#and the moment I saw jack appear on the beach I was like oh my god it’s the beach episode then realised | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

luzarya · 3 years

Text

Find You

Siren Au where Yuu is a siren.

summary: Yuu was sweeping, when they realized that something good had came, for once, in their life.

Their beloved had came.

ao3 link: here

warning: none

word count: 3,076

songs: this and this

part: 2/3

-> 1 (previous)

-> 3 (not out til next friday)

----

Yuu hummed a quiet melody as they swept the floor of Mostro Lounge. The lounge was empty, past its closing time.

Yuu began working not too long ago, their current contract having them work at the lounge ,and in exchange, Azul would do his best removing traces of Yuu’s presence at the beach. The local government had begun to search for the owner of the hypnotic voice before it took any lives, and had it not been for Azul’s interference, Yuu would probably have been in the government’s grasp.

And to be fair, Yuu didn’t want to be held by the government, not again.

The events that lead up to their current predicament, was truly, rather interesting.

Yuu’s voice switched from a hum to a quiet singing, as they recalled how they had to reveal their mer form to Jack, Deuce, Ace, and Grim. They all had been shocked, no doubt, but it soon quickly faded once they all realized it would play in their favor. Yet, the Leech twins had known, planning around it.

In the end, Yuu needed help from the Savanaclaw dorm, ultimately playing into their favor.

...then it landed them in another contract, not even a day after.

Yuu continued to sing, this time their voice now heard. No one was in the lounge itself, perhaps someone in the kitchen, Yuu figured, with the amount of noise they heard from that area. But they sang, and sang they did, of the song that their beloved once sang.

Yuu had promised an eternity with their beloved, yet they couldn’t fulfill their debt. Sometimes, they wished that their beloved would just magically appear, but they knew that it wouldn’t happen.

But one could hope.

They continued to mindlessly sing and sweep, thinking about their beloved, until a voice called out to them.

“Eh, Shachi-chan, why are ya always singin’ that song?” Floyd came out from the kitchen, a dish in hand. He had an almost dazed look- Yuu singing affected all, but to fellow mer, it was to a lesser degree. Nor did it take hold for too longer, either. The dazed look was already gone.

“What’s it to ya?” Yuu growled, unhappy that their singing was interrupted, although they eyed the dish. “What’s that?”

“Oh this? Just some shrimp alfredo.~”

“And you made it because…?”

“Just felt like it!~”

“I see…”

Yuu returned to sweeping, their song now a hum, as Floyd began eating his dish. It hadn’t been a minute, a freaking minute, until Floyd spoke again. At this point, Yuu was ready to strangle the mer. They just wanted to sing and hum their melody, was that too much to ask?

“Wanna taste, Shachi-chan?~”

Yuu eyed the dish, glaring at the eel mer, “What’s the catch, Leech?”

“Fufufu, answer my question, Shachi-chan.~”

Yuu let out a sigh, and placed their broomstick against the wall. They walked over and took the adjacent seat, looking at the plate. They didn’t look at Floyd, but they uttered their response.

“It’s a song from someone important.”

Floyd then wordlessly handed them their fork, not caring if they had used it earlier. Floyd only grinned as he waited for Yuu to take a bite.

Yuu grabbed a napkin, cleaning the fork before stabbing the shrimp, taking a bit. They took another, savoring the taste.

“Huh, this is pretty good, Floyd.”

“Fufu, I am pretty great, aren’t I?~”

“When you’re in the mood, that is.”

Floyd bellowed loudly, somehow finding Yuu’s statement to be funny.

Yuu looked quizzically at the eel mer, “Eh? What’s so funny, Leech?”

“Eheh, you’re pretty interesting, aren’t ya?~”

The selkie swam through the familiar shores, searching. It had been months since they last saw their beloved.

Too long, in fact.

However, they clung onto the hope that their beloved Yuu was alive- after all, they were alive when they left.

Even if Yuu hadn’t known.

Engel could still remember the carriage, how they tried to call out to Yuu, how something restricted their throat, unable to call for them. It was utter agony, unable to voice out their words of caution. They had saw Yuu go inside the carriage, and Engel was able to see their frightened expression as they entered. Engel wanted to help, yet the restraints didn’t allow them.

Even so, they sang their song. Their voice may not have the same power nor strength as that of Yuu’s, the ability to entrance mortals and to have their voice carry, but it didn’t matter.

They sang. Even if their words came out as a seal’s barks, honks, and growls. Even if no one understood them, they sang.

They sang for Yuu.

After all, they sang of an eternity together in this damned world, hadn’t they?

----

“Hey, Floyd?” Yuu asked, messing with the blood-filled glass bead of their seashell bracelet. Its warmth brought a sense of calm over.

“Hmm?”

“Do ya think Azul will help me bring someone on over? From my world, that is?”

Floyd titled his head, his eyes rolling upwards in ponderment, letting out a small “hmmmm”.

“Well, I’m sure you would have to ask Azul yourself, Yuu,” a familiar voice rang out.

The two mer turned their heads towards the direction of the voice. Jade simply gave a smile as he came closer, as he too, took a seat next to Yuu.

“I see…” Yuu muttered, lowering their head. They had a small hope, a small hope that they could bring their beloved to this world. They only knew that Engel was alive due to the warmth the bracelet emitted.

It was their only comfort in this foreign world.

“Fufu, do not fret, Yuu. Azul is surely bound to find an answer of some sorts, if you ask.”

“To the point of invention, Jade? After all, it was the carriage that brought me over. Can Azul even recreate such a thing?” Yuu retorted. What are the chances that they could bring over their beloved?

“Who knows,” Jade shrugged, “Speaking of which, the mirror was wrong, were they not?”

“Oh yea,” Floyd agreed, “Shachi-chan does have magic, so why’d the mirror say they’ve got none?” Floyd looked at Yuu expectedly, giving a toothy grin.

“Heck if I know,” Yuu replied, “Maybe ‘cause my magic is limited? I can only really use it for my voice and becoming mer, so-“

“Ehhhhh, you don’t use a potion?” Floyd looked shocked, his eyes wide and mouth agape. His brother shared a similar look of disbelief, although it was much more subtle. After all, they had used potions to retain their human form.

“I don’t? I’m half mer, after all,” Yuu replied. Did magic function differently here? If it did, it would explain as to why their magic went unnoticed. It would be simply that the magic mirror is only able to detect the magic native to this world, and as everyone knows, Yuu is no native.

“What’s the other half?” Jade titled his head to the side, much more curious about Yuu’s origins than before.

“Human.”

“Ehhhhh? I was convinced Shachi-chan was a full mer, fufu, now this is interesting, no?~”

----

The water above Engel became murky, radiating an odd warmth. The water was near freezing, and Engel’s body was becoming overheated. Yet, as much as Engel could, they couldn’t swim to colder waters. Something was pulling them in.

It was like magic.

Pain shot through all their body. It was nearly unbearable, that Engel almost had wished to die instead of dealing with the immense pain. It endured for the next five minutes, and soon, they found their body being forced out of the water, landing on the sand with a loud smack. Their body was sore, Engel letting out a loud painful whine.

They took a moment to adjust to their surroundings, noticing that they were on a beach, vacant and devoid of any life. However, they could faintly pick up a certain scent, one that distracted them from all their pain and inner turmoil.

And that was Yuu’s scent.

It was faint, oh so very faint, but Engel could still pick it up. The scent had sent them to overdrive, their blood pulsing faster than before.

Shifting out of their pelt, they hugged it close to ward off the cold night, as they began to track Yuu’s scent, venturing into the forest that bordered the beach.

Too many times were they nearly caught, too many times were they nearly hunted. No doubt, something knew that Engel was there, but that didn’t deter them. They’ll lose the hunter, sooner or later. It was just a matter of when.

Soon enough, they found themselves near what looked like an academy of some sorts, a gate blocking their way. Yuu’s scent here was strong however, an anxiety started to pool up in their stomach. What if they couldn’t get to Yuu? All those months of searching would go down the drain, and they would have no one to return to.

Letting out a pitiful sigh, they turned to leave, until they heard a voice call out to them.

“Who are you?”

Engel looked towards the direction of the voice, their black eyes locking with amber ones.

Engel didn’t say a word, yet the person came closer. It wasn’t until when they were directly across from them on the other side of the gate did Engel notice their features, as the moon provided little light. The person had white hair and wolf ears, and a somewhat dark complexion., They had a strong build that intimidated Engel, but judging by their relaxed pose, they knew they posed no threat. Despite that, even if they did indeed pose a threat, Engel felt confident enough of their own strength to take them down.

“I’m Engel,” the selkie finally stated, albeit reluctantly, “And you are?” Something about the beastman felt familiar, although Engel couldn’t figure out as to why.

“Jack. Tell me, why do you smell of blood?” Jack asked, his eyes now glaring at the selkie.

There was no visible trail of blood on Engel, but they did have some.

Their bracelet.

Engel raised their hand to show off their bracelet, of which had seashells and small, blood-filled glass beads. Mer often gave one another bracelets, with their scales, to their beloved. Yet, as Engel and Yuu were not the typical mer, they made do.

It was their only connection, and the only way they knew if the other lived. Engel could still feel the warmth of the bracelet, although it was beginning to grow warmer the more they came close to Yuu’s location. No doubt, Yuu was in this academy.

“The blood of my beloved. They have a similar one, although with my blood,” Engel stated, proudly.

Jack didn’t say a word, but he glanced around. “I know a way to get you inside, but you’ll have to trust me, alright?”

“You’ll do that?” Engel gasped, clutching onto their pelt with their free hand.

Jack looked at them again, and shook his head, “I’ll get you some clothes too.”

“Oh, thank you!”

Jack glanced behind Engel, and said, “We should hurry, I don’t think we have much time.”

----

“It’s time for me to leave, so I suppose I’ll be on my way,” Yuu began, as they got up from their seat.

“Leaving so soon, Shachi-chan?~” Floyd grabbed Yuu’s wrist, as the siren looked at them with great disdain. This was often why they avoided Floyd, the eel mer was too much for them to handle.

“Is there a reason why I shouldn’t, Leech?” Yuu turned to look at the other Leech brother, who was only giving them a close-eyed smile. Very helpful.

“It’s not that late, is it, Jade?~”

“It’s literally almost curfew, Sir Strangles-People.”

“Stay the night! You’re mer, you’ll fit right in.~”

“Pray tell, Leech, where would I sleep?”

At this question, Floyd let go of Yuu’s hand as they massaged the area. He seemed to actually be in thought, something of which Yuu rarely saw.

“Hm, would they sleep with us, Jade?” Floyd wondered out loud, his grin becoming bigger, showcasing all of his sharp teeth. Yuu wondered

“I’m leaving,” Yuu quickly said, already striding away from the brothers. The warmth from their bracelet grew, borderline burning them. Yuu furrowed their brows, the pain stinging yet not unbearable. Yuu didn’t stop walking, even when one of the brothers called out to them. As soon as they were out of sight, Yuu broke out in a run.

-----

Engel sighed happily as they fondled with the beads of their bracelet, its warmth growing stronger. It only ever did that after long periods of absence of the other bracelet, as the bracelets were made to function in such a way. Yuu’s mother had personally made the bracelets, carefully telling them what each sign had meant.

Warmth meant the other was alive and well. Absence of warmth meant death.

And burning, after being separated for a long time, meant the other was near.

And boy, was Engel just vibrating with a certain happiness. Months and months of searching, and finally their search bore fruit.

“Hot chocolate?”

Engel snapped out of their daydream, looking at the owner of the voice. It was Jack, whose hand was in front of her, with a mug of hot chocolate within its grasp.

“Ah, many thanks, Jack,” Engel grabbed ahold of the mug, pulling it close to their person. They adorned some ill-fitting clothing, although it was all that Jack could offer. At least, Engel mused, they had something on. Better to wear baggy clothing than to be out and about naked.

“How do you know Yuu?” Jack asked. It was still rather early to the night, for it was not for another two hours did Jack need to go to bed. It was by sheer luck that Jack had encountered Engel on his nightly jog. He could smell something, or someone, hunting the mer. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it was obvious to him that the mer was in danger.

It took some explaining to the other dorm members as to why he brought a mer, of all people, inside to Savanaclaw. Even more, it was rather obvious that Engel didn’t attend the college, as everyone, to an extent, possessed a certain aura that only one could find at Night Raven College, after staying for a while.

Although, it didn’t take long for everyone to accept Engel, either. As strength was favoured amongst the beastmen, Engel had plenty. And tenacity, to boot. No doubt, had Engel been a native of this world, they would surely have been sorted into Savanaclaw.

“Hmm,” Engel pondered out loud, “As you said earlier, I’m not from this world and neither is Yuu.”

Jack nodded, not saying a word, intently listening.

“I’ll explain a few things of which are important before I begin. Our world,” a sip from the mug, “is harsh upon its inhabitants. Non-humans are rare and few, our numbers hunted to its current state. People are encouraged to kill or kidnap us, and use us for their dirty deeds.” Engel let out a hoarse laugh, but they continued.

“Thus, we thrive in secret, away from humans. We’re isolated, and we flee at any instance of human interference. Only a few humans are taken within our communities, Yuu’s mother being one of them. Truly, the Kishimoto family have been rather unfortunate.”

Jack raised a brow at the name, never having heard Yuu’s family name before.

“We met at sea, when Yuu was exploring their mer side. They were lucky enough to meet with their father’s side of the family, as orcas are matrilineal. Although whatever attachment they had with them was soon broken, by humans.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked, taking in all the information.

“Humans started to fish in their territory, so they left, and left me in charge of telling Yuu. Thankfully, no one was harmed, however, it was found that Miss Kishimoto was a mer’s wife, that of a siren no less.”

Engel took a sip of their hot chocolate, the beverage slowly, but surely, becoming cold.

“Miss Kishimoto fashioned us these bracelets, and a few other trinkets before she was taken. I believe we were about… I say, 13 summers old by then? Yuu was taken in by my community, so we’ve been close since then. Only about a year ago did we… ah, become one another’s beloveds.”

“I see…”

“Did that answer your question?” Engel watched Jack’s expression, as he processed the new information. It was a lot, after all, Engel basically telling all of Yuu’s life in a very condensed summary.

“I suppose it does.”

-----

Yuu ran out from the mirror, their bracelet practically glowing and humming with life. They stood, searching for Engel. Yuu could smell Engel’s scent in the area, but they didn’t know where they were in.

It wasn’t until they felt their phone buzz in their back pocket did they find out.

Savanaclaw.

As quick as one can be, Yuu hurried and teleported through the mirror once more.

----

“I’ve told Yuu that you’re here, Engel, “Jack stated, as he picked up the mugs of hot chocolate, “I’ll be right back.”

Engel didn’t say a word, still clutching onto their pelt firmly. There was never a moment when they were without their pelt, the only other person ever granted permission to even remotely touch it, was Yuu.

Engel was unsure of how they would tell Yuu of the news from their world, nor was Engel even sure that they could return. Stories of transporting to other worlds always ended the same- no return to their home.

Yet Engel had a feeling that they wouldn’t mind that.

Anything better than that damned world.

----

Yuu ran, ignoring all the curious glances and glares that were thrown their way. They tracked Engel’s scent, and at last…

They saw Engel, pleasantly conversing with Jack, their pelt in their lap, and a content face. Yuu could feel their bracelet cool down, as did Engel. The selkie turned to look at their beloved arrival, tears pricking their eyes, and a smile making its way onto their face.

“It’s been too long, Yuu.”

Yuu ran to them, surprising Jack in the process, and hugged Engel.

“Too long, my love. Too long.”

….as Jack watched, unsure of what to do. He decided it would be best to leave the lovers alone, so he quietly left. Yuu knew the way.

#twisted wonderland #fanfic #twst fanfic #siren yuu #luzarya writes things yuh #siren au #twst x yuu #yuu (twst) x oc #ocs #twst oc

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pappydaddy · 4 years

Text

Heather Part Two (j.m.)

A/N: Okay, so I have decided to start saying as little as possible in my A/Ns just to see if it brings in more interaction, if you guys want me to continue my ramblings, just shoot me a DM or something and I won’t stop them. This is a repost bc nobody saw this the first time?? Pls interact with this (preferably reblogging, but likes are good too!)

Anywho, this is the second part of Heather (my JJ imagine based on Heather by Conan Gray) and this is told from JJ’s perspective, I got this idea when I found this kinda parody/cover of the original song which will be linked below. I put some different scenes in this one too so it’s not just a retelling of my first part. Anyway, enjoy!!

Show/Movie: Outer Banks

Pairing: JJ Maybank x Reader

Warnings: Sad, angst, longing, negative thoughts about oneself (appearance, personality, etc), comparing to other people, jealousy, unspoken feelings

Might do a part three? I’ll probably do a part three.

Heather Cover by Zachary Tay

Part One | Part Two - You’re here!

masterlist | taglist | wips | navigation

- not my gif -

He didn’t technically see her when she arrived at the beach, but he still knew she was there before she wandered down the dunes. He couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder, trying to get a peek of her. There she was, her shoes swinging by her side, her hair blowing in the wind as she walked. She didn’t look towards the group of her friends, instead, she scanned the beach and JJ found himself missing her gorgeous eyes. He watched her, her eyes slowly drifting towards the fire JJ sat at. In a spilt second, their eyes connected and JJ wished he could stay in her gaze forever, but her eyes were ripped from his as she breezed past the group.

The girl under his arm laughed loudly, making him draw his eyes away from Y/N. He looked at the black-haired girl (Heather) donned in his sweater, clinging to him as she laughed at something John B had said. “What’s so funny,” JJ asked, trying to play off his absence. He didn’t really listen to John B’s recount. “Oh, must have had to heard it in the moment, I guess.” He mumbled, his eyes following Y/N as Jack, her co-worker from The Wreck ran towards her, a large smile on his face. He took in Y/N’s appearance, the sweater she wore was too big for her, it certainly wasn’t hers. It dawned on him like a lighting strike; it was Jack’s sweater. He felt a pang in his heart, remembering how she looked in his own sweater, the very sweater Heather wore right in that moment.

He remembered how good Y/N looked in his sweater and how often she wore it after he had given it to her. On Heather, it was just a piece of polyester fabric, but on Y/N, it was much more than just a sweater. The day she gave his sweater back to him was the day he concluded that she didn’t like him. He couldn’t imagine how he even thought she would like him, he’s not even good enough for his father and he could barely stand himself. How the hell would Y/N want him if he didn’t even want himself? He didn’t even understand how Heather liked him.

His eyes followed Jack as he ran off once again, obviously apologizing profusely to Y/N. Jack was everything JJ wasn’t: sweet, smart, hard-working, career driven, and loved. JJ wanted to hate Jack, but he couldn’t, he was too good of a person. He could see that Y/N and Jack would make a good couple, he could see why Y/N would have her gaze set on him. His dark hair, his tall stature, his boy-next-door smile - he was the complete package.

Setting his eyes on Y/N yet again, he saw her sit down on a piece of driftwood, staring out at the ocean as the waves lapped up towards her barefeet. He let himself imagine that the sweater she was wrapped up in was his. He often replayed the December night he gave his sweater to her in his head, imagining that he had actually done what he wanted - kissing her. He liked to live in that alternate story at night, laying in his bed. He sighed, glad he didn’t kiss her in the long-run, for he didn’t know who he liked more: Y/N or Heather. “JJ, you should tell Heather about that one time when John B was high off his ass when CPS came knocking on his door.” Kie laughed, capturing JJ’s attention from the girl sitting on the driftwood.

“Oh, uh, yeah, sure.” JJ laughed, remembering that day as he launched into his story. Though his eyes weren’t on her, Y/N still plagued his mind, having been there that day as well, skipping school to smoke with JJ and John B. He laughed as he retold the story, poking fun at John B, but leaving Y/n out of the story, not wanting to pull her into his fling with Heather, knowing there will be drama if he did.

Though he was immersed in the story he was telling, he still noticed Y/N standing and walking along the beach, leaving the party before it even started. The bleeding colours in the sky made her skin glow with pink and orange, making her look like the figure of beauty. As she walked away, JJ could have cried. He didn’t understand how he, the boy who wanted nothing to do with the messiness of love, ended up in this situation.

____

The words Kie had told him earlier rattled in his brain like a single pill in a bottle. His mind played that moment back like a movie reel continuously playing. Once it ended, it restarted again. Like a painful torture device used to drive him to the brink of insanity.

“I don’t get why Y/N keeps avoiding us! We never see her anymore, not since Heather started hanging out with us,” JJ groaned, plunking himself down on the couch dramatically. He had asked Y/N earlier at school (after cornering her at her locker) if she wanted to have a movie night just like old times, but she had told him she was going to study for a big biology test she had. “Why does she even need to study anyway? She’s at the top of her biology class, only second to Pope, of course.” JJ threw in the last comment, pleasing his friend who sat beside him on the couch, a freshly popped bowl of popcorn in his lap.

“You guys do know why, right?” Kie asked, looking over her shoulder at them as she shifted through the DVD collection, the group deciding to go old school for the night. JJ shook his head while John B and Pope both nodded, making noises of understanding. JJ looked around, confusion clearly painted on his face.

“Y/N still likes JJ.” Pope commented, tossing a handful of popcorn into his mouth, chewing it as if what he had just said was common knowledge.

“What?” JJ asked, panicked, glad that Heather was hanging out with some of her other friends tonight instead of being with them. If she had been here, he would have never be given this piece of information.

“You didn’t know?” John B asked, bewildered that JJ hadn’t picked up on anything.

“Obviously not-” JJ cried, his eyes wide.

“It was obvious, we all thought you had known by at least December third when you gave her your sweater, we thought that was you making your move on her finally.” Kie explained, shrugging.

JJ still couldn’t believe that. If only he had seen how much she liked him, maybe he wouldn’t be praying for his eyes to catch her’s every time she walked by him. Maybe he wouldn’t want to cry every time they broke eye contact. Maybe he wouldn’t have assumed she likes Jack. He groaned, flopping around in the spare bed at John B’s, staring up at the dark ceiling as moonlight casted the window’s shadow onto the white surface.

If he had known how much Y/N liked him that night, he wouldn’t be questioning who he liked more still. Maybe he didn’t like Heather at all. Now that he knew that Y/N likes him, he started to realize that maybe he didn’t truly like Heather, instead, only liking the idea of the distraction from the one he really liked. Though he realized this, he couldn’t do anything about it anytime soon. He had plans to eat lunch tomorrow with Heather and the group, he couldn’t break up with Heather at The Wreck.

_____

Y/N was working today. That was the whole reason they were eating at The Wreck, to see her. John B and Pope missed her, Kie was able to see her during the shifts they shared or during shift changes, but the boys hadn’t seen her. JJ and Heather stood on the deck, leaning against the railing and JJ was giving the performance of his life. He couldn’t have Heather thinking that something was going on with him (he still had no idea who he liked more) so he was trying to act as normal as possible around her despite the fact that a war raged in his mind.

He tried to keep his eyes on Heather as she talked adamantly. JJ nodded along, not really listening. Heather was beautiful and kind, but JJ grew bored easily. They had nothing in common. He was a surfer, she was from the city filled with concrete buildings and shopping malls. She just didn’t understand the joy in the little things. When JJ wanted to stargaze, she’d rather gaze at a TV screen. When JJ wanted to just sit on the beach and listen to the waves, she wanted to take pictures. When JJ just wanted to sit on his surfboard and let the waves roll under him, she didn’t want to ruin her make-up.

Her hand squeezed his as she asked him about the stores he shopped at. He, not wanting to ignore her, joined her one-sided conversation and explained his mode of gaining clothes. She listened for the most part, but listening wasn’t really Heather’s strong suit. She loved to talk, not that JJ minded, but he would also like to have a conversation without being interrupted with a completely different story. He shot a glance in through the door, seeing Y/N at a table, talking with the costumers. She nodded, a shining smile on her face. JJ loved talking with Y/N. She’d listen, she’d talk. He’d listen, he’d talk. It was a perfectly balanced conversation with Y/N.

He looked back down at Heather when she had asked him yet another question, but JJ wasn’t listening. “I’m sorry, what?” He asked, blinking. Heather giggled, thinking JJ was just a spacey type person who stared off in the distance, zoning out easily.

“I asked about your shark tooth necklace, I’ve always wanted one.” She told him, the hand, that wasn’t in his, reaching up to fiddle with the shark tooth. JJ looked down at it, smiling fondly.

“My friend made it for me with the shark tooth I found, I’ve never taken it off since they gave it to me.” He left out that it was Y/N who made it for him while she was going through her necklace making phase in middle school. She had made it too big originally, but it was okay since JJ grew since then.

“Oh, well, maybe I could wear it sometime,” Heather asked flirtatiously. JJ gulped, not knowing what to say. He didn’t want to give it to her, but he didn’t want to start a fight before they ate a meal with his friends in public. Instead of answering, he pressed his lips to her’s in a lingering, long kiss. Heather smiled, giggling against his lips. Pulling away from the kiss, JJ glanced at the parking lot to see if John B and Pope were there yet, but his eyes came up with nothing. Heather shivered as a strong wind blew by them. “I’m a little cold.”

JJ looked down at her, seeing that she didn’t have his sweater on. It was different, when Y/N had his sweater, she always wore it, or at least brought it, just in case she got cold. Heather didn’t bring it anywhere unless JJ asked about it. Wordlessly, JJ unlaced their fingers, dropping his arm around her shoulders, pulling her towards him. “I wonder if Y/N is cold? She doesn’t have a sweater on, only a t-shirt.” He thought, watching the parking lot out of the corner of his eye. He sighed, trying to clear his mind.

“Yo! Let’s get some grub! I’m starving,”John B cheered, piling out of the van with Pope who cheered in agreement. JJ pulled away a bit too quick to play it off as normal while John B and Pope jogged up the stairs, their sneakers slapping the wooden deck. They walked right into the restaurant, leaving Heather and JJ to follow them. The bell above the door dinged, making Y/N and Jack look up from what they were doing. JJ looked up, seeing Jack leaning across Y/N, his shoulder touching her torso ever so lightly as he cleaned up spilt water. “Hi, Y/N! Where is your section?” John B asked.

“Sorry, John B, I’ll have to take your table so she can get cleaned up, next time.” Jack told him, getting another dry towel to try and help her dry her clothes so she wasn’t dripping everywhere. JJ could sense John B’s disappointment, and he had to admit he was a little bit disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to hear Y/N’s sweet voice that he missed so much.

“Thanks, Jack,” John B nodded his chin in Jack’s direction. “Maybe we’ll talk before we leave, Y/N.” Y/N looked back up from her shirt at the mention of her name, nodding. Their eyes connected as Kie and Heather jumped into a conversation. Every time their eyes connected, it was such a relief to JJ it truly was a sight for sore eyes. Much to his disappointment, their eye contact was gone as fast as it came when Jack interrupted.

“That should be good, Y/N,” She looked from JJ’s eyes to meet Jack’s. The sight of her eyes connecting with Jack’s made JJ want to cry, missing that tiny connection that seemed to be the extent of their friendship these days. “You should go get changed, I’ll take these to the table for you, table four, right?” The group started to move, but JJ wanted to stay there, see if their eye would meet again before she disappeared to change, but he had to go with them. He was just out of earshot when she replied to Jack who carried the tray of drinks towards table four effortlessly.

____

He knew he shouldn’t have done this at school. He was kicking himself as Heather weeped, her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, Heather,” He whispered, nervously looking at the crowd watching them. They were stood next to the side of the building, the crowd gathering in the parking lot. He had tried to do it privately, but he also wanted a clean cut. When he saw his sweater in Heather’s hand, he had known that today was the day. “It’s just not working out.” He tried to console her, his fist gripping the sweater he held now.

The group watching whispered, making JJ roll his eyes. Now he was going to be painted the villain, the heartless asshole who broke up with the girl in front of the whole school even though they just see her weeping and gasping, not the part where JJ was actually considerate for once. Normally, it was a harsh slap to his cheek and a few tears slipping past their eyes as they walked away, not full on sobs. Especially since they were only going out for three weeks - tops.

Heather looked up from her hands, letting her arms swing at her sides as she glared at JJ. Black streaks of makeup cascading down her cheeks. With a final, harsh glare at JJ, she ran off, the group of people parting to let her through. JJ watched her run, his shoulders deflating at his ruined chance of keeping the break-up private. His eyes landed on one of the pairs of people Heather parted in her haste to escape: Y/N and Jack. They stood side by side, Jack holding both their books in his hands, both their bookbag straps on his shoulders.

The group quickly dispersed, giving JJ a perfect view of them. He could see Jack say something to Y/N before she said something back, their eyes catching each other, once again making eye contact. JJ was so absorbed in her eyes that he didn’t notice the sympathetic smile she sent his way. It felt like forever as he stared into her eyes, her just staring back. He wanted her to stay, he wanted to stay, but he couldn’t just break-up with Heather and then turn around, rush towards Y/N, sweep her off her feet and profess his love for her - then he would be an asshole.

“Come on, Y/N, let’s go. We can’t be late for our shift.” JJ heard Jack tell her, forcing her to break away from JJ’s eyes. He felt tears prick his eyes at the loss of their moment. His eyes never left her, once again hoping for their eyes to connect again, even though he had to watch her eyes connect with Jack’s which caused his heart to throb painfully. Watching her turn and walk towards Jack’s pick-up truck was the sight that made him want to die, then the pain in his heart would stop - right? The picture of her sitting in his passanger seat didn’t sit right with JJ. The thump of Jack tossing their books and bags in the bed of his truck made JJ flinch, but he still never took his eyes off Y/N, not even when Jack slipped onto the bench seat beside her, starting his truck and slamming his door.

His pleas were answered when Y/N turned to gaze out the window, their eyes connecting once again in a fleeting moment before Jack slowly pulled out of the spot, exiting the nearly empty parking lot. JJ watched the truck as it drove down the road, waiting until it was out of his sight before he moved. He found out who he liked more. It was Y/N. It was always Y/N.

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brelione · 4 years

Text

Wish I Was Sarah PT.1(Kiara Carrera X Reader)

Kiara had first met you 3rd of December.You had been at a party,a christmas party to be specific.You were a kook which meant your parents forced you to go to all the big mansion parties all the time.All of the big ones were there,Sarah Cameron,Topper Thornton,Rafe Cameron,Kiara Carrera.All of them.

You had worn a sweater over a simple t shirt,too lazy to put on a dress like all the others.Your parents were just glad that you had agreed to make an appearance even if you looked like shit.You had sat in the corner of the couch,earbuds in.You were listening to Sweater Weather,thinking it was funny because you were,in fact,wearing a sweater.

Kiara had stood at the snack table for a while,holding a disgusting monstrosity of a cookie,debating on picking off the sprinkles and throwing them away.She had never really been a fan of sprinkles.She had glanced around the crowds,the moms talking as they ate cheese cubes,the dads talking as they drank beers and wine,the other teens probably getting high up in the bathroom.Then her eyes fell on you.

She felt her face heat up immediately,staring at you for a while.You were underdressed for the occasion,your earbuds in as you sat curled up on the couch,seeming tired of being there.She debated herself in her head,trying to decide whether to approach you or not.Eventually she gave in,walking across the room with fake confidence,sitting down next to you.She watched as you tensed up,your eyes going wide,your bottom lip between your teeth,wondering what she wanted.

You pulled out an earbud,looking up at the beautiful girl that had decided to sit next to you of all places. “Hey.”She smiled,holding out her hand to you. ��Im Kiara.”She introduced herself.You pulled out your other earbud,a small grin on your face. “Hi.Im (Y/N).”You shook her hand,feeling your face heat up a bit. “So um….yeah.What song were you listening to?”She asked,trying not to laugh at how dumb she sounded.You showed her your phone,finding yourself moving closer to her on the couch. “You like Frozen ll a lot.”She laughed,watching you scroll through the playlist.

You nodded,handing her an earbud to make her listen to Lost In The Woods. “Ive never seen Frozen ll.”She admitted,watching as your jaw dropped and your eyes widened. “Kiara!Oh my god-whats wrong with you?”Your voice became higher as you talked,your hand covering your mouth.She laughed at you,shrugging. “Wait,have you seen the first one?”You asked.She nodded,watching as a look of relief came across your face. “Okay,did you like it?”You asked.She shrugged once again,smiling at your enthusiasm.

“The second one is better I promise.”You answered.She rolled her eyes,leaning back against the couch. “Im serious!The soundtrack,the animation everything is so much better!”You exclaimed,shaking your phone as you spoke.She nodded. “Yeah,whatever you say.”She replied,watching as you tried to convince her. “You have to watch it!Please?”You pouted.She nodded,making you clap your hands in excitement as you went into your disney plus app.She watched as you scrolled through the movies,a big grin on your face because you had easily defeated her.

“Its so cold in here.Who puts air conditioning on in december?”She complained out loud.You handed her your phone for a moment,not hesitating to pull off your sweater and hand it to her. “That’s pretty warm.”You told her,not really thinking about it.Her face turned red,biting her bottom lip as she held back a smile.

She had originally regretted her wardrobe choice of a green dress,the fabric light and flowy,her arms exposed which caused goosebumps to rise across her caramel skin.She didnt regret it now though as she pulled on your sweater,the warm fabric making the goosebumps go away.Her heart was thumping as you moved incredibly close to her,handing her an earbud and holding your phone in front of the two of you.

As you reached the point of Into The Unknown it was announced that dinner was ready,ham,turkey,potatoes,corn,rolls,pretty much everything imaginable.It disgusted you that you all had a feast of expensive,high quality food while people in The Cut were lucky to have a meal a day.The adults called the other teens downstairs for the meal and you promised Kiara that you’d finish watching it after.You two decided to sit next to eachother at the table,your sweater still on her.

She offered it back to you,saying that she didnt want to get food on it but you told her that it was fine and that it looked better on her anyways. “So the movie...what do you think about it so far?”You had asked softly as Kelce and Topper came down the stairs. “Its good.Its good,like you said,better than the first for sure.”She nodded,eyebrows furrowing when she noticed your eyes falling away from her and towards someone walking down the stairs.Sarah fucking Cameron.The blonde was wearing a nice,light grey dress that looked amazing on her figure,her hair in pretty braids.

Kiara saw the look in your eyes,the way they were full of wonder,mesmorized by Sarah Cameron.She felt like dying,like being eaten up by a black hole as she wondered how she could be so stupid.She had thought that maybe you were interested in her but it was probably because she had been the only girl there.Now that Sarah was here she would be lucky if she could get your attention back again.

“So what do you think of the theory about Elsa?”She asked,glaring at Sarah.Your face heated up,taking your eyes off of the pretty blonde and back to Kiara. “What theory?”You asked,glancing over at Sarah every couple of moments.Kiara tried to hide her anger,covering it with a small grin. “The one about her being a lesbian.What do you think of it?”She asked,trying to learn more about you and if she even had a chance.You bit your lip,looking over at the plate of biscuits.

“I mean,I think at this point we all just want representation in disney and in like,media in general but I dont think Elsa is a lesbian.I feel like she might be aromantic or maybe...well,I dont really know.There’s nothing-well,you know she actual might be a lesbian,”You paused,leaning forward to grab a biscuit and put it on your plate.

“There’s this one scene in Frozen ll,ill point it out to you that has like vibes to it.But then again just because she doesnt have a male love interest doesnt exactly mean she’s a lesbian.Moana and Merida didnt have guys that they were in love with but that doesnt mean they’re lesbians.Merida might be a lesbian,have you seen how good she is in nature and cooking fish in the wild?And how she knew those berries were poison?Thats some cottage core lesbian shit.What was I talking about?”you asked,realising you had gotten caught up in the topic and had forgotten the original question.

Kiara smiled,glad to hear you speak so passionately about something. “If Elsa is a lesbian.”She held back a laugh,watching as the realisation came across your face. “Right,so the answer is yes but also no but also yes.Like at least fifty percent yes but also no but im 1000% confident in Merida being a lesbian.”You confirmed,cutting open your biscuit.She nodded,trying to think of a new topic before she lost your attention again. “So the whole thing of people shipping Else with Jack Frost.What do you think of that?”She asked,laughing when your fists slapped down in your lap,gaining the attention of Rafe and Sarah.

“Dude literally it makes no sense!Jack Frost isnt even disney!Like the only reason anyone ever shipped them was because they have the same powers but Jack is like 300 years old and hes like...energetic and giggly and child-like and immature and she would get so annoyed so quick!She’s introverted and serious and of course theres nothing wrong with that but she gets like too embarrassed too fast and I cant see them ever getting together or even being friends.Like,Merida is most definitely a lesbian but if they’re gonna ship Jack with anyone it should be her!Their personalities are so similar.”You huffed,biting into a half of your biscuit.

She nodded,grabbing a scoop of mashed potatoes and putting it onto her plate. “Yeah,definitely.So who is your favorite disney princess?”She asked,sending a bitter glare towards Sarah.Sarah had been staring at you during your passionate speech,filtering out the other voices to listen to you.She found you fascinating,intriguing.She was trying to figure out why she didnt know you or if you were new to the island.You glanced her way,smirking to yourself when you saw her blush. “Um...I dont think I have a favorite.They’re all powerful and wonderful in their own ways and they all have pretty cool stories.Except Pocahontas,I hate that they romanticize colonization and in reality she was like ten and he was in his late twenties.The soundtrack was great though.”You shrugged,taking a sip of root beer.

She nodded,listening in to what the old folks were talking about.There were more people outside who had opted to take plates of food out there.Kiara wouldve preferred to go outside but it was colder out there and she hadnt been prepared.Her mother was looking at her from across the table but Kiara couldnt care less,too busy searching for your parents. “Hey,(Y/N)?”She asked quietly,getting your attention off of your biscuit. “Where are your parents?”She asked.You shrugged,getting your own scoop of mashed potatoes. “I think they’re outside.I dunno.”You answered.She nodded,continuing to eat,sending a glare towards Sarah every couple of moments.

“Eat faster so we can finish the movie.”You told her,not thinking about it as you spoke.She smiled,hurrying to eat. “Wait,why dont we just go outside and watch it?”She suggested.You bit your cheek,trying to figure out why you hadnt thought of that.You nodded,standing up and picking up your root beer,balancing it on your plate and walking out of the house,Kiara close behind you. “Where are we going?”She asked.You grinned,careful as you walked down the hill. “I know a spot.”You answered,walking across the sand of the beach.

You had explored pretty much all spots of the beach and had found your favorite one,a cave behind a wall of rocks that you had personalized.You walked towards the rock wall,slipping through the crack. “What is this place?”She asked,still following you.You smiled,turning on your phone flash light so you could see the lantern that you had put in there,turning it on.Her face lit up,looking around the cave.Pillows,sheets,blankets,pretty curtains hanging from the walls,a bin of paints so you could paint the rocks. “Thats such a good question.I really dont know how it got here,I just went through the crack one day and kind of just found it.”You shrugged,sitting down in the pile of pillows and patting the spot next to you.She sat down,shifting so she was as close to you as possible,leaning her head against your shoulder to test the waters.You pulled the earbuds from you phone,turning up the volume of the movie.

@poguestyleskye @jjtheangel @balanceofgray @outerbongs @copper-boom @httpstarkey @teenwaywardasgardian

If you’d like to be tagged in all future JJ imagines/headcannons/series comment with a heart,if you’d like to be tagged in all future Pope imagines/headcannons/series comment with a smiling face,if you’d like to be tagged in all future Rafe imagines/headcannons/series comment with a frowning face,if you’d like to be tagged in all future Kiara imagines/headcannons/series comment with a question mark and if you’d like to be tagged in all future Sarah Cameron imagines/headcannons/series comment with a plus sign.If you’d like to be tagged in all Kelce content coment with a “>” and if youd like to be tagged in all Topper content comment with a “%”.Or if thats too complicated you can just comment whose name you’d like to be tagged in.

#kiara carrera #kiara x reader #obx kiara #kiara carrera x you #kiara carrera imagine #kiara carrera headcanon #kiara carrera series #sarah cameron #sarah cameron x reader #sarah cameron imagine #sarah cameron x you #obx sarah

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hotchley · 3 years

Text

“sometimes you do everything right, everything exactly right, and still you feel like you failed”

morehotchcontent day two: whump (in a hostage situation/hurt on the job)

tagged: @ablogofthecriminalmindsvariety

why should the team look for him? he was nothing. he would die for them, because they were his team and they deserved the world. but he was not the world. he was just one broken, old man and they could do better. they could do so, so much better than a drill sergeant, sexist, narcissistic bully.

an unsub kidnaps hotch. in his mind, he isn’t worth saving.

warnings: torture (choking, forced to choke on water, caning, punching, stabbing), depictions of violence, implied/referenced child abuse, non-consensual removal of clothing, references to the events of george foyet, references to tobias hankel and reid's torture, references to ian doyle and what he did to emily

read on ao3!

Hotch had taken one look at the case-file and immediately known it was going to be a bad case. The victims had all been kidnapped and tortured, before being dumped in the local park, stripped down to their underwear as a form of humiliation. A word- always a personality trait- had been carved into their back.

For the BAU, it was pretty standard.

For Hotch, it was like looking at a mirror. All the victims fit the same criteria, which on the one hand he was grateful for because maybe it would mean they would find the damn unsub without any more bodies appearing, but on the other hand made him want to be sick.

The victims had all been the leaders of their respective teams. The first was the manager of a supermarket, the second a senior partner in a law firm, the third a headteacher. He had no idea what the fourth was. He’d read it, but without ever really processing the words.

But their subordinates hated them. Deemed them bullies, narcissists, dickheads, evil bastards. When they’d been informed of the deaths, not a single one had cried. One had laughed. They had all been relieved enough to be considered suspects.

He looked out at the bullpen. JJ was sat with them, sat on the edge of Reid’s desk as she laughed at something Emily- Agent Prentiss, he corrected mentally- was saying. The case had come directly to him, the file lying on his desk as though it was mocking him because the previous day he’d told the team it was likely they’d be spending the weekend at home.

Morgan was watching the scene unfold with a wide smile, yet his eyes darted round the area, always watching over the other members of his team like it was his duty. Not for the first time, Hotch wondered if he should have stepped down permanently. Morgan had done well as Unit Chief. And he wasn’t hated by the team. They didn’t look at Morgan and think of a boring, misogynistic, horrid narcissist. They looked at Morgan and thought of a protector.

He sighed. Part of him wanted to ask Rossi to inform the team they had a case but that was just being unfair. It was his stupid comment about getting to spend time at home that had undoubtedly landed them in this situation. The least he could do was own it. At the last moment, he decided to read through the casefile one more time. It would give JJ enough time to finish showing them the pictures of Henry at the beach.

When JJ tucked her phone back into her pocket, he stood up. Took a deep breath and exited. Almost immediately, the laughter stopped and they all turned back to their reports. JJ slid off the table and started to head back to her office. Hotch tried to disguise his hurt as indifference and he knew he’d succeeded when Reid swallowed and Morgan looked disappointed.

It had been five years since Tobias Hankel, and yet nothing had changed. The team still hated him. Cases still ruined their everyday life.

“We have a case. Roundtable in ten,” he said. The rest of the words wouldn’t come. Because if he said more than the bare minimum, he would reveal too much and they would hate him even more than they already did. It was bad enough that he was everything they’d called him, but it would be even worse if they realised just how weak he was.

He went back up to his office to pack things away and send a quick text to Jess and Jack, before he realised that they’d benefit from having Garcia with him. He had always wondered what Garcia really thought of him, but he’d always been too afraid to ask. A part of him liked to think she liked him, but that was impossible.

JJ thought he was a bully, and when he thought of the number of times he’d snapped at Garcia for not being fast enough, he understood. Morgan considered him a drill sergeant, said they weren’t friends, and he was always breaking up their fun, teasing comments. It didn’t matter he was doing it for professionality, that was one of their only reprieves and he was constantly taking it from them. Prentiss accused him of not trusting women as much as men, and there had definitely been times when he’d looked at Garcia and felt the urge to ask where she’d got the information from. Reid told Hankel he deserved to die because he was a narcissist. How many times had he asked Garcia to look at the worst of humanity, knowing she was too good for that?

Garcia never told him what his worst quality was. He’d heard enough by the time it would’ve got to her. Jason had opened his mouth, probably to tell him to stop, but he’d had enough. He wished he hadn’t stopped him. Maybe if he’d known, he could’ve changed and then Gideon would still be with them and Reid would have someone who was actually competent as a father figure.

It was with a heavy heart that he took the elevator down to Garcia’s lair. As he’d passed through the bullpen, he saw the haggard faces of his team, and he wondered, not for the first time, how many more crime scenes they could suffer through before their hands stopped going cold and they lost their humanity.

He knocked on the door, once, slightly hesitant.

“You don’t need to knock Kevin!” Garcia called out.

Hotch swallowed the lump in his throat. Yet another relationship he was ruining. He coughed once before saying it was actually him.

Almost immediately Garcia flung the door open. “Sir! I didn’t realise it was you. What is it?”

“We have a case. And, well, I’d like you to come with us. It’ll be easier,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Of course! Just give me sixteen minutes to pack my stuff and then I’ll be up, okay?”

He nodded, then the Southern manners kicked in. “Would you like any help?” he asked, slightly hopeful that she’d say yes.

“Oh no, of course not. It’s much simpler if I just do it myself. I know where everything goes and it’s just easier.”

“Right. I’ll err, I’ll see you in a bit then,” he said, trying to not take it personally. Garcia probably wouldn’t let anyone touch her computers or equipment. It wasn’t just him. It couldn’t be. He wasn’t sure he’d survive it. He was about to exit when she called out his name and he turned.

“Yes?”

“Are you okay? You’ve seemed distant recently. And normally I wouldn’t comment, but I’m worried about you. You know you can talk to us? Any of us. I know the others weren’t particularly fond of Haley, but you didn’t have to be a profiler to realise you loved her.”

He started fidgeting, stuffing his hand in his pocket as he brushed his thumb over his fingers.

If Garcia noticed his discomfort, she didn’t comment. “It doesn’t matter that you got a divorce, you still loved each other. Recovering from that is hard. Add in the fact that you’re going back to the same job, and it’s a recipe for disaster. What I’m trying to say is: are you okay, and do you want to talk about it?”

He wanted to say yes. He so desperately wanted to hug Garcia, fall apart in her arms and confess all his fears to her. He wanted to tell her how ever since Hankel, he’d hardly been able to look at the team, or how the list of people he’d failed to save- Elle, Jason, Kate Joyner, countless innocent victims, Megan Kane, Haley- seemed to be growing with every breath. He longed to finally tell someone who horrifying it was when Foyet was in his apartment, how he could hardly look in the mirror without gagging, how he had blinked because he was human. He wanted to say that there were nights where he couldn’t comfort Jack because how dare he touch his son with the same hands that had killed a man?

But he couldn’t. The only value he held as a member of the team was being stoic. Unshaken. The one that dealt with the politics, played bad cop, spoke to Strauss and the higher-ups, dealt with unruly lead detectives without flinching. If any of them knew just how choked up he got every time Strauss asked to see a report, how every case that involved him playing the role ended with him sat in the shower, water numbing his body as tears rolled down his cheeks, they’d cast him out.

And he would have nothing.

“I’m fine,” he lied. “Just a little tired. Jack was keeping me up. He’s excited about starting school soon.”

Jack had kept him up, but not because he was excited about starting school. Because he was scared he was going to come home and daddy wouldn’t be there.

“Wow. I remember when he was just a little baby coming in to visit. Back when the Reid effect was still a thing.”

Hotch faked a laugh, ignoring the bile that was rising in his throat. He didn’t want to think about that. How the team had done nothing more than be polite, all stood a respectful distance away, as though he was poison. Or how just minutes after he said goodbye to Jack and Haley- who was still happy and in love- they were called out on a family annihilator case.

“Yeah. The time has gone by so fast. I’ll let you pack up,” he said, needing to get away from the lights and brightness.

“Oh, of course. I’m so sorry,” Garcia said, as though she had only just remembered why he’d come down.

“You have nothing to apologise for Penelope,” he said, before closing the door behind him.

Forty minutes later and they were in the air.

JJ was on the phone to the local P.D, convincing them that releasing any sort of information to the public, especially the name of a suspect, would not be beneficial to the investigation. Hotch wanted to intervene because it wasn’t fair that she had to be fielding their phone calls when she should be resting, but he didn’t want to overstep so he settled for keeping one eye on her and the other on the casefiles.

When they landed, JJ said that the local PD had wanted them all to head straight to the precinct, so they piled into the government SUVs. Hotch tried to not let it sting when Morgan sighed before getting into the passenger seat. Once upon a time, he would’ve said they were friends. But now he knew better. Morgan had only wanted him around because he could lead the team. But after Foyet, he’d proven that he couldn’t even do that, and that Morgan was clearly the better leader.

Why he was still on the team was a mystery to him.

“Miss Jareau, hello. I’m Sheriff Finkelstein, we spoke on the phone?” the sheriff greeted.

“It’s Agent Jareau, Detective,” Hotch corrected, voice betrayed his tiredness.

JJ looked over in surprise. She could have sworn she saw him drift off.

Hotch wouldn’t meet her eyes. He corrected people when they called Dr Reid agent. Of course he would do the same for the rest of them, regardless of what their opinions on him were.

“Of course, my apologies, Agent Jareau. We’re very grateful to have you here, we’re completely in over our heads. Our lead detective just took early retirement as his wife had a baby and he wants to be at home with the two of them- an admirable decision- but it just means that we’re now overwhelmed and still looking for a new lead,” Finklestein explained, leading them to one of the conference rooms. He held the door open for the ladies, who all gave him small smiles.

Hotch tried to nod. Yet another person who’d managed to do the one thing he had failed at. If he had taken the transfer, or left when Jack was born, then Haley would still be alive. There would be a tan line on his ring finger from where his wedding ring sat.

“Do you have any clues who it could be? It’s a very specific MO and victimology, which should help us narrow things down,” Morgan asked, always eager to get straight into things.

Sheriff Finkelstein sighed. “Unfortunately not. There’s no DNA anywhere. All of the team members have been questioned, and although they all hated their respective bosses, there’s no indication that any of them would’ve done it.”

“We’d like to see the recordings of their interviews,” Rossi said.

“And if I could have a map of the area to start creating the geographical profile, that’d be great,” Reid added.

“Whatever you need,” Finkelstein said, leaving.

Hotch left with him to gather some of the extra information they needed. The team- bar Morgan and Rossi, who had left to go to M.E’s office, were skimming through the files created on each of the members and their victims.

“I’m not saying they deserved it, but these men were disgusting,” Emily commented.

“Prentiss,” Hotch warned, but he knew she was right.

She stared at him, daring him to go further. He dropped his gaze and walked over to Reid. “How’s that geographical profile coming along?”

“Well it’s interesting. See, their workplaces are all the ones in red. The places in blue are the last locations they were seen in- which is another common factor actually because they were all in restaurants, cafes and takeaways which is actually similar to a previous case we solved so I may look into that to see if there are any links- and I’m doing that rambling thing again aren’t I?”

“You’re okay,” Hotch said, not wanting to cut Reid off when they didn’t really have a time crunch.

“No I’ll just get to the point, we all have more important things to be doing. Look at the area where the victims work and then where the unsub takes them. They’re all within five minutes of each other. Our unsub probably work somewhere where they can watch their targets from, otherwise how else would they be able to find them?”

“We need to deliver the profile,” Hotch said.

Two days after they delivered the profile, and the unsub still hadn’t been found. Garcia’s tech skills had given them a suspect, but he’d been out of the country during the last murder. Since the development with the geographical profile, they hadn’t been able to find anything. Hotch had felt like someone was watching him since they landed, but he hadn’t said anything, not wanting to distract the team.

Morale was low. Patience was running out and tempers were going to be lost if there wasn’t a break in the case. Officers had started joking with each other in the macabre way only people that dealt with these things on a regular basis could that they were lucky none of them were evil as the station was extremely close to the other workplaces, bur Finkelstein had shut them down almost immediately.

Hotch had cried in the shower that night. Reid had wanted to say something, but ultimately refrained because it was Hotch and Hotch didn’t blink; he’d be okay.

So things weren’t going great, and the team were exhausted. They needed a pick-me-up.

Hotch picked up his jacket. “I’m going to get us food. Does anyone have any specific requests, or is donuts and coffee okay?”

“You’re going to go?” Prentiss asked, a little confused. Hotch had gone yesterday. It was supposed to be Reid’s turn.

“Yeah. I am. Reid’s busy, and it’s not fair to ask him to go and it’s unfair to get someone else to go because they’ve all be running themselves into the ground. And before you say it, I’m not saying that you haven’t, because you have,” Hotch said, his own temper also fading. He was trying so hard to be good, to not treat anyone the way his father had but the lack of progress, combined with the way Emily seemed to get off on undermining him, even now, after everything that had happened, was beginning to wear on him.

“Hotch? Are you okay?” JJ asked, entering with another stack of files. As it turned out, the town was full of white males in their mid-to-late 20s that worked jobs where the person in charge had a bit of a dodgy history, and they were still trying to narrow it down.

“I’m fine. Any requests for dinner? I’m probably going to go to that café because Reid will want coffee as soon as he gets back from the workplace with Morgan, and Rossi likes their croissants but I don’t mind making another stop if you want me to,” he said.

JJ smiled at how well her boss- well, family member- knew their team, and also at how willing he was to go out of his way for all of them. But her smile faded when she took in his appearance. The circles under his eyes were getting worse and his suit seemed to be looser. She knew Reid was having trouble sleeping as the fifth anniversary of his abduction approached, and she knew Emily was still struggling with her place on the team in a world without Doyle, but their trauma was not Hotch’s responsibility. She just wished he would stop blaming himself.

“Surprise me with something from the café. But are you sure you should be the one going?” She didn’t tell him it was because he looked exhausted; she liked her job.

But she had her back turned to him. She didn’t see him clench his fist, rubbing his thumb over the nail of his index finger in a self-soothing motion. She didn’t see the tears form in his eyes.

“I’ll be fine JJ. Tell the others I should be back in thirty minutes,” he said, voice cracking slightly as he fled.

“Is something going on with him?” Prentiss asked.

JJ shrugged. “Jack mentioned him being unwell right after you came back, but I thought he was doing better now.”

Emily watched the space where he’d been previously stood. “I just wish he would talk to us. He has to know we love him and wouldn’t think any less of him for struggling.”

JJ nodded in agreement.

Hotch was driving, unable to focus on the road properly. He knew his team thought they were being subtle with the way they hated him, but he was a profiler. He knew JJ was only questioning whether or not he should go because he was just like all the other victims and it had been a week since the last body was found, meaning there was bound to be another abduction soon.

It wasn’t going to be him. He wasn’t deserving of even that attention.

“Oh hello again. I was wondering if I was going to see you again,” the barista said when he entered.

Hotch noted that there was nobody else there. “I’m so sorry, is it really close to closing time? I saw that the light was on and I just assumed it was okay.”

He laughed. Hotch shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t sure he liked it.

“We’re still open, don’t worry about it. What can I get for you?”

“It’s another long order,” Hotch warned. The barista just shrugged, used to it. When Hotch was done, he took a brownie out and warmed it up.

“This is on the house because you look like you need it and your order will take a bit of time,” he said, sliding it across the counter.

Hotch stopped observing the artwork. “I couldn’t possibly-”

“Yes you can,” the barista said, his tone so much like JJ’s when she was mother-henning them all that Hotch silently took a bite. It was a good brownie. He took a few more bites, wincing when his head started to feel fuzzy.

“Do you like it?” the barista asked.

“It’s really good. But my head- I have- my head feels, not right,” he whispered, vision starting to blur as well.

“It’s not supposed to,” the barista responded, jovial tone gone.

The world went black.

The first thing he noticed when he came round was that he couldn’t move his arms. Or his legs. He struggled, unable to see what had happened to him as his eyes were taking forever to adjust to the darkness, but there was no movement to be had.

He was tied to a chair. He struggled even more, but his bonds held.

“You’re awake.”

“You,” Hotch whispered. “It was you the whole time.”

“Yep. And my name is Jonathan. You would know that if you had just bothered to read my nametag,” he said.

Hotch scanned the room, searching for anything that would act as a weapon. There was nothing. He tried to calm his racing heart and think logically but he couldn’t. The last time he’d been this vulnerable was under George Foyet. George Foyet who had destroyed all feeling in the lower part of his stomach, who had killed Haley, who had made damn well sure Aaron would never be able to look at himself without seeing the victory on Foyet’s face right before his eyes fluttered shut from the blood loss.

“I’m sorry for forgetting,” he said, fighting to keep his voice even.

Jonathan slapped him across the face. Hotch recoiled as much as he could, not making a sound. It was always worse when you made a sound.

“Stop lying to me. I know who you are. I know how you people work. You think that if you convince me that it was all just an honest mistake, then I’ll forgive you and let you go running back to your team. Well I won’t and nothing you say will make me change my mind.”

“I’m sorry,” Hotch whispered. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

Jonathan scoffed, slapping Hotch again. Both his cheeks were red now. “You’re all the same. You do one small thing for your team, and you think it will make up for the lifetime of pain you caused them. Well it won’t.”

He turned. Hotch tried to see what he was picking up, but he couldn’t. Before he even realised what was happening, pain blossomed in his stomach. Above him, Jonathan bought the cane down again, and again, and again.

Tears were streaming down his face now. “Please, stop. Please, I’ll do anything, just stop with the cane.” He hated begging. He hadn’t begged since he was a child. He hadn’t flinched when George Foyet fired a gun at him. But he wasn’t that man anymore. He was tired now. More tired and more broken that he’d ever been before.

Jonathan laughed. “Okay. I’ll stop. But I’m going to release you from the chair, and you’re going to raise your arms high enough for your hands to touch that chain on the ceiling. If you fail, I’ll cane you till you’re curled into a ball, begging for mercy.”

Aaron was half-delirious now, but he managed to follow the instructions given.

When Jonathan ran the cold metal of his knife, the same knife he’d used with all the other victims, down his cheek and across his chest, Aaron flinched. Minutely, but he flinched.

Jonathan smirked. “Normally I killed them quickly. I made them die quickly because they didn’t deserve to live. But you, you I want to have fun with.” He cut down the centre of Hotch’s shirt with one clean cut. Aaron closed his eyes, unable to look at the scars.

“My, my, someone must really have hated you,” Jonathan laughed.

Hotch didn’t respond. Jonathan pressed the metal to the scar over his chest. Hotch jerked at the coldness, straining his arms even more.

“You’re a bad man Aaron Hotchner. I’ve been watching you since you landed. You’re very bad. Do you want to know why you’re bad? You’re a bully. I saw the way you shouted at your technical analyst over the phone because she wasn’t fast enough.”

Hotch hadn’t meant to shout. He squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to remember it.

“Oh are you ashamed now? You don’t get to be ashamed. Open your eyes.”

Hotch shook his head.

Jonathan wrapped one hand around Hotch’s throat and pushed down. Hotch opened his eyes, panicked as he tried to inhale. He relaxed his hold then.

“Good boy. You shouted at her. And then you undermined the blonde one by taking over her interrogation. And the other one by interrupting her conversation with the officer. Sexist pig.”

The plan had always been for him to take over. The officer had been making Prentiss uncomfortable with his flirting. Hotch tried to say that, but Jonathan just laughed, then punched him in the stomach. Claimed those were just lies they told him to protect themselves so they kept their jobs.

“You tried to control their every move. You wouldn’t let Mr Strong do the right thing and come look for me. Drill sergeant. You cut off the baby because you needed to speak, acted like you were better than him. Like you were better than all of them.”

“I’m not a narcissist,” Hotch protested.

Jonathan dropped the knife, opting to punch him in the stomach again. Hotch let out a groan. “That’s what they all say. It’s been half an hour. They’ll be expecting you back now. I wonder what will happen when you don’t come back. Will they look for you? I think they will. Not because they love you, but because they’ll be afraid. What if you’re the one to survive? What if you escape?”

“They won’t come,” Hotch said.

Jonathan, who had gone back over to the table, turned. “What did you say?”

“They won’t come,” Hotch repeated.

Jonathan stormed over, holding a bat. Before Hotch could prepare himself, he was hitting him with it. In the knees, across the back of his thighs, everywhere that would cause the most pain. Hotch didn’t want to know what the crack he’d heard when that bat had hit his ribs was.

Jonathan liked the bat. When he heard the crack, he grinned. And then he Hotch over the head. For the second time that day, the world went black.

“He should be here by now,” Reid said, pacing up and down the conference room. “It’s been fifty-seven minutes. The journey should have taken an average of thirty minutes, forty with traffic, but it’s now after eleven when there’s virtually no traffic on the road.”

“I’m sure he’s fine, Reid. There was probably some cute barista he got stuck talking to. You know how Hotch is. Never knows when people are flirting with him, and then when he does realise, he gets stuck in an awkward conversation,” Morgan said, but it was all an act. He knew there wouldn’t be a cute barista. But for the sake of Reid, he had to stay strong.

“Look Aaron wouldn’t want us to worry. In twenty minutes, we’ll go back to the hotel. And if he’s not here tomorrow, then we’ll start to investigate okay?” Dave said.

The others nodded, all feeling uneasy, but having the utmost faith in their leader.

Their leader that was still unconscious, Jonathan having moved him to the floor. The back of his head was coated with blood. He almost looked like Haley. But Haley had looked peaceful in her coffin, face void of any expression. Aaron was in pain, despite not being awake.

Jonathan didn’t try and force him to wake up. Aaron Hotchner was going to be his masterpiece.

“Is Agent Hotchner not with you?” Finkelstein asked once they got to the precinct.

They all turned to each other. Dave immediately dialled his cell.

“Voicemail,” he said.

Emily turned away, not wanting to think about the last time his phone had gone to voicemail. She still couldn’t get the image of him, so weak that he couldn’t even sit up without assistance, his face so defeated as he said goodbye to the one good thing in his life, out of her mind. It haunted her nightmares more than Ian Doyle did.

“We need to find him,” Morgan said.

“I’ll have Garcia track his phone,” JJ said.

She tracked his phone to the coffee shop. There was nobody there. No signs of a struggle. Nobody outside had seen anything strange or suspicious.

When Morgan and Rossi returned, faces grave, Reid excused himself. When he returned, his eyes were red. JJ hugged him, words not enough to convey how sorry she was for everything that had happened between them. Emily watched, biting her nails. Hotch had put everything on the line for her multiple times. He didn’t get to go missing like this.

Jonathan was bored of watching Aaron sleep. He kicked him in the stomach, grinning when he let out a soft groan of pain, but managed to open his eyes.

“Morning sunshine,” he greeted.

Aaron tried to flinch away, but found his legs and arms were bound. His head was pounding, his ribs ached, his stomach was bruising from where Jonathan had kicked him and there were angry welts from where the cane had struck.

“You’re a bastard,” Hotch spat, trying not to panic when blood splattered onto his clothes.

“You give me the sweetest compliments, I’m starting to wonder if you really are like the rest of my victims.”

Hotch tried to glare up at him.

Jonathan laughed. “And then you do things like that, and I remember that you’re all the same. You know, I wanted to have a conversation about what you said earlier, but now I think I’ll save that for tomorrow. There’s a few things I want to do before then.”

Hotch had choked on water before. It wasn’t pleasant. But having it forced down his throat was worse. He couldn’t keep swallowing it, and most of it ended up on his shirt. That angered Jonathan. It led to more pain. More torture. Hotch couldn’t feel anything though. He didn’t think that was a good thing. A part of him was holding out hope that the team would find him, but with every passing moment, it seemed to fade slightly.

Why should the team look for him? He’s nothing. He would die for them, because they were his team and they deserved the world. But he was not the world. He was just one broken, old man and they could do better. They could do so, so much better than a drill sergeant, sexist, narcissistic bully.

There were no windows where he was being held. But at some point, Jonathan forced him to eat. And at some point later than that, he told Hotch to get some rest as the next day was going to be big.

Hotch closed his eyes, but he did not sleep.

Nor did any member of the BAU. A whole day of searching and there were still no clues that would lead them to Hotch. Nobody had been reported missing either, which meant either nobody cared enough about the person that had been kidnapped or the unsub was developing a new pattern. Either way, it wasn’t looking good.

Rossi forced them all to get some sleep. He told himself that if they got Aaron back safely, he would make sure that man knew just how much he was loved by all of them. He would finally tell Aaron how he had always viewed him as the son he’d lost, and how he had never once regretted returning.

Morgan knew his relationship with Hotch would never be perfect, but at the end of the day, they were a family. He would spend the rest of his life convincing Hotch that he deserved all the happiness in the world if he needed to, as soon as he’d lectured him about being an idiot.

Garcia was already planning what she was going to make for him. She remembered when she had first started in the BAU, and Hotch had been the only person to treat her like an actual employee. They would eat lunch together because neither of them really had any friends within the unit. Morgan and Reid were still trying to adjust to her, and Gideon had always loved Reid more than he loved Hotch, which had made her sad.

Reid couldn’t lose another father. He lay awake, thinking of stories that he could recommend for Jack. He wanted to be in his own bed, where he could look at the constellations on his ceiling. Hotch had somehow found out about his fear of the dark, but instead of mocking him, he said he’d understood. A day later, he found glow in the dark stars in his bag with a note from Hotch saying he wanted to see a picture of the constellations he made.

Reid had returned the favour after Foyet.

JJ held Emily and they both hoped that he- the man that had already lost so much and struggled through it all for the sake of their band of misfit profilers- would come home safely.

“Rise and shine Aaron,” Jonathan said, throwing a bucket of water over Hotch, who immediately jerked awake as he started to shiver.

“What’s going on?” he whispered.

“You’ll see. But first, I need to make you a little bit more… presentable, shall we say?”

Hotch knew better than to hope that would mean a change of clothes. Jonathan removed the rope around his hands, but only to slide Aaron’s shirt off his shoulders. He pushed down on the bruises, only stopping when Hotch gasped.

“They’re going to be distraught,” he commented, punching Hotch in the face.

His eyes immediately started watering. Jonathan punched him again. Hotch recoiled, feeling the blood drip from his nose. He was dead weight now, but they had been right in assuming that their unsub was incredibly strong. He pulled Aaron into the chair before tying him up, bloodied and beaten and bruised and broken.

Hotch saw the camera.

And he suddenly understood what Jonathan meant.

“No,” he shouted, voice hoarse.

But it was too late.

“Hello Agent Hotchner’s team. I apologise for not knowing your first names, but Aaron only ever used your surnames. Maybe he wanted to detach himself from you all. Let’s see. Ah, the whole team is there! I don’t actually know who you all are, but that’s no worry. I bet you’re trying to work out where he is. It’s not going to work. You should watch the show instead. I bet you really want to see your fearless leader.”

Jonathan stepped back to reveal Hotch.

Morgan had to put his hand on the screen to stop Garcia from closing it. Reid whimpered, JJ shouted, Rossi cursed loudly. Finkelstein grabbed a whole bunch of officers and told them to do whatever it took to find that man.

“Now, Agent Hotchner talks in his sleep. Did you know that? And he’s said some quite interesting things. But first, we’re going to unpack something he said to me on our first day together. Do you remember what that thing was, Aaron?”

Aaron looked up at him, dazed. “No,” he whispered.

“You told me, they weren’t going to come and get you. I killed four people. All of them laughed and told me their colleagues, or their friends, or their families would find them. You didn’t. Why? Tell me. Tell them. They’re all watching.”

Hotch closed his eyes, needing to ground himself. When he opened them, tears were pooling in them, threatening to spill. “They already failed once. They didn’t- we had a case. But they never found me. I didn’t answer my phone, but they didn’t come looking until it was too late to save anyone. They failed to save me once. Why would they try now?”

Garcia was crying. She was trying to find him, but the unsub was right. It was impossible. They’d already dispatched officers to the man’s work and home addresses, but they all knew it was just a formality. They weren’t going to find anything.

“He’s right. We didn’t find him. We should have gone the moment his phone went to voicemail,” Emily said.

“That’s in the past,” Rossi said. “We need to focus on now. Where is he, now? How are we going to save him this time?”

“He’ll send us a message. Some sort of code. He has to,” Reid said, intently watching the screen.

Jonathan looked at Hotch for a few long moments. And then he took the knife he was holding and he cut one deep line from Hotch’s knee to his ankle. Hotch begged for mercy the whole time, but it never came.

“How tragic. Did you ever wonder why they didn’t try?”

“I’m not worth saving,” Hotch whispered.

That caused Jonathan to pause. “What?”

“I’m not worth saving. I’m a narcissist. A bully. Drill sergeant. I have trust issues, I don’t trust women as much as men and they don’t want to be my friend,” Hotch said.

Rossi frowned. “Kid, what’s the message? I don’t get it.”

Reid was shaking. “I don’t- I called him a narcissist when Hankel told me to choose someone to die but I didn’t mean it. I didn’t, I said it because I knew he would understand. He never puts himself above the team. But when I said that it gave away my location. There’s nothing with what he just said. Nothing. I don’t even know where the other things came from.”

Prentiss pressed her hand to her mouth. “He genuinely believes that. He’s not lying. I know his tell. He’s not doing it. He’s telling his version of the truth.”

Rossi turned. “What do you mean he genuinely believes that?”

All three of them swallowed, unable to form a response.

“When Reid called Hotch a narcissist and then quoted the Bible, Hotch went off. He told everyone to say what his worst quality was. And in the moment Morgan called him a drill sergeant. JJ said he was a bully. Em said he didn’t trust women as much as men. He cut them off after that and it was never addressed. I told- when we got back to Quantico, I told him he didn’t wear casual clothes enough and he- he smiled,” Garcia explained.

Rossi had never been so angry at his family. “Why would you say that? You know what he’s like. You know how personally he takes things. It doesn’t matter that it was just in the moment, he needed to hear it from all of you that you didn’t mean it.”

Prentiss lunged forward. “Aaron,” she shouted. When Hotch turned slightly to face the camera, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Aaron, it’s Emily. I know you’re not sexist. I know that you trust me just as much as anyone else on the team. I promise. And Morgan loves you too. JJ doesn’t think you’re a bully. We love you, but we need you to help us. Please.”

Jonathan turned to face the camera too. “Stop ruining all the fun, Emily.”

Emily flinched. Jonathan said her name like it was something dirty, but Aaron had only ever said it like it was something to be cherished.

When Jonathan slapped Hotch, Reid closed his eyes.

“What do you think Aaron? Do you think she’s correct? Are you worthy of their love? Or are you exactly like the other victims, maybe even worse?”

Hotch shook his head. “I don’t know. Please, I just, I don’t know.”

Jonathan picked up the cane. Hotch curled in on himself as much as he could. For everyone else, it was like watching Hankel torture Reid all over again. When the cane made contact with Hotch’s stomach, the sound he let out made the tears in Rossi’s eyes fall.

“I think I’ll let you all struggle for a few hours before the grand finale. But, I am nothing if not generous. Aaron, is there anything you want to say to them?”

He looked directly at the camera. Not even Morgan could look into his eyes, so full of pain and anguish. “I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry for everything. I’m- I never meant for any of you to become so damaged and I am so- I will spend every last minute making up for the pain I caused you, but please, just, please forgive me. Forgive me. Please.”

Jonathan ended it all. There was no way of tracing them.

Reid repeated the words to himself. He needed to find the clue. He needed to work out what the message was. He refused to believe there wasn’t one. Morgan and Rossi slipped into their respective leadership roles, commanding everyone and barking orders. Garcia’s fingers were like lightning, she was finding everything she could on Jonathan. JJ dealt with the media, who wanted to know exactly what was going on. Prentiss flitted between the various groups, offering support. It was weird. Coming back had felt like coming home, but then there were moments like these where she wasn’t sure she’d ever been part of the team.

Hotch was confused. He knew Emily’s tell. She couldn’t hide it from him. He’d been searching for it as she spoke, but it wasn’t there. Which would imply she was telling the truth. But that wasn’t possible. He couldn’t let himself believe it was possible. Only, there was no other logical discussion. Maybe they loved him. Maybe they cared.

“What are you?” Jonathan hissed.

“Their friend,” Aaron whispered, momentarily forgetting where he was.

Jonathan kicked his bare foot. Aaron winced.

“No, you aren’t,” Jonathan said. “You’re a narcissist. You’re a bully. And a drill sergeant, and a sexist prick. I’m assuming- by the looks on their faces- the blonde with glasses and the old man never said anything against you. But I think I know what they would say. You’re rude. And you’re a failure. So what are you?”

“A narcissist,” Hotch replied. But he knew that wasn’t the truth. They were going to find him. They were going to save him, somehow, because that was what their family did.

Dave saved him by offering him the spot. He saved Penelope from a life of crime. Penelope saved Emily from doubting herself too much. Emily saved Jennifer from carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Jennifer saved Spencer from thinking he wasn’t worth loving. Spencer saved Derek from getting too cynical. Derek saved Dave from getting too cocky. And the cycle continued.

Reid was pacing, wringing his hands, still mouthing the words to him. Everyone else had stopped because there was nothing left to do.

Without warning, Reid turned and punched the wall.

“Spence!” JJ shouted.

Reid stared at his hand, where blood was now covering his knuckles. Shaking, he fell to his knees, sobbing. Hotch would know what to do. Hotch would take his hand and gently wrap it before talking to him about whatever it was that was going on. He would help him sort through the information overwhelming him.

But Hotch wasn’t there. And it was all his fault.

JJ and Morgan ran over to him. Reid wanted to push them away but found himself powerless to resist their coddling.

“Guys,” Garcia said, answering the call.

She let out a gasp. Hotch’s stomach was worse. There were more cuts on his leg. His face was covered in bruises. But there was something else that hadn’t been there before. A defiant, hopeful glint in his eyes. Like he knew something else now.

“Hello again,” Jonathan greeted.

Garcia immediately started trying to trace the call, not even hesitating to try thousands of other methods when it failed.

Reid pushed Morgan and JJ away, taking the seat next to Garcia to try and find the hidden message.

“I’ve trained Aaron very well,” Jonathan commented. He was holding a gun. Hotch’s gun. Hotch’s back-up gun he’d kept holstered against his ankle ever since Adrian Bale had left him defenceless.

Under the table, Reid fiddled.

“What are you?” Jonathan asked Hotch.

“A narcissist,” Hotch replied, but there was something different about the way he said it when compared to earlier. Reid leant forward, determined to work it out.

“What are you?” he asked again, now pointing the gun at his head. Reid felt bile rise in his throat. It must have been like that for everyone else, watching him with Hankel.

“A bully.”

“And?”

“A drill sergeant.”

“He doesn’t believe what he’s saying,” Reid shouted, then covered his mouth, just in case Jonathan heard. But he was too busy taunting Hotch with the negative things that had been said about him.

“What?” Rossi asked.

“Look at his body language. He doesn’t believe it anymore. Emily convinced him. We just need to work out where he is. If he knows we love him, he won’t do anything stupid.”

Garcia started typing even more furiously.

“Tell them again what you are. Let them savour the moment. Let them always remember this as the moment where Aaron Hotchner finally admitted how dreadful he was.”

“I’ve got a location!” Garcia whispered. Everyone looked at each other, then nodded. Finkelstein and his team would arrest Jonathan and get Hotch out. They would follow as soon as the call had ended.

“I’m a narcissist. A bully. A drill sergeant. A sexist prick. A failure. And I’m rude.”

“I suppose you get the smallest amount of credit for admitting it. But it’s not enough to say it. I want you to prove it. Choose one of them to die.”

Reid dug his nails into the fabric of his trousers.

Hotch’s eyes widened, and for the first time his confidence wavered. “What?”

“You heard me. If you’re truly all of these things, choose one to die. Choose one of those team members that hate you so much to die by your own gun.”

“Come on Hotch. Give us that message that tells us how to get you out safely,” Reid muttered to himself.

Hotch wasn’t answering.

“Wasn’t Agent Reid in a similar situation to this? And didn’t he say that he chose Aaron Hotchner? That must have hurt.”

“It’s Doctor,” Hotch responded, voice weak, the adrenaline waring off as he lost more blood and as his previous injuries went untreated.

“Oh god,” JJ said, the first to realise his mistake.

Hotch’s eyes widened.

Jonathan smirked. “Oh dear. Have you been lying to me? Are you not actually these things?”

“Finkelstein is three minutes away,” Rossi updated.

“I am!” Hotch exclaimed. His voice was hoarse, his eyes glazed over and unfocused.

“Then choose.”

“No.”

“My patience grows thin Aaron. Choose.”

“Two minutes,” Rossi said.

“Hotch please,” Reid pleaded. JJ rubbed his shoulder, just as tense.

“I can’t,” Hotch said, pain starting to overwhelm him as he tried too hard to think of a solution.

“Do it,” Jonathan said, fingers fiddling with the trigger.

“I choose myself,” Hotch said.

“No,” Reid whispered. “There has to be a message somewhere in there. He said: it’s doctor, but before that he said what and after that he said no and- there’s no message. Rossi there’s no message. What are we supposed to do?”

“Finkelstein is a minute away. Hotch will keep him talking. And then we’ll get him back. I promise.”

“Why? Why do you choose yourself, when your team hate you?” Jonathan was angry and holding a gun. A dangerous combination at the best of times. But Hotch had no weapon. No vest.

Restrained and already weakened by his injuries.

“Because they don’t,” Hotch said.

“Yes they do,” Jonathan said through gritted teeth.

“They just need our signal to go in,” Rossi said.

“I can’t make that call,” Morgan confessed.

Rossi looked at him. “We can’t afford to wait.”

“No, they don’t. Your team did though, didn’t they? And then you lost your job for all the bad things you did and ended up being the victim of a person that was exactly the same as you had been. Aren’t I right? You’re not exactly hard to profile, I’ve just been waiting for the right moment.”

“How fucking dare you-” Jonathan started, then sighed. “I want you to tell me. Tell me why it should be you and not one of them.”

Rossi turned away. “Now.”

“Because they are my family. I love them unconditionally. And they love me back. And when you love your family, you do everything you can to keep them safe.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“They’re your family? Who love you?”

Aaron used the last of his strength to look up into his captor’s eyes. “And I love them.”

Jonathan hmmed.

The gunshot that rang out was nothing compared to Reid’s cry of horror.

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crystalninjaphoenix · 3 years

Text

MerMay 2021 Day Thirty-One Reunion

“This is no fun, we always tie,” Muirin said, brushing sand and erasing the game of tic-tac-toe they’d been playing.

“Well what do you want to do instead?” Sereia asked. “I need to do something, I can’t just sit here and keep worrying.”

Muirin shrugged. The two of them looked around. When Stacy and Chase had gone off on their scouting/possible rescue mission, the kids had been told to stay behind and wait, with the others looking after them. And now they were all sitting on the ocean floor. Or at least most of them were. Jackie kept swimming back and forth, pacing the waters as he tended to do when anxious about something. The other three—Marvin, Jameson, and Schneep—were sitting nearby, also playing a game drawn in the sand. It wasn’t familiar to the two kids, but it involved moving around pebbles. “We could teach some of them to play,” Muirin suggested.

“Oh, yeah, that could work. They’d probably suck at it and one of us would actually win,” Sereia joked. She pushed away from the ocean floor and upward into the water. “Let’s—”

Jackie suddenly shouted. “Something’s happening up there!” He swam up towards the surface, but before he could even make it, there was a big splash, and a flurry of bubbles as something big fell into the water. The kids gasped, and the three merms playing the game jumped to attention. Jackie didn’t wait for the bubbles to clear and dove right in. The others heard him scream in excitement. And when the bubbles cleared, Jackie had Chase and Jack in a big hug.

“Jack!” Marvin shouted.

“My friends!” Schneep gasped.

Both of you?! Jameson signed, stunned.

“Dad!” The kids cried out in unison.

And everyone swam forward, joining Jackie in hugging the other two. Excited voices overlapped each other so that nobody could make out any words. But it didn’t matter. The relief and happiness were almost physical presences as everyone laughed and chattered. Chase gave his kids each a tight squeeze, and Jack looked around, confused but overjoyed. It was a good few minutes before everyone pulled away.

“How are you awake?” Schneep asked, looking Jack over for any injuries. “Did Chase do it?”

“Did he wake me up? Uh, no, I just kinda...woke up. Apparently. I mean, I don’t remember falling asleep, really,” Jack explained. “Something happened, though, right? I can figure out that much.”

“Oh yeah, a lot of things happened, but right now, I—oh my gods, you’re okay!” Jackie couldn’t resist giving Jack another quick hug. “It’s a fucking miracle! We were so, so worried.”

You’re alright, right? Jameson asked. What happened after you woke up?

“Well, I was in this weird place with a bunch of humans, and at first, it was like they were kind of watching me, you know? In this small tank,” Jack explained. “But then they moved me to a bigger one, and there was another merm there—do you remember that electric eel? I mean, Jackie does, he scratched him up, but—why are you all looking at me like that?” The other four were staring at him, equally wide-eyed in a strange combination of surprise, fear, and a bit of anger.

Marvin was the first to look away, turning his attention to the ocean floor. “Hey!” he shouted, swimming downwards.

It turned out that the large thing that fell in the water was a glass tank. Now it was upside down on the sandy floor, and Anti was half-pinned underneath it, the glass wall coming down on his tail. He was trying to wriggle out from under it, but froze when he heard Marvin shout and saw him approaching. After a few seconds, he growled at him. But Marvin wasn’t paying attention to him. He darted around the tank and picked up a reddish stone sphere that had landed nearby. Then he immediately retreated.

Jack glanced around, taking in the way everyone was tense, looking at Anti with caution in their eyes. Chase had positioned himself in front of Muirin and Sereia protectively. “Um...” He wasn’t really sure what to say, other than reiterating that he didn’t know what was going on.

Anti managed to pull himself out from under the glass tank, but didn’t move afterwards. He looked at the others, huddled in a group, then looked up towards the surface, and then out towards the open sea, and finally back at the others.

“Are you...okay?” Jack asked.

And Anti nodded slowly.

“Jack...do you not remember anything?” Schneep whispered.

“What? I mean, I don’t remember a lot. But you know what? I can figure out that you guys don’t like him, for some reason,” Jack waved in Anti’s direction. “I mean, I know he attacked Jackie and me, but—”

“Oh, Mr. Jack, there’s a lot more,” Sereia piped up. Chase looked back at her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “He’s, uh...a bad guy, basically.”

“Do you know what this is?” Marvin asked, holding up the reddish stone.

“One of your power stones?” Jack guessed, shrugging.

“I...okay, kind of? But no?” Marvin looked over at Jameson for help.

It’s a siren stone, Jameson explained. If a merm has siren blood, it lets them control others through the power of their voice. He paused. Anti used it on you. That’s why you fell asleep.

“Really?” Jack looked back over at Anti. Jackie and Schneep had broken off from the rest of the group, and now Jackie was circling above Anti while Schneep hesitantly looked him over for injuries. “I, uh...don’t remember that. I...really?”

“And he did a lot of messed up stuff after that,” Chase said. Jack was surprised to hear a bit of anger in his voice. “I...we don’t have time to tell the whole story right now. But trust me on this.”

“Uh...okay.” Jack couldn’t quite believe this. Yes, he remembered Anti attacking him, and Jackie telling him that the eel had done the same to him. But...for all his aggressiveness, Jack couldn’t picture Anti doing that. Anti hadn’t seemed hostile towards him while they were both in tanks in that human facility, just towards the humans who showed up. And even then, he’d dropped it the moment the humans left, returning to being...quiet, really. And more than a little scared. “I mean...you guys wouldn’t lie about that, I guess.”

The others relaxed a bit. “It’s good to have you back, Jack,” Marvin said, smiling.

“Hey, it’s good to be back. Those were a strange few days.”

Nothing happened to you? Jameson asked, clearly worried. The humans didn’t do anything?

“Not really. They just kinda watched me.”

Meanwhile, Schneep was backing away from Anti, apparently having found no injuries. Though he still looked a bit worried. Jackie let out a breath of relief, and moved downward, reaching towards Anti. The moment his hand touched Anti’s shoulder, there was an audible ZAP! accompanied by a lot of green-tinted electricity. Anti jumped, scrambling backwards across the sand, and for a moment, he looked utterly terrified. Then he bolted.

“Hey!” Schneep shouted. But as Anti got farther away, he sighed, and didn’t pursue him. Instead, he made sure Jackie was alright, who looked very dazed after that electric shock.

“Uh...should we do something about that?” Chase asked, worried.

I think it’s fine, for now, Jameson said, though he also looked anxious. We should focus on more important things. Jack’s missed a lot.

Marvin suddenly gasped. He rushed over and grabbed Jack’s hand. “Jack! Jack, Jamie and I are gonna be life friends!”

“What? Seriously?! Oh my gods, congratulations!” Jack laughed. “Can I say that I knew it would happen all along, even if I didn’t?”

There was another splash in the water, a smaller one. This time, the bubbles cleared, and revealed Stacy, wearing a wetsuit, goggles, and scuba gear. The kids shouted and rushed over, Chase following shortly after. “Everything good?” he asked.

Stacy gave him a thumbs-up.

And Chase sighed in relief. “Ha. Roxy’s gonna be so mad about you rolling the tank into the ocean.”

Stacy shrugged—as if to say “eh, it doesn’t matter”—and turned her attention to the kids, who were swimming all over her. Sereia kept trying to get a piggyback, but was foiled by the fact that she currently had a tail instead of legs. That made Chase laugh.

Jack swam over to him. “Soooo...are you guys officially partners again?”

Chase blushed. “Well, I—” And Stacy nodded. That only made him blush more.

“God, I really missed a lot, didn’t I?”

“You sure did!” Jackie swam back over. It appears he wasn’t too hurt by that electric shock, though Schneep was following him closely, trying to keep checking him. “Gods, I mean, everything happened. Schneep had a neighbor for a bit there.”

Schneep huffed. “She was quite rude about it, at first. But, ah...things were better. She made Jackie’s new shirt.”

“Okay okay,” Jack laughed. “Why don’t we talk about this now? I get a feeling it’ll take a while.”

The group settled down. Eventually Stacy and the kids had to get out of the water, but Sereia and Muirin insisted on sticking around. The merms took turns filling Jack in on everything that had happened while he was asleep, good and bad, major and minor. They told him that Sam was alright, which was a relief. And they told him what Anti had done, which was a surprise. It took a while, with everyone jumping in and interrupting each other and getting off track. By the time they were caught up to present day and the rescue, the sun was starting to set, and Stacy and the kids definitely had to leave. She had to return the van to the Institute of Marine Biology, after all. And they had to start packing, because tomorrow would be the last day they’d rented the beach house for.

The merms could have gone their separate ways then and there. But, now that all of them were together again, they really didn’t want to. They kept talking, well into the night, about things that didn’t really matter but that felt important to them. And eventually, right there, a few miles off the coast, they all fell asleep together. It was a bit awkward at first, finding the right position, but in their sleep, they all huddled closer together, until they were piled up. Chase and Jack were at the bottom, next to each other, Schneep wrapped around them, Jackie spread out on top, and Jameson and Marvin together, a bit to the side. It was warm, peaceful, and all of them fell asleep, completely content.

None of them knew that a few hours later, in the dead of night, a pair of glowing green eyes would return, staring at them. Anti watched for a while, shocked that they’d fall asleep out in the open, where anyone or anything could attack at any moment. Including him. For a moment, he was tempted. They wouldn’t bother him again. He’d never worry about them killing him ever again. But...would they actually do that? He was surprised to find that he thought they wouldn’t. And...it was...cruel, to attack something that was no risk to you. Wasn’t it? Hadn’t he known that for years? So...why was he considering it?

Shaking his head, Anti slowly backed up, then turned and left. Where he was going, he wasn’t sure. He never was, really. Maybe he’d find these merms again. Maybe they’d find him. Only time would tell. As Anti headed out into the open sea, he turned to look back towards the six one last time, then disappeared.

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticegos #jacksepticeye fanfiction #jacksepticeye au #septic egos #septic egos au #chase brody #jackieboy man #marvin the magnificent #jameson jackson #dr schneeplestein #antisepticeye #brigid writes fanfiction #mermay snippets

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temilyrights · 3 years

Text

Miscommunication

Summary: Jack Sloane x Reader. You accidently mistake a dinner invitation from Jack as a date.

A/N: Exam season has had me in zombie mode but I'm almost alive again! I started writing this in like September and completely forgot about it until I picked it up again a few weeks ago. Pretty light angst considering my work. I wanted a better title but I couldn’t think of one and wanted to upload. Anyway, as always, feedback is welcome and appreciated :) Enjoy!

Read on AO3

You smooth out the wrinkles in your outfit as you make your way down the path to Jack’s house, flowers clenched tightly in one hand, and teeth digging into your lip.

This was actually happening. A date with Jacqueline Sloane. You blow out a breath and knock on the door, trying to keep a calm exterior while your stomach does somersaults.

“You’re here!” Jack cheers as she opens the door, and you’re instantly blown away. She’s wearing a simple white button-down, French tucked into a pair of blue skinny jeans that fit her like a glove. Her feet are bare of shoes and socks, so you can see her freshly painted red nails, and her hair is in its usual beach waves. She’s stunning. “Y/N?”

Your eyes snap up to hers. She’s watching you with amusement. “Sorry, uh, hi.” Your cheeks tinge pink, and in an attempt to hide that fact from Jack you shove the flowers at her. “Uh, I got you these.”

She gracefully accepts the bouquet, her smile turning soft as she looks from the flowers to you. “My favourite. How’d you know?”

You shrug. “You aren’t the only one who notices things.” It hadn’t been too hard to work out, she’d had a bouquet of them in her office a while back and then again in her living room recently. She’d had other types as well, but you noticed the way she always smiled a little brighter when she saw the beautiful arrangement of iris’ and daffodils. It suited her, and coincidentally also portrayed a fitting message. The yellow daffodils represented new beginnings and the blue iris’ hope, which was what tonight felt like.

She drops her head to breath in the flowers, a look of bliss crossing her face before she meets your eyes again. She reaches for your hand and squeezes, rubbing her thumb in circles across your palm. “Thank you. I love them.” She’s closer than before, and your eyes drop to her lips momentarily before you quickly meet her gaze again. Jack clears her throat and steps back, releasing your hand in the process and you try not to miss the contact. She signals down the hallway, “Well, I should go find a vase for these. If you join everyone else in the living room, I’ll be in in a minute.”

“E-everyone else?” You ask as your stomach drops, but Jack is already walking away, nose buried back in the flowers. You force yourself inside, and take your shoes off, leaving them by the door. It’s when you move to hang your jacket in her coat cupboard that you finally hear the sound of Ellie’s distinctive laughter flowing through the house.

You pause, squeezing your eyes shut as you bury down the humiliation and disappointment coursing through you. Of course, you’d misunderstood Jack invite for dinner. Thinking back, she never did specify it was a date, but she hadn’t mentioned other people either, and you’d just assumed, or hoped, or whatever, because it didn’t matter. Of course, Jacqueline Sloane didn’t want to date you and oh no you’d just bought her flowers! Flowers!

You groan and make your way further into the house, forcing a smile on your face as you step into the living room. Ellie, Nick, Tim, and Delilah are all sitting around but are way too consumed in what they’re debating to notice you. You take the opportunity to lean against the door frame and listen.

“Easy. No junk food.” Nick smirks, leaning back into the couch.

Ellie makes a noise of outrage, eyes bulging, “You’re joking, right? That means no chocolate, chips-”

“I’m not seeing a problem.” You smother a chuckle. He thought you didn’t all know about the chip stash he had locked away in his desk that he always ended up inhaling when he thought no one was around.

“-no takeout, and no burgers.”

“What? Burger’s don’t count!”

Delilah laughs, “Yes, they totally do.”

“Fine, whatever, I’m still sticking with my answer.” Nick huffs.

Ellie just rolls her eyes. “Well, obviously I’d choose no TV, how about you Tim?”

“The two don’t correlate, it’s not a fair would you rather.”

“You just can’t decide if you’d rather never watch Star Trek or eat Doritos again,” Delilah smirks.

“No, it’s just not a fair question!”

“Come on Tim, just admit you can’t live without your yearly Star Trek rewatch.”

Ellie hums, “Yeah, but can he live without Domino's stuffed crust pizza either?”

Tim rolls his eyes, “It’s not a fair-” he cuts off when he spots you in the doorway, eyes sparkling with delight at the chance for an escape, “Hey, look it’s Y/N.”

The other’s all swing around to look at you as you smirk. “Would you rather? Really?”

Ellie shrugs, “Need something to pass the time why we waited for you to appear.”

“Wait for me to- I’m early?” You pull your phone from your pocket to double-check, “Yeah. Early. Jack said half six and it’s only 6.27 now.”

They all frown looking between each other, Tim is the one who speaks, “She told us six.”

“What? She told me and Nick five-thirty!”

“Dinner’s basically ready if you all-,” Jack says as she enters the room, her words quickly die off and she comes to a halt as you all snap around to look at her. Her eyes narrow, “Want to move to the dining room...Have I missed something?”

“You gave us all different arrival times?” Nick asks.

“Oh, yes.” Jack nods. Everyone stares at her waiting for her to continue, and she rolls her eyes, “Nick, I knew you and Ellie were coming together and when you do you are almost always at least 45 minutes late to every plan we make. Tim and Delilah, you are usually about 30 minutes late too. Y/N on the other hand is practically always on time. By giving you different arrival slots, I could be sure you’d all be here by 6.40 when dinner would be ready.” She shrugs, signalling to Ellie and Nick, “You two didn’t arrive till six so I wasn’t completely off.”

Tim’s and Ellie’s mouths hang open in shock, while Nick looks mildly annoyed and Delilah is watching Jack with an impressed smirk. You don’t really know how to respond, but when Jack looks at you, her eyes dancing with amusement, you can’t help but chuckle.

“Now, dinner?” She claps her hands together, swinging on her heels and exiting the room before anyone can utter another word.

----

Jack’s outdone herself. The room smells absolutely mouth-watering. And Ellie voices as much when she swallows her first mouthful of food with a moan. “Oh my god, Jack. This is delicious.” Everyone murmurs along in agreement and Jack preens.

The conversation flows easily and as much as you try to keep yourself engaged, laughing and commenting in all the right places, you quickly find yourself retreating. You’d deliberately taken the seat furthest away from where Jack sat at the head of the table, choosing instead to sit beside Ellie. Tim sat the other side of you, at the end of the table. While Delilah was opposite you, and Nick beside her.

Jack's eyes had flicked to you a few times now, she was beginning to notice your odd behaviour. It wasn’t like you to be so silent, but you knew she wouldn’t say anything until she could get you alone, and it wasn’t like that was going to happen any time soon. Delilah was also watching you, and when she caught your eye, she shot you a questioning look. You quickly buried your head in your glass instead of answering it.

“So, how was your date the other night?” Jack smirks at Ellie, eyes teasing as Ellie releases a dramatic groan.

“Oh, don’t. We can’t all have the luck you do. How is the mystery person you won’t tell me about?” Ellie gleams, as Jack’s eyes widen.

Your gaze snaps to her, words spilling forth without thought. “I didn’t know you were seeing someone?” Hurt seeps into your voice and you just hope it’s subtle enough that nobody notices.

“There isn’t anyone!” Panic flashes in her eyes before she looks away and clears her throat, “I mean, there was a couple of dates with a man, but it’s not- we aren’t- I’m not seeing him.”

You drop your head so she can’t see the pain clear in your face, and quickly reach for your wine glass and take a large gulp. Jack does the same as an awkward silence takes over the room until Ellie, thankfully, starts talking again, drawing the attention of everyone and allowing you a moment to compose yourself.

Delilah’s watching you when you look back up and immediately catches your eye. She looks at you like she understands like she sees exactly what you’re so desperately trying to hide, and your emotions come swarming back tangling in your throat. Jack’s eyes bore into the side of your head too, but you refuse to look because you know the second you meet her eyes, she’ll see it all.

“Excuse me,” You cough, pushing yourself up from your chair a little too roughly and knocking the table. It doesn’t slow you down though, and you don’t meet anyone’s eyes as you quickly flee the room.

You lock the bathroom door behind you with a shaky hand and then lean back against it, allowing the cool wood to calm you down as you take deep breaths. Tears burn your eyes, and you so desperately don’t want to let them fall but they do anyway.

A date. You’d thought tonight was a date, and not only had you been wrong, but she plainly wasn’t interested as she was dating other people!

Your mind screams as you curse yourself for being stupid enough to get your hopes up. How many times were you going to have to learn this lesson? When had getting your hopes up ever ended positively for you?

Pushing yourself off the door you sigh, carefully wiping the tears from your face in an effort to not disturb your makeup. You wipe at your slightly smudged mascara with tissue, it’s not perfect but it works enough to hide the evidence of your tears. Pulling yourself together you spare one last glance at yourself and open the door.

Jack’s leaning against the wall outside, biting the hangnail on her thumb. She quickly drops her hand and stands properly the second you step over the threshold of the bathroom. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, of course. I just needed to pee.” You force a small laugh, hoping to dispel her worry and any questions.

She arches a brow, “Without flushing the toilet?”

“Are you policing my bathroom breaks now?” You laugh as panic clutches at your chest.

She takes a step closer, eliminating most of the space between her and you. Her eyes track your face as her brows furrow, “You’ve been off all evening.”

“I’m just tired.” You shrug and look over her shoulder, “Come on, let’s get back to the others.” You go to step around her, but she grabs your wrist, and you instantly freeze. You close your eyes before looking back to her. She’s watching you so closely and your heart starts thumping in your chest, but you force a small smile anyway, “Jack, I’m fine. It’s just been a long week and I’m just tired.”

“You said that already.”

You roll your eyes and take a step back. Needing to break the contact between your skin and her. “Yeah well, maybe because it’s true.”

“Also, you’re a terrible liar.”

“Can’t be that bad, still managed to beat you at poker more than once.” You tease back, hoping to distract her with jokes instead of letting her push any further.

“I was distracted.”

“Fornell’s chatter annoys you that much?”

“I learnt to tune him out a long time ago.” She hums.

You frown, “Then what was distracting you?”

Jack's eyes flash like she knows she’s been caught out, and she takes another step back and tries to laugh, “Maybe we should go back and join the others.”

“No, wait a minute!” You grab her wrist and pull her back in. She rolls her eyes, but you know it’s a defence to make you believe she’s not bothered when she clearly is. You think over the last poker night you’d won a few months back. You’d been in a great mood because Jack had gotten a little drunk and had been all smiley and touchy. After the game had finished, she had disappeared to Fornell’s kitchen to grab a beer and returned with one for you.

“For our champion.” She’d smirked, leaning down and hanging her hands around your neck as she passed you the drink. Your face had promptly turned scarlet and when you’d looked up at Jack to see her soft eyes and drunken smile the rest of the world had faded away. Your eyes had only been drawn away from her lips when someone coughed loudly.

It’d been Grace who had had a smug smirk on her face and thinking back she’d been shooting Jack that look a lot recently which was almost always returned with a glare from Jack.

“Grace?” You ask.

“What?” Jack frowns.

“She’s been distracting you.”

“Right, yeah. It’s Grace.” She nods along, and it doesn’t take a psychologist to know she’s lying.

“Now who’s the bad liar.”

She arches a brow, “Still you. I should probably be insulted by how much you look like you don’t want to be here tonight.” Her lips pout slightly, proving she is actually upset by it.

“I turned up on time, that’s a good indicator I do.”

“Yeah, with flowers…” Her brows furrow again, her eyes examining your face. You release her wrist and step back, but it only causes her frown to deepen. “You bought me flowers.” She says as if she’s trying to piece a puzzle together aloud. “My favourite flowers and you dressed up more than usual…” Her eyes widen before quickly turning soft, “You thought it was a date.”

“No. No, I didn’t.” You rush out, even as your cheeks turn red and you wish for the ground to swallow you up whole.

Her eyes remain soft, a smile pulling at her lips as she takes a step closer to you. “You thought it was a date.”

“Jack,” You gulp, shaking your head. Her hand brushes against yours.

“You thought it was a date.” She repeats again, and it’s only when she’s this close that you finally realise just how happy she looks. There’s no pity in her eyes, and the tension seeps from your shoulders as you smile hesitantly.

“I may have thought this was a date.”

She grins as her spare hand grips at your waist. “You thought it was a date.”

You roll your eyes, “Do you wanna say anything else other than those five words?”

Her eyebrow arches, a cocky smirk tugging at her lips. “How about you kiss me?”

“What about your guests?”

“I’m sure they can handle a few more minutes without us.” As if on cue a smash sounds from the dining room and Jack sighs, “or not.”

“Sorry, Jack!” Ellie shouts, “I’m cleaning it up, don’t worry!”

“If there’s now red wine over my carpet I’m going to kill her,” Jack grumbles and you’re pretty sure she’s only half-joking.

“Maybe don’t kill our friend. I’d miss her.”

She sighs dramatically as she tries to keep her lips from curling into a smile, “If you insist.”

“I know it’s a huge sacrifice on your part, but I’m sure there’s something I can do to make it worth it.” You smirk.

Her eyes darken as she leans in closer. She’s focused on your lips but at the last second her eyes meet yours, “Before our first date?” She whispers.

You twirl a strand of her hair around your finger, before moving to caress her cheek. Her eyes fall close as she sighs and leans into the touch. “Wouldn’t want you to kill Ellie.”

She hums, “Yes. Might have no choice otherwise.” Her eyes open, sparkling brightly as her lips twitch.

“Yep.” You nod, as your eyes trail across her lips. “It’s all for the greater good. Saving lives. All that jazz.”

“Hey, Jack. Have you got anymore- Oh, oh my god, sorry.” Tim apologises, immediately turning back around as he steps into the hallway. He keeps his back to you. “Sorry. Uh, kitchen roll, dishcloths, if you have any could you bring some when you’re done. Again, sorry.” He quickly hurries off, and even though you can’t see his face you know it’s bright red.

You immediately start laughing, “I swear he’s as bad as Jimmy sometimes.”

Jack hums and then sighs as she steps away, forcing you to drop your hands from her. You can’t help but pout slightly.

“I should go check out this mess.”

“Yeah.” You sigh, and you don’t feel bad for silently wishing everyone else would go home so, you could spend the rest of the evening alone with her.

As if following your thoughts, she smirks. “They can wait a few more minutes.” And in one swoop, she steps forward, her hand sliding around and gripping your neck before pulling you in and kissing you.

Your eyes widen in shock before they quickly fall close. You pull her in closer, matching her hurried, hot kisses. It’s like fireworks, or maybe more just heat shooting straight between your legs, but you could so easily drown in her kisses forever.

She pulls away though, a proud smirk on her face. You must look as dazed as you feel. “You’re definitely staying tonight.” She hums, eyes dark and she’s practically devouring you with them. You gulp slightly, turned on beyond belief and you can’t believe you still have to sit through the rest of dinner and dessert with your friends.

“Any chance we can kick everyone else out now?”

She laughs and pecks your lips, “Don’t think they’d appreciate that.”

“Don’t really care.” You grumble.

Her eyes sparkle and she steps away, despite you trying to keep her close. “I’m going to get dishcloths. The sooner we get back in there the sooner I’ll have you all to myself.” She winks and retreats to the other room before you can utter another word.

You gulp and head back to the dining room in almost a trance. Delilah breaks into laughter the second she sees you; Nick and Ellie are both grinning, and Tim still has a pink tinge to his face.

You clear your throat and take your seat as Jack enters the room.

“Oh, thank god it’s just water.” She sighs in relief as she makes her way to the soaked carpet beside Ellie’s chair.

“Hey, Y/N.” Delilah chuckles again, and you hesitantly meet her eyes. “You’ve got a bit of lipstick…” She points to her own lips.

Your eyes widen in surprise and you swing around to look at Jack whose face is full of faux innocence.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” You whine, trying to rub the pink hue from your mouth.

“Where’s the fun in that?” She smirks.

“Should’ve just let you kill Ellie.” You mumble, using your reflection in your glass to see if you’ve been successful.

“Hey!” Ellie protests, “Why am I dying?”

You don’t answer her question, and Jack just returns to cleaning the mess without responding. Ellie pouts.

The second dessert finished, you not so subtly begin guiding everyone to the door, and the moment it closes behind Ellie (who you know took deliberately longer to leave just to spite you), Jack spins you around and pins you to the wall.

“Now who’s the one that wants to kill Ellie.” She hums as she begins to leave a trail of kisses up your neck.

“Between us, I’m sure we could do it successfully.” You sigh as she hits a particular spot, and you feel her smirk. “But no more Ellie talk. Or murder talk. Or anything talk that isn’t about you getting me in your bed.”

“Agreed.” Jack hums, before finally capturing your lips with hers. Your knees turn weak, and you’re grateful for the wall behind you. Your hands find her hair and her leg slides in between yours. You release a breathy sigh at the pressure, gripping at her hair and causing her to groan and lean harder against you.

“Bed. Now.” You order, and she’s more than happy to comply.

It’s a mission to get to her room because you both refuse to separate, too focused on getting the other out of their clothes.

“I’m going to make you scream,” Jack whispers against your lips, as her hands tease up your now shirtless body.

“Oh, yeah?” You smirk, “Do it then.”

And she does. Multiple times.

#jack sloane x reader #jack sloane #jacqueline sloane #ncis #fanfic #writing #miscommunication #reader-insert #regal-roni

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one-leaf-grimoire · 4 years

Text

Three Leafed Chaos

Chapter 4/4

Masterlist coming soon. This isn't the ending I was initially going for but it just kind of... happened lol.

"Vanessaaaa~! Chaaaaarmyyy~! Happy Three Leaf day!"

Finral held out two presents for his squadmates, vibrating with anticipation. "Oh, thank you so much, Finral!" Vanessa said.

"Hehe, so," Finral batted his eyelashes. "What are you two girls giving me in return? Hmm?"

"Hope," Charmy said. "I hope you get a life one of these days."

Vanessa smiled. "I have faith that you'll be able to get a girlfriend one day, Finral."

"D'OH!" It hurt, but Finral shook it off. "Very well, I have 30 more girls to visit, so I'll see you later!" With that, he jumped through a portal, which closed just as Yami stormed into the room. "FINRAL!!! Did you use up all the wrapping paper?" It was too late, Finral was long gone.

"Captain, you need wrapping paper?" Charmy asked. "Finral wrapped 30 presents, so I'm pretty sure he used it all."

Yami sighed. "Great. I guess I'll have to go buy more." Without another word, he grabbed the small package he had prepared, now stuffed in a brown bag, and headed off to find his broom and go to town. He was hoping to avoid the stores today, since they were always packed with people on Three-Leaf day. Just as he feared, he had to push through a large, excited crowd in Kikka. Well, at least I can just go straight to the castle after this, he thought to himself. I can get it over with...

Since that day at the beach, he managed to go on one "date" with that girl, glad to have her all to himself. Unfortunately, before he could ask anything about her romantic interests, she got a call from HQ and had to leave. "I'm very sorry, Yami!" she had told him while scarfing down the rest of her food. It was kind of impressive how quickly she ate. "But duty calls! We can meet up again some other time, alright?" With that, she was gone. Yes, the "chase" was thrilling, but come on! Yami needed a big break... but today could very well provide that.

"Hmm..." He examined some of the wrapping paper that was on sale, not willing to splurge on something trivial like this. She was a simple girl, after all, so she would probably appreciate something simple. She wore a blue bathing suit, so her favorite color is probably blue. Yami picked out a light blue roll of paper, paid for it, then headed out to find a place to sit down. With some difficulty, he started to wrap his box, but then heard a pair of frighteningly familiar voices.

"Oh? So what shabby gift did you pick out, Fuegoleon?"

"That's none of your business, Nozel."

"Well, I'm sure she'll like mine better."

"Perhaps. But I think she'll choose whoever gets there first."

Yami turned to see the two men standing in the middle of the street. A small crowd had formed around them, watching the royals with baited breath. Nozel grit his teeth, his hand clutching a gift bag. "Well, I'll just have to get to her before you, right?"

"Ka, ka! Fuegoleon's not the one you have to worry about, Nozel." They turned to see Jack run past them at full speed, clutching a similar package. They followed his trajectory and realized all at once who he was running at. "No way! She's here right now?!" Nozel exclaimed, pointing at the familiar female, who was walking away from them down the street with a group of her friends.

Yami jumped to his feet, his heart pounding. Of course, all of them had to be in the same place, and of course she had to come out here right into their grasps. But Yami wasn't going to let them pounce... he would get to her first, he was sure of that. Using his magic to reinforce his legs, he took off, blowing past Nozel and Fuegoleon in pursuit of Jack. It wasn't long before they were neck and neck. "Yami! Finally, you showed up!" Jack yelled, scowling. "I'm the faster one, give up!"

"Tch, no way! Not when we're neck and neck!" Yami looked forward at the girl, completely unaware of what was about to happen. Now... I need to get her alone. I'll have to scoop her up and take her somewhere private. Both he and Jack jumped towards her, ready to take their prize.

She blinked, feeling a presence, then turned around and gasped when she saw the two men rocketing towards her. "Yami? Jack? What on earth-"

Just as they were about to grab her, something shot out of an alley and wrapped around her body. She screamed as the briars lifted her out of the way, causing Jack and Yami to tumble right into the ground. "Huh?" Yami looked up to see Charlotte on top of a nearby building, reeling their objective in like a fisherman reels in a prize catch. "Sorry, Yami, and Jack," Charlotte said, smiling a little to herself. "I won't let you men touch her."

"What about us?!"

Charlotte looked around to see a giant, silver eagle and a flaming lion jumping towards her, ridden by Nozel and Fuegoleon. "You two, as well? Fine." She prepared to cast another spell, but a voice cut her off.

"Dehydration magic: Vanishing Vapor!"

Charlotte looked to see the briars wilting around her "prisoner's" body, and the girl dropped back down to the ground. "I don't know what's gotten into you guys, but I'm out of here!" she yelled, turning and taking off towards the castle.

Determination flashed through all five of their eyes.

"Not if I can help it!"

Charlotte started to pursue, but was suddenly stuck in place. "What?!" she looked down to see dark bindings around her. "Yami!!!"

"Sorry, prickly Queen, but five's a crowd," Yami told her before running off after the others.

Fuegoleon was the fastest, quickly catching up. "Leo Palma!" A pair of flaming claws instantly clamped around the girl, halting her movements. He smiled to himself. "There! Your dehydration magic can't do anything against fire, can it?"

"Silver Rain!" Mercury suddenly shot down, driving away the fire and wrapping around her body instead. "Keep her hands off of her, Fuegoleon!" Nozel challenged, running towards her and brandishing his bag.

"Ah! What the Hell is going on!?" she yelled, completely confused.

"Take that!" Jack sliced away the mercury and grabbed her hand before running away. She was barely able to keep up, just going with the flow at this point. "Can you stand here for a moment?" he asked her before letting go and turning to face the others. "If you want to go any further, fight me, ka ka!"

"Bring it on!" Fuegoleon and Nozel readied their Grimoires.

The poor, confused girl stood there, frozen, as the chaos erupted around her. Is this all because of me?! Jeez... She sighed and looked down at the box she was carrying in her hand. At least I didn't drop this... although part of me wishes I did. I don't think I have the courage to give it to them, anyway...

Yami managed to sneak around the fight, running towards her and easily scooping her up with one arm. "Yami! Can you explain what's going on?" she asked as he started to run, unnoticed by the others.

"I'm rescuing you," he told her. "Hold on!"

It wasn't long before they reached the gates of the castle, not stopping until they were safe on the steps. They both sat down to catch their breaths. "Wow... Three Leaf day is pretty exciting, isn't it!" Despite everything that happened, she was laughing, something that amazed Yami. "I wonder what that was all about... I wish they had just told me what was going on instead of fighting!"

Yami cleared his throat. "Yeah... about that..." He gulped and turned towards her, holding out his box. "I... made something for you. Happy Three Leaf day."

Her eyes widened at the sight of the present. "Oh... Yami... you didn't have to."

She stripped off the wrapping to reveal a carefully carved wooden box. She opened it, gasping slightly. "Oh, Yami, these are beautiful!" The box was filled with hand-made fishing lures. "You made these yourself?"

He nodded, averting his eyes. "Yeah... it's an apology for that fishing fiasco last week."

"Fiasco? It was fun, Yami!" He tensed up when he felt her hand come and rest on his arm. Slowly, he looked down into her eyes, his heart clenching painfully once again. Those bright, optimistic eyes.

I don't want her... I need her...

"I was thinking... we should go fishing again sometime. I know a lot of good spots. I mean, only if you want..." He gulped. "And also... what are you going to give me in return?"

They stood there for a moment in tense silence, her eyes flickering slightly. She glanced down at the present she had prepared, resting at her feet.

... what should I do?

A light blush appeared on her cheeks as she looked back up at Yami. "I... I'll give you-"

Suddenly, there was a loud noise from behind them. They whirled around to see a very angry Nozel, Fuegoleon, and Jack running towards them. "Yami! You sneaky bastard! Step away!"

Yami groaned. "Really, right now?!" He pulled away and unsheathed his katana. "Over my dead body!"

He ran forward, charging up a powerful spell. The others were doing the same. A voice was yelling at him to stop, but he couldn't hear it.

All I have to do is surpass my limits... and then she's mine!

Just as he jumped towards the attackers, everything froze. ...huh? He couldn't move, he couldn't see, it was as if time was frozen...

A moment later, he was released, as were the others. They all collapsed into a big pile. "What on earth?!" They sat up, blinking and trying to get their bearings.

"Honestly... when they say pursue a woman, they don't mean you should literally pursue her."

The familiar voice came from the top of the stairs. The four men looked up to see none other than Julius walking down towards them, an annoyed look on his face. Uh oh... we're in trouble, aren't we? they thought all at once. Julius stopped, looking down at his scared advisor. "Are you alright?" His voice was softened a bit.

She nodded quickly. "I-I don't really know what's going on, but I'm terribly sorry, I think this might be my fault-"

"No, it isn't." Julius smiled before looking back down at his captains. "You four... I expected better. It seems to me that you all stopped thinking about her as as a person as soon as you learned that the others were after her as well... at that point, it just became a game, right? And she was the prize?"

Yami and the others glanced at each other sheepishly. It was true... they were all competitive people by nature, and they turned something wholesome into a raging battle. In the process, they reduced the girl into just an objective. Something to win... not something to love.

"...we're sorry," Fuegoleon said, bowing his head.

Julius chuckled. "Don't apologize to me!" He gestured at the girl next to him. "Go on."

The four of them bowed their heads. "Please forgive us."

She blinked slowly, everything finally making sense. "Oh... don't worry. I forgive you." She gave them a comforting smile. "Thank you all for being so nice to me... I hope we can become better friends in the future."

Hope. Friends. The words stung, but they deserved it.

"Now, I'm glad that's settled," Julius said. Yami frowned a little, picking up something strange from the older man's Ki. Wait... no... you have to be joking...

He looked back up to see Julius smiling, satisfied with himself. "I was willing to give you guys a chance, once I learned about your little competition. But it's obvious now that none of you are ready to be in that kind of relationship... the kind she deserves." Yami and the others watched with horror as he turned to look down at the girl, who looked confused again. "That present... that's for me, isn't it?"

Her eyes widened. "Huh? H-How did you know?! Uh, but yeah..." She quickly looked at her feet. "I wasn't sure if I was actually going to give it to you... I didn't know if it was right for me to ask for anything in return."

The sound of Julius's warm laugh made her look up again. "Oh, that's quite alright. You see... it didn't matter if you got me a gift or not. I was planning to give youlove either way."

...Is Julius really doing this in front of ALL OF US?! Yami thought to himself. It was actually kind of hilarious, and they probably should have seen this coming a mile away. After all, the person she spent the most time with, the person who gave her this life in the first place, was Julius. He had cast his line long before any of them even knew about her. How were they supposed to catch a fish that was already hooked?

"...Sir, are y-you sure?" She looked completely shocked at the revelation, yet a smile was starting to grow back on her face.

"Of course." She looked down and realized that they were holding hands. "It was hard for me to sit still, knowing that those guys were fighting hard, but something told me that it would end up with way." Julius's eyes twinkled a bit. "We should probably discuss this more in private. I- uh-" Even Julius was blushing a little now. "On the off-chance that you said yes... I prepared some food and wine in my room. So, would you like to-"

"Yes!"

Julius laughed a little at her eager response before looking back at the others. "Now, you four better go find something else to do for the night. Those presents are for her as well, right?"

Begrudgingly, still in disbelief that this was happening, Jack, Fuegoleon, and Nozel handed her their presents. She beamed down at them, obviously on the top of the world right now. "Thank you guys very much! As always... you have my undying faith and hope!"

"...thank you."

"Now, let's leave them, they need to think long and hard about what they've done." Julius started to pull her away, but a booming voice halted the pair. "Hold on, Julius!"

"Uh oh."

Marx was stomping his way over, looking furious. "You've been slacking off all day! This may be a heartwarming moment that everyone expected," Marx looks pointedly into the camera. "But what do you think you're doing here? You're going to go eat, get drunk, and then bump uglies, right?"

Julius winced a little. "Now, Marx, that doesn't sound too good when you put it like that-"

"Well, you're not doing any of that until that stack of paperwork is done!" Marx started to usher the two of them away. "And you..." he pointed at his coworker. "For distracting him... you're going to help him, alright?"

"What?! Actually, that doesn't sound so bad-"

"With me chaperoning."

"Awww."

Yami, Jack, Fuegoleon, and Nozel watched as the trio disappeared inside. "Well... I don't envy them." Time for a cigarette.

Fuegoleon sighed heavily. "I suppose... he's right, though. We didn't deserve her."

"...I hate to admit it, but even I messed this up," Nozel added.

"Ka ka... this was more trouble than it was worth," Jack snidely said.

"Wait! What-" They looked around to see Charlotte running up. She skidded to a stop at the sight of their faces. "Where is she?"

Yami let out a long breath. "None of us had a chance. Let's leave it at that."

Charlotte looked disappointed, glancing down at her present. "Well... if I can't give this to her..." She suddenly flushed pink, squeezing her eyes shut. "Here, Yami! I would rather give it to you than have it go to waste!" She held the present out to him.

Yami raised an eyebrow. "Hmm? I thought you hated me?"

"NO! I mean- er... you're a loyal comrade. I have no reason to not give you a gift."

"If you say so." Yami took the present. "What do ya want in return?"

Charlotte agonized over the decision for a few seconds. "...faith."

"Fine. I have faith in you as my comrade."

"Ka ka, Yami, you're the dumbest guy I know," Jack smirked, turning to walk away with the other two. "Come on... let's go get drunk and forget about this."

Yami nodded, quickly following. Charlotte was close behind.

And so ended another Three-Leaf day, more eventful than most years ended up being. Who knew that one person could cause so much trouble among the prestigious Magic Knight's captains? If nothing else, Yami had been taught a valuable lesson, even if Julius had to come cuck them all in order to teach them. Well, it didn't matter, anyway. Romance was the last thing on his mind now. Yami had a feeling he would have his hands full in a month... the Magic Knights Exam was coming up soon, after all.

As you can see, I have no self control. Oh well. We need more Julius content anyway lol

#black clover #writing #three leafed chaos #fuegoleon vermillion x reader #nozel silva x reader #yami sukehiro x reader #jack the ripper x reader #julius novachrono x reader #charlotte roselei x reader

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feedmecookiesnow · 4 years

Text

drink up, me hearties, yo ho

For @clintscoffeepot who prompted: “Coming at you with a challenge. I’m giving you four to choose between but I want at least two in the fic. Bonus points if you can fit all four. “At least we have this fire to keep us warm.” + “Scoot over. I wanna sit next to you.” + “You need to control your temper.” + “How do you get your skin to be so soft?””

Here you go, all four of them in a Pirates of the Caribbean AU, featuring Bucky as Jack Sparrow and Clint as Elizabeth. I regret nothing.

***

Clint hums softly to himself as he gathers more palm fronds. He has no idea if they’re decent at burning or not, but it’s at least something to put on a fire. He grabs a couple pieces of driftwood for good measure, then hauls it all back to the pile.

Once it’s somewhat arranged, he steps back and surveys the heap with a brief nod of satisfaction. “Good enough.”

He turns and looks out at the ocean, hoping against anything to see the white of a sail coming over the horizon. But there’s nothing to see except the setting sun.

They’ll find you, he assures himself. Steve’s probably got the whole fleet up in arms right now. Natasha won’t let him do anything less. They’ll find you.

“What are you doing?” asks a voice behind him, and he turns to see Captain Barnes dropping an enormous pile of wood onto the ground.

“Looking for a rescue,” Clint says irritably.

Barnes snorts. “No one’s coming to save you. Or me.” He waves an arm at the ocean. “This is it for us.”

“That’s not true,” Clint tells him. “Unlike you, I’ve got friends who will be looking for me. Quite fiercely, I might add. I’m a very important person.”

Barnes doesn’t say anything. Clint’s gaze drifts to his waist, and with a slight shock, he notes the pistol is back in Barnes’s belt.

“I hope you don’t plan on using that,” he says, pointing at it.

Barnes looks down and smirks. “My pistol, or my---”

“Pistol,” Clint says quickly, ignoring the remark even as he can feel his ears heat up. “They left you with only one shot, right?”

“That’s the tradition.”

“Well, you’re not going to use it, right?”

Barnes sighs. “Ask me again in a few weeks,” he says, and turns the other way.

Clint stares after him, then stumbles over the sand in pursuit. “Captain Barnes! We have to get off this island, immediately!”

“Don’t think I’m not already working on it,” Barnes says, walking into the trees. Clint follows him, unsure of what else to do.

They keep going, Barnes clearly looking for something. He counts palm trees, and takes oddly large steps, muttering something to himself as he does so. Finally, he stops at a pile of sand, using his hand to sweep it away. There’s a large iron ring underneath; he grabs and pulls at it.

“What is that? Is there a boat under there?”

Barnes grunts and pulls again, dragging up what appears to be a trapdoor. He drops it open and dusts off his hands, then looks inside. Clint watches as his face goes from hopeful to crestfallen in about two seconds flat.

He looks inside too, seeing nothing but a pit lined with dusty bottles, cobwebbed and ancient. They’re all full of some kind of amber liquid.

Clint doesn’t get it. “What? What’s wrong? How will this help us get off the island?”

“It won’t,” Barnes sighs, cracking open one of the bottles. He takes a swig of whatever’s inside, and makes a face somewhere between disgusted and intrigued. “It won’t, and so we won’t.”

“But...” Clint doesn’t know what to say. “But you were here before?”

Barnes shoves a couple of bottles at him. “I was.”

“You got off the island then, right?” Clint dismisses the sea turtle story for the fantasy it is. He’s spent enough time around Barnes to know that while there is something fantastical about him, using sea turtles as a raft is still an utterly ridiculous story. “How did you do it?”

Barnes grabs his own armful of bottles and hops back out, striding back towards the beach. Clint runs after him to keep up. “Captain Barnes!”

“Leave it,” Barnes growls at him. “Alright? Just leave it alone.”

“No, you have to tell me---”

Barnes turns quickly, dropping the bottles onto the sand. He pins Clint against the nearest palm tree, one hand against his chest, and other hand wrapped tightly around his upper arm. “Last time,” he hisses, eyes flaring with anger, “I was here a grand total of three days. Last time, the rumrunners who use the island as a cache came by, and I bartered passage off. But from the looks of that, they’ve been out of business for a long time, and so that won’t be happening again.”

Clint sucks in a breath, dropping his own bottles to push at Barnes. Barnes holds him there for a moment longer, then lets him go. Clint drops to the ground, one hand going to his arm. There’s going to be bruises. He can already feel them forming.

“We probably have your friend Rogers to thank for that,” Barnes adds, impassively watching Clint kneel at his feet. Then he picks up all the bottles and takes them back to the firewood.

Clint gathers himself after a moment and scurries after him, tripping over the loose sand. “So that’s it,” he finally gets out once Barnes is in earshot again. “That’s the secret grand adventure of the infamous James Barnes?” He glares at him. “You spent three days lying on the beach drinking rum?”

Barnes takes another swig of his bottle and offers him a lazy smile. “Welcome to the Caribbean, doll.”

Clint can hardly believe what he’s hearing. Joking. He’s got to be joking. But there’s something in the way he’s standing, and the resigned gaze that’s directed out to where they last saw the Black Pearl disappear that makes him think maybe not.

“Think of it this way,” Barnes says, taking another drink. “We’ve got shade trees, thank the Lord. We’ve got some food on the trees, thank the Lord again. And we’ve got rum, praise the Lord.” He raises the bottle in Clint’s direction. “We can stay alive a month, maybe more. Keep a weather eye open for passing ships, and our chances are fair.”

“A month?” Clint gapes at him. “Tony doesn’t have a month! We’ve got to do something!”

“You’re right,” Barnes agrees, and for a moment Clint thinks he’s going to be reasonable. But then he hoists the bottle in the air and adds, “Here’s luck to you, Tony Stark.” He takes a drink, meeting Clint’s furious gaze with a calm expression.

Then he sits heavily in the sand next to their pile. “Don’t think I’m happy about this, Clint. But I see no use in wailing and gnashing my teeth over something I can do nothing about.”

“Not when you can drink instead,” Clint says acidly.

Barnes shrugs and tosses him a bottle.

Clint catches it, turning it over in his hand. The sun is almost completely set, and it’s getting chilly now. A drink would help to warm him a bit---either that or it’ll make him go blind, there’s no way this stuff is any good, not after all these years---

Barnes is looking at him with a contemplative expression. After a moment, Clint makes a decision. He unseals the bottle and takes a drink, pulling a face at the truly nasty liquid inside. “Oh God,” he mutters, fighting the urge to vomit everywhere.

“Goes down easier the second time,” Barnes tells him, smirking as he takes his own drink.

Clint makes a face again, but tries another sip. Barnes is right, it does go down easier. It’s still awful, but not quite as bad.

“There you go,” Barnes says encouragingly. He sets his bottle down and gets to his feet. “Go on and sit, I’ll get the fire started.”

Clint parks himself on a nearby piece of driftwood and watches as Barnes kneels down by the palm fronds. He’s a scoundrel, Clint thinks, eyes drifting to the curve of his pants, and a good-for-nothing pirate, but I have to admit, he looks damn good in those---

As if on cue, Barnes raises his head to meet Clint’s gaze, a slight smirk playing across his mouth. Clint flushes and looks away, cursing the rum. That’s the only explanation for this.

Barnes gets the fire started, then comes back over to Clint. He drops to the sand, leaning against a palm tree. “Nice view,” he says with a knowing smile.

“Shut up,” Clint mutters, taking another drink. It’s the rum, it’s just the rum.

They sit in silence for awhile, watching the fire slowly burn its way through the wood and the leaves. For as awful as this situation is---being marooned on a desert island with a notorious pirate and little chance of rescue---Clint finds himself at ease. It might be the rum, sure, but after the stress and terror of the last few days, it’s also just nice to take a moment to breathe.

Barnes apparently feels the same way. He’s steadily working his way through the rum, a contented look on his face. His shirt is half open, revealing his chest, and there’s just a light dusting of hair that Clint finds oddly appealing---

Clint lets out a little groan and shakes his head like he’s trying to dislodge the thoughts from his mind. Stop thinking about him like that, Barton. Come on.

Barnes raises his eyebrow, then offers that same knowing smile. Clint is pretty sure his face is on fire, but it’s probably too difficult to see in the flickering firelight. Still, the way Barnes is looking at him...

Clint takes another drink. Maybe if he finishes the bottle, his brain will be drunk enough to think of something besides the long, lithe way Barnes is stretched out in the sand, one hand resting casually on his hip, one knee bent up---

“Christ,” Clint mutters out loud, and sets the rum down.

“Problem?” Barnes asks, his tone highly amused.

“No,” Clint says. “No problem.” He shivers from the wind.

“Are you cold?”

“No.” He shivers again.

Barnes sighs. “You’re cold,” he says. “Come sit over here.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not proper,” Clint tells him, trying and failing to sound like he cares about those kinds of things. He does, to some extent, but all of that also feels very far away right now. “You know I’m promised to Commodore Rogers.”

“Well,” Barnes says, hurling a stray bit of driftwood at the fire. “When he shows up, you’re more than welcome to sit by him. Until then, you’re cold, and it’s warmer over here.”

Clint scowls at him, but he’s right. His driftwood bench doesn’t offer much protection from the wind at all.

“Fine,” he sighs, getting up. He stumbles over to Barnes, the rum making him loose-limbed, and practically falls on top of him. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Barnes says, sounding very pleased.

Clint makes a face and rolls off him, arranging himself the proper distance away. He takes another swig of his rum. It doesn’t taste foul anymore, and he’s not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. “Still cold over here,” he mutters.

“At least we have the fire to keep us warm.”

“And the rum.”

“And the rum,” Barnes agrees. He turns to look at him, then focuses on the set of bruises. “These look new. Did I do this?”

“You need to control your temper,” Clint tells him as he tilts his head up. ”Seriously.”

Barnes nods, looking apologetic. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to.” He sighs, tilts his head back. “It’s just that that’s the second time I’ve had to watch Pierce sail away with my ship. It’s got me a bit on edge.”

“We’ll get it back,” Clint says.

“We?”

“Yeah.” He flops a hand over Barnes’s arm, thumbing over the faded tattoo of a bird. “You and me. Once we’re rescued. We’ll go get it back.”

“I don’t think your Commodore Rogers will be very pleased with that.”

“He’ll do it,” Clint says. “And if not, we’ll take his ship.”

Barnes bursts out laughing at that, shaking Clint a little bit as he gasps in air. “I’m a bad influence on you,” he says once he gets himself under control, wiping his eyes. “We’ve been spending too much time together.”

“Probably,” Clint agrees. He thumbs over the tattoo again. For whatever reason, Clint had expected Barnes’s skin to be rough and rugged under his fingertips. But other than the pirate brand, it’s surprisingly smooth and soft to the touch. “How do you do it?” he mutters, dragging his fingers up Barnes’s forearms.

“How do I do what?”

“How do you get your skin to be so soft?”

Barnes looks down at him, that fond smile playing over his face again. “Maybe we should stop with this,” he says, tugging the bottle away from Clint’s hand. “Just for now.”

“Give it back,” Clint says, swiping at it. “It’s mine.”

“Alright, doll.”

Clint feels like he should protest the informal nickname, but he likes it too much to really be angry. So he just takes another swallow, and shivers as the wind blows again. “Ugh,” he says. “Fine. Scoot over. I want to sit next to you.”

“You are sitting next to me.”

“More.” Clint moves closer, closing the short distance between them until he’s practically curled up on top of Barnes. It’s so not proper, he knows, but he doesn’t really care. He’s cold, and Barnes is warm. It’s just survival. And if it makes his heart beat a little faster, well...not like anyone but him can tell.

They’re quiet for awhile, listening to the crackle of the fire and the roar of the surf. Barnes’s arm is wrapped around him, and it feels very nice.

Clint raises his bottle to the light, squinting at it. It’s almost empty. “Drink up, me hearties, yo ho,” he mumbles, and finishes off the last of it.

“What was that?”

Clint grins and tosses the bottle aside. “Nothing.”

“Share,” Barnes says, grinning back at him. “Please.”

“It’s just a song I learned as a boy,” Clint says. “A song about pirates.”

Barnes snorts. “I know a lot of songs about pirates, but not one I’d ever teach a child. Let’s hear it.”

“It’s silly,” Clint says, blushing a little. “Back home, we didn’t know anything about pirates. They seemed so romantic, and daring---“ He blushes more, and Barnes’s grin gets a little more wicked.

“That was before I met one, of course,” Clint adds. “Now I know better.”

Barnes snorts. “I want to hear it,” he says. “An authentic pirate song. Have at it.”

“I need more to drink, first,” Clint says, and gets reluctantly to his feet. He trips his way over to their bottle collection and grabs another, taking a long swallow before turning to face Barnes again. He’s still leaning against the tree, but now he’s propped up on one elbow, and the firelight is reflecting off his skin---

You have a problem, Clint tells himself, but at least it’s a problem he’s somewhat enjoying, right?

“Well?” Barnes asks.

Clint clears his throat, suddenly a little self-conscious with the way Barnes is looking at him. “We pillage, we plunder, we rifle, we loot. Drink up, me hearties, yo ho.” He takes another drink, then carries on, his voice a little more sure. “We kidnap, and ravage, and don’t give a hoot. Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!”

Barnes looks absolutely delighted, and he stumbles to his own feet. “More,” he demands, swaying a little bit. “More, I want to hear the rest---”

So Clint teaches him the rest, and they have more rum, and somehow they end up arm in arm, screaming the song at the top of their lungs as they twirl around the massive bonfire. Clint keeps tripping over his feet, and Barnes catches him every time, hands steady despite the amount of rum he’s consumed.

Clint eventually ends up on his ass in the sand, grinning like a madman as Barnes grabs another bottle. “I love this song!” he announces, collapsing on the ground next to Clint. “When I get the Black Pearl back, I’m going to teach it to the whole crew, and we’ll sing it all the time!”

“You’ll be positively the most fearsome pirates to sail the Spanish Main,” Clint laughs, knocking his bottle against Barnes’s.

“Not just the Spanish Main, love,” Barnes says, and okay, Clint likes the sound of that word far too much. “The whole ocean...the whole world. Wherever we want to go, we go. That’s what a ship is, you know. Not just a keel and a hull, a deck and sails. That’s what a ship needs. But what a ship is...what the Black Pearl is...is freedom.”

Clint lays his head on Barnes’s shoulder. “It must be terrible,” he says quietly. “Being trapped on this island all over again.”

“Ah well...” Barnes takes a drink. “The company is better than last time. And the scenery has definitely improved.”

“Glad I could help,” Clint says, leaning over to pick up his own bottle. It’s empty, and he scowls at it before tossing it aside.

When he looks back, Barnes is eyeing him with an unreadable expression on his face. Or maybe not entirely unreadable, not with the way his gaze keeps drifting to Clint’s mouth, like he’d possibly like to kiss it.

He’s a pirate, Clint tells himself. He’s a pirate, and an absolute bastard, and you are supposed to be promised to someone else.

Barnes sits up a little and reaches out, wrapping a hand in Clint’s shirt. “Come here,” he says, and Clint goes, because what the hell else is he going to do? His resistance crumbled a long time ago, if it was ever even there in the first place. They’ve been heading towards this moment since Barnes pulled him out of the water at the fort.

Barnes tastes like rum, and smells like smoke and sweat, but it’s somehow the best kiss Clint’s ever had anyway. He lets those strong hands tug him a little more until he loses his balance and falls forward, breaking off the kiss with a surprised noise. Barnes grins and rolls them easily until Clint is flat on his back in the sand. “Don’t worry, doll,” he says, his mouth barely inches away. “I got you.”

“I know,” Clint says, and reaches up with uncoordinated hands, sliding his hands under Barnes’s shirt. “I know you do.”

He doesn’t know what’s coming tomorrow, or the next day, or if they’ll even get off this cursed island at all. But for now, at least, he’s happy to put those thoughts aside in favor of losing himself to this moment.

“Pirate’s life for me,” he mumbles, and hears a quiet huff of laughter.

“Drink up, me hearties, yo ho,” Barnes says back before capturing his mouth once more.

#winterhawk #cookiewrites #prompt fill #clint/bucky #pirates of the caribbean #au #marvel #fanfic

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ai-katsuu · 4 years

Text

Gwen meets the White Palace

this is on ao3 but i wanted to share this here cause this is probably one of the most relaxing, pleasing chapters I’ve written. There’s also a fourth wall break concerning the movie by one of the characters towards the end so stay tuned for that haha.

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Arthur took Gwen through the main gates of the White Palace. The journey back to the palace took awhile as it was a little past noon, therefore Arthur assumed everyone would be in their own rooms as lunch had just ended. He led her through the halls of the palace, it was quiet for sure, the sun shone through the glass windows, warming her face as she took it all in. Gwen admired the tall windows, large curtains, and decorated hallways of the palace. She thought how lovely it would be to live here.

Arthur had stopped at one of the large golden, white, double doors. He lifted the handle and poked his head inside before pulling it back in.

“Alright, there’s no one here,” he opened the door for her as he gestured for her to enter. Gwen was in awe at how big this room was, there were beautiful couches with pillows, extravagant tables, and lovely flowers all over the room. “This is the parlor, the others hang out here when they have free time. Either here or the triplets workshop,” he added.

“It’s beautiful…” Gwen walked around the room admiring the furniture. Arthur took note of this and smiled at her curiosity. He approached her and took her hand, leading her to one of the big chairs in the room.

He knelt down in front of her on one knee with his head dipped, “I have to ask for your patience, Milady. I must find my friend, Merlin, so that he could assist us. Would you mind waiting here for just a little longer?”

Gwen giggled at how serious he was being, to which Arthur smiled, successful with his little antics for her. “Of course not. And please, just call me Gwen.”

“As you wish, Gwen.” He stood up, “I’ll be back in just a moment.” and with that he left the parlor.

Gwen tried to stay put in the comfortable chair. She fiddled with her fingers, her hair, and the hem of her dress. She really did try to stay still but curiosity got the best for her and she explored the room. Hopping out of her seat she ran to the extravagant tea seat that was on the far end of the room. She admired the vases and the flowers they held in them, all decorated and made with the finest material.

“Whoever’s in charge here sure must know a lot about design.” she said to herself.

What attracted Gwen the most was the large bookshelf just beside the long table. She had never seen so many books in one grouping before. One of them which caught her eye. It had golden embroidery on the spine, and looked out of place. Gwen walked over and tiptoed to reach it, she wasn’t very tall for her age after all.

“I should...probably fix that…”

Click

Once she had reached the book she had accidentally pulled it down and heard a sharp sound.

“Huh..AHH!”

The floor where she had been standing had opened and she had fallen down, her screams echoing as the door closed itself back up. As she slid down screaming, she saw she was in a thin slide made out of stone. She wanted to feel sick as she got slight motion sickness. Up ahead was a small ray of light and Gwen screamed as she got closer to the light.

As soon as she had exited the slide, she fell down and tumbled onto a mattress. “Urghh…” she felt dizzy as she held her head, trying to straighten her vision again. She doubted it worked as when she looked up she saw three of the same faces staring at her.

“Ah!! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude!” she said looking back and forth at the three male faces, wondering if the motion sickness was still in her.

“Who’s this?” one of them asked.

“How did she find the slide?” the other looked at her curiously.

“Umm...I’m really sorry to enter your…” Gwen looked around and saw several tools that were hung on the walls. Weird contraptions she had never seen were scattered on tables, papers were on the floor, and packs of something called Dog Food were all stacked in one corner. “Your...room? But I’m looking for the parlor, could you tell me where it is?” she asked.

One of the boys looked as if he made a realization and nodded, “I’m Pino,”

“Noki.”

“Kio.”

Each of them raised their hand when they said their names. Pino continued, “You’re gonna want to go up these stairs here, go up another level, and enter the room to your right.” he pointed. Gwen nodded and stood up, dusting herself off.

“Thank you so much,” she curtsied, “My name is Gwen by the way,” she said.

“Pleasure, miss.” Kio nodded his head once smiling.

“Good day!” and she ran up the stairs. Once they had heard their door close, Noki turned to his brother,

“Why’d you give her the wrong directions?” but Pino merely laughed as he got back to his desk.

Gwen, a little embarrassed and determined not to make another mistake, scurried up the stairs with her hands to her chest. After she had gone to the second level, she had followed Pino’s instructions and took a right.

“Okay..this should be it.”

However when she opened the door, she saw two people standing in the middle of a bedroom, much much smaller than the parlor. They had seemed to be talking until Gwen entered and they fixed their gazes on her. The man and woman looked stunningly similar, both handsome and beautiful.

Gwen didn’t realize she was staring in awe until the woman smiled, “May we help you?”

She snapped out of her thoughts and responded, “I’m so sorry, I was trying to look for the parlor but Pino told me I had to go up a level and then the right-”

“You met Pino?” the women asked, a little surprised.

Gwen nodded, “Yeah, Noki and Kio too.”

“Oh,” the man smiled and rolled his eyes, “That makes sense. A lot of sense,”

The woman sighed and nodded, she gave Gwen a smile that made her feel comforted, almost like an older sister, “Go across the hall and take the bridge to the second wing from there. You should be able to find your way easily. I’m Gretel by the way.”

“Hans.” the man beside her said, “If you bump into Briar tell her I’m waiting for those cookies!”

Gwen nodded, “Oh, alright. Thank you kindly.” she curtsied once more and left the room.

“Shouldn’t you be baking those yourself?” Gretel turned to her brother, to which he smiled and shrugged,

“She’s taking lessons.”

Gwen followed Gretel’s instructions, trusting her a little more than Pino and made her way across the bridge. She was almost there until she heard voices coming from upstairs. Although she desperately wanted to get back to the parlor, her curiosity took over once more as she climbed the carpeted stairs. They led to a small door with a square glass pane window. Gwen tried to open it but it wouldn’t budge.

She tried budging it open with her body, repeatedly hitting it until it burst open and immediately the bright sunshine and vast winds hit her face. It was almost refreshing as she looked up and saw the blue sky. Judging by her surroundings, she concluded that this was the rooftop of the palace.

The wind was blowing on her backside so she had to keep her hair and hood in place. A couple of meters away was a large tower that had steps attached, going all the way up in a spiral. At the foot of the tower were two large umbrellas, underneath them were two beach benches where two individuals laid.

Gwen slowly approached them, the wind pushing her towards their direction until she got close enough. The woman closest to her removed her shades as she saw a shadow approaching and looked behind her,

“Oh! Jack, look we have guest!” she smiled. Gwen looked over to the woman's left, and the man with blond hair stood still lying down in the shade, as he had what appeared to be a similar face mask to the woman’s, as well as cucumber slices on his face. He merely hummed in acknowledgement as he refused to move his face.

From a distance, Gwen heard a voice and looked up. It had seemed to be coming from the tower. When she squinted she saw two individuals standing on a ledge at the top of the tower.

“You’ll be fine, you’re Peter Pan. Ain’t faith, trust, and pixie dust your thing?” a woman's voice said. She seemed to be tying a string of rope around the man’s ankles. The man, who she assumed to be Peter Pan rolled his eyes as he responded,

“There are two of those things I don’t have when it comes to you, and neither of them are Pixie dust. Audrey, are you sure this is safe? What did you say this was called again?”

Audrey stood up and walked behind him, “Bungee jumping, safe travels!” she said pushing him off the ledge. Peter screamed as he was thrown off the ledge, only to be stopped by the piece of rope that Audrey had tied,

“That..doesn’t look like it’s about to hold…” Gwen said worried.

And indeed it didn’t. The rope had snapped and Peter fell off the roof. Gwen had closed her eyes in fear but the woman had comforted her by patting her arm. “He’s fine don’t worry.” she smiled and gestured to the ledge of the roof where Peter flew up, holding the rope in annoyance.

“Quel que...if he dies one of these days I would not be surprised..” Jack mumbled. Gwen noticed an oddly shiny ring on his finger that was almost blinding.

“If you’re looking to go back down to rest, the parlor is just downstairs at the end of the hall.” the woman said. Gwen nodded, “Thank you, miss….?”

“Snow White,”

Gwen curtsied for the third time and ran off to the door again. As she made her way down the stairs something heavenly reached her nose. It made her search for the smell as she wandered around the halls. Just as she was about to give up, a woman turned the corner holding a delicious warm batch of cookies.

As she passed by Gwen, she smiled and greeted her. “Why, hello there. I’m on my way to deliver these cookies to my partner, would you like one?” she offered. Gwen, having not eaten anything since last night, nodded her head as she lowered the tray. The moment Gwen took a bite she felt as if she could melt right then and there

The woman noticed her expression and grinned, “Do you like it?” Gwen nodded furiously and swallowed it.

“They’re delicious! You must be Briar, am I right? Hans said you would be giving him cookies.”

The woman’s smile quickly disappeared into one of a frown and concern. “What? No, I’m Aurora. Who’s Briar? Is Hans cheating on me?” she inched closer to her.

Gwen widened her eyes and dread settled in her stomach. Had she said something she wasn’t supposed to? “Oh, um...I don’t know. I’m so sorry I didn’t-”

The woman quickly smiled and waved her free hand, “No, no, I am Briar. Briar Rose, sorry I thought that would be funny.” Gwen’s mouth turned into an ‘o’ shape.

Another laugh was heard from the corner of the halls as another woman with blonde scruffy hair came out, “I told you it would be funny!”

The woman holding the cookies had her frown remain. “I still don’t get how it’s funny. You’re strange, Goldie.”

Goldie and Briar had seemed to forget about Gwen as they carried on with their walk. Gwen was left standing there with half a cookie, deciding to finish it before walking. A few moments later rapid footsteps were heard, and Arthur slid out of the same corner, looking exhausted and tired.

“Gwen!” he said overwhelmed, “Where have you been?! I’ve been looking all over for you!” he walked towards her. Gwen swallowed the remainder of the cookie and responded,

“Well I did wait in the parlor for awhile but I pulled a book and then I fell down a slide then I met your friends and then-”

Arthur’s eyes widened at her statement, “Wait, wait, wait- you met my friends?!” he said frightened and he moved his hands in weird gestures. Gwen could only stare at him, and digest her cookie as she thought,

“Um…”

“Alright,” Arthur took a deep breath and put his hands together, “Who have you met, and what do you know?” Gwen took a deep breath.

“Okay, well. Pino, Noki, and Kio are all brothers. Pino is the partner Gretel who happens to be the twin sister of Hans, who is the partner of Briar. Snow White, who I assume to be the princess of the White Palace, is married to Merlin…” she paused, “What does Merlin look like?”

Arthur looked up as if in thought, “Sam Clafin. Not sure who that is but Audrey says so a lot.”

Gwen nodded, “Alright. Then Audrey is married to Jack, I assume he’s married because of their matching rings. That leaves Goldie and Peter with either Noki or Kio...Goldie with Kio and Peter with Noki?” she asked.

“Close, Goldie with Noki and Kio with Peter. And none of them did anything to you?” Gwen shook her head, “Well done.” he finally said with a satisfied smile. “Now let’s go get Merlin and sort this all out.”

#red shoes and the 7 dwarfs #red shoes and the seven dwarfs #red shoes movie #red shoes #rsat7d #red shoes ever after #rsatsd #red shoes arthur #red shoes merlin

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worryinglyinnocent · 4 years

Text

Fic: A Jungle Fairy Tale

AU-gust Day Thirty: Magic AU Fandom: Once Upon A Time/Lost Pairing: Rumpelstiltskin x Claire Littleton

Rated: T

Summary: The survivors of Oceanic 815 discover that they are not alone on the island, and that its native inhabitants are… odd, to say the least.

Note: I’m not quite sure how much this counts as a magic AU since OUAT is in its nature a magical canon universe and Lost certainly has some supernatural and fantasy elements. But this idea’s been floating around in my mind for a couple of years now, so I thought I might as well dust it off here.

A Jungle Fairy Tale

The survivors of Oceanic 815 first realised that they were definitely not alone on the island on their first night, listening to the roar of something pounding through the jungle and seeing the trees shaking. Luckily, whatever it was decided that it was going to go in the opposite direction to the beach, and they never got a glimpse of whatever strange creature could have caused so much noise and destruction.

They first met the other inhabitants of the island the following afternoon. Claire hadn’t realised that anything had happened until she heard a commotion at the treeline at the edge of the beach, and everyone racing over in that direction. Carrying the extra weight as she was, it took her a while longer than everyone else to get over there and see what all the fuss was about, and she was very tempted to just stay exactly where she was and let someone else report back. Still, from all the raised voices, it sounded like something important was happening, so she heaved herself off the sand and made her way across to the source of all the excitement.

She had to double take when she saw it.

There was a man sitting casually in the upper branches of one of the trees, calmly gazing down at the gathered survivors. At least, Claire had to assume that he was a man. His skin was a greenish grey colour with a slight sparkling sheen to it, as if he was coated in a layer of gold dust, and his eyes were wide and an unnaturally yellow-grey. He seemed completely at ease in the tree and not at all worried by the fact that Sayid was holding the axe he’d been using to chop firewood, and Sawyer was pointing the marshal’s gun at him. In fact, when he saw the gun, he just tutted, waggling one clawed finger at Sawyer.

“Honestly. Humans. Always the same since the dawn of time. You accidentally find somewhere new and immediately start pointing weapons at the locals.” He tsked again. “It’s really not a good first impression, dearie.”

“Who the hell are you?” Sawyer asked. His brow was furrowed as if he couldn’t quite believe the evidence of his own eyes, and it appeared to be a common sentiment among all the people gathered under the tree.

“Ah, names have power, dearie, but since it looks like we’re all going to have to get along until your rescue arrives, if it arrives, I will be charitable for now. You may call me Rumpelstiltskin. Welcome to my home. Please put the gun down or I may be forced to do something drastic, and believe me, I do not require firearms to do it.”

“Rumpelstiltskin?” Beside Claire, Shannon scoffed. “As in that little imp from the fairy tales who steals babies?”

Claire looked down at her belly, worried for the first time since she’d seen the strange man.

“I did not steal them!” Rumpelstiltskin leaned at little further out of the tree, ignoring Sayid and Sawyer, and pointed an accusatory finger at Shannon. He seemed more enraged about her comment than he had done about being threatened in the first place. “I received them in fair deals that mothers then cried foul on because they didn’t understand what they were getting into, so eager were they for the untold riches I could provide!”

Shannon threw her hands up in defence and took a couple of steps back. “Ok…”

“Sawyer, maybe you ought to put the gun down.” Jack, as ever the voice of reason, came forward to the front of the group.

“Are you crazy, Doc?” Sawyer jabbed a finger towards Rumpelstiltskin. “Because he definitely is!”

“I am.” Rumpelstiltskin nodded calmly. “Spend a few years here with only Mal for company and you’ll all be a little…” He swirled a finger next to his temple. “Which is why we need to get you off this island as soon as possible. Can’t have you going bananas. The only bananas we want here are the kind that grow in the trees.”

“How long have you been here?” Sayid had since put down the axe and was looking at Rumpelstiltskin with more curiosity than fear.

Rumpelstiltskin counted on his fingers, holding up three.

“Three years?”

“No.” He seemed a little offended by the suggestion. “Three centuries, dearie.”

“All right, we’ve got a crazy guy who looks like someone had an intimate encounter with a crocodile and who is apparently over three hundred years old.” Sawyer shook his head in disbelief. “I’m not the only one hearing this, right?”

There was a general murmur of consensus among the survivors and Sawyer finally lowered the gun.

“All right. I’ll play along. How do you propose we get off this island, then?”

“Well, if I knew how to get off, don’t you think I would have done it two-hundred and ninety-nine odd years ago?” Rumpelstiltskin gave Sawyer a butter-wouldn’t-melt smile. “Still, there’s what, fifty of you, and there’s only been me and Mal for so long, so I’m sure that fifty heads are better than two. Although, having seen some of you, I’m not so sure.”

“Hey!”

“Sawyer, leave it.” Jack stepped forward, unofficial spokesperson for the group. “Is there anyone else on the island?”

“Apart from me and Mal? I think there’s a man in a bunker somewhere, but he might have blown his brains out by now.”

“What about that thing in the jungle last night?” Kate asked. “It was loud enough; you must have heard it.”

“Oh, that’s Mal, no need to worry about her. She doesn’t realise how big she is sometimes.” Rumpelstiltskin waved the concern away airily.

“How big is she?”

“Well, she’s a dragon, dearie, so she’s rather large at times.”

“A dragon? Ok, that’s it, this is just ridiculous now.” Sawyer threw his hands up in defeat and left the group, taking with him a great deal of the tension. Although Rumpelstiltskin had seemed at ease before, he visibly relaxed now that Sawyer was gone.

“What do you mean, ‘rather large at times’?”

Claire couldn’t help thinking that Kate was focussing on the wrong things here, but since they’d already accepted the existence of Rumpelstiltskin, they might as well accept the existence of a dragon as well.

“She’s not in her dragon shape all the time, obviously.”

There was silence for a moment, until Rumpelstiltskin suddenly clapped his hands together, startling the gathered survivors.

“Well, that was a lovely introduction. You know me, I know you, welcome to the magical island where, yes, dragons do exist. Please think twice before pointing weapons in my direction and please don’t worry about Mal, she’s harmless. I’m sure our paths will cross again before you leave, please pick up all litter, please be aware that those little orange berries are extremely poisonous, and otherwise make yourselves at home but don’t abuse our hospitality.”

He raised one hand, about to snap his fingers, but then he paused, cocking his head on one side and staring straight at Claire. She took a step back under the force of his gaze, and Shannon and Kate stepped in closer to her protectively.

“Are you sure you should have been flying, dearie?” he asked softly. “You look about ready to drop.”

“I…” Claire put her hands on her belly. “The doctor said it was fine,” she said.

“Well, just keep him safe in there, all right?”

With that, he vanished in a fingersnap, as if he’d never been there at all, leaving the survivors all looking at each other, trying to work out if that had really just happened or if they’d all had a mass hallucination.

With impeccable timing, Claire felt a little kick against her palm, and she gasped.

“Claire? You ok, hun?”

She nodded. “He moved. First time since the crash.”

She didn’t know why she suddenly thought he was a boy. Maybe because Rumpelstiltskin had seemed so sure. All the same, he was now definitely a boy in her mind. She looked back up at the tree branch where Rumpelstiltskin had sat. She’d been unnerved when he’d taken a sudden interest in her, but she hadn’t been scared. He’d seemed genuinely concerned for her and the baby.

Claire shook herself and moved away with the dissipating crowd.

Only time would tell.

The next few days passed mostly without incident, and Claire was almost beginning to think that she had dreamed the encounter with Rumpelstiltskin, if it wasn’t for everyone casting wary glances at the tree line now and again.

It was night-time when she saw him again. Sayid and Jack were keeping watch by the bonfire, and Claire couldn’t sleep. Now that Baby had started moving again, it felt like he was moving all the time. Especially whenever she was trying to get some rest. There was no use in even attempting to sleep yet, so she sat up in her little tent, looking around.

He was standing under the tree they’d first seen him in, watching the camp. There was nothing nefarious in his gaze. If anything, it was protective, fatherly. She wondered if he’d kept watch over them before and they just hadn’t noticed.

Presently there was a little rustle in the trees, and someone joined him, a woman with the tips of horns peeping out of her mess of curly blonde hair. She must have been the mysterious Mal. At least they hadn’t had any dragon-related incidents since that first night.

Claire watched them for a few minutes, until Rumpelstiltskin looked straight at her and waved. She ducked back inside her tent in embarrassment, before curiosity overcame her and she stepped out, picking her way across the sand towards them.

“Hello again, dearie. How are you and the little one?”

Claire nodded. “All right. He’s keeping me up.”

Mal gave a soft laugh. “Yes, they do. It’s only going to get worse, I’m afraid.”

“Do you have children?”

“I had a daughter.” Mal sighed, and Claire decided that the past tense was enough not to press the point.

“Glad to hear you’re both doing well. Hopefully, you’ll be nice and safe and snug somewhere on terra firma when the time comes.”

“Yeah.” Claire sighed. She hadn’t wanted to resign herself to having the baby on the island yet, but the longer it took for rescue to find them, the more it seemed like she was going to have to do just that. “Hopefully.” She paused, the question that had been hanging at the back of her mind for the last few days now sitting on the tip of her tongue. “Why are you so concerned for me and the baby?” she asked. “I mean, I’m not going to accuse you of wanting to steal him, but…” She sighed. “Did you know I was going to give him up for adoption?”

Rumpelstiltskin shook his head. “I don’t know things. But I suspect them. I have a certain degree of foresight which gives me a certain degree of insight.” He gave a long, heavy sigh, and with that sigh, Claire could well believe that he was over three hundred years old, and the weight of all those centuries was bearing down on him now. “We don’t get new life on this island,” he said. “It’s part of the curse that brought us here. We’re static, and we’re very old. He’s something new.” He nodded towards her belly. “He’s a brand new soul, and as such we will do all we can to protect him.”

There was a fierceness in his words, and in that moment, Claire knew that he meant it, and that he and Mal, for all their strangeness, could be trusted. Whether he would help them off the island or not, she knew that they were at least safe with him.

“You should try and sleep,” Mal said. “You need as much as you can get, even if it’s only a catnap.”

Claire nodded and began to make her way back to her tent. Mal and Rumpelstiltskin were still there in the shadows when she glanced back over her shoulder.

“She’s too young for you.”

“Mal, I’m three hundred and fifty-two years old. Everyone is too young for me except you. And we established a couple of centuries ago that we’re good friends, but we definitely do not like each other in that way.”

“You know what I mean.”

They were watching Claire retreating down the beach.

Rumpelstiltskin sighed. “I know. But there’s something about her. She’s their heart, although they don’t know it yet. She’s special, Mal, surely you can see it too.”

“Rumpel, she’s a human who’s about to have a baby and who desperately needs to get off this island and you’re an Immortal who’s been banished here and can’t leave it. It’ll never work. But yes, I will admit that she is lovely. Inside and out.”

“Do you think you could… you know.”

Mal rolled her eyes but nonetheless acquiesced, bringing her hands up to her mouth. Her eyes flashed reptilian gold for a moment as she blew a puff of smoke into her palms, forming it into a ball. Rumpelstiltskin snapped his fingers, encasing the ball in a soft lilac glow.

“Don’t say I never do anything for you.”

“It’s not for me, Mal. It’s for Claire.”

Mal just raised an eyebrow and moved back into the trees away from the survivors’ camp. Rumpelstiltskin snapped his fingers, rematerialising outside Claire’s little tent. She startled when she saw him.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. This is from me and Mal.” He held out the lilac ball and Claire took it.

“It’s warm. Sorry, that’s stupid, of course you know it’s warm.”

“It’s dragon smoke,” he explained. “It’ll warm and cool as you need it to, and it should ease the pain and make you more comfortable. Like Mal said, you need your sleep.”

Gingerly, Claire put the ball behind her back, almost immediately giving a sigh of relief.

“Oh, that feels great. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome.”

He made to vanish away, but Claire’s voice stopped him.

“Wait, Rumpelstiltskin.”

“Yes, Claire?”

“Will you stay a while?”

“If you would like.”

Claire nodded, patting the blanket beside her, and Rumpelstiltskin sat down.

“No one really talks to me,” she said. “It’s like I’m this ticking time bomb waiting to go off. They’re all polite about it, but they’re all thinking the same thing. What happens when the baby’s on the outside?” She sighed. “You’re the only one who seems to see past that and look me in the eye. You’re not worried about what’ll happen when the baby’s here. You’re more concerned with making sure we’re both ok right now.”

Rumpelstiltskin shrugged. “It just makes sense, that’s all.”

They fell into silence for a while.

“Earlier, you said that you and Mal were under a curse that had brought you here.”

“Yes. I wasn’t quite sure you’d believe that.”

“Well, I’ve learned to believe in fairy tale characters and dragons over the last few days, so why not believe in magic and curses too? Hurley thinks he’s cursed, it’s not too far-fetched.”

“Yes, Mal and I are cursed. For my part it was the entirely wrongful baby-stealing reputation. Mal’s is roughly the same, although she did actually steal one; an eye for an eye to replace her own stolen child.” He sighed. “They always went to good homes. For every set of careless parents who dealt their child away to me without realising what they had done and trying to renege on a fair contract, there was another set of parents who would do anything to have a babe of their own – even make a deal with me. It all worked out very well for the little ones in the end, and even despite my current exile, I don’t regret any of it.”

“You just wanted the best for the children.”

Rumpelstiltskin nodded, and Claire smiled.

“Thank you for looking out for mine. Even though you knew I was going to give him up.”

“You were doing what was best for him. If you didn’t think that you would be able to care for him, then making a deal to give him up to someone who could was the right thing to do. That’s not something to be ashamed of. It shows more sense and maturity than most of the people I dealt with.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do now if I can’t get off the island. I never thought I’d actually be a mother.”

“You have more help than you know. Everyone will band together for you, as much as they might be avoiding you now. Responsibility, once it’s there, will change things. And you know that you can always call on me and Mal if you need us. We’ve lived here for so long and gone so mad that we really don’t want it to happen to anyone else, so we’ll do what we can to help.”

“Thank you.” She reached across, taking Rumpelstiltskin’s hand and squeezing. He startled for a moment before squeezing back tentatively.

“You know, I’m looking out for you, too,” he said eventually. “Not just the little one. You’re a remarkable person in your own right, you know.”

Claire looked away, her cheeks colouring in the firelight.

“Thank you.”

“I’ll leave you to get some rest now. But just call if you need me. Names have power, after all.”

Claire nodded.

“Rumpelstiltskin?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for everything.”

She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek before lying down again and readjusting the ball of smoke behind her back; within a minute she was sleeping peacefully.

Rumpelstiltskin vanished back to his home in the trees, touching the place on his cheek where Claire had kissed him. Let Mal be cynical. He wouldn’t have got this far and survived this long without hope, and he was going to keep that hope till the end.

The ball of dragon smoke was still just the right temperature when Claire woke, and she smiled, stowing it in her luggage for when she next needed it. She cast her mind back over the previous night, and her discussion with Rumpelstiltskin. As strange as it seemed to be developing feelings for the man, she couldn’t deny that the feelings were definitely developing. It would be strange, of course it would – she was human and he was whatever he was, and he was cursed to spend his eternity on this island whereas she was very much determined to get off it.

But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t have hope that maybe something more could come of their tentative friendship, after all.

#OUAT fanfiction #LOST fanfiction #Claire Littleton #Rumpelstiltskin #Claire/Rumpelstiltskin #AU-gust #Magic AU #Worry does AU-gust #Fic: A Jungle Fairy Tale

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saiilorstars · 4 years

Text

The Beginning of Everything

Ch. 26: The Cosmic Butterfly

// Story Masterlist //

Fandom: Doctor Who

Pairing: 10th Doctor x Female OC

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Chapter summary: The truth behind the Cosmic Butterfly comes to light and reveals that it's not the only creature created!

Since everyone was set to go find the Doctor, Rose thought it was high time she did the same. She closed the laptop and got up from her chair. She made a quick call to someone on her phone then turned to Donna and her family. "Right! I'm gonna find him."

"No, we're going to find them," Donna corrected her. "I'm coming with!"

"Donna…" Rose began to shake her head but Donna grabbed onto her arm.

"I'm coming with, blondie! Those are my friends out there too!"

"Donna, you can't go out there," Sylvia got up from the couch, along with Wilf.

"I have to, Mum!"

"You go, sweetheart," Wilf told Donna, just like before when she was leaving after the Sontarans. "You go and find them."

Donna smiled softly at her grandfather. She directed her eyes to Rose, leaving no room for further discussion on the matter. The two then disappeared in a flash of blue light.

~ 0 ~

Gabby whimpered when the TARDIS finally stopped. There would definitely be bruises around her body later on, if there even would be a 'later on'. With a groan, she used her elbows to sit up. "I'm getting really tired of landing like this."

Renata was the only one who had maintained her balance because she'd been the pilot this time. She sent an apologetic look at Gabby and the Doctor. "Sorry, I-I couldn't help myself. That was...that was Davros!"

"He's supposed to be dead…" the Doctor slowly pulled himself up to his feet, still shaken from seeing Davros again.

"I can't believe you actually tried saving him back in the war!?" Renata was still incredulous about the revelation. He actually went and tried saving Davros, of all people! She was naturally furious. "He should've died instead of everyone else! You shouldn't have ever tried to save him! That's stupid, even for you!"

The Doctor kept quiet on that bit. She had every right to be angry about that part but he was well aware that even now, seeing everything that had happened, he still didn't regret it.

Renata saw that clearly. She was not surprised. It was just so him. He was always the better one between them. "We're on Earth now, so let's just save it before Davros ruins it. Gabriella?"

"I'm up! I'm up!" the girl assured. "But please, someone, learn how to drive this box a little better!"

"C'mon!" Renata made the gesture for them to follow her, but the Doctor yanked her back by the sleeve of her blouse.

"What happened to 'check the environment'?" He threw her a look. She always reminded him of that, not that he listened to it but that was beside the point.

"Well, we're on Earth--" she pulled her arm out of his hold, "--and the Daleks have already invaded so safety is pretty much nonexistent. Now c'mon! We've got to find the others."

The trio emerged from the blue box into a solitary street. Gabby felt chills the way the street was upturned. There were cars parked haphazardly on the road, some actually overturned. Scattered rubbish filled their immediate area, but the worst part of it was the silence.

"Absolute silence," Renata whispered. She folded her arms tightly, feeling an unwavering breeze. She hated silence...it was like death.

"Sarah Jane said that they were taking the people. But what for?" The Doctor wished he could just skip the whole 'trying to figure things out' and go straight for the solution because if this is what one street looked like, he didn't want to see what the city was like right now.

"Daleks taking humans?" Renata moved around him, her hands rising as she explained what she thought was so obvious. "It's to hurt them, to kill them. Daleks don't just meddle with humans for fun. They want to kill them."

"Yes but what for?" The Doctor turned to face her. "The Daleks don't just pull planets and submerge them into darkness!"

"They're Daleks!" She exclaimed in his face. "They don't need a reason. We just need to stop them."

Neither of them noticed Gabby's terrified expression due to their thoughts. It was all so normal to them…

The Doctor could concede on Renata's point. "Well, it would be a lot easier if we had everyone with us."

Renata had lifted her shoulders to shrug when she caught something over his shoulder. She shuddered in a breath so faintly that no one caught it. "I think you've overlooked one good thing that came out of this, Doctor," her voice was unexpectedly soft that for a moment, the Doctor wondered if her health was taking a plunge again.

"Yeah, and what would that be?"

An honest, albeit small, smile came to Renata's face. "You'd get the chance to see an old friend." She raised a shaky finger to point at someone behind him.

The Doctor didn't comprehend what she meant but when he turned around to see what she was pointing at, he forgot all about it. It was Rose. Rose Tyler. She stood at the end of the street wearing the biggest smile anyone could ever have. Rose.

Donna had a good sense to move away from Rose and settle her gaze on the Time Lady pulling herself to the TARDIS instead. Donna couldn't even begin to understand how Renata must be feeling. She didn't appear mad, or even jealous, just really sad…

Rose took off, leaving a strong trail of wind behind her. Donna's hair even flipped over her shoulders! But Rose didn't care - she had the Doctor just feet away from her. The Doctor took off in the same force.

"I don't understand who's that," Gabby inched closer to Renata. She noticed the expression on Renata's face and wondered why the Time Lady was so sad.

Renata was about to shake her head and simply go back into the TARDIS, hoping that maybe being on Earth would allow them to search better, when she spotted something rolling in the street adjacent to theirs. Her blood went cold.

"Exterminate!"

"NOOO!" Renata screamed when the Dalek fired and shot the Doctor.

Rose skidded to a forced stop when the blinding blue light passed in front of her. By the time she opened her eyes, the Doctor was already on the ground. She dropped to his side and cradled his head while he convulsed in pain.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" Renata's voice, though still a scream, cracked in the end with her emotions. She ran towards the Dalek, ignoring Gabby's and Donna's collective yells for her to stop. Renata couldn't hear anything but a ringing in her ears and a rush of adrenaline under her skin.

Jack appeared only a few feet from Rose and the Doctor and, taking in the situation, he prepared to fire with his own huge gun...only to see Renata halfway there. "Renata, what are you doing!?"

"Exterminate!" went the Dalek again, shooting straight for the Time Lady.

Renata's face was ferocious and perhaps the new unlocked feeling was what brought out the energy that'd been swirling inside her, bubbling like a soup that wasn't quite ready. It exploded around into a radiating light - more powerful and blinding than the Dalek's laser - and blasted the Dalek into pieces.

"Ren!" Gabby called in terrible fear. When the golden energy died, it left Renata wobbly and in a few seconds she fell to her knees. Gabby ran for her, but Donna and Jack got to Renata first.

Renata's face was pale and her cheeks seemed a bit hollow. "I-I don't know...I don't know where that came from...I dooooon…" her words slurred together until she couldn't form a proper word anymore.

"C'mon, up you go!" Jack pulled her up to her feet but had to do most of the supporting. "Don't tell me you're going to regenerate too…"

"Regen...regenerate!" Renata sniffed in and looked both ways before finding the Doctor on the ground. "N-no! Get...get hiiii...him!" She tried pushing Jack away but her arms actually felt like noodles. She'd heard Gabby use the expression once on herself after being unable to play volleyball at a space beach they visited. Noodle arms, how Renata had laughed at that.

Now she fully understood.

"Don't die. Oh my God, please don't die," Rose was teary-eyed and didn't really know what else to do except hold the Doctor.

"We need to get him to the TARDIS!" Jack called. "Now!"

Donna knew where she could better put her efforts into. She rushed to help Rose pick the Doctor up to his feet. "C'mon, spaceman, we gotta go."

"Renée" the Doctor hadn't seen much but he knew that Renata had expelled a lot of the energy they'd been watching. It was exactly what he'd been afraid of, that one day she would do something her body wasn't ready for and would pay the price with her life.

The group got back into the TARDIS and while Gabby and Jack tried to bring Renata to the Captain's chair, Renata shook her head and clung to the console instead. Her legs were buckling though and she kept breathing in as if she was holding her breath.

"Renata, are you going to regenerate?" Jack had to be straightforwards and ask her so that she wasn't so close to the Doctor who would definitely be doing the thing.

"N-noooo…" Renata lost breath in that one word. She swallowed hard and took in another deep breath. "Jusssst….just too...lots of ener…" For now, her body was just growing tired.

"Lots of energy, got it," Jack backtracked from her cautiously, though pointed Gabby to keep an eye on her. "Doc! How we doing!?"

The Doctor's answer came in a groan. He was laying on the floor, convulsing and feeling more layers of pain. He knew what was coming, but he didn't want it. He really didn't want it.

"Got it. Rose, get back!"

Rose wouldn't budge. She shook her head - how could she leave him again?

"Rose!" Jack's voice hardened with urgency. "You know what happens next! We can't be near him! Donna?"

Donna looked between Jack and Renata, the latter already teary-eyed but stuck in her spot. She sighed and looked down at the Doctor. "You got this, spaceman. Good luck." She offered him her best, encouraging smile then scrambled up to her feet to join Renata and Gabby.

"ROSE!"

Rose sniffed and briefly glanced at the frantic Jack. "But he can't... not now, I came all this way…"

The Doctor turned halfway to the side and raised his hand. It was beginning to glow orange. "It's starting…" The orange light spread to his body in a few seconds.

"Doctor, I'm so...sor...sorry," Renata tried to get close to him by using the console as a support but nearly slipped on one occasion. Despite his pain, he still found a moment to shoot her a soft smile, as if telling her that things would be okay.

She couldn't return the favor. All she knew was that he was about to die and they had resolved nothing. And what was worst, she couldn't even be near him.

"Okay, Rose, dammit!" Jack had enough and went ahead to grab Rose himself and pry her away from the Doctor. "Here we go! Good luck, Doctor!"

"Ren, c'mon," Gabby gently pulled Renata farther from the Doctor as well. Donna came to their side and keep Renata steady.

The Doctor managed to pull himself up on his own but had to use the console as support for a moment. He wanted to say something, to look at his friends, look at…

"I'm sorry, it's too late. I'm regenerating," he felt the energy take him over, forcing his head backwards and his arms to his sides. His explosion of regeneration energy blinded the entire group.

Renata could hear the stream of energy but it all seemed to fade to be replaced by a fluttering noise, like wings. In her distraction she almost missed when the Doctor suddenly redirected his regenerative energy into the jar under the console where his severed hand was. And just like that, he stumbled out of the chaos with his same face.

"Now then…" he took in a deep breath and turned to the stunned group watching his every movement. "Where were we?" his grin wasn't enough to pull the group from their trance.

"H-how…?" Renata was the first one to speak, but in doing so she reminded the Doctor that while he had moved on she was still fighting for her life.

"Renée!" His fond nickname of hers just slipped through his lips. He rushed towards her, arms enveloping around her to keep her steady. "I told you not to use that energy!"

"How the...you jusssst….you…" Renata desperately tried to gesture the fact he'd completely cheated the regeneration system. "You break...every ruuuule known to...known to ma…"

"I get the jist, now please take a seat," the Doctor brought her to the Captain's chair and was mindful of her (still) wobbly legs.

Rose watched the gentle movements between the two and couldn't, for the life of her, figure out how this version of Renata could actually travel with the Doctor. Could she truly be that kind like Donna had promised? Well she did destroy a Dalek, the Dalek that nearly killed the Doctor. That did count for something.

"What was that energy?" Jack had to ask because it definitely had not looked like regeneration energy.

Renata blinked slowly, languidly, and turned her head at Jack. "Do you...do you hear a-a flut-fluterring? I hear fluttering…"

Gabby said nothing but her eyes had darted around the room when she thought she heard a faint snippet of that fluttering. That had to be wrong.

"It's an illness and what Renata just did made it worse," the Doctor shook his head as he straightened up. "It's - well, I don't really know what type of energy it is but it's contaminating her the more she uses it. And she just blew the bloody top off a Dalek for my sake!"

"Yeah, but that Dalek nearly killed you," Rose said, speaking for the first time since their almost reunification outside. "Counts, doesn't it?"

He looked at her not with the same fondness from before, but a more earnest, unhesitating expression. "No."

She blinked in surprise. How could he say that? It was his life on the line!

"Renata could die because of this. I would rather die before she dies for me." His words continued to strike her with shock...and perhaps with a bit of a heartbreak. The way he said it, like he regarded Renata as someone important, maybe more important than a regular companion.

"How-how can we help her?" Jack quickly put himself upfront to do whatever was needed.

"You can start…" Renata began, trying to force herself to stand, "By acting…" her breathing was still short and heavy, "...like I'm stilllll...here. You--" she pointed a finger at the Doctor, "--just wasted...one whole regen...regeneration!"

The Doctor winced. "Yes, but...I have a good reason." Renata raised an eyebrow, asking what he could possibly think was a good enough reason to waste an entire life. "I…" he straightened his tie and grinned, "...quite like my face. Look at me, why would I to change?"

Renata's two hands shook as she rose them just a bit, her fingers curling to air-strangle him. "I...you...you wasted…" she took in another breath, "...whole life for...for…"

"It's best not to even bark up that tree, Ren," Donna couldn't help her smile of amusement. "He's too self-centered."

"Oi," the Doctor straightened himself. "Now you, Renée, sit down!"

"Your hand!" The Time Lady gestured at the severed hand now glowing and bubbling like crazy. "Whole life wasted!"

"But worth it," the Doctor continued to grin. "Lucky for me that my hand was here to send off all that excess energy to, huh?"

Renata's laugh was a small one, but she knew that there was no convincing him that he'd made a wrong choice. On some part, she was a bit jealous of him. He truly loved his life that much. He must be truly happy where he is. She couldn't remember ever living a previous life with that type of feeling.

"So...you're still you, then?" Rose's soft question turned the Doctor towards her. "You're not...you're not going to change?"

"Uh, no...hopefully not," the Doctor smiled at her. "I'm still me."

Rose's face broke into a smile. She hurried up to him for a big hug. He gladly accepted it and took just one brief moment to really process the fact she'd been able to come back.

"You can hug me if you want," Donna bobbed her head at Jack. Gabby's face was comical as she left to be by Renata instead. Jack just laughed, but Donna was in no joking mood. "No, really, you can hug me."

"Can I hug you?" Gabby asked Renata since that was the vibe of the room. Renata chuckled lightly. Gabby turned her head for a moment, eyes lingering on the severed hand. She watched it glow and bubble, the bubbles going big at one point and then so small in the next…

"Gabriella?" Renata noticed the girl had slipped off into a trance.

Gabby blinked away from the jar and seemed confused as she smiled. "Sorry...I thought I just heard…"

Renata watched the girl sort her thoughts with struggle. Rose overheard and when she pulled away from the Doctor, her concerned - yet fearful - expression was not missed by Renata.

"Never mind," Gabby smiled it away, waving her hands that it wasn't important.

Still, Rose didn't look so happy. Renata made her way to the blonde human, more steady now but still having to use the console for support. She ignored the Doctor's plead to get back in her seat.

"Is there...something you knoow...about this?" She asked Rose.

Rose flipped her head in Renata's direction, giving her a quick scan before shaking her head. "No."

Renata raised an eyebrow. "I know we...haven't met...but I'm not an idiot. What do you know?"

Rose kept her mouth shut but she now had the Doctor giving her more or less the same look as Renata. "I don't...why are you looking at me like that?" She frowned at him. All of sudden he was following the Time Lady?

"Because if you know something about Gabby, I'd really appreciate if you told us. I don't feel like losing anyone else."

"I don't know," huffed Rose. "I just met versions of her that...that don't end so nicely, okay? And it starts with fluttering noises." She laid eyes on Renata, almost accusing the woman of something terrible she was yet to do.

Renata knew when she was being accused - previous lifetime gifts - and sighed. "So maybe I'm going to die. That's what the Ood said."

"No, absolutely not!" The Doctor snapped. He wasn't going to let that happen no matter what creature predicted it.

Renata closed her eyes for a brief moment before sighing again. Truthfully, she was too tired right now to argue about it so she just kept going. "He also mentioned something about butterflies, apart from the contamination."

"The Cosmic Butterfly?" Rose asked in a whisper, eyes already glinting with fear.

Renata recognized the look all too well. "You knew about this?"

Rose didn't like much the tone the Doctor was using on her, as if she was at fault for whatever was happening to Renata. "In another world that I crossed! It's those cosmic butterflies!" She turned to the Doctor, almost as if Renata had ceased to exist in that moment. "If she's been contaminated then there's nothing to do. She'll become dangerous, Doctor. She could hurt you!"

"Already done that without wings, I'm afraid," Renata whispered and turned away.

"No, Renée…" the Doctor tried going after her, an action that left Rose a bit shaken, when the TARDIS' power went were left in darkness.

"What's happened?" Gabby fearfully looked around the place.

"Ah, they've got us!" the Doctor turned to the console but saw little to do when everything was out. "Power's gone... some kind of chronon loop!"

The TARDIS gave another jolt, this time pushing everyone to one side.

"Where are they taking us!?" Donna shrieked after yet another tumultuous shake.

"There's a massive Dalek ship at the center of the planets. They're calling it the Crucible. Guess that's our destination," Jack explained. He shot Renata a concerned glance. The Crucible was not the place that would help her health at the moment.

"So these Daleks are at the center of the planets?" Gabby asked slowly to make sure she understood so far. She was choosing to ignore the constant stare from Rose who couldn't look more afraid of her too. It reminded her of the way River Song would look at her in the Library. What could she possibly do to either women - who both seemed more than capable of taking care of themselves - that could earn their fear? "And you said that these planets were like an engine," she turned to the Doctor. "But what for?"

The Doctor wished he had the answer but since Rose was now there, maybe she had it. "Rose! You've been in a parallel world, that world's running ahead of this universe - you've seen the future, what was it?"

Rose went grim. "It's the darkness."

"The stars were going out," Donna added and, realizing that none of them knew about her whole parallel world trip with Rose, she explained better. "I got a parallel universe created around me by some alien fortune teller at UNIT. Remember when you left me?" The Doctor winced at her sharpness and even more so at her glare. "Rose went to that world. It was terrible. You were dead and that caused this whole reaction chain. But I remember the stars were going out."

"One by one. We looked up at the sky and they were just dying," Rose said distantly. It was such a scary thing to watch in person, feeling that with each star that disappeared they were all one star closer to death. But then she gazed at the Doctor and the feeling went away, because she was there with him and he always knew how to save things. "So basically, we've been building this um... this travel machine, this... uh... Dimension Cannon, so I could... well, so I could…so I could come back! Anyway, suddenly, it started to work. And the dimensions started to collapse."

"And did you ever think that maybe it was the that device you built?" Renata didn't mean for her question to be an accusation. She thought it was a fairly logical thought if that was the real story.

Rose felt the accusation, though, and got defensive. "I didn't mean for that to happen!"

"Of course not," Renata's honest agreement made Rose pause for a moment. She studied the Time Lady for any clue of what game she was playing. "No human could know that. Parallel worlds are supposed to be sealed because of...well, what happened to our world, but you didn't know that. But let's think about it that way and see if we can build a solution from that, shall we?"

Rose's suspicion didn't fade completely, but she would go along if it meant putting a stop to the Daleks. "Right. Well, it wasn't just in our world - not just in yours either - but the whole of reality, even the Void was dead. Something is... destroying everything."

"In that parallel world...you said something about me," Donna said as the parts of that trip came back to her for a minute.

Rose nodded. "The Dimension Cannon could measure timelines, and it's... it's weird, Donna, but they all seem to converge on you."

Donna didn't know to laugh at that due to the situation. "But why me? I mean... what have I ever done? I'm a temp from Chiswick!"

The monitor came back to life with the location of where they were arriving at. The Doctor hurried over to see it first. "The Dalek Crucible. All aboard…"

Of course, they landed with a crash.

"Doctor! You will step forth or die!" they began to hear the Daleks on the other side.

The Doctor turned to face the doors, taking a few steps towards it. "We'll... we'll have to go out," he realized. "If we don't, they'll get in."

"You told me nothing could get through those doors!" Rose accused.

"He lies," Renata said just as Gabby was about to say the same as Rose. And like Rose, Gabby seemed like she was betrayed. "Sorry ladies... that's...how he operates when he wants to keep you safe and happy." As if agreeing with her, the Doctor looked over his shoulder at her with a smirk. She did know him very well and that was something neither of them could deny.

"You've got extrapolator shielding," Jack thought a second later.

The Doctor turned around completely to give them the news of how it was, even if it was pretty grim. "Last time we fought the Daleks, they were scavengers and hybrids and mad. But this is a fully fledged Dalek Empire... at the height of its power. Experts at fighting TARDISes, they can do anything." That was enough to solidify their situation. "Right now, that wooden door...is just wood."

Donna had listened to the first part but as the Doctor had gone off, a different noise started taking over her attention. It wasn't like a flutter, no matter what Gabby and Renata said, but more like a heartbeat. She just couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

"Okay, what about your Dimension Jump?" Jack asked Rose, not quite ready to give up completely.

"It needs another twenty minutes, and anyway, I'm not leaving."

The Doctor, following Jack's footsteps in believing in one last shot, asked the immortal man, "What about your teleport?"

"Went down with the power-loss."

"Okay," Renata rubbed circles against her temples. "So we don't have much of an option then. There's no way out so we might as well go out there and see what they want, right?"

"Right," the Doctor gave a firm nod of his head, though he might have been just as scared as anyone else right now. He'd never been this outmatched and the fact he had too many people be cared about with him made it all the more worse. Dying on his own was okay but dying with his friends - their much shorter lifespans - was not what he wanted to see. "All of us together... yeah."

"What are they going to do to us?" Gabby's question was a faint whisper. Renata saw the terrified girl and moved on over to give her a side hug. Her feet seemed to have reclaimed their balance and her cheeks were halfway to looking normal again. But once Gabby felt Renata's touch, she once again knew that the warmth was back and stronger than ever.

"Donna?" the Doctor called once he noticed the ginger had been staring into space. He presumed it was the crippling fear. Like Renata had done with Gabby, the Doctor went for Donna. Soon as he touched her, she snapped out of her trance. "I'm sorry, there's nothing else we can do."

"No, I know," she gave a quick nod.

"Ren, you're really warm again," Gabby said quietly but the others still overheard.

Renata tried playing it off with a small laugh. "I just expelled unknown, possibly toxic, energy. Minor side effect but I'm fine."

The Doctor watched her carefully, knowing she was lying. She did it so easily, so casually, that he wondered when was the last time she didn't have to hide something about herself? When was the last time she had the luxury to be who she was, to always say how she felt? He never thought about that. So far he'd been very focused on his anger for what she didn't tell him. He never stopped to think about the reasons she was accustomed to being so reclusive. The Assessor blackmailing her, threatening her, to choose their family. Her own family planting values that contradicted her hearts. She grew up that way. She never had a choice.

"I'm fine, Doctor, really," Renata presumed his long, silent stare was just concern.

"There's a fluttering noise…" Gabby trailed off beside her, eyes keen on finding out where the fluttering was coming from.

"Surrender, Doctor, and face your Dalek masters!" the Daleks commanded from the other side.

"Daleks," Rose had no idea how to feel about that so she just laughed nervously. "Ha!"

Jack sucked in a breath, mentally preparing himself for whatever was coming next. "Oh, God!" The one thing they could both agree on, however, was that somehow the Doctor would pull it off. He could save them and everyone.

Their unwavered confidence in the Doctor pulled a tiny smile from him. He gazed at everyone in the room. "It's been good, though, hasn't it? All of us... all of it... everything we did…" he specifically looked at Renata for the last part. It was surprising, considering their pending fallout, but he needed her to know that no matter what he never regretted meeting her again.

"It has," she agreed after a long minute of silence. Her only regret was her past choices, but never meeting him at all. "I'm just sorry that I wasn't the best I could be."

Rose's eyes flickered between the pair with a questionable look. There was a twist in her stomach, warning her that she was missing out on something big.

The Doctor took the lead towards the door, albeit a bit slower than usual. He carefully opened the door and slid out.

"Daleks reign supreme! All hail the Daleks!" the Supreme Dalek began the chant as soon as they spotted the Doctor.

Most of the group was out to see themselves at the center of an entire Dalek emporium, all of them collectively chanting their favorite phrase. "Daleks reign supreme! All hail the Daleks! Daleks reign supreme! All hail the Daleks!"

Renata felt like the air in her lungs had vanished. The last time she'd been surrounded by these many Daleks was the Time War, and that was too painful - too traumatizing - to bring back at a time like this. Her legs buckled again, making her bump into Jack's back. "S-sorry," she quickly said.

"What is going on with you, Ren? Apart from the obvious," Jack came to her aid and put one arm around her shoulders to help her walk. She was hot, literally. Her skin might as well be boiling.

The Doctor happened to look back and saw Renata struggling again. Plus, neither Gabby nor Donna had come out of the TARDIS yet. "Gabby? Donna?" he called to them. "It's no safer in there…"

Gabby was on her way out but she noticed Donna was staring at something, perhaps something no one else saw. "Donna? C'mon," she gently called to the woman.

Donna seemed to blink out of another trance. Like the fluttering, the heartbeats wouldn't stop. "Right…"

Gabby nodded and turned to leave, when the doors literally shut in her face. It actually hurt her nose a bit. Her brow furrowed in confusion and, frankly, a bit of anger. "HEY!" Donna rushed over to her side to bang on the door as well. They were not going to stay inside. If they were going to die then they wanted to do it with their friends.

"Doctor!" Donna roared with each bang she hit the door with.

The Doctor had already ran to the TARDIS to pry the doors open. Renata attempted to do the same but nearly fell from weakness if Jack hadn't tightened his hold around her.

"What's happened!?" Renata cried as she watched the Doctor pull the doors in vain. Gabby and Donna were collectively shouting to be freed, even accusing the Doctor of locking them away, but of course he hadn't done it.

"What did you do!?" the Doctor furiously turned to the Supreme Dalek.

"This is not of Dalek origin."

"Of course it's you!" Renata exclaimed. "Now open the doors!"

The Doctor didn't believe a word either. "Stop it! They're my friends. Now, open the door and let them out!"

"This is Time Lord treachery!" the Supreme declared, bringing the Doctor to a momentary pause.

"Me!?" he repeated, frankly incredulous. They didn't have an actual body but they had a stupid eye stalk to see. "The door just closed on its own!"

"Nevertheless: the TARDIS is a weapon and it will be destroyed." As soon as the Supreme Dalek declared it, a trapdoor opened up underneath the TARDIS and swallowed it whole.

Gabby and Donna both fell backwards on the floor with the harsh drop.

"NOOO!" Renata screamed just like before when the Doctor had been struck by a Dalek. She frantically pushed Jack away and tried running, only to fall with her wobbly legs. Golden energy sprang from her body, though, and hit the spot where the TARDIS had just been.

"Detain the Time Lady," the Supreme Dalek ordered.

"Stay back tin-boys," Jack aimed his gun at them. It might not do much but he wasn't going to let more people get taken.

"Now stop it!" the Doctor was enraged as he turned towards the nearing Daleks. He ran to Renata to help her stand but hissed when his hands touched her body. "You stay the hell away from her! And bring my friends back! Where are you taking them!?"

"The Crucible has a heart of Z-Neutrino Energy. The TARDIS will be deposited into the core."

Renata was lucid enough to understand the implication. She used the Doctor as a pillar to stand again and glared at the Supreme Dalek. "You've taken...the defeeeence...down!" She breathed hard but it would not stop her from attacking if she needed to. "You'll killll...them!"

~ 0 ~

Inside the TARDIS, Gabby and Donna cried for dear life. The fall - wherever they were heading - was picking up speed the longer they took. They each held to a rail and watched as the console lights spark and shoot fires as if they were cooking.

And maybe they were…

Gabby gripped her railing as hard as she could, bringing a white shade to her skin in the process, but if she was paying attention to her fingers she would see a light lavender glow. But she was too scared to do anything but scream and cry, and think about the fact she was going to die.

"The jar!" Donna was the first to see the jar with the Doctor's severed hand glowing like mad. It almost looked like it would finally tip over from all the shakes.

"Donna, don't!" Gabby reached for the ginger when she attempted to get to the console.

Donna had heard the heartbeat again and this time she was sure that it was coming from the console. She needed to know what it was. So, however way she could, she wobbled towards the console.

"Donna!" Gabby shrieked when one particular spark billowed a gray smoke over them. She let go of the rail and nearly fell over the other one. Her best bet was following Donna and be near the Captain's chair.

The two made it just before the TARDIS threw them flat on their stomachs.

Donna shook her head then raised it. Her eyes locked on the jar with a new sense of determination. It was calling to her, in heartbeats. She felt like she couldn't turn away anymore. It needed her.

"Am I crazy…" Gabby was squinting from the smoke, "...or do I hear fluttering -- Donna!" She'd caught Donna's arm just as the ginger had reached for the jar. As soon as Donna touched it, the regeneration energy in the jar wrapped around them until the entire jar shattered.

~ 0 ~

The TARDIS appeared on a screen for the group to see. It was being submerged into an oozy energy.

"The females and the TARDIS will perish together! Observe," the Supreme Dalek said. "The last children of Gallifrey is powerless."

Renata was destroyed - more than that but she wouldn't be able to describe it if anyone asked her - when she saw the screen. It was too much like watching her family burn all over again. She gripped the Doctor's arm around her, perhaps squeezing it too tight but he didn't notice. He couldn't feel.

He felt utterly powerless as he watched his friends practically burn to death. "Please. I'm begging you, I'll do anything! Put me in their place! You can do anything to me, I don't care, just get them out of there!"

But the Daleks said nothing.

Renata frantically looked between the screen and the empty spot behind them. That was Gabriella - Gabby - dying in there, the girl who'd been so curious about the world that she took the greatest risk of her life by coming into the TARDIS. It was Gabby, the first girl - the first human - to ever make Renata feel fondness towards them. Martha had done wonders but even after her, Renata was always weary of humans...even poor Donna got a taste of it before meeting Gabby.

Gabby had helped change Renata so much and the Time Lady had only realized it up until now. The intoxicated energy inside her was a result of her trying to keep Gabby safe. Never in her life did Renata ever dream of putting herself in danger for a human. Each person she'd met so far had slowly changed her - no one more than the Doctor - but Gabby was a really close second.

And now she was gone. Dead.

"You are connected to the TARDIS. Now, feel it die," the Supreme Dalek said to the Doctor.

~ 0 ~

The regeneration energy exploded and managed to throw Gabby across the room, her back hitting the rails. The golden energy around her had faded as a strong purple glow took over instead. Donna, however, seemed more immune to the regeneration energy. It merely left her to spread to the severed hand now twitching...spreading more...and more...until it formed the shape of a man.

And then suddenly the Doctor sprang up from the floor.

Donna gawked with a mouth fully open. "It's you!"

"Oh yes!"

Her eyes happened to lower and made her realize he wasn't wearing any clothes. "And you're naked!"

It didn't faze him whatsoever. "Oh yes!"

~ 0 ~

"Total TARDIS destruction in ten rels!" one of the Daleks announced. "Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five!"

~ 0 ~

Gabby slowly blinked awake from her spot and saw the new Doctor trying to reach for something on the console. She ignored the question of how it was possible, but she knew it wasn't the Doctor they knew. "Hey - you get away from there!" She lurched towards him, with a hand forwards and accidentally fired a jet of purple butterflies.

It didn't reach the Doctor in time, for he had pressed a specific button on the console, but it did go over Donna who shrieked in horror and tried swatting them away. Gabby brought her hands to her chest, eyes widened and flickering from side to side.

Had she just done that?

~ 0 ~

"Four! Three! Two! One!" the Dalek said just as the TARDIS faded from the energy.

It struck the Doctor more than he would've thought. He felt empty and yet there was an overwhelming fury that began to spread through him.

"The TARDIS has been destroyed. Now, tell me, Doctor... what do you feel?" the Supreme Dalek asked him. "Anger? Sorrow? Despair?"

"Yeah," the Doctor answered through gritted teeth.

Renata sniffed as it truly dawned on her that Gabby and Donna were gone. She started to scream with the same fury the Doctor was keeping inside, only her fury seemed to bring something else outside. Once again, the golden energy burst from her to strike whatever was in front of her. Jack and Rose had to dive in opposite directions and the Doctor had to let go of her before he was burned. Renata's sobs were painful enough to hear, but it seemed like each time she expelled energy it physically pained her. The only difference now was that there were a few (half) formed golden butterflies in the midst of the energy blasts.

"The cosmic butterfly," Rose whispered in true horror. It was Renata. "She's here."

Jack had no idea what Rose meant but he did see more Daleks coming for them - for Renata - and decided to act. He grabbed his gun on the side and fired. "Get away!"

"Exterminate!" the Supreme Dalek directly shot Jack.

"No!" Rose watched Jack fall to the ground. She was yet to learn about his new immortal abilities - the ones she herself granted him. She rushed over to his side, hoping that they'd gotten just a bit lucky and that he would still be alive. "Jack! Oh, my God. Oh, no…"

The Doctor didn't know whether to go to Rose and keep her away from the leering Daleks or Renata who was still crying and bursting with energy. The Time Lady helplessly cried but the Doctor no longer knew if her tears were for Gabby and Donna or for herself being in physical pain.

"Detain the Time Lady in the Vault, along with the Doctor and their companion," the Supreme Dalek commanded.

Renata could see her surroundings from the corners of her eyes and it looked a lot like Daleks. She groaned and put her best effort to standing up without hurting the Doctor and Rose.

"You need to stop," the Doctor hurried to catch her before she fell forwards.

"I-I can't," she swallowed hard, clearly in pain. "It's-it's just coming ou…" Her body lurched forwards again, onto him in the process. He understood she couldn't control it and it scared him that this was her end as well. If the toxins were in too deep then regeneration wouldn't be possible.

He didn't want to lose her twice.

~ 0 ~

The new Doctor had found himself a blue suit to wear and was making mends to the TARDIS to the best of his ability under the circumstances. "All repaired! Lovely. Shh! No-one knows we're here! Gotta keep quiet. Silent running, like on submarines when they can't even drop a spanner. Don't drop a spanner. I like blue, what do you think?"

Donna was completely awed by the fact there was a literal copy of the Doctor in front of them, but Gabby was a bit more angry.

"You tell me how the hell I conjured butterflies!" She pointed at him as if he was the reason for her new ability, and in pointing at him...she released more purple butterflies that he had to swat away from his face.

"Watch where you point that thing!" he said with a scrunched face.

"How is this possible!?" Gabby stomped her foot. "How are you possible!?"

"Maybe it's what Time Lords do," Donna said after some careful thinking. "Like they lop a bit off and grow another one? You're like worms!"

"No, no, no, no, no, I'm unique!" the Doctor said, sounding incredibly offended. "Never been another like me! Because all that regeneration energy went into the hand - look at my hand, I love that hand…" he wiggled his fingers but that didn't bring any amusement from either woman. "But then you touched it -- WHAM!" he screamed so loud that both women jumped.

"Stop that!" Gabby exclaimed.

"It was an instantaneous biological metacrisis. I grew... out of you," he said to Donna, not appearing to like the reality of things. "Still, could be worse."

Gabby exchanged a look with Donna and without having to tell her to do it, Gabby raised her finger and pointed it at the Doctor. A series of purple butterflies slapped his face.

"Stop that!" He cried.

"Then watch it, spaceman!" Donna snapped. She wasn't going to let some carbon copy tell her off.

"Oi! Watch it, Earth-girl!" the Doctor ended up using the same tone, surprising himself and the others in the process. "Oh!" he was even doing the same gaping mouth expression as Donna. "I sound like you! I sound all... all sort of, rough!"

"Oi!" Donna said, not sure if that was an insult or just something Doctor-y.

"Oi!" went the Doctor in the same exact tone.

"Oi!"

"Would you stop it!?" Gabby shouted at them both. "We need to get back to the Crucible and save the others!"

But as Gabby reminded them of the pending trouble, the Doctor had come to another realization. His hand was over his chest and there was a completely terrified expression on his face. "You are kidding me, no way. One heart...I've got one heart! This body... has got only one heart!"

That definitely got both Gabby and Donna to freeze. "What?" They even said together.

Donna wanted to verify for herself so she put her hand over his chest and felt the one heartbeat underneath. "You're human!"

"Oh, that's disgusting!" cried the man.

"Would you stop that!?" Gabby once more shouted at him. She was finding it hard to believe that this was truly another Doctor when he was being so incredibly rude towards their kind.

"I'm... part Time Lord, part human…" the Doctor scowled and looked at Donna. "Well, isn't that wizard?"

"I kept hearing that noise... that heartbeat," Donna said, beginning to feel like it was all his fault.

"Oh, that was me. My single heart," he said dismissively as he went back to the console. "'Cos I'm a- complicated event in time and space, must've rippled back. Converging on you."

"But why me?"

"Because you're special."

Donna got exasperated with the stupid answer. "Oh, I keep telling you: I'm not."

"Of course you are, Donna." Even Gabby was agreeing with him which just further irritated her.

"Oh…" the Doctor realized something after really studying Donna's shifting response, "You really don't believe that, do you? I can see, Donna... what you're thinking. All that attitude, all that lip, 'cos all this time... you think you're not worth it."

"Stop it," Donna spat and turned her head away from him and Gabby.

"Shouting at the world 'cos no-one's listening. Well... why should they?"

"Do you really think that about yourself, Donna?" Gabby softly asked. Donna wouldn't look at her but she didn't shake her head to deny it either. "Why? I think you're amazing."

"Oh," Donna scoffed. "Please. You're an artist -- you've got your whole life ahead of you and what have I done with mine? Waste it."

"You haven't wasted your life, Donna. It's been a bumpy ride but there's so much you can do."

"We were always heading for this," the Doctor mumbled in thought, getting both women to gaze at him. "You came to the TARDIS on your wedding day--"

"--I was kidnapped!" Donna said, for a moment sounding like Renata that she smiled for just one second.

"And you found me again," the Doctor went on, referring to the Adipose Industries event. "Even your grandad...and your car!" he was suddenly so excited. "Donna, your car! You parked your car right where the TARDIS was gonna land, that's not a coincidence at all! We've been blind! Something's been drawing us together for such a long time!"

"Stop spinning your crazy man," Gabby physically went ahead and stopped him from endlessly turning in his spot. "And explain yourself."

"You're talking like... destiny," Donna released a breath. "But there's no such thing... is there?"

"The Cosmic Butterfly is a well known destiny," the Doctor said and looked to Gabby who just blinked response.

"Come again?"

"Well it's what I know, what I heard," he said. "Cos see, the parallel worlds' walls have been crumbling for some time and a lot of these things echo into our world, bleed through it. And since I was a complicated event in the time lines, I heard things. You, Gabby, are the Cosmic Butterfly. You are another fixed point in time. You are…" he seemed to run out of breath just thinking about whatever the Cosmic Butterfly truly was, "You are something that...requires a lot of caution."

"Doctor, you're scaring me," Gabby took a few steps back and swallowed hard. "Rose said the same thing about a butterfly…but she thought it was Renata."

"No, it's you. You're the Cosmic Butterfly. Your finger!" He reached for her hand despite having to fight with her to take it. "Your hands! You're already beginning to express those powers! My regeneration energy kickstarted them! They've been dormant up until now. Sorry about that."

Gabby's head was spinning with thousands of questions but the main thing she wanted to know concerned Renata. For whatever that was happening to herself right now, she didn't feel weak like Renata was. The energy was just coming out of her like nothing. Clearly, it wasn't the same for Renata. "What about Ren? She's worse off than me."

"Because she's not like you," the Doctor said, visibly swallowing hard. Fear had etched across his face, his eyes widening slowly. "Word will travel about her. They have in other worlds. She's...something else, something more chaotic..."

"What do you mean?" Gabby felt her chest constrict. The prediction of death, that's all that came to mind.

"They called her...the Vortex Butterfly in the other worlds."

~ 0 ~

Down in the vault there were few noises, and the few were overpowered by the constant groans and cries of Renata. The Daleks had placed her, the Doctor and Rose in three separate 'prisons' in the Vault room - a spacious room - that looked more like spotlights. The Doctor was in-between Renata and Rose, but despite where they were and what was probably coming next, most of the Doctor's attention - if not all - was on his right.

Renata was sitting over her legs, her body leaning forwards as if she were throwing up, and couldn't stop groaning. Every part of her body ached. Because every few minutes her body would expel more golden energy that inflamed her entire prison - blinding anyone around her - and would then leave her in a more weakened state. And when she wasn't groaning, she cried, because of the pain...and because her friends were dead.

"Interesting child of Time," Davros' raspy voice honestly gave Rose the shivers. Perhaps it wasn't all that bad being trapped inside the prison if it meant keeping Davros from touching her. However, he seemed more focused on the Time Lady on their far right. "I assume this is the Cosmic Butterfly Dalek Caan mentioned."

The Doctor gritted his teeth so hard he actually felt the sting of pain through his jaw. "You leave her alone," he darkly warned.

"It is time we talked, Doctor, after so very long--"

"No, no, no, no, no. We're not doing the nostalgia tour. I want to know what's happening right here, right now, 'cos the Supreme Dalek said 'vault', yeah? As in, dungeon. Cellar. Prison. You're not in charge of the Daleks, are you? They've got you locked away down here in the basement, like, what, a servant? Slave? Court jester?"

"We have... an arrangement," Davros barely finished when Renata's loud, raspy laugh cut through the conversation.

She raised her head a bit, revealing her pale cheeks. "Forrrrgive mee…" she drew in a breath, "...for laughing….ha!" She groaned and clutched her stomach.

"You're the Dalek's pet!" the Doctor spat.

Davros turned his chair towards Rose, and in doing the blonde leaned back as if he would cross the prison. "So very full of fire, is he not? And to think, you crossed entire universes, striding parallel to parallel to find him again."

"Admirable," Renata once again cut in, surprising Rose (and perhaps the Doctor for a moment). Renata wished she could stand but she honestly couldn't even feel her legs anymore. "She's...been brave enough...to do what...some of us couldn't. He had toooo leave her...but sheee...she fought to come baaack…" She tried turning her head in Rose's direction in a way that would cause her the least throbbing. "Admirable. Brave."

For a moment, Rose's face softened at the woman. "I've met a lot of versions of you...but you're the only who's ever complimented me."

Renata smiled weakly. "Yeah, well...I'm not a nice person," she sniffed. "In fact...I'm a liar."

"Enough!" Davros snapped but Renata screamed and let the energy flame from her body.

"If I'm dying then I'm gonna say what I want!"

"Renata, save your energy," the Doctor turned to her desperately. "Please, no more talking, no more moving…"

"Ah, forget it Doctor," Renata swallowed hard and turned her body to face him and Rose instead of Davros. "For once...I want to be honest. And if this is really it...I want people to know that I-I did get better. I tried to."

"Don't-don't talk," the Doctor continued to plead but she had made her choice.

"Rose, you have to understand…" Renata shuddered a breath and placed a palm against the invisible barrier. She was going to try to stand. "I-I'm not, I've never been a good person but he--" she made a small nod towards the Doctor, "--he found something good in me. He tried helping me and I repaid him by breaking his hearts."

Rose didn't know why but she was clinging to Renata's every word. She could feel the woman's pain and regret, making her appear more human than any other version she'd met before.

"I-I made...all the wrong choices," Renata scrunched her face as she struggled to stand up.

"Renée, please," the Doctor whispered for her to stop but she just wouldn't.

"And when I-I realized that I...that I made the wrong choice, I didn't do anything about it. I let time pass me by, centuries, until I felt like I was just...floating through. But you, Rose, you were the opposite. Things pulled you apart...but you wouldn't take it - you did something about it. And now here you are. That...that is admirable. I respect you. I didn't before but...well, that's another thing the Doctor and everyone else on this planet has taught me."

Rose actually felt tears in her eyes. She didn't even know Renata enough to cry over something she said about her, but Rose couldn't help it. It was as if she could feel every last bit that Renata was harboring inside her hearts. "There were rumors about the Cosmic Butterfly that didn't make sense to me," Rose almost smiled at the irony. Some would say that the Cosmic Butterfly was a dangerous creature and yet others said it was known to be emphatic and even made it a two way street. Perhaps this is what Renata was doing unknowingly.

Renata was none the wiser. She had started something and she wanted to finish it before her body prevented her from. "You know what? Right now, I'm 756 years old and I realize that I don't think I've ever truly loved my lives. I've lived, almost had a child, but I was never really happy." She paused for a moment, head hanging low before concluding what she wanted to do. She'd managed to stand up but was leaning entirely against the prison's wall. She met the Doctor's gaze with a sad smile. "I confess that I, Renata, Reneé, might just want to die."

Now it was the Doctor's turn to get ready eyed. With their proper tools Renata couldn't follow the true customs of what a Time Lord did before dying. Her confession dial was non-existent and so she would do it verbally. She would confess the last of her secrets to him, to anyone who would listen.

"Please don't do it," his beg was frail but Renata just sniffed and smiled at him, assuring him things would be okay even when she had no idea if that was true.

"I confess that I made the wrong choice centuries ago because I was scared, because I was a coward. I confess that I never truly moved on. And I confess that meeting you again scared me to the bone because I was afraid of falling again. I was afraid of hurting you again. And I did it. And I am so sorry. I confess that I do love you, that I have never stopped, and that is not a regret."

The Doctor wished he could get to her in that moment and hold her. He didn't even think about their argument, much less his anger. She truly felt like she was dying and what was worse is that she wanted to die. She didn't want to live anymore. Her life was so unbearable that she would rather it end. He pounded a fist against the wall keeping him away from her, frustrated that he couldn't do any of the things he wanted.

Renata turned her head at Davros who'd been nothing but silent for the past minutes. Her expression had gone dark, a new emotion she had yet to display. "And I confess that if I'm truly dying, I am going to take down every last Dalek on this ship. You wanted a child of Time? You got the worst one." The flames of energy danced over her body until, once again, it was released and covered her prison from top to bottom.

"Interesting energy," Davros had to confess himself. "The same energy that Dalek Caan spoke of." He pressed a button on the control panel of his chair and revealed Dalek Caan himself planted on a platform in the room.

"She is the Vortex Butterfly," Dalek Caan said in a sing-song manner. Confusion spread across the Doctor's face but a more fearsome feeling took over Rose. She spared Renata a brief glance with widened eyes.

"That's not - that's…" the Doctor did the same and stared down at Renata. She'd crumpled to the floor again, groaning as new flames of energy prepared to burst. "That's the...vortex!" the Doctor almost smacked himself for being so blind. "Of course!"

"What is he talking about?" Rose asked him, eyes flickering from Renata to Dalek Caan.

"The golden energy is the Time Vortex but I couldn't know that because the toxins have mutated it with the Osiran energy. I completely forgot that the Osiran energy's main function is to heal and that's a huge contradiction to the levels of the Vortex inside Renata, not to mention the Block Transfer energy from Zhe's gallery. It's growing volatile the more it combines."

Rose hated to admit that in times like these, she still could find a moment to appreciate his rambling of light speed.

Renata began to cry again but the burst of energy overshadowed her voice. The Doctor turned to the woman, trying to keep his eyes on her despite the blinding light from her energy. "The Time Vortex, the Block Transfer energy, the Osiran energy...they've created something new. The Vortex Butterfly. The butterflies, Renée."

"The butterflies of death," Dalek Caan giggled, causing a deepened scowl to mark the Doctor's face.

"Shut up!" He snapped.

When the cortex energy dissipated once more, Renata slightly turned her head at him. Her eyes were red and teary from fatigue. She noticed the way Rose was now staring at her. "You-you about this, don't you?"

Seeing who she was talking to, the Doctor quickly turned to Rose, desperate for any information that could help Renata. "Rose? Please?"

Rose didn't want to say anything particularly bad considering Renata had just poured her hearts and feelings out to her just minutes before. It would be wrong but... keeping quiet would also be wrong. "I thought you were the Cosmic Butterfly. The Vortex Butterfly is a far more dangerous creature when it wants to be. I've met many versions of you and...and some of them were like Gabby. These big butterfly creatures...like hybrids."

For a minute, Renata panicked at the idea that perhaps death wasn't coming for her. A space mutation was creeping over instead. "So...so what's going to happen to me?"

"So cold and dark. Fire is coming... the endless flames…" Dalek Caan answered and this time it was Rose who shot it a glare.

"Shut up! I don't understand how you know all that, but--"

"Dalek Caan flew into the Time War, unprotected," Davros explained to her. "He saw Time. Its infinite complexity and majesty raging through his mind."

"And I saw everything," Dalek Caan agreed from the platform. "The Vortex Butterfly draws from the Time Vortex itself and can kill anything in its path. The Cosmic Butterfly can follow in the same path. I saw them and I saw all three of you here, and I know that the Doctor will be here, as witness, at the end of everything. The Doctor and his precious Children of Time! And one of them will die...!"

The Doctor could barely contain his rage, but in the end what was the point of containing it? "Was it you!? kill Donna and Gabby? Why did the TARDIS door close? Tell me!"

Davros was delighted by the sight. "Oh that's it! The end, the fire, the rage of a Time Lord who butchered millions. There he is. Why so shy? Show your companions... show them your true self." The Doctor did not look anywhere but the floor, uneasy. "Dalek Caan has promised me that, too.

"I have seen it. At the time of ending, the Doctor's soul will be revealed," Dalek Caan confirmed, but the Doctor wasn't having it from a ridiculous Dalek that couldn't even move anymore.

"What does that mean?"

"We will discover it together... our final journey," Davros promised. "Because the ending approaches. The testing begins."

"Testing of what?" the Doctor called when Davros turned away from them.

"The Reality Bomb." He brought up a screen for them to see exactly what he was talking about. "Behold... the apotheosis of my genius."

Down in a chamber were dozens of humans crowded into one spot like a herd. The Doctor dreaded what they were planning on doing with the innocent humans, but all he could do was watch.

~0~

"Now you tell me what this whole butterfly thing is all about!" Gabby was rounding on the new Doctor while he madly went around the console, trying to figure out what the Daleks were up to. "Or so help me-" but before she could finish her threat, the TARDIS shuddered and rocked the trio inside.

"It's the planets. The twenty-seven planets!" the Doctor realized once he caught sight of the monitor.

~0~

Renata had raised her head the necessary amount to see what was on the screen. Each stolen planet were bathed in a white glow.

"But that's Z-Neutrino Energy," the Doctor realized first. "Flattened by the alignment of the planets into a single stream - no!" he shouted once he figured out the plan. There were too many lives at stake and they had no care about it. "Davros. Davros, you can't! You can't! NO!"

The planets glowed stronger but inside the chamber the humans were beginning to dissolve into atoms. And just like that, the glows around the planet disappeared, but so had the humans entirely.

~0~

"What...what just happened?" Rose swallowed hard. She could see the Doctor's blind panic - almost feel it herself - and the satisfaction on Davros crusty face meant true horror.

"Electrical energy, Miss Tyler," Davros answered. "Every atom in existence is bound by an electrical field. The Reality Bomb cancels it out - structure falls apart. That test was focused on the prisoners alone. Full transmission will dissolve every form of matter."

"The stars are going out…" Rose quietly realized. It was what was killing the stars, but how could they do it in every world? She turned her head in Renata's direction, tears coming to her eyes. "It was me. You-you were right." Renata met the girl's gaze and, despite bearing no accusation, she confirmed it with silence. Rose felt like her lungs had run out of air once the load truly fell on her. She hadn't created any Reality Bomb, bit her traveling through parallel worlds had cracked the already weakened walls of the world's from the Battle of Canary Wharf. Each time she crossed to a different world, she gave the Daleks access to a new world of experiments. It was HER her fault.

"You couldn't have known," Renata exhaled as if she'd been holding her breath that whole time. "And besides, THEY they-" she narrowed her eyes at Davros, "-are the ones who created this. They stole 27 planets, turning them into one vast transmitter. And they blasted that wavelength…"

"Across the entire universe," Davros finished for her, eager to actually, as if he wanted everyone to know their amazing project. "Never stopping. Never faltering. Never fading. People and planets and stars will become dust. And the dust will become atoms and the atoms will become... nothing. And the wavelength will continue, breaking through the Rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade into every dimension, every parallel, every single corner of creation. This is my ultimate victory, Doctor! The destruction of reality itself!"

#ocappreciation #doctor who #10th doctor #10th doctor imagines #dw imagine #doctor who fics #10th doctor fics #doctor who imagines #dw fics #10th doctor imagine #oc: Renata Cartwright #fic: the beginning of everything

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