#I know no one brought this up (not even murph) but I am just thinking about how scary it must be

[ellesdoodles]

I think about Riz and fear and I get so sad.

This kid that keeps his cool when faced with the end of the world, that boy that takes out his gun to protect his friends without batting an eye because this fear he can rationalise.

And then there’s the fear of loosing his friends, of them choosing their partners over him because he can’t extend the same love that they could. And that fear is so big and it lingers so much that it physically manifests in his world.

How scared do you think Riz must be right now that Fabian has Mazey and Fig is thinking about leaving after junior year? How much fear is he suppressing under the stress of the potential end of the world?

How scared is Riz Gukgak actually?

[writing-for-life]

Thessaly, Johanna and a weird meta about musical motifs (amongst other things)

Send me asks about everything Sandman-related!

As a little intro: A lot of people in the fandom want to see Thessaly cut from the TV adaptation, or at least see her changed substantially. I am not necessarily one of them because I don’t think it’s always necessary to blur the lines between fiction and reality that way, and I would be alright with portraying her in a similar way as in the Audible adaptation (where a lot of things have already been changed to make her character more palatable to 21st century audiences). It would also make Morpheus look a bit less morally grey (I mean, he falls in love with someone who is essentially a terrible person, knows it and doesn’t seem to give a shit. Then again, he often is morally grey, and people like to forget that ;)).

Having gotten that out of the road: I *do* think that “A Game of You” is hard to translate to the screen. I absolutely love it in the comics, but I think it’s one of those arcs that is tricky to do well for TV. I’d even go as far as saying it might be a dealbreaker for some people who haven’t read the comic/are show audience only, and it might jeopardise a potential S3. Not because of Thessaly or the plot as such, but because it operates on a similar plane as The Doll’s House, which was jarring to a lot of people in S1. And The Doll’s House has a far more straightforward arc and more Morpheus in it—AGoY has none of these things. I’d personally love to see it, but I would also love to see Morpheus’ full arc being brought to the screen, so I am a bit conflicted. I still think, and of course that’s just a personal opinion, that it would be best to just have little bits and bobs inserted into Season of Mists and do the whole Cuckoo arc as an animation, but that’s just me.

@tickldpnk8 and I already speculated wildly about S2, and sole speculation it is, but maybe you want to check out that post. I’m getting carried away here...

After that longwinded intro: Are we going to get Johanna instead of Thessaly?

What I actually wanted to write about is why the longer I think about it (and I’ve been thinking about it since S1, I'm really that sad), the more I can’t shake the feeling that they *will* replace Thessaly with Johanna. And the fandom is totally divided about it—some love the idea because they had undeniable chemistry in S1, others hate it for various reasons (doing Johanna dirty, keeping Thessaly "intact"--you name it).

I personally think it might actually elevate the story because it would make Morpheus look better (*if* that's what we want--I'm not really sure I do), and that’s what show-only-fans seemingly gravitate towards. As already hinted at, Thessaly/Murphy always seemed a rather unfathomable relationship, and it didn’t just make Murph look stupid, but also, as already mentioned, morally grey and not very discerning in his choice of women (hmm, maybe he just isn’t ;)).

Falling for Johanna wouldn’t be any of this. And it would be so easy to show why it went horribly wrong without making either of them look bad, and you could still feel for both of them. If we think about Johanna’s worst nightmare (literally), it’s what happened to Astra. So she would absolutely and unequivocally support someone like Lyta, who worries about her child. And she would do it for all the right reasons, and not because she’s a selfish bitch who just wants a longer life or is generally spiteful.

And it wouldn’t be hard for Morpheus and Johanna to hook up either. They could even leave the original idea intact: Thessaly just dreamed of him, and they started talking in dreams, bla bla bla. We already have the set-up for that in S1. Morpheus took away Johanna’s nightmare. She could just be grateful, relieved, whatever, and dream of him. Done. And we don’t even need to explain that at great length, because in the comics, we never really see them hook up anyway and just find things out after the deed. Although I personally *want* to see them get hot and heavy on screen, but that’s just me having my mind in the gutter because why would you not to show two sexy people with so much chemistry doing exactly that. However, I’ll survive the disappointment if they don’t—just 😂

But it’s not just the plot. It’s also everything we’ve seen in S1. I have already talked about this in other threads, most recently with @orionsangel86, but literally every shot with them in S1 was framed as a romance shot: the proximity, the play on height difference, the camera angles, the lighting. These are deliberate choices, either to hint at what’s to come, or to set up a distraction, MacGuffin, whatever.

Then the mention of “None of us can be trusted.”

Or the RAIN. I mean, I am so surprised no one has commented on that waterfall of RAIN when they say goodbye (or I’ve just not seen it). You cannot read the comics and ever believe again that Morpheus and rain, no matter where, doesn’t hint at terrible relationship outcomes.

Musical themes, oy!

But the thing that really got me was the use of musical motifs, and I am unfortunately showing my background from a former life here because I can never listen to a movie soundtrack without getting analytical about it. Johanna’s theme is called “Johanna & Rachel”, and it would be easy to just think of it as that. And yes, it is a love theme, but it doesn’t just play for Johanna and Rachel. It plays in Morpheus’ and Johanna’s last scene as well.

And here’s the kicker: Dream’s and her theme complete each other, as in: They both have what the other one is missing. They are musically extremely close, but not identical. Let me explain:

If you think of the opening lines of both of their motifs in scale degrees (like 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-(1)), they look/sound as follows:

Johanna (her motif begins right at the start, so I didn't timestamp it)

1-(minor3)-7-(2)-(1) | 1-(major3)-m7-1

If I put all of “her” scale degrees in a row, they are: 1-2-3-7

Dream (you actually hear his leitmotifs, and their subtle differences, best in his scenes with John Dee):

1-(7)-(6)-(5)-(4) | 1-(7)-(6)-2 (video is timestamped)

1-(7)-(6)-(5)-(aug4) | 1-(7)-(6)-2 (video is timestamped)

If I put all of “his” scale degrees in a row, they are: 1-2-4-5-6-7

Morpheus is missing the third (3). Missing the third, which s considered one of the most consonant intervals and DYNAMIC, also hints at his character, but that just as an aside.

Johanna has the third (both in its minor and major form). 

Johanna is missing the fourth, fifth and sixth.

Morpheus has them, in various forms (major and augmented—especially augmented intervals are highly unstable and create a lot of friction).

What they share/have in common are 1, 2 and 7:

The tonic (1) is what everything else hinges on. The supertonic (2) is musically fraught with tension and seeks to resolve into the tonic--back to base or a conclusion/resolution, if you will. The seventh (7), both as a leading note or subtonic, is also that: Tension that needs resolved.

So all they have in common is tension that needs to resolve into some sort of resolution.

(And before we are pointing out the obvious: of course both tunes have more notes in it respectively, but we are talking about the main motifs.)

What’s also super interesting is where their overall themes are going. Johanna’s is initially darker, but it actually has a lot of ascending lines and “light” before plunging back into darkness.

Morpheus’ seems a lot more regal (for lack of better term), but the lines are mostly descending. This becomes even more apparent when we are not just listening to the opening theme, but to the several variations of his theme (his presence can be felt literally everywhere, even in Desire's theme).

It just freaked me out majorly the moment I heard it for the first time in contrast. But I like to over-interpret musical stuff because I just hear it so clearly. I *do* believe that composers do these things on purpose, even if just subconsciously, because we can't separate what we know about a character from how we perceive them musically (I do it as well). Of course that doesn’t always mean that it’s exactly the purpose I am thinking of, or that it hints at whatever is to come. My brain tends to run away with these things.

But yes, musically, they are totally "on track", so let's run with it. I'll admit my embarrassment later when this all goes into a completely different direction ;)

(Also tagging @honeyteacakes in this since I encroached on your comments recently)

[jq37]

I'm really glad you've seen Starstruck, because it means you have the context for this. Every disastrous decision made this episode, were THOSE the stupidest things these people have ever done? I thought 'my farts smell awesome' was the lowest they could go, but look at that, they collectively found another layer beneath that. This has to be the biggest L the Intrepid Heroes ever took. Outside of a TPK, losing a Mcguffin is as rough as it gets. The RNG giveth and the RNG taketh away.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

OK, now that I have that out of the way, holy hell that last episode took a full year off my lifespan I think. Murph saying that it was like Fabian's Bad Day on a loop was right. I've never watched an episode of a ttrpg and thought, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" so consistently. Even after watching the Adventuring Party I'm not 100% confident I understand what some of those moves were about. I am going to try and break down by thoughts on each interaction, roughly in order from least to most baffling to me.

*Red and the Beast*

If this was as crazy as things went, it would have been a pretty normal episode. I fully understand why Ylfa would want to talk to the Beast being a monstruous princess and all. And Emily's side-motivation of wanting to maybe get some potions that would help them travel without freezing to death made sense as well. Sure it was a little awkward, but in the way that all pre-teens are sort of awkward around people who they think are cool. She didn't spill any serious beans or burn any serious bridges. This one gets a pass from me. 

*Ger and Elody*

It probably feels like I'm ranking this pretty low. And I am if we're talking in pure terms of cause and effect. Because loudly and weirdly spilling the beans the way that he did was a TERRIBLE move tactically and DEF alerted the princesses to their plan. BUT I wasn't CONFUSED about why it happened. Ger had a thing to do that made sense--find out if his wife was in on the erase everything plan and fill her in if not/try to convince her to switch sides if so. He had a reason to get frustrated and do something stupid. This was, in my eyes, a good plan that went poorly because of bad dice rolls and Murph's commitment to character. So while it was VERY unfortunate, I'm not actually confused about why the desperate frog man who is known for being awkward was weird and awkward to his wife in a dire situation so it didn't really frustrate me in the same way that some of the other scenes did. We also got one of one only pieces of new information in this episode--that it doesn't seem like Elody is in on the plan (though with his trash Insight rolls, who even knows). I wish he'd taken Roz with him to back up his story right away (and give him advantage of dice rolls). I also wish he'd brought Roz with him so she wasn't able to do her own solo mission. Speaking of...

*Roz and Snow*

This is not a conversation that needed to happen tactically. I was like, why is this going on? Just because everyone is having a little chat doesn't mean you have to have a little chat too. I will admit that by the time I got here, I was feeling so much second hand cringe that I missed a bit of the conversation. But I do know that Roz told Snow that she told the entire group about their chat and that they were fine with it. WHY TELL HER THAT??? The plan was clearly told to Roz with the understanding that it was for her ears only. Why immediately be like, "So I talked it over with the squad..." You're showing your hand! You're telling Snow you're not really aligned with the Daughter's of the Crown. If you were going to talk to Snow, why not try to figure out what the actual plans are wrt the erase the world endgame? They really don't know anything about the specifics of the plan. Just some nebulous talk about spilling ink. Why is no one asking questions about this? How are they supposed to stop a plan they don't understand?  Anyway, I think this conversation didn't need to happen and while it wasn't as disastrous in effect as Ger's convo, his had a good reason for happening while I don't think this one did which is why it frustrated me more. 

*Pinnochio and Cindy*

OK so this one frustrated me a TON because it had so much potential for getting information and moving the story forward but that's not what happened at all! As a sidenote, I was surprised but excited when they showed up at the castle and the Snow Queen fight was already over offscreen because I was like, "Man! We're going to get so much good information next episode!" Haha, nope! This conversation started off really strong with Pinnochio saying that they're kinda step-sibs which I thought was a great opener and something I hadn't really considered. I thought he was going to maybe bring up how the stepmother's goal seems to be fucking with stories (in a similar way to what they want) and seeing how she reacts. Or maybe following the thread about how she ALSO feels like she doesn't have agency in her story because she's a puppet of a narrative without even a name. And I don't want to assume but seems like Brennan was giving him the opening to go there like when Cindy was talking about "her own story" and Pinnochio was like, "She doesn't have one" Cindy seemed willing to talk down that thread but it was dropped really quickly. And this whole conversation had such a dissonant vibe where it was like Cindy was in Crown of Candy and Pinnochio was in Fantasy High or even Starstruck in terms of seriousness. Which, from a comedy standpoint, was extremely funny but from a narrative standpoint was like, Pinnochio...I'm begging you...please...ask her one direct question. Lou said he was playing up Pinnochio's childishness because he's a child in a weird situation which, sure I guess. But man. It was a very funny scene but not very narratively fulfilling.

*Pib and Cindy and a Window*

Pib readying the horses? The most competent move of the session! Pib unilaterally deciding to try to push her into her book? Why???? Like, OK. I wouldn't have told her about the book if I was Pinnochio--at least not without consulting the group. BUT once the proverbial cat was out of the book, why not let her have it? It might give her some perspective she doesn't already have and you might be able to sway her into being an ally. I feel like Cindy and Snow while true believers in the plan, aren't beyond reason. They don't strike me as gung ho about the entire situation. They give me the energy of people who are exhausted and on their last resort. I honestly feel like there is a world where this is all salvageable if they'd let her have her book without going full hostile. Maybe it's not the most LIKELY option. But I think there was a chance. But nope. Initiative. Even if they'd gotten her in, what's the next move? You're in a palace full of her allies and none of you have rolled more than a ten all session! Were you going to hold her hostage and run? Like, bruh. If they wanted to leave, they should have just left! Why did they make a whole production about it? I swear, they stayed in the castle the exact worse length of time. Not long enough to get any info, but too long to leave gracefully. Anyway, I thought this was a wild decision to just make. 

*Princess Interlude*

This isn't a part of the breakdown. This is just something I wanted to talk about. We really don't know how much the princesses know about The Situation and that's a big piece of the puzzle for us to know how BAD of a plan this is with the info they have. Because one of the few things we learned this episode is that Cinderella is surprised that the Stepmother doesn't have her own book. If they think that each person has their own book and they can write themselves out of existence without it affecting anyone else then this is actually a suicide pact and not a murder-suicide pact which still isn't GREAT but it's not WORLD ENDING which is decidedly less selfish. I still think it's an insane thing to try without having a full understanding of their world but if you're only playing with your OWN lives, then that's your right. 

And wrt to the PCs, since they were spilling the beans left and right, why not be like, cool. Ink spilling. Great plan. Now what about the Auroratory?  Because their stories don't just exist in ink. They're oral tradition, baby. I'm sorry you don't like your lives but ink spilling isn't going to solve everything. 

Finally, I need to go back to past episodes where the princesses are lamenting to be sure, but I'm honestly not 100% sure what it is they're so distressed about. There is an element of fighting for free will but I'm not sure what it is they think they don't have control over. Because surely if they had no free will, they wouldn't be able to fight their stories at all, right? And if it's just that they're stuck with all their memories from all their lives, Witches do that all the time, right? Can they just not handle the Everything, Everywhere, All At Once lifestyle because they're not inherently magical and they're cracking under the pressure? From what I remember from the previous episode, it sounded like Cindy and Snow were distressed over the *existence* of dark versions of their story which is why they wanted to destroy everything completely. But also, isn't darkness just a thing you have to accept if you're going to have free will? And also, I don't know that it makes sense to destroy the entire world just because there are timelines where bad things happen (especially when the worst things don't even happen to them). Who awakened these princesses in the first place? Based on the introductions, we're led to believe it's Cindy and Snow who were the first ones, but now that we've met Rapunzel, I have my doubts. And speaking of her, back to the list.

*Tim and Raps*

Tim what were you THINKING?????????

God, where to begin. Ally said they weren't sure if Raps was in on it or not two APs in a row which is baffling to me because I thought Brennan telegraphed it pretty hard that Raps was both very clever and very fake. We first hear about her trying to deceive the Baba Yaga (one of the SCARIEST NPCs who even DEATH doesn't fuck with) and getting away with her tongue intact. Then, on a really high insight check, the party learns nothing about her, except that she's so shiny you can't really read her. Suspicious as hell. THEN, we learn that she has hair that's everywhere that can potentially be used to spy on people. And when she describes murdering the Snow Queen, she says it in the most politician-y, obfuscate-y, side-stepping culpability way possible. YEAH. I THINK SHE'S IN ON IT. I am floored that it wasn't obvious that she was full team nuke everything. The twist to me would be if she was secretly GOOD. I was wondering if the was the actual mastermind, I didn't even realize we were discussing whether she was IN ON IT.

But like, OK. That aside. Whether you are going in thinking she's good and misled or fully in on it, THIS WAS AN INSANE WAY TO HANDLE IT.

DIRT IN THE SHORTBREAD???? TIM!!!!!!

If she's GOOD and just awkward from how she was socialized you're being weird and aggro to her. 

If she'd BAD and being manipulative you're being super clumsy and antagonizing her. 

AND THEN SHE STOLE THE BOOOK!!!!!!!

My heart SUNK when Brennan revealed that. Like, GOD I didn't think that could have gotten worse and then it did. 

And it's made worse because this is 100% a conversation that didn't need to happen. If I walked in and Raps was there, at most I would ask her about how her hair worked so we maybe knew for tactical reasons. That's not a crazy question to ask a person with magic hair that's everywhere so she wouldn't necessarily have a reason to be suspicious. And then guess what? I'm GONE. Just, based on second hand embarrassment and mechanical effect (LOSING THE BOOK), this is by far the worst conversation all episode and that's saying something.

(Also, RIP Mira who's going to wake up to a VERY different situation than when she went to sleep.)

The last thing I want to say about this episode is I kind wish that either Roz or Ger or both had died in their rescue plan. Not as a punishment mind you. While it was a tactically bad move, I think it's totally in character that Ger would have tried to go back for his wife and that one of his friends would have joined him. But we haven't had that many deaths this season and I feel like some more death exposition might give us more about what's going on. Because I feel like we only have a small piece of the puzzle, and there's not that many eps left to go. You know how in Stranger Things, the plot always ends up split between three groups and none of them actually know what's going on until they all communicate in the penultimate episode? That's how I feel right now except it's the PCs, The Princesses, The Faries, and the Librarians.

It's also potentially illuminating for Elody if the princesses are willing to kill Roz and Ger (I assume they'd bring back at least Roz). And if they were split up from the main party, that's an interesting place for them to be story-wise.  (Also, if they brought back Ger but were like Elody he's in the dungeon, don't talk to him he'll fill your head with lies. But she visits him anyway, just like when he was a frog at the pond...but I'm just writing mental fanfic now.) My point is there was potential there for us to get interesting info (and story beats) there which is why I was kind of rooting for it. This whole episode was a big bust with regard to moving towards any sort of goal and they really just made their situation severely worse to no real end. And now the princesses who want to end the world have the most powerful device in all of story. 

Yay. 

(Coda: Where is Scher with her "We're real enough" energy to talk the princesses out of their spiral? For the love of story, I am losing my mind here.)

[finnsgrin]

John Murphy - “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

John Murphy x reader

From my Wattpad: inanoncriminalwayy

GIF: mattsryan

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Word Count: 2,035

Published on: October 8th, 2020

TW: Drinking

Spoilers: None

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♡Masterlist♡

John Murphy

Sulking wasn't the right word.

Alright, maybe it was.

You were a sulker. And, there's nothing wrong with a good pity party every once in a while. Sometimes you just really need to focus and reflect on yourself and your problems.

While every other delinquent was busy partying and getting drunk off of their asses from Montys moonshine, you stood alone at the entrance of the wall, loaded with a gun, eyes peeled for any sudden movement on the outside.

Unity Day on the Ark brought out the best in people. Here on the ground, it seemed to bring out the child in everyone.

"Jasper! What the hell are you doing?" You hissed at the tall and lanky boy who was wielding a thin stick and creating random patterns in the dirt with it.

The boy looked at you, blinked, and dropped the stick.

"I... I don't know." He slurred.

Now impatient, you threw one last glance over the fence, and figured it would be safe for a few minutes. You weren't gonna leave Jasper alone with a stick without someone who was coherent.

"Come on." You sighed, grabbing him gently by the wrist.

"Where are we going?" He asked, tripping over his own two feet.

"To Wonderland." You grumbled sarcastically.

As Jasper giddily clapped his hands together, you took note of the scene before you.

A roaring bonfire, moonshine by the gallons, handsy couples...

"(Y/N)! There you are!" Your boyfriend of two years, John Murphy, walked over to you with a cup of alchohol in each hand, and extended one to you.

"John, you know I don't drink." You gently reminded him, keeping a firm grip on Jasper as he tried to grab the drink for himself.

"Pbhhh. Take a break from babysitting Goggle Boy, and come dance with me." He shoved the metal cup in your face, moonshine splashing over the rim and onto your shirt.

"Damn it, John! This was my last clean shirt." You complained as you yanked Jasper back yet again.

Murphy scowled, his nose scrunching up to his green eyes.

"Who called the party police? Lossen up, (Y/N). No wonder you never got invited to anything on the Ark. You're boring." He scoffed and walked away, drinking as he did so.

Boring? You were so not boring! Sure, you kept to yourself and weren't one for confrontation, but you weren't boring.

Annoyance evident in your eyes, Jasper sobered up enough to realize that now wasn't the time to mess with you, and he followed you back to his and Montys shared tent where you took off his boots and tucked him into bed.

"(Y/N)?" His soft voice stopped you  as you were about to leave.

"Yeah, Jasper?" You sighed, massaging your temples.

"I don't think you're boring." He yawned.

Your lips curled up at the kind words, and you patted him on the leg.

"Thanks, Jasper. Goodnight."

He mumbled something incoherent to your ears as you walked outside into the crisp air. You took a deep lungful of it and battled your thoughts.

John's words stung more than they should. Were you really boring? No... no, you were being safe. Responsible.

If no one else was going to watch the forest for approaching and violent Grounders, who else would?

Even Clarke was playing some drinking game with a few other delinquents.

Huffing to yourself, you began the short walk back to your stakeout spot where you stood alone in the cold.

On Unity Day on the Ark, you and Murphy used to spend it together.

Ever since you could remember, back to when you two were just kids, you and John would stand in the back of the crowd of the Unity Day Pagent, and sneak out to cause mischief. Once, you even snuck into the kitchen and shared a glass of apple juice.

Now? He was spilling moonshine on your last clean shirt.

You were almost to the wall, when they caught your eye.

Murphy and Fox, their bodies pressed close together, foreheads grazing as they laughed loudly and swayed to the beat of nonexistent music only the two of them could hear.

You swore your heart stopped, froze, and skipped a beat all at the same time.

Murphy whispered something in Foxs ear, and she giggled, slapping him playfully on his chest.

John Mbege tapped Murphy on the shoulder, and pointed to you.

Murphy whipped his head around, his eyes which were once mischievous and flirty, now wide and full of regret.

"(Y/N)!" You read his lips over the crowd of rowdy teens, and just shook your head.

He had just began to make his way to you, when someone started a conga line, disrupting his pathway.

Monty Green was walking solo, holding a cup of moonshine in his hands, on his way back to his tent, presumably.

"Give me that," You hissed as you snatched the cup from his hands, and gulped it, your eyes stinging.

"I am NOT boring. Just because I look out for us, and don't drink, doesn't make me boring, does it? I'M the responsible one here! Where the hell is Bellamy? Isn't he King of the camp? Remember our first few days on the ground, when he was just whoring it up with any living creature with boobs? Who was out there collecting water and building shelter? That's right. Me!"

The poor boy just blinked, unsure of what to say or do in this situation, so he just opened and closed his mouth, confused beyond belief.

Finally, he just shook his head, looked at the ground, and continued on his way.

You took another swig of the poison, and coughed.

Murphy wanted you to loosen up? Well two can play at that game.

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Murphys POV

"(Y/N)!" Her name fell from my lips which were slightly chapped, and stinging from all of the drink I had consumed within the past couple of hours.

She just shook her head, turned to the side, and began to walk away.

"Damn it, (Y/N)!" I called once more, and took a step forward just as a giant conga line made it's way before me. When it had finally passed, she was gone.

"Fuck." I cursed, running my fingers through my hair.

Mbege slapped me on the back in a feeble attempt of comfort.

"She's water under the bridge, man. Weren't you just saying how boring she was?" Mbege sighed.

I tore away harshly from him, a scowl on my face.

"That's not what I meant! I don't even know why I said it. I don't even know why I was dancing with Fox. Damn it!" I brought my hands up to my face, and slapped myself on the forehead, hard.

But Mbege could have cared less. He just brought up his stupid drink to his stupid lips and smirked.

"She's just a stupid girl. There are plenty of sluts like her down here."

I grabbed him by his shirt, and pinned him up against the dropship, his drink spilling onto the dirt below our feet.

"Say that about her again." I seethed through clenched teeth.

He just blinked, eyes wide until I released him harshly and jogged away, both eyes on the lookout for the girl I loved.

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"I wish I had a harmonica, y'know? Like how in the old timey Western movies, people in jail would play a sad song on it." You slurred from the ground where you sat talking to Raven, who was busy making bullets.

She just chuckled, and shook her head.

"You're a hazard, (Y/N). You're not supposed to have any flammable liquids near this gunpowder, and you my friend, are a walking, talking, bottle of booze."

You laughed at her retort, and childishly stuck out your tounge.

"You said Murphy was dancing with another girl?" She held up a bullet to the dim lantern, and examined it.

"Fox. Don't remind me." You took another swig of moonshine, and sputtered.

"Well, just dance with another guy. That'll piss Murphy off to no end." Raven shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly.

It took a moment for her words to process themselves in your brain, and when they did, you gasped.

"Raven Reyes, you're a genius!" You hopped up quickly, stumbling back and catching yourself on the table which housed the dud bullets.

"I'm good, I'm good." You hiccuped, giving her a thumbs up.

"Just keep your hands off of Finn!" She laughed as you struggled with the opening of the tent flap.

Normally, everyone was mindful of the root that stuck out for the ground in front of the ammunition tent, but in your drunken state, you completely dismissed it, and tripped over it, spilling your drink on Murphy as he caught you in his arms.

"Where the hell have you been? I've been looking all over for you!" He hissed once he steadied you.

"Well, well, how the tables have turned." You smirked.

"What the hell are you talking about?" He gave you an incredulous look as you laughed.

"Not an hour ago, I was the responsible one getting my shirt soiled by moonshine. Did you get your Fox fix? Don't worry, I was just on my way to find someone to dance with. Don't wait up." You sneered, turning away from him.

Murphy grasped your wrist, and pulled you back to him.

"No, not happening. You are going straight to bed, and-."

"Isn't this what you wanted?"

You asked mournfully with tears in your bloodshot eyes.

Murphy blinked, emotion and confusion overtaking him.

"What?" He had the audacity to question you.

"I'm just loosening up, Murph. Like you said. Wouldn't want a boring girlfriend, would you?" You sniffed.

Murphy shook his head, taking a moment to access the severity of his words.

"Babe, no, I - I didn't mean that. I don't think you're boring." He took both of your hands into his, and frowned at how cold your fingers were.

"Then why did you say it? And why were you dancing with another girl?" You pressed.

His eyes met yours, and they were full of regret.

"Because I... I'm an idiot. I'm an insecure, stupid, jealous idiot who doesn't know how to communicate with my girlfriend. I was just so scared that some other responsible guy would end up talking to you, and you would realize how much of a doofus I am, and leave me, and I'm selfish and petty, and... I can't lose you, (Y/N). You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I sorry I'm not good at communicating, and for some reason I thought that dancing with another girl would make you jealous, and you would come over and talk to me, but I realize now that my words and actions have been thoughtless and - ."

"If I say I forgive you, will you shut up?" You interrupted.

Murphy, who had been speaking that whole rant in a single breath, took a deep breath and nodded his head.

Once he had regained his breath, he caressed your cheek.

"You aren't boring, (Y/N). You're responsible. And I love you for it." He blushed.

"You... love me?" You blinked, and prayed this wasn't all some drunken hallucination.

He chuckled, and tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear.

"I do. And I'm sorry it took all of this for me to find the balls to say it." He smirked.

You pressed your lips to his, hints moonshine and young love dancing on your taste buds.

Fatigue overtaking you, you stumbled once more into him, and he steadied you again.

"Let's get you to bed." He scooped you up off of your feet, and carried you to your shared tent.

As he took off your boots and covered you with the thin blanket you both shared, you smiled to yourself and silently thanked Raven for her advice. If she had never persuaded you to go dance with someone, you probably would have never fallen into Murphy, and he would have never confessed his love to you.

What started off as a self loathing night, turned into a magical one.

♡Masterlist♡

[ladyeliot]

The headache

Based on  “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong” [80s]

Pairing: Teen!Tony Stark x Teen!Reader [Murph Lindon] / Teen!Natasha Romanoff x Teen!Reader

Summary: Alternative Universe. Who hasn't had a little note conversation with a friend during the most boring lesson? And how many times have you been caught?

Warnings: Sexual innuendos. Enemies to lovers.

Word count: 1438

A/N: I Sorry for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.

Thursday mornings were Mr. Hoover's Geography class, one of the most boring classes the seniors had to endure during the week. The only thing that could ease Murph's suffering was that he shared it with his friends, but that wasn't enough to keep him from wanting to jump out the window and fall two stories down. The faces of each of his companions evidenced the same thoughts, but Natasha seemed to have found entertainment because of the smile on her face. Murph stared at her friend, who sat two rows ahead, diagonal to her, and it was at that very moment that her friend turned and threw with great aim a small circular piece of paper, which landed on her desk. That meant that the conversation through notes between Natasha and Murph was beginning.

"I'm still thinking about what you told me last night. I can't believe you're going to do it on Saturday morning ;)"

Her handwriting was tiny, she had a great ability to make it so that if someone picked up the note they could barely read what she had written. Murph frowned and denied to herself, crossed out Nat's words, so that if anyone picked up the paper they wouldn't know what the conversation was about, and wrote below.

"What are you talking about, who said 'it' was going to happen on Saturday?"

Murph's aim was not quite as accurate, but the note fell right at Nat's feet, who picked up the paper as Mr. Hoover turned away. Murph fiddled with the pen between her fingers as she waited for her friend to return the paper.

"Open your eyes, H. didn't invite you to his house to study, but to 'study'."

Again Murph denied to herself, though a goofy grin was professed on her face as she answered that note.

"Justin's not like that."

The moment he handed the note back to Natasha he realised that he had broken one of the main rules of inter-note conversations, writing a full name. Luckily Natasha got hold of the paper before anyone else did. It took Natasha only a few seconds to read the note and return it to Murph, but unfortunately she was not so good at throwing it that time, and it landed right at the feet of Murph's sidekick, Tony.

Tony had been keeping a close eye on their conversation, for as mentioned earlier, this was the most boring class of the week. Thus, he only had to extend his left foot a few centimetres to draw the note towards him. A heat flooded Murph's body, and he threw a kick in his direction, trying to hit his shin, but his partner on the right deftly dodged it, catching the note between his toes.

"Don't even think about reading it Stark, you read it and you're a dead man." He whispered through his teeth, noting the wide grin of arrogance on Tony's face.

"Why not?" he asked quietly with the paper in his hands. "What is it that's so interesting that keeps you two so entertained?"

Slowly and without wiping off that lopsided smile, he unfolded the little note. Murph found himself tense, under the watchful eye of Natasha, who had realised what the situation was. Mr. Hoover's voice had become background noise, he barely remembered his presence. She gripped the table tightly, having faith that Tony wouldn't do it, but he did, Tony's fingers increased their speed as he opened the paper and turned his gaze to those letters.

She couldn't help it, finally leaping up at Tony, trying to knock the paper out of his hands, starting a fight in the middle of Geography class. The scuffle brought noises with it, catching the attention of their classmates and also Mr. Hoover, who stopped writing on the blackboard and looked at the two of them.

"What the hell is going on!" he exclaimed, dropping the chalk on his desk. "Miss Lindon! Take your seat immediately."

Though her fight was austere, Murph was finally able to get the note completely out of her hands, for which she was proud of herself. Mr. Hoover directed her steps towards them, prostrating himself between the two tables and holding out his palm.

"Give me right now what you just took from Mr. Stark," he said sternly.

It took him a couple of seconds to consider what other alternatives he had, it even crossed his mind to eat the damn paper, but it would probably make it worse.

"Mr. Hoover I-" Natasha started to say, but the professor's stern look silenced her.

"Miss Lindon..." he asked again, holding out his palm to her.

She finally gave in and placed the note in the palm of her teacher's hand, who was quick to put it back together and read it carefully. Murph stared straight ahead, avoiding making eye contact with any of his classmates, while biting his tongue to vent his inner anger.

"Miss Lindon, I'm glad you're meeting Mr. Hammer to study on Saturday, but I'd like you to attend to my lectures during my class time.

As Murph listened to those words his face grew pinker, in the background he could hear how most of his classmates seemed to be amused by the situation.

"Since you have been entertaining me during my two hours of class, I hope you will inform me that you will not be able to keep your appointment with Mr. Hammer on Saturday morning,'' he said, ''I want you in the detention room first thing in the morning.

Those words brought a smile to Tony's face, who was one of many who seemed to be amused by the situation.

"And you don't smile so much Mr. Stark, because you're going with her."

"Excuse me Professor, but I-" suddenly the expression on his face changed.

"Any objections?" asked Mr. Hoover, looking at him intently, to which Tony chose to bite his tongue and deny with his face, giving him a broad, false smile. "Great."

The only person who didn't seem to grasp what was happening 100% was Steve, who watched the situation from the outside with a frown on his face, while Natasha, who was standing next to him, tried to explain to him what had happened. The class continued and Murph's anger at Tony's stupidity returned.

When the two and a half hours were up Murph gathered his things, getting up from his seat and slapping the back of Tony's head with his book before heading for the exit door of the classroom.

"Hey!" exclaimed Tony.

"Idiot," Natasha retorted before walking out of the classroom.

"You better not talk," her friend reproached. "I could have ratted you out."

Murph made it to the lockers and a second later Nat landed beside him.

"How can you hate a person so much?" he asked rhetorically. "It's unbearable, it's the sight of him and I get a headache, like a pain that comes and goes you know?"

Natasha looked at her guiltily, listening to her friend's rant as she helped her put her books away.

"Murph, I'm so sorry about what happened..."

"No! It's not your fault, it's that idiot Stark!" she slammed her locker shut. "I swear, if I could, I'd make him disappear from the universe right now."

After those words she let out all the air in her lungs, trying to relax. They both headed towards the cafeteria, where Steve was already holding his seat.

"Can someone explain to me what was in that note?" asked Steve in annoyance.

"You know you're the only one who attends class?" said Natasha looking at him.

"Hey, I thought today's class was interesting," he defended himself, but returned to the initial topic. "Hey, what was on that note?"

Murph shook his hand in denial, downplaying the fact that it had happened, he needed to change the subject otherwise he knew his bad mood was going to be there all day.

"You'd better not push it, Murph has headaches that come and go," Nat commented with a smile.

At that moment Tony made his stellar entrance into the cafeteria with a broad smile, greeting a few students at various tables and giving a kiss on the cheek to one of the cheerleaders.

"Look, here comes the headache again." Nat smiled opening his can of Pepsi watching as Tony approached from the distance.

You can follow the story at  “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”

Taglist Open (DM)

MAIN MASTERLIST

[tothestarsandbackmoved]

Rant about interstellar

i have before but ill do it again!

interstellar touches me for many many reasons.

first off, the entire premise and setting and the world building in it. the dust storms, the failing crops. the protagonist does say at one point- "humanity was born on earth. they were never meant to stay here" and that just,,, hits me you know? presently we've seen the emergence of no human exploration besides the probes and the ISS. there are plans but the same curiosity just seems dead. interstellar stretches that and shows us what would happen when human curiosity and the desire to explore would die. we'd kill everyone on the planet and soon starve ourselves. the blights- the illnesses- the dead medicare- that's a very bleak future, but a very real one. the movie does both its part about scaring the viewer about it- as well as giving us hope about wormholes and quantum data and singularities and how we'd save ourselves. you can see that the old generation is talking about their days and how better or worse it would be. in the end, on the cooper satellites, you see the interviews being played- and it really breaks me. that was a generation that thought it was the end. the end of human life. the final descent and that was it. and then they see the five dimensions and getting lifted and their lives are essentially turned around. this isn't just the older people though. we see that the gen z then, like cooper's son have also mostly been brought up to *live*. we see that he tries to get into school and actually get into uni and find a job in one of the remaining sectors of the world which still offer something other than farm corn- raise family. You see that the teachers also say this? they teach them to fight blights and sustain crops because they’re losing more and more to disease each year. Humanity’s slowly being packed up and demolished and they aren’t seeing it coming. at all.

then there’s the quote which is recurring throughout the movie:

“do not go gentle into the good night”

the professor says this all the time. as they’re leaving- his last few dying words- as they’re preparing. and you know what? i’ll say it. this is where the next important theme comes in. Desperation. When he initially sends them out- he hasn’t solved gravity yet, and he knows he never will. Not without the quantum data from a black hole- something again, he can never get. Which is why he implies that there’s a Plan B and cooper can see murphy again (this is also very important- scroll down for this). He breaks all their trust- and he knows he’ll die before seeing the end of the mission- and you can’t die with guilt, not really. He knows that he can’t be held accountable because he’s dead. He’s well aware that his plan is a hail mary- and it wouldn’t have worked anyways. He’s counting on Plan B, and that’s all there is to it. He uses the quote as a reminder to himself- because he’s torn too. He isn’t inherently evil, at all. He’s the precarious thread the entire mission dangles by- but he’s willing to risk that too. He’ll be long, long dead before humanity dies- or moves- and this is his last try.

Now for the second part of this quote. As I talked about before- the quote feels more like a reminder to himself- and not actually something that inspires hope in the crewmates. But ironically, it ends up becoming what guides murph. As the professor is dying, she tells him “you’ve been doing this with both your arms tied behind your back”- that’s actually when she finds out about his whole plan. This is the failure of the professor- but at the same time, it becomes the moment he passes the torch to murph. The professor died, knowingly sending his own daughter into the reaches of space. He prioritized his need to save humanity over the love for his own daughter. But, murph isn’t like that. When she finds out about this, she remembers the promise her dad made to her.

“I’ll be back when you’re the age I am now”

and now, she knows he’s lied. But he hasn’t done it on purpose. and she understands that. She makes it HER goal that they don’t go gentle into the good night. She knows that this is probably futile, but she’s going to try. and she’s not going to try thinking that she’ll probably fail- like the professor did (in resignation for plan B)- she’s going to try to bring cooper back.

Third, coming back to desperation. A bold, bold act of desperation is what dr mann did. (I have some qualms about the actor playing estranged astronauts- anyways). Him sending out that sensor- knowing that it will bring humans back to him, while simultaneously jeopardizing the entire mission, and possibly the fate of humanity. He knows what he has done- but he has gone insane alone- and he’d betray his entire cause to see a human face again. This movie really says something about what humans are willing to do. On one hand, you have a woman who singlehandedly saves them all- for human love, and on the other, a man who is willing to commit genocide (that’s what i think it is, dont ask) to see someone else. He messes up everything, deliberately, and goes from “the greatest and bravest man to walk the earth” to a “cold and desperate villain”. This theme has a lot to do with what is happening right now too. Forgive the activism, but we do have people who knowingly exploit and burn and ravage the earth, for their own good- and they’re insane to the point that they genuinely can’t see right from wrong. Sure, you could argue that he was motivated by the need to preserve your own life. But if you give his cause *any* context, you see how wrong he is. This is flailing human desperation, pure and simple.

Now, approaching the themes that actually make it as good as it is. Dr Brand is easily my favourite character in the movie. We get to see her as a brilliant scientist initially, and her arc- is perfect, honestly. For example, take the wormhole handshake- as their going through interdimensional space- where time isn’t linear and your brain gets fried if you try to comprehend it- she recognizes a *being* in that space. If you recall that scene, she reaches out, and meets *them*- someone she knows is otherworldly and entirely above humans (we later learn it is Cooper in the matrix- and i have things to say about that too) and makes contact. She suggests, as both a human- and a scientist- that it may be love that transcends dimensions. She makes first contact with beings that may be their salvation- or destruction- and i think that is definitely the peak of human existence.

She argues that love may be what connected the crew to higher dimensions, and I'll dare to say that she’s right. Love is what made Cooper try to contact murph. Love is what made them dare to save humans. Love was what got her there. She tells them to go to Edmund's planet- not just because she loves him, but because she also makes relevant points AND her gut. It might be stretching it to say that was why she was right- but it is worth introspection. Dr Brand represents the best of humanity and she does carry it, doesn’t she? She settles on the planet for ‘the long nap’ in the end. She tries to save everyone- like on the mountain planet- and she loves. She hopes and she trusts and is unwaveringly honest and courageous. This could become a Dr Brand stan blog for all I care.

Moving on

We have the ‘them’. These are the mysterious threads that tie all parts of the movie together. A black hole to a little girl’s bookshelf. Worlds galaxies apart. A very important thing to note here is that the characters recognize that this is humanity, just very, very far out. And most importantly, wise. This is a civilization who has surpassed the ordinary dimensions, and *mortal* time. They could’ve easily saved all of humanity and given them the planet they were looking for. But their entire ineffable plan, and only putting things where they were needed- was what made them greater than just someone who helps others. Only being able to get binary signals through an intergalactic wormhole, building bookshelves that become a huge metaphor for humanity trying to claw at knowledge- and actually slowly pushing the books forward. The ‘them’ weren’t ordinary humans at all. They definitely hinted and gave me a brief, fickle glance beyond what humans could be- raw possibilities.

Then, we have cooper. This makes it hard to write for him- and do his character justice- but I will try. His character, essentially, is brought down to selflessness, love, a brutal, brutal sense of humour- and the courage- the heavy, heavy courage to sacrifice himself. He’s also the polar opposite of what Dr mann stands for. 

His first important point- in my opinion- is when the movie is starting. I didn’t walk in expecting this from him, not really. You see a dying earth- and this man is (alone in his fight, NASA doesn’t count yet) fighting the system alone. He fights for his son, tries for his father in law, and then the most important relationship- his daughter. He’s seeing an earth where not even *children* are curious, or willing, or interested in anything greater. He sees this in his daughter, though. Hence, the bookshelf- the gravity, and the plain curiosity. 

I’ll dare to say that at this point, humanity’s a dying, dying flame. And what he sees in his daughter, what we see in his daughter, is a rebirth of potential. She has the human spark, so to speak. He sees that, and he makes promises, and is willing to bring the world to its knees to protect her. And he knows he might not be there when Murph burns strong, and bright, and becomes the saviour of humanity- but he hopes.  An important element is the promise, which I mentioned earlier, but it defines their relationship. The promise that he’ll be back when they’re the same age. They both know that it’s not true. They can see the lie, but that promise also empowers them to do what they did when their paths diverge.

Cooper goes to Mann's planet with the vague hope that he’ll be back in time. Murph does most of what she does because she thinks that it’ll bring her father back. Even towards the end, when Cooper willingly jumps into gargantua, a supermassive black hole- which is the literal heart of darkness, he does it in the attempt to save his daughter, and hopes she can get the quantum data at the cost of his life. 

About Murph, we mostly see her through the eyes of Cooper in the beginning. A curious and lovable and stubborn tween who just wants to grow up with her dad and do their science experiments. Her perseverance is phenomenal- she loses her dad despite her warnings and asking- and realizes that her loss is something undefinable, but there. In a way, she grows to understand both her responsibility and her part to play, and why her father did what he did. The ‘ghost’ is another plot device- a mysterious figure who messes with the gravity and knocks her books down. And she sees a message there. She tells him about ‘don’t go’ and i can’t begin to describe how beautifully poetic and heartbreaking it is that they realize the significance of that at the same time, and how it ties together. It is hard for me to fathom that scene really- cooper is in an interdimensional matrix, inside a supermassive black hole, and he tries to tell his daughter two things. (a) trying to stop himself from going out and on the mission, which he knows is deemed to fail and (b) sending the quantum data, because that is what mattered in the end, anyways. The ghost comes full circle- and also says what he had to say, when it was most important. And for those who’ve seen the movie, i just really have to put this quote out there:

‘It was you. It was always you. You were my ghost, dad’

And in that, the movie completes itself. It talks about unfailing love, the peak and fall of humanity, and the potential of curiosity.

In this essay I will...

[hopelikethemoon]

Butterflies (Javier x Reader) {MTMF}

Title: Butterflies Rating: PG-13 Length: 1900 Warnings: Pining.  Notes: You can find everything about Maybe Today, Maybe Forever here. Set in  June 1988.  Summary: Reader spends an evening out with Connie and Steve. 

@grapemama​ @seawhisperer​ @huliabitch​ @pedropascalito​​ @rogrsnbarnes​​ @thewallpapergoesorido​​ @twomoonstwosuns​​ @gooddaykate​​ @livasaurasrex​​ @ham4arrow​​ @plexflexico​​ @readsalot73​​ @hdlynn​​ @lokiaddicted​​ @randomness501​​ @fioccodineveautunnale​​  @roxypeanut​​ @snivellusim​​ @lukesrighthand​​ @historynerd04​​ @mrsparknuts​​ @synystersilenceinblacknwhite​​ @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead​​ @exrebelshocktrooper​​ @awesomefandomsunited​​ @ah-callie​​ @swhiskeys​​ @lady-tano​​ @beskar-droids​​ @space-floozy​​ @cable-kenobi​​ @cool-ultra-nerd​​ @himbopoes​​ @findhimfives​​ @pedrosdoll​​ @frietiemeloen​​ @arrowswithwifi​​ @random066​​ @uncomicalhumour​​ @heather-lynn​​ @domino-oh-damn​​ @cyarikaaa​​ @ahopelessromanticwritersworld​​ @im-still-a-pieceofgarbage @ksgeekgirl​​  @yabby-girl​​ @xqueenofthecraziesx​​ @punkass-potato​​ @coredrive​​ @pascalesque​​ @theduchessofkirkcaldy​​ @queenquazar​​ @sabinemorans​​ @buckstaposition​​ @holkaskrosnou​​ @yespolkadotkitty​​ @fleetwoodmactshirt​

“So,” Connie started with a coy look, “Steve tells me you’ve caught the eye of a certain someone at work.”

You tensed, ever so slightly, as you brought the beer bottle to your lips and took a sip. “We’ve just had one date.”

“Oh, so it was a date?” She wiggled her brows. “That sounds like there might be another date, doesn't it, Steve?” Connie questioned, nudging him in the ribs. 

You shot Steve a withering look. You had explicitly told him not to go running his mouth about your date. And that meant Connie. 

“Who needs a refill? Oh, look you do, honey.” Steve remarked as he picked up Connie’s empty wine glass and retreated towards the bar. 

“I told him not to tell anyone.” You explained to Connie as she met your gaze with a questioning look. “You know how I feel about dating coworkers.” The uncomfortable conversation the Murphys had roped you into after you started working for the DEA was still fresh in your mind a year later. 

“But he’s not really your coworker.” 

“I see him at work!” You huffed a little, folding your arms across your chest. “Sure, he’s more of a work-adjacent associate.” You shrugged your shoulders, “I just want to keep this whole thing on the downlow for now.”

Connie looked so excited for you. It actually kinda made your heart hurt a little. She truly wanted the best for you — and everyone, really. And at least now she wouldn’t keep trying to find you a date. 

“Is there something to keep on the downlow?” 

You rolled your eyes and took another swig of beer, “We’re going hiking this weekend.” 

“Okay, I have to ask,” Connie started, “Did you guys sleep together?”

“Really?” You let out an exasperated sound, sinking back against the booth. “No. Okay? We did not sleep together.” 

“I’m so proud of you.” She slid out from her side of the booth and moved to join you on yours. “I’m not going to judge you for how you live your life but—”

“Sounds like you’re about to.” You side-eyed her. 

“I’m not. But I am glad that you might’ve found someone to settle down with.” 

“We have had one date, Connie. One. Date.” Your brows drew together as you turned to look at her. “I don’t know how things work in West Virginia, but…” 

“Oh, shut up!” Connie laughed, squeezing your arm as she leaned against you. “We should double date.” 

“Maybe.” You shrugged. “I meant it when I said I’m trying to keep this thing on the downlow, okay?” 

Steve returned then, sliding into the booth across from the two of you. “You two through talking about the suit?”

“You’re as bad as Javier.” You scoffed, shaking your head. “Lance is a perfectly decent person.” He was actually pretty fantastic, in your book. He was a charmer, that was for certain. A little bit of a southern accent that really suited his smooth way of talking. Strong jaw, pretty blue eyes. 

The only thing wrong with him was the fact that Javier hated him. Steve did too, but Javier… really hated the guy. 

The funniest thing was the fact that you were dating Lance because of Javier. If he hadn’t pointed out that he didn’t like the way the ‘CIA suit’ was looking at you, you wouldn’t have noticed that Lance was hitting on you. You tried to keep work and your personal life separate. It was hard to do that in Colombia, where your work friends had become your only friends. 

Javier had no idea that he had put Lance on your radar as a potential boyfriend. Boyfriend. It was such a juvenile term, but Lance had already put that out into the universe. It had actually been sweet. After your date, he’d walked you home, kissed your cheek, and told you that he would be honored with the chance to be your boyfriend. 

But it put you in a weird position. Javier hated Lance. He hated the CIA, in general, but Lance really seemed to piss him off.  Every time you were stuck in a joint department meeting, Javier would seethe over every fucking word Lance said. Not that it would just stop after the meeting. 

You were pretty fucking nervous about letting Javier find out about you and Lance. That was the sole reason you’d told Steve. You wanted to know what he thought would happen when Javier found out. But the man was a wild card sometimes and, as Steve pointed out, you tended to be on the same page as him. 

Which meant there was every chance you might lose Javier. And that prospect really sucked. Who else was going to talk telenovelas with you? 

Steve drummed his fingers against the table, shaking his head, “Let’s make one thing clear right now. I am not as bad as Javier. If you’re happy, that’s all that matters.” 

You smiled at him, “Thank you.” 

“We’ll have to have both of you over soon,” Connie suggested. “Once you’re ready to be more public about your relationship.” She nudged you in the ribs, “Don’t worry about whatever issue Javier has. You’re living your life, not his.” 

“Yeah.” You chewed on your bottom lip as you finished off the last of your beer. “You know, we’ve got an early morning, Steve. I think I’m gonna head home.” 

“Already?” His brows rose upwards. “Alright, well I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Are you okay?” Connie questioned as she slid out of the booth so you could get out. 

“I’m just tired.” You admitted and you were. But you also really didn’t want to have this conversation. “Five gets here fast.” 

She hugged you, “I really am happy for you.” 

“Thank you,” You squeezed her back. “See you in the morning, Murph.” He offered him a mock salute, before you headed to the bar to close out your tab. 

It felt stupid to run, but you really didn’t want to talk about your fledgling relationship with Lance. If you weren’t careful, Connie would already have your wedding and honeymoon planned by the weekend. 

You really liked him too. He’d been an absolute gentleman during the date — the kind of gentleman that made the butterflies in your stomach swarm just from thinking back on it. It had been awhile since you felt that kind of giddy. 

 ———

 Sleep was not your friend. Every time you started to fall asleep, your mind would present some new topic for you to stress about. Currently, it was Javier. Of course it was Javier. As if he wasn’t constantly on your mind recently, as you mulled over whether or not you’d lose his friendship. Nights like this one was precisely why you didn’t want to lose him. 

You threw off your covers and padded barefoot out of your bedroom, grabbing the phone off the side table. You caught ahold of the cable, keeping it from snagging on the edge as you sat it down on the sofa beside you. 

You curled your legs beneath you as you sank back against the sofa, turning the TV on and seeking out whatever telenovela was on at one in the morning. You tucked the phone between your shoulder and your ear as you dialed a familiar phone number. 

It took two rings before he picked, “Hello?”

“Hey,” You offered quietly. “I hope I didn’t wake you up.” 

“You didn’t,” Javier assured you, though his voice sounded rather exhausted. 

“Amar y Vivir is on.” 

“Yeah?” Javier questioned, before you heard the rustle of Javier’s hand covering the receiver. “Hang on a second.” The line went quiet. He’d clearly sat the phone down. You could barely make out the sound of voices — his and a woman’s — though both were distant and muffled. 

He clearly hadn’t been up. 

You were a second away from hanging up, before Javier returned. “Sorry about that, company just left.” He sighed heavily, “What’s this about Amar y Vivir?”

“Javier, you didn’t have to kick the poor woman out at one in the fucking morning to talk telenovelas with me.” 

“It’s fine.” He assured you. “She’s already gone and I’ve already got the TV on.” He sighed heavily and you could almost picture him dragging his fingers through messy hair. 

“I still can’t believe they chose to show a car bombing,” You stated, veering your mind away from the direction it was headed. “In the current political climate? It was ballsy.” 

“I’m impressed Escobar hasn’t found a way to permeate the telenovelas yet.” Javier offered with a chuckle, “There’s nothing he won’t use to his advantage.” 

“Don’t ruin novelas for me, Javi. You can’t make them about work.” 

Javier snorted, “You’re the one who brought up car bombs, baby.” 

You rolled your eyes, “I’m not your baby.” 

“You got a preference for something else, baby?”

“No.” You laughed softly. “It’s fine.” 

“That’s what I thought. “Javier clicked his tongue against his teeth, before sighing heavily. “You know, this isn’t a half-bad novela. I still think them having a kid was an odd choice.” 

“Why?”

“I don’t know. He’s got his enterprise, she’s got her music.” He paused for a moment, humming thoughtfully. “I dunno. They just didn’t strike me as the parenting type.” 

“I guess I get that,” You shrugged. “Her own parents weren’t the best.” You grew quiet and realized you were listening to the sound of Javier breathing, instead of focusing on what Irene was singing on the screen. “Javi, have you fallen asleep?”

“No.” He answered, though you weren’t entirely convinced. 

“Javi?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re asleep aren’t you?” 

Javier exhaled slowly, “Maybe.” 

“Javi, just go back to sleep. I didn’t mean to wake you up.” 

“You know I’m…” He trailed off, growing quiet again. It sounded like maybe the phone had slipped out of his hold. “I’m always going to answer the phone for you.” 

Which was a silly thing to say, considering he had no way of knowing that it was you calling him. “I hope that’s the truth, Javi.” You whispered, even though you knew he couldn’t hear you now. “I really hope you’re still going to answer when I call.” 

You started to put the phone back on the cradle, but you paused. Maybe he’d wake back up and expect you to be on the other line still. You stretched out on the sofa, tucking the pillow under your head. 

This might be the last time Javier would stay up — or fall asleep — watching telenovelas with you. Even sleeping, you weren’t quite ready to let that go. Just in case, you lost this. 

But Connie was right. You weren’t living his life, you were living your life. 

Lance wasn’t going anywhere. 

If Javier cut you off, it would hurt like hell but you weren’t going to let it hold you back. That wasn’t you. You’d jumped through every arbitrary hurdle, you’d been met with thanks to men, and the last thing you were going to do was let Javier’s bad attitude hold you back from something that had the potential to be great. 

You heard a rustle on the other end of the line and you brought the phone back to your ear, “Javi?”

“Sorry, I uh…”

“Fell asleep?”

“Yeah.” He laughed nervously. “I’m awake now. I’m not going anywhere.”

You really hoped that was true. 

[poisonously-alluring-sev]

Snape One Shots ~ Gothic Lust

Summary: Emily is one of the more popular students at Hogwarts, who also happens to be a goth, and even though most people like to obsess over her and want to date her, she has never let any of the students at Hogwarts date her. Children of all ages she didn’t like so when a dark and mysterious MAN who matches her grumpy and dark aesthetic comes along she can’t help, but be curious.

Pairing: Snape x Female OC

Warnings: Swearing

Time: Two years before Harry Graduates

Word Count: 12 200

Recommended Song: Girl I Know by Avenged Sevenfold

Main Character: Emily Jones; 20; DOB: Dec 16th, 1969 (Sagittarius); American; Caucasian; Slytherin; Pure Blood; 5'5; light skin; dark brown hair with green tips; green/gray eyes

The Quidditch match was finally over with my teams mates taking first place in the house rankings before we go home for the Christmas holidays. I hugged and applauded my Chaser's, Beater's, Keeper and Seeker before heading off the change rooms. Everyone that was watching was applauding us and as I looked up I swear I saw Snape smiling as he clapped in response to what everyone else was doing, But as soon as I thought it was there it was gone making me feel like I was seeing things.

I gave my speech to my team, as all captains do after a game, and then we hopped back on our brooms and flew back to the castle as the stars started to come out. Tonight the Slytherin house was having a Christmas party and also celebrating our Quidditch win. Unlike the normal parties, we have where everyone gets super drunk and somehow a group of like 20 kids from each other house ends up in the party, this time it was just going to be us.

Soon it was 10 pm and everyone was expected to be in they're dorms and most teachers were in they're quarters and not walking the halls. Many of the older students were in the common room as a small group of fifth years went out to the kitchen to get some extra fire whiskey and such. Soon they come running back into the common room waving the alcohol in the air and within a few minutes, everyone had a drink in their hand or had taken a couple shots and were dancing to the music that was playing. After about two hours Murphy Hugh stood on a table and yelled out into the loud crowd and got all of the student's attention.

"Hey y'all, so I know we normally have the Christmas parties, but this one is special thanks to our Quidditch team helping us get 500 points ahead of all of the other houses!" He raised his glass and everyone clapped, screamed or wolf-whistled. I found myself getting pushed up onto the table by someone and drunk as always Murphy pulled me in by my waist to stand beside him as he toasted to me and my teammates and said a couple more things.

"Hey, you wanna say something Em?"

"Merry Fucking Christmas you beautiful fucks! Now, where's the hard liquor?" People yelled in response and started to dance, drink, and make out again. Hopping off of the table I got thrown a full bottle of fire whiskey from Murphy as he said,

"You really sure you don't want a boyfriend Em? You are the most popular girl in Hogwarts, everybody has a thing for you." I rolled my eyes as I sat down on the one couch that wasn't covered in couples, Murphy sat down with me.

"Come on Murph, I told you already, I don't care for dating, it's too much work to have to care for someone, plus I want someone who will call on demons with me or jump into a burning building for fun. I don't think anyone here is of that status."

"Okay, true, but I'm sure you'll find someone." He stood up and started to walk away and I said over the loud music.

"You too mister drunk." He spun around and gave me the finger bringing a chuckle out of me. I downed about half of the bottle and said to myself,

"Let's get this fucking party started."

**** The Next Morning ****

It was 10 am when I finally woke up still in my clothes from last night's party and a pounding headache. I stood up slowly and decided I didn't need a shower and put my hair into a thick braid and tied it into a bun. I could hear the last few students running out of they're dorms to get to the train before they were late. I sighed at the pain in my head when I started to walk to the door but was too lazy to take something for it and thought I would just deal with it and headed out off the common room to the kitchen to where hopefully they had some leftovers from breakfast for me. As soon as I entered Pitts looked at me and waved me over to the back. I had spent so much time down here for food I missed at meals and sometimes for detention, but I usually was sent to help Hagrid since I didn't like magical creatures that much.

I sat down in the backroom of the kitchen and snacked on some breakfast pastries and bacon until I felt I had enough food in my body to keep going until dinner where food would be served again. After I was done I thanked the elves in the kitchen and headed upstairs to maybe see if someone cool stayed back for the Christmas holidays. Sadly, nobody was in the great hall or in the courtyard. I sighed as my eyes hurt and burned from the sun making my head worse and decided to head down to the boathouse and see if maybe I could catch someone bulling a first or second year. Again to my disappointment nobody was there and I was bored. I sat down on a bench inside the boathouse happy that there wasn't anybody here, but I also was hoping I could yell at someone and scare them with my goth looks.

After about 10 minutes of me just sitting in silence and enjoying it I could feel eyes on me, it could have just been another student, but they kept their eyes on me and I could feel it burning into the back of my head. I was starting to get sick of them watching me and was ready to spin around and very passive-aggressively ask them what they were doing, but I felt the gaze drift away, which made me curious to find out who it was. I stood up and saw nobody there so I went out of the boathouse and looked up the trail you take to get here and no one. I looked the other way to where the shore of the Black Lake was and saw a tall figure moving in the trees by the shore. Since they were very tall I figured it was a teacher who probably was watching to see if I was going to cause trouble. I scoffed the feeling off and followed them. You can never know what curious things different things happen at Hogwarts and what some secrets about teachers you can find. I am a popular student at Hogwarts anything I say will spread like wildfire within the school and to be honest, it feels nice to have that kind of power to ruin someone's reputation, but I never have done it I just hear about things other people say about me and I shut them down.

After about five minutes of me keeping my distance from this person they stopped at the edge of the lake and the dark forest, I hated going into the dark forest for detention since even during the daytime it was like it was 8 pm in the summer, dark, but you could barely see details in what could be following you as you head deeper into the forest. I was hesitant to keep following, but I had absolutely nothing better to do so I kept my distance and slowly stepped over sticks following behind them at about a 20ft distance. Soon I had followed them to what seemed to be a small garden with different flowers and plants that I'm pretty sure I remember from Herbology or maybe Potions. They bent down to pick and cut a few of them as I looked around the surrounding area and thought,

'This sure is a strange place to have a garden.' I shrugged, but I was soon brought back to focusing on the person in front of me who basically reacted as though he heard my thoughts making me think I said them out loud, but I was sure that I didn't. The person had tensed up and had stopped cutting leaves from the plants and were slowly putting it away like there was a deadly creature watching him and he was trying not to make a scene. I was starting to panic thinking that maybe they had seen me and I decided to slowly back away and as soon as I was out of eyesight and earshot I started to run away back on the path I had come from. About a few minutes later I saw the boathouse again and fell down back onto the bench I was sitting on earlier hoping to be able to catch my breath. After a couple of minutes, my heart rate had lowered back to normal and I wasn't in such a panic as I was before. Looking back to what had just happened I tried to rule out the possibilities of who that could have been, but it wasn't easy since I never heard a voice or was able to see their face, all I had was the body shape of this person. They were either 6ft or taller, had to be male, wore all black, had black hair, or I was assuming since it was dark I couldn't really tell, and they had a special garden out in the dark forest.

I decided to go to the library to see if I could find those plants that were there and maybe see what they could be used for and why someone here at Hogwarts would need them. After looking for about 40 minutes I figured out that the plants were common things used in potions to help with getting rid of toxins and bacteria from the human body. It confused me at first since to me nobody has any need to have these plants, but then my mind clicked. Snape. Of course, he has a garden to grow these plants the come from far away places. It also makes much more sense since he is also to Potions teacher and I was surprised I didn't make that connection before when I was there. I felt really stupid and with all of this thinking and reading my head was really starting to pound now and I decided to go to Pomfrey and finally get this pain out of my head, even though I know Pomfrey will yell at me for drinking she shouldn't be surprised since I can only imagine how many other students came to her before they left this morning.

I knew that at this time she probably didn't have a super serious injury to take care of so I just opened the doors and went straight to her about to wave when I saw Snape talking to her with the same plants I had seen him taking from his secret garden. My hand slowly dropped as they both turned around to look at me as Snape handed her the flowers. I smiled at them and I walked closer to them as they finished their conversation. Soon Pomfrey turned to me and asked me why I was here.

"Well, like my other house friends I too need something for a pounding headache that I somehow got when I woke up this morning." She sighed and pulled out a newly brewed potion from her closest, handed it to me and thanked Snape for delivering her the ingredients she needed. I felt myself give a confused look to Snape as he watched me slowly walking past Pomfrey and I as she lectured me on drinking, but I wasn't paying attention to her, but the strange teacher watching me as he passed.

'What the hell is his problem?' I asked myself in my head, and yet again he reacted as if I talked out loud, but I was certain I didn't. He glared at me as I gave yet an even more confused look to which he seemed to react weirdly and walked away quickly not looking back. I shrugged in my head and continued to tell her that she needed to relax since she probably already told about 20 other students this lecture before and I could tell she was tired even though it was only like 12:30. Soon I had gotten Pomfrey to stop talking and downed my potion and walked out of the hospital wing feeling better already, but very confused about Snape.

**** 6pm (Dinner Time) ****

I was sitting right at the front of my house table, closest to the teacher table, waiting for Pitty to finally set out the food so I could eat it and then head back to my dorm and just hang out and enjoy being alone even though I did that for most of the day already. As I ate with a couple other housemates I could feel heavy eyes watching me and I honestly wasn't really going to look around and see who it was, and I wasn't surprised that the first place I looked was to the teachers' table since I had been suspicious of Snape all day and not to my surprise we locked gazes and neither of us wanted to look away and seem weak, at least that's what I thought we were doing. After a couple of seconds Snape looked away and I mentally fist-bumped, but soon was pulled away from that thought as I saw who he was looking at now. Dumbledore. They were both looking at each other and I saw Dumbledore raise an eyebrow and Snape roll his eyes and go back to his food, but Dumbledore looked over at me and smiled I smiled back, but only because I had zero ideas of what just happened.

After seeing that Dumbledore probably noticed us both staring at each other I tried my hardest not to look back up there and got invested in a conversation that was happening at my table. About 20 minutes later most of the Hall was empty besides a group of other popular students, me, and Snape who wasn't really eating his food, but rather it seemed like he was using it as an excuse to stay in the Great Hall for some reason. I keep glancing up at the teacher's table and every time I did Snape looked up like he knew I was watching him and it kind of freaked me out when he would look back at me with a glare at basically the same time I looked in his direction. Soon we had all finished our dinner and as the others talked for a bit I just wanted to get out of the Hall, but as I stood up I noticed Snape already walking towards me. I don't know why, but I panicked, he was clearly coming for me since he had his eyes locked on me. I quickly made my way through some small crowds that were in my way and by the time I got to the main doorway I thought I was home free. I was wrong. A large hand landed on my shoulder and I quietly cursed to myself as I turned around to see Snape standing there arms crossed like he was trying to seem angry.

"Yes Professor?" I said trying to make it seem like I didn't care, but in the back of my head I could tell that he wasn't convinced.

"Dumbledore said that he would like to see you in his office, now." He said in a very stern voice that honestly didn't really fit this kind of conversation, maybe if I like pulled a huge prank or something, but not right now.

"Oh..kay," I said pretty confusedly. We both stood there looking at each other, but not in the eyes which made things pretty awkward and then Snape slipped past me and went right in the direction of the dungeons. I stood there for a little bit kind of dumbfounded, but then I made my way to see what Dumbledore wanted, he probably wanted to talk about what he saw today and I honestly couldn't think of any good excuse.

"Fuck me." The hidden staircase opened up as I said the secret password and waited for moving stairs to take me to the top since I was too lazy to actually walk up to them. I knocked on the door, but no response so I just let myself in, as usual, Dumbledore doesn't mind. I found myself in the Headmaster's office which was strangely quiet. Not saying that it never is quiet, but Dumbledore would normally have a window open or something and you could hear the sounds of the wind blowing, but this time there wasn't even that. I looked at the painting of the past Headmasters many of them weren't nice to me and I had to hold in the urge to flip them off and got distracted by the number of books in the back of the room. After about a minute or two I noticed that these books weren't your normal library books, but rather ones that you might not even find in the restricted section.

"Human eating trees, magical ocean portals, muggle sightings. Okay, some of these are a little weird, oh no wonder," I looked on the inside of the book to read the date of when t was made.

"Some of these are 500 years old." I sighed with boredom and went back down the stairs to sit in one of the few sofa chairs that sit with teapots in front of them. I didn't really know too much summoning magic, but I was considered to be one of the most academic students of my year so I probably could see if maybe I was able to summon some tea for myself. After about a few minutes of focusing and trying really hard to summon at least some water, nothing was happening. I let out a large sigh in mental agony.

"Not everyone at your age is ready to summon things from thin air, but I can give you a book to practice if you like," Dumbledore said from behind me scaring me a little. He waved his hand over the teapot and poured two cups for us. I just gently glared at him when he wasn't looking and took a sip of the tea.

"You wanted to talk to me, Headmaster?" He took a set down in another chair on the other side of the table and looked like he was ready to gossip about ol' Brenda the crazy bitch friend.

"Ah, yes. There are a couple of things I would like to talk to you about today." He took a sip of his tea and thankfully I felt a little revealed, but I was too happy too soon.

"Mainly about what was going on at dinner tonight between you and Professor Snape." I slowly took a sip of my tea trying to drag out the silence for as long as possible before I said.

"Well, it's strange rather. Every time I would look up at the table he would immediately look at me whether I was looking at him or not and the time that you happen to notice he was actually looking at me first and I was glaring at him because I didn't like the way his eyes felt on me." He raised an eyebrow as he sipped on his tea which I can only imagine how much sugar he puts in it.

"Well. I'll make sure to ask him about it as well, seeing as though you are not the problem." I didn't know if I should take that as a good thing or if he was being sarcastic and trying to insult me. We talked about many other things until we both ran out of tea to drink. I said my goodbye to Dumbledore and made my way back to my dorm to hopefully get some good sleep instead of staying up until 3 am on a normal school day. After reading up a bit on the book Dumbledore gave me it was about 9 pm and about the time I should probably get to bed so I changed into my PJ's, but before I could get into bed I heard a hoot and a screech coming from my window and saw two owls with letters in their becks. One I could tell was Dumbledore's, but the other one I wasn't sure. They both flew in my window as soon as I opened it and I gave them both a biscuit. Dumbledore's owl took it nice and gently whereas the other jumped back from my hand a bit and took it a bit aggressively, but it didn't phase me. It was strange rather I knew that owls took on the personality of their owner and it was clear that this owl was Dumbledore's. It was the most humble owl I had ever seen, but the other one, it was hard to pinpoint it's behaviour to a person, but as soon as I picked up the letter it had been told to give to me I knew right away by the handwriting. It was Snape's owl, which made sense since it really wasn't good with people and wasn't nice when I gave it something to make it happy. I opened Dumbledore's letter first to spare me what might be in Snape's letter, probably just some insults about my marks and wanting me for detention. Within Dumbledore's letter he told me that there was an opportunity within a few weeks I can sigh up for apparition lessons if I felt the need to learn something they don't teach in classes.

I thought about it and decided that it would probably be nice to know how to travel without spending money and whatnot. I then opened Snape's letter, but before I could read past the first two words, which were Dear Ms. Jones, Dumbledore's owl snatched it out of my hands and flew out my window.

"Hey! What the hell?!" I leaned out the window to see where it headed and it went right to his office I cursed yet again under my breath and Snape's owl landed right next to me on the window frame and hooted at me. It flew off back to the Owlery and it was at that point that the day of boredom and chasing after Snape into the Dark Forest was really starting to catch up to me and I was ready to sleep.

**** Sometime within the night ****

I found myself awake in my dorm and a deep feeling in my chest that I needed to get out of the common room and wait for someone. I don't know who, but my heart was pounding in fear, but also something else. I couldn't tell what it was, but had to have been the driving force to me jumping out of bed and barely even landing my feet on the stairs to get out of the common room. As soon as I entered to cold, dark hallway outside of the Slytherin house, my feet stopped themselves. I could not tell you what I was feeling, but it felt right to run to the potions classroom, something felt wrong. My heart seemed to feel shattered, but I hadn't gone through something that would make me feel this way so I had come to the conclusion that this must be a vision of some sort or maybe something that I was being told to avoid. Sometimes the castle ghosts or different spirits would show me things that they knew would happen as a warning or something rather.

While thinking about what this dream could mean I found myself running through the dark halls, sometimes hitting a wall if I really wasn't paying attention. Soon I found the classroom and had the feeling that I needed to run inside and find or stop whoever was in there, I stopped myself to think first and to also prepare myself for what I might find. It could be me dying or someone I love, or it could have something to do with death eaters since they seem to be more active this time of the year, soon I found myself pushing open both doors and seeing nobody in the room, it looked like it was set ready for a class to start brewing some potions, but something in the back of my head told me to not take one step in the room. I knew that whatever I was being told through this dream wasn't going to have me stop them from showing me the warning so as I stopped myself from taking another step I felt a push on my lower back sending me a few feet into the room with nothing in it. I was confused for a bit then I jumped when the doors closed very quickly behind me slamming shut and making me turn around.

As I looked to see what could've caused them to close I saw Snape standing in the corner watching me with his wand out. Anything could happen to me and this could be anytime within the future, it could be right when I wake up, near the end of the year or maybe years from now. He slowly pointed his wand at me and suddenly I felt myself be pulled from my body so I could watch what will happen, this normally happens when the spirits don't want me to mess up their warning.

"I don't want to do this to you Emily, but I have to."

"What are you talking about Severus?" I said in a very stern voice clearly shaken up by something that had happened before this moment and I saw his eyes start to form tears.

"You know that this is how it has to be." He pointed his wand right at my head and was trying to make it seem like whatever he was talking wasn't affecting him, but with the tears in his eyes, it couldn't confuse me. I stepped forward and started to say that made more sense to me now that I was listening in to the conservation future me and Snape were having.

"You can't do this Sev, please!" Now I could hear my own voice cracking as I started to cry.

"We can't do this Emily, it's not right."

"I know you don't care about that, please Severus don't do this to me!" I was now shouting at him and my chest started to get heavier and heavier with pain that I wasn't familiar with.

"We can't be together Ms. Jones. I'm too dangerous for you to be around." Now I was finally catching on to what was happening.

'How far in the future is this?' I asked the spirit who was standing behind me watching my vision with me.

'Only a few months from now, please pay attention. This could change your life if you don't understand what you need to change in the next few months of your life.' I looked back at both of the crying people in front of me. Tears were now flowing down my face and I was begging Snape to stop whatever he was about to do.

"Emily, please don't do that, we have no choice."

"Sev, what makes you think that erasing my memory will make things better?! We've both been broken before, let me help you!"

"No!" He stumbled on his next few words as he realized that future me recoiled back to his loud demand.

"Being around me will get you killed, I can't have another person I love fall fate to death by Voldemort." In that moment things started to slow down like you would see in a movie to make things more intense, I jumped at him to grab his wand, but I was too late. Soon a light blue almost clear burst of colour came out of the end of Snape's wand and had hit my head. Then after a couple of seconds the tears stopped flowing and I dropped to the ground unconscious. Snape bent down and brushed my hair out of my face and kissed the top of my head. Soon he picked me up and that's where everything stopped.

**** 10am the next morning ****

My eyes opened to the bright light coming through my window and the sound of tapping on my window. I groaned out loud when I noticed it was Dumbledore's owl probably going to lecture me about not eating at breakfast like he would sometimes. I let the owl in and gave him a biscuit again just like last night. I took the letter from his beck and frowned at him.

"Why did you have to take that letter hmm?" He tilted his head and me and then flew off my window. I sighed opening up the wrapped parchment and only read the few words that were written down which said,

Dear, Ms. Jones,

Please come down to my office as soon as you get this.

Also, Pitts told me that he was getting sick of having to feed you about an hour after breakfast so please try to get to The Great Hall on time.

Best Regards,

Dumbledore

I sighed and honestly was planning on telling his owl to drop it in the Black Lake, but in my head it felt important to go to so I just decided to burn it.

"Ugh, why does he have to know about everything I do in this place." I got out my wand and cast a spell to make the paper float and then watched it as it turned into charcoal then I got into the shower and put on some basic grunge clothes and headed to the Headmaster's office, not even going to go to get food this time and maybe upset Dumbledore a bit more now that I'm not showing up on time, but I'm not even eating. I laughed to myself as I got to his office, but before I could knock on the door, I heard him talking to someone very faintly then some yelling from Snape which I honestly don't think anyone could miss, and then back to the faint voice of Dumbledore probably trying to convince him that something to do with the death eaters isn't a problem when it most likely is. I leaned my ear against the door to listen in, but I didn't get much information when Dumbledore said,

"Well if you're looking for some company I believe some has just arrived. Come in Emily." I slowly opened the door and walked in saying to myself, but loud enough that they both could hear me.

"Well, that's a little creepy." Dumbledore smiled and Snape just took a step or two back from his desk as I got closer to talk to him.

"You know I was very tempted to just throw away your letter and say I never got it." He picked up his wand, moved it in some kind of cycle shape and said something very faintly under his breath and we watched as the paper I had burned not too long ago somehow un-burned its self and was in perfect condition. I stood there feeling like he was mocking me in some way just to get at my nerves, but I didn't let it show on my face, I also saw Snape shuffle a bit before Dumbledore spoke again.

"Well, it actually has to do with you two." He said placing his gaze on Snape. I couldn't help, but connect this moment to something in my vision from last night. He then looked back at me.

"I don't know if you had read the letter Professor Snape sent you last night, but I-" I very quickly cut him off by saying,

"No, I didn't even get past my name when your owl snatched it out of my hands and flew away."

"Oh, I see, well I did read it on my own time last night and-"

"I thought you said that basic letters don't need to be checked, and any teacher letters to students have no need to be checked," Snape said crossing his arms as he hid in the shadows of the Headmaster's office. I was confused as to why he was reacting this way, but honestly I have had this kind of response also to Dumbledore when he just takes something that was meant for something else and then moves around either is own rules or words that have come straight from your own mouth, kind of pissing you off in the moment.

"Well, if we are here to talk about what was in the letter, don't you think that it might be a good idea for me to read it?"

"Oh, no there will be no need, I have already disposed of it." Snape frowned and said back with words that I would use in this case,

"Didn't you just bring back a burned letter from thin air?" Dumbledore was trying to find the fact that he had messed up with that one, but found a way around it.

"That letter was written by me, therefor it wasn't hard to track-"

"Okay, whatever, it doesn't matter, I'm sure both of you can just tell me instead of being so cryptic about it, which by the way has made me very curious as to what was in that letter, and I won't give up until I hear about it." I too crossed my arms looking at Dumbledore and waited for him to respond. He leaned forward on his desk like he was about to tell me and Snape was glaring at him as I had never seen him do before. If any words came out of some mouth I was afraid he was going to jump at him.

"It wasn't my own written letter and not mine to share, so if Severus would like to tell you about what was in that letter, that is his choice. And with that I think it is time for tea, care to join? Either of you?" Dumbledore sat back in his chair and waved a pot of tea over and poured himself a cup.

"Oh no Professor, I'm more then alright, I have some things to attend to, like that book you lent me," I said turning around to leave his office trying not to keep begging about what was in the letter.

"Alright then, Severus? Would you like some?" He said offering him an already filled cup.

"No Headmaster, I'm quite alright as it is." He got out of the office faster than I could, passing me before I had even got to the door and he basically ran down the stairs. I stopped myself knowing that now might be a good time to ask Dumbledore a good question.

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking, was anything in the letter really that important to call us both here?" He raised an eyebrow at me and then smiled as he said,

"Yes, everything in the letter has a great deal to Professor Snape, and I think it is best if you try not to push it out of him. Getting any kind of information out of him unless he trusts you is not easy and can end badly. If he wishes to tell you, it will take some time since I already seemed to have messed up this chance to tell you." I nodded slowly at his words and quickly said my thanks to him as I left his office. I wasn't normally one to be confused or spend time around the professors here at Hogwarts, so this was something very new for me and strangely enough every time I think about that letter, I think that maybe the fact that I didn't get to read it leads me away from the bad vision I had, but probably not for long.

For the next few days nothing had happened, I hung out with some Slytherin friends, Dumbledore seems to be getting angry at me for not eating breakfast and only staying in my room for most of the day, and of course, the Weasley twins have pulled some pretty good pranks on Filch or Flitwick. Today I had decided that since everyone was having fun on Christmas Eve it might be a good idea to head down to Hogsmeade and maybe spend some time at the Hogshead and see my good ole friend fire whiskey again. I put on some winter clothes and made my way down the snow-covered trail and was happy to see that the place was basically empty from a couple of adults who actually lived in the area. I walked into the bar and ordered a large glass of fire whiskey I wasn't planning on getting drunk, but tipsy was alright. After a glass or two I noticed someone sit down beside me and it was Snape. He also got a fire whiskey which he downed like it was nothing and ordered another about to down it as well until I said,

"Do you drink that for the taste or does it make you drunk faster?" He stopped drinking the toxic mixture and placed it down next to mine looking over to me and asked me,

"Aren't you too young to be here drinking?" Trying not to take that as an insult I answered his question,

"Well in America we are actually kept in school a lot longer than here in Europe so technically if I was back home, yes, but here no, I'm about two years older then anybody else in my year. I actually just turned 20 with my birthday, but honestly, I was already drinking before I even hit 16." I took a big drink from my glass and Snape kept asking questions and I kept answering them, most of them were about life as a witch in America where they don't really feel the need to be nice to women let alone in the magic world over there. That's one of the reasons my family moved over here and it has been a lot better for everyone, well, maybe Filch could live without me. About an hour past of us asking each other questions and I could tell that the only reason that we were actually talking to each other was the alcohol that made us both way bolder to talk to each other than normal. As I stood up to go the bathroom some older man walking by grabbed my ass and gave it a good slap, which in return sent a shock wave to my brain telling my hands to make a fist and aim for his head, hitting right on his jaw. I couldn't tell you why that happened, but maybe you can figure out why. I pushed him down to the ground and kneeled down to him, still very tipsy, and said,

"The next time you mess with a woman it might just be the end of their wand casting a curse upon you." He grunted and slapped me across the face and stood up as I rubbed the numbing flesh on my face ready to throw fists with this perv.

"Well, maybe you women should spend some time cooking instead of wasting your time on the man's job." That was it, this man was already in for it hitting my tipsy ass, but now I felt completely sobered up and ready to put this man in his place. A spell would be too easy for him so I gave Snape my wand and rushed this guy sending us both flying over a table knocking over other people drinks and angering those drunk people which lead into a brawl that I was gladly starting. Soon many people were fighting for no reason really they just starting throwing fists. The guy I had punched earlier had tried to hit me over the head with a chair, but I caught it and pulled it from him and jabbed him with it then threw it away hitting someone else in the head. Then I put all of my energy into my arm and throw my fist straight into his jaw causing it to crack or maybe that was my hand. Anyway, after that, I felt a hand grab me by my shoulder and pull me out of the bar. I didn't realize how much I was breathing and grabbed my hand which was now bleeding from the fighting I was doing and it was nearly impossible to ignore the pain that was deep my wrist. I heard the door slammed behind me and I turned around to see Snape sighing at seeing my stat and he handed me my wand which I slid back into my boot. He started to walk back to the castle and I followed him on his side. We didn't talk for a good minute or two, but when I winced in pain and brought my bloody and sore hand up into sight Snape stopped and grabbed his wand out looking at my hand he said,

"Let me heal that for you." I moved my hand closer to his and he very gently held it and quietly cast a healing spell and poured a potion on it to stop the bleeding. I was so shocked that he was so calm and gentle with the wounds that I asked him,

"Why not be a doctor instead of a teacher dealing with children?" He kept focused on my wounds as he mended them and then responded with,

"I said that I would do anything for Dumbledore if he protected-" He cut himself off and continued with,

"Never mind why, but I probably wouldn't fit in a hospital environment." He looked down to see that he was still holding my hand and pulled it away from me quickly. He then looked at me in whole and said,

"You forgot your jacket back there. Here, take my cloak." He wrapped it around me, making me feel a little odd, but I put it aside and said to him,

"There is no way you can say that when you just fixed my probably broken and bloody wrist." He shrugged and started to walk again slipping his hands in his pockets. We walked back to the school in a good, nice silence that was honestly quite calming and I could tell that neither of us were tipsy anymore and I think he was starting to realize his behaviour when he was tipsy and was starting to act sterner and not fun or friendly like earlier, but he wasn't talking. It showed in his walking and posture for sure. By the time we hit the courtyard he stopped, turned to me and said in a nicer manner than I thought he would,

"I noticed that your marks in Potions and DADA are a little lower than past years, so, if you maybe want some help, I can take some time for you to practice in the potions room." I was a little taken back by this, but I was kinda happy he asked since it was no lie, my marks had been getting worse for the past two months. I smiled up at him and said,

"I'm very happy to take that offer thank you." He nodded and started to walk away at his normal fast pace leaving me alone in the courtyard with the heavy wind blowing which reminded me that I had his cloak, and he left without it. It was probably the better thing to do if I found him and gave it back, but something in me told me to keep it. So I did. Making my way back to the common room I found myself thinking about the professor a lot and sometimes I would have to snap myself out of some deep thoughts. It was just so easy to remember the warmth coming from his hand as my hand was cold with blood, and how gentle he was at placing his cloak over my shoulders willing to be cold just so I, the stupid girl who started a bar fight, didn't have to be. I made it back to the common room without any mishap, but I didn't even realize that some students might question why I was sitting on the couch reading a book with a cloak that was clearly way too big for me. I realized hadn't it might look weird or suspicious of something to others that this clearly wasn't mine and you could really tell it wasn't mine since I don't wear normal witch clothes unless it is completely needed like class, but then I still wear something grunge-like, maybe a choker or something. So this was in no way normal and I didn't notice until Murphy sat down beside me and asked me about it.

"Oh... well... It's nothing to worry about." It was very clear that he wasn't convinced and honestly, it wasn't that good because even I frowned at my response.

"Okay, well if there is a random bad boy that fits your status that you are suddenly with, I wanna hear about it." I nodded as he left me alone and I took that as my queue to get out of the common room before more people see and start to spread rumours about who's cloak it is. Once I got to my dorm I continued to read on the book Dumbledore let me use and tried to practice some easy things, but after about an hour of that, no luck. I sighed and fell down on my bed looking up at the plain roof of my room. I was once told by my parents that if you are trying to learn some new magic it is best to have a clear mind and ever since I started reading this book nothing has been sticking in my head. I didn't think that my mind was clouded with anything, but then as I grabbed the corner of Snape's cloak that I was still wearing It clicked with me. Ever since I got this book something to do with him has been in the way. That's why I can't do even do simple spells that I should be able to do if I've been reading it every night. Snape was getting in my way of learning this magic, and honestly, I wasn't wrong. Since that vision, everything that I do, every thought, seems to come back to him.

"Fuck me." Was the last thing I said before I ended up taking an afternoon nap. I didn't get another vision, but all throughout the night randomly I would hear Snape's voice and I could see him in front of me, most things were memories of us walking about to the castle today. Being a very light sleeper dreams came pretty quickly and even though I can't help it sometimes I wish I could just be able to sleep through a huge thunderstorm, but with my luck, I will always wake up.

**** Christmas Day ****

I woke up and heard people talking down stairs about something and I wasn't too happy that the screaming first and second years that got to stay here had already ruined my day by waking me up at... wait, what time is it? I glanced over to the clock on the wall and saw that it was 5 am. The sun hadn't even begun to shine on the lake yet. I mumbled some swear words to myself and put on some basic black muggle clothes. Before I left my room though through my mirror I saw Snape's cloak lying on one of the chairs in my room. I thought about grabbing it, but I remembered how Murphy reacted yesterday and decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to bring it out, even if my instincts told me to, I went without it. I made my way out of the dorm halls and to the common room where if any of them decided to be loud around me I would tell them to shut up and stop freaking out about getting gifts. Christmas isn't even about getting gifts, people have just turned it into stupid fun happy sit down with family thing only a little while ago. Before it was about drunk people crashing parties that happened in the woods, in the middle of the night. And then it was about people in lower-class incomes breaking into stores and causing riots, this clearly isn't the Christmas we have now and my parents aren't ones to celebrate and honestly, I'm completely fine with that knowing that the real Christmas was actually probably a lot more fun than it is now.

By the time I got to the common room, most people were done opening their gifts and just talking as a couple of of sixth years had already yelled at them and left the room without even checking if they got any gifts. I was about to do the same since nobody would ever send me gifts, even my closest friends know that, but before I could take a step past the tree a younger student stopped me by saying,

"Aren't you going to open your present Jones?" I stopped dead in my tracks and looked ot the younger girl who was sitting on the ground and I responded with,

"I don't get presents okay? My family doesn't do Christmas like the rest of you, so they don't send anything." I started to walk again, but before I could leave they spoke again asking,

"But then who left you this one?" I turned around and saw her holding a small gift wrapped in black wrapping paper with some kind of glossy design on it that I honestly couldn't tell what it was. I gently grabbed it from her hand and sure enough, when I read who it was for, my name was on it, but there was no other name telling me who sent it. There was no way it was my parents who sent it, they would never and none of my friends would, hell even Dumbledore knows I don't do Christmas. This was strange indeed and I could tell that everyone in the room was curious so even though I wanted to throw it into the fire, I pulled myself together and opened it very carefully not to rip the paper and underneath it was a plain gray box with two latches that held it closed. I placed it down on a nearby table got ready to open it and as I looked around I saw everyone watching like it was some kind of miracle and it made me chuckle at how easily I could probably make them do things. I slowly opened the box not knowing what could it be, it could be a prank from someone, but my mind was convinced that someone was trying to be nice. When it opened there was a thin sheet of black tissue paper covering whatever was inside and at this point, I was starting to think that it was some kind of jewelry. As I pulled it away everyone seemed to move closer to get a good look so I stopped and said to them,

"Seriously? you don't see me pecking over all of your shoulders when you open something." They all gave a guilty look and went back to their things and started to talk with each other as I opened it without having anyone look at what I got. At the bottom of the box was a lace black choker. At first, I had no idea who could've sent me this gift, but it was obvious after looking at the book that was underneath the choker. The only two people who could've given me an advanced book on potions that weren't taught at Hogwarts were either Dumbledore or Snape. Dumbledore wouldn't just give me this unless I showed a lot of interest in the topic, so that leaves the only person who could've given these things to me which was Snape. We had talked about potions on the way back to the castle and about how I wanted to learn about more potions so it was very clear that he had sent me this gift. The only question is how did he get his hands on this kind of accessory so quickly? He couldn't have been planning on giving this to me weeks before could he? And if he did intend on giving it to me, why? He had never really spoken to me besides telling me my potions were either shit or kind of okay in class. Yesterday was the only time we had talked and we were tipsy off our asses until I started that fight. I couldn't wrap my head around it so I closed the box and put the book on my shelf and threw on my new choker. I knew that it was too early for Christmas breakfast to start, but I had nothing better to do so I threw Snape's cloak on finally not really caring about what people might think and made my way to the Great Hall. Walking through the halls I knew that Filch was probably walking around with Ms. Norris so I had to be careful that he didn't catch me since I wasn't in the mood to deal with him.

As soon as I made it to the Hall there were a couple house elves who were getting ready for breakfast and didn't seem to be bothered by me. I took a seat down right close to the teachers' table and waited for everyone else to get here. After about half an hour most of the teachers had arrived and were watching the small number of students arriving in the Hall probably holding their new presents with them. Right before Dumbledore was about to make his usual Christmas speech Snape came through the back staff door right by his spot and sat down waiting for Dumbledore like the rest of us. Naturally, most students knew that it was him and didn't look up, but for some reason I did and almost right away as he was sitting down we made eye contact, at this point I was gently playing with my gift around my throat which he got me and I guess me touching it brought his attention to the fact that I was wearing it. Not only did I realize that, but I noticed he had a different cloak on today and I was trying hard to remember why and then I felt like a complete idiot wearing his normal cloak that people would probably notice was missing from him and on me. I knew that most people probably just thought I might have had a change in style today, but some people weren't that easy to shoo off, mainly people who didn't like me aka the whole Ravenclaw house.

After a few seconds of me lost in my thoughts I realized that we were still looking at each other and Snape was clearly paying attention to the fact that I still had his cloak on and was wearing it out public. He probably thought that I might be trying to make a scene, but before he could show panic on his face Dumbledore tapped on his glass and was looking right at me and smiled at me. He wasn't that daft so he probably right away noticed the cloak and the fact that it wasn't mine, considering that it was huge on me. I dropped my head trying not to look suspicious about anything and started to play with my choker again clearly that had to be a sign that I was nervous about something, I did that a lot. As Dumbledore spoke I was focused on trying not to make eye contact with him or Snape which was kind of hard, to be honest. I don't think that there is a way to explain how cornered I felt in that moment even though it was the biggest room in the whole school, I felt like everyone was watching me and for once, being a popular student was not fun. My heart started to race and I wasn't sure that my nerves were the problem, but rather the fact that I needed to get out of there. I scanned the room again and locked eyes with Snape, I didn't want to, but it felt like someone was holding my head in his direction and keeping me focused on him. I tried to break free, but I couldn't I knew that this wasn't just me being me, someone was in my head, I could feel them poking around trying to get into my main thoughts. To my surprise, they were very strong and everything around me seemed to fade out like it was only me and my thoughts in the world. I couldn't keep them out forever so I decided if they wanted to hurt me they couldn't get away with it while I was surrounded by people so I let them in. When they were in nothing happened. My body wasn't moving, on its own, I only heard the breathing of someone else which was weird, but then I heard a faint, deep voice ask me,

"Are you alright? You look hyper pale?" I was beyond confused and then decided if they only wanted to ask questions they didn't need to be in my mind so I attacked them with walls to close them off and to my surprise, again, they didn't fight. I blinked my eyes a bit as Dumbledore's voice started to fade back as he spoke the last few words of his speech, everything felt weird at the moment afterwards. I was still looking at Snape who's expression seemed soft, but then as quickly as I saw it, he was back to his normal grumpy self. I took my eyes away from him feeling very odd after that, not really knowing what to do, but eat my food and get out of there. I was still feeling nervous and when I went to grab a piece of toast, I noticed that whoever was talking to me was right. My skin looked like someone just poured bleach all over me, but I didn't let it phase me. I got some food into me and left the Great Hall as soon as I was done, not waiting for any of my friends to follow me. For the next few hours, things felt weird to me and I felt like every time I was outside of my common room someone was trying to get back in my head which kinda freaked me out because no students can use Occlumency so it had to have been an adult, but no teacher in their right mind would do that and also I doubt any teachers are actually as good as this person was, so maybe it was someone who isn't meant to be in the school. That got me worried and I decided that it was probably for the best to let Dumbledore know. He was probably in his office, but just to make sure that I didn't disturb him if he was busy I just decided to send him a letter. It was a very quick one that got straight to the point and wasn't too long.

I wrapped the parchment in a ribbon-like string and gave it to my owl, Honey. She's a tiny barn owl and seems to like to follow me around almost everywhere I go which is nice. I told her to bring it to Dumbledore right away and she flew off my arm and went looking for him. I, on the other hand, decided that it would probably not be a good idea to go back to the Hogshead after yesterday so I decided to go get that book Snape got me and read it outside of the common room so I was away from the lonely first years who only stayed in the common room besides for classes and meals. After finding a good spot against the wall I started to invest my thoughts into the fact about some of the potions that were written in the book. After good 20 minutes into reading about Garrotting Gas, a potion the induces choking and possibly suffocates the taker.

"Damn, that sounds like my kind of potion." Almost right after that Snape happened to walk by and notice that I was reading from his book. He stopped in front of me and watched me as I read before I looked up once I noticed he was there. I smiled at him and he then asked me,

"I see that you're enjoying the gifts I gave you. Which one seems to have caught your eye?"

"The Garrotting Gas, I feel like it's probably something I would use even though I would probably get caught using it, but whatever." He smirked a little bit and waved for me to follow him to his class. I brought the book with me and walked into the classroom after him and placed the book down at my normal desk. Snape went back into the ingredients room so I got the pot ready for potion brewing and soon enough he came out with arms full of different things, some I hadn't seen before which was a little odd. He placed them down in order of use and wrote down the steps on the board which he moved to be in front of me. He then added a small amount of water and slowly started adding the ingredients and preparing them for the potion all while talking and letting me know what things not to do while making this potion like walking away from it. It wasn't one of those potions that need to boil for a while, it was a quick to make potion that could go wrong very quickly if you aren't paying attention.

As he was teaching me about it I was writing down things he told me to remember and as I watched him things seemed to be really nice at the moment. Just him and I brewing a potion that probably could kill us if one thing went wrong. I liked this a lot more than normal class since he is normally yelling at someone, but right now he was being really calm and talked in a very soft voice which I don't think anybody here has heard before. It made me smile at the fact that he was probably happy to teach me something and was happy to see that someone else was just as invested in potions as he was. He seemed to be very focused on the potion at the moment where I had taken a step back and just watched him stir all the ingredients together. At the moment everything seemed to slow down again and fade away just like when that person was in my mind, this time I was calm and didn't even fight back when they got in my head, I just simply asked,

"What do you want?" There was some silence before I heard the voice again this time a lot louder and closer than I thought it was going to be and the voice that I heard in my head made me jump back a bit.

"You seem to be lost in thought," Severus said in my mind. Soon I found my breathing picking up again just like when he did it before, but he tried to calm me down.

"I was shocked to see that you had a natural talent in Occlmency, most students can't do that." I was still acting dumbfounded as he spoke and I think he realized because he then left my mind without saying anything and turned around in front of me just to look at me. I tried not to look so shocked, but it was kind of hard not to when I thought that it was someone bad who was getting into my head when really it was just Severus trying to find the source of the other person who was emitting their talent that I'm sure he had too.

"Are you going to watch me finish the potion?" He said in his soft voice again sounding very different from in my head which caught me a little off guard. I walked closer to him and said,

"Oh, yea." I stood beside him as he finished the potion, but it was hard to stay focused with what just happened. I wasn't as confused as you may think, in fact, it was kind of nice knowing that he seemed to care for me, but then again it was strange. Severus doesn't care for students so either someone is pretending to be him or something extra strange is going on here. I wasn't going to push it, but I knew that Dumbledore could've asked him to be nice to me for something. Then I remembered something Dumbledore told me a couple ago.

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking, was anything in the letter really that important to call us both here?" He raised an eyebrow at me and then smiled as he said,

"Yes, everything in the letter has a great deal to Professor Snape, and I think it is best if you try not to push it out of him. Getting any kind of information out of him unless he trusts you is not easy and can end badly. If he wishes to tell you, it will take some time since I already seemed to have messed up this chance to tell you."

Almost right away it seemed to click with me. Severus was probably trying to tell me something important, maybe about himself or about me, but it wasn't clear at this moment what it would be, but I had a feeling that this was a step closer to what he wanted to tell me. We then put the potion into bottle and as he was cleaning up he asked me to put them away on the top shelf on the right near the other small potion bottle. As I opened the door and climbed up the ladder it became very clear that I had no idea what I was doing.

"Top shelf on the right. Okay, well this is the top shelf on the right, but I don't see any other bottles." After looking for a couple of minutes I think I had found what I was looking for, but it was so far away I thought that I might fall. I honestly probably missed judging the distance and moved onto the far side of the ladder step, stretched out to place it, but the ladder wasn't completely bolted onto the top of the shelf and I lost my balance. For a second I thought that maybe I could just easily center my weight so I could balance, but I was wrong. My foot slipped and I was falling from the highest part of the ladder. I let out a small screeched but found myself not on the hard floor, but in someone's arms. Not to my surprise Severus was the one who caught me and had a smile on his face when I looked at him, he said to me,

"I knew something was wrong when it started to take you more than a couple minutes to put them away." I could feel my face become very flush and there was no way that I could hide it from him. I knew that he was watching me even when I wasn't looking and I was a little shocked as to why he still had me in his arms bridal style and I think that he noticed and walked out of the closet doorway to set me down in front of his desk. Once he did he pulled his hands away from me pretty quickly and put them in his pockets, I knew that he would hate to hear this, but he definitively turned a bit pink at the cheeks. He leaned in towards me, but only to grab the book he had gifted me that was on my left. As he was leaning though I could smell this cologne and it was something that I probably would have found attractive on a guy and... wait did I really just say that? Ugh, what is happening to me?

Once he moved away from me my thoughts were back to normal, but I could tell that he weren't. He seemed to be lost looking at my face. He then locked eyes with me and for a few seconds nothing happened, then he moved a fraction closer and everything seemed to become sharper, the iris' of his eyes lit up with colour, I could sense his body heat, and the stitches of his robes became more detailed. My heart rate seemed to slow with everything around me and I found myself drawn to his lips more than anything and it looked like he was drawn to mine. Within a few seconds, we both seemed to move closer causing our lips to collide. It was almost like I had just jumped off a cliff and was still falling, all my thoughts seemed to close around this one moment. Soon he brought his right hand up to my cheek and hid a few fingers behind my ear drawing me ever so closer to him. I then found my body jolt with energy and soon my hands shot up to grab his hair. He pushed more passionately against my lips causing me to let out a small groan and then picked me up with his strong arms to then set me down onto his desk basically throwing the book away. My heart rate got faster and it seemed as though everything in the world had stopped and it was just him and I again. Nothing mattered more than this one moment. He then placed his hands on my hips and then both of my hands ended up placed on his shoulders gripping at his clothes trying to get him as close to me as possible. Everything started to get more intense and Severus started to get rough with me, but honestly, with me pulling at his hair, I was happy to have his lips crash violently against mine. Soon we had both run out of breath and he placed both of his hands on either side of me as I kept mine around his neck gently resting there as we took in some heavy breaths. He leaned his forehead against mine for a bit until he said,

"I don't think I've ever been this excited in a long time." I took in some deep breathes and decided that teasing him might be fun.

"I don't think anyone else could make me this excited," I said with a smirk planted on my face and grabbing his hips moving him closer to me. He smirked back at me and said back to me,

"I'm glad you like my gift." He placed his hand over the choker, moved my head back so my neck was exposed and was about to put press his lips on my neck when we heard someone slowly opening the door. I hopped down off of his desk quicker than I think I've ever moved out of the way of a rogue blugder. Madam Pomfrey slowly came through the door peeking her head in to see if anyone was in the room and as soon as she saw me she came into the room.

"Sorry if I interrupted your detention, but I was wondering, Severus, do you have any extra fairy wings?" He cleared this throat and before he could say anything I took that as my queue to go.

"Well, I think it's past my detention time, and Dumbledore said he wanted to see me around before lunch so I better head up there. Thanks for keeping me captive for a couple of hours Snape. Peace." I walked out of the classroom holding up my fingers in a peace sign and closed the door behind me. I let out a long sigh and leaned against the door trying to calm my nerves about what just happened. Then I decided maybe it was time to head back to my dorm and take a nap. I knew that what just happened with Severus wouldn't be the only time. I bet that over the next few days we would be seeing each other a lot more and I knew that he was going to try and get into my head more and more often, hopefully not distancing himself from me.

Any requests?

[harry-meepmeep-dresden]

Hobbit Tricks

Hello everyone. I submitted a microfiction to a fan fiction contest. Thank you @studiocitypsychic​ for helping me edit this! You’re amazing! I hope everyone enjoys it:  Buildings didn’t blaze with fire. Frogs weren’t raining down upon the city. Sidhe queens stayed clear of duking it out tonight. I intended to keep it that way.

If the fate of the world isn’t hanging in the balance, I’d typically spend this day of the year curled up enjoying my comfortable recliner, a cup of cocoa in one hand, book in the other, fireplace burning brightly in the background as I reveled in being the Grinch of Halloween. This holiday is all well and good when you’re not me.

Who am I? I’m the only wizard in the Chicago phone book, Harry Dresden. To say this day’s my least favorite is putting it mildly. This year I couldn’t just attempt to ignore it. No more fireplace, basement apartment, or staying in. I’m a dad, and there are certain responsibilities a single parent needs to live up to. It might not be saving Earth from becoming an undead paradise, but it’s still important. Tonight I’d be escorting two Hobbits and an ax-wielding Foo dog on an epic adventure to claim unspeakably valuable treasure…

Candy.

Father mode engaged as I let my baby girl help me get my fake bushy white eyebrows glued on. Maggie insisted they were absolutely necessary with the wig and beard. My beautiful little girl dressed up as Frodo. She had little makeup freckles on her cheeks, the elven cloak, and the iconic clothing made from what I guessed might be a pattern based on the movies, with lots of grays, greens, and browns. On top of that they’d picked out boots a few sizes too big and decorated them to look like Hobbit feet.

Scratching my jaw a little I determined I would not disappoint her by complaining about my costume she and Charity Carpenter made. Maggie and the Carpenters spent weeks on these outfits. No matter how itchy fake facial hair and wigs could be, not a single negative word would come out of my mouth about it. Anyway, I rarely get to dress up like one of my favorite fictional wizards, and this made both Maggie and me happy. Mouse wore a helmet, fake plastic ax, and that big goofy doggy grin of his. He couldn’t help it as he noticed how much Maggie enjoyed all of this.

Hope or another one of the Carpenter kids normally lead the trick-or-treating. They’d instead volunteered to help with Father Forthill’s trunk-or-treat at the church this year. Maggie and Hank demanded an old-fashioned door-to-door experience instead. I couldn’t lie about the fact that taking Maggie trick-or-treating made my heart grow three sizes.

We picked up Hank, and he brought out a map the Carpenter kids developed over years of experience of the best houses to get candy from. And with that, Sam, Frodo, Gandalf, and Gimli were off on an adventure. Now and then I’d whisper a spell, and Maggie’s plastic version of Sting would glow with a pale blue light. It delighted her and the surrounding kids. One house gave the kids full-sized candy bars as the adults complimented the costumes.

“Dad! Look!” she hurried over to show me. The large boots decorated to resemble Hobbit feet made running or walking tricky. She still half-waddled impressively fast. I whistled and smiled as she held up the candy bar.

“Seems the costumes impressed them. You did an amazing job, kiddo. I mean, these costumes couldn’t be more perfect. Starting to dig the beard. Maybe I should keep this look, huh?” I stroked the fake beard and tried impersonating that knowing stare into the distance Sir Ian McKellen used in the movies.

She giggled, hurrying off towards the next house, Mouse and Hank right by her side and me just behind. No way would those kids leave my sight. Her eyes lit up each time she said ‘trick or treat’. Every few houses she brought her bag over to show off the bounty of the adventure. It made painful memories wash away little by little. Soon we ran out of houses on the map. We were all loaded into the car as Hank checked his watch. I half expected him to jokingly call the watch ‘my precious’.

“Hey, Harry, isn’t there anywhere else you can take us? It’s still super early,” he pleaded as they buckled up.

“That’s all the places on the map, kiddo,” I replied, thinking about how fast we got through it, and blaming it on the kids’ energy and excitement.

“Nowhere else, dad?” I might not have seen it since I kept an eye on the road, but my dad senses felt the pout Maggie had while asking that.

“Alright, fine. Off to Helm’s Deep,” I grinned, changing direction to head to Murph’s house.

When we got there Murphy wasn’t home. There were no signs of foul play from what I could see. She might be at a party. I didn’t expect that with her injuries, but I’m not her keeper. I had really wanted to see her tonight, and couldn’t help the slight ache in my chest. Oh well, on to try Waldo’s place.

I gave a few quick knocks on Butters’ door when we arrived before waiting for an answer. No answer. He might be busy with knight business or his job. He enjoyed working late. Billy and Georgia were the next destination. They also weren’t home.

Before going to Thomas’ apartment, I called him. No answer. He and Justine were likely at a White Court party or busy with other activities. I’d rather not chance interrupting them with two kids in tow.

Back in the car, I noticed that Maggie and Hank were being remarkably quiet. Maybe they were bored. I tried to think about where else we might go. The church was a good option since they had set up games for the kids.

“Hey, sorry, it’s a bust. We’ll head to the church and see what they’re up-”

“No!” the two kids blurted out, interrupting me.“I mean, uh, I think I’d rather head home and you and Maggie could stay over and watch a scary movie or something?” Hank asked.

I turned to glance at the two of them and noticed Maggie change her attention to Mouse, away from Hank’s watch. The way they kept hovering over it, they reminded me of the Hobbits and the One Ring. Hopefully Maggie wouldn’t attempt biting off Hank’s entire hand to get it.

“Uh-huh… You two are up to something,” I said and narrowed my eyes.

“We don’t want the adventure to end just yet. We haven’t even been to Mordor,” Hank chimed with a half smile.

I needed to keep them safe from watching anything nightmare inducing or Charity’d mince me up and bake me into meat pies Sweeny Todd style. Out of the many monsters I’ve fought, I’d rather face them over her. Soon we parked in front of the Carpenters’ home. A shiver ran up my spine from the eeriness of Michael’s house with all the lights off. I thought at least one of the Carpenters would be home. Before I could ask Hank anything both the Hobbits rushed out trailed by the furry Gimli.

“Hey!” I shouted, not wanting to lose sight of them.

Why were they running off knowing how dangerous tonight of all nights could be? Might just be heading to the backyard to play, but it was still Halloween. Even knowing literal angels protected Michael’s property, my chest felt tight with worry when I couldn’t see the kids.

Once I entered the backyard, a bunch of lights blinded me.

“SURPRISE!” voices echoed in the night.

My eyes adjusted and I saw everyone and all the decorations they set up. The Carpenter family arranged themselves behind the table everyone had gathered around. I noticed Butters hanging out with the wolf pack to one side of the table. Murphy sat up in a chair with her crutches close by. Thomas and Justine were even there, wearing modest clothing and standing next to Murphy. The large cake on the table featured a t-rex picture on top, probably Butters’ idea. Next to it were plates and forks. A cooler filled with different soda sat next to the table. To top everything else off, the Monster Mash played in the background.

I felt Maggie hug my leg. Bending down, I picked her up and wrapped her into an even bigger hug. She kissed my cheek and wrapped her arms around my neck as I held her close. Everyone had planned this together. They set me up. Michael brought out an old Polaroid camera to take pictures. Wizards don’t photograph well on most modern equipment.

“You sneaky little hobbitses,” I tried to say in my best Gollum impression before sniffling as the fake beard tickled my nose. “You tricked me.”

That smile she gave me made me feel… Well, let’s just say if it were sunny out I could have used magic to catch daylight in a handkerchief.

“Happy birthday, dad.”

[judylicious]

And When He Smiles I Swear I Can’t Breathe

Alan Rubin x fem!Reader

Word count: 1,415

Fandom: Blues Brothers

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Blues Brothers characters or movies. This refers to Alan Rubin as a character in the movie, not the real Alan (although he obvsly played himself but you know what I mean)

I’d like to add that I made everyone of the band a few years younger (so the age gap between the reader and Alan isn’t that big), so he’s approx. in his early 30s.

Sophia & Lisa are two OCs created by two lovely people within the fandom.

Warnings: swearing

Chapter II

When they got to the bar Charlotte did her best to stick to her two best friends which were pretty soon wrapped into their boyfriend’s arms.

Charlotte shared a table with the two couples, Elwood and Murph, who started to report on their latest US tour, which they had ended with tonight’s concert in their home town of course. “Think we can all agree that we got the best response in the Southern cities” “Sure, those mountain people do not know anything about proper dance music and shaking a leg.” Elwood added. And then Murph told the funniest story about how the smashed his e-piano by accident on the highway and how desperate they were to find a new one before the next gig.

Jake ordered a few rounds of shots for everyone and the guys kept on telling some stories from the last few weeks. The rest of the band was lingering at the bar and Mr. Fabulous took a long glance at Charlotte. She was wearing a black dress with golden details on it, black boots and a leather jacket. He really liked her style. And she looked adorable, smiling and laughing about the jokes the others must have told. He admired the young woman for some time until he finally approached her. “May I buy the lady a drink?” “Er.. I-, I…”, she stammered. “Sure, she’d love to!”, Lisa chipped in and gave her friend a soft push towards the trumpet player, who carefully put his arm at Charlotte’s lower back, ushering her towards the bar. “So what does a girl like you likes to drink? A beer? G and T?” “Wine, please, white!”, she gave the bartender an assuring nod. Alan raised his hand. “Any particular wish?” “Right, you’ll probably judge me for that but a Chardonnay, please.. if you got any.” “Make that two, please.” They picked up their glasses and went to the nearest table. “Chardonnay, huh?”, the man laughed. “Why’s that?” “I dunno… My parents love those fancy-schmancy restaurants and I kinda started to like the taste of a good Chardonnay.” She raised her glass “Thanks for the drink, Alan. To the fancy things in life then…?” “And to your first and hopefully not last concert of the Blues Brothers Band!” The two clinked their glasses. “Cheers!” “Surprisingly this one tastes quite delish.”, Alan joked after taking a sip, checking out the bar in an exaggerated manner and they both laughed. “Well, to be honest I think wine is the only fancy thing I like. Can’t even stand the food at those restaurants, most times I order a salad, can’t do much wrong with that.” “I guess that’s true.” “How long have you been playing with these boys?” “A few years know. I know Jake back from NY City and he asked me to join these fellas. Good thing I didn’t know how nut these boys were, I’d probably have never agreed to that.” He looked at Charlotte and couldn’t quite read her face, so he quickly added “I’m just kidding, they’re great… So, what do you do when you’re not dragged to concerts of your bestfriend’s boyfriends?” “You know, college stuff. I study law.” Alan gave Charlotte an acknowledging nod. “Oh? You wanna become a lawyer?” Her mood suddenly changed. “Well, my dad is one, so…” She quickly changed the topic and cleared her throat. “May I ask you something?” “I’ll answer you everything you wanna know.” She blushed. What was he doing to her? She insecurely pushed around her glass. “Soo… Why that nickname?” She emphasised “Mr. Fabulous?” He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.” He took a big sip from his glass and licked his bottom lip after swallowing. Charlotte felt hypnotised. She couldn’t take her eyes from his sensuous chiseled lips. “I guess I AM fabulous.” Charlotte softly moaned “You certainly are.” The following awkward silence brought her back to reality. “Gosh, did I just say this? I’m so sorry.”, she apologised. “The wine must have gotten into me.” God, she wanted to slap herself for that. “It’s alright, thought it was rather cute.” She looked up from her glass into his beautiful hazelnut eyes and could have stayed there forever.

“Do you like another drink?”, he offered her. “Huh? Oh no, it’s really getting late. I think I better leave!” “Sure I’d be happy to take you home.” “Thanks for the offer, Alan but I got here with Sophia, her car’s still parked outside.” “So?” “Well I bet she wants me to drive back with her.” “I bet she don’t.” Charlotte sighed and looked over to her friend, who was sitting on Jake’s lap, one arm around his neck, wearing his hat. “Look, I’m sorry, don’t wanna force you into anything.” “Would you give me minute with her?”, Charlotte asked the handsome musician and went over to her friend. “Hey girl. Did you check the time recently? I really need to get home.” “Oh I’m sorry hun. I planned on spending the night with Jake… You know he’s been on tour so much lately, we barely got to see each other the past few months.” “Ffs, c’mon, you can’t let me down.” “On the contrary, looks like Mr.Fabulous is very eager to drive you home.” She giggled and couldn’t help noticing him at the bar, watching the two vigilantly. “How about that: You take me home and THEN you can still go to Jake’s.” “How cruel of you! That’s the most unromantic thing ever.” Charlotte squinched her eyes. “Don’t you see I’m only trying to force your luck here? He’s obviously crazy about you.” “Right, just never mind. I’m sorry, it’s just, I feel kinda overwhelmed. Enjoy your night, you two!” Charlotte gave his friends a quick smile and turned back to the man who had been waiting for her at the bar. “Seems like we’re good to go.” “Excellent. Just let me grab my jacket.” They walked down the street until they got to a black Mercedes 300SL sports car.. “Here we are.” “No way this is your car!” “Well, seems like I’ve got the keys.”, he said and opened the passenger door, holding it open for her. “This is one of my favourite models.” She stated and let her fingers trail over the passenger’s instrument board. “How do you - I mean, you’re only a trumpet player!” “Yeah but I play the flugelhorn, too.”, the quick-witted musician replied. He quickly closed the door behind her and took a seat behind the wheel. 

It was a rather awkward ride for both of them. Both thought about what to say or how to keep the conversation going but couldn’t come up with anything inventive. And Charlotte felt guilty for her remark about his car, thinking this was the reason he was so quiet. 

They finally reached Charlotte’s house. He got out of the car, walked around and opened the passenger door for her again. He held out his hand to her “Milady?” She put her hand in his and tried to get out of the car as elegant as possible.”Why thank you!” Seeing that he actually wasn’t angry at her gave her some desperately needed  courage. “Alan? I’m sorry about what I said about you owning that car… I didn’t-“ “Don’t you worry about that! Usually I’m pretty good at dishing it out in a joking way, so I have to be able to take it as well.” He shrugged his shoulders and took a look at the house in front of them. “This isn’t your home, is it?”, he asked with a smile. “What? Of course it is.” She looked over her shoulder. “What blew the secret?” “The tricycle at the front door…?” She inhaled sharply. “I mean chances still are you have a sibling at the age of 4.” Charlotte sighed. “I’m so sorry. This got nothing to do with you. My parents think I’m on some kind of girls movie night at Lisa’s. And they prefer staying up until I get home.” “No harm done. I completely understand. I hope to see you again sometime…?” “Sure, I’d like that.”, the girl smiled. “Good night then.” And with that he gave her a kiss on the hand. She couldn’t believe he just did that! What a gentleman! How freakin wholesome! She tried not to show any of her excitement on the outside when he watched her walking to the neighboured house and disappearing through the front door.

Chapter I 

[themarcusmoreno]

unsteady

an: this doesn’t have a read more bc i don’t know how to do them tbh AND i’m posting from mobile. any errors present are yet again my own. i tried to give my dumbass, baby boy javier what i took away in timing is everything. i suggest listening to this version of the song that inspired the title and i hope that you guys enjoy it, i’m proud of this one. i left this with a possiblity for more, if that’s something you’d like to see let me know! feedback is welcome! //// tagging: @spacedadheadcanons, @bonkybaaarnes, @callingmrsbarnes, @buckywiththegoodglare, @drakecaggiula91, @thatsonehellofajedi, @mando-vibes, @i-like-those-odds, @i-am-forever-a-fan, @fvckingavengers, @ikeatwins776

You found becoming a DEA agent to be an easy task, falling into the training and field work like they were second nature. You made a name for yourself, eager to the fight and quick to solve the issues presented to you. So, when the opportunity came for you to take an open post in Colombia, in Bogotá, you took it. Transportig your life to the new country seemed easy enough but finding your place amongst the senior agents proved troublesome, especially when Javier Peña seemed to be involved. You'd been placed with him and his partner, Steve Murphy. Where Steve had warmed up to you quickly, Javier stayed distant and cold. Every bit the asshole you had been warned he would be.

Over the coming months, you saw small breaks in the persona the man presented. Whether it was when you joined he and Steve for drinks after a particularly rough day or at the "family dinners" that Connie held once a week. You, even in the briefest of moments, got to see a different side of him. One that showed the crinkle of his face as he laughed at one of the jokes Steve shared, the warmth of his smile as he watched Connie with the Murphy’s little girl and even the lingering glance he'd give you as you told stories about your early days as an agent. A smirk played on his lips every time he saw you home safely and bid you goodnight.

"You know if you keep this up I may think you actually like me or something, Peña." A smile spreads across you face as you lean against the doorway of your apartment.

"Now what would give you that idea?" Javier has a smile of his own as watches you, arms crossed over his chest and head tilted upward ever so slighty.

You chuckle and roll your eyes, turning to disappear into your quiet home. "Goodnight, Javier."

A brief wave of somethig like sadness fills his chest as he watces you turn away, his arm aching to reach out and grasp yours but instead he is met with the soft click of your door. "Yeah.. goodnight, cariña." He mumbles, sighing and rubbing his jaw before he backs away to head to his own place just a floor below.

In the coming weeks, you saw more of that change in Javier. Once in him lingering near the entrance of the office long after finishing his cigarette, fresh cup of coffee in hand for the both of you. You hid the soft smile that crept on to your face at the gesture behind your cup, walking along with him as he explaied yet another lead in the hunt for Escobar. You saw it again in him seeking you out after another raid had failed and your team had lost four men. You'd be alone, gathering your own thoughts when the knocking at the door had pulled you from your silence. Wiping your face quickly, you opened the door to him standing there looking no better than you felt. His jaw clenched and eyes tired as he took your appearance in slowly.

"Mind if I come in?" The softness of his request betraying the way his features held such frustration. You gave a slight nod and made your way back to the chair you'd previously occupied. When he speaks again there's something in his tone you can't quite place, concern maybe. "I couldn't find you when we got back. You disappeared and nobody saw where you went. I thought you'd left. I needed - wanted to make sure you were okay."

You were silent a few seconds before you brought your gaze to his, fresh tears threatening to spill. "Would you be? I lost men, Jav. I lost four good men because of a fucking raid I planned." There's a bite to your words, not at the man in front you but at the pain in knowing you'd cost someone their life for something you believed in, something you trusted. A wave of nausea brought you to your feet, the emotions overwhelming. You let the tears fall, not noticing the gentle pressure of Javier's hand on your arm as he pulled you close. You didn't fight him, instead you turned into him and gave yourself over to the sobs that racked your body.

"Easy, cariña. Easy." Javier rubbed the small of your back, holding you close and letting you cry. His heart broke for the pain you felt and the thought of the guilt you carried. "What happen.. What happen today, it wasn't your fault. The best laid plans fall apart every fucking day and I know that better than anyone else. So does Steve. But this, this raid and what happen to those men wasn't your fault. You want someone to blame, you blame me. Not yourself, me. Understand?"

You listened to him, your tears slowing as spoke to you. Firm but gentle. When you did't respond he said your name softly, repeating his question. "Blame me, no one else. Understand?" He gave you gentle squeeze, words slightly muffled by your hair as he rested his chin against you.*You nodded slowly, pulling away from his tear strained shirt, and answering. "I understand but - "

"No buts. You did your job well today and thats what matters for now. Losing men is never easy but we recover, come back harder the next time and you can bet we will. Harder and faster than this time. We'll avenge the fallen and take that bastard Escobar down a peg or two when we do." Javier looks over your face, absentmindedly reaching to brush a stray tear from your cheek. He lets his hand linger before he shakes his head a little and steps back. "You should take the day. I'll get your reports done. Just go home and rest, yeah?"

You don't stop him as he pulls away, don't reach out fo him the way you want, instead you nod slowly and wrap your arms around yourself to savor the bit of his warmth left. "Are you sure, Jav?"

"Positive, miel. Go home, rest and I'll check on you when I get done here." He gives you a soft smile, not hesitating to reach out and brush your hair from your face. "Maybe I'll bring food too."

"Nothing you cook though because I want to survive the night." You smirk, laughing at his look of shock. "Sorry, you're a great agent but a shit cook." When he grumbles a response, you just shake your head and press a gentle kiss to his cheek. "Thank you, Jav." You squeeze his arm and smile, glancing back at him before you step out into the hallway.

He feels it then, the unsteady beating of his heart as he watches you leave. The feel of your lips still on his cheek and your scent lingering on his shirt, he knows what it is but he won't say it, at least not aloud. He just sighs, "Shit..."

The month that follows is different, you can't place it but something is different between you and Javier. He's more attentive, checks in on you more frequently. Lingering touches, soft smiles and few too many quiet moments shared for you to keep ignoring whatever may be there growing between the two of you. You don't get to bring it up to him, address the elephant in the room, before another wave of information comes in. Leads you needed to help the raid you, Javier and Steve were planning. Though leery to go out again, your partners encouragement had you eager to finally put a dent in the armor Pablo Escobar thought he wore.

"We've get every possibly scenario covered. Too many guards, too few guards. Nothing in the lab, something in the lab. Civilians present, no civilians present. I'm not saying it's perfect but its about the best damn plan we've had in a while." Steve looks up from the map to the small gathering of men, including you.

"Doesn't mean we shouldn't be careful. Expect the unexpected, I don't want another repeat of last time." Your arms cross over your chest as you look at everything spread across the table. “Everyone gets a vest, everyone has a partner. You watch each others back. We work quickly, we get home faster."

"Well you heard her. Date prisa, go get the gear and be out front in ten." Javier gives your arm a firm squeeze and winks before he joins the other men leaving the room.

You feel his gaze on you before you speak, sighing as you look at Steve. “What Murph?"

"You gonna tell him?" Steve quirks an eyebrow as he pops his gum and rocks on his heels.

Your breath catches and you brush it off as a cough as you start to speak again. "I don't know what you mean. There's nothing to tell anyone."

Steve scoffs, shaking his head as he gathers things from the table. "Uh huh. You keep telling yourelf that, darlin.” He smiles and squeezes your shoulder, "If it helps, he feels the same way. I've been that asshole's partner long enough to know when he's fallen for someone and that someone happens to be you." He heads towards the door, glancing back once more. "Just... Just don't wait too long to tell him. With our job, we aren't always promised tomorrow. But I told him the same thing and so far no one has made a move.”

You hesitate in the now quiet room and let Steve's words sink. Whatever you felt, Javier felt it too. You wouldn't wait past today, you'd tell him as soon as you could. "I'll tell him tonight." With vocal confirmation, you nodded to yourself and went out to join your men.

Javier had been right that day in the office as he held you close, the best laid plans really do fall apart and its usually in the worst of ways. There had been an ambush waiting, a leak from your own department tipping the guards off. You were all outnumbered before you even got there, but when you did you gave them hell. Losing two of your own men as they worked to stop the assault. When the man you'd paired yourself with was taken down, you felt the fear of not making it set in. It make you hyper aware, but not enough. Javier had covered your six after your partner went down, keeping an eye on Steve as well. That's how he saw him, lurking just out of your peripheral vision and coming up fast. The solid body crashing into you was enough to distract you from the shots but when the body didn't hurriedly move, you knew something was wrong. You shifted enough and the body of your protector landed beside you, causing him to groan lowly. You could see the blood pooling slowly, panic rising as your eyes traveled up to his face. Javier.

"Steve, fuck! Steve, get some medic here. Javi is shot, he's bleeding out!" You look around for Steve, locking eyes with him as he brings his walkie to his mouth.

"Necesito abulancia. Oficial de policía abajo." He listens to the feedback and curses. "Goddamnit! They're ten minutes out, he got that long?"

You survey the area of the pooling blood, grimacing at the pained sound Javier produces. "Maybe.. I can't be sure. He took a couple rounds, looks like they went through but its not good. It doesn't look good, Murph." You feel the familar burn of tears as they start to form. Steve's voice fading away as you look down to the soft call of your name. "Jav? Take it easy for me, okay? Try not to move."

Javier blinks softly, the vision of you him above edged in darkness. "Mi sol.." He winces, grasping at your hand as you press it against the wounds. "Oh mi sol, I'm sorry."

His sun. You blink back tears as you look him, cupping his face carefully with your free hand. "Javier, why? Why would you do this?" You don't hold back, letting the tears fall freely. The sound of the ambulance outside not pulling you from the moment. "Javi, why? I don't - I can't lose you now."

Javier smiles, its weak and fading but he smiles as he squeezes you hand and starts to lose consciousness. "This.. This is about keeping you alive." When he starts to drift off, he hears hurried spanish and your cries.

A week. Javier Peña lays in a drug induced coma for a week before he starts to become aware again. Its slow at first, a groan that has you gathering a nurse then a few mumbled curses as starts to fully wake up. You watch him drink slowly from the cup of offered water. Closing his eyes again before he slowly opens them once more to scan the room, you hear his breath catching softly as he looks at you. You don't hear the nurse leave, you don't feel yourself move until your close to his side and his hand is in yours. The warm, tan skin familiar and welcome in your grasp.

You get choked up as you start to speak, the reassuring squeeze of his hand in yours bring the words forward. "I.. I thought I lost you."

Javier's voice comes out soft, raspy from lack of use. "Can't kill me if they wanted to, miel. I'm too fucking stubborn to die." He laughs and grimaces, shifting in the bed for you to have room to sit.

You reach up, rubbing his cheek gently once you finally join him. "Well you at least got the stubborn part right." You tease, wiping your eyes as you look at him. Stubble lines his jaw and chin, his hair unkempt and you know he's never looked better. Never looked more alive.

"What's on your mind?" He questions, running his thumb over your knuckles as he watches your eyes shift over him.

"Do you remember what you said? Before you blacked out?" You work your lip between your teeth before he slowly reaches up and pulls it free.

"Si." He cups your cheek, no hesitation in his movements. "Por qué?"

"What did you mean? 'This is about keeping you alive.' What does that mean?" You lean into his hand, savoring the feel of him against your skin.

Javier shifts, taking his hand from your face and wincing he sits up more. When he's finally up and stable, he leans in presses a soft kiss to your lips. Sighing against your mouth as you return his affection, he breaks the kiss and rest your foreheads together. "It means that I can't picture my life without you in it and I don't want to. I'm sorry I waited so long to tell you that, to tell you I love you."

You smile, matching his own as you kiss him again. "Glad to know it takes almost dying to get you to confess your feelings." You joke, closing your eyes and basking in the moment with Javier. "I love you too and I'm not going anywhere."

[allthingsfangirl101]

App Buddies–Brooks Rattigan

When your dad codes video games for a living, you learn to code before you learn to ride a bike. I've built and coded websites and apps since I was ten. I even built my own code when I was a freshman in high school.

I was sitting under a tree at lunch, my coding laptop in my lap. I took a bite of my apple as I waited for the algorithm to upload.

I looked up when I noticed someone standing above me. "Hey, Y/N. I'm not sure if you remember me, but I'm Brooks Rattigan. We have calc together."

"I know who you are, Brooks," I said with a small smile.

"Cool," he stuttered. I waited for him to continue, but he hesitated.

"Was there something you needed?" I asked slowly.

"You're good at coding, right?"

"I guess," I shrugged.

"I could actually use your help with coding an app."

"What kind of app?" I asked, my interest peaking.

"It's to help me raise money to go to Yale," he hesitated.

"I'm gonna need a little more information than that, Brooks." I laughed.

"Right," he cleared his throat awkwardly. "You wanna come over to my house after school and help me out? I can explain it better."

"Sure," I shrugged.

"Cool," he said, reaching up and scratching the back of his neck. "Do you umm. . . I can give you the address or we could meet up after school and I can drive you."

"I drove to school, so I'll meet you there." He nodded as he tore a piece of paper out of his notebook and scribbled his address on it.

"I'll see you after school," he blushed. I nodded, nervously biting my lower lip.

Yep, I just agreed to go over to my crush's house and help him code an app. This should be interesting.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I fixed my shirt before knocking. I took a shaky breath as the door opened. "Hello," an older man said. "Miss Y/F/N Y/L/N? What can I do for you?"

"Hi Mr. Rattigan," I said, my shyness taking over. "Brooks and I were supposed to work on. . ."

"Y/N?"

His dad turned around and I could see Brooks jogging down the stairs. "Dad, for crying out loud, let her in." He laughed.

"Sorry," his dad stuttered as he stepped aside, opening the door more.

"It's okay," I laughed as I stepped inside. The three of us stood there awkwardly in the doorway. His dad looked between the two of us, smiling like you'd expect a dad to smile in a situation like this.

"Y/N, do you wanna. . ." Brooks cleared his throat as he gestured upstairs. "We should probably get to work."

"It was nice to see you again, Mr. Rattigan." I smiled politely.

"It was nice seeing you again too, Y/N. You are welcome over anytime." He said, sending a look to his son. I turned away before he could see my blush.

"Anyway," he cleared his throat. He gestured for me to follow him up the stairs. I sent his dad a smile before following him up to his room.

"So," I said as we sat down at his desk, my backpack sliding off my shoulder. "Tell me about this app you want to build. What do you want it to do, how is it supposed to work, things like that."

"So, promise me you won't laugh. . .or judge me?"

I looked up at him to see him chewing on his bottom lip. "I promise," I said making him look up at me, our eyes instantly meeting.

"I came up with this. . . Plan. It's a way for me to earn money for Yale, but it's a little strange."

"Okay," I said, moving my hand encouraging him to further explain.

"I am offering myself to girls." He stopped talking and laughed when he saw the look on my face. "No," he chuckled. "It's not what it sounds like. I let girls put in a request for me to accompany them. They get to pick my name, personality, everything. I'll go with them to parties, weddings, double dates, family dinner. Anything they might need a boyfriend for."

"So, you're a Build-A-Boyfriend for hire?"

"I guess," he chuckled, scratching the back of his neck nervously.

"Okay," I said slowly.

"I told you it was kind of strange."

"No kidding," I mumbled. I looked up to see that he had heard me. "I just. . . It seems kind of demeaning. . . For you. I mean. . . Isn't the app all about girls using you? That seems. . ."

"I know," he sighed. "It's just. . . I have wanted to go to Yale since I was a kid, but my dad. . . We can't afford it. This way, I can earn money doing something other than making sandwiches."

"I like that sandwich place." My eyes widened when I said that out loud. I looked up to see Brooks smiling at me.

"So, I have everything figured out. The look, how they can navigate the app, even how they can pay through the app. Everything except the code. That is where you come in. Can you do it?"

He handed me a notebook with his app plans clearly explained. I was surprised by how detailed they were. As I read through the design and explanations, I already knew how I could code this.

"It shouldn't be a problem," I mumbled, still skimming through his notes. "It actually should be pretty easy. Hour, maybe two tops."

I looked up, my cheeks reddening even more when I saw how he was staring at me. "Great. What can I do to help? Do you need my computer or. . ."

"I should be fine," I said reaching into my backpack. "I brought mine."

"Do you always bring your laptop to school?"

"Well, when I code different websites and apps for online companies on the other side of the world, I kind of have to do it during school." I looked up, confused by his facial expression. "What?"

"You really are into all this computer coding, huh?"

"I guess," I shrugged. "My dad does it for a living and taught me how to do it. Not your ordinary father-daughter bonding activities, but it's something that's useful. Kind of."

"That's really cool," he smiled. "My friend Murph is into all this. It doesn't make any sense to me."

"Wait," I said, looking up from my laptop. "If your best friend does this, why did you ask me?"

"Don't get me wrong, Murph is good at what he does. Even he talks about how good you are."

I blushed at his compliment, going back to coding. We spent the next hour and a half, sitting in his room. Every once in a while, I'd have to ask him a question to clarify something in his notes, but for the most part, I was able to do it pretty quickly.

The entire time I worked on his app, Brooks watched me. At one point, he was sitting slightly behind me watching me type.

He was sitting on his bed when my computer beeped. "Is that good? Does that mean. . ." He stuttered as he ran over and jumped into his chair, almost falling out of it in the process.

I couldn't help but laugh as he caught himself. "It means that it's ready to download."

"Seriously?" He let out a relieved sigh when I nodded. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my cheek before plugging his phone into my computer. I brushed it off as I started downloading the app onto his phone.

"Now what?" He asked, bouncing.

"Now, Mr. Eager, we sit and wait. Since it was homemade and is slightly larger than the average app, it should take about a minute or two to download." I looked up and noticed him smiling at me.

"I can't believe you did this," he said, shaking his head slightly. "I mean, I knew you were good. I just had no idea how good you were. And the fact that you helped me?"

My breath got caught in my throat as he reached over and grabbed my hand. "Thank you, Y/N. Seriously. Thank you."

"Of course," I shrugged, trying to hide the nerves. "I actually liked doing something other than a boring business website for some company I can't pronounce out of a country I can't locate."

The way he was looking at me made the butterflies in my stomach go crazy. I sucked in a breath when it looked like his eyes shifted down to my lips for just a second.

Before I could think more about that shift, my laptop dinged, signaling the app was fully downloaded. I let go of his hand and disconnected his phone. A smile formed as I opened the app.

"Here you go. It's all ready."

Brooks looked at me before hesitating to take his phone. Once he did, he immediately started going through the features. "Y/N," he said softly. "This is awesome!"

I laughed as he spun around in his chair. Before I could do or say anything, he grabbed my face and pressed his lips to mine.

He pulled away, his eyes slightly wide. I scooted my seat back, my cheeks already burning. "I umm. . . I should go," I stuttered as I stood up and started to leave.

"Y/N, wait." Brooks grabbed my arm, stopping me from running out of his room. He slowly turned me back towards him and pulled me into his chest.

Brooks used his finger to push my chin up so I was looking up at him. He smiled before leaning down and pressing his lips to mine. I didn't hesitate to kiss him back.

He pulled away and pressed his forehead to mine. "Thanks for the help," he whispered.

"Anytime."

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 7

Moms, Meltdowns, and Mayhem

Hello and welcome back to Fabian’s worst nightmare, already in progress!

We rejoin the Bad Kids who have linked back up the next day and are on their way to the library of the city Leviathan--The Compass Point Library. On the way there, they see the Crow’s Keep burning but Fabian, assuming it has to do with what happened to him, tells everyone to leave it alone.

Adaine questions why Riz hasn’t had any nightmares (Riz: In a way, my life is a nightmare) and the whole group goes into another round of Shadowcat speculation. Is she protecting Riz from nightmares for some reason? Why can Tracker and Garthy suddenly see her in the picture despite not having seen her irl or had any weird dreams? Is she masquerading as someone else? 

Anyway, they reach the library which is the cool, cobbled together and largely stolen (to Fig’s delight) pirate-y library of Alexandria type place. They meet an old pirate wizard named Rollins with a book of pirate spells that Fig immediately wants to steal and Adaine wants to borrow (or steal, she’s flexible). They all sign up for Compass Point library cards and go up to the observatory to look for Ayda Aguefort. 

In the observatory, they find a huge orange-yellow bird on a perch and this is the part of the recap where I have to inform you that Aguefort had not only banged a phoenix, he somehow managed to procreate with it. Meet Ayda Aguefort, the half-phoenix (shout-out to the anon from last week who called Ayda as Aguefort’s daughter). She’s got wings and arms, bird legs, a plume of red fiery hair, and eyes which are basically just fire.

Fig thinks she’s the creature Aguefort made for her for reasons I cannot begin to fathom. She tries to feed her but Ayda rejects the food, not wishing to be in anyone’s debt. Ayda is kind of intense, abrupt, and anti-social when they meet her. She’s fully is about to fly away instead of helping until Fabian yells that Garthy sent them and Adaine remembers she has the letter from Garthy asking her to help them. After some back and forth, she agrees to give Adaine the spell (which will take 6 hours to learn) for 150 gold. But these are the Bad Kids so, of course, we have several tangents before the plot goes anywhere, during which we learn Ayda is a divination wizard (like Adaine), she asks if her father has talked about her (Fig successfully lies that he has), and Gorgug spouts out some fortune cookie nonsense (“What is a telescope but a spyglass pointed at the stars?”) that convinces Ayda that he could be the greatest wizard of their age (Adaine does a spit take and Fig is loving it).   

Adaine hits the books to learn the sending spell with Sandra-Lynn keeping watch while everyone else splits up suchly:

Fabian wants to go out to check on the Hangman but Kristen absolutely vetoes that. Buddy. System. Ragh agrees to go with him and she lays off. He tries to see what the damage on the Hangman is. Nat 1. As far as Fabian can tell, the Hangman is full dead. Not only that, Fabian is poor people sick which he isn’t used to at all. Ragh isn’t doing much better on the emotional front. He just started making progress with processing his emotions and now his mom might be dead. Saddest Hoot Growl ever (seriously, it’s heartbreaking). Cathilda comes in, loving as ever, with food and kind words and an old lullaby, but that’s not enough to stop Fabian from rolling another Nat 1 and gaining 2 levels of exhaustion (which means disadvantage on ability checks and speed halved). Lou, please burn those dice. 

Kristen and Riz are researching the Nightmare King. They go into a religious studies section of the library and (on a 20+ check from Riz) find texts about a temple to a forgotten god in Sylvere (the forest of the Nightmare King). The god is never named in any of the texts which Kristen finds weird. Riz decides to steal the book and is able to do it, despite Kristen’s “help”. Later, Kristen cross-refs Riz’s info with her world religions book and, on a dirty 20, she finds with frustration that there’s a lot of information but none of it really matches up. The fairies, treants, and especially the unicorns all had mysterious deities but none of them really match with the forgotten god. [Note: Last time we heard about unicorns was in episode one and we learned that the last time people saw the great unicorn was the last time the NK showed up.] At the same time, it seems like there are elements of the god in all five of the cultures in the forest. Adaine checks and there’s nothing magic with the book so it’s just the contents of the book that are weird, not the book itself. Kristen thinks there might be a connection to her weird dream about not being able to draw the face of her god. Adaine wonders if Kristen might have been worshipping this unnamed god by mistake. Gorgug wonders if the god is erasing themselves (a theory backed up late when they talk to Aguefort).  

Fig looks for information on cursed gems and (with a 19) she finds a good amount--no surprise in a pirate library. She finds a book called Breaking the Evil Eye in one of the forbidden sections and learns that it could be possible to planeshift into the gem, dispel magic from the inside and get rid of the trap, before breaking the original curse. She finds all of this out after she steals the book (disguised as Rollins). Planeshift is a level 7 spell though so Adaine has a while to go before she can learn it (she gets her first at level 13). 

Gorgug asks the real Rollins for books about cheering up a friend. He’s brought to a small, dusty section of the library. Gorgug rolls a nat 1 on an insight check and thinks that Rollins must be messing with him. Rollins is confused because he super wasn’t. Adaine takes a break and uses this pointless argument borne from misunderstanding to steal his book. Dirty 20. Rollins instantly skelatizes. She hastily puts the book back. He comes back Wrong and in incredible pain. He begs them to take the book out and Gorgug does. Adaine peaces out to finish studying, leaving Gorgug to deal with her mess. Gorgug decides to keep looking at the friendship books. Even on a 5, he finds a secret door into a HUGE friendship library. Guided by his library card, Gorgug finds a book called Cheer Up Me Hearties. When he gets out, Gilear is being accosted for killing Rollins, but Gorgug is able to get them to stand down. Gorgug Thistlespring, winning pirate hearts and minds. They take the book and Rollins’ bones to get him put back together.   

Adaine finishes up as Ayda comes to check on her. Ayda is about to make another quick exit but Adaine tries again to make friends with Ayda, this time by directly asking and offering to let her hold Boggy. Ayda is immediately obsessed with Boggy (and Adaine’s backpack terrarium AND the backpack she makes for him at Ayda’s suggestion) and extremely impressed with Adaine’s spellwork in manifesting Boggy. It’s a very cute scene and Adaine has made a useful ally. Ayda can’t believe she met the two greatest wizards of the age in one day. Wild. 

Everyone regroups to call Aguefort now that Adaine knows Sending. He sends them back some more powerful magic so he can talk for longer than the 25 word response. Think of it as magic Skype. He very casually tells them that Ragh’s house is a smoking crater and his mom is super dead. He takes far too long to follow up with the information that, a long time ago, he hid Lydia’s real body under the school, made a clone of her, and used the Magic Jar spell to basically hook up her consciousness to the clone body (which held a fake demon shard). The clone body is what got destroyed. Lydia’s real body and consciousness are fine. Way to bury the lede dude! Upon being asked, Arthur says that he used to remember the name of the god of the unicorn but he forgot. Suspicious and troubling. He and Fig also renew discussions on the creature she ordered but never paid for. He says the cheapest option is a pentacorn for 30k gold (which sounds like a unicorn w/ 5 horns and pretty useless but I refuse to get dragged into this insanity, I am just the messenger here).

Aguefort leaves to deal with the situation at home. Meanwhile, Gorgug notices smoke again but he also notices that it’s on the wrong side to be related to what happened to Fabian. After giving Fabian and Ragh oranges to prevent scurvy--a tip from the pirate friendship book--he brings it up to Fabian who thinks it’s probably Captain Wicklaw making a power play and they should probably stay out of it. What? says Adaine. Nah, we should fight him. Yeah, says Fig. You deserve revenge! Fabian just wants to lay low so they can get their C+. Adaine is not here for that C+ and she’s not here for Fabian’s concerning attitude shift. None of the Bad Kids are. However, the cast is very here for absolutely roasting Lou for all of his choices by having their respective characters inadvertently reference every bad thing that happened last episode. When Adaine suggests that Fabian might be cursed, Fabian finally haltingly comes out with the entire story (which Lou has to laugh-cry himself through in one of the best scenes of the episode) and everyone interjects with comments that they (out of character) know will just make Fabian’s storytelling even more uncomfortable. It’s a very wild combination of very emotional (in game) but deeply funny (out of game). Like:

Ally (who knows good and well that Chungledown Bim told Fabian he was gonna shit in his mouth): Did Chungledown Bim help you?

Zac (who also knows good and well that Chungledown Bim told Fabian he was gonna shit in his mouth): Chungledown Bim probably saved you.

Murph (yet another person who knows good and well that ChungledownBim told Fabian he was gonna shit in his mouth) You know what we should do? We should go see Chungledown Bim.        

Amazing. 

Fabian finishes his recounting of the 20 car pile-up that was last episode by repeating his earlier opinion that they shouldn’t go after Captain Wicklaw because it will just end with all of them dead. Kristen tries to slap him back to normal and tells him to lose the Gilear energy. Led by Gorgug and Adaine, the gang tells Fabian that being Bill Secaster’s son isn’t the only worthwhile thing about him (in fact, it’s pretty annoying). He’s worthwhile all on his own. Tracker chimes in and says that she thinks Fabian might have some issues with depression so maybe their well intentioned efforts to get Fabian to buck up weren’t the best way to handle things. Adaine and Riz are skeptical that Fabian is like, capital D, Depressed but Tracker sticks by her read on the situation. The group eventually decides to at least check out what’s going on with the smoke but before they arrive, an interlude:

As they walk to Crow’s Keep, Cathilda walks with Fabian and Cathilda starts dropping information about herself and about how her own children died before Fabian was born and about how she sees him as a son--though she’s tried to keep the proper professional distance. She comforts Fabian on his bad day and then her eyes go full Terminator and she mentally buts Wicklaw on her “People I Need to Murder Today” list (more on this later).

When they arrive at the place where the smoke is coming from, they find that the Ramble (kind of a pirate meetinghouse/Courthouse) has been burned down. Jemina Joy is there and she lets them know that Wicklaw asked what was necessary to become the new pirate king. He was told that all he needed to do was get the crown from the former pirate king (because respect for/fear of Bill was the only thing keeping there from being a new king). He just burned down the Ramble to be a dick. Adaine damn near gets her ass beat by Jemina by arguing politics with her (her point being that she wants to install Jemina as Pirate Queen while Jemina is like, “I just keep this place from sinking. Lay off.”) but Riz, mindful of the fact that this is a time sensitive situation, takes off to Gibbety Square where the pirate king’s crown is (and where Wicklaw is headed).

They make it to Brennan’s latest battle mechanic: The Row and the Ruction.

This is the crazy, pirate bicameral legislative system. The Row is a huge fistfight (no weapons allowed--or really they are allowed but everyone will gang up on you if you use them) at ground level. It’s always in session and has been for 150-ish years. Above that, is the Ruction which is a fight with full weapon and magic usage alone. The idea is that you need enough support on the ground in the Row so you can use them to get up in the Ruction. It’s a king of the hill situation up there and if you can hold your position up there for long enough, you can make laws. Got all that? Good. 

They get there just barely after Wicklaw and his men who haven’t yet entered the Row. Wicklaw starts talking mad trash to Fabian but his friends back him up. They give him back his sword, his eye-patch, and Kristen hits him with a Warding Bond (which means that he gets +1 to AC and saving throws if he stays close to her plus resistance to all damage and, more importantly, she takes all the damage he takes). Fig gives everyone Countercharm. And, to top it off, Cathilda shows up with in an all black, super-badass pirate uniform to say she’s gonna feed him his own freaking brains! Let’s goooooooo!

But, Wicklaw has some new allies as well. Three elves bamf in from Falinel (same people who Kristen felt scrying on them earlier) and they’re there to bring Adaine back, and it doesn’t seem like they’re gonna just ask nicely.   

Detention

Adaine for Unnecessary Theft and (Accidentally) Killing a Man 

Adaine was kind of on one this episode. Not only did she inadvertently kill* a man while stealing from him, Adaine also ghosted at the first sign of trouble, leaving Gorgug and Gilear to catch all the flak for her attempt at pulling a Fig. Bad form, girl!

*She probably didn’t technically kill him but she turned him into a skeleton and he called the pain upon reconstitution worse than death so let’s not quibble about the details. 

Honor Roll

Cathilda for Being a Badass Mom 

Oh man, oh man, oh man. 

I’ve low-key been waiting for Cathilda to go full pirate since we learned that was an option and especially since Fabian got attacked because it was a pretty safe bet that was going to be her berserk button and boy did she deliver.

When did she have the time for a costume change? Is she that stealthy? Did she magic it on? Or did she just manifest the outfit on the power of her rage alone?

The scene where she says Wicklaw is gonna pay? Chills. Not only pledging to eat your enemy’s brains but also saying you’re going to feed him his own brains and describing exactly how you’ll serve it? So raw. 

But I also have to shout out the non-murderous mom stuff she did this ep. The little talk she gave Fabian about no one being defined by their worst day was very sweet and good advice out of game too. 

But honorable mention to Gorgug for being an absolute sweetheart all episode. Zac’s improv about pirates giving their friends oranges to prevent scurvy bodied me.  

Random Thoughts

Some very useful posts from @jamiebluewind: Character Descriptions, Location Descriptions, Transcripts of Cathilda’s speeches from this ep. 

During the initial discussion with Collins, we learn that the transmutation exchange rate is 50 Parrots=10 Bananas=1 Gold. How are bananas more complex than parrots?

Adaine: May we steal books?

Her later actions aside, I think it’s funny that Adaine’s first move is basically always to sweetly ask for what she wants and Fig’s first move is, “Gotta steal that book!” Adaine is like the most polite person in the group but also ready to fight 100% of the time. The role reversal in the Jemina scene where Fig was the one who asked an on point question and Adaine was the one who made it almost spiral into an actual fight was great.

I was just saying this re: Harry Potter in a different context but clearly marked but not blocked off forbidden sections of libraries are more a dare than a deterrent. 

Fig as a horned parrot (done by Rollins for trying to steal his book) is adorable. Please somebody draw that.

I love that when they see the bird that turns out to be Ayda and Murph is like, “I don’t think that’s a bird,” Zac is like, “Yeah, Gorgug doesn’t know that.” Zac (like Travis as Grog in CritRole) has a real talent for playing dumb while actually being really smart.

“My principal scammed me?”

Brennan truly did not have to follow through on Aguefort saying he slept with a bird. He really, really did not have to but he was like, “Nope! I said it so it’s happening! This is happening!” I really wish you guys could have seen my face as I realized in real time that the madman was actually doing that. 

Adaine to Fig who thinks Ayda is her creature: This is a full person.

“I like school.”/“You would.”

Lol at Fig trying to draw parallels between Ayda’s prickliness and her own behavior and getting absolutely shut down. “I think people think you’re really tender.” The running thing of Fig’s perception of herself as this standoffish loner being constantly reality checked by literally everyone she knows being like, “You tell us you love us literally every day,” is one of my favorite group dynamics. It’s even funnier because, besides probably Adaine and Fabian, the rest of the Bad Kids probably knew Fig (or at least had seen her around) before she started going through her emo phase. So they totally remember her in 8th grade wearing preppy clothes and carrying a unicorn backpack and listening to Fantasy Taylor Swift and all that.   

All ep they were calling Kalina a cat and I was thinking, “I feel like—in game—that’s gotta be offensive.” And then Aguefort straight said it. Wild for it to come from him since he’s the craziest person ever but I’m glad it came up.

“You seem simple to me.”/“Thank God.”

Aww at Ayda asking if Aguefort ever talks about her. Brennan, you gotta stop putting little emotional traps into otherwise funny scenes. I can only handle so much!

The gang did some experimentation with the photo in this ep with these results: Ayda and Aguefort both couldn’t see Kalina in the picture. They also took a picture of the picture but that picture had the same properties as the original picture. Weeping Angel rules I guess. 

There’s speculation in this episode about why Riz isn’t having nightmares. I have another question kinda on that topic. In episode 2/3, we see the lie/mirror/Baron thing that happened with Riz. And that was for sure super nightmarish. But it doesn’t match what happened to Adaine and Fabian. Both of them seem to have had more ephemeral experiences that quickly vanished. And they weren’t borne from lies so much as fears. Riz’s monster came from a direct lie and it didn’t seem to be a nightmare. It came out of the mirror and attacked not only him but his friends later. No one saw Fabian or Adaine’s nightmares besides them (although, that could just be because they got away). And no other lie-monsters have showed up as far as we know. I’m just wondering if there’s maybe something else going on or if it was a different NK follower who did that or just a different power of the same dude. Just something I wanted to note because it’s been bugging me a little and no one’s brought it up yet. 

Cool quirk of the sending spell Adaine learned: Because it was modified by pirates, curse words don’t count towards the 25 word limit. What I immediately thought (and what Aguefort actually ended up doing more or less) was that you could easily send very long messages with, say, Morse code. Just designate one curse as a dot, one as a dash, and one as a space, and you’re good to go. It’d be slow, but totally workable. 

Also, after watching Laura as Jester absolutely flying by the seat of her pants with every sending spell, it was wild to see the group take the time to carefully craft the perfect message. 

I said two recaps ago that I wouldn’t be surprised if Gorgug multiclassed into a casting class soon and boy do I hope this episode means he’s gonna do it for real. Adaine’s total disbelief at Ayda’s interest in Gorgug’s wizarding potential was sending me.

Oh also. Ayda has forbidden Gorgug from reading any wizarding books so he doesn’t lose is totally uncomplicated mind. I guess he’s supposed to learn everything the savant way? Imagine Adaine diligently studying her wizard books, trying to master some complicated spell and Gorgug is like, “I woke up and I guess I can use Mage Hand now? Neat.” Absolutely maddening. 

Besides Cathilda, Gorgug was the MVP in this episode. Dude has a knack for making friends that I think will eventually pay dividends. 

Also, speaking of, everything Brennan said during the secret shelf section was so good as to sound planned, however, how could you predict that that was a thing a player was going to ask to find? Brennan is just always 7 seconds of prep time away from giving an elaborate and super specifically themed speech about friendship I guess.  

Big ups to Kristen for not letting Fabian go off by himself again. Like, for the sake of the party of course but also the, “We almost lost you,” was sweet. She also helped buff him going into the coming fight with Warding Bond that means she takes all the damage he takes. I am SO glad they brought another healer with them because that’s such a risky move. Kristen is a LOT but she’s also very ride or die and all heart. I really love that the last time she used this spell it was on Gilear for a joke and now it’s getting used seriously. It’s a perfect establish existence of power to audience/bring back at plot relevant time setup. Improv storytelling is so inexplicably good. 

Technically, to cast Warding Bond, you’re supposed to have matching rings with the person you’re casting it on so imagine Kristen blinged out with a ring for each party member and each of them having a corresponding one in case she needs to cast it on them.  

Little bit concerned that Tracker still doesn’t know about Sandra-Lynn/Garthy. The longer it takes for her to find out, the higher the chance it blows up and becomes a Thing.

Fig: *Meandering philosophical question about why Ayda watches the stars*/Ayda: I study it so I can know where this big city is floating.

RIP to the Hangman. I don’t think he’s gone for good but it seems like he is for now. On my first watch, I thought that, on a 1, Fabian just fully thinks that the Hangman is gone but, the second time it seemed more like he’s just dead. Now, I’m not Brennan, but if I was in this situation, you know what I would do? I would have someone save the Hangman’s soul (or whatever he has instead of a soul) and store it in the Hangvan temporarily. Imagine how much he’d hate that. It’s full of potential for “roommate” shenanigans. 

Is there anything stopping them from just, ramming the Row with the Hangvan? Like, I know it’ll get them ganged up on, but will they be able to do much against a full van?

Also, if/when they hold the Ruction, I wonder what law they’re going to try and make. They didn’t really go in with a plan (understandable under the time pressure) so they’re really gonna have to improvise something on the fly. 

Also, I’m assuming Fabian stabbed the Hangman while he was asleep? I don’t think we were ever shown that scene, but Fabian must have been under some kind of compulsion since he woke up in the river (and the same happened to Ragh). 

Aguefort casually mentions that he has many children and this episode proves that Brennan can and will back up every single crazy thing that comes out of his mouth, so I’m excited to see if there is a single Aguefort out there that isn’t crazy.

Oh, also, the acknowledgement that occasionally that phoenix is a child is appreciated because that was def a question I was going to ask. Squicky to say the least but I guess that’s how phoenixes work so what are you gonna do?

Ally needing to roll a 10, rolling, being happy, checking Kristen’s modifier, and realizing it’s a negative 3 for a total of 9 is peak D&D.

Fig as Rollins: Look at how fast I can run!

I love Fig thinking Adaine could plausibly have 7 level spells. She’s like, idk bro. She’s the eleven oracle. She cares about school. She could know this too. Who knows? Certainly not Fig who thought she could buy wizard spells to use as a bard.

“Please speak more enthusiastically on my behalf.”

“It’s my brain guys.”

Fig mind controls Gilear into believing in himself and he fails his save. I wonder if this is could be valid therapy technique in this world. 

Aguefort mentions that a Wish spell can destroy a Magic Jar just fyi. That makes 3 pretty high level spells mentioned in this ep. Magic Jar is 6th level. Planeshift is 7th level. And Wish, basically the strongest spell in the game, is 9th level. We’re starting to deal with some serious magical mojo.

The whole thing with people in pictures that not everyone can see and memories that you know you once had but don’t anymore and information that should exist but doesn’t is hitting a very specific storytelling sweet spot for me. 

This is a little meta-gamey to be thinking about but I’m kinda wondering, why sideline Gorthalax? Obviously, it’s a good plot hook for Fig and that might be all it is. But I’m lowkey wondering is there something Gorthalax knows or can do that would solve the plot in 30 seconds if he was around? Like, was he roommates with the Nightmare King in hell or something?

Kristen finds it weird that the god’s name isn’t written anywhere but I’m sure that’s gotta be fairly common. Or at least not unheard of. Like, I know in Judaism you’re not supposed to do that. Anyway, watch the great unicorn be the Nightmare King just for the Nightmare/Night Mare pun.

Adaine being on brand no matter the situation: Everybody shut up I have to do my homework!

The, “Do you want a friend?”/“Desperately.” interaction killed me. 

“I don’t have any wizard friends.”/“I’m a wizard.”/(beat)/“I don’t have any wizard friends.”

Arthur cloned a woman, forgot to tell her, and then straight forgot. So business as usual from him. 

Fabian’s, “Nooooooo,” with the rising intonation every time someone made an assumption during his story and he had to correct him was amazing. Also, “He told me he was going to shit in my mouuuuwth.”

Ragh, Fig, and Adaine all crying about their parental issues at the same time. This has been, like, the longest week ever. I wonder if the 7 Maidens are unpacking this much trauma on their quest.

“Absolutely timbered.”

Lol at Brennan dropping the cool pirate sending spell “curses don’t count” detail and then being told from off camera that he needs to keep it PG-13. But then Cathilda needed to go beast mode so, like, what can you do?

Another cool worldbuilding detail is pirate clerics just keep shrines to every deity they’ve come into contact with to hedge their bets like Beni from The Mummy.

I know Lydia was attacked on orders from Kalina but I wonder if they knew about/had plans for the demon shard too. 

When Emily said she disguised herself as Rollins, I fully thought she was going to walk out the door the real Rollins was guarding and not go out the back door like she did. The idea of a back door didn’t even occur to me. I just thought we were in for some classic Axford insanity. 

Riz: You’ve gotta get better at talking to kids.

Riz: This is real Gilear energy.

Kristen: We brought one Gilear. We don’t wanna make that mistake twice.

Everything that happened with Fabian was really funny because there’s nothing I love more in D&D than players having a good time dunking on each other but, in game, Fabian is really going through it. Fabian low key has mom friend energy so to almost die and then for all of his friends to jump into the exact fight that almost killed him (including taunting the dude! Adaine!) against his advice must be giving him a level of anxiety and dread that I don’t even have the words to describe. Like, now is not the time for him to digging into that because things are life or death. Gotta save your life before you can fix it. But he def needs to at some point. Too bad Jawbone’s not around for a quick mid-battle therapy sesh like he had with Adaine during prom.   

Tracker suggested that Fabian might be depressed. I’m not an expert on depression. He could be depressed and, in any case, he definitely needs to see a therapist for a Lot of reasons. But having a breakdown because you saw 14 people die, almost died yourself, and were told that a man wanted to shit in your mouth less than 24 hours ago seems less like a sign of depression and more like the only rational human reaction.

Adaine calls the above, “a vaguely mediocre day”. Michael Scott Voice: Adaine you ignorant slut.

Also Adaine: You got that bike because you won it fair and square because we killed a lot of people.

This is the second time Adaine has said that Fabian’s lineage is actually the most annoying thing about him and these are the kind of tiny continuity details I live for.

Semi-relatedly, Fabian’s relationship with his parents v. Adaine’s relationship with hers is endlessly fascinating to me. Because they have such similar backgrounds but coming from, like, opposite directions of the same spectrum, you know? Can’t wait for those sweet, sweet parallels as we jump into her trauma! (What is D&D but group therapy interspaced with murder?)  

Speaking of Adaine’s trauma, it looks like we’ll be getting to it very soon as those FBI Falinel operatives have shown up to force her (and the plot) back to Falinel. This is Concerning to me for two reasons. First off, remember the Aelwyn fight from season 1? Remember how annoying that was? Now imagine that times three and also 2 separate pirate brawls are happening. That sounds like a Bad Time for our kids. They’ve leveled up some and they’ve been known to make some very clutch battle decisions, but this is gonna be tough any way you slice it. This is like two entirely separate encounters at the same time. A small good point: I looked up the language for teleportation and it can only be used to transport a willing creature. So they can’t just bum rush her and poof out. But they could give her an ultimatum to make her agree. The second reason this Concerns me is that Adaine high key doesn’t want to work with/for Falinel and they know this. The fact that they’ve resorted to kidnapping (fun international law fact: when a government kidnaps someone, it’s called rendition) tells me that they’re done playing nice which opens up two options to them they might not have otherwise used. They could coerce Adaine’s consent to be their oracle by threatening her life/her friends’ lives. Or, more troubling, they could just kill her. I mean, she became the elven oracle when the old one died, right? So, if she died, someone else would get the job. Probably someone less troublesome to deal with. I doubt they’re gonna go straight for that because they seem to want her alive, at least for now. But it is a concern. 

Of course, we’re assuming that what’s happening on the face of this is the whole story, but that’s not necessarily true. Iirc, all we heard was that they found the oracle and they were gonna bring her back to Falinel. For all we know, the elves could be working for Adaine’s mom. Of Adaine’s mom could be working with Falinel. Or she could be working with Falinel just as a way to get to her daughter. We really don’t know. The last person on this show that got kidnapped was Fabian and that was a friendly kidnapping. Anything is possible. 

Something that struck me as a possibility: This fight seems like it’s gonna suck. There is a world where the ideal move for Adaine is to pull an Evy (from the Mummy--two Mummy refs in one recap, did not plan that, I just love the Mummy) and agree to go with the Falinel elves if they help them instead (or at least stop helping Wicklaw) with the faith that her friends will come rescue her. I doubt they actually care much about what happens in the government of this pirate junk city. I’m curious about how they ended up together anyway. I’m guessing the elves clued into what was going on while scrying on the group and decided an alliance might be useful.

Brennan about both Ally’s Applebees Reference and Fig using a Leviathan phonebook: That is nothing.

Shoutout to Fruzzinoid in the chat who said Ally’s alignment is chaotic-chaotic. Accurate.

I love the laughing-squawk that Brennan does for Ayda as much as I hate the fact that he made the Choice to spell it that way.

Truly, the entire scene where Lou is recapping the fight from last episode and he’s laughing uncontrollably but Fabian is clearly crying and he’s expressing both of those things simultaneously is beautiful. 

A Fabian line that really hit but that I haven’t mentioned yet: “I probably have one follower running around. Never mind he’s my father’s just like everything else I have.” Ow. Such a deep cut but so off the cuff from Lou. As a writer, this show makes me so mad because that’s such a good line of dialogue that Lou just dropped out of his mouth like it was nothing. How dare he? 

Another good line I didn’t mention before, this tie from Riz: “We all draw strength from each other. You went in without your crew. What’s a pirate without his crew?” Ugh, Murph. Who gave you the right?

This episode has made me extremely curious about what Cathilda thinks about Hilariel. Because she sees herself as Fabian’s mom--which she essentially has been in a lot of the ways that count since Hilariel has been mentally out to lunch for the past however many years. To be clear, I do think Hilariel loves Fabian. She just hasn’t really been present even though she’s been literally present. The way Cathilda phrased some of the things she said and the way she seems to talk about Fabian’s dad so much more than his mom makes me wonder if she doesn’t...resent isn’t the right word exactly. Maybe, disapprove? It makes me wonder if she doesn’t disapprove of Hilariel’s parenting choices more than she lets on. 

Kristen’s, “Do you listen to music?” in the middle of actually useful questions for Ayda. 

Rich people sicknesses include having eaten too much caviar or smoked a cigar for too long in case you’re wondering.

“You want an orange, pal?”

On a practical note, we have two more episodes to go until the show breaks for the year so prepare yourselves from now people!

Riz, Adaine, and Gorgug each rolled one Nat 20 apiece. Fig, Gorgug, and Adaine each rolled a Nat 1 (but Adaine presumably cancelled out hers rolling with advantage because of Boggy). Fabian, who is still living his worst life, rolled three Nat 1s. Tragic.  

[callmemythicalminx]

Musical Review: Dear Evan Hansen

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So. I finally succumbed and watched Dear Evan Hansen. I felt at least that it deserved a watch if only for the music as it’s been praised and achieved such great acclaim. And for the most part, I can see why. The songs are catchy and memorable and I found myself enjoying Sincerely, Me more than I thought I would. Requiem is beautiful and You Will Be Found packs an emotional Act 1 finish if you were to listen to it without context. If this were another show, I probably would have cried during most of these songs. Throughout the show, I found myself quite detached from the music. The reason why? The story. The characters. The message of the whole show- It ruined what could have been a great representation of mental health and suicide in a musical.

The story starts off with our awkward and only slightly memorable main character, Evan, preparing to start his first day of Senior Year. We’re introduced to him as he types himself a letter, an assignment given to him by his therapist who is forgotten about once the show gets going. He has social anxiety, stumbling over his words and panicking about what could be, as he fiddles with his broken arm and feet. As someone who has experienced many forms of anxiety myself, I connected with this fear immediately- this, however, didn’t last for long. We meet his mother Heidi, who brings the audience more information on just how scared Evan is of people, that he can’t even order food out of fear of talking to the delivery man. Once again, another situation which I relate too. Heidi is one of those stereotypical parents used in shows, who works too much, isn’t really as close to the kid as they think they are and is, of course, separated from the other parent. She sings her struggles after pushing Evan to get his fellow students to sign his cast to make friends and then we move to the other important household of this story, the Murphy’s.

We meet another stereotypical family, a mother who’s trying, a father who’s present but miles away, and the kids who hate each other. Connor is our next big character though he’s reduced to just a prop essentially after 10 minutes. He’s a loner and an aggressive bully to everyone around him, getting high and ignoring his parents. He and his sister Zoe argue, while his parents do the same. Cynthia, the mother, sings about her struggles and then the show continues. Evan interacts with two new characters at school, Jared (a douchey family friend) and Alana (a self-absorbed classmate). They both notice his arm in a cast but don’t sign it. Connor then comes along and in a fit of rage, thinks Evan is making fun of him and pushes him over. Zoe sees and apologises for her brother’s behaviour. After singing about how miserable the rest of his life will be if it continues this way, Evan then writes another letter about how bad the day was. It focuses on Zoe quite a bit as he has a crush on her and it’s the only thing making him happy. Connor comes in then and signs Evan’s cast in giant letters, before finding a printout of the letter than has just been written. He immediately gets angry again and storms of with the letter, thinking Evan was once again making fun of him. The cast and letter now become huge props in the story.

The story continues as we find out Connor has committed suicide and Evan’s note was found with him. The Murphy parents believe it’s their son’s suicide note and now think he and Evan were best friends, further seeing proof of this when they see their son’s name on his cast. Our main character tells them it’s true and kickstarts a seemingly neverending cannon of lies in an attempt to help the family with their grieving. Throughout most of the show, he then tells them more lies about what they did, the places they visited, including specific detail on an apple orchard where they spent time together. He enlists the help of Jared and Alana to help him write fake emails from Connor to himself and further build his web of lies. This eventually leads to the creation of The Connor Project, a kind of charity to keep his name and ‘story’ alive, raising money to reopen the apple orchard. During this time, he’s distanced himself from his mother, instead now enjoying the attention he gets from the Murphy’s and Zoe, who is a weird romance becomes his girlfriend. The character of Connor has now become nothing more than a prop for use in the show, though his actor still shows up after his death. Instead of continuing the character though, he’s now become a figment of Evan’s imagination, a version of Connor that has been made up and is nothing like the one before. Though the show’s story follows the idea of not being forgotten and keeping his story of suicide alive, in actual fact, it’s just being erased as everything that he was is replaced with lies.

Eventually, as the Murphy’s begin to suffer the consequences of Evan’s actions receiving online hate, he finally reveals that everything was a lie and that he and Connor were never friends. At this point, I was expecting the punishment for his actions to be huge- but there was nothing! He sings once more about his miserable life while the family turn on him in disgust. He and his mother then forgive each other for both of their wrongdoings after revealing more information that doesn’t make much difference to anything and then everything is fine. The show finishes with Evan and Zoe talking one last time at the apple orchard, where he thanks her for keeping the secret of his lies and she responds that it brought their family together. After she’s gone, Evan writes a final mental note talking about the impact he’s had and that he’s finally accepted himself… and that’s the end!

What in the hell was that? It’s not often that I get to the end of a show and think to myself ‘what just happened?’. I took nothing away from this story or the characters. There wasn’t a single thing in the musical that I liked, apart from the music. Most of the characters were bland and stereotypical in personality and the others had no redeemable qualities to make them interesting or likeable. First and foremost, I dislike Evan… a lot. The character’s bad representation of social anxiety doesn’t excuse his manipulative and awful actions to get himself more attention. His romance with Zoe feels forced and almost predatory in a way as he used her grieving, emotional vulnerability to get close to her. He suffers no consequences for his actions, though they had a tremendously bad effect, yet the show pushes the audience to think that they somehow created positive change towards the communities view of suicide. Because of his lies, an entire boys life was erased and fabricated into something else. His family ended up receiving copious amounts of hate online ‘for not looking after their son’ which you would think would lead them to reveal the truth about Evan’s deceit- but nope, ‘it brought them closer together’! The apple orchard reopens yet that feels uncomfortable as it was funded by the charity of people believing the manipulative lies of one teenager.

What is the message of this show? What am I supposed to take away from it? ‘You Will Be Found’ could have been such a powerful song in a different show, one that uses the theme of mental health in a proper way. I detest the fact that Connor’s suicide simply becomes a plot device and is overlooked as Evan spreads his lies. We never find out why he killed himself, which further makes his character’s erasement more annoying and stupid. I think the show definitely believes it’s being progressive by discussing these themes of mental health, but it’s just using them. Instead of showing something beautiful, to show no one with mental illness is ever truly alone, the show instead feels cold. Evan, Jared and Alana all seem to use Connor’s suicide to advance their own selfish reasons. After the damage is done and Evan moves on, the Murph’s are left to continue picking up the pieces, lying about a fake version of Connor. I would have loved to see more of his character, see the reasoning for his suicide. We saw from his short time on stage that he was angry, abusive and aggressive but this is never explained why.

The story could have been so much better if while Evan spins his web lies, he ends up finding out more about Connor and his own mental health issues, maybe through a diary or something similar to Evan’s letters. Our main character could have then realised that others feel the way he does and what he was doing was wrong. He could then understand that suicide is never the right answer and that he’s not alone. He could have suffered real consequences before telling the world about the real Connor and what they should learn from him. Instead the show tried to push this positive ‘you are not alone’ message from a false version of a character, made up by someone who is manipulative and selfish.

I know I’m one of few who dislike the show and that I’ve been very harsh with it, which is completely understandable. Everyone has different opinions, which is why I love being part of different fandoms so much. I really thought I’d relate to it after suffering through school with mental health issues myself but it just made me angry. I’ve always thought that especially nowadays, suicide and anxiety are always portrayed unrealistically in entertainment and media. There are very few things I can think of that do it well. A musical with a powerful message and story like the one I described could have been amazing, especially as love for musical theatre continues to grow. Instead, Dear Evan Hansen fails to represent even realistic mental health issues, never mind anything positive to help deal with it.   I just can’t like this show now after seeing how badly it portrays these themes, especially male suicide and anxiety. In our modern society, it’s still a huge problem and a show that could have been there for young teenage boys who deal with these issues could have been incredible. Teaching them that suicide isn’t the answer and there is always someone who can help you would have been not only great to see, but revolutionary in getting people to discuss this complicated and emotional subject. But instead, we got this story. As I said, the music is exceptional and, if you didn’t know the context, could be super useful in helping you feel less alone. The story and characters ruin this positive idea though, instead using mental health as cheap prop for a terrible story and characters.

🌟 🌟 /5

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Hope in Change - Part Three

Part One, Part Two

Murtagh insisted they wait for a while after Roger left the inn to return to the ship. The innkeeper gave Murtagh a signal when Bonnet’s view of their back corner table was conveniently obstructed and the three of them slipped out the back where several of the Regulators were waiting to help with Brianna and Lizzie’s things.

“Where are we going?” Brianna hissed as she followed Murtagh, easily keeping pace. “And who are these men?”

“We’re goin’ to the house of a friend,” Murtagh responded vaguely. “That’s all ye need know until we get there and I have a chance to speak wi’ him and several other acquaintances. Glad as I am to see ye, Bonnet’s interest in ye and yer lad makes me uneasy and I need to change some of my plans to keep ye from bein’ entrusted entirely to strangers.”

Upon reaching their destination, the lady of the house ushered Brianna and Lizzie into her parlor for a cup of tea and polite conversation. Brianna frowned at Murtagh, fully aware and indignant at being excluded from whatever his business might be.

The three men who’d accompanied them from the inn, keeping their distance as best they could to remain inconspicuous, gathered in the kitchen doorway smoking their pipes and casually watching the road.

“Ye’re no goin’ to cancel the raid tonight, are ye man?” the youngest of the three asked.

“We’ll no get a chance like this again,” Murtagh said shaking his head. “It goes forward as planned but I’ll need someone to go in my place.”

“Who’s the lass to ye that she can make ye miss it?” one of the others pressed.

“She’s family and I’ll no leave her till I deliver her safe to her parents’ keeping,” Murtagh explained. “I’ll wait here for word from Abercrombie about the raid. Tomorrow I’ll leave wi’ her and it’ll no be but a few days before I can circle round again to help wi’ distribution. If anyone needs hidin’... I’m sure my forge is bein’ watched but there’s a sympathetic house or two I can get folk inside if there’s need.”

“I’ll take yer place at the head of matters,” the third man asserted. “Abercrombie and the others’ll heed me well enough.”

Murtagh looked to the other two men but both nodded their agreement.

“Then ye’d best get to it, lads,” Murtagh said with a sly grin. “T’would be rude to keep the taxmen waiting.”

The trio disappeared into the night and Murtagh reluctantly turned back to the warmth of the kitchen. Even if his body rejoiced that he wouldn’t be crouching in the cool and damp evening, another part of him itched to take his place leading the raid. Being left behind made him feel… old.

At last he closed the door and turned to find Brianna standing in the entrance to the parlor, watching him closely like she was deciding whether or not to trust him. Too late given she was in one of the Regulators’ safe houses and was under the protection of one of the group’s key leaders.

“Is there somethin’ ye’d like to say, lass?”

Her face softened and she took a few steps into the kitchen. “It’s just… Mama talked about you after she told me about Jamie. She didn’t say much—not as much as she did about Jamie. It’s strange… meeting you now and trying to make it all fit. I didn’t get to spend much time at Lallybroch and Jenny was away. Uncle Ian was… pretty much what I’d expected. But you…”

“A lot can change in twenty years,” Murtagh admitted with a sigh. “Especially when ye’ve been through what I have. I’m no discountin’ what they endured at Lallybroch… But I’ve been captured, imprisoned, shipped across an ocean and indentured, learned a new trade and built a business for myself… I lost many… many friends. Yer mam was one of the for a long time, and yer da… When they separated him from the rest of us when they closed Ardsmuir, I thought they were takin’ him to hang him and that it was the last I’d see him on this earth.”

“Do you think… Are they happy?” Brianna asked. “They’re… together, I know, but is it—are they—like they were before? It was one of the things Mama worried about before she came back.”

Murtagh took one of the chairs from the table and set it near the hearth, then watched as Brianna followed suit.

“Yes and no. I do think they’re happy, but no, it’s no in the same way as before. How could it be wi’ the time and all that passed? Ye’re no the same as ye were twenty years past, are ye?”

Brianna looked worried. “He still loves her though, doesn’t he? I know he left… I know he had a different wife before Mama came back and he chose Mama…”

“Well, tha’s one thing hasna changed—there’s no choice about it, for either of ‘em,” Murtagh chuckled. “It’s funny, what loss can do to ye… It can make ye reckless, make ye ruthless. And then getting back what ye’d thought lost… Makes ye doubly fearful, doubly cautious. Ye ken better then, how much ye took what ye had for granted and ye swear ye willna do the same again for fear ye’ll suffer again the pain ye dinna ken how ye survived before.”

Murtagh looked up to see Brianna staring at him intently. The attention brought heat to his cheeks and he looked away, into the fire.

“What was Mama like?” Brianna asked, her voice quiet. “When she finally told me about Jamie, it was like she became a completely different person. I… didn’t recognize her. Or at least, not all the time. Sometimes she reminded me of how she was with Daddy and the way there was always this… thing, between them. But what she said they did—you did… Meeting royalty and dining at Versailles…”

Murtagh choked on a laugh. “They wore so much powder in their hair ye couldna help breathin’ it in and feelin’ like ye had mud stuck in yer lungs and coatin’ yer nose. And tha’s nothin’ compared to what some of them wore—or neglected to wear… Yer mam didna go in for much of that—couldna to an extent wi’ her condition…” He stopped suddenly and looked to Brianna.

“I know about Faith,” she informed him. “She didn’t say much, but I know…” She cut herself off and shook her head. “I still can’t believe she lied to me for all those years—she and Daddy. I had a right to know.”

“And what about them and their rights?” Murtagh challenged her, albeit gently. “Did yer mam no have a right to her pain? To her grief? When all ye have is memories and hopes, ye guard them. Sharin’ them wi’ those what can’t appreciate them… When tha’s all ye have…” He narrowed his eyes at her. “And what of you? Do ye expect me to believe ye dinna have secrets of yer own? If I asked ye to tell me all that had ever passed between you and yer man from earlier, would ye no keep some of it back or shy from tellin’ a word of it? I didna think so,” he said with satisfaction as she shifted uncomfortably in her chair and wrapped her arms tighter around herself.

“Do I get to ask what it is you and your men are up to tonight? Or is that something you’re going to keep back?” Brianna countered.

“Wi’ the likes of you and yer mam, any time I think to talk of what I’m about, I have to decide is it somethin’ I want to ken how it’ll turn out,” Murtagh mused but Brianna remained silent. “She’s told me of the war to come, but she didna ken anything about the present conflict many good citizens of North Carolina have wi’ our esteemed governor. There’s a group of us objects to the current tax system and how it functions.”

“And you’re going to strike against the governor tonight,” Brianna guessed.

“I’m stayin’ put here waiting,” Murtagh reminded her. “But aye, there promises to be trouble tonight, though wi’ a bit of luck it’ll all be on Tryon’s side.”

Brianna didn’t push for further details and they slipped into an easy silence, both watching the flames in the hearth as they danced and mesmerized.

They must have dozed for when a fervent knocking pulled them back to general awareness, there was barely more than embers left.

The younger man from earlier was out of breath.

“Ye must come quick. There’s a man came to warn us off the raid just as the wagon were comin’ down the road. He said it was a trap and MacMurphy took him as a prisoner.”

Murtagh moved to stand too quickly and had to shake his head to wake himself up fully.

“Did ye get—”

“Didna make our move,” the young man interrupted. “Murph said we ought to be safe rather than sorry and called it off. He’s got the fellow waitin’ for ye to see do ye think he’s one of Tryon’s spies or if ye believe his tale of having been sent to warn ye.”

As Murtagh moved to follow his comrade to whatever room the thwarted raiding party was holding their prisoner, Brianna made to join them.

“You said you weren’t going to let me out of your sight till you delivered me safely to my parents,” Brianna reminded him. “So, I’m coming with you.”

With apparently no time to be lost, Murtagh yielded and held the door for Brianna.

[set-phasers-to-whump]

whumptober day 18

prompt: muffled scream

whumpee: harry dresden (idk if anyone really whumps him but whatever this is for ME)

fandom: the dresden files

apologies if this sounds a little weird, the books are written in first person but i cant stand writing in first person so it’s different (also i know there are probably not any forests in chicago just pretend this is on the edge of town or smthn) (this isn’t super good or probably very accurate to the books but i haven’t read them in a hot second sorry)

Harry, Karrin, and Thomas sprinted through the woods. Shit, this had gone bad fast! What was meant to be a simple confrontation with a man using magic for less-than-desirable purposes had quickly gone off the rails.

It was supposed to be easy. Murphy had caught wind of something fishy going on through a somewhat unreliable source, so she had passed the information on to Harry and Thomas, to see if they could confirm it.

And they could-Thomas had heard of the man-his name was James Lawless, a forty-seven year old banker with too much time on his hands and too many books of magic in his library.

So the three of them had assembled a quick effort to bring him down. What could one middle-aged man possibly have up against a wizard, a cop, and a vampire? 

Drones. Fuckin’ drones were what he had, apparently. Three of them, one for each member of this unfortunate party. 

There was quite a bit of magic at play here-not only were the drones functioning perfectly fine, they were firing bursts of electricity while staying on speed with the group. In the part of his mind that wasn’t tied up with fleeing, Harry realised they’d severely underestimated Lawless. If only there was something I could do, he thought, but nobody had time to turn around and take down a drone-they were too close, there wasn’t enough cover-and suddenly, there was. 

A little log cabin stood in the distance. The lights were all off, but it had a roof and at least one wall (presumably more), so Thomas pointed it out.

“Yeah, I see it!” Murphy yelled back, dodging out of the way of a bolt of electricity. “Hurry up!”

The three of them ran even faster, Thomas completely outstripping the human members of the group. Harry and Karrin ran harder still, as Thomas’ drone sped up to catch him. Murphy pulled ahead for a second, leaping over an exposed root and ducking under a low-hanging branch, then barely dodging yet another electric bolt. 

Harry, who had been slightly caught up in attempting to call up some magic, wasn’t so lucky as to notice the root. His foot caught on it, and he fell to the ground before he at all realised what was going on. 

He stumbled to his feet quickly, ducking the branch and forgoing all attempts at fighting back-he could do that from the safety of the cabin. 

Mercifully, the three of them all crashed through the door without being electrocuted. The voice of Lawless came through one of the drones from outside. “You think a couple wooden walls can stop me?”

“Shit! Fuck! The chimney!” Harry shouted. 

As he spoke, one of the drones came shooting out of the fireplace, letting loose a stream of electricity. This time, however, Harry was prepared. He aimed his staff at it and snarled, “Forzare!” 

The drone went up in smoke as another one came down through the chimney. Murphy took care of this one, grabbing her gun and shooting it until it clattered to the ground. Thomas shot down the remaining drone. 

The trio looked at each other. “Okay. Okay. What’s the plan now? We’ve gotta stop him,” said Murphy. 

“What if he’s got more drones?” Thomas pointed out. 

“Well, we can’t just leave,” Karrin argued. 

“I may have an idea,” Harry chimed in. “If there’s any service out here.”

There was, fortunately. (Luckily they weren’t too far from town). 

“Yo. Billy. I need a favour from you.”

Billy came through, and soon the three of them were on their way back to Lawless’ remote hideout, assured that there were no more drones waiting for them.

Without his drones, Lawless wasn’t nearly so confident. He tried his best, of course. He used every spell he knew (which was not a lot). Harry knocked him back with a blast of wind, Thomas kicked aside the flimsy wand he’d been using to try to channel magic, sending it flying down the stairs, and Murphy trained her gun on him and pronounced him under arrest.

And then it was over.

And then it wasn’t, and Lawless struggled his way out of Murphy’s iron grasp and shoved his way forward, into Harry, who, completely unprepared, went tumbling down the stairs. Lawless scampered away, racing out the open front door as Murphy and Thomas raced down the stairs. 

Harry staggered to his feet and moved to pick up his dropped staff-and found he couldn’t. 

“Harry?”

He turned to look at Karrin.

“Harry, your arm is dislocated. I can see it even through your duster.”

He turned back around, picking up his staff with his left hand and starting for the door.

“What are you doing?”

“We can’t let him escape, I can see his footprints, we’ve gotta go!” His arm hurt, sure, but it was far-far-from the worst pain he’d felt. He’d be fine. He could cast with his left hand. Not as accurately, maybe, but still. He could.

“On it,” Thomas said, and, before anyone could say anything else, he sprinted out the door after Lawless. 

Harry turned back to Murphy. “We gotta go help Thomas,” he said.

“Thomas is a big boy, he can handle himself for a minute. Let me see your arm.”

“It’s fine, Murph. Let’s go.” He gripped the staff more securely with his left hand, leaning on it slightly.

“Harry, please just let me see it. I’m pretty sure it’s just dislocated, but if it’s broken-”

“It’s not.”

“Can I please just see?”

“Fine,” Harry grumbled at last, not wanting to prolong this any further. 

Murphy pulled his duster off of him and grabbed his right arm. He winced. “Jesus, careful, Murph!”

“I thought you said it was fine?”

He shut up at that. Karrin glanced about the room, her eyes settling on a green throw pillow.

“Sit down,” she instructed Harry, who listened. She grabbed the pillow and held it out to him. “It’s not the best, but it’ll do. Bite down on it.”

“Karrin, what-no, no, please don’t. It’s fine, really, I swear.”

“Your arm is going back into place whether you like it or not. Take the damn pillow.”

He took it and bit down, glaring up at her from his seat on the stairs that had done this to him. “This tastes like dust,” he remarked, voice muffled from the offending pillow.

“How long do you think it’s been here?” Murphy asked.

Harry thought for a second-and Murphy used his momentary distraction to force his arm back into his socket. 

Harry let out a muffled scream, biting hard into the pillow and wrapping his good arm around it. 

“Sorry,” Murphy whispered. 

He took a few deep, ragged breaths. “It’s fine,” he said. “It’s fine, I’m good. Let’s go.” He picked up his duster with his left hand and draped it over his shoulders.

They found Thomas near the edge of the woods. He’d been, as Murphy had said, completely fine on his own. James Lawless was lying on the ground, tied up securely with several feet of heavy-duty rope. 

“Took you long enough,” he remarked. “You alright, Harry?”

“Sure I am,” Harry replied. The staff was still in his left hand, which was also holding securely onto the top of his right arm. 

“I popped his arm back into his socket,” Murphy explained. “He’ll be fine, just sore.”

“What’s new,” Harry muttered. “Nice work, Thomas.”

“What’s new,” Thomas echoed, hefting up Lawless and depositing him in the backseat of his car. 

The rest of the group piled in after him, Harry stuck in the unfortunate backseat with Lawless, who glared at him as angrily as a man with his face pressed into the carpets of a car could glare. 

Harry stretched out his legs, expertly ignoring the pain still radiating from his arm, placing his boots atop Lawless, who renewed his glaring with even more intensity. Harry gazed out the window as they rolled back into the city and up to the police department. He stayed in the car as Karrin and Thomas brought their prisoner inside and explained the day’s events in simple police terms.

He was drifting off to sleep by the time the other two returned. They spoke quietly on their drive, discussing their conversation with the police. Harry let their voices fade and mingle with the sounds of the road. He knew his arm would hurt when he woke up, but for the moment, he was content to fall asleep and forget about it for a little bit. Just another day in the life of me, he thought, before he finally fell asleep.

not super pleased with this but oh well! thanks if u read this!!