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unmaskedagain · 4 years

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I Knew You Were Trouble

I got really inspired today. This is another crossover fic. It’s actually with one of my all-time favorite childhood movies. Can you guess the crossover before the end?

Marinette knew he was trouble the second he walked in.

Like there was nothing Marinette was surer about than the fact that she was in some serious trouble.

Not school trouble. Not friend trouble. Not boy trouble. Not bully trouble.

No. The trouble that resulted in Marinette’s parents attending her funeral.

“Care to introduce yourself,” Bustier smiled at her newest student.

The boy gave the class a polite smile, “Kal.”

Marinette swallowed hard as she fought the urge to run from the classroom; run, call her grandmother, never look back. But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Her Aunt Aggie had always told her to be brave when faced when the forces of evil.

She wouldn’t run from the likes of Kal.

Marinette just had one question.

How was he here? How was he alive? How did he look exactly the same now as he did in the pictures from twenty years ago?

Her cousin had destroyed him, like she did his father. In the battle of light versus darkness; good versus evil, Good won. Light won. Kal had been sucked into an endless void, dead, never to be seen or heard from again.

…Until today.

The handsome dark haired boy looked around the class with clear distaste. He wore a shirt and black pants. He eyed the students, with a bored expression on his face. The girls swooned when he smirked there way. Marinette kept her face black as his eyes looked over her; doing her best not to draw attention to herself.

Then the oddest thing happen; Kal didn’t blink twice at Marinette. He barely looked like he knew she was in the room. That didn’t mean much to Marinette. The bluenette practically radiated magic some days. He’d figure her out in no time. No, Marinette couldn’t play defense with the likes of Kal. Offense only.

Bustier directed him to the back of the class, to the only empty seat available… Next to Marinette. And once again, the bluenette cursed her rotten luck. However, her heart was filled with hope with Lila got involved.

“Maybe Kal can seat next to me,” Lila said. “There’s enough room with me and Adrien. I know what it’s like to be new. I can help you.”

Kal rolled his eyes, “I’m good. But thank you.” And swaggered to the seat in back. As he sat down, he winked at Marinette. Marinette smiled brightly at him like she would at nearly anyone. Though to do so, she had to stab herself in the leg with a pen to stop herself from stabbing him.

The class started. Bustier began teaching her lesson unaware of the drama that was just about to happen in her class.

“Must be my lucky day,” He leaned in and whispered to her. “I get to sit next to the prettiest girl in school.”

Marinette kept the smile on her face, as to not draw any attention their way, though not it felt more like baring her teeth, the same way some animals did when they attacked. “How’s your father?” Marinette whispered back. “Kalabar, wasn’t it?”

Kal’s black eyes widened in shock before settled on a pleased expression. “A witch,” He stated. “Good. I’d thought I’d end up killing myself stuck around mortals.”

“They’re not that bad,” Marinette was quick to defend. Her mother was mortal after all. “Mortals that is. The kids in this class,” Most of which were now her ex-friends. “Kind of suck. Why are you here?”

“They suck,” Kal chuckled. “And yet you’re here. A long way from...” He seemed to remember where they were as he cast a quick look around and his voice lowered, “Our native land.”

Marinette pretended to flip through the pages of her textbook. “You’re a long way from the dark pit in hell you crawled out of,” She hissed. “Planning on taking over the world again? Because I have no problem kicking you right back there.”

Kal snorted. “Such righteous fury. You remind me of…” The amused looked turned into a glare. “Cromwell?”

Marinette giggled and nodded, “Marnie’s my cousin.”

Rage overtook Kal’s face. All the lights in the classroom suddenly exploded. Shadows grew stronger as Kal’s magic was unleashed, and seemed to overtake half of the class room. The only light came from the sunlight behind Marinette, and radiated from the bluenette as she let her magic rise in all its glory.

And once again, the darkness of a son of Kalabar and the light of a daughter of Cromwell battled against other.

The kids panicked.

“Everyone remain calm,” Bustier said. “If there is an akuma we’ll be alerted. Ladybug will take care of it. Everything will be fine.”

“Akuma?” Kal asked, his eyes still trained on the Bluenette, with a raised eyebrow.

Marinette shrugged, “Welcome to Paris.”

Then he smiled at her; really, honestly smiled. It was the most mesmerizing sight. And she forgot. For one second, she forgot the evil that she was always warned lurked in the heart of a Kalabar.

But now she understood why her cousin had fallen so hard for him when she was a teenager. Marnie hadn’t just been a foolish, naïve teenager head over heels for some guy she just met. No, there was more to it. There was something alluring about the way Kal held himself, the aura he projected; the way his magic sang to hers.

Marinette just wondered one thing…

Why does the devil look so much like an angel when he smiles as you?

The class went by quickly. Witch and warlock feigned relaxation, while going over every spell they had ever learned in their heads.

When the bell rang, Marinette was gone. She flew out the door as fast as her feet could take her. She couldn’t go home, she knew; not yet. So instead, she headed to the library. In the far back where they put all the outdated computers.

She sat down on the top of an old table and tried to catch her breath. Then out of the shadows, literally, walked Kal. He shook his head at her, “Don’t you know?” He asked the Cromwell witch. “No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”

Marinette crossed her arms, “And yet all the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”

Kal raised in hands in surrender, “I don’t mean you any harm.”

“That sounds like a lie.”

“I’m serious,” The dark haired teen stated. “You can tell. I know you can. It’s a Cromwell gift. You can always tell when someone is lying. Listen to me carefully. I, Kal, son of Kalabar do not mean you any harm. I was not aware you went to this school. I was not aware any witch of the Cromwell bloodline was in France. Okay?”

Marinette wanted to stomp her foot in protest. He was telling the truth. “Why are you even? Why do you look like that? Aren’t you like in your late thirties?”

“I should be,” Kal frowned, “I should be thirty-five. I should be a graduate of Witch University. I should be back home, in the family mansion, with a family of my own. Or about to start one. I should be an adult, living a life of my own. Do you want to know why I’m not?”

“Why?”

Kal sat on top of the table across from Marinette, “Because after the fight with Marnie was sent somewhere; in a prison the forces of light and dark had created during our battle. I was stuck in a place outside of space and time. Outside of reality. That existed everywhere and nowhere. An endless void. Every world and realm I went to was frozen on the moment I was sent there. Just after midnight on Halloween night. And it never changed. The clocks never ticked, not once. The sun never rose or set. The moon was never full or new; just a crescent in the sky. The flowers never bloomed. There was nothing and no one but me; wandering from empty town to empty town. I never knew how much time had passed. Sometimes it felt like an eternity had gone by, sometimes just a few minutes. It didn’t matter one way or another; I never aged. The tricky party was not going completely insane. And I spent a lot of time wondering I had or not. If I deserved this what I did, for the people I hurt.”

Marinette remained silent as he talked; truth ringing in his words.

“I read every book in the Witch University library,” Kal continued. “I read every book in the Oxford University library. Half to keep myself from going crazy, half to try to figure out a way home. I never did. Some things just don’t make sense. Like a bunch of Cromwells being powerful enough to break the barrier between our world and mortal realm.” He laughed a bit there. “Then one day, the entire world shook, literally. And then I’m falling, and the next thing I know I’m landing in the middle of your Agatha Cromwell’s kitchen. She looked exactly the same too so I think I hadn’t been gone that long. Then she tells me with this pitying look on her face; twenty had gone by.”

Kal closed his eyes as anger coursed through his veins. He clenched his fists. “Twenty years. I had been gone for twenty years. In twenty years, do you even know can happen? You were born. You grew up. You are the exact age I was when I left. And still you are younger than the amount of time I was there. When you said you were a Cromwell; for five seconds I thought you were Marnie’s daughter. Because that’s how long it’s been. Both realms have changed and left me behind. My friends are all grown up; they have kids and lives and stories. My mother passed away while I was gone. I don’t recognize my own home; the place I was born, raised, lived, laughed, and loved. And that same place doesn’t recognize me either. Saint Agatha Cromwell took mercy on me and sent me here. You were right, I did crawl out of hell.”

It went quiet. Neither knowing entirely what to say. She couldn’t believe her aunt didn’t warn her she was sending a Kalabar her way. Oh, she was so telling her grandma.

Marinette broke first. “You didn’t deserve that,” She said. “Sure, you turned everyone in your world into human. And everyone here into monsters but no one hurt. Most don’t even remember. You didn’t deserve an eternity of nothingness. Prison, yes. But not that. You were just a kid. You’re just a kid.” Like me, she didn’t answered.

He nodded stiffly.

“If it means anything…” She said. “Marnie still swears you were the toughest villain she ever fought. And she took down a guy who tried to steal her family magic, hired a witch killing knight, and tried to destroy the doorway between the worlds forever.”

Kal blinked, a bit stunned, “That’s a compliment if I ever heard one.”

Marinette giggled. He smiled. And once more, Marinette fought not to look away. She was a Cromwell witch. She would not go weak in the knees over a Kalabar. “Let’s just agree to stay away from each other.”

He got off the desk, letting the darkness of his magic flair up, and he leaned toward her, “I don’t make deals with Cromwells,” He whispered. Marinette’s breath caught in her throat. “So why don’t you be a good little witch and stay off my bad side.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Marinette whispered. “This is my city.”

“Then prepare to see it burn.”

Marinette couldn’t stop the giggle that came from her. “You’ve already had time to catch up on Batman movies?”

Kal grinned, “That was the first thing I did.” He smirked. “I think you and I could have a lot of fun, Marinette. Teach the mortals a thing or two. I’ve been here less than a day and I already want to turn half the class into toads. Specifically that Lila girl.”

“Yeah,” Marinette shrugged. “That feeling never quite goes away.” It gotten worse, if anything. Her friends had all turned against her; fell one by one to Lila’s lies. “But I’m a big witch. I can handle them myself.”

Kal stuffed his hands in his pockets, “Yet you haven’t. And I don’t think you want to. Even though every part of you screams you should.”

Marinette shook her head, “We’ve evolved past that.”

Kal shrugged, “If you ever change your mind…” He moved to leave but then turned back around, a rose was in his hand, “Or maybe I really did inherit my father's attraction to Cromwell witches.” He gave her the rose.

Marinette took it, a small smile on her face. “You shouldn’t let your magic do you’re talking for you.”

He didn’t answer; just disappeared back into the shadows.

Yep, Kal was trouble.

And Marinette was definitely in trouble.

#ml fic #ml salt #class salt #halloween town #marinette dupain cheng #Marinette deserves better

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pathofcomet · 3 years

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looks innocent enough, doesn’t it?

fandom: wandavision

pairing: wanda/vision

summary: He wakes to the motion of her thumb against his chest, calming circles over where his heart would be, if he had one, a reminder of him being alive. His head resting in her lap, the smile on her face when seeing him awake so divine that for a second, Vision can forget all about what he was doing, what was going on.[OR Wanda and Vision have a conversation, post ep. 6] (AO3)

“Pietro,” Wanda says, her voice high pitched and cracking with accent around his name.

Timmy and Billy look at her, look at their uncle, look in the distance where now Billy knows their father is safe. Their mother is visibly distressed, so when she asks them to go home for the night, tuck in their beds, they do so without complaining. Even Pietro doesn’t have another smart and mean remark after that, and she’s too exhausted to make them all forget about it. She’s not sure it would work anymore, on her brilliant bright boys. They each hug her from a side, Billy’s words muffled against her stomach, a kiss at the crown of their heads. Pietro’s hand is all wrong at her shoulder, but warm nonetheless, and if she closes her eyes, she can pretend her life is as it was always supposed to be.

Vision is still passed out when she reaches him, and her hands are quick in mending him back together, bringing him back to her. She’s getting good at this: getting him back despite all odds. All the time, she hums the old Sokovian lullaby, that her mother used to put her and her twin to sleep, back when they were children and air raids would steal hours upon hours of their night. The old Sokovian lullaby that she sang to her new born twins: a home wrapped in comfort. The words are familiar on the top of her tongue, soothing her mind as she works, as she tries to come up with her next move.

She’s so tired she cannot even think.

He wakes to the motion of her thumb against his chest, calming circles over where his heart would be, if he had one, a reminder of him being alive. His head resting in her lap, the smile on her face when seeing him awake so divine that for a second, Vision can forget all about what he was doing, what was going on.

His eyes fly wide, scrambling out of her reach. She frowns, hand hanging in the air. Wanda tilts her head at him, quizzically.

“Do not,” he spits, and when her face flushes with hurt, he checks the tone of his voice. “Do not erase my memories again. You know I’ll just find out again.”

“Careful, my dear husband, that sounds a bit too close to a challenge.”

She leaves her hand drop in her lap, where it’s obvious to the both of them that it’s trembling. She cannot make it still, no matter how much she stares at it, wills it to.

“I just want the truth.”

“Trust me, you don’t.”

“Wanda.”

“Vision.”

“Please.”

One thing about Vision: he never asked something of her, not like this, entirely hers. She’s suddenly horrified, painfully aware that he knows now too, how much at her mercy he is. He does not understand, quite yet, what happened with the barrier, but now the only way to know is… well, from her.

He sits up, extending a hand to his wife, helping her up.

“Let’s talk about it,” he says, and at her defeated nod, his arms tighten around her body, and before she has time to say something else, to change her mind, they’re in the kitchen of their home. Everything around them is eerily silent. The city is still stuck on the pause; the twins asleep upstairs. In here, they’re just as they’ve ever been: domestic to the core, if just a bit strange for the neighbourhood.

Vision pushes a warm mug of tea in-between her fingers, because Wanda looks like she is about to collapse any second. They’re wearing something different from their earlier Halloween get-up, which he cannot pinpoint or recognize, but it doesn’t seem to bring any kind of joyful memory to his wife. The scarlet leather sticks to her like a second skin, and he just gets the ghost of a feeling that this is somewhat the right look, just the wrong setting.

“What is real here, Wanda?”

“Everything,” she sighs, and Vision frowns in surprise.

The tiny body of his wife, his soulmate, the love of his life trembles under his questioning, with exertion and, he realizes, with the strain of pumping life and purpose to an entire town. For a second, pride surges in his heart, overwhelming, knowing her to be strong, stronger than him, stronger than anyone else he’s ever met.

What an honour to die at her hand-

Die?

And the thought disappears as soon as it appeared.

“Are you alright, dear?”

“I am dead,” he says.

It’s not a question, and Wanda’s mug collapses to the floor, the hot tea seeping into her shoes, the ceramic spread across the floor. She brings it all up together again, perfect form and no sign of break, much like she’s mended things back again to perfection in this town for a while now. She tries to smile.

“No, you’re not.”

“Wanda,” he sighs, moving to place the mug back on the counter, because it looks like it’ll break soon again, this time from the pressure of her fingertips against it. She cannot meet his eyes. “I just need you to trust me.”

“You didn’t believe me when I told you I don’t know how we arrived here. So why should I?”

“Because you cannot carry on like this forever. And if your own husband, your family cannot help you, then who can?”

She knows she’s being played. Direct confrontation didn’t work – it never works with her, because she just slams down and shut her opponent, so now he’s getting under her skin, in the way that only a person who truly loves her can do. What a terrible thing, to love and be loved in return. What a terrible thing, to be the one that loves more, so easily at the mercy of the person you’d do anything for.

“No one,” and Wanda stops, taking in a shaky breath, having to lean against the kitchen counter; Vision struggles with his upset, wanting to reach out for her, help her stand. “No one bothered to even think if I am okay, let alone make sure of it. And I’m not and I don’t think I will ever be without you. So please, Vis, don’t make me continue, because I’ll lose you,” she stops, before she allows the again to slip out, because it would make it real, “and I won’t be able to bear it.”

“Wanda, love-”

She sobs at the pet name, closing her eyes, trying to stifle her want to erase this all, to bury the pain and the knowledge and keep on going, smiling and living the perfect little life no one thought she was worthy of, before. It chips away at her, holding together the larger barriers of Westview, and things are beginning to stop making sense, even for her. She’s tired of keeping it together, but she’s even more tired of keeping it a secret from the only one other person who could potentially understand.

“I don’t want you to hate me,” she says, and meets his eyes for the first time.

Because if he’ll hate here, that’s where it will show. But Vision just stares at her, torn between wanting to comfort his obviously distressed wife and finding the truth, for the sake of the thousands of people who are stuck in a sitcom they didn’t audition for.

“I love you,” Vision says, but in this context it sounds like a threat, nothing like a certainty.

Love that could slip away. Once, which now feels like ages ago, she held his life in her palms and he promised nothing she’ll do will ever hurt him. She is painfully aware that all the time she played house, she’s been twisting a knife in his heart and trust in her at the same time. Now the curtain has fallen and her story comes crushing down.

“The world is safe, all is done, threat dealt with – at the price of your life, Vis. It’s not something I agreed to pay or let go or give away.”

His face twists, confusion for a couple of seconds. It’s hard to comprehend the reality of his death, when he’s here standing and alive – and a husband and a father. He is living on stolen time.

“What did you do, Wanda?”

And here it is: the horror, the blooming of the hate. Just because she expected it, it doesn’t make it any easier to bear. But it’s too late now, the dam has been broken, her despair immeasurable and she cannot hold it in anymore.

“Why does everyone get to live their life, and I get to only put in the grave the people I care most about on this earth? This is mine now and I will not let anyone or anything take another thing from me, no matter what. You know damn well I mean it.”

Vision has never doubted Wanda, not even in the tender first days when they met. He knows, with the same certainty that he knows he still loves her, despite all of this, that she means it entirely. He’s not sure how to go about making sure she changes her mind.

“But all these people here, Wanda, they’re in… they’re in pain.”

“It’s not their pain, Vision! Do you think I’d be able to stand here, scrub tiles and wash clothes, give birth and smile pleasantly at every single person I see, if I had to carry all there is in me? They’re cracking under my grief!”

Her fingers crackle with the power, tension taut in her body. Vision’s hand finds hers, tender and gentle as he lifts it to his mouth, kissing her palm, her knuckles. He remembers all those barely-moving figures, tears streaming down their face – tears they were spilling over the bottomless well of sadness inside his wife’s heart. He’s both the source and the ointment for the hurt, so he stays where he is, whispering sweet nothings against her skin, until she pulls herself back together long enough to not immediately need it.

“Wanda, you know, too, that this is wrong.”

He drops his forehead against hers, it’s the closest they came to an embrace since their silent mind war started, two episodes before.

“It sure doesn’t feel wrong, Vis,” she sighs, and she nuzzles her face at the crook of his neck, so much comfort in the embrace, now that he knows what he tries to comfort her over. He is warm against her and he is alive and for her, this is all that matters. She has him, and they have the family they built. She looks at him, determination so strong on her face.

“You told me once to run away with you. That’s what I’m doing.”

#wandavision #wanda maximoff #wanda/vision #wanda and vision #vision #pietro maximoff #wiccan #marvel cinematic universe #marvel #MCU

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doomonfilm · 3 years

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Thoughts : WandaVision [Disney+, Episodes 4-6] (2021)

After a heavily stylized trio of opening episodes, WandaVision has officially put the pedal to the metal with its next trio of episodes. The connections to the larger MCU have been firmly identified and established, which has generated a mountain of new questions, speculations and assumptions about where WandaVision, and in turn, the MCU as a whole are headed in the next few phases.

Editor’s note : This show is jumping in quality from episode to episode, and based on the response to the last blog entry on WandaVision, I am considering giving the final 3 episodes their own entries. If the likes on this blog entry surpass those of the previous WandaVision entry, I will do dedicated breakdowns of the final 3 episodes on the date that they are released.

THE STORY THUS FAR

Episode 04 : We Interrupt This Program In the wake of The Blip, Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) is returned to the hospital where she once sat by the side of her mother’s side. Upon returning to reality, Monica learns that Maria Rambeau has passed away due to cancer while she was gone, which devastates her to no end. Monica returns to S.W.O.R.D. in hopes of finding peace, but she is immediately thrust into the mysteries surround the town of Westview, New Jersey. CIA Agent Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) meets Monica outside of Westview, where he clues her in on his missing witness that was once in the town, as well as the anomaly of amnesia that has taken over those in the surrounding communities. Monica and Jimmy approach the city only to discover it is covered by a mysterious invisible barrier, and while inspecting the barrier, Monica is pulled in. S.H.I.E.L.D. calls in the Army, the FBI and a number of specialists in various fields, including astrophysicist Dr. Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings), who stumbles upon a mysterious signal that allows those outside the barrier to view the events within in a sitcom format.

Episode 05 : On a Very Special Episode... Wanda and Vision are doing their best to adjust to raising Tommy (Baylen Bielitz) and Billy (Gavin Borders), but find themselves overwhelmed until an overly enthusiastic Agnes steps in to help. While Vision questions Wanda on the recent strangeness, Tommy (Jett Klyne) and Billy (Julian Hilliard) suddenly jump to the age of ten, further confounding Vision. Outside of The Hex (a nickname for the anomaly surrounding Westview coined by Darcy), S.H.I.E.L.D. continues to gather intel and ramp up efforts to collect information in the wake of Monica Rambeau’s return, but after an attempt to communicate to Wanda directly goes awry, Wanda presents herself directly to S.H.I.E.L.D. with a warning to stay away. Vision has an encounter with Norm (Asif Ali) that causes him to reach his breaking point, and while he is confronting Wanda later that night, a knock on the door reveals that Pietro (Evan Peters) has somehow returned... but something is different about him...

Episode 06 : All-New Halloween Spooktacular! It’s Halloween in Westview, and the Maximoff family is preparing for a night of fun and adventure. Tommy is excited for all of the candy he will be collecting, but Billy finds himself concerned with a number of issues, chiefly the surprise emergence of Pietro onto the scene and the troubled waters flowing between Wanda and Vision. Wanda attempts to gather the family for their night out, but Vision states that he has obligations with the Neighbor Watch, which disappoints Wanda. Pietro offers to step in, and his mischievous influence leads to Tommy and Billy’s discovery of their powers. Outside of The Hex, tensions are running deeper between Agent Rambeau and Agent Hayward, and as a result, Hayward expels Rambeau, Jimmy and Darcy from the camp. The trio manages to sneak back in, and while Rambeau and Jimmy head to meet a colleague of Rambeau’s who can assist them in entering The Hex, Darcy breaks into Hayward’s digital files, uncovering a goldmine of shadiness. Vision, using his Neighborhood Watch story as cover, attempts to investigate the outskirts of Westview, but after breaking through the outer wall of The Hex he finds himself being literally torn apart as he is pulled back in, all in front of the eyes of Hayward and his team. Billy picks up on what is happening, and in a fit of desperation, Wanda makes a move to save Vision that drastically alters the entire scenario surrounding The Hex.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Beyond The Trailer YouTube Channel

New Rockstars YouTube Channel

I was unfamiliar with Beyond The Trailer prior to Episode 03 of WandaVision, but the discovery of the channel has provided me with sharp insight, as well as a bit of humor, and Grace Randolph is the only creator to my knowledge that is providing live reactions on episode premier dates.. New Rockstars and Erik Voss continue to mostly knock their analysis of the show out the box. Oddly enough, however, I have found myself pulling back from the YouTube camps of speculation as the series progresses. This is not a shot at any of the YouTubers that are dedicating their time and attention to the show, but rather a testament to the skill with which WandaVision was crafted, and the compelling mystique it has generated on its own.

THOUGHTS ON THE SHOW In all honesty, I have no idea how this overarching story of Wanda, Vision, the town of Westview, Monica Rambeau and S.W.O.R.D. are going to resolve themselves, and I couldn’t love that fact any more than I already do. The amount of detail infused into this show is insane : the way that the aspect ratio continues to shift depending on the “reality” we are viewing is a stroke of simple genius, the use of CMBR waves creating a television signal is a very subtle subtextual reminder of what it was like to take in entertainment prior to the advent of streaming, and the amount of Easter Eggs being dropped would put the Easter Bunny to shame. Just when we think we’ve got things figured out enough to hazard a guess, we are thrown monumental curveballs, and the whole while characters like Darcy, Jimmy Woo and Pietro are asking the same questions we are as viewers.

Wanda Maximoff had been using a very restrained, comical version of her powers up until this group of episodes, but now that her Chaos Magic has revealed itself, many are speculating that she may actually be the antagonist of the series, rather than the protagonist. It is clear that Wanda is controlling the majority of the Westview anomaly with her powers, but certain occurrences such as the birth of Tommy and Billy, their sudden aging or the appearance of the X-Men Quicksilver denotes that someone else is pulling strings that impact Wanda’s reality as well. It is also crystal clear that her anger and emotions are being held at bay by the thinnest of barriers, and with each step closer to her losing control, the real world ramifications get murkier and more dangerous.

What on Earth is going on with Vision? We are given a brief glimpse of the actual “reality” behind Wanda’s created “reality”, and the most jaw-dropping revelation up to that time is the seemingly dead Vision interacting with Wanda in her created world. He is no longer in possession of the Mind Stone, and the infamous damage to his head (courtesy of Thanos) is still very much present. S.W.O.R.D. acting Director Tyler Hayward decided to reveal that S.W.O.R.D. was storing Vision’s corpse at the time that Wanda supposedly broke in and stole it, but even the validity of that is questionable considering how unlikeable Hayward chooses to be. I am also curious if the reason that everyone acts so cagey around Vision is because they see him as a corpse. Vision also seems to have holes in his overall awareness, including no knowledge of the Avengers, which makes you wonder who he truly is on top of what is going on with him.

Monica Rambeau seems to be holding back from exerting control over the situation at hand, especially in light of the fact that she’s the only person who has been on both sides of The Hex and has flatly declared that Wanda is the one in control. There is also an intentional glossing over of key things revolving around Monica that continue to stand out, chiefly among them being her lab readings that appear to have been whited out by a bright light, and the caginess exhibited whenever any references to Captain Marvel are made. She is also clearly a thorn in the side of S.W.O.R.D., and in spite of her connection to S.W.O.R.D. originator Maria Rambeau, it is clear that her presence is not welcome in the camp investigating The Hex.

Dr. Darcy Lewis and Jimmy Woo are quickly becoming not only the fan favorites of the show, but the pairing we never knew that we needed. Darcy’s massive intellect, wealth of knowledge and razor-sharp sarcastic wit pair brilliantly with Woo’s empathic, perceptive abilities and kind-hearted, wholesome nature. With the mystery falling squarely into their laps, they have become the perfect guides through the madness for curious viewers, as many of their questions and concerns mirror those of the audience.

Pietro Maximoff may be the most intriguing appearance of any character in the MCU due to the possible implications that lie with his emergence. Is he actually Quicksilver? The alarms sounded during his appearance, so did he bring himself into The Hex, or was he allowed in by someone? If he is not the Pietro that we are familiar with, and he is playing games in regards to whether or not he is the real deal, then why does Wanda briefly see him just as dead as she sees Vision? Many YouTubers are speculating that the progression of decades used by the sitcom format is intentionally mirroring the decade jumps in the latest series of X-Men films, which is possibly causing some sort of fold in space-time that is combining alternate realities... whatever the explanation is for the emergence of the Evan Peters version of Quicksilver, I’ve never seen anything like this in media, and am wholly invested in seeing where this stroke of genius leads us.

What exactly are Tyler Hayward‘s intentions with Vision, The Hex and Wanda? Why is he being so cagey with information and so ruthless with his control? What is his deal in regards to the clear-cut resentment he has for Monica Rambeau and her connections to those with powers, seemingly specifically Carol Danvers? Is he the true villainous antagonist, or is he just a pawn in a much bigger scheme?

THE QUESTIONS

- If Evan Peters is now Pietro Maximoff outside of the Fox X-Men franchise, is this the indicator that mutants now exist in the MCU? Or is this simply a meta-glitch to setup the rumors of similar occurrences that will happen in the upcoming Spider-man film?

- Why is Dottie still not on the board of identified individuals trapped in The Hex? Even Agnes is on the board, though she does not have a real-life identifier as of yet, which makes her mysterious as well.

- Who are the kids in the commercials, and what is their tie to the mysterious pair that appear in every commercial?

- Is all the talk of S.W.O.R.D.’s astronaut program and specialized aerospace engineers a way to set up the eventual introduction of Reed Richards (and eventually the Fantastic Four) into the MCU? Is this who Monica and Jimmy Woo are heading to meet in Episode 06?

- Is all of the hexagon imagery a way to establish a motif of evolving DNA? Does Vision mentioning the Charles Darwin book Descent of Man push this motif into the realms of mutation by way of genetic evolution?

- As Darcy mentions in Episode 06, Monica Rambeau’s two journeys through The Hex have fundamentally changed her down to the molecular level... are we seeing the emergence of Photon, and on a bigger scale, the mode in which Mutants will be created?

- Why is Marvel so good at cliffhanger endings? The last two episodes, in particular, have made waiting a week for the continuation of the story one of the most difficult things I have ever done. I’m hard-pressed to think of a show since The Sopranos that has kept me this anxious from week to week in anticipation of what will happen next.

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holidaysat221b · 4 years

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2016′s Halloween at 221b - A Sherlolly Celebration Master List

To help get you in the Fall/Halloween spirit, here are all the submissions we received during the 2016 Halloween Fest. Please give them another look, leave a comment or a kudo (or both!), and show a little love to the creators who took the time to participate in 2016.

We’ve listed where the works are archived, mult-chapter or not, complete or not, and rating. In progress fics are marked in bold as a reminder for a mod to periodically check for updates. As always, the complete Master List for all years can be found here.

The Adventure of the St Bartholomew Vampire - Written by @darnedchild Bodies that had been found drained of blood are mysteriously disappearing from the morgue. Could it be the work of a vampire? Or is there something even more sinister stalking the dark streets of London? (On Ao3, Multi-chapter, Complete in 9 parts, Rated M)

All Hallow’s Eve - Written by @MrsMCrieff Molly is spending Halloween working. Maybe a morgue is not the best place on the night where the barriers between the living and the dead is at its thinnest. (On Ao3, Multi-chapter, Complete in 2 parts, Rated E)

Blood Of My Blood - Created by @mel-loves-all A Sherlolly Vampire AU theme of Photoshop Edits (Sherlock is an ancient vampire whose lonely soul is determined to reunite with his lost love, Molly). (On Ao3, Multi-Chapter, Complete in 5 parts, Rated T)

A Bone of Contention - Written by afteriwake (@penaltywaltz) There is a tradition at Barts that a certain skeleton is brought out at the annual Halloween party. There is also a tradition that every year, it’s stolen. Ever since Molly’s started working at Barts it’s been her job to track it down as best she can and she’s tired of it, so this year she enlists her boyfriend’s help, only it doesn’t work out exactly how she’d hoped it would… (On Ao3, Complete, Rated G)

A Complicated Evening - Written by afteriwake (@penaltywaltz) One of Sherlock’s normal cases becomes one of the strange ones, and while it has a satisfactory end, it doesn’t have the best of endings for everyone. (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Dead Men Tell No Tales - Created by @reticentintrovert A Fanvid featuring ghost!Sherlock/dark!Sherlock. (On Tumblr /Youtube, Complete)

Devil In Blue Jeans - Written by @mizJoely How hard can it be to seduce and corrupt one little human woman? Let’s just say the answer to that question isn’t quite as simple as Sherlock Holmerus might think. (On Ao3, Complete, Rated E)

The Feast of All Souls - Written by @hobbitsdoitbetter The signs are impossible to miss, if you know what to look for. Mysterious drafts. Objects moving and reappearing. The feeling in the Morgue that one is always being watched. But what to do about it? How to help people? Mary Watson may have the answer… But it’s a life she’d rather not revisit. (On Ao3, Multi-chapter, Complete in 2 Parts, Rated T)

From Beyond Our Reach - Written by @likingthistoomuch When things go weird at the end of a case, all of Molly’s friends rally to help her. Will Sherlock do whats needed? (On Ao3, Multi-chapter, Complete in 2 Parts, Unrated)

Goodies - Written by afteriwake (@penaltywaltz) It’s Eloisa Holmes’s birthday coming up on Halloween and her mum always plans the best birthday parties, and this year is no exception, Eloisa realizes as a surprise goodie for the goodie bag shows up from the States. (On Ao3, Complete, Rated G)

A Halloween Tale - Written by @theSapphireSky At Baker Street on Halloween, Sherlock discovers he is not alone… (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Haunting at the House on the Hill - by FluffySherlollyFan119 (Tumblr Unknown) Molly just moved in with Sherlock and needs to find a shorter walk from the hospital. Sherlock suggests going by the old Garrison Manor, but Molly believes it’s haunted. Sherlock thinks she’s being preposterous - but neither one of them knows the half of it. (On Ao3, Multi-chapter, Complete in 5 Parts, Rated T)

In the Palace of Dreams - by Potix (Tumblr Unknown) In the gardens of memory, in the palace of dreams. That is where you and I will meet.” - A Sherlolly Halloween story (On Ao3, Complete, Rated G)

Lone Wolf - Written by @damselindeduction Inspired by a Gingerbatch photo edit by nixxie-fic and this prompt from the inimitable mizjoely:

The alteration, contrary to popular mythology, is entirely voluntary. Yes, it can only take place once very month, during the three days of the full moon, but there is an element of will to the whole messy process. It’s why most Weres can function in modern society. That, and the fact that they don’t actually become mindless, ravaging beasts once they’ve shed their human skins for wolf pelts.

It is, however, a painful process. … Painful, messy, and, for the most part, entirely unnecessary.

Unless one finds ones true mate. Then ‘will’ becomes a matter of more than just simple mental effort; it become a force unto itself, almost impossible to resist.

Almost. Unless one has an extremely disciplined mind.

And if Sherlock Holmes possessed one characteristic, it was mental discipline.

Potential mates had appeared in his life only infrequently: some were more easily ignored than others, but there was one … one whom he tried to ignore but whose scene, whose every blood detail refused to be entirely ignored. (On Ao3, Multi-chapter, Complete in 3 Parts, Rated M)

Losing One’s Head - Written by @mae-jones Molly summons a dark being. What will happen when he, ahem, comes? (On A03, Multi-chapter, In Progress, Rated M)

Monstas! - by FluffySherlollyFan119 (Tumblr Unknown) Little Holly Hooper is scared of monsters on Halloween and Sherlock has to be a Daddy. Even Candyfloss isn’t as fluffy and sweet. (On Ao3, Complete, Rated G)

The NSY Halloween Party - by FluffySherlollyFan119 (Tumblr Unknown) It’s the biggest Halloween party of the year and Molly has been invited. Sherlock is there too and he’s captivated by Molly’s costume. (On Ao3, Complete, Rated E)

Olly’s First Halloween by FlufflySherlollyFan119 (Tumblr Unknown) Sherlock and Molly have a son - Olly. It’s his first Halloween and he’s up to some mischief. (On Ao3, Complete, Rated G)

Red Door Black Written by @hobbitsdoitbetter There is a house in old Soho, a house which has many secrets.

A house which should be left alone.

But when Sherlock Holmes tempts both Molly Hooper and John Watson inside this house one Halloween, he has no idea what he’s unleashing, or the price they will pay for his curiosity.

After all, what sort of detective believes in ghosts? (On Ao3, Multi-chapter, In Progress, Rated T)

The Shadows That Define Our Every Sunny Day - by TravelerOfManyLands (Tumblr Unknown) Sherlock Holmes sees things that other people normally do not. But he’s definitely sure that he neither believes in nor sees ghosts…until he meets Molly Hooper, that is. (On Ao3, Multi-chapter, Complete, Rated T)

Tell Me This Is Real - Written by @mel-loves-all A Sexy Supernatural Sherlolly AU. (On Ao3, Complete, Rated M)

The Vampire’s Vice - Written by @lilsherlockian1975 Sherlock wants… no, needs something from Molly that she’s simply unwilling to give. Think he’ll give up easily? Probably not. The amazing art work was provided by @mel-loves-all. (On A03, Multi-Chapter, Complete in 2 Parts, Rated E)

#sherlolly #sherlolly halloween at 221b #2016 sherlolly halloween master list

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shesey · 3 years

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Wintering by Katherine May

“Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider. Perhaps it results from an illness; perhaps from a life event such as a bereavement or the birth of a child; perhaps it comes from a humiliation or failure. Perhaps you’re in a period of transition, and have temporarily fallen between two worlds. Some winterings creep upon us more slowly, accompanying the protracted death of a relationship, the gradual ratcheting up of caring responsibilities as our parents age, the drip-drip-drip of lost confidence. Some are appallingly sudden, like discovering one day that your skills are considered obsolete, the company you worked for has gone bankrupt, or your partner is in love with someone new. However it arrives, wintering is usually involuntary, lonely, and deeply painful. Yet it is also inevitable. We like to imagine that it’s possible for life to be one eternal summer, and that we have uniquely failed to achieve that for ourselves.” “Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible. Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season when the world takes on a sparse beauty, and even the pavements sparkle. It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order.” “That’s what humans do: we make and remake our stories, abandoning the ones that no longer fit and trying on new ones for size.” “In the changing room later, I experience a different kind of warmth: the nakedness of a dozen women, all unashamed. These aren’t the posing bodies you find on the beach, dieted beyond al joy to be bikini-ready, and tanned as an act of disguise. These are northern bodies, slack-bottomed and dimpling, with unruly pubic hair and the scars of hysterectomies, chattering companionably in a language I don’t understand. They are a glimpse of life yet to come: a message of survival, passed on through the generations. It’s a message I rarely find in my buttoned-up home country, and I think about the times I’ve suffered silent furies at the treacheries of my own body, imagining them to be unique.” “Ghost stories may be a part of the terror of Halloween, but our love of ghost stories betrays a far more fragile desire: that we do not fade so easily from this life.” “Winter has decorated ordinary life. Some days, everything sparkles.” “You realize that no one is what they look like, on the surface. Everybody has their dose of suffering; it’s just more hidden in some than in others.” “I think about this a lot, she says, the needle breaks the fabric in order to repair it. You can’t have one without the other.” “In the absence of sunlight, it would be too costly to maintain the machinery of growth.” “I’m fairly certain that my decision not to have a second child rests squarely on my worship of sleep.” “I have nothing to show for my forty-odd years on this earth, except for a pile of dusty books.” “4am. The ego flares like a struck match: bright, blue, fleeting. I am thankful to be alone when this happens, to let it burn out in private. We should sometimes be grateful for the solitudes of night, of a winter. They save us from displaying our worse selves to the waking world.” “Certainty is a dead space in which there’s no more room to grow. Wavering is painful. I’m glad to be travelling between the two.” “Sometimes writing is a race against your own mind, as your hand labours to keep up with the flood tide of your thoughts, and I feel that most acutely at night, when there are no competing demands on my attention. That slightly sleepy, dazed state erods the barriers of my waking brain.” “I can confess all my sins to a piece of paper, with no one to censor it.” “Our personal winters are so often accompanies by insomnia, but perhaps we are still drawn towards that unique space of intimacy and contemplation, darkness, and silence, without really knowing what we’re seeking. Perhaps, after all, we are being urged towards our own comfort.” “Lucy is a symbol of absolute faith and utter purity, but the sins for which she suffers are not her own. Instead, she shoulders the weight of the male gaze, and is destroyed by it.” “Some winters creep up on us so slowly that they have infiltrated every part of our lives before we truly feel them.” “We felt broken into pieces, but at the same time, never so loved.” “We changed our focus away from pushing through with normal life, and towards making a new one. When everything is broken, everything is also up for grabs. That’s the gift of winter: it’s irresistible. Change will happen in its wake, whether we like it or not. We can come out of it wearing a different coat.” “I could have stood there and cried on the spot, just knowing that I wasn’t alone.” “I felt accepted in a way that I hand’t for months.” “This isn’t just an unkind attitude, it does us harm, because it stops us from learning that disaster happens, and how to adapt when it does. It stops us from reaching out to people who are suffering. And, when our own disaster comes, it forces us into a humiliated retreat, as we try to hunt down mistakes that we never made in the first place.” “I simply had no defence against the changes that were happening in my life.” “Life never does quite offer us those simply happy endings. I often that that it’s all part of my own craving: the moral clarity of cause and effect, reward and punishment for my actions. A map for living that renders everything explicable.” “All her desires were for elemental things: love, a little comfort, the society of interesting people. Everyday life is so often isolated, dreary, and lonely. A little craving is understandable. A little craving might actually be the rallying cry for survival.” “I love the inconvenience [of snow] the same way that I can sneakingly love a bad cold: the irresistible disruption to mundane life, forcing you to stop for a while and step outside of your normal habits.” “In autumn, the male drones are sacrificed because they’re no longer of any use, and would otherwise just be hungry mounts to feed.” “Our lives take different shapes: we do not work in a linear progression through fixed roles like the honeybee. We are not consistently useful to the world at large. We talk about the complexity of the hive, but human societies are infinitely more complex, full of choices and mistakes, periods of glory and seasons of utter despair. Some of us make highly visible, elaborate contributions to the whole; some of us are just part of the ticking mechanics of the world, the incremental wealth of small gestures. All of it matters. All of it weaves the wider fabric that binds us.” “We may sometimes drift through years in which we feel like a negative presence in the world, but we come back again, not only restored, but bringing more than we brought before: more wisdom, more compassion, a greater capacity to reach deep into our roots and know that we will find water.” “Usefulness, in itself, is a useless concept when it comes to humans. I don’t think we were ever meant to think about others in terms of their use to us.” “We flourish on caring, on doling out love.” “Winter is a time for the quiet arts of making: for knitting and sewing, baking and simmering, repairing and restoring our homes.” “We sing because it fills our lungs with nourishing air, and lets our heart soar with the notes we let out. We sing because it allows us to speak of love and loss, delight and desire, all encoded in lyrics that let us pretend that those feelings are not quite ours.” “As I walk, I remind myself ot the words of Alan Watts: ‘To hold your breath is to lose your breath.’ In The Wisdom of Insecurity, Watts makes a case that always convinces me, but which I always seem to forget: that life is, by nature, uncontrollable. That we should stop trying to finalize our comfort and security somehow, and instead find a radical acceptance of the endless, unpredictable change that is the very essence of this life. Our suffering, he says, comes from the fight we put up against this fundamental truth: ‘Running away from fear is fear, fighting pain is pain, trying to be brave is being scared. If the mind is in pain, the mind is in pain. The thinker has no other form than his thought. There is no escape.” “The future, to which we devote so much of our brainpower, is an unstable element, entirely unknowable.” “When we endlessly ruminate in these distant times, we miss extraordinary things in the present moment. They are, in actual fact, all we have: the here and now; the direct perception of our senses.” “I’m beginning to think that unhappiness is one of the simple things in life: a pure, basic emotion to be respected, if not savoured. I would never dream of suggesting that we should wallow in misery, or shrink from doing everything we can to alleviate it; but I do think it’s instructive. After all, unhappiness has a function: it tells us that something is going wrong. If we don’t allow ourselves the fundamental honesty of our own sadness, then we miss an important cue to adapt. We seem to be living in an age when we’re bombarded with entreaties to be happy, but we’re suffering from an avalanche of depression; we’re urged to stop sweating the small stuff, and yet we’re chronically anxious. I often wonder if these are just normal feelings that become monstrous when they’re denied. A great deal of life will always suck. There will be moments when we’re riding high, and moments when we can’t bear to get out of bed. Both are normal. Both, in fact, require a little perspective.” “We need friends who wince along with our pain, who tolerate our gloom, and who allow us to be weak for a while when we’re finding our feet again. We need people who acknowledge that we can’t always hang on in there; that sometimes, everything breaks.” “I recognized winter. I saw it coming (a mile off, since you ask), and I looked it in the eye,. I greeted it, and let it in. I had some tricks up my sleeve, you see. I’ve learned them the hard way. When I started feeling the drag of winter, I began to treat myself like a favoured child: with kindness and love. I assumed my needs were reasonable, and that my feelings were signals of something important.” “We tend to imagine that our lives are linear, but they are in fact cyclical. I would not, or course, seek to deny that we grow gradually older, but while doing so, we pass through phases of good health and ill, of optimism and deep doubt, of freedom and constraint.”

#winter #books #quotes #katherine may

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warlock-enthusiast · 4 years

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Waking up slow

The Wayhaven Chronicles

Adam du Mortain x female Detective (in the future)

Detective Kat Kingston faces a murder, Unit Bravo and her mother. (Not always sticking with the canon)

Chapter 4: Drinking and thralls

AO3 link

Chapter 1 / 2 / 3

----

“Another one?” Kat clinked their empty glasses together. “Another one! You go. I…” Tina tilted her head, carefully deciding if standing up seemed like a good decision or not. “Eh, just go!”

So, that was the answer to that.

Kat took a deep breath and pushed herself up. She’d tried to pace herself, one cocktail, one shot. And she’d failed spectacularly. After three cocktails and five shots, Kat felt wasted. Wobbly legs, a tad crossed-eyed and surely far too unsure of her surroundings. In hindsight, she’d never been particularly talented in going out without getting drunk. Probably in direct correlation with self-esteem and crippling bouts of depression. Tonight had all been about reminiscing about old times and forgetting the present for a while.

But, well. Kat wasn’t here to analyze herself. No, not today, Sir!

For once, she tried to forget about the case and past and her mother and just concentrate on being alive (and drunk). Pushing away the nagging conscience, which bothered her, because of two dead people and a killer on the loose.

Not to mention weird Doctor Murphy and his empty eyes and strange behaviour.

She leaned over the bar and smiled. “Tequila sunrise! Two.”

“Yes, Detective Kingston.” Chen raised a brow, said nothing, and turned around to mix the cocktails.

Getting back to Tina seemed more exhausting than before and her friend patted the empty space beside her. “Ah, wonderful. Come here.”

Kat followed her invitation. Their shoulders touched and she saw a reflection of the bar’s lights in Tina’s eyes. Always so pretty. Always so put together. She hoped that her friend would never lose her spark.

They’d almost shared a good cry earlier, talking about their past patrolling the streets together and missing each other terribly.

Tina looked relaxed now and drunk and raised the corner of her mouth, a cat waiting for some cream. “So, what’s going on with Unit Dashing? Any compromising situations?”

Of course.

Reading so many romance novels had put a special kind of imagination in her head. About wet, white shirts and fountains and romantic horse riding at the beach, not to mention a whole lot of passionate, nightly encounters.

To be completely fair, Kat had borrowed a few of the smuttier novels and indulged herself. A lack of romance in her life didn’t mean that she’d suddenly lost all of her baser instincts and needs. She puffed up her cheeks. “They’re driving me insane and they’re so full of shit at times.”

“No help then?” “Maybe a bit. Not much though.” Kat rubbed her eyes. “Well, Agent Sewell is helpful and really, really smart. And Agent Hauville is … how to describe it? A ray of sunshine. I like him, yes.”

She did . The observation surprised herself.

Though, Kat dreaded the day that Felix and Tina formed a bond. A future filled with endless pranks and much laughter and so much warmth. Actually, not the worst thing to imagine.

Maybe they should spent some time together.

Tina nodded, or tried to, because her movements seemed sluggish thanks to alcohol, and pinched Kat’s shoulder. “A toast to us then. We’re great.” “We are.”

“Yeah!”

“YEAH!”

TIna shuffled closer, her breath hot on Kat’s cheek. “Important question!” “Hm?” “Most handsome?” Tina’s eyes held a dreamy expression. “I vote for Nate. His eyes are just so, so pretty and I’ve always liked a bit of stubble and a good jawline.” “Eh.” “Come on, spill it. I’ve known you for years and we’ve talked about boys so so many times. Even about girls. I know your type.” Kat blushed and nearly spit out his name. “Adam.”

A moment passed.

Then another.

His name hung between them like some deep, dark secret, until Tina began to laugh and to pat Kat’s thigh. “Uh, like your guys cold, eh?”

Kat shook her head. “Remember Bobby?” “Sadly, yes.”

Both of them prefered to stay silent on the matter of Bobby to not ruin their evening.

“I don’t know. It’s just something …” Sighing, she rested her head on Tina’s shoulder. “Something about how he holds himself, always so tense and closed off. He’s clearly built a barrier between himself and the world and I just want to… you know, see what lingers beneath?”

“And you want to see him snap and press you against the nearest wall, ravishing you with his lips.” “MAYBE.” “OH… oooooh.” Tina giggled and wrapped an arm around Kat’s shoulder. “Look there.”

She hadn’t noticed how the bar suddenly went rather quiet. All the laughter and voices ebbing away with the presence of four Agency agents. And Kat knew, her short break was over with them in here.

Shit.

Adam’s dissapproving gaze made her squirm. It shifted from her bandaged hand right to her face, then to Tina drunkenly stumbling over her feet.

“You’re inebriated.”

“Yes. I’m drunk. Sorry, you had to find me here but I’m off duty and well, yes.”

Wonderful conversation.

Kat felt relieved that he hadn’t witnessed their earlier talks. She could live without him overhearing her swooning about him. Especially now, that his cold, green eyes watched her in such a disappointed manner. Her outfit looked ruffled and untidy with the first few buttons of her blouse open and her skirt too high on her thighs. Kat tried to make herself more presentable and earned a scuff from Adam.

“I need, uh, I need to ... “ Tina failed at standing up and used her arms to steady herself. Thankfully Nate came to her rescue and Kat noticed a faint blush sitting high on her friend’s cheeks, as he steadied her with his body. Ha!

“Have to go.” She pressed herself against Nate and let herself be guided to a cab.

Kat waved at her. “Write me when you get home!”

“Nothing wrong with a bit of fun, eh?” Felix tried to make light of the situation and earned a grunt from Mason, who already checked the bar’s drinks and ordered a round of something high in spirits.

“That is settled then.” Felix laughed and guided Kat back to the comfy chairs and sofas.

Drinking with Unit Bravo wasn’t as bad as she’d imagined. Especially with Felix at her side and Nate’s soft smiles and voice. Mason prefered a chair, which let him watch a group of pretty college students, while also offering enough shadow to hide half of his face.

Adam’s shoulders and back seemed straight and tense, but the green of his eyes looked a bit less hard and cold as he talked with his teammates. They cared about each other. All the banter and manly grunting, they cared and they liked being in each other presence. Maybe Kat hadn’t noticed it earlier, but their bond ran deeper than that of colleagues.

Suddenly feeling a bit sappy, Kat got up. “I’ll go and get us a nightcap.”

Her phone beeped and she found a message from Tina, explaining that she just fell right into her bed, followed by a paragraph of eggplants emojis.

Smiling and rolling her eyes, she looked at Chen and ordered the drinks.

Kat didn’t expect Adam so close behind her. She felt his presence, the hard planes of his body. His hand rested near hers and his voice washed over her, while making small talk. Their hands touched, as both reached for the glasses. Helping with carrying the drinks, yes, of course. Her throat went dry and heat rose to her neck and face. Her heart picked up the pace and Adam appeared flustered as well.

For once, unsure of himself? His gaze lingered on her mouth and neck and drifted lower to her chest.

Something between shifted and fell into place. Just for a second, Kat seemed to know how to approach him and to go forward with this, this feelings.

The moment passed, but the warmth in her face lingered. Everything felt so complicated with him around him. Felix patted her back, seemingly knowing what was going on her head and Kat offered him half a smile.

At least, they could enjoy a drink in peace.

---

To arrest the killer. To get answers. Murphy was the killer.

Kat’s hands formed fists.

She hadn’t been this angry in a while and almost felt the blood rush to her head. Trusting them didn’t get her far. Instead they just lied and lied and kept secrets. A part of her had doubted their intention from the start. Following and protecting her from what exactly? What the heck was going on? Did her mother order them to block important facts from the case? But they never answered her questions, just offered flimsy excuses. Unit Bravo probably slowed down her investigation as well. Would make sense. A part of this puzzle was missing and had been from the start. Kat felt in her bones.

Always so close, yet so far away from a satisfying answer.

Shit, shit, shit. Kat wished to be drunk again, but her mind seemed completely aware and clean and she cursed under her breath. They fucking knew the killer. They knew and did nothing. Let him roam around looking for more victims. And now they seemed against the idea of getting him?

“What…?”

Four people blocked her path. A vile stench filled her nostrils and Kat suppressed a scream. With their rotten skin and milky eyes, they reminded her of bad Zombie movies. Couldn’t be for Halloween and she hadn’t read about a convention in Wayhaven.

“... the fuck.”

They closed in on her and she found Unit Bravo at her side.

“Thralls.” Kat heard Mason grunt and then chaos exploded around her. She’d left her weapons back at the station and tried to remember her training. Shock made it hard, though, and she raised her hands, only to witness Mason clashing with one of those things. A sick crack echoed through the night and the rest of Unit Bravo joined the fight. Felix seemed unusually fast and quick, almost too fast for her eyes. Adam parried attacks with brute force, while Nate prefered a more elegant solution of evading and hitting.

Maybe her mind was playing tricks on her.

Their stench and slow movements froze her blood, but their words brought a whole new rush of fear.

“Bring Kat. Not kill.”

“Detective Kingston?” Another voice cut through her panicked mind and she turned around to find a pale Douglas standing outside of the bar. She hadn’t even seen him in there. He appeared like some deer in the headlights, drunk and afraid and as shocked as Kat felt.

One of these things turned around and focussed on him. “Kill witnesses.”

“Run, Douglas” In a spur of the moment decision, Kat put herself between them and Douglas and offered him a chance to flee. But what about her? She took a fighting stance, tried to punch her opponent and failed. Her knuckles hurt from trying to find some weak spot.

Strong fingers closed around her neck and lifted her from the ground. Darkness began to dance in front of her eyes and Kat’s body collided with a wall. Everything hurt and she fought against losing her consciousness and mind. Bile rose in her throat and Kat thanked her reflexes for poking that thing in the eyes and a moment to steady herself and watch her surroundings.

Unit Bravo fought with all the strength and skill of people their rank and training, but the thralls fought without holding back, without fear or tactics. Just an ongoing wall of force. She’d never felt so helpless or ill prepared.

Kat rose her arms. “We can help you! Please, calm down. It doesn’t have to end like this.”

But it did. For a moment, she thought that she’d seen some humanity returning to their faces, but Mason knocked them down, before anything else could happen.

She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering and questioning everything.

Kat found her voice to be high-pitched and panicked and she tried to met Adam’s gaze.

“Tell me what’s going on. What is happening here?” Almost a plea, but he didn’t answer. Kat felt tears well in the corner of her eyes, as she discovered the wound on Adam’s arm. It closed itself. One moment there had been a deep gash and the next … gone.

“Adam…”

A sickening crack ended their conversation. Kat felt blood on the back on her head. “Ugh.”

And she fell and fell and hoped that someone would catch her.

#the wayhaven chronicles #twc #wayhaven chronicles #adam du mortain #kat kingston #headcanons #hadn't posted the third chapter #so two for one or something

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netlifxandcastielclosed · 5 years

Note

Fic where Cas and the reader go trick or treating together?

“I don’t think it’s a wise choice, Y/N,” Cas said deeply, imagining every dangerous possibility that can happen from ringing stranger’s doorbells.

“It’s a human tradition, Cas! The Celts thought the barrier between our world and the world of ghosts and spirits got really thin on this day. So they threw a big party to try and scare them away! And don’t worry about going door to door! We do that all the damn time when we are working a case.”

Cas furrowed his brows in confusion as you slipped on your costume. The one you had picked out for him had not moved an inch from his clenched fist. He was overly concerned about the fabric being too revealing.

“And where am I suppose to hide my angel blade in these?” Cas stuffed his thick thighs into fuzzy black tights that had none of the pockets he’d grown accustomed to in his trench coat.

“Here, give it to me. I’m bringing a big bag. More room for candy,” you said gleefully.

Now that the two of you were fully dressed, Cas picked up his plastic candy bucket that was shaped like a giant flower and the extra pillowcase you suggested packing, for which he did not know the purpose. He followed you through the bunker hallways and up to the front room. Sitting doing research and avoiding all possible reminders of the holiday was Sam. Across from him sat Dean eating his second dinner of the night. Dean’s smile stretched from ear to ear when he saw you both walk into the room.

“Sammy, you gotta get a load of this,” Dean nearly choked on his doughnut burger hybrid and almost fell out of his seat.

“You know how I feel about Halloween. I want no part of this,” Sam grumbled.

“No, really. Sammy. You don’t want to miss this.”

Sam reluctantly peeled his eyes away from his laptop and saw his two best friends standing side by side in giant fuzzy bee costumes. You, with that typical worry-free sparkle your eyes and Castiel looking more puzzled than ever before. It’s worth noting that this is the first smile Sam had cracked a smile on Halloween night in years.

“Well don’t the two of you look just…” Sam started to say.

“(Y/N) chose this costume for me. Do you think it will scare away the spirits,” asked Cas genuinely. “I do like the honeybees in the garden but I have noticed many humans are terrified of them. I’ve packed some salt and holy water in my bag in the instance this doesn’t work out”.

“As long and your bumble butts bring me back some candy, I don’t care how y’all dress,” said Dean trying to pretend like he wasn’t a little jealous of being able to go trick or treating. Truthfully, he was a little turned on seeing you and Cas in bee costumes. He thought to himself, you both could buzz on into his room later that night when Sammy was asleep.

—

Before walking up to the first door of the night, you explained to Cas what to say and how to hold out his bucket for candy. He only slightly heard what you said but didn’t bother to ask you to repeat yourself. He was more worried about the trick part of the night and he assumed he could deal with it once it came around.

DING DONG!

“Tricks nor Treats,” Castiel grumbled deeply, arms stuck straight out to the old woman who wondered why a fully grown man dressed as a bee was out trick or treating.

“It’s ‘Or’ not ‘Nor’, lovey. We’ll try it again at the next place,” you said sweetly. “Thank you for the candy, M’am. Happy Halloween. Stay safe.”

As you walked back down the path, Cas sprinkled some salt on the uneven cobblestone and murmured some Enochian under his breath.

Door number two. DING DONG!

“No tricks, just treats, please.”

You shot a look at Cas that would make any celestial being cower. His shoulders stiffened and then he shook off the chill that went down his spine. He thanked the couple at the door and shuffled back down the driveway. More salt sprinkled and on to the next house.

A few blocks later and a pillowcase filled to the brim with candy, Cas had a completely different look across his face. He was more eager to keep going after each house but your feet had other ideas. It had a been a few hours and you were more exhausted than when you fought that vamp last week.

“Last house, okay? I’m ready for bed and I’m sure Sam is tired of hearing Dean complaining about wanting candy.”

“Of course. We’ve managed to avoid all of these tricks so far. Now might be a good time to call it a night.”

Both of you walked up to the last house and when Cas went to knock, the door was ajar. It swung open after the first attempt at a knock. No lights were on in the hallway but a dim glow was coming from the kitchen.

“Hello,” Castiel cautiously ask. “Trick or treat?”

“Is anyone home? Your door was unlocked. Hello?” You took a step forward, one foot on the threshold of the door. A smelly wave of sulfur hit you and you found yourself abruptly being dragged into the house by an invisible source.

“(Y/N)! What’s going on? Where’d you go?” Cas began to panic slightly. He instinctively reached for his coat pocket in hopes of grabbing his angel blade, only to feel polyester fuzz on his hands. A second later he realized it was at the bottom of his candy filled pillowcase. He dumped the candy on the floor and flew into the kitchen. He found you stuck on the ceiling above the stove. An angry demon sat at the counter examining a plastic decorative skull.

“Ah, my favorite time of year, Halloween. Teenagers dressing up as monsters and playing games to summons us from the depths of Hell. It’s quite entertaining, really.”

“The trick,” Cas said pointedly.

“And just as my luck would have it, the one house that decided to summon me would be the one I find you and your human pet, Castiel.” The demon chuckled, stood up and continued to ransack through the kitchen.

“Who are you,” growled Castiel.

“You don’t remember me, angel? I thought we shared an intimate moment all that time ago. It’s not every day that an angel and a demon breathe the same air and live to tell the tale.”

Castiel looked up at you with a questioning look to make sure you were not hurt. Your mouth was sealed shut and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t move an inch. But the look in your eyes gave Cas some peace, and no visible blood or injuries was a good sign.

“I remember you,” Cas recalled, “and I also remember what I said I’d do if I ever saw you again. I sent you back to Hell with Crowley and he said…”

“The King is dead, angel. There’s nothing to fear in Hell anymore. It’s all free rein and I don’t have to answer to anyone anymore. Not even you. So here I am. Even I deserve a little fun, don’t I?”

It had been a long while since you’d dealt with your average everyday demon. Most hunts were about saving the world these days but ever since Crowley died more stray demons were running amok. Castiel was tired. ‘Not today’, he thought to himself. He wasn’t going to let some low-level demon ruin this night for him.

The arrogant demon parted his lips to speak again but before he could get a sound out, Castiel’s hand was pressed to his forehead. Bright, blinding light and some dissipating black smoke filled the room and the next thing you remember is being carried out of the house in the arms of your angel.

—

Your eyes blinked open and the first thing that comes into focus is Dean with a pile of empty candy wrappers sprawled across the table. Sam was asleep in the chair next to you, hunched over with drool dripping down his chin from waiting for you to wake up.

“Welcome back, (Y/N),” smiled Castiel.

“Cas? Wha- What happened? Where’s the demon?”

“Don’t worry your fuzzy little ass about that, (Y/N),” said Dean mouth full of fun-sized Twix bars. “Cas saw you sticky stuck on that ceiling and stung the crap outta that demon.”

“Enough with the bee puns, Dean,” Sam murmured groggily, “He’s been at it all night since you guys got back.”

When you went to stretch out the pain in your muscles, you realized you were no longer in costume but in soft pajamas.

“How did I,” you ask concernedly.

“Cas,” smirked Dean, “I offered to help out but,” knowing very well Cas hung the bee costumes in Dean’s room for later, “he said it would bee inappropriate. It’s too bad. I would have loved to get a peek at your boo-bees. I’ll be the bird and you two can bee the bees!”

“Dean,” Sam shouted disgustedly.

“I’ve pollen for the both of you so buzz on in and bee mine,” winked Dean.

“We’ll never hear the end of this, will we, Cas,” you sighed.

“I’m afraid not, Honey,” Castiel said without hesitation.

Dean stood up, smiled that never-ending shit-eating grin until Sam ran to his room, locked the door and put in earplugs.

—–

NOTE: Ha! I’m not going to pretend like it didn’t take me days to write this. I legit wrote maybe a paragraph a day because I procrastinate more than anyone I know haha ALSO I didn’t intend for it to be this long but it’s cute so yeah. Halloween is my jam, yo! also tagging @imamotherfuckingstar-lord because I mentioned I was writing :PP.S. I didn’t proofread this so if there are errors OH FUCKING WELL

Happy Halloween, Bitches!

#bookcaseninja #SPN #Supernatural #spn family #spn cast #Destiel #Dean #Cas #Castiel #Dean Winchester #Misha Collins #Jensen Ackles #my angel boo #the great love of my life #Sam #Sam Winchester #Jared Padalecki #asks #netflixandcastiel

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grotesquegabby · 5 years

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“Halloween was celebrated on the one night between autumn and winter when the barrier between the living and the dead was thinnest and often involved rituals that included human sacrifice.”

I love this one it reminds me of Calliope especially cause of that one short drabble I wrote ages ago.

Don’t know if you remember but it involved her dancing around a fire with a bunch of humans following her lead on a clear night. I like to think that was one of the times she was celebrating halloween or the nights of samhain. uwu

we also get introduced to someone here another Elder

Black Stain

She sat by the window watching the leaves shake from their branches and float down to the ground. The air outside was surely crisp and slightly cool, as it was autumn. The sun was starting to set, and it wouldn’t be long before children would run about gathering treats as they ran around pretending to be whatever they so wished. Calliope loved this time of year, and remembered what it was like back in the old days. A small smile came upon her face in remembrance.

She turned hearing footsteps and her little heart fluttered at the sight of her lovely clockwork. Cuckoo gave her a smile and sat down beside her, offering her some tea. She gratefully took it, loving the warmth it provided her hands. One of the many great discoveries living sentient beings made was tea. She adored it. Cuckoo sat beside her and placed a hand to her stomach, “How are the little ones~” Calliope chuckled, “A bit restless today. One it feels keeps dancing while the other occasionally kicks my side.” Cuckoo laughed a bit, “Keeping mommy on her toes and you’re not even out yet.” Calliope sipped her tea, “hmmm~ should be expecting some company soon.” Cuckoo looked up at her curiously, “oh, who might that be?” “An old acquaintance though I suppose we know each other more than that.” She hummed in thought. Cuckoo gave a worried look, “Is it someone who might...cause you harm?” Calliope shook her head, “No not with how he usually appears. He won’t even dare to try, he’ll show up human. Occasionally we talk but nothing more.” Cuckoo nodded still not convinced, “I would like to stay with you when he comes then.” Calliope smiled and cupped his cheek, “oh my loving clockwork, if you insist I will not stop you. Besides I will enjoy your company over his, he’s pretentious.” She almost laughed but it was true. She leaned in and kissed them gently. Enjoying the time she would have alone with them before her old guest arrived.

Hours later the doorbell rang, indicating he had arrived.

Calliope walked to the door, Cuckoo close behind her. They wanted to see this man with their own eyes. Once she had opened the door, there a man who appeared to be in his early forties stood. He wore a dark colored suit, with a purple tie. His dark brown hair was slicked back but other than that his appearance wasn’t anything of note or interest. Though something was still off.

Calliope motioned for the man to come inside and with a slight bow he did, taking in all his surroundings, “Still into decrepit old castles I see. You never change do you.” Calliope closed the door but made no move to respond. Cuckoo already hated the man but said nothing when Calliope gave him a look to say, it’s alright. For now....

The man coughed a bit and covered his mouth with a white rag, “Pardon me Lady Death, you understand afterall.” She just nodded, “Have a seat, I have some tea ready for you.” The man took a seat and practically took up as much space as he could in the chair provided. Cuckoo sat down after Calliope, not trusting this man one bit. “So Lady Death, How have things been? I hear you’re finally with child. What’s that like~” Calliope ignored the tone of the man and sipped her tea, “It’s a new experience I am glad to share with my loving mate.” She reached over and gave Cuckoos hand a squeeze. They did the same and gave her a reassuring smile. The man rolled his eyes to which Cuckoo took notice, “Lady Death~” Calliope looked over at the man. “Did you know Halloween was celebrated on the one night between autumn and winter when the barrier between the living and the dead was thinnest and often involved rituals that included human sacrifice.” Calliope nodded, “Yes I did know that, in fact most of the month it is celebrated on the veil is at its thinnest. Why bring this up though.” “Well I believe the Halloween this year is going to be a very special one.” he replied with a grin, a grin that put Cuckoo on edge. Calliope frowned, “Care to explain.” Before the man could he coughed into his white kerchief once again. Staining it a black. Calliope made a small face of disgust, “When this body dies can you take it outside, I really don’t wish to clean up your mess...again.”

The man just laughed, his nose starting to bleed the same color, “Sorry, you know how weak these human bodies can be. I just haven’t found a good vessel I’m afraid. Anyway...Yes this Halloween is going to be special I think. I just have a strong feeling about it.” His eyes in turn turned black and they started to leak the liquid as well. Calliope sighed and stood up, Cuckoo following suit. “What is happening?” “The body he’s using...is dying.” She sighed mostly annoyed.

Cuckoo looked over at their beloved, “Does this happen often when he visits?”

“Unfortunately yes”

The man laughed his voice becoming raspy and broken, “I’d talk more but it appears this body is much weaker than some of the others. I’ll see you both again soon though.” He stood up chuckling it seemed mostly to himself. He looked as if he was going to walk to the door but then dropped down to the floor. Cuckoo looked down absolutely confused and honestly not happy at the situation, “is he....”

“Dead? yes, he is quite dead.”

“But he said he’d be back.”

“oh yes but I doubt he’ll be back here for a while.” She sighed and looked at the floor, “He left a stain on my new carpet. He does this every time. It’s...annoying.”

Cuckoo agreed

he seemed very annoying

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cmarionthewilkid-blog · 4 years

Text

C.O.N.S.U.M.E.D

What happens when we consume more than we need? What happens when our choices are influenced by societal pressures of how things should be? Part 1 of my reflective journal will aim to provide a glimpse at two weeks of a working mom, head of a house of five, who also coincidentally adds event planner often to her job tasks.

Day 1: I specifically started my consumption journal on Friday, October 25. The day before a large case competition I was hosting on campus. Day 1 starts like most every other day of my life. The 20 minute drive to daycare, followed by the usual ice cap pit stop at Tim Horton’s. This day is special though, with the pressures of ensuring everything was just right for our judges and sponsors. I stroll off to Ferme Beaulieu to spend $328 on gifts. I am thinking that at least I am buying local products (honey, herbs, ketchup aux fruits) and feel pretty great about that. But why do I feel obliged to buy gifts at all? Wouldn’t a sincere thank you be enough? I guess according to Jonathan Porritt (2011), I have fallen victim to consumerism at its best. Somehow, I feel OK about it though.

A quick stop at Dollarama for gift bags, disposable coffee cups (cringe!), and plastic plastic trays. Finally, a $148 trip to Provigo for snacks for the case competitors and coaches. Oops, did I mention the trip to the t-shirt printer to pick up the 60 red printed competition momentos. Let’s add the 250+ pages I printed that day! As I sit here and reflect on the necessities (needs) of running a case competition versus expectations (and wants), I come to the realization that most of what I have purchased is simply there to enhance image.

Day 2 (October 26): Tim’s ice cap (check!). 60 Donuts, 60 pre-packed lunches, 24 cans of Perrier, 60 cans of soft drinks, 40 coffees in disposable cups, 100 plastic glasses of wine. Today, I am completely influenced by materialism and keeping the “image”. Let’s keep in mind that I work for a business school and that comes with some rather large assumptions around how things are supposed to look and be. Not to mention, I am hosting five people from the company who is sponsoring the event, so I need to keep them happy and ensure the event lives up to their expectations. I am reminded of Amitai Etzioni, (2012) and his sentiments about “keeping up with the Jones’”. It is true, when one party sets a certain expectation, we all rise to meet, or better, exceed them.

Today; however, my biggest disappointment was food waste. The boxed lunches were good, but about 25% of people didn’t eat all their meal. Almost 100% of the people didn’t eat the dessert included. We don’t have access to compost, so it went to the trash. Above the clear environmental impact of my event, I am reminded of the fact that one fifth of the world’s richest people consume 45% of all the meat and fish (Shah, 2014). Despite the company providing compostable cutlery and cups, I feel guilty that I sent so many things to the landfill today. To top it all off, Sodexo served a less than stellar menu at the Gala dinner (veal sous-vide). I swear I wanted to eat it, but alas, two bites in and I am done. More to the trash. Exhausted and mentally drained, I wonder to myself where the balance between convenience and waste needs to come into play. Why can’t we have compost stations on campus?

Day 3 (October 27): But first, my ice cap! A friend’s child’s birthday party today so I scramble to get things together. I run to Provigo to grab stuff for mini pizzas to share (forgot my grocery bags, so plastic it is). My friend insisted on no gifts at the party, which I wanted to accept, but quite frankly couldn’t. I’m glad I didn’t because apparently no one else respected it either. I think about this social obligation more deeply (Goodwin, Smith, & Spiggle, 1990). I try my best to make a compromise, we opt for a movie day among friends instead of a traditional gift. I am hoping this small intrinsically motivated action may decrease future landfill waste in the future. Nonetheless, we are filled with waxed juice cups and plates. Back to the Provigo to grab something for the family for supper. I grab peppers in a plastic bag, sausages in a styrofoam package, pasta sauce in a glass bottle, cheese in plastic packaging and pasta in a cardboard box. Nothing much to compost or recycle unfortunately.

Day 4 (October 28): Monday and back to work. Ice cap, yup! I am starting to get quite the collection in my office recycling bin. My boss just commented on it. I guess it is a bit of an eye sore..haha!

Two trips to Provigo today. One at lunch to grab George’s bread, deli ham, Coaticook cheese, carrots and dip. Next stop on the way home from work for supper, chicken, baby potatoes and stuffing.

Day 5 (October 29): If you haven’t guessed by now, ice cap time! Today, my brother (who lives with us) did a fridge clean up. Sigh! I can’t believe how much stuff we threw away. Past date, wilted vegetables, moldy fruits. Why don’t I just throw money directly into the garbage can? Is it normal that the first thing I think about is wasted money? According to a study by Graham-Rowe, Jessop, and Sparks (2014), wasting money is indeed a major motivator to minimize food waste. Inspired by this revelation, I am determined to have leftovers for lunch and transform the chicken salad sandwiches tonight for supper. I don’t even have to stop at Provigo today! WOW!

Day 6 (October 30): IC (that’s all I will say). Wednesdays are always tricky because I am running around and teach a class at night. It is one of those days. I grab lunch at Subway (steak sub, chips and a drink) -> garbage.

Run to Provigo after work and grab steak, carrots, potatoes and gravy from Provigo and throw it in pot to cook. I also realize that I haven’t really bought any candy for Halloween for my students in case class. $65.30 later and we have meat and candies! I’ve also been putting out chocolates outside my office door for students.

Day 7 (October 31): Another ice cap to go please. I don’t even eat lunch today. Now I realize we have no candy for the kids. Drive to Walmart and $68.03, we’ve got goodies. No lunch again, and we go to a friend’s for supper. Off with the 4 year old trick or treating in the rain. She gets a pail of treats, we have 2 boxes of stuff leftover.

Day 8 (November 1): Day of the dead? I think so! Actually order breakfast with my ice cap at Timmy’s this morning. No lunch today. We decide to go shopping after work today as my brother has a 40% discount at L’Equipeur. $218.58 later, my husband enjoys new shoes, jeans, sport jacket, t-shirts, and a pair of sneakers for my mom for Christmas. Oh wait! Marlee needs new winter boots, so $86.22 later, we have new winter boots for her. I also see the cutest dress boots at Marshall’s (fake baby Uggs). I suppose these is what the marketers are hoping for. Top it all off with super for the family at Guido’s. (Wow! I have really been eating like crap!) Day 8 hurt the bank account! Day 9 (November 2): Maybe I should actually buy some groceries for my empty fridge. I sludge off to Provigo early Saturday morning to spent near $200. At least I have meat, veggies, fruits, and some of the other basics for my family to actually live on. Stop at Tim’s on the way home for the usual.

Day 10 (November 3): Beautiful breakfast with family (and an ice cap). Spent the day making food (soup, roasted chicken, pasta sauce, etc....). Trying to cut down on the restaurant stops this week. End up at the library with some dear colleagues from GSE503, so I think another ice cap is in order to stay awake (and leftover Halloween Candy).

Day 11 (November 4): Check that thought. Day went to hell, running late, dead tired, no breakfast, grabbed Rima for supper. Fridge full, but I don’t even care at this point.

Day 12 (November 5): Today is a new day! I started making iced coffee at home! No Tim’s! I actually did not spend $1 today! Why do I feel so great? Apparently it is something referred to as perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE). When is comes to sustainable buying practices, this PCE is influenced directly by guilt and pride. This becomes important because it means that as a consumer, my behaviours could be modified by using emotions (Antonetti, & Maklan, 2014).

Day 13 (November 6): Another no spending kind of day! Feeling all pride and no guilt! Maybe Atonetti and Maklan are on to something!

Day 14 (November 7): Last day of recording! No ice caps and going strong. My husband and I are feeling like we need a little extra family time, so we go out for supper at Mike’s with Marlee. We follow it up by a little Chocolat Favoris. I asked myself why we went to Mike’s again? What a waste! A quick stop by Provigo to grab snacks for my basketball girls. I make an orzo salad plus pull together fruits, yogurt, cheese and granola bars.

Stay tuned for Part 2 to see if I actually made some changes and what this whole process has meant for me. Until then, I leave you on this note: Waiting on the World to Change

REFERENCES

Antonetti, P., & Maklan, S. (2014). Feelings that make a difference: How guilt and pride convince consumers of the effectiveness of sustainable consumption choices. Journal of Business Ethics, 124(1), 117-134. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/24033218

Etzioni, A. (2012). You Don’t need to Buy This. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/FN3z8gtDUFE

Goodwin, C., Smith, K.L., & Spiggle, S. (1990). Gift giving: Consumer motivation and the gift purchase process. In NA - Advances in Consumer Research. 17, eds. Marvin E. Goldberg, Gerald Gorn, and Richard W. Pollay, Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, 690-698. Retrieved from http://acrwebsite.org/volumes/7086/volumes/v17/NA-17

Graham-Rowe, E., Jessop, D.C., & Sparks, P. (2014). Identifying motivations and barriers to minimising household food wasteby. Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 84, 15-23. doi: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2013.12.005

Porritt, J. (2011). The trap of materialism. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/DtwXryPNciM

Shah, A. (2014). Consumption and Consumerism: Global Issues. Retrieved from http://www.globalissues.org/issue/235/consumption-and-consumerism

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awfully-sadistic · 5 years

Text

Week 1: Oct 2nd

The Adventures of Dottie and Dodger A series of linear prompt one-shots.

I kind of broke my own rule and couldn’t resist adding in a little something-something special. You’ll know it when you see it. I just hope it’s not too strange. But what the fuck, I can mold this story any way I want.

It was very early morning in the second day of October and Dot was on her way to the office building she and Dodger had purchased just yesterday. Driving down the road, Dot could see that various Halloween objects have been put out decorating yards and roofs with over-sized grim reapers, inflatable and real pumpkins, and strings of lights celebrating Halloween colors, but that wasn’t a surprise. It was as early as mid-September when she began to see signs of Halloween and it excited her.

Halloween was her favorite holiday and the entire month was already promising to bring along the spirit as soon as it could. With the appearance of the Poltergeist yesterday (and the paperwork that followed, but we don’t talk about that), Dot thought that Halloween had definitely come early. She wasn’t complaining. She wished it was Halloween all year-round, but with the spooky month comes attached their busiest time of the year.

It was expected that Human and Supernatural alike call upon the Agency in a tizzy about hauntings, possessions, and other spook factors that wouldn’t normally make an appearance any other time of the year. Obviously, Halloween lowered some sort of barrier that allows the things that go bump in the night liberated freedom this time of year.

She remembered last year; she didn’t think she’d survive much longer running their business out of her home. There were people coming and going and she didn't like the unexpected visitors who would appear in the dead of night for an emergency. She would not admit this, but it was also kind of freaky hearing about all these spooky stories and then having to go to sleep in the same house. There were times when Dodger had been called and invited to stay the night simply because Dot had heard something she wished she hadn’t and her overactive imagination had convinced her that everything was out to get her.

In those times, Dodger was nice enough not to question her intentions as if he had already known what had been bothering her. Then he’d attempt to bore her with interesting tidbits he might have learned that week. It normally had the opposite affect; they’d both stay up all night talking.

Dot finally pulled up to the office space. The building on the outside looked as abandoned as it had on the inside. But Dot figured with a little TLC, the place would brighten right up. A little bit of rose bushes lining the sidewalk to the front doors could work wonders and baby’s breath with some carnations and other filler flowers as accents would make the place seem cheery and fragrant. Someone to take care of the grass would flush this place with some much-needed color instead of the concrete jungle in its place. Trees were scattered about but they looked like they were dying; granted it was in the middle of fall, perhaps they’d look a little different come spring.

It was all one story, (thank god because who liked to climb stairs?), with the parking lot in front right off the road with enough space for the employee range given in the office. There was about twenty-four rooms and Dot knew because she had made a quick run back and forth from her home to make good on the promise about filling the rooms with her old outfits. She had her very own personal dressing room and it felt real fancy if anyone asked.

She just didn’t know what to do with the rest of the rooms. Rooms with more than enough space than an employment of two.

Well, three now with Armand, Jr.

Armand, Jr. or from this point forward known as Armand was the ghost that lived in the Grandfather Clock Dot had named Armand. So, in reality, the clock would be Armand, Sr. There was honestly no reason to tack on a Jr. to Armand, Jr’s name but for the sake of this on-going inside joke now, it was there now and Dot didn’t want to change it. Perhaps it hinted at her personality that she was resistant to change, no matter how little. Dot wouldn’t give it another thought now especially since she was pushing her way through the glass double-doors that would sweep her into the receptionist and waiting area.

Her eyes widened as she took in the receptionist area. It was like a whole new place. Yesterday, there had been cobwebs and dust settled on surfaces and white sheets over various furniture pieces that had been left behind. It had given the place a gloomy look.

Now, there was no sign that there had ever been a speck of dust. The area was brightly lit and felt welcoming. The walls were painted, she now realized. A light, baby blue. She could see there was also an assortment of hanging pictures and magazines laid out on the coffee table nearby and stocked with one of those wooden holders you’d mostly see at an official looking doctor’s office or a dentistry. She was taken back by the presence of a water cooler; she hadn’t seen that yesterday. Perhaps even more surprising was a working 32” flat screen television on the wall opposite the assembly of chairs and it was switched on, mute, showing various flashing pictures about Ashbourne; News. Local stuff. Captions on.

Looking at her feet, she could see that the carpet had been vacuumed recently and perhaps possibly cleaned but she couldn’t tell. But it surely seemed like it because it wasn’t this color yesterday.

Holy fuck, this place was actually functional.

She bumped against the receptionist area, the cutout window reminded her something of a shell and she hung in, trying to take a peek in the back. From what she could see, the police station area with its cubicles was arranged, straightened out, and she thought she could hear voices further back.

“Helloooooo?” she called out.

The voices stopped. Dot strained to hear if Dodger or Armand had been talking to each other but when she felt a light tap on her back, she nearly shrieked. Pulling herself out of the cutout, she whirled around and saw that both Dodger and Armand had come in from the outside with grocery bags in their hands.

Dodger had been the one to tap her. Dot placed a hand over her racing heart, taking in a deep breath to steel her nerves. “Goddamn it, Dodge. What did I say about doing that?”

“Announce ya’self.” Dodger repeated using the same inflection Dot had always used on him.

“Cheeky bastard.” Dot scolded but she had a grin on her face. “Don’t just do that. It’s a good way to get smacked one day.” her gaze trailed down to the bags they held, a question already forming in her eyes even as she finished speaking.

“We thought we’d stock the break room.” Dodger met her halfway, nodding his head beyond the door separating the waiting area from the rest of the office building. Dot followed his gaze before coming upon a sudden reminder. One that sent little shivers up her spine. It had suddenly clicked that she had without realizing, subconsciously noticed, she was the only car in the parking lot.

“I thought I heard voices back there.”

“You probably did,” Dodger said, looking at Armand. “there’s a television set in the breakroom, too. At his insistence.”

“I tried to get one put in the bathroom but I remembered, I do not have to use one.” Armand smiled.

“I reminded you of that.”

Armand’s smile never wavered even as he amended, “Dodger reminded me of that.”

Dot still didn’t feel comforted for some reason but it might have been her overthinking everything. But the banter between Dodger and Armand did a good job of distracting her enough to push that uncomfortable feeling away.

“I didn’t know you could eat, Armand.” Dot said, giving him a rub on the head. In his corporeal form, Armand was physical to the touch which allowed him to hold on to the groceries and appreciate Dot’s gesture. He was also taller than her and she had to stretch her arm up to even do that much. Armand ducked his head and the look on his face was similar to the look he had when he was praised.

“I can eat. I can taste flavors. But it doesn’t do anything for me. I cannot gain any nutrients or get the same satisfaction of feeling full. I think it does help me with energy, but I don’t know for sure.”

“I suspect it helps him keep his corporeal form for longer.”

Dot looked surprised at Dodger’s input, “He can’t hold onto this form for very long?”

“He can go about a full day but needs to rest the next so he’s told me. So, every other day. To see if eating restores any energy to allow him to hold onto this form for longer, I would have to test this theory by feeding him and then checking against how long he can previously hold out, if there’s any change at all. It’s going to take weeks to gain a definitive answer.”

“How exciting.” Dot said dryly before adding, “You do know, he’s not a science experiment. Right?”

Armand, silent through the exchange, finally spoke up, “It’s alright, Dottie. I told him he could try. If it helps you guys, I would love to be in this form for much longer. It just feels right.”

Dot could feel that Armand meant that with every ghost fiber of his pure being. She could feel her heart melting at his resolve and knew he earnestly meant to do anything he could for them. It had been radiating off of him in waves. Armand almost seemed desperate to be of use to them.

For what reason, she still had to find out but she wasn’t about to make him bend over backwards in the meantime. It was even harder to tell if he was mistaking this corporeal form as to partake in being alive again. His comment about trying to use the bathroom was funny but the undertones seemed depressing. He was doing live things or entertaining the thought, but what for? Because Dot and Dodger were alive and he was trying to fit in? Was he staying in this form because it helped them or him?

And was it wrong to encourage him to stay in this form longer in case it feeds into the fantasy? Dot wasn’t one to turn away from anything fantasy related because reality sucked. She daydreamed all the time. She didn’t want to tell Armand to face reality. He shouldn’t have to especially if she didn’t want to.

And why was his personality as eager to seek out praise as often as he did? Was this part of his unresolved business? Ghosts were tricky because there could be many reasons they stayed behind. Armand showed no indication that he was disgruntled or regretful in anyway. If anything, he seemed happy-go-lucky and incredibly naïve. Trusting. Perhaps, too trusting.

She searched Armand’s expression; he stared back at her with a smile that looked hopeful. She knew she couldn’t help him if it turned out he missed being alive if only because she didn’t know how to bring back the dead and the day when that realization hit him was going to break her heart. She hoped that wasn’t the case. With every fiber of her being, she hoped so dearly.

She took the groceries from Armand’s delicate looking arms, signaling the men to follow her as she pushed through the doors to head for the breakroom.

“What would help us is you being yourself, Armand. I don’t expect anything from you except to do what you want to do. If you want to help us, that’s great! And if you want to help Dodger with his weird experiment, you can do that, too.”

Dodger made a discontented noise at the back of his throat as they settled the groceries on the counter in the breakroom. Dot made a note to check the television; to her relief, it was still turned on. To her ‘not relief’, the volume was turned down so low, you could only be in the breakroom to hear it. She hoped to god sound traveled in this building.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been part of an experiment. Do you think it’s fun?” Armand asked, looking between Dodger and Dot. Dot was pulling apples out of the bag before she turned to look at Dodger because she didn’t know how to answer this one.

“It’s fun for me.” Dodger replied, pulling out a hand of bananas.

Armand pulled out a toilet brush scrubber, “How do you eat this one?”

Dot took the scrubber gently from Armand’s long, graceful fingers. “You don’t eat this, honey. And Dodger is going to try to make this experiment as fun for you as he can or I’m going to make him eat this.”

“Noted, love.” Dodger murmured, preoccupied with his groceries to worry about what was in Dot’s hand. Armand had a look of realization on him.

“Oh, it’s Dodger food.”

“Exactly.” Dot laughed.

Putting away the groceries was longer than usual if only because Armand kept asking how to eat everything. And not everything Dodger had bought was for consumption. But Dot had the patience to teach him what was and was not safe to eat. Basically, anything in the fridge but if Armand was unsure, he was to get Dot’s approval first. Dot also had to hand it to Dodger; he did a good job of stocking the breakroom with lots of snacks and he didn’t forget her creamer and fixings for her coffee.

“After five years paired with you, I better remember.” He said, taking a sweep around the breakroom. “I’ll have to write a thank-you note to the Agency for giving us their old equipment.”

“Ah, I was wondering where we got half this shit.” Dot commented. “Can’t believe Chief Aldric would part with any of it to help us.”

“He specifically told them to give us the stuff they had in the storage room. If they attempted to give us anything new, they could start working for us. At least, that was what Agent Hartwin told me while sounding very apologetic.”

Dot’s face grew a discontented look about it, “Mm. He’s always been a little cowardly. But that’s the same storage where everything gets thrown in once it outlives its usefulness? That sounds more likely. Yeah, thank them for me too.”

“I kept telling them I could repair almost anything. Everything they’ve given us I was able to repair with no real cost. I had most of the spare parts I needed at home.”

“Well, like you’re fond of saying, their loss.” Dot said, wondering what the inside of Dodger’s house looked like. “It certainly looks like everything works like new. I wouldn’t have thought we got hand-me-downs whatsoever.”

Armand looked lost, “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Free stuff usually is,” Dodger pointed out. “but they meant to give us their broken and out of date equipment. Perhaps as a way to haze us. Or thumb their nose at us.”

“I don’t think anyone’s used that saying since the 1800’s,” Dot cracked.

“Actually, my dear, the first usage was recorded around the 1920’s. It made a reappearance around the 1930’s but since then I’ll admit it’s a little out of date.”

Dot and Armand stared at Dodger who didn’t say anything after that, content that his lesson had gotten across. Learning something new was never expected or planned as far as Dot was concerned. However, Dodger’s matter-of-fact way of speaking and on a rare note, when he went on spouting facts about word usage or anything else he seemed to be an overnight expert on, she would let him babble on about the little factoids because she would learn something new whether she asked for it or not.

For the most part, he could come across as a know-it-all for those who didn’t know him.

Dot did know him and understood he wasn’t just showing off. He was genuinely sharing something with her and she often replied like a proud mother. “Thanks, Dodge. That’s really interesting.”

“That sounds silly,” Armand said next. He placed his thumb on his nose, “What is the point of this?”

“It’s a gesture that’s meant to disrespect,” Dodger replied. He took a moment to extend Armand’s fingers so he was doing the gesture correctly. “wiggle your fingers. That’s how it’s supposed to look.”

Dot placed a hand over her mouth to conceal the giggle wanting to escape. Armand looked confused, seemingly still not understanding how it’s supposed to be an insult. But he seemed to realize that he was currently gesturing towards them and gasped at the sudden revelation. “Oh no! I didn’t mean any disrespect!” His hand flew off his nose and straightened to his side. “I’m so sorry!”

Dot laughed this time, “You didn’t do anything wrong, Armand. It’s just a silly little gesture and if you want to do it, go ahead. But always at Dodge and never at me.” She gently teased. Armand seemed shocked at the insinuation that he could ever thumb his nose at Dot. The very idea of insulting her whatsoever seemed to pale him more than his ghosted form.

“I’d never!”

The sentiment was sweet and filled Dot with a warm feeling that surely showed in her smile.

“I’ve had the business cards renewed, “Dodger brought up, calling their attention. In a separate bag that Dot hadn’t noticed, Dodger pulled out a cardboard container the size of a medium jewelry box. The top came off like lid and Dodger pulled out a single card. It was a matte black cardstock with their new address and phone number pasted under the name of their office in sprawling gold script. It looked incredibly fancy, Dot was afraid to touch it.

“Sanctum Sanctorum?” Dot asked, looking up at Dodger. “Isn’t that that one place where you-know-who lives in New York or… something? It was all over the news years and years ago, we can’t get away with something like this.”

Armand quirked his head, “Is something wrong with the name? When Dodger explained it’s something you really liked, we thought it was the best idea to go with.”

Dot could feel herself grow soft at the thought they put in for her especially since Dodger remembered a passing comment from more than a year ago. But she shook her head, “You probably don’t know this, Armand, but it’s a really big world out there. Aside from the Agency, there are organizations out there that do bigger work than what we do with a lot more pull and power.” Then she turned to Dodger, “We’re going to get sued.”

“It’s alright. It’s a Latin phrase and the last time I checked, there was no copyright on it. There are plenty of places that use the same phrase. By its very definition, all it means is a sacred place.”

“You really have an answer for everything.” Dot remarked but she couldn’t believe they were actually getting away with calling their new office building a Sanctum Sanctorum. As long as they didn’t put “the” in front of it, maybe it’ll be okay. That way it didn’t seem official and they didn’t step on anybody’s very important toes…

“Well, we better start calling it the Sanctum for short before we get a call from… disgruntled but really impressive superheroes.”

“Superheroes?”

Dot and Dodger glanced over at Armand. In a lot of ways, he really was like a baby. He remembered some things from the time he was alive but other things, you had to explain to him. It was a good thing both Dot and Dodger exhibited patience well beyond their years. Dot cleared her throat taking the lead on this one. After all, she’s been following the history and accounts ever since their appearance.

“Years and years ago, like way before Dodge and I were born and before our parents were born and perhaps even their parents, so we’re talking about grandparents and maybe even great-grandparents, there was a really scary war. Like, we’re talking throw everyone back in medieval times, end of the world as we know it, war. Back then, relations between Humans and Supernatural beings were non-existent as proof of the Supernatural was more or less unverified. Things like Ghosts, Vampires, Weres, Witches, or anything else like that was deemed legend and at most, urban legends. Other times it was fuel for scary stories on camping trips and scaring little children into behaving.

But it was near impossible to prove the existence of anything Supernatural and for the most part, Humans didn’t have anywhere near the impressive range of abilities they have today so everything was really boring and mundane. Even so, Humans were pretty advanced. I mean, the stuff they had back then doesn’t hold a candle to what we have now, but they were pretty advanced in technology and space exploration and in those times, it was pretty impressive especially when we look back in the past and see how far we’ve come. Back then, they could only get to Luna. Now, we have a colony on Luna. See the comparison?”

“Luna?”

“The moon, love.” Dot laughed. “So, circling back to the Supernatural, Humans had sightings, superstitions, and sometimes proof like video and pictures but that eventually ended up as hoaxes most times. They didn’t have the equipment we have today that can verify Supernatural presence without a doubt or equipment that detect latent power in Humans. Furthermore, people liked feeding into the fear that there might be something wandering on this planet other than themselves. Yet, ironically, Humans were, and some could say still are, really arrogant in terms of their chain of command in life. Even if there had been something out there, they would always deem themselves higher than anything else that came along. They’ve just been in charge for so long, it was unthinkable that anything greater could challenge that. And in a lot of ways, Humans were right. They have the capacity to think a lot bigger than they are and when they band together, they can pull off some of the most incredible spectacles. But Humans are also very prideful creatures which prevent them from reaching their full potential.

Or so it’s been hypothesized. After all, they did fight with each other over territory and stupid shit like that impeding their own progress.

In a lot of ways, the Supernaturals should have expected it. But one day, there they were. Tired of hiding, tired of their cultures and beliefs being ridiculed and turned into insulting myths, they just emerged. As I remember every account in the history books have put it, it was like an invasion. However, no one could tell who was put on the planet first. Humans thought they had the right to the world because they’ve been the ones to dominate it. Supernaturals felt they’ve also been there just as long but were forced into hiding because of the discrimination and hatred Humans fueled into their stories turned them into hideous things. Monsters, honestly. They would have been hated.

But everyone hated each other. There were clashes, skirmishes, wars. Cities were decimated because despite the Humans claiming to have dominated the world, they were still Humans. They bled easily, bruised easily, weren’t as psychically or physically gifted like Supernaturals were known; enhanced strength, telekinesis, flight, shapeshifting—as you can imagine, it really tipped the scales in the Supernatural’s favor.

But one day, there was a point where Humans were able to somehow turn it around. If you ask anyone their opinion, there are many guesses as to what happened. Some say that at a certain point, to save themselves, Humans just evolved. In high stress situations or faced with extinction, it awoken something in Humans that allowed them to push back. Others say a miracle took place bestowed upon whatever God they worshipped that saw the Humans suffering and decided to help. And if that were the case, whatever God touched them never fucking appeared again. Kind of ridiculous if you ask me—”

“Dot,” Dodger cut in, steering Dot back into the story. He turned to Armand and explained, “Religion is a touchy subject. Every case she’s had at the Agency concerning the religiously imbalanced turned everything upside down and inside out. She’s never had a good experience dealing with them.”

“Don’t forget they are often the most judgmental and preachy assholes to ever deal with. Sorry.” She cleared her throat, finding her stride again. “Anyway, whatever had happened imbued the Humans with the strength to fight evenly with the Supernaturals. The powers that Supernaturals exhibited were suddenly shared with Humans. If a Vampire had super strength, so did Herbert the Human. If this Werewolf can run very fast, so can Susan the Human. It was both a good thing and a bad thing; that meant Humans wouldn’t be extinct but it also meant it fueled their idea that they were the true inheritors of the World. I mean, what else could convince them if not that moment that they evolved or were God-touched on the butt or whatever.

The fights and wars escalated and this happened all over the World. Human and Supernatural homes and cities and lands were absolutely fucking wrecked. Civilians that didn’t have supernatural abilities, and that accounted for Supernaturals and Humans alike, were housed in safe zones; it was about the only truce Supernaturals and Humans honored. People or Beings who couldn’t fight back to defend themselves should be given protection was the one thing they agreed upon, it was a fucking miracle. Now that I think about it, it might have to have been who was in power back then, honestly.”

“That sounds so terrible,” Armand said. He looked like he was about to cry. Dot was starting to regret telling the story. “everyone really hated each other.”

“Well, I mean, it sort of gets better.” Dot pointed out, “I’m not done yet. I promise the superheroes are coming in.”

Armand’s eyes brightened, “Oh yes! Superheroes! What are they?”

Dot laughed, “Now hold on. Before they came along, we need to get to the part about the aliens.”

Armand looked confused for a second before he finally asked, “What is the aliens?”

Dot and Dodger exchanged glances. Dot seemed worried and Dodger just looked perplexed. The things Armand did and did not know were astounding sometimes. It never failed to throw them for a loop when he asked.

“You don’t know what aliens are?” Dodger asked. Before Armand could reply, he explained, “Extraterrestrial life. Or, a person who is not a national of the country they are living in.”

“Or a movie franchise,” Dot input.

“What is extraterr—”

“Something that did not originate of this earth.” Dodger quickly explained. “Aliens come from outer space. Outer space is the big thing above our heads past the sky with many stars and planets.”

Dot laughed, smacking Dodger on the arm playfully. “I’m sure he knew what outer space was.”

“I, for one, am not quite sure, love.”

Armand replied, “I know! I know now.”

Dot gestured, pulling attention back to her so she could continue with the history of their planet that apparently Armand might need another run through with. She hoped she hadn’t lost him somewhere along all that explaining.

“The aliens. Okay, with the Humans and Supernaturals fighting each other, it seemed like nothing could have been able to stop this on-going war that would surely have pulled us into it years down the road. But we were either very lucky or unlucky because Aliens appeared out of nowhere and blasted all of our collective asses.

The sorry thing about that was the Aliens waltzed into a war that they weren’t even concerned with. They were running away from their own stupid shit. Apparently, history reports from an Alien POW had revealed they were on the run from a fleet from another freaking dimension. It shocked everyone to the core hearing about different dimensions and seeing Aliens that the war against Humans and Supernaturals seemed so… petty, now.

In the meantime, Aliens killed without discrimination. Remember the safe zones that both sides had agreed were untouchable? Aliens struck there first. Humans and Supernaturals alike were being targeted and even dragged into a war that wasn’t theirs. An even larger war on a scale that no one could fathom. We eventually figured out why we were being hit so hard. Aliens had the technology to brainwash their prisoners to use themselves as canon fodder so they’d lessen their own causalities and since the World was ripe with many shields, Humans and Supernaturals found out really fast it didn’t matter what they were. As far as the Aliens were concerned, they were the same.

I remember reading that it was the point where Humans and Supernaturals banded together to fight a common enemy to save themselves. By then, about one-third of the population had been wiped out.”

“To put it into perspective,” Dodger interrupted, “That’s two billion people. Total, our population including the Supernatural was about seven billion. Our history’s worst genocide before the Alien invasion is about six million. Doesn’t even come close to the damage of almost wiping us off collectively as a species and without a certain intervention, we would have been wiped out without a doubt.”

Armand’s brows were furrowed as he tried to imagine what two billion people looked like. The numbers were huge, he understood that much at least. “What is this certain intervention?”

Dot continued with a smile that stretched widely. This was a subject she knew all about as it fascinated her. “This is where the superheroes come in. In this other dimension, people with incredible gifted abilities who use them for good and justice were fighting the Alien race on the other side. Our planet didn’t know at the time and assumed the Aliens were just fighting other bad, stupid aliens. But that wasn’t the case. This Alien race who were crystalline and spindly were called the Dovirs. They had been trying to take over another earth-like planet coincidentally… named Earth-616 but bit off more than they could chew and were chased off. That didn’t mean they were retreating. They were desperate as it had been explained to us. In the midst of this chase, they ripped a tear into another dimension to cheat and bolster their numbers—which they accomplished coming here—to one day go back and try taking over once more.

If my memory serves correctly, and it always does, we’re Earth-6969. Which, by the way, we came away as the winner for coolest planet name. The representatives from Earth-616 landed here and explained it for us. It’s all over history books and by now is common knowledge.

In a lot of ways, Earth-616 is like our planet; same geographical lands and climate. We even have the same cities give or take a couple of small towns that differ between us. Oh yeah, and they weren’t in the throes of war waged in the name of discrimination but for the most part, yeah. We were pretty similar. Granted, they were more advanced in terms of technology but with the appearance of the Dovirs and our access to their technology, we’ve bolstered our own. Earth-616 even shares some of its technological advances with us which was pretty cool of them.

But comparing the two worlds, the Human races are the same, the Supernatural races are the same, we were just lacking our own Superheroes. And Armand, that means they are a band of people that come together despite their differences to make the place they live a better environment for everyone.”

Armand smiled, finally understanding. “So, they’re really important.”

“I’d say that they were. I know there are people who don’t share the same sentiment. It’s stupid and surprises me that this is coming from both sides.” Dot took a deep breath before she went down that road. It was clear to anybody listening that this was a passionate subject for her.

“I’d say we’re getting close to the ideal of living together in harmony, slowly. That’s why organizations like the Agency and what we do popped up. The Dovirs made us realize that we were entirely unequipped to handle an outside invasion. At the same time, we can’t keep fighting each other.

Taking a page out of 616’s example, their Superheroes and Supernaturals and Humans live together in a way that we’re trying to pull together nowadays. I’m not saying their side is perfect; if you pay attention to them, you’d see they just as well have their own issues with discrimination and blatant racism. Their government can be corrupt just as any political power, but we’re all trying to fight that and have been for a long time.

If it’s going to end in our lifetime remains to be seen, but I’d like to think we’re closer than five, ten years ago. It took a long ass time for our present to happen. I mean, the effects of that war are still very present today; tensions between the Humans and Supernaturals are still tense in some situations but for the most part, we’re getting there.

Plus, there’s still that nasty tear between our dimensions that now connect us to Earth-616. Isn’t it cool we’re neighbors?”

Armand was silent for a very long time, his expression reflecting a thoughtful gaze. Dot wondered if she had lost him along the way somewhere. She winced, glancing over at Dodger, “I might have gotten a little preachy at the end, there.”

Dodger shook his head, “Nonsense, I think you’ve pulled together a very beautiful summarization of our history. There wasn’t anything in what you said I disagreed with.”

Smiling, Dot gave Dodger’s hand an affectionate pat before Armand finally spoke which took them both by surprise as he asked, “How do we visit Earth-616? Do we have a very long ladder we climb to get there?”

Dot remained in a stupor for another second before laughing almost in disbelief, “Oh, no, honey. Haha, that’s where the Sanctum Sanctorum comes into play.” She further explained as soon as she saw the confusion in Armand’s features, “There’s a Sorcerer who lives down in New York that bridges the connection between our two worlds otherwise it’d be dangerous keeping that tear unsupervised. It’s complicated. Something about not having our own guardian. From what I know, he spends his time between the two worlds; we’re sort of like his vacation house.”

Then it clicked. Armand’s mouth formed a perfect ‘o’ as his eyes rounded in unison. “That’s why we’re going to get sued!”

“We’re not going to get sued.” Dodger argued.

Dot turned her head to face Dodger, almost jumping when she came face to face with a terrifying red expression. It took her a moment to realize he had pulled something out of a grocery bag and put it on his face.

“Take off that mask,” she scolded before adding, “that is a mask, right?”

“Ah! My Halloween costume!” Armand exclaimed, taking the mask from Dodger’s hands. “Dodger explained in the store why there were so many skeletons and witches on display. Hellowoon.”

“…Why would you think that was my face?” Dodger asked but went unheard as Armand continued.

“You’re supposed to dress as something scary, so I thought this was scary.” The ghost lifted his pale hand up to cover his impressive face with the unimpressive red mask. It had a long nose and angry eyebrows, its mouth furled down in the snarliest of snarls. Dot eyed it wearily.

“That’s great, honey. But you don’t have to be scary if you don’t want to, you can be anything you want. Also, did you say Hellowoon?”

“That’s not what it’s called?” he asked, pulling the mask to one side. He peered out with an amethyst hued eye expectant of Dot to correct him. But she didn’t have the heart.

“Well, it’s official. Happy Hellowoon, everyone!”

“I’m serious, did you really think that was my face?”

“Dodge, I swear to god. Any god.”

There was ring from the front which caught Dot, Dodger, and Armand’s attention. Their heads turned towards where the receptionist desk area sat before they looked at each other again.

“Do we have a literal doorbell?” Dot asked.

“Mm, I think there was a little “ring for service” bell somewhere on the desk. Armand was ringing it incessantly earlier.” Dodger replied.

“I had to make sure it would ring the next time, too.” Armand whispered.

“I’m not sure what that means.”

“What do we do?” Dot asked Dodger lowering her voice to a conspiring whisper. “It can’t be a client, right? You just printed the cards out today.”

“You might have, but I asked around and found out where you relocated. In any case, I let myself in. I hope that’s okay.” The new voice spoke with an authority that told anyone listening that he had every right to be there. It didn’t fail snapping their attention to the doorframe where a tall man stood as if he belonged there clad in a red cape that seemed to have a mind of its own. It moved where there was no wind and occasionally, the man would brush back the flap of the collar out of his face. The breakroom never had a more important guest. In all of her life, Dot never expected to come face to face with anyone as extraordinary or significant as Doctor Stephen Strange.

Dodger leaned in, whispering, “On second thought, we might be getting sued after all.”

“That wasn’t quite the idea I had in mind.” Stephen smiled. It looked like he was confronting a group of guilty children. Well, two guilty children. The third was quite obviously unusual. A flicker of recognition sparked in Stephen Strange’s gray gaze before it landed on Dot. “I was hoping you could take on a case for me.”

Dot swallowed dryly and she gripped the sides of her shirt, then ran her palm down the side of her leggings. She was nervous and it wasn’t coming from Stephen. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Stephen Strange, THE Stephen Strange, visiting the planet just to enlist her services? From what she could remember, she didn’t know how often he visited 6969, but it couldn’t have been that often, right? He had his own responsibilities on his own planet, didn’t he?

“O-Of course,” she put cautiously. She couldn’t help the stutter in her voice mainly because she had never expected in her lifetime to ever run into a Superhero from 616. An encounter was supposed to be rare. Even if their planets were connected by the rupture the Dovirs were responsible for, that didn’t mean the two planets could interfere with one another unless absolutely dire. Unless, that had changed? “What could we do for you, Doctor Strange?”

There was a brief moment when it looked like Stephen Strange looked in approval at being recognized. He all but purred the next statement, “Good, so we know of each other.”

“Y-You know me?”

“Dot Dreadful and Dodger Ainsworth Mac Alister of the private eye institution, Supernatural Investigations. Previously employed by the government sanctioned organization known as The Agency, real creative name, hm? You guys obviously have the superior one.”

Dot laughed nervously.

“You two were employed by The Agency for ten years, partnered for five because you, Ms. Dot, weren’t compatible with anyone who didn’t overload your empath abilities and Mr. Dodger stayed at entry level because he just liked doing the paperwork.”

Dot and Armand looked at Dodger who shrugged. Doctor Strange continued.

“You two quit a year ago and partnered to create your own business citing irreconcilable differences for your departure with the Agency to mask the fact you two were really unhappy there but it was an open secret considering how much Dot was known to push the cases deemed too “unimportant” by The Agency to favor the ones with more publicity to shed the project in a better light. In reality, you understood the corruption taking place once the previous Chief was replaced with Aldric, the mayor-elected official with a discrimination against Supernaturals. Another reason included being tired of being tied up by bureaucracy and wanted to make a genuine difference. Starting yesterday, you relocated to this site after operating out of your home for the last year. I hope I didn’t miss anything.”

“We hired a ghost as a receptionist.” Dodger pointed out. Stephen’s gaze trailed from Dot, then to Dodger, and last to Armand. “His name is Armand.”

“Yes, of course. That’s how he fits in.”

“And this is my Hellowoon costume,” Armand added, lifting the thing to his face. “It’s spooky, isn’t it?”

Stephen pointed, almost doing a double-take. He seemed genuinely taken aback by the outburst but covered it up as soon as the emotion flickered across his face. “Did he just say Hellowoon?”

By this time, Dot stepped up to Stephen, floored by how he knew so much. And it seemed everyone she was meeting lately simply towered over her. She extended an arm out towards the main office space.

“Why don’t you tell us the details of this case, Doctor?”

Stephen glanced down at Dot, giving her a charming smile that Dot could sworn was her imagination. Only in her dreams could someone this amazing exist, right? She had many fantasies about meeting any of the Supers in 616 but to actually be meeting one right now? …Maybe reality didn’t suck for once.

She led the Doctor to a random desk hoping it was to his taste. Maybe she should have paid more attention to the furniture. Once seated, she took out a legal pad and grabbed a pen. She had no idea where the invoices were but it was a good thing Dodger had her back. He grabbed an invoice while Dot recorded the details for any pertinent information.

Doctor Strange had the presence even while sitting to intimidate her. He seemed so regal and she could feel the pen feel warm in her hand. It took a while to realize the warmness was coming from her own hand. She just seemed so flustered! She hoped she looked composed on the outside at least.

“This peculiar case is located in the small town of Whitecrest. I’m sure you know it.”

Dot nodded, getting down to business. She ducked her head and wrote down Whitecrest as she spoke, “I know it. It looks like a little village from a medieval fantasy. Has a tavern and inn, even a functioning blacksmith. Everyone likes to ride horses to get around. It shouldn’t be too far from Ashbourne.”

Armand, seated across from Dodger who was copying the information for the Invoice asked, “Is Whitecrest that different?”

Stephen smiled, approval glinting in his eye. “After the Great War, as your planet calls it, a lot of towns had trouble rebuilding. Or more correctly, the people of states and towns all over had trouble deciding how they wanted to rebuild. Some had the finances to support their ambitious renovations while other towns like Whitecrest ended up looking like a piece of the past.”

“Way past,” Dot input with a smile, looking at Stephen. It was amazing how much of their history he bothered to learn. “Towns like Whitecrest have a lot of problems. It has nothing to do with the people most times. Ah, Doctor, what would you like for us to do while we’re there?”

“I’ll be honest,” Stephen suddenly said in a serious tone. His face took on a pensive expression and he seemed hesitant on admitting something. Up close, Dot could see that there was a gathering of wrinkles at the corner of his eyes and with the addition of the white at his temples made him seem a little older than he appeared just a few minutes ago. Whatever he wanted to say weighed heavily on his mind for a while before he finally continued, “I don’t usually put off my tasks like this but I don’t trust going to The Agency to carry out what I’m about to ask you. I can’t do it myself as I’m needed back home, in fact, as soon as I’m done here, I’ll be heading back to my New York.”

“You’ve traveled a long way to see us,” Dot encouraged. “Whatever you have to ask, I promise we’ll do our best to carry it out.”

Stephen looked up giving Dot a little jolt as their gaze connected. He still looked grave and serious. “I don’t like passing the tasks I can do myself onto anyone else, especially if I don’t know them. But I’m taking a chance on your business.” He paused and his next statement lightened up his features, “What can I say, I have a soft spot for it.”

Dot tried her best to quell the blush that was threatening to rise to her cheeks. She cleared her throat and took her legal pad to fan herself, “Ah, haha.”

“The reason we don’t trust The Agency are possibly the same as yours,” Dodger put quite bravely. Dot was often surprised by the way he spoke as if he knew everything. By the way Stephen nodded convinced Dot that Dodger probably did know everything. Dodger continued, “Then all we have to do is prove that we’re not The Agency. We can complete this job. I’m sure of it.”

Coming from any other man, it may have sounded like boasting and Stephen said as much. “But there’s something in your tone that could reassure me that’s the case,” he admitted with a slight chuckle. “It reminds me of someone else I know. A little egocentric, likes his name on tacky buildings that he owns.”

“That’s not just a little.” Dodger said.

Stephen’s grin widened a little, “And much like that egotistical man, I like you.” Stephen took a glance at his watch and realizing he was pressed for time, decided to wrap it up. “When you get to Whitecrest, there’s a person I want you to see. The name I was given was Fitzsimmons. Word is that he hangs around the tavern or the inn.”

“We talk to him?” Dot asked, writing down the name.

“I’d like if you could. I wasn’t given much information myself but to get to me, it must have been significant. I’ll find out what that is as soon as I get back and you can report to me what that was.”

“Is this case was giving to you and is so significant, would it be dangerous?” Dodger asked. Dot was thinking it but she wasn’t sure she could pose the question without insulting Stephen. She cautiously looked up, thankful for Dodger who always said what was on his mind.

“It could very well be dangerous. But I had been digging around and came upon the conclusion that I could pass the task on if I didn’t have time for it. That is what I’m doing as much as I would like to solve this myself. I was told The Agency had the equipment handled to deal with almost anything but I don’t exactly approve of the publicity my name brings in this world.”

“We have the same equipment The Agency has,” Dot interjected quite confident herself. “so you don’t have to worry there. And we have no problem keeping your name out of anything, anywhere. Even out of our mouths. No one say Doctor Strange’s name.” Dot put a hand over her mouth then mumbled, “Starting now.”

“Can we call him Doctor Cape?” Armand asked.

“That’s insulting,” Dodger said.

“We have to call him something, right?”

Stephen surprised them by laughing. “That’s alright. I meant in newspapers or in any media where the public can get to it. I’m sorry to ask as I’m sure the exposure could help your company—”

“No no no! Don’t worry about that!” Dot exclaimed, wide-eyed. She had almost reached across the table to take his hands but restrained herself and her emotional self by sitting back in her chair and gripping her pen with both hands, longways. “That isn’t why we’re here. We really want to make a difference, doesn’t matter if our names are attached or not. If the people of Whitecrest can benefit from being helped by us or even Doctor Stephen Strange, it’s the outcome that’s important.”

“Besides, if we’re good at our job, our name will get out there somehow.” Dodger added.

Dot was nodding in agreement. Stephen chuckled again, quite entertained by this little group. If it wasn’t the strange ghost that didn’t know how to say Halloween, it was the blunt Dodger and the compassionate leader of the group, Dot, that made up Stephen’s mind.

“Alright then, I’ll entrust this task to you.” he deemed. Dot was filling out the last-minute details such as the date and time as Stephen stood up. For the first time, he took a good look around. “It’s just the three of you, right?”

“Yeah,” Dot said, looking up and following Stephen’s gaze. “it’s big, huh?”

Stephen sent her a wink that sent Dot’s tummy flipping. “I think it’s about the right size. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to take my leave. Do you mind if I meet you here the day after tomorrow, around the same time?”

“Oh, definitely!” Dot smiled. “So, the fourth at around seven-thirty.”

“It’s a date.”

Dot blinked, feeling herself flush this time. Before she had a chance to reflect on it, Doctor Strange opened with a strange gesture with a swing of his hand and an orange portal flickered to life in the middle of their office. From the other side, she could barely make out something that looked like an office and dark wood.

“From one Sanctum to another,” Stephen mused. “Good luck.” He finished before stepping into the portal. It disappeared as soon as his cape had cleared.

Dot, Dodger, and Armand were left gaping.

“Whoooooa! I can’t believe it!” Dot shrieked, throwing her hands up. Legal pad going with them.

“Fascinating. I wonder how he did that,” Dodger sounded just as thoughtful as Stephen had, moving around the spot where the portal had been.

Armand was the only one who wasn’t saying anything. Instead, he was looking at his mask. Dot, noticing, frowned and asked, “What’s wrong, love?”

“I wonder if it’s too late to change my costume.”

#{{ original drabbles: spooktober 2019

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pyrewrites · 6 years

Text

The Ghost in the Basement

Read it on Ao3

“Remind me again how I let you assholes talk me into doing a group costume.” Beca grumbled as she stood in front of the mirror. She stared at the horrifying image in front of her. Her reflection. Beca Mitchell, the so-called 'cranky badass' Bella, stood wearing coke-bottle glasses, a god awful orange turtleneck sweater, an ugly brownish red skirt, knee-high socks that matched the sweater, and shoes that matched the skirt. She found herself wishing that the lenses in her glasses were as strong as they would be on the character she was dressed as so she wouldn't be able to see how ridiculous she looked.

“Because your awesome beyond reason best friend asked you to.” Amy said matter-of-factly from her position on her own bed.

Beca glanced at the Australians reflection over her shoulder. “And how the hell did you get away with not wearing a costume as part of this alleged group costume you scammed me into?”

“This is my costume.” Amy tugged at the bright blue collar around her neck.

“You so suck.” Beca grumbled again.

“You two almost ready?” Jessica said as she trotted up the stairs. She was wearing a white v-neck sweater over a blue button-up shirt with an orange scarf around her neck and blue slacks.

“Yeah. Hurry up. The Trebles party started like an hour ago. We are way beyond fashionably late already.” Ashley added. Her green t-shirt and brown pants looking almost as much like a 'costume' as Amy's collar.

“I am not even close to ready to be seen in public in this get-up.” Beca said as she pushed her way by them on her way down the stairs. “But my costume is done. Who the hell are we even supposed to be? Chloe just handed me all this shit and told me to put it on.”

“We are the Scooby-Doo gang, silly.” The aforementioned redhead said as she swung around the corner coming out of her room.

Beca's heart was suddenly having a hard time beating with any regular rhythm. The form-fitting, curve-hugging purple dress and lavender leggings Chloe was wearing made Beca start to consider that maybe this group costume thing wasn't such a stupid idea after all.

“Now let's gather everybody up and go get our party on!” Chloe squealed.

The group started down the hall to fetch the rest of the Bellas as quickly as possible. Starting with Stacie.

“Hey Stretch, you ready to go?” Beca called as they entered her and Cynthia Rose's room. Beca spun around to leave as soon as her eyes landed on the leggy brunette in what appeared to be nothing but lingerie. “What the hell Stace? Why don't you have your costume on?”

“This is my costume.” Beca could hear the shit-eating gin in her voice. “I'm Madonna when she did 'Like A Virgin' live on MTV. White lingerie and a veil.”

“Jesus Christ Stacie.” Beca said inching her way towards the hall.

“I think it looks goo-” Chloe stopped short when all the lights in the house went out.

Someone screamed, probably Jessica or Ashley. Then a scream that would have made Vincent Price proud, and unmistakably Stacie, ripped through the darkness.

“Stacie? What the fuck is going on?” Beca shouted. There was no answer, but Beca jumped when she felt a hand grab hers in the dark.

“Beca?” Chloe's voice shook and Beca felt an accompanying squeeze from the hand holding hers.

“Yeah, Chlo. I'm right here.” Beca said, pulling the redhead close.

The lights came back on, pulling another, shorter scream from both Jessica and Ashley.

“Stacie?” Chloe called out. The five of them faced into the empty room.

“The fuck?” Amy said. “There's no way she could have gotten out the door with all us here.”

“And her window is still closed. Plus she would have to jump all the way to the ground since there's nothing to climb out there.” Jessica offered.

“Then where the fuck is she?” Beca grumbled.

“Maybe it was the ghost from the basement?” Ashley said with panic in her eyes, pressing herself against Jessica.

“Oh don't you start.” Beca snapped.

“You were the one that said the basement was haunted Becs.” Amy said.

“It's also Halloween and she is probably just fucking with us.” Beca said while squeezing Chloe's hand because she didn't entirely believe her own words. “Let's just get the rest of the girls and Stacie can catch up when she gets bored of this little game.”

The group turned back to the hall and headed for Flo and Lily's room. They had only made it three steps down the hall when a figure in black hooded robes carrying a scythe stepped out in front of them. They all screamed and jumped back, nearly ending up in a heap as they tripped over each other. The figure turned slowly to take them in. It reached up and pulled the hood back.

Lily smiled at them from inside the hood. They all saw her lips move but none of them heard what she said. She turned and started down the stairs, her steps and the thumping of the scythe making more noise than her voice ever did. She was less than halfway down when they lights went out again. The group screamed again.

When silence descended again Beca realized she did not hear the sound of Lily on the stairs or walking across the living room.

“Lily?” Beca called into the inky blackness. “If you're there, like knock that stick against the floor or something.”

Nothing.

Beca felt Chloe press up against her back. She could feel the redhead shaking. She squeezed her hand again trying to calm them both down.

“Lily?” Jessica tried.

Still nothing.

The lights sprang back to life, earning another batch of screams.

“What the hell is going on with the lights?” Flo said as she came out of her bedroom. “I feel like I'm back home when the cartels and the police start dealing with people that try to protest.”

“It's the ghost from the basement.” Ashley said quickly before anyone else could offer a better explanation.

“It's not a ghost. It's Halloween and somebody decided to try to scare us before we made it to the party.” Beca said.

“You know the barrier between the land of the living and the dead is at it's weakest right now.” Flo said. “Dia de Los Muertos starts today when all our ancestors come back to visit. If it is a ghost this would be when it would be most powerf-”

She stopped when the lights went out again.

“Ay Dios Mio!” Flo screamed. Then the house went silent again.

“Motherfucker!” Beca shouted.

When the lights came back on the Pink Ladies jacket that was part of Flo's Grease costume was in a pile on the floor where she had been standing.

“Which one-a you bitches keep turning out the lights?” Cynthia-Rose shouted from somewhere downstairs. “I'm trying to eat something before the party and this shit's getting annoying.”

And as if on cue the lights went out again.

“Aw hell no!” Cynthia-Rose shouted. Followed by sounds of a struggle and chairs hitting the floor. Then silence.

“Fuck!” Beca snapped.

The instant the lights came back on they ran for the kitchen. They found several chairs overturned, a half-eaten sandwich, and a Diet Pepsi slowly pooling on the table. Ashley seemed to be in shock by this point because she grabbed some paper towels and started cleaning up the spilled soda, then began righting the chairs. She didn't even react when there was a loud crash from the basement.

“It's the ghost.” Ashley mumbled.

“What if we just head to the party and leave the ghost to be loud and stuff for the rest of the night?” Amy offered.

Again, as if on cue, screaming started coming from the basement. After several seconds individual voices could be identified. All the missing Bellas were screaming for help from behind the basement door.

“Anybody? I'm ready to go to the party.” Amy said as she inched towards the back door.

“Amy!” Chloe snapped. “We have to save our friends from...whatever this is.”

“Fine.” Amy huffed. “But I'm not going down there without a weapon.”

“That's a good idea!” Jessica said.

“Yeah. It is.” Chloe said as she grabbed an umbrella from the stand by the door.

“Really Chlo?” Beca cocked an eyebrow.

“What are you going to use? It's not like we have an arsenal in the house.” Chloe said. “At least without going into Lily's closet.”

“Something better than an umbrella.” Beca said as she picked up Stacie's lacrosse stick. “The only way that will be useful is if the ghost conjures up a raincloud.”

“Hey, guys?” Jessica called. “Ash is kinda out of it. I think I should stay here and keep an eye on her.”

“Good idea Jess.” Chloe said. “Amy, you ready?”

“Bet your sweet ass I am.” Amy said swinging a crowbar that she seemed to have pulled out of thin air.

“What...where...how...you know what? Never mind.” Beca said. “Let's get this shit over with.”

The three of them crept towards the basement door. The screams continued and were joined by crashes and thumps. Beca slowly pulled open the door, the hinges screeching nearly as loud as the increased volume of the screaming. She reached out with the lacrosse stick and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. She flipped it several more times, all to no avail.

“Chlo?” Beca said without taking her eyes off the darkness in front of her. Without having to say another work Chloe's cellphone flashlight came on over her shoulder.

“Ready?” Beca whispered.

“Mhmm,” was Chloe's only reply.

Beca started down the stairs with Chloe virtually glued to her back. The moment Chloe's foot left the surface of the first step the door slammed behind them.

“Hey!” Beca screamed, throwing herself against the door. She tried the knob, pounded on the door, kicked it, even yelled at it. But nothing worked. “Amy! Get us out of here!”

“I'm trying!” Amy shouted back. “Good thing I've got the crowbar. Go get the girls. With luck, I'll have this thing open by the time you're done.”

“Shit.” Beca mumbled. “You ok Red?”

“Yeah. Just locked in a haunted basement about to be murdered.” Chloe sighed.

“I am so going to beat the shit out of this ghost or whatever the hell is down here.” Beca grumbled as she started back down the stairs.

The screaming only got louder the closer they got to the bottom of the stairs. As soon as the could see into the room Chloe started swinging her flashlight around the room.

“What the fuck?” Beca said as they saw no sign of anyone in the room, but the screaming continued unabated.

They crept around the bottom of the stairs, Chloe's flashlight panning over every inch of the room much slower this time, until they finally spotted it. A cd boombox with an orange, pumpkin-shaped post-it note on it.

Beca quickly walked over and punched the stop button and the room dropped into silence. She grabbed the note and read it aloud once Chloe had brought her the light.

“Dear Bhloe, we will let you out as soon as you admit you are in love with each other. Signed, The Bellas.” Beca rolled her eyes and stormed back to the stairs. “Oh fuck all of you!” She screamed.

She was answered by a chorus of laughter.

“Fine. Stay down there all night if you want.” Came Stacie's voice through the door.

“Beca.” Chloe said coming up behind her. “Would it really kill you to go up there and say it so we can go to the party?”

“Seriously?” Beca said. “You've seen how much shit they have given me over the last 3 years about this. If I go up there and say it they will never let me hear the end of it.”

“Hey, Chloe?” Ashley's voice now. “If she admits it you can text one of us and we will come back from the party.”

They heard another round of laughter retreating from the basement door, then they heard the front door slam. They saw shadows moving across the basement windows as the girls headed towards the Treble house.

“If one of you aca-bitches don't come back here and let us out right now you are all doing nothing but cardio for every rehearsal for a week!” Beca screamed at the window.

They heard the girls voices fade until all they could hear was the music coming from next door at the party.

“Was that really necessary?” Chloe stood with her arms crossed.

“Completely.” Beca smirked as she screwed the lightbulb back into the socket bathing the room in light. “And we aren't really stuck down here. I removed the screen from the window over the dryer the first time I got stuck down here when the door got stuck when I was home alone sophomore year.”

“You threatened them with cardio instead of biting the bullet and just saying you had feelings for me.” Chloe said still looking hurt.

“Yeah, I did.” Beca grinned. “It's almost 7 and I don't expect any of them to come home until at least 2 AM. Especially if they think I am down here dying of embarrassment. That gives me at least 7 uninterrupted hours to spend with my girlfriend.”

“You are such a brat.” Chloe said as she wrapped her arms around the woman she had secretly been dating for exactly a year. “Sooner or later we are going to have to tell them.”

“Sooner or later. But I think this is more fun. They all think they know something I don't. It's nice finally being the one that knows something they don't.” Beca smiled as she kissed the woman she was about to finally tell she was in love with her.

“You are such a child.” Chloe giggled when they finally broke apart.

“Yeah but you love me.” Beca smiled softly.

“Yeah. I really do.” Chloe breathed.

“I love you too Chlo.” Beca said before her brain could get in the way.

Chloe's eyes lit up and filled with tears all at once.

“Happy Anniversary.” Beca whispered as Chloe pulled her into another kiss.

Outside the window, beneath the breaker box, Emily had to clap her hands over her mouth to keep from squealing. She rolled away from the window, got to her feet, and ran for the party to tell the rest of the girls the good news.

#PPHW1 #PPHW #Pitch Perfect #Beca Mitchell #Chloe Beale #Fat Amy #Jessica #Ashley #Stacie Conrad #Flo Fuentes #Lily #Cynthia-Rose #Emily Junk #pyre writes #Pyre writes fics #writing

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mschifknight · 6 years

Text

Graveyard Sweethearts

It’s the most wonderful time of the year so that obviously means it’s time for a Sasuhina holiday themed fic.... A Halloween AU, of course!

Hopefully this means I can eventually deliver on all that shit I said a while ago about certain one shots (Chibiventures, Sasuhina Month, ect.)

Enjoy!

Hinata watched with fascination as her hands began to solidify. It was always an incredible sight to take in and her smile grew when she looked down at the rest of her body. She gathered the skirt of her dress and started to hurry away from the dark abyss within the old twisted tree. It had been there since before her time but she never could’ve imagined what lay within it. It was only as a spirit that she knew its true purpose; a portal to the living world.

“Wait for me.”

She turned around and cocked her head. “General?”

Sasuke straightened his blue military jacket, taking a moment to frown at the medals that adorned it and dusted them.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” Hinata said. “Again.”

“Hn.”

She beamed at him. “Ooh. Do you have someone to see? Perhaps you’d like to see your descendants-?”

“They’re all disappointments,” Sasuke replied gruffly. “The last I saw they were living solely off the wealth my family worked hard for, and contributing nothing to the country’s security. No, I’d rather not see how worse they’ve gotten.”

“Oh.” Hinata didn’t want to seem rude, after all she had been trained to be the perfect lady but she wanted to hurry and take in as much as she could before the night was over. If she angered the General, he wouldn’t let it go and she’d literally suffer for eternity hearing about how she wronged him. She forced a smile on her face but Sasuke saw right through it.

“Well, are you just going to spend the whole time lingering with the dead or are you going to socialize with the living as usual? If we aren’t going to do anything, we might as well head back now,” he said.

Her eyebrows furrowed with confusion.

“If I’m going to be out here for the evening, I’d prefer to be with someone who was raised with class,” he elaborated. “Or else I might end up living up to my bloody reputation.”

Hinata’s mood brightened; she had always wanted to take someone along with her when the barrier was weak. But the world of the dead was infinite and never ending. Hinata hadn’t found anyone she knew and the only measure of time she had was when she stepped through the veil on All Hallows Eve for the first time. She was dismayed to find out it had been around 70 years since she last took a breath.

The feeling of loneliness was immense and when she came back to join the world of the dead, she felt depressed. It was similar to when she realized she had first died. As any other spirit that wakes after death, Hinata had been distraught. She felt like it was a mistake and that she should still be alive. Slowly, she grew to accept the facts but it did nothing to lessen her grief. Her only companion was the General, Sasuke Uchiha, who seemed to take a liking to her. It was unusual since he seemed to scare off other spirits but he was always cordial to her and helped make the transition easier.

Hinata didn’t know much about his time when he was alive and Sasuke never mentioned what war he died in but the way his face darkened, she knew he didn’t want to relive it. Hinata respected his secrecy; most spirits didn’t reveal much about their own demise unless it was heroic or noteworthy.

She also didn’t care to tell others about the poisoned drink that ended her life; she didn’t know who wanted to murder her sister and never found out. Her death was purely accidental and she hadn’t thought much about sipping from Hanabi’s cup, immediately she was overcome by the burning sensation and shortness of breath. The last thing she saw amid the chaos that erupted was her sister’s tear streaked face as she held on to her dying older sister.

It had been difficult but having a friend made it easier to bear. The only argument they had was deciding whether or not to step through the veil during All Hallows Eve when the barrier between the living and dead is at its weakest. He had always refrained until she pestered him enough and he took the opportunity to check up on the living Uchihas. They had gone their own ways for the first time since they met and Hinata was saddened when he came back in a foul mood. She stopped asking him and had gone alone ever since.

“What do you usually do?” Sasuke asked impatiently.

“I find a largest gathering of people and have fun! Sometimes I’m just invited to parties by complete strangers!” Hinata happily replied. “If not, then I just walk around. You should see all the children and the disguises they wear. Oh, it’s such a wonderful sight, General!”

If she wasn’t dead already, Sasuke would’ve been worried about her decisions. “When we’re out here, you should call me by my first name,” he huffed. He had insisted she stop calling him by his military rank for quite some time but when she said it so affectionately, he realized he didn’t mind as much.

Happily agreeing, she grabbed his hand and rushed them out of the dead silent graveyard. She looked around for signs of life. “What do you want to do first, Sasuke? Oh, I think you’d like the….”

The sensation of touching someone again after so long had left him briefly stunned and he instinctively squeezed her hand. So she is soft…

“Did you hear me, Sasuke?”

He looked up from their joined hands to see her looking back at him. “…What?”

Hinata pointed towards a lightly lit area. There was always a party downtown. “Are you ready?”

Sasuke nodded and they headed towards the rising sounds of laughter and music. He scowled at the bright lights and people acting like buffoons while wearing horrid disguises. He took a glance at Hinata who looked like she was about to burst with excitement.

“Look! Have you seen anything so amazing?”

The dead general tried not to grimace at the “decorations” adorning the once small town he helped defend. He stepped closer towards Hinata as a gang of children ran past, hauling stuffed bags. They both tensed when he pressed his body against hers. Sasuke quickly stepped back and coughed, releasing her hand in the process. “Pardon.”

“It’s fine.”

They walked deeper into the town Halloween celebration. Sasuke bit his tongue whenever something annoyed him as to not ruin the evening for Hinata. He glanced over at her, his lip quirking upwards as she looked positively delighted at the jovial atmosphere.

Hinata had once joked that he would get tired of her, but it had been decades before they had their first argument. They simply got along marvelously which surprised those that knew Sasuke’s unpleasant attitude.

Before she came along he was a wandering spirit who kept to himself. He knew about the one night of the year when they could pass through the veil but he had accepted his death and saw no need to go back even for a short period of time. He had been the one to tell her about it when she looked particularly sad as she wondered if her sister was still alive.

Sasuke remained behind, waiting anxiously until she returned. Hinata hadn’t seen her sister and was still in shock after seeing how much time had actually passed. But she still held hope that the next year she could find someone she knew. However she never did, but it didn’t stop her from going back every Hallows Eve.

He didn’t understand her desire to go every year but she was happier and in turn that made him feel better even if he resisted going with her. In his opinion, it’s a cruel experience to endure; why would she indulge in such brief happiness when all it did was remind her of her grim circumstance?

“We should dance!” Hinata suggested.

Sasuke sneered as he looked at the people around them. “This is what they consider dancing?”

“Are you going to turn down everything I suggest?” she pouted. “Can you at least try to have a nice time?”

“I am trying,” he replied tersely. She narrowed her eyes. “Fine, I’ll dance with you at some point this evening but I get to choose when.”

Hinata beamed at him and clapped her hands together. “That sounds lovely, I look forward to it.”

In better spirits, they walked around with Sasuke becoming more relaxed but he felt that he was holding Hinata back from doing things. She denied it but he appreciated her consideration especially when he started to get overwhelmed and reached out to hold her hand at times.

“Hey, baby! Wanna have a good time?” A man slurred. “How about we go somewhere more private?”

Sasuke snarled at the drunk man who approached them. The stranger didn’t take notice of the war general that had killed many men and tried to look charming in his vampire costume.

Hinata smiled politely at him but stepped closer to Sasuke. “No thank you, I’m here with my friend.”

“C’mon. I’m not as scary as I look. I just want to bite something sweet,” the vampire joked. He grabbed Hinata’s hand. Before Sasuke could break his arm, Hinata kneed him in the groin and dusted her dress as he writhed on the ground.

“Never touch a lady against her will,” she scolded. “I hope you’ll be more courteous in the future.”

Shocked, Sasuke felt incredibly proud of her. He had always been protective over the noble lady so it was nice to know that she wasn’t as trusting as he thought. Offering his elbow, he escorted her away from the filth.

After making their way past the “haunted attractions” Sasuke scowled at yet another approaching male, this one donned in a striped suit and ghoulish makeup. The first man had been incredibly insolent and his protectiveness kicked in. The blond man noticed his hostility and faltered in his steps. However he glanced at the woman who caught his attention and it doused any fear.

“Hi! My name is Naruto!”

“Hello,” Hinata replied. “I’m Hinata and this is my friend Sasuke.”

“Nice to meet ya!” Naruto grinned. “I like your costumes. They look really authentic.”

Sasuke remained impassive.

“…Thank you.” Hinata gave Sasuke a look.

“So I was just wondering if you guys would like to enter a contest. We’re kind of short on entries for a costume contest at Ichiraku’s,” Naruto explained. “I promise it’ll be really fun.”

Teuchi had sent him on a mission to draw up more attendance to the restaurant and he had already signed up five more people. But then he saw the beautiful lady in the yellow ball gown and his jaw dropped, thankful that he had a reason to start up a conversation.

Naruto glanced at the man who he had hoped was her brother and smiled. “Cool costume. I don’t see many military costumes unless it’s some G.I Joe get up. Did you make the medals yourself?” Naruto tapped on them. “Or did you buy them at Kurenai’s costume shop?”

“How dare-?!” Sasuke said. “Do you know what I had to do to get them?!”

Hinata placed her hand on his chest and faced him. “Gen… Sasuke, please. He didn’t mean any harm.”

Breathing through his nose, Sasuke stormed off. Hinata sighed and shook her head apologetically. “I’m sorry but I think we’ll have to decline your invitation.”

Disappointed, Naruto rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to offend him.”

“I know and hope you’ll excuse us,” Hinata curtseyed much to Naruto’s amusement and left.

She found Sasuke sitting on a hay bale looking miffed. “Are you okay?”

“Hn.”

She sat next to him and offered her hand. Sasuke looked away but seized it, feeling his anger melt away. “I suppose I need to work on my anger,” he admitted. “Or else I might end up killing more people than I did when I was alive.”

Hinata looked aghast until she saw his smirk. “That would be quite unfortunate,” she replied with a giggle.

Later in the evening Sasuke felt content; the children were gone, the crowd had dwindled, and even the music wasn’t as headache inducing as before. Things were dying down but Hinata’s enthusiasm hadn’t. So he insisted that she go have some fun by herself while he takes a breather. But Hinata wasn’t eager to leave him alone; she wanted to make it a very special night for Sasuke. An idea popped in her head and she reluctantly left him there watching the living and their antics while she found something to give him.

When Hinata returned with a mask, he couldn’t help but chuckle especially when she teasingly mentioned that it reminded her of him. Taking it in his hands, he agreed but liked to think he was slightly more handsome than the snarling monster.

“It hasn’t been as horrible as I thought,” Sasuke confessed. “Thank you for not abandoning me. I know I’m not the best company to have.”

“I would never!” She replied, looking appalled. “You’re my dearest friend.”

Hinata hugged him and he tensed before relaxing into her embrace. He had forgotten just how good it felt to be held especially by someone you truly cared for.

Releasing him but leaning against his shoulder, she watched as people danced in front of them with a smile on her face. Sasuke saw that her hair had gotten loose and he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. She’s soft all over…

“…Um.”

Hinata turned to look at him.

“Would...would you like to…?”

“Hinata! Come dance with me!” It was the same blond man from before. His blue eyes shined and there was a faint blush on his face.

Hinata looked at Sasuke who tried to look indifferent. “Um…”

Naruto eyes nervously shifted to the side. “I mean, it’s okay if you don’t want to.”

“Go,” Sasuke said monotonously. He put on the mask and shrugged. “You might as well have some fun tonight.”

Hinata still looked unsure as Naruto anxiously waited for her answer.

“I’d love to,” she replied shyly.

Sasuke bit the inside of his cheek as she was whisked away. However he was forced to turn his gaze towards them when his ears picked up on her laugh. He smiled at how she struggled to keep up with Naruto. Hinata was from another time but he didn’t know what Naruto’s excuse was for his lack of rhythm to the musical beat.

Yet they still looked like they were having fun. As he watched them dance, Sasuke suddenly felt something he hadn’t in so long; pity.

Hinata obviously loved to be in the company of the living; she looked like she belonged. But fate had been cruel and ended her life before she could truly enjoy it. Sasuke was already considered a man by the time he died, and to be honest felt like he had lived longer than he deserved for everything he did during his lifetime.

Seeing her liveliness caused Sasuke to wish she could stay, he would even stick with her despite his reservations. But some things simply weren’t mean to be; if spirits didn’t return to the hereafter, they would eventually turn into malicious poltergeists. Hinata knew this and always promised to come back, a vow that he never doubted.

Before he met her, Sasuke felt like it wouldn’t have been so bad to give into the feelings that fueled that transformation. But with her by his side, he didn’t see himself turning into one and Sasuke would never allow that fate to befall on his dear Hinata either.

Hinata bowed after the music changed. “Thank you for the dance, kind sir.”

Naruto rubbed the back of his neck and began to fidget. “Heh, you’re welcome. So I haven’t seen you around Konoha. Did you just move in? If you need a tour guide or anything, I can give you my number. I know all the best places!”

Hinata pointed her fingers together. “I’m not staying for long, I’m only visiting.”

“Well, if you want a free meal before you go, stop by Ichiraku’s. My next shift is on Saturday and I’ll make sure you have the best meal.” His voice was full of hope. “I’d really like to see you again, Hinata.”

Hinata’s eyes lowered. “Actually, this is my last night. I need to go home.”

“Oh,” Naruto said with slumped shoulders.

“I truly am sorry,” Hinata insisted. “You have been very kind.”

Naruto forced a smile on his face. “It’s okay, I had a good time!”

“I did too.” She was stunned when he gently kissed her cheek.

“See ya later.”

“B-b-but-” Hinata stammered.

Naruto winked. “I have a feeling I’ll see you again.” He waved and disappeared into the crowd of people.

Hinata cupped her cheek, wondering if her face felt inflamed. She pressed her other palm against her chest and although it no longer beat, she imagined her heart would be racing.

“It’s almost time.”

She jumped at Sasuke’s voice.

“C’mon.”

They walked to the graveyard in silence. He looked deep in thought and Hinata held back from asking him anything. The opening at the tree trunk’s center emanated a dimming light, only visible to the dead. Hinata took a deep breath but before she could get closer, Sasuke softly pulled her back.

“I still owe you a dance,” he reminded her.

“There’s no music.”

“Hn.”

Hinata felt his hand on her waist and the other gripped her hand. He started to lead her and they moved in sync. As they danced to the music in their heads, Hinata felt cheerful seeing him so carefree and spirited. The others often speculated that he could easily become a malicious spirit if he chooses to but Hinata didn’t see any darkness in him.

Even if you had, I’d save you like you saved me from my loneliness.

Finally he spun her around and dipped her. When she was upright, they bowed to each other and finished their graveyard dance.

“Thank you,” Hinata told him. “You have been the best dance partner I’ve ever had.”

“Probably just tonight. It’s not like the competition was particularly tough,” Sasuke grunted.

Hinata giggled and shook her head. “I’m glad you didn’t have such a horrible time. I promise next year will be better!” He feigned hesitation and she grasped his hands. “I swear! We can even scare one person if it’ll make you happy.”

She looked up at him, her eyes as wide and bright as the moon overhead.

“Promise?”

“Promise,” she insisted giddily. “But no children. That’s too cruel.”

“I suppose…” He cleared his throat. “Hinata?” Sasuke hated regrets and summoned his courage before it was too late and he lost the chance. “I think I’m starting to understand why you enjoy coming every year. It’s nice to feel and be felt. It’s nice to be human again.”

Hinata stared at him with a look of adoration and smiled. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? Thank you for experiencing this with me. Now it truly feels special and perfect.”

Sasuke cupped her cheek and softly stroked it with his thumb. “May I kiss you?”

Hinata’s eyebrows rose higher than usual but she quickly nodded.

Standing directly in front of her, he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. When he pulled away, she looked just as stunned as when Naruto kissed her. “Perhaps we can make this a tradition, too,” he suggested.

“I’d like that,” she softly replied. She turned her gaze to their joined hands, but the smile on her face was hard to miss when she looked back up at him. “Can we dance just for a while longer?”

Sasuke nodded and they swayed to the tune in their head, dancing in the graveyard even after their bodies slowly became translucent.

They held hands until they lost the ability to touch one another, becoming small orbs of light that briefly danced around each other until they disappeared into the crevice within the old twisted tree.

The veil sealed soon after, lying dormant until the next Hallows Eve.

Btw, I’ve had this Hogwarts Sasuhina AU on my mind too.... I’ll probably churn out a few one shots in between Last Link as a reward for everyone being so awesome and supportive.

#mschifmuses #fanfic #Sasuhina #AU #this ship aint dead

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maraudersmessrs · 6 years

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Remus Lupin and the Prisoner of Azkaban--- Chapter 7: Promises

Ao3 link

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 13 / Chapter 14 / Chapter 15 / Chapter 16 / Chapter 17 / Chapter 18 / Chapter 19 / Chapter 20 / Chapter 21 / Chapter 22 / Chapter 23 / Chapter 24 / Chapter 25 / Chapter 26 / Chapter 27 / Chapter 28 / Chapter 29 / Chapter 30 / Chapter 31 / Chapter 32 / Chapter 33 / Chapter 34

Remus’ heart seemed to simultaneously squeeze and flip-flop painfully as he stood frozen. Just watching. He couldn’t help it. He knew it wasn’t James the moment the stunned thought had shot across his mind. James was dead. Remus and his heart knew this; Remus and his heart had seen his body and Lily’s as they were extracted from the wreckage of their home that Halloween, after Harry had been already taken away. His heart still felt the sinking hurt at the realization of the misidentification, but that was soon overwhelmed with a different ache. My god, it was Harry. Little, cheerful, chubby legged, chatty, giggly Harry.

There had been a picture of Harry in the Prophet the previous year, sort of. It had included Gilderoy Lockhart, the photographic image of which kept stepping into center frame and flourishing with a dashing grin, while Harry’s mini doppleganger kept furtively trying to duck out all together. But this was different. The living, moving memory of Harry had always been of a little toddler, bowlegged and pudgy with ever reaching hands and an infectious laugh. He loved to be held upside down. He called carrots ‘kets’. He demanded to be tickled upon the entry of a new adult into his house. Remus’ breath caught in his chest as this new image tried to reconcile itself with the baby he knew.

The boy was short and far too thin, but the wild flare of his hair and point to his nose was unmistakable as James. James’ father was obvious in the tilt of his eyebrows when he concentrated, as he was now, over some parchment on the table beside the sundae in front of him and he saw Lily’s sharpness in his gaze. Something in him needed, fiercely, savagely, and newly, to protect him, swelling within his chest with an insistent purpose he didn’t know the source of. He wanted desperately to demand to know how he was being treated, how much he was being fed, if he had any questions, if he needed someone to tell him he was loved and valued and everything that any of them had ever wanted. To tell him that he was so sorry, that it was supposed to be different, that he had wanted so desperately to be there for him, with him. He felt the yawn of all that time behind them both, a sort of synchrony building between each year until it was almost a heartbeat as he counted them out; alone, alone alone, alone…. It should not have been this way for him. Sirius, how COULD you.

Harry chewed on his lip, shoved his glasses farther up his nose and scratched something out with his quill. A painful pride bloomed like some kind of too-hot flower somewhere beneath his ribs. Proud of him for just existing, just trying, so young. Remus had the suspicion that Harry could have just sat there and picked his nose and he would have felt as if he was about to be reduced to tears by the fact that he was here, being, living.

The door behind him chimed, startling him out of his daze and he moved aside for the mother of the young toddlers. They all looked satisfied, but the little girl shot him a suspicious stare as her mother carried her past that stuck a lump in his throat. All he could see now was Lily and Harry. With one last glance at the boy, who was chewing absently on the end of his quill and stirring his ice cream, he left. Harry did not know him. Chocolate in his pocket and a sudden loss of his urge to wander, he returned to his room in the Leaky Cauldron to spend the evening alone.

The morning of the train ride dawned altogether too soon after he’d gone to sleep, in his opinion, morning birds punctuating the excited hubbub inside and outside the pub. Despite his excitement, his dreams had been plagued by visions of baby Harry and grown Harry together, weeping in the wreckage of Hogwarts before both turning to him with Sirius’ scalding, monstrous eyes. He very consciously and adamantly refused to take that as any sort of omen. Stomach refusing even the suggestion of breakfast, he made his bed, swept up his room, and packed up his meager belongings before levitating the suitcase downstairs. He had donated his kettle to a local charity before he had left for London and could fit all the robes he owned into the case, but his joints and ligaments saw fit to remind him that the Change was merely days away and he had done an exceptional amount of walking and standing the past few days and he ached. Still, he thanked Tom and the cleaning witch warmly before he left for King’s Cross, where he, unfortunately, could not levitate his things any longer.

In his heart of hearts, he was bouncing just the same as he had been, all those years ago, when he had learned he would be able to attend the school that his father had always talked about with such fondness. The fear had set in later, when he had seen the doubt on his mother’s face, the worry that he would be discovered, that he would be forced out by his peers and their parents if it ever came to light what he was. In the meeting that Dumbledore had visited their private little cottage for, the Headmaster, smiling over his half moon glasses, had asked her to trust him. That same quiet terror percolated quietly now in the back of his head, in the pit of his stomach; that no matter what he did or how hard he tried, the moment his secret got out it wouldn’t matter. They would hate him. Fear him. But Dumbledore had kept his word and Remus had never been exposed while at Hogwarts. And so Remus was going to continue what he had started all those years ago; he would keep trusting Dumbledore.

His joy was still there. The joy and expectations and excitement and nerves and enchantment were all simmering in the pit of his stomach in a welcome change of sensation from the usual emotions he had grown accustomed to. But the growing full moon symptoms and nightmare hounded night had left him so damn tired that all he wanted to do was find somewhere away from the huge, echoing train station and sleep. Still, he smiled as he passed through the barrier between platforms and the great scarlet steam engine loomed before him. For a moment– just a moment– he was a teenager again, mother and father following behind him, James and Sirius lurking somewhere nearby to pull the first prank of the year, possibly on him, and Peter just out of sight, valiantly trying to be too cool for his mother’s slightly overbearing affections. The year was sprawled out before all of them, sweet and full of countless choices, all of them fun.

The warmth and light of those memories left him colder with their recession and he rubbed his arms briskly, as if that were the problem. As if it were something he could fix. A seat. Just get a seat. One thing at a time.

The smell of the train, of the grease and wood paneling and pristine carpet and fresh laundry smell of the seats uncranked a knot of tension in his gut he hadn’t even known he had. Oh, how he missed this. He had always loved this part. Though he knew it was autumn, his heart felt like spring because beginnings happened in this place. New years, friends, stories, lives. Sometimes, entirely different people left this train than the ones who had entered it.

It was nearly empty for now, for he had arrived early enough to beat the crowds, but the trolley witch trundled down the corridor, sweets on hand already. “Anything from the trolley, dear?”

He smiled, shook his head mutely. Nothing would come. It was almost too much. She nodded understanding and turned to go, but not before looking over her shoulder and adding, “It’s good to have you back again, my dear.” Chuckling a little at the look on his face, she said, “I remember all my children, boy.” And she was gone.

Eyes misty, quavering smile seemingly locked into place on his lips, he drifted down the train corridor in an overwhelming wave of nostalgia, chose a car at random and collapsed into his seat. He was glad it was still empty. What a terrible first impression as a Professor he would make, weeping.

#ficlet #i can't believe i'm on chapter 7??? i know they're not super long but #also i'd be curious to know what people's favorite chapter is so far if you have one #my stuff #remus lupin and the prisoner of azkaban #also holy shit you guys next chapter I'll be caught up and we'll officially be running parallel to the book!!

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greekowl87 · 7 years

Text

Fic: Sea Glass

A/N: Not sure why I wrote this. May be a stand alone piece or more. Who knows? I don’t. Anyways, pre IWTB, angst while on the run.

Disclaimer: Borrowing. I still don’t own a thing.

Scully had protested somewhere around Halloween she was tired of living like a nomad to Mulder. She was tired of living in motel rooms and eating take out all the time. She wanted to just stop and breathe for a few months without having to worry. Except he did worry. He was a wanted fugitive and was pretty sure Scully was as well.

"Why can't we just stop somewhere for a few months, Mulder," she had complained somewhere outside of Charleston, South Carolina. "And pretend we aren't on the run? Can we pretend to be normal for awhile?"

He could have argued otherwise, to prove a point, but he could see how tired she was in her eyes. Her hair was a different shade of brown, her red roots were beginning to show. "Fine," he agreed. "I'll find us a place."

The North Carolina department of transportation had just opened up highway NC 12 and resumed ferry operations between Hatteras and Ocracoke at the end of November. The Outer Banks were still feeling some of the effects of Hurricane Isabel that had rocked the area back in mid-September. And it was now mid-December, winter, pretty much dead to tourist except for the locals. Rebuilding the community had been slow but he managed to find a small seaside house for rent they could have up to the beginning of tourist season. He suggested somewhere along the border of South Carolina and North Carolina and then they did the seven-hour drive to Hatteras Island.

The beach house was named 'Heavenly Haven' and was a stark contrast to the large, luxurious vacations homes. A single level home raised on up on stilts, it was three bedrooms and one bath, a large living room, and kitchen, with a deck and the master bedroom overlooking the sand dunes. It was perfect.

As they departed South Carolina, driving northwards, Scully had grown quiet and withdrawn into herself. She had done that a lot lately. Mulder would try to draw her out into a conversation as he drove. It reminded him of before, a life before when they both used to be someone. But she remained silent. At first, he wondered if it was him that was causing it; no doubt he had part of the blame.

The silence was deafening. He was losing her. He couldn't lose her too. He couldn't.

So he drove them on through the night. She had fallen asleep, her head pressed against the passenger side window. She looked so small. As he started on the bridge, she awoke with the first jolt as soon as they hit the bridge.

She blinked herself awake, her blue eyes widening taking in the expansive Albermarle sound. She took a sharp intake of breath as she saw them driving towards the rising sun. She looked at Mulder, who was quiet. He had put on his sunglasses and lowered the sun visor. "Mulder?" she mumbled.

He could hear her confusion, concern. "I figured a change of scenery."

"Where are we?"

"Currently on the Wright Memorial Bridge connecting Currituck County to Dare County."

"Dare County," she mumbled. "The Outer Banks?"

"No place other," he replied.

"I thought they were closed," she mumbled. "'Cause of the hurricane."

"Just reopened a couple of weeks ago."

"What's here?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

She frowned and looked out to the road ahead as the bridge ended. He pulled off the road at a Walmart. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "Mulder, why are you doing this?"

He turned the keys off from their car and turned to face her. He took off the sunglasses and gently caressed her cheek, his fingers running through her brown hair. "I thought we could do something different, maybe mix it up? I know you're tired. I just thought, maybe if we stay somewhere for more than a week, it could..." he shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it would be good for you...us. We barely talk anymore. We..." His voice faded. "I thought it'd be nice. There is nothing between here and there."

"Where's there, Mulder?"

"Buxton."

She was quiet, choosing to not say anything. She drew out her own sunglasses from the glove box. Mulder licked his lips, uncertain of what to say. She turned and looked out into the parking lot.

"Aren't you coming with?" he asked.

"I'm fine here, Mulder."

He bit his lip and withdrew his hand. All he seemed to do was cause her pain. All he had done was ruin her life. He was a plague on her very existence. He lowered his eyes and pulled down his sunglasses. "I'll be back in a bit," he sighed and got out of the car.

. . . .

The silence continued to ensue between them as they drove the extra hour and a half down the barrier islands of the Outer Banks. Scully's eyes were trained on the endless sand dunes and the Pamlico Sound. Mulder's eyes continued to stay trained on the road. He had loaded up their car with groceries, enough to last a month. As they entered Buxton, he pulled up to the small rental property. Scully got out first and took a moment to look at the small property and then back to Mulder. "For real, Mulder?"

He stood by the door of the car, watching her take the first steps to the house. "Yes."

She looked back at him and then the house and back to him. Mulder sighed and tossed her the keys. She caught them cleanly and unlocked the house without another word. He rolled his eyes and looked down at his feet. Maybe this was one big mistake. Maybe he really and truly lost her for good. Sighing once more, he began to unload all the groceries and their bags without another word.

He could not find her when he got done. Mulder had put away all of their groceries, put their bags in the master bedroom, although he was unsure if they would be sharing a bed at this point. Ever since Flordia, she had completely withdrawn from him. Erected walls and entrenched herself away from him and the entire world. Not a word except the basics and 'I'm fine, Mulder.' He wandered the halls of the rental looking for her. His heart began to speed up when he could not find Scully. Had she actually left?

He rushed down the deck towards the sand dunes to the beach. He saw her at the water's edge, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. He slowed as he approached her. Her gaze was focused eastwards to the sun and the incoming waves. "Scully?"

"Why here, Mulder?" she asked in a small voice. "What do you hope to accomplish?"

To save us, he thought. But he remained silent. She turned to face him, tears streaked down for her crystal blue eyes.

"Answer me, Mulder!"

"I..." he paused, scratching his stubble, looking down at his feet. "I picked up some hair dye for you while I was at the store."

"Oh joy. What color this time? Black? Blonde? Maybe blue perhaps?" she spat, looking back out the sea.

"Red."

She was quiet and gazed at him before walking past him back up to the house. Mulder sighed, kicking the sand, and stared back out into the sea. The sea churned angrily, just like her heart, he supposed, cutting him off from her and everything else and drowning him.

. . . .

It was like she was purposely avoiding him. No. She was trying to avoid him. No. She was avoiding him. Winter had come early and the cold Atlantic winds had come into the small rental and divided them across the expansive ocean. Divided and they shall fall.

The first week was tough. Scully had dyed her hair back to red but still did not speak to Mulder. They slept in separated rooms. She had put his things in one of the guest rooms instead of the master bedroom with her. He went out one afternoon while she sat in the living room reading and came back with a small two-foot Christmas tree with false color lights. Wordlessly, he put it in the corner of the living room. She watched him soundlessly. He left and disappeared back into the other guest room. Christmas came and went. Neither one of them spoke to each other still.

He lay in the guest bed, reading some random book, the small tv on with some hockey game. Mulder's mind wandered though, unable to focus on anything else. He did not want to admit it. He rubbed his chest, his heart. He could still feel it breaking. Except it was already gone. He had lost her. Admit it, say it out loud. "I lost you," he whispered to the empty room.

He felt tears come. He would tell her to go and live on without him. And he would be alone. A fitting end to his life. He heard the door open and he saw her standing in the door way with a long blanket wrapped around her. He said nothing and neither did she. Scully had tears in her eyes as well. Wordless, she came to his side, slipping onto the bed. She snuggled up to his side, snaked her arm around his chest, pulled the blanket around them, and buried her face into his chest. He felt silent sobs rack her body and all he could do was hold her.

. . . .

Scully had fallen asleep against him through her crying. He took a moment to admire her beauty one more time, one more time before he told her to live without him and be free. He played with the new red locks. God, he had missed it. Quietly, he untangled himself from her and got up. It would be New Year's day soon. He had been so optimistic with her at the beginning of the new millennium. Now, four years later, he had lost everything. She groaned in protest at him leaving her side.

"Mulder?" she mumbled sleepily.

"Do you want some tea?" he asked softly.

"Hm," she groaned again. "No."

The most they had spoken in weeks. Maybe now was the time, while her defenses were down. But he still cared about her. No. He would wait for the right moment. He got up without saying anything else and went out into the living room. He gathered his jacket and went to go sit out on the deck and watch the sea in thought. But she followed him.

"Mulder, we need to talk."

Well, maybe she would beat him to the punch.

"We do," he sighed, shifting in the lounge chair.

More silence. She sat across from him, huddled in one of his jackets that seemed to swallow her. She pulled a hood up over her head to shield herself from the cold. Inwardly he sighed, wondering if he was overstepping his bounds. He opened his arm slightly. "Scully, come here. You're going to freeze."

She sighed, stubbornly but allowed herself to sit in his lap and feel his arms come around her. She closed her eyes and instinctively rested her head in the crook of her neck. She felt warm and remembered how much he still loved her.

"I think," he began, "you should get as far away from as possible. Live your life. It's obvious you would better without me."

She sat up, angrily. "No. Mulder, no."

"Why not?" he asked. "You have cast me out to sea. What has this past month been?"

She took a deep breath and looked out to the sea. Her blue eyes watered. "I..I don't know, Mulder. I'm just so tired. Tired of running, tired of hiding, tired of not being me anymore. I don't even know how I am anymore!" she cried. Instinctively, she leaned into him and she felt his arms come around her. "I don't know who I am anymore, Mulder."

He took a deep breath and nuzzled her forehead. "You're Scully, my brilliant, stubborn, out of this Scully...my touchstone," he whispered. "No one else. But if anything..." He took another deep breath. "Maybe, maybe it proves the point that you'd be better without me."

"No," she stoutly huffed. "No. We're in this together. This is about us. I won't leave you. I stopped talking to you...I just needed time, Mulder."

He was quiet. "And what did you decide?"

"I'm still here, aren't I? I don't scare that easily." Mulder closed his eyes in relief. He kissed her forehead gently, her eyelids, her cheeks, her lips. "I love you, Mulder. Never doubt that."

All he could manage was a nod.

She relaxed. "I like it here," she whispered, looking out to the sea.

"I hoped you would. We have it until May."

"Maybe, in the future," she whispered to him, "we could just stop running. One day, we could just find a place to call home."

"I'd like that," he whispered back, rubbing her arms. "A little house, middle of nowhere. Just us."

"One day," she murmured, snuggling closer to him. They gazed out to the sea in fragile silence, the future still uncertain. For now, this moment would suffice.

#my fic #xfiles #xfiles fanfic #xf fic #msr #mulder #scully #angst #pre iwtb #on the run #maybe a happy ending #not sure why i wrote this but i'm kind of pleased #do you want me to write more

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