#THE BROKEN CLOCKTOWER FROM THE BEGINNING...

[acatpiestuff]

Quick screenshot study of THAT scene with Andrey and Goncharov... he really did keep his promise to have that drink together after everything was over...

[ayamari-no-goshi]

Chasing Shadows (11)

AO3 -> first, last, next

Fandoms: Danny Phantom (DP) / DC universe

Summary:  THIS  IS A CROSSOVER.  As Bruce Wayne begins to slowly recover from the loss  of his son, two   separate mysteries open up old wounds. Who is the unknown leaving clues   hinting at a return to Gotham, and who is the phantom pretending to be   his lost son? Is it just a coincidence they’re active in Gotham at the   same time? Or are they connected?  

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, and questionable mental health

Parings: none

Notes: originally uploaded to AO3. Cross-posted to tumblr

“That’s like the fifth time you’ve reviewed those flowers. If you haven’t found anything yet, I doubt you will.”

Bruce glanced up from his workstation to where Babs was looking at him from her current set up in the Cave. It still wasn’t to the same level as it was in the Clocktower, but it was still somehow more advanced than his. It was a testament to her skills.

The now mostly dried flowers and a still of the lotus design Jason used for his second clue were laid out in order in front of him. The newest additions were a calypso orchid, placed on Catherine Todd’s grave and a spring of wormwood placed on Shelia Haywood’s a few days prior. The orchid was an easy enough reference – it was named after the nymph Calypso who nursed Odysseus back to help after he washed up on her shore. She kept him there for seven years while the rest of the word believed the hero had died. It was an unsettling parallel to Jason’s time with Talia. Bruce suspected it was also chosen due to it being used to represent love for the deceased in funerary bouquets and rebirth in some cultures.

The wormwood was a more puzzling choice at first. In the language of flowers, it represented bitter sadness. There was some evidence it was used as an herbal remedy in the past which might be why it was chosen, but more recently, it was more associated with madness and murder. Was it Jason’s way of hinting at the Lazarus Pits again? Or was it his way of further suggesting his biological mother was directly involved in his death.

“It feels as if I’m missing something,” Bruce admitted as he picked up the orchid again. “Were these just ways for him to hint at his resurrection and return?”

“That’s a possibility,” Barbara admitted as she abandoned her equipment and wheeled over to him. “Jay always did have his own flair for the dramatic.”

“True.” Before his death, Jason talked about possibly joining his school’s theater club. He would have excelled in it. The happy memories of his son were quickly replaced by images of his broken body, a frequent occurrence. Whatever life Jason would have lived had been destroyed by the Joker.

That reminded him. He needed to check on the restoration of Jason’s mask footage. With the new information that came to light, he owed it to his son to see for himself what happened that day.

“I still haven’t been able to find any recent signs of him in Gotham,” Barbara continued, disregarding his sudden change in mood. She knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t tell her even if she questioned it, “but I think I might have found Danny. I’ll send the files to you to review, but it looks like Jason enrolled him in Gotham Heights under a false identity. His school file has his guardian listed as a ‘Jay Flannagan’.”

She sighed before continuing. “I miss the days when we weren’t trying to track someone with the same skills as us. There’s only a P.O. box associated with that name. Wherever Danny’s staying must be under a different identity. Or, it’s completely under the table. There are rumors some places in Crime Alley that will skip the necessary checks and paperwork if a person is willing to pay rent in cash.”

“Both are possible,” Bruce acknowledged. “If he was by himself, he’d probably chose the latter. However, he’s caring for Phantom, it seems more likely he’d choose the former.”

“I agree. I’ve been trying to hack into the nearby security feeds for Danny’s school, but he’s proving hard to catch. Jason taught him well. But I have noticed occasional glitches in certain feeds. Poorer cameras seem to have strange reactions to his powers, so it might be a sign he’s passing near them. I’ll let you know when I have more data, but we might have a larger problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“We got a warning from both Jason and Danny about the G.I.W., and it looks like they’re starting to pop up in Gotham. There have been a lot of sightings of government types in white suits around the remains of the Clocktower and where some of the better documented sights of Phantom occurred. Right now, it just appears they’re getting some type of reading and taking samples, but we’ll have to keep an eye on them. There are multiple reports that they’ll get civilians involved if they believe a ghost or other similar entity is nearby. They might push Danny into hiding.”

That was problematic. Right now, Phantom was their best chance at being able to find Jason and stop whatever he was planning. He had set up a meeting with Dick in a few days, but if this group was as dangerous as suggested, then there was a good chance they’d scare him off. Bruce couldn’t risk that happening. However, there was also a chance their presence would also force Jason back into the city earlier than he had planned as there was a high probability Phantom had the ability to contact him.

“We’ll have to keep an eye on them,” he agreed. “However, locating Phantom is the first priority.”

…

Tim didn’t want to be at the Manor at the moment. He couldn’t handle seeing Bruce’s grief reopened all over again, so he was dressed as Robin and pretending to be on patrol. Instead, he was sitting on one of the taller buildings of Gotham next to the gargoyle Jason loved to visit when he was still Robin.

Being who he was, Bruce made the decision to restore what he could of the audio and video of Jason’s death. He needed to verify for himself what his son went through even after getting the truth directly from his mouth. Since they couldn’t convince him not to watch it, he, Dick, Cass, Steph, and Babs all sat through it with him in an attempt to give him some sort of support.

He should have listened to Dick. He shouldn’t have watched. Saying it was horrible didn’t do it any justice.

 “Jason, you need to disarm the bomb!”

 “…I can’t…”

Those two phrases kept haunting him. Every time the words replayed in his mind, Tim was struck by the resignation in Jason’s voice. He knew. He knew he had no chance of escaping and accepted he would die. And the woman who led him to his death had the nerve to try to order him around instead of trying to help him. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. Jason had tried so hard to be a good hero. And his last act was to attempt to shield the woman who betrayed him.

Jason, his hero, his Robin, had been killed because he trusted his mother. He trusted the woman he hoped would love him. It just wasn’t fair.

“I was told I’d find you out here.”

The voice startled him so badly that he nearly fell from his vantage point. Turning, he found Jason, in his Red Hood gear. The slight tilt to his head suggested he was curious as to what Tim was doing. For a brief moment, Tim thought there would be a repeat of what happened in the graveyard, but Jason’s posture wasn’t threatening. He must have known what he was thinking as he took a seat as he reached for his helmet. There was the hiss of some sort of mechanism unlocking before he pulled it off and shook his head. Tim briefly wondered how hot it was under it.

“Why do you wear a domino mask under it?” he questioned as he took a hesitant seat on the other side of the gargoyle. If Jason was willing to talk, he was okay with that.

“Habit.” Jason’s answer was short, but there was no obvious hint of anger. “And dramatic flair.” If that was the case, maybe that’s why he had the white streak. In the dark, it almost looked like it was glowing.

“Oh…” What else was he supposed to say to that? So, he changed the subject. “Not that I don’t enjoy you being here,” Tim wanted to make sure he didn’t accidentally anger Jason. They weren’t sure of the extent of the Pits effects on him and how much of his actions were his own. “But why were you looking for me?”

“I can tell you’re afraid of me. You don’t have to hide it.” When Tim didn’t elect to respond to that, Jason continued, “Dove sent me after you.”

“Dove? You mean Phantom?”

Jason ignored the question. “So, you know how he can see ghosts?”

“Yeah…? Oh!... So, he knows?” Tim hadn’t expected that. With everything else going on, there were times he almost forgot. Almost, but not quite.

Jack Drake hadn’t been the best dad, but he really tried to step up in the last year. While it didn’t do much to erase the childhood of loneliness brought on by all the trips he and his wife took, he still tried to change. It meant a lot to him, but he’d been killed, just like his mom and stepmom.

“Guess your dad directly came to him or something like that. He apparently had some choice words about me hurting you. Not that I’m surprised about that.” He shrugged before raising an eyebrow at him. “A fake uncle? Really? I get wanting space, but seriously, that’s taking it to a different level.”

Tim could feel himself flush. “I don’t want to be adopted by Bruce,” he admitted. “I was never supposed to be a permanent part of your family, just a placeholder until he didn’t need me anymore. Right now, he’s my guardian, and with my dad’s passing…”

“…I’d be a hypocrite if I told you to stay at the Manor,” Jason eventually told him. Each word sounded as if he was carefully choosing them. “But don’t force yourself into exile either. As annoying as Dick can be, he’d love to have to bunk with him for a while.”

“That’s okay. I don’t want to be a burden.”

“You won’t be. Hell, you might be able to help him remember to actually eat something decent for a change. But, if that’s not good enough, stay with that team of yours. Even if you don’t want to talk about it, they’ll still be there so you don’t self destruct.”

Tim flinched at those words. The phantom words of a soft “… I can’t...” filled his ears again, and unwanted tears dripped down his face.

“Ah shit.” He could feel Jason move closer. There was no feeling of animosity, but a questioning hesitance as he moved his hand as he he was considering reaching out for a comforting touch. Pulling it back, he muttered, “Didn’t mean to upset you.”

Shaking his head, Tim tried to ignore how Jason’s features were slightly blurred. It was probably just his tears, but he almost looked like he wasn’t entirely there. Somewhat unnerved, he reached out to see if the older teen was solid. When his hand touched his arm, he couldn’t help but sigh in relief. Jason had stiffened at his touch but let it happen without pulling away.

“It’s not… B restored what he could of the footage of what happened…. What happened to you.”

“And he let you watch that?” The outrage in his voice wasn’t what Tim expected.

“Most of the video is too distorted, so it’s mostly just audio.” When that didn’t lighten Jason’s mood, he tried a different tactic. “Dick tried to convince me and the others not to, but I felt like I had to be there… not just for B, but for you too. After the first attempt to restore it didn’t work, he couldn’t bring himself to try again. So, without knowing about… about the betrayal, he put together the most likely series of events. After that, you became a warning to other heroes of what could happen if they got too sure of themselves. It never sat right with me.” He sighed and hugged his knees. “To me, you were just as much as a hero as Nightwing and Batman. I felt like I owed you that.”

Jason didn’t say anything for a few moments. “You… don’t owe me anything. Months ago, I would have thought otherwise, but not now.”

A wary sort of hope surged through Tim. Jason didn’t completely hate him, which was good, but there was still some sort of barrier. “But you’re not happy I’m Robin.”

“No. It’s…” The older teen shifted as he ran his hands over his face. The weird haze over his features hadn’t gone away. He hadn’t noticed it during dinner the other day. Was it something that came and went? “It’s more I’m angry he let another child in those colors. There shouldn’t have been anymore Robins. There shouldn’t have been any more child soldiers. As much as he claims he cares, we’re never the priority in the field. He’ll always, always choose the mission over anything else.”

“What about you and Phantom?” He figured it was better to deflect instead of arguing.

Jason’s mood seemed to darken as a muscle moved in his jaw. “I don’t want him out there,” he hissed before his tone became more resigned. “Unfortunately, his anchor, what keeps him tethered to both life and undeath, is his drive to help others.”

“Oh!” That was a very revealing statement. His eyes widened slightly. “So that’s at least part of the reason he’s helping you plant your clues and keep tabs on us. It’s a safer alternative.”

“Got it in one.”

“Do… do you have something similar? Constantine told B you’re a Liminal too.”

Instead of immediately replying, Jason took out a cigarette. Surprisingly, he didn’t light it but still placed it to his lips. “Didn’t know there was a proper name for ‘fucked up zombie’.” He fell silent again before quietly stating, “I hope there isn’t.”

Tim pretended he didn’t hear it. Instead, he decided to focus on the older teen’s self-depreciating tone. Was it related to his coming back to life? Had he not wanted to? Phantom was worried he wasn’t planning on living through whatever he was planning which gave some credence to that idea. It… it was troubling.

Before Tim could finish sorting out his thoughts, Jason stood and stretched. “Make sure you let yourself grieve. Trying to push it in a box only works for so long before it affects everything else. Being around others helps.”

It almost sounded like he was speaking from experience. Tim couldn’t dwell on it more as he realized Jason was moving towards the ledge. “Wait, are you leaving?”

He could tell Jason rolled his eyes, even with the domino mask, as he tucked his helmet under his arm. “No, I’m going to stay and chat until sunrise. Of course I’m leaving. Have things to do, buildings to destroy, and I’m on a tight schedule.”

“But!” He couldn’t let him slip away again. “Everyone wants you to come home. You haven’t even seen Ba… I mean Oracle and Agent A yet. And… and we’re working on finding ways to reduce the turnover in Blackgate and Arkham that isn’t just focused on dealing with the breakouts. I mean, we’re doing that too, but…”

“When I come back from my trip, I’ll see what’s changed,” the old teen gave him a searching look that was replaced with a dangerous smirk. “Impress me enough, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll tone down what I’m planning.”

That… that wasn’t a confirmation that he’s stop killing or even come home, but it was something. For now, Tim would count it as a win.

“Before I leave,” Jason continued, “brooding isn’t a good look for you.”

“Excuse me? Isn’t this the place you used to go all the time?”

“Yeah, but I made it look cool.” It took a moment to realize that Jason was joking with him. It was almost a surreal feeling. “But secondly, keep those G.I.W. goons away from Dove while I’m away. They will kill him if they get their hands on him, and it won’t be painless. If, and only if, you have to move him for his safety, take him to the Tower for safety. I’m serious when I say I don’t want him anywhere near the Cave.”

Tim wasn’t going to admit he was a little jealous of how much Jason seemed to care for Danny. “But I’m surprised you’re willing to risk leaving him alone. Unless… that’s what you’re doing! You’re going after the G.I.W.!”

Jason’s response was nothing more than a predatory grin. That wasn’t good.

“I… we can help. Please! Phantom told us they can hurt you too!”  He had to do something. If Danny was to be believed, the organization was a lot more dangerous than they originally believed. Bruce, Alfred, and Dick couldn’t lose him again. He had to stop him from going.

He gave an amused huff. “Worried about little ol’ me? Don’t be. I know what I’m doing.” Before Tim could even get another word in, he leapt off the roof.

When he didn’t hear the tell-tale sound of the grapple, he rushed over to make sure he was okay. But there was no sign of Jason, even with thermal vision. He had just vanished into the night. Great, now he had to be the one to explain his formerly dead son was about to go do something most would consider suicidal.

…

With how empty and broken Bruce currently felt after finally learning what happened to his son, he was surprised at how fear was currently clawing its way through his entire being. Tim’s report about how Jason was planning to go after a powerful government organization terrified him. Not only was there the concern over what exactly Jason might do during his crusade, he now had to worry what would happen if the G.I.W. somehow got their hands on his son. He lost Jason once, and he couldn’t lose him again.

The current trouble was determining where and how he would strike. There were a few G.I.W. bases scattered around the country. Logically, it would make the most sense for Jason to go after the main base, but depending on what he knew of their organization, he could choose to strike at a different location which held more importance. More information was needed, so he had recruited Babs to help him hack into their systems.

On the surface, it appeared to be an organization mostly designed to study ghosts and other similar entities, but he knew there was more to it. However, whenever Babs attempted to get information better protected, the G.I.W. databases went into lock down. It baffled everyone as there hadn’t been any evidence of such security when she started. To make matters worse, whatever security the G.I.W. had seemed to be able to locate the general geographic area where the attempted hack originated as more of their agents were detected on the streets of Gotham within a few hours.

It was a nightmare. Not only did it put Phantom at greater risk, but there was also a chance this would push Jason to act ahead of schedule and recklessly escalate. So far, he’d proved his actions were rather meticulously planned. It had only been when Phantom or Stephanie were in danger that he moved unexpectedly. And with how protective he was regarding the boy, there was no telling exactly what he would or wouldn’t do. Until he or any of the others could get in touch with Phantom or Jason, they would have to increase patrols in the city. He was also going to have to call in the big guns.

…

Dick sighed as he toured the G.I.W. compound closest to Gotham with Superman. The workers seemed nice enough, but it was clear from their tense stances and hesitant looks towards the field agents in the white suits that their impromptu visit wasn’t welcome. Without knowing exactly what Jason would do to expose the organization, especially with them increasing their presence in Gotham, Bruce decided to request members of the League make impromptu visits to the G.I.W. bases at approximately the same time under the guise of a potential threat. He hoped it would get them better access to the restricted information as well as deter a more violent response from Jason.

Currently, they were waiting in a meeting room for their guide to get permission to take them to some of the lower levels with completely not suspicious guards outside the door. Somehow, there wasn’t any piece of technology in the room that Dick could use to plant a bug to either listen in or attempt to hack into the system more securely without taking the time to hack the security camera.

Unlike him, Clark was bound by technology. “There’s lead in the floor. There isn’t as much in the walls on this floor, but it’s still enough to make it hard to clearly see anything,” he mouthed as they waited. That wasn’t a normal architectural design. Clearly someone didn���t want anyone with x-ray vision seeing the lower floors. “But something’s not right.”

“What do you hear?” Dick whispered as he turned away from the camera. While Dick could read lips, Clark couldn’t, but that didn’t mean much when the man had super-hearing.

“Screams. Laughter. Pleading. Fear. It’s strange. That fear is on an infra-sound frequency. Hmm?” Before Dick could ask what was wrong, Clark had suddenly turned and stared at a wall. After a moment, his concerned expression turned into one of bafflement. “Nightwing… your br…”

“You mean Red Hood?” Dick quickly interrupted, somewhat worried what that meant. Was Jason in the building?

“Yes, Red Hood… well, he just shushed me.”

“He’s here?” After a moment of processing what he was just told, he added, “Wait, what do you mean he just shushed you?”

Clark gestured vaguely towards the wall. “He’s currently in the outer wall. I’m… not sure if he’s checking for something or planting something. But he somehow noticed I saw him, and he just put a finger to his lips before moving. He’s currently heading south.”

“Great. O, I’m going to need whatever schematics you can get me,” Dick muttered into his comm before looking directly at the camera. “Look, we have a situation,” he shouted. “We need to get into one of the walls.” When there wasn’t an immediate answer, he looked over at Clark and smiled. “You heard me warn them.”

“I did.” It wasn’t too often Dick got to see the man of steel’s mischievous side on a mission, but he really must want to get further inside. “I’ll try to give you as much support as I can.”

“N, wait! Someone’s hacking the comm!” Babs alerted as static filled it.

“What? Do you know who it is?”

 “No! It’s…”

“Don’t bother coming after me, Dickie-bird. You have a more important role to play.” His brother’s voice came over the comm.

“And just what would that be?” Clark demanded.

There was a sense of surprise on the other end. When Jason was still Robin, it was rare for anyone in the Justice League to have access to their private comm lines. “It’s been a while, Big Blue,” he eventually greeted. “I only need you to be a witness to what these monsters are doing.”

“What are you planning?” Panicked, he looked over at Clark. “Where is he?”

“I can’t see him anymore. It sounds like he’s moved to the lower levels. How’d he get there so quickly?”

Jason chuckled. “Picked up some new tricks. Supes, let me ask you a question. If you were aware of an organization that would want to dissect aliens to figure out what makes them tick, kill them, or even use them as mindless weapons, what would you do?”

“Everything I could to stop them, legally.”

“See, I’d like to do it that way, but if you forgot, I’m dead.” Jason’s words were playful. “I don’t have a way to stop them legally. Besides, according to them, I’m not even sentient.”

“Hood, what are you planning to do?” Dick demanded as he rushed out of the room, much to the dismay of the agents who were guarding the door. He could feel the sensation of Superman leaving at high speeds behind him.

 “It’s already in motion.”

“HOOD!!!” The floor shook as multiple booms, the breaking of glass, groaning metal, and the whooshing of air overwhelmed him. The dusty smell of concrete filled the area. As he recovered his bearings, he immediately checked for signs of damage as both Babs and Clark asked if he was okay. “Yeah… just disoriented. No evidence of injuries on me or the guards who were trying to stop me. No immediate signs of structural damage where I am.”

“The entire south wall collapsed. It doesn’t appear any of the employees were near it.” Clark stated over the comm. “Maybe it was planned that way. You might want to put on your re-breather. There’s lead dust everywhere. …But I can still hear crying coming from underneath the building. I’m going to investigate.”

“Understood. I’m going to help with the evacuation.” Ignoring the guards, who were trying to keep him from going further into the area, Dick pressed forward after radioing for assistance and returned to the central office he’d been allowed to tour earlier. There was a huge hole in the south wall, just like Superman said, but it appeared most of collapsed down instead of either outward or inward. Jason knew what he was doing when he destroyed it as there wasn’t too much debris in the main part of the room.

As he assisted the people in the room, all of which appeared to have thankfully minor injuries, he got an update from Clark. The Man of Steel seemed unsettled as he requested his assistance on one of the lower floors. Since he couldn’t access it from the stairs, he moved to the now open wall and carefully made his way down. He stopped when he caught sight of Clark floating in place. Anger radiated off the man.

“Supes, what’s…?” Dick’s words died on his lips as he got a better view of the room. His stomach churned as he caught sight of what could only be described as the husks of once living people were strewn around the room. The acidic smell of something similar to ozone lingered along with the smell of dust and smoke. Old and new blood along with other unknown yet faintly glowing substances were splashed around the room. Faint whimpering could be heard from further in.

Whatever Jason and Danny had said about this place didn’t do the horror justice. Maybe they didn’t know the extent, or maybe they did. No matter what the truth was, Jason knew this needed to be exposed, and now that Dick had seen it for his own eyes, he was going to make sure it was shut down. Permanently.

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

Notes:

I chose Flanagan as a fake last name for Jason for its meaning.

Flanagan - From Irish Ó Flannagáin meaning "descendant of Flannagán". Flannagán is a given name meaning "blood red"

Plant notes :)

Stop 11 Ogygia - the island of Calypso. Calypso was a nymph who was kept away from the world as a punishment. She helped nurse Odysseus back to health. Calypso orchids are rare orchids named as such because of how they're hidden until they bloom. Orchids have a super creepy creation myth in ancient Greece – the demigod Orchis attempted to attack a priestess during a Dionysian celebration… and was torn apart by wild beasts. And in ancient Rome, they were a symbol of rebirth. And in modern funerary bouquets, they represent ever lasting love for the deceased.

I also included wormwood to hint at the Lazarus Pit as it is what healed Jason. As a flower, it represents absence and bitter sorrow which matches how Odysseus felt during his seven years on Ogygia.

This plant was used for millennium as an herbal remedy. Some of you might know it’s a main ingredient in absinthe aka the Green Fairy, which if you’ve never had it, tastes like black licorice. The thujone, a chemical in the plant, needs to be removed to be sold in several countries. While not well studied, it’s believed thujone has toxic properties and has been known to cause seizures, kidney failure, vomiting, and other effects.  There are concerns the chemical has psychoactive properties and can cause hallucinations – this is a bit unclear as the few studies around that aren’t great. But in 1905, there were murders that occurred, and the man who committed was said to have “absinthe madness,” as he had been drunk at the time (though absinthe was just one of several alcohols he consumed). This high-profile case helped push the belief the drink caused madness and resulted in it being banned.

I have a small bottle of it from Slovakia sitting in my kitchen. It actually has a sprig of wormwood in it.

[lumenflowered]

⏳

Everything hurts. It isn't the first time that Maria has woken up aching all over, and the fact that the sun is shining directly in her eyes absolutely isn't helping matters.

She groans. Pulls the brim of her hat down over her eyes, which doesn't help much but it helps some, and she will happily take what little she can get if it means she can go back to sleep, because she's... tired. Exhausted, really.

Maria should be able to go back to sleep immediately, and perhaps would be able to, if not for the niggling sense that something is off in the back of her mind.

The realization hits her, all at once, just as she has almost managed it anyway: she woke up. She hasn't done that in a very long time, not since she awoke in Kos's nightmare, quietly certain that she was dead.

...She is still dead, she thinks. She recalls fighting against a particular foe in the Astral Clocktower, a woman more stubborn than most who carried an axe and just wouldn't give up.

She... can't recall that woman's face, now, not even a little. That is rather odd, though now that she thinks about it further she can recall almost nothing of the nightmare clearly. Or the time immediately prior.

Being cursed by a god, evidently, is not particularly conducive to forming long-term memories.

Still... she fought. She lost.

Then... nothing. Oblivion, for what must have only been a matter of seconds at most.

And now she is here. Somewhere that cannot be anywhere near Yharnam, given the fact that the sun is actually shining.

Slowly, carefully, she picks herself up off the ground. She's in a forested area, it seems, though not so heavily so that the sunlight cannot be seen. A noise from above prompts her to look up, and while she sees nothing moving but the retreating tail of an animal too fast to discern, it is suddenly rather obvious how she got here.

She fell. Through the trees. The branches must have broken her fall.

(But how did she arrive in this place to begin with? How did she end up falling from the sky?)

There do not seem to be any immediate threats in the area, at least. Which is good, because while she remains in her Hunter's garb, neither her true weapons nor the false copies brought about by the nightmare are on hand, which... is fine. It isn't as if she deserves to wield any version of Rakuyo, regardless.

And there is something else off, something that she cannot quite put a finger on. She takes a deep breath, slowly lets it out—then freezes.

That is what occurred to her as odd. She has been breathing this entire time.

She hasn't needed to do that since she awoke in the nightmare, covered in her own blood and panicked over the fact that she could no longer find her own pulse. Her cravat, at least, doesn't seem to be stained with blood—but she pays it little heed as she carefully off one glove and presses two shaking fingers to her wrist.

...Her heart is beating.

Her heart hasn't beat in... years, at least. Perhaps decades. Centuries. Millennia. But it beats now.

She... seems to be alive, inexplicably, and that is by far the most confusing aspect of the situation she has found herself in.

Maria doesn't know how she is alive. She knows even less what to do about this, save to look around, select a direction, and begin walking.

[mybeingthere]

Marcia Hafif (1929 – 2018) was an American painter born in Pomona, California.

Exhibiting for more than eight years with Sonnabend Gallery in Soho and Paris, she developed series of paintings that would become the basis of what came to be called The Inventory: 1974, Mass Tone Paintings; 1975, Wall Paintings; 1976, Pencil Drawings; 1978, Neutral Mix Paintings; 1979, Broken Color Paintings at The Clocktower with Alanna Heiss; 1981, Black Paintings. During this time she also published articles on painting in Artforum: “Beginning Again” in 1978, and in Art in America: “Getting on With Painting,” 1981, and “True Colors,” in 1989.

"The ongoing question with monochromatic painting has to do with the contemplation of a deliberately circumscribed object, whose resonance depends as much if not more on the context of available light and space. It is not so much a matter of dismantling color, even though the single unity of hue lends itself to what might be experienced as a constricted expression. That, however, doesn’t hold true for those who experience these accomplished paintings as real efforts to preserve color from the point of view of a purist expression. By historically linking her work to the past, Hafif shows her audience just how effectively contemporary art can connect with aspects of historical painting production. 

This connection not only concerns the technical media the artist so clearly explains, it also brings back to past to the present, which strikes the audience as a brave thing to do given the ubiquity of art that is neither well made nor interested in art’s history. In some cases, darker-hued paintings are put together, while in others lighter colors are joined. With daylight filling the room from the gallery’s street window, one has the chance to view the works in both natural and artificial light, which represent two very different experiences. Hafif, who is in her mid-80s and who is currently working on her archives, deserves attention for this elegant, accomplished exhibition."

https://artcritical.com/2012/07/03/marcia-hafif/

[taxreturnslut]

I know I'm not the first one to talk about it but holy fuck episode 126 is so good!! I've seen it 5+ times and every time I get chills. Vivi, broken from watching someone she cherishes die begins to fruitlessly yell from atop the clocktower to please end the fighting, Luffy snapping Crocodiles hook off, the fucking orchestra rolling in as Luffy punches through Desert La Sparda, the rain finally falling & everyone hearing Vivi's plea. Everything about this episode is SO spectacular and invokes such an intense & profound feeling. And don't even get me started on the symbolism of how Luffy defeated crocodile because that's just as beautiful. God I love One Piece

[ironcladrhett-archive]

under pressure | finale solo

TIMING: The hours leading up to midnight, December 3rd. SUMMARY: Rhett makes his final stand.

—

Like the first cracks in a dam as it began to break beneath the pressure, townsfolk were standing on their porches and staring up at the sky as it seemed to rip in half. It started with just a few families who decided they didn’t want to wait this thing out and began to load up their vehicles. Once their neighbors took notice, the panic started to spread like wildfire. It was quiet in the beginning. A few leaks turned into a small trickle. That trickle turned into a stream. 

Rhett walked down the street, rifle propped on his shoulder. Everyone was too scared to notice him, too busy to care. The few that did pay him any mind only spared a few seconds before deciding that he was yet another reason to get the fuck out of the town. 

The stream began to babble as it picked up speed, the voices of people yelling inside their homes as they tried to gather all their important belongings and pets, the sense of dread and impending doom hanging heavy over the streets like the clouds that were fit to burst that rolled in on the wind.

 The earth rumbled and the voices grew louder. It was a river, now. Rapids formed at the edges the more people filled the streets in their cars, taillights creating a sea of red against Rhett’s back as he walked farther into town. His spot in the circle that needed to be made. Their final stand against whatever this place had in store for them. 

 He thought of his brother, Emilio. Of the family he’d left behind not that long ago, with tears in their eyes and desperation in their hearts. He thought of the family he’d lost a few years ago in Etla, and the one decades before that. He thought of the lutin that had driven him mad, the ghost he’d been chasing for the better part of twenty years… to what end? Not this one. Not the one he’d chosen today. 

 A vicious snarl met his ears and he snapped his head to the side just in time to see something large and slimy slip from a tear in reality, plopping down onto the concrete. Screams met the warden’s ears, both in response to the abhorrent creature and the lightning that ripped through the sky with a thunderous crack of energy. Lowering his rifle from his shoulder, the hunter grinned. Emilio and Teddy must’ve prayed for him. 

 The rain came suddenly, the clouds releasing their torrential downpour all at once. It nearly fell sideways with the hurricane-caliber winds that ripped through the area. Strange lights surrounded him, but his focus was on the creature at hand. He took aim and fired. Another wave of screaming started as people frantically tried to get away from them both. 

 What time is it? He checked his pocket watch as the creature thrashed in pain. Plenty of time. The warden took aim again, walking closer as he fired. The monster lunged for him, but Rhett was ready, dropping to one knee and whipping the knife from the holster on his leg, slicing the beast down its underside as it sailed over the top of him. The world around him trembled, a deep and terrible rumbling that made him feel like the ground beneath his feet could give at any moment. A death rattle slipped past bestial jaws, innards painting the pavement. 

 —

 The blood of monsters he’d never seen nor heard tales of stained his blade and his jacket, but the hunter was happy for it. Happy for the distraction as he carved his path into town, past all the broken and fractured parts of their reality as it started to fold in on itself. The rain had given way to snow, but through the falling flakes, Rhett could see a waterspout on the ocean’’s horizon. More than one, actually. This sure was cracking up to be one hell of an apocalypse. 

 Marching on through the ever-heightening drifts, Rhett finally reached his destination. He could barely see the clocktower from here, and could only pray that the others had made it to their positions as well, but he was here. This was it. Another glance at his pocket watch told him there was less than an hour to go. The man stood alone in the blizzard, grateful to see the streets were empty. Light still illuminated some windows here and there in the neighborhood, and he hoped that those people had simply forgotten to turn them off in their hurry to leave… god forbid they’d decided to ride it out. He could go check, but he dared not move now that he was here. That was just asking for something stupid to happen that would hold him up and ruin this whole thing.

 If it even worked… they had no guarantee that it would. This could all be for naught, but they had to try. 

 Now began the waiting.

 The earth shuddered, and with a creak and a groan, Rhett watched it begin to collapse. “Fuck.” The buildings just a couple streets away began to topple over and sink out of view, and the dark sky was filled with a cacophony of brick, steel, wood, and cement splitting and crashing down. Great cracks appeared, ripping along the middle of the street where Rhett stood, spider-webbing out from the clock tower in the center of town and racing for its edges. They were massive enough to swallow cars whole, and Rhett hoped that everyone who was going to get out of here was already well beyond the town limits, or they’d be eaten alive by the earth.

 In fact, it seemed like he might be, too. 

 Monsters still spilled from the kaleidoscope sky, heaving their large, misshapen bodies toward the warden, their roaring and hissing almost drowning out the sound of the whole neighborhood crumbling around him. Rifle poised and eyes wide, he tried to keep them at bay for as long as he could, watching with genuine fear as some of them were sucked into the widening sinkhole by the desperate, clawing grip of gravity. 

 BONG! 

 His attention turned to the clock tower, noticing that it was leaning slightly to one side. He shot another beast that got too close, reloading his rifle and resisting the urge to move. Feet planted firmly, he could feel each vibration as another piece of the town fell into the sinkhole. 

 BONG! 

 A four-legged thing that seemed to have hundreds of mouths ate the ammunition fired its way, and Rhett took a single step back. “Shit.”

 BONG!

 More shots didn’t do the trick, the abomination’s anatomy absorbing them with almost no ill-effects. Huffing out a breath, Rhett tossed the rifle aside and drew his knife, readying for the strike. 

 BONG!

 The thing leaped at him, pinning him to the ground where he stood. All the mouths that faced him directly broke into toothy grins, black ooze leaking from their gums. 

 BONG!

 At least it wouldn’t last long. Seven more seconds? Rhett could handle seven more seconds.

 BONG! 

 The many maws bit at him in unison, some grappling an arm, the others a thigh—the beast pressed itself down onto him and used the mouths on its underside to rip and chew through his clothing to get at the flesh beneath. 

 BONG! 

 Rhett closed his eyes, mouth agape as a cry was ripped from him. Five. 

 BONG!

 Four. The snow around him was stained red and black as the dimension-straddler feasted upon his body. 

 BONG!

 Three. Fuck’s sake, three more seconds, just hold on— His vision blurred and the pain became too great to even vocalize. He fell silent, gasping for breath as jagged teeth tore into his chest and filled his lungs with blood. 

 BONG! 

 Two.

 BONG!

 One…

 BONG!

 The ground began to sag. He was going to fall into the pit with this thing still chewing on his bones. Good riddance.

 BONG! 

 Wait, what— The thirteenth toll came as a surprise, but he didn’t have the capacity to ponder it. Dark brown eyes glazed over as his heart refused to beat a moment more, and the earth opened up to devour them both. 

[importantchaosgiver]

The Light Of Days...

Summary: Part 1 to a series. This is a crossover between The Mummy (1999) and a bit of Once Upon a Time although it's mentioned and only appears at the beginning and end of the series. This is an Ardeth Bay x Oc. I'll explain my Oc at the end. Also, not my gif.

Warnings: Slight angst

Alana POV

I looked at the papers before me that I had collected from Regina. She was a bit concerned about the whole thing but, it had to be done. I can't get in the way even if I still loved my soon to be ex husband. With a heavy heart, I put the papers on the table that my husband was sat at, polishing an antique. He looked at my solemn face then at the documents. "What's this?" he asked, putting down the artefact and picking up the papers. He froze when he saw what it meant. 

"Divorce papers. I'll need your signature. I've already signed it," I muttered. His dark brown eyes looked into my amber ones. "W-Why?" Rumple asked, standing up. "It's not because of anything you did. I see the way you look at Belle and her in return. We loved each other once, long ago but, that passion and love is elsewhere. You've found that in her and I can't blame you. We may be a balance, my love but, I cannot deny this feeling. You are meant to be with her, not with me," I explained, taking my wedding band and engagement ring off and putting it on the desk. "I'm sorry," Rumplestiltskin whispered after I turned my back to walk away. "I forgive you. Treat her well, Rumple. For I know true love when I see it. She shall repair your heart and fix your struggles. She is the light you have been looking for. Goodbye," I said, trying not to show my sadness in my tone before walking out of the shop.

I went to my house and got changed into my uniform, putting my dagger in its holster upon my thigh and writing a letter to Emma, saying that I was leaving and if she was in need of my services, she merely speak the incantation to summon me. Teleporting to the roof of the clocktower, I observed the town of Storybrooke, taking mental pictures and remembering the good times of my stay. But now, it'll be best if I leave and let them find their own way. 

Without thinking, I teleported myself, wanting to be far away. What do I get for not thinking of a location? A face full of sand. Pulling myself up, I vigorously wiped my face to get the sand out of my eyes and mouth. Once I could see, I opened my eyes. Okay, pyramids in the distance. I'm in Egypt. But, these should be ruins. Why do they look brand new? There was shouting so I quickly rose to my feet to see people wearing ancient clothing. Hang on............. did I time travel?! A man with an intense gaze walked up to me. Seeing the scimitar in his hand, I decided not to let him close to me. Throwing my hand back, I threw him backwards, sending him into the ground, sprawled out. That's when archers decided to get a bit brave and sent arrows flying my way. 

Growling, I decided to shapeshift into a dragon. I roared loudly as the citizens and guards below whispered and gasped. Then, they all got down on their knees and bowed before me. That was different................

*****

So, this woman is called Alana Hanlon. Her last name means light. She was a young kind woman in a village. Her soul was pure and no darkness could ever enter her heart. Her mother died because of a disease and she was raised by her father.

However, she got the very same disease and no matter how hard her father tried, he couldn't save her. So, her father made a deal with the Dark One. As long as she lived, she couldn't go back to see her father nor her village.

She became the Light One with advanced magic and the ability to control the elements and shapeshift. However, she can't see the future like Rumplestiltskin. Over time, the two fell in love with each other and got married after the curse had been broken but ever since Belle turned up, Alana saw that her husband's love was with her. Not wanting to get in the way of true love, she broke up with him. Hope you enjoy. I may be a bit slow on updates.

[mneiaifics]

Throne of Glass: Biding Time, Chapter 1

Originally Posted October 17, 2019 on AO3

Summary:

At first, there was peace--the day was saved, the evil defeated, the bright future shining ahead of them--but peace could not last in a world so broken. And Dorian is sent back decades earlier, to just before his world of glass starts to shatter, to fix what is already long lost. Post Kingdom of Ash Time Travel AU

Ships: Erawan | Duke Perrington/Dorian Havilliard, Kaltain Rompier/Dorian Havilliard, Aedion Ashryver/Dorian Havilliard, King of Adarlan & Dorian Havilliard, Chaol & Dorian Havilliard.

Warnings: Dark, Character Bashing, PTSD, Cannibalism, Character Death, Possession, Manipulation, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Bigotry

XX

Dorian awakens to the familiar, horrible chiming of the clocktower's bells. He lies in bed, heart racing, trying to convince himself it's just some bad dream.

For the bed is one he recognizes, one that hasn't existed in years. The same with the room around him. The same, he knows, if he looks out the window towards the clocktower he can feel, pushing sluggishly against his magic. And the glass palace that is surely there, as well.

Fix this, Hollin had said, staring at him with horrifying black eyes that Dorian knew weren't from possession. You ruined it all, so you'll be the one to fix this.

His brother had killed himself, then, adding his blood to their mother's, activating the last of the wyrdmarks he'd carved. There had been no time to stop it, no time for Dorian to use his magic to prevent...whatever it was.

And now he was here. In a younger body. In an earlier time period.

Guards rushed into the room and he flinched, barely refraining from reaching out with invisible hands to push them back out. These, he reminded himself, were not the possessed guards that eventually filled the buildings and grounds. These were Chaol's men.

"My prince! We heard a shout!"

Dorian blinked at them, before taking a deep breath, shaking his head. "It was nothing, just a bad dream."

That explanation didn't seem to satisfy them, but they left. And he, seeing the rays of sunlight beginning to reach through the horizon, slid out of the bed.

He spent long moments running his hands over the clothing in his wardrobe, styles he no longer wore, fashions that had not been seen in years. After choosing what he thought was a neutral enough outfit, he hurried out, heading straight towards the library.

First, he'd find all of the books on wyrdmarks he could and bring them back to his rooms, hide them among his collection so they were unnoticeable. Then he had a sword to collect.

And then--he paused, eyes going up towards his father's rooms--and then he had to decide what he would do about the Valg. About his father and Erawan.

After seeing Yrene do it, Dorian knew he could burn out the prince within his father, but Erawan...he wasn't so sure. Not when the Valg king still had two of the keys in his possession. And if he took out the prince in his father without taking care of Erawan, it would give too much warning.

Already there were experiments being done. Already there were forces being gathered.

He'd dropped the books off in his room, the ones he could find, and was on his way towards the room that would be Aelin's in another life when a page caught up to him. "My prince," the boy murmured, bowing, and motioning towards the glass castle. "Your father is...concerned by your absence."

Dorian mentally cursed as he followed the boy back towards the castle and the council meeting he'd overlooked. As king he'd set his own schedule and would not have forgotten such a thing, but as prince he was still at the mercy of his father's often abrupt planning.

Or, abrupt-seeming. He had no way of knowing how many of these were scheduled to distract them all of them from what the Valg were doing.

Duke Perrington was there, just the sight of him, even as innocuously human-seeming as he was, set Dorian on edge. He had to clamp down on the untrained magic stirring in this body, on the expression of distaste he wanted to make.

"So kind of you to join us," his father ground out in reprimand as Dorian took his seat.

It was only halfway through the meeting, as they began to wind through a report on wine exports, that Dorian realized what meeting this was. Of course Hollin would send him to this exact moment.

When his father announced his 'need' for a Champion, Dorian felt a sinking in his stomach. He glanced up, accidentally catching Perrington's gaze, and for a moment he swore he could see the gold lurking behind the black.

XX

Original Author's Notes:

I just love time travel fics lol I feel like I should specify (if the summary didn't do so) that this is Dorian attempting a fix-it not for what happens in the books, but for the dark future that comes after all of the dust settles. Because the world is REALLY fucked up by that point and it's hard to imagine all they needed to do was kill two Valg and suddenly everything is going to be puppies and sunshine. Anyway, also you should heed that this is DARK. Dorian already has a pretty massive amount of PTSD and shit to deal with at the end of the series and he's coming off of a bunch more awful stuff happening, so he's gonna be a little OOC. The actual events, the details and stuff, of his past (post canon until he gets sent back) will come out as the story progresses. And anyone who knows my ASOIAF fics and my obsession with Starks having Other blood can already guess that this is going to do a lot of delving into Dorian (and Hollin) having Valg blood and what that means for them. This will update infrequently and just a warning but I'm not sure I'll finish because this isn't really my fandom.

[lilacmoon83]

Clarity

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 52: An Apple As Red As Blood

Narcissa growled, as she tried to shut out the banging and screaming on her office door from the citizens outside. This morning, she had awoken to the satisfaction of her win and the fun of evicting Regina from her mansion. But now, not even twenty-four hours later, she was facing a calamity in the town. And her new decorator for her office was late. She looked at the bowl of apples on the desk and angrily tossed them against the door.

"I know you've done something to muck things up, Regina…and I'm going to make sure the entire town knows it," she growled, as she gazed out the window. She spied the dragon atop the Clocktower and the carnage of forest that was now protruding in parts of the town. The people were irate and frightened and expected her to fix this.

"If only there was a way to blame this on Snow…then I could send this mob after her," she muttered to herself, as she debated her next move.

"Even the cursed townspeople aren't dumb enough to believe Mary Margaret Blanchard could do something like this," she realized.

"Damn…this does not factor into my plans," she said, as she saw a peculiar rainbow light wash over the town. The banging on her door stopped at that, but a new feeling of dread filled her. She growled and grabbed her purse, before heading out to figure out what was going on in her town.

~*~

Malachi dried some glassware, as Lucian returned to the bar with a smirk on his face.

"You look like a cat that ate the canary," he mentioned.

"It turns out that there was enough magic left in this old feather, after all," Lucian mentioned, as he held up the last feather from an enchanted headdress he wore in his days as Chief of his tribe.

"What are you talking about?" Malachi questioned.

"Only that I bribed the hatter and with the last of my magic, he used his hat to retrieve a certain item. The curse is about to be broken, my friend," he revealed. Malachi paused for a moment and set the glass in his hand down.

"You're sure?" he asked. Lucian nodded.

"Trust me…the Savior is about to break the curse and then the next phase of my plan will begin," he replied.

"Then I guess things are about to get interesting," Malachi said, as a rainbow wave swept over them and Lucian smirked.

"Yes…yes they are," he agreed.

~*~

Emma trekked behind her parents, as Snow tracked Henry and hurried up the ridge with her hand in David's. They came to the clearing at the top and she cried out, as they spotted their grandson laying on the ground, unconscious. The wolf whined sadly, as it sat beside him.

"Emma!" they called, as she followed them and David rolled him onto his back. He checked for a pulse and almost choked.

"He's…he's not breathing," he uttered and Emma nearly lost it right there.

"What?!" she cried, as they looked him over.

"He has no injuries…what could have done this!?" Neal cried and Snow saw the answer laying just a few feet away. She picked up the apple and saw the second bite in it.

"It can't be…" she uttered.

"Snow?" David asked, as she turned and showed them the apple.

"An apple? Did he choke?" Neal asked, as he pried his son's mouth open, but didn't see any obstruction.

"No…it's the same apple!" she cried. David's brow furrowed in confusion.

"But how? That apple is back in our land," he replied.

"What apple!?" Emma cried.

"The poison apple…he's under a sleeping curse," Snow revealed.

"How is that possible? How did that get here?" Neal replied.

"Someone…someone had to bring it here," Snow realized.

"Are you saying that person forced our son to eat it?" Neal asked, but she shook her head.

"No…the curse must be taken willingly. When Regina presented the apple to me, I willingly took a bite to save Charming's life," Snow explained.

"Why would Henry willingly take a bite of this apple? He would have known what it was!?" Emma cried, as she was close to hyperventilating and David's eyes widened.

"Because he knew it would break the curse!" he realized.

"What?" Emma asked.

"Emma…it's true love's kiss. That's how you must break the curse," David replied.

"But…I can't," Emma said.

"Yes you can, Emma…you love Henry and you'll break the curse on him, just like your father broke the curse on me," Snow replied. A tear slipped down Emma's cheek, as her parents joined hands.

"I'm not sure how we didn't see it before, but this is how. It's always true love," David said, as they shared a smile.

"What if it doesn't work?" Emma sniffed.

"It will…we believe in you, Emma. We always have," Snow said.

"She's right…I believe in you too. I always have," Neal added.

"You're the product of our true love…you're magic and anything is possible with true love's magic," David added, as they watched their daughter brush her son's hair from his forehead.

"I love you Henry," she said, as she kissed his forehead and a wave of pure, rainbow magic swept over them and continued through the entire town. Henry's eyes snapped open and he took a starved breath. Emma and Neal beamed with smiles, as they gazed down at him. Snow and David let out a breath of relief and a hug, as they held each other close.

"I love you too," Henry said, as he sat up and they hugged him, while sharing a meaningful gaze.

"Don't ever scare us like that again, kid," she gently admonished.

"Sorry…but I knew this would work," Henry replied.

"Where did you get this apple, sweetheart?" Snow asked.

"From Mr. Blackwater," Henry answered with a wince.

"What?" David questioned.

"You got this from Mr. Blackwater?" Neal asked. He nodded.

"Henry…you can't trust him," Emma scolded.

"I know…but we both wanted the curse broken and it was obviously the apple that grams bit into. I knew what was going to happen and I knew you'd wake me," he said confidently, which still stunned Emma that he believed in her so completely.

"Did Mr. Blackwater say how he got this apple?" David asked, as he knelt in front of him.

"He said he made a deal with the Mad Hatter and he used one of his hats to retrieve it from the Enchanted Forest," Henry explained.

"Jefferson again…I almost forgot about him," David said.

"Hey…did you find my Mom at the car?" Henry asked and they all exchanged a glance.

"No…I'm afraid she wasn't in the car when we found it. There is a second pair of tire tracks at the scene and we'll find her, but we were more concerned with finding you first," Emma said.

"Well…if the curse is broken, then everyone remembers now, right?" Henry asked. They smiled.

"Yes they do…so we should probably head back. Lucian may have wanted the curse broken, but I can't see how this plays well into Narcissa's plan," David said.

"She was elected Mayor, baby…I'm not sure we can change that part," Snow replied.

"Actually, an argument could be made that we essentially should have a redo election. Because most of the town wasn't in their right mind and didn't have the real information," Neal said.

"He's right…and now they're going to want someone else to lead them," David replied, as he looked at his wife and she looked surprised.

"Me?" she asked.

"Of course you…you are their true Queen," he replied, but she shook her head.

"I am no Queen…and I wouldn't have a clue how to be Mayor," she argued. He sighed.

"Snow…you're an amazing leader and I don't know what I have to do to convince you of that. Before the curse…we were going to rule with you as Queen," he reminded her.

"But that was before I let my entire Kingdom down and we were cursed," she argued.

"You didn't let anyone down," he argued back.

"She cursed us, because of me. I let them all down…I let everyone down," Snow said, as her eyes rested on their daughter.

"Regina did this…not you and none of us want to live under Narcissa's rule. If you don't want to be Mayor…then you shouldn't be, though I think you'd be great at it," Emma said, surprising her.

"But we need to oust Narcissa, regardless," she said.

"She's right…now that the curse is broken, we need to drive her and her cohorts from town for good," David replied, as he took her hand and they headed back to town. They were all anxious to see what an awakened Storybrooke looked like.

~*~

Regina's screams faded, as Greg flipped the machine off again.

"What did you do to my father!?" he seethed.

"I told you…I did nothing. He's alive," Regina claimed.

"You're a liar! I know you killed him!" he screamed.

"I wanted to…I should have, but I locked him away instead!" she retorted.

"Where?" he demanded to know, but Regina was silent.

"Where is he!? Do you have any idea what it was like when I left here after what I had seen?" Greg shouted, as he remembered his father's final words to him.

"Get as far away as you can. You call your Uncle,"

"Everyone thought I was crazy! Except my Uncle! I begged him to investigate and he believed me. But we could never find this accursed town!" he explained.

"That's a fascinating story…but if you let me go, I'll take you to him," she said.

"No…you tell me where he is and then if you're telling the truth, maybe we can talk about letting you live as long as it's behind bars," he replied.

"Fine…he's in the psych ward at the hospital. He's been there…all this time," she claimed smugly.

"You bitch…you kept him locked away!?" he cried.

"I wanted to kill him, but thought better of it. If I had known you'd return, I would have killed him just to see the look on your face," Regina growled, as he wanted so badly to turn the machine back on.

"I'm going to find him and if you're lying…then I'll turn this machine back on full blast when I get back and fry you until your heart explodes!" he shouted.

"You need me to get into the psych ward," Regina reminded him, but he pulled a gun from his belt.

"No…I don't," he growled, as he stalked out and left her there, strapped to the table.

~*~

As they arrived back on Main Street, Snow spotted Merryweather and she was happily reuniting with her sisters.

"Oh Snow…honey, it's wonderful. It's finally broken," she said, as they shared a hug.

"I'm so glad…" she gushed.

"Snow!" Red called, as she rushed toward her and they hugged tightly.

"How long have you two been awake?" she asked, as she hugged David too.

"A while…but you're one of the only ones that didn't judge us, despite not having your memories," he said. She smiled.

"When two people belong together, they'll always find a way. I'm just sorry I couldn't see through the curse," Granny said, as she approached them behind her granddaughter. But Snow shook her head and hugged her.

"It's forgotten…you weren't yourself," Snow said.

"Unless she knew about the wardrobe too," Emma replied, as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"What about the wardrobe?" Granny asked.

"Oh…apparently, it took two, but we didn't know that," Snow replied.

"What do you mean it took two?" Red questioned.

"Geppetto, Jiminy and Blue weren't completely honest with us and they put Pinocchio through it before we sent Emma," Snow said sadly.

"Well…they have some explaining to do then," Red replied.

"Mmmhmm…trust me, Blue has enough skeletons in her closet to oust her from power. Flora should be the head fairy," Merryweather said.

"We can settle that later. It's Narcissa that we should deal with firstly," Flora reasoned.

"She's right…and then there is still Maleficent. She flew off and we have no way of knowing where she went and with her goes the true love potion I made," Gold interjected.

"And we still need to find Regina," Snow added.

"What happened to Regina?" Belle asked.

"We don't know, but she wasn't in the car when we found it and there was a second set of tire tracks at the scene. Someone might have taken her…it's not like there isn't a town full of people with an ax to grind against her," David answered.

"Forget the Queen…we have bigger problems!" Grumpy called, as he and all seven dwarves approached.

"What's going on?" Emma asked.

"That outsider…the one running Narcissa's campaign has gone bonkers, that's what!" Grumpy replied.

"What do you mean?" David asked.

"He's at the hospital waving a gun around and demanding to be let down into the psych ward. He's raving like a madman that the Queen has his father locked up down there," Doc replied. He exchanged glances with his wife.

"Locking people up in the psych ward is her specialty," Gold reminded them.

"Let's go," Emma said, as she and David started for the hospital with the others following them…

[five-rivers]

Wound

@kawaiijohn

.

It didn’t take Clockwork long to find him, but any time was too much time.  It shouldn’t have taken so much time.  But—

Clockwork strained against the limitations placed on him, against the bonds of linear time, the obligations of his position. But they held fast.  He wasn’t fast enough.  It was inexcusable.  

Still.  He found him. Found Daniel.  

The boy, the child, was wedged in a tiny corner made by three walls meeting at acute angles in the maze of stairs, walls, and other building fragments not far from the Fenton Portal.  It wasn’t exactly a secure place, but considering the child’s state of mind, it must have seemed attractive.  

Clockwork stopped some distance away, cautious of coming too close to Daniel and frightening him.  Danny stared at him with huge, glowing green eyes.  

They would have been more striking, if his whole body wasn’t smeared with ectoplasm of the same shade.  

“Daniel,” started Clockwork.  

Daniel’s breath, already shallow, hitched, and he curled deeper into the corner.  Clockwork frowned, but drifted backward, trying to give Daniel the space he needed.

Clockwork wanted little more than to sweep over and snatch Daniel up, bring him somewhere safe to heal.  But considering what had happened to him…  Clockwork could see that such a course of action would only lead to disaster and pain.  

He settled on the closest thing this place had to a floor and coiled his tail underneath him, prepared to be patient.  He had to be patient.

Daniel made a sound that made Clockwork’s core ache. It wasn’t a natural sound for a young ghost, all discordant and broken, keening around the injury in his core.  It was a sound of fear.  Fear of Clockwork.  

Clockwork couldn’t blame him.  After all, Daniel didn’t remember him.  Couldn’t, with that injury.  

The core was a ghost’s brain, and Daniel had taken a significant blow to his.  They were lucky that the damage was relatively minor.  Temporary amnesia, and, perhaps, a slight headache when trying to recall early human memories while in ghost form, would be the most troubling of the side effects.  

As for the main effect, the wound that cut across his chest…  It would heal, given proper care, which Daniel would receive if he let Clockwork near him.  

Which he might not, considering the amnesia.  

Clockwork closed his eyes and focused on projecting calm, safety.  Daniel may be injured and, not to put to fine a point on it, terrified, but he was a child ghost.  They responded to things like that.  

Sure enough, Daniel’s panicked breathing slowed to a more reasonable rate.  He no longer looked like he was about to bolt at a moment’s notice.  

Clockwork could only hope that was because he was calming down, not because the wound was taking its toll.  

“Who are you?” croaked Daniel, finally.  

“My name is Clockwork,” he replied, relieved, “I would like to help you, if you will allow me to do so, Daniel.”

He could practically see the gears in Daniel’s head turning, processing, weighing action against action, risk of trust against the still-dripping wound in his chest.  

“Daniel… is that…”

“It’s your name,” said Clockwork.  

“You know me?”

“I do.”

More processing.  Clockwork knew he was fortunate that Daniel got a good look at the ghost who had done this to him, otherwise he would likely be even more wary, more suspicious.  

“Okay,” said Daniel, finally.  

“Alright,” said Clockwork.  “I will need to take you to my lair.”  He drifted slightly closer, and Daniel began to shake his head vigorously. Clockwork stopped.  

“Not going anywhere,” he said, beginning to pant by the last word.  

Clockwork blinked, disappointed, but nodded.  “I can see what I can do here,” he offered.

Daniel hesitated, then nodded.  Clockwork approached slowly, giving Daniel ample opportunity to change his mind.  

Up close, the wound was gruesome.  Leaking ectoplasm and bubbling.  It seemed that one of Daniel’s lungs had been nicked, and it was a good thing that he didn’t need oxygen in this form.  Clockwork carefully peeled first Daniel’s hands and then the fabric of his torn jumpsuit away from the gash.  Daniel whined pitifully, but did not stop Clockwork, or lash out, which was almost more than he expected.  

A ghost with an exposed core was extremely vulnerable. After filling one’s Obsessions, the instinct to protect one’s core was often cited as the next strongest.  

Clockwork clicked his tongue, and with a flick of his fingers summoned a set of first aid supplies.  Daniel had tensed again at the motion, but visibly forced himself to relax when he saw what Clockwork had brought.  

“You’re doing very well,” soothed Clockwork.  “I need to clean your wound and bind it.  It may hurt.”

Daniel nodded curtly.  

“I do have access to painkillers.”

Daniel shook his head just as curtly.  “Just do it,” he said.  

Demonstrating pain tolerance that broke Clockwork’s metaphorical heart, Daniel did not scream while Clockwork disinfected (Daniel was still part human, after all) and dressed the wound.  He did start keening, deep in his throat, when Clockwork packed the wound with an ectoplasm rich gel designed to help ghosts heal more quickly, and halfway through Clockwork binding the wound, he started to shake, fine tremors running down his limbs.  

By the time Clockwork had done what he could in this environment, Daniel was clearly exhausted and visibly fighting sleep.  Clockwork waited, patiently.  Daniel did not endeavor to drive him off.  

After a few minutes, Daniel’s features smoothed into sleep.  Clockwork eased the younger ghost into his arms and called up one of his portals, careful not to jostle Daniel further.  

Daniel’s recovery would go much more smoothly in the clocktower.  

.

He (Daniel?) woke up all at once with no idea where he was.

No, that wasn’t entirely true.  He was in a bed.  And there were clocks.  And the walls were purple.  

That was about where his idea of where he was ran out. So.  Not a lot to go on.  He tried to sit up, only to have agony rip through what felt like his very soul, and instead rolled over and curled up, trying not to make too much noise, because whatever had hurt him had to be nearby, looking for him, trying to finish what it had started, and he was so helpless, and—

Wait.  No.  He’d gotten away.  Then that other ghost, Clockwork, had helped him, and Danny had…

What?  Passed out?

That was embarrassing.  Also troubling, because that seemed to imply that Clockwork had brought him here, and Danny wasn’t at all sure of the ghost’s intentions.  

He had helped, sure, but how had he known that he (Daniel?  The name sounded right, but… not quite) needed help in the first place?  It was suspicious.  

The fact that he couldn’t remember anything about himself or what he’d been doing before being almost eviscerated made the situation all the more stressful.  

He took a deep breath, ignoring how much it hurt. Staying here, tangled in the sheets, would not help him.  Slowly, careful of his chest, he extracted himself.  

His eyes met Clockwork’s.  He froze.  

“Hello, Daniel,” said the ghost, shifting smoothly from one age to another.  “How do you feel?”

He chewed on his lower lip.  “Better?” he answered, uncertainly.  

Clockwork smiled gently.  “I’m glad.  Are you hungry?”

“No,” he said, after a moment’s thought.  

Clockwork nodded.  “Are you in any pain?”

“No.  I’m fine. I think I should go, now.”

Clockwork floated in front of him, blocking his path.  “Daniel,” he said, putting a hand on Danny’s shoulder, “you need to take care of yourself better than that.  Give yourself time to heal.  Do you even remember anything, yet?”

He forced down his first, knee-jerk response, which was something along the lines of ‘how do you know that’ and instead said, “Yeah, yep, remember everything.  It’s all peachy-keen.”

Clockwork fixed him with such a look of disappointment that he could almost physically feel the weight of it.  He looked away, trying to suppress the feelings that rose up inside him.

“If you go slowly,” said Clockwork, voice kind and gentle. “I can show you around my lair.  I know you will feel restive, trying to stay in bed.  There are things here that may interest you.”

“Okay,” he said.  “Sure.”

Internally, he resolved to escape as soon as possible.

[lesetoilesfous]

I can’t decide if I want “sensory overload” or “on a leash” for Fenris and Fenders, so um, whichever sparks your interest please!

Oh my gosh I had too much fun with this. And "on a leash" gives me a bingo, thank you so so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@badthingshappenbingo

Fandom: Dragon Age 2

Prompt: On A Leash

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Slavery, Brainwashing, Mindwipe, Implied Sexual Abuse, Attempted Prositution, Graphic Depiction of Injury

Pairing: Fenders

Characters: Fenris, Anders, Isabela, Varric Tethras, Merrill

Additional Tags: Angst with a Bittersweet Ending, Hurt/Comfort (mostly), Evil/Red Hawke, post-canon, what if Hawke sold Fenris back to Danarius and then the gang went and saved him

Anders knew it was going to be bad. He was - had been - blinded by his own ignorance and pain in the past, too busy trying to scream loud enough to get people to stop ignoring the people murdering children to listen to anyone else. He’d been young and single minded and irrational, and then older and bitter and furious with a terrible, poisonous kind of pain that made it hard to see the world around him. But he wasn’t naive. He’d spent ten years nursing criminals and refugees. Before that, he’d spent nearly a decade in the Grey Wardens, with former slaves and blood mages and Dalish hunters and Antivan crows. Anders had not been naive since he’d first drunk from the Joining Chalice.

Still.

It’s almost impossible to see in the placid, polite, half-naked man the proud warrior he’d once known. Fenris’ hair has been shaved close to his head, a fuzz of powdered snow that’s bright as the moon against his brown skin. There’s a thick, silver collar hanging around his neck, and in it the reflections of his lyrium tattoos twist and shine like mercury. His chest is mostly bare, and thin white linen is wrapped in a loose skirt around his waist. His body is sculpted and unmarred and beautiful, and Anders does not for a moment believe that it means he has not suffered pain. His wide, green eyes no longer hold any of the intelligence, or humour, or fury that Anders had once fallen in love with. Instead he stares, docile, into the middle distance. A greatsword is slung on a strap of leather over his back, but like this Fenris looks no more capable of wielding it than a kitten. Again, Anders knows better than to trust in appearances.

Attached to the collar is a long, silver chain that ends in a black loop of leather. There are runes stitched into the leather in silver thread, though Anders cannot see what they are from where he’s sitting. Opposite him, relaxed, fingers hooked in the loop of Fenris’ leash, Danarius studies him with open curiosity.

Anders tries very hard not to vomit.

“So, you’re a Spirit Healer?”

Anders ducks his head, feeling his fingers beginning to shake and fighting hard to resist the urge to fidget. There’s a clocktower visible through the white marble arches of this balcony. He only has to last until the hour. Five minutes. He can do this. He tries very hard not to look at Fenris, or the way Danarius’ thumb is stroking possessively over the handle of his leash.

“I - I am, yes. I showed a talent for it when I was young.” Anders twists his hand in the air, summoning a wisp without catching his breath, and Danarius gives him the same indulgent, condescending schoolteacher kind of smile that Uldred used to offer before he beat you. Anders snaps his fingers, and the wisp returns to the Fade. At the back of his mind, Justice shifts uneasily, trying hard to resist his own urge to set the whole blighted mansion on fire. Anders tries to ignore the heat racing up the back of his neck and into his cheeks, and clears his throat. “I, uh, heard you were looking for apprentices?”

He can’t help the nervous tic that has him looking up, again, at Fenris as the lithe strength of his muscles. Again, he looks into those green eyes, searching for the spark of defiance that had drawn him so close so many years ago, like a moth to a flame worth dying for. “I’ve read your work an anatomical augmentation. It’s...fascinating.” Horrifying, he means. Anders had read the essays, in preparation for this. He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop having the nightmares. Not least the ones which superimpose Fenris’ face and body over the all too familiar anatomical sketches of Elven Subject 003.

Danarius twitches his hand with a tinkle of the chain like the ringing of a bell, and to Anders’ horror Fenris folds onto his hands and knees in one fluid motion to kneel beside Danarius’ feet. No emotion passes across Fenris’ face. Danarius runs his fingers over the fuzz of Fenris’ shaved head, and Fenris shuts his eyes in open, simple pleasure and Anders nearly throws up. Danarius runs his fingers down the back of Fenris’ neck, squeezing the back of it posssessively before looking up at Anders’ with a terribly possessive gleam in his clear grey eyes. “You’re a fan of my little wolf, then.”

Anders swallows the bile in his throat and stares at the clocktower. Three minutes. He can do this. Sweat tickles down his spine beneath the loose Tevene linen robe he’d bought for this occasion. He resists the urge to fuss with his hair, braided out of the way of his neck and ears in a fashionable Minrathous style. He forces himself to incline his chin. “Y-yes. Among other p-things. Among other things.”

Danarius chuckles, sitting back with a creak of his wicker chair, the crushed purple silk cushions huffing behind him as he moves. “Why so nervous?” Anders forces himself to huff a self deprecating laugh. “You knew him, didn’t you. In Kirkwall.” Anders’ jagged, insincere smile stiffens on his lips and Danarius laughs, moving forward to press both hands onto Fenris’ bare shoulders. Fenris shudders and looks up at him, eyes wide as a child’s. Danarius caresses the back of his head, and leans down to murmur intimately close to his ear, still loud enough for Anders to hear. “Do you recognise him, little wolf? Do you know who this is?”

For the first time since Anders had arrived at Danarius’ damn mansion, Fenris’ expression shows a flicker of emotion. Confusion flickers across his brow in a brief wrinkle followed by sudden, mute fear that freezes his expression with stiff tension when Danarius slips his fingers beneath Fenris’ collar and shakes him, gently. (Like a dog, Anders thinks, and imagines what setting this man on fire would smell like.) Danarius laughs, polite and performative. “How rude, Fenris! This man has come all the way from Kirkwall just to see you! Go on, thank him.”

Fenris hesitates for a millisecond, and Danarius sets a sandaled foot on his shoulder and kicks him forward hard enough that he chokes, briefly, as the leash goes taut and pulls on the collar around his neck. Anders sits forward without thinking, the muscle memory of ten years spent protecting this man’s life before Garrett Hawke ruined them both taking over any conscious thought of deception. Danarius doesn’t remark on him giving himself away - Anders is well aware that that game is long since given up.

Instead, the magister sits back, adjusting his grip on the handle of Fenris’ leash as Fenris sits up with tears of pain bright in his eyes, his fingers moving to dip beneath the skirt of Anders’ robes as he lowers his head towards Anders’ lap.

Anders has about three seconds to look up at Danarius and see the perverse glee in the old man’s eyes before Fenris' mouth bumps his cock through the fabric of his robes and his smalls, and suddenly Anders is two years younger on his back in The Hanged Man with his hands buried deep in silver hair thinking hopelessly that he’s fallen in love again.

Then he’s touching Fenris - ignoring the lightning bolt of rage that twists Danarius’ face as he does so, and gently pushing him away. Fenris looks up at him with an expression of quickly stifled terror, and Anders’ heart shatters. “No, no, it’s alright, it’s not you.” His fingers squeeze, reflexively, against the warm, smooth skin of Fenris’ biceps. “It’s going to be ok. I promise, love.” Again, a flicker of confusion wrinkles Fenris’ brow.

The clocktower strikes twelve. As the bells ring throughout the city, Anders becomes abruptly aware of the street below them: the sound of hawkers and tourists, the shouting of slaves and soft music of minstrels. Danarius is staring at him with a sneer twisting his thin lips blue. Anders gives him a wide, open smile. “Well, since we’ve given up on pretenses.” Then he punches Danarius in the face, harder than he's punched anyone since he escaped Kinloch Hold, relishing the way the man’s nose buckles beneath his fist.

He has a heartbeat to think, Nice job bleeding a Blood Mage, idiot, before Danarius’ blue-veined hand is curling into a rigid claw, and Anders’ body is lifting off the ground, his limbs contorting behind him in an agonising rictus that rips his left arm out of its socket and twists his ankle until it cracks.

Then there’s a thunderous BOOM that rumbles through the building, shaking plaster dust from the painted canopy over their heads, and the balcony on which they’re standing begins to list like a ship at sea. Danarius loses concentration on the spell, and Anders falls to the ground. He doesn’t take the time to breathe through the white hot splinter of pain in his ankle. He grabs the leash and pulls fire into his hands until his fingers are blistering and melts the metal until it breaks. Then he turns to Fenris.

Fenris, who has drawn his greatsword. Anders stares at him, and thinks about sitting with him beside a fireplace, sleepy and soft with wine, and stroking his hair as Fenris admitted that of all the things he feared, one of the ones that terrified him most was killing his friends. The building lists with a grinding rumble like a broken bone beneath a qunari sten, and amphorae and flower pots go flying across the tiled floor, hitting the building across the street in fireworks of soil and clay dust.

Anders’ bad ankle slips on the tiles and he grunts and turns it into a smile, and meets Fenris’ eyes. “No matter what, I want you to know that I forgive you.”

Then he runs forward and tackles Fenris, throwing them both off the side of the balcony. Behind them, Danarius screams, and Anders calls up a shield around them both that materialises a hair’s breadth away from the clinging red vines of Danarius' magic.

It’s only when they’re airborne that Anders registers the blade skewered through his chest.

He breathes, and salt and copper splatter against his lips and tongue. For a moment, in the golden, multicoloured kaleidoscope of sky and street, suspended in the air in a terrible embrace, everything is quiet. Fenris frowns at him, and blinks, and his green eyes flood suddenly with recognition and grief as he looks down at the sword hilt between them, intimate as a lover’s embrace. “Anders.”

Anders grins at him, and thinks he isn’t crying because of the pain, his tears rising behind him as they fall like backwards rain. He cradles Fenris’ head in his hand, and wraps his arms around his shoulders, and chokes as his organs shudder against the blade attempting to split him in two, and he feels Justice’s presence building in his mind like lightning in a thundercloud. “Be right back.”

*

What happens next returns to Anders in snatches of lucidity. Justice takes over, and draws the fade around them like a cloak as they fall through the wall of the building across the street like a comet. Fenris is unharmed and panicking, covered in Anders’ blood, his white linen skirt pink and red with it, the damn collar still locked around his neck. Justice had drawn the sword out of their chest and filled the wound with a magic simulacra of the blood vessels, muscles, organs and nervous system that needed to be there, in the way he had once reconstructed Kristoff’s corpse. (Both of them had quailed, at that comparison, but neither had time to linger on it.)

The building they’d fallen into was, of course, riddled with magisters, but before Justice could exorcise his frustration with a little smiting, all three men and women were dead with a bolt to the back of the head. Isabela appeared from the shadows in a puff of smoke like a mage herself, and Varric waved at them to follow him onto a waiting carriage. Merrill barely waited for them to get on board before she snapped the reins, and they bolted into the panicking crowds, most of whom were running to get away from the collapsing mansion.

In the carriage, consciousness had begun to make its slippery way out of Justice’s hands like a wriggling fish. Both of them had registered Fenris’ wide-eyed panic: the way he’d stared at their old friends with no hint of recognition, and held Anders’ arm so tightly it would bruise. But at that point, the blood loss had overcome them both, and they had passed out to Fenris shouting Tevene interspersed with Anders’ name, and Isabela trying to understand why.

*

Two years after Garrett Hawke sells him back into slavery, Anders, Isabela, Varric and Merrill free Fenris from Danarius’ service. They don’t go back to Kirkwall - all of them are too conscious of the so-called Champion’s stomping grounds to trust those streets. But Isabela has a contact in the Antivan Crows (or formerly of them - it’s complicated), so instead they go to Antiva City. Two days later, Anders wakes up.

Fenris is staring at him, wearing real clothes that seem to sit uncomfortably on his shoulders. His collar is gone, and there’s a small frown on his brow - a lifting of his eyebrows towards the bridge of his nose that he always used to wear when he was puzzling over particularly cramped handwriting (or, later into his studies, when he was attempting to accurately interpret and summarise abstract Qunari poetry). Anders breathes, and his chest sets itself on fire, and he groans and lets his head fall back against the richly perfumed pillow behind his head. It does relatively little to drown out the thick stench of hot leather that is as thick in the air as molasses.

Fenris startles when he moves, and stands, moving to the door. Anders frowns at him, turning his head to one side with all the energy he can muster. “Where’r’you’goin’?”

Fenris hesitates, turning back to him before lowering his gaze to stare at his still bare feet. There are new scars there, Anders registers, sadly, in neat white bands around his ankles. “I thought I’d fetch the mistress.”

Anders snorts, “Have you told her you’re calling her that?” He tries again to force himself to sit up, and Fenris starts forward, hands freezing in the air between them. His fingernails are neatly, perfectly filed and it ruins Anders’ tentatively building appetite.

“You really shouldn’t be moving.”

Anders grins, trying to ignore the sweat running down his temples as pain racks through every muscle in his body. “Why? Worried I’m going to split in two?” Fenris grimaces, and Anders grunts, giving up and collapsing to the bed with a thunderbolt of pain. “OW. Sorry. Bad joke.” There’s a rustle of fabric, and when Anders is able to stop seeing stars, he turns to find Fenris on his knees beside the bed, head lowered, hands palm up in front of him. “What in the name of Andraste’s perfect silky knickers are you doing?” Anders asks as if he doesn’t know. He thinks it’s going to be easier not to take this seriously, at first. At least whilst he recovers from the mortal injury.

Fenris flinches, and Anders regrets his bad attempt at humour, feeling Justice rumbling in the back of his head like a bowel movement. “Sorry, sorry. Look, Fenris, I’m not going to...punish you, or fuck you, or whatever it is you think I’m going to do to you. I actually have a very busy day planned of, uh, staring at that crack on the ceiling and pretending it doesn’t hurt when I breathe. Or speak. Fuck. I talk too much. I need to - ow - work on that.”

For a long moment, Fenris says nothing. Outside, there’s the sound of someone playing violin in the street, and the rich, warm sound of Antivan spoken loudly and with laughter. Now that he’s acclimatising to the leather, Anders thinks he can smell cured meat frying, and he’s beginning to reconsider his aborted appetite. He’s trying so hard to see if he can actually hear the sizzling of street food that he almost doesn’t hear Fenris’ voice when he speaks, barely above a whisper. “Why?”

“Because I love you.” Anders responds, more muscle memory than conscious - hey he doesn’t remember anything about you maybe we should start slowly - thought. Fenris stares at him, eyes wide, though his mouth twists in apprehension before he smooths it back into impassivity.

“Domine - My master loves me.”

Anders sighs, falling back in the bed to stare up at the crack in the ceiling and try to ignore the hot-cold flushes of pain rocking up through his body. “You don’t remember anything about me, so I’m not going to take that personally.”

Fenris is very still. “You do not...like him?”

Anders chuckles, and regrets it when his tattered organs throw a violent protest. “What gave that away.”

“You broke his nose.” Fenris says, solemnly, and Anders does laugh then, so hard he thinks it splits something open, and he finds himself clutching at his side in the sudden fear that his organs are going to fall out. When he can breathe again, he coughs on his dry mouth and shifts his gaze to Fenris, who’s watching him with wide eyes and the curl of a smile at the corner of his lips which Anders doesn’t think he knows he’s doing.

Anders’ gaze falls to a pewter jug of water on the bedside table and a wooden cup beside it. It may as well be in the Nocen sea, for all the nauseating pain running through him.

“Would you please pour me a glass of water?”

Fenris immediately hurries to obey with a soft, stifled sigh of something terribly like relief. He offers Anders the cup, and when Anders’ shaking, sweating fingers slip on the wood his hand comes up to cup the back of Anders’ head whilst the other pours the cup against his lips. The feeling of Fenris’ fingers in his hair, after so many years, holding him like this, is almost too much for Anders to bear. He keeps his eyes shut for a long time after swallowing, and breathes as tears tickle between the seams of his eyelids and run quietly down his cheeks.

Fenris’ thumb gently catches a tear and brushes it away from his skin, and Anders forces himself to open his eyes and stare up at the elf in the sunshine yellow and orange painted room in which he’s been laid to recuperate. Fenris meets his eyes, so briefly Anders thinks perhaps he imagined it, and draws his hand away. “My master said that I knew you. But that I had forgotten.” Fenris hesitates, mouth stiffening into a firm line that is so painfully familiar Anders thinks he’d choose the greatsword again. Then he looks up, “Did I - did we - it seems as if I meant a great deal to you.”

Anders smiles at him, though his lips tremble, and tries to ignore the feeling of his heart breaking. Outside, on the street, an older woman walks past, singing quietly to herself and humming when she forgets the words. “I think we meant a great deal to each other.”

Fenris purses his lips, and looks away, out of the window. Over the street, the silver-green leaves of an olive tree brush the windows of nearby buildings. Elsewhere in the building, Anders can hear the familiar purr of Isabela, and Merrill’s chirping, and the soft old gravel growl of Varric. Occasionally, the floorboards creak when they move across the lower floors. At last, Fenris’ shoulders drop, and he shakes his head. “I don’t remember you.” The words are rich with regret and apology.

Anders blinks against the new tears tickling his cheeks, and shakes his head. “I know.” Then he reaches out, his fingers cold and numb with pins and needles. Stiffly, fumbling, he grabs Fenris’ fingertips in his own like a much older man, and squeezes them. “I just wanted you to be free.”

[labcoatblondie-archived]

𝐅𝐄𝐁𝐔𝐖𝐇𝐔𝐌𝐏 - 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐎𝐍𝐄

𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃

featuring TASM!PETER - @marvclsiums

          if anything was going to test their relationship, it was this.  for every look that peter sent gwen’s way, she could taste the guilt.  could feel the way it consumed him.  every single time he looked at her, all he could see was the way she looked at the bottom of that clocktower.  the way that dark red matted her blonde locks.  the echoing cries that bounced off of empty walls.  begging her not to die in his arms.    and by some miraculous feat.  she didn’t.

          but gwen wondered if maybe it would’ve just been easier if she did.

          therapy had been hard.  mentally and physically.  turns out she needed a bit of both.  peter had been there.  he’d always been there.  but it was still hard.  that unspoken truth behind every silent moment.  it was unbearable.  gwen wanted to promise him that it wasn’t his fault.  he wanted to apologise profusely and keep his promise to her father.  but how could he leave her like this?  when every minute of the day she seemed to struggle.  with things that came so easy to her in the past. 

          it was a shaky tightrope.  and both of them could feel the tendrils of the rope slowly unravelling.  threatening to snap.  threatening to send gwen and peter spiralling to the bottom.

         ❝ here -- ❞  gwen hands the bottle of shampoo behind her.  waiting for peter to take it before knees are hugged to her chest once more.  the warm water surrounds her.  filled near to the brim of the tub.  though gwen tries her best to brace herself for the inevitable shade of pink that the water would become.  eventually she’ll close her eyes.  she doesn’t need to.  yet.

          peter uncaps the bottle and pours the liquid onto his palm.  placing the bottle on the ground a moment later.  as gently as he can he begins to wash her hair.  mindful of the stitches.  red and raw.  a sight that sickens him.  because this was his fault.

          and gwen tries so hard not to watch his reflection in the mirror.  because she sees the way he looks when he’s trying to wash her hair.  she sees that pained expression.  the tears in his eyes.  she tries not to watch him; but she ends up watching him anyway.  finding her vision blurring with tears of her own.  hoping peter couldn’t see her crying.  it wouldn’t do them any good.

          it’s a slow and painful process.  in more ways than one.  and by the time peter’s rinsing off the suds, gwen’s cleaned up her tears and pulled herself together.  peter’s tried to do the same.  but they can easily take one look at each other and know exactly what had occurred in the hour prior. 

         ❝ thanks pete ❞  her voice so small.  broken.  eyes averted from his as he wraps a towel around her frame and uses another to dry off her arms and legs.  she feels useless for it.  silently feels it.  doesn’t dare tell him.  it won’t help them.  maybe when she’s stronger she’ll be able to do this herself.  she won’t have to subject him to the bitter pain that they both have to swallow.

          maybe one day he’ll leave her when he realises how hard it is to be around her when she’s nothing like she used to be.  her intelligence lost.  her brain too slow now.  this wasn’t the gwen stacy he fell in love with.  and in her eyes, she would be the gwen stacy he falls out of love with.  

          and maybe one day, gwen will find someone who can protect her.  who won’t let her fall and hurt herself.  who won’t bring danger to her doorstep.  who will be able to look at her without tearing himself up inside.  someone who never almost killed her.  someone who was capable of saving her from peter.

[preciousthingsareprecious]

Finding Us Chapter 21

Alright! Here I am at last with another Tim chapter! I hope you guys enjoy it. 

AO3 Link

~

Tim couldn’t deny the excitement bubbling up in his chest at the idea of progress in the stalker case. It fueled his desire to keep moving in other directions, while he waited on Damian to finish his sketch he dove back into work on the Alkali case.

Currently, he was trying once again not to backseat hack as Barbara was finally digging through the Alkali’s files. After their trip to the physical location, Babs had used the access gained through Stephanie to create her own back door and they’d sat on that for a little while to make sure no one found it.

It was early the morning after Damian’s encounter with the creepy man and Tim was in the belfry standing over Barbara’s shoulder because there was nothing to currently do on the stalker case. Tim hadn’t recognized Damian’s sketch of the guy he’d seen, and so they were waiting on facial recognition to grab his identity. The kid’s sketch was definitely good enough for the system to pick something up, they just had to wait.

“Have you found anything interesting yet?” he asked, trying not to bounce on his toes.

“Lots. Nothing we’re looking for. Though, there is a guy here who’s last name is Bandersnatch, which is pretty cool.”

She was teasing, but Tim could also hear the note of warning in her voice. When she found what they were looking for she’d tell him, and he shouldn’t keep pushing. He sighed, and turned to step across the room, over to a mini fridge installed for snacks.

“Want a soda?” he called.

She shook her head, “It’s too early for that, toss me a tea.” she answered.

He grabbed a bottle of tea out for Babs and a can of orange soda for himself and moved back over to the computer.

“Thanks for helping on this.” he said, handing her the tea, then cracking open his soda.

“Of course, the sooner we get these guys the better.”

Tim agreed, and sipped at his soda while he played a matching game on his phone in an attempt to both distract and stop himself from tossing advice Barbara’s way. He got stuck on a particularly difficult level and found himself totally lost in it for a while, trying again and again to win. It made the waiting a lot easier, even if he also kind of wanted to toss his phone out the window and watch it crash at the bottom of the building.  

“Got something.” Babs said at last.

Tim looked up bleary eyed, blinking away red diamonds and orange squares. It took his brain a moment to register what she’d said before he stood up, the chair shaking.

“Great!” he hurried over to look at the screen again, “What’d you find?”

“Well, under the private files I found some that were locked with a password, after cracking that I found these.”

The file she’d opened was filled with unreadable text.

“It’s encrypted?” Tim asked.

“I think it’s some kind of cypher. See it follows a sort of pattern. Nothing too overt or easy like a caesar cipher. It’s got to have a key.”

Tim hummed, she was right, the text was filled with letters and numbers and broken up in a way that looked like lines of real text, if they’d been in any kind of legible order.

“Well then we’d better get to cracking it.”

They worked for a couple hours trying to figure out what cypher had been used, and testing various codes to no avail. Eventually they decided to give it some time to breathe, and their brains time to think of new ideas. Babs forwarded him the files so he could keep looking over them later and Tim left her to work on other projects.

As he was leaving, he found Cassandra waiting for him down at the base of the Belfry. She was eating a cinnamon roll like it was a doughnut.

“Hey.” she said, handing him a cup of coffee, and shaking her wrist and the plastic bag hanging off it.

Tim took the offered cup, then tugged the bag off her free hand checking inside. A second cinnamon roll sat tucked into a nest of napkins. He fished it out, careful not to spill his drink then copied Cass, taking a huge bite out of the side.

It was still warm, and the taste of cinnamon and sugar danced across his tongue in a way that made him think of home. Of early Saturday mornings with Alfred, stirring together a bowl of butter, sugar, and cinnamon so the man could carefully spread it across dough. Or of Bruce dropping off a few in his room, ruffling his hair, and telling him he should probably finish his homework before working on another case.

“Ready to head back?” she asked.

He washed down the bite of bread with some coffee and nodded, “Yeah, I think Babs and I have done all we can. How’re things back at the manor?”

Cass shrugged, “Everyone is still waiting on the results of the search, so they all split up to work on other things.”

They moved to the car Cass had brought to pick him up in, it was one of Bruce's many cars, black and not too fancy. Tim held a hand out for the keys and after an eye roll Cass dropped them in his palm.

“I drove here.” she argued.

“You drive too fast for me and my coffee.” he replied.

“Fair.” she shrugged.

As Tim pulled away from the clocktower, still munching on his cinnamon roll Cass pipped back up.

“Can we stop at the craft store?”

He glanced at her, “Sure, but why?”

“Damian wanted some more colored pencils. He sent a list and asked me to stop if I had time.” She tugged a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket and opened it to show him.

A detailed list of colors, brands, and what not to buy’s filled the page in Damian’s neat, tight, handwriting. Tim was surprised to find a little picture of a dog at the bottom of the page, it wasn’t as detailed as Damian usually did, and smiling for some reason.

“He drew it as a thank you, and promised to make me a better one with the pencils.” Cass said, catching where Tim’s eye had fallen, then she added, “Eyes on the road.”

Tim flicked the turn signal on the car to indicate he needed to go left, towards the craft store Damian frequented, “Why didn’t he come if he wanted to restock?”

Cass shrugged again, and folded the paper instead of crumpling it back up. She set it in her lap, fingers tapping on the paper with gentle tip taps.

Damian rarely missed a chance to get his own art supplies. He was as picky about them as Tim was over film or lenses for his cameras. Sure it was just a few replacement pencils, but even those Tim knew Damian would linger over for an hour if he was left to it. He wondered briefly if his mild concussion had anything to do with staying home. Maybe Alfred had told him he couldn’t leave? But no, it had been days at this point, he was probably cleared at last for most activities.

Maybe it was because he knew Cass was headed to pick up Tim.

He tried not to think too hard on that thought. They hadn’t really talked much lately. Both had been busy with their own things, and besides that, they didn’t really talk a lot to begin with. He’d thought they were doing better, but at the same time Tim knew they weren’t.

Tim reached out to snatch his coffee and take a sip from it. Now that he thought about it, maybe they were doing better after all. Damian had called him by his first name the night before. And he’d gone looking for clues as to Tim’s stalker. A queasy feeling bubbled up in Tim’s stomach. He’d been quick to dismiss Damian’s attempted apology back when they’d been at the mall, and now he was starting to wonder if he'd been really trying to mend that bridge. T im loved the idea of having a little brother, and way back when he'd first met Damian he'd been happy to have one, for all of two seconds. Still, sometimes he thought they had found that perfect spot of being siblings, and other times it felt like there was a gaping hole between them. Especially lately.

He pulled into the store’s parking lot not even realizing they’d made it there, his body on autopilot. Cass cheered as she climbed out of the car, and Tim stayed quiet.

When he looked up at the storefront he figured it out.

He might be jealous. Of the squirt.

Maybe it wasn't their past that was bothering him so much lately, but their present. Tim thought he'd shaken off those feelings in regards to Jason and Damian, but maybe he hadn't. Even in the wake of the family’s eyes turning on him Tim still couldn’t stop thinking about how Damian seemed to draw everyone in all the time. Dick, then Jason, Bruce with his fretting after they’d gotten hurt. It was--it was like he fit in a way Tim couldn’t quite imagine himself fitting again.  Like they were both the same piece, and there was only one spot left on the puzzle, and Damian had swooped in just in time to fill it. Even now, he felt odd about the attention. Like the moment everything was done his family would stop looking at him again. Stop seeing Tim, because he’d messed up. He’d failed to be the one to fix everything and he no longer deserved to be seen.

“Tim?”

“Coming!” he said, locking the car door.

Inside he was hit with the smell of paint and paper. The whole place was a kaleidoscope of colors and supplies crammed together in a space that should have felt cluttered, but instead actually seemed homely. He followed Cass to the pencils and held each as she selected them, reading Damian’s list carefully, then making Tim double check “ just in case” .

He thought they’d be in and out, but once they’d found Damian’s stuff Cass insisted on browsing. Tim followed her, feeling a bit like Titus pattering after Damian as he instructed the dog on something very un-dog-like and soon his arms were full.

Cass had added extra packs of less high quality colored pencils, crayons, thin markers --not thick, because apparently those didn’t trace well-- and made him pick out a coloring book. She selected one full of animals, and Tim picked one that was more abstract. Like black and white stained glass. He and Cass locked eyes on an adult swear word coloring book and both grinned.

“For Jason?” Tim asked.

“And one for Dick.” Cass grinned.

Soon they’d selected adult coloring books for the whole family. Some simply because they knew they’d get a laugh out of them, and others from the knowledge of the recipient getting genuine delight from it.

By the time they left, Tim was feeling better. His day brightened even more when Cass hooked an arm through his at home, and dragged him into the living room.

“We are going to color and watch She-Ra.” she declared.

He could have argued and said he had work to do. But he knew Cass would tell him a break was good. And wasn’t that what he’d just told Babs? He could have fallen into other cases or dug out his 3Ds to play some Animal Crossing. But the best idea in the whole world right then was sitting on the floor and coloring with his sister, and he wasn’t going to pass it up.

He filled in two whole pages, first lined with marker --Cass had been right about the thin ones-- then colored in as dark as he could with his own box of colored pencils. At some point the sounds of She-Ra had been turned down as he and Cass chatted about everything.

She told stories of an adventure with Steph. He talked about Mindbender and how weird it was to have Jason in the house again. Then about how cool it was to have Jason in the house. Cass told him about a ballet she’d seen. All of it, whether it was little nothings or big changes, ebbed and flowed to the scritch scritch of pencil on paper, and legs folded up or kicked into the air.

At some point, Alfred brought in cocoa and water. Then sandwiches. Dick breezed through and gasped over his book, stopping to color in all of an F before getting bored and breezing back out. Jason cackled over his book, and then genuinely thanked them for thinking of him. Damian collected his pencils, didn’t complain about a single one, and stared at his own book of animals to color like it was made of gold before tucking it under an arm and scurrying away.

Bruce stayed the longest, lounging on a couch to add his own commentary between theirs, infrequent, but enough to say “I’m here, I’m listening, I love you.” before he too was called away. He planted a kiss on each of their heads before leaving.

It was Stephanie who broke up the peace. Showing up like a tornado, and stirring them from settled spaces into laughter. They traded pencils for controllers and fired up Smash Brothers for a wholly different, but still perfect, adventure.

There, surrounded in waves by his family Tim wondered if he’d been wrong earlier. If maybe the puzzle had room for all of them. And every time someone new came in, it just expanded and made room for them. He certainly felt like he fit in, and it was really nice.

[chocolateghost]

first lines

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line. Then tag 10 of your favorite authors!

Thanks for tagging me @chispas-and-broken-bindings & @vivilove-jonsa!

Well this should be a fun eye opener lol

Hey There, Mrs. Lovely - School is out and summer has finally arrived.

writing to reach you - When he was younger, Jon used to believe in magic.

Of Film & Paper - “Do you really think this is a good idea, David?” Tim asked incredulously.

she’s all i need, all my life -  “TGIF is fucking right,” Jon muttered to himself on the way up the elevator.

Can’t We Be Sweethearts -  Sansa sat in Mrs. Dustin’s honors science class patiently waiting for 1st period to start.

too many straights and not enough grease -  The chimes of the clocktower echo faintly throughout the empty park.

Cabin Fever -  “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Sansa muttered to herself while pounding her hand on the steering wheel, “I’m so lost. Where the hell even am I?”

I Lost My Heart On The Carousel -  The buttery smell of popcorn wafted through the air.

Becoming a Snow or: How Sansa Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Winter -  As far back as she could remember, Sansa Stark had always hated winter.

What Happens In The Corn Maze... -  “Come to the pumpkin patch with us, Sansa! We’ll pick pumpkins and take a hay ride and drink apple cider! And they have a corn maze! Wouldn’t it just be so much fun if we dragged you to the middle of it and then abandoned you? HA HA HA VERY FUNNY ASSHOLES!”

The Monster Squad -  What's a guy to do when classic Hollywood monsters attack his hometown? Gather his friends and kill the shit out of them, that's what!

Breaking Curfew -  Driving down the road, Sansa sighs as she rolls down the windows of her car, the cool breeze blowing her hair around wildly.

i won’t share you with another boy -  She’s a whore - the most beautiful woman Jon has ever seen.

In My Time of Need -  It’s funny sometimes - what a man can get used to over a lifetime.

because your kiss is on my list -  “OH. MY. GOD. HE’S HERE SANSA!”

i’ve got a feeling, a feeling deep inside -  London was cold and dreary as January was coming to a close.

I said brrr it’s cold in here, there must be some Direwolves in the atmosphere -  Jon’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the edge of the cold metal bleachers.

Economics 101 -  He’s doing it again - talking about numbers and the gross domestic product of Westeros and all manner of tedious subjects that for some reason just set Sansa’s panties on fire.

Practice Makes Perfect -  Jon and Sansa lie sated under the heart tree in the godswood, basking in a post-coital haze.

Love At 40,000 Feet -  Winterfell International Airport was abuzz with activity.

I guess as far as patterns go, I seem to like starting my stories with dialogue or a little description of setting. Sounds about right lol.

Tbh I’m not really a fan of most of these, but if I had to pick a favorite I suppose I would go with either In My Time of Need or writing to reach you. I definitely consider those two to be my best works and I had those first lines down from the very beginning.

Looking forward to making a few more first lines here very soon!

Tagging: @sansa-of-oldstones @kitten1618x @winterrose527 @daughter-of-winterfell @woodswit @jolieunfiltrd

[uhhhhhhhhhsblogyea]

This is a surprise!

cw, attack, killing, slight demspey x richtofen, and religion, theres a good bit of that in there

[i wrote this awhile ago so theres not much of shipping material in this i was just like oh yeah this sounds cool]

[ 1 ] chapter 1 ; bump in the road 

Demspey hums a song to himself, something he heard while going through the teleporter awhile back. He wasn't sure what the name was or the lyrics, it was just a catchy tune. If he had to guess, it came from the future. The sounds in it were definitely not from the 1930's.

Rictofen laughs and looks at Dempsey, "Dempsey, what does LMG stand for?" Dempsey smirks at this, turning to look at the doctor. He knew what to say, thanks to training the recruits. Maybe he could punch Richtofen for being stupid, just like he did to the recruits. 

While Dempsey gives a minute of silence while looking over at the German, who takes out the summoning key, counting over his items before summoning the rift to their next place. “You sure you want to know?” He chuckles. 

“Why of course! Why, I wouldn’t of asked if I knew already.” Richtofen hums, confused by the American’s laughter.

"If you say so. It stands for Lick My Gibblets." Dempsey struggles to hold back his smile, knowing his foreign teammate wouldn't really understand what he meant - not to mention he’d look stupid for not knowing what it really meant. What a funny thing. 

While the two were conversing, Nikolai and Takeo had stepped into the rift, Dempsey following suit before Richtofen grabs him, "I am certain you were lying. What does it really mean?" He demands.  

Dempsey grunts, pulling Richtofen off him while saying. "Let me go, dumbass!" Dempsey sighs, walking through the portal between worlds.

Richtofen failed to specify where exactly, but, at this point the American wasn't surprised though he wasn't any less annoyed. 

"I wasn't aware it was LMGD..." The German ponders before following the bunch with a chuckle.

Tank steps out of the rift, meeting the other two, but it takes him to realize he stepped out into something he didn't expect. "What the fuck?" Dempsey is surprised, not prepared for the foot of snow on the ground. Pine trees of many kinds surround the area, being in a secluded area. Everything is covered in snow, pretty much abandoned. 

"Oh my, this is quite the surprise." Richtofen speaks up, making his presence known as the blue rift crackles and closes. 

"I wasn't prepared for this myself." Nikolai speaks up now, giving a slight shrug. "German," he addresses, "with the time traveling I'm sure you'd know where we are." He doesn't believe the legitimacy of Richtofen's surprise, Dempsey can understand why. 

Takeo chooses not to speak, fixing his pants to go over his boots so no snow falls inside of them while Dempsey watches the Russian and German grow tension.

Takeo stands upright. "Let us talk with honor." He looks at the both of them and nods.

Richtofen looks at Takeo, sighing before nodding. "If we came here there is something we need, so let's go look for it. We'll have to hurry up and find a spot to 'bunker down' before the next wave arises." The German man had done air quotes before pointing a lanky arm towards the large gothic church a-ways ahead of them.

The front of the quite beautiful church is a triangular shaped building, much like a house or meeting hall that extends into a tower that looks very much similar to a clock tower with a bell, considering there's a clock on the front.

 There's other rooms on the side of it but a lot of wires and metal rods are sticking out on the top of the tower. There's designs in the stone, stained glass of religious figures. Such a shame the full beauty was lost when the glass is cracked and broken in areas, boards nailed over any thought of entrance. 

Something's off about it though.

As they trudge through the snow, Dempsey notices the metal rods. He looks to his left to see Nikolai, the man who seems unbothered by this cold.  "Hey Nik, maybe Richtofen's right about something being here. As much as I hate to give him the benefit of a doubt, the wires and rods on the clocktower gives me the idea something's here." 

Dempsey raises his hand and points at the clock tower briefly, giving Nikolai enough time to glance it over. The Russian man follows Dempsey's hand, taking a second before seeing the same. "Perhaps, American. You do have a point." 

[ 2 ] chapter 2 ; welcome to hell, american

There's a blue beam of light, signifying the existence of the mystery box inside the church. Demspey hums, quite happy about that at least. Hopefully Samantha was nice enough to spawn some hidden ammo stashes for when they ran out or get low – he was quite notorious for being trigger happy and running out of ammo quickly. 

Hey, at least he took care of his gun when he had the time to.

They continued to make their way through the snow, had it only being less than ten minutes of arrival. Dempsey noticed that Takeo and Richtofen were colder due to not having jackets or long sleeves like he and Nikolai had. Richtofen seemed extremely cold although, compared to the headstrong Japanese man who refused to admit he was cold. Tank sighed heavily, taking off his jacket and holding it out to Richtofen. 

"Dempsey? Why are you giving me your jacket? You're-" Dempsey held up his hand, making Richtofen take it. "Doc, you're shivering more than any of us. You're also the one we have to follow here, I don't want to hear you whine about wanting some soup and your nose being stuffy." The American rolls his eyes, forcing a shiver from surfacing. 

Richtofen thanked him and put on the marine's coat. It was warm from his body heat, and quite soft on the inside. Dempsey wasn't going to lie, Richtofen looked quite cute in his coat. 

"Oh focus Tank!" He shakes his head, yelling at himself in his mind. Dempsey powered through the cold the best he could, not wanting to really show how cold he did feel in just a t-shirt. His pride wouldn't let him.

Eventually they reached the entrance, wooden planks nailed over the two doors to the church. Nikolai takes his hammer from his belt and starts to pry the nails out of the boards. Dempsey helps without speaking, pulling the bloodied planks off and stack them aside. It was kind of nice how they silently agreed for once.

Unfortunately for them, it took a good bit to clear the entrance to the church which means they had to sit in the snow and cold wind longer than they wished. Things were placed behind the doors, benches and heavy boxes filled with bibles and books, being barricaded from the inside. They moved into the hallway after forcing those things aside, Takeo giving a shiver. 

"I expected it to be... warmer." His nose wrinkles as he breathes in the stale air, looking to the side to one of his friends. Dempsey had to agree, but he took a step forward, walking down the carpeted hallway to double doors that were once barricaded. Emphasis on once. 

The items that blocked the doors were knocked and spread all over, blood that seemed old and semi-recent splattered on the ground and walls. He hummed, why was there new blood? To be honest he never saw any zombies openly bleeding and spilling their guts out randomly unless they were shot or killed. 

This was the room people would come to pray and listen to someone speak about religion, sitting on the wooden benches. 

Dempsey suspects that someone or something is here, and he's not sure what. Maybe he's not as dumb as the others say he is.

At this point, Dempsey couldn't give a damn about how Christian churches worked after contemplating it. He just wanted out. 

"Scan over this area, I'm gonna take upstairs." He says to the three who had gone and caught up with him, to which the others nod. He goes to walk towards the stairs, placing his hand on the metal railing. He halts at the third step to turn back to the group. "Richtofen." He calls. 

The German seems a bit startled at first, "Yes, Dempsey?" He strides over to Demspey on the stairs. "How about you come with me, we'll do two and two. That way none of us die for good." Demspey offers, though it sounds more like a command. 

Richtofen hums, tapping a finger on his chin before saying. "Fine Dempsey! Let's go take a look around, shall we?" Demspey nods, heading up the stairs with Richtofen behind him.

"Take that room, I'll be over here." He points to a random room on the left, it looks like a storage room. Dempsey walks down the hall a bit, getting a gut feeling to draw his pistol so he does. He pushes the door open to a room with furniture, sheets placed on top of them. 

"Right out of the horror films," He laughs a bit. He walks around the room, looking for crates, chests, anything that looks like it would stash ammo. 

There's soft footsteps behind him as he's rummaging through a box. He notices them as they stop, getting up and turning around to see who he thought was Richtofen. "Did you f-" 

Dempsey couldn't finish the sentence before getting attacked by an old woman, but she wasn't a zombie. He falls to the ground, his pistol clattering against the wooden floor. "Get off of-" Something sharp sinks into his shoulder near his neck. Her fucking teeth. 

He starts to reach for his pistol while fighting against her grip, eventually grabbing ahold of the gun and shooting the lady in the head. God, he hoped she wasn't someone important.

He begins to sit up, her blood spilled all over his shirt. He grunts, throwing her body off. Richtofen comes running in, "Dempsey! What happened?" He looks at him, getting up. 

"I'm fine Doc, I killed it. She must've just got affected by the 115, that's all." He reassures him. 

"Why don't you help me look around in here? Take these sheets and use them for bedding, might be good." Dempsey causally changes topics, stepping over the corpse and taking an already dirtied sheet to clean the blood off himself. 

Now that he thinks about it, he feels a little weird. There’s tingling around where she had bit him. Dempsey knows that isn’t a good sign, especially in his book. 

______

sorry if its super long, im on mobile !!

[bugsandchatons]

when you weren’t mine to lose (6)

Summary: Change is a scary thing, especially when it feels like nothing has stayed the same.

It’s been a year since Marinette became the Guardian of the Miracle Box - a year of struggling beneath a burden she never asked for, a weight that has her leaning on her partner more and more as the hours fly by, of letting him come to her, too, when he needs a soft place to land. A year of falling for the boy who takes on the world by her side with a smile made of sunlight, and fighting the growing urge to tell him what he means to her.

After all, they’ll have time enough for that when Paris is safe.

But when the unthinkable happens, Marinette learns the tragedy of loving someone quietly, and the lines she’ll cross to save him.

[[AO3]] {from the beginning}

*****

[six: dear lord, when I get to heaven]

Another sunrise breaks the clouds.

This time, Ouroboros keeps an eye on the comings and goings of Paris from the secrecy of the shadows. She watches Chat Noir emerge from Marinette’s skylight and tracks his movements as he bounds over rooftops, carefree with his ignorance of what’s to come.

What had come. Past tense. As long as she breathes, it won’t happen again. 

She stays hidden as he sails through the sky. If his shoulders tense with every step closer to the Agreste Mansion, she notices, but discards it. She can do nothing about it now, but she’ll remember.

Instead, she lets him go, swearing it’ll be the last time she ever has to.

Revealing herself to him earlier had been a mistake. Tikki had warned her that even outside of Hawkmoth’s direct influence, the Akuma would still make her more easily moved by her emotions, especially negative ones. If she wanted to stay off this Hawkmoth’s radar, she’d have to keep it under control. 

And she would. Nothing would stand in her way when the time came. But she has hours to go, and until then, she does all she can do; she watches.

She keeps watch from the eaves of the clocktower as Adrien leaves his house for the bakery. She takes up a post in the tree across the street to see him leave with a pastry box in hand and his eyes on the back of Marinette’s head with an expression so soft she’s not sure how she never felt it.

From the rafters of the Gare du Nord, she watches Félix disembark his train into Nathalie and Adrien’s care. She notices how, as fans approach Adrien by the minute, Félix grows more and more caustic, and Adrien’s shoulders become more and more strained.

As Ouroboros follows them throughout the morning and into the afternoon while they drift between tourist attractions, she thinks of and learns many things: She wonders what Gabriel Agreste could be up to today that would convince him to allow Adrien out of the house for so long. She wonders how it took her until now to realize that Félix must be the one to become Mirror Image. She wonders, too, what makes up a person; how Adrien could be so different from his cousin, a boy who looks so much like him on the outside but couldn’t be more his opposite, or how Chat Noir could be so fundamentally unlike his father that it leads them to opposing sides of the same war.

She wonders how a boy raised in loneliness and derision could grow up only to be unfailingly kind, and learns that a heart can take so many breaks in so few hours and still keep beating.

As the day slips by, it occurs to her that this is what Chat Noir dies for: Hawkmoth’s insatiable greed and Félix’s poisonous envy. The brightest of them all ends with his light doused, reduced to ashes for nothing worthy of his life.

This is not how his story should end.

It sets her teeth grinding and gives birth to a rage so overpowering it’s nearly enough to have her throwing caution to the wind and storming the Agreste Mansion on her own - nearly. Instead, she takes a breath. She watches, and she remembers.

She watches Adrien trail behind his pitiful excuse for a family and sees the way he casts longing looks in the direction of  Françoise Dupont whenever their journey carries them past the school. What adds a final crack to the fault lines mapping her heart is the realization that, at the end of it all, the day that became his last was a disappointing one.

Let him go, she wants to scream. Let him go back to where he’s loved. 

She’s about thirty seconds from breaking, from swinging down from the Eiffel Tower and stealing Adrien away when the sound of a vortex opening makes her jump. Ouroboros spins around in time to see the blinding white-blue flash and a familiar figure stepping through it. 

“Oh, Minibug. What have we gotten ourselves into now?”

Ouroboros gapes at her. “Where have you been?” 

Bunnyx waves a hand. “Here and there.” Her eyes scan the area before settling on Ouroboros. She arches an eyebrow. “New suit? Edgy.”

Fury, as potent as it is misplaced, swells inside her until she’s seething. “Seriously? That’s all you have to say?” 

“No, not all. Come on, we’ve got to split.” Bunnyx takes a step back toward her burrow portal, but Ouroboros holds her ground. 

“What? No way,” she hisses. “I’m not leaving.”

Something like frustration flickers across Bunnyx’s expression. “Look at you, LB. We’re on thin ice already - all of this can snowball out of control at any second, and you’ve made a choice that’s going to have some consequences, so the best thing to do is-” 

“Where were you?” Ouroboros interrupts, her voice small. “I screamed your name for an hour. I begged you to come and help me, to help him, but now you show up? To try to stop me? Alix,” she drops her voice low, “why?” 

It’s enough to break through the mask of Bunnyx’s composure. She hesitates, then shoves a jerky hand over her rabbit ears. “Listen, it’s not...it’s not easy to be in there, okay?” She throws an arm out toward her burrow. “Most of the time, I can’t change anything, I just see it. The future isn’t set in stone and every choice we make can change a hundred different little things. By the time this path played out, you had already set out to change it. But now things are about to get complicated, so we’ve got to go.” 

“No.” Ouroboros doesn’t move. “I’m here to save Chat.” 

Bunnyx sighs. “And have you thought about how you plan to do that, little Miss Angry Bug-Snake? It’s already in motion. Unless you’re going to swoop in, be seen by half of Paris looking like that, and somehow snatch Félix Graham de Vanily’s Akuma out of thin air, it’s already over. And by the way, I don’t recommend that. It’ll do some serious damage to the timeline.”

“No,” Ouroboros repeats, crossing her arms. If time and fate were an unstoppable force, she would be an immovable object. “I’m going to stop the battle.”

The exasperation in Bunnyx’s expression gentles. “That’s not going to work, Ladybug. I’ve seen this go down, I’ve tried to find a loophole, but it really only ends one of two ways.”

“And those two options are?” 

Bunnyx looks away. “Either Chat dies, or Mirror Image does. If it goes that way, we end up with a guilt-ridden, akumatized kitty situation.” She puts her hands together and mimes an explosion, which Ouroboros supposes is meant to be a crude representation of the moon.

The bottom promptly drops out of Ouroboros’s stomach, and out of her world. “I...I don’t accept that.”

“I know,” Bunnyx says, not unkindly. “But the horrible truth is that if Félix gets akumatized into Mirror Image, he becomes Chat’s bane - someone isn’t going to make it out of that fight alive, and it’s too late to stop it now.” 

“What about me?” Ouroboros demands. “Why can’t I do anything?”

“You’ve lived it, you saw it first hand. His powers mess you guys up, and there’s just no way you can move fast enough between realizing what’s going to happen and Chat using Cataclysm to physically stop him. And this,” Bunnyx gestures to her, “is already a mess.” 

They’re silent for a moment. Ouroboros’s chest heaves while Bunnyx waits. Then, Ouroboros speaks again. “You said I made a choice that’s going to have consequences. If that’s why you’re here, why didn’t you stop me when I made the choice to be akumatized?”

“Because that choice, while wild as hell, is not ultimately the choice I’m talking about. You made it just now before I showed up. Or, well. You’re about to make it, soon enough.” Bunnyx waves a hand. “Minutes, seconds. It’s all semantics, really.” 

Ouroboros didn’t think so. The most memorable things happened in a matter of moments - a shared smile, a turn of luck, a broken heart. The whole world could change in seconds when a life ended and a choice was made.

“You said it wasn’t set in stone,” Ouroboros says, lifting her determined gaze to meet Bunnyx’s. “I’m going to find a way to save him. You have to let me try.” 

Bunnyx stares back. There’s a beat, then another, before she sighs. “I guess if anyone can, it would be you.”

Ouroboros blinks. The clocktower chimes the hour, and her heart pounds hard against the cage of her ribs. Somewhere in Paris, Ladybug is waiting. Somewhere below, in the crowd, Chat Noir is trying to get away. She knows, she knows, but seeing it is a different thing entirely, and she has to get back to Adrien, to know for sure - “You’re not going to try to stop me?” 

Bunnyx already has one foot inside her burrow. She offers a jaunty two-fingered salute. “Let’s see if you can rewrite fate, Minibug. Good luck.”

With that, the vortex swallows her whole, and Ouroboros feels it even more keenly - the slipping of time as it begins to run out.

 *****

She starts running.

At twenty-two minutes past, Chat Noir will make it to where Ladybug is waiting. They will race to Trocadéro, where she will almost tell him her name before the Akuma attack interrupts. By the clamor of the next bell, he’ll be gone.

She has less than an hour to change history.

Ouroboros glances up at the dusk-glooming sky, finds the outline of the waxing moon, and figures she’s managed harder feats than this.

A round, smooth object, hefty for its size, materializes in the palm of her hand. When she glances down, she frowns at it - a pocket watch, vintage and peculiar - but when she focuses on the time, it tells her she doesn’t have much left to spare for pondering at the form it took.

Adrien and his group have not made it far from where Ouroboros let them out of her sight. Every few minutes, he casts his eyes around, looking increasingly desperate. She can sympathize. The busy square alone would be a nightmare for transforming, to say nothing of having to escape Nathalie and his bodyguard’s watchful stare. With every passing moment, Adrien grows twitchier. That could be enough of a confirmation.

Still, she knows a part of her will never believe it until she sees.

An opportunity rises when Nathalie’s phone rings, right as their bodyguard steps away to grunt an order to a café worker. Adrien takes the chance to slip away, into the crowd. 

Félix follows him.

Ouroboros tries to draw close enough to hear without sacrificing her vantage point. This is it, she thinks.

In moments, they’ll go their separate ways - Chat to find her, and Félix to the waiting wings of an Akuma. Whatever it is they say to each other, it’s the final catalyst. 

She wants to know if it was worth it.

It’s a morbid wish, and ultimately one the universe does not grant her. All she’s left with is the frown on Adrien’s face and the sneer on Félix’s. Adrien turns away from him, the line of his shoulders tight. He misses the way bitter resentment twists Félix’s face.

She can’t imagine anything Adrien could say that would warrant such anger from his cousin, but she supposes that’s not the point. In the end, it doesn’t matter; it couldn’t be anything worth the cost.

With a final scowl, Félix goes in the opposite direction, while Adrien retreats further into the spaces between buildings. Ouroboros shadows his steps until he finds an alley away from prying eyes.

Her heart starts pounding a vicious rhythm.

She watches, numb, as Plagg zips out of his shirt, a little black blur, and disappears into the ring on Adrien’s right hand. When the green flash of magic fades and Chat Noir stands in his place, there’s no triumph of a theory proven or a curiosity satisfied. There’s only another splintering crack to a heart made of glass.

They wasted so much time chasing each other in circles.

It makes sense now, why for years she could never confess her feelings to Adrien, just as she struggled to share the truth with Chat Noir. Deep down, she’d known in her heart what her head hadn't - she couldn’t do him the injustice of loving in half-measures. 

She can see the whole picture, now: a lonely boy, intoxicated by the sips of freedom that his Miraculous grants him, stuck under the thumb of a father who cares very little and values his life even less. A broken boy who chose to be a hero, who makes that choice again with every passing day. One who loves loudly and fearlessly, and values her so highly that he’d throw his own life away in the blink of an eye. 

Tomorrow, Ouroboros thinks, swiping away an angry, errant tear. Tomorrow, when this was over and resolved, her partner would begin to learn his worth.

He’ll know, without a doubt, that he’s loved.

 *****

As horrible as the circumstances are, it feels like a gift to see herself this way. She and Chat make a pretty picture as they fly through the darkening blue sky and leave laughter in their wake, just as they do back to back, taking a moment alone to breathe.

A glance at the watch tells her there’s no more time for regrets. She could ache over the time they wasted until her heart gave out, or she could focus on beating the clock and saving him.

It begins any minute now.

When civilians start screaming and Chat Noir and Ladybug spring apart, Ouroboros takes a deep breath and moves. The heroes drop down into the street, and she scales the building closest to the one that provides the setting for their fatal face-off.

Her mind races in time with her frantic heartbeats. She holds out a hand, a silent plea for help - for anything that will help her change the course of this fight.

A dark red recurve bow comes to life in her grasp, bringing with it two slender, black arrows.

She offers a grim smile. One shot, and one second chance.

She’s never shot a bow before, but Tikki must know what she’s doing. Luck, she thinks, wouldn’t dare fail them again.

Ouroboros lifts a hand to her face. She presses a kiss first to Chat’s ruined ring, then to the darkened charm strung above it, and waits. 

When Chat chases Mirror Image up onto the rooftop, Ladybug on his heels, she studies the Akuma the way she hadn’t had a chance to before. He’s barely visible, but the setting sun glints off of something metallic where a pocket might be.

A pocket watch.

She wings a silent thanks to Tikki and a prayer along with it. They’re down to seconds, now.

When Ladybug reaches for her yoyo, Ouroboros lines up her shot and draws the bowstring back until her fingers brush her own cheek. She breathes in and lets her first arrow fly free on the exhale. 

The arrow snags Mirror Image’s pocket, tears the watch free, and pins it out of reach. It dangles from its chain; snared, but not broken.

Ouroboros curses under her breath.

All movement below stops for just a second like someone’s pressed pause, before they resume once more. Her distraction was enough, though - Ladybug calls for her Lucky Charm, and without Mirror Image right in front of her to stop it, the hand mirror she receives is red and black spotted, as it should be.

Mirror Image moves next, his focus on Ladybug. Ouroboros watches Chat’s face change into something fierce and determined and thinks of action where once, she’d been frozen instead.

Someone, she remembers, isn’t making it out of this fight alive.

So she touches a hand to the Miraculous around her wrist and does what she couldn’t, before: she slows the passing seconds down and moves, throwing herself into the open sky. 

As Ouroboros falls, she lines up her next shot and thinks again of what makes up a person - of skin and bone and sinew, of expanding lungs and pounding blood, the impossible, miraculous measure of being alive. She thinks of hard choices and sunbeam smiles, of a stubborn heart, strung together by wild hope and unwavering faith in her partner.

He calls for his Cataclysm right before he sees her. In slow motion, she can see the way his eyes fly wide, how his brow furrows beneath his mask. She looses her last arrow and lets the bow fall, then holds out her hand.

I’m sorry, Chat. He’ll not make it out of this battle unscarred, she realizes. None of them will. 

But he’ll live, and she’ll be there to hold him up through the storm that will follow. 

Her arrow hits its target, this time. The pocket watch shatters, and Ouroboros drops in between the hero and Akuma. She catches Chat’s smoking hand in hers before it can make contact with the fading mirror, or Félix on his knees behind it. 

Cataclysm is a cold sort of burn, Ouroboros learns. She gasps at the ice in her fingers and toes as something in her chest catches fire. She shuts her eyes against the pain and thinks again of where the light goes when the night inevitably comes to claim it. Then, she forces her eyes open and finds it, in glowing green eyes.