#and then i forget again whups

[filzmonster]

TAG GAME!

got tagged by @whatevsbla! Thank youuuuuu ♥

Rules: name your favourite movie, character, animal, drink, song, season, book, colour and hobby.

Movie: Titanic (I am a simple bisexual, I see young Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet and I go brrrrrrr)

Character: lmao. Gilbert from Pandora Hearts

Animal: I honestly cannot tell you what came first - my love of ravens or my love of dark, broody characters with a raven theme. Anyway, it's cats.

Drink: coffee if it's a hot drink, old fashioned if it's an alcoholic drink, apple juice + sprakling water if it's a soft drink.

Song: Ghosts That We Knew by Mumford & Sons

Season: Spring, because all my favourite flowers start to bloom in spring!

Book: A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab

Colour: That very specific shade of blue they used for water in Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Hobby: Running away from my problems!

I'm tagging @chekov-in-a-dress @thegodsareus @liminael @such-hella and honestly anyone who wants to do this! :)

[lurkinglurkerwholurks]

For the Batfam fic writing prompt post: Any characters + pushing through exhaustion?

The air felt too full, still reverberating with the vestiges of Tim's final shout. The ringing made his ears hurt, the sound already fading but the heat behind it remained.

Yelling had been less of a choice and more of a need, a way to vent off the pressure into a little explosion instead of one that would level city blocks. It was too much of everything—the case, the squabble over the comms with Dick, the knocked-over Coke can, the gritty sensation behind his eyelids. Bruce had just been the tipping point. Tim knew he probably hadn't meant to sound so... so Bruce about asking for an update. But Tim got prickly over perceived disapproval in the best of times, and this was not that.

Tim sucked in ragged, heaving breaths, not sure if he wanted to yell again, or cry, or turn his back on Bruce entirely and pretend this had never happened. Please, he just wanted Bruce to forget this had ever happened.

You yelled at Bruce. For asking a question. For checking in on a case he's working on. He's going to bench you, and you'll deserve it. You should have figured this out by now, you stupid—

Tim's shoulders had scrunched up to his ears of their own accord, a habit he thought he'd left behind in middle school. He was an adult now, practically, but he felt like a squabbling kid, mouthing off for no reason.

Bruce was staring at him, but not in horror or confusion. Anger? It had to be anger. Tim had snapped at him for asking a question. Bruce had to be angry. Dick had been angry. Maybe Bruce hated him.

"Tim," Bruce said slowly, and made Tim want to wince. This was it. He was going to get fired. Kicked out. Sent away forever and ever. "When did you sleep last?"

Tim blinked. That was irrelevant. But Bruce not yelling back was such a relief that he choked down the sob building in the back of his throat and tried to think.

"Uh," he said as he dug the heel of his hand into one scratchy eye. "Dunno. It's Thursday?"

Bruce's face had a way of changing without changing at all. Like, if Tim snapped a photo of a second ago and now, they would look exactly the same, with grooves scored into Bruce's forehead and around a mouth set into a flat line. But they were different, the one sort of settling somehow into the other, the rise and fall of a determination made.

"You're done for tonight," Bruce said, not an order so much as a statement of fact.

"No!" Tim protested even as Bruce reached out and flipped off the computer monitor. "Bruce, I have to, the case, I told Dick—"

He had told Dick he'd solve it, had all but bit Nightwing's head off for questioning how long it was taking him. Dick would hate him forever if he failed. Or maybe he already hated him forever, the snot-nosed idiot Robin wannabe who couldn't even crack the string of murders before the killer struck again, and this was Tim's one chance to make it right, and—

Tim whup!ed in surprise as Bruce lifted him off his feet with a grunt, too startled but to hold rigid like a fainting goat as he was hefted bridal style. The slight huff out Bruce's nose was his only concession to the slipped disc from last month but Tim remembered and it made the panic rise again in his chest.

"Bruce," Tim tried protesting again, but it was like trying to beg with one of Gotham's famed gargoyles. They really were eerily similar.

"Dick signed off hours ago, and you should have, too," Bruce said, and the even-toned rebuke made the corners of Tim's eyes prick with tears. "Jason and Damian are taking over for now."

Great, great, so he WAS the weak link, then, and everybody knew it.

Bruce carried him up through the house, not slowing or faltering. Tim was too concerned with pushing his luck or tweaking Bruce's back to struggle too much. Besides, just the act of being still, without his focus held captive by case files and police reports, had let exhaustion seep into his bones like acid, eroding the marrow into brittle, bitter strips. He hurt, he realized, in every joint from his cricked neck to clenched fingers to aching ankles. How long had he sat hunched in that chair?

Tim expected Bruce to put him down at every step, or, failing the sensible release, to set Tim down in his own room and leave. Instead, Bruce bypassed Tim's bed entirely and went to the hammock suspended in the corner. He sat crossways, the wide, interwoven body of the hammock stretched to support Bruce from his head to the back of his knees, and Tim still held against his chest.

Bruce breathed, a low and soft pushed between his lips, and closed his eyes.

"Bruce?" Tim whispered, unsure of what exactly was happening. Or, more pressingly, "I don't know what the weight limit on this thing is."

Bruce just grunted, appearing already halfway to sleep himself.

Tim's chest still felt full of hot, prickly static, but maybe the tears running down the back of his throat would drown it out soon enough.

"No one hates you," Bruce said, seemingly psychic until Tim remembered it was one of the fears he had shouted out in the echoing pit of the Cave. "You'll feel better after you sleep."

He wouldn't. He wouldn't feel better until the case was closed, until people stopped dying, until he was sure Dick didn't hate him, Bruce didn't hate him—

Bruce didn't seem like he hated him. Tim sniffed as Bruce's chest rose and fell beneath him in deep, steady breaths.

The calloused base of Bruce's thumb rubbed slow circles into Tim's temple. "Sleep," Bruce said.

This time, Tim did as he was told.

[fluttering-lillies]

Afterparty Chapter 5: All Together Now

Words: 3,736

Pairing: SunDash

Rating: T

Warnings: Talk of excessive drinking, mentions of sex

“Found it!” Rainbow called from the master bedroom. She was face down on the carpeted floor, stretching her hand under one of the charcoal gray end tables. She had no memory of her phone falling there, and no idea how it could have gotten there otherwise. Her pants had been several feet away when she’d picked them up that morning. It didn’t matter much now that she was securely snatching the phone from the floor. She just hoped it hadn’t been damaged in last night’s misadventures.

She flexed her muscles and twisted her body back up into a sitting position, phone in hand. Fluttershy’s name and picture still flashed on the screen, but Dash was more interested in looking for cracks. She turned the phone this way, then that, and finding none, hit the end call button.

She rose to her full height then, stepping out of the room, device held aloft triumphantly.

“Where was it?” Fluttershy asked from the bottom of the stairs. Applejack, large trash bag in hand, stopped to hear the answer too.

“Under the nightstand. Not sure how it ended up there, but it isn’t broken so,” she shrugged dismissively.

“Are ya gonna call Sunset?” Applejack asked.

Rainbow watched as Fluttershy rapidly shook her head, but it had already been asked and it wasn’t like Fluttershy was hiding her attempt at dissuasion. Still, Applejack rubbed at her neck with one hand and averted her eyes. “Whups. Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

Rainbow sighed. “Yeah I’m gonna call her, okay? Up here. So you girls can’t-'' her phone, still in hand, blasted out a couple guitar riffs. Each girl froze. Then their friend’s voice followed the electric notes. Power. Was all I desired. But all that grew inside me was a darkness I acquired.

Rainbow tilted her eyes down at the screen, blinking in disbelief as she looked at Sunset’s smiling bright face.

“Well? Pick it up, Dashie!” Fluttershy insisted.

“B-But… what do I say?”

“Say what we talked about! Tell her the truth! About what you want and how you’re feeling.” Fluttershy encouraged.

“But…”

“Girl, if you don’t pick up that damn phone then I will.” Applejack said flatly.

Rainbow hit the accept call button.

“Hey Rainbow.” They all heard Sunset say into the empty, silent air. Dash looked at Fluttershy, she waved her hands in a ‘go on’ sort of gesture.

“Rainbow Dash?” They all heard Sunset say again.

Rainbow scrambled to put the phone up to her ear. “Heyyy Sunset.” She rasped into the receiver.

“Phew. I’m glad you actually picked up.”

“You are?” Rainbow said without really thinking that question through.

“Of course I am Dash! I-“ Sunset stopped suddenly, almost as if she cut herself off from finishing that thought. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

“In person. If that’s alright.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah. Okay yeah.” Dash nodded along. That made sense. This wasn’t really an over the phone kind of conversation.

“Can you meet me at CHS?”

Rainbow frowned a little. She just expected Sunset to come back here. Then her eyes wandered to the bottom of the stairs. Fluttershy and Applejack were still looking at her curiously. At this point, Twilight had joined in too, looking slightly perplexed for a moment, before it dawned on her who Dash was probably talking to.

No, Sunset had the right idea.

“I’ll be there.” She said definitively. Then, after a pause. “When?”

“As soon as you can get here?”

Rainbow barely noticed the hesitant lilt in her voice. Instead, she walked back into the master bedroom and searched for her van keys. They hadn’t been in her pants either, but this time she luckily didn’t have to go scrounging for them. “Here? Are you already at CHS?” Rainbow asked as she swiped her keys off the nightstand and turned back toward the stairs.

“Yeah. I…” Sunset cut off again, a little bit longer of a pause this time. “It’s complicated. I’ll tell you about it when you get here, okay?”

“Okay. Heading over now.” Dash said as she took the stairs two at a time.

“Great.” Sunset said, and the relief in her voice made it clear that it really was. Dash smiled at that.

“Be there soon.” Then she hit the end call button and rushed past her friends and toward the door.

“Where're ya goin, Dash?” Applejack called after her.

She opened the door and called back as she slipped out of it. “School!” Before the door could close all the way behind her, she whipped around and caught it with her elbow. She wasn’t surprised to see AJ heading toward her. “No following. This is between me and her, okay?”

Applejack scowled, Fluttershy didn’t look super pleased either, but they both stopped and waved Dash out the door.

Satisfied, Rainbow rushed to her van and hopped in. Then, tingling with excitement and nerves, she twisted the key in the ignition, and sped off toward Sunset Shimmer.

—

Rainbow Dash saw the gleaming marble base of the destroyed statue first. Then she caught sight of Sunset, leaning against it and shining just as beautifully. She nearly planted her face into the wheel at that thought. That lame, lame thought. Instead of cringing into her bones, she focused on spinning the steering wheel, parking in one swift, fluid motion. Now still, she pushed away the gooey, mushy nonsense thoughts that had caught her off guard when she’d seen Sunset again and shored up her confidence and cool.

There was no need to be intimidated or scared. She was Rainbow goddamn Dash after all. She just needed to make things clear and be direct. Chicks were into that sort of honest, confident approach, or the ones she’d flirted with in the past had been anyway.

One more centering breath and she stepped out of the van, the sound of the door slamming closed drew Sunset’s attention and ocean blue eyes. She smiled when they landed on Dash, and Rainbow felt something reverberate in her chest. Not painful like before, when Sunset had left, but deep and resonant, like a bass note on a blaring concert’s dance floor. “S-Sunset! Hey!”

“Dash. Good to see you.” She said as she pressed away from the statue into a proper standing position. Sunset’s grin was infectious, and she found herself matching it without thinking. Rainbow walked toward her, intending to give her a friendly greeting hug, but on the way she remembered why she was here, what had happened earlier today. So she stopped a good foot or so away, putting her hands in her pockets. Sunset stopped too, and they both stood there silently. Rainbow rocked back and forth on her feet. Sunset rubbed at her arm.

Confidence. She reminded herself. “Sooo… you wanted to talk.” She offered. It wasn’t the best start, but at least she was taking the lead. At least it wasn’t just awkwardly silent.

“Yeah…” Sunset responded, still rubbing at her arm, still taking her time. “About last night.”

All of Rainbow’s senses focused in on Sunset and only Sunset. This is what she wanted: answers, or at the very least a look into what Sunset was thinking.

“I think I’d like to… try that again?” Sunset was still smiling, and a blush crept onto her face.

The bass resonated through her chest again, down her body, and pleasant, happy warmth followed the chord. She almost giggled. Almost. But really what had she expected? She was the Rainbow Dash. Star athlete, rockstar, and all around total babe. Who wouldn’t want another chance with her? She smirked. The confident approach had already paid off, so it only made sense to push it. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised.” She hooked her thumbs into the loops of her jeans and leaned forward a little. “I mean. Few women can resist my charms.”

Sunset, instead of stammering or blushing more, snorted and rolled her eyes. “Really now?” She said with an amused, crooked smile. Ah. It was a game. She was playing hard to get.

“Really.” Dash said as she took a step forward, closing the distance between the two of them. “I mean I’ve got girls lining up around the block to get in my bed, Sunset. You’re one of the lucky few to actually manage it though. Even luckier that I’d wanna do it again.”

Sunset’s smile fell and now she just looked… confused. “Was that a compliment?”

Dash felt like she might have misstepped somehow, but it was fine. Sunset had left a perfect opening for her to correct it. “Well. Duh. Sunset you’re a total babe. Like, smoking hot. Of course I’d wanna roll around in the sheets with you again.” She had finally closed the distance enough to touch Sunset, and chose to walk her slender digits up Sunset’s arm as she spoke.

Rainbow got another smile, but it wasn’t as brilliant this time, not as bright. “So… is this a friends with benefits sorta deal then? Is that… is that what you want?” Sunset asked.

Rainbow paused, realizing she only had a blank spot in her mind where the answer to that question should be. She had wanted answers, she had wanted another kiss, and… she hadn’t thought much farther ahead than that. She honestly hadn’t expected to get this far. To push for anything more than she was getting seemed dangerous, seemed stupid. Sunset saying yes to them kissing, and touching, and pressing their warmth together was already so fucking awesome. No. No, Rainbow wasn’t going to be greedy about this. “That’s... yeah. I mean. Sounds good to me. If it sounds good to you.”

“Oh uh… yeah! Totally. If that’s… I mean. Yeah.” Sunset was still smiling, but it wasn’t reaching her eyes. They weren’t gleaming like the marble anymore. “But uh… not right now? If that’s cool. I mean. I still stink from last night and I’m assuming you haven’t showered either so…”

“Yeah no totally. I’ve been at Pinks’ all morning so. Need to get back home and stuff.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

There was more silence, and this time Rainbow didn’t know how to fill it, didn’t know what to say. Sunset finally did instead.

“Maybe… next weekend though? We can… I mean without all the alcohol and stuff.” Sunset moved her arm forward, like a small, unsure offering. Then she dropped it just as quickly.

“Right. Yeah. Totally.” That definitely sounded good. Nothing muffling the experience, just Sunset’s body against hers, their heat exchanging. It sounded hot. It looked hot, when she glanced at Sunset and imagined her bare curves and soft, smooth skin that hid beneath her leather jacket and t-shirt. But…

But then Sunset started to walk away. She didn’t say bye, just sort of waved weakly, and Rainbow saw her heading toward her stylish, sleek motorcycle. She didn’t know why, but she’d expected some kind of kiss: either soft, slow, and romantic or heated, passionate, and frantic. Instead, Rainbow got a half wave.

The deep base faded from her body and was replaced with some sort of whimpering pain. It hurt to realize, she still wanted Sunset, even though she already had her. The half measure wasn’t enough.

What do you want…?

Fluttershy had asked her that, and at the time Rainbow thought she knew. She wanted whatever Sunset wanted, whatever would make her friend happiest, she just wanted the answers on how she could make that happen. Asking for more felt like it led to a road of a strained, then broken friendship. It felt like a betrayal, just one that took place in slow motion, and Rainbow Dash would never do that to a friend. Watching Sunset walk away felt so wrong though. She could feel that invisible awkward distance she’d feared spreading between them, pushing them apart like an unstoppable force.

“Sunset! Wait!” She’d been steps away from her bike and Rainbow had panicked. She had no plan of action, no big speech prepared, she just didn’t want Sunset to ride off, to spread that distance impossibly, insurmountably wide.

Tell her the truth! About what you want and how you’re feeling!

Fluttershy had insisted on that, but was it really so simple? Rainbow Dash knew from Twilight, Princess Twilight that is, that honesty was AJ’s bag, not hers. She knew from her own mind that opening her heart, spilling every whiny, sappy, lovey-dovey emotion sounded incredibly lame. The exact opposite of the cool, confident girl she was supposed to be.

Though, she did also know that Applejack, though stubborn and bossy at times, was an amazing friend. A friend that would never bullshit you, a friend that wouldn’t lead you astray. She knew that every one of them together, all of the elements, equaled amazingly powerful, crazy awesome, magic rainbow beams.

“Rainbow Dash?” Sunset had been waiting patiently and at this point decided to speak up. She looked confused again, more so than before.

“I…” She could only really get that out. She was standing at the edge of a pool she didn’t really want to jump into. Fluttershy’s voice shoved her in. Tell. The. Truth.

“I’m super scared.”

“Scared?” Sunset stepped away from her bike, back onto the curb.

“Yeah. I mean. Terrified… actually?”

“Should we not…” Sunset was frowning now. “I mean, Dash, if you just wanna be friends I totally get it. I’m not going to push you into anything.”

“No!” Rainbow blurted. “No. I… I mean.” She covered her face with her hands, groaned, and then swore. When she dragged her hands down her face enough that she could see beyond them, Sunset was still there, looking at her expectantly.

Rainbow Dash bit her lip, breathed in deep, and dove down into the water that Fluttershy had pushed her into. “I’m so scared that you don’t want what I… what I want. Or that you do, but that someday you won't anymore. And then we'll fight and break up and things will become weird and then we won’t be friends anymore, but… but I also! I can’t take back what I did last night and this,” she gestured emphatically between the two of them, “this, right here, right now is already happening. It’s already becoming awkward and shitty and I’m scared that no matter what I do things are going to change. So!”

Rainbow threw up her hands. “Fuck it! Right?” She tried to laugh, but it was a pitiful, dead sound. So she stood a little straighter and gulped down the weak chuckle, her fear, and her pride. Then she let honesty spill from her lips, like any good friend should. “I… I want you Sunset. I want sex, yeah sure, but not just that. I want to play guitar with you in my basement, and I want to kiss you when I see you between classes, and I want to do dumb, cliché study dates with you and not just because you’re way better at pre-calc than me, but because doing pre-calc with the hottest girl I know makes it sound way more bearable. Still bad, I mean it's pre-calc but, whatever.” She tried to just smile this time, but Sunset was staring at her with wide, brilliant sea-green eyes. So she swallowed again and went on.

“I wanna. I don’t know, get on your bike and drive like two hours just so we can hit up the beach. I want you to come to all my games. I wanna kick your ass in like every fighting game ever because somehow that’s like the one thing you don’t absolutely rock at.” She gestured at Sunset helplessly. “I want you. I don’t know if I’m… in love, or anything, but I know I want you in my life. And I want you there as not just my friend, not just my fuckbuddy, but as… my girlfriend? My date? My… you get it right?” She swore in her head, why was she so bad at this of all things? Why couldn’t she just string all her mushy emotional thoughts together properly?

Sunset, thank the summer sun above them, nodded in understanding. Rainbow nodded back, a quick jerk of her head more than anything, the stiffness of the movement brought on by the nerves building in her stomach and chest.

“So. What… what do you want, Sunset?”

Sunset responded by rushing forward and giving Rainbow that kiss she’d been wishing for. Only it was better than what she’d been dreaming of. Hot and passionate, but not hurried, not panicked. A slow, sensual exchange of tongues and wetness and heat, of exploring limbs and skin touching skin. Rainbow didn’t want it to end. She just wanted to stay there and explore every inch of Sunset that her alcohol addled mind had forgotten. Still, it did end, eventually. With panting from Sunset and one whispered “awesome…” from Rainbow Dash.

Still, there was a voice nagging. “But…” she couldn’t tell if it was Fluttershy’s or her own. She suspected her mind was too fuzzy from the kiss to separate that out. “I do… I want to hear it in your own words. Exactly what you want.”

Sunset looked down at her quizzically. She had never noticed exactly how much taller Sunset was until they were pressed together like this.

“I know, I know it’s… I just… I mean I already almost fucked things up by not spelling things out and you’re always saying that Pony Twilight harps on the ‘communication is the key to good friendships’ thing and-“

Sunset put a finger to Rainbow Dash’s lips. “C’mon. Have a seat with me, and I’ll tell you.”

—

The sun was starting to descend by the time they both got situated on the statue’s now free base. Not quite setting, but starting to turn the sky that slightest bit darker.

Sunset wanted to pull Rainbow close where they sat, wanted it to be all cheesy and romantic, but this was new and really she didn’t know if Dash exactly went for that sort of thing. So she compromised by reaching her hand out, placing it just over where Dash had rested hers.

Rainbow jolted when skin touched skin, and for a beat Sunset had worried even this had been a step too far. The rare, soft smile that Rainbow gave her chased that notion away though, and Sunset smiled back when their fingers twisted awkwardly for a second before intertwining.

“I want you too.” Sunset said. “I was…” She debated exactly how much she wanted to tell, but Rainbow Dash had been painfully, awkwardly honest, so she would be too. “Twilight. Princess Twilight. She saved me when she first came to this world, she turned my life around, was the first one to reach a hand out to pick me up after I hurt all of you so much. After I hurt myself so much. That still means so much to me, but she’s happy in her world and I think I need to try to be happy in mine.”

Rainbow scowled and quirked a brow. Then put a hand to her forehead and let out a soft “Ohhh…”

“Yeahhhh… I didn’t really realize I was still sort of holding a flame for Twi til today. I talked it out with her though. She helped me realize a lot of things actually.”

“Talked it out? Wait! She was here?”

Sunset laughed. “Why do you think I’m at CHS?”

“I thought it was like… neutral ground or something.”

Sunset laughed harder, doubling over where she was sitting. “Wh-what?” She exclaimed between guffaws.

“Y’know! Love and war and all that.” Rainbow shrugged. She was starting to blush, a line of pink painting her blue skin. It was cute as hell.

Sunset scooted closer, and kissed her cheek, which made Rainbow’s cheeks go from pink to red. “You’re a dork.”

“Y-You’re a nerd.”

Sunset shrugged. “Can’t argue with that.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a while then, watching the sun sink lower, feeling the late spring day grow colder. There was a slight breeze, birds chirped, the sky grew more beautiful with each passing minute. This was nice, Sunset thought. She could get used to this.

“So… what? You confessed and she just wasn’t into you?” The question seemed to have been burning at Rainbow because she blurted it out into the silence.

Sunset let out a short snort of amusement and shook her head. “Nothing like that. She’s dating her world’s Rarity and… she’s really happy. Like, stars in her eyes, mushy gushy happy.”

“Blegh.” Rainbow responded, tongue stuck out.

“I know, right?”

“We can’t be one of those couples.” Though as she finished her sentence Sunset turned to look into her eyes. They both smiled, then kissed. It was a soft, quick thing but Sunset still had the same big grin on her face when they separated.

It only faltered when she thought of what else Twilight had told her. “I was scared too. That’s why I took off. I… didn’t think about our friendship changing, about the awkwardness. I think… you were more optimistic.” She’d been staring into Dash’s eyes, but at that she turned back toward the setting sun.

“I’ve hurt you before. I was afraid I’d do it again.”

Rainbow got out a syllable of protest before Sunset put her hand up. “I know. Trust me. Whatever you’re going to say Twilight already told me. I’m not that person anymore, I’m different, better. And neither of you are wrong…”

There was a short pause. Short because Rainbow blustered in again. “I feel like there’s a but coming.”

Sunset shrugged. “But I can’t pretend I’m not still worried. Not nearly as much as I was. I… I don’t think I’ll do anything. I don’t think I’ll slip back into my old ways. Really I don’t. But those memories are still always simmering in the back of my mind. What I did, who I hurt. Twilight helped so much, but she can’t fix everything with two heartfelt speeches and a rainbow laser blast.”

Rainbow didn’t hesitate. She squeezed Sunset’s hand and offered, “Let me help then. Let me… I don’t know, make you think about something else? Twilight’s back in Equestria, but you’ve got me now, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Sunset Shimmer smiled softly, felt her heart swell into her throat with emotion, before swallowing it down. “I know. I’m not going anywhere either.”

[feybeasts]

OKAY SO LENA

This is mostly gonna be an aimless ramble about Ideas I Have because I’m fulla those dang things most days, and hey y’all seem to like when I ramble about my OCs so I’m gonna Do That More

so y’know. If you wanna learn what my whole idea for yon’ silley foxtaur is, read on

THIS FREAKIN NERD started life as an ooooold OC- the grey, wolfy version is the classic Lena from back in the day (courtesy of absolutely wonderful character design by one of my best friends, this was before I was doing art again) and she was an OC who was always near and dear to my heart. At the time I didn’t put two and two together and go “oh b/c she’s my fursona and aspirational as hell, you closeted trans fool” but hey, I got there

anywho.

I realize that, y’know, ‘sonas don’t need to have lore or be characters, but I like making characters! So Lena does, in fact, have lore. She was, at one point, a regular ol’ person, a human being who pretty much existed on gig work and odd jobs because even in my fantasies, the real world is a gig economy nightmare. The work paid the bills, but it didn’t do much else- one of the most common jobs was delivery, think like, somehow a crappier version of being an amazon courier or somesuch.

Well, on one such delivery job, our gal ended up getting lost- like painfully lost. Instead of her destination, she ended up in literally the feywild, a fact that, despite the very obviously ancient buildings and overgrown mess, she was wholly unaware of. Upon “delivering” the package to the closest thing to an intact structure, she was enticed by fresh food just kinda… left out, we’re talking like a plate of pastries or something, something you could reasonably assume was a “take one” sorta affair.

It wasn’t… that, but bless her, Lena didn’t know that. So she took one… and then another, and another, and another. It’s the classic “oh whups you’re eating the fey’s food, bad idea”, but once she proverbially popped, she couldn’t stop. Which, of course, cursed her all to hell and back- it’s kinda what happens. She was changed top to bottom, and yes, I do mean in the transes-your-gender way but also the bottom became y’know, a fox. And the top was a fox but humanoid- it’s yon form you see above.

It also kinda… made her forget everything about herself. Her name, her age, where she was born- she knew she was human, short term memory was intact, but the rest slipped away… because it didn’t belong to her anymore. Classic fey stuff, eh? Turn you into something, take something intangible because you broke “the rules”.

Well, the new owner of those little details- and by extension, our gal’s fate, was a powerful fey being who was, turns out, the Lord of Debts and Desires, and one of the stinkiest Capital F Fey you could imagine. We’re talking constantly smug, always speaking in half-truths and pregnant pauses, a real piece of work straight outta a fairytale (which, y’know, tracks, considering)

And while this fella was nonplussed about an offering to him- and all the magic with it- being hoovered up by a delivery driver, he had a new lackey out of the deal. And that, friends, is what Lena is- a lackey.

She’s technically a cursed human, but her name is one she picked (it sounded nice, almost like a meta thing I guess) and her history is a bit of a blur past the basic facts. The fey she works for pretty much bound her to a contract: work for him until he considers the debt settled, and she’ll be right back to the old self lickety split.

I’ll let you guess as to how long that is, or whether yon fey actually thinks she’ll want to go back. Because truth be told, part of Lena… doesn’t want to. A big part.

She didn’t expect to be this way, but she’s come to embrace and even… like it more than the old her. It’s confusing, sometimes frustrating, but it feels more like her than she’s ever felt.

…wonder what THAT is a metaphor for? 🏳️‍⚧️

Anywho, there’s another big wrinkle- and that is that Lena isn’t fully a fey being… yet. I say she’s technically human because there’s that little bit of her that feels like she needs to hold onto the old idea of herself- not desperation, just… momentum, I guess. But as her fingers slip from that, she becomes more and more fey and less and less human… well

I wonder what the outcome will be?

[elekid]

(no pun intended)splitting headache i been having inside my soul and mind 24/7 i just now realize is because i came on to tha front lines, so to speak. like as in im the guy here driving now, and i know it, but i struggle against it bc of ??? bullshit reasons honessly that dont need to dictate who i be, i dirk am a seperate entity from alistar and its like we *are* the same dude yea sure however we also aint. theres differences. slight ever they may be but boy it whups my ass hard everytime i end up forgetting it makes my like, soul feel rockish. stale and hard. dense. impossibly dense feeling coming from my brain.

also i quit smoking and vaping which at this point does some gnarsty things to my emotional state. i am absolutely determined to never smoke as a habit ever again. like its AA level bad my copium wrt cigarettes. fucking suck and they smell awful.

[moonflower1605]

Chapter - 29

(Ella's POV)

We stood in the shadows of Valencia Boulevard, looking up at gold letters etched in black marble: DOA Recording Studios. Stenciled on the glass doors: No Solicitors. No Loitering. NO Living. It was almost midnight, but the lobby was bright & full of people. Behind the security desk sat a tough-looking guard with sunglasses & an earpiece.

Percy turns to us. "You remember the plan?"

"The plan," Grover gulped. "Yeah. I love it."

Annie said, "What if the plan doesn’t work?"

"Don’t think negative." I told her.

"Right," she said. "We’re entering the Land of the Dead, & I shouldn’t think negative."

I put my hand on Percy's shoulder.

"I’m sorry, Percy. You're right, we'll make it. It'll be fine." Annie said. I nudged Grover.

"Oh, yeah!" he said. "We got this far. We'll find the bolt & save your mom. No problem."

Percy gave me a grateful look & said. "Let’s whup some Underworld butt."

We walked inside the DOA lobby. Music played softly on the speakers. The carpet & walls were steel gray. Pencil cactuses grew in the corners like skeleton hands. There were people sitting on couches, people standing up, people staring out the windows or waiting for the elevator. Nobody moved, or talked, or did much of anything. But I could see through their bodies.

The security guard’s desk was a raised podium, so we had to look up at him.

He was tall & elegant, with chocolate skin & bleached-blond hair shaved military style. He wore tortoiseshell shades & a silk Italian suit that matched his hair. A black rose was pinned to his lapel under a silver name tag.

Percy read the name tag, then looked at him in bewilderment. "Your name is Chiron?"

He leaned across the desk.

"What a precious young lad." He had a sort of accent-British, maybe. "Tell me, mate, do I look like a centaur?"

"N-no."

"Sir," he added smoothly.

"Sir," Percy said.

He pinched the name tag & ran his finger under the letters. "Can you read this, mate? It says C-H-A-R-O-N. Say: CARE-ON."

"Charon." Percy repeated.

"Amazing! Now: Mr. Charon."

"Mr. Charon," I was trying hard not to laugh.

"Well done." He sat back. "I hate being confused with that old horse-man. And now, how may I help you little dead ones?"

Percy looked at me. "We need to go to the Underworld," I said.

Charon’s mouth twitched. "Well, that’s refreshing."

"It is?" Annie asked.

"Straightforward & honest. No screaming. No 'This must be a mistake, Mr. Charon'. How did you die, then?" I nudged Grover.

"Oh," he said. "Um...drowned...in the bathtub."

"All three of you?" Charon asked. We nodded.

"Big bathtub." He looked mildly impressed. "I don't suppose you have coins for passage. Normally, with adults, you see, I could charge your American Express, or add the ferry price to your last bill. But with children alas, you never die prepared. Suppose you'll have to take a seat for a few centuries."

"Oh, but we have coins." Percy set three golden drachmas on the counter, part of the stash we'd found in Crusty's office desk.

"Well, now..." Charon moistened his lips. "Real golden drachmas. I haven’t seen these in..."

His fingers hovered greedily over the coins. Then Charon looked at Percy.

"Here now," he said. "You couldn't read my name correctly. Are you dyslexic, lad?"

"No," he said. "I'm dead."

Charon leaned forward & took a sniff.

"You're not dead. I knew it. You’re a godling."

"We have to go to the Underworld," I insisted.

Charon made a growling sound deep in his throat. Immediately, all the people in the waiting room got up & pacing, agitated, lighting cigarettes, running hands through their hair, or checking their watches.

"Leave while you can," Charon told us. "I'll just take these & forget I saw you."

He started to go for the coins, but I snatched them back.

"No service, no tip." Percy said.

Charon growled again-a deep, blood-chilling sound. The spirits of the dead started pounding on the elevator doors.

"It’s a shame," I sighed. "We had even more..."

I held up the entire bag & took out a fistful of drachmas letting the coins spill through my fingers. Charon’s growl changed into something like a lion’s purr.

"You think I can be bought, godling? Eh...just out of curiosity, how much do you have?"

"A lot," I said. "I bet Hades doesn’t pay you well enough for such hard work."

"Oh, you don’t know the half of it. How'd you like to babysit these spirits all day?Always 'Please don’t let me be dead' or 'Please let me across for free.' I haven’t had a pay raise in three thousand years. Do you think suits like this come cheap?"

"You deserve better," Percy agreed. "A little appreciation. Respect. Good pay."

With each word, he stacked another gold coin. Charon glanced down at his silk Italian suit, as if imagining himself in something better.

"I must say, you're making some sense now."

Percy stacked another few coins. "I could mention a pay raise while talking to Hades."

He sighed. "The boat’s almost full. I might as well add you three & be off. Come along."

We pushed through the crowd of waiting spirits, who started grabbing at our clothes like the wind, their voices whispering things I couldn’t make out. Charon shoved them out of the way, grumbling, "Freeloaders."

He escorted us into the elevator, which was already crowded with souls of the dead, each one holding a green boarding pass.

"Right. Now, no one get any ideas while I'm gone," he said to the waiting room. "And if anyone moves the dial off my easy-listening station again, I'll make sure you're here for  another thousand years. Understand?"

He put a key card into a slot in the elevator panel & we started to descend.

"What happens to the spirits waiting in the lobby?" Annie asked.

"Nothing," Charon said.

"For how long?"

"Forever, or until I’m feeling generous."

"Oh," she said. "That’s...fair."

Charon raised an eyebrow. "Who said death was fair, young miss? Wait till it’s your turn. You’ll die soon enough, where you’re going."

"We’ll get out alive," I said.

I got a sudden dizzy feeling. We weren’t going down anymore, but forward. The air turned misty. I blinked hard.

When I opened my eyes, Charon’s creamy Italian suit was replaced by a long black robe. His shades were gone. His eyes were empty sockets-totally dark, full of night, death & despair.

He saw me looking, & said, "Well?"

"Nothing," I managed.

Grover said, "I think I’m getting seasick."

When I blinked again, we were standing in a wooden barge. Charon was poling us across a dark river, swirling with bones, dead fish, & other, stranger things-plastic dolls, crushed carnations, soggy diplomas with gilt edges.

"The River Styx," Annie murmured. "It’s so..."

"Polluted," Charon said. "For many years, you humans threw everything -hopes, dreams, wishes that didn't come true. Horrible waste management, if you ask me."

Ahead, the far shore glimmered with greenish light, the color of poison. Panic closed up my throat. What was I doing here? These people around me...they were dead!

Percy grabbed hold of my hand. I understood how he felt. He wanted reassurance that somebody else was alive on this boat.

The shoreline of the Underworld came into view. Craggy rocks & black volcanic sand stretched inland about a hundred yards to the base of a high stone wall, which marched off in either direction. A sound came nearby, echoing off the stones, the howl of an animal.

"Old Three-Face is hungry," Charon said. His smile turned skeletal in the greenish light. "Bad luck for you, godlings."

The bottom of our boat slid onto the black sand. The dead began to disembark.

Charon said, "I'd wish you luck, but there isn't any down here. Mind you, don’t forget to mention my pay raise."

He counted our golden coins into his pouch, then took up his pole & ferried the empty barge back across the river.

Link to the next chapter is here.

Link to the prev chapter is here.

Comment, like & share.

Take care my lovely readers.❤

Alice signing off.

XOXO.

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

not to talk twd meta on main and accidentally invite people to engage me in conversation, but i was thinking about how the entirety of leah's existence is bc of lauren cohen. it was Such a Battle to get her back on the show, and my guess is that in order to pull it off they had to give her a good ("good") backstory and just throwing her into the mix with the stuff that was already happening was going to overshadow her, so they needed a new villain of her very own, except why would anyone give a shit about it if it was just maggie and people we don't know? they had to get a main in there, preferably The Main. but why would daryl leave his family in the time of crisis? they had to give him incentive to get involved. and i've felt from the start that kang is a hardcore caryl shipper who has finally gotten a platform to write her own caryl fanfic, and so she was like, "i'm gonna write my caryl/temp storyline for angst, and also to appease ppl who won't stfu about daryl not having a love interest in a decade. i'll give him this lady who foils carol directly (and progressively looks more like her in every new scene, wtf is up with that), give them no physical affection, make her toxic as hell, and make it explicitly clear that it all came to fruition bc daryl was hardcore pining and needed companionship, and then i will end it in bloodshed 🤗," and i'm sure she knew people would lose their gd minds bc that's what they do, but she had a lot of people to pander to (ensemble cast yo), and lauren cohen to appease, so it seemed like a good plan at the time, and so this first third of episodes has been "k let's get this dumb thing over with so we can move on with our lives before someone throws a molotov cocktail through my window," and she, like us, has been counting down the days to when we can get to the real content

as for connie, i have maintained from the beginning that i didn't think she was ever meant to be a romantic interest, and kang and the other writers saw the potential and were like, "k this can placate the non-caryl shippers for a bit while we plot for caryl to, quite literally, ride off into the sunset together," but bc ppl, as previously mentioned, are insane, they read things like, "daryl hugs good friend he thought got blown up in a cave explosion," and immediately think "kang hates carol and caryl and all their chemistry and has anyone doxxed her yet i have the molotov cocktail ready to go," and rip literally any actress who steps within 100 feet of norman reedus

(let's not forget that connie being alive probably thrills daryl not just bc his bud is back, but also bc it means carol is freed from the "whups i killed some innocent people during my quest for revenge" and that will help their relationship out immensely)

anyway, i'm not Blaming lauren cohen for the shitshow response, girl's gotta make a paycheck, but i do think that had she not returned to the show, none of this would have happened, and Mistakes Were Made in terms of trying to make maggie relevant again, and i believe that the entire thing is pandering and in the scheme of things couldn't matter less

i wrote this in five seconds on my phone in a towel after taking a shower and did not reread it, but those are my thoughts, the end, send post

[dragon-ball-meta]

Explain to me how ppl think Krillin is just a comic relief character? Its like they have holes in their memory

The same reason people think every DB arc is “The Bad Guy Beats Everyone Until Goku Shows Up And Saves The Day”. The movies are a huge culprit. Filler didn’t help either. Case-in-point:   In Bojack, Krillin is nearly eliminated in the prelims like Yamcha, with only a joke about his bald head being slippery being what keeps him in. Then, even as they show Tien forcing Trunks to go Super Saiyan to beat him (the anime was big on trying to push the narrative Tien was a lot stronger than he was at this point, as evidenced by their addition of him fighting off the Cell Jrs rather than just being manhandled by them), Piccolo and Krillin have to face off again. You’d THINK this would be a chance at a nice callback from their fight at the 23rd Budokai, but instead? Krillin rages because Piccolo isn’t even looking at him, rushes, somehow goes for the CAPE instead of Piccolo, misses, and forgets he can fly. It ends with Piccolo grabbing him, tossing him back in the ring, and being so disgusted he has to face Krillin instead of a “real” opponent that he forfeits. Then Krillin sees a pretty girl, stutters a bit, and then gets his butt whooped, and that’s the end of that involvement. Super Android 13, Krillin is depicted as just as perverse as Oolong and Roshi, going to peep on girls changing. Then Chi-Chi is manhandling him and kicking him in the ass for being “cowardly” and not going to help fight. Then when he gets there, he’s burned across the face by a stray ki blast, runs in to try to help save his friends only to slip and slide past his enemy, then have his energy blast deflected like nothing and get swatted away like a fly. Cooler’s Revenge? Not even allowed to do anything, just swatted away like nothing while trying in vain to protect Goku. No strategy or attempt to make up for the gap in strength, just charging out and getting whupped and... he’s out. Return of Cooler? The one enemy he manages to take out is during a spastic head-on charge where he STILL takes a hit, and then the rest of his time is spent dodging frantically and desperately and... we don’t see him again until they’re trying to escape. Second Broly movie? He saves Gohan, tries to join the fight, and... is one-shot slammed into a rock wall so hard he’s embedded in it and literally forgotten about as he calls for someone to come help get him loose. And in the anime, you have the whole “Maron” situation that people laugh at him for (AND use to brand him as a “cuck”). In the movies, sadly, Krillin was VERY often depicted as being an unskilled, undisciplined fighter, and laughably weak, given all manner of ridiculous pratfalls and “womp womp” moments for the sake of a giggle. It’s not really a surprise, mind you, as the man who wrote most of those wasn’t exactly unsubtle in his dislike of Krillin at the time. It’s something that improved over time, but yeah, it could get pretty over-the-top. And that’s the impression that seems to have stuck with the fandom the most. So yeah, ignore that Krillin was an abused child. Ignore that he had PTSD and that everyone told him he had no skill and could never amount to anything. Ignore that he worked his ass off to improve himself, taught HIMSELF techniques others needed a master for, was so gifted at manipulating energy he formed the Spirit Bomb with a simple verbal instruction, ignore the way he put his own happiness, body, and life on the line for others. Ignore that he’s one of THE best technical fighters in the show. He’s a clown, a gag character, and any attempt to make him anything else or elevate him above another character is a recent retcon and an INSULT to said other characters. That’s how the fandom sees him. And I don’t see that widely changing any time soon, unfortunately.

[kookie-doughs]

Y/N L/N AND THE HALFBLOODS

Percy Jackson X Reader

-Y/N L/N met Percy Jackson and everything was now ruined.

CHAPTER 18: High-Key Want A Three-Headed Dog

We stood in the shadows of Valencia Boulevard, looking up at gold letters etched in black marble: DOA RECORDING STUDIOS.

Underneath, stenciled on the glass doors: NO SOLICITORS. NO LOITERING. NO LIVING.

It was almost midnight, but the lobby was brightly lit and full of people. Behind the security desk sat a tough-looking guard with sunglasses and an earpiece.

I turned to my friends. "Okay. You remember the plan."

"The plan," Grover gulped. "Yeah. I love the plan."

Annabeth said, "What happens if the plan doesn't work?"

"Don't think negative." Percy said.

"Right," she said. "We're entering the Land of the Dead, and I shouldn't think negative."

Percy took the pearls out of his pocket, the three milky spheres the Nereid had given us in Santa Monica. They didn't seem like much of a backup in case something went wrong. I had mine mixed up in there in case mine was rigged, Percy insisted upon it.

Annabeth put her hand on Percy's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Percy. You're right, we'll make it. It'll be fine."

She gave Grover a nudge.

"Oh, right!" he chimed in. "We got this far. We'll find the master bolt and save your mom. No problem."

"Don't worry Percy. We'll do this."

He looked at us, and smiled.

He slipped the pearls back in his pocket. "Let's whup some Underworld butt."

We walked inside the DOA lobby.

Muzak played softly on hidden speakers. The carpet and walls were steel gray. Pencil cactuses grew in the corners like skeleton hands. The furniture was black leather, and every seat was taken. There were people sitting on couches, people standing up, people staring out the windows or waiting for the elevator. Nobody moved, or talked, or did much of anything. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them all just fine, but if I focused on any one of them in particular, they started looking... transparent. I could see right through their bodies.

The security guard's desk was a raised podium, so we had to look up at him.

He was tall and elegant, with chocolate-colored skin and bleached-blond hair shaved military style. He wore tortoiseshell shades and a silk Italian suit that matched his hair. A black rose was pinned to his lapel under a silver name tag.

Percy read the name tag, then looked at him in bewilderment. "Your name is Chiron?"

He leaned across the desk. I couldn't see anything in his glasses except my own reflection, but his smile was sweet and cold, like a pythons, right before it eats you.

"What a precious young lad." He had a strange accent—British, maybe, but also as if he had learned English as a second language. "Tell me, mate, do I look like a centaur?"

"N-no."

"Sir," he added smoothly.

"Sir," Percy said.

He pinched the name tag and ran his finger under the letters. "Can you read this, mate? It says C-H-A-R-O-N. Say it with me: CARE-ON."

"Charon."

"Amazing! Now: Mr. Charon."

"Mr. Charon," I said.

"Well done." He sat back. "I hate being confused with that old horse-man. And now, how may I help you little dead ones?"

Percy looked at me for support.

"We want to go the Underworld," I said.

Charon's mouth twitched. "Well, that's refreshing."

"It is?" I asked.

"Straightforward and honest. No screaming. No 'There must be a mistake, Mr. Charon.'" He looked us over. "How did you die, then?"

I nudged Grover.

"Oh," he said. "Um... drowned... in the bathtub."

"All four of you?" Charon asked. We nodded. I could see Annabeth wanted to face palm.

"Big bathtub." Charon looked mildly impressed. "I don't suppose you have coins for passage. Normally, with adults, you see, I could charge your American Express, or add the ferry price to your last cable bill. But with children... alas, you never die prepared. Suppose you'll have to take a seat for a few centuries."

"Oh, but we have coins." Annabeth set three golden drachmas on the counter, part of the stash we'd found in Crusty's office desk.

"Well, now..." Charon moistened his lips. "Real drachmas. Real golden drachmas. I haven't seen these in..."

His fingers hovered greedily over the coins.

We were so close.

Then Charon looked at Percy. That cold stare behind his glasses seemed to bore a hole through his chest. "Here now," he said. "You couldn't read my name correctly. Are you dyslexic, lad?"

"No," Percy said. "I'm dead."

Charon leaned forward and took a sniff. "You're not dead. I should've known. You're a godling."

"We have to get to the Underworld," Annabeth insisted.

Charon made a growling sound deep in his throat.

Immediately, all the people in the waiting room got up and started pacing, agitated, lighting cigarettes, running hands through their hair, or checking their wristwatches.

"Leave while you can," Charon told us. "I'll just take these and forget I saw you."

He started to go for the coins, but I snatched them back.

"No service, no tip." I said staring at him.

Charon growled again—a deep, blood-chilling sound. The spirits of the dead started pounding on the elevator doors.

"It's a shame, too," I sighed. "We had more to offer."

I held up the entire bag from Crusty's stash. I took out a fistful of drachmas and let the coins spill through my fingers.

Charon's growl changed into something more like a lion's purr. "Do you think I can be bought, godling? Eh... just out of curiosity, how much have you got there?"

"A lot," I said. "I bet Hades doesn't pay you well enough for such hard work."

"Oh, you don't know the half of it. How would you like to babysit these spirits all day? Always 'Please don't let me be dead' or 'Please let me across for free.' I haven't had a pay raise in three thousand years. Do you imagine suits like this come cheap?"

"You deserve better," I agreed. "A little appreciation. Respect. Good pay."

With each word, I stacked another gold coin on the counter.

Charon glanced down at his silk Italian jacket, as if imagining himself in something even better. "I must say, lad, you're making some sense now. Just a little."

I stacked another few coins. "I could mention a pay raise while I'm talking to Hades."

He sighed. "The boat's almost full, anyway. I might as well add you three and be off."

He stood, scooped up our money, and said, "Come along."

We pushed through the crowd of waiting spirits, who started grabbing at our clothes like the wind, their voices whispering things I couldn't make out. Charon shoved them out of the way, grumbling, "Freeloaders."

He escorted us into the elevator, which was already crowded with souls of the dead, each one holding a green boarding pass. Charon grabbed two spirits who were trying to get on with us and pushed them back into the lobby.

"Right. Now, no one get any ideas while I'm gone," he announced to the waiting room. "And if anyone moves the dial off my easy-listening station again, I'll make sure you're here for another thousand years. Understand?"

He shut the doors. He put a key card into a slot in the elevator panel and we started to descend.

"What happens to the spirits waiting in the lobby?" Annabeth asked.

"Nothing," Charon said.

"For how long?"

"Forever, or until I'm feeling generous."

"Oh," she said. "That's... fair."

Charon raised an eyebrow. "Whoever said death was fair, young miss? Wait until it's your turn. You'll die soon enough, where you're going."

"We'll get out alive," Percy said.

"Ha."

I could feel we weren't going down anymore, but forward. The air turned misty. Spirits around me started changing shape. Their modern clothes flickered, turning into gray hooded robes. The floor of the elevator began swaying.

Charon's creamy Italian suit had been replaced by a long black robe. His tortoiseshell glasses were gone. Where his eyes should've been were empty sockets—like Ares's eyes, except Charon's were totally dark, full of night and death and despair.

He saw me looking, and said, "Well?"

"Nothing," I said. "I never knew you could look cool dead."

I thought he was grinning, but that wasn't it. The flesh of his face was becoming transparent, letting me see straight through to his skull.

The floor kept swaying.

Grover said, "I think I'm getting seasick."

When I blinked again, the elevator wasn't an elevator anymore. We were standing in a wooden barge. Charon was poling us across a dark, oily river, swirling with bones, dead fish, and other, stranger things—plastic dolls, crushed carnations, soggy diplomas with gilt edges.

"The River Styx," Annabeth murmured. "It's so..."

"Polluted," Charon said. "For thousands of years, you humans have been throwing in everything as you come across—hopes, dreams, wishes that never came true. Irresponsible waste management, if you ask me."

Mist curled off the filthy water. Above us, almost lost in the gloom, was a ceiling of stalactites. Ahead, the far shore glimmered with greenish light, the color of poison.

Panic closed up my throat. What was I doing here? These people around me... they were dead.

Percy grabbed hold of my hand. Annabeth took my other free one. I knew she wanted reassurance that somebody else was alive on this boat.

I could hear Percy muttering a prayer, though I wasn't quite sure who I was praying to. Down here, only one god mattered, and he was the one we had come to confront.

The shoreline of the Underworld came into view. Craggy rocks and black volcanic sand stretched inland about a hundred yards to the base of a high stone wall, which marched off in either direction as far as we could see. A sound came from somewhere nearby in the green gloom, echoing off the stones—the howl of a large animal.

"Old Three-Face is hungry," Charon said. His smile turned skeletal in the greenish light. "Bad luck for you, godlings."

The bottom of our boat slid onto the black sand. The dead began to disembark. A woman holding a little girl's hand. An old man and an old woman hobbling along arm in arm. A boy no older than I was, shuffling silently along in his gray robe.

Charon said, "I'd wish you luck, mate, but there isn't any down here. Mind you, don't forget to mention my pay raise."

He counted our golden coins into his pouch, then took up his pole. He warbled something that sounded like a Barry Manilow song as he ferried the empty barge back across the river.

We followed the spirits up a well-worn path.

I'm not sure what I was expecting—Pearly Gates, or a big black portcullis, or something. But the entrance to the Underworld looked like a cross between airport security and the Jersey Turnpike.

There were three separate entrances under one huge black archway that said YOU ARE NOW ENTERING EREBUS. Each entrance had a pass-through metal detector with security cameras mounted on top. Beyond this were tollbooths manned by black-robed ghouls like Charon.

The howling of the hungry animal was really loud now, but I couldn't see where it was coming from. The three-headed dog, Cerberus, who was supposed to guard Hades's door, was nowhere to be seen.

The dead queued up in the three lines, two marked ATTENDANT ON DUTY, and one marked EZ DEATH. The EZ DEATH line was moving right along. The other two were crawling.

"What do you figure?" Percy asked Annabeth.

"The fast line must go straight to the Asphodel Fields," she said. "No contest. They don't want to risk judgment from the court, because it might go against them."

"There's a court for dead people?"

"Yeah. Three judges. They switch around who sits on the bench. King Minos, Thomas Jefferson, Shakespeare—people like that. Sometimes they look at a life and decide that person needs a special reward—the Fields of Elysium. Sometimes they decide on punishment. But most people, well, they just lived. Nothing special, good or bad. So they go to the Asphodel Fields."

"And do what?"

Grover said, "Imagine standing in a wheat field in Kansas. Forever."

"Harsh," Percy said.

"Not as harsh as that," Grover muttered. "Look."

A couple of black-robbed ghouls had pulled aside one spirit and were frisking him at the security desk. The face of the dead man looked vaguely familiar.

"He's that preacher who made the news, remember?" Grover asked.

"Oh, yeah." Percy said. "We'd seen him on TV a couple of times at the Yancy Academy dorm. He was this annoying televangelist from upstate New York who'd raised millions of dollars for orphanages and then got caught spending the money on stuff for his mansion, like gold-plated toilet seats, and an indoor putt-putt golf course. He'd died in a police chase when his "Lamborghini for the Lord" went off a cliff."

"Humans." I said rolling my eyes, "What're they doing to him?"

"Special punishment from Hades," Grover guessed. "The really bad people get his personal attention as soon as they arrive. The Fur—the Kindly Ones will set up an eternal torture for him."

The thought of the Furies made me shudder. I realized I was in their home territory now. Old Mrs. Dodds and Mrs . Rudolph would be licking her lips with anticipation.

"But if he's a preacher," Percy said, "and he believes in a different hell... ."

Grover shrugged. "Who says he's seeing this place the way we're seeing it? Humans see what they want to see. You're very stubborn—er, persistent, that way."

We got closer to the gates. The howling was so loud now it shook the ground at my feet, about fifty feet in front of us, standing just where the path split into three lanes was an enormous shadowy monster.

My jaw hung open. All I could think to say was, "He's a Rottweiler."

I'd always imagined Cerberus as a big black mastiff. But he was obviously a purebred Rottweiler, except of course that he was twice the size of a woolly mammoth, and had three heads.

"I thought he would've been a mastiff."

"Same..."

The dead walked right up to him—no fear at all. The ATTENDANT ON DUTY lines parted on either side of him. The EZ DEATH spirits walked right between his front paws and under his belly, which they could do without even crouching.

"I'm starting to see him better," Percy muttered. "Why is that?"

"I think ..." Annabeth moistened her lips. "I'm afraid it's because we're getting closer to being dead."

The dog's middle head craned toward us. It sniffed the air and growled.

"It can smell the living," I said.

"But that's okay," Grover said, trembling next to Percy. "Because we have a plan."

"Right," Annabeth said. I'd never heard her voice sound quite so small. "A plan."

We moved toward the monster.

The middle head snarled at us, then barked so loud my eyeballs rattled.

"Can you understand it?" I asked Grover.

"Oh yeah," he said. "I can understand it."

"What's it saying?"

"I don't think humans have a four-letter word that translates, exactly."

Percy took the big stick out of his backpack—a bedpost we'd broken off Crusty's Safari Deluxe floor model. He held it up, and tried to channel happy dog thoughts toward Cerberus—Alpo commercials, cute little puppies, fire hydrants.

"Hey, Big Fella," He called up. "I bet they don't play with you much."

"GROWWWLLLL!"

"Good boy," he said weakly.

Percy waved the stick. The dog's middle head followed the movement. The other two heads trained their eyes on Percy, completely ignoring the spirits. Percy had Cerberus's undivided attention. I wasn't sure that was a good thing.

"Fetch!" I threw the stick into the gloom, a good solid throw. I heard it go ker-sploosh in the River Styx.

Cerberus glared at me, unimpressed. His eyes were baleful and cold.

So much for the plan.

Cerberus was now making a new kind of growl, deeper down in his three throats.

"Um," Grover said. "Percy?"

"Yeah?"

"I just thought you'd want to know."

"Yeah?"

"Cerberus? He's saying we've got ten seconds to pray to the god of our choice. After that... well... he's hungry."

"Wait!" Annabeth said. She started rifling through her pack.

"Five seconds," Grover said. "Do we run now?"

Annabeth produced a red rubber ball the size of a grapefruit. It was labeled WATERLAND, DENVER, CO. Before I could stop her, she raised the ball and marched straight up to Cerberus.

She shouted, "See the ball? You want the ball, Cerberus? Sit!"

Cerberus looked as stunned as we were.

All three of his heads cocked sideways. Six nostrils dilated.

"Sit!" Annabeth called again.

I don't know why but petting this gigantic three headed dog would have made my bucket list complete. I walked up to Annabeth with Percy and Grover panicking behind.

"I want to pet him. Cerberus sit!"

"Sit!" Annabeth yelled.

Cerberus licked his three sets of lips, shifted on his haunches, and sat, immediately crushing a dozen spirits who'd been passing underneath him in the EZ DEATH line. The spirits made muffled hisses as they dissipated, like the air let out of tires.

I said, "Good boy!"

Annabeth threw Cerberus the ball.

He caught it in his middle mouth. It was barely big enough for him to chew, and the other heads started snapping at the middle, trying to get the new toy.

"Drop it.'" I ordered.

Cerberus's heads stopped fighting and looked at me. The ball was wedged between two of his teeth like a tiny piece of gum. He made a loud, scary whimper, then dropped the ball, now slimy and bitten nearly in half, at Annabeth's feet.

"Good boy." She picked up the ball, ignoring the monster spit all over it.

She turned toward the two. "Go now. EZ DEATH line—it's faster."

Percy said, "But—"

"Now.'" She ordered, in the same tone she was using on the dog.

"You should go too. I wouldn't mind."

"How are you sure he'll follow you?" Annabeth laughed.

"I had a dog you know. Real sweetheart. Pretty sure he'll be as cute."

Grover and Percy inched forward warily.

Cerberus started to growl.

"Stay!" Annabeth ordered the monster. "If you want the ball, stay!"

Cerberus whimpered, but he stayed where he was.

"What about you guys?" Percy asked us as we passed her.

Annabeth looked at me and nodded. "Y/N wants to pet him," she muttered. "I think she can handle him."

Grover, Annabeth and Percy walked between the Cerberus's legs.

I was tempted to make Cerberus sit to be honest.

When made it through. I said, "Good dog!"

I held up the tattered red ball. The ball was tattered and this is going to be the last trick.

"Cerberus, could you get closer to me?" I called hesitantly. All three heads leaned down.

Oh gods... Oh gods... I'm going to pet him... I reluctantly touched his head. His head leaned to my touch. "Good boy." I cooed petting each his head. He whimpered on my touch.  "Okay boy." I leaned my head against his middle one.

I threw the ball. The good boy's left mouth immediately snatched it up, only to be attacked by the middle head, while the right head moaned in protest.

While the monster was distracted, I walked under its belly and joined us at the metal detector.

"Bucket list solved." Annabeth and I fist bumped.

"How did you do that?" Percy looked at Annabeth and I, amazed.

"Obedience school," Annabeth said breathlessly, "When I was little, at my dad's house, we had a Doberman... ."

"I had D/N you knew that." I was surprised to see there were tears in her eyes. "I promise I'll play again!"

"Never mind that," Grover said, tugging at Percy's shirt. "Come on!"

We were about to bolt through the EZ DEATH line when Cerberus moaned pitifully from all three mouths. Annabeth and I stopped.

We turned to face the cutie which had done a one-eighty to look at us.

Cerberus panted expectantly, the tiny red ball in pieces in a puddle of drool at its feet.

"Good boy," Annabeth said, but her voice sounded melancholy and uncertain.

The monster's heads turned sideways, as if worried.

"I'll bring you another ball soon," Annabeth promised faintly. "Would you like that?"

The monster whimpered. I didn't need to speak dog to know Cerberus was still waiting for the ball.

"Good dog. I'll come visit you soon. I promise we'll come back." I turned to the others. "Let's go."

Grover and Percy pushed through the metal detector, which immediately screamed and set off flashing red lights. "Unauthorized possessions! Magic detected!"

Cerberus started to bark.

We burst through the EZ DEATH gate, which started even more alarms blaring, and raced into the Underworld.

A few minutes later, we were hiding, out of breath, in the rotten trunk of an immense black tree as security ghouls scuttled past, yelling for backup from the Furies.

Grover murmured, "Well, Percy, what have we learned today?"

"That three-headed dogs prefer red rubber balls over sticks?"

"No," Grover told me. "We've learned that your plans really, really bite!"

I wasn't sure about that. I thought maybe Annabeth and I had both had the right idea. Even here in the Underworld, everybody—even monsters—needed a little attention once in a while.

I thought about that as we waited for the ghouls to pass. I pulled Annabeth closer as she wipe a tear from her cheek as we listened to the mournful keening of Cerberus in the distance,.

"We'll come back..."

Previous | Masterlist | Next

Taglist?

@gayer-than-the-gayest-gay @the-natureofme @booknerd-3000 @katara720 @ynfics

[stoiicist]

seaprofound asked: 🤍 + reyna & po if you don’t mind 😌

Who cooks meals for the other?  — reyna i guess if you count po stealing borrowing off of reyna’s plate

Who spams the other with memes? — PO SENDS REYNA SO MANY MEMES and her number is impossible for reyna to block bc like. divine status ya know

Who likes to tidy around the house? — reyna, sweeping piles of salt out of her house every time po visits: 

Who likes to play pranks on the other? — po plays the most ridiculous pranks, reyna retaliates by remaining unbothered

Who asked the other to move in with them?  — neither, po just shows up at random and every time reyna is like get out of my house maybe

Who is in charge of the music during a car ride?  — po is in charge and she plays kokomo by the beach boys until reyna’s ears bleed

Who is more likely to tickle the other mercilessly? — who needs tickling when po can just knock reyna over with a huge wave of water

Who needs to hold the other during scary movies? — EMBARRESSINGLY it is reyna but she’ll deny it until her soul crosses the river styx

Who has to help the other when it comes to technology? — oh my god po is like a grandma compared to reyna when it comes to technology (and that’s saying something...)

Who likes to get a bit frisky in public / an inappropriate setting? — po sets a hand on reyna’s shoulder and she squirms away immediately, whether they’re in public or private

Who wakes up first, and do they wake up the other or let them rest? — po appearing in reyna’s bedroom window at 4:30 in the morning: rise and shine, praetor, i lost my trident again

Who is always taking pictures of the other when they aren’t looking? — reyna sends pics of po to the demigod gc with captions like “not this bih again” and “if i don’t respond it’s because i’m fucking lost in atlantis”

Who always forgets their wallet and never ends up paying for anything? — reyna forgot her wallet ONE TIME and never did again because instead of paying in real human people money, po just left six sand dollars on the table and left

Who can’t sleep because the other snores or moves too much at night? — reyna is easily the lightest sleeper in camp jupiter and po is about as quiet as a monsoon

Who is better at video games, and do they let the other win or show no mercy? — no mercy, fight to the finish, the snootiest trash talking you have ever heard. reyna will whup po in mortal kombat but absolutely sucks at super smash bros.

Who always gets up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and accidentally wakes up the other?  — reyna, getting up to pee in the middle of the night and finding po in her bathroom washing her hands: hey get out of mY HOUSE

love is the answer, just hold on

[alice-m00n]

AN: Thank you for your request! I don’t write too much with Ayato, so this was refreshing to write. I hope that he’s in character. Please enjoy!

When they were forced  into the underground, all Ayato wanted was a place to sleep, some supplies, and a toilet. It’s not like he was expecting a 5 star hotel experience or something.  

It’s the fucking underground!

But while he was walking around, there was a smell coming from one of the bathrooms that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. What is it? It reeks! It almost reminds him of that gross meat and potato connotation that he was forced to eat as a kid. Still, he walked further into the room to see what the hell was going on.  

His eyes widened  when he recognized the familiar figure on the ground. 

“Aneki.” 

She looked up, her face was pale, “Ayato?” 

Crap, crap, why does she look like that? Is she sick? “I’ll get a doctor.” 

She quickly grabbed his hand, “It’s not like that.” 

The smell of human food was on her. He glanced at the empty water bottles all over the floor. Was she trying to wash down the taste with water? “Then what the hell is wrong with you, why are you eating that disgusting crap again?! You’re gonna seriously damage your body if you try to digest that shit!” 

“I’m pregnant.” 

What.  

“What?!” His eyes immediately went down to her stomach. She was holding onto protectively, but it looked normal. It didn’t look like she was pregnant, but what’s he supposed to know? It’s not like he took a sex ed class! Wait, if she’s pregnant that means…“You two fucked! You and shitty Kaneki Ken!” 

Goddamnit, he did not want to think about that! That’s disgusting!

“Quiet!” she demanded while smacking him in the back  of the head. She glanced around, before confessing, “I haven’t told him yet.”   

God, he didn’t realize that their relationship was like that now!  

Was he that shocked?

 Not really. Even he can see the way that his sister looks at Kaneki Ken and the way that Kaneki looks back at her. But it felt like they went from barely speaking to having sex after they came back from Cochlea.

What the fuck happened in the middle! 

For now, he’ll need to have a talk with fucking Kaneki. 

“How’d you get that crap?” 

“Nishiki.”

“Fucking four eyes knew before me?!”

~~~

“Hey.” 

“What is it Ayato-kun?”

“What’s going on between you and Aneki?” 

“A-Ah…” He blushed red (which made Ayato internally cringe at the sight), “It might be a little late but Touka-chan and I are… romantically involved? It happened kinda suddenly, so I haven’t told many people about it yet.” 

“You… You really piss me off.” 

From the start, he freaking hated Kaneki Ken. 

Sure, the guy broke half of his fucking bones in a fight. It pissed Ayato off at first and it was a fucking pain to heal from that. It reminded him of how weak he was, how he still wasn’t strong enough.  

But it wasn’t just that. 

Kaneki looked with a confused smile on his face, “Is it because I didn’t tell you? Or is there something else?” 

“Because you remind me of my old man.” 

There was something just disgustingly nostalgic about Kaneki Ken. Maybe it was the way the half ghoul carried himself or the way that he spoke, there was something about that kind and weak nature that reminded Ayato of his father. 

Ayato absolutely despised how weak his father was, how his father left them  

Yet despite everything, he still spent years trying to fulfill that damn promise to his shitty old man. That’s why Ayato had constantly tried to become stronger, that’s why he acted like the important things weren’t that important to him, so that way no one would hurt or take away the people who mattered to him.

He wanted to protect his sister. From the people who took their parents away. From other ghouls. From anyone who was going to hurt her. 

He wanted his sister to be happy. But that’s a difficult thing to do in this fucked up world. 

 He looked at Kaneki, who was listening to every word and all the silence in between. This is the person that she chose. This is the person that she chose to wait for and she didn’t even know if he was ever going to come back. 

And yet despite everything, he came back, Kaneki came back to Touka. 

If this person makes his sister happy, then who is Ayato to stand in the way?  

After all… 

“But you’re not him.” 

 Kaneki Ken isn’t Kirishima Arata. He’s different, doesn’t that mean anything? Doesn’t that mean that it won’t end the same for them?

 So right now, all Ayato can say is, “So take care of Aneki…Shitty Aniki.”  

“Ayato-kun…” 

“Ah, that’s all I wanted to say! Don’t you get fucking sentimental on me, ya’hear!” he shouted and quickly stalked off before Kaneki could get another word in. 

“Thank you Ayato-kun!” 

“And don’t fucking forget that I can still whup your ass if you do anything to hurt her!” 

~~~

Yomo was lurking outside of Ayato’s room, which is rare, so Ayato called out, “Ah, Ossan. You need something?” 

Yomo put his hand on top of Ayato’s head, petting it slightly, “Good job.”  

“Huh?!” 

[teaandinanity]

I always forget how fast I can color if I lay in flats and then lock transparency. WHUPS.

This is my MC for Shepherds of Haven, a really neat WIP game (I wound up backing the patreon because I needed more Right Now Immediately and that gets alpha access, but the chapters that are currently available in the demo are pretty darn great and will enjoyably fill a few hours!). I’m gonna go replay her again with a new name and see if this one sticks. XD

[apparitionism]

Hark 4

I certainly didn’t expect to finish a Christmas/New Year’s story on Valentine’s Day, but, as Myka says at one point in this concluding part, “here we are.” Writing takes as long as it takes. Fortunately no one is paying for this, so I haven’t had to jam the “as long as it takes” into a contractually obligated timeline. I’m grateful to those who read the prior parts (part 1, part 2, and part 3), and I offer much respect and thanks again to @kla1991​ for running the @bering-and-wells-exchange​ .

Hark 4

Throughout the game, Myka and Helena held hands below the table: a warm clasp of accord. Myka harbored a fitful little hope that someone would actually try something cheesy with mistletoe, because while they were reconciled, they weren’t fully at ease, and mistletoe would be a helpful excuse... but she realized, with a certain amount of guilt, that maybe she and Helena had spooked the rest of them such that they were unlikely to poke the bear. Or the bears. Or say “Messiah” to the press, or to the presses, or whatever metaphor she was looking for. She couldn’t blame them.

Pete played Sorry like he was being paid not just to win, but to humiliate everyone else: every chance he had, he bumped one of someone else’s pawns, and he exulted in saying “sorry not sorry!” each time. The universe clearly didn’t see fit to punish him for any of this preadolescent gloating, for he continued to draw ideal cards and make ideal moves. 

If Myka had been focusing on anything other than Helena’s hand in hers, and how near each other they sat, she might have cared. As it was, she listened with half an ear as Pete trumpeted, in ultimate triumph, “Now for Star Wars trivia! At which I will also rule.”

“You won’t,” Claudia said. “I will. But you’ll always be King Dub to me.”

“Hey, that makes me a saint too,” he said, “because of the song.”

Myka said, “If you’re a saint, I’m good King Wenceslas.”

“Can’t be two,” Pete decreed, “and I already called it.”

“Steve’s the saint anyway,” said Claudia.

“Stephen,” said Steve.

Pete pointed at him and accused, “You said that isn’t your name!”

“Right,” Steve said. His patience very nearly equaled Leena’s. “I’m not the saint. In the song. Well, one of them. Wenceslas, but Stephen has a feast day and everything.”

“I want a feast day,” Pete grumbled.

“I’m certain Saint Peter has one,” Helena told him. “You could appropriate it.”

Myka said, “Please. You’ve seen him eat. All feast all the time, no sainted day required.”

Claudia said to Steve, “My point is you are one though. Not in the song.”

“I think you’re still under some saxophone influence. Besides, my exes would disagree,” Steve said with a sigh.

“They just didn’t know you like we do,” Claudia assured him.

“To bring it back to what matters,” Pete said, “however they knew him, it wasn’t like how I know Star Wars.”

Leena said, very dry, “I think Star Wars is the grateful party here.”

Everyone except Pete looked at her with matching raised eyebrows.

“I can make a joke, you know,” she said.

Helena found her voice first. “Indeed you can,” she said. “Ahem. Is this trivia contest multiple-choice?”

Claudia said, “To repeat myself, or I mean ourselves: Sorry. It’s fill-in-the-blank.”

Helena nodded. “No possibility of my winning by mathematical chance, then. I joyfully decline to participate.”

“You can sit beside me while I play,” Myka told her.

“You’re playing?” Pete yelped. “You didn’t play last year!”

“I’m in a winning mood. I’d like to keep it going.” Under the table, she felt Helena tighten her grasp, and in response, her heart offered her an extremely cheesy throb of pleasure—no mistletoe required.

Pete waved incredulous hands at her. “Keep what going? I called Wenceslas before you, I just whupped you at Sorry, and what do you even know about Star Wars?”

“I’ve seen the movies. You forced me to.”

“Yeah, but that—”

“So I’m pretty sure I know everything about Star Wars. To repeat myself, because apparently I need to: I like how everyone always forgets I will never forget anything. Do you people even remember your names?”

Steve said, “I did recently go into detail about mine.” It hadn’t been residual saxophone influence, Myka was pretty sure, that had made her agree strongly with Claudia’s sainthood idea. And it was definitely not residual saxophone that made her chuckle at his reminder.

Pete snorted. “Strategic forgetting is how most of us get through life. Particularly, how we handle our relationships. Obviously Myka wouldn’t know anything about that.”

Myka tightened her own grasp on Helena to blunt the impact of her words as she said, “Believe me when I tell you that if I could forget strategically, my strategy would be extensive. But I can’t. So here we are.”

Now Pete frowned. “I think you oughta tap out then. This should be a fair fight about supreme Star Wars knowledge.”

“How is it not fair that Myka can remember more than you can?” Leena asked him.

“Also,” Steve said, in full saintly-peacemaker mode, “she probably doesn’t know behind-the-scenes stuff, so the rest of us have an outside chance.”

“Not me!” Helena chirped, and Myka was reminded—not that she needed to be—of how impossibly charming Helena was when she was cheery. “And yet I can maintain my own winning mood, for I will be able to sit beside Myka and not watch a movie.”

Claudia squinted at Myka, then at Helena. “I don’t get it,” she said.

“Me either,” Pete agreed.

Leena looked at Myka. She looked, specifically, in the direction of Myka’s ears, as if she could see them through the hair that Myka hoped kept them hidden. So much for that: Leena said, “I think Myka does.”

*

The Star-Wars-movie this one of these had, in fact, shown that the argumentative tailspin wasn’t compulsory. Myka and Helena had had the B&B to themselves on a rare free afternoon, and Helena had for some reason announced a determination to watch the first one, which Pete and Claudia had been insisting she put next on her list. Myka had said, “I’d rather read a book than watch a movie.” Particularly Star Wars, she added internally.

“That is because you are accustomed to movies.”

“No, it’s because I’d rather read a book than watch a movie.��

“First, you of all people should understand that one’s preferences are shaped by one’s historical circumstances. But second: any book? Over any movie?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why maintain that that is your overarching position?”

“Why do you always think I’m talking about some inviolable rule I live by?”

“Because as a rule, you do talk about inviolable rules you live by. Which are in turn inviolable rules you believe others should live by.”

“I am not dictatorial like that!”

“You are,” Helena said, very quietly.

That had hit Myka as an open hand to the face. A judgment—and she remembered feeling the obstinance of argument begin to take hold. “I am not,” she said.

“You are,” Helena said again, and Myka had tried to clear a preemptive mental break around whatever territory this new conflagration was poised to burn through: movies, books, history... but then Helena had, uncharacteristically, declined to ignite it. “However. It’s right that you should be.” A twitch of face, and Myka understood, as another open hand, exactly what that twitch meant.

“But it wasn’t right,” she said, knowing it for a terrible, hated fact. “Not for you, it wasn’t. Not for you or about you. Judgment based on stupid inviolable rules. No nuance.”

“I left you no room—well, left no one any room, but in particular you—for nuance. I did what I did, and you had no choice.”

“You did what you did,” Myka agreed. “But there are always choices.”

“They can be impossible to discern.”

“I didn’t make good ones.”

“That is not for me to judge,” said Helena, “speaking of judgment. But I made none that were good. Obviously.”

“Are we making better ones now?” Myka wasn’t really asking, because the answer was obviously yes, but it was also—sometimes, and just as obviously—no. But differently. “Could we?” she tried, hoping for possibility.

Helena took her up on the offer. “Well, let’s see,” she said. She batted her eyelashes at Myka. “Choose to watch the movie with me.”

“I’d rather read my book,” Myka said, which was how the whole thing had started, but now she was smiling.

Helena was too. “All right. Choose to read your book but also sit beside me while I watch the movie, which has been deemed indispensable to my ability to engage appropriately with contemporary society.”

“That’ll make it very unlikely I can concentrate on my book.”

“Because of the movie’s indispensability?”

“Because of sitting beside you.”

In response to that, Myka received a much more sincere blink. “That is in fact indispensable. Choose to sit beside me and not read a book.”

“Only if you choose not to watch a movie.”

“Done,” Helena declared.

No book was read. No movie was watched. Extremely good choices were made. As they drowsed together later, entangled, Myka had said, surprising herself just a little, “I’d rather do this than read a book.”

“That is an inviolable rule I am happy to live by.”

*

Late on Christmas Eve—moments before the clock chimed Christmas—everyone had retired but Myka, Helena, and Leena. Helena, who had begun to yawn, started up the stairs, but Myka said, “I’ll be there in a minute. I want to help Leena with the last of the cleanup.”

After a small hesitation, Helena said, “All right.”

Not until Helena had stepped on the creaky second-to-last stair, thus putting her demonstrably out of earshot, did Leena say, “You don’t have to stay up on my account. I was going to leave the rest for tomorrow anyway. It’s mostly Pete’s mess; he can deal with his own consolation-prize cookie crumbs.” She said it with a smile, but it was an accurate description of the evening’s results: Myka had continued to let herself be distracted—though Steve had also been right about the behind-the-scenes problem—and Claudia had taken the Star Wars crown. After feting her, they’d pulled Pete out of a mope only by means of everyone participating in a ceremonious awarding of consolation cookies and Helena reminding him that Christmas was certainly a feast day.

Myka had been waiting for that stair-creak too. “Actually I wanted your help. With... I guess a different kind of cleanup.” Because Myka harbored some suspicions, and Leena was the one most likely to know whether they were justified. And to be willing to tell her if they were. “Let me ask you: Why’d the Messiah tap Pete on the shoulder?”

Leena shrugged. “You heard the theory. Claudia needed Caretaker practice.”

“I did hear that. So, really, why’d the Messiah tap Pete on the shoulder?”

Now Leena smiled. “Caretaker practice aside—though she did get some—I do think it had a different plan.”

“Okay. I’m probably going to regret not leaving it at Caretaker practice, or even at a get-to-know-Saint-Steve session, but seriously, what was the plan?”

“Well. Let me ask you: what’s an argument? Not mathematically. In the vernacular.”

“Fine, I’ll play. It’s a... vocal exchange of opposing views?”

“Right. Opposing. An insistence on separation—a placing of space. Between those views, between the voices articulating them, and also between the individuals holding them. Sound familiar?”

“I changed my mind about playing,” Myka said.

“Maybe, recently, that sort of placing of space had something to do with singing? Prior to your little tiff that we all witnessed, I mean. Of course I’m just guessing.”

“I doubt that.”

“And on the other hand, what’s Christmas caroling? Particularly with regard to voices articulating things.”

“Okay. I get it. It’s kind of what I suspected.”

Leena’s smile deepened. “One more step. What were the artifacts concerned about?”

Myka wanted to bang her head against a wall. “Their insta-relationship with Christmas.” She sighed. “Being defined by it.”

“Close enough.”

“You said the reason the Messiah does this is different every time.”

“The Messiah and the arguments it makes—they’re useful tools.”

“Tools,” Myka said. “Useful to the building, I take it.”

Leena nodded. “Tools. In your case, I think, useful for trying to show you that you don’t have to insist so hard on separation. You don’t need to worry about being put in any sort of Christmas aisle.”

“Why, seriously, does the building feel like it has to intervene?”

“It’s obviously invested in the two of you.” Leena said, but her expression turned quizzical. “The two of you together? It seems to think...” She searched, searched. “It seems to think your investment in each other changed something. Changed some circumstance for the better? I don’t know why, and I could be wrong.”

“That seems very unlike you.”

“I don’t read minds. I don’t read buildings, either, but I’ve been here a while. I do know that when it’s grateful, it likes to give gifts.”

“That is seasonal and lovely. And when I say ‘lovely,’ I mean disturbing.” Myka paused, because she didn’t know what should come next. “Will you tell Helena all this?” she asked.

“Will she need to hear it?” Leena countered.

Would she? Helena was obviously more tuned in to artifacts, to the Warehouse, than Myka would or could ever be. She’d stood in the building, among all its powerful objects, for nearly a century, with nothing to do but listen. “Probably not,” Myka finally said. “I think she heard more tonight than I did. Than I could have.” Throughout the entire caroling nonsense, Helena had indeed seemed more collected than Myka had felt, except when they’d both lost their singing-related composure so completely. “I doubt she could do what you just did, though.”

“And what’s that?”

“Translate it into words I can understand.”

“I’m not sure that’s true, but if it helped, then consider it my gift to you. Nothing to do with Christmas.” Leena glanced at the clock on the living-room mantel. “But also, merry Christmas.”

“You know, my feeling about that—maybe my whole life—has mostly been ‘We’ll see.’ And I’ve been okay with that. But tonight? It’s ‘I hope so.’”

“You’ll get it right,” Leena said.

“Again I’ll go with ‘I hope so.’ You too, by the way. Merry Christmas, I mean; you don’t need me to tell you anything about getting things right.”

“We all try.”

Myka found her vision and her voice unacceptably watery as she said, “I’m constantly surprised by how beautiful that is.”

Leena flung her arms around Myka in a fervent hug, and Myka returned it—wholeheartedly, though her arms were rusty when it came to putting them around anyone but Helena. They’d been rusty, period, until three short months ago.

Three short months. On her way upstairs, Myka took each individual step with attention, partly because it had been an astonishingly long day and the movement required effort, but partly because she could not, most nights and especially not this night, keep from playing a magical-thinking game in which displaying eagerness by hurrying up the stairs would mean that Helena would not be in their bedroom, that their bedroom would not in fact be theirs. That Helena’s presence—the entire improbable unfolding of their lives since the thing—would turn out to have been a mirage.

The second-to-last stair creaked under her deliberate pressure, and she resisted the urge to skip the last one.

Opening the bedroom door, she was rewarded for following the nonexistent rules. Helena sat on the edge of the bed, still fully dressed. Waiting.

Myka’s body responded to that sight; her blood told her, murmuring as it moved, that love was a mystery: her blood moved, and she knew why but didn’t know why... a mystery, a tangle of clues that she would continue to try to unravel, but also a deeper, near-religious mystery. Myka’s own religious education was strictly comparative, but she knew that love was, indeed, a truth known only through revelation.

Helena herself was a mystery too, her revealed truth at once glorious and painful and incomprehensibly sitting on a bed in front of Myka...

“Happy Christmas,” Helena said.

...and saying, “Happy Christmas.” Glorious. Incomprehensible. “Here’s what’s funny,” Myka told Helena. “‘Silent Night’ was always my favorite Christmas carol.”

“My understanding of contemporary humor is on par with my tragically inadequate grasp of contemporary culture.”

“Well, I don’t mean funny.”

“Oh. Then yes. Entirely funny.”

“Do you have a favorite?” Myka asked.

“No.”

But she’d answered way too fast, so Myka tilted her head in a manner she knew Helena found difficult to dismiss. Before Helena, she hadn’t known she could say “please” quite so clearly, in quite so many contexts, without actually uttering the word.

Helena sighed. “I shouldn’t say. You’ll take it as an indication that tonight was my fault.”

“If it’s the Hallelujah chorus, I will tesla you.”

“It’s no longer my favorite, if that helps at all. So my ‘no’ was truthful. Technically.”

“Well,” Myka said. “Technically, tonight was our fault. And Leena’s pretty sure you already know that.”

“Know...” Helena said, as if she would need to work out this unfamiliar word’s derivation and usage in order to make any sort of definitive statement about whether she could possibly “know” anything.

It didn’t seem to leave Myka much space, not at all. “What are we even doing?” she asked.

“Uneven,” Helena said immediately.

“What?”

“Whatever it is we are doing, we are certainly uneven doing it.”

“Okay, that is funny,” Myka said, “or at least accurate. I did tell you I’d tell you later.”

“That makes no sense. What are you telling me?”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re right.” She sat down next to Helena, taking care to preserve a distance between them: a significant few inches of bed. A placing of space. As in an argument. “There’s something I’d like you to tell me. If you would.”

“I can’t imagine I wouldn’t,” Helena said. She looked down at that inch, then back up at Myka. “Or perhaps I can imagine.” Myka wasn’t sure how to read that, but then Helena shifted her hips a few millimeters closer to Myka and asked, “What is it?”

The purposeful nature of that movement caused Myka’s ears to heat again, but she pressed on. “What it’s like to hear them. The artifacts. Can you always?”

Helena took a moment before answering. That prize of thought... no, tonight it was a gift. Happy Christmas. “It is like an awareness of presence that is slightly more intrusive than a head cold.” Myka didn’t feel herself make a face of incredulity, but Helena said, “I’m not being dismissive of your question; that is what it is like. For me. As for whether I can always? In the past, more so. Tonight was anomalous in that I was... included. Deliberately, if I’m not mistaken. Obviously the Warehouse and I have had—continue to have—a rather fraught relationship.”

“Leena says it’s grateful. The building. To us.”

“Why?”

Myka was glad to be able to infer, from that startled syllable, that such an idea was new to Helena too. “I don’t know. She says she doesn’t either. Something about changing some circumstance for the better?”

“For the better? I can certainly imagine it being grateful to you. I know that gratitude well.”

“Aren’t we past that?” Myka asked. Please let us be past that. But then again: three short months.

Helena waited, waited, waited. Thinking again, but this time not a gift. She at last said, “And if you change your mind?”

Myka, nonplussed, said an inadequate, “About what?”

“About my being here. It’s because you want me here. What if you change your mind?”

She wouldn’t even sit in a chair without your say-so, Pete had said. Myka hadn’t wanted that power then, and she didn’t want it now; yet she also yearned to be able to tell Helena something like “I couldn’t change my mind.” But that wasn’t true... or she couldn’t guarantee its truth, for if the Warehouse had taught her anything—other than “don’t let Pete out of your sight during inventory”—it was that the future was another of those undiscovered countries. Instead of making an inevitably faulty promise, she said, “That the building has feelings about us suggests that I shouldn’t. That neither of us should. That it wouldn’t take kindly to me, to you, to us, if we did.”

“That is a terrible reason,” Helena said. But she said it with a turn of her head toward Myka that was legible as comically rueful.

Myka turned her head too, more fully toward Helena. “How about we just don’t? How about the reason is, I don’t want to change my mind, and neither do you?”

“I don’t. Want to.”

“Okay. Me neither.” Myka made a millimeters-shift of her own, such that they now seemed separated by only an atmospheric wisp of molecular width. “Leena also says neither of us is being moved to the Christmas aisle.”

They were close enough to feel breath, to know air for the current it was, one on which they were poised to flow toward each other. “Good news,” Helena’s voice propagated through that current.

Myka let herself luxuriate in waiting, reveling in the difference between this waiting and other kinds. “I bet you knew that too.”

“My knowledge is not so vast as you seem to believe,” Helena said. But she put that weird I-don’t-know-this-word emphasis on “knowledge.”

She put it on “believe,” too, as if she had plucked the idea of belief from Myka’s thoughts. As Myka would have expected “her” to do, if “she” were not in fact here. Myka said, “Sometimes you sound like the voice in my head,” though she had intended never to bring up that bit of self-indulgence—her words had been completely involuntary, jumping of their own accord into whatever it was that flowed between them, and Myka was reminded that she had never volunteered for any of this.

Helena moved her head backward, a cartoon-ostrich retraction. “You can’t possibly mean your conscience.”

The movement, and the words, made Myka laugh. “You sound nothing like my conscience. No, I mean your voice. In my head. When you were... gone. You were still here”—and she would have pointed to her head, but it was her heart too, so she ended up just waving feebly in her own general direction—“even when you weren’t here.”

“I should apologize for my continued presence. You didn’t need that or deserve it.”

“Let’s really really not talk about needing or deserving.” Maybe that was where intimacy came from—knowing someone else’s needs and deserts—but talking about it? That would lead to the opposite of intimacy, Myka was sure. Or at the very least, to more separation, not less.

Helena said, “It isn’t as if you weren’t present for me. When I was allowed to be...” A troubled throat-clear. “Conscious? Rare that you weren’t there, of course. Physically. When I was. Wasn’t? But. You were. When you weren’t.”

That stammery rollout left Myka stranded, so she turned to self-deprecation: “I’m sure I’m just as judgy or rule-bound or whatever, even if I’m not physically around.” That got her nothing. She tried, “What did you imagine me saying?”

Helena didn’t really answer. “I admit I never envisioned—enheard?—your solving intractable riddles about hymns and cantatas.” She said that with a lightness, but she switched back to broody with, “How limited my imagination. Particularly with regard to... well, anything. But particularly anything sung.”

Playing to Helena’s vanity was the best way to improve her mood, so Myka said, “Limited? Your imagination?” She waited until Helena smiled, then said, “Maybe about singing. But singing aside, I love your voice, by the way.”

That got her an inhalation, one that she chose to read as positive. Helena said, on the exhale, “Yours is the sound I want to listen to, by the way. Am privileged to listen to.”

“Don’t think about privilege,” Myka told her, to try to forestall any martyr-ish self-abnegation. “You should have what you want.” Speaking of deserving, she didn’t add but could have.

“So should you.” So quiet.

“Okay then,” Myka said. “Notwithstanding the building’s thoughts on the matter, what I don’t actually want is to never fight with you.”

Helena’s shoulders, which had been slumping, snapped to—and not with the irritation that usually accompanied such a movement. “Thanks be,” she said, those shoulders now relaxing rather than dejectedly sagging. “I don’t want to be insipid, and I don’t believe you do either.”

“The insipid aisle isn’t our spiritual home,” Myka agreed. Hoping to move the current again, she said, as a slight provocation, “You still eat apples wrong.”

Helena caught the ball perfectly: “You still stole ‘God Save the Queen.’”

“It’s not like you were using it, though. Given that you can’t sing it.”

“You stole it to no purpose, however. Given that you can’t sing it either.”

I love your voice, by the way. “Maybe I was trying to get you to chase me. To try and get it back.”

The play continued, with Helena saying, “I wish I had. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“You were a little preoccupied with staking out your position. Which was separate from mine. And also very far away from the insipid aisle.” Myka smiled. “Plus I was driving. There would’ve been an accident.”

Helena smiled too, but the molecular width between them remained.

Closing it effectively would take something more, so Myka said the most true thing she could find. “Things I didn’t think of: spending Christmas with you.”

“You are as of some moments ago in actual fact doing that.”

“But the idea of it.”

Judging from Helena’s response, that was not quite the right thing to have said. No closing up of space. “You see, however, for me,” Helena said, “the idea of Christmas. At all.”

“I see, but I don’t see. And maybe I need to ask. Are you being religious about it?”

Helena took yet another moment. “I was certainly inappropriately glib about what I was flaunting,” she at last said. “But the Warehouse will beat certain beliefs out of one. Or try to.”

Belief, belief, belief. “And beat new ones in,” Myka agreed, with some gloom.

“True,” Helena said. Her repentant grimace softened. “But sometimes not beliefs so much as realizations. Full ones. Not that I needed the fullness brought home, but even so.”

“Such as?”

“Among other things, that Steve is right.”

“About what? I mean, probably most things. But specifically?”

“About who is most likely to know all the unsaintly details. And in your case will never forget them. Not even strategically.”

“I’m not your ex. I’m never going to be your ex.” That was another involuntary utterance, so she added a painful-yet-voluntary, “Unless that isn’t what you want.”

“I have tried assiduously to stop wanting,” Helena said, “in circumstance after circumstance, for it’s always seemed the better part of valor. To spare everyone involved.” Myka hated that she agreed with that, but it was true that if Helena had stopped wanting much of what she had wanted, many people would have been spared many things, up to and including their lives. Then Helena said, with a small shrug, “And yet my appetites persist. Particularly the animal.”

The casual mention of animal appetites, the calm acceptance of them... Myka had never liked acknowledging those appetites, much less accepting them; she had tried mightily to resist being distracted by them, but her response to Helena made them undeniable.

Part of what had enraged Myka about Helena’s crazed apple-eating was that it made Myka want to knock the apple from her hand and lick her needlessly sticky fingers. She had resented Helena for her ability to reduce Myka so effortlessly to her body, but she was coming to understand—was trying to really, fundamentally grasp—that the right verb was not reduce but rather elevate.

Elevate. “My appetite is for you,” Myka said. So bald, that statement. It was true, but bald and thus risky. These things she didn’t say out loud. Shouldn’t say out loud?

“Don’t doubt that mine is for you as well,” Helena said, very much out loud.

“I don’t doubt that. I really don’t.” A nostalgic phrase leapt to her mind... if such a thing as nostalgia applied after only three short months... “I believed in you and I was right.”

“You do enjoy being right. But what if, even so, I prove you wrong?”

She didn’t need to add, And thus make you change your mind. Obviously they would not stop running up against this—but what mattered was that they were willing to not stop running up against it. They would probably keep running up against the fear of the insipid aisle, too—but what mattered was that they knew it. Could see it... well, and on the evidence of today and tonight, hear it. That had to help. “You really need to listen to me,” Myka said. “You need to hear it: I believe in you, and I am right.”

Hearing herself, she understood that, as it turned out, she was not quite as tired of belief as she had thought. The realization made belief itself no less exhausting... but it did make it a bit more easy to reconcile. “Peace isn’t only for normal people,” she said.

“Have I suggested it is?”

“We’ve both been acting like it is. Assuming it is?”

“We are certainly not normal people.”

“But some peace? I don’t think it’s a synonym for insipidity.”

“‘Insipidity’ is a terrible-sounding word, isn’t it? Whereas ‘peace’... no, you’re right. Some. Solely of the season? We did manage a temporary truce,” Helena said, as if she were having Myka’s exact thought about seeing it—hearing it—and what that might be able to help.

“You knew we needed one.”

“Apparently the Warehouse knew it before I did.” No questioning, now, of that previously baffling concept of knowledge. Myka felt the give-in—felt it in a melt of body beside her.

“The building might not be entirely wrong all the time,” Myka said.

“It will no doubt appreciate your concession.”

“What matters is, will you appreciate it?”

Helena moved her mouth: a teasing Will I? moue. She then said, dropping the tease, “I appreciate everything about you.”

“You do not appreciate my singing voice.”

But that was met with surprisingly sweet, open sincerity on Helena’s face. “I do. Today has taught me that. For it is recognizable as yours.”

Myka’s vision watered again. She said, with difficulty, “Even if I could sing, I couldn’t sing anyway.”

“Why?” Helena asked. Like she really didn’t know.

So Myka told her: “Because when you say things like that, you take my breath away.”

It was her own version of cheesy mistletoe, and the resistant-to-the-insipid-aisle core of her wished a very real wish that Helena would wave it off. Instead, Helena closed the molecular gap that remained between them, closed it with a decisive swing of body to straddle Myka’s legs, closed it further with a lean into Myka’s body that began at the torso and progressed to become a kiss, one into which Myka pushed up, up, and Helena pushed down, down. At last, no distance at all.

“Are you trying to prove something?” Myka asked when Helena lifted her mouth away.

“What?”

“About how many times you can stop my breath. In quick succession.”

“That kiss was not quick. But perhaps I will try to set a record, to mark the holiday.”

“You weren’t kidding about happy Christmas, were you.”

“I was not. Don’t doubt that.”

Don’t doubt. It did seem a more restful thing to do than engage in the affirmative act of belief.

Don’t doubt.

And that, Myka hoped, was what the building had been trying to convey... and it was something for which she did feel gratitude. She had not really expected that, so she said it out loud to Helena, and added, “Speaking of religion, is it sacrilegious to be surprised that the building got something right?”

Helena sat up straighter—just a bit, but “don’t go,” Myka was tempted to say, as molecules of air intruded between their upper bodies. “Well, gratitude,” Helena said, with a wave of her left hand, and “the Warehouse,” with a wave of her right. “It’s difficult to reconcile. And yet without the building, I wouldn’t be here, in this unevenness, with you.” She put her hands on Myka’s shoulders, both at once, with equal force: the gratitude hand, the Warehouse hand.

Myka’s own gratitude hand and Warehouse hand had been resting on Helena’s hips. She flexed her fingers, pressing into flesh, and Helena gave the tiniest arch to her back. Even that little spine-stretch was enough to remind Myka that they had lately spoken of appetites. “So what you’re saying is, it gets almost everything wrong, but I have it to thank for this unprecedented happiness? Sure, I can hold both of those in my head.”

“That sounds very like your feelings for me.”

“Ditto, and don’t bother denying it.”

Helena held very still. “What would you like me to bother to do?” she asked. She was still, but her body was warm against and near Myka’s, even across the torso-distance.

“Wasn’t there something about chasing me?”

“I seem to have caught you already.” Now she moved her hips in a hot push against Myka’s and said, “So unsaintly, these details.” Another hot push. “Perhaps Steve would prefer to be a saint, but I wouldn’t.” She moved yet again, stronger, and Myka was reminded of the animal nature of those unsaintly details. How such details brought them closer together, leaving no distance between their positions. Needs and deserts—saints didn’t have either of those. Or if they did, their sainthood most likely required them to deny the former and endure the latter. Myka wanted to satisfy the former and ignore the latter.

Wanted, wanted, wanted. “I’m not anybody’s version of a saint,” she told Helena. “So I don’t want you to be one either. I’d rather you be a thief.”

“I’d rather you be a thief.”

“What can I really steal from you.” Myka wrapped her arms around the body atop and against her: stealing nothing, holding everything.

“Beyond an anthem?” Helena dipped swift to kiss Myka, in the relaxed, open way she did at the best of times. The way that said I don’t doubt this at all. “My breath; my heart. But you have those already. Have had, you thief.”

“The only reason I have those is that you gave them to me.”

They were gifts. If the Warehouse had needed, and had seized on, Christmas as a way to remind them that argumentative separation had a downside—one that they knew about but needed to know about—Myka had, maybe, needed it to remind her that all of Helena was a gift. From potential world-ending to provocative apple-eating to domestic hand-holding: all of her.

“Which aisle do we belong in?” Myka asked. “Not Christmas, not insipid...”

“Apples?” Helena proposed, sly, and Myka took it as an invitation to put her mouth to Helena’s hand.

“Animal,” she said as she did so.

Helena laughed, even as she arched her back again. “A bit crowded there, I suspect. What about literary manuscripts, genre of your choosing?” she offered in response. “We’d at least have reading material to keep us occupied.”

“Too drafty,” Myka objected. “Besides, isn’t there an inviolable rule about doing this instead?”

“Literary manuscripts about this,” Helena counterproposed.

“Pornography? Seriously? Most of it’s so poorly written.”

“I meant our version of this, which would of course be excellently written, for did you not listen when I mentioned writing a novel with you as its focus? Certainly it would include this... though as I think on it, I may need to engage in more research...”

The night dissolved into beautiful, comical essays of possibility.

“Uneven,” Helena said, much later, after many aisles had been proposed... and many appetites satisfied.

“I doubt that’s an aisle.”

“What did I tell you about doubt? We can annex some other space, then, like Pete with his feast day. We might in fact fly an uneven flag over it.”

Myka sighed. “Unfortunately that means we’ll need an anthem.”

Helena’s smile at that was the most conspiratorial, the most intimate, that she had ever shown Myka. Ever. Prior to and during their three short months, Myka had never seen this smile. “I know just where we can steal one,” Helena said.

*

Myka awoke in the middle of the night—a simple move to consciousness, not from a nightmare, not in response to any troubling sound, not a voice in her head or a noise outside it. In the Christmas silence, she slid a hand across the bed, in the dark, and it met Helena’s breathing body.

In careful concert with that body, she inhaled, exhaled.

END

~

What I would say in a tag essay, if tumblr seemed at all amenable to those anymore, is something about this: the breath in concert is the anthem of any lovers’ country. I should also mention that Myka’s “Well, I don’t mean funny” line is borrowed from the 1940 movie Too Many Husbands (screenplay by Claude Binyon), and it’s spoken by Jean Arthur, on whose work I’ve spent a lot of time... her voice, in particular, matters a great deal to me, and I found that line, and her reading of it, important for reasons I won’t go into here. Given that this piece is about voices, though, I thought I’d deploy the words as a bit of affectionate homage.

[not-close-to-straight]

Sweet Like That (Sam/Steve)

Previously a KoFi supporter fic, a follow up fic to “SURE THING, SWEET THING”. 

MY FIC MASTERLIST!

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

Tuesday  nights were movie nights, and the team predictably split up into couples and took over their un-officially assigned spots in the living room.

Natasha and Clint shared one recliner, the tiny redhead curled up in her husband's lap as Clint ate truly shocking amounts of popcorn and pizza.

Bruce only came to movie nights if Thor was in town, and tonight the blonde Demi God was taking up 3/4 of an entire couch while Bruce was curled into the remaining 1/4, his toes tucked under Thor's thighs, tablet up as he read or worked, smiling as Thor's big hand landed at his knee.

Bucky and Tony were newly dating, newly in love, newly head over heels for each other and sat together on one of the love seats, plenty of room between them for at least one more person, their hands inching closer and closer over the course of the movie until their pinkies brushed and then hooked and even in the near dark Tony's blush was absolutely ridiculous and Bucky's smile had no business being so happy.

"Hey." Steve elbowed Sam and motioned towards the love seat. "How come we don't act like that?"

"Like what?" Sam tossed back a handful of candy. "You mean like two goofy teenagers with a school yard crush who are probably going to jerk off tonight to the feel of each other's pinkies?"

"No." Steve scowled. "I mean, why aren't we sweet like that? Bucky looks at Tony like he's never seen anything so incredible, and Tony looks at Bucky like he wants to eat him up. It's sweet."

"It's gross and makes me want to gag."

"Sam." Steve tugged at Sam's hand. "I'm serious! We weren't ever like that! We never did the sappy sweet new relationship stuff!"

"Yeah..." Sam said slowly. "Because your version of foreplay is whupping my ass running in the morning and my version of flirting is doing illegal things to take down SHIELD. And once we sort of saved the world and brought ol Buckaroo back to the light-- I mean, did we need to do the sappy sweet new relationship stuff? Seems to me like we'd more than earned the right to get nekkid at that point."

"Well sure." Steve shrugged. "Sure we jumped right into the intense stuff, but does that mean we never get to be like that?"

"Sneakily holding pinkies while a Pixar movie plays?" Sam shook his head. "I'm never doing that."

"Yeah, I guess I wouldn't expect you to." Steve sounded... did he sound sad?...and Sam sent his boyfriend a sharp look.

"Steve?"

"Don't worry about it." Steve stood and stretched. "I'm going to get more pizza, do you want any?"

"Uh... nope."

"Alright."

Sam watched Steve go with a curious expression, then shot another look towards Tony and Bucky, who were somehow sharing a drink and bumping noses and generally looking as gross as possible.

...Huh.

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

There was a note on Steve's coffee cup the next morning, a bright yellow sticky note that said "Sorry I missed you this morning, sweetheart but I was up late dreaming about you and over slept. Can't wait to see you tonight."

Steve stared at the note for a few minutes, brow wrinkled and lips pursed and arms folded as he tried to figure out who the hell was playing such a weird prank on him.

"Maybe it's actually from your boyfriend." Tony supplied less than helpfully from where he was draped across Bucky's chest. "Hm?"

"No way." Steve decided. "Sam doesn't do stuff like this. I bet it's Clint being fucking stupid again."

The note was crumpled up into Steve's pocket, coffee poured and drank, and he got on with his morning as if nothing was amiss. Just a weird start to the day was all.

The next morning there was another note, this one with hearts and xoxo's and a reminder to "Smile, cos you have the best smile in the world and it makes me happy every time I see it."

There was a note the next morning, and the morning after that and Steve was sure it was a joke, so he didn't say anything to anyone and definitely didn't say anything to Sam and the notes joined the first one in his top drawer.

A few days later, Sam popped his head into the gym while Steve was working out and jogged over to see him, urging Steve to bend down over the ropes of the ring while Sam stood on his toes and kissed him sweetly.

"What the hell was that for?" Steve asked blankly, and Sam said, "I was thinking about you earlier so I thought I'd come down and see you."

"You could have just texted." Steve pointed out. “Like a normal person.” 

"But then I'd have missed out on being able to kiss you." Sam winked and Steve-- Steve might have blushed.

"You look stupid." Bucky informed him, wrapping his knuckles to get ready to go another round. "Blushing like that."

"You're one to talk." Steve dropped into a ready position and motioned for Bucky to move forward. "Tony called you baby this morning and you giggled like a moron for like, half an hour.”

"....Yeah, that's fair."

Dinner later that week, and Sam not only wore That One Shirt in That Specific Color that Steve loved so much, but also pulled Steve's chair out and made a point of making sure Steve had enough wine all night long, kissing away drops from Steve's lips and whispering things that had no business being whispered at a dinner table.

"What the fuck?" Natasha asked, holding her mouth open so Clint could feed her a bite of his fish. "Clingy much?"

"Yeah, they are being super weird lately." Tony agreed from his spot on Bucky's lap as they shared a plate. "All over each other."

"Twould seem as if Sam has learned to woo his love." Thor decided, not letting go of Bruce's hand as he refilled his plate for the third time. "Though I wish it wasn't happening at the dinner table.

A few hours after dinner and Steve all but dragged Sam to his bedroom, kissing and groping and stumbling their way down the hall until they banged into the door.

"Come on." Steve sucked a hard kiss to the curve of Steve's neck just to hear his boyfriend moan. "You haven't spent the night in almost a week, come on come on come--"

"Hey hey, easy." Sam cupped Steve's face with both hands and kissed him longingly. "I want you babe, I do. But I know you're tired and you got a big day tomorrow and I want to be able to take my time with you, be sweet with you. You deserve more than a ramped up quickie."

"I--" Steve frowned and Sam kissed him again. "Are you serious?"

"Give me the gift of time to cherish you." Sam murmured against his mouth, then opened Steve's door and pushed him through. "Go on. I'll see you in the morning. Sweet dreams, sweetheart."

"I--I--" Steve stared after his boyfriend and then down at his rather tented pants. "ARE YOU SERIOUS?!"

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

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

"Alright, enough." Steve plucked Sam's book out of his hand and pitched it towards the wall. "What in the hell is going on with you?"

"Well, I was reading." Sam blinked up at him. "And now I'm apparently not, so that's how my day's been. How's your day, babe?"

"You're being weird." Steve informed him, crossing his arms and fixing Sam with his best scowl. "And I want to know why."

"Okay....." Sam hesitated. "Can you tell me what I've been doing that's weird?"

"You've been leaving me notes on my coffee cup when you leave before me." Steve started to count off on his fingers. "You've been dropping into the gym just to kiss me? Thinking about me and weird times and sending me smooshy text messages? Last movie night you gave me a thirty minute back rub and then held my hand. Three times I've tried to take you to bed and each time you've said something stupid about how it's worth waiting and how you want to be able to take your time with me and don't want me to feel pressured."

"Ummm--"

"AND THEN!" Steve raised his voice. "I had a press conference on Friday and you had flowers sent to me. At the conference. In front of everyone."

"Well I mean--"

"And whatever this bullshit is about wiping my mouth and feeding me stuff? Let me eat my own goddamn candy bar, Sam! I can take bites all by myself! I'm a big boy!"

"Okay but--"

"And you keep wearing my shirts??" Steve threw his hands up. "We aren't the same size, Sam! I don't wear your clothes! Stop using up all mine! I have to do laundry two times a week now!"

"Steve--"

"You're acting like Bucky and Tony and honestly--" Steve scowled down at his boyfriend. "I am sick of it. Cut it out."

".... cut it out?"

"CUT IT OUT!"

"But--" Sam started to laugh and Steve briefly considered retrieving the book just to bounce it off Sam's skull. "But babe, you asked me why we didn't act like Bucky and Tony! You complained about how we skipped all that lovey dovey bullshit at the beginning of the relationship! I thought you wanted me to try to be sweeter!"

"Okay I did complain about that." Steve acknowledged. "But I didn't mean I wanted you to have your hand tucked into my back pocket all the time!"

Sam really did laugh then, and Steve groaned, dropping onto the couch next to him. "Look. I appreciate you trying to be sweet to me, showing me what I missed by not doing the whole 'brand new relationship' thing. But I gotta say, I prefer us the way we were before. I don't need all this sort of stuff."

"Alright then." Sam wound their fingers together and kissed Steve's knuckles. "How can I be sweeter to you without channeling my inner BuckyTony grossness?"

"You could tell me you love me in public sometimes." Steve pointed out. "I don't doubt that you love me, but you only say it when we're in bed."

"I can start saying it more often." Sam said promptly. "What else?"

"It wouldn't be the worst if you acted like sex was something special every once in a while." Steve was blushing now. "We started hooking up and then decided to date so I know we missed the whole 'first time is special' thing, but you could still act like it sometimes."

"The next time I bend you over the bed, I'll make sure and cherish the hell out of you." Sam promised, then oofed when Steve jabbed at him. "Ouch, okay forget that. What else?"

"Ilikethenotes." Steve mumbled and Sam grinned, leaning in to smoosh a kiss to Steve's cheek.

"I will write you more notes than. I can be sweet like that."

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

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

That booty is looking redonkulous in those pants, snackeroo.

xoxo

Sam

Ps. I love you

Steve sighed over the note and tucked it into his pocket.

Well, it was a start anyway.

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

SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE FIC!

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

@bethy-sue @babypinkbunny @lilwitchybee @shipeveryonetogether @shadowrayven @hausoffro @thereaderandwriterwithin @zerokrox-blog @zuretha-metal @tstilcr @larissaloki @blackhearted @itsallyd @megahuffledor @tabziecat @ceealaina @cwar1864 @pidgist @yukina64 @multishippinglife @susana0 @paranormalmoonlight5 @girlnic @vgurl18 @sw3etpotat0 @jade-taillia 

[maybekatherine]

So you guys would not fucking believe the morning I had.

So I had this psychiatrist appointment at the beginning of February. And they kept calling me to reschedule, because I guess there was something going on in the psych’s personal life, and then finally the fourth time they called and they offered to reschedule it to the first time it had been rescheduled to I told them to forget it, just schedule me out far enough that they won’t be calling me back again.

So I was rescheduled for last week. Unfortunately, a developing situation at work hit critical mass and I... forgot. Whups. So I call back, apologize profusely, and get another appointment for 10:30 today.

And then I stick it in my calendar on my phone and set alarms for an hour ahead and half an hour ahead. It turns out that this does not actually do anything, and no alarms go off. But I make it! I make it to my appointment!

Except it’s not my appointment. Because the receptionist who allegedly rescheduled me for today did not actually put me on the schedule, and in the meantime someone else had taken the slot.

I’m like “it’s been 84 years” at the receptionist and he looks and discovers that a woman inexplicably is in the schedule twice this week, once on Tuesday and another at 11:15 today. So he calls her to ask what’s up and I get the 11:15 appointment.

SO I FINALLY GET INTO MY APPOINTMENT. And then, heading back into work later, I smell good food in the parking lot and i was like “mmm... fries... I’m not on the clock. I can wait for them to make me fries.” So I order some fries and I’m standing around waiting I glance over the bread product display and I see a shiny sticker on the biscuits that isn’t usually on the biscuits. And that sticker says CHEDDAR AND BACON and I was like FUCK LIFE HAS MEANING AGAIN so while waiting for my fries I grabbed the last 10-pack.

And they are delicious.

(I feel like I should finish this by establishing that we make amazing biscuits. They’re “why you look forward to Sunday brunch with your awful relatives” level biscuits.)

[displacedleylines]

Maybe

(Drafted this over a month ago but just now finished it. WHUPS.  Writing drabble for my WoW toon Cameron. He doesn’t have his own blog, so this is going here.)    The deeper tunnels of the Stormwind Stockades with its musty and stale air was where you went when you were to be forgotten. Most of these cells were empty; or, one could argue that there was so little hope left in anyone who was stuck here, that all the cells were empty. The torches survived the stagnant halls only because a clever or perhaps lazy guard years ago, thought to have the flames enchanted to stay burning. That way, no one would never have to look to see if any needed relighting. Occasionally, yes, a guard or two would patrol these halls. Usually, if they were avoiding some other duty, wanted some peace and quiet, or actually remembered that there were people back there who needed to eat. Sometimes, though it happened not as often these days, the smell of death would linger in the halls, wafting into the cells of those who had the misfortune of still being alive.  Thankfully, this was not one of those days, and the air smelled instead of dust with a dampness that lingered in your chest with every breath.     Cameron knew every corridor by heart. He had to. Working for the city like he did, understanding every passage, every nook, every hidden secret was part of being an agent. This, plus the ability to stealth past most people was significant not only in helping to keep the city safe but to sneak into places where he didn't belong. However, if caught, Cameron could easily argue that as an SI:7 Agent, he had every right to occasionally patrol the Stockades without needing to announce himself beforehand. Though thus far, he never needed to use that excuse, nor did he ever plan on needing it.  In fact, he was so confident now about never being caught back there, that the moment he moved past the area of the Stockades that held the rowdiest, most well-known prisoners, he would come out of stealth and saunter down the corridor as if walking into his own home.  What did it matter if one of the forgotten prisoners saw him? Who were they going to tell? Even if they pulled aside any guard that walked by, Cameron would either be long gone. That of course, was also assuming any guard that was told would actually care enough to question it.    "One of these days..." He would think to himself at the same right hand turn every visit, "I'm going to find the key that works on these cells, and I'm just going to let everyone out."  Cameron wasn't terrible at picking locks, he was quite good at it, just like most other rogues, but no matter what he did, no matter how many times he tried he couldn't get any of these cells open.  A mystery he wanted to solve, but not one he could easily ask for help with.

Eventually, his routine future promise to no one but himself was once more broken upon reaching his destination. There was nothing different about this cell's appearance, it looked like every other cell in the block. Stubborn bars that were wide enough for an arm to squeeze through lit only by a couple of torches on the wall across from the cell door.  This was when Cameron would pull back the blue leather hood with the attached golden, bird-like mask to reveal his messy brown hair and young, freckled face.  This undramatic reveal was always how he announced himself, even though it couldn't possibly be anyone else.       "Is  it Tuesday already?" The words fell out of his father's mouth with a deep, slow drawl. "Could've sworn you were just here. Guess time is just gettin' all muddled now." His father scooted closer to the bars, too tired to stand today.  Cameron kneeled and grasped the bars, giving them a ritualistic tug in hopes they'd rusted through.    "Nah. It hasn't been a week. I managed to sneak in a bonus visit this week."    "It ain't Winter's veil already is it?" His Dad joked with a deep laugh.    "Pffft. No. It's just my birthday. And I decided that what I wanted was to see you both."    "Happy birthday, baby bird. Our gift to you is that you didn't find us dead." His mother called out from the back of the cell. Tired, dirty. Her left shoulder was pressed against the wall as her head used the masonry as a pillow, staring out ahead as if somehow the other wall would provide a miracle despite all hope having been long lost.    "You wastin' a birthday in here?" His Dad snorted. "Don't you got friends to go an have fun with?" Cameron didn't answer, he simply pursed his lips together in annoyance before changing the subject.    "They still have me mostly working the graveyard shift, digging holes. I'm starting to think that's all I'm good for." His Dad scoffed and reached through what little space the bars offered to place a tired hand on Cameron's uninjured left cheek. Despite the callused thumb that brushed more dirt on Cameron's face than it took off, the gesture was soft, kind, gentle.    "We seem to have doomed you to digging holes. And we weren't even farmers! Though I guess if bein' an Agent doesn't work, it's a good skill for real cemetery work." Chhk. Chhk. Chhk.  It didn't matter where he dug, dirt always sounded the same.  Chhk. Chhk. Chhk. The sound echoed in Cameron's memories as he stared at his parents. He could see them both. Right there. In the cell. And he could see them back in Westfall. Packing. Hiding valuables as Cameron dug graves for the rest of the family. Chhk. Chhk. Chhk. Chhk. Just a kid, but he made sure every single plot was the right size, the proper depth. They had to be perfect now because there would be no chance to fix them later.    "Yeah. It's been handy. Really sells the cover I'm just a cemetery worker. Burying other people's handy work." Cameron replied with a snort, his dad answered with a playful wink.        "Hey. That's not a bag gig. Knowing where some of the bodies are buried."           "It's just petty people that no one would miss anyway. It's not like they're trusting me with anyone important."    "Heey. Hey, now." Rictor pulled his hand away from his son's cheek and shook a pointed finger at him instead.  "No such thing as an unimportant person. Hey, hey, look at me." Cameron had glanced away, pretending as if something more interesting was happening down the dark hallway. "Cameron James Trafton. You look at me right now, yer an adult, not a child, so quit lookin' around for Great father Winter, and look at me."  Cameron puffed his cheeks out before he gave in and turned his head to look his father right in his tired, dark eyes. "Everyone is important to somebody. And those somebodies are important to others, and those others are loved by even more others until all those others stop bein' strangers you don't know, and they all start bein' people you care about." Rictor poked Cameron's forehead as if to strengthen the point he wanted to make to his son.  "Which is why, whenever you do anythin' for the SI:7, even if it's takin' out a Horde soldier or findin' out where some mark is just so someone else can kill them; you remember that what you do, will hurt someone else, and that pain will spread and change until it comes right back to you. And don't think for one moment, don't you dare think that there aren't people other than me and your mother who care about you now. I don't care who they are, and I sure as hell don't give a damn if you don't like their company or where they come from, or what their social status is." He ceased the forehead poking and resumed shaking his finger at Cameron, who was now rolling his eyes in disgust. Rictor reached through the bars again to turn Cameron's face and attention back at him.    "Dad. I don't want anything to do with Nobles, or Stormwind, or the Alliance or their...war." Cameron protested with a heavy huff, pushing the memories of Undercity out of his mind as quickly as possible.        "I know. And I don't blame you. But our issues lie with a dead King. Look, I'm not tellin' you to throw out everythin' red that you own. And I'm not tellin' you to forget everythin' that happened. Hell no!" He scoffed, shaking his head. He pulled his hand away and pointed at Cameron for the third time. "But you need to be damn careful about who you hurt. Be it someone above or below you."    Chhk. Cameron stuck the shovel in the dirt, having finally finished his grim task. His mother, Isabelle, grasped his shoulder gently as the three of them stared at the graves of the rest of the family.  No time for words, no time for flowers, they went back into their home to discover they now had no time to escape. Maybe if the guards had been a little bit slower, or maybe if the house had been a little bit further off the road, they could have gotten away. Maybe the hidden tunnel in the basement could have saved them, a genuine lifeline to live in relative freedom another day. But there was no time to even fantasize that. Despite having her own face slapped into the wooden floor, Cam's mother started screeching and swearing when the guards dared to shove her only child onto the wood.   "He isn't even a TEENAGER you motherless sons of ogres!"  She squirmed as her arms were pinned behind her back. "Didn't know the DAMN ALLIANCE, threw CHILDREN IN THE STOCKADES. You put ANDUIN in there too when he misbehaves!?"  Cam was too scared to remember what his Dad was trying to say. Too frightened to remember anything but the pounding headache and the thumping of his heart in his chest. The guards looked at each other, and to their superior. They had their orders, but she was right.    "So. Don't hurt people, and somehow, also don't stop being Defias. Is what I'm hearing. Basically." Cameron rolled his eyes and started to glance up at the ceiling.  "That makes absolutely no sense." His Dad snapped his fingers in his Son's face to bring his attention back.       "The King and the Nobles hurt us. We got angry at him. and Queen Tiffin died instead. Did that solve our problem?"        "No."      "Exactly. And what I'm sayin' is. If you got a friend, who's a guard, or a Noble. Who likes you. Sees you as a friend, and you'd like them otherwise if it weren't for their job or status. All I'm sayin is. Don't stab them in the back for the Brotherhood, Cam. Doesn't matter if you think they're not important. It'll come back to screw you over.  Defend yourself, stand up for yourself. And I get it,  y' gonna get orders that you won't like and will make you feel like everythin' I just said was a waste or hypocritical or somethin'. Whatever. Just be smart about it. Don't kill anyone you don't have to." 

   Cam was lifted from the floor and plopped in a chair at the kitchen table. An object that was once the center of a loving family freely eating their meals together was now an impromptu cage. The old, tired captain knelt in front of Cameron, looking up at the boy wearily.       "Kid. Do you consider yourself Defias?"Rictor shut his eyes, praying Cam would be smart and say no.        "YES."His heart sank, but Rictor knew if he spoke out, nothing he said would help or change the situation. The captain sighed as he rubbed his forehead, taking a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose. He tried to not think of his own kids back in Stormwind who were roughly the same age as the one who defiantly sat before him.          "Have you actually done anything, for the Defias? Steal anything? Kill anyone?"Cameron thought about the magic casters. He thought about how the mages could light their targets on fire. Maybe he could do the same thing. Perhaps he could light all the guards on fire, and they could escape. Maybe, if he understood how it worked... 

     Cameron fought back the tears as some memories refused to stay quiet.        "It's not fair. They said they'd let you out if...and they still haven't....and." His Dad waved a hand dismissively with a grunt.          "The Brotherhood might not be seen as much of a threat any more Cam. But that doesn't mean there aren't still people who hate us. Either this is the pain we caused coming right back on us, or somebody with pull doesn't want you out of the SI:7."     "I'm a terrible agent, I don't know why they'd keep me around. I just mess up constantly. I can't even do most of the stuff other rogues do. I can't even use that shadow dance magic dance thing. I can't stealth without a device. I've seen others better than me get kicked out for not being good enough. Why the hell, would they keep you in here, just to keep me with them." He rubbed his eyes, frustrated and embarrassed at his inability to use real magic.  His Dad exhaled slowly with a quiet shake of his head, he had no answers for his son, and he wished desperately he did. Isabelle had quietly crawled over, grasping the bars with her frail fingers and pushed her face right up against the metal. Her eyes were wide as she stared Cameron down.        "Knowledge is just as valuable as skill. Baby bird, do y'know somethin' most others don't? Is it somethin' that you're not telling them?"      A lot of answers played through Cam's mind. A lot of memories presented themselves as possibilities. But two stuck out in his mind the strongest, although he had no idea if they were the correct memories to focus on.    Cameron thought about the Captain asking questions about the Defias at the dinner table.          "Do you know the names of other members? Do you know of any hiding places we don't know of? C'mon kid. I'd rather see you go to a Stormwind Orphanage than the Stocks. Don't let the crimes of your parents ruin the rest of your life."        "You're already here." Cameron glared up at the man. "You already have my parents in chains, you already killed the rest of my family. You already ruined the rest of my life. I'm never forgivin' you for this."         Cam thought about the Death Knight who used to be his best friend.        "You tell anyone. Anyone. About me and what you just found. Your life is not only forfeit, but I will raise you as a mindless ghoul for the Scourge. Have I made myself clear?" His fingers dug into Cameron's neck, who nodded frantically, properly scared for his life for the first time. "You're going to go back, to the SI:7, and you're going to tell them that it was a false lead. Just a rumor put in place by jealous competitors who had the money to make it look convincing."        "Th...That doesn't mean they'll stop sending me to Northrend."Gilzo smiled very sweetly, fluttering his eyes as he took a moment to use his free hand to flip his hair.         "Then you better pray that if they do. I don't hear about it. You only go to Northrend if you're doing something for me. Any other time, and it's you begging to be killed. Which I'd really rather not do, Cammie. So don't test me. Please. For your sake and mine, don't test me." Cam shrugged, shaking his head.         "No. I haven't dug up any deep secrets. " His mother stared at him in silence, fully aware that her son was lying to her but unable to fully figure out the truth. She leaned forward to give him a dry peck on his cheek before slipping back to her spot on the wall.          "I can tell when somebody's protectin' somebody else. They better be worth protectin."    His Dad looked up at him curiously as Cam tried to find the right words. He started thinking about a lot of people. A lot more people than he wanted to think about. A pain grasped Cameron's chest as he realized that despite earlier silence implying that he had no friends to spend his birthday with, despite his constant denial every visit that there wasn't anyone or anything he cared about other than his parents; Cameron started to think of a lot of people he did, actually, give a damn about. He had broken his own rule of not getting attached to anyone. Not just once, or twice, no. He'd gotten a bit carried away, not realizing how attached he had gotten to not just Gilzo, but to Mary. Haleth, Frena. Barnabe. Raam.  He even thought Morgen, Moz, and Lauree were fun although he'd never admit to that last one even if his life depended on it. He didn't want to think about everyone in the Stormwind Guard who never asked for his Agent name and opted to call him Greenie whenever they saw him. And of course, Morrowgrove, who started that trend and whom he accidentally referred to as "Cat-mom" once in front of Gilzo.  He thought of a lot of things. Eventually thinking about the promise he made Gilzo again. It wasn't the worst of his secrets, but it certainly ate away at him but...    "I...I can't." At one point, he would have utterly betrayed his promise the first chance he could do it safely. But by the time that opportunity arrived, he'd notice that there was a drastic change in the Death Knight as he slowly reconnected with his family. Cameron grasped the bars and thunked his head against them.    "I can't. Break up another family. That's finally pulling itself together." He closed his eyes, waiting to be chastised. Instead, his mother called out sweetly.    "Honey, that's nothin' worth bein' ashamed over. And if you think the SI:7 or the guard will fuck somethin' good up just for the sake of fuckin' it up don't you tell them a damn thing." But not telling the guard also risked hurting the ones in there that he liked. There was no guarantee they'd be understanding and not do anything about it.  His mind started to race about how badly things could go after that, unsure what daydreams were plausible and what were just paranoid delusions.      Cameron now sat across from the Captain in his office back in Stormwind.    "Kid. This is what I can do for you. Your parents are going to the stocks. Nothing's changing about that. But listen. We'll set bail, we know no one will pay it, but you'll be someone's ward where you can grow up in a lovely house and get a proper education. When you're old enough you can yourself trained up, give your skills to the SI:7, earn some money, you can pay it off that way. Or you can join them in the stocks and spend the rest of your childhood there. " Cam thought about it. He wanted to say no.  But maybe one day, maybe...if he was in the SI:7 if the Defias ever got another chance.....he could help.    "Fine."       The rare sound of footsteps quickly snapped Cameron out of his memories. He needed to leave. A silent goodbye as he pulled his hood up over his face and he was gone before the guards walked by.         "Evenin' Trafton's."         "Howdy."         "Wish I was coming by to say I can finally let you out, but I'm just passing through."         "Ha. Yeah. Maybe tomorrow."         "Yeah. Maybe tomorrow."