#and i realise most are not done with mean spirit or sent as a demand but i just get quite a lot

[ninjasmudge]

listen, im sorry but i cant engage with every person who comes into my askbox asking me about how the bone king would react to them/ their oc

i dont do oc stuff anyway and im certainly not comfortable the mini roleplays some people seem to want from me

if you sent me something about an oc and it was respectful, im happy you enjoy the content and im not upset, but im still not going to engage, sorry

and to everyone else who sent an ask recently not abt ocs in the bk au, thanks! ive been kinda busy this week, but im working my way through the askbox and thank you for the interest, yall spark joy FR (some of them required me to sort out a bit of lore for aus lol)

[homosexuhauls]

15 JUNE, 2021 by Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie

IT IS OBSCENE: A TRUE REFLECTION IN THREE PARTS

PART ONE

When you are a public figure, people will write and say false things about you. It comes with the territory. Many of those things you brush aside. Many you ignore. The people close to you advise you that silence is best. And it often is. Sometimes, though, silence makes a lie begin to take on the shimmer of truth.

In this age of social media, where a story travels the world in minutes, silence sometimes means that other people can hijack your story and soon, their false version becomes the defining story about you.

Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it, as Jonathan Swift wrote.

Take the case of a young woman who attended my Lagos writing workshop some years ago; she stood out because she was bright and interested in feminism.

After the workshop, I welcomed her into my life. I very rarely do this, because my past experiences with young Nigerians left me wary of people who are calculating and insincere and want to use me only as an opportunity. But she was a Bright Young Nigerian Feminist and I thought that was worth making an exception.

She spent time in my Lagos home. We had long conversations. I was support-giver, counsellor, comforter.

Then I gave an interview in March 2017 in which I said that a trans woman is a trans woman, (the larger point of which was to say that we should be able to acknowledge difference while being fully inclusive, that in fact the whole premise of inclusiveness is difference.)

I was told she went on social media and insulted me.

This woman knows me enough to know that I fully support the rights of trans people and all marginalized people. That I have always been fiercely supportive of difference, in general. And that I am a person who reads and thinks and forms my opinions in a carefully considered way.

Of course she could very well have had concerns with the interview. That is fair enough. But I had a personal relationship with her. She could have emailed or called or texted me. Instead she went on social media to put on a public performance.

I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. But I mostly held myself responsible. My spirit had been slightly stalled, from the beginning, by her. My first sense of unease with her came when she posted a photo taken in my house, at a time when I did not want any photos of my personal life on social media. I asked that she take it down. The second case of unease was her publicizing something I had told her in confidence about another member of the workshop. The most upsetting was when she, without telling me, used my name to apply for an American visa. Above all else was my lingering suspicion that she was a person who chose as friends only those from whom she could benefit. But she was a Bright Young Nigerian Feminist and I allowed that sentiment to over-ride my unease.

After she publicly insulted me, it was clear to me that this kind of noxious person had no business in my life, ever again.

A few months later, she sent this affected, self-regarding email which I ignored.

Friday September 15 2017 at 4.35 AM

Dearest Chimamanda,

Happy birthday. I mean this with all my heart, even though I know I have fallen (removed myself?) from your grace. It would be impossible for me to stop loving you; long before you gave me the possibility of being your friend you were the embodiment of my deepest hopes, and that will never change.

I think of you often, still – stating the obvious. I grieve the loss of our friendship; it is a complicated sadness. I’m sorry that I caused you pain, or to feel like you can no longer trust me. There’s so much that I wish could be said.

I pray this birthday is the happiest one yet. I wish you rest and quiet and abiding stability, and of course more of the kind of success that means the most to you.

I hope mothering X is everything you hoped and prayed for and more.

Have a wonderful day today.

Love always.

About a year later, she sent this email, which I also ignored.

Thursday November 29 2018 at 8.42 AM

Dear Chimamanda,

I realise this is long overdue and vastly insufficient, but I’m really sorry. I’ve spent so much time going back and forth in my head and my email drafts; wondering whether to write you, how to write you, what to say, all kinds of things. But in the end, this is the thing I realise I need to say.

I’m sorry I disappointed and hurt you by saying things publicly that were sharply critical, unkind and even disrespectful, especially in light of all the backlash and criticism you experience from people who don’t know you. I could have acted with more consideration towards you. I should have, especially given the privilege of intimacy that you had offered me. There are many reasons why I chose to behave the way I did, but none of them is an excuse. And I clearly realise now, after many, many months of needless sadness and angst and hurt and actual confusion, that I did not treat you as a friend would—certainly not as someone would to whom you had offered unprecedented access to yourself and your life.

You’ve meant the world to me since I was barely a teenager. It’s been very hard navigating the emotional fallout of the past several months, knowing you were displeased with me but truly not quite understanding why, then deciding I didn’t care, then realising that would never be true. I’ve always cared. But I was too mixed up about the situation to be able to make sense of it, or properly see past my own justifications. I’m sorry it took me so long to grasp how I let you down.

I realise that I don’t have room to ask anything of you, but I would be grateful for a chance to say this in person. Still, even if I never get that, I really hope you believe me.

Congratulations on restarting the workshop, and on all the other amazing successes of the past several months. I think of you often; it would be impossible not to. You look so happy in your pictures. I really hope you are well.

All my love,

I hoped never to hear from her again. But she has recently gone on social media to write about how she “refused to kiss my ring,” as if I demanded some kind of obeisance from her. She also suggests that there is some dark, shadowy ‘more’ to tell that she won’t tell, with an undertone of “if only you knew the whole story.”

It is a manipulative way of lying. By suggesting there is ‘more’ when you know very well that there isn’t, you do sufficient reputational damage while also being able to plead deniability. Innuendo without fact is immoral.

No, there isn’t more to the story. It is a simple story – you got close to a famous person, you publicly insulted the famous person to aggrandize yourself, the famous person cut you off, you sent emails and texts that were ignored, and you then decided to go on social media to peddle falsehoods. It is obscene to tell the world that you refused to kiss a ring when in fact there isn’t any ring at all.

I cannot make much of the hostility of strangers who do not know me – fame taints our view of the humanity of famous people. But the truth is that the famous person remains irretrievably human. Fame does not inoculate the famous person from disappointment and depression, fame does not make you any less angered or hurt by the duplicitous nature of people. To be famous is to be assumed to have power, which is true, but in the analysis of fame, people often ignore the vulnerability that comes with fame, and they are unable to see how others who have nothing to lose can lie and connive in order to take advantage of that fame, while not giving a single thought to the feelings and humanity of the famous person.

And when you personally know a famous person, when you have experienced their humanity, when you have benefited from their kindness, and yet you are unable to extend to them the basic grace and respect that even a casual acquaintanceship deserves, then it says something fundamental about you.

And in a deluded way, you will convince yourself that your hypocritical, self-regarding, compassion-free behavior is in fact principled feminism. It isn’t. You will wrap your mediocre malice in the false gauziness of ideological purity. But it’s still malice. You will tell yourself that being able to parrot the latest American Feminist orthodoxy justifies your hacking at the spirit of a person who had shown you only kindness. You can call your opportunism by any name, but it doesn’t make it any less of the ugly opportunism that it is.

PART TWO

When I first read this person’s work, which was their application to my writing workshop, I thought the sentences were well-done. I accepted this person. At the workshop, I thought they could have been more respectful of the other participants, perhaps not kept typing dismissively as others’ stories were discussed, with an air of being among people below their level. After the workshop, I decided to select the best stories, edit them, pay the writers a fee, and publish them in an e-magazine. The first story I chose was this person’s. I wrote a glowing introduction, which the story truly deserved.

They sent this email.

Fri, Aug 7, 2015, 8:20 AM

Thank you so much for that introduction. It means so much to me and I’m going to keep reading it to get through the rest of my stay at Syracuse. I sent it to my mother and she got nervous about the piece because you said ‘it disturbs’, said she’s not sure how she’s going to feel when she reads it. But she’s also one of those ‘let’s leave the past in the past’ people. My sister approved, which meant a lot because our childhoods were each other’s.

All that to say, I’m so grateful you gave me the space to write the short version of this piece, the encouragement to write the longer piece, and now, a platform for it. I definitely have plans to write more about Aba.

Thank you, with all my heart.

PS- I wanted to sign off gratefully + gracefully in Igbo but I said let me not fall my own hand 🙂

About a year later, they sent another email to let me know that their novel would be published.

Wed, Jun 8, 2016, 8:20 AM

Greetings!

I hope all’s been well with you this past year. Belated congratulations on the baby’s arrival, I hope she’s being a delight (I’m sure she is), and on the Johns Hopkins honors.

I was thinking about how this time last year, I’d just received the email from you about Farafina and I wanted to reach out with a quick update. I’ve just accepted an offer for the novel I excerpted as my application and it feels like the workshop was a catalyst for the events that’ve led me here. So, thank you, for the workshop and your words and the Olisa TV series and listening to me babble on about my story at the hotel. I deeply appreciate all of it and you.

All my best,

Before the novel was published, I spoke of it to some people, to help it get attention. I had not been able to finish reading it. I found the writing beautiful, but the story false-hearted and burdened by bathos. When I spoke of the novel, however, it was the former sentiment that I expressed, never the latter.

After I gave the March 2017 interview in which I said that a trans woman is a trans woman, I was told that this person had insulted me on social media, calling me, among other things, a murderer. I was deeply upset, because while I did not really know them personally, I felt they knew what I stood for and that I fully supported the rights of trans people, and that I do not wish anybody dead.

Still, I took no action. I ignored the public insult.

When this person’s publishers sent me an early copy of their novel, I was surprised to see that my name was included in their cover biography. I had never seen that done in a book before. I didn’t like that I had not been asked for permission to use my name, but most of all I thought – why would a person who thinks I’m a murderer want my name so prominently displayed in their biography?

Then I learned that, because my name was in the cover biography, a journalist had called them my “protegee” and they then threw a Twitter tantrum about it, calling it clickbait, viciously disavowing having received any help from me.

I knew this person had called me a murderer, I knew they were actively campaigning to “cancel” me and tweeting about how I should no longer be invited to speak at events. But this I felt I could not ignore.

I sent an email to my representative:

From: Chimamanda Adichie

Date: Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 2:06 PM

I’m writing about X

She attended my Lagos workshop two years ago and I selected hers as one of a few pieces I published after the workshop.

Apparently I was referred to as her ‘mentor’ and/or she was referred to as my ‘protege,’ in some articles, which led to her tweeting about it. Her tweets were forwarded to me by friends. In them, she reacted quite viscerally to my being called her ‘mentor’ and her being my ‘protege.’ To be fair, she is not technically my ‘protege,’ and it is perfectly fine that she feels this way, but her ungracious tone and the ugliness of the energy spent on her tweets surprised me.

I recently received her book and noticed that my name was included in her official book bio. I was stunned. Surely if she is so strongly averse to my being considered a person who has been significant in her career, (which is my understanding of the loose use of protege/mentor) then it is unseemly to make the choice to include my name in her bio. I found it unusual, as I don’t think I’ve seen it done before in a book bio, but I also now find it unacceptably cynical.

It is only reasonable for a person who sees my name as it is used in her bio — ‘her work has been selected and edited by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’ — to assume some sort of mentor/protege relationship.

To publicly disavow this with a tone bordering on hostility and at the same time so baldly use my name to sell her book is utterly unacceptable to me.

I’d like you to please reach out to her publishers and ask that my name be removed from her official book bio. I refuse to be used in this way.

After contacting her publishers, my representative wrote:

They have asked whether your preference would be to remove the Acknowledgment to you in the back of the book also, in future reprints.

I replied:

I don’t think that is my decision to take, and so will not answer either way, although it would be ideal if she herself made the decision to do so.

On the subject of how to go about it, I was absolutely determined not to be used by this person, but I was also sensitive to the costs the publisher might incur, as this was not in any way the publisher’s fault. Instead of pulping the already printed copies, I asked that the jackets be stripped and rebound. To my representative I wrote:

I’m completely determined that I not be used in this opportunistic and hypocritical way. But I want to make sure to proceed reasonably.

I was assured that my name would be removed and I moved on.

But from time to time, I would be informed of yet another social media post in which this person had attacked me.

This person has created a space in which social media followers have – and this I find unforgiveable – trivialized my parents’ death, claiming that the sudden and devastating loss of my parents within months of each other during this pandemic, was ‘punishment’ for my ‘transphobia.’

This person has asked followers to pick up machetes and attack me.

This person began a narrative that I had sabotaged their career, a narrative that has been picked up and repeated by others.

The normal response would be to ignore it all, because this person is seeking attention and publicity to benefit themselves. Claiming that I have sabotaged their career is a lie and this person knows that it is a lie. But if something is repeated often enough, in this age in which people do not need proof or verification to run with a story, especially a story that has outrage potential, then it can easily begin to seem true.

My addressing this lie will indeed get this person some attention – may they bask in it.

Here is the truth: I was very supportive of this writer. I didn’t have to be. I wasn’t asked to be. I supported this writer because I believe we need a diverse range of African stories.

Sabotaging a young writer’s career is just not my style; I would get no benefit or satisfaction from it. Asking that my name be removed from your biography is not sabotaging your career. It is about protecting my boundaries of what I consider acceptable in civil human behavior.

You publicly call me a murderer AND still feel entitled to benefit from my name?

You use my name (without my permission) to sell your book AND then throw an ugly tantrum when someone makes a reference to it?

What kind of monstrous entitlement, what kind of perverse self-absorption, what utter lack of self-awareness, what unheeding heartlessness, what frightening immaturity makes a person act this way?

Besides, a person who genuinely believes me to be a murderer cannot possibly want my name on their book cover, unless of course that person is a rank opportunist.

PART THREE

In certain young people today like these two from my writing workshop, I notice what I find increasingly troubling: a cold-blooded grasping, a hunger to take and take and take, but never give; a massive sense of entitlement; an inability to show gratitude; an ease with dishonesty and pretension and selfishness that is couched in the language of self-care; an expectation always to be helped and rewarded no matter whether deserving or not; language that is slick and sleek but with little emotional intelligence; an astonishing level of self-absorption; an unrealistic expectation of puritanism from others; an over-inflated sense of ability, or of talent where there is any at all; an inability to apologize, truly and fully, without justifications; a passionate performance of virtue that is well executed in the public space of Twitter but not in the intimate space of friendship.

I find it obscene.

There are many social-media-savvy people who are choking on sanctimony and lacking in compassion, who can fluidly pontificate on Twitter about kindness but are unable to actually show kindness. People whose social media lives are case studies in emotional aridity. People for whom friendship, and its expectations of loyalty and compassion and support, no longer matter. People who claim to love literature – the messy stories of our humanity – but are also monomaniacally obsessed with whatever is the prevailing ideological orthodoxy. People who demand that you denounce your friends for flimsy reasons in order to remain a member of the chosen puritan class.

People who ask you to ‘educate’ yourself while not having actually read any books themselves, while not being able to intelligently defend their own ideological positions, because by ‘educate,’ they actually mean ‘parrot what I say, flatten all nuance, wish away complexity.’

People who do not recognize that what they call a sophisticated take is really a simplistic mix of abstraction and orthodoxy – sophistication in this case being a showing-off of how au fait they are on the current version of ideological orthodoxy.

People who wield the words ‘violence’ and ‘weaponize’ like tarnished pitchforks. People who depend on obfuscation, who have no compassion for anybody genuinely curious or confused. Ask them a question and you are told that the answer is to repeat a mantra. Ask again for clarity and be accused of violence. (How ironic, speaking of violence, that it is one of these two who encouraged Twitter followers to pick up machetes and attack me.)

And so we have a generation of young people on social media so terrified of having the wrong opinions that they have robbed themselves of the opportunity to think and to learn and to grow.

I have spoken to young people who tell me they are terrified to tweet anything, that they read and re-read their tweets because they fear they will be attacked by their own. The assumption of good faith is dead. What matters is not goodness but the appearance of goodness. We are no longer human beings. We are now angels jostling to out-angel one another. God help us. It is obscene.

[ibijau]

Forbidden love pt5 / on AO3

Lan Xichen's first idea, upon learning that Wei Wuxian had returned to the world of the living, was that he must have done so through cruel and evil means. That possibility was considered, and quickly dismissed. Lan Qiren knew who his guest was, and he would never have tolerated the presence of a dark spirit inside the Cloud Recesses, least of all that particular one. 

Guessing the reason for his silence, Wei Wuxian grinned awkwardly. 

"Yes, you might wonder about this," he said gesturing at himself but careful not to wake the child sleeping on his lap. "I didn't steal this body, it was gifted to me. Against my will, might I add. That Mo Xuanyu kid was pushed into giving up his life, so I could be brought back and help some other kid named Xue Yang make sense of my own damn research." 

That Xue Yang would be involved in whatever was happening surprised Lan Xichen very little. That boy and the work he'd done to decipher Wei Wuxian's notes were what had started this entire mess.

“Much as your inventions have increased their fortune,” Lan Xichen said, “I find it hard to believe the Jins would want you back.”

His eyes fell on Jin Ling as he said so, and to his credit, Wei Wuxian’s expression turned sombre at the reminder of what his actions had cost Lanling Jin.

“The Jins don’t know that I’m alive. Poor Mo Xuanyu didn’t have friends it seems, so nobody realised the change. And Xue Yang didn’t tell anyone. Even if Mo Xuanyu wasn’t very popular, I think Jin Guangshan might have taken offence if he’d realised that one of his bastards died to revive the man who killed his heir. It was our little secret, Xue Yang and I.”

“How long ago were you brought back?”

Wei Wuxian paused for a moment as he tried to remember.

“About a month, I’d say. We spent most of that stuck in a secret room where Xue Yang worked, so it was hard to tell how much time passed, at least until they sent us away a week ago.”

Saying this, Wei Wuxian glanced again at Jin ling, this time with an air of concern.

“I wasn’t given details at first,” he explained. “Just that Xue Yang, me, and some Jin disciples were to take Jin Ling to a secret location and keep him safe. I hadn’t really heard about their trouble with the Nie at that point, because Xue Yang didn't care about that. But the Jin disciples were a chatty bunch and I was able to get some news through them… and to guess the parts they weren't talking about.”

“Jin Ling really wasn’t kidnapped then,” Lan Xichen realised. “I knew da-ge would never have done that. Even at his worst, he would not harm a child.”

“But others might,” Wei Wuxian retorted, glancing at Lan Qiren, who appeared to have heard that whole story before. “See, our official instructions to keep Jin Ling hidden. But then, both those Jin disciples and Xue Yang were each given another set of secret instructions. I heard about Xue Yang’s first, but I think you’ll prefer to hear the other ones before. The Jin disciples were told that if other sects realised Jin Ling hadn’t been taken away by the Nie, Xue Yang was to be killed and blamed for the incident while I, or rather Xuanyu, would pretend to have been taken by force as well, and act as a witness.”

That was a cunning plan, and Lan Xichen wondered if it didn’t bear the mark of Jin Guangyao’s cleverness. After all, if Xue Yang died, there was much that might be blamed on him. The Jins might even try to make peace offerings to Qinghe Nie by showing they had finally done what Nie Mingjue had asked them to do for months now. Nie Mingjue would refuse. He would have refused if he had been in a healthy state of mind, too smart not to see this for a ruse, and he would refuse in his current state, too unwell to hear about peace. That might rally more sects to Lanlin Jin’s side, if Jin Guangshan and his son navigated the situation well and told everyone that Nie Mingjue was once more unreasonable.

It would even work on the Lan elders, too eager for peace to look at its cost.

“Now that’s bad enough,” Wei Wuxian agreed. “But Xue Yang had his own orders., in case the situation between Lanling and Qinghe got to a stalemate. He was told he’d need to kill all our guards, then kill Jin Ling and display his body in as awful a manner as possible, and in a way that would give the impression Qinghe Nie was responsible for it. He found it so funny he thought he’d share that plan with me, since he expected I’d have little love for my nephew.”

Feeling faint, Lan Xichen stumbled a few feet and had to lean against the nearest wall for fear he would collapse.

“Who gave that order?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“The one man who’d have everything to gain from being rid of Jin Guangshan’s heir,” Wei Wuxian answered. “And who most desperately needs for Qinghe Nie to be seen as evil, so people forget that he caused this war that’s waiting to happen.”

Even though this did but confirm his doubts, Lan Xichen was so shocked that all his strength left him and he nearly fell to his knees. Whatever else he had become, Jin Guangyao had once been his saviour during the war, then his friend, and eventually his sworn brother. He had kept the hope that things might be resolved in a peaceful manner, long after everything showed it to be impossible. And even if that friendship had shattered beyond what could be repaired, Lan Xichen had comforted himself with the thought that Jin Guangyao had only behaved in such a terrible manner because his father had forced him to choose filial loyalty over other duties.

It was a comfort Lan Xichen was now robbed of. Even if Jin Guangshan was sure to still carry his share of blame, it could not be denied anymore that Jin Guangyao was perfectly capable of evil on his own.

“When Xue Yang explained this, I decided I couldn’t stay out of it,” Wei Wuxian resumed. “I killed him without too much trouble, but it attracted the attention of those Jin disciples. I ended up forced to kill them too, but not until one of them explained what their instructions had been. That’s when I figured I had to get Jin Ling somewhere safe,” he added, looking mournful. “The best option would have been Yunmeng, but Jiang Cheng would skin me alive on sight."

Lan Xichen, still leaning with his shoulder against the wall, let out a joyless laugh.

"Most likely." 

"So I decided I'd try to see if Lan Zhan might help. Even if we've not always seen eye to eye, he is the most honourable person I know, and I was sure he'd help with Jin Ling even if it was me asking." 

Whatever strength had returned to Lan Xichen’s body nearly deserted him again at the thought of what his brother might do, when he would know Wei Wuxian to be alive again. 

"I'm sure he would," he muttered.

"But when I arrived here, they told me Lan Zhan wasn't available,” Wei Wuxian continued as if he hadn’t heard. “I was lucky though, and someone recognised Mo Xuanyu’s face, but not Jin Ling's because I'd wrapped him in a shawl. They figured I couldn't be ignored, so they took me and little Jin Ling to see Lan-xiangsheng, who hid us here while he figured out what to do.”

“I won’t be able to hide you much longer,” Lan Qiren replied. “It will become noticed that I have been eating more than usual. It is only a shame I had not realised Xichen was helping his brother escape. The Jingshi would have made a great hiding place for you and that child until we decided how to handle that.”

“I did not want you to be blamed if Wangji’s escape was discovered,” Lan Xichen said.

"I’ve raised both of you,” Lan Qiren retorted, “And done a poor job of it if some elders are to be trusted. I’d have been blamed even if I protested my ignorance. Where is he?" 

"Safe," Lan Xichen only said.

"Can we send those two to him?"

It was a good option to consider, but Lan Xichen still shook his head. Since the Jins had claimed Jin Ling was in the hands of the Nie, if he were discovered in a house that belonged to Nie Huaisang they could use it as proof that they’d said the truth. Likewise, if Nie Mingjue came to hear about it, he might take it as evidence that his brother was conspiring against him, and Lan Xichen could not do anything that might further endanger his dear friend.

Wei Wuxian agreed when Lan Xichen explained his reluctance.

“The best place for Jin Ling to be right now is Lotus Piers,” he claimed. “I can’t take him there, but as far as I know Jiang Cheng admires and respects both of you. If you bring him his nephew and explain what happened, he’ll listen.”

“He would at the very least declare himself neutral if his nephew were returned to him,” Lan Qiren agreed. “Or he might even join Nie Mingjue to demand Jin Guangyao be brought to justice. That would only leave the problem of what to do with you.”

“I’d quite like to stay out of this mess if I could,” Wei Wuxian retorted with a smirk. “But I can't do that until another matter is settled. I too must see Jin Guangyao punished for his crimes, even if they weren’t against me.”

As he said that, he lifted his left arm which had been wrapped around little Jin Ling, and cautiously lowered his sleeve to reveal a deep red cut which looked as if it were on the verge of an infection.

“I had two when I awoke in this body. The ritual mo Xuanyu uses demands that I accomplish his last requests, and those marks are a proof of that. The other went away when I killed Xue Yang, and since I’ve read Mo Xuanyu’s diaries, I have good reason to think this second one demands the death of Jin Guangyao. Poor kid had to blame someone for how miserable he was, and it’s his half-brother who assigned him to help Xue Yang.”

“And is there a time limit for Xuanyu’s revenge to be accomplished?”

“Probably, but I don’t know it. The wound has been getting a little painful lately, so I guess I should hurry.”

Presented with a problem to solve, Lan Xichen’s energy returned and he was finally able to stand straight again as he applied himself to finding a solution. The other two did the same, and silence fell onto the house.

“I have a suggestion,” Lan Xichen said after a moment. “Uncle, I think you should be the one to bring Jin Ling to Yunmeng. You are Jiang Cheng’s senior and his former teacher, so the respect he owes you will make it easier for him to accept what happened. For my part, I will take Wei Wuxian to the place where Lan Wangji is hidden. Wangji will be sure to keep an eye on him and on his health until other problems have been dealt with.”

Hearing this, Lan Qiren frowned. His nephew was hardly any happier at the idea of allowing a reunion between Lan Wangji and the man who had ruined his life, but leaving Wei Wuxian in the Cloud Recesses wasn’t an option, and neither was just releasing him without knowing what he might do while his life depended on Jin Guangyao’s death. But if Lan Wangji were told about the situation, he would do everything in his power to keep Wei Wuxian safe and out of trouble.

“When Wei Wuxian is safe,” Lan Xichen continued, “I will go to Qinghe and free Nie Huaisang.”

“That seems unwise,” Lan Qiren protested. “I like the boy well enough, but this is too dangerous. How would you even get inside the Unclean Realm?”

“It is not as impenetrable as it is reputed, and Nie Mingjue used to trust me enough to share some of its secrets with me when we were young.”

It was odd to think of that faraway youth, when they’d only been insouciant children. At the time, Nie Mingjue’s father had still been alive, and his eldest son hadn’t been forced yet to turn so serious. One afternoon, when Lan Xichen was visiting with his uncle, Nie Mingjue had shown him a secret passage so they could go play without anyone bothering them. It had been many years, but Lan Xichen was sure he would find that passage’s exit again. Then it would only be a matter of finding where Nie Huaisang had been imprisoned and releasing them.

“That’s still a great risk to take,” Lan Qiren insisted.

“It is,” Lan Xichen conceded. “And yet it must be attempted. Aside from Nie Huaisang, who has ever been known to convince Nie Mingjue to change his mind?”

Lan Qiren protested against that plan, as did Wei Wuxian, not that his opinion could have mattered to Lan Xichen. And yet, since neither could suggest anything better, that was the plan they adopted.

[melon-kiss]

This is just going to be a ramble about everything Sherlock. You’re most welcome to discuss or just ignore it. I needed the space to vent.

I watched Sherlock. Again. I think it’s beginning to become my annual tradition. And I have a crisis. Don’t get me wrong, I am always Sherlollian at heart. It’s just… I have doubts sometimes. And what triggered those doubts this time was the fact that Sherlock calls Molly “John”. Twice. And then Irene Adler. And then one post on Tumblr. And many, many more.

OK, these are just my random thoughts. Enjoy if you’re willing to read them.

 1. “John”. “Molly”.

We often mix up names of people we consider to have the same place in our lives. Which is good, right? Right. Only, in Sherlock’s case, we’d have lean into the theory that Sherlock does love John romantically and feels the same way about Molly. Or concede the fact that he loves them both platonically. Neither of these options is really satisfying, isn’t it? Well, that’s why I’m struggling… One could say he’s in denial of feelings for Molly and identifies them as friendship, as this is the strongest, purest relationship in his life, the only one he describes as emotional and the closest he’s ever had to love. Besides, Molly and John are similar in one way – they both share the same – medical – knowledge. Of course, Sherlock doesn’t realise her other qualities until The Reichenbach Fall when she says she can help him whenever he needs it. It’s not until she’s honest with him again and tells him, without a shred of grudge, that she knows she means nothing to him, that he realises he has at least two friends. He calls her “John” when his mind is busy with something else, so there’s no room for any purposeful confusion. The same thing happens in The Empty Hearse. What else can it mean if not friendship?

 2. Nothing Hits Like Irene

Irene Adler is created as the love interest for Sherlock. Is she, though? Well, we see Sherlock utterly confused upon their first meeting. We also see him flirting and creating an atmosphere of sexual tension for the first time. OK, he saves her but then she vanishes, he got over her, I thought. And all was fine until The Lying Detective came and Irene Adler sent a text to Sherlock, first in such a long time. John, of course, suggests that if Sherlock should be romantically involved with anyone, it should be her. And then it hit me.

Irene Adler is the symbol of chemistry in Sherlock’s life.

She’s a dominatrix. She’s all about sex, that’s obvious. At the critical point of The Scandal in Belgravia Sherlock says: I believe John Watson thinks love’s a mystery for me but the chemistry is incredibly simple and very distractive. Sherlock discovers that he, indeed, can have chemistry with people. He doesn’t mention love, he merely says sentiment, referring to the crush Irene Adler had on him. She is, indeed, a simple distraction – you can see it clearly in his memory palace when he yells at her to get away. But Molly… Molly stays. She leads him through the entire process of surviving a shot.

And then Irene Adler returns in The Lying Detective. John confesses to Sherlock about texting with a stranger met on the bus. And that he wanted more. Sherlock says everyone gets to be human sometimes. Even he can’t resist the urge of replying to Irene Adler sometimes. It was all about attraction again.

And that’s why she’s not considered a romantic relationship in his life. John rambles about love changing him, to be more specific, the love of his woman changing him. But he says Irene’s a dangerous criminal. How would that change Sherlock in any way?

In The Final Problem, upon deducing the coffin, John suggests Irene Adler but she’s not his first thought in general once they all hear that this is about someone who loves Sherlock. Sherlock’s response is very telling: Don’t be ridiculous. Look at the coffin. It seems like Sherlock pieces the puzzle at once – the coffin, plus the “name” on the lid – it couldn’t have been Irene Adler.

And that’s why Sherlock calls her The Woman. As a symbol of his sexuality. The Woman who’s woken up certain impulses in his life.

 3. Makeshift Gauge

Who is she?, Sherlock asks John in His Last Vow.

Based on what Mofftiss duo said about Molly, she was supposed to be featured in two episodes top. Yet, she stayed. The uncanonical character not only stayed but became fans’ favourite. I think she became a useful tool for Moffat and Gatiss. I think that not only she represents Sherlock heart (of which existence he has no idea at first) but later becomes our makeshift gauge. For what? For measuring Sherlock’s progress. See, it’s like when you live with someone, you don’t notice when they put on weight or grew a little but those who see less of them will notice all changes right away. So, when Sherlock runs around with John, we don’t notice the change in his behaviour at once (also because he’s always been nice to him, from the very beginning), we need to focus to see that. But Molly pops by once per episode and we see how Sherlock’s perception changes. In season one, he has good intentions, but they turn out bad. In season two, he’s more neutral but doesn’t restrain himself from rude comments. And Molly is being Molly – tells him he’s rude in her natural, soft way and he says sorry. For the first time. Without anyone making him do that. Almost the same happens in The Reichenbach Fall – but this time, Molly doesn’t let herself be fooled by Sherlock’s arrogance and just ignores it, going straight to the point. She says: “I’m here for you” and lowers his defences. In season three, he spends an entire day with her, smiles at her and is the sweetest, softest Sherlock we’ve ever seen. Moreover, when Lestrade asks him about her helping him solve cases, he says: [John] is not in the picture anymore, implying that she not necessarily had to be a temporary replacement. In season four, he says I love you to her.

What can we deduce about his heart?

 4. The Eurus Conundrum

We could write an entire book about Eurus and not even be able to grasp her spirit. I’m not going to do that right now.

I have issues with what happened in season four finale. I mean – Molly, of course. Mycroft says Eurus and Jim Moriarty met five years ago, so before Moriarty revealed himself to Sherlock. They both planned the entire game for Sherlock. Does that mean Sherlock never really won with him? Does that mean Moriarty let him use Molly to “win”? Since she was included in Eurus’ plan, we can safely assume Jim knew about Molly back then. At first, when I saw Moriarty saying We both know that’s not quite true [that you don’t have a heart] in many Sherlolly fanvids, I was like naaaaah. He didn’t see her as one of the important people in Sherlock’s life, it couldn’t have been a reference to their meeting. But now… how deeply back in time was Eurus’ plan allocated? Which events did she predict?

Or maybe I’m missing something? Any thoughts on this?

 5. Sherlock Evergreen

I once came across a post here, about how BBC Sherlock is literature, about sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s struggle with his own genius character. He was over with him, didn’t feel like writing any more of his stories so he killed him, but fans demanded more. He kept writing, although he hated it from the bottom of his heart. Season four, so often considered as the worst of all of them, is a way of saying that Sherlock character is, unfortunately, invincible. Immortal. He will live forever. We can’t kill him, no one can. Even his creator couldn’t have done it.

In season four, Sherlock goes back to the start. He is a clean slate again. He went through the entire process of change – became a good Sherlock, considerate of other people’s feelings and emotions, appreciative, supportive, loving, ready to mend what he broke. That interpretation, although very good, kind of killed my Sherlolly spirit. But I guess every interpretation like this would do it. If we stop treating characters like real human being, we’re left with what they really are – a construct, tools, puppets in the author’s hands.

Based on this, I think we’re safe to say there will never be a fifth season of BBC Sherlock (gosh, how I wish I was wrong!). Why? Because, despite what Moffat said in an interview once (after season three finale he said they’ve plotted out the entire fourth and fifth season – liar, liar, pants on fire!), season four had the perfect ending. As mentioned above, Sherlock became a good man and Mary Watson summed up what Sherlock is all about: two man, a genius junkie and a former soldier, who solve the weirdest, the toughest of cases together in flat on 221B Baker Street. Now, Sherlock is ready to be taken over by other artists who may find a new way to tell his story (though, I don’t think so) all over again.

And that’s a big, big shame… I think I speak for at least most of Sherlollians when I say we’d like to see Sherlock and Molly’s first encounter after the call. The finale really closed all the story arcs and subplots, except for this one. I mean, c’mon. You don’t have to be a Sherlollian to be annoyed by this – just remember that it was such a “biggie” that Moffat was asked about this in an interview. And this may be another reason as to why we won’t ever get a fifth season of Sherlock – because that would mean taking a side. And none of the creators will do it because Sherlock cannot be an open-and-shut case. It has to be like literature: big, open, twisted, unclear and full of room for interpretation. As long as there’s no certain explanation – yes, Sherlock loves Molly, no, Sherlock is gay – we create more and more content out of the need of closure. Thanks to the room for interpretation, the story lives. I mean, it’s been four years since The Final Problem airing and here I am, discussing BBC Sherlock still.

 Coming back to Sherlolly… don’t worry. Though I’m still not sure that we can harvest any hard evidence for Sherlock’s feelings for Molly (other than friendship and respect), I’m still a Sherlollian. There two new fics waiting for me to pull myself together and write them. I think it’s good to have doubts – it means my brain hasn’t rotten yet and I can still be critical, I’m able of having my own opinions.

 Thank you if you managed to read it all! I’d love to discuss if you have any conclusions. If not, that’s fine, too. I just needed it get it out of my system.

PS WHY DOES MY POSTS IN ENGLISH SOUND SO SOPHISTICATED IN MY HEAD BUT WHEN I PUT THEM IN WRITING, THEY’RE SO SHITTY?!

[yuzusorbet]

Continuing Kikuchi-san's book 'Strongly, beautifully,....'

If you have not read the earlier parts, please read them first.  See my previous posts in tumblr, OR the master post on FB.  

Chapter 2, part 6. The gold medal that the goddess smiled upon.

I was at the rink side, holding Yuzuru's luggage, watching his free skate performance.  He fell on his opening jump, the quad salchow.  Another jump also had a mistake.  In the 2nd half of the programme, he was running out of stamina and he finished a performance that was far from the original.

He returned looking very dejected and mumbled, "Gold medal is finished."   I myself could not say a word.  Waiting for the score at the Kiss&Cry, Yuzuru did not show much emotions. 

The confirmation of Yuzuru's gold medal happened later, during the interview with the media.  Both Yuzuru and I thought it would be a silver medal, but Patrick Chan who skated after Yuzuru, did not get a score that could take him ahead, and thus, the gold medal went into Yuzuru's hands.  Surely, it was a moment where a goddess smiled at Yuzuru.

"I am first...... I'm really surprised.  I'm not satisfied with my performance today....."

Yuzuru who was being interviewed by the media from various countries, looked a bit confused.  As for me, I was putting ice on his feet, doing icing, and my tears were falling.  Of course, this was because I was so happy that he had won the gold medal.  However, from the time the free skate ended, he had never looked satisfied with the title of Olympic champion.

To him, the gold medal that he won at 19, is only one of the checkpoints.  What he desires is to succeed in a technique that no one has done before, such as the quad axel jump.  And even more, to do a perfect performance with no mistakes. 

In that sense, it was a failure, the Sochi Olympics that he had envisioned in his mind.  He was not intoxicated by the euphoria of the gold medal;  the period when he was in Sochi, whenever he found some time, even if it was just a bit, he went to the rink to practise.

-------------------

For Parts 7 and 8 of Chapter 2,  I did a partial translation, some sentences are summarised or left out.

Chapter 2, Part 7: Start of new battles

During the Sochi Olympic period of about one month, my clinic was temporarily closed for business.  As such, it was tough financially.  Although before the Olympics, 'okachan' (wife) had said, "Going around the world is one of otosan's dreams, just go if you want to," and sent me off,  I think it was hard on the household budget.  After the Olympics is over, this role as Yuzuru's trainer will end and I will treasure the time I have with okachan, that was how I thought. (translator's note: Couples with kids often call their spouse 'mama' or 'papa' because of how their kids address them.  'Okachan' (okaasan) = mama/mum.  'Otosan' = dad.)

After Yuzuru became the Olympic champion, there was a great change in his environment.  Sponsors were flocking to him.  The attention he got was on a completely different level from what it was before.  Naturally, top-notch trainers active in the world would also be quickly going to him, I was thinking like that.

The difficulty level of Yuzuru's programmes continued to rise.  He continued to evolve.  To me, he was like a presence that was out of my reach.  So as not to cause any shame to him, I thought about what I could do, on this path of mine.

One of those things was to use my experiences to help the patients at my clinic.

Chapter 2, Part 8: Responding to the athlete's "izui"

If a patient said "the pain is gone", I would say "oh good, good!" and feel satisfied.  However, those who are aiming to be sports competitors and athletes have different demands.  They require something of a higher level.

For example, in the Sendai dialect, there is a word "izui" 「イズイ」.   It means "doesn't fit / doesn't feel right" or "a discomfort somewhere"  or "not smooth".  Sports competitors will not be satisfied with just having no pain;  they will say, "But it's still 'izui'."  And they leave my clinic with an 'izui face'.

But, through Yuzuru, I felt the earnest heart of the athlete.  "If it was him, what would I do?"  I had to become more serious and sincere.

In itself, doing treatment for others, one can learn many things.  2 years after I started my clinic, there was a patient who said, "I have not come here in a long time, but sensei, your treatment methods have not changed at all," and he left with a downcast expression on his face.

At that time, my methods were low frequency therapy, massage, stretch tape, compress (t/n. or poultice) and taping.  Is there anything wrong with these.......

From then on, if I hear that ancient Thai massage is good, I go to Thailand  to check it out.  If I hear that Ayurveda is good, I go to learn about it from an expert.  In the area of pain treatment, I saw information that spiral tape is good and I went to learn more.  Gradually, I was very much into the profound depths of Oriental medicine.

I want to be good at "taking away pain".  After being led by Yuzuru to experience the world's stage, the inquiring spirit welled up within me once again.

Because of my big failure as a trainer in Sochi, I also started to study and search for the most suitable ways of adjustment for athletes preparing for competition.  Is warming-up simply for relaxing the muscles and joints to warm up the  body?  Warm-up exercises should also be different for different sports. For figure skating, what would be good?  Many questions like these came into my mind.

I spent time researching warm-up suitable for top athletes and also improving my own skills.  However, the more I studied, the more I realised how extremely narrow my previous world was, and I felt like I would be crushed, and then I would crawl up from there;  and this kept repeating itself.

In all this, there was the apologetic feeling for having embarrassed the gold medalist.  Plus, there was a bit of the thought that, if one day Yuzuru calls for me again, this time I want to give proper support and be of good use.

After Sochi Olympics, I received many requests for interviews by various media groups.  Some even came to my clinic to ask me personally.  But when I thought of my failures at Sochi, I felt very ashamed and could not accept any interview.

Later, one section of the media started to call me names like "dubious therapist" and "chakra hermit/wizard".  There was also a rumour that "Hanyu-senshu has been brainwashed".  But I did not mind at all.  I really am a strange old uncle.  It's fine.

More importantly, I want to do something for patients who are bearing pain. Underlying it, are strong feelings of wanting to support Yuzuru. 

To solve their 'izui', not just for athletes but also for patients and for all people who are building up their bodies.  This became my new goal.

[end of Chapter 2]

Translated by me from this Japanese book by Akira Kikuchi: https://www.amazon.co.jp  (just doing partial translations for fellow Yuzu-fans)

Photo credit: getty images

[jovialyouthmusic]

Past Times

Time passes at Laxton, and following her frank talk with Dorothea, Elizabeth understands a little better what married life will be like.

Word Count 1878

A/N NSFW and NO UNDER 18s

12b A Very Personal Revelation

Dinner was a pleasant affair, and conversation flowed freely as all related to each other what they had done for the day. John begged for attention in order to relay who was to arrive the next day to stay overnight or longer for the ball.

‘Lizzie, the MacDougal family will take a suite in the west wing for two nights. I believe you are good friends with young Miss Rosanna?’

‘Oh that will be marvellous. I look forward to hearing all about her new beau. I understand he will come for the ball, for his family live very close’ She felt her heart lift with joy at the thought of sharing confidences with her childhood friend.

‘That is so, my dear.’ John replied ‘Tomorrow we also expect the Beaumont family, whose daughter I understand to be a friend of yours, Miss Amelia. They will stay for longer as it is a tedious journey back to their estate north of the city. I’m sure you will be pleased to have someone closer to your own age to spend time with’ Amelia beamed happily.  She was also looking forward to seeing the Mc Dougals, for as well as Rosanna being her sister’s particular friend, her brother Scott was her age and the two of them had played together as children. She didn’t think it proper to mention her fervent wish to see him, but held it as a secret known only to herself.

The time after dinner was spent in a similar way to the previous night, with Dorothea again playing so they might practice their dancing, followed by Elizabeth playing in order for her sister to sing. Lady Charlotte was in good spirits but again retired early to conserve her strength, closely followed by the rest of Elizabeth’s family. Again she was permitted half an hour without her chaperone in the company of John, Tom and Dorothea. This was a mixed blessing, for although she enjoyed her friends’ company, she longed to be alone with John. She could act as she might when they were married, but being observed was not ideal.

They played cards – this time an ordinary game playing for matchsticks, and after a while Tom and Dottie fell to arguing over a particular hand. Elizabeth gave John a longing look and leaned closer to him, reaching out to touch the back of his hand.

‘John dear, much as I am content with company, I long to be alone with you. Can we not engineer some diversion before Morag accompanies me to my room?’ she whispered. ‘I cannot fathom why father still persists on her being present when our betrothal is set’

‘Your father is over cautious, I think, and your mother likewise’ he murmured back in a low tone. ‘When we are wed this will seem but a short time, but I too wish to be alone with you.’ He looked over at the other couple, still bickering. He tapped on the table and they fell silent. Tom looked over at him, frowning slightly.

‘Can we not disagree over the hand we are dealt? Dottie insists that I am somehow cheating’

‘That is unfortunate indeed’ John replied ‘I am sure that Morag can hear every word and is much entertained’ He winked widely, and nodded toward the heavy curtains that were drawn over the doors that lead out to the gardens at the rear of the house. A look of understanding passed between the two friends, and Tom leaned over to whisper in Dottie’s ear. She gave a knowing look to Elizabeth and nodded. The two of them went back to arguing loudly, and John rose, taking his fiancée’s hand. Quietly he lead her toward the heavy curtains. He drew them aside a crack and silently opened the door to the evening air.

‘Tom will provide a diversion’ he explained ‘Not enough for Morag to want to enter the room, but enough for us to have a few moments alone. The night is warm and the moon is full’ Elizabeth stepped out into the night air and took a deep breath, closing her eyes in bliss. They did not move far from the door so that they might hear if they were called back in.

She realised how much she had felt stifled – the lack of social freedom, the stuffiness of the room, even the restriction of her clothes, her stays laced just a little too tight that morning. She pulled her shawl around her shoulders to guard against the cool air and John drew her into his warm embrace. The grounds had an air of enchantment as the moon cast its silvery glow, but the real magic lay in her fiancé’s arms. She sighed in contentment.

‘I never want this moment to end’ she said as she laid her head to his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart. It was not long before that was not enough, and she drew away to lift her face up to his for their lips to meet in a fervent kiss. They parted for breath and she felt her pulse racing. She heard him sigh contentedly.

‘I am fortunate indeed to have found you. My days were dull and lonely, and now I look forward to our future together’ Elizabeth felt a little thrill run through her, for in truth she was looking forward to being quite alone that night, thanks to Dorothea’s advice.

‘John’ she prompted ‘I spoke with Dorothea, and she told me much about the things we may do when we are wed’ In the moonlight she saw John’s eyes glitter as they locked with hers.

‘Is that so? What has she told you?’

‘She told me the particulars of how a woman comes to be with child, and how to postpone it’ He held her close.

‘I am glad you have someone of your sex to confide in. How do you feel about what she said?’

‘I am full of curiosity. She also told me that I should prepare myself for our wedding night’ She heard him take a sharp intake of breath and shift slightly.

‘Now I too am curious. Can you share what that might involve?’ His voice was a little hoarse and Elizabeth weighed her words carefully.

‘She told me that – that I should explore my body and discover what pleases me, so I may in turn let you know…’ her voice trailed away. John took a shuddering breath.

‘Dorothea has given you good advice. What can be done together can also be done apart - to some degree’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Should you prefer to keep some details to yourself until we are wed I would respect that.’ He fixed her with his gaze.  ‘You should know that I think of you every night when I go to my bedchamber, and in my mind imagine what it will be like when we are united in bliss.’ A delicious shiver ran down Elizabeth’s spine, but at that moment there was a movement from the curtains leading back inside, and Dorothea poked her head through.

‘You must haste back in, Lizzie, for your chaperone has knocked to signal you have but a minute or two left’ John pulled her close for one last kiss before they hurried back inside to answer Morag’s summons.

------

As she had done the night before, Elizabeth practiced undressing, now knowing something of what would happen on her wedding night. As before, she looked at herself in the mirror, this time with a sense of anticipation and expectation, and went to the bed where her nightdress lay ready for her.

She looked at it for a while, thinking that the long garment would impede the exploration of her body, and decided to slip between the sheets naked. She intended to put it on when she got up to relieve herself in the chamber pot under the bed before Jane came in and discovered her state of undress. She wondered if Jane would still attend her when she was married,. She had worked for the family for many years, and had looked after both her and her sister. She resolved to ask her mama the next day.

But now she lay between the crisp white sheets, skin bare to the fabric’s fragrant coolness, the weight of the blankets and coverlet moulding the bedclothes to her body. She felt her nipples tighten to hard little buds, as they often did when it was cool, but this was different. They tingled as she lay thinking of John, and she pressed her palm to a smooth globe, feeling the tip with her thumb. Although she brushed it but lightly, she gasped as it sent an electric shock through her, to her very core. She was undecided as to whether the sensation was pleasant or not, as it was very intense.

It was not as if she had never touched herself, but her mother had warned her against doing so, telling her it was not ladylike. Perhaps her meaning and intent was that she was too young, and now that she was to be wed, perhaps it was permissible. She remembered Dottie’s words, directing her to explore her sex, but she delayed a little, letting her hand wander over her soft flat belly, shivering in anticipation. Her hand found the wiry hair at her mound, and she went lower, parting her thighs and softly stroking upwards and inwards.

She knew that it felt like large fleshy lips, and sometimes between the times when she bled, she felt different there – slicker and more sensitive. It felt very pleasurable, and she closed her eyes and thought of her beloved John – his broad chest, his warmth, the firmness of his lips when they kissed, the spark that happened when their hands touched. Warmth and tingling expanded outward from her fingers, and she moaned softly, undulating and rolling her hips.

She continued to gently stroke and probe, discovering a place that felt harder than the surrounding flesh that gave her the most pleasure and which was very sensitive. She paid attention to it and could barely control her movements or the noises she made as the pleasurable sensations increased. Her heart pounded and she wondered if she might die from it, but she could not stop. Her body demanded attention and governed the pressure and speed her fingers moved.

She gasped as it all reached a plateau, resulting in a pulsing and intense tingling that left her shuddering, shaking and gasping. Her back arched and she trembled all over with the intensity before she was still and her hand fell away, a languorous glow spreading though her entire body. That hard little nub had felt for a few moments like the centre of the cosmos, sublime and exquisite. She lay panting and shaking, laughing softly. How much more might it be with a loving partner? How had this all been hidden from her? She felt as if she had been asleep and now woke to a new life – or she would at least approach it in the company of her betrothed. She lay a while thinking over all the possibilities that were now open to her, but soon fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

@sirbeepsalot​ @camillemontespan​​ @dcbbw​ @rainbowsinthestorm​ @katedrakeohd​ @trappedinfandoms​ @kingliam2019​ @nomadics-stuff​ @texaskitten30​ @princess-geek​ @texaskitten30 @fluffyfirewhiskey

[sserpente]

A/N: Requests from two anons and @cognativeresonance. More smut? More smut. And I think the gif is a spoiler.

Words: 2769 Warnings: ghost!Reader/succubus!Reader, smut

Peace was a treacherous word. At least it was for a spirit. You had been unwilling to accept death—and you had more or less come to terms with staying on Midgard and watching life pass you by when you would still be here once all life was gone.

But just because, according to mortal laws, you were dead, this did not mean you were not alive. Your physical manifestation resembled that of an angel, or a demon. You were not mortal—but you were not immortal either.

For decades, lower species had hunted you down for their sick and ruthless experiments and research, in an attempt to understand themselves, the universe, better. You had fled, times and times, until you found the perfect hiding place. Putting your trust in an Asgardian sorcerer who had done nothing but use you for his own wicked schemes. When you found out about his schemes, he punished you, bounding you to Midgard for all eternity. Now, you had taken refuge in an ancient castle with cold and moist stone walls that screamed history from every dark corner.

Every now and then, humans found this godforsaken and lonely place. Archaeologists, tourists and daring teenagers who had spread the rumours that the castle was haunted. Well, technically… they were not wrong. At least, that kept curious spectators away—most of the time.

Today, it was all different. You were almost grateful… for every now and then, life inside these ancient walls got rather tiring.

They called themselves the Avengers, on a secret mission to save the world. You rolled your eyes upon eavesdropping. This world was beyond saving. They needed a shelter for the night, somewhere safe to stay until dawn.

Still… they had not asked for your permission.

You recognised them; some of them anyway. There was Thor, God of Thunder and firstborn son of Odin Allfather. Ever since the destruction of his home planet, he had settled down on Earth, taking his mischievous brother Loki right with him. Loki. The God of Mischief. You licked your lower lips when you first lay your eyes upon him, unbeknownst to him.

He was tall, thin, yet well-trained and graceful with every movement he made. His hair raven black, his eyes piercing blue and those sharp cheekbones… you had heard about the horrors he had gone through over the last couple of years and you had taken quite the liking into him.

You followed him into one of the smaller chambers they had chosen to reside in for the night, secretly watching him, his body language and mimics. Good thing you were able to pass through walls. Your heart skipped a beat when he began taking off his heavy leather armour, revealing a plain green shirt seemingly made of silk. And when he took that off too, he revealed a pale but well-defined chest, making your mouth water.

You smirked. For Heaven’s sake, you had not had to lay with a man for decades. Unceremoniously, you knocked over the old vase on top of the drawer.

Loki turned on his heel, eyes darting around the room. He could not see you, of course.

“Who is there?” You chuckled. The sound echoed through the room, having him tense up. “Show yourself!” He demanded. Oh… so dominant. You would certainly enjoy having him in your bed.

And how you loved scaring intruders. Admiring his godly body once more with utter amusement, you only just missed the vigorous movement of his hand sending green shimmers of light through the room—until it was too late.

“My… what do we have here?” He purred darkly. His blue eyes locked with yours, knocking all air out of your lungs at once. You had certainly underestimated the God of Mischief. Your lips parted.

He could see you. He could actually see you. When was the last time a man… no, any other living being, had seen you with their own eyes? The thought both excited and scared you at the very same time.

“What a ravishing little ghost.”

Instantly, you frowned, insulted by the term he had used.

“I am a spirit. Not a ghost.”

Loki smirked. He enjoyed eliciting such reactions from you then. “Ah, pardon me. A spirit. So you are not… dead then.”

“No… not really,” You paused. “What spell did you cast? How are you able to see me?”

Loki was smart. A skilled sorcerer with centuries of experience. You should have known better than to provoke him. But then again… feeling his scrutinising blue gaze on you did things to you which you had not felt in so long it felt surreal. Perhaps this had been worth it.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, little spirit?” He was mocking you. He was actually mocking you. Angrily, you knocked over another vase without even laying a hand on it. It clattered to the hard ground, bursting into thousands of pieces and making him chuckle.

“Now since you had the audacity to haunt me like an ordinary ghost, why don’t you start by telling me exactly who you are?”

You snorted. He was the Norse God of Mischief. The more he knew about you, the more he would be able to manipulate and trick you. Besides, he was a stranger. This was personal.

Rolling your eyes at him, you turned on your heel in an attempt to pass through the wall, leaving him behind for good. The moment you collided with the hard and cold stone wall was the first time since your banishment you felt true pain.

What in the nine realms had he done to you?!

“No luck?”

You growled, rubbing your shoulder. Perhaps you should sleep with him and feast on his energy, if anything to wipe that cheeky smirk off his face.

“Who are you?” He asked again, more demanding and stricter this time. The sound of his velvety voice sent, unconsciously, pleasant shivers up and down your spine. You sighed. Somehow, he had bound you to this room. He could not mean to harm you but the threat lingering behind his words was clear.

“(Y/N)… my name is (Y/N).” Loki lifted his chin.

“Are you Midgardian?”

“What? Ew, no… I was born in Anaheim, almost five centuries ago.”

“Then how did you end up on Midgard? If you are not dead, your spirit must have been banished here.”

Hm. He knew what he was talking about then.

“I was, by an Asgardian sorcerer, almost two centuries ago.” The memory was painful. After all this time, the scar the day you had lost your body and became unable to leave this dirty planet, had still not healed.

“Which crime did you commit to deserve such severe punishment?” He probed.

Once again, you glared at him furiously. “Is this an interrogation? This is none of your business, Loki.”

“You know who I am then.” He stated bluntly. He took a step closer, threateningly. Gods, could it be? That you had offended him so gravely with your harmless spooking?

“Let me go.” You suddenly heard yourself whisper. Loki chuckled darkly. He was very well aware his sudden closeness was messing with your mind, sending waves of numbing heat through your body. The urge to grab him and throw him on the bed to ravish him grew with every passing second.

It had been severe punishment indeed. The sorcerer—Armal had been his name—was cruel. With your spirit detached from your physical form despite it never having left your body, you were unable to be seen or touched, your cravings left unsatisfied for all eternity.

Right now, however, in this very moment, your curse appeared like a true blessing. “You cannot touch me.” You hissed. “So stop threatening me.”

Loki raised his eyebrows. Only now did you realise that he was still shirtless.

“Can I not?” He reached out to grab your wrists and instead of passing right through you, his hands wrapped around them firmly. You flinched upon the sudden body contact, the fire that had been extinguished so many centuries ago igniting each and every one of your limbs within the fraction of a second.

“What… what did you do to me?”

“I am a sorcerer, my dear.”

“I…” You croaked out, unable to speak due to the growing desire overwhelming both your body and mind. “I haven’t touched… a… man… in… in decades.”

Loki frowned. He might have been a sorcerer. But when he leaned in even closer, his blue eyes wandering down to your lips, you realised that not even he was immune to your body.

“What are you?” He growled hoarsely.

“Why don’t you find out for yourself?”

Defeated by your own lust, you stood on your toes and pressed your lips against his, initiating even more body contact—even more intimate body contact.

Loki breathed in sharply, his hands letting go of your wrists to instead cup your face, taking control of the kiss. He was intoxicated—but so were you as he pulled you towards the bed, flipping you both around so he came to lie on top of you, straddling you and rendering you completely helpless.

He was strong. Much stronger than you, yet all you could think about in this very moment was Loki’s lips on your mouth, your chin, your neck… you gasped when he ripped your clothing off of your body, revealing your breasts to him. They bounced free upon the sudden movement, your nipples hardening both from the chilly temperatures around you and his greedy, hungry gaze on them.

You moaned when he took them into his mouth, one at a time to suckle on them teasingly, almost driving you crazy. Your back was arching, your body preparing to feed on his energy… would you be able to? It was true, you did not know what spell Loki had cast. Surely, he had not ended your banishment and surely, nobody but him was able to touch you right now. Instantly you wondered if he’d find a way to free you—you’d be forever grateful; and if you were just careful enough, you would not murder him during the act.

With but another flick of his wrist, the same green light returned, surrounding both your bodies this time. Only when he pried your legs apart to give himself access to your most intimate parts, you realised that you were both entirely naked.

The direct skin on skin contact made you swoon, your palms sweating with unspent energy, every fibre of your being longing to feast on him.

You were soaking wet when he forced himself between your legs, his hardened length leaking precum as he teased your clit with the tip, making you moan.

“Please…” You croaked hungrily. “Please…” Oh, in the end, all men were fools, driven by their carnal instincts.

Loki smirked smugly, seemingly enjoying your begging. You cried out in bliss when he buried himself inside you to the hilt, relentless and starving for pleasure. His energy built within you, flowing into your body like an ice cold river in spring. Your senses awakened, the world all of a sudden more beautiful, more colourful, more lively.

You dug your fingers into his bare back, leaving marks he would surely be able to feel tomorrow morning. When you opened your eyes to meet his lustful gaze, his own widened. You had almost forgotten they turned yellow, the pupils small black slits like those of a snake when you fed.

“You are a succubus.” He panted out of breath, slight shock swinging in his voice. If he were to pull away now, disgusted, you would never find the strength to keep him inside you. Loki was a god, after all. Much stronger than you.

“Please… please don’t stop now.” And it was true. The moment you had first tasted his sexual energy, your hunger returned like a tidal wave knocking you over and clouding your mind. He felt so incredibly good, both physically and spiritually…

For just the fraction of a second, his eyes flickered with an emotion you could not quite put your finger on. Was it compassion? Pity? The enchantment, in any case, seemed to be broken. He was fully aware now of what he was doing and with whom he was doing it.

You whined when he retreated from your tight heat, hissing in the process but screamed, out of control, when he plunged back inside you, fucking you hard and fast. The room filled with the smell of sex and sounds of skin smacking against skin, paired with both your moans and pants.

You threw your head back. He was so… so delicious. “Oh God…”

“’Oh God’ indeed…” He mused, barely able to contain himself. You had to admit, feeding usually felt as great as experiencing orgasms to you. You did not need them when you slept with men. This time, however… as you felt yourself tripping closer and closer to the edge, your breathing quickening and your heartbeat speeding up, you started to doubt this initial notion.

Loki knew exactly how to move and how to caress your dripping cunt to get you wet for him and welcome his manhood into your awaiting cave. With every powerful thrust he brought you closer to an earth-shattering orgasm threatening to steal away your senses and when you finally fell off the cliff, he was there to catch you. Your eyes returned to their normal colour, your hunger satisfied.

Rhythmically, your walls began clenching around him, milking him for all he was worth and triggering his own release. Loki grunted, wolfishly, as he spurted ropes of his seed deep inside you, making you scream his name in pure ecstasy.

He rutted into you a few more times, helping you ride out your climax until he himself was completely spent, then chuckled in an amused and mischievous manner when your eyes fell shut, exhausted by this wonderful adventure the Norse god had taken you on.

“Thank you…” You mumbled. What for exactly, you did not know. Was it the mind-blowing orgasm? The thirst he had quenched? The intimate body contact you had missed so strongly? You were still joined, his hard cock resting inside of you. He would soften any moment now, right? You should enjoy the sensation for as long as it lasted.

“Oh, my sweet little succubus…” He purred darkly. “You did not think I was done with you already, did you?”

Your eyes widened when he thrust back into you with a start. You had hardly recovered from your first orgasm when he already stirred you straight into the next, working you up even faster this time. One of his hands disappeared down to where your bodies where joined, his long and soft digits sardonically toying with your clit until you were ready to burst into a million pieces yet again.

“Oh… my God… Loki!” Your arms were all over the place, desperate for a safe grip. He pinned them down above your head, forcing you to simply take all the pleasure he was offering you. You screamed when you climaxed again, the sensations even stronger this time. But Loki did not stop. He kept fucking you roughly, hunting his own peak like a predator and never ceasing to make sure you enjoyed yourself as well.

How many more orgasms did he force you into? Was it three? Four? Six? Ten? You had stopped counting after the third time he filled you with his cum. Loki had turned you into a panting mess, all weak from all the bliss and as satisfied as you had never been in your long life.

Limply, you rested your head on his chest, listening to his rapid heartbeat. He did not need to speak out loud what he was thinking—for this truly was an unexpected turn of events. Surely, none of the Avengers had planned anything alike on this mission, especially not for him.

Loki had been intoxicated by your scent, a magical component your body released to seduce your victims easier but in the end, he had been the one who had proved to you what it meant to share the bed with a Norse god. The Norse God of Trickery. Weakly, you smiled to yourself.

“Loki…” You whispered breathlessly. He hummed in response. “Can you help me? Can you help me leave this place?”

His hand came up to stroke your arm, leaving a trail of goose bumps wherever his fingertips brushed over your naked skin.

You could tell he was smiling as well when he replied.

“I most certainly can, (Y/N).”

-

A/N: Damn, I really enjoyed writing this one.

Check out my blog to find more Imagines and take a glimpse at my first (to be) published novel! Also, if you enjoyed this story, I would appreciate so much if you supported me on Kofi! ko-fi.com/sserpente ♥

[saudadeonly]

i loved and i loved (and i lost you)

Read on ao3. Chronologically posted second. 

Death Eater! Sirius Black AU

The three times James Potter lets Sirius Black get away.

(And the one time he doesn't have to.)

Word count: 11453

___

I. December 1978

James’s breath fogs in the cold winter air as he heaves a frustrated sigh. He aims a kick at a small stone he finds particularly offensive but as it flies off and bounces on the paved ground he finds his irritation is no less present. “This is a waste of time,” he says as he crosses his arms in a vain attempt to shield himself from the biting cold. The warming charm he cast a couple hours ago has worn off and the streets around them are too crowded with Muggles for him to renew it without risking exposure.

“I wasn’t aware,” Remus says placidly from beside him. He, of course, thought to bring along a pair of gloves and a hat with a large ridiculous tassel so he’s looking positively toasty. “You hadn’t said so for the past 6 and a half minutes.”

James scowls. “Don’t be a prat.”

“Pot, kettle, black.”

James holds in a wince at the last word, fingers tightening almost unconsciously on the wand in his pocket. Chancing a glance at his friend, he finds his face equally strained for a moment before it smooths back into absent amusement, though it seems less genuine than before.

Well, if Remus won’t say anything about it, then neither will James. Absently, he notes that it’s a game they, along with Lily, Peter and another handful of Order members, have been playing since the mistress of 12 Grimmauld Place sent Peter and the two of them scampering away a couple of months ago, accompanied by a set of strong words and well-aimed jinxes. Their letters to the same address had been coming back unopened long before that.

“I just don’t see a point in patrolling here, of all places,” James grumbles in lieu of addressing a serious topic—pun not intended—and kicks another stone down the street. “It’s not a really note-worthy place, for anyone and especially not Death Eaters.”

“Moody’s orders,” Remus reminds him with the air of someone who’s done this a hundred times and tired of it, which James finds unfair, because, really, he’s only done it sixty-seven times. “We’ll just check for any abnormal activity and we’ll be on our merry way.” He bumps his shoulder against James’s. “You’ll be home before supper.”

It does little to lift James’s spirits—Lily is on duty at the headquarters until midnight, when James is supposed to relieve her so on top of having to freeze his ass off because of Moody’s bloody paranoia he’ll have to come home to a cold and empty house too.

At his petulant silence, Remus sighs. “I know this has been hard on all of us, Prongs, but really, there’s no need to be so—”

Remus’s would-be talking to is cut short by the sudden screams coming from the main square.

Sharing a reproachful look with his old friend, James dashes down the street toward the screams, pushing through the crowds who exclaim and huff at him, while Remus follows close behind, the picture of apologetic politeness compared to James’s rudeness.

They reach the main square at the same time, though, stopping side by side just in time to see a masked wizard upend an elderly woman mid-air while another five send streaks of light shooting at fleeing Muggles, laughing as the poor people topple over, helpless against their wands.

James is at a loss. He’s been an active member of the Order for the better part of six months and this is by no means his first mission, solo or otherwise, but it is the first time he has seen the Death Eaters’ cruelty in person, the way they taunt and mock their victims as they convulse on the ground.

Luckily for him, Remus seems to have his head on straight. He pulls James by the back of his overcoat until they’re both hidden in the shadows. He mutters a low incantation and a moment later, a silver streak shoots from his wand, bounding into the dark sky.

James stirs and starts for the square, but Remus stops him again, the grip on the collar of James’s robes surprisingly strong for someone so thin.

“Are you mad?” Remus demands, voice lowered to a whisper. “You want to go against six trained Dark Wizards on your own?”

James gives him a crooked smile, though it falls flat. He always used to have at least one other companion with even worse impulse control than his. “Well, not on my own, of course, Moony. I have you.”

Remus rolls his eyes, but must consider him deterred enough he releases him and uses his free hand to flick his sandy hair out of his eyes. “I’d rather not have my ears screamed off today, thanks,” he says.

One of the muggles in the square lets out a particularly blood-curdling scream and James tightens his grip on his wand.

“Moony,” he implores.

But Remus is as unaffected by his wide eyes as he has ever been. There has really ever been only one person whose eyes he isn’t immune to. He only levels him with a stern look. “We’re not good to anyone dead. It might even hurt the Order if we get captured.”

James has no good argument to that but before that can be properly obvious, there’s a streak of silver light through the night sky and a large horned owl of the same colour materialises in front of them.

“We’re on our way,” it says in Dorcas’s voice. “Do not engage until we arrive.”

“Well, too late for that,” James says, raising his wand as a dark figure splits off from their companions and slips into the dark alley, silver mask glinting in the moonlight. James curses under his breath. Talking Patronuses, while an incredibly quick and effective way to communicate with other Order members, are not very inconspicuous.

The Death Eater approaches, wand raised, and tilts their head as they examine the two of them. “Well, well, what do we have here?” they crow in a low but delighted voice. “If it isn’t baby Potter and little Lupin.” They cock their head to the side, strangely patronising even without the use of their face, and James’s fingers go white on his wand. “Here to play heroes, are you?”

“Certainly.” Remus is a picture of quiet confidence, his form perfect, his hand steady. If it weren’t for the way his eyes flick towards James just for a second, James might’ve thought him to be catching up with a Hogwarts classmate over tea. “Someone has to, if you insist on being the villain, Wilkes.”

Aidan Wilkes—for it is indeed Aidan Wilkes, James can see now, in the thin blond hair that shines green in the light of Death Eaters’ spells, and the pale scarred hand holding on to his wand—seems to not have expected to be recognised, but Remus always has been exceptionally observant. Wilkes sends his reply in the form of a purple light at James, who deflects it with a murmured “Protego.”

It gives Remus enough time to send a silent spell flying his way, but Wilkes easily dodges and takes a step back. They trade spells that way, some spoken, some wordless, and James finds his frustration returning with a vengeance when neither they nor Wilkes prevail. There’s two of them and only one of him and he thinks that the math there should be obvious.

He knows, of course, why they can’t beat the damn bastard—while they use spells hardly above the level they used for one of their more elaborate pranks back at Hogwarts, Wilkes fires curses at them that James hasn’t even heard of, much less experienced, and when one of particularly nasty ones grazes his shoulder, he finds he can hardly move his left arm.

The curses under his breath come quicker when he realises Wilkes has managed to retreat so far that one of the other Death Eaters jumps them from the left and they’re forced to dive to the ground to avoid the streak of green light.

Sharing a look with Remus, they spring back to their feet and press their backs together, spells shooting from their wands before they’re even fully balanced, James’s toward the new Death Eater and Remus’s toward Wilkes.

Now, James is a decent duellist, not the top of their Duel Club at Hogwarts—that honour belonged to the two most important people in his life—but he’s ended up walking away from his duels almost unscathed more times than his opponents have.

The problem is, the Death Eaters have obviously have come here to have fun and James has to assume that obliterating a couple of barely-out-of-Hogwarts wizards has to be more entertaining than simply suspending a few Muggles in air and laughing as they scream in terror.

They gather round Remus and James as they take notice of them, the Muggles they were tormenting only moments before falling to the ground. Their cackles of delight can be heard even over the sound of the explosion one of Wilkes’s spell causes.

“Just when I thought today was going to be boring,” one of them says and James sends a Backfiring Jinx—just to make things less boring for him—at him just as he shouts, “Flipendo!” He’s blasted back several metres, hitting the side of a tall building.

The one second James paid attention to him was one second too long—he is hit with a Knockback Jinx of his own, feeling like a giant has just punched him in the chest, and sent flying across the square. He lands on the cobblestones, the breath knocked out of him, black spots dancing in his vision.

He gasps for air and grapples for his wand with one hand, fixing his glasses with the other, but when he finally grabs onto something, it’s not the wooden handle of his wand but a hand, shrivelled and tiny, but still warm.

With horror, he looks to the side to see the elderly woman that was first to go up in the air blankly staring at him, blood trickling out the corner of her mouth.

He shakes his head—there’s no time to be horrified right now—and grabs his wand which rolled to the side to rest right next to the hip of the woman.

Once again, a bloody moment too late.

“Don’t move,” says a menacing voice above him, the end of a dark wand pointed at him.

The Death Eater standing in front of him is tall and lean, the intricate patterns on his silver mask almost beautiful. But there is something in the way he holds himself, high-strung and casual all at once, that seems almost reserved for one particular—

There are several successive cracks—James counts five—and the Death Eater is blasted to the side before he can so much as turn.

Marlene McKinnon—Merlin’s socks, he’s never been so happy to see her in his life—offers James a hand, which he gladly accepts, and gives him a stern look that seems almost as alien on her as a smile on her girlfriend. “I thought you weren’t supposed to engage.”

James gives her a sheepish look. “To be fair, they engaged us.”

Marlene doesn’t seem impressed but she shrugs it off. “I’ll let Lily and Dorcas do the lecturing,” she says instead, flashing him a lopsided smile.

She turns on her heel and sends a turquoise light toward Wilkes, who was just making a slashing motion toward Remus. Another swish of Marlene’s wand and he is out cold on the floor.

The remaining four Death Eaters seem to be reconsidering their life choices right about now as the combined strength and wrath of Marlene McKinnon, Lily Evans, Dorcas Meadowes, Frank Longbottom and Alice Fawley comes thundering down on them, along with rejuvenated Remus and James.

James stops only for a second to admire the sight of his fiancée dancing out of reach of one of the Death Eaters’ purple spell, her hair flying behind her as she sends a retaliating hex back. He smiles to himself, then plunges back into the fight, sending a Disarming Spell to divert a dark stream meant for Dorcas, who fluidly blasts her opponent back.

“Where’s your master now?” shouts Marlene at them, the taunt in her voice obvious as the Death Eaters flock together, retreating step by step. One—James thinks it’s the one that blasted himself back—even Disapparates. “Where is he now to hide you, you cowards?”

“Here I am, McKinnon,” says a voice, high and cold.

They all turn toward the source of it and James has to ask himself how it all went so horribly wrong so quickly.

A tall figure, garbed only in a set of elegant black robes and lacking shoes, stands in the middle of the square, the wand in his hand held almost loosely. His eyes are red, skin white and face almost snake-like, but despite himself James can still find something barely human in the tilt of his high cheekbones, the curve of his smiling lips.

Lord Voldemort holds out a hand to his followers, who, as if driven by some innate force, pick themselves up off the ground and drift toward their master. Even Wilkes, who should have been unconscious, gets up and joins him.

James moves a step closer to his friends, making sure to position himself directly in front of them.

Voldemort’s eyes focus on him first. “James Potter,” he drawls in his bone-chilling voice. His fingers slide along the length of his wand. “I heard quite a lot about you.”

James swallows. “All bad things, I hope,” he answers, shifting so that his useless arm isn’t exposed, his wand hand twitching in preparation to be raised. He is profoundly glad his voice doesn’t shake.

He chuckles, but the sound carries no humour. “Depends on who you ask.” His eyes flick toward the last Death Eater to join them, the one Marlene blasted away from James, his mouth curving up the tiniest bit before they focus back on James. “I must admit, I hoped the purity of your blood might lead you to me, but I see you need a bit of a stern hand.”

James opens his mouth, whether to tell him to sod off to hell, or to imply the same with his curses, but he’s already looking away from him and towards Marlene.

“Same goes for you, McKinnon,” he says, then adds with a glance at each of the Order members, “Longbottom, Fawley.”

All good, respectable pureblood families, though out of the four of them, Marlene is perhaps the furthest away from her family’s beliefs—while not outright blood supremacists, her grandparents are by no means fond of Muggles or Muggleborn, though her parents seem to counteract that with the way they adore Dorcas, a witch technically not a Muggleborn but close to it with her squib mother and Muggleborn father.

“The rest of you, of course, are not as worthy of following me as they are, but given the good things I heard about your talents, I will let you join me.”

Grave silence rules the square, no one daring to even let out a breath.

Lily slips her hand in James’s and though his fingers are still half-numb he is glad for it, trying to convey his gratitude through running his thumb over her knuckles.

“Rot in hell,” Dorcas spits, a deliberately Muggle saying, and just like that, all of their wands are pointed at the darkest wizard of all time.

James has a feeling they’ll all die tonight.

Voldemort seems unperturbed. “I thought you might be inclined that way—the old fool must have his claws deep inside you—so I brought along someone who might be more motivational than me.” He turns to the Death Eater directly on his right, the one that stood above James. “Prove to me they’re worthy.”

The Death Eater ducks into a shallow bow, his hood falling off as he straightens, revealing a shock of night-dark hair. “My Lord,” he murmurs and takes a few steps forward, still to the right of his master and nowhere near hiding him from their view. He walks with an easy sort of grace, strides even and measured, the back of his robes billowing behind him as if compelled.

Just like before, James finds something familiar in the way he moves, the way he carries himself, as if he’s made not of mortal flesh but of stars and steel, and there’s really only one family, pureblood or not, that James can think of that hold themselves like that.

And James knows, somehow, though perhaps it isn’t so strange all things considered, even before the Death Eater stops and pulls off his mask, knows and dreads and feels whose face they will see underneath that mask. And he prays, prays to every deity he knows, every god or goddess he has ever heard of that he is wrong, that it isn’t his dearest friend who is about to stand opposite of him.

His prayers go unanswered.

Sirius Black removes his mask with little dramatics. That particular flair of his seems to have been reserved for the way he grins at them, slow and crooked and so Sirius his chest cracks open, because he knows that smile, the one he’s seen millions of times before, the very same one that used to fall apart in a matter of seconds.

“Hello, James.”

Strangely enough, the first thing James notices about his friend that he hasn’t seen in roughly half a year—a hundred and sixty-eight days but who’s counting—is that his hair is much shorter than the last time he saw him, cut just above his ears, but still managing to retain its elegant wave. Sirius loved his hair—he used it as one of the many ways to drive his mother up the wall—and threatened anyone who so much as dared to tease him about cutting it with a gruesome death and James has never been convinced it was purely a joke.

The second thing that catches is eye is the prominence of his cheekbones and the hollowness of his cheeks, as if someone had sucked anything he could spare out of him. He wonders if Sirius has been eating enough, or even at all.

The third thing he registers—and really, he needs to get his priorities straight because this one is perhaps the most important—is the fact that Sirius Black, who has hated everything to do with Dark Magic since the day he met him, who has despised his family and their affiliations for much longer than that, is a Death Eater.

Someone lets out a sound that is between a choke and a sob. Marlene, James thinks. Marlene, who bleeds love and light like she was born for it, who adores Sirius above everyone else, her first ally, her first friend, who hexed Caradoc into oblivion just last week because he dared to imply Sirius had turned.

“Sirius kept some questionable beliefs when I first met him, I’ll admit,” says Voldemort, but his voice sounds far away to James, who currently has the mental capacity only to stare at Sirius. “But he has proven to be one of my most loyal servants and he is matched only by his dear cousin in terms of capability. Just proves my point of how remarkable such noble Houses are.”

A shadow passes Sirus’s face, gone quicker than James can blink and he convinces himself he must have imagined it.

“What did you do, Sirius?” Lily asks, voice as ashen as her face.

James squeezes her hand.

“What I should have done a long time ago, Lily,” Sirius says easily. “I was wrong before; this is where I’m meant to be. Serving eternally by the side of the most powerful wizard of all time.” His eyes flick toward someone behind James’s back and he can take an educated guess as to who’s standing behind him when something shifts in those grey eyes. He looks away and drawls on, “You can too. You take my hand and all that you have done against us, will be forgiven.” His hand, wandless and long-fingered, rises to stop mid-air, waiting palm-up for a clasp that James knows will never come.

Us. There was a time James was a part of that us. Now, looking into the face that is familiar and alien at once, too smooth, too cold, too impassive—for Sirius Black is a lot of things but impassive is not one of them—he finds he no longer wishes to be.

James lifts his wand higher. “Who are you?” He is terrified to see his hand tremble. “What did they do to you?”

“I’m me, James. They did nothing to me. Ask me anything and you’ll see.”

His voice is so calm, so reasonable, so very unlike Sirius James wants to throw up. He can’t speak past the lump in his throat.

“What did you do to him?” Marlene screams, wand pointed not at Sirius but at the dark figures behind him.

Voldemort throws a look at Sirius, a cruel smirk curving his lips. “Convince them or they’re dead, Black,” he says, the words barely more than a hiss. “I’m getting bored.”

Sirius’s hand shakes almost imperceptibly. “James, please,” he murmurs and James doesn’t think anyone other than Lily or him can actually hear him.

James shakes his head. “I’d rather die.”

Sirius’s face changes at once, harsh lines surrounding his mouth, a furrow between his thick brows. His hand drops, hanging limply by his side.

“So you shall,” the Dark Lord drawls. He looks to his Death Eaters, voice nothing short of bored as he orders, “Finish them.”

Alice, ever the vicious Hufflepuff, is the first one to throw a spell. It shoots right past James’s ear and heads straight for Voldemort, bathing the silver masks of his followers in red light.

He deflects it with a lazy flick of his wand, lazily prowling towards them, while the Death Eaters shoot forward. “Is that all you can manage, little Alice?”

Instinctively, James steps in front of Alice and feels more than hears the others do the same. Lily’s hand is still in his and he squeezes it.

Sirius has put his mask back on and his wand is a mere blur in the air as he sends a blue stream of light towards James, who barely manages to shout the incantation for a shield, though he can feel the shock of the hindered curse reverberate within his bones.

“You’re going to pay for that!” Lily shouts and throws a well-aimed Stinging Hex that hits Sirius straight into the chest and Merlin, James loves that woman, he adores her more than he has ever cared for anything else in his life. “Bloody traitor! Expulso!”

The stones at Sirius’s feet explode, throwing him several metres back, but he twists mid-air like a cat and manages to soften his landing with a shield charm. “Is that all you got, Evans?” he taunts, already making a circular motion with his hand.

James pulls down Lily just in time to avoid the pale light, and then they’re forced to twirl away as the Dark Lord himself starts for them, Alice now lying on the ground with a deep wound down her side.

“You are fools,” he says, brandishing his wand with a rather dainty swish. “You could’ve had everything in my service.”

“Everything but our dignity,” James mutters.

“Let’s be honest, James, you haven’t had that in years,” Sirius says and James doesn’t regret the Bat-Bogey hex he throws his way, an old reflex from their school tussles, in the slightest—but like always, Sirius is ready and gracefully dodges, laughing as he does.

“You’re on the battlefield,” he crows, then demonstrates that fact with a swish of his wand that sends Dorcas spinning in circles and then crumpling to the ground. Marlene’s face is a mask of fury, but Sirius seems oblivious as he drawls, “Act like it.”

James is forced to tear his eyes away from Marlene’s wand pointed directly at Sirius when Voldemort sends a jet of green light towards him, forcing him to jump to the side and land on the cobbled stones for the second time that night, which his tingling arm doesn’t take kindly to. Pain flares up from the tips of his fingers all the way up to his neck.

“James!”

But James doesn’t get to answer Lily, for there is another flash of green light and a number of cracks, announcing new arrivals.

“Expulso!” yells a familiar voice, deep but raspy, and James lifts his head just in time to see Sirius flail through the air along with his master and the rest of the Death Eaters.

He looks toward the sound of the voice and finds Moody standing in the middle of the square, the Prewett brothers and Benjy Fenwick behind him already firing curses at the fallen Death Eaters. Brilliant, brilliant people.

Voldemort is gone before the spells reach them.

The rest of them try to follow but most of them lost their wands and one of them, possibly Wilkes, is hit just as he grabs his, going down like a puppet with cut strings.

James ignores the pain still flaring up his arm, grabs his own wand and starts toward Sirius, who has managed to scramble away from the worst of the curses, though he seems to hold his leg precariously. His wand lies just out of his reach.

James points his own at him.

Sirius looks up at him, though James can see nothing of his face except for his eyes, which seem to almost match his silver mask. It is a beautiful thing, James can see now, intricate patterns engraved into it and he realises a beat later that they’re constellations, stories written in it, though James was pants enough at Astronomy to not recognise any of them. Black, indeed.

“Are you going to kill me, James?” he asks, hand blindly searching for his wand as he keeps their eyes locked.

“Why?” James demands in lieu of answer, hand trembling.

“I can’t answer that.”

“You—you could’ve come to us! To me!” His eyes sting but he promises himself he won’t cry. “You didn’t have to—”

“You’re right, I didn’t,” Sirius says, lifting his chin in that pureblood way of his, the way his mother did right before she hexed him so thoroughly he barely managed to get himself home. It rattles him to his bones that he can recognise Walburga Black, the epitome of hate, of everything that is wrong in this world, in his closest, dearest friend, a boy he considers—considered his brother. “I chose to.”

“Potter!” Moody barks. “Finish him!”

It’s a second James takes to glance at the grizzled Auror, but it’s enough. In his peripheral vision, he sees Sirius’s fingers close around his wand and he turns, the light shooting out his wand more of a manifestation of his anger, confusion and pain than an intended spell.

It hits bare stone, sending up a flurry of dust.

Sirius is no longer there, only a smatter of blood on the cobbles proving that he once was.

He feels arms around him then, strong gentle arms that are accompanied by a voice that he loves more than anything else in the world, and he lets himself sag against Lily as she murmurs in his ear, “You’re okay, we’re okay, we’re okay, . . .”

But as he recalls Sirus’s face, hard and ruthless, he isn’t so sure.

 II. December 1979

The sun isn’t supposed to set for hours but James feels as if the warm autumn sunrays can’t reach him in the cocoon of darkness and numbness he has enclosed himself in.

The words of his parents’ oldest friend, Mrs Jowles, might as well be coming from underwater. The crowd around him, far smaller than it is supposed to be—but such is the time of war—seems blurry. His hands, clasped in front of him so tightly the knuckles are white, are trembling but he can’t muster up enough will to hold them still.

The grave in front of him is barely big enough to fit the complementary urns of his parents—the nearly frozen earth proved to be quite a challenge to dig up, even for wizards and their wands—but he thinks they might’ve liked it to stay so close together. He stares, not really seeing as the remains of their bodies are lowered into the earth, and clenches his jaw in an effort to keep the tears at bay.

It takes him a full minute to realise that Mrs Jowles has stopped speaking and is now looking at him with a mix of pity and expectancy. He wishes Lily were here. Or Remus. Or Peter. Or—he doesn’t let himself think of that last name.

He moves forward, toward the pile of dirt next to the hole. As their closest living relative, as their only living relative, it falls on him to cover them in the first layer of earth.   

The tradition is to use your wand to lift and lower the soil into the ground, but that feels too detached, too formal, so James drops to his knees next to the pile, uncaring of staining his white trousers, and grabs a handful of the earth, letting it fall onto his parents’ urns. He does it again and when he reaches for the earth for the third time, he realises his shoulders are shaking.

Mrs Jowles touches his shoulder. She doesn’t say anything to him, as is customary, but he understands all the same. He stands up and walks back to his previous position, watching as people form a line to pay their respects.

Something wet and cold hits his palm and he looks down, his hand automatically going for his wand once he sees the big black dog by his side.

It’s been over a year but James would recognise Padfoot, with his dark shaggy fur and sharp grey eyes, anywhere, anytime and probably blindfolded, too. He looks as bad as James feels, his tail hanging so low it touches the muddy ground, his fur wet and clear eyes unusually downtrodden. He looks like he isn’t here to pick a fight at all.

James drops his hand from his wand. If Lily were here, she’d probably hex Padfoot and then him, and Remus would kick him bloody—James, that is. But they’re not, both sick at home, Lily from pregnancy and Remus from the full moon the previous day, so James doesn’t think of it twice.

Padfoot whines, so low it’s barely audible, and buts his head against James’s thigh gently. He waits a moment, as if preparing for James to bat him away and then, when he doesn’t, he sits back on his haunches and presses himself against James’s leg.

James runs a hand over the dog’s fur and finds that, though it’s wet, it is as soft as ever. He traces a pattern on top of his head and tugs on one of his ears, then gently slides his hand to Padfoot’s neck and holds on to the fur there. It must hurt Padfoot, the strength with which he does it, but he doesn’t let out one sound. “You’re lucky I don’t hex you,” he mutters.

Padfoot lets out a sound that’s between a growl and a whine and they both know that James’s threat is empty. He’s gripping the fur of his neck too fiercely for it not to be.

So they stand, Padfoot and James—not Padfoot and Prongs, not James and Sirius, because those people don’t exist together, not anymore—side by side, as they haven’t for ages, watching as people lower themselves to their knees and grab handfuls of earth to cover their parents.

At the very end, Padfoot whines again and starts forward. James lets him go, his fingers numb for a completely different reason now, watching as Padfoot crawls across his belly towards the grave and pushes the last of the soil over the grave.

James watches, unable to look away as the big dog, his oldest friend, his most trusted companion, noses the dirt, the expression on his face so inherently human, so damnably crushed, that James wants to scream.

A blink; then Padfoot ambles back to James’s side, graceful even as a dog, no trace of that emotion in his eyes now, and together they walk away from the grave.

Usually, a wake would be held after such an event, but in times like these, one doesn’t want to dally anywhere, much less gather in big groups for an extended period of time.

James is quite content to have his wake consist of getting drunk on cheap whiskey with Peter, who is due to return from his Order mission this evening, while Lily and Remus watch on with sad eyes and then get them safely to bed.

He glances at the dog next to him, his hands clenching into fists. Quite content, yes.

He waits until they’re far enough, until he’s heard enough cracks of disapparition he can be sure most of the people have gone and will not see him arguing with a dog, as so many of his classmates have. Then he whirls on Padfoot. “Shift,” he orders.

Padfoot doesn’t listen, like he never has. Instead, he sits and stares at him with big eyes, charmingly innocent enough that James stops to consider if this is just a stray mutt who looks eerily like his best friend’s Animagus form. He dismisses the thought as soon as Padfoot cocks his head—there’s far too much defiance in his expression to be canine.

“I’m not going to talk to you while you’re a dog.”

Padfoot lies down, putting his head on his front paws and looking up at him in a way that seems to say, Well, you’ll have to.

James pinches the bridge of his nose. “Padfoot…”

There are so many things he’d like to say to Sirius Black and not Padfoot, because for all of their foolish youth’s nicknames there is a definite line between the two. What in the name of Merlin’s pants were you thinking, for one. Or, how could you be so bloody stupid. Why did you do it. Then they turn softer, these things that James doesn’t dare think of even in the dead of the night. I miss you. Tell me you don’t hate me. Tell me it’s all an act. Come home.

The words bubble up in his chest, swirling and mixing and burning, but they refuse to come out, content to simmer until they’re acid that will claw its way up his throat. Instead, all that comes out is, “I’m sorry about Regulus.”

Padfoot’s ears perk up and he lifts his head, grey eyes suddenly much less clear. He yips, this small acknowledgement of his baby brother that splits James’s soul right down the middle.

James heard about the death of the youngest scion of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black from Moody, who made it sound like the death was a cause for celebration, the first of many bull-headed purebloods to fall, rather than a tragic loss of a boy who was barely out of Hogwarts. They hadn’t even found a body to bury, he was informed in that sharp, no-nonsense way of Moody’s. It hadn’t hit him until then, not really, how divided Sirius must be in the war.

No matter which side Sirius chose, he would end up standing opposite one of his brothers.

“I know he meant a lot to you.” James bends down and scratches behind Padfoot’s ears, where he remembers he likes it best. His heart swells and then cracks at the seams when Padfoot leans into his palm.

He pushes back to his feet. “I should go,” he says, watching as Padfoot picks himself off the ground as well. “You’re not coming with me, are you?”

Very slowly, Padfoot shakes his head.

James knew, but it still hits a part of him he didn’t even know was still within him. It tastes bitter and harsh but familiar and sweet, a word James knows all too well and doesn’t want to say out loud. He’s forgiven Sirius for a lot of things over the years, stupid and messy and cruel as they were, and he hasn’t regretted one of them. It scares him to think that he might forgive him for this too.

If Sirius wants his forgiveness at all.

He doesn’t fool himself into thinking this past hour was anything more than a momentary truce, Sirius acknowledging that he’s hurting and that he’s not going to add onto that hurt for the sake of whatever they once were—though some days, he doubts that was real, too. Or perhaps it’s for the sake of his parents, who he adored and was adored by. The next time they meet on the battlefield, neither one will hold back, he’s sure of it.

He turns and starts walking away because it somehow doesn’t feel right to simply disappear from Padfoot’s view. They’ve always had a way of poking and prodding at each other with only their actions, though it’s only ever been for fun.

He’s just about to disappear on the spot, when he hears a voice call out, “Jamie.”

That nickname—the nickname that his mother used to call him and then stopped when she realised how much it hurt him after, after, after—feels like a punch to the stomach.

He turns and finds Sirius standing where Padfoot was only moments before, his hair wild around his hollow face. His robes, dark and elegant, seem to hang off his lean frame. James wonders if that’s what he looks like, too.

A moment later, he remembers he should probably pull out his wand and his hand dives into his pocket.

But Sirius doesn’t reach for his own, though James can clearly see it’s strapped to his forearm, right over the dark brand. Instead, he shoves his hands into his pockets. “When my time comes,” he says, “mourn me.”

He vanishes into thin air just as James’s fingers close around the handle of his wand.

 III. February 1980

“And remember,” Marlene says, jabbing a finger into James’s chest, “don’t start fights you can’t finish.”

“But it’s a rescue mission,” says Cyrilla Hayes before James can ask why Marlene had to point him out, her dark eyes uncertain and reproachful as only new members’ are these days.

“Exactly,” Marlene says, turning her sharp eyes on the young witch, who seems to shrink under the attention of that piercing brown gaze. People say that war hones a person, gives them an edge that later takes years to dull, but James likes to think Marlene came screaming into the world with that edge and is finally alive now that she gets to cut with it. “We don’t need other people to get caught too. You’re no use to us then.” She gives the poor girl another scrutinising look and says, “You’re with James. Podmore, with Vance. Silas, you’re with me.”

James sees Jeremy Silas, another new addition, share a look with Cyrilla, half terror, half exasperation, before she turns towards James, offering him a shy smile.

James doesn’t consider himself a war veteran, not by a long shot, but it’s astounding how he can feel the ache in his stomach, the exhaustion in his bones, both razor-sharp and ditchwater-dull, as he meets the eyes of the young witch before him. He returns her smile, though it feels thin, even to him.

“Okay,” Marlene says loudly, “does everyone know where we’re going?”

They nod.

“Good. Let’s go.”

The six of them appear on a field somewhere in the south of England. There’s nothing around them for kilometres, but for a shabby-looking barn, with a blown-off roof and more missing planks than present. It hardly looks an appropriate place for a Death Eater rendezvous point but the intel from one of Voldemort’s sympathizers tells them otherwise.

“There are three entrances,” Marlene says, voice carrying even over the wind that whips her long blonde hair about her face, covering and uncovering the patch of dark bruises along the line of her jaw. She still refuses to tell anyone where she got them and rejects any offer to have them healed. “James, take the left one, Vance the front one, we’ll take the back one.”

James salutes her and just catches the edge of her smile before she casts a disillusionment charm on herself and then Silas. He copies her, rapping his wand against the top of Wilhelmina’s head, then on himself and watches as Sturgis and Emmeline do the same.

He starts towards the left side of the barn, making sure that Cyrilla is following him. “Stay close,” he murmurs to where he thinks she is, “and save your energy for spells you really need.”

He takes her lack of response as confirmation and sends out a few prodding spells that determine what kind of spells have been cast on the barn.

They all seem to match the information the young wizard told them—the usual number of protective enchantments, a few dark curses that chill James down to his bones and a couple of jinxes—but they are also all negated by the spell the aspiring Death Eater cast on them, making them able to pass through the enchantments as easily as Voldemort himself.

The door opens with a tap of James’s wand and he slips inside, the scuff of boots on the wood telling him that Cyrilla is right behind him.

The hallway in front of them is dark, lit with blaring spheres of light that cast long looming shadows on the splintered walls. There’s a set of dark, wide doors at the far end, with golden whorls and peeling paint, light shinning through the cracks around their hinges.

James starts forward, keeping his feet light and close to the walls to make as little noise as possible, and makes sure his wand doesn’t waver.

Just as they are a meter away from the doors, a scream pierces the air, making Cyrilla let out a squeak that has him pressing a hand to her mouth and against the wall.

It takes James a few seconds to will his heart into a normal rhythm again and only then does he realise that the voice, that high, pained voice is not only screaming but begging, too.

“I don’t know, please, I don’t know any—” It breaks on the last word, barely-there sobbing replacing it.

“Finish her, Rosier,” says another voice, completely at odds with the first one—level, deep, bored. “She doesn’t know anything.”

James doesn’t see Cyrilla’s eyes, but he can guess they’re wide open and panicked by the quickness of her breath against his palm. “Are you with me?” he asks lowly.

He feels her nod against his hand, though her breath is still shaky. He wishes, not for the first time, that Lily were with him.

“Good,” he says. “Follow my lead.”

There’s another, younger voice that says, “She must know something.” There’s a crack and the woman shrieks, short and sharp. A moment of silence, then, “Crucio!”

James bursts through the door just as the woman—Wilma Hughes, an important ministry official and a witch well-known for her muggleborn pride, he can see now—starts to scream. There is no time to take a look around the room but he does manage to register the three other bodies lying haphazardly against the far wall.

“Stupefy!” he shouts and Lucius Malfoy, the only Death Eater in the room wearing a mask but easily recognisable by his long, blonde hair, raises his wand to deflect it just late enough it knocks him back a few steps.

The young Death Eater that James now recognises as Evan Rosier, just a year younger than him, attacks first, twirling his wand as he shoots a dark spell at Cyrilla, his blonde curls pasted to his forehead as he ducks Cyrilla’s retaliating curse.

There’s a third Death Eater, but James doesn’t recognise him though his pointed teeth, bared in a vicious sneer, and a long, yellow nails present an idea that James would rather not entertain. “Finally, a good meal,” he growls and pounces toward James.

He is thrown to the side by a jet of white light, landing him on the cold floor, where he lets out a sound that seems to be something between a yip and a growl.

“Good aim, Silas!” says Marlene’s disembodied voice, promptly followed by a streak of red light toward Malfoy, who, this time, does manage to send the spell hurtling toward the wall, which shatters into splinters.

“Lestrange!” he roars.

James sends a wordless spell his way, but misses when he’s forced to duck away from the grey-haired man, dancing out of his reach as he pounces on him.

“Your left, James!”  Marlene shouts.

He turns just in time to put up a shield charm for a red jet of light from Rosier. James growls and slashes with his wand.

Rosier goes down, dark eyes wide as a red line appears across his belly, but not before he manages to send a badly-aimed stinging hex that hits James’s shoulder.

The third door bursts open just in time with James’s hiss, revealing an unmasked, stocky man with a shock of dark hair, holding Emmeline Vance in front of him, his wand pressed to her bleeding neck.

The movement in the room stills. Even the supposed werewolf doesn’t move.

“Drop your wands,” says Rabastan Lestrange, “or I’ll kill her.”

“Don’t,” says Emmeline, short hair soaked with blood. Her voice is slow and barely discernible. “Rescue mission.”

The werewolf, just a couple paces away from James, sniffs the air and licks his lips. “Let me have her, I’ll convince them right away.”

“Back off, Greyback,” snaps Malfoy, eyes focused on Emmeline and Lestrange.

Greyback slinks back, lips curling up in an expression James can only describe as pure hate. “Yes, sir,” he murmurs.

James takes a step forward, hands raised up but his wand still in his fingers, and finds both Lucius’s wand and Greyback’s eyes following his movement. “Rab, old chap, why don’t we talk about this rationally?” he says, voice surprisingly calm considering the situation he’s in.

Rabastan presses his wand deeper into Emmeline’s neck, drawing out a yelp from her. “Nothing to talk about,” he growls, but James can see his eyes darting around uncertainly. He’s always been a tad brighter than his brother, Rabastan, clever and uncertain where Rodolphus is more brawn than brain, and he must be coming to a conclusion that standing three against four can’t come out all that well for him, in the end.

“Look, we’ll just take what we came here for,” James says, moving one more step forward.

“Potter,” Marlene warns just as Rabastan slinks one step back, dragging Emmeline with him.

He ignores her. “You give us the prisoners—they’re of no use to you, really—and we won’t drag you to Azkaban for it,” he says instead, to Rabastan.

“Certainly,” Lucius sneers, grey eyes narrowed as they slide from James to Rabastan. “Kill her, they’re obviously not interested in keeping her alive.”

“No!” shouts Sturgis as he enters the room, a dark-haired man shuffling in front of him. His wand is pressed just below the man’s jawline, another, darker one tucked behind his ear, while he holds the man’s hand behind him. “You kill her, I’ll kill him.”

“Thanks for the heads-up, Rab,” drawls the man and James would recognise him by voice alone, even if he didn’t raise his head and reveal a face he knows all too well. “Really, a simple ‘Hey, Sirius, intruders,’ would’ve done the trick. Wouldn’t have even had to use verbs.” He blows a stray strand of his hair, shorter again by now, out of his eyes and manages to look down on Rabastan even with his hands pulled back. “Tosser,” he mutters.

“You should’ve paid more attention,” Lucius says, unimpressed. “Shouldn’t have let your guard down.”

“You told me you had everything handled,” Sirius growls. His flashing eyes find Cyrilla’s, who seems to be torn between vomiting and fainting. “Hex him,” he says and James recognises the dryness of his voice, the thinly-veiled contempt behind the words.

Cyrilla looks to James, who shakes his head at her imperceptibly.

Not yet, he mouths.

“Kill him, if you want,” Lucius drawls, mouth curving up at the glare Sirius shoots his way. It’s not hard to see parts of his old friend in that defiant look. “I don’t care much for him.”

“The Dark Lord does,” Rabastan says, biting the inside of his cheek. James can see his wand slowly dropping from Emmeline’s neck. He must be redoing his calculations.

James looks at Marlene, her disillusionment charm, like all the others’, long gone by now, who mouths a spell at him. He’s accustomed to the silent communication by now, understands it as he understands so very few things these days, so he nods and nudges Cyrilla, whispering to her, “Follow my lead.”

“Let her go,” Podmore says, voice low, as his blue eyes stare at Rabastan.

Rabastan flexes his fingers in Emmeline’s hair, eyes on Lucius. “He will be displeased—”

“Now!” Marlene shouts, a blue light already flying from her wand, Silas, James and Cyrilla’s following only moments later.

It’s impossible to tell which spell is whose but they all manage to do damage of some kind. They blow up the floor in front of the unmoving bodies, the door just behind Rabastan and one of them even manages to hit Malfoy’s hair before he can dodge fully, singeing a good part of it off.

James sees Rabastan let go of Emmeline, who stumbles forward, only half conscious, but Podmore, pushing Sirius away forcefully enough he falls down, catches her just before she hits the ground.

Podmore’s eyes catch James’s, wide and panicked, and James shouts over the sound of shooting spells.

“Go, go!”

Podmore doesn’t need further encouragement. Shooting one last spell at Malfoy, he whirls on the spot, Emmeline in his arms, and disappears.

He’s not the only one to do so. Rabastan must have decided he prefers his head intact and is gone with a crack and a swirl of dark robes, followed by Malfoy, who at least manages to get in a couple of good curses before he disapparates.

“Son of a banshee.” Sirius is lying on the floor, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Cowards,” he shouts toward the space where the other two Death Eaters previously were. “Bloody cowards!”

James raises his wand to stun him, but is forced to aim it at Greyback, when he launches himself at him. The spell hits, weak and poorly-aimed as it was, but Greyback seems to be affected only for a moment, then shakes it off and lands on James, knocking his glasses off his face.

They go tumbling back on the floor, Greyback snapping his teeth, sharper and longer than a human’s should be, as James tries to keep him at arm’s length. His yellow nails try to scrape at him, and James remembers how careful Remus has always been with them, taking care not to scratch—less often bite—them deep enough to draw blood for fear of infecting them with even a fraction of his curse.

“Petrificus Totalus!” he shouts and Greyback falls back, unmoving except for his sharp eyes trying to convey his hatred for James through sheer force of will.

James grapples for his glasses and shoves them back on just in time to see Silas disappear with two of the unconscious wizards, Marlene following just a few seconds later after she’s levitated Wilma Hughes and the third wizard close enough to be able to touch them both. Cyrilla is standing above Rosier, wand pointed at him as she starts murmuring an incantation. He can barely hear the start of the spell on her lips—

“No!” It’s Sirius who shouts, which stands to reason, since he’s the only one still able to, and careens right into Cyrilla a split second before she’s finished the spell. The thick ropes she conjured up fall just a few centimetres away from Rosier.

Sirius lands in front of Rosier, his knees making a sound impact on the creaking planks, and throws his hands out, hair a mess, eyes a storm as he looks up at Cyrilla. He’s wandless, his wand lying just in front of the door, where Podmore must have dropped it, but that doesn’t seem to stop him from saying in a low, dark voice, “You’ll have to go through me.”

“Stupefy!” James shouts, slashing his wand downward, but Sirius is just as fast.

“Protego!” he says, so forcefully James is knocked back by the mere throwback of his own spell.

James sees Cyrilla send another stunning spell towards Sirius but, just like James’s, it bounces off his shield and hits the wall next to the door James and Cyrilla came through.

He stands up and walks toward the two of them. He can see up close the blood trickling out the side of Sirius’s mouth and the ring of bruises on his collarbone, far too dark to have been dealt to him today. Then the thin scar right along his cheekbone, stark even against his fair skin, and James wonders if it was Walburga who dealt it to him, or someone else entirely.

Sirius keeps his eyes on Cyrilla’s wand, still pointed right at him, although he does glance at James when he stops beside her. The right sleeve of his robes is torn, revealing the long red gash down his forearm, his hair is a mess and he looks as pale as a sheet, but still, there’s nothing but defiance in his eyes when their gazes meet.

“Stand aside, Sirius,” James says, calmly levelling his wand at him.

Sirius is still a large wound on his heart, not quite open anymore, but festering still, full of anguish and rage and something James can’t put a name to, but it’s been long enough that he has dealt with it in the best way he could—which is to say, not at all—and is ready to do what it takes to not let this end the way all their other meetings in the past two years have ended.

“No.”

James gives him no further warning. This time, his spell is silent, only a quick slash of his wand through the air.

Still, Sirius is prepared. “Protego!” he shouts again and his shield reflects red as James’s spell hits it. Cyrilla’s follows only a second later, but it doesn’t do any damage either.

Sirius’s face pales by the second, mouth pressed tightly together, a crease between his brows as he concentrates on warding off the spells that they shoot at him. He deflects each one. It’s only been a minute when he says, “You’ll have to use an Unforgivable.”

James stills. Cyrilla, her face drained of colour, does too.

“You won’t get through this, not before Evan wakes up, or Greyback frees himself, or someone comes looking for us, with these amateur spells.” His eyes are dark, darker than James has ever seen them, malice written in the corners of his mouth when they turn up and James thinks, what happened to you, what happened, whathappened. “You’ll have to use an Unforgivable.”

James’s mouth is dry. His hand, the one holding his wand, lowers just a bit.

Sirius tilts his head. “Have you ever done that, James?” he asks, voice a low drawl, the one Peter used to call a part of his pureblood mask. Doesn’t seem like it was a mask, after all. “Used an Unforgivable on someone?” He chuckles, low in a way that sends shivers up James’s spine. “You have to really mean it, you know. To control, to torture,” he says, “to kill.”

“Shut up,” James says.

“James,” says Cyrilla.

James closes his eyes. He wishes Lily were here, he does, more than he has ever wished for anything. She’s the only one that can build back up what Sirius so carelessly tears down.

“Steady hand, James,” Sirius crows. “Make your parents proud.”

Bile rises in James’s throat, unbidden and bitter, clawing and tearing, and James hates him, he hates him with every bone in his body, with every beat of his heart, with every breath he takes, he hates him, he hates him, he hates him.

Except, he doesn’t. Not really.

But Sirius always has known how precisely to get to him.

“Shut up!” he roars, wand trembling as he points it back at him.

There was a time Sirius would flinch when people yelled at him all of a sudden. He would draw back and his eyes would shutter for a few seconds, dark and distant. Only minutes later, he would act as if nothing had happened. They learned with time to not yell, but to speak in even tones, even when they were furious with him. No one ever asked him why he flinched, but they could all guess. He never did manage to convince them entirely that his home life was only a few and far between arguments with his parents.

Sirius doesn’t flinch now, only looks at him. There is something in his eyes, something beyond the humour and offence that James recognises as a part of his dear friend, softer and perhaps almost human. “Go home, James,” he says and there is none of the previous mocking in his voice now. He sounds, above all, tired. “Your wife is waiting.”

“James, we can’t—”

Cyrilla is cut off when Sirius hits the floor with the flat of his palm and shouts, “Expulso!” which cracks the wooden planks and sends up splinters of them flying up in the air. Sirius shouts something else, sounding suspiciously close to a summoning charm, but James doesn’t have the time to dwell on it—the old barn seems to have taken one spell too many today, despite how weak the last one was, and it starts collapsing in on itself, the horrendous cracks along the wooden planks almost in sync with James’s frantic heartbeat.

He grabs Cyrilla’s hand and disappears on the spot just a second after he’s heard the crack of disapparition in front of him.

The sound of the roof hitting the ground follows him, echoing in his ears, even after his knees have landed on the carpeted floor of the Order Headquarters.

*********

I. March 1983

Dodging what James is sure is a horribly dark curse from who he is pretty sure is Mulciber, he is painfully aware that he’s losing the battle, not to mention the war has probably already been lost, too.

The spell hits the stone behind him, a large chunk of which explodes into dust, showering down on James and probably turning his hair a charming example of salt-and-pepper.

Well. At least it’s a lovely day to be meeting imminent death. The birds outside aren’t chirping—even they, he supposes, are not dumb enough to come near this, which, on the other hand, says a lot about him—but at least the sun is shinning and it’s unusually warm for this time of year, so, really, James has no complaints.

He wasn’t expecting to reach twenty-three, anyway.

He fires off a spell at Mulciber, who deflects it easily and retaliates quicker than James can even think of producing a shield charm. The curse that just grazes his neck, sending a sharp stab of pain up to his brain, is a stark reminder how out of practice he is. But people tend to get lazy when they’re forced into hiding for over two years.

“Bloody bastards,” Dorcas mutters beside him and really, it’s only thanks to her, Marlene, and Gideon that James still has not only all his limbs but also his head attached to his body. Her spell hits Amycus Carrow, his mask knocked off his face a few spells back, making blood gush out his nose in a torrent.

He presses his hand to staunch the bleeding but it’s only a matter of seconds before the blood seeps through his fingers.

James doesn’t have time to see what happens to him because Alecto Carrow jumps in her brother’s space, jumping not toward Dorcas but James and he’s forced to dodge once again when she sends a green light his way.

“Alecto!” Amycus growls, looking like something out of one of those horror films Lily so adores with the blood having surrounded his mouth and now running down his chin. “We’re not allowed to kill him! The Dark Lord wants him alive!”

“Shame,” Alecto says with a pout and sends a purple light James’s way.

Diverting it towards a particularly ugly tapestry on his right, he asks his companions, “Any ideas on how to get rid of these losers?”

Gideon inflicts a gash on Dolohov’s chest before he answers, “None. There’s too much of them.”

James copies his movement on Alecto, but she dodges, quick as a snake, snickering up until the point he shoots off a spell that has her stumbling several metres back. He wants to finish it off with a stunning spell but she dodges and here they go again.

Marlene’s wand is a blur as she swings it so quickly her opponent, Rodolphus Lestrange himself, is suspended mid-air and then forcibly thrown into the wall behind him. At least she is not out of practice, even if the blood gushing from her forehead down the side of her face tells a slightly different story.

“We need to distract them,” she says, pushing back her blood-matted hair while already taking on the once again able, if a bit unsteady on his own feet, Amycus Carrow.

How exactly that was to be executed remains a mystery to James because he feels, before he sees, the approach of cloaked and hooded figures drifting down the hallway, just a few centimetres off the ground. They turn towards them, as if beckoned, moving now quicker, quicker, quicker.

The cold that seeps into his bones, that sinks into his soul, is not an unfamiliar experience but it has been a long, long time since he last felt it. His lungs can’t take in air anymore, the breath in them frozen, and as he lifts his wand to say a spell, any spell, his arm seems to be made of lead, and all he can remember is his parents’ urns lowered into the ground, Sirius’s impassive face, the dark brand on his forearm, Peter’s screams as he begs and begs not to be taken, Lily’s tear-streaked cheeks as she sobs and heaves until there’s nothing left in her anymore.

He tries to push it away, to think of Lily walking down the aisle toward him, as radiant as the sun when she beams, red hair like a fiery crown.

“Expecto patronum,” he says. A wisp of silver-blue light streams out his wand, but it’s blown away before James can even take a breath. He’ll die, oh Merlin, he’ll die, or maybe something worse, and he’ll leave everyone he’s ever loved behind.

He failed. He failed Lily and Harry and—

Harry. Harry. He thinks of Harry, of his dark mess of hair, of his bright green eyes, everything he’s ever loved, cherished, adored. Harry, roaring with laughter as he zooms around on his broom, squishing the cat to his chest, shrieking with joy as he sits atop James’s shoulders. Harry, reaching up to him to be snuggled, grabbing up after puffs of smoke from James’s wand, curled tightly against Lily’s chest and dozing off.

“Expecto patronum.”

The light looks like something now, almost, almost, but someone laughs, low and cackling, and it’s gone, this thing that gave him reprieve, that reminded him he should fight.

Should he fight?

“Expecto patronum,” someone says—it might be Dorcas, or Marlene, although probably not Gideon—but their voice is just as weak as he feels and what might have been a bird disperses.

“Take them,” says a harsh voice.

The creature is in front of him, leaning his face up to its own, or to where it might have a face, and James’s fingers loosen around his wand. His mind is no longer trying to conjure up Lily or Harry or Remus. Instead, it’s Remus’s thin body with deep gouges down his back, his sides, his legs; it’s Lily’s motionless body, hair fanned out around her face as blood runs down her face; it’s Harry screaming and sobbing, green eyes full of tears; it’s all he has ever feared.

A bright form slams into the Dementor in front of him, sharp teeth digging into the creature’s neck and throwing it away from him with such force it knocks aside several of its companions.

James blinks, feeling the warmth it radiates even from so far away, and sees the Patronus clearly only for a moment before it bounces ahead and pulls the Dementors off Marlene, Dorcas, Gideon, throwing them aside as if they are nothing more than mist. It’s large and lean, four-legged, with a long snout and pricked ears, and a thick tail, and James thinks, Moony.

Marlene whoops, weak and barely-there, but it might be the best sound James has heard all day.

“What the—” starts Dolohov, but he’s blasted back against the wall right next to Lestrange, along with the Carrows and Mulciber. They’re levitating in the air, all five of them, only a moment later, and are viciously bounced up and down, from ceiling to floor—James thinks their impact on the stone is a sound he will not forget for a long, long time, because he can physically hear their bones fracturing—exactly three times before they land in a heap of limbs and groans right next to a griffin gargoyle.

“Dear me,” says a deep, muffled voice as a new figure strolls into the hallway, his wand raised in front of him. He’s dressed in dark robes, tailored to his tall, lean form exactly, his hood drawn up just enough to reveal a sliver of night-dark hair. The Patronus, having successfully driven away all dementors, bounds toward him, wrapping around his knees and revealing his teeth in a canine smile that James hasn’t seen in many, many years, however familiar it is. Its blue-silver light illuminates the newcomer’s face—or rather, his mask, but James recognises the constellations, the moon engraved into that mask, too. “I didn’t mean to be quite so gentle with them.” He flicks his wand and the gargoyle tumbles over the limp Death Eaters with a high-pitched whoop.

None of them so much as groan.

“I’ve wanted to do that for ages,” Sirius says and pulls off his mask, his grin a sharp glint of teeth. Padfoot at his feet disperses as he takes a step forward, depositing his wand back into his holster, and offers James a hand. “Come on, Jamie, up and at ‘em.”

James looks at the hand in front of him, palm up, long fingers slightly crooked, and thinks back to the last time Sirius offered him a hand. It’s been years, years since that fateful night James’s world came crashing down around him and a part of him thinks that he shouldn’t take it now either. Not just because Sirius helped them now, once. It could all be a trick.

But it hasn’t been the only time Sirius has helped them, has it?

So James meets Sirius’s eyes and takes his hand. He lets him pull him up and into his arms, his own coming up to fist in the back of Sirius’s robes, as dark and elegant as ever. He smells faintly of dust and smoke, but underneath it there’s menthol and wet dog and somehow, despite all the years, all the hate, despite everything, really, that still makes him feel like he’s finally, finally home.

“I didn’t doubt you for a second,” he says into Sirius’s shoulder.

Sirius’s snort of laughter is familiar and alien at once, sharp and bark-like, but more subdued, too, as if he isn’t quite used to it anymore; that’s alright. James can reintroduce him again. He’s done it before. Sirius's fingers on the nape of his neck tighten. “I sure hope you did.”

[emospritelet]

Key to the Cell - chapter 4

[1] [2] [3] [AO3 link]

x

The sound of one of the maids making up the fire woke Belle the next morning, and she turned over in bed with a sigh, bleary-eyed and grouchy. She had stayed up into the small hours reading the book, and felt listless and heavy-limbed. The curtains were pulled open, making her throw an arm across her eyes with a sound of protest. No one slept late at Sir Gaston’s castle.

“A lovely morning, milady,” announced the maid.  “I’ll bring your wash water. Breakfast will be ready as soon as you’re dressed.”

Belle grumbled under her breath.  Eating breakfast with Sir Gaston was the last thing she wanted, and she was tempted to stay in bed and pretend she was unwell.

“Milady?”

“Yes, thank you,” she said.  “I’ll get up.”

She ran her hands over her face as the maid left, yawning. Pushing up into a sitting position, she glanced to the side. The book sat on her nightstand, and she eyed it warily. It was not the sort of book she wanted to leave lying around: the maids would get word to the chamberlain, who would no doubt tell Gaston, and she had no desire to let him know the book even existed. She would take it back to the library and slip it back in its darkened corner until that night, when she could retrieve it and read more.

The book had turned out to be accounts of those who had called on the Dark One for help, and although she had frowned over what had been asked for and given in some of the tales, all agreed that he kept his word.  It made her more certain than ever that she had made the right choice in making the deal with him, though less certain why he had only asked for her name. In all the encounters she had read thus far, the prices he had demanded had been great, and she was no less noble than those she had read of, her house no less wealthy. There were many empty pages at the back of the book, and she wondered if it had its own magic. If her own tale would end up there when their deal was done.

The hot water was brought in a large silver jug, and so she got up, stripping off her nightgown and going to the basin to wash. Chestnut hair fell in a loose braid over her shoulder, and she yawned as she worked soap into a lather. It smelled of rosemary and lemon mint, a pleasant, clean scent, and by the time she splashed water on her face to remove the last of it, she was fully awake.

She went to retrieve clean underthings and put them on: silk stockings with their garters, a fine linen chemise edged with intricate lace, and petticoats tied at the waist. Her own maid had been sick with a fever when they left for Sir Gaston’s castle, and had not yet joined them, so his late mother’s handmaiden Marilee dressed her instead. It was an arrangement meant to honour Belle, and she was grateful for the attention, despite missing a familiar face. The dark-haired woman was efficient, but cold, and had little conversation beyond extolling the virtues of the castle and its owner. Sir Gaston was more than capable of doing that on his own.

She chose a dress in green silk, a lighter hue in the bodice and skirt over a darker petticoat.  It suited her pale skin and reddish-brown hair, and she gazed at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were a little hollowed from lack of sleep, dark shadows beneath them, and she sighed to herself as she anticipated the comments she would receive. Perhaps she could pass it off as pre-wedding nerves. She had plenty of those, after all. The fact that her anxiety over the approaching nuptials were not currently uppermost in her mind was entirely down to the true reason for her lack of sleep. She was chewing her lip distractedly, and a blush rose in her cheeks as she realised that her thoughts had strayed to a darkened room in a far-off castle, and its intriguing inhabitant.

“A fine day, milady,” observed Marilee, as she put the finishing touches to Belle’s hair, and Belle started a little, her blush deepening.

“Yes.  I thought I might walk in the gardens.”

“I’ll have your parasol sent down, in that case.”

“Thank you.”  She eyed the book on her nightstand nervously.  “Has Sir Gaston said what his plans for today are?”

“I believe he intends to take Sir Maurice hunting.”

“Good.”  Belle wanted to sag in relief. That would take at least six hours.  Possibly all day, if the deer ran fast enough. “I mean - I mean that will make them both happy, I’m sure.”

“If you tell me which gown you intend to wear to the ball, I’ll ensure it is pressed and ready.”

Belle wanted to groan. The ball. It was in two days’ time, a traditional celebration to mark the start of the hunting season. She couldn’t help feeling as though she was the quarry. It would give Sir Gaston the chance to show off his bride-to-be to the local nobility, and it was rumoured that the King and his son would be attending. She hoped Gaston wouldn’t drink too much; it made his unpleasant side - his true side - come out. Perhaps there would be someone there she could talk to for at least some of the evening. Prince James seemed a decent sort of man, from what she knew of him.

“I’ll wear the gold,” she said.

“Very good, milady.”

A last pin slid into place.

“Thank you, that’s perfect,” said Belle, turning her head this way and that.

“I believe breakfast is being served, milady.”

“I’ll go down.”

She waited until Marilee had swept out, stately and serene in her black dress, and hurried to snatch up the book from beside her bed.  Hugging it to her chest, she made her way downstairs, sneaking to the library and sliding it onto the dark space on its shelf. Smoothing her skirts with nervous hands, she made her way to the breakfast room.

“Ah, good morning, my dear!” said Sir Maurice heartily, from his place at Gaston’s side.  He was looking a little flushed, no doubt from the brandy he had consumed the night before, coupled with the warmth of early autumn.

Gaston was a tall, powerfully-built man with dark hair and chiselled features that she imagined most women would find attractive. He took her hand to kiss it, blue eyes fixed on hers as he straightened up.

“Did you sleep well, my Lady?” he asked.  “You look tired.”

“I slept poorly,” she admitted, taking her seat opposite her father.

“Wedding nerves, I expect,” he said jovially.  “Not long to go until we’re man and wife, Belle. No need for nerves - I won’t change my mind at this late stage.”

More’s the pity.  

“I’m sure you’re right,” she murmured, and reached for the tea, hoping they would return to their conversation so she could eat in peace.

Sir Maurice was eyeing her with a faint look of concern, but Gaston asked him a question, and they were soon deep in conversation about the rumours of ogres massing to the east, and distant war creeping closer. Belle listened with half an ear as she ate a pastry, sticky with honey and fragrant with cinnamon.

“Well, once Belle and I are married, we can look to maximise the profits from our combined lands,” said Gaston. “I’ve had my steward go through the accounts you provided, and the farms to the east of the marsh show little in the way of taxes. We’d be better turning the peasants off and combining the plots into one for grain. If war’s coming we’ll need to ensure the troops are fed. I can put some of my men in charge.”

“And where do the farmers go?” asked Belle.  “Those plots are all they have to feed their families.”

The two men glanced at one another, as though surprised she had spoken. Gaston turned back to face her.

“When war comes, any men and strong boys would be pressed into King George’s army anyway,” he said. “The women and children - well, they wouldn’t be able to run the farms alone, would they? We’d be doing them a favour.”

“By making them destitute?”

“They can go to the citadel,” he said dismissively. “There’s always a need for cheap labour. Particularly if war is coming.”

“If you won’t protect our own people, why should they fight for you?”

“Because that’s the way the world works, my dear,” he said sternly, his brows drawing down. “Social order holds us together. The strong rule over the weak, and we all benefit from it.”

“Tell that to the homeless farmers,” said Belle tartly.  “The strong should protect the weak.”

“Belle!” said her father, in a warning tone, and Gaston snorted in amusement.

“A woman’s softness,” he said indulgently. “You’ll soon see how things are, Belle. We’ll have our own family, and they’ll all need their own lands to rule in time. How will we give them that without protecting what we have?”

“My daughter is fond of children, Sir Gaston,” said Maurice, cutting his bacon and missing Belle’s flat look. “She’ll make a fine mother to your sons.”

“Six or seven should be enough,” said Gaston, reaching for the eggs and scraping all of them onto his plate.

“What if we have daughters?” asked Belle quietly, and he burst out laughing.

“Do I look like the sort of man who has daughters?”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” she said, and he waved a dismissive hand.

“Oh, I daresay you’ll want one to dress in silks and play princesses with, hmm? I’m sure we could indulge that.”

“You have to consider potential alliances, too,” put in Maurice. “Daughters can be of strategic advantage.”

“As you know, eh?” Gaston slapped his shoulder genially, and Belle suppressed a shudder. “Very well, daughters too.”

“Oh good,” she said thinly. “Lucky me.”

“Belle!” snapped her father. “You’re not at home now, keep a civil tongue in your head!”

“Oh, don’t scold her too hard, Maurice,” said Gaston. “I like a woman with a little spirit. Just as long as she knows when to rein it in. Give them their head and they’ll lead you a merry dance, eh? Like horses.”

He eyed Belle with a grin, but there was no warmth in it, his eyes flat and hard as sapphires. She shrank back in her chair a little, remembering she had seen him beat his horse after he had failed to be the one to bring down a stag. He glanced away, digging a fork into his eggs, and she shuddered delicately. She would not be tamed and broken. Not while she had breath in her body.

[alipeeps]

Whumptober Prompt #5 - Gunpoint

(I’ve started compiling these fics into a multi-chapter fic on AO3 also, with 1 chapter for each prompt, if you’d rather read them over there)

The Untamed ( 陈情令 ) Ficlet - Wei Wuxian whump

Night hunting always came with an element of risk, and not just from the fierce ghosts, or water spirits, or whatever else they sought to vanquish. Night hunting also entailed travelling the country, often late into the night, sometimes straying far from the beaten path, and the roads, such as they were, were not always hospitable to travellers. To be fair, most people who were desperate, or greedy, enough to make their living through banditry were also smart enough to recognise cultivators when they saw them, and wise enough to give them a wide berth.

Most people. But not all. Certainly not the ragged band of men that stepped from the trees, brandishing short, dull swords, and surrounded Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian, demanding they hand over their money and weapons.

Lan Zhan met the demand with his trademark aloof stoicism, his expression not changing even as his grip tightened minutely on his sword, while Wei Ying’s immediate reaction was to try and defuse the situation with a lot of chatter, and a dash of charm.

It didn’t work.

Untrained brigands with rusted weapons were no match for a powerful cultivator like Lan Zhan. He cut two of them down with the first sweep of his sword, even as another five rushed at him. Wei Ying took a step back, clear of Lan Zhan’s orbit, and brought Chengqing to his lips. Lan Zhan could take down this many men easily, without any help from Wei Ying. But he wasn’t about to simply hide behind Lan Zhan when he had the means to defend himself.

He began to play, coils of negative energy starting to swirl around him. He kept the flute to his lips as he ducked under a clumsy sword swing and smiled as a plume of energy swept his attacker from his feet, flinging him against a tree. He took a step back, and another, blocking a sword swipe with his flute, planted a kick to the brigand’s midriff that sent him staggering backwards, gasping for breath, and resumed playing.

Lan Zhan spun through the air, a graceful flutter of white, and three more brigands were left writhing on the ground. There weren’t many left now, and those that were were no longer charging in; instead they circled warily, perhaps evaluating the life choices that had led them here, Wei Ying thought with a grin.

The fight was all but over. But then Wei Ying caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. He spun to face it, calling forth a tendril of negative energy as he did. But he was slow. Too slow. Before he could focus the energy on the archer peering out from between the trees, a heavy impact to his shoulder sent him staggering, pain shooting down his arm, his fingers losing their grip on the flute.

He must have cried out, because even as he wobbled he was aware of Lan Zhan’s cry of “Wei Ying!” His right arm dangling uselessly, his legs folded under him and he hit the ground hard.

“Don’t move!”

“I’m not sure I can,” he thought vaguely through the roaring in his ears, and then he realised the command was not aimed at him. He rolled his head to the side, his breath sounding loud and ragged in his own ears, to see Lan Zhan standing a few feet away, his body tensed, his attention fixed squarely on the archer. He frowned. Lan Zhan was faster than any archer’s arrow, why was he…?

With a grunt Wei Ying lifted his head to find the archer’s bow aimed not at Lan Zhan but at himself. Oh.

“Sheath your sword.” The remaining swordsmen gathered closer, their weapons pointed at Lan Zhan, emboldened by his apparent submission.

“Lan Zhan, no….” Wei Ying coughed, tasting blood. He tried to sit-up but the stab of pain made him gasp and fall back, stars dancing in front of his eyes.

He heard the slide of steel on steel and groaned. “No… Lan Zhan…”

He rolled his head to see Lan Zhan standing his ground, anger radiating from every line of his stance, Bichen sheathed in his hand.

“Your money and your weapons, now,” the archer intoned. “Or the next one is in his heart.”

“You couldn’t hit my heart from that angle,” Wei Ying wanted to sneer, but instead he coughed again, an ugly, rattling cough, his mouth filling with blood, trickling wetly from the side of his mouth. It was getting harder to breathe. He saw Lan Zhan’s gaze flick his way for the barest of seconds, his hand tightening around his sword.

The archer must have seen it too. “Don’t even think about it,” he warned smugly. “My arrow is aimed right at his heart and you can’t move fast enough to reach me before I fire.”

These guys had clearly never seen cultivators in battle before or they might have known better than to even start this fight. Lan Zhan didn’t need to move to take out the archer. He met Wei Ying’s eyes with the smallest of nods, and Wei Ying nodded back tiredly. Lan Zhan looked back at the archer and there was a flash of sunlight on steel as Bichen flew out of its scabbard, moving almost faster than the eye could track. Wei Ying didn’t need to lift his head to know what happened, the gurgling death rattle enough to signal the end of the archer. He kept his eyes on Lan Zhan as Bichen slid smoothly back into the scabbard.

The remaining bandits looked at each other in panic, their swords wavering. This was not how they had expected this to go. Lan Zhan turned his head to glare at them and that was all it took. As a man, they broke and ran, crashing back into the trees, any attempt at stealth forgotten in their haste to get away.

Wei Ying smiled.

“Wei Ying!”

White fabric filled his field of vision as Lan Zhan dropped to his knees beside him. He rolled his head to see Lan Zhan looming over him, his normally passive expression pulled into a worried frown.  He reached out a hand to gently probe where the arrow shaft protruded from Wei Ying’s shoulder and Wei Ying’s vision whited out for a second as pain spiked hotly through his shoulder and down his arm, robbing him of breath, making his teeth grind together. He blinked his eyes back into focus to find Lan Zhan holding his left wrist carefully, his attention focused as he checked Wei Ying’s pulse.

“Lan… Lan Zhan….” His breathing was uneven, wheezing in his chest.

Still frowning, Lan Zhan let go of Wei Ying’s wrist, moving his hands in sharp gestures. His eyes met Wei Ying’s as he began transferring spiritual energy into him. “Lie still,” he warned sharply, as Wei Ying’s head lolled heavily.

“Not…. not going… anywhere….” Wei Ying tried laugh but it turned into a ragged cough that made his chest heave, the arrow shaft jerking with every movement, sending ripples of pain through his shoulder and chest.

“Wei Ying!”

The transfer of energy stopped as Lan Zhan laid a hand on Wei Ying’s chest, trying to hold him still. Wei Ying’s cough turned to choking and gagging, blood spilling from his lips and pooling in the back of his throat. He…. he couldn’t…. couldn’t breathe…

The last thing he saw, as blackness crowded in at the edges of his vision, was Lan Zhan’s face gazing down at him, his eyes filled with fear.

“Wei Ying!!”

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

 Wei Ying blinked his eyes open to an unfamiliar ceiling… and a familiar face.

“Lie still,” Lan Zhan murmured gently, his attention focused on Wei Ying’s shoulder. It was throbbing angrily, but nowhere near the sharp pain of earlier. He struggled to lift his head to look. It took far more effort than it should have done and made Lan Zhan frown.

“Wei Ying!” he admonished firmly.

He let his head drop back, panting from the effort. The arrow was gone, the wound hidden beneath the layers of bandage that Lan Zhan was carefully wrapping into place. He waited for his breathing to even out, rolling his head on the pillow to look around. He was on a bed in an unfamiliar room, an inn by the look of it, Lan Zhan sat beside him on the mattress as he calmly dressed his wound.

“Where…?” His voice came out croaky and dry.

“Village,” Lan Zhan answered succinctly.

Wei Ying frowned. They’d been miles from any villages when they encountered the bandits.

He swallowed. “How long…?”

Lan Zhan glanced at the window, through which a weak sunlight shone. “It’s morning,” he answered.

Morning? It had been early evening when the bandits had attacked. He stared up at Lan Zhan’s impassive face, imagining what he’d gone through, what he’d done to get Wei Ying to safety, finding a village, rousing a healer from their sleep…

He shivered, the early morning air cool against his skin. His robes and undershirt were gone, his chest bare. Lan Zhan’s hands were gentle but firm as they lifted his shoulder from the mattress to wrap the bandage under it but the motion still made him grunt with pain. Lan Zhan deftly tied the bandage in a firm knot and pulled the covers up over his chest, tucking them carefully into place.

He rose to his feet smoothly.

“Rest,” he ordered.

Wei Ying pouted. “I’m not tired, Lan Zhan. I’ve slept for hours!”

Lan Zhan looked down at him with a fondness tinged with exasperation. He nodded calmly.

“I will fetch Wei Ying some food.”

He turned to go and Wei Ying struggled to raise himself up to his good elbow, earning himself a scolding frown from Lan Zhan.

“Lan Zhan,” he said earnestly, ignoring the increased throbbing in his shoulder. “Thank you.”

Lan Zhan nodded slowly. “Lie down,” he commanded, pausing in the doorway to ensure that Wei Ying did as he was told.

With a wince, and a smile, Wei Ying did.

[mybukz]

Fiction: The Secret Beneath Her Moonlit Face by Peter Soh

Image by Alexis Antonio on Unsplash

“Ta chi, your sarong!” Annie pointed at her elder sister’s sarong.

Molly looked at her green sarong. “This shouldn’t be!”

It had been two months since Molly married Baba Lim Teck Yeong but, there was it again, the red stain.

“Stop being so hard on yourself. I heard that if you are overly stressed, your body won’t be doing its job. Give yourself some time,” Annie said, holding Molly, who was tearing up.

“You need to change before the men come back.” Annie tried to liven up the atmosphere. “Let’s have fun choosing which sarong to go with your pink kebaya!”

“Nya always bemoans difficulties matching you with potential suitors. They don’t know you have the most beautiful heart.” Molly looked up at her sister and smiled weakly.

“I wish I have a pretty face like you, ta chi. Things get easier when you have a pretty face. It is useless even if I can sew my kasut manek and cook an array of dishes to please those cocky mothers-in-law. In the end all they want is a pretty round face and a solid bum!”

“Shush! Nya will scream at you if she ever hears all these. Remember, we ladies have to take care of our decorum. Anyway, are you using bedak sejuk before you sleep? The talcum powder will lighten our skin colour.”

“I have been applying it every night but I guess it takes time.”

“Don’t put too much. Later it cracks when you smile!”

“And now you smile! Let’s get yourself changed.”

Molly put on a helpless smile. This was the second month she failed to get herself conceived. Her frustration was welling up. She wanted a baby, better still, a male baby, desperately. She was a step away from a proper and well-brought-up nyonya after trudging through heaps of demands on her 12-day wedding.

“It meant a lot to my family when my in-laws sent nasi lemak to them on the last day of the wedding. Nya minds about my chastity but I am more concerned with the pregnancy. I have to have a baby.”

*

Annie exclaimed, “Look at your sarong! Oh dear, it’s Oei Khing Liem’s hand! I can’t imagine myself wearing all these.”

Molly saw that Annie envied her sarong collection and her life—to marry a wealthy baba merchant and live a life indulging in buying all these gorgeous and majestic sarongs from Pekalongan. “You can have one if you like,” Molly said.

“What’s the point of wearing all these colourful sarongs when my skin colour is so dark. Don’t waste that kind of expensive fabrics on me,” Annie retorted.

“You are not ugly, Annie. You can wear them if you like. I don’t wish to stain them, if you get what I mean.”

“Ta chi, everything will be all right, okay?”

Then Molly’s mother entered the room unannounced. The sisters shot up from the bed.

“What are you girls doing?” Bibik Poh Choo was holding some tapai ubi.

Molly sat Bibik Poh Choo down. “I am giving some of my sarongs to Annie, nya. I thought you went out to play cherki. What’s the matter?”

“I managed to find a promising prospect for your sister. They are the Ewe family from Penang and they have this huge shipping business everywhere! Their youngest son has reached the time to get married and it will be a good thing if Annie marries into this family. I showed them her kasut manek and the cushion that she beaded and you know what? They are coming this weekend to have a dinner with your pa. We are using this chance to marry off Annie.”

The girls could see Bibik Poh Choo was eager for this mission.

Annie was silent. She was tired of all these endless manoeuvres where her needle works were assessed, cooking skills judged, and decorum evaluated. Even then, she wouldn’t be approved till the last day of the Peranakan wedding, when her chastity would be examined by squeezing lime juice onto a blood-stained cloth. Only if the blood did not run would she be accepted into her husband’s family and nasi lemak sent to her parents’ home in honour of her virginity.

“Nya, you clearly know they won’t want me after they see me. No one will want to take in a dark-skinned bride! Stop giving people false hope by showing off my kasut manek designs.” Annie said.

Bibik Poh Choo’s lips curled into a smirk. “Not this time, Annie. I have a solution.”

*

In the cloudless night the moon shone brightly down on the little town of Malacca. Shops were closed, household’s lights were switched off, and no one wandered the roads. At 11pm, the town came to a standstill, awakened sometimes by a splash of shower or a cry of a baby.

Molly’s trishaw trailed behind her mother’s. This was the first time both she and her sister went out at such a night. Uneasy and tensed, the sisters had not the faintest idea where mother was leading them. Their mother normally never allowed them to step out from the house when their sarong was coloured red. The trishaw riders pressed the pedals harder at mother’s instructions to speed away from the town.

“Where do you think nya is bringing us to?” Molly spoke softly, sure that even anyone who wasn’t asleep could hear her.

Annie gazed out at the darkness. “I have no idea. I can’t recognize the road.”

The trishaws halted at an alley. Bibik Poh Choo murmured thank you to the driver, her voice breaking the silence.

Annie thought the name of the alley, ‘Lorong Selamat’, was an irony. The bushes along the alley were so high that people could hide well behind the overgrowing wilderness.

“This place doesn’t look safe at all. One could get bit by snakes and people won’t even discover that someone has died here,” Annie whispered.

“Choy choy choy. Stop scaring me.” Molly smacked Annie’s arm and leaned on her. They waited, not caring to touch their feet onto the ground of Lorong Selamat. Bibik Poh Choo stepped down from the trishaw and beckoned her daughters with her batik handkerchief.

“Nya, where are we going? This place …” Molly rubbed her arms and held on tightly to Annie.

“Don’t ask so much. You will know later.” Bibik Poh Choo ordered them to follow her.

The two sisters looked at each other. The front panel of their sarongs flapped in the wind and the bushes rattled as if welcoming them. Molly and Annie hesitated but Bibik Poh Choo had already scurried into the dark alley. Not wanting to be left behind—did they even have a choice—Molly and Annie hurried behind their mother’s footsteps.

*

“Tuk, this is for you. Please help my daughter.”

Bibik Poh Choo knelt in front of an old man and handed him a red packet. The old man looked at Bibik Poh Choo and then Annie, as if he already knew which daughter was the one that needed his help.

“It’s not so much in there but my mother-in-law gave me this anting-anting when I was accepted into her family. The earrings are encrusted with berlian. The diamonds are of good quality. You will like it!” Bibik Poh Choo indicated the red packet, but the old man never uttered a word since they came in.

The old man’s house sat at the far end of Lorong Selamat, surrounded by frangipani and banana trees. Trees the Peranakan household wouldn’t plant because they attract spirits. Entering the house, they could smell the kemenyan, and see walls decorated with hangings with indecipherable writings. Besides fruits and candle wax, the floor was filled with things not normally seen in a household or temple, such as pots, stones, and leaves.

Molly and Annie knew instantly their whereabouts: the house of a shaman. The dim light prohibited them from making out the old man’s countenance. Only when they followed what Bibik Poh Choo did—kneeling in front of him—did they see his face. The shaman Tuk Ali had a thick white goatee, and his eyes seemed rapacious under black eyeliner. Annie kept her head down when she realised Tuk Ali’s gaze was on her.

“Lie down on the floor,” Tuk Ali spoke his first sentence.

Bibik Poh Choo was euphoric. She thanked Tuk Ali numerous times and instructed Annie to do what he said.

“You will get married this time, Annie! Tuk Ali will help you! Quick, lie down on the floor! Quick!” Bibik Poh Choo hustled up Annie.

“Nya, what are we doing?” Annie had no clue what was going on and what was going to happen. She was confused, terrified, not keen to follow orders.

“Yes, nya. What is going on? What is going to happen?” Molly chimed in. She was equally scared.

“Just listen to me. You are going to have a new life after this. You will not regret it,” Bibik Poh Choo assured Annie. “Just listen to me. Just lie down on the floor.”

To Molly, she said, “And you. Just keep quiet and don’t say a single word about what is going on tonight. Do you want your sister to have a good life? Just trust me.”

The two sisters couldn’t comprehend the situation; in fact, they had no idea how to respond to Tuk Ali and mother’s requests because everything was a mystery. From going out at night to stepping foot onto this unfamiliar setting, and from seeing their mother giving away her precious gift, to lying down on the floor, Molly and Annie failed to glean what their mother wanted done. They shivered, not knowing whether it was because of the sudden cold wind or they were petrified.

“Faster. Time is ticking,” Tuk Ali opened his mouth for the second time. “We have to do it when the moon is still full.”

“Faster, Annie. Just listen to Tuk,” Bibik Poh Choo exhorted.

Annie lay down on the wooden floor reluctantly. She couldn’t stop panting. She looked at Molly and her mother. She did not dare close her eyes. She wanted to know what was going to happen.

Without warning, Tuk Ali burst forth his chants and sprinkled some flowers on Annie. Annie continued to gulp and it seemed like the quicker she took in air, the louder the chants. In the chilly night, she could feel her kebaya drenched in sweat.

Tuk Ali groped for something on a pot. Annie couldn’t see what was on Tuk Ali’s hands. She squinted but the poorly lit house didn’t help. Distressed and uptight, she tried to catch Tuk Ali’s moves. His hands contained something—but it was too small to see.

And in no time, Tuk Ali inserted some minute objects into Annie’s eyelids. One on the left and one on the right. Annie felt a short sting but it quickly subsided. The chants had petered out and the house resumed its initial state, becoming still, void, and quiet once again.

“The ceremony is completed,” Tuk Ali declared. He moved the pot aside.

Bibik Poh Choo hurriedly pulled Annie up from the floor and brushed dirt off her back.

“See. It is fast.” Bibik Poh Choo tried to comfort Annie, who was still in shock.

Annie sat unmoving on the floor. She had yet to recover. Molly joined their mother, patting Annie’s back and telling Annie that everything was over.

“So, Tuk, are the taboos the same for my daughter?” Bibik Poh Choo asked.

Tuk Ali stroked his goatee. His job was now over and the moon was still shining brightly. “Yes. The taboos are the same. Never walk under the clothesline. Never walk near pokok kelor. Never eat things with skewer.”

“No worries. Our family never eat satay. It is so unladylike. Don’t worry, Tuk. I will remind her again.” Bibik Poh Choo seemed to know the taboos well.

“But…” Tuk Ali paused. “The susuk that I inserted into your daughter’s face is made of diamond. The charm needles are a rare material, and she must strictly observe the taboos. If not, your daughter will die.”

*

The trishaws stopped the nyonyas at the back of their house. It was 2a.m. and the streets were empty. But for safety, Bibik Poh Choo instructed the trishaws to go behind their house so that no one would spot them. After all, Annie was still a maiden and Bibik Poh Choo had to protect her daughter’s name.

“We are home, finally. Everything will be different from tomorrow.” Annie could see Bibik Poh Choo was hopeful of a new, if not a great start, for her.

Molly held Annie up as they went into the house. The two of them never spoke since the ritual finished. As they walked into their room, one of them screamed.

The house lit up, with Bibik Poh Choo and the servants running into Molly’s room. The girls were aghast and their faces pale. They were staring at something.

Bibik Poh Choo followed her daughters’ eyes into the ornately decorated room. Her eyes creased in horror. Baba Lim was on the floor, with the tapai ubi laid out beside him.

His face had turned completely dark and his eyes were wide open, looking like Baba Lim was out of breath.

Molly cried out. Annie trembled. The servants held their faces, not knowing who to call or what to do.

“How can my husband pass away like that? He is such a healthy man! I still want to have his baby! God, tell me why? Why!” Molly shrieked.

Annie remembered Bibik bringing into their room in the afternoon the tapai ubi. She was sure her mother had not left the banana leaves around the fermented tapioca opened. She was also certain Bibik had not pulled out from the leaves the skewer.

*

Peter Soh is an ambitious Malaysian writer whose stories are about darkness, pain, struggles, identity searching and what it means to be a human being. He made his publishing debut with his short story, ‘The Missing Tomb’ in the ‘Emerging Malaysian Writers 2018’ anthology. ‘The Secret beneath her Moonlit Face’ is his latest short story after ‘The Missing Tomb’.

[ibijau]

Futures Past pt9 / On AO3

after being punished for their behaviour in Yunping City, Nie Huaisang and Lan Xichen have a chat about friendship and forgiveness

warning for mentions of corporal punishment

Nie Huaisang failed to contain a whine as another blow from the discipline rulers hit him. When no more followed, and Lan Qiren finally announced that he and Lan Xichen could stand again, Nie Huaisang instead collapsed to the ground, exhausted by the beating. 

"I said stand up," Lan Qiren ordered. "I went easy on you this time. Don't expect such leniency again." 

Nie Huaisang almost laughed, only for it to come out as a choked sob. He was no stranger to being punished, but at home it was done differently. To think he used to call his brother's methods cruel… but he would gladly have taken Nie Mingjue's extra training over that awful, pointless beating he'd just received. 

He was half convinced he would just expire there, in the dust of that courtyard of the Lan discipline hall, when strong, slender hands grabbed him by the armpits and helped him up. Lan Xichen, who barely had a hair out of place in spite of enduring the same punishment, weakly smiled at Nie Huaisang and silently encouraged him to lean on him until he felt better. 

Nie Huaisang wondered if he hated Lan Xichen for having a cultivation so great that this beating hadn't impacted him, or pitied him for apparently being used to such treatment and thus enduring it so well. 

"Let this be a reminder to follow rules and respect your elders," Lan Qiren said, glaring at both boys. "Now go, I've seen enough of you."

Lan Xichen, ever respectful, bowed before his uncle and thanked him for taking time to educate them. Nie Huaisang had no choice but to bow as well, though he refused to be thanking anyone for what he had just endured and firmly pinched his lips in pointless rebellion. 

Especially pointless when he knew that this was but one half of the punishment : Lan Qiren had also assigned both of them to write an essay, and to copy a few times certain rules relevant to their behaviour in Yunping City. And to make it worse, Nie Huaisang wouldn't even be able to ask Su She to help him: his friend had gotten in trouble during his absence, and was punished as well. 

At least, Yunping City had been a success of sorts. Meng Yao was probably never going to join Lanling Jin now, which was good, and Nie Huaisang hadn't needed to kill anyone the way his future self had half implied he should do, which was great. It might be worth a little pain, Nie Huaisang thought as Lan Xichen slowly led him out of the discipline halls. 

After having walked in silence a little bit, Lan Xichen stopped. Nie Huaisang, expecting to be sent away to his cabin, or scolded further for dragging Lan Xichen in his mischief, braced himself for yet more unpleasantness. 

"Would you like to come home with me?" Lan Xichen offered instead. "I can make you a certain tea I have which will help with the pain, and we can work on our punishments together." 

"You're not going to poison me, are you?" Nie Huaisang asked. Lan Xichen gave him a puzzled look so he shrugged. A mistake, with the state of his back. "It's just that you wouldn't have been punished if I didn't go out." 

"And you wouldn't have been punished if I hadn't helped you go out," Lan Xichen replied. "So I would say we're even. Besides, Wangji will be home and I'd rather not deal with him right now. He gets very judgmental about people breaking rules, but he won't say anything if we have a guest."

The idea of spending yet more time with Lan Xichen was an unappealing one when Nie Huaisang still remembered that bad taste joke about Su She. Normally, he wouldn't have considered it at all, his future self be damned. Now though, with the promise of something to deal with the pain… 

Principles were well and nice, but Nie Huaisang decided he didn't have the sort of personality needed to suffer heroically for his beliefs. 

He accepted the invitation.

Just as Lan Xichen had said, Lan Wangji was in the house when they arrived. He threw his brother a most betrayed look, as if Lan Xichen had personally murdered someone rather than just been a little rude to an awful man, but when he noticed Nie Huaisang he kept to himself whatever remarks he might have had and just left them alone. What a stuffy boy, really. If it had been Nie Huaisang whose older brother had misbehaved, he would have found the whole thing hilarious and teased Nie Mingjue to hell and back. Su She was clearly right whenever he complained about Lan Wangji being the most bland and boring person in the world.

Once Lan Xichen and Nie Huaisang were alone, Lan Xichen set out to prepare the tea he had promised, while inviting Nie Huaisang to sit down. Sitting wasn't particularly comfortable right then, but Nie Huaisang still obeyed. He quickly noticed that Lan Xichen was preparing a different blend of tea for himself, and asked about that when Lan Xichen handed him a warm glass.

“The pain isn’t so bad for me,” Lan Xichen explained. “It would go against the spirit of the punishment if I took something, especially when shufu didn’t tell me I could. But you are our guest, and I know you’re unused to such methods, so it would be cruel to let you suffer.”

Nie Huaisang wrinkled his nose, both because he could tell he had just been called weak in a very polite manner, and because his tea had a rather strong smell. The taste wasn’t so bad, though, and after a few sips he felt his body start to relax, the pain still present but more dull and no longer the only thing on his mind.

“I’ll give you some of that tea,” Lan Xichen said before Nie Huaisang could even comment on the effect. “So you can have some more before sleep, and tomorrow morning as well, or else classes promise to be difficult to put up with for you.”

“It’s not like they’re easy even at a normal time,” Nie Huaisang retorted.

“Then there’s no reason to make it even worse, is there?”

Nie Huaisang said nothing, watching Lan Xichen with a slight pout. It seemed to him that Lan Xichen was in awfully good spirits for someone who had just taken such a beating. In fact, Lan Xichen had seemed in a very good mood since Yunping City, or at least since after that encounter with Meng Yao, hadn’t he?

From talking with his future self, Nie Huaisang knew that both Meng Yao and Lan Xichen would have been involved in Nie Mingjue’s death. He hadn’t really given it much thought yet, but what if that hadn’t been their only link? Meng Yao had a pleasant personality and was as good looking as all of Jin Guangshan’s trail of bastards, so with the way Lan Xichen had so vehemently taken his defence that day… Nie Huaisang thought he might ask his future self about that. Then, remembering he didn’t much like the man, and that his future self was a little too fond of mysteries, he realised he’d have to figure this out on his own if he ever wanted to know.

He wasn’t sure he did want to know, but between trying to find out if Lan Xichen had developed an instant crush or doing the essay Lan Qiren had demanded…

“So, Lan gongzi, how come you’re so nice today? I mean, you’re always nice of course, but you’re in a very good mood considering…”

Nie Huaisang made a vague gesture. When the movement made him wince, he took a few more sips of tea.

“A few things that were worrying me have cleared up,” Lan Xichen explained. “Although if you really want to know why I offered you this tea, and to help with your essay…”

“I am quite curious about that, yes.”

“I suppose I feel I owe it to you,” Lan Xichen said, lowering his eyes. “I was… I realise I was unpleasant to you when we were in Yunping City. First I made things difficult for you when we met while visiting the town, and then my tasteless attempt at joking about your friendship with Su She… I should have behaved better than this.”

Without thinking, Nie Huaisang nodded. He’d been upset about the way Lan Xichen behaved toward Su She even before, but that joke had just been too much. And then the accusation of him having a crush… well, that had just been mean. Mostly because it made Nie Huaisang feel awkward about hanging out with his friend again, when already his future self’s cryptic mention had made things weird. 

He didn’t want to be thinking of Su She like that, because he knew from their chats that Su She only liked girls, whereas Nie Huaisang…

But it didn’t matter what Nie Huaisang liked anyway. Not unless his brother hurried up and got married… but since his future self appeared to be a sect leader, Nie Mingjue probably hadn’t gotten around to do that, meaning Nie Huaisang would be left with the duty of continuing the family line.

So it didn’t matter if he liked Su She in any way except as a friend, because that was all they would ever be, which was fine. Su She was a good friend to have.

But speaking of Su She...

“Lan gongzi, I have a question for you,” Nie Huaisang said.

Lan Xichen emptied his glass of tea and smiled politely.

“I’m listening.”

“See, I thought I had you figured out,” Nie Huaisang explained, tapping his fingers against the side of his own glass. “I thought in the end, you were just another Lan prick full of himself and convinced that only people born in a great sect, or at least in a sect at all, are actually people. With the way you are about Su She, I really thought you were that sort of person.”

Lan Xichen winced at being called a prick, but didn’t actually protest, which Nie Huaisang took as an admission of guilt.

“But you weren’t like that with that Meng Yao and his mother,” Nie Huaisang continued, putting down his glass with an impatient gesture. “You were nice to them. More than Huang zongzhu for sure! And you said that stuff about treating people by their actions not their origins, and you sounded like you meant it, and about the son of a courtesan too! So now, I feel I don’t understand you at all, and I’ve got to ask. Why do you dislike Su She that much?”

Hearing Nie Huaisang’s question, Lan Xichen was silent for a long while, observing the other boy as if somehow, the answer to his dislike of Su She lay within Nie Huaisang.

“Why do you like him so much?” he said at last.

“I asked first!”

Lan Xichen sighed. “And I’m not sure what to answer. I had formed a certain opinion of Su She, but perhaps… I could be wrong. So please help me understand how you see Su She, so that I might revise my judgment.”

“He’s fun, that’s really the main thing,” Nie Huaisang said. “And he tries hard. He’s always trying so hard. Half the time we hang out, he’ll end up practising in some way, because he wants so badly to catch up to the other disciples. And he’s quite skilled, too. I think his teachers don’t like him because he can have a bad temper, but he’s real clever, and real good at music too. It’s really annoying that people treat him badly. Like that thing with Jin Zixun while we were in Yunping City? I’m so sure it wasn’t Su She’s fault, but because it’s him, everyone thinks he’s done something wrong and they punished him! It’s unfair!”

Impassioned by this defence of his friend, Nie Huaisang half stood up from his seat, only for the pain in his back to flare up again at the sudden movement, forcing him to sit down again. Lan Xichen watched him through all of it, his face turned into an expressionless mask.

“Nie gongzi has a very strong sense of justice, I see.”

Nie Huaisang shrugged, and only half regretted it.

“Not really. If we weren’t friends, maybe I wouldn’t care,” he admitted. “But he is my friend, so it bothers me, and I don’t know how to help… but you could, and yet you don’t. He’s a disciple of your own sect, but you treat him with less regard than you do a complete stranger you met at a market. If you took his defence, then everyone else would have to stop bothering him!”

“I suppose,” Lan Xichen said with obvious reluctance. “It is wrong he’s not given a fair chance.”

“It is! Lan gongzi, please, please help Su-xiong,” Nie Huaisang begged. “I’ll really owe you, and… and I’m sure you’d get along with him if you just gave him a chance! And he’s really a good element to have in your sect, and… ah, he even has a beautiful handwriting, you know!” Nie Huaisang exclaimed, hit by a sudden realisation. “So maybe he could help with that thing you’re doing of copying books!”

Lan Xichen, already a little upset at their topic of conversation, went very pale at that new suggestion.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Of course you do,” Nie Huaisang insisted. “Every time I see you, you’re copying something. And not just you, I’ve seen other Lan disciples do it in the library too, and some of the juniors when they’re being punished. But mostly only the ones that are teachers’ pets. Well, that’s what Su She said when I asked about it. But he could help! He’s really good at writing, and he knows the rules well, and…”

“We’ll see,” Lan Xichen dryly cut him. “Although I’d appreciate if in the future, you did not mention anything about those books being copied. It is private sect business, and Gusu Lan does not wish for it to be known.”

“But you always do it, even in front of me.”

“I didn’t expect Nie gongzi to pay attention to what I was doing. My mistake, of course.”

Meaning he thought Nie Huaisang was too stupid to notice. Of course Nie Huaisang had already guessed it was something of the sort, that Lan Xichen really had such a low opinion of him, but it still annoyed him.

“If I keep that to myself, will you be nicer to Su-xiong from now on?”

“Blackmail is forbidden,” Lan Xichen replied. “By my sect, and by yours as well, I believe. As for Su She… I’ll see what I can do. But first, Nie gongzi, I have another question for you.”

Lan Xichen’s tone sounded odd, too polite somehow, but Nie Huaisang still nodded.

“Thank you. It is a question of… philosophical nature, I suppose, and perhaps only distantly linked to our conversation, but here it is. Do you think that everyone deserves a second chance?”

It was a very weird question, but also a very earnest one, Nie Huaisang felt. Certainly Lan Xichen had a very intense expression on his face. Why he would have asked this as they were talking about Su She, who hadn’t done anything wrong except for having an occasionally difficult personality, Nie Huaisang couldn’t say. Unless there had been some incident in the past that Su She hadn’t mentioned, or worse where he hadn’t realised he’d offended Lan Xichen? It seemed unlikely but not impossible, so Nie Huaisang gave the question due consideration before answering.

“Yes, I think people deserve second chances. Sometimes, they just don’t know that they’re doing something wrong. But I also think they have to know they’re getting a second chance.”

“So they know they won’t get another one?” Lan Xichen asked, his eyes almost shining now, as if he were the one who’d done wrong in the past. But then why would he be angry at Su She? And why wouldn’t Su She have mentioned it, when he never hesitated to complain about others’ faults?

Again, Nie Huaisang took a moment to think about it before shaking his head.

“A bit, but mostly not. It’s just that like I said, people don’t always know they’ve done something wrong,” he explained. “So what da-ge says you must do if someone acts in a bad manner is, you’ve got to let them know, and then they can actually understand what they’re doing wrong, and do better later. Oh! I guess that’s what I’m doing!” Nie Huaisang exclaimed, clapping his hands. Lan Xichen threw him a puzzled look, to which he answered with a smile. “Lan gongzi, that’s what I’m doing right now. I’m giving you a second chance!”

Lan Xichen paled so much so that it almost made his robes look colourful in contrast. Nie Huaisang’s enthusiasm fell quickly. He wondered if Lan Xichen was going to have another moment of complete panic, the way he’d done in Yunping City. Nie Huaisang braced himself to take the other boy’s hand again and hold it until he got over whatever was happening to him, since that had seemed to help the other time.

Before he could move, Lan Xichen took one big gasping breath, and forced a smile.

“I’m… I’m thankful for Nie gongzi’s… for your generosity,” he said in a trembling voice, as if he couldn’t breathe quite right. “I… I will try to be worthy of it.”

“So you’re going to help Su-xiong?”

Lan Xichen flushed and nodded shortly.

“Yes, if it matters so much to you. But in exchange, might I… would you let me make a request?”

“You can always ask,” Nie Huaisang replied, which even he knew was a less than polite answer, but Lan Xichen appeared so shaken still that he didn’t remark on it.

“Would you let me give you music lessons?”

“What? Why… You’ve suggested it before, and I’ve told you, my grades in your uncle’s classes are…”

“I wouldn’t make those lessons depend on the results of those lectures you attend,” Lan Xichen said a little too quickly. “I have told you before, I would like us to get along, since we both care about Mingjue, and who knows, it might be useful in the future if you know how to…” He paused, and took another deep, shaky breath. “I think it would be nice to spend time together like this. I know you haven’t particularly enjoyed my company so far, but…”

“I like when you do my homework,” Nie Huaisang generously protested. It really was the only pleasant part of their time together thus far, and he'd been pretty rude already so he had to say something nice. “And I know you’re busy, with the copying that I won’t talk about anymore, and you’re helping with teaching the little kids, and… and I know you don’t like me much, and you’re going to like me even less if I fail to learn anything from you.”

“If you don’t like it, we will stop,” Lan Xichen promised. “But I’d still like to try.”

Nie Huaisang huffed, unsure what to say.

Of course he had to spend more time with Lan Xichen. His future self had been so angry to hear he wasn’t making progress in getting Lan Xichen’s trust, and Nie Huaisang would like not to be shouted at again. At the same time, he was still quite angry at Lan Xichen about his treatment of Su She, and wouldn’t believe in the older boy’s promises until he saw them actually be put into action.

With that said, though, the perspective of learning music was… well, it certainly had appeal. Anything that wasn’t cultivation or martial arts had appeal. If he could learn the guqin, even just a little… it was what proper gentlemen did, right? They painted, and played music, and did calligraphy, and… 

And maybe now that Nie Mingjue was probably not going to die after all, perhaps Nie Huaisang could start dreaming again about a perfect future where he’d do nothing all day but be accomplished in ways that mattered to him as the elegant and useless second master of Qinghe Nie.

“Fine. If Lan gongzi really wants, I’m willing to try,” Nie Huaisang said, making it sound as if he were doing Lan Xichen a huge favour.

Maybe he was, because Lan Xichen gave him a real smile upon hearing that answer.

“Thank you, Nie gongzi. I appreciate you giving me this second chance.”

Nie Huaisang laughed awkwardly. He’d mostly said that as a joke, but apparently Lan Xichen had taken this second chance thing quite seriously. He really was such a weird person at times. Weird but… but perhaps not entirely awful. If he really taught Nie Huaisang music, if he really kept his word and started taking Su She’s side more… 

Nie Huaisang was too lazy to hold a grudge, especially if the other person made real efforts to change.

“Now,” Lan Xichen said, “let’s get started on those essays for my uncle, since we’re here. I think this might be quite fun, if we apply ourselves well.”

Nie Huaisang groaned, and dramatically let himself fall over the table.

He took it back. All Lans were awful, and they were out to get him and torture him to death, and he hated every single one of them.

[amwritingmeta]

13x16: Sometimes It’s About the Journey...

…not the destination. So says Dean Winchester. In an episode that sees him more or less move into the peak of his arc in a spectacular way. I cannot believe how gorgeous it is. Or I can. I really fucking can believe it. And I’m not saying he’s reached the peak, climbed across it and is looking out on the view that is his future and balance and happiness, but hot damn if he’s not almost there.

((Enter: Michael. Dun-dun-DUN))

I wanted to outline how I’ve followed Dean’s journey of self-actualisation since that pivotal moment in 12x22 and the firing of the grenade launcher = self-liberation, to this episode and all the remarkable lack of walls he’s showing.

Throughout this season, Dean’s come face to face with the lesson he’s needed to learn the most: time to drop the mask.

Time to face himself and admit that this toxic masculinity spiel isn’t who he is and it isn’t who he wants to be. If he hadn’t been wearing a mask, he would’ve told the man he loves how he feels a long time ago. 

The mask isn’t armour to keep him safe, it’s armour to hide behind. 

And it’s bullshit armour that is linked to personality traits he’s never actually believed in or stood behind, he’s only made them part of himself out of a sense of duty that has been warped and twisted out of shape. 

In 13x01 Dean is called out on this by Miriam, who says he’s Becky. Becky who takes things and breaks things, and doesn’t care about anyone but herself. 

And –>

Following this, throughout S13, Dean has faced a whole string of Bad Guys who look like one thing but is really something else:

Asmodeus; wraith whose reflection give them away; shifter wearing Dean’s face; ghost wearing a mask; ghoul wearing the face of a gunslinger hero; two-faced killer pretending to be the good brother; a crossroads demon who comes in peace but does what crossroads demons do; Jack who is innocent of what Dean is suspecting him of; a vampire and a human being in a literal pig mask.

If we see each of these Bad Guys as representatives of Dean’s toxic masculinity - which is the reason he’s wearing his own mask - and each of them pushing him one step further on his journey to opening up to this fact, and letting the mask go, then there’s an immediate pattern here. 

Because Dean may end up killing the wraith in 13x03, but only after we get the visual of the wraith stabbing him repeatedly in the stomach, killing him first. For Dean, this kill is made in absolute fury and self-defence. He’s nowhere near ready to recognise the mask for what it is, he’s much too deep into his grief for that to be possible. He rejects the lesson of recognising this toxic masculinity for what it truly is, and does away with the threat to his perceived identity, because the anger is all he has to hold onto.

By 13x04 this attitude has changed, thanks to Sam intervening. Sam manipulates the entire episode, getting Dean into that therapy session (only for Sam himself to reveal how much he is truly in need of speaking his mind to his brother), but it also pushes Dean’s self-reflection. The thought of catharsis has hooks and they sink in deep, no matter how Dean may reject the idea of it. By the end of the episode he’s admitted the truth to Sam: right now, Dean can’t believe in a damn thing. 

Then we move forward with the Bad Guys, right? Doctor with a drill in 13x05 almost drills a hole in Dean’s head because Dean can’t believe in a damn thing. I don’t think Dean’s suicidal here, I think he simply cannot see the point, so if he dies, he dies. He’s ambivalent. He’s not going to go looking for death, but he’s not going to fight to live either. Ironic, then, that it’s Death herself who tells him to live.

He faces his old idol in 13x06 without hesitation, though Dean, still, is not the one to kill him: native american sheriff with the white hat does that. (and I’d say the White Hat represents the balanced Dean we’re all wishing and hoping for) (and he’s almost in a position to don it) (betcha by golly) 

And in 13x07 he’s finally the one to inflict some pain on the toxic masculinity representative when he shoots Ketch in the shoulder. (I screamed) (Ketch is such a manifestation of a dark mirror for Dean so I kind of love that they brought him back)

By 13x08 we have a Dean interacting with a Charlie-replica. Charlie, who is a highlighter for Dean’s true nature more than any other character has ever been. And we have Dean telling this other highlighter for his true self that she should stay weird, essentially showing how he’s sincerely beginning to open up to this side to himself. (because of Cas coming back) (of course)

In 13x09 we have a huge setback when he realises that he was wrong about Mary being dead, and that old reliable self-doubt and self-hatred comes pouring back in, in copious amounts. It’s strong enough to make him pull a gun and shout in Kaia’s face for her to GET IN THE CAR. Yeah. (I screamed again) (oh the humanity!)

When 13x11 rolls around we get a whole set of our favourite beasties and Sam’s heart (SAM’S heart) is on the line. So it’s poetic that this is the man (and as Ketch, whom he wounded, this is a human man) in a mask that Dean finally kills himself, with a shot through the heart. And the fact is that Dean wearing the toxic masculinity mask does threaten Sam, because it is what informs the codependency, it’s what keeps it so firmly in place. But oh man does it begin to slip now.

In 13x12 we have our first Bad Girl… why does that actually sound dirty rather than menacing? We have our first Dark Female of the season, when we get the twins and Rowena in one episode. They tick the box for yet one more supernatural creature to add to the list: witches. And, of course, we get the epic scene of our leading Dark Female - who is a very strong Dean mirror btw - finding her release and self-liberation. Mind blown. 

In 13x13 Dean is shocked to learn that Cas has been held captive and he had no fucking clue. He sticks close to Cas as they face down Lucifer, who doesn’t faze Dean for a moment, take out Ketch, who will never be trusted again, and find some semblance of a team spirit amidst all of it.

By 13x14 Dean isn’t really displaying any toxic masculine behaviour, right? I mean, he isn’t. If he was happily in love in 13x12, then you almost expect him to burst into song in this episode because he’s so relaxed, working with Cas, spending quality time with Cas (referencing rock and rolling………) and staring down two uber-masculine specimens and getting the giggles over their loincloths. Like… the very image of the male strong rough warrior is actually turned into a joke by how Dean now views masculinity. Honestly. Kill me. It’s gorgeous.

In 13x15 the coping mechanisms are sent on their way for good. I mean, I’m so sure of it. I shouldn’t say I am, but I feel very very convinced that this is the case. Dean has moved far beyond needing them, or even wanting to engage with them. He enjoys food and beer and flirtation and sex, of course, but because he enjoys these things for what they are, not because he needs to take the edge off or find an emotional bandaid. He also looks the toxic masculinity representative dead in the eye and questions his motives for behaving like an asshole. The Boss has his reasons, and Dean can recognise them, but The Boss is a strong Dean mirror when it comes to taking things and breaking things and not caring who gets hurt, because The Boss believes he’s right. Dean is fed up with this attitude from everyone. 

And now then. 

Now we reach 13x16.

more below the cut

12x22 allowed Dean to experience his moment of self-liberation, a necessary step toward self-actualisation (which I wrote about here in how these steps are informing Cas’ arc) (and these steps are also absolutely informing Sam’s arc as well), the brief definitions of which are:

Self-liberation: Recognising irrational thinking patterns caused by unrealistic demands placed on the self and defusing these harmful irrational beliefs in order to lead a happy, healthy life. Self-actualisation: Living creatively and fully using your potentials, driven by a desire for self-fulfilment, feeling finally yourself, safe, free from anxiety, accepted and loved.

So, if Dean experienced self-liberation when firing that grenade launcher in 12x22, then he’s been moving through these above outlined necessary steps of recognising and letting go of the toxic masculinity armour in S13, because to reach the place where you’re ready for self-actualisation, you have to recognise and let go of all that baggage you’ve been carrying around with you.

By 13x11 he’s done believing in the toxic masculinity. It lingers moving forward, because it’s ingrained, but he’s not allowing it to govern him anymore.

By 13x15 we have it underlined to us that Dean taking charge and acting like he always has, doling out orders, is not a good thing. Dean shouldn’t be sole decision maker. That time is over. The reason for the toxic masculinity armour to be worn doesn’t exist: it’s time he stripped the armour off and began to trust.

So, in 13x16 - does he display trust?

Well, yes, he does. One significant moment is when he succumbs to the rules of the world they’re in and allows Fred to play his part, setting a trap that Dean knows won’t work, just for the hell of it, while Dean has his plan B (Operation Bookworm) (FFS) ready to go. This isn’t him displaying control freak behaviour, this is him showing he can be a team player and fucking chill. 

But there’s also a thread throughout the entire episode where he is just… himself. Right? Where he displays honest faith in himself, in his point of view, in his likes being his and he’ll be damned if anyone else’s opinions on these views will make him question them. Jesus, when he quoted Frozen and referenced Elsa without blinking at it, not retracting it or in any way trying to distract Sam from it, I was about ready to hand in the towel.

Especially when he made this face at Sam’s frown –>

(the heart sings with the joy of witnessing this expression)

And we get so much more, like later on in the episode, when he happily shows off the “sleeping robe” and he puts that Ascot on. The final scene and Dean’s reaction to the non-subtle judgment made me think of this one in 4x06:

This bristling at the questioning of his manhood leading to this display of insecure defensiveness (because he’s just been put through the emotional ringer coming face to face with his deep fear of judgment, due to his even deeper fear of rejection, because Good Things Don’t Last, and all of is tied in with a lacking sense of true identity) we get these dimples of discontent:

So, then, what a difference in attitude we get in 13x16. What a remarkable wonderful growth. I mean –>

TRUE IDENTITY ^^^^^ 

But that’s not all that we got from this episode in terms of Dean’s furthered progression, because not only has he faced down a toxic masculinity that has kept him from being himself, out of a sense of duty, believing the only way he could be strong enough to act the shield was to become only the weapon, but in 13x16 he’s also confronted with his inner child.

I was hoping for this so badly. 

(I screamed when the ghost turned into a child) (no I actually didn’t) (I went OH MY GOD!!) (yeah that I did) 

I was hoping for it because it’s the final few steps towards Dean being able to fully let go of the past and look to the future. (it makes me want to weep) (for real it makes me seriously emotional) And look how absolutely magically it’s handled in this episode –>

This moment underlines what Dean’s inner longing is: he just wants his dad. His dad. Not the soldier dude who was a mean drunk and raised him to survive and to protect Sammy at all costs, not that dude, but his dad. The guy who loved Mary more than anything, and who tried his best in impossible circumstances to keep his head above the waterline, the trekkie, the dad who walked into CBGB’s and had grown men go apologetic and self-conscious.

Dean lost the love of his life. He’s in a position now to understand what that does to you. How it breaks down everything you thought you were and turns you inside out. Just as he got to see Mary as an individual, as a person, in S12, Dean is now in a place where he can distance himself from his dad as well, where he can see John as a person who made choices and who made mistakes but who, ultimately, made them out of love, not only for Mary - but for his boys, too. He did what he believed he had to in order to keep them alive. He did what he thought was right. And the deep suffering and his sense of failure crippled him into becoming someone different to the man Mary fell in love with.

And this is the foremost baggage Dean needs to let go of, at least to my mind, because he needs to forgive his father, just as he forgave his mother.

Now this might be as subtly done as his progression has been through the season, we might not get this verbalised at all, and personally I’m just curious to see how and if they’ll give it to us, whether I’m right in this reading or not.

Either way, I think they’re setting up for Michael to be an absolutely smashing piece of exposition!

We also get a pretty significant callback from Dean coming face to face with this inner child of his because remember this moment? –>

This is an underlining, in dialogue, of Dean’s self-view, and it’s one that Dean must put to rest. Because we all know he’s not poison, he doesn’t hurt everyone he loves, he doesn’t cause death and destruction, he is worth saving and he deserves all the love the world has to offer. 

He’s getting there. This tie-back moment in 13x16 underlines it.

Because Becky is dead. Long live Elsa.

In fact, this entire episode underlines this as we watch him freely engage with something he enjoys and he doesn’t for one moment stop simply because Sam is frowning and judging him. He tells Sam off and goes to enjoy himself. This while Sam is absolutely putting his foot down continually, questioning Dean’s decisions and behaviour and calling him out on it. Yeah. 

13x15 set all of this up gorgeously and they are totally building on the moving out of toxic codependency and it makes my insides want to do the jig!! 

The fact that there are traces of old Dean here is more a highlighter to me than anything else.

He doesn’t go for the blonde waitress –>

Barely even looks at her.

Daphne is a trophy he’s set on winning, because, of course, his rivalry is entirely with Fred, which is set up immediately. And that Daphne is a trophy is given to us in dialogue when he says:

Dean: Should’ve known Velma was good to go. It’s always the quiet ones.

But I actually don’t think Dean is engaging in toxic masculine behaviour, not as it’s been displayed this season. He’s a douche. He’s a teenage jock with a big ego who thinks he’s god’s gift. 

I mean, come on, Dean. You’re fucking better than this. Don’t grab women by the arm like that, for example. She will run the fuck away from you to the guy she wants to be with. Learn your lessons, Dean!

Because how he chooses to relate to Daphne, and how she continuously keeps markedly blowing him off, tells us that he needs to grow the hell up already. And, to me, that’s the whole point. I could dig into the symbology and representation that I can see in the setup of the character interaction, but my dudes, I’ll throw it into a separate post.

The point is, this episode tells us that Dean doesn’t want casual, he doesn’t want a trophy.

He wants someone to sit next to him, share a beer and watch movies with him.

That’s what he wants, and the fact that he’s overcompensating for this fact by chasing a pretty woman is entirely in line with how him lusting after a man has pretty much always been handled on the show. 

He wants Cas. And how we close the Scooby portion with Dean stating he should’ve known “it’s always the quiet ones” is a rather formidable plant. 

Well, fingers crossed, of course. I know nothing. I predict nothing. But if they can take the time to draw Dean helping Cas up and Cas reaching out and taking Dean’s hand once he’s done so, and if they can take the time to draw them in synchronisation, then, you know… Cave of Deanitude it is? Joint shares? *mh mh good*

And whoa boy did I love this episode! 

[eryiss]

The Captain’s Charm - II

Summary: Freed Justine: infamous captain of the ship Raijinshuu and pirate of the seven oceans. Laxus Dreyar: faceless night in a society he doesn’t belong in. Fate brings them together, but will the knight succumb the the captain’s charms. [Fraxus fanfiction]

Hi everyone, here’s the second part of my submission for the @fic-writer-appreciation event and my gift for @furidojasutin. This one’s even more pirate-y, but it also has some violence and mentions of death. Nothing too graphic, but it’s there.

You can read it under on Fanfiction, Archive of Our Own or under the cut. I hope you enjoy ^.^

The Captain’s Charm - II

~One Month Later~

Sitting in the mess hall of the ship Raijinshuu, Freed smiled thankfully as Kinana placed a bowl of food before him. A small slab of salted beef, a serving of pickled vegetables and a freshly baked potato with a healthy serving of butter, all covered in a thin, watery broth made from the meat's juices. The rest of the crew, other than the cooks themselves, were already demolishing their meals; Freed always insisted he was served last.

For most, they would see this meal as poor quality and lacking any taste, but not the members of the Raijinshuu. They had been at sea without docking for a full month, so their food supplies had been running low. Thankfully, and by blind luck, they had come across a food transportation ship that they had managed to board and plunder, so their supplies had been greatly replenished. When compared to what they had been forced to eat over the last week, the bowl of meat, potato and vegetables was seen as a true feast.

Since leaving Hargeon Port a month ago, the Raijinshuu had experienced a stream of good luck. There had been no bad storms to contend with, any meetings with other ships had ended in their favour, and his crew were all healthy and in high spirits, including the blonde straggler he had picked up from Hargeon Jail.

The blonde straggler Freed was now starting to believe was his lucky charm.

Glancing towards his newest crewmate, he grinned. Laxus was engaged in an animated conversation with Bickslow, one of his two quartermasters – the other being a fierce woman named Evergreen - and the man who had first assisted Freed when he began his life of piracy. The Captain was glad to see his newest recruit getting along well with the crew, also glad that he had so quickly adapted to the lifestyle on the seas.

Freed had seen potential in the man after his first week. While most people had trepidation and thought they had made a mistake after joining a ship, thus meaning they had to take time to adapt, Laxus had thrown himself into the lifestyle completely, perhaps trying to prove his worth. It worked as Freed gave him the position of boatswain, meaning he was one of the junior supervisors of the ship and that had been exceptionally good at what he did, all while getting respect from many of the members of the crew. Some had been hesitant with how quick Laxus had earned that position, but the month had proven he was qualified. Even if Natsu did insist on duelling to take his place, something Freed had to stop from happening.

Tearing into the meat before him, Freed felt content. He knew his good luck could only last for so long and, sooner or later, something would go wrong. He needed to make sure he enjoyed the calmness before it faded.

However, as both the sea and fate were cruel mistresses, that break in the calmness came much sooner than he had expected. Romeo, a powder monkey and one of the youngest members of the crew, had run into the mess-hall while he and his group of gunners were on watch, something Freed was thankful for when the young man yelled.

"Captain, we're in chase." The room fell near silent at the proclamation. "From the rear, same size as us. Sending warning fire, probably trying to board us."

"Shit." Freed muttered, standing up with the chair falling to the ground. The room looked towards him. "To your stations!"

The room sprung to life. The majority of the crew lurched towards the door to the mess hall that lead to the main deck, where they would be positioned for the upcoming battle. Some members of the crew, mainly those who cooked or cleaned, went towards another room on the other side of the mess hall where they could be safe; they could protect themselves as good as any other, but Freed claimed that if he expected them to cook and care for such a large crew, he shouldn't also expect them to put their lives in danger as well. Some people were resentful of this, but nobody dared to second-guess their Captain about his tactics. Mostly.

When the Captain went towards the door to the main deck, he noticed that Romeo was also going towards there. He grabbed the young mans shoulder and turned him around, a glare on his face. Romeo matched it.

"You do not engage up close." Freed said sternly. "You're not ready to fight. You are to remain safe in the living quarters unless completely needed."

"I'm a man, Captain. I'm old enough to-"

"If you believe that you are a man and old enough to fight, Romeo, then by all means do so." Freed snapped "But know that, when this battle is over, you will be treated the same as any other man who disrespects me by going against my orders."

After scowling at the older man, Romeo turned and stormed towards the door Mirajane was holding open for him. Freed turned to see Macao looking at him, mouthing a thank you. It had been Romeo's father's wishes that his son be kept out of face to face combat until he was eighteen. Freed considered this wasted potential, the fifteen year old could handle himself fine, but it was his father's wishes and Freed would respect them. The Captain nodded to his crewmate and walked to the deck, removing his cutlass from his belt and grasping it tightly.

When he walked on deck, he saw the evening was falling and sky getting darker. A ship was quickly approaching, utilising the wind as it got closer. It was a little smaller than The Raijinshuu, so there would be no point in trying to flee. Not that he was intending to anyway.

As the ship got closer, he realised that there were no canons on the side of it. The deck was filled with yelling men, many of whom were shooting towards their ship with whatever guns they held, more a form of intimidation than anything else. These were people who enjoyed the rush of murder and would be well versed in physical combat. This was a dangerous situation.

"Canons!" He yelled, getting the attention of the ships gunners. "We don't aim to sink it. Stop its defences then stop the crew from boarding us. These men live with the mentality that dead men tell no tales. Give them the means to retreat, it'll be over faster than having to kill each of them."

The gunners nodded and began to prepare their weapons, making sure to aim well as the ship approached. Soon, the sound of cannonballs exploding and flying towards the other ship began to fill the air. The silence was overturned with the hellish symphony of battle, explosions and sharp yelling from those who had the authority. The other ship was getting closer and closer, the carnage would soon begin.

Freed caught a glance of Laxus, who was grasping his own cutlass in preparation for the boarding. The man was showing no fear, but Freed knew better. Everyone was scared at that time, and Laxus had more reason to than most. He had never experienced something like this and didn't know what to expect. Knowing that there was nearly a minute before boarding, he walked towards the blonde man. He placed a hand on the man's shoulder, snapping him out of his own mind. He sent him a small smile before the frown returned to his features.

"Are you okay?" Freed questioned.

"Yes Captain." Laxus said instantly. Freed dug his fingers into the man shoulders, making him flinch. "A little nervous."

"Don't be." Freed said sternly. "You're a strong, capable man. Keep your eyes open, remember your training and follow what your instincts say, you'll be fine if you do. I don't let my crew die, certainly not on board my ship."

Laxus nodded, Freed removing his hand from his shoulder. The Captain walked to the side of the Raijinshuu, facing the ship as it caught up beside them. He faced his enemies head on, glancing to the body of the other ship. His gunners had done as he demanded and were damaging any prefixed guns and weapons on the ship, but never landing any hits that would render the ship useless. His enemies could never feel helpless, that would lead to desperation and brutality.

Within a flash, large plants of wood were raised in the air of the other ship. On metal hinges, they swung down and fell towards The Raijinshuu, creating wooden walkways over the ocean to connect the two ships. The ships were perfectly distanced for the planks to bridge the gap, telling Freed the people of the other ship knew exactly what they were doing.

Before Freed could give an order to his crew, the opposing pirates began to clamber across the pathways. They showed no signs of hesitancy, the swaying waves not making them stumble as they made their way across the panels. Freed glanced to see some of his crew pushing against the panels, trying to knock them off the ship's side and taking the invaders with it. The panels wouldn't budge, and Freed could see that they were firmly fixed in place on the other ship.

"Prepare yourselves." Freed yelled in a break of the canons. "Keep the gunners safe. Gunners aim for the bridges, try breaking them."

The crew followed his demands. Small groups crowded around the gunners, who were moving the canons so they aimed towards the planks of wood. Freed suspected they wouldn't be able to do much, the other ship was too good to have such an obvious weakness, but if even one of the bridges were to fall it would help immensely.

Freed turned quickly when he heard the sound of metal clashing with metal. Some of the other crew were already aboard his ship and fighting. Freed rushed towards where this had happened, noticing that they seemed to care more about fighting people than they did about getting anything from the ship. They were savages, and this was sport to them. That suited Freed fine, he didn't have to worry about them taking any of their treasure nor supplies. All he needed to do was to get the bastards off of his ship.

He raised his cutlass and swiped it down, cutting against the stomach of a member of the other crew. Taking the moment of shock in the other man to his advantage, he slammed the hilt of his sword against the mans head. Now dazed, the man was easily overpowered and thrown from the ship and into the cold ocean. Freed could hear the yell as salt water filled the man's wound.

"Focus on getting them off the boat!" He yelled.

He jogged towards the nearest and largest plank of wood, wiping his sword down and brandishing it. When he saw Loke unaware that a blunderbuss was aimed towards his back, Freed stormed forward and placed his sword against the other mans throat. He pulled him back enough to make the shot of the gun miss and slam into a member of the opposing crew. The injured man staggered back and was quickly taken care of by Elfman, who tossed him into the ocean and gained a similar, if not worse, reaction of the cold, salty water coming into contact with his flesh.

Before Freed could do anything to the man whose throat rested against his blade, another member of the crew slammed his elbow into Freed's stomach. The Captain lurched slightly, giving the other man the chance to break free. Freed watched as he turned, aimed the weapon towards him and pulled the trigger.

A member of Freed's crew was pushed against the gunman, ruining his aim. The pellets from the blunderbuss mainly landed on the deck of the ship, but two of them ripped through the material of Freed' trousers and forced into the flesh of his upper thigh. Freed had to hold back a yell of pain, quickly removing a dagger tucked inside his belt and throwing it down, forcing itself way through the mans foot and pinning him to where he stood.

As the man yelled in pain, Freed stumbled forward slightly and slammed his shoulder into the mans chest. He quickly removed the mans gun from him and tossed it overboard. The Captain grasped his thigh, looking to Loke after he dealt with an opposing member of the crew. Loke immediately began to wrestle down the man who had shot his Captain.

"Shit." Freed muttered as he removed his hand from his thigh and saw blood. He would have to deal with it later.

Now sporting a limp, he glanced towards the other ship. It was still filled with jeering and yelling pirates who were barging their way towards the planks of wood connecting the two ships. The Raijinshuu was barely managing to cope with the pirates already aboard the ship, to have the entirely of the other crew would inevitably lead to their defeat. Freed wasn't going to accept this. He needed to break the planks of wood somehow, which would turn the tides completely.

The canons weren't working, the planks of wood had been strategically placed in a way that the canons limited field of targeting couldn't hit them. He couldn't move them, they had been bolted up on the other ship meaning they were rigid, nothing was going to change that. He couldn't move the ship either, by the time they'd gotten into an angle where they could remove themselves from the planks, the smaller ship would have realised what they were doing and would have made actions to counter them, not to mention more of the hoards would have boarded.

"Captain!" Laxus' voice could be heard over the sound of fighting, clashing swords and explosions.

Freed turned his head towards the sound, only to be pounced on by the blonde man and tackled to the ground. The Captain looked at his crewmate in confusion, watching as Laxus leapt up and tackled a man with a steaming gun, forcing a dagger into his stomach. Freed saw the pellets of a gun imbedded into the post he had been standing before. If Laxus hadn't tackled him, they would have hit him on the side of the head.

Freed stood up quickly, wincing in pain at the wounds in his thigh. He watches as Laxus removed his dagger from the man's upper body and tossed him overboard. The blonde turned back to Freed, walking back to him. Freed scanned the area, sending a quick glance towards his saviour.

"Thank you." He muttered, watching as his crew defended themselves. "We need to deal with the bridges. Any ideas?"

"D'you see where they were stored." Laxus said, motioning to the other boat. "They're taller than the main body of the boat, we didn't see them sticking as they approached. Must have been slightly submerged in the water right, so they can be pulled up to board other ships."

"Probably, why?"

"They're not the thickest planks and being in water so much might have damaged them." Laxus was panting slightly. "With a sword sharp enough and some power behind it, you could probably cut through it and make them useless."

"You think you could do that yourself?" Freed demanded, looking to the planks of wood that were heavily populated by the other crew.

"Get those guys off 'em, sure."

Glancing down at the slightly dulled sword Laxus had ended up with – they hadn't had time to get him a quality blade – Freed knew this was the best shot he had. He wordlessly tossed his own blade, which he sharpened daily, towards his crewmate and watched him catch it with ease. Freed removed the musket from his belt and brandished it.

"Do you trust me to keep them off you?" Freed demanded, Laxus nodding. "Good. Duck."

The blonde did so immediately, crouching down when he saw Freed raise his weapon. A member of the other crew had charged towards them with his sword raised, almost defiantly intended to kill Laxus. Instead, he was met with a shoulder filled with musket ammo. He staggered back slightly into the arms of Cana, who made quick work of the man. Freed nodded to her, offering Laxus a hand to pull himself up.

"We're going to deal with the bridges." He told Cana, walking forward. "Keep them off us for as long as you can."

She nodded and rushed forward, instructing other members of The Raijinshuu to help the two of them. Freed and Laxus soon followed her, walking to the widest and most populated plank of wood that was being used to board the ship.

Freed jumped onto the side of ship, one hand grabbing rope for balance while the other aimed towards the men on the plank with his gun. He immediately began to shoot at the men who were trying to board his ship, making them stumble backwards and fall off the plank. For those that didn't fall from the backlash of the gun, he leant forward and slammed the butt of the gun against them and knocked them off manually.

Using Freed's sword, Laxus began to hack at the wooden plank that had been revealed by the lack of people. The sharp blade cut into the wood fairly well, making sharp indents in the damp, rotting old wood. Laxus had a glare on his face as he put as much effort into each swing that he could, making sure that the slashes of the sword all went to deepen the single groove to quickly remove the plank.

Although the plank of wood was somewhat clear, the crew of the enemy ship were starting to realise what was happening. They were soon charging across the plank and towards Laxus. Freed realised shooting them as they came wasn't going to work, so let go of the rope he was holding for leverage and jumped in front of Laxus, landing on the very plank of wood than his crewmate was trying to destroy. He pulled a dagger out of his belt again and stood firm, ready to fight off any of the assailants running towards him.

"This is gonna go any minute." Laxus yelled to his Captain. "I won't be able to know when exactly, you might fall in."

"Then don't let me." Freed yelled from over his shoulder.

Laxus paused for a moment, before deciding to go along with what his Captain wanted. He continued hacking away at the wood, continually glancing up at Freed. When he did, he was shocked with what he saw.

It was now clear to the blonde why Freed was the Captain of his own ship. Not only was he putting himself in danger for the majority of the crew, he could also defend himself without any difficulty at all. Even using his non-dominant hand, his dagger was cutting into the opposing men and allowing him to push them off with ease. Any time a man was close to him, Freed could easily overpower them no matter their size. The fluidity of his movements and power behind them told Laxus many things, one being that Freed was not someone to be messed with.

With another sharp slam of his sword against the wood, Laxus noticed it began to splinter. The blunt attacks he had caused mixed with the weight of Freed and the other ship's crew going towards that end of the plank meant it wasn't going to last long. He looked up to Freed quickly, who was wrestling a man out of his way.

"It's going- shit!"

Laxus watched as the plank tore apart, Freed still on it. It started to fall to the sea, taking all the men with it. The blonde quickly leant over and grasped Freed by the wrist, stopping him from falling into the ocean filled with men who wanted him dead. Freed quickly grasped his hand on Laxus' upper arm and they both worked to pull him back on board. It was a struggle – and Laxus had to conclude Freed was made entirely out of muscle with the effort needed – but his Captain was soon back on the deck. He was even laughing slightly.

"You're fucking insane." Laxus panted.

"Absolutely." Freed chuckled. "But I'm still your Captain and expect you to treat me as such. We should start on the other bridges."

After nodding, Laxus and Freed began to run towards one of the other planks of wood. As they approached, they heard the sound of cracking followed by another loud splash. They looked to the plank to see it had plunged into the water in the same way the centre plank had moments ago. They looked to see Erza holding her sword and crouching down in a similar position to what Laxus had been in. They must have seen what their Captain and the blonde had been doing and replicated it, using more than just one person as a defence.

Both men turned to see that the final plank of wood had been given the same treatment, with Gajeel slashing at the wood until it, too, fell and created a large splash. Looking towards the other ship, they could see that the bridges were their only way of getting onto other ships. They were helpless now.

Freed saw the Captain of the other ship barking orders, demanding to get any many of the crew out of the water and for them to flee. Freed's jaw clenched slightly, if the Captain was going to instruct they massacre The Raijinshuu, he should have been on board as well instead of cowering behind his mass of men. Freed was of the belief that, not only should a Captain go down with his ship, but he should also be at the forefront of any battle.

The captain looked around his own ship when he heard the sounds of fighting stop. Most of the enemy crew had either been defeated by his own crew or were fleeing by jumping off the ship themselves. By the looks of the deck, nobody had been badly hurt somehow. Maybe Freed's spell of good luck wasn't over yet.

As he walked towards Laxus, the Captain wondered if he really was good luck for him

"Your first real fight. Are you okay?" He asked the blonde, who was still panting.

"Think so." Laxus nodded. "Not what I expected. But I made it through with just a couple cuts and bruises."

"I'm glad." Freed smiled. "Which reminds me…"

Freed took Laxus' hands and bowed slightly, pressing his lips against the mans knuckles in a soft kiss. Laxus looked down at the gesture with confusion evident on his face but didn't pull his hand away. The Captain slowly stood up straight again, smirking a little at the clear confusion on his cremates face.

"You've saved my life twice within the hour, Mr Dreyar." He grinned. "There are very few men I would bow for, let alone kiss their hands. Consider this a worthy thank you."

Though he would deny it, Laxus had a small blush form on his cheeks, a blush Freed quite enjoyed being the cause of. But, before he could do anything else to further enjoy his lucky charm, he had to deal with the ship still opposite The Raijinshuu. He walked to the centre of the main deck, all eyes on him as he gathered the attention. A smirk fell onto his face as he turned towards the other ship, who were failing to escape as fast as their vocal Captain was happy with.

"Canons." He yelled, seeing the Captain of the other ship turn to him. His smirk increased. "Blow them to hell."

[tyranttortoise]

@zalimonium  submitted:  I just had a dream about being the LL. But um, kinda takes a bad turn.

So I was at some like planned get away by the three leaders of a sports club or something that I was in. But each of the three teams were bunked separately and could interact in the Halls of the hotel/lobby/convention floor. Sort of keeping each team spirits together while letting each person relax and mingle. Sadly none of the boys were on the teams, it was kinda like a the vacation from them. (Expect Q because who leaves there phone behind?) And generally everything went well between the fun little rivalries and competitions the got started from the teams. The leaders made sure to keep it in check. But on the last day all the teams got drunk and partied.

And while I wasn’t drunk I was intoxicated enough to allow for someone to do some slow dirty dancing between me. When I didn’t pull away he took it as a sign that I was into him and started to feel me up on the dance area. Being the 110% touch starved person I am and tispy I once again didn’t pull away. Then that’s when he went for my neck, it is the SPOT man. I let out a moan before slowly opening my eyes to see blue across the room at the door in what I thought was disgust. He bolted realising I was looking at him and I tried to chase but lost him.

On the flip side I didn’t know that the house boys were there to surprised me and congratulate me and my team for a job well done. Blue was sent out by the boys to find me since he was the most excitable but he couldn’t handle seeing me out in the open with a guy hanging on me like he was trying to have sex with me. And too him the face I had was pure pleasure. It broke his heart and he ran past the other skeletons crying to hide. Most followed him but red turned to where blue came from to see what the hell just happened.

Well when I couldn’t find blue I just ran away myself, I hid and cried because he was just so disgusted with me I thought. It just confirmed how gross i was for being so touch starved but opening up to people lead to this? Being a little tispy allowed my thoughts to continue without me reality checking myself. I started to claw at the skin on my neck making it bleed, feeling disgusted with myself as my phone was going crazy but I ingored it in favor of having a panic attack.

Well after I left the confused guy who didn’t see blue he figured I was just caught by my boyfriend or something. He got both a devilish idea since i was from a different team and mad that I lead him on while having a boyfriend… He started to Graffiti various areas about me being a slut or how I’m a bad lay. And while the other teams started to see the messages about me someone else came upon them. Red.

Red, ready to beat someone in the ground he demanded people to tell him who did this but either people we’re to scared or to loyal to there teammates to rat. Red went back to blue and demanded to know what he saw… WHO he saw. But blue didn’t get a chance to see the guy’s face. It was buried in my hair as he was on my neck.

I woke up there, the boys all panicking to find me or the guy slandering my name on the walls.

the tortoise’s two cents:

You sat in a little nook, hidden from view behind some stairs.  That bastard you'd been dancing with was either drunker than you thought or just inherently an asshole because he'd taken the sharpies everyone was using to sign each others club memory books and written slander about you on the convention center's walls.  You'd passed one with your name and the word "TEASE" with a little cartoon penis drawn above it as you attempted to avoid everyone, which had only made things worse.

Thankfully, it was the last day of the event, so you could go home tomorrow, and--

Home.  

You curl up, suppressing a sob that threatens to rip through you at the thought.  How can you go back to the lodge and face them after this?  After you hurt Blue?  After they all have you that confused look as you ran past them?

After they read the walls?

You're a mixture of mortified and horrified, and all you wanted was to feel someone be close.  You hadn't even been thinking at the time; you'd been flush with alcohol, following the beat of the music, reveling in the feeling of a warm body holding onto you...

You could see Blueberry's face when he discovered you.

Your neck throbbed.

Suddenly, footsteps padded toward you, and you jerked, not daring to look up.  You could feel whoever it was hesitating for a moment, before they slowly sank down beside you.  A hand set on your shoulder, startling you enough to peek up from your arms.

Blueberry sat there, his eyelights much dimmer than usual, and his usual grin pulled down in an uncharacteristic light frown.  He had been the last person you'd been expecting to see, but it was obvious how he found you; your phone was on, and Q could easily pin-point your GPS.  

"I'm so sorry, Blue, I--"  Your voice cracked, the words flying out of you on the crest of a sob, and Blueberry suddenly wraps his arm around your shoulders, pulling you against his chest.

"DON'T.  I... I OVERREACTED," he conceded, his voice quieter than usual.  

You shake your head.  "No, you didn't.  You... I... I was kinda tipsy, and I..."  You're crying again, and this time you turn to clutch the front of his shirt, burying your face in his chest.  You can't look at him.  He wraps his other arm around you, holding you close.

"...DO... D-DO YOU LIKE THAT HUMAN?"

More forcefully, you shake your head.  "No!  I don't even know him, I just... didn't... pull away," you admit, feeling a fresh wave of shame.  

"sweetheart, if ya ever wanna dance like that, ya'know you can come to me, right?"  

You raise your head sharply at the sound of Red, who's now leaning against the wall directly in front of you.  He must have teleported because you didn't hear him approach.  Your heart nearly jumps into your throat, and your entire body jerks.  However, Red's eyelights suddenly shift toward your neck, and his casual expression darkens.  He strides forward, crouches, and takes your chin in his hand, tilting your head back.  

"who?  that guy?" he demands, his voice clipped.  The rage you'd seen earlier is back on his face, his fangs bared in anger.

Ah.  He can see the scratches on your neck.  Blueberry didn't notice them before, but now he gingerly touches them with his fingertips, his expression one of pure concern.

"YOU'RE HURT!  ARE YOU OKAY??  SHOULD I TAKE YOU TO A NURSE OR SOMETHING?"

"No, no, I'm fine.  I did it," you interject in a small voice, breaking free of Red's hold to attempt to withdraw into yourself again.  This time, understanding dawns on Red's face, and he grabs your arms and pulls you to him.  

"listen, doll.  don't go hurtin' yourself over this.  you didn't do nothin' wrong, 'cept dance with a grade-a asshole.  it happens.  i mean, you've danced with me before right?"  He attempts a small smile for you.

"You're not an asshole."

"AND DON'T LISTEN TO THE MESSAGES ON THE WALLS!!"  Blueberry suddenly blurts, gripping your shoulder to get your attention.  "NONE OF THAT DESCRIBES YOU, AND WE'RE WORKING ON SCRUBBING IT OFF!"

You stare wide-eyed at the idea of your friends scrubbing the walls.

"an' ya don't gotta worry 'bout that asshole, either, sweetheart."

There's something dark in Red's voice, and when you pull back to look at his face, his smirk is a little too wide.  "What'd you do, Red?"

He shrugs.  "jus' disposed of some garbage.  don't worry about it."  He starts to stand, drawing you up with him.  Your legs feel weak, but he steadies you.  "c'mon, let's go home.  the lodge's been real lonely without ya, doll."

You nod, beginning to follow the skeletons toward the door, though hang back to walk beside Blue.  "Are we okay?" you ask, your voice still wavering a little.  He gives you a bright smile and wraps his arm around your shoulders.

"OF COURSE WE ARE!  I REACTED POORLY, AND I'M SORRY.  IT'S JUST THAT I... I WAS JEALOUS."  His voice drops a little lower, and he leans in close, his face beginning to light up a vibrant shade of blue.  "I WANTED TO BE THE ONE THAT YOU MAKE THAT FACE FOR."

It caught you by surprise enough that you nearly choked--but thankfully, you were saved an embarrassing response when you passed by a trash can.  Stuffed inside at an awkward angle that had him nearly kissing his knees was the guy you'd been dancing with.  He seemed to be tied up with a banner from the event, and the word DICK was written all over his face in bright red sharpie.  

Red turns back to you and grins.  

[artistic-writer]

CS Halloweek :: Between Now and Nether :: Chapter 2

Title: Between Now and Nether by @artistic-writer  [full res fanart]

Summary: On their way to a Nolan Charity Gala, tragedy befalls Emma and Killian who is given just seven days to set things right.  Can he make Emma believe and escape the Nether before he is lost forever?

Rating: T+

Chapters: [1] - [2]

A/N: I am posting this early to set everyone’s anxiety at rest - and because I made the fanart yesterday.  Thanks to @rouhn  for noticing my little issue with it before i posted it! This was written for CS Halloweek : Spirits & Traditions.

Future updates will be for Friday (providing I can get the art made in time) 

Huge thanks to @hollyethecurious @kmomof4 @winterbaby89 @rouhn  and @wordsmith-storyweaver for your advice and suggestions.  This fic would just be so much worse without you guys! <3

———————————————————————————————————

The last thing Killian remembered before he was blinded by a white light was the warmth enveloping his body. He had felt so cold, shivering on the pavement outside of his house as his life force left him, Emma’s wails filling his ears. And then nothing. Silence. Not even the tinnitus ringing in his ears. Just nothing.

The pain was gone now too and Killian looked around himself with a frown. It was suddenly easier to breathe and his suit was pristine once more, the exit wound in his abdomen also mysteriously gone when he ran his hands over the cumberband of his tuxedo. Killian patted his suit jacket quickly realising that the velveteen box was missing and he looked around him only to discover that he could see nothing but white. And only that. He couldn’t even see his feet through the fog surrounding him and he began to panic a little.

“Emma?” He called out softly when he heard footsteps approaching him. A figure cut through the mist in front of him and Killian frowned when the shadow of a man appeared before him.

“Not quite, brother,” A voice called out, breaking the silence around them.

Killian’s eyes went wide with confusion. “Liam?” he croaked, his voice breaking with a mixture of joy and realisation. Liam was dead and the only way he would be here with him is if he was dead too. “Am I…?”

Liam stood before him with a kind, serene smile on his face. His hands were behind his back, his fingers tied together to hold them there and he blinked slowly. Liam was wearing the same clothes he was the day he had died, the irony of his brother also being gunned down not lost on Killian. “Of sorts,” he said softly.

Killian gulped hard and rubbed his forehead with his fingers. “And Emma?”

Liam moved his arms until they were in front on him, his fingertips pressed together. “She is okay,” he said slowly.

A sob of relief escaped Killian’s lips and he quickly covered his mouth to muffle his cry. Realisation was a harsh mistress and she had just hit him with a ton of very hard, very heavy bricks. If it was possible for his chest to hurt, Killian was sure his heart would have been breaking in two. “Will she be okay?” Killian lifted his watery eyes to look at his brother once more, the light behind Liam somewhat brighter than before.

“She will,” he nodded once and smiled again. “I am here to help you transition,” Liam said softly, holding out his hand to Killian, the white ambient light around him bathing Killian in a warmth he had never felt before.

Killian shook his head and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Where am I?” he gulped. “How do I get back?”

“Killian, brother, this is the Nether,” Liam soothed, his words flowing over Killian’s anxiety and washing it away instantly. Killian calmed his breathing and straightening his body, taking in his brother’s appearance with more scrutiny.

“Are you an Angel?” Killian asked confused.

“Of sorts,” Liam smiled again and Killian scoffed with a little frustration.

“How cryptic of you, brother.”

“I have been sent to guide you,” Liam retracted his hand once more and tucked both behind his back again.

“To where?” Killian swallowed hard.

“That depends on where you want to go,” Liam said and Killian could swear his voice was much more calming than it had ever been.

“I want to go home,” Kilian’s voice cracked slightly. “I want to go back to Emma.”

Liam bowed his head, eyes pinched closed and stood in silence. Killian frowned, watching his brother intently, the only noise between them the sound of his own ragged breathing. Finally, before he had time to prompt him, Liam lifted his gaze back to Killian and the warm smile across his features calmed him instantly.

“You have been granted one chance,” Liam said stoically, his voice firm but never filled with an ounce of anger or force. “You may return, and if you can convince Emma you are still alive, you can stay.”

“By who? Who has the power to do this?” Killian demanded.

“The details are not important, brother. Except one.”

Killian narrowed his eyes at the being in front of him in the guise of his brother. It looked like Liam, had the same face as his brother, even the same stupidly curly hair that Killian was glad he had never inherited, but it wasn’t Liam. Killian could tell.

“Who are you?” He asked timidly.

“I am whoever people need me to be at this time.”

“Are you God?” Killian mumbled, almost afraid to know the answer. Ethereal Liam cracked another wide smile and shook his head.

“Then who are you?” Killian asked more confidently, shifted his weight from side to side.

“Most people do not normally ask so many questions,” Liam said with a light chuckle.

“I am not most people,” Killian sighed with his lack of answers.

“This is true. Which is why you are being offered this second chance, Killian.”

“Second chance? To convince Emma I am alive, so I can return to her?” The eagerness in Killian’s voice was too evident.

Liam inhaled hard but Killian suspected he had no actual need for breath. “You have done real good in the world, Killian. It has not gone unnoticed. You can return to Emma, and you will both live out the rest of your lives happily if you can…”

“...If I can show her I am alive,” Killian interrupted and Liam nodded. “So, am I alive?”

“Of sorts,” Liam said again and Killian scoffed. Even if this being wasn’t his brother he was a pain in the arse just like him. “The Nether is a place below the world of man, but neither Heaven or Hell,” Liam said finally. “It is a place very few people experience before they rise or fall.”

“You mean…” Killian gulped, stepping towards the figure before him with real concern in his eyes.

“Killian, if you fail, you will be judged accordingly.”

“If I fail?” Killian frowned, shaking his head a little.

“There are limitations. Not everyone offered a second chance will make it in time.”

“In time?” Killian pleaded, stepping towards Liam’s figure and instantly feeling the warmth from his glowing body.

Liam nodded slowly, a calming smile spreading over his features once more. “Brother, you have seven days to convince Emma, and only Emma, that you are alive.”

“So, I am not dead yet?” Killian asked hopefully.

“In body, you are dead,” Liam sighed. “In spirit, you are here.”

“What does that mean?” Killian spat, his patience for riddles waning. “Tell me how I get home!” He growled.

“That, dear brother, is something you must figure out yourself,” Liam smiled and with a snap of his white, glowing fingers, Killian’s world went black.

When he peeled his eyes open again, Killian was standing outside of their house, the blood stain on the pavement still clearly visible at his feet, even though attempts had clearly been made to try and wash it away. Killian’s suit was gone, replaced with his casual clothes he would wear in his downtime, jeans and a blue t-shirt that hugged his body. Despite the fact it was October and most people were wearing some sort of jacket, Killian wasn’t cold in the slightest.

He looked around quickly, the street they lived on quite this time of day. Emma’s car was in the driveway, his parked in front of it. As if he had thought it, David’s car pulled into the space behind them and the engine rattled to a stop, ceasing as soon as Dave put the car in park. Emma’s older brother was the kindest soul he had ever known, and he was glad he was here. He would know what to do.

David headed around his car, striding for the steps to the house as Killian made his way towards him. He looked sad, his head turning away from the patch of crimson on the pavement in disgust. Killian thought he looked more tired than usual, even with a young child at home, Dave looked like he had the weight of the world coming down on top of him. His eyes were red, slightly puffy and if Killian didn’t know better, he would say Dave had been crying.

“Dave, mate, so glad you are here…” Killian began almost apologetically, but his words were cut off instantly when David Nolan walked right through him. Literally. He’d sidestepped the blood on the concrete and breezed through Killian’s body, sending an unearthly quaking through his being that had him frozen in place for a second and then determinedly climbed the steps and letting himself into the house without saying a word.

Killian jumped back, eyes wide with shock and disbelief at what had just transpired. His soon to be brother in law, future best man, and current best friend had not seen or heard him, instead walking right into him and out the other side like he wasn’t even there. Because he wasn’t, and Killian growled to himself at his own stupidity.

“Oh bloody hell,” he rolled his eyes and ascended the stairs after David, walking straight through the front door.

Killian heard the sobbing first, followed by the gentle shushing of his best friend. A quick glance around the open plan lounge told him that his funeral had probably already happened, the mantelpiece above their open log fire covered in sympathy cards. Some of them had remained sealed and Killian’s bottom lip quivered at the pain Emma was probably going through because of him.

He should have noticed the gunman. He should have fought harder to stay with her. He should have ignored the light and gentle pull of warmth as he had felt his fingers slip from hers and if nothing else, Emma’s pained screams should have pulled him right back to her. But they hadn’t, and Killian hated whoever was in charge for all of this.

Killian followed the sounds of Emma’s wails, climbing the stairs but not making a single sound, even when he set his foot onto the second to last step of the staircase that always creaked so loudly. Emma was in their bedroom, the door open just a crack after David had gone to his sister’s bedside, his huge warm palm rubbing gently over her shoulders as she cried.

Killian pushed at the door but nothing happened, his hand sliding through the wood. He sighed. He would never get used to this, and with any luck, he wouldn’t need to. Walking the rest of the way through the door, Killian noticed Emma stop her sobbing for just a second, shooting a glance towards the door.

“Emma,” Killian’s smile was wide and excited and he inhaled hard through his open mouth, his arms widening automatically, ready to receive the shape of her body in his arms. But nothing happened. Emma remained where she was and her wide, expectant eyes dulled once more.

“Are you okay?” David soothed, stilling his hand on her shoulder before pulling the blanket over her legs up higher to make sure she didn’t get cold.

Emma looked back to her brother, her eyes swollen and red from her grief. She had cried for ten days straight, retired to her bedroom and had not come out since. Despite her family’s pleas, she had also neglected to eat a single thing offered to her, instead sustaining herself on sweet teas and the odd half slice of toast. “It’s been ten days,” she sobbed, her words catching in her throat.

“Ten days? But I…”

“I’m sorry,” David looked down at his feet. “I know you are not, and that’s okay, but please Emma, you have to eat something.”

Killian moved towards them, another known creaky floorboard staying silent under his feet. “Emma, I’m here,” he breathed her name but no reaction came from the woman he loved.

“Please, Emma,” David begged, leaning forward towards the white bag at his feet. He had bought her something and even though he could not smell it, Killian recognised the plastic blue lid of the tupperware that Mary Margaret always used to share her cooking with them. It looked like soup and Emma grimaced at the pot, her lips curling in disgust.

“You love Mary Margaret’s soup,” David coaxed gently, pulling the lid off and offering her the spoon in his hand.

“Aye, love, you do…”

“Not anymore,” Emma said sadly, hugging the pillow next to her tighter and burying her face into the downy softness.

“Emma, please,” David repeated, setting the soup down on the bedside table and replacing the lid. “Killian wouldn’t want this.”

“Exactly right, mate.”

“He’s gone, Dave,” Emma snapped, blinking away another tear at his name. “He died, and he left us.”

“Us? Wait, what?”

David sighed and licked his lips, swallowing hard. He had dealt with Emma’s grief before, when their parents had died, but this was different. Somehow, fuelled by her hormones, she was entering so many stages of grief he was having a hard time keeping up. One day she was happier, and then the next day she would be a crumbling mess once more. She was all over the place, emotionally wrecked from losing the one thing in her life that she held most dear.

Emma’s sobs wracked her body as a new wave of tears began to flow from her eyelids. “I didn’t have time to tell him,” she was back to being distraught, her fleeting fit of anger having passed quicker than a nanosecond. “Now he will never know.”

“Know what? I’m here, Emma, tell me now.” Killian moved around the bed quicker than he could ever have in solid form, pressing his knee into the mattress behind her and settling himself behind her. The bed didn’t move, the comforter didn’t ripple and Emma made no attempt to nudge herself back into him like she always did.

“I know,” David soothed, patting her leg with a heavy sigh.

“I miss him,” Emma bawled, her fingers gripping harder at the pillow that had become a substitute for Killian over the last week.

“I miss you too, Emma. So much.” Killian’s voice cracked a little and he tried to bury his face into the crook of her neck. He wrapped a strong arm around Emma and brushed his ghostly thumb over the skin of her wrist as she held the pillow tight.

“I know,” David said again, his heart splitting for his sister.

“I can’t do this alone,” Emma cried, her entire body shaking with each fresh wave of tears. They burned her eyes and soaked the pillow but she didn’t care.

“You’re not alone,” David said softly. “Mary Margaret and I are here for you.”

“And I am here, love. Whatever it is, you don’t have to face it alone, Emma.”

“I can’t have a baby on my own, Dave. We were supposed to be a family!”

Killian stopped breathing, his ghostly body only doing so because of muscles memory anyway.

“Oh bloody hell.”