.

 Tingling in the groin and gut, designated a subconscious porn loop to restrain, tingling stopped, looked for nutrient levels, all fine, a spluttering hiss as the plankton paste regulated itself.

 Closed eyes, shallow in the animal brain, echo of an orgasm and breakfast, barely started. Gone now, pray, face washed in basin. Ever soft features. Neat teeth, tongue soft purple, gums grey. Micro genitalia, a clitoral penis, vaginal opening, universal anus. A prayer, tingling in the belly, soft colours around the tips of the ears, left eye shaking.

 The universal arsehole, the cosmic leveller, the purity of the squirting little squid in your pants, make me some putty now. Come brother come sister, stare at the sun, clean your retinas. Crouch, bend forward and shit, heels lifting out of our shoes, hands clasped to one another. The democracy of the arse hole, the point at which we can all meet, I know you a bit better because I know my own arse hole. Our best kept secret, we’re all the same, we all have a horrid little squirmer in our pants, let’s hold hands now.

 Noise from the bins, swivelled towards the doorway, palm up, sends a push down the hallway. Push loped round the corner, down the passage, through the larder and hitting the back door, dissipating in ripples through it. A cat, the cat pushes back, Varley prays, the cat pushes again, this time softer, watching as its colours tumbled and died away in the hall.

 Varley closed both eyes as the sun broke through the clouds, irritated at first, then thankful for the warmth and the delicate pink light making its way through the lids. Each nano second an eternity, you are here forever. An ever-dying eternity of the sun. Eternal entropic existence, warm and fuzzy. The solar economy, one way in, one way out. In between things, between states of entropic dissolvent, no fighting.

 Self cauterising laser surgery. Swivelled, legs outstretched, Stood, pulled a length of tissue from the roller. Covering the mattress with it, pulled the wheely from the corner. Laying down, starting scan, 0.25% growth, minor subcutaneous tissue near hip. Awkward ruptures between Tibia and Fibula on right leg. Display stutters, showing a helix of calcium spiralling up out of the bone, Varley could suddenly feel it. Fatty growth around the liver as usual.

 8.40am, a third of the way though the Swansea seeding, Varley paused the Governmental partition, always recommended full CPU when self cleansing.

 Room temperature boosted 5 degrees, undressed, reached for wipes and prepped the work areas. The wipe dissolving the hair and colouring the skin bright white, white for clean and white for display pickups. Liquid gathered between the fingers, painted their calf, around the liver entry, checking the display, painted left hip also. Droplets gathered and dripped, tracing down the leg, a glowing trail, speeding down the side of the foot and staining the floor. Liver area a patchwork of bleach, the skin especially soft from all the attention would split in funny ways, elastic mesh to keep the skin together. Petroleum lubed skin, hooked up pressure pads on calf, liver and hip, hissing blood pushed out of tissue.

 Article 4588:9379.6. Proven links in underground gene/meme warfare that leave the human suffering in the middle, hurt by both parties. The gene, the original replicator, the maker of the survival machine that is human, the maker of the brain. The brain, the birth place of a new, more efficient evolutionary force, the meme, each with it’s own blind agenda, each their own stubborn will to live. The human left confused between their blind squabbles, each pulling in a different direction, always towards suffering.

           The genes role was to best adapt to it’s physical surroundings, this in no longer necessary. The meme has created culture and society, a new environment for evolutionary survival. The pace of adaptation and change reached dizzying speeds. The parasites that are meme and gene fighting over the body and damaging it in the meantime. The body is just the vessel, the vessels only purpose is to carry the genes , it’s purpose now is to propagate memes as well as partially genes. Consciousness and the ffeling of self, agency, is just a mistaken by product created in the conquests of meme and gene. It has been allowed to stay as long as it is behaved. Consciousness, a transitional product between gene survival and the birth of memes stuck in the middle.

           Consciousness became involved in the mess, the growth of memes invading consciousness, the rejection of religion, the  fear of death, the adoption of memes that tried to comfort one of that reality.

           Part of the weaponry created by this mix up was cancer, a fumbled offspring of two blind, deaf and dumb mad scientists, part gene, part meme and part consciously willed. The gene losing the fight, the  meme wanting immortality, the gene responding, adapting as fast at it could, started to propagate cancerous cells, cells that were in blind short term understanding immortal. Constant reproduction, constant growth, but with the unforeseen consequence of killing the host.

 It began by redoubling it’s efforts to squash both, increasing violence, sex drive, selfishness in a bid to destroy culture and society. Trying to push humans back into small tribal pockets, back into the dark ages where they can forget their memetic pararsites and the plague of consciousness that had infected the brain. But memes and consciousness fought back, vying to stay alive and the cancer war began. It lead to millennia of backward stagnation, the strange hypocritical, contradictory projects, capitalism, communism etc etc. Strange societies, run on contradiction and obfuscation, fuled by memes counsness and a voracious genetic code. The war had begun and it was a foul state to witness. Memetics and genetics only know the primeval, they only know the brutality of the universe, the systems they make are ones of blunt trauma and self serving vice, this is what human society had followed for thousands of years. Society became a ritualistic place of genetic and memetic role-play, a strange stage for us to express our memetic and genetic desires, to enact our unconscious drives.

This war created conditions experienced in the 21st century, this bizarre unstable situation, 2 blind megalomaniacs and a scared confused consciousness. The ‘self’, believing it was in control of its actions, believing that free will existed, when really it had nothing, no say in anything, pulled this way and that by it’s unconscious masters. Until it was all revealed, genetic behavioural code revealed, consciousness becoming aware of what its master were. Fooling us all along, unconscious areas of the brain making decisions well in advance of any conscious process, the feeling of free will and ‘agency’ produced is a retroactive construction, protecting the mind from the feeling of helplessness. A key feature in genetic and memetic survival, the vessel must understand little to nothing of it’s actions while believing they are in full control.

 Cancer was a desperate attempt for the gene to take back control of the situation. It had started to feel the presence of the invaders, consciousness and the memes. Now the genes were turning on their own creation, desperately trying to pare it back. Cancer was it’s weapon, the body need not live that long anyway, only for enough time to reproduce and protect the family. The life cycle needed to be addressed, too much time for consciousness and memetics to start interfering in matters.  

 Memes and genes however lacked one thing, that was foresight, the ability to imagine. This allowed humans to retake control of the body, the brain. To regulate both gene and meme and allow consciousness to take back territory. Humanity unified by consciousness, the one true leveller that is shared by all, everything else is just memetic or genetic behavioural systems, race, gender, class, sexuality.

 Laying down on the bed, face to the paper towel. Turning over, best to do the calf muscle last. Scanned again, local anaesthetic injected around entry point, Varley began the clean at the liver, using hands, head to the side at wheely’s monitor, small claws pinching the skin, tension, pressure pad off, skin quickly parted, no blood. Pushing stomach out the way, fascia snipped, parted just enough to allow access to bottom of liver, 0.18mm shave, fat sucked and vaporised, liver shines, light colour of new cells, quickly pared back to the darker red. Exits, sealing partitions and skin, rearranging stomach, skin pulled together sealed, 1 inch opening when the clamps let go, final seal. Second cut at hip, cells on inside of subcutaneous tissue, more anaesthetic, pressure pad removed, small skin door opened, shaved and sealed, no longer than a minute. Unclips screen, flips over, drops pressure pad into sterilising bucket, suction skin, the layers peeling back, new pads sucking and holding. Small robotic arms from the wheely work calmly, anaesthetic, muscle split, calcium spiral bored out, bone saturated with inert solution, sealed, exits, layers back in place, sealed and finished. Varley flips over, reattaches screen, a pink droplet runs from the liver stitch, wraps midriff with surgical compress. Sits on edge of bed, flushes guts into bucket and wipes down body. Skin tingles, some potential energy. Varley prays and fingers itch.

 Washes face, features so soft, nose barely rising out of skull, soft dome eyes, wide slits, tiny lashes, hairless body, micro genitalia

  Article 4588:9379.6 Genetic code regulation, neurochemical inhibitors and digital brain stem attachments were now the standard. Consciousness was now the unifying factor for humanity, consciousness was the only way out of this ruinous situation that genes and memes and lead us. It was discovered that consciousness comes in and out of human society, sometimes it is necessary for both evolutionary parties, other times it is a hindrance and must be stamped out. The process of genes removing consciousness could be done in as little as 5 generations. This didn’t leave the world governments much time to act to try and save consciousness.

 The understanding of our genetic sequencing enabled society to quickly back some control of the genes. Reproduction for a time became a state controlled procedure, given the circumstance people were relieved, the current position being that 38% of the population was dying before the age of 45, with the age decreasing year on year. No one wanted the genes to be in control anymore.

 The memes were dealt with brain stem attachments, the aim being to overload the brain with information and then while it is distracted to try and let consciousness make unencumbered decisions. Artifical free will. Brain stem attachments developed, to confuse and hinder the animal brain, to lead it into a complete state of confusion. Just background noise. The Brain stem attachments, digital hyper loops for media projection techniques. The unit running constantly, updated remotely if more effective loops found. The loops floods the memetic holding areas of the brain, leading to saturation, this saturation temporarily dissipates the ability for memes to hijack consciousness and propagate themselves. The synthesised loop using imagery, sound, music, many different sensory devices. This part of the brain has been partitioned so they are not noticed by the user. It did cause headaches on some of the earlier models. The loops are updated and refreshed daily, the memetic receptors quickly learn the loops and began to operate outside them, refreshing them never gives them this option. The saturation of this part of the brain gives consciousness a chance to respond to reality without the constant pull of the memetic agenda.

 When first experienced, users felt rather empty, especially after v.2293747 of the genetic code, with many genetic behaviours removed. People’s heads all of a sudden felt empty, this feeling was worrying for many. Used to the comforting totalitarian drives of the gene and meme, now suddenly alone, left with no one to guide. People felt empty and life became very abstract, many suicides, it took a long time to get used to. Life suddenly, became a quite bizzare experience, where as before ‘things made sense’ but for no reason apart from delusion of agency and delusion of purpose.

 Artifical Free will, free will is never possible because synapses can never fire on their own. Need to stress this! One media loopto saturate the memetic ares of the brains. One part of the brain stem attachment fire synapse’ in the brain. When firing, the brain would be active and then thoughts upon this platform are slightly freeer than previously. We are reactive beings, we take information from the outside world and then respond to it, we are not proactive, we cannot create thoughts out of nothing. Our brains can only react to what we feed it, it cannot create anything of its own.

 Neurochemical brain levellers, brain chemicals regulated, remove all fluctuations, to reduce the chances of acting based on genetic hormone releases. Everything was flattened out to give consciousness the best chance.

 The cancer though was a continued problem, genes had seemingly become more sophisticated, something hidden to us was going on and the labs were in a constant battle to irradicate its cancer spreading, age of death had bee rescued and now stood at 85, still 45 years off what was once the average age of death, 135.

 Then go into brain rape, brain stem attachments, articial free will and the conscious trying to outplay genetics and memetics to gain some sort of control over their reality, this is the purpose of genetic control and brain stem attachments, to forcibly take control. How to supress memes? Overloading the brain with ideas and then from that point of total knowing make a ‘free’ choice, not allowing any one meme to take control, not enough space for all memes, just a little taster of each to create artificial free will.

 A reminder pops up as Varley is towelling the last of the pink saline droplets leaking from the incisions. All surgical rinsed at the wheely, then placed in it’s central autoclave for sterilisation. Wheely pushed under the mantle piece where a fire place would have been.

           The reminder was a Rotation notification, Varley stepped into stores and found the freeze dried samples. Once every 3 months sperm and eggs samples were given, for research and also reproduction.

           The door buzzed as Varley padded back down the stairs towards the front door. Opening as they neared it, the bright light pouring in, Varley moving feet to avoid it’s heat. There was an awkward whirring outside, the wheeled drone, stuck on the upturned bin lid. Taking a black umbrella from the hall, Varley slipped on some flip flops, opening the umbrella as they stepped out, the heat of the sun still making it through the shield. Being out in the sun all morning the bin lid was hot, it’s shiny surface reflecting the light back onto the pale legs, skin itching from the irritation.

Varley soon freed the wheel, unable to pick the lid up, kicked it to one side of the path. Indifferent to Varley’s presence, the buggy carried on it’s journey to the front door where it tooted it’s chirping electronic horn. The mother drone waiting in the middle of the street, the little bays opening up for its returning kids. Varley made their way back inside, scanning the packages on the front sensor then placing them into the open hatch, its cooled interior air a huge contrast to outside atmosphere. The lid closed and the buggy whirred back through the front gate, down the curb and back into its designated bay in the mother drone. Last back the mother drone now sped off, back to the regional facility. The facility will process the specimens, apply any new updates to the genetic code (normally 10-20 alterations found made a month), some samples kept for research, viable stabilised code sent on to a randomised facility, where all the worlds modified genes were kept. There the lottery would begin, the whole worlds sperm and eggs, randomly chosen to create the next generations. V.8402893 was the current genetic base, our own gene pool, now consciously controlled. No parents, no tribes apart from humanity at large. (platos republic idea?, Sparta’s societal structure). Becoming a sole agent within society.

             Varley was back upstairs, already had a universal credit payment from the Reproduction centre. Sat down at the screens,

   Perhaps adding something to say that games were the future of all social interaction and experience.

      Sleep walker 9/11 article. The weaving of the collective conscious and unconscious into video form, film editors, the new order of priest soothsayers. Reconstructed from hive mind footage, which is exctracted from collective consciousness, sleep, hypnosis, young girls on mentrals cycles. A girls first period (girls monitored for this, as first period arrives they are examined for fresh collective memoris, passed down from generations, secrets, loves, stories, horrors.

 Collective conscious starts to get heavy, get saturated, starts to obsess over traumas, over guilt. The consciousness becoming more sensitive and more powerful. Sleepwalking was the first instant, people would begin walking, end up at ground zero, massed outside people houses (guilty people).

  Article 4588:9379.6. Senen Cove, 14th March 2014

 Without disturbing the covers, her bare legs slipped out of the bed, her feet instinctively finding the slippers. Her husband snorted at the slight disturbance, turning over awkwardly, his t-shirt catching in such a way that would eventually lead to his arm going numb, upon waking he would realise his wife had gone.

           Her feet had pushed all the way into the faux fur slippers, her night gown falling to just below the knee. She was now seated on the side of the bed, hands massaging the mattress, all the muscles in the face relaxed, eyes shut, still sleeping. She stood and made her way across the room, she crossed the landing, walked slowly down the stairs, hand on the bannister, at the bottom she slowly unlocked the door.

           Senen Cove was a small village, deep south west, Lands End, England, it was 4.12am and dark. The wind was blowing bitterly as Claire walked down the central road through the village. She turned sharply, through the pub car park, over the knee high timber bar and down the shingle embankment.

           Halfway down the slope she twisted her ankle, falling head first into the loose rocks. An automatic groan as the wind was knocked out of her, rolled onto her back and stood, carrying on her journey towards the sea. She hobbled down the rest of the embankment, clearing the shingle and out onto the sandy beach.

The sun was just pushing up over the land behind her as her slippers touched the cold water. Her pace unchanged as she proceeded into the sea. The blue black darkness calling her forward, her head held transfixed on the horizon, her eyes shut, still sleeping.

The dark water was now chest height, breathing now short, her footing lost where the sea bed fell abruptly away. Her head underwater, she breathed in, filling her lungs, the cold salty sea funnelled into her lungs. Chest convulsed, partly retching the water back up, with her head still under the next breath drew in more water, this continued until she was unconscious, each convulsion gentler than the last.

   Were part of the unearthing of the 9/11 myth, through a hive mind, collective conscious investigation. Groups have started to investigate the past, freedom of information of the past, the agencies tried to disrupt this but the hive minds managed to stop this. (think of Peter Watts at the beginning of that book, the government systematically killing the hive minds, against anything that goes up against them). They were able to contact spirits within the atmosphere, or troubled spirits from the actual locations of these traumatic events, these investigations are recorded, fragments of memories stored. Different spirit perspectives brought together, edited to work out what happened, moment by moment. Video editors, are now almost soothsayers, spiritual, their practice is magical as well as technical.

 The spirits are haunting the world, not being released into the cosmos where they are meant to join the flux/wind of the universal, the universal. The guilt plagues the spirit, and is spat out upon death only to travel within 8 km of where the death took place, given the size of the universe, 8km is like being stuck in a shoe. As you can imagine, in New york this was difficult, given it’s size and a human propensity to trauma and guilt.

 They unearthed the memories from the people, not only could they interact with the spiritual they could also tap into relatives of the people, particularly the daughters, particularly while menstruating. They did this with the help of drug inducement and hypnotherapy, stored memories deep in their unconscious.

 They also find fidden footage of the actual event, the inside of these rooms and the stair wells as they were being boarded up. Gassed, sleeping gas. They find this buried in the back garden of someone home, he never knew what his father had done in his life. He had himself always had an inexplicable fear of the garden. The package was sealed, and secured in special containers. It seems we never want to die with these things, we always want to leave some sort of trace, some way that the truth can still be got at somehow.

 The hive minds and Editor Shaman have got together with surveillance to set up detection posts across the lands. To detect these restless, ‘Grounded’ spirits.

 They depend on these conspiracy theories, they depend on terrorism, they depend on prejudice, cold war, racism, sexism. They depend on all forms of bigotry and self interest. All of these Narratives have helped the retainment of the status quo and the oppression of the masses for the world over, everyone has been fucked by this, everyone. Everything is a smokescreen for economic oppression, there’s no way that without these things people would put up with the lack of social mobility etc etc etc etc. The more the consciousness of the people grow, the more desperate the agencies get. Greater amounts of force is necessary, greater spectacles, the more outrageous, the more unthinkable the more believable and also the more open to conspiracy theories. They actually aim to make the false flag scenarios as complicated and outlandish as possible, of course they could have just blown up the twin towers on that day, but that would have been to easy, not enough of a spectacle, they needed the whole world to tune it, the whole world to see the fantastic display of badly masked planes supposedly hitting the towers. If it wasn’t so unbelievable no one would have believed it.

           They left too many clues though, the money, the bonds, the hijackers, the drills, that amateur masking.

 This was all revealed by a secret silicone valley group The Hive minds ended up unearthing all of this. Elon Musk  managed to get one up on the world agencies and set up an independent bureau of investigation.

Elon Musk is himself the centre of a conspiracy theory, he tactically nuked himself apparently after writing a digital suicide note. The tactical nuke became a favourite of the authorities as it handily enough vaporised all evidence and made the crime scene un-investigable for many months. I wonder what lengths someone such as Musk must go through not to be assassinated by the authorities, how careful does he have to be not to be framed, self suicide etc. What securities does he have to build up, personal, physical, technical, governmental, international. etc etc.

 There are some who say this has been planned for a long time, and that for years it has been forced into our collective conscience. Through imagery, 911 emergency, all these things, so when it does happen we’re already comfortable with the idea, we’re already halfway to believing it. ( talk about precognitional memory, the shadow government already have a deep understanding of this, they know that propaganda just needs to be maintained through ought the present and into the future to make us believe it right now, they know it’s a 300 year old plan that started yesterday.

 There are now inbuilt programs that can detect possible precognition patterns, like an antivirus. Every person now has their own defences, their only checks on everything, food, water, information, everything is checked, double checked.

   Need More Varley -Varley Gaming here, alternative economy, brain power used to organise economy (like bit coin harvesting). Neo liberal capitalism modelled on 3.5 billion year old genetic survival, need an economy for the future.

  Conscious Rape , started with the hyperfrontality epidemic, all forms of stimulation. This brought about the unification of the sexes, the unification of gender, sexuality, classes, nations. We were all suddenly seen as one thing, one being, slight human consciousness. The forever misguided human consciousness, forced, coerced into nearly all actions. Consciousness became the unifying force in all of this, all of us,

This first led to big crack downs on all visual, audio, media stimulation that could be seen as collaborating with either genetic or memetic survival at the detriment to the human subject. For billions of years the human consciousnessn the human being had always come second, now with memes on the scene, it was trailing in third place. There needed to be a rebalancing.

The brain was deemed woefully out of date, out of touch with the new world. The Brain is a 3.5 billion year old piece of hardware, only getting a firmware update every million or so years, it could not keep up with the alter, alien devices that proliferated around the world. Consciousness Rape clauses aimed to stop companies and media preying on us. Sex, Fear, Violence, Death, all these things were part of the problem. The populations of the Centro Western States came together and agreed to try and limit the constant inseccessant attacks on the struggling consciousness. All sexualities, all genders, all classes came together for this.

           Devices were developed to single out animal, or knee jerk brain responses. People were notified in real time when they were making decisions based on a limited free will or their animal instincts. There can never be free will, but the closest thing to it. Discuss free will, Peter Watts, how can there be free will when everything is a reaction, you can only ever react you can never assert yourself, you can’t make yourself think, full stop.

   Genetic Code roleplaying as humans, memes also roleyplaying as humans, consciousness stuck in the middle of these blind , waring factions. Memes and Genes also trying to get rid of consciousness, it wan’t good for either of them.

 Culture is a tool for genes and memes inject the illusion of agency upon a being. Culture/society as stage for us to role play within. Memes and genes needs consciousness in order to survive, it holds this consciousness, maintains it through culture. Society/ Culture is all an unconscious creation of these survival systems.

           All areas of human life just a performance to enhance reproduction of these entities. Different genes and meme sets , with different skills put together different showcase areas to highlight their skills in order to impress mates and engender themselves within the social structure. Sciences, arts, government, money, banking, finances, nature, these are all tribes that are vying with each other in order to promote their gene/meme sets.

  Reciepts (gang of murderers)

Gang of people murdering high ranking officials on their death bed, 40 years after their offence. The list of damned people is public, so they know it’s coming. Will kill you 5 years before your estimated death.

       End on the sun, the solar exchange, varley looking again at the outside world, the hot rays, perhaps he decides to spend the rest of the day on the roof sunbathing, building up his relationship with the mother of existence, his true parent. The Sun is our immediate provider, our immediate creator, we are her offspring, she is our mum. We can only learn from her example, for ever giving like the sun, even unto our own destruction.

 Perhaps elaborate on the idea that once we leave this we become part of the universal, then the universe dies and becomes a part of something else, then that dies and becomes part of something else. Where is the end point of this? Ballard, voices of time!!

  Fish all fucking the wrong types of fish. Both chemical and sound pollution began interfering with fish migration and breeding patterns. The high levels of mercury inducing bouts of clinical schizophrenia and mass hysteria amongst many species of fish. Oceanic disturbances first reported off the Costa Rican coast, the Gulf of Nicoya’s beaches and inlets clogged with rotting fish carcasses. A group of marine biologists with the help of local fisherman soon found the source. A shoal of cod, 850,000 in number, a gluttonous whirlpool, its exterior surrounded by adult males, the interior a prison to females and the young. At night the shoal would surface, their furious circular swimming creating a whirlpool capable of dragging under smaller vessels.

            The Cod seemed to be systematically dismantling the oceanic ecosystems. When their prey was bigger than them they’d devour it, when it was smaller than them they’d rape it. The death of 37 researchers over 4 years led to many countries not allowing scientists in the water. The swarm had developed a society of constant hysteria and manic bloodlust.

They came to have a semi religious cult following by some fringes of society. People thought it was the end of the world, hundreds sacrificed themselves to the shoal, large boats, full of sacrificials would head out after nightfall. Cutting off the engines upon approaching the shoal, the sacrificals would then enter the water, the current from the whirlpool drawing them slowly in. Satilite images of whole families sucked into the swarm of fish, the blood swirling round, in the anti-clockwise motion of the swarming fish. Simultaneously drowned and eaten alive. Underwater footage of these mass suicides were often leaked from military vessels monitoring the swarm. The fish passing the sacrifices down the walls of the shoal to the bottom of the tornado of fish, the limp bodies, clothes delicately stripped off, cartwheeling down the outside of the throbbing structure, pushed and pulled downwards. The bodies were almost completely  stripped by the time they reach the bottom the structure. The flesh prepared perfectly for the young of the shoal at the bottom, meant tender, ripped into manageable strips. The fish were seen as Satanic, the coming of the apocalypse, their steely dead eyes, looking into the camera, indifferent to existence.