#Quicksand Alternative Chapter

[quinloki]

Quicksand - ALTERNATIVE

If you haven't read Quicksand up to chapter 5 you're going to be terribly confused.

Fem Reader x Sir Crocodile

CW: Language, violence, blood, moral ambiguity, murder, sexual themes and situations, yandere, angst with a happy ending, a referenced instance of physical abuse. 18+ only

ADDITIONAL CW: Dub-con, kidnapping, imprisonment

The alternative version picks up at Chapter 6- there's a lot of overlap for the first few chapters as the story slowly peels away from the original. The alternative chapters explore Sir Crocodile's yandere tendencies in a setting where the reader rejects him (vs the original where she never ran).

You can read it as it posts to Tumblr, or sate your curiosity on AO3 // Wattpad immediately.

Chapter 13: Punishment

“I believe I was quite clear, earlier.” His voice has an edge to it, one you hadn’t really heard before now.

You were still, so still that you were barely breathing. You didn’t even dare to twitch your fingers as the cold, heavy, polished gold hook moved along the line of your jaw. You knew how sharp it was, how easily it could rip into you, how deftly he could control it.

“You were not to go anywhere on your own.” There’s a warm hand on your shoulder as the hook leaves your field of vision. His voice is even again, the edge brought back under control.

“… I made it to the gate.” You admit, trying to keep your voice steady. The hand on your shoulder tightens a little, but not enough to hurt you. “I could’ve slipped right through the bars,” you say, continuing on even though you had no idea how he would take your confession, but it seemed a better idea than simply offering an apology.

His hand slides off your shoulder and along your collarbone, palm against the middle of your chest, fingers and thumb curling loosely around your neck.

“What stopped you?” There’s a small shiver in his voice. Rage, fear, hope – you’re not sure what’s behind it.

“M-my first thought was that… I didn’t want to hurt you again.” You admit quietly. You can feel tears welling up in you, either from fear or guilt, you can’t say.

“Secondly?” He prompts, his voice rolling over your ear as he’s bent low.

“You’re a Warlord. There’s no place in the Grandline I could go.” You say honestly.

“I continue to appreciate your honesty, desert flower.” Crocodile says as his hands slides up your neck and his fingers hold your jaw. “It has certainly lessened the severity of your punishment.”

“Y-you said I could struggle,” you nearly whine the words, as his hook tears into the pajamas you’re wearing. The cold, smooth metal against your skin as the hook slowly cuts the fabric away has you shivering.

His hand holds you in place, and his hot breath slips by your ear as he speaks almost apologetically. “I never said I wouldn’t punish you for it, my love.”

“P-Please, I won’t – I won’t run!” Panic rises in you as his hook tears your pajamas, fluttering the top a little before it settles back against your skin. “S-Suwani, p-please.”

“Calm down, you’ll survive it, I promise.” His voice assures you, rumbling against your shivering body.

He releases his hold on you and jerks the torn nightgown off you. The swift and sudden movements unbalance you, and you fall to the floor. You start to crawl away, but will yourself to stay in place.

“Trying so hard to stay true to your words.” He muses, tossing the nightgown aside. “Crawling is hardly running, but I appreciate the intent.” There’s a moment of silence, and you can feel his eyes on you. “Remove them.” He says, referring to the only item left on you, “And get on the bed.”

“P-please, I -.”

“My dear, punishment isn’t something you get to control.” He says evenly. He’s set his hook aside and is rolling up his sleeves. “It is in your best interest to do as instructed.”

You were shivering, but not from the temperature, the fire had been going strong, maybe even stronger now than before you had left the room. Getting to your feet on trembling legs you shed your underwear, walking over to the bed.

You stop at the edge of it. “How, um… do you,” you lick your lips and try to swallow. “Want me?”

“Mm, in an innumerable number of ways,” he says smoothly. “But for now, I’m sure you can sort it out, given the situation.”

You feel yourself flush from your face halfway down your chest. Climbing onto the bed, you stay at the edge, and stay on your hands and knees. Your skin prickles against the air around you, like every part of you is reaching out trying to find some manner of escape. Your stomach knots, and your heart thumps so loudly in your ears you’re not sure you could hear anything else.

But his voice cuts through it all.

“Anticipation seems worse for you than anything I intend to do.” He says as his fingers caress the back of your leg, palm cupping the curve of your ass. “How many doors did you pass though?”

“Haa… ahm… th-three?”

“Focus, love. Not that you found, that you passed through.” He repeats as his prosthetic moves up your other thigh.

Out of the bedroom, into the elevator, out of it, and out the front door. Then all the same again.

“E-eight.” You answer. Your arms are shaking and you’re trying to draw in air like there’s none around.

“Mm. Be sure to count, my love.” He commands, and before you can ask what it is he wants you to count his hand cuts through the air and cracks across your ass.

You gasp in surprise and yelp in pain as your body shudders. The sharp sting fades blissfully quick, but a lingering feeling in your core already has you nervous. Grabbing onto the cover to steady yourself you force a deep breath so you can speak.

“Wuh-one!”

“Good girl.” His hand whips through the air, and the cutting sound of the air before the strike almost has you in tears. The sharp sting licks across your ass in a different spot. You flinch and yelp, and struggle against the strange knot that keeps building.

“Two.” You gasp.

Tender fingers nearly tickle your skin for a moment before another strike cuts through the air.

You know it’s coming, and how it’ll feel, but you can’t control your voice. The sound clings to your throat, as you grit your teeth against the pain that is becoming something different, and it’s less of a yelp and more of a grunt.

“Tha… three.” You manage to force the word out, nerves tightening your throat. The sting is too brief, and the knot that’s building is pleasurable. Too pleasurable. You shouldn’t be enjoying a punishment, but you’ve never experienced anything like this before. “S-Suwani, it’s-.”

The fourth strike lands and the sound ripped from your throat is unmistakably drenched in pleasure. Tears run down your cheeks, and manage to count through the choked sobs. Embarrassment, fear, a pleasure you can’t control, it was all overwhelming.

“Four,” you whimper the word.

“Delighted by my touch to this degree.” He muses, and soft whimpering gasps escape you as his fingers slide gently over the hot red skin of your trembling ass. “Be careful not to cum, desert flower, or I may have to decide on a different punishment.”

“Please…” Your voice is barely above a whisper as you grip the sheets.

His hand cuts through the air again and the pain is barely a thought as pleasure pushes into your shivering body. Your count tumbles from your lips shrouded in the pleasure shivering through your body. The sixth strike almost pushes you forward into the bed. The forced shift of your hips makes your realize how wet you are, and you can feel it leaking past your lips.

“Six, six!” You barely croak the word at first before managing to yell it.

“You’re doing so well.” The praise slides over you and your toes flex as you try to shake the pleasurable feeling of his words.

“D-Don’t, Ahhh-MNGHnng-haa…” The crack across your skin carries only the smallest hint of pain as the pleasure sinks into you. “Seven – praise me, don’t praise me, please.” You whimper. Your shaking arms buckle a little and you’re barely holding yourself up on your elbows.

Both of his hands grab your face, squeezing and kneading into the soft, tender, stinging flesh and sending ripples of conflicting sensations through your body. Your arms give out the rest of the way and you’re clawing at the bed and gasping a frantic mix of begging and shaky moans.

He pulls your hips back to his, the stiff bulge straining against his pants pushing into your dripping cunt. He ruts against you, driving the point home before he leans down.

“Your earlier honesty grants you the right to choose, little desert flower,” he says, his voice heavy and husky in your ear. “Shall I relieve this ache for you?” His hips shift up a little after his question, pressing against your asshole. “Or shall I simply relieve myself?”

Panic wells up in you. “Ache! Ache, p-please re-relieve t-the ache!” You shift your hips and push back against him. “Please, please, you’d r-rip me in half.”

His thumb presses against your entrance as he hums in amusement, teasing you without pushing in. “Without prep, perhaps. But since you asked so sweetly, I will end your punishment kindly.”

You feel his thick hard push rub against your slit, covering himself in your leaking pleasure for a moment before he pushes in, in a single, slow thrust. The pressure, relief, pleasure, and pain are overlapping, and you can barely do anything but gasp and twitch against the steady intrusion that stretches you so completely.

It’s not just the relief of the ache that had been building between your thighs. There was another relief, a powerful feeling to have him inside you again. Touching you. With you. He hadn’t provided much of a choice, there was no denying that your options had been limited, but the relief was still there.

The slow steady motion was barely enough, and you’re gasping into the covers.

“P-please… fa-faster.” Your face is red, you had wanted to keep your distance. You hadn’t wanted his touches because you knew how you’d react. You didn’t want his kindness or to hear his words, and now you’re face down, ass up, begging him to go faster.

“As you command,” he purrs. One hand holds your hip as the other slides down your back, his pace quickening as his hips snap into you, thrusting deeper, hitting spots he had learned from your first night together.

Your breathless pants become deeper moaning grunt as pleasure pushes deeper and deeper into you. Your mind is hazy, and your need is overtaking you as the orgasm tightens.

“Please, please,” you beg, but you’re not even sure what you’re begging for.

“Don’t worry, little desert flower, I will fill you up sweetly.” He assures you.

“N-no, w-wait!” The implication of his words brings you out of your pleasurable haze.

“Hm? You’re mine, (Y/N). It only makes sense for me to fill you up when you beg so sweetly.” His hand on your back pushes you into the mattress a little as he begins to thrust into you so forcefully that it’s pushing the air from you.

Your words are shattered by the air pushed out of, and you can barely manage the focus to draw in air as the pleasure overwhelms your panic.

“Cum for me, my love. Cry for me to fill you up.” He urges, lifting your exhausted body up from the bed. One arm around your chest and his prosthetic hand holds you against him as his warm fingers tease your clit. “Shudder around me in need and desire, my sweet.”

“No… please… Suwani,” you whine as the pleasure continues to build. You can’t stop the orgasm building inside of you, and a part of you doesn’t want to. “I’m g-going to-!” Your body tenses as much as it can, your toes curling as you shudder against him.

You can feel him growl more than you hear it, his pace quickening as he continues to tease your clit, pulling more pleasure from you. The long orgasm doesn’t settle, and the second wave hits you as you feel Crocodile’s grip on you tighten, the last few broken ruts pushing pleasure into you as he fills you up.

Tears slip down your cheeks as he pulls out of you, the evidence of his pleasure slipping down your thighs as he keeps your back tight against his chest. You can feel his heart pounding in his chest, his prosthetic holding you in place as his right-hand rubs circles just under your navel.

“Rest, my love. We’ll talk more later.”

[cuckoo-on-a-string]

Pay the Piper (Leitmotif 3)

mdni

Chapter summary: You've left an impression, and pirates' greed isn't only for gold.

Master list <--- All chapters in order

Chapter warnings: none. (Holy shit)

Unconventional Use of Haki: I'm playing with haki by introducing D&D flavored bardic talents. I'll explain further as the story grows, but I thought fair warning was needed. Always happy to answer queries in my inbox!

A/N: I alternate "verses" (main story arc chapters) with "leitmotifs" (critical flashback chapters with contextual adventures). It's a play on One Piece's own style and a way to keep things fresh.

I do not curate tag lists, but I do reply to comments when the next chapter goes live!

Shanks hid behind the brim of his straw hat, kicking the side of the bar with his dangling feet, stewing.

A man played guitar in the corner, leading shanties the Roger Pirates joined with gusto, and the space pulsed with stomping feet and laughing voices while a watered-down ale grew warm between his hands.

It just didn’t feel right.

Pirates were all about action, but his thoughts trapped him like quicksand, locking him in a frustrating spiral where he tried to figure out what he should have done differently, or what he should say to make his captain change his mind. He was stuck. Had been since the last port when Gaban rowed the girl and her guitar to shore.

The music in the bar just made it worse. It didn’t sound like her playing at all. But she did more than perform. He’d felt it. Lower, sweeter, and subtler than any haki he’d felt before – even from her, considering the way she’d demanded her necklace back. It was like the music had touched his heart and pulled. He hadn’t imagined it, either. He saw the looks the grown-ups gave each other, Rayleigh and Captain Roger in particular.

She was special, and small, and alone – and they just left her behind like it was nothing.

He grit his teeth. Clenched his fists around his tankard.

He hadn’t told anyone about the nightmare she’d had as she’d slept, too deep in her exhaustion to surface from the horror. He didn’t tell anyone how he’d scrambled to the floor, trying to shake her awake, staining his sleeves with her tears in the process. She hadn’t called for anyone. Not her parents. Not a friend. Even unconscious, she’d bitten her lip and pulled into a ball like she could hide from her own memories.

Shaking, she’d whispered into the dark, “I don’t want to be brave anymore.”

He sat next to her, out of his depth, but determined to… stand guard? Keep her safe, maybe. Prove she didn’t have to brave if she didn’t want to. Buggy snored above, and she slowly moved from sobs to deep, even breaths. She was still asleep when he was called to help prepare breakfast.

The next thing he knew, Rayleigh was escorting her on deck, and the tender was prepped and lowered for her departure. He couldn’t contradict his captain, no matter how much he wanted to.

Waving and shouting – listening to her shout back – was the most he could do. It was a promise and a tether. He wanted to stay with her as she fought her way to her fancy music school, a spark kept banked in the back of her mind.

Now he wondered every time he laid down in his bunk, cleaned the deck, or heard the pluck of a string. What was she doing? Had she picked a fight with someone dangerous? Was she safe?

With a groan and creak of the barstool, Rayleigh plopped down beside him. He tapped the bar for a refill, and as his cup was refilled, he glanced down at the sullen apprentice. Shanks didn’t have to look up to know. He could feel it. Even when Rayleigh wasn’t using observation haki, Shanks felt like he was – peeling back time and intention and embarrassing things that could make a grown man squirm. But he refused to cringe away, holding his stoic silence and posture as he braced for a jab.

The first mate scoffed. “Hells.”

Rayleigh threw back half his drink.

“Your fruits haven’t even dropped yet and you’re hung up on a girl.”

Shanks flushed. He dropped his head even lower, hoping his hat’s brim would hide the worst of it as he tried to flip the humiliation back into the festering anger he couldn’t vent. What did Rayleigh not about it, anyway?

“No ordinary girl, I grant you,” Rayleigh said, leaning on his elbows. Settling in for a Real Talk. Shit. “A prodigy for sure. Never seen – or guess heard – haki used like that before. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s moved on. And so should you.”

Without looking up, without showing the first mate any level of respect, Shanks grumbled, “It doesn’t feel right. She would’ve made a great pirate. And she was alone.”

Rayleigh grunted, the only acknowledgement he’d give Shank’s point. “You can’t keep every stray. Remember that cat Buggy wanted to keep? Could’ve been a good mouser. Would’ve fit on a ship. Not a bad idea. The cat had other ideas, though, and when he tried hauling it off the dock it scratched the shit out of him.”

“She wasn’t a cat.”

“No.” Rayleigh’s voice turned harder. Colder. “She may be a young person, but she’s still a person, and she gets to make her own choices. A school is hardly the worst place she could go. You grew up in this life, so your perspective’s skewed. Just because she can fight doesn’t mean that’s what she wants to do for the rest of her life. Take my advice: never get between someone you like and their dreams. It won’t end well.”

Every word weighed Shanks’ spirit down a little lower, letter by letter until he felt he could lick the spilled sake and peanut shells from the floor. Rayleigh was right. If she didn’t become a pirate by choice, she wasn’t really free, and that was the point. Mostly.

None of that changed what he wanted, though, and a hint of selfish greed that had nothing to do with piracy chafed, stuck in his throat.

He wouldn’t get her name. He wouldn’t get to show her how to string up a hammock so it looked steady until Buggy jumped in. He wouldn’t get to see how she played his favorite shanties. He wouldn’t get anything.

He sighed, letting his shoulders rise and fall with the force of it. And then he got busy burying those feelings. Rayleigh really wasn’t joking. She was really gone. And even if he could do something about it, he shouldn’t.

Putting together a smile, he finally looked up at the first mate. “Just miss her, I guess. She was fun.”

Rayleigh dropped a hand on his head, relaxing in turn. His own wicked smirk cracked his face, and he offered an answering shrug. “You never know with these things. As the captain likes to say, some connections are just meant to be. If you’re destined to see her again, you’ll cross paths somewhere out there.”

His smile stretched. The weight lifted. A new road to adventure opened where he thought he’d run into the Red Line.

“You think so?”

“Oh,” Rayleigh took up his tankard again, “if she’s half as much trouble as I think she is, I’d bet on it. Troublemakers tend to run into each other. Sooner or later.”

“Heh.” Fully grinning, Shanks chugged his own drink, heels kicking the barstool as fresh energy surged from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. Rayleigh was never wrong.

Of course they’d meet again.

And maybe next time she’d join the crew.

Every great crew needed a musician.

[ryin-silverfish]

Chapter 22: Coarse, rough, and gets everywhere

-After dealing with the Yellow Wind demon, the gang ventured forth in this fine autumn season, only to be blocked by the Flowing Sand River, 800 li wide and full of Weak Water.

"What, exactly, is a Weak Water? Are there like, Strong Water?"

-As the poem suggested, Weak Water(弱水) refers to water that has no buoyancy, and anything that fall in would just sink, even a feather. Record of such strange water appeared first in the Book of Mountain and Sea; it surrounds Mt. Kunlun, the abode of Queen Mother of the West, and Book of Late Han also stated that Weak Water and quicksand could be found near QMoW's dwelling.

-These tales could be inspired by IRL geography, where a lot of the rivers in western China, bc they are flowing through plateaus or deserts, are very shallow in depth and regular boats would just capsize inside. When non-native ppl saw those rivers that couldn't be traversed by boats, they thought the water itself has no buoyancy.

-Also, there was a portion of Gobi Desert the historical Xuanzang crossed, 莫贺延碛, which had the alternate name "Sand River"; in Xuanzang's biography, this was also where he was awoken from his thirst-addled sleep by an unnamed great deity. Much like how this desert deity would later evolve into Sandy, the "Sand River" would also become a literal river in the JTTW story cycle.

-We learn the real reason SWK isn't good at underwater combat: he either needs to use one hand to cast a Water-repelling Spell in order to move freely, or transforms into an aquatic critter, both of which would get in the way of wielding his staff.

-Hmmm, why couldn't he just grow a third arm (sth he's obviously capable of, given his fight with Nezha) and use it to maintain the spell while bashing some aquatic demons' head in? Maybe only 1 concentration spell is allowed at a time, D&D style...

-I feel like we've all wondered what the job of "Curtain-raising General" entails—is he like, literally the guy at the gate who lifted those fancy bead-curtains every time a celestial came through? Well, kinda. Not really.

-"Curtain-raising" is actually an important part of Daoist rituals. Before the sacrificial offerings began, there were curtains covering statues on the altars, and only after it was believed that the gods in question had arrived to court were the curtains lifted(literally or metaphorically), and the priests able to present their prayers to them.

-Here is a video of the "Curtain-raising Charm", performed by Quanzhen Daoists:

-So Sandy's job is less gate guard, and more of an announcer of JE's court sessions. This is my personal take, but I feel like part of why the punishment for him breaking a cup was so harsh was bc he was an official specialized in court rituals and propriety, so he should've known better than to jeopardize such an important event.

-We also learn the answer to another question many have asked: "Why can't SWK just fly Tripitaka to Vulture Peak on his somersault cloud?" Turns out, a mortal's body was too heavy to be carried on clouds, and though the Yu translation was slightly wonky here, ordinary demons could summon a magical wind for fast-travel and kidnapping, but they were still staying close to the ground and not truly high-up in the air.

(Also, if he could, we wouldn't have a 100 chapter story.)

-Finally, some internal alchemy stuff relating to Sandy from my annotated Chinese edition: during the fight between Pigsy and Sandy, the latter was referred to as the Spatula, 刀圭. The second character, made of 2 characters for "Earth" stacked on top of each other, was later broken into "Two-Earths" in referral to Sandy again.

-In internal alchemy, Earth represents ideation/determination, specifically, that of attaining immortality. When the ideation stills, it is known as "Yin-Earth", and when it stirs, the "Yang-Earth", collectively referred to as "Two-Earths". It functions as the catalyst and meditator between the Spiritual Mind(Wood) and Vital Energy(Metal), which must come together and mingle during cultivation to form the Golden Elixir.

-Thus, Sandy's soon-to-be role as the Only Sane Man and meditator between SWK and Pigsy.

@journeythroughjourneytothewest

[luckyduckwrites]

Remembrance Chapter 1-10: The Living Mummies of Toth-Ra!

Fandom: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Lena (Disney: DuckTales)/Original Female Character(s), Della Duck (Disney) & Original Character(s), Huey Duck (Disney) & Original Female Character(s), Louie Duck (Disney) & Original Female Character(s), Dewey Duck (Disney) & Original Character(s)

Characters: Lena (Disney: DuckTales), Della Duck (Disney), Original Female Character(s), Webby Vanderquack, Huey Duck (Disney), Dewey Duck (Disney), Louie Duck (Disney)

Additional Tags: Mentioned Della Duck (Disney), Canon Autistic Character, Canon Disabled Character, Protective Siblings, Brother-Sister Relationships, POV First Person, Original Character-centric, POV Original Female Character, Childhood Trauma, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Slow Romance, Slow To Update, Friends to Lovers

Summary:

My name is Izzy, and I'm Donald Duck's niece. I'm 6 years older than my brothers Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and we all grew up together on the houseboat. My brothers are incredibly mischevious and are always causing trouble, so they can never be left alone, but Uncle Donald almost never lets me babysit them. One day, he brings us to meet our Uncle Scrooge, the richest duck in the world! He seems vaguely familiar, almost like I've seen him before, but that can't be possible. I've never seen him on TV, so where could I have possibly seen him before?

**AO3 & Wattpad links in masterpost pinned to the top of the blog**

Uncle Scrooge said that he finally pinpointed the location of the pyramid of the Pharoah Toth-Ra, and Launchpad crashed right behind it. The second I stepped outside, I felt like I stepped in mud.

I called, "Uh, Uncle Scrooge?! I think I'm standing in quicksand!"

The rest of the family jumped out of the plane after me, only to step in the quicksand as well.

Louie kept struggling, and Webby yelled, "Don't move too much! You'll sink quicker!"

Louie ignored her, and he was up to his shoulder in the sand, whimpering. I tried to swim over to him, and ended up sinking to my hip. Everyone moved over to us, and we all sunk up to our heads.

Webby yelled, "Everyone hold your breath, and keep your mouths shut!"

We followed her instructions, but Louie screamed as he sank. It was quiet and dark as I swam through the sand in the direction the pyramid was, and swimming up. My hand finally burst through the top of the sand, and I pulled myself out, catching my breath after a few minutes of being under the sand. I wheezed while attempting to catch my breath, and felt that I couldn't take in enough air.

I saw Huey staring in worry at me, and I pointed at my throat since I couldn't talk. He knew what to do and grabbed my inhaler from his bag, handing it to me. I shook it and took a puff, taking as deep a breath in as I could. I held my breath for ten seconds and let it out, then repeated the process, finally able to breathe again.

Uncle Scrooge looked at me with a concerned expression, and I said, "I have athsma, too. Thanks, Huey."

Scrooge looked away from me, instead staring at the hyroglyphics on the wall, a guilty expression on his face. The same one I saw when I told him about my bad knees. I think he feels guilty for not knowing about it, but I don't know why he would feel like that. It's not like he's the one who caused my medical issues. I finally see Louie pulling himself out of the sand, coughing out sand.

Webby says to him, "And that's why you don't scream while sinking in quicksand."

Louie exclaims, "Webby, please don't tell me how to die!"

I say, "Webby, that was some pretty quick thinking. How did you know what to do in quicksand?"

Webby responds, "I've read all about ancient pyramids. I'll show you guys in ins and outs."

Louie coughed out more sand, saying, "Would love to focus on the outs."

I hit his back gently to help him get the sand out, like you do with a baby to help them burp or throw up.

I say, "I learned a bit about pyramids and Pharoahs in my history class a few months ago, but I didn't really learn much about quicksand."

Uncle Scrooge suddenly exclaims, "I was right! The Tomb of Toth-Ra, Bringer of the Sun."

I say, "Isn't any Phoaroh with the suffix 'Ra' a sun god?"

Uncle Scrooge nods, continuing, "I've been searching for decades, and -"

Launchpad interrupts him, taking a bite of his burrito.

Uncle Scrooge exclaims, "Launchpad!"

Launchpad asks, "Mm. Did you want a bite?"

Uncle Scrooge says, "This is the last of the lost pyramids. Show some respect."

Launchpad takes another bite, adding with his mouth full, "Sorry, Mr. McD."

Dewey exclaims, "Oh, man! What if there's a whole army of mummies down here?"

Huey says, "Unlikely. Mummification was an excitement process meant for royalty. It'd be rare for there to be more than one mummy."

I say, "But they did mummify the Pharoah's wives when he died, and many had multiple wives."

Huey nods, adding, "Toth-Ra was pretty rich. I bet there's at least six."

Louie, his lungs finally empty of sand, asks, "Rich? What are we talking about? Jewels? Antiquities? What?"

Huey says, "Pharoahs from this time period were usually entombed with treasure, servants, jars full of vital organs -"

I gagged, and Louie interrupted, saying, "Ignoring the bad parts! See you in the treasure room!"

We slide down to a deeper part of the pyramid, my other brothers and Webby following us.

Scrooge exclaims, "Careful!"

He presses on a brick on the wall, opening a doorway. The doorway is blocked by a brick wall.

Dewey says, "That was pretty anticlimactic."

The floor under us gave way, dropping us down a long chute. There was a split in the chute, and we slid down the left side, landing on the cold, hard ground in a dark room.

We see silhouettes in the dark, and Dewey exclaims, "Mummies!"

We stand up, and Uncle Scrooge says, "Behind me. They could be dangerous." Once we were all safe behind him, he exclaims, "Speak, you ancient miscreants!"

One of them steps forward into the light, saying, "Hey, what's up?"

Launchpad mutters to me, "Hey Izzy, if those are mummies, I'd hate to see daddies, am I right?"

I mutter back to him, "Not the time, LP."

Uncle Scrooge says, "Greetings, minions of Toth-Ra! We are Scrooge McDuck and family."

Launchpad says, "Hey, if you guys are mummies, then I'd hate to see -"

Uncle Scrooge covers Launchpad's mouth, saying, "And associates from the outside."

The mummies gasp, asking, "Outsiders?"

Uncle Scrooge says, "We mean you no harm."

Huey asks, "If you could just show us where your sacred treasure room is?"

That's weird. Usually Louie would say that. I guess Huey beat him to it.

Uncle Scrooge shushes him, saying, "Oh, shh, shh, shh. You'll have to forgive the lad. We're used to the mummies in pyramids being, well, eh... dead."

The mummy that greeted us earlier said, "We are not mummies! We merely dress in this manner to honor our powerful and fashion-forward leader!"

That makes more sense. They don't look rotten like I would think a mummy would.

She continues, "I am Amunet, leader of the descendants of the servants of Phoaroh Toth-Ra. For thousands of years, our families have served the Phoaroh, and our society has thrived!"

We look around the desolate room, our eyes adjusting to the darkness.

Huey says, "'Thrived' isn't the word I'd use."

I say, "But it looks like it's the best they've got."

Uncle Scrooge says, "Living mummies. There's something you don't see every day, eh, Webbigail?"

He nudged empty air next to him, and we finally notice her absence.

He says, "Webby? Louie?"

Amunet dramatically says, "They must have gone down the other chute into the Pharoah's forbidden chamber!"

Huey asks, "Forbidden?"

Launchpad says, "Oh, no!"

Dewey says, "Lucky!"

I ask, "How did we not notice?"

Amunet asks, "Would you like a tour?"

Launchpad says, "Sure!"

He takes out his camera, taking pictures of everything she shows us.

She eventually shows us her house, saying, "And that's my hut, and that's the public waste hole."

Huey says, "They're awful close to each other."

Amunet says, "It does not smell great, but Almighty Toth-Ra decreed this is where I am to live. Oh, and here's the Temple of Toth-Ra!"

Uncle Scrooge says, "See here, Amunet. My kids are trapped! Now, you take me to the Pharoah this instant!"

Amunet smiles, saying, "No need. The Pharoah will be here soon."

A giant mummy, presumably Toth-Ra, sits in a large throne as it rises to the top of the temple as a guard collects the servants' offerings.

Uncle Scrooge says, "Bless me bagpipes."

Soon after the guard disappears back inside the temple, Toth-Ra says in a deep, booming voice, "Your Pharoah is... pleased."

Amunet says, "He has accepted our offering. It is time for our golden reward."

A piece of the roof slides away, blinding us from the sun's bright light.

Toth-Ra says, "I give you... the sun!"

The servants water their crops, but after only a minute, and roof closes, darkening the room again.

Dewey asks, "That's it?"

I say, "No wonder their crops are so withered."

As Toth-Ra's throne sinks back into the Temple, Uncle Scrooge exclaims, "Wait! Get back here!"

Amunet says to the other servants, "Great day, everyone. If we skip meals and start harvesting right now, maybe he'll bring us a full hour of sun tomorrow!"

Huey says, "You know a mummy doesn't actually being you the sun, right? The Earth spins on its axis, creating -"

Amunet interrupts him, patting him on the head as she says, "Aw... Not the sharpest sickle in the shed, are you, kid?"

Huey says, "I've got a Junior Woodchuck badge in Sickle Sharpening that says otherwise."

I say, "I don't think that's what she meant, Hue."

Uncle Scrooge bangs on the bars separating us from the Temple, exclaiming, "Let me in, you decomposing degenerate!"

Amunet dramatically says, "Those who enter the Phoaroh's chamber never return!"

Uncle Scrooge exclaims, "What?!"

Launchpad says, "Oh no!"

We all start frantically tugging and banging on the bars, and Amunet says, "Sorry. Too much?"

I exclaim, "You think?!"

Uncle Scrooge asks, "Isn't there some way you can help us?"

Amunet sarcastically responds, "I suppose we could just rise up against the all-powerful Toth-Ra, bringer of the golden sun."

She and the other servants laugh, and Huey exclaims, "Yes, that! Do that!"

Amunet asks, "Why? We've got fresh bandages in lieu of pay. A kind and merciful god-king. What's the outside got that we don't?"

Uncle Scrooge responds, "Toth-Ra has got you working night and day while you barely get enough to scrape by!"

Huey adds, "He doesn't bring you the sun, he keeps it from you!"

I say, "He's separated you all from society!"

Amunet says, "Sorry. It's just not our way."

Uncle Scrooge asks, "Don't you want to feel the sun on your face?"

Amunet responds, "Meh."

He asks again, "The wind in your hair?"

She responds, "Not really."

Uncle Scrooge asks, "Don't you want freedom? Or glory? Or- Launchpad!"

Launchpad loudly takes another bite of his burrito, saying, "Oh, sorry. I didn't want my belly to grumble and interrupts your big speech. Like I am now."

He takes another bite as Uncle Scrooge says, "It's bad enough you goof around during the greatest archeological find of our time, but... uh..."

We notice the servants looking in awe at Launchpad's burrito, and Amunet asks, "Whoa, what is that?"

Launchpad shares his burrito with the servants as he responds, "Oh, this burrito? Just rice, beans, cheese, your choice of meat, wrapped in a delicious tortilla. Mmm, mmm, mmm."

I watch the servants enjoy the burrito as Amunet asks, "Oh, where do we get this borr-ito?"

Uncle Scrooge says, "Outside! Where freedom is!"

One of the servants asks, "Borr-itos are outside?"

Another servant exclaims, "We must have borr-itos!"

Amunet exclaims, "Rise up against the mighty Toth-Ra!"

Uncle Scrooge says, "Seriously? That's what- Oh, never mind. Let's break into the temple!"

The servants cheer, and Uncle Scrooge sends us in groups to train them. Huey and I are in charge of battle strategy with Amunet, Launchpad and Dewey are in charge of drilling them, and Uncke Scrooge put himself in charge of supervising everything. I draw Huey's ideas in the sand while he explains.

He says, "And then we come at Toth-Ra from both sides."

I draw circles and curved arrows going toward the square that represents Toth-Ra.

Amunet asks, "But what about his laser-beam eyes?"

Huey asks, "You've seen these laser eyes?"

Amunet says, "No, but he is all-powerful."

I erase my drawing as Huey says, "Fine. We cause a diversion and sneak around back."

I draw circles and curved arrows that go to behind the square.

Amunet says, "But his scarab spies will tell him we're coming."

Huey asks, "Since when does he have scarab spies?"

Amunet dramatically responds, "Since whenever he wants, for he is Toth-Ra, the almighty, all-powerful -"

Huey interrupts her, saying, "Yeah, yeah, I get it. Izzy, new drawing."

I erase again, piping in this time, "What if we just squish the scarabs? They're just bugs, right?"

Amunet responds, "Their shells are indestructible. Toth-Ra cast a spell to strengthen them."

I roll my eyes, muttering, "Sure, sure. More magic stuff."

We spend about an hour coming up with plans, back-up plans, and attack forms, and probably a half hour explaining them all to the servants.

Once they all knew what they were going to be doing, Scrooge exclaims, "Where are we going?!"

The servants respond, "The Pharoah's throne room!"

Uncle Scrooge exclaims, "And what are we going to do?!"

The servants respond, "Anything he asks!"

Uncle Scrooge exclaims, "No! You're gonna stand up for yourselves while I rescue my kids!"

A servant asks, "Right, but if we attack Toth-Ra and he tells us to surrender, we should do that, right?"

I facepalm, and Amunet says, "We've spent our lives blindly serving Toth-Ra. Now we're trying to change our whole way of life for the promise of a simple borr-ito."

Launchpad says, "This is not just about a simple burrito."

The servants ask, "Huh?"

Launchpad exclaims, "It's about all kinds of burritos. Wet burritos!"

The servants yell, "Yeah!"

Launchpad exclaims, "Breakfast burritos!"

The servants yell again, "Yeah!"

Launchpad exclaims, "Some people even put french fries in their burritos!"

Uncle Scrooge mutters, "This is the dumbest rebellion I've ever been part of."

I ask, "You've been part of rebellions before?"

He responds, "I'll tell you all about them another time."

We're finally able to break the bars and run into the Temple with the help of the servants.

As soon as we enter the treasure room, Uncle Scrooge exclaims, "Pharoah Toth-Ra! Your people demand freedom!"

Amunet yells, "To eat barbacoa!"

Uncle Scrooge says, "But mostly the freedom part. Now, release my family!"

The guard exclaims, "Hey! How did you- I- I mean, you dare intrude upon the Pharoah?!"

As soon as he said that, Toth-Ra booms, "Loyal followers! The guard gas crossed me! Take him away!"

The servants follow his orders and toss the guard into a coffin, closing it.

Webby says, "Heya, Mr. McDuck. Hey, Izzy."

I pull Webby into a tight hug, exclaiming, "Webby! You're okay!"

Uncle Scrooge asks, "Where's Louie?"

Toth-Ra says, "Be free, my people! Ooh, and pack up the treasure! It is prophesied that you will one day give it to a young, handsome duck dressed all in green."

Uncle Scrooge says, "Never mind. I found him."

I set Webby down as Louie maneuvers Toth-Ra's corpse forward, saying, "Or just give it to me. You know, I shall give it to the charming young man myself."

The corpse breaks off of the controls, sliding toward us and onto a circle symbol on the floor. The circle starts glowing, and a matching symbol on the wall starts glowing as well.

Uncle Scrooge exclaims, "A prophecy!"

Webby exclaims, "I know! I just couldn't translate this last glyph."

Uncle Scrooge says, "It says, 'Beware all those who cross Toth-Ra... past this point'."

As he said that, Toth-Ra started moving, picking himself up off of the floor.

Webby exclaims, "Yes! The mummy's real!" Toth-Ra started attacking the servants, and she said, "Oh, right. Yeah, that's a bad thing."

I call out to my brother as Toth-Ra starts chasing him, "Louie!"

Uncle Scrooge exclaims, "I'll teach you to pick on my family, you bandaged bampot! Attack!"

Dewey exclaims, "Mummy squad, show him what you got!"

The servants he was 'drilling' start dancing and growling at Toth-Ra. He roars back, and they all stiffen up and fall to the floor like goats.

Dewey says, "Right, this was a bad plan. I see that now."

He runs to me, and hides behind me as Huey yells, "Attack plan Foxtrot!"

Servants run behind Toth-Ra unspotted, but a scarab starts running to Toth-Ra. I try to stomp on it, but it keeps running, unharmed. It crawls up Toth-Ra and whispers in his ear, and he shoots laser-beams at some servants, scaring them away.

Amunet exclaims, "Told ya!"

I glare at her, saying, "This is really not the time!"

Huey mutters, "A coincidence. That beetle could've said anything."

Uncle Scrooge jumps on Toth-Ra, holding his cane in front of Toth-Ra in an attempt to choke him.

He yells, "Enough flapping about, you towering tattie bogle! Let my children go- Ah!"

Toth-Ra picks him up and tosses him.

Launchpad jumps to grab him, exclaiming, "Mr. McD!"

He catches Uncle Scrooge safely, but the force of Toth-Ra's throw sends him into the wall, indenting the wall.

Louie yells down the hall as Toth-Ra starts chasing him again, "Aaahhhh! Help!"

Webby yells back, "I'm coming, Louie!"

I ask, "How are you gonna catch up with that giant mummy?"

Webby says, "Hmm. Follow me! I have a plan!"

She drags me with her behind Toth-Ra's throne, showing me the mechanism.

She says into the speaker, "Louie! If we can get him back across the seal, maybe he'll stop trying to destroy everyone!"

Louie yells, "How are we gonna get a ten-foot mummy back across the seal?!"

Webby and I look at each other, nodding.

I say into the speaker, "By offering him a golden reward!"

Webby spins a wheel, opening the ceiling and letting the sun pour in, blinding Toth-Ra and letting Louie get around him. Toth-Ra chased him again, and the servants tripped Toth-Ra onto a giant cloth, wrapping him up.

Uncle Scrooge exclaims, "Just like Launchpad taught you! Fill, fold, roll, and tuck!"

They folded Toth-Ra into a giant burrito, carrying him back across the seal and placing him back into his throne. He shoots laser beams a few times before finally going back to his eternal slumber. We climb out of the opening in the ceiling, sliding down the side of the pyramid to the sand below.

Thankfully, this time, it wasn't quicksand. Amunet was the first servant to escape the pyramid, yelling, "Ah! The sun god is angry! Everyone back inside!" Uncle Scrooge gives her sunglasses, and she says, "Oh. Never mind."

We head to a Mexican food stand, the servants forming a long line. My brothers, Webby, and I got our food first, sharing a quesadilla.

Webby explains what happened while we were separated, ending with, "Then we found a secret tunnel, then we awoke the cursed mummy, and then we almost died again!"

I say, "We know. We were there for that last part."

Louie says, "Hey, Webby, thanks for saving my life a bunch back there. I'll try to listen to you next time and not, you know, 'pull a Louie'."

Huey asks, "Seriously, that's a thing now?"

Louie says, "It's all about branding."

As I went to the garbage can to toss my paper plate, I saw Amunet on one knee talking to Uncle Scrooge.

She said, "And Scrooge, mighty warrior. As thanks for helping us see the light... pun intended, we give you this!"

She holds out a burrito, offering it to Uncle Scrooge. He takes it, holding his pinky out and tucking a napkin into the collar of his shirt before taking a bite.

He says, "Mm... You know, this is actually not bad at all!"

[sir-sunawani]

Quicksand

Fem Reader x Sir Crocodile

20 Chapters - 46,838 words

Read it on Ao3 or Wattpad

CW: Language, violence, blood, moral ambiguity, murder, sexual themes and situations, yandere, angst with a happy ending, a referenced instance of physical abuse. 18+ only

Note: There's an alternative version of this story that picks up at chapter six that will be available as well. It goes darker and harder than the original. ♥

Summary: You're employed as an Internal Coordinator in the West Branch of Rain Dinners in Grandline Metro. You're well-aware your boss is the Warlord Sir Crocodile, but your sixty days is almost up on the popular dating website Cult of Personality, and you're looking forward to meeting the person you've been talking to for the last sixty days. (This makes it sound way fluffier than it is, oops.)

Chapter 1: The Nitty-Gritty

You smile at the sound of the message popping up on your computer. You'd been chatting online with someone for the last couple months, and after getting to know one another through your shared likes and dislikes, you'd finally decided to meet. You've avoided sharing photos, or even having a conversation on the phone, but all of that had been the point of the website you'd both found yourselves using.

Cult of Personality was a quirky singles site that focused on people getting to know one another purely through interests. The idea behind it was that you could get to know someone without those pesky instincts getting in the way – no getting swept away by someone's voice, or getting too focused on their appearance (for better or worse). Instead, you spent at least sixty days communicating by text through anonymous proxies. If anyone said something that was a deal-breaker during that time, then there were no messy fallouts to deal with.

The connection would be severed without you knowing enough about the other to be able to locate them. The system was even designed to automatically censor location names, so people couldn't accidentally give themselves away. The only thing the service did with location information was use it to randomly match people who were within 100km of one another.

It was great for people who didn't really want to fill out tons of questionaries, or worry about uploading photos, or dealing with talking about themselves. 

For you it was nice because after a few failed relationships, and with a job that took a lot of your time, it was an easy way to get yourself back into the whole idea of dating.

As your luck would have it, you found someone who you enjoyed "talking" to after only a couple tries. You had even admitted that you looked forward to your conversations and had been pleasantly surprised to find out he did as well. It was reassuring to know that things weren't one-sided, and shortly after that you'd both started making plans to meet up once the 60 days was completed, and the site gave you the option to lift the automatic censoring.

You had preemptively decided on a Saturday lunch meeting, just in case you were at the edges of the 100km diameter that the site utilized. Better than trying to make a dinner reservation on a Friday after work, and ending up in a panic if one of you were to be stuck in traffic.

The restrictions lifted tomorrow, Wednesday, and as you got ready for work you were humming to yourself.

In Grandline Metropolis, amidst it's 600,000 sq km of land, you worked for one of the seven Warlords who oversaw the second circle of the city. While you knew Mr. Crocodile was a warlord, you weren't directly connected to the city's underground. You knew about the city's underground because you were school friends with people who had ended up in that life, and you still kept in touch. But, like most of the employees of the Rain Dinners – the casino/restaurant/hotel chain with five locations around the Grandline Metro – you weren't a part of the underground directly. There were people closer to Mr. Crocodile who probably had ties to stuff like that, but you were just the secretary to one of the mid-level casino floor managers of the West location, just outside White Beard's territory.

Buggy was, well, buggy. He seemed to be constantly under a lot of stress, but he wasn't a terrible boss. He had a decent sense of humor, was easily brought into focus, and often went out of his way to make sure the people under him were doing well. He was a bit selfish, but whenever someone needed to be legitimately let go, you always had to come to him with well-documented, irrefutable proof. While that could be annoying in some cases, it was also reassuring that he wasn't letting people come and go without being sure there was nothing else to be done for it.

"Hey boss, I won't be available this weekend." You explain, handing over another paper for Buggy to review. "So if something goes wrong you'll have to call Alvida."

"Are we expecting anything unusual this weekend?" He questions calmly.

"No, there's no big events, and Alvida's already aware I'll be unavailable." You're kind of surprised to see Buggy this calm. Usually, he was a complete mess when you took vacations or called out sick.

"Alright, (Y/N), just make sure to let Alvida know that Galdino's going to be the one reaching out. I'm off this weekend as well."

Ah, that explains why he's so relaxed. You muse. After a moment's thought you flinch. You hadn't exchanged names with the person you were meeting this weekend. Statistically, it was improbable that it was Buggy, but it wasn't impossible either. Well, if it was him, you couldn't let your professional assessment of him color how he was in his private life.

"I'll let her know." You assure him flatly, taking back the last of the documents and reorganizing them quickly on his desk. "Your meetings are light today, and tomorrow you have the Staff Luncheon to attend."

Buggy flinches. "Right."

"It's at our branch this month, Buggy."

Your boss sighs. "That's the problem."

You laugh. "It is harder to 'accidentally' miss it due to traffic when it's here."

"You're being a little too flashy, Miss (Y/N)." He grumbles.

"And yet you still appreciate me." You quip, giving him a smile before walking out to get back to your own work.

The rest of your work day went smoothly. You coordinated with Galdino and Alvida about the weekend, making sure they knew that neither you nor Buggy would be available. Alvida had raised an eyebrow over it, since she knew you'd been signed up on Cult of Personality. You had filled her in on your plans for the weekend before now. You were still pretty sure it wasn't Buggy, but she made you promise her that if it turned out to be him you would let her know immediately.

Alvida had her quirks, and she could kind of mean in that haughty beauty sort of way, but she wasn't malicious or cruel. You'd shared a few drinks outside of work, and mainly she just enjoyed drama and gossip.

Getting home you went through your after-work routine. Peeling off your work clothes you slipped into sweats and a t-shirt, made yourself something easy, and relaxed with an episode of your favorite show while you ate. Afterward you checked your messages and settled into the dating website.

You: One more day \o/

Him: I'm glad your enthusiasm hasn't waned.

You: At this rate I'm worried I'll be exhausted come Saturday. I'm really looking forward to this.

Him: Plans can be easily adjusted if need be.

You: Joking aside, I'm sure I'll manage. Though, I have to admit that today has caused me to be very curious about something. >_>

Him: Oh?

You: Well, it seems my boss at work has requested this weekend off as well. O_O

Him: Ah-ha. Did you request your time off today?

You: I did.

Him: Then I wouldn't worry. I didn't have any of my employees request time off to me directly today.

You: Oh good.

Him: My condolences to your boss.

You: lol he's not a bad guy, but that would've been incredibly awkward.

Him: It would've been a mark against you wanting to meet someone new, as well.

You: You're not wrong.

You: Admittedly, I wouldn't hold it against you if we did know one another.

Him: That's reassuring. Though, if I do know you, then I have done myself a great disservice for not knowing you well enough until now.

You feel yourself blush despite it all. It was nice to be appreciated for your, well, you-ness, and not for anything else. You let him know you appreciated the sentiment and the two of you talked about nothing and everything off and on for the rest of the evening.

Tomorrow was going to be the longest Wednesday to ever dare to exist, not just because you were looking forward to getting home before you'd even left for work, but also because the monthly staff luncheons always made the days feel longer when they were at your branch. It wasn't nearly as bad when Buggy was ushered out and into a different branch for the event, but every 5th month it meant your casino was filled with important people.

Important people like to feel important, so there were all sorts of extra protocols and fine moving parts to worry about. The hardest part was going to be dealing with the Billions. The people who were only just barely important and wanted to make sure no one could possibly forget it. The Baroque Works staff would be there as well, and if things went well, after the initial meet and greet, all you would have to worry about was filling Buggy's shoes while he was busy at the Luncheon.

. . . . .

You: Good morning, I can't stay on and talk much right now, there's an event at work I need to be in early for. Looking forward to talking to you tonight!

Him: Much anticipated.

The drive into work was faster than usual since you had left a couple hours earlier and traffic was nonexistent. You got into work and got all your normal morning work done before the doors had even opened. Alvida and Galdino were in almost as early and you set them to work organizing the cleaners and preppers. Surfaces that had been polished the night before were polished again just to add a little more luster.

There were three times as many valets available today, to deal with the influx of VIPs, and almost every member of staff was working. People were rotated in and out on tables more often as well to keep every extra sharp. Extra areas had been opened in the back to accommodate people being able to lounge between there active table times so they could recharge properly. It was an untenable schedule every single day, but everyone came together to make it work for the Luncheons.

When the owner, Mr. Crocodile arrived, everyone lined up to greet him. It was the only time all the staff stopped what they were doing to greet a guest. Nothing was said, but everyone lined up neatly in the lobby and bowed slightly as he entered. As far as you knew it wasn't even something he had requested, one of the Numbers had demanded it at their branch some years ago and the tradition stuck.

Frankly, if you ever learned who Mr. Nine was, you would happily punch the lout right in his nose for suggesting it. Fortunately, Mr. Crocodile didn't linger in the entry way, and strode quickly through. Considering he was just over 7', he had an impressive stride. Aside from the company photo, and the occasional glance in the hall when the luncheons were held at your branch, all you ever saw of him were his shoes.

When you first started working at Rain Dinners you'd had a little crush on him, but from the way things went for most of the staff, everyone had a little crush on him. He was the least eccentric of the Warlords, far as you were aware, and the man had style. Most of the ladies swooned over him and half the of the men on staff did as well.

He wasn't much older than you either. Far from the youngest of the Warlords, he was just over 30 and doing remarkably well for himself. He was barely of legal gambling age when he started the first Rain Dinners, and within three years there were 5 of them in the Grandline Metro alone.

With the owner gone, everyone burst into action and the several moments later the casino came alive as the doors opened to the public and the day began properly.

Only eight more hours to go before you could start making proper plans for the coming weekend.

[pure-solomon]

So I'm guessing its time to publish my pitch for mu next WIP *cracks knuckles*

Spark Spider

Themes: Very funny, there is hurt, there is MORE confort, its an alternate universe so almost nothing is carried on from other works, low violence, a bit of romance here and there, there is healthy relationships and drama. Im so proud of this whole idea I had.

Synopsis (I should have prepared this beforehand): Peter is feeling stuck in quicksand as he sees other heroes growing stronger each day, so he becomes Doctor Strange's aprentice.

Peter is trans, works with Tony (father figure), studies with Strange, Mysterio is gonna be very important, Doc Ock worked for Stark in the past, Dracula is back, Venom is from Earth, the other heroes from NY are very supportive of Peter, Gwen has issues, Ultron is a bodyguard, most MCU stuff has influenced me a bit in some way, but this isnt related to that at all.

Im finishing the first draft of the first chapter and gonna post it later to Ao3 and link it here.

[cherrychapstick54]

Amnesia Was Her Name

Chapter 26: You Can Check Out Any Time You Like, But You Can Never Leave

Title from “Amnesia Was Her Name” by Lemon Demon

Synopsis: Alternate ending from chapter 25.

This chapter was written by me.

Trigger warnings: Suicide, suicide pact, hallucinations, death, mentions of abuse, mentions of murder, mentions of paralysis.

Why is he still here? It seems so hard to believe that he had some sort of purpose other than to suffer in this world.Tommy thought it might be useful to end it for the sake of himself and others. ‘It’ meaning something Tommy didn’t know. He always saw himself as a fairly intelligent kid, and obviously he wanted to end his life, but he wasn’t quite sure what his life meant; or any life, for that matter. Tommy thought that maybe by jumping off of his tower would help him understand it better. People always say that curiosity killed the cat, and satisfaction brought it back, right? So, by that logic, it kind’ve goes hand in hand.

Although, Tommy was neither a cat, nor curious about dying (quite the opposite, actually), and there was nothing satisfactory about his exile or his means of escaping it. Tommy vaguely remembers being told that his curiosity would kill him some day, but if he doesn’t ask the questions, he will never know the answers. There is only a boy who wanted to know the meaning to life at his lowest, who wanted so badly to survive the masked man, to kill him and put an end to this all, intact, and did not.

The lone and level sands stretch far below him, surrounding him, and Tommy wonders if he’ll fall right through it, and into the ground, like quicksand, like people do in movies.

The wind dies down, and there is a peaceful silence at the top of the tower. He looks up at the glowing moon, full on this particular night, and it makes him smile. Tommy swears that the moon adorns a smile back, and it now makes him frown with uneasiness. He should hurry this up. If he was going to jump, now might be the perfect time. Tommy stands from his spot, and walks to the edge of his dirt tower. He’s never been afraid of heights, in fact, when he looks down below, the sides of his mouth curl up in a soft smile again; if he was going to be afraid of anything right now, it was dying in general. Tommy isn’t sure how many lives he has, but from what the masked man has said to him, he’s pretty sure that he only has one life left. He probably shouldn’t be thinking about it too much, he might manage to second guess this entire decision if he thinks too hard right now. He just needs to get this over with, and it should be fine in the end, at least, that’s what Tommy hopes will happen.

“Tommy?” His stomach drops. He didn’t realize that at any given moment, his friend, Amnesia, could appear right in front of him. Now he felt bad. “What are you doing here?”

“I.. Well, you see-” He chuckles nervously.

“Were you going to jump?” She doesn’t seem hurt by it, in fact, she seems more curious than anything else. She’s doing somersaults in the air, actually, appearing unaffected by the idea completely. It makes Tommy feel better, knowing that this doesn’t hurt her feelings; his decision wasn’t personal, after all.

“Well, I suppose, yeah. I just, I didn’t really want to deal with that man coming over again. I just, I don’t think I can handle that, and I just would much rather die by my own hand than his, ya know?”

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“This is all I have left.” Tommy’s voice cracks and he quickly wipes away his tears. Truthfully, he’s not sure if this is the right thing to do, but Tommy knows that he wants to go through with it.

“Well, okay! If you’re really sure that you want to do it, then I say that you’re mature enough to make your own decisions. It seems like you’ve thought about this for a while, and pretty thoroughly. I’m proud, Tommy.” She’s laying on her stomach in the air, playing with a ball of energy she created, feet kicking behind her.

“I’m older than you, ya know.”

“Only in human years.” Amnesia notices the lack of response from Tommy being uncommon, “What’s wrong?” She seems genuinely concerned now.

“Uh, well, I don’t know, I guess I’m just, scared of dying? Like, not being in pain or anything, just like, I’m only like 90% sure that I’m on my last life and what if I’m not high up enough? I know I’m at max building height, but I think I remember hearing stories about lucky people who like, went skydiving or something, their parachute didn’t open, but somehow they lived, ya know? But what if that happens to me and I get paralyzed or some shit like that? I don’t want to be stuck like that for the rest of my life with that masked fuck beating the shit out of me whenever his friend gets mildly upset with him!”

“Tommy, you don’t have to worry about it, I’ll jump with you!” Amnesia is standing up on the tower with him now, her hand outstretched for his own, a bright smile on her face. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

“Really? You’d jump off with me? But you can fly, so wouldn’t you just live either way?”

“Well, it’s honestly more to just comfort you, but if you’re upset with that, I don’t have to-”

“No! I’m actually really thankful that you would offer to do that to help me out. So, if you don’t mind,” Tommy intertwines his own hand with Amnesia’s, “I would like it a lot if you did jump with me. Even though you’ll live.”

Just for a moment, Tommy feels a sense of deja vu as the two of them laugh together, before his hand tightens around hers.

“You have to promise me something, Amnesia.”

“Anything for your last wish, Tommy.” He feels like he’s heard those words before. Tommy decides that he doesn’t want to think about it when an uneasy feeling settles in his stomach.

“If I live somehow, you need to kill me. In any way possible, I don’t care if you have to rip me apart limb-by-limb and make it as painful as possible, I just don’t want to die to that masked man, please Amnesia. Promise me.” Tommy might be crying right now, but he doesn’t feel like admitting to that before he dies. Tommy would much rather die being known as a brave kid than someone who cried as his best friend promised to kill him if they needed to.

“I promise.”

Now it’s all up to Tommy to decide when they’re going to jump, but he just needs a moment, one moment to comprehend his life and why he’s doing this, how he got here, and he wonders when he became this way. When the switch flipped in him to the point where Tommy knew he needed to do this, and he honestly can’t remember. He can’t remember a lot anyway. Now Tommy thinks he knows why he’s truly doing this, and he looks at Amnesia, then the ground below, then Amnesia again, and he squeezes her hand ever-so-slightly. She simply nods her head in understanding.

This…

This is where Tommy and Amnesia jumped off of the dirt tower. Together.

As soon as Tommy fell, he could see further past the dark clouds, it must be about to rain, and he saw the sand covering the ground, so far below him, that he honestly didn’t worry about not dying anymore. And there was water, water everywhere. Tommy thought this was actually a really nice view for his last moments in this world. The ocean was half of his vision, the water was just barely rising as the waves crashed against each other, forcing more water towards the beach.

Why is he still here?

This is the revelation, isn’t it? The scene in the movie where everything starts to go uphill, the day the world begins to right itself because of one great sacrifice.

But the world never changes for the greater good. Instead, those who mourn will suffer only a little bit, just to make others suffer even more, because they don’t understand. Tommy always believed that you could never understand life until you die for good. But it’s always much too late for repentance then. You can never go back, nor forward. You can only be forever stuck in the present. Tommy understands that now. He also realizes that he was wrong, beforehand. You can understand life before dying for good. But you will never find the meaning until you are staring death in the eyes, face to face, with your sword drawn. And he’ll be damned if he isn’t staring her in the eyes, challenging her to a battle right fucking now.

But he kept falling, and the air was almost violent with how it shoved against his body, and soon Tommy was turned around, facing the top of his dirt tower. He felt graceful whilst dropping through the sky, but he soon realized that at some point, he had let go of Amnesia’s hand, or maybe she had let go of his? And then he saw her.

Amnesia was still standing at the top of the tower, looking down at Tommy, watching him in amusement. Was this her plan all along? Become his friend, watch as he gets constantly tortured by the masked man, wait for his breaking point, then watch him die alone? You know, with how the man treated him, Tommy wouldn’t be surprised if he was so gullible that he blindly trusted a demigod who was out to get him.

Oh well. I guess it’s too late to be complaining now, huh?

He doesn’t feel as betrayed as he thinks he should whilst looking at Amnesia. He feels like he should be yelling, screaming, even crying in frustration, something. But honestly, he just wishes his friend was still holding his hand. He already misses her; she was so caring towards him throughout the entirety of their friendship, and at least she was kind enough to visit him in exile. Tommy supposes he should at least be grateful for that, he was pretty lonely during his stay here.

He’s getting closer to the ground now, and he’s still not afraid. Tommy supposes that’s a good way to go.

But then, like a CD, Amnesia’s figure cracks apart, fractures into pieces, and shatters. All the components of the demigod, each segment frayed at the edges, travel towards her stomach, until Tommy sees a hand coming through it, then an arm, then a torso, and then a body, the body of, Amnesia? But she’s panicked, and she’s crying, and she yells out for Tommy, but it’s far too late now.

Tommy just hopes that demigods can visit heaven.

- Divider credits to @issysh3ll -

[toalliveloved]

08/14/24

I felt some kind of rebirth today. A glimpse of my old self again, the self before.. well I’m still unsure whenever I lost myself.

I’m attempting to constantly take my meds, it’s been calming. I mean, it is Klonopin so. A Lamictal, Klonopin cocktail, sage twirling around the room. It felt time to dust off the DBT book. It felt time to read the first chapter of two books, the breeze off Biscayne bay blowing each page. The walk home was serene because I began to fit my feet into the shoes of these authors. They certainly both fit.

Both Heidi and Jacqui called today and I miraculously responded to both. To feel loved, simply unmatched. The unhappiness they know I harbor fit right into their cradling arms. I could sleep soundly knowing I have people who have experienced every version of me. They individually still fit me into their hearts through all of my phases. This is the love I know I deserve. I suddenly detached farther away from Lisandro.

Lisandro & I speak often. He stays in contact, avoiding any serious discussion. I wonder if he feels guilty for using me, so he still comes around. If he wants to continue to ignore the elephant in the room, we can simply be mice. I’m still remorseful about my decision to marry him, but my heart feels full knowing that I provided something for somebody for once. If he didn’t want to talk about the dynamic of the relationship, I have my answer and must accept it. Watching with a glum smile in the background as he collects each ticket into this country.

Self-care is this new era, confidence in hand. This is how I have to live, as deserved. Otherwise, self-loathing leads me down alternative, dark alleyways, the kind you see in movies. I’ve finally cooked up the idea that I must grasp my identity again. I hope I can dig deep, get stuck and fall, sinking into the experience like quicksand.

On this rainy Saturday night, I finally feel a sweet solitude. Enough of the guilt and shame. Enough of the shattered self-esteem. I always needed to take my life back. To be okay with the cracks in my heart, but still own and treat it like new.

[ao3feed-obikin]

Quicksand

read it on the AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/49510612 by Fel_Kaaz Obi-Wan Kenobi makes an emergency landing on a barren, lifeless unknown planet orbiting twin suns as he escapes from a separatist ambush. As bright as a star itself in endless space, the planet is as beautiful as it's deadly. He doesn't know if it's the heat, the shifting sand, the seemingly endless sea of dunes, or the dehydration that makes him begin to hallucinate, to feel like the sand whispers, to feel like The Force is duplicated. One is guiding him, and one warning him. Obi-Wan decides to follow his instincts, and therefore falls for the trap of a creature that demonstrates that the planet is not lifeless. Words: 12198, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con Categories: M/M Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Teratophilia, Monsterfucking, Double Penetration, Vaginal Sex, Anal Sex, Obi-Wan Kenobi has a pussy, Naga Anakin Skywalker, Monster Anakin Skywalker, Double Dick, Top Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader, Bottom Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hypnosis, That's Not How The Force Works (Star Wars), But I don't care, Dark Anakin Skywalker, Oviposition, Anakin Skywalker is Not a Jedi, sand, a lot of sand, Anakin would hate this, Mind Control, Mindbreak read it on the AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/49510612

[thechanelmuse]

My Top Books of 2021

So I think by now y’all know I’m a bookworm. I’ve read a total of 

...112 books this year. (Woop woop.)

I posted some reviews of my favorites throughout the year on here under #thechanelmusereviews. So why not post a full list, right? (I have two more books that I plan to finish so I’ll add the nonfiction ones soon.) 

For now here’s the fiction books: 

The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen consists of three short stories—The Wrong Man, Freedom, and Sanctuary—and two novels—Quicksand and Passing. The parallel themes in these stories actually reflect Nella's own life. In particular, yearning for liberation from the suffocating confinements in one's life. (Genre: literary fiction, short stories | Author: Nella Larsen)

In Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, tensions rise when trailblazing blues singer Ma Rainey and her band gather at a recording studio in Chicago in 1927. (Genre: drama | Author: August Wilson)

Originally written in Italian (Dove mi trovo), Whereabouts is a lyrical and meditative prose with 46 interconnected chapters (short vignettes) about a woman's quiet life, mundane routine, and her observation of life around her. (Genre: literary fiction | Author: Jhumpa Lahiri)

Before the Ever After is a novel-in-verse from the perspective of a young son, who struggles to understand the changes his father is experiencing, causing him to retire from professional football in his early 30s. Keep your tissues nearby. (Genre: middle grade, realistic fiction | Author: Jacqueline Woodson)

Written in 1993 but set in the apocalyptic world of 2025, Parable of the Sower tells the story of young Lauren Olamina as she journeys to Northern California to escape ecological and societal collapse in Southern California. (Genre: speculative fiction, science fiction | Author: Octavia E. Butler)

Set in the bustling city of an alternate Cairo in 1912, The Haunting of Tram Car 015 follows agents Hamed Nasr and Onsi of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities as they investigate a haunted tram car juxtaposed with an Egyptian suffrage movement on the rise. (Genre: historical fiction, mystery, steampunk adventure | Author: P. Djèlí Clark)

In A Darker Shade of Magic, there are four parallel Londons—White London (the world is starving for resources and magic), Red London (the world flourishes with magic), Grey London (the world is scarce of magic), and Black London (the world is void and forbidden). Kell is a rare magician and smuggler who gets pickpointed, causing things to go awry and unleashing something...sinister. (Genre: adult, fantasy, adventure | Author: V.E. Schwab)

On the heels of 15-year-old Talia breaking out of a correctional facility ran by nuns in the mountains of Colombia, Infinite Country takes an intimate look at a mixed-status family separated for decades between Bogotá, Colombia and the U.S., who endure the twists and turns of the choices they make in hopes of refuge, home, and a possible reunion. (Genre: historical fiction, literary fiction | Author: Patricia Engel)

Who is Maud Dixon? is a clever debut novel that Alfred Hitchcock would’ve likely adapted to screen. Interweaving topics of classism and influence into the shaping of identity, Florence Darrow is a publishing assistant with the opportunity to jumpstart her dream life after an accident—but it comes at a cost. (Genre: contemporary, mystery, psychological thriller | Author: Alexandra Andrews)  

Einstein's Dreams seamlessly blurs the lines between prose and poetry, taking the reader through a series of enchanting, thought-provoking, mind-bending vignettes in the slumbering brain of a young patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, whom the world would know as Einstein, surveying the mysterious nature of time and its possibilities in thirty different, kaleidoscopic life sequences while working on his Special Theory of Relativity paper in 1905. (Genre: science fiction, short stories | Author: by Alan Lightman)

Harlem Shuffle is split into three parts: 1959, 1961, and 1964. Our main character, Ray Carney, tries to protect his family and balance his used furniture business on 125th Street that dips into the crooked side of things where fencing (knowingly buying stolen goods later to resell for profit) binds him to a number of figures, all while he aims to survive the underbelly and keep his cousin's head above water against the shaping of society. (Genre: historical fiction, crime mystery | Author: Colson Whitehead)

In the dark, quiet, post-apocalyptic world of Station Eleven, surviving actors of a traveling Shakespearean theatre known as The Traveling Symphony are intertwined before and after the Georgia flu kills off most of the population, through keepsakes, events, and (outside) characters that bring out the best in humanity, as well as the worse (power). (Genre: science fiction, science fiction | Author: Emily St. John Mandel)

In Amari and the Night Brothers, Amari Peters enlists in a hidden society known as the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs where mermaids, aliens, dwarves, witches, magicians, dragons, and other creatures actually do exist after discovering a ticking briefcase in her missing older brother's closet. (Genre: middle grade, mystery, adventure, fantasy | Author: B.B. Alston)

Set in 1983, Red, White and Whole is a coming-of-age novel in verse that explores the aspects of twoness of a young Indian-American girl and the unfolding of her mother's battle with leukemia. (Genre: middle grade, realistic fiction | Author: Rajani LaRocca)

Root Magic is a tale about a young girl, Jezebel “Jez” Turner, and her twin brother, Jay, learning the ancestral practice of rootwork and their Gullah-Geechee culture to upkeep their family’s traditions and protect themselves from evil that may lurk in 1960s South Carolina. (Genre: middle grade, historical fiction, magical realism | Author: Eden Royce)

The lengths that one will go to create a sense of “order” in their life and the lives of others at Belmont Academy, a prestigious private school, (even if it leads to...murder) is the premise of this dark and sometimes witty tale, For Your Own Good. (Genre: mystery, thriller | Author: Samantha Downing)

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies is a collection of nine engrossing short stories that intersects sex, sexuality, and relationships for women and girls who are caught between the church's double standards and their own needs and passions. Fun fact: This is a debut book written by a 49-year-old Black woman, who had no marketing budget and still secured a finalist spot for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. (Genre: adult fiction, short stories | Author: Deesha Philyaw)

Girl on the Train follows Rachel, an excessive drinker with frequent blackouts and our unreliable narrator, as she attempts to piece together her flashbacks, dig up her buried memories, and recount the alarming situation she witnessed from a window during one of her daily train commutes in London. (Genre: psychological thriller | Author: Paula Hawkins)

The Prophets is a heartbreaking yet poetically written novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence. (Genre: historical fiction | Author: Robert Jones, Jr.)

Legendborn is a modern day twist on Arthurian legend that it follows Bree Matthews, a Black teenage girl who discovers a secret historically white magic society while attending a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill residential pre-college program. (Genre: young adult, fantasy | Author: Tracy Deonn)

Interweaving mythology from Mayan, Aztec, Toltec, and other tribes native to Mexico and Mesoamerica; Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls is a rich tale about a 12-year-old girl who sets out to save her kidnapped sister from a criatura, a powerful dark spirit. (Genre: middle grade, adventure, fantasy | Author: Kaela Rivera)

A Raisin in the Sun is about a lower-class Black American family aspiring to move beyond segregation and disenfranchisement in 1950s Chicago. When an opportunity arises for one, he plays his hand to solve the family's financial problems forever. (Genre: drama | Author: Lorraine Hansberry)

The Four Winds is a compelling family saga moving through the relentless, deadly dust storms of the 1930s in the Great Plains, which ravages the home and farm of Elsa and her family in Texas, into their journey west to California during the Great Depression in hopes of finally attaining the “American Dream.” (Genre: historical fiction, literary fiction | Author: Kristin Hannah)

If you missed the list of my Top Albums/EPs of 2021, click here.

[quinloki]

Quicksand - ALTERNATIVE

If you haven't read Quicksand up to chapter 5 you're going to be terribly confused.

Fem Reader x Sir Crocodile

CW: Language, violence, blood, moral ambiguity, murder, sexual themes and situations, yandere, angst with a happy ending, a referenced instance of physical abuse. 18+ only

ADDITIONAL CW: Dub-con, kidnapping, imprisonment

The alternative version picks up at Chapter 6- there's a lot of overlap for the first few chapters as the story slowly peels away from the original. The alternative chapters explore Sir Crocodile's yandere tendencies in a setting where the reader rejects him (vs the original where she never ran).

You can read it as it posts to Tumblr, or sate your curiosity on AO3 // Wattpad immediately.

Chapter 14:

Despite his statement before you fell asleep, you didn’t talk to Crocodile for the next few days. You didn’t even see him for a few days. You were left in your room, provided food, and clothes by the staff. Within reason they brought you whatever you asked for so you could clean the room and put it back to how it had been. Aside from going a little stir crazy, you got into a good routine.

The days had given you a chance to think things through. Cleaning and organizing, you could do most of it without really focusing on it, so it gave your mind a chance to wander. You thought about the conversations you had with him during the two months on the dating website, going over each word again and again. The first meeting, the feeling of nerves and attraction and concern.

You had let your fears win out when you didn’t really want to leave. You had allowed your own feelings of powerlessness convince you that he wasn’t someone you could stand beside.

You were going to have to live with the consequences of that regret for the rest of your days, but you weren’t blaming yourself. You did what you thought you had to, even when it was something you didn’t want to do, and there was merit in that. Regardless of how it had all turned out.

But now you were concerned that the only reason you were struggling was foolish pride. An emotion no more or less useful than the fear that drove you away from him last time.

You didn’t hate him. Your fear of him was only because you had been trying to escape him, once that was gone there wasn’t anything else there. He was desperately gentle, as though he knew full well how much he could hurt you. His feelings toward you, obsessive though they provably were, weren’t detrimental to you. He wasn’t breaking your body in order to break your spirit. He wasn’t even really hurting you at all.

Even his attempt to punish you had drowned you in pleasure more than anything else. Even the guilty feeling that welled up in you when he talked about his own feelings were legitimate. You don’t doubt that the two of you had traded emotional wounds during this.

You mulled the thoughts through your head over and over. Sometimes you argued with yourself and tried to lay out how you could leave, but no matter how good the idea was there was always a tightening in your chest, a pain in your heart, at the idea of it.

For you, for now, that was good enough. Proof enough. If you didn’t want to leave, then it shouldn’t matter whether or not you should leave.

You wanted to stay.

When Crocodile arrived in your room, you were reading. The knock at the door prompted an automatic “Come in!” from you, as lately it was always someone from the staff bringing you something.

“Ah… hello.” You aren’t entirely sure how to feel. On the one hand you had been expecting to talk to him long before now, on the other hand, you never seemed to manage to keep a hold of yourself when he was around.

“May I sit?” He asks, nodding to the couch across from you.

“Yeah, yes. You can, um, sit.” You pull your legs up onto the couch you’re sitting on as Crocodile seats himself across from you.

“I’ve heard from the staff that you are doing well.” He says, looking around the room a little. “I hadn’t intended to leave you on your own for so long, but urgent matters needed to be dealt with. My apologies.”

“No, um… it’s okay.” You can feel his eyes on you and it’s not uncomfortable, but you can’t bring yourself to meet his gaze.

“It also was not my intent to cage you.” He says, and this does get you to meet his eyes. “I’ve spoken with Alvida and Buggy, and if you’re up for it, I’d like you to return to work.”

“Spoken with them… how?”

“I told them of our relationship, and how you’re settling into your new home.” He says matter of factly. “Also, that our agreement was that the relationship wouldn’t negatively or positively affect your job.” He looks at you for a moment, before he manages to catch your eyes again. “I only need one thing from you, before it can happen.”

“A promise.” You say quietly.

“Indeed. Promise-.”

“I won’t run.” You interrupt, getting up and stepping toward him. “I… it might take me some time to g-give you all of me, but I promise, I won’t run.”

He holds his hand out and you take it, and he guides you into his lap. Hiking up the nightgown you were wearing a little, you put a knee on either side of his waist and lean against him. You’re short enough, and he’s tall enough that you can rest your head against his chest as his arms hug you close.

After a moment you can feel him relax, his right-hand brushes through your hair slowly, and his prosthetic shifts against your back gently. The relief in his body and his actions is palpable, and not for the first time you wish you had just stayed in the hotel room with him that night.

If you hadn’t run.

If you had let him talk you back into bed.

If. If. If.

“Su… Suwani.” You say after a few long moments.

“Yes, desert flower?”

“Kiss me.” You request, leaning back to look up at him. His eyes widen a little before he hands shift, one braced against your lower back, the other caressing your cheek softly. He makes no immediate move to pull you in, seeming to take a moment to simply admire you. Your face turns beet red, and after a moment you have to avert your eyes. “Please.”

“As you command.” He murmurs softly, turning your face back toward him with a single finger, capturing your lips softly. The small escape of air, a sigh of relief and a feeling of it as well. Cupping his face with your hands you return the kiss, desperate and almost forceful.

You have control only for a breath, and when you lean back to catch yours there’s a surreal shift in everything. Crocodile becomes sand, and the realization is barely registering in your mind as the shifting sands lay you down on the couch and reform over you.

“S-sand.” Your eyes are wide. He’s over you, one leg on the floor, his knee on the other side of your legs against the back of the couch. His right hand on the back of the couch, his prosthetic on the cushions by your face. His expression is neutral as your mind swirls.

“You were at Rain Dinners that night.” You say, unsure how to think or react. “Th-that wasn’t a dream.”

“It was.” He says softly, his right hand coming down and caressing your cheek again. “I only answered the sounds you made on your own.”

“… I talk in my sleep?” Your quick gamut of emotions, from surprise as he turned to sand, to you weren’t even sure what at the idea that he had messed with you in your sleep, settling heavily into mortification as Crocodile simply raised his brows a little in response.

Your hands go over your face. “D-Don’t listen to me!”

“Even if I could somehow selectively not hear you, I have to apologize that I must refuse such a request.” He replies as his hand takes both of yours in it and pulls your hands away from your face. “Don’t do that.” His voice sinks into your chest just before he leans down and kisses you again.

His hand pins yours a little more forcefully when you begin to squirm, his prosthetic sliding down the side of your body causing you to moan into the kiss. The cool glass fingers move past your hip and against your bare thigh, causing your moan to turn into more of a squeak. You break the kiss, turning your head and gasping for air as pleasure shivers through your body at the gentle touch.

It had been too long since you had been caught in the unbreakable gentleness he employed.

“S-s-s-suwani…” Your voice shivers with your body as his fingers trail down the back of your thigh, shifting along the curve of your leg smoothly as hungry lips pressed against your neck and collarbone.

“This isn’t a punishment, desert flower, you can ask me to stop.” He admits, voice sinking into you before he leans back. He hasn’t let go of your hands, and you squirm a little under him, vaguely aware of your legs on either side of his, completely lost at how they got there when you know you started the kiss with your legs closed.

You’re quiet for a moment. You didn’t want him to stop, but you weren’t ready to ask him to continue, and you were unsure of what to say. After another moment of silence, your face turning more and more red as you could feel his eyes on you, he lifted the leg he’d been caressing with his prosthetic. The slow motion causes you to look at him, and those eyes trap you in their gaze, keeping you from looking away and watching you for the smallest signs. In a way he seems to be daring you to speak.

Leaning down, still holding your hands over your head, he kisses against your calf. It sends a jolt down your leg and straight to your core, and you make a strangled moan as his lips and tongue leave a hot trail from your calf to your ankle. A strange ticklish feeling begins to build alongside side the pleasure, and he holds your ankle more securely.

Having his gaze hold yours as his tongue presses against your foot sends a strange mix of pleasure and embarrassment through you. You wanted to squirm away from the strange sensation, but the pleasure that followed on the fringes of it, and the hold of his hands and gaze, kept you in place as pleasure panted from your lips.

“Puh-please, Sssssuuuwani!” Your mumbled words turned into a euphoric cry as his tongue moved over the ball of your foot and between your toes.

“Mm, now there’s a sound.” He muses, and his voice rumbling against your foot makes your whole-body tense.

“N-not my feet-haa.” You beg, squirming more.

“Is it unpleasant?” He asks, and you can hear the doubt in his voice given your earlier noise.

“It’s just… embarrassing.” You admit trying to twist your leg free to no avail.

“Embarrassment isn’t much of a deterrent when it turns you on.” His smirk makes you whimper before his hips push against you. As the desire between his thighs presses into your soaking panties his tongue teases your foot more.

“N-no-no-HNNNGH!” Your body tenses, the sudden orgasm tearing through your body and causing your toes to flex.

“Did you just cum from that, desert flower?”

You don’t answer him directly, hiding your face in your arm as you work to catch your breath. He hums deviously, shifting the hard bulge straining against his pants into you. The sensation against your flushed body causes you to gasp and squirm.

“Your sensitive little body that melts beneath me,” he muses, moving your leg aside and leaning down to practically purr into your ear as he pushes into you. “I would make you sing for me for hours. Every. Single. Day.” He accents each word with a shift of his hips, prying airy gasps of pleasure from you.

“I’d b-break,” you gasp, but despite your words, your legs are curled around his hips, keeping him close.

“And yet your body begs for it so sweetly, doesn’t it?” He asks, hand sliding down the leg locked around his waist. “But don’t worry.” He promises, releasing your hands and leaning back. “I won’t do anything like that until your lips beg for it even more sweetly.”

You sink into the couch, half relieved, half wanting more. Rushing things would work against the both of you, perhaps even him more than you, but you had time.

The routine of work came back to you easily, and Buggy and Alvida were glad to have you back. Days tracked to weeks, and you found that work kept you and Suwani separated often. He was the CEO after all, and there was always much to be done.

After a few weeks you even drove yourself to and from work. You were sure he had his eyes on you in more ways than one, your phone, your car, you wouldn’t be surprised to know there was a tracker in your uniform. But there was neither jealously nor tension in your evenings together, and after a while you began to share the same bed.

You weren’t sure how much time had passed when you finally told him you loved him, but you did miss a couple days of work recovering from the celebration of it. You yourself weren’t even sure if love was the right word for it, or if you had simply given up. The words sat on your heart like words of survival, and not necessarily ones of affection.

But his happiness was your comfort, so you had accepted your fate.

[greenninjagal-blog]

Details in Gold pt2

Annnnnnd we’re back! If you missed it, you can find [Chapter One here!]

Summary: After spending their Anniversary hitting it up during a Magical Festival and getting super drunk, Remy and Emile return home to find that some surprises are really bad. 

Word Count: 13092

Read on Ao3 || My General Writing Masterlist

[Chapter Two: Fool’s Gold]

“Remy, wake up.”

Remy, for his part, follows the request spectacularly: he’s sitting bolt upright in the bed, heaving breaths through his lungs, and shaking with an adrenaline so strong he swears that the entire building is crumbling around him before the last syllable is finished ringing in the air. The world around him swims and sways, like an ocean made out of shadows that he’s drowning in considering the fact that all the air seems to have disappeared from the entire planet without anyone else noticing. Remy wheezes, hands fumbling over his chest in a half baked thought about ripping open his rib cage to make sure his lungs are still there at all, because if someone stole them that would explain a hell of a lot right now.

“Remy,” a voice says to his left, so softly that listening to it feels like falling into quicksand. “Love, breathe with me.”

His heart throttles his throat, pumping so hard that his ears pound. He has to go. He needs to run. It's not safe. The shadows are aching and weeping and calling out to him and Remy’s scars burn so deep he tastes blood in his mouth.

“...three…. four…. five … six…”

His legs are entangled, his limbs trapped and he’s being held down and there’s pain everywhere. He needs help, please, help-- 

“...eight and inhale….”

He inhales, and it’s like getting hit with a club by a Goliath, which Remy knows because that’s happened to him before. Years ago. He breathes and his strangled lungs inflate and Remy thinks that his skin might be made of glass and a single touch will shatter him completely.

“You’re doing so well,” Emile says gently and Remy feels the bed shift as he moves to be near him. Which is great. Wonderful. 

Fuck. His body is still shaking, vibrating with nerves he didn’t even know he still had.  

“Remy?” Emile says again so softly Remy is going to-- nope wait, he’s already crying. He’s crying next to his husband in their bed, on their anniversary, over a nightmare. 

“Here,” he croaks, pressing his palms to his eyes and resisting the urge to suffocate himself with the pillow. “I’m here….I’m���”

He does not say pathetic, but the sentiment is well and truly there. Emile must know it too, from the look he gives him. 

((Self deprecating statements is something they’ve been working on since they met. Remy had always alternated between the brashest of bold statements and the most self flagellating ones, and Emile had put his foot down when Remy brought their son home. Something about it affecting mental health of their child to hear their parent say it-- Remy didn’t need the science of it; he knew that if he ever heard Virgil talk about himself the way that Remy talked about himself, he wouldn’t survive the self hatred.))

“...sorry,” Remy whispers. His throat is raw and dried out from the lingering effects of alcohol not too long ago. His head pounds and his bones feel so brittle under his paper skin. 

Emile twists bad to his side of the bed, moonlight streaming over his fair skin in pale slivers, where the blanket falls away. When he turns back around his wire rimmed glasses are back on his face, giving an extraordinary depth to his dark eyes. 

“You don’t need to apologize, braveheart,” he says. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I…” Remy swallows hard and exhales harder. His brain flashes with pangs of terror that leaves his shoulders shaking and his heart thundering, but it's mindless. His limbs scream with the urge to run but there’s no destination or chaser. Even as he sits upright and tugs the blankets from around his ankles, the jittery feeling in his stomach is fading and rational thought is reminding him that this is kinda, just a little, completely, extremely embarrassing. “I don’t remember. Something bad.”

He drops himself back to the mattress, his head narrowly missing the headboard and he stares up at the ceiling tracing the unfamiliar woodgrains with his eyes, and trying to hold back tears and sniffles. His skin thickens under the chill of the air, and the moonlight, and his steadier breathing. Calming down actually helps with breathing, who knew? 

“Do you want a hug?” Emile asks.

“Please.” 

Emile shuffles closer, crossing that threshold to Remy’s side of the bed and wriggling his arms under Remy’s back to rest his head on Remy’s chest right next to his tattoo of two hands bound in red rope. He’s so warm it's nearly burning, but Remy folds around him soaking up the flames along his skin. 

There’s strength here-- Remy’s known it since the first time he set his eyes on Emile, back when he was still a barboy at the rowdy adventuring town of Juphia. His gentle nature had always gotten him laughed at, but Remy had watched him break up a bar fight with nothing more than words and he’d been so awed he missed his mouth and poured his fireseed wine down his front. There’s strength in his steady presence, his careful understanding, his patience, and trust and loyalty.

Enough strength there to forge Remy's shattering, broken pieces back together again and again and again.

In his youth-- which mind you, was still not that long ago no matter what Emile says and no matter how lovingly he says it-- Remy was a world renowned adventurer. His name was just a single action away from being written in the stars themselves, everywhere he had gone people knew his face, and his reputation had spread faster and farther than any others for decades.

Sure, it hadn’t been for good reasons: a small bar fight had knocked over a lantern and half a town had gone up in flames and Remy had received the blame for throwing the first punch (even when he hadn’t actually thrown the first punch). He’d been on several wanted posters for a long time, had to keep off the main roads, and couldn’t do any traveling during the day lest he run into someone who wanted to cash in on that bounty over his head. He’d been run out of a handful of cities and towns and villages the moment that he had slipped into them.

It had been lonely, sure. Down right agonizing to join adventuring parties for a few days, a week, maybe a month if he’s lucky, and then to be discarded the moment that his unfortunate past caught up with him. He’d spent a lot of sleepless nights tending a fire for himself and checking to make sure the pain he was feeling in his guts wasn’t actually a spare knife that had wandered away from an owner.

But it had led him in the right direction in the end. Any path that led to the saving of several hundred lives was the right path, wasn’t it? 

Remy tightens his hold on Emile, pressing a kiss to his husband’s dark curls. In the moonlight the red band on his wrist seems to glow. The threads are interwoven in a simple pattern, no flashy designs, no fancy magic: at the end of the day it’s just a piece of cord tied around his wrist.

At morning’s first light, Emile’s matching one is a reminder of how much more it is.

Remy, for all the empty, lost years he’d spent drifting around without a destination, plan, or goal beyond “help people”, had achieved the ultimate happy ending: a magic shop and home that he owned, an adoring husband who kissed like honey and loved like the evergreens and left Remy thinking in love sonnets, a son-- he was a dad! Who would have ever thought he’d make a decent parent?

And hey, for a kid who grew up with nothing and no one, he thinks he did pretty alright.

It just sucks that to get to this point, he had to first make himself an enemy of the entire human race.

Remy Sanders, Bard of the Monsters, Champion of the Fae.

((Except that it wasn’t always the Fae, and he wasn’t actually a bard, and “Monsters” has always been the human way of avoiding saying an actual slur to any race of beings able to murder them with a thought.))

In his youth everyone told him that the creatures in the forests, the beautiful folk with untouchable wings, the wolves that grew to the size of bears, the shades that haunted the town limits with glowing red eyes-- those, they said, were not people. They were killers, thieves, and fiends.

But the funny thing was that when Remy was starving in the streets, it wasn’t a human that had offered him a piece of dried meat and half a loaf of bread. Glowing deep purple eyes and horns hidden by the brim of their hood, a swiftly moving tail wrapped around their waist and a skin that rippled like an illusion when Remy had looked too closely; They had been gone in the blink of an eye, leaving Remy with sourdough bread in his dust covered hands and Remy had never seen them again.

((A demon, supposedly incapable of love or kindness, having escaped the fires from some hell realm, and yet they had spared food when hundreds of humans had walked on by without so much as a glance at him.))

Remy spends a lot of time thinking about them, probably more than that demon ever thought about him. They had probably saved his life with a single act of kindness and where Remy had never been able to thank them, he had taken to saving every other magical creature he could.

So yeah, not a fundamentally human-like thing to do-- that insistence on helping tieflings, or cavorting with elves, drinking with dwarves, or offering trinkets to the fae had put him in surprisingly terrible standings with humans that hated magical creatures. There was no shortage of people willing to do senseless killings of entire werewolf packs based on the assumption that a dead sheep was some kind of omen; Remy had spent decades spilling blood, sweat, and tears on every inch of the world being the sole protector of creatures who weren’t always happy to have him shielding them from humans who definitely hated that he was shielding them.

But what else was there to expect from a paladin of Ilmater? It’s in his nature to suffer for the sake of others. His nightmares are just another in a long list of things that showed he’d done good. 

((“You’ve done enough,” Emile had said nineteen years ago, tears in his eyes, pressing a hand to his red bracelet so that Remy could not tear his eyes from it. “You’ve suffered enough, Remy.”))

Emile nods off listening to Remy’s heartbeat in his chest. Remy lies awake listening to his soft breaths get deeper. He doesn’t have a clue what time it is other than late, although it was already late when they went to bed last night, whispers of wine and mead on their tongues and giggling like they were teenagers again. Remy remembers being mesmerized by the way that the fireworks painted Emile in a rainbow of colors until he looked like a mirage that would disappear if Remy stopped kissing him.

At some point the festival must have calmed down, because it was quiet now and Remy could hear his own thoughts echoing in the comforting emptiness. If he had to guess, he’d say that sunrise would be in an hour or so and there was definitely a group of dwarves who would be cursing his name, if not telling tales of his legendary ability to hold his mead. Emile had spent the night discussing magical theory with a sorcerer and an off duty magical researcher from the Capital, most of which had gone straight over Remy’s head even as Emile had sat in his lap the entire discussion. In his very esteemed opinion, Remy thought it was a very good ending to their third day in the elven city of Estrelas.

He only feels a little guilty for misleading his precious, lovely son: Virgil had jumped to the conclusion fairly quickly that their anniversary would be spent getting frisky in the woods, which Remy had then wondered if that was just his son projecting on them. But then Emile and Remy had silently agreed not to tell him they were going to a Magical Festival in the Elven Kingdom that they had heard about from a couple of adventurers that had passed through their shop while Virgil was off daydreaming about the color of Janus’s eyes or the shape of Janus’s lips, so that was on them.

Originally the plan had been to take Virgil with them, but the same day that Emile had suggested it, Remy had pointed out that there would be crowds, loud music, yelling, screaming, magical explosions-- they’d never been before and they wouldn’t know where they were really if they got lost and besides, did Emile really think that they’d be able to take Virgil anywhere without his tag along following?

((“We’re going to be lucky if we return and they aren’t married,” Emile had laughed.

“Don’t remind me,” Remy had said, sighing and feeling old. “We might as well just go again next year if we like it and invite the Ekans to join us. That is if I don’t kill their son for defiling mine in the five days we’re gone.”))

Remy cards his fingers through the fringe of Emile’s hair at his neck, and then traces gently down his spine, marvelling at the way that even in his sleep, even drooling over Remy’s chest, his husband is the prettiest thing that he’s ever laid eyes on. He slips Emile’s glasses back off, listening to his husband's rather incoherent mumble and sets them on the far reaches of the pillows that Emile forfeited to use Remy’s body instead. Where did he get the motivation to just go on being the brightest shining star? Remy has asked him before if he knew that he could have been a Heartwarder of Sune, but Emile’s resounding laughter only further proved his point in this case. 

He had to know by now that he could have had any good looking guy in the world. And yet he’d chosen Remy and all his crumbling bits, kissing the jagged edges like they couldn’t cut him, couldn’t hurt him, couldn’t ruin his perfectly good life. 

“‘love you,” Emile mumbles as if he can hear exactly what Remy’s thinking.

Remy presses another kiss to his curls. He’s pretty sure that if he says anything right now it's going to come out in a sappy, disgusting poem format: something about the way that Emile makes his heart pound and his mouth go dry, something about how his eyes are whirlpools that Remy gladly tosses himself into and his voice only could coax him back to life, something about those butterflies that always migrate back into Remy’s stomach when Emile does stupid shit like say I love you while half asleep.

And that patience, oh that patience.

Remy didn’t have enough words to describe that patience. Remy had travelled through every country on the planet, taken three trips to the fae world, gotten trapped the demon realms for a year, and gotten lost the mining tunnels so old the Dwarves themselves forgot where they went, and still Remy didn’t think he’d travelled farther than that patience of Emile’s was willing to go.

He’d stayed waiting every time that Remy left on another journey, another job, another quest to save someone somewhere and do something-- He stayed waiting in Juphia when Remy couldn’t send so much as a letter back to him to let him know that Remy hadn’t gotten himself killed by a mind flayer or drowned in a pond by a siren or, or, or. Emile had stayed patiently waiting for Remy to decide himself that he could put down his sword and shield and take off his armor.

And he stayed when Remy had picked all of it back up at the first sign of a call for help. 

((“You’ve suffered enough,” Emile had said through tears, so very patiently.

“I’m sorry,” Remy had said because self hatred fit him just as well as his armor did. “I’m sorry. I can’t look away from this one.”

“They can find someone else to call for help! It doesn’t always have to be you!”

“Who else would be stupid enough to help a fae?”))

He’d left Emile crying on the doorstep of their magic shop, once upon a time. He’d left at the morning’s first rays, after he had promised not to leave again, after he had tied their chords together in front of the altar of Ilmater, after he had kissed Emile senseless and realized that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with something so gentle. He hadn’t looked back, left his iron knife and rings in the dresser next to their bed, whispering apologies that Remy wasn’t sure either of them believed.

How could he be sorry for leaving if he knew he’d do it again? How could Emile still love him when he lied so easily?

The fae world wasn’t a place where humans were allowed to walk freely; the doors were closed unless a human gave up their name (and their body and soul and mind). Those that entered were not supposed to ever leave.

Remy had been there thrice. 

He’d been tricked the first time, approached by a hooded figure at a tavern in Awosa who asked for his name and Remy had been trying to drink himself out of a pit of self pity and had been just two tankards away from killing his liver. He’d given up his name (and his body and soul and mind) and the fae had walked him into the fae world, given his name back to him and explained that the Fae Queen had been cursed and Remy was the only adventurer that they could trust to find something to save her. 

He had. It had cost the skin on his back, nearly three of his inner organs, half of his sanity, and every piece of gold that he had managed to save up over the years, but he survived and returned to the fae with a cure so potent that carrying it in his hands hand left holy burns that still discolored his skin to this day. 

(It’s in the nature of a paladin of Ilmater to suffer for others.)

The Fae Queen had called him her Champion after that. She’d settled magic over the eyes of the humans that blamed him for that fire and erased their memories of it entirely as payment for what he’d done.

He’d gone back to Emile, kissed him until he forgot what air tasted like, got settled down with their magic shop and he’d lived. Happily. For two years. 

Then he’d gotten a summons right back to the fae world citing an urgent matter they could only entrust to him. 

Emile begged him to let someone else take care of it-- they were going to start a family, you know? Had just agreed that they wanted and could provide for a child, had just started looking around, had just become comfortable without that armor on. 

But Remy’s nature is to suffer and Emile knows this and hasn’t ever stopped wishing it wasn’t true.

Remy had gone to the fae nineteen years ago, stood before the magical gate and gave up his name (and body and soul and mind), unsure if he would ever get it back. He’d been led through opulent cities that he didn’t remember beyond blurs of colors and too sharp teeth and music that no human instrument could make. He’d walked up the stairs of the fae palace unable to form a rational thought and he’d knelt before the Fae Queen without knowing who she was.

She’d given his name (and body and soul and mind) back.

And then she’d dropped a baby into his arms.

“We do not forget debts, Remy Sanders,” She’d said. “Your actions saved both me and my people.”

A baby. In his arms.

“He was left abandoned at our gate.”

A living breathing baby, swaddled in a purple silk blanket. So small, so fragile, so quiet-- a baby who didn’t so much as wake when he shifted between carriers.

“Humans cannot survive in our realm unaltered for long. We gave him a gift to ensure his survival until you arrived.”

There was a baby in his arms and Remy was afraid to breathe unless it woke him up.

“He’s yours, Remy,” the Fae Queen had said. “Whatever you choose to name him. I would require that you raise him well, lest he find his way back to my kingdom.”

A baby.

"Goodbye, Remy Sanders. We won't meet again unless you wish to never leave."

Remy didn’t-- doesn’t, not even to this day-- remember leaving the Fae world that time: he’d spent the entire time making sure that the baby in his arms was comfortable and warm and safe. He’d stepped through the threshold back to the human world and he’d blocked the sunlight from falling into the baby’s eyes, but he had still stirred an woke with a soft yawn and--

His eyes were the warmest brown that Remy had ever seen, with flecks of purple in the irises and pupils wide and trusting and curious and-- 

“Hey there,” Remy had whispered softly, with tears trailing down his cheeks. “I’m your dad, kid. And I’m gonna give you the whole world if you want it.”

((Emile was right; Remy had suffered enough. He’d come back to his magic shop, and his endlessly patient husband and he’d handed off his son-- Virgil, Virgil Sanders, his son-- and then he’d taken off his armor and sold it for scrap.))

Remy doesn’t realize he managed to fall back asleep until the banging on the door starts.

He jerks in surprise, dislodging an equally sleepy Emile from his chest and his heart thundering in a way that was surely not good for his old body. The room looks marginally familiar now-- the sunbeams highlight the writing desk and mirror like a fairy fire enchantment straight from Hell its-- fucking--self, a chair in the corner holds their travel bags that have been rooted through and in what looks like a divines awful mess for them to clean up later, and Emile’s shirt is on the floor, even if Remy can't say for certain which of them had tossed it there between the pounding in his head. 

The booming blows on the door are so hard it rattles the rest of the room and leaves the hinges creaking in a way that suggests they’re going to give out and Remy is going to have to pay for the repairs. Remy stumbles from the bed, tripping over the blankets and the corner of the frame before Emile could even so much as open his mouth. He grabs the first weapon he can find in the room, waving towards Emile to keep quiet, although he might not have seen it at all with how his glasses had slipped away among the pillows and sheets.

The floor sways under Remy’s feet, swishing and swirling like he paid for a boat ride without knowing it, and his stomach climbs right up throat in a very valiant effort to make him choke on his own vomit. 

What a way to go, though, he thinks. After all this, a few rounds of mead with dwarves and he's set himself up to croak at the action of standing.

“The entire city better be on-fucking-fire,” Remy growls as he unchains the lock and yanks the door open.

Luckily, the arm of the fucking Aasimar manages to stop before it slams into Remy's face, because there was no version of this where Remy would have been able to dodge. He leans on the door just to keep his balance as he stares up into the face of the frankly glowing person, like his brain isn’t pulsing behind his fragile eyes in an attempt to pop out and say hi. 

They’re tall. Like Remy-needs-a-stool-to-get-on-eye-level and that’s very rude of the universe to set up-- the Aasimar is already slouching in the hall outside their room, cramped and with a stoic expression on their face. They have pale yellow wings that are crushed from trying to fit inside and a few ruffled feathers have already graced the floor in a radiance that Remy’s pretty sure would vaporize him if he breathed near.

Suddenly the knife in his hand seems extremely stupid to have. He’s not entirely sure the metal of it won’t melt apart if it tried to touch the resplendent being. Not to mention, how the chill of the hall catches him like a hundred icy hands caressing his bare legs and arms, compared to the full set of shining battle armor the Aasimar has on.

“If this is about something I did last night--” Remy says, carefully between gritted teeth, “--can I at least put on some pants before we get to the part where you smite me?”

“Remy!” Emile calls from behind him and it's testament to how much Remy loves him that he doesn’t even whimper pathetically as the noise drives into his skull like a crossbow arrow.

“My bad,” Remy says. “Can I put on pants before we get to the part where we have a totally mature, adult conversation about your grievances against me that inevitably turns into a bloody fist fight?”

Remy is familiar enough with his husband to know that the noise he makes in response is vaguely disapproving. He's also familiar enough with mornings-after to know that if this delves into a fight, the last two days of their trip will be spent with Emile crying over his unconscious, half dead corpse and Virgil will absolutely fret when they get home.

((He loves that kid so much, but sometimes he makes Remy's feel so stupidly old. He totes boxes of white snakeroot and foxgloves around the shop easily where Remy's back winces in pain and Ilmater forbid Remy show those fleeting seconds where he remembers that his bones are brittle now; Virgil once guilted him into spending half a day in bed the first time he mentioned it. Virgil might not have an ounce of Remy or Emile’s blood in him, but somehow their son perfected those mother henning instincts from one of them and now uses it against them.))

“Are you ‘the Sanders’?” the Aasimar says with a surprisingly deep voice, and surprisingly good quality Common for someone who probably spent more time speaking Celestial than anything else.

Remy tightens his grip on the door handle and the knife individually, wondering if this would be quicker if he lunged and got the boring conversation part of this over with. “Depends on who is asking.”

“You are followers of Ilmater.” 

The red bracelet on Remy’s wrists burns white hot for a second, slicing through Remy’s headache like an axe blade to the brain. He shifts in the doorway, filling it more as if he can intimidate the stranger away. At the very least it will hide Emile behind him, maybe even make the Aasimar forget he exists when worse comes to worst. 

“Yes,” Remy says with a particularly gritty smile-- an old mask from his adventuring days that he kept in his arsenal: nine tenths a threat, one tenth a warning, and a whole lot of bluffing confidence. “I’m a faithful servant. Do you have a problem with it?”

For such a big creature they still seemed to startle suddenly, wings twitching and dropping more radiant feathers on the hallway flooring. “No-- I am a chosen of Tyr, god of Justice. I am here to deliver a message to the Sanders, followers of Ilmater, at the behest of someone dear to me.” 

“A message,” Remy replies somewhat dubious. When was the last time someone just wanted to deliver a message to him? Remy’s memory is filled with nights being dragged, chased, and physically catapulted from towns when his reputation managed to trickle in; even the kindest of messages usually came with a short sword to his guts. 

Sure, followers of Tyr are usually above unjust and backhanded actions, but Remy isn’t seeing any symbol of scales on the Aasimar’s chest plate. The back of his throat tastes like his stomach acids and mead when he thinks of how many other gods would endorse their followers lying and tracking followers of Ilmater down to crush them under their feet. It’s a long list.

“Who sent you?”

The Aasimar straightens, forgets their height for a moment, singes part of the ceiling, and then  drops lower so that they’re almost laughably at Remy’s height. Remy would smile if it wasn’t way-too-early and he wasn’t way-too-hungover and feeling way-too-threatened.

“Your companion spent long hours trying to convince my compatriot’s blood sister of the possibility of overcoming magical limitations through disbelief in the foundational reasoning of the rules,” They say. “I believe the exact argument spawned from a story she was recanting of a magician who was rumored to have used a enlarging spell on an enemy’s heart. Your companion was insistent that it was possible even though the spell should not be capable of affecting individual elements of an organic creature to that extent--”

It sounds... it sounds like a bunch of words honestly. Even on a good day Remy can’t keep up with Emile’s seemingly endless knowledge on magical theory. He was always more of a hands-on type of learner, and he’d come across a hundred different ways magical enchantments didn’t work in the heat of the moment before coming back to Emile’s loving embrace and partially horrified looks for the explanation of how did you survive a fireball that size, what do you mean you HIT IT BACK AT THEM WITH YOUR BARE HANDS?!

The concept of this mysterious mage is vaguely familiar past that: mostly gossip from the last time they had travellers from out of town stop by the store for restocks. Remy wasn’t interested in the up-and-coming adventurers, but Emile liked the emerging branches of magic. Last night, Remy had been mostly distracted by Emile’s rosy cheeks as he talked himself out of breath with hands fluttering in the air, narrowly avoiding knocking over Remy’s next drink when the dwarf with the morning glories braided into her beard declared that spill intentional or not would disqualify both contenders--

“Oh!” Emile says, and Remy yelps as his husband wraps his arms around Remy’s waist, presses a kiss to (barrage of scars along) his shoulder blade and peeks out at the Aasimar. “Hela mentioned you, I believe. It’s Quintus, right? You do how do?”

The Aasimar’s wings flick again, and Remy’s brain offers up the ridiculous idea that maybe they’re uncomfortable, possibly actually intimidated by the two of them. He has to wonder what exactly was in that mead last night and how exactly he can keep it away from anywhere that Virgil might one day travel to if he ever decided to actually use that battle leather Remy got him because he doesn’t ever want his son to have thoughts this stupid.

“Hela asked me to deliver a message,” the Aasimar says, eyes darting down the hall. “In an urgent regard to your status as followers of Ilmater.”

“Oh dear,” Emile says soothingly, resting his chin on Remy’s shoulder before he can think about tensing to high hell, like those words being said to them in that order haven’t been harbingers of death and destruction before. “Well, how about we all head down to the tavern and get breakfast and you can relay what Hela wanted us to know?”

The Aasimar looks like this is distinctly not what they want to do-- the expression on their face reminds Remy of unwillfully pouring lemon juice over a wound-- but instead of mentioning their obvious distaste for the idea they nod their head.

Remy gets the feeling his headache is about to get far worse, but he presses his hands to his eyes, counts to three and then offers his best housewarming smile to their guest. He imagines it's not quite perfect-- probably just on the bare side of non-threatening, considering for over half of his life he didn’t have a home or people he trusted enough to welcome them into it.

“Let me put on some pants, I guess,” Remy says and shoves the door closed.

Emile gives him another soft lingering kiss to the side of his neck, and then draws away taking all the warmth that Remy has ever felt before in his life. The sound he makes is not at all flattering.

“Blade away, braveheart,” Emile says, without looking back or taking mercy on him. “You don’t want to get blood on Janus’s gift.”

Remy blinks down in surprise at the knife in his hand, only recognizing then that it’s not his own. Too new, and shiny and definitely smaller than the hunting knives that had served him through his prime adventuring days. He flips it in his fingers, admiring for a second the lightness of the dirk-- elven made, sleek, made of a silver and iron alloy with ritual engravings along the unsharpened edge of the blade, the handle was carved from ebony wood that was dark enough to match the color scheme of that pest. 

Despite the aching pain behind his eyes, Remy affords himself a smile and twists it again. He was pretty sure that Lord and Lady Ekans were going to have conniptions upon seeing it, but if they hadn’t kicked Remy and his family out all those years ago, he figures that they lost their chance entirely.

((He’d been jumping the counter the moment that Virgil had gone out the door, dropping a box of vials containing quick acting poisons all over the register area. Their customer had yelled out, catching it with a mage hand spell and probably saving their entire shop in the process, but Remy had been out the door, had been calling on magic he hadn't used in years, had been dual casting Banishment on the townguard that had grabbed Virgil and Magic Circle on around Emile and Virgil and--

“Please…” Remy had begged Lord Ekans on his knees with Emile behind him hugging Virgil so tight as if he could hide him from the gazes of the townguards that had come running at her ladyship’s scream. “He’s just a kid. Please… if you have to punish someone, punish me instead. Please don’t hurt my son.”))

(((Janus was seven. Janus was seven, and red in the face, heaving breaths through his small chest that was just healed yesterday. Janus was seven and he was staring up at Remy with large wide, determined eyes and his mouth was moving. 

“I’m going to marry your son,” he was saying and Remy was thinking the entire world around them was imploding because they’re seven fucking years old and this pest was talking about marriage.)))

Remy’s pants hit the side of his head, as lightly as pants can and Remy shakes his head blinking away the memories. Emile is smiling at him from next to their bags, that warm, soft expression on his face that Remy never stops falling in love with. 

“He’s going to love it,” Emile says, nodding at the dirk in Remy’s hand.

“I’m going to stab him with it if he doesn’t,” Remy says, flipping it in the air and catching the handle in a reversed edge out grip. “Do you know what I could have bought for myself with 30 gold pieces? A better future husband for my son.”

Emile laughs at him like he said something funny and not entirely true.

“He’s a pest, Em! A leech! A parasite!”

“Janus Ekans is a perfectly good kid and you know it,” Emile says, pulling his soft white underlayers on. “You just don’t like that he doesn’t ask you permission to kiss your son, which, by the way, your son happily consents to.”

“A menace!” Remy agrees, pulling his pants on.

Emile definitely rolls his eyes this time, he tosses the scabbard and belt for the dirk over his shoulder and Remy catches it in the air, carefully placing the blade away. With luck they’ll get away with hiding it in their bags until the wedding-- fuck, the wedding, when did Virgil grow up? Why is that pest still around?-- then they would be able to present both Virgil and Janus with the matching set of daggers and Remy will feel marginally less like he’s letting his son walk into a den of dire bears. 

Emile thinks that Virgil gets his fretting habit from Remy. Remy thinks it's utter bullshit because he does not fret. He just... cares about his son a lot and never wants to see him so much as skin his knee.

Is that such a crime?

Remy stuffs the dirk and the scabbard into the bottom of his travelling bag, trading it for a faded grey travelling shirt and his belt. He rushes through the rest of getting ready for the day, listening to Emile humming softly behind him as he laces his boots. 

The floor seems to have settled enough that walking doesn’t make Remy want to vomit, although the piercing pain in his head is utterly unwelcomed and not even drawing his cloak’s hood up is enough to get the pulsing to ebb.

“Let me,” Emile whispers, kindly, approaching him with the grace of an elf, and taking Remy’s broach. With careful precision he pins it to hold Remy’s cloak in place, straightens out the wrinkles, and firmly rests his hands on Remy’s shoulders afterwards. 

“Em?”

His eyes sparkle from behind his copper wire glasses, like a million priceless magic crystals. Remy’s entire body might be on the verge of vomiting itself out, but even then he’s not too far gone to ignore how beautiful his husband is-- which mind you, is still as beautiful as the day Remy met him, possibly more beautiful although Remy doesn’t have the words to explain how that is physically possible. He gets the urge, just from standing there, inches away from Emile, to sweep him up in his arms, tote him over to the window, and shout out to everyone that he’s the luckiest man in this world. Headache, hangover,-- Remy could be actively being torn apart by wolves and he’d still think Emile’s arms are the most home-like thing in the world.

But before he can actually move on that frankly brilliant idea of his, Emile pops up on his tip toes and kisses Remy’s nose.

“I really love you,” Emile whispers like it's a secret, something valuable that shouldn’t be talked about loudly, something magical and special and to be treasured. 

Remy really has to keep himself from wrapping his husband up in his arms and carrying him back to bed. “I love you too.”

“Don’t start a fight with Quintus.”

“So anyone else is fair game?”

“Remy!”

Remy presses his own kisses to Emile’s cheeks. “I love you, babes. So much. I promised I wasn’t going to fight anyone on this trip, remember? No fights, no jinxes, no... probably something I forgot about.”

“Fretting over Virgil and Janus.”

“Can’t win them all.” Remy nods his head towards the door. “Now, I believe we’ve kept the archangel waiting long enough and I need food before I hear bad news.”

Emile sighs, drawing back from him and picking up his own travel bag to sling over his shoulders. He looks like an adventurer dressed up like this, kinda like how Remy started out, without any actual armor and far more optimism than he should have had. 

“It might not be bad news,” Emile says, heading towards the door.

Remy blows a breath out of his mouth, idly rubbing his red bracelet, and aching to climb back into the bed with his husband and forget the rest of the world. “When is it ever good news?”

The Aasimar had settled themselves into a corner booth that was usually made for rowdy parties of eight or more complete with tankards, food trays and bowls and an arm wrestling contest. They’re hard to miss-- and believe him, Remy did try to conveniently miss them, considering he might have been able to convince Emile to make a strategic retreat with him  back to the bedroom they had rented for the next two days.

The Aasimar takes up one half of the table with their wings partially extended, and looks particularly guilty for it. There’s a pile of feathers on the corner of the table and they’re miserably staring at the scorch marks on the floor nearby. Emile makes an odd cooing under his breath at the poor creature, like they aren’t imbued with holy power and able to bring the wrath of Tyr himself down on the entire city.

“I bet that Samus gave them a good talking to,” Emile says, squeezing Remy’s hand and then nudging him towards the Aasimar. “Go play nice while I order us all food.”

Remy wants to do nothing of the sort. The lingering good feelings from the bedroom are completely gone by the time they get down the rickety staircase to the tavern underneath; Remy took up the other side of the table, burying his head in the hood of his traveling cloak in his best attempts to block out the entire sun that was blasting its way into the establishment like it was trying to kill him, which honestly Remy won’t put it past the sun to being trying to do. It wouldn’t be any different from any other trip he’s been on. 

The casual conversations from the other patrons only aids with Remy’s pounding head and dry mouth. There’s a coven of elves in the far corner whose laughter is way too bright and cheery for the way-too-early morning.

“It’s past noon,” Quintus the Aasimar informs him, awkward and apologetic, when Remy mutters this in lieu of any type of greeting, and Remy groans into the wooden furnish of the table. 

((It's dwarven made, extremely good quality, and a self cleaning charm along the edges so that wiping down the table tops is easier on the staff. Remy is extremely jealous of this, considering how many times he’s forgotten to wipe down the back counter for potion preparation and gotten a nasty surprise when his freshly harvested snapdragons react with the leftover traces of honey, brimstone, and liquid silver. He always tells Emile that he does wipe down the counters, he does, and he still somehow always misses a spot and ends up setting himself and parts of the back of their shop on fire.))

“Here we are!” Emile appears to his side, juggling three trays of food and three tankards of drinks between two hands with a professional skill. He must have impressed the barmaid who was waiting for him to trip in fall because she’s shaking her head ruefully and Emile is pretending innocently not to see her.

The food is still steaming--the trays have light enchantments on them to keep whatever is on them warm, although it changes the taste of the food, and Remy’s had his own face pressed to and held on one before for daring to point such a thing out before-- but really Remy’s stomach revolts against the idea of actually putting things in his mouth, much less chewing, and swallowing. The smell is strong and savory and Remy wants to gag. Emile seems to notice this based on his body language though, because he drops a tankard in front of him before the food gets anywhere near him. 

There’s a whole side of a booth and Emile sits so closely he’s almost in Remy’s lap.

The elves in the corner laugh again, chiming with bells so obnoxiously, and Remy tips back his drink and downs half of it in one go. It tastes like pumpkin seeds--toasted pumpkin seeds with a light dusting of salt and almost immediately Remy’s thrumming headache dulls to a minor hum. In another gulp, it’s gone.

Oh, Remy thinks. This is what being in love is like. 

“Marry me,” Remy says, so full of love that he can’t possibly hope to contain it all in his human form. There’s a really stupid grin on his face but he can’t make himself feel embarrassed by it. “Marry me right now.”

“You’re so cute, my braveheart,” Emile says, linking together their hands to show off their red bands. “But I’m already married.”

“He doesn’t deserve you,” Remy says. “Truly, he’s a loser. A washed up adventurer, who couldn’t even keep enough in his pocket to get you some flowers for your anniversary. Not to mention he keeps jinxing items in your house like a lunatic and hasn’t managed to figure out the countercurses yet.”

Emile hums, nodding his head in an attempt to keep the smile off his face. “I don’t really appreciate you bad mouthing my wonderful, loving husband who cares far too much about other people and who happens to know that I very much dislike seeing flowers wither away.”

“And the jinxes?”

“Well I could do with them if only my husband listened to me about magical theory…”

Remy presses his forehead to Emile’s shoulder, snickering. The exhaustion is still there, clinging to his bones rather stubbornly, but magic potions are rarely able to conduct a perfect solution for every person they come across. Remy hadn’t even realized this bar offered a hangover cure; they aren’t cheap to make and Remy would know because he used to carry them at their magic shop. Now he only makes them on request for special occasions like a coming of age party, or a promotion to head guard, or Lord Ekans tried to talk sense into that pest of a son he has and once again got verbally demolished.

“Uh,” Quintus the Aasimar says, their wings twitching like they’re just barely keeping from launching themself out of the booth towards the door and back into the skies.

“Right, sorry,” Emile says sweetly, drawing back from Remy. “Go ahead and eat, Quintus, it's on us.”

“Thank you for your generosity,” The Aasimar says without actually looking at the food. There’s some type of gazed ham and something that resembles a vegetable so Remy makes a note to avoid it, skillfully, so that Emile doesn’t notice and hit him with the disappointed eyes.

(Virgil is a good several hundred miles away, which means that Remy can get away with being a terrible role model and not even Emile can guilt him into eating his vegetables.)

“Hela sends her regards,” The Aasimar continues. “She did enjoy your conversation last night, despite how it might have ended.”

“I’m always happy to have new discussion partners,” Emile says. “She made some interesting points, and I hope that I might be able to find that book she mentioned to see for myself her position. Do you know if any shops nearby--”

“You may be in incredible danger.”

Remy swirls the dregs of his tankard where Emile tenses next to him. Quintus the Aasimar squirms in their seat, ruffling their feathers in a handful of directions that cannot feel pleasant at all. The gold sheen on them is still bright and dangerous to look at directly, but they look so much like a teenager who just got in trouble that Remy wonders if they’d make a good friend for Virgil. 

“Is that so?” Remy says as casually as he can. He reaches out and drags the wooden tray with his food towards himself. “What makes you say that?”

“You are from the East, correct? Past the Tregaron Forest?”

It’s a little more Northeast than that, but Remy nods anyway, because no one really cares that deeply about the technicalities unless they’re trying to find shortcuts through the Tregaron Forest, which is just a genuinely bad idea: It’s home to at least three werewolf packs, a handful of direbears, goblins and rumors of some kind of dragon. Remy’s seen the previous three, and is skeptical about dragons, but it's not his business so he leaves the creature well enough alone. None of the beings that live there have tried to harm him, the travellers along the road, or the city of Cobarton where the Ekans ruled, so there’s no need to go out and mess with things.

He takes a bite of the ham. It's got a cranberry glaze which is nice, but Emile’s definitely made one better before.

“As Hela was leaving the city last night, she overheard a rumor that a Truescar of Loviatar was sighted in that location.”

The ham seems to swell in his throat, and Remy chokes so hard that nearly throws it back up. “What?”

The Aasimar’s jaw clenches, but despite Remy’s tone they don’t do anything sensible like take it back. 

His scars burn all at once: the ones covering his chest, the slashes down his back and up his thighs, the scattered fleck around his arms, and then the one on the back of his calf; all at once its like someone shoved a white hot poker into each and everyone to watch his body twist and jerk. Remy heaves breathes through crumpled, crushed lungs and there’s something binding his legs his arms, he has to run, he needs to scream, he needs help, someone help-- 

“Are you certain?” Emile says, calmly. The clinical tone to his voice slices through the wave of panic in Remy’s brain and Remy clings to the momentary solace with every bit of his willpower.  He leans back in the booth, closing his eyes and counting the things that he can hear, the things he can feel, the things he can taste, smell, and see.

The blood in his mouth is not real. The trembling in his hands is justified. A Truescar--

“She would have come herself if she was not required back in the Capital today,” the Aasimar says. “She neglected to inform me of the identities of the people she overheard, but Hela is not one to jump to conclusions or believe every rumor. Since she begged me to find you before you left the city, I am under the impression this warning is genuine.”

A Truescar. Of Loviatar.

“Did she... say where they were heading?” Remy forces out between shudderings of his lungs. “Oakheart? Accrington?” Please don’t say Cobraton. Its too small, it's not noticeable, it’s nothing--

The Aasimar shakes their head. “My apologies. If she heard that information she did not relay it to me.”

“Thank you, Quintus,” Emile says.

The Aasimar stands up quickly, offering a bow of the head to both of them. “I wish you safe journeys. Hela would be most grateful if you would send her a letter when you reach home.” 

“Of course,” Emile says, distantly. 

The Aasimar drops eight silver pieces on the table and practically flies out of there. If Remy had blinked he would have assumed they had imagined them entirely: not even the pile of feathers remain. The silver pieces roll to a stop and the noise is much louder than it should be in the tavern filled with other patrons. The elves that had been so ridiculously loud early, sound to be part of a half forgotten memory even as Remy’s eyes drift over to them now.

“Remy,” Emile says.

“A Truescar of Loviatar,” Remy whispers. 

“Remy, you’re hurting yourself,” Emile says so very patiently, so very gently, so very calmly. Remy’s clothes are tearing at his skin, each thread hooking into him and pulling in various directions. He forces himself to breathe, to calm down, to swallow even though his throat is parched and that single piece of ham was trying to climb its way back up. His nails dig into his wrist, squeezing around the red band there because of course he’d be that stupid wearing a bright red symbol of Ilmater out in the open. He might as well have just worn a sign that said “Please Kill Me and My Family!”

Oh god. His family.

“Virgil,” Remy says, gasps, wheezes. “Em, we have to--”

“I know,” Emile says. “We will.”

“We need to go. Now.”

“We will. We can.”

“Loviatar-- She’s the Maiden of Pain, Em. She hates Ilmater’s followers-- Virgil-- If they find Virgil--” 

“Remy,” Emile says with patience and strength that Remy does not know where he gets it from. His voice is the solid rock that Remy is clinging to, as study as the earth, as unchangeable as destiny, and he holds all of Remy’s broken pieces together with careful fingers. “I hear you. We will head back today. But before we do that, I need you to let go of your wrist and take a breath with me.”

He asks for so little; He asks for so much.

It’s in Remy’s nature to suffer and it was eons ago that Loviatar, the Maiden of Pain, sent a proclamation down to her followers that their missions in life were to exterminate all Ilmater’s followers. The goddess handed out blessing to her followers who managed to systematically torture anyone they got their hands on before killing them-- It was precisely because Remy had been such a solo adventurer that he’d been spared more than a handful of meetings with various Loviatarians, and that he managed to escape each with his limbs still attached. 

Others weren’t so lucky.

Adventuring groups that never made it to their destinations, shrines decimated along the countryside, temples in the cities burned to the ground. Remy walked in the ashes of the building he was converted in and his tears had washed the soot from the half charred remains of people with red cords around their wrists. He isn’t even sure if the temple that he and Emile had gotten married in was still standing, much less the fate of the priest that had officiated.

A Truescar. The highest level worshipper of Loviatar. The holiest of followers.

Or as Remy liked to call them, genocidal maniacs. 

And one might be near his son.

He’d put out the fires on the remains of descreted altars, picked up the crumbling remains of scrolls from the libraries burned down, whispered prayers and apologies over the bodies of people he’d never met but who had been twisted and scarred and warped for loving each other He’d seen red cords cut and soaked in puddle of blood, corpses left behind and everything they held dear torn apart until they begged for the sweet relief of death. 

((It didn’t matter the age, Remy had realized holding the partially scorched ragdoll in his hands. A follower of Ilmater was a follower of Ilmater-- and they were all made to suffer and burial rites were the first things they were taught.))

And Virgil… his son, who was smitten with a pest, who offered help to anyone who needed it, who had no desire to leave home ever. His son who still looked at the world with bright brown eyes in awe and wonder, who loved and loved deeply, who pretended to hate his hugs but still melted into them when Remy dragged him close-- 

“Breathe,” Emile coaxes. “Breathe with me, Remy. Virgil will be okay. You know that Janus will never let anything happen to him.”

Right. Janus. 

The pest. The pest who trails after Virgil while he does his chores, listens to him like everything he says is the most interesting thing in the world, stares at him like he hung the moon and the stars in the sky. Janus who brings gifts for Virgil, endless streams of gifts and affections that he never expects anything in return for. Janus who makes Virgil double over with laughter, who always knows how to cheer him up on a bad day (even when Remy can’t), who only ever needs to show up to make Virgil glow with happiness.

Janus whose determination to care after his son has given Remy so many grey hairs.

Emile’s right. Of course, Emile’s right. Janus would never let anything happen to Virgil. 

(But what can Janus do against the type of person who can murder without remorse? What can Janus do to protect from something that hates so much?)

His lungs ache. He’s so tired. Remy exhales slowly, stuttering, fending off a sob with the last bits of his strength before he gives him and slumps forward, pushing his barely touched food to the side. His clothes grate across his skin at the action leaving a burning sensation and the faint smell of smoked flesh in his senses.

He’s imagined this a million times really: his nightmares, his memories, the moments where trace ingredients on a potion counter mix together and the explosion leaves him on the floor with flashes of too-hot and Where’s-Virgil-is-he-okay. His brain is so adept that conjuring horrors that the visions of those corpses he once buried come with Virgil’s face. Emile’s too. Janus, for as much as he’s a pest….He’s woken in a cold sweat, clutching his chest and frantically needing to make sure his son and husband and pest are all still breathing because he’d been so sure three seconds ago that they weren’t.

((--on his knees in front of Lord Ekans, pleading, fear beating through his chest, imagining all the ways there are to hurt a child, imagining all the way that there is to kill a child, imagining all the ways that Remy would be powerless to protect his son and husband if Lord Ekans so much as twitched a finger, please, please he’s just a kid, and he’s my everything, if you need to punish someone let it be me--))

“Em,” he manages. “Em--”

“I’m here,” Emile says. “I’m here, Braveheart. Whatever you need I’m here for.”

What Remy needs is to be home. To hold his son. To chase that pest out of his house and tell him to come back when he’s forty and Remy is ready for them to be married. 

“That will not stop Janus,” Emile says softly, gently, patiently. “But, yes, we can go home now. I already told Samus we were leaving early and she gave us a refund for the room and she had the stable boy gather our horses.”

Remy nods because he’s pretty sure if he opens his mouth he’ll start crying and he really doesn’t need to make anymore of a scene right now. He presses the palm of his hand against his eyes and rubs away the beginnings of his tears, and breathes in through his teeth. The back of his throat is raw and everything hurts, with the type of pain that Remy doesn’t think any healing potion or his son’s flowers can help.

It takes him a moment to realize that Emile is standing, offering a hand to him. He’s glasses were slipping down his nose, the hints of grey among his brown curls carefully hidden, but the soft concern in his eyes is that same as the first time that Remy had met him. 

“Let’s go home, Rem,” he says. 

Remy wonders if he knows that he can turn such simple phrases into magic words. Spells to settle the soul, verbal incantations to wash those that hear them in reassurances, enchanting phrases to pick up the broken piece that were masquerading around under the name “Remy”. 

Remy takes his hand. Emile squeezes gently and pulls him to his feet and keeps him steady. 

“Not always bad news, huh?” Remy chokes out. 

Emile rubs a thumb over his knuckles. “I’ll admit perhaps this time that wasn’t...  true.” He scoops up the handful of silver coins on the table and moves the trays of uneaten food to be easier to collect later. Remy picks up their travel bags from by their feet and hefts them over his shoulder from muscle memory ingrained deeply in him.

“But we’ll face this. Whatever comes, we’ll figure it out.” Emile says. “Together.”

The elves in the corner laugh again, something bright and undaunted. Remy isn’t in the habit of having optimistic views, but Emile sounds so sure. How can Remy not believe him? After all they’ve gone through together?

(Cobraton is so small that it's nearly unnoticeable. No one comes there unless they’re lost. That was why Remy and Emile had chosen it all those years ago. The likelihood of a Truescar just… stumbling on it is so small and Janus wouldn’t let anything happen to Virgil. Remy will keep repeating it in his mind until he believes it.)

Outside the town in the in the process of setting up for the next night of the festival: interchanging lights are being strung around the shop awnings, festive signs are being hung again after whatever messed them up the night before, and the assortment of adventurers and citizens all seem to be in a generally great mood. The air smells like baked goods: honey buns, cinnamon spiced cakes, fruit muffins that normally would make Remy’s mouth water, except now the only thing he can think of is how he once caught Virgil stuffing an entire blueberry muffin his in mouth like some type of magically mutated giant squirrel after Emile told him to wait for them to cool first.

One of the stable boys is standing with their horses at the ready at the stables nearby, complete with saddlebags that aren’t theirs. They have two murraths a piece and a bottle of the same Evermead that Remy vaguely remembers drinking last night. There’s a card tucked between the two that has two dwarvish curse words on it.

“You made an impression,” Emile notes as he brushes the main of his horse and hoists himself up on it’s back. 

“It’s probably not poisoned,” Remy says, squinting at the card. “Maybe.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit for how likeable you are,” Emile says. 

“I’m sure Lord Ekans will enjoy it immensely in any case.” Remy pays off the stableboy, with an extra silver piece that the kid thanks him for and disappears to go show his friends, with a comment about getting sweets for them all. Remy climbs onto his own horse and nudges it towards the exit of the city. “I’ve never met a man who needed a drink more than him, considering that son of his.”

Emile’s huff of laughter cascades through the busy streets even as they approach the city gates. The guards check their identity papers with an impassive face and then they’re back on the road towards the magic circles  that will take them to Tregaron Forest.

Outside the elven town of Esterlas, the forest path is well identified with Elven lamps and signs. Remy remembers getting lost along these roads back in his youth, long before there were any identifiers and the city was proclaimed a magic safe zone. He’d spent a good week walking aimlessly through the thickets and underbrush, surviving on berries that probably would have killed anyone else before he managed to find himself in the distant plains that marked the halfway point to the nearest city.

Of course the last time he was here (ugh decades ago now) they also didn’t have magic teleportation circle business right at the edge of Esterlas forest that connected to one in Tregaron forest. This same trip would have otherwise taken them a week and a half, but now for a handful of silver coins Remy and Emile would be in Cobraton by dinner time and Ilmater help him if Remy gets there and finds Janus in the process of undressing his son…

He’s not sure if that would be worse than finding out a Truescar had even breathed in the direction of Cobraton. It's like a sliding scale of two equally bad situations in Remy’s mind:

Emile spurs his horse up so that he’s riding side by side with Remy, the steady clopping of the horse hooves melding with the ambience of the elven forests. Virgil would like this, he thinks. He’d be in awe of how tall the trees were, how they disappeared into the clouds, how they were too wide to hug, and the magic flowed in their trunks with pulses like a heartbeat that the entire Forest was part of. Remy could imagine Virgil clinging to his arm begging with his big brown eyes for them to find a sapling to take back with them and how Remy wouldn’t know the first thing about where or who to go to for that type of request.

“Those Dwarves from last night,” Emile asks, drawing Remy’s attention away from their surroundings. “Did you get their names so that we can send something back to them?”

“Absolutely not,” Remy says. “We jumped straight to drinking our woes away.”

“Woes?”

“Yes, the woes that I had lost my wonderful husband for the rest of the night to scholarly talk of practical applications of magic!” Remy says. “And that by the time we get home I will have missed my own son's wedding.”

Emile laughs again. “Janus wouldn’t dare. He respects you too much.”

“Respects?” Remy repeats. “Respects?! I sure would hate to find out what he does when he doesn’t respect someone! Or did you forget how he haunts my shop and hisses at my customers when they try to talk to Virgil?”

“I think it’s sweet!” 

“He is the reason I have hangover cure potions memorized! Em, look me in the eyes and tell me that Lord Ekans’ drinking habits aren’t directly correlated to Janus learning to talk. Our livers were perfectly fine before that pest--”

“Remy!”

“I have grey hairs!” Remy continues. “My bones ache and my lungs wheeze now!”

“That is just a symptom of growing old!”

“That pest is going to be the death of us all! We’d be better off if he beheaded now before he grows too powerful to stop,” he says, gripping the reins to his horse. Emile is rolling his eyes and shaking his head, but he’s smiling that smile he has reserves specifically for when he thinks Remy is being more ridiculous than normal. He offers out a hand and Emile slots his in without a second of hesitation. Remy, ever the gentleman, presses a kiss to his knuckles.

“But I guess,” Remy relents quietly, “He could have chosen worse. Janus is rich, set to inherit quite a large sum,--”

“That is not the only reason Janus Ekans is a good fit for Virgil and you know it!”

“Fine! The kid is polite, he’s well liked, and a good leader for the town. He cares about people--”

“--and he cares very deeply about Virgil.” Emile interjects.

“I was getting there!” Remy says. “He is smitten with the wonderful son we have raised, and despite my best efforts to convince Virgil not to date until he’s fifty, Virgil is equally smitten for that pest. Now I will have to figure out how I am going to pay for a wedding for the two of them and get my hands on enough alcohol to get myself thoroughly drunk through the planning of it.”

Emile snorts. “You are assuming that Janus doesn’t have the entire thing planned out already.”

“He better not! He still thinks Virgil’s favorite color is purple!”

“You still think mine is pink.”

“Wait what?” Remy blinks, whipping towards his husband, but Emile is already urging his horse faster. “Emile!”

“First one to the Magic Circle gets to hug Virgil first when we get home!”

“What do you mean your favorite color isn’t Pink?! I’ve been getting you those crystals for years now! Emile!”

Emile’s laughter rings in the trees causing the magic in the trees to brighten with warm, pleasant lights. Remy clicks his tongue in disbelief and urges his own horse after his husband. The breeze of the mid morning-maybe-early-afternoon-but-Remy-doesn’t-believe-in-time brushes against his face, as a perfect counter to the streams of sunbeams that break through the foliage against all the odds. The two of them pass by a few other groups along the road: a family of humans in a horse drawn carriage with one in the back creating light illusions as they travel for the entertainment of the kids, a camp of dwarves resting by the roadside smoking a few pipes, an adventuring group who are arguing over a map an intersection and who wave as Remy and Emile race by in their own laughing. 

Emile beats him to the magic circle location, just by a half step and he sticks his tongue out at Remy when he complains that Emile had a head start. They bring their horses to a water trough set up for travelers and Emile stays with them whispering soft praises for both the animals while Remy goes to the store front to pay. 

“Two humans and two horses for Tregaron…You wouldn’t happen to be heading to Cobraton would you?” the druid says, eyes flashing down to his wrist where his red band stands and she stiffens. “Uh, I don’t know if you’ve heard the rumors, sir, but there’s been--”

Remy nods, sharply. “Yeah, we heard.”

She breathes out softly, scribbling on her parchment with her quill. “Such a shame, all that. I heard they left a gold statue in their wake. Just a kid turned solid gold. I really used to look up to them, you know?”

Remy freezes. “What?”

She looks up again, her green eyes the same color as the vines creeping around her antlers. “Oh… you don’t know. The Raven’s Heart adventuring group...They apparently went into Cobraton and attacked the town. Turned someone into a solid gold statue and set fire to the bakery which nearly burned down the whole town.”

Raven’s Heart. A gold statue. Remy’s brain is trying to catch up with the words that absolutely do not make sense at all. The bakery. Which is right across from their magic shop. Where Virgil was.

The druid leans forward in her chair. “Um,” She hesitates, “I’m not supposed to do this but since this is kinda a big deal and you’re obviously from Cobraton, we have a magic circle connection directly to the outskirts of the town that’s usually just for merchants with super valuable items.”

Remy blinks at her. “Please…”

She nods, slowly and then faster. She makes a quick slash through whatever she had written before and takes the handful of shining coins from Remy’s shaking hands. He feels a slight daze over himself as she grabs a chalk stick and a candle and scurries from behind the counter towards the flattened center of the clearing..

“I’ll only be a moment, sir. I’ll call you over when it’s ready.” 

Remy nods. He immediately spins on his heel and heads back to Emile.

(Emile who is cooing at Remy’s horse, petting its snout and detangling its main. Emile who is laughing at something or another that’s been said. Emile who has opened a murrath and taken a bite of of the pie, patiently waiting for Remy to come back because they left Esterlas in a panic and they were supposed to get home before anything bad happened--)

“Remy?” Emile says, catching sight of him there. “Braveheart? Are you feeling okay?”

“Something...something happened in town,” Remy says. “The bakery got burned down.”

Emile’s smile drops completely. “Was it the Truescar?”

“I don’t…” Remy says helplessly. “There’s something about a gold statue. And the Raven’s Heart adventuring group and the druid running the circles says she has a way for us to get directly to Cobraton because it's that bad.”

“Raven’s Heart?” Emile repeats. “This is a very far way from where they usually take their adventures. I didn’t even know they were still adventuring.”

Remy swallows hard. “They were still teenagers when we were… when I....”

“I remember,” Emile says. “They stopped by Juphia during my last year working as a barboy while you were on another trip. I had to have one of them removed from the premises for making lewd comments about one of the barmaids and all of them took it...personally.”

Remy doesn’t remember much about them, honestly, so it doesn’t surprise him. Most of the adventuring groups starting out have a sort of sense of invincibility that pairs nicely with a hero complex that sets them right up for tragedy the first time they can’t save someone. Unfortunately that also leads to most of these same groups feeling entitled to people, money, and gratitude after they do anything and that rarely ever goes over well.

The bakery, on fire. The baker’s son just brought his new wife home and they were awaiting their first kid. Flames licking up the sides of the store, the glass cases shattering from the heat, the townsfolk screaming for help as the smoke strangles them, and Remy hasn’t had to perform burial rites himself since before they brought Virgil home--

“Mr. Sanders!” the druid calls, from the center of the clearing. Remy takes the reins of his horse in his unsteady hand.

Emile packs away the rest of his murrath and leads his other horse, gently reaching forward and taking Remy’s other hand. Remy squeezes back, probably harder than he should, but Emile doesn’t make any noise to oppose it. His silent strength reminds Remy’s lungs to inhale again, and his nerves calm enough that he doesn’t vomit up his stomach acids all over the nice new chalk circle. 

The druid directs them towards the middle of the circle, at the spot carefully carved out for the both of them and their horses. The white lines criss cross in elegant patterns, creating diamonds and magic symbols and script that Remy only vaguely recognizes. There’s a series of letters that he thinks spell out Cobraton, but his stomach is flipping in his body, threatening to relocate to his mouth. His eyes zero in on the candle at the druid’s feet, the flickering flame fighting so desperately against the breeze in the area and the movements of the druid as she begins the incantation.

Emile gives his hand a squeeze again as the purple mist starts to emit from the chalk around their feet. The horses nervously pitter in their spots, but all Remy can think about suddenly is that Virgil’s eyes have fleck of purple in them, that Virgil likes gathering the lavender when they need a new supply for the shop and that he always ends up with one behind his ear, that Virgil’s favorite cloak is that indigo color and that it’s winter proof but not fireproof and Remy was messing around during a festival while his son--

He blinks and when he opens his eyes again, his horse is yanking hard on the reins, letting out a bewildered neigh, and the scent of smoke was in the air. They’re just on the edge of Tregaron Forest, the gates to Cobraton just a few meters away and the guard at the gates has an expression that is very much not good.

They don’t look surprised to see them, but Remy can’t tell if that his own panic stepping in and projecting or if it’s true.

“Mr. Sanders,” they say. “I’m so sorry.”

They’re a kid, really. Just a few years older than Virgil. They still have yet to grow into their armor, but there’s a pinched to their eyes, to the way they won’t meet Remy’s eyes, to the way they grab the horse’s reins from Remy.

“What?” Remy asks, grabbing the kids wrist.

They don’t answer. They don’t answer and Remy can’t breathe and it's in his nature to suffer but please, no, please, not like this. 

He lets go of the kid and flings himself into town, with Emile just a few steps behind him. Their boots hit the cobblestone impossibly loudly, his cloak whips around behind him-- Remy can’t hear anything except the lingering silence of grief. The people in the town watch as they run with faces that say everything and nothing at the same time. His lungs feel like they’re filling with water, drowning him right there in the middle of the town square. 

There’s a burned husk where the Bakery was, soot coating everything, and the clouds of greying smoke still lingering in the air, but Remy doesn’t even see any of it. His eyes are immediately on the noble outside his shop: Lord Ekans, who seems to have aged several decades in the four days that they’ve been gone, who’s wearing clothes with wrinkles and soot on them like he hasn’t changed, hasn’t slept, hasn’t moved from right outside the shop staring at the insides like he’s never been there before.

Remy slams into him, his fingers finding a grip on the lapels of his suit in a way that he would never dare before. He can't breathe, he can’t think, he can’t even keep himself standing. “What happened?”

“Remy,” Lord Ekans says distantly, staring at nothing. “You… you can undo curses, right?”

There’s crying, he realizes. Heavy terrible sobs. Familiar sobs from a scene that replays in Remy’s head reminding him of the moment he learned what true Fear was. 

Lady Ekans is on the ground of his shop, her skirts ruffled and covered in various potions that shouldn’t be mixed together, her hands holding on to the grooves of a waistcoat carved out of gold. She’s crying at the feet of a statue in his shop, a statue he didn’t put there, a statue that has a very familiar face contorted in fear-- 

“Oh god,” Emile says, covering his mouth at the sight of Janus Ekans’s corpse glittering in the sunlight.

Lord Ekans looks at Remy, with an empty, hopeless stare. “They took him… They took him and turned my son to gold and you can… you can bring him back to life, can’t you? Remy, please, you can find the counter curse, right?”

((“Janus would never let anything happen to Virgil.”))

“Where’s my son?” Remy says with a dry throat, “Ekans, where is my son?!”

Chapter Three

[starksinthenorth]

Musings on ASOIAF Ladies and Ambition

I’ve noticed people use “ambition” to describe Sansa and Daenerys as if it’s a bad word or an insult (often called “power hungry”). Yet in the text of the series, neither of them are shown to be ambitious people as a core characteristic. I blame the series for a lot of this, because it failed to explore the internal dialogue of Sansa, Arya, and even Cersei, who ends up more humanized than either of them by the end (because of the maybe baby).

Cersei Lannister is the classic ambitious ASOIAF lady, whose point-of-view is introduced in perhaps the most iconic sentence of any introductory chapter:

She dreamt she sat the Iron Throne, high above them all.

I can’t think of a sentence in ASOIAF that better introduces the internal thoughts and view of its leading character.

In comparison, Sansa’s first sentence is receiving news about her father’s whereabouts, Daenerys is shown her new dress to meet Drogo, and Arya has crooked stitches again. Arya’s works to frame her relationship with Sansa and her internal struggle to fit the feminine Westerosi mold, while Sansa and Daenerys are setting up plot points. None of these interactions signal ambition, bad or good. Daenerys did not arrange her wedding, Sansa is just told the information by her Septa, and while Arya is aspiring to have straight stitches, that’s hardly an ambitious goal for a girl of nine.

Fans rarely, if ever, deny Cersei’s cruel, cold, often stupid ambition. In fact, it’s one of the reason people seem to love her. She’s internally open about what she wants - power - and when she wants it - now:

All of them are burning now, she told herself, savoring the thought. They are dead and burning, every one, with all their plots and schemes and betrayals. It is my day now. It is my castle and my kingdom.

- AFFC, Cersei III

The rule was hers; Cersei did not mean to give it up until Tommen came of age. I waited, so can he. I waited half my life. She had played the dutiful daughter, the blushing bride, the pliant wife. She had suffered . . . She had contended with Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, and her vile, treacherous, murderous dwarf brother, all the while promising herself that one day it would be her turn. If Margaery Tyrell thinks to cheat me of my hour in the sun, she had bloody well think again.

- AFFC, Cersei V

Cersei is the definition of a power hungry lady, scheming and cheating at every point. Yes, Sansa learned from her, but most of Sansa’s internalized lessons of Cersei’s were to do the exact opposite. 

"The night's first traitors," the queen [Cersei] said, "but not the last, I fear. . . . Another lesson you should learn, if you hope to sit beside my son. . . . The only way to keep your people loyal is to make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy."

"I will remember, Your Grace," said Sansa, though she had always heard that love was a surer route to the people's loyalty than fear. If I am ever a queen, I'll make them love me.

- ACOK, Sansa VI

Cersei isn’t the only POV character who views herself outside of conventional Westerosi standards and aspires to something beyond being a wife and mother. Arya Stark has ambition writ clear on the page, though it is not so cold or denying other people their rights or chances. Compared to Cersei, Arya doesn’t want everything, crown and throne and kingdom and all. She just wants something, and even that is denied to highborn women in Westeros. Even when she asks her father about her future, a man who wants to do right by his children and loves them, Eddard Stark is blinded by Westerosi patriarchy:

Arya cocked her head to one side. "Can I be a king's councillor and build castles and become the High Septon?"

"You," Ned said, kissing her lightly on the brow, "will marry a king and rule his castle, and your sons will be knights and princes and lords and, yes, perhaps even a High Septon."

- AGOT, Eddard V

With Arya in this, I see some parallels to Elaena Targaryen, who was so good at math and management she served as the secret Master of Coin while her husband carried the title. Elaena was “more willful than Rhaena, but not as beautiful as either of her sisters,” yet is also said to have been “more beautiful at age seventy than at age seventeen,” growing into herself like Arya is expected to. They both even cut their hair, Arya to hide her gender and Elaena to hide her beauty, both instances to gain freedom from captivity in the Red Keep.

Despite both these examples of ambition - Cersei’s all-encompassing, without care for how it affects the realm, and Arya’s attempt to find a place in the world outside the Westerosi model - it still becomes an insult when people speak of Daenerys and Sansa.

Critics claim Sansa is ambitious, and negatively so, because she “wants to be queen.” But this criticism misses a vital point of Sansa’s character. Unlike Cersei, she does not want to be queen because of the power and political influence, but because she will be living a song. In the start, Sansa’s got her head in the clouds, not to the dirty world of politics. Her very first chapter lays out this motivation incredibly clearly:

All she wanted was for things to be nice and pretty, the way they were in the songs.

When she thinks of Joffrey and being in love with him, it’s because he’s “handsome and gallant as any prince in the songs” (AGOT, Sansa II), 

Alternatively, it has been said that Sansa is ambitious because of her claim to Winterfell. But compare how Sansa thinks of her claim to how Big Walder Frey does. Despite being far down the inheritance line, he is certain he will someday possess the Twins. He’s likely willing to kill his family to become Lord of the Crossing, and already has killed Little Walder.

In comparison, Sansa isn’t the one who realizes her claim as heir to Winterfell, even after her two younger brothers are believed dead. It’s Dontos who mentions it, and after she still thinks that Robb will have sons to inherit.

But she had not forgotten his words, either. The heir to Winterfell, she would think as she lay abed at night. It's your claim they mean to wed. Sansa had grown up with three brothers. She never thought to have a claim, but with Bran and Rickon dead . . . It doesn't matter, there's still Robb, he's a man grown now, and soon he'll wed and have a son. Anyway, Willas Tyrell will have Highgarden, what would he want with Winterfell?

- ASOS, Sansa II

Sansa’s not ready to kill Bran and Rickon if they show up. Her arc is about taking off the rose-tinted glasses and seeing reality, but also working to make reality like a song. For example, her idea of the Tournament of the Winged Knights for Sweetrobin. It’s a song come to life, all by her making. TBD how the ending goes, of course, but it shows that trajectory.

And finally, Daenerys.

Daenerys is not driven by some lifelong desire to win and dominate. She’s forced into it, a la Brienne’s “no chance and no choice.” If Daenerys were raised in a stable environment, I have a feeling she’d be much more like Sansa: dreamy, hopeful, sweet and studious. Happy.

But instead, her eyes are open.

When she’s introduced as a character, she shows an awareness for the schemes and politics of the world. She knows her brother is called the Beggar King in the Free Cities, and is doubtful of the smallfolk’s secret toasts to Viserys III that Illyrio Mopatis claims happen across Westeros.

Like Sansa and Cersei, there’s evidence of her goals, hopes, and wishes in the very first chapter:

"I don't want to be his queen," she heard herself say in a small, thin voice. "Please, please, Viserys, I don't want to, I want to go home."

. . .

Dany had only meant their rooms in Illyrio's estate, no true home surely, though all they had, but her brother did not want to hear that. There was no home there for him. Even the big house with the red door had not been home for him.

Daenerys remembers home as the house with the red door in Braavos. It’s her brother whose only home and stability was the Red Keep, not her.

Throughout her journey of power to take back the Seven Kingdoms, she is doubtful at every turn and most of her wishes are for happiness, for peace, for stability.

Dany had no wish to reduce King's Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father.

- ACOK, Daenerys II

A queen I am, but my throne is made of burned bones, and it rests on quicksand. Without dragons, how could she hope to hold Meereen, much less win back Westeros?

- ADWD, Daenerys II

Even later, Daenerys is determined to bring peace to the lands she currently rules. She does plan to return to the Seven Kingdoms, but it’s not driven by pure ambition. And this is, notably, from a conversation when Prince Quentyn Nymeros Martell asks her to come back and claim them now, saying she has allies for that conquest. And still she turns him down, with promises that it will only happen eventually:

"Daenerys said. ". . . .One day I shall return to Westeros to claim my father's throne, and look to Dorne for help. But on this day the Yunkai'i have my city ringed in steel. I may die before I see my Seven Kingdoms. Hizdahr may die. Westeros may be swallowed by the waves."

- ADWD, Daenerys VII

And yet in both Sansa and Daenerys, these visions and hopes for the futures they might have are considered unbridled ambition, although they turn more on happiness and peace for themselves and their people, rather than the type of ambition Cersei has, which is clearly her own power and being heralded above everyone.

Daenerys’ thoughts in her sixth chapter of ADWD have the same energy as Sansa’s “I will make them love me.”:

"A queen must know the sufferings of her people."

. . .

A queen must listen to her people, Dany reminded herself. 

Daenerys has figured out how to make her people love her, by wearing her “floppy ears” and appealing to the masses, listening to them, et cetera. She’s also a bit ahead of Sansa in the realm of ruling, to be sure.

But how are these similar thoughts ambition in either of them? It’s an attempt to empathize and connect, not to throw away and disregard and rule by force and domination. Both these ladies are more nuanced, and the fandom does them a disservice by painting them as ambitious or power-hungry when at the end for both of them, it’s a desire to have a happy, stable, loving life.

[sir-sunawani]

Welcome To the Guild

MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS DNI

These works are intended for Mature Audiences Only and unruly guests will be thrown out of the casino.

This is a sideblog to @quinloki - and includes my Cross Guild Pirate stories and One Shots (currently all I have is Sir Crocodile, but it'll expand!).

You can also find them other places - Ao3 - Wattpad

Coming soon!:

Quicksand 2

-:- Completed -:-

Quicksand - 20 Chapters, 46,838 words - Summary: You're employed as an Internal Coordinator in the West Branch of Rain Dinners in Grandline Metro. You're well-aware your boss is the Warlord Sir Crocodile, but your sixty days is almost up on the popular dating website Cult of Personality, and you're looking forward to meeting the person you've been talking to for the last sixty days. (This makes it sound way fluffier than it is, oops.) Note: There's an alternative version of this story that picks up at chapter six that will be available as well. It goes darker and harder than the original. ♥

Tag list

All works: mfreedomstuff

Currently this blog doesn't interact except to reblog/post Cross Guild Pirate items. If you want interactive following please follow the main blog listed earlier <3

[ao3feed-tododeku]

Crawling out of Hell (CooH)

Crawling out of Hell (CooH) by Crysses

Izuku's upbringing was good and filled with love. Only to all come crashing down the year he had turned seven. The fragile bubble Izuku was living in burst as the burning mark on his chest appeared, making him slowly fall into the depths of darkness. No one had been able to help him crawl back up. No one tried - Until one night, under a slide in a Playground he used to play so much on, he met him. And not only did he help Izuku get out of the quicksand he was drowing in, he erased the the word Hell.

Words: 2519, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi

Characters: Midoriya Izuku, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead, Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Midoriya Inko, Tsukauchi Naomasa, Yagi Toshinori | All Might, Nedzu, Bakugou Katsuki, Kirishima Eijirou, Uraraka Ochako, Iida Tenya, Todoroki Shouto, Todoroki Enji | Endeavor, Kaminari Denki, Ashido Mina, Hagakure Tooru, Class 1-A, Class 1-B, Asui Tsuyu, Musutafu Police Department Officers, League of Villains, Shigaraki Tomura | Shimura Tenko, Eri, Dabi | Todoroki Touya, Todoroki Family

Relationships: Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead/Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead & Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku & Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Midoriya Izuku/Todoroki Shouto, Bakugou Katsuki/Kirishima Eijirou

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Midoriya Izuku Has a Quirk, Midoriya Inko's Bad Parenting, Parental Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead, Todoroki Enji | Endeavor's Bad Parenting, Parental Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Neglected Midoriya Izuku, Abusive Midoriya Inko, Bullied Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku Does Not Have One for All Quirk, Protectiveness, Protective Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead, Protective Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Tears, Bruises, I'm Bad At Tagging, Midoriya Izuku Needs A Hug, Midoriya goes through alot, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Fear, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, It get's better!, True Love, Self-Discovery, Midoriya Izuku Needs Therapy, Everyone Needs A Hug, I Tried, Betaed, Dadzawa, erasermic

Read Here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39116919

[quinloki]

Quicksand - ALTERNATIVE

If you haven't read Quicksand up to chapter 5 you're going to be terribly confused.

Fem Reader x Sir Crocodile

CW: Language, violence, blood, moral ambiguity, murder, sexual themes and situations, yandere, angst with a happy ending, a referenced instance of physical abuse. 18+ only

ADDITIONAL CW: Dub-con, kidnapping, imprisonment

The alternative version picks up at Chapter 6- there's a lot of overlap for the first few chapters as the story slowly peels away from the original. The alternative chapters explore Sir Crocodile's yandere tendencies in a setting where the reader rejects him (vs the original where she never ran).

You can read it as it posts to Tumblr, or sate your curiosity on AO3 // Wattpad immediately.

Chapter 11: Home Sweet Suwani.

You were not surprised to see the size and grandeur of Crocodile’s home. You weren’t surprised how it looked more like a prison than a home to you currently. You were surprised by how few people appeared to be around.

You expected hustle and bustle in such a massive estate. Maids, butlers, that sort of thing. There did seem to be some staff, but it was very minimal.

Crocodile had been leading you around with his hand behind your back. It was a very gentle touch, enough to guide you or spur you on, but not enough to feel heavy or confining.

Not that you could run away in this situation.

He didn’t spend time giving you a tour or introducing you to anyone. Instead, he guided you to an elevator and took you up to, you assumed, the top floor, bringing you in front of a set of doors.

Opening one side he opened it into the room and took a step back.

“This is your room. There’s a full bath attached, books, a television, a desk and a sitting couch. The clothes may not fit perfectly, but you’re welcome to take a bath and change if it will help you relax.” His voice is even and deep, soft and soothing, and leaving no room for debate.

Now wasn’t the time for a conversation.

You step inside, taking a few steps before turning toward him. You’re facing him, but you’re struggling to meet his eyes.

“I’m…” You pause after a moment and reconsider. “If I find myself in need of anything, what should I do?”

“… You may text me, if you need anything.” He says after a moment’s pause. “Do you need my number?”

You shake your head. “No, I - I have it, thank you.”

You can sense his demeanor shift a little. “I’ll leave you to it then. I do hope you relax, Miss (Y/N), we’ll talk later.”

You nod as he closes the door. The soft click of the latch is followed by a heavier clunk of the door being locked, and you’re not surprised by it. Standing in the room you look around, not to inspect what’s available to you - not yet anyway - but to see if there are any cameras.

At first glance there’s nothing overt in the room and shuffling about listlessly as you poke at things doesn’t lead you to noticing anything smaller. You mill about for a good twenty minutes, using the time to let your mind wander as your eyes take in all the details they can. If you aren’t being monitored, then you have options after the sun goes down.

You sit on the bed quietly and consider your options. Waltzing out the front door isn’t possible when you can’t leave your room easily. You could pick the lock, maybe, if you had what you needed to do so, but you hadn’t seen anything more dangerous than a couple pens and a single pair of sewing scissors when you poked around the room. Not that you were much of a fighter to be able to use anything to any real effect anyway.

You barely knew how to make a proper fist for punching.

Opening the curtains, you find you have a window and a balcony. Both opened into the interior of the estate, but even so you slowly walked out onto the balcony.

There was a small metal lattice table and similarly styled chairs. They might not be soft, but they looked comfortable enough. Running your hands over them, you look out over the internal courtyard.

There was a modest, and beautiful smattering of small trees, bushes and flowers that were obviously well cared for. The center was taken over by a decently sized greenhouse, filled with brightly colored blossoms that you couldn’t easily see through the glass. The colors alone were enough to make you curious.

You were on the top floor. Three stories didn’t seem that high but the estate’s ceilings were high and you were well over 30’ off the ground. Even if you got to the ground, you’d still have to get out of the estate itself, and you weren’t sure if there were cameras outside of your room.

You imagined he had to have a security system on par with what was in the casinos, but you hadn’t paid any attention on the way in. You would possibly get a look when it was time to eat, but it would make more sense for him to bring food to you.

Wandering back into the room you breathed in deep and then just let it out in a frustrating half-yell half-sigh. Nothing said relaxing like exhaustion, so once your shout failed you, you began to tear the room apart.

Pulling the sheets and covers and pillows from the bed in big exaggerated and angry motions. You opened the closet and pulled and yanked and tore clothes from the hanger and threw them haphazardly around the room. You pulled books from the bookshelf and tossed them over your head. You tugged and pulled on the curtains, until you couldn’t anymore and realized they were both sturdy and hung on iron rings.

But the mess somehow made you feel better, and the exhaustion from creating the mess left you ready to take a nap at the least.

You set a timer on your phone, setting it on the bare bed. You hadn’t even tried to upend the mattress, the bed was huge and you were more likely to hurt yourself. Instead you made a nest of clothes and blankets on the floor and fell into it, letting yourself drift in and out of a dozing nap.

You drifted in and out of sleep, and as far as you knew no one entered the room. Your fit hadn’t sent anyone running to stop you or to offer to clean it all up, so you were even more certain you weren’t being monitored in the room. At least not yet.

Picking through the chaos you found some clothes to wear and decided to get cleaned up. A hot bath seemed like a good idea, and you were sure there was going to be an offer for food soon. You’d been brought here in the morning, looked around the room, tore apart the room, and then napped. It was almost 4pm after all that.

You had never been much for breakfast, and that had gone downhill since your first night with Crocodile, and now that you weren’t panicking you were getting really hungry. Grabbing your phone to text you take it into the bathroom as the tub fills.

You: I am going to take a bath, but I was wondering when I could have some dinner?

Sunawani: It can be ready by 5:30, unless you require more time.

You: 5:30 works well, thank you.

You do your best to enjoy the bath, but nerves begin to bubble up inside of you again. Whether he’s going to arrive with food in tow, or escort you somewhere to eat, you were still going to be near him.

He was completely crazy. The level of obsession wasn’t normal, and if you hadn’t left when you did you likely wouldn’t have ever known. But you had also truly enjoyed conversing with him for two months.

You probably knew things about him that no one else did. How he enjoyed really cheap coffee, how much he knew about teas and what they had in common with wine and cigars. You knew he enjoyed coffee table books and classical poetry. You almost knew Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If—’ by heart now, though you both agreed the man himself was despicable, the poem itself was not.

You knew he preferred tart strawberries and dried fruits to sweet berries full of juice and cream. That the scent of citrus comforted him, and smoking eased the ache from his scars, even if it was only in his mind. You debated the morality of Justice for days.

You knew he had lost.

You knew he had loved.

You knew it wasn’t madness that spurred him to this behavior, but fear that instead drove him mad. He became rich to be spared the pain of loss. He became powerful to protect what he loved.

But you didn’t want to be loved this way or protected this way. You wanted to be able to leave your room on your own terms for starters.

You dressed after your bath and sat on the couch. Your hair was a little damp, and the sun dress didn’t need to fit perfectly to be adequate. There had been a variety of undergarments, but you didn’t give them much consideration, and simply put back on what you had already been wearing. You didn’t want to know if the stuff in the closet fit or not, and you didn’t want to go without, so you had little choice.

A knock at the door brought you to your feet and you made your way over to it as the lock was undone. He didn’t open the door, so after a second you did.

Crocodile was dressed as casually as you had ever seen. A dark turtleneck shirt and a pair of slacks, no ascot or vest or anything like he usually wore for work. Something about it was welcoming but it also twisted your heart a little, remembering the cafe. His expression is mostly neutral, but there’s a smile that’s relieved to see you in the state you're in.

“Allow me to escort you, Miss-.” His voice catches and he pushes the door open suddenly. You can feel your face go red to your ears as the disaster of your earlier experiment is put on display. He glances down at you, and you look away entirely.

“Do you feel better?” He questions cautiously.

“… A little.” You admit.

“A small price to pay, then.” He says, and there’s not even a hint of displeasure in his voice. “I’ll have someone tidy it up-.”

“No!” You reach out to him and stop yourself before looking away again. “I…” you groan, feeling more embarrassed. “Putting it all back myself will help more.”

“Truly?”

You nod.

“I thought you hired a cleaning service.” He sounds genuinely confused and you cover your face.

“Chores don’t help, but fixing disasters or organizing big messes does.” You clarify. “Can we go eat and not discuss my weird coping mechanisms?”

“Certainly.” He offers his arm to you, and after a small hesitation you accept it, lacing your arm through his.

“It’s just light and easy fare for tonight,” he explains as walks you to the elevator you remember from before. “I didn’t want anything to sit too heavily in your stomach, considering the stress of the day.”

“I appreciate that.” You answer a little absently.

“… You are allowed to be angry.” He says as you enter the elevator. “Upset, cruel, even. I won’t demand you feign complacency or acceptance of the situation.”

You shake your head a little, keeping your gaze low. “I’m not sure that I’m feigning anything. I’m not sure I really know what I think right now.” You admit, glancing up at him before looking away again. “I’ve had enough time to calm down from this morning-.” The elevator doors open, and you continue down a large hall alongside him. “But not nearly enough time to consider how I feel about this.”

“I was… scared this morning. Of you.”

“Not for the first time,” he says evenly, and you nearly laugh at the realization.

“I suppose that’s fair, but… no, I guess this morning wasn’t a different kind of fear. I apologize Suwani, you are an intense person.”

“Suwani, hm. Not Sunawani?”

You blush as he opens the door to the dinning hall for you. “It’s… not bad, is it?”

“Not at all, my dear. Not at all.”