#but 1. she could actually pull an understandable accent in most of them and 2. she had like. three verses in the first song | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gothprentiss · 2 years

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i think i'm just gonna keep posting these actually lol.

the devil went down to quantico [part 1/prologue]

part 2 below. 2.6k words, set post demonology, premise is she's actually possessed at the end of it, emily prentiss pov.

In the days following the case, she’s not sure where the anger comes from. It’s first disquieting, how much she loves it, then some other emotion, more complacent, spackling it over.

She finds that she loves to be mad at these people. Just phenomenally angry. She finds, too, that she loves the phenomenon of that anger, as it wells up in her like a dark current, pitting its rage against the dark, rocky juncture where a river bottlenecks into the sea. It darkens the edges of her vision; in its flow, the world goes colorless, and then lightless. It’s just her and the tide, her as the tide.

She finds herself thinking a lot of the teenage girl she used to be. She thinks a lot, too, of Lauren Reynolds, how she was what that girl grew up to be. Desperately alone, that girl turned what might have been cravenness into bravado and lived it. She was a skilled puppeteer. She pulled the strings of her connections, made them jump and dance.

She thinks with some desperate fury about the people around her. They seem blameless, pure: life continues to do unto them and they move through it, boulders in the river, rooted in the stable ground of their own essential goodness.

She finds herself afraid to be around them.

She shouldn't have told Rossi anything, she realizes, and her stomach sickens around the thought. Something else quickens around it. She thought, out of all of them, he might understand: that peculiar horror that your life might have been different, watching others fall victim to the fate of your will. Who else could she have told? Hotch, Morgan? They've never just watched. JJ? Reid? She’d feel insane. No, Rossi is the only one of them whose life is populated by his own collateral, not someone else’s. It had to be him. That was what made it worse when he didn't understand.

Except she doesn't understand anymore, either. Matthew was his own man, carried forward in the world by his own rage, and his own will. Why should she feel guilt?

All I did was open a door. That’s all it takes, that door sliding open, and out comes rocketing the true nature of man. Ejaculates out into the world, calcitrans ululansque— what?

Scraps of Latin have wandered into her consciousness. Realistically, she’s gotten them everywhere: Latin masses, Yale’s overweening classicism, her linguistics education, fluency in multiple Romance languages, just knowing Reid, travel— and, she reminds herself, crashing an exorcism rite. But wasn't Father Silvano speaking English? That's your stressor. But for what?

Stress, she thinks, inscribes certain stimuli into the memory without reason. Smells. Certain items, combinations of colors. Fear sharpens the content of peripheral vision beyond reason or reality. Discede, seductor; tibi eremus sedes est. It’s practically Italian. Begone, seducer. Your place is the wasteland. As though demons roamed the deserts like hermits, or tourists. She remembers— she could never forget— a slight note of panic at the corners of her mind every time she heard an Irish accent, after Doyle. It took years to get over, and still she catches herself worrying. As if, she told herself firmly, there weren't an entire country and diaspora with that very accent who weren't entirely indifferent to her existence. As if, traitor paranoia responded, removing one man from the equation got rid of his brothers in arms, all who would share, once they recognized her, a single, similar goal of her annihilation.

By turns she’s terrified for Johnny, and for herself. Terrified, differently, for Matthew, and for herself.

How do you stand in the wake of something so arresting? Something so apocalyptic, in its full Biblical sense.

Matthew hadn't been the most orthodox Catholic, even before her pregnancy. They’d bonded over a deep fascination with occultism; hers, at least initially, largely aesthetic, his more deeply spiritual. He was good in a way that she only believed in symbolically. Counterterrorism and profiling were enough, even individually, to convince you that human nature didn't bear an essential morality. Violence, hate, pain, and fear were a centrifuge that didn't so much demonstrate the precise makeup of the soul as force it to disarticulate itself from its natural complexity.

She'd looked a lot at old maps in college. When she was honest with herself, she suspected it was a way to reimagine the world as if she’d never seen it, and as if it were unknown to and untouched by her, still full of magic and mystery, and still without the entirely ruinous experience, in most major cities, of old friends who knew her as Elizabeth Prentiss’ daughter. When she was totally, brutally honest with herself, she suspected she was more like her mother than she could stomach, taking in the world not with wonder but with a calculated, hungry gaze. What was it like to look at the world through her eyes? Not really cold or dead, but still cruel; there was a steely ambition there, enough to rein wanderlust in, and make its joyous, earnest trajectory into a cynical career path.

Sometimes her vision goes entirely blank. Sometimes it's black, light blocked out entirely by her open eyes. She stops being scared by that, though, when something real to fear is introduced: when her sight goes nowhere at all, and vision is just absent. No color, no input: it must have had some character while it happens, but like a forgotten dream, it just becomes lost time after the fact. She imagines it: ice on the water, obscuring the rocky depths. The only sound to be heard is the slowness of breath, air on flesh as it traces the body's intricate inner workings, the susurrations of an abandoned house.

She thinks, too, about the myth of Atlas, stooping under the sky. It might crush him one day. That was always the danger. What you bore would, inevitably, extract its cost; the danger was that it was what you loved, or what defined you, or what you needed most to live. Matthew was good in the way that martyrs were by conviction, and Atlas was by punishment.

Then there is the morning she wakes up sprawled on her couch, face tacky, a peculiar and alarming mix of wet and dry. Vague in her mind is an odd sensation, like but distinct from a memory: staggering through her apartment in a fit of convulsions, unable to scream, unable to breathe. She— broke something? Her face and neck pull and crumble, flaking off dried blood. The ragged and stubby tips of her fingernails are caked gray and brown. In the hallway, there's a smashed flowerpot. Its long-neglected and hardy rubber plant is scattered in a series of leaves between there and the sofa. And when she finally finds the courage to look in the mirror, her face is caked with blood. It looks positively geographic. Along the left side of her jawbone are three deep, irregular scratches. Vague in her mind is an odd sensation, like but distinct from an idea: a ceramic shard from a crushed flowerpot might be very sharp indeed, especially when applied with force.

There's something missing from her apartment, but she can’t tell what. It has a great and terrible gravity. Its absence is constant and identifiable, but she can’t work back through it to figure out what the missing object is.

Did Matthew seek out Tommy Valentine and Patrick Cavanaugh to profane a pilgrimage and kill a priest? With Sarin? VX? How, for God's sake!

What occurs to her next isn't a thought but its negative space.

Matthew and Tommy and Patrick flying to Madrid, then heading northwest towards Galicia and the sea. Matthew was clean for the first time in a while, but still erratic, unfocused. Tommy and Patrick were, too. It wasn't aimless, but it wasn't malicious, either. But it had been Matthew’s idea.

They’d discovered they all felt let down by the church, specifically. This had come into focus quickly, when what does feeling betrayed by your faith mean to you? yielded neither theological issues nor questions of theodicy, but a very specific list of names and instances, and a very specific account of harms and hypocrisies. And Matthew had said, well, are we all still believers, then?

This yielded questions of theodicy, of how God could allow the church to conduct itself in such a manner.

And Matthew had said, what if we went on a pilgrimage?

Not just any pilgrimage, though. Pilgrimages, Matthew said, were for true believers, a way of demonstrating faith— a faith that guided and held you as you traversed the land to reach a place of true presence and importance. They would start, he said, at the end, and take the Camino de Santiago from the Catedral Basilica de Santiago de Compostela to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, and thence to their homes. They would start from a setting of a near-ultimate presence and renewal— the remains of the apostle himself!— and let that spirit guide them home in faith.

When they arrived at the cathedral, Matthew fell to his knees and wept at the feet of Christ on the central arch of the Pórtico da Gloria. He wept throughout the mass, where he sat ostentatiously close to the altar, quiet and shuddering; as pilgrims filed in, Tommy and Patrick felt seething, competitive glares leveled at him.

As they began to wonder if the right place to reconcile themselves with their alienated faith was yet another church, it happened.

Father del Toro looked upon Matthew. Their eyes met, and the stooped old Spaniard crossed himself with in the instinctive fashion common only to the most devout Catholics— not from piety but sheer, cosmic terror.

“¡El diablo! ¡El diablo está aquí con nosotros!”

Panic squeezed the outcry to a whisper. It rang out across the entire cathedral.

Tommy and Patrick wondered uncomfortably what came next. Tommy’s lapsed Catholic paranoia suggested this might be some sort of performance, or test, for pilgrims.

Father del Toro screamed. He gave off, in a great mushroom cloud, a massive volume of steam, hissing and roiling above his vestments, miraculously dry. It was as if, in a second, he dehydrated to the precise fatal degree. Then he crumpled to the ground in an inhuman heap, folding over himself heels to pelvis and knees to shoulders. The dull thunking of his knees, then his head, meeting the floor rang infinitely through the cathedral’s vast and vaulting interior, built as it was to amplify human song to the magnificence of the heavenly host. It rose in pitch as it went, and screamed until it last ceased to sound. On his downturned face, a droplet of blood welled in his right eye and folded there, in the tear duct, too small to drop.

L'arte del diavolo, thought Father Silvano.

Tommy and Patrick didn't know that Father Silvano watched them, and when they joined the group of frightened pilgrims who fled the church into the cool morning air, and slipped in along with them.

At the base of every column supporting the outer facade of the Pórtico da Gloria, there was carved a crouched and gnarled demon. The unornamented faces of the columns they supported suggested the duality of their defeat: overcome by Christ and his apostles, who sat proud in stone on the tympanum, and crushed down to mere pedestals by the church, which held them fast there.

Father Silvano took this, too, as his mission.

Emily doesn't think or know this: what she does think and know merely shapes itself around it, and suddenly it is already there in her head.

And then Tommy and Patrick and Matthew went home, none of them knowing what had happened there, all of them afraid that they did…

And Father Silvano, with the heavy conviction of the symbolic, went with them.

Matthew should have known better, she thinks finally. Matthew, with whom she spent countless days poring over whatever occult material— nonsense, sometimes, but otherwise the genuine stuff, early Christian mysticism in shoddy, furtive translation— they could get their hands on, did know that upending something threw its function out of whack with the harmony of the universe. As above, so below. As in heaven, so on earth. And if you flipped things over, then it was Hell above you, bearing down to crush Heaven to mere foundation under its stony weight.

And it wasn't Sarin, either, or any kind of nerve agent. Nerve agents weren't theatrical like that; they made you ooze and excrete and spasm. Sarin made your body jerk like a fish on a particularly cruel fisherman’s hook, until you finally asphyxiated. It didn't … smite? It didn't put off the body’s vital fluids in a cloud of vapor, hissing into a gloriole around the head of the afflicted.

Pleading family emergency, she takes a week of vacation days to let the scratches heal to a concealable stage. It would be unhelpful, and— given the luxury of retrospect— embarrassingly pathetic to spend the week crouching in her bedroom trembling in fractured silence, trying to find a grounding unity of mind and body, or even of self and thought.

Along the paths of her thoughts, as they shape themselves around the space of a cloud of steam rising from a wizened old priest, she tries repeatedly to push some sensation of urgency. A doctor, a hospital, a psychiatrist. She’s wounded and she doesn’t know why. She’s got ideas in her head about the assassination of a priest, by demonic means, and she doesn’t know why. She should tell someone. Derek might take her seriously if she shows up on his doorstep and says she thinks some kind of religious mania is descending on her shoulders.

You can play it out, time and time again. You can reach out to a true believer, with your heart in your throat, a lost sheep bleating for its flock. You can live on that hope: it might be different this time. I love you, I love you, my brother in Christ, she might say, hands outstretched, eyes wide and frightened, every inch the supplicant cowed and raptured by the sublimity of faith. Heaven as heavy and castigating as Hell, and all that.

For a moment, she sees Matthew through the eyes of Father del Toro. His eyes are normal. They're normal, she tells herself, and in the body which houses the eyes, feels Father del Toro insisting the same. There is nothing odd about them— the pallor of their irises is like ice on the water, unusual but not unthinkable. His pupils are dilated, but if Father del Toro could break his gaze, or turn the course of his thoughts, he would think that this is common among pilgrims, who are breathless, earnest, and needful. They are glossy, like new marbles, like stones in the surf. They put a fear into him so profound that he feels no love is possible, and none can be again. This is not a rational fear.

That this fear settles upon him, through the eyes of a young pilgrim in earnest, weeping rapture— the world is twisting around him. He feels evil in goodness, wrongness in well-wrought creation. As if through the haze of oppressive heat, the cathedral itself begins to twist around him. Rising up from their eternal and right places come the grotesques, the carved demons, rising up past their wrought dimensions, rising up to the size and stature of men. They turn to face him: his eyes are still fixed on the man's unflinching gaze, but their gazes join in, reflecting and reflected in those pale eyes like mirrors.

Slowly and deliberately the man blinks at him, and the fugue breaks. Father del Toro moves instinctively, hands and mouth. Emily knows how this ends, but even so, for a moment thinks he is going to pray. Then everything goes empty, dark, and silent. Her eyes gleam faintly in her dark apartment, catching beams which aren't there.

#fic #no ship no real and meaningful character portraiture just something i was trying out #i think posting it will either let me delete it or make me finish it #this is from june - july and i can't say i particularly like it or think it's successful as 'horror' writing but i did have fun #q*fic

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void-botanist · 1 year

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13, 17, 18, 27 for the weird writers ask

From this ask game.

These took a while to think about and write answers to.

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy? I have a hard time with any kind of romantic relationship that is not A) already established or B) friends to lovers or C) both. I just don't understand how to make it go from 1. meet cute/first date to 2. real deepening relationship. Which was one of the downfalls of early iterations of Zel and Anni's relationship and also to some extent Triad (but Triad had other problems too). It probably stems from my weird brain plus just not having much personal experience with dating as opposed to, well, friends to lovers.

On the flipside, friends who have been friends forever - or act like it? Easy. Their dynamic flows and so does my writing.

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

Oh boy. I have a habit of fitting those things into the text as much as possible and then deciding whether to cut them later. They often pull my story in a slightly different direction and honestly make it more fun. Because TFA is about androids and also differences between different places a lot of the transport and technology minutiae does show up. But here's some stuff that most likely will not (or is kind of meta):

Anni's current design is actually a merge of two characters. An Annie who was a Julian's niece and an android's co-builder existed in old drafts, and in Triad I briefly threw in a librarian character, Tavitta, who had an impeccable sense of light, blue, bow-laden fashion. She wasn't very good in Triad but I couldn't get that concept out of my head so I applied it to new Anni.

Monster trucks exist in this world because I think they're too fun not to and I'm not sure Dez realizes this until post-TFA when Syndy becomes obsessed with them.

I have a reference map that I crafted from my old childhood maps for this world plus some climate and weather research. It has a grid (which is basically latitude and longitude except not skewed for the curvature of the planet so…inaccurate) that I use to estimate distances for travel, time zone notation, and general climate zones (frigid, temperate, subtropical, tropical). It helps me keep my climates consistent and also showed me where Elbas Island has to go to not be in a hurricane zone.

I have so far done a bad job of integrating Dez's relationships with Mizzat and Imjen into the story. I've unironically considered moving his citizenship adventure to one of their locations, but unless I fully transplant Elbas Island (which disrupts everything about it that relies on remoteness) I don't think that makes sense. Unless one of the nAkkanswl have decided to be Good Actually and just hand out android citizenship which would be fun but also a very different story than what I have currently.

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

The nawwen looked out the elevator door as they waited for it to close, but before she could raise a hand to signal them to hold the door, their eyes met hers and went huge. Then they leaned into a different button in the panel. She thought the door would close in her face as she crossed the last few feet to the elevator, but they were still holding the button and the door was still open when she got there. “Thank you,” she said, with the tiniest question in her voice. She was glad to be in the elevator, but she wasn’t really sure what had just happened there. The nawwen let go of the button and the doors started to close. “Of course,” they said in an accent that reminded her of her grandparents’. They still looked a little spooked by her presence, like she’d caught them at something. She gave them a smile and checked her node. If she’d gotten this wrong, she might never find Syndy. But the connection was almost at max strength, and it didn’t budge as they rose past the second floor, then the third. “Excuse me,” the nawwen said from the other side of the trunk. She looked up, slipping her node hand back in her coat pocket. “Are you Anni, by chance?” She blinked. “Uh…why do you ask?” “Because if you are Anni—Anni Chalbis—then you’ve just saved me an email.” The relief on their face said ‘email’ was an understatement of their narrowly avoided trials. “I’m Hoven, he-him, though I believe you know me as ‘the bookish friend’.” Her eyes widened as the pieces came together. “So you’re looking after Syndy?” Hoven nodded, then glanced to the floor number on the elevator’s screen. “We can talk in my room.”

This is from like the fifth major version of Anni meeting Hoven I've written, and it's one of the best. Not only is it just more interesting to have this accidental meeting, but Anni is actually directly involved in the whole setup instead of having someone else tell her what's happening or telling Hoven to reach out to her. She would have met Hoven anyway because he was coming to see her. But why schedule over email when you can get a weird connection request and then go on a hunt for a missing android?

27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why? The most stressful in terms of "character is having a Bad Time" is Sid from Tales of Tobar Si (which I've been thinking about again recently. It's becoming interstellar sci-fi?). He's going through the early stages of realizing his parents are abusive and figuring out what to do about it and how to stay away from them. But the most stressful in terms of "why won't you let me write you" is harder to pin down. Zalen and Aza have both been difficult because I've had them as characters forever and I've been recycling them into new better characters that look basically the same. I've been slowly breaking my habit of second-guessing myself about all of Anni's POV scenes, especially about whether she reads too much like Dez. I think it also got easier to write her after I sort of let Hoven be the anxious one instead of her (they were both gonna be the anxious one. Not sure why I thought that would work).

Thank you for letting me ramble lol. I hope you enjoyed :)

#writing #ask games #weird writers ask #excerpt #rose brambles #rose writ #c: Anni #c: Hoven #wip: tfa

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hyperfixated-on-hensper · 2 years

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for the ask game

character: Jasper

questions: 1, 9, and 11

1- Favourites thing(s) about this character?

Oh, there is so much about Jasper that I love. I suppose my favorite is his kind heart and emotional intelligence.

Yeah, I know that the word intelligence and Jasper don't seem like they would mix since he's perceived as 'stupid' but he's actually quite intelligent when it comes to caring for people.

He knew just what to say when Henry lost his powers. Plus, when he found out that kid Danger was Henry, his first instinct was to tell Henry how proud of him he was, dispite the fact that earlier episodes (before he knew) he expressed jealousy towards the side kick.

9- What’s your favourite headcanon(s) for this character?

OMG I have so many. They're mostly really sad self projecting ones, (which you know most of lol) so, I'm only going to put a few non sad ones here.

1. Jasper gives great hugs, the best hugs in fact.

2. That he can sing! The actor for Jasper, Sean Ryan Fox released a few songs a while back they're not really my genre of music, but he's got a great voice.

So I headcanon that Jasper can sing, really well, but no one knows it- not even him.

He always does goofy fun renditions of songs (like the cup song) whenever he sings in front of anyone, making his voice dramatically loud and probably uses an accent too.

But when he's singing to himself, quietly while locking up Junk-N-Stuff, it's really good. A soft sweet melody that he doesn't even realize he's producing.

And it surprises the hell outta anyone who just so happens to hear it.

3. The spider headcanon (more detailed post: here)

Basically, I think he's the only one of the trio that isn't afraid of spiders, and he's the designated spider handler while Charlotte and Henry stand on random furniture, and scream after spotting a spider.

4. Jasper is on the spectrum (while technically a headcanon) I say it's canon regardless.

He doesn't always understand sarcasm, and struggles to comprehend social cues.

He's totally oblivious to the things he does that aren't socially acceptable, and considered rude or 'stupid'.

Plus, hyperfixating on buckets just speak for themselves.

11- Who do you not like to ship with this character?

As per my username, Hensper is my main ship. Therefore I don't really like any ship with Jasper that's not him and Henry.

However, I'm not for or against a ship with him and Charlotte. They have the potential to be cute together, they'd both be loyal and loving- but I just don't think she has the patience to be with him lol 😅

Now, the ship I dislike the most with Jasper is him and Piper. I understand why some people ship them, they have a quite interesting dynamic but I just don't see them ever being a good couple.

Mainly the reason being there age difference and the fact that I seem them as siblings.

Jasper met Henry when he was five, meaning Piper was one when he was first introduced to her.

Which honestly explains a lot of her hostility towards him, he's literally like a brother to her, he probably used to annoy the shit outta Piper.

I could see a toddler Piper constantly pulling on his hair and throwing her toys at him lol

Their age difference isn't that bad, only four years, however currently (per Dangerforce time) the Piper is still a minor, only seventeen, and Jasper is twenty- nearly twenty one. 😬

It just gives me the ick. Perhaps if they both met as adults it might change my opinion of them together, but for me it's a no.

#henry danger #jasper dunlop #henry hart #dangerverse #hensper #jenry #kid danger #henry x jasper #danger force #piper hart #jiper #Jarlotte #Chasper #whats the ship name idk?#Jasper headcanons

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sneverussape · 3 years

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What kind of person do you think lily was? There's a lot said about her in the series, but i have trouble reconciling pure, shining paragon lily with someone who would marry someone that spent years tormenting her friend, 4 on 1.

ooh boy this will be a LOT. i can't even promise it will be coherent but i'll make an attempt to be. (going under a cut to save us all the grief).

first off, i think it's fair to state that one of the biggest drawbacks of lily's character is how she was written. she is a plot device. she exists to boost other characters’ narratives: she's simultaneously the Rich Boy's trophy wife, the self-sacrificing mother of the Boy Who Lived, the best friend slash lost love of the Fallen Hero, and, at the same time, also no one at all. lily is a character with little to no background and character development that she can barely stand on her own two feet without any of the associated (usually male) characters to prop her up. it absolutely sucks but that's how it is. that's how jk wrote her.

given that and working with the scraps that we do have, my opinion of lily is...complex. i try to give her justice by trying to understand her context, the workings of her mind, and the possible pressures she was subjected to, but it can be challenging especially since lack of canon pushes you into a space where you have to put them in Either/Or situations. my opinion of her has also changed as i got older. when i was younger (i read the books waaaay back, as they were getting released in fact) i only saw her as an extra character (i was most interested in snape, if that's not obvious enough, but neither did i think snape was 'obsessed' with her as a lot of hp fans now think). i saw her and snape as good friends who had had a falling out, and that he'd probably had a crush on her at some point, and it got naturally overtaken by guilt etc when she died. then when i reread some chapters containing her, i was quick to put her in the Bad Friend camp. i don't think that now. i think that she, like snape, was a complex human being who made a lot of questionable decisions but shouldn't be entirely vilified for them.

my main thoughts of her that are kind of built on material from canon as well as what jkr has said herself:

- she was not posh. she grew up in cokeworth, in the same town as severus. i don't think she was middle class as a lot of fics portray her. i think the evanses were slightly better off than the snapes but they were all working-class, and living was a day-to-day struggle. the kids spoke in the local accent, their clothes were all worn and patched over, there were no green spaces or public infrastructure for kids to safely play in, and they were all mostly running wild about the town since all their parents had to work. food was something to be thankful for because there was never enough, and sometimes they had to share with their neighbors. that's the kind of setting i think lily and severus grew up in, although severus suffered abuse on top of it all. it's possible that lily did too because of the setting (post-world war 2, poverty, adults dealing with repressed trauma from the war, etc) and it wouldn't even be that surprising if she had been;

- she and petunia got along fairly well up until the point lily found out she was a witch and, as a result, became friends with severus. it's stated in canon that petunia had also wanted to attend hogwarts with them, going as far as writing to dumbledore to allow her admittance. her jealousy upon his rejection had festered and grown into outright hate that she projected onto harry as an adult, but i don't doubt that she continued to love lily even after her death and despite how she treated harry. i think as kids they had stuck together and were very close, but magic had torn them apart. suddenly lily had a world of her own that petunia wasn't welcome in, and that would have hurt. pottermore stated lily attended vernon and petunia's wedding or engagement party but james made a right mess of it. i think lily TRIED to maintain their relationship but external factors always got in the way. i don't doubt she had also loved her sister very much;

- i don't think she had any other friends. she may have had a lot of acquaintances but i think her only real friend, the one who saw her for who she really was, was severus, and i think, at a certain point in their lives, she saw that as a weakness and resented it;

- i think, from the interactions we saw in canon of lily with other people, that lily had a penchant to please people, especially the ones who ranked higher than her in terms of power dynamics - petunia (who was the older sister), professors (sluggy comes to mind, the head of slytherin with a lot of connections), even the marauders whose actions she defended. it's not necessarily a bad thing, but i've always seen it as her being borderline manipulative. i noted that she wasn't the same with severus (based on their conversations, especially the ones in 5th year, before SWM) because he's lower than her in a lot of aspects, being a slytherin and quite likely of a lower social standing. she could boss him around and tell him to piss off and he probably wouldn't have minded. she actually strikes me as someone who could have been in slytherin; a perfect arrangement, save for the fact that she was a muggleborn. i think lily knew her place and the cards she was dealt with more than anyone, but she was also determined not to stay there;

- this brings me to the point as to why she ever went out with james potter in the first place. i think her friendship breakup with severus was inevitable because they were in the middle of a burgeoning war and both of them were being pulled to opposite and opposing ends. as an added complexity, i think she also wanted to be better than being muggleborn lily evans of cokeworth, best friend of the evil greasy slytherin git, and her way out was to associate with housemates who were in the upper echelons of power. like, we don't even know what her life was like in gryffindor tower. ron was poor, but he was also a pureblood, so that may have saved him from ridicule. but what if you were a poor muggleborn, with a northern accent to boot? in the same way severus trained himself to be more posh, lily could have done the same and could have furiously tried to blend in. maintaining a friendship with severus would have ended in heartbreak as there were too many risks and it likely outweighed the gains. this was the wizarding world too which is much much smaller than the muggle world and relied on connections more than anything. openly siding with the marauders would have saved her skin and secured her a future (which, as we all know, was forfeit anyway but whatever);

- jumping to the jily relationship, i honestly think it was also not one that was meant to last. iirc jkr projected a lot onto lily, so i'm surmising jily reflected a lot of her own failed relationships. i think james and lily had a less-than-ideal relationship, one that involved abuse (verbal, emotional, mental, physical, take your pick, but at least one form of it), and i think she may have been unhappy in the last year of her life, living in hiding with none of her own friends (if they even existed) and seeing no one else but james' pals. her only light in that darkness was likely harry as she couldn't even see her own family. i think, during those times, she thought a lot about the home she left behind and, as a consequence, her lost friendship with severus. she probably missed him, and i'm sure she must have been very lonely.

in sum, i don't think she was the Virgin Mary figure a lot of hp fans paint her to be. imho she had her own questionable but utterly human moments, and i just tried to fill in the blanks as to why she would have acted the way she did. i don't think it was easy to be lily evans at all, and majority of the 21 years of her life was likely a struggle.

#lily evans #and the cards she was dealt #i wish we knew more about her tbh #ask #hp #also mentions #snape #of course

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shackermanwrites · 3 years

Text

PAPER RINGS

Summary: In year 1908, you and your friends attempts to have the remaining best days of your lives before entering college. Yet you only have a few months to persuade your parents to send you to boarding school instead of finishing college and marry a man. Will you succeed when Kuchel's son Levi Ackerman suddenly entered your life? Will you let a lower class like him love an upper class like you or will you continue to pursue your dream to enter college and be with your friends?

Pairing:Levi Ackerman x Fem!Reader

Warnings & Content: Slow Burn, Alternate Universe, based on Anne with an E, fluff, hurt/comfort, eventual smut, first love, arrange marriage, coming of age.

Chapter 1 -> Chapter 2

Year 1908

“I’ll see you tomorrow, we shall make our remaining last days and summer here in Avonlea memorable!”

“No need to cry Sasha, we’re attending the same boarding school remember? Along with Annie, Historia, and Ymir.”

You opened your arms to give a big warm and reassuring hug to your blossomed friend Sasha as the both of you stand along the huge trees. You and Sasha are kindred spirits as she likes to word it ever since you were just a little girls. Both of your mothers are best of friends since school that’s why you have known each other since.

“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow y/n” The brown-haired girl smiled widely to you before the both of you started parting ways.

The grin on your face instantly faded as you began to walk home. You’re not even sure about college since your parents which is mostly your father who is pushing you to attend finishing school after this year and start practicing how to be a proper lady that is fir to marry since they’re insisting you to find a gentleman to marry and settle.

Which of course you do not wish nor approve to do so. Finishing school means you are going to be isolated from your friends and not to mention that it will not actually give you a well-rounded education. You wanted to be a teacher since it is your passion since you were a little kid to teach and educate a lot of people but with the disapproval of you parents, you find it hard to believe that it will be possible.

Sure, you wanted to be to be wife someday but not with someone you just met and most specifically not because you have to. Not a lot of forced marriage ends up beautifully. You are a hopeless romantical waiting for your someone to capture your heart at the right time and moment.

Since you have no other choice but to obey them for now and persuade them some other time and hopefully they will change their mind.

You reached your house within a matter of time thanks to your preoccupied mind along the way. You saw your helper in farm which is Mr. Ackerman mending the saddle of the horses.

“Good day Mr. Ackerman!” you greeted while waving your hand in the air.

“For the last time kid, just Kenny!” Kenny did mind a little being called Mr. since they were just helpers, in short, they are poor and you coming from a wealthy family calling him with honorifics isn’t a norm.

“Good day Kenny!” You repeat with a giggled before proceeding to head your way.

Faint sound of voices coming from inside the house was already audible in front of your house. You thought your mother was only having a tea with her friends. You quickly opened the door hoping to great Mr. and Mrs. Yaeger but you were instead greeted by Miss Ackerman sitting in the couch with your parents along with a raven-haired boy sitting beside Miss Ackerman.

“There you are dear, come take a seat. We’ll discuss some things.” You mother stated as she pours tea in each cup.

You took off your hat and hang it in the hat stand along with your coat. Obediently, you sat beside your mother facing the black-haired boy. You can now clearly see his face, he is pale and has a straight emotionless face that gives the impression that he is not interested.

“You see dear, Kuchel here needs to say her goodbye to us for now, she’s sick and can’t be use of helping in house chores and in farm so instead she’s lending her son here to help his uncle in farm.”

You worriedly look at Kuchel who was giving a faint smile to you. Kuchel was not just a helper in your house, she was like a second mother to you. She’s kind and beautiful and she always taught you things that made you see the world in another perspective.

“Are you okay Miss Kuchel?” You asked which made the boy in front of you furrowed his brows. Never in a million years he would see a wealthy person like you use honorifics to their kind let alone be concerned to them. He thinks that most people who were born with a golden spoon is spoiled and annoying, always blabbering about money and things they bought. Yet he also felt a little envious since they don’t have enough money to support their family but nonetheless he is still grateful for the things he has especially his mother.

“Yes dear that’s very kind of you but no need to worry I am okay.” Kuchel replied with a reassuring smile on her face.

You avert your gaze to his son which he was already looking at you with his cold stare. Just like his mother, he has a steel blue eyes and jet black hair. He looks just exactly like his mother.

“My son is strong, kind, compliant, and very hard working, you will have no problem with him. I am very sorry for this inconvenient Mr. and Mrs. L/N” The dark haired woman smiled weakly which you then returned with a reassuring smile when her gaze averts to yours.

“It can’t be helped then but I expect nothing will change from your service.” You father simply replied. You and your father were never really that close especially he was always busy at work managing the town being the reason why you sometimes do not approve on how he speaks.

You were about to speak when your mother cuts you off. “Well then I guess it is settled. We will take good care of your son Kuchel and besides Kenny is here. Take good care of yourself on the way Kuchel.”

You can tell that you got your trait of being compassionate from your mother, you never really had a conversation with your father without the both of you arguing so grew up being distance with him to avoid conflict.

Kuchel then proceeded to bid her goodbye before your mother shows her way out, but you're pretty sure your mother gave her some money to buy enough food and even medicine. You were left in the living area along with your father and Kuchel’s son.

“Tell your mother I will be back before supper, Mr. Yeager and I needs to discuss some things. Kindly tell your mother to show Kuchel’s son around the house and the farm.” And there was your father’s strict and bossy attitude, whenever he talks to you, he almost sound unaffectionate and uninterested.

“Yes father, send my regards to Mr. and Mrs. Yeager.” You softly replied before your fathers walks out of your sight.

You look at the boy in front of you who was already looking at you.

“Hello, my name is Y/N, what’s yours?” You reach out your hand to him to have a formal handshake yet he just looks at it with confusion painted on his face.

“Levi.” He simply replied. You then pull out your hand from the embarrassment of him not returning the handshake. The first thing you noticed about him is his French accent just like his mother’s, you found it interesting as you always wanted to learn new language.

“Nice meeting you Levi.” You flash a nice welcome smile to him yet he remains the same and only responded with a nod.

You grip on your slate and books as you stand up and fix your dress. “Well, it was nice meeting you once again Levi, please excuse me.”

You graciously stood up and bowed your head at him, it was like you were programmed to do social etiquette all your life to the point where you are convinced that being graceful is the only thing you excel at.

You were greeted by the same beige colored wall in your room along with the fresh vanilla scent from your perfume. Your mother insisted that you start wearing perfumes and start taking care if your body since you are now a lady and perhaps next year you will start wearing corsets.

Once a woman reached the age of eighteen, it is a must to wear one to maintain an upright, 'good figure' and of course, parents should decide whether they would send their daughter to college but in your case, finishing school it is.

“I still have months to persuade my parents to change their minds. Nothing could possible go wrong.”

You settled your books and slate in your study table before deciding to come down to help for supper. Even with the helpers in your house, you are expected to do basic simple chores in the house such as arranging the plates in the table before and after a meal.

You found your mother cooking in the kitchen while Levi was already arranging the plates in the table. You were about to stop him since it is your job to do it but your mother grabbed you by the wrist.

“Let him dear, just for tonight. I already told him the chores he will be doing and just for tonight, I asked him to eat with us and he insisted on helping.”

You nod in response to your mother before glancing over at Levi who seems to be unbothered. You noticed that he has this bored expression in his fac. He’s short and pale, and noticeably quiet which his presence made you feel intimidated by him.

Levi had caught you staring at him which made him a little uncomfortable, you were only observing him but to him, he thought you were judging him for the way he is, maybe he even thought that you pity him, you being disgusted to the plates because he touched it also crossed his mind.

“Do you need anything?” You felt your blood rushing through your face when you realized that you were staring at the new boy, it was embarrassing and improper for a lady to stare.

“What?” you did not understand what he just said and why he said it. you look around and your mother was not in the kitchen anymore and the two of you were left alone.

“I said, do you need anything?” Levi placed the last plate he was holding in the table before averting his gaze to you.

“No, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to sta-” you were cut off by your father stepping into the kitchen along with your mother. You hurriedly checked the soup before taking it out on the stove.

The four of you took a seat in the dining area. You were sitting beside your mother and in front of Levi. Only the sound of clanking utensils can be heard.

“Say, Levi is it? what do you usually do in your house?” Your father and you looked at your mother and Levi as she tries to engage a conversation.

“I take care of my younger sister Ma’am, she’s 12. Sometimes, I help sell our small crops and goods in town for our extra income.”

“That’s good. How old are you anyways?”

“Eighteen ma’am, turning nineteen.”

Your mother nod at his response while you and your father remained quiet for the entire night. Normally, you were the one who was being asked about your day in school but it was nice having a break even just for a night.

Levi on the other hand was a little uncomfortable not from talking but from the food. It’s not like he did not like the food that was served, in fact he liked it very much but he just hoped that he could share the meat and the delicious soup with his mother since they rarely eat anything like that. Bread, cheese, oats and jams were the only food they can afford.

Nonetheless, it was a decent evening for him and to you too. It was peaceful and the both of you shared one thing in common, changed.

“Psst!”

“Y/N!”

You rose from your bed as soon as you heard whispers along with rocks hitting your window from below your room. You did not need to know who was the culprit because only one person keeps doing that for years.

Sneaking at night was improper especially for a lady at your age but you and your friends were never really liked at term ‘Proper’, you and your friends are indeed proper in the eyes of everyone, but not when all of you are alone.

Without wasting any time, you put your boots on and carefully head outside without making a noise. Sneaking outside your room was always easy but going down the stairs was the hardest part. The amount of times you were caught sneaking out when you were a child because of the squeaking sounds that the stairs makes still haunts you till this day.

Luckily, you managed to pass the old squeaky stairs, there was just a faint light coming from the living room. You were taking your time way too much that you forgot about your friends waiting outside for probably almost 10 minutes now, you hurriedly made your way to the front door before looking back just to check if any of your parent is up.

You opened the door and the cold wind immediately welcomed you as soon as you stepped outside. It was dark and only the moon was giving the night sky its light. You carefully and quietly closed the door making sure no sound can be heard from the inside.

It was already getting late so you ran as soon as you turned your back on your house not caring on the slippery additional five concrete stairs in front of your house. You just need to go to the side of your house where your room is and everything will be fine.

Everything was going on so smoothly not until a person suddenly stood up just as you were about to turn, you bumped you head hard on that persons chest. You look up to meet Levi’s confused expression.

“Levi! You scared me, what are you doing?” You whispered before looking around to see if anyone was there.

“Sitting, obviously.” He simply replied while looking at you.

You looked back at him nervously, you were scared he might tell your parents that you were sneaking at night.

“Listen I- Please don’t say anything to my parents, please, just pretend you didn’t see me.” You begged him. Levi didn’t say anything, he was thinking if he should accept your request or not which made you more anxious as time goes by.

“See what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Levi replied.

Immediately, a smile was plaster on your face, you were relieved by his answer. You smiled at him.

“Thank you Levi, I owe you one.” You walked passed him before running to the side of your room.

Levi was left alone confused, you were still behaving like the way you did earlier. You still smiled at him even when no one’s around. Yet a part of his thought knows you needed to be kind to him only for him to not tell your parents what he just saw.

“There she is, Y/N we’ve been here for almost an hour.”

“Ymir I think that’s a bit overreacting now.”

You were greeted by your friends, Sasha who’s clinging over Annie, Ymir holding a bunch of scarfs and Historia who’s holding flower crowns. They walked over to your direction to meet you.

“I’m sorry, I’m here now let’s go.” All of you looked around as you all walked away from your house. You looked back at the direction where Levi was when you were already far away from your house, there was no Levi already.

‘Maybe he already went inside.’ You thought to yourself.

There was laughter and chatter while you and your friends are on the way to the near lake in your house. One every two weeks, all of you spends the night there talking about life since all of you were just a child.

“it’s still so beautiful no matter what.” Historia says in an awe when you arrived at the lake.

She’s right, it’s always so peaceful and calm here especially at night.

“It’s nice, nothing changed in this beautiful lake but we’re all changed. Look at us now.” You sadly said while looking over the lake.

Your friends understood what you said. None of you were ready for being grown up, for the reality you need to face.

“We’re all adults now, I’m scared that one day we all might forget each other, we have to marry some gentleman one way or another.” Annie stated.

“I hate them already.” Sasha replied.

There was a lump in your throat, you want them to know that you can’t go to college with them but you can’t, it just doesn’t feel right to you to say it just yet.

“I’ll just marry all of you if that’s the case.” You jokingly said to lighten up the mood.

“It would please of if you don’t include me and Historia, we’re going to marry each other.” Ymir said as she hugs Historia while the blonde girl giggles before returning her hug.

You spend the night laughing and playing around while wearing flower crowns, the happy faces of your friends reassured you that everything will be fine. After an hour, you all parted ways before it gets too late. Maybe some other time you will have the courage to tell them the truth.

You manage to went back inside your house without waking your parents up yet at this point you don’t care if they did. It will give you the reason to beg not to send you to finishing school but you know it will worsen the situation.

You were thinking for so long that your thoughts went to that Raven haired boy, he seems nice yet not much of a talkative person. Kuchel was so nice to you so you’re also certain that Levi is just like his mother. You remembered that you owe him for tonight and you know exactly what to do.

#levi #Levi fanfiction #levi heichou #shingeki no kyoujin levi #levi attack on titan #Captain Levi #levi ackerman fanfiction #levi ackerman #levi ackerman smut #levi ackerman x reader #aot x reader #aot fanfiction #levi aot #levi x reader #levi x y/n #levi x you

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steve0discusses · 3 years

Text

Yugioh Season Zero: The Yo-Yo Crimes of Jounouchi Pt 1

It’s been a while since I visited the many times Yugi should have gone to jail, AKA season Zero, and I’m excited to visit it again.

If you just got here, this is Season Zero, which is very different vibe and a different direction plotwise than the other seasons and you can read the season zero recaps from the start in chrono order here: https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yuugi%20muto/chrono

So be warned, this is a 90′s anime, and it will do 90′s anime things, and I expect y’all reading this aren’t like 12.

Like I said in an earlier post, I wrote this out fully when I was going through the symptoms from my second dose--which PS, is worth it--but those symptoms knocked me out for 10 days. I was kind of a space cadet, and yo, I made some mistakes. Including writing this post out in full and then not clicking “save” on this post and then not realizing I had done that until several days later.

So long story short, I don’t remember what I originally wrote here, but lets all assume it was weird, and didn’t make sense and wasn’t funny. We’ll just assume this was for the best that it was deleted forever.

So this episode is about 2 things: Yo-yos and Jounouchi. Both get used as a tool for violence, and both need to get just a little bit cursed by Yugi to scale it the hell back. So, understandably, we start off this episode with Jounouchi, who has eagerly identified with this off brand yo-yo he apparently got out of a dumpster for being just a huge ass defect.

(more Yo-Yo crimes under the cut)

I see you dodging copyright infringement, Yugioh. Eireboy.

Also whenever I read “Eireboy” I do it in my mind in the same pacing and vocal tones that Pegasus uses to say “Kaiba boy.” Something about it’s conjunction to Yugioh, I see anything with “boy” at the end of it, and it’s voiced by a weird guy with one eye.

So I wrote these caps under the influence of my second dose, just assuming y’all understand the life I lived, but I realized writing this episode...traveling bands of yo-yo performers that go to your school and shill yo-yos with yo-yo shows in the hopes that it will get you so obsessed with yo-yos that you will not join a gang and do drugs and have sex may be just an American thing.

So when I saw a yo-yo episode I was like “Tight! Clearly, the yo-yo clowns have come to town!” and I assumed everyone in this class would be draped in yo-yos, because I just assumed that at some point at School you will get MAD OBSESSED with yo-yos for about 2 weeks.

But in this episode, everyone was like “Jounouchi, why are you playing with a random yo-yo?” and it didn’t occur to me until typing this out just now: only Jounouchi is doing this. He did this unprompted, without the encouragement of a bunch of middle aged performers doing tricks to techno music.

So instead, I have to think of Jounouchi as Ralphie in this scenario, and he just got a official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time for Christmas, but he’s gonna shoot his eye out.

Because yo-yos in this episode are basically guns.

...Kind of like a duel deck was also just a gun...

...or the wands in Harry Potter...

...which honestly...I’ve probably said this before but where I’m from, we just use straight up guns in these elaborate analogies because we freakin have to make the point crystal clear. The moment Ralphie finally got his hands on a bb-gun, he very nearly shot his eye out and broke his glasses. And that scene will haunt me until my dying day...

...but fine, we can use yo-yos, I guess it works, although to me, yo-yo’s are just teachers hoping you’ll become such a dork that no gang will accept you (and then in this universe, it does the opposite? So freakin weird).

The beginning of this episode is Jounouchi trying do his best to impress with his skills, but in actuality, getting very close to clubbing Anzu with a yo-yo. And, while Anzu is the strongest person in Yugioh in the later seasons, I feel like Season Zero Anzu is another level. It’s a serious tempt of fate that Jounouchi is doing, so Honda wisely cuts him off from doing any more of that so she won’t end up strangling yet another person in broad daylight in the middle of school.

Remember your yo-yo safety, children.

Straight up, Honda’s version of yo-yo safety is to just Never Use a Yo-Yo and that’s the most gun safety thing ever that they’ve slipped into this Yugioh Episode. I almost expected Yuugi to pull a “well, actually, I use a hunting yo-yo to get enough venison to feed my family.” But youknow, he lives in a city, so while Yugioh is pretty weird and Yuugi has to worry about a lot of things--he doesn’t have to worry about that.

This is actually foreshadowing, which I only realized in hind sight, mostly because I just can’t associate a Yo-yo with crime. Joey knowing how to use a yo-yo was foreshadowing that he was absolutely part of this gang in a past life.

Yeah that one went completely over my head the first time and the second time and it really wasn’t until just now that I finally caught it. Hoo boy, sometimes I wonder why y’all let me analyze this show.

Jounouchi decides to confront the yo-yo bandits and everyone else is like “Silly Jounouchi, he’s not gonna do that. That would be stupid.” And...in S0, they don’t know him well enough yet to know that he really is that much of a well meaning dumbass.

I think a S1-5 Yugi would have been sprinting out the door to keep Joey from killing himself (again), but Season Zero Yuugi had hope that Jounouchi would just naturally tucker out and fall asleep or something.

And he was so wrong.

Anzu’s “New Tricks” line was from the dub itself and man that’s a good line. I love Anzu’s sass in Zero.

So, Honda decides to help them find Jounouchi so all of them together could give Jounouchi an intervention for skipping school. This is the same Honda that once skipped school to babysit a tomagachi and said it was because of “Maternity leave,” but don’t worry about the hypocrisy, because from this episode we learned that Jounouchi needs a very short leash.

So this episode is a great Jounouchi episode to explain stuff that still hasn’t been explained in 5 seasons of Yugioh. In S1-5, we don’t get much about his home life other than his Mom left and his Sister lives far away and is like sickly as hell. We know nothing else. But this is the episode where we finally get to find out why Yuugi and his Grandfather decided to basically adopt him from S1 onward.

Yugioh is tackling some pretty heavy territory, but I respect the show for not trying to magically change Jounouchi’s parents like they did to Dartz. Instead, the crew decide to reach out and try to find their friend who clearly didn’t go home last night (and won’t be going back for a while), by checking every alleyway in Domino.

Fun fact Yuugi drops this episode, Domino is one of the biggest cities on Earth. This makes the Battle City Tournament even more crazy when you realize Kaiba shut down several blocks but, it also makes a tiny bit more sense how we have so many Millennium items in one place. (Yet...it still doesn’t explain Bakura and Joey’s accent.) And, I guess if your city is just extra large, you get an extra large warehouse district, too.

Speaking of, they eventually find Jounouchi at his new (but also old) crime antics mugging some random stranger next to this Game store that I just realized was cropped so it looks like it says “GANG.”

Say hello to our crime clown. He’s sort of like a discount joker, and that beanie is...man it is green.

I forget this green exists sometimes, but Season Zero has it as one of their prime colors. Good ol’ Retro Kaiba green.

I’m a little tempted to swatch Season Zero a bit and figure out their full color scheme--it’s really saturated, which is interesting when you compare it to the later seasons which are a lot more muted since...the 00′s were like that, they greyed a lot of colors out. But I’ll do it later if I do, maybe another post for another day.

Jounouchi and Honda, before they moved to the school with Yuugi in it, used to go to the same school and up until now I just assumed they were close friends. But apparently they were a lot more distant than that. I’m sure they met up several times as Jounouchi destroyed stuff and Honda came along in his volunteer janitor outfit to put the stuff the hell back, and maybe that’s how they got to know eachother better?

But basically, Jounouchi was the freakin worst, and Jounouchi’s best friend was Hirotani--this 45 year old 15 year old with the blue pony and turquoise fade--and Honda has SO MUCH hot goss to say about it.

I really get the gist that Honda may not have liked anyone else at his old school, like at all. Like maybe Honda likes cleaning up trash so much because his school was just trash top to bottom.

As is tradition, Yuugi got his tar beat in by Hirotani. Another concussion to add to his list of issues to tell his future therapist that lives in that puzzle he wears around his neck.

I still expect him to do a double cross, but it seems they wanted to keep it a relatable and more realistic fall-out, where Jounouchi has just bounced on them without even a goodbye. He and his Dad had a bad fight, and Jounouchi was like “well so long to all of this and everyone that has anything to do with it.”

In later seasons, Joey is the one trying to save other people. He’s saving his Sister, he’s saving Mai, he’s saving Yugi, but in this season Jounouchi’s friends had to save Jounouchi from himself a few times now.

I like this depth to his character, I’ll be honest. I can understand why S1-5 don’t touch on it, and I don’t think it’s because they didn’t want to have an abusive Dad storyline, because they did that several times over with Seto Kaiba (man the Dad situation in Yugioh is DIRE.) Instead they probably just felt like Season Zero already did it, so why do it again?

It’s just a shame that it wasn’t talked about in the other seasons. Joey makes a lot more sense to me now because we get to see why Jounouchi is so hard set on saving people. S4 Mai Valentine, who ditched everyone and joined a gang? That’s basically a Joey move, and that was why Joey Wheeler was all over that.

Really would have added a lot to that particular arc if the show...actually talked about Joey’s history at all rather than assume I would have watched something that was never released in the States. Instead...it just looked a lot like he had only romantic motivations, which may not have been what they were going for.

Speaking of romantic, check out this sunset. Like the sun is exploding for some reason--just a wild sunset you only see for a still frame before a commercial break.

As Joey, youknow, takes on an entire rival gang single-handedly.

Hey guys, I lived near a pretty big city most of my life and I have been on a roof...once. Just the one time when I was doing an internship in SF with a painter and we needed to take a reference photo of his painting for a gallery (and it was hella sketch, and we weren’t exactly allowed up there). Who are all these people giving teens Roof Access? It’s so hard to get! Even if you live in an apartment of a tall building, I can count on zero of my fingers the amount of times I was allowed on that roof. But TV shows and movies--they freakin love roof gardens and roof hangouts and roof fights.

Am I missing out?? How did y’all get on the ROOF? I know I’m on S5 of Yugioh now and I have seen a lot of roof stuff, but like...is this normal for everyone else? I know there’s schools that have roof sport--that’s common in the city everywhere--but that’s like...specialized roofs with 30 ft chainlink fencing and really good supports to your body doesn’t fall straight through it when you jump too much. The hell is using their normal ass roof?

This gang should have their legs swinging halfway into the floor below them, is all I’m saying, if my roof couldn’t handle our solar heating, then a normal ass roof cannot support a gang fight.

But it does look really, really cool.

Anyway, Anzu does some offscreen snooping and finds out where the crime hangs out, and suggests that we step right into crime zone and just yank Jounouchi out of there. Which is something you would only do and say if you were Anzu and cannot fear death.

If it were Jay’s it would be with an ‘s. That’s how you do a plural Jay. But it’s the 90′s, so we put a “z” on the end of everything that should have been an “s” and that’s how you get the...

I mean, thank you, dubbers, for not saying “Jizz” but for reals...that be Jizz.

Please don’t flag me, Tumblr. (which, PS, I think they turned off the flagbot, Tumblr hasn’t flagged me in forever and I’m so thankful. Mods are asleep, we can talk about anime again)

So even though Honda decided that he was fed up with Jounouchi and didn’t want to save his ass, he decided to give it another go but complete with some new sash. He also did this without telling any of the others, who just kinda spectated him for a little while.

Honestly, if they weren’t laughing at him, I wouldn’t have known that this sash was any weirder than any of his other sashes. I don’t know really know what a school uniform should look like. It’s a shame, I feel like this series has a lot of jokes and puns probably soaring right over my head.

A little bit embarrased he was caught being vulnerable, Honda decides to give us a little more context to why he ever decided to give Jounouchi the time of day in the first place.

They had PE class once, and Honda apparently loves the hell out of PE. Jounouchi ran really fast in a straight line that one time, and that is why he’s trustworthy friend material. He just needs to stop joining gangs, and he’ll be solid.

I have no idea if the fandub put that in there or if that was native to the show, but Miho legit stans Honda/Jounouchi and acts as if she’s off to write some fanfiction about it. Honestly if she did, it would make her so much more interesting of a character.

And so, until next time, we shall have to wait and see exactly what Yami Yuugi is going to do with a freakin Yo-yo and I’m sure it’s all sorts of real effed up. Excited to get there, honestly. A shame it had to happen on the part that isn’t dubbed yet, but I’ve done these subbed before, it’ll be fine!

#Season Zero #Yuugi Muto #Jounouchi #Honda #Anzu #yo-yo #Jounouchi joins a gang #Gotta go save Jounouchi's ass I guess #Miho #she was here too I guess #Just a great Jounouchi episode for the Jounouchi stans out there

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beatricethecat2 · 3 years

Photo

"Chill for a minute! You're making me nervous," Myka says.

"I'll not miss the performance because of a third-rate watchman," Helena huffs.

"Abigail said she'd sort this out."

"Abigail got us into this."

"She didn't slug him."

"He tackled me."

"You grabbed the book and ran."

"And I'd have succeeded were it not for that wandering child," Helena gruffs. "Who brings a child to theater?"

"You wouldn't have brought Christina?"

"Were she old enough and properly dressed, yes. That child was in dungarees."

"They probably came to see the exhibition not the matinee—"

"We're not dressed properly either," Helena grumbles, swiping dirt off a pant leg.

"Theater's not as formal as it used to be. And you did put your hair up," Myka says, flashing a feeble smile.

"And now it's mussed. It wasn't much to look at to begin with." Helena fusses with her bun.

"Hey, I think you look really nice," Myka says, reaching over, stilling Helena's hands.

"This is hardly theater attire."

"It's the Oregon Shakespeare Festival not the Met Opera."

"Attending the theater used to mean something." Helena's hands drop to her lap.

"It still does, but not corsets and gowns." Myka raises a brow. "Would you have worn a dress if this was a real date?"

"I very well may have. I'd certainly have made more of an effort."

"A nineteenth or twenty-first century effort?

"May I not embody both?"

"Yeah, but I'm just noticing you sort of default to the nineteenth when you're around me."

"And you disapprove."

"No. It think it's kind of sweet. I like that you don't have to hide who you are with me." Myka bumps her shoulder into Helena's.

"And to think, I once yearned to live in a future such as this. I'd no clue how exhausting it'd be being out of time."

"It'll get easier," Myka says, meeting Helena's unsure gaze. She leans towards Helena and Helena follows suit, their lips nearly touching when a door slamming in the distance halts the action.

"So, um...when's the last time you saw Shakespeare?" Myka asks, recomposing herself.

Helena thinks back. "Hamlet, in Stratford; Sarah Bernhardt as lead. We'd travelled specifically to see her, as it was unusual for a woman to play a male's part. She was her bombastic self, but watching Shakespeare translated into French was odd. I may have opinions about the American accent as well."

"Oh you will."

"Flipping through those gravures on display really took me back. Then the cabinet cards...are you familiar with those actors?"

"No."

"Such a shame," Helena says, pushing up from her slouch to sit upright. "Ellen Terry, she who worked so very hard to elevate the acting profession for women and men; Lillie Langtree, the beauty who pulled her reputation up from the mud through her craft; Violet Vanbrugh, locked in competition with her sister for the spotlight...celebrities, one and all, yet seeing them now, they feel like lost friends."

Helena sighs deeply and looks away. "When I snatched the book, my mind was no longer present. Hence the guard getting a jump on me."

"It's going to work out," Myka says, flashing a comforting smile.

"How exactly is Abigail remedying this? I heard little of your hushed conversation earlier," Helena says, narrowing her eyes at Myka.

"She's convincing them to put it back so we can swap it with a copy she's sending."

"Could she not have done so previously?"

"With Artie out of town, she's scrambling to keep up."

"How exactly is she convincing them?"

"She's, um..." Myka looks down at her lap and adjusts her wrist watch. "Do you actually need to know?"

"I do now," Helena says, swerving in her seat to face Myka.

"She's posing as your therapist."

"And I'm a babbling idiot."

"No...our pitch is you're obsessed with Victoriana."

"Convenient," Helena grumbles, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Do you want to see the play or not?"

"What do you think?"

"I think we wouldn't be here at all if Abigail hadn't asked us to snag volume nine of 'The Illustrated Library of Shakespeare.' And I think she'll fix this for now so we can see a play like two normal people who see plays. We'll worry about the book tomorrow."

Helena's scowl stays firmly in place.

"I'll make it up to you tonight at the hotel," Myka says, eyes pleading.

"Placating me for performing the Warehouse's bidding is not in the least desirable—"

"Ooh, look, he's coming out," Myka says, patting Helena's leg as she rises to talk to the head of security. "Stay here."

Helena stays put but her scowl grows all consuming.

-END SCENE-

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

Bering and Wells: Field Trip ("Warehouse 13" Season 5 replacement) Season 1: Episode 7 Title: Oregon: To one thing constant never

Summary: With Warehouse staff stretched thin, Myka and Helena are asked to dash from Myka's parents to The Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The pickup hits a snag when Helena, lost in memories, bungles the retrieval. Emotions run high when Helena reveals an unshakable impulse that threatens their newfound bliss.

Previously: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6

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

BONUS SCENE

The next day, in the parking in the lot of the festival, freshly off the phone from the Warehouse, Myka turns to Helena.

"Artie's booking us a flight. He wants us to bring the book in person—"

"We are not altering our plans again," Helena sneers. "He can pick it up from us."

"I think he needs it sooner," Myka mumbles. "It'll be quick, just a day or two. Maybe we can push our bookings up?"

"As if that's worked in the past."

"True," Myka says, shoulders slumping as she sighs defeatedly. "Then we'll skip Mendocino and head straight to San Francisco from there. I'll grab some of my stuff since we might stay in the city longer." She turns the key, revving the car to life.

"I'll drive to Mendocino and meet you in San Francisco. You go on to the Warehouse."

"But Artie said you can come," Myka explains, looking over her shoulder, backing out of their parking spot. She puts the car in drive and moves towards the exit.

"There's no reason for me to do so."

"But you haven't met Abigail. Or Steve, really. Plus Claudia's dying to see you—"

"Myka, I can't."

Myka steps on the brake and turns to face Helena. "Is this a Regent thing? Because Artie wouldn't have said you could come if you couldn't."

"It's not a Regent thing."

"Then what?" Myka huffs.

"We've not time to discuss this now."

"Then tell me the abbreviated version."

A honk from behind jolts them both.

"Alright, alright!" Myka grumbles, pulling out of the parking lot and onto the road.

"You go on. I'll follow our plan," Helena says. "I wish to feel the land shifting underfoot, as if Elizabeth, Christina, and I had made our way through California in my own day."

"Wouldn't that have been on a train? Or a carriage maybe?" Myka asks.

"Is a car not the modern equivalent?"

"I guess," Myka says, her face the picture of concern. "You know, most of San Francisco was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. There's not much left from back then."

"No matter. It's the spirit in which it's encountered."

"Then I want to 'encounter' it with you."

"Then have them pick the book up from us. You're not obligated to obey their every beck and call."

"I guess not," Myka says, frowning as she stops at a red light.

"Their prerogative led us to rush here, waylaying our plans," Helena presses.

"And the plays."

"Which we may have seen, in our own time, had we not been browbeaten into a retrieval—"

"We weren't browbeaten, we were helping Abigail—"

"The light's green."

"I see that," Myka grumps, the car jerking forward as she presses on the gas too hard. "So that's why you won't come with me? You're mad we came here in the first place?"

"It more than that. My relationship with the Warehouse must remain distant. Better if I retain none at all."

"How exactly is that going to work? Because I live there."

"I'd rather not discuss this while you're driving."

"Then I'll stop." Myka flips her turn signal and veers left at an intersection. She swings into a parking lot turns off the engine. "You said I'm your One. That we're partners."

"You are both of those things to me."

"But you can't come to the Warehouse, maybe ever? Explain." Myka shifts in her seat to face Helena as fully as possible.

"I've come to understand distance may be the only remedy for certain...triggers."

"What triggers?"

"Where to start?"

"Anywhere, really," Myka gruffs, holding onto Helena's petulant gaze.

"A hundred years in bronze weighs heavy on one's soul."

"You were fine there before."

"Was I?"

"You said it was your tether!"

"I'd have said anything to—"

"Gain access, dupe everyone, and destroy the world. I know." Myka scowls. "But you wouldn't do that again."

"That's no longer my vice," Helena says.

"Then what is?"

Helena looks off into the distance. "A secondary plan, utilizing artifacts catalogued since my bronzing."

"W-What kind of plan?" Myka says, her back straightening.

"One in which Christina would be returned to me."

"Wait, you tried again when you were there?"

"How could I not?" Helena laments. "I've hatched countless schemes since."

"But you said you'd made peace with not having kids."

"Moving forward. But I may never find true peace with Christina's passing. Apparently, it's not uncommon."

"How do you know?"

"At the precinct, after particularly gruesome cases, they conducted psychological evaluations. I'd breezed through most, but one in particular, concerning the death of a little girl, was difficult to shake."

"Oh, Helena." Myka scoots forward and takes hold of Helena's hand. "What happened?"

"I recounted my story, albeit heavily modified, and learned about triggers. Avoiding them entirely was an acceptable solution, so the Warehouse...but you? You were a conundrum."

"I was a trigger, too." Myka slips her hand from Helena's but Helena grabs it back.

"You remained a symbol of hope, of all that was good in this world. I ached to be near you but feared disappointing you again. When you turned up in Montreal, I was drumming up the courage to approach you."

"But you weren't there yet."

"I wasn't," Helena says, squeezing Myka's hand. "Asking you to separate yourself from your home, from your calling, was difficult to justify. But after hearing of your illness, nothing else mattered but being by your side."

Helena cups Myka's jaw and strokes her cheek with a thumb. "But I must protect myself, and you, from those demons."

Helena shifts closer and guides their lips together. Their kiss lingers until Myka's phone rings.

"Artie," Myka says, answering in an instant. "We can't come. We'll keep the the book safe until someone can pick it up—"

Myka moves the phone away from her ear at Arties loud volume.

"Ok, ok! But H.G.'s not coming. Put me on a flight."

Myka places her hand over the microphone and glances at Helena. "He said Mrs. Frederic's there and 'needs it yesterday'—"

She's interrupted by Artie chiming in.

"I'm not taking a flight with two connections because it leaves tonight! Put me on a red eye."

Grumbling emanates from the other side of the phone.

"Five-thirty's fine. Send me the details."

More grumbling, then silence. Myka hangs up the phone.

"Artie seems his usual congenial self—"

"I'm really proud of you," Myka blurts, turning to face Helena again.

"Whatever for?" Helena asks, head tilting, brow furrowing.

"For fighting your demons on your own. Though I wish we'd been doing it together."

"From now on, we shall," Helena says, meeting Myka halfway as she leans in for another kiss.

Hands reach across the console, twining in hair, groping at necks, arms, shoulders, as if the space between them is too great.

Minutes later, a tap on the window jerks them apart.

"Ma'ams, bank won't open again until 9AM," a man says as Helena rolls down the window. "I'm going to have to ask to come back tomorrow."

"Bank?" Myka croaks, scanning the parking lot, eyes locking on a glowing sign at its entrance. "Oh, bank."

"Terribly sorry officer. We pulled over to take a call before becoming...distracted," Helena explains.

"Just a security guard, ma'am. But I'd appreciate it if you move on. I didn't want to disturb you but my manager's going to wonder why you were here so long."

"Nothing nefarious, I assure you. We'd have been stealthier were anything afoot," Helena says with a wink.

"Helena!"

"Just reassuring the boy."

"We didn't mean to....we were just..." Myka stumbles over a more direct explanation.

"We've been granted one more night together before our separation."

"But we do have a hotel room."

"And mere hours before I'm to deliver you to the airport."

"True." Myka's lips push together, her face contorting into one of a new understanding. "Not enough hours. We should go."

"Thank you again for accommodating us," Helena says to the security guard.

"Um, sure?" he says as Helena rolls up the window.

"We'll make this work," Myka says, slipping a hand over Helena's thigh as she drives away. "I know we can."

"I adore your enthusiasm," Helena says, covering Myka's hand with her own, threading their fingers together.

-END-

-TBC-

NOTES: A quick reminder - this Christina is the daughter of Helena's original "One" back in the 1800's - Elizabeth. I think that story is in the second installment of this series. Also note this text probably pretty rough as I'm out of town and have sporadic internet (remember DSL?) and so haven't been able to use my usual text checkers (let me know if anything's super bad!) I'm putting it up now so I won't fuss over it as I'd like to not fuss over *anything* this week. Also, the first manip is one of my favorites - there's only one I can think of that tops it, but it's not public yet (I think you'll know when you see it.) Anyway, here are some of the people HG mentioned. And here are some of the amazing panoramas of the SF earthquake. Also Sarah Bernhardt - look her up, she was *quite* the character.

#BERING AND WELLS #w13 #fan fiction #roadtrip!AU #fan art #Myka Bering #Helena HG Wells #canon divergent #sorry this took so long to finish!#really happy to get this out there finally #I had to get my head back into it #going to try to get next one up sooner #as once the semester starts (in three weeks)#everything will be nuts for awhile #but we'll see once I'm back home and not on vacation!

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dontmindmyshadowhunting · 3 years

Text

Do I see you? (Fan Fiction on Kit & Ty’s reunion)

All Chapters of my Fan Fiction on Kit and Ty’s reunion below.

You can scroll down or read it here (I have added a bonus chapter 10 on AO3 - link below):

AO3 Link - Do I see you?

By kibi_writes

Kit Herondale, descendant of the First Heir and as such, legitimate heir to the throne of both Seelie and Unseelie Courts, is hunted down by both the Cohort and Faeries. He has now taken refuge at the New York Institute, close to the Consul and to the only other Herondale he knows. The Scholomance has answered the Clave’s call and decided to assign three of their First Company Centurions to Kit’s security. One of them is Tiberius Blackthorn, whom Kit hasn’t been in contact with since he last saw him, three years ago.

The events take place three years after the Dark Artifices. Characters based on Cassandra Clare’s, save for those I have created for the plot.

Chapter 1 - An unexpected guest

The New York Institute’s dining room was crowded with strangers. Well, mostly strangers.

Alexander Lightwood-Bane, Consul, was at the head of the table and Jace was behind him, leaning against the wall, playing with a knife clutched in his left hand, the only sign of stress betraying his casual stance.

There were other familiar faces: Clary Fairchild, co-head of the NY Institute, Mark Blackthorn and Cristina Rosales, as representatives of the Downworlder-Shadowhunter Alliance, Jem and Tessa who had brought Kit here. Max and Rafael were playing with little Mina in another room.

Kit looked at the grim faces around the table. It was like being at a Shadowhunter funeral. There was even a Silent Brother present. The image of a dark-haired boy dressed in white flashed in his mind then, and Kit immediately shoved it away and directed his focus on the ongoing conversation.

“…So, we all agree,” said a tall pinch-faced man with a faint accent. It seemed to be French. “Now that both the Cohort and Faeries know of his existence, and where he has been hiding the past few years, the First Heir’s descendant is in danger. Until we find out how to deal with these threats, his security is the matter of the Clave.”

Kit loved it when people were talking about him in the third person as if he weren’t there.

As explained earlier, we can keep him in the Silent City, but only temporarily, said the Silent Brother in the attendees’ minds.

Kit made a silent prayer. No, please no. Anywhere but the Silent City.

“The Scholomance will answer the Clave’s call,” said the French man. Probably the new person in charge of the Scholomance, Kit guessed. He had heard he was French. He seemed young though - in his late twenties or early thirties - for such a responsibility. “We will assign three of our First Company’s Centurions to Christopher Herondale’s security”.

“Thank you, Maximilien. We are most grateful-” started Alec.

“We will need to perform background checks first,” Jace interrupted. “I hope you understand.”

Maximilien Verlac’s eyes – Kit had just remembered his last name – showed a flash of anger, quickly smoothed over. “Certainly, although I am pretty sure you can be spared a background check on at least one of them.” He looked directly at Mark then. “You see, I was planning on assigning your brother to the task.”

Kit froze.

“Tiberius Blackthorn?” it was Jem who spoke. He glanced at Kit then, so quickly most people must not have seen it. “We are quite close to the Blackthorns. Would it not be preferable to entrust only people who are… unknown to us, with such mission?” Kit knew what Jem was trying to do. Protect his feelings. He felt both ashamed and grateful.

“I thought you would want our A-Team to be assigned to your boy’s security,” said Maximilien Verlac, raising one of his thick eyebrows. “Tiberius Blackthorn is one of our best Centurions, and it would be a shame to be deprived of his razor-sharp mind. I am afraid without him, we cannot assure you that you have the very best the Scholomance has to offer.”

The rest of the conversation melted into a blur. Voices raised, people stood, fingers pointed. But Kit wasn’t hearing any of it. The only sound in his ear was that of his heart, beating hard in his chest.

Kit only realized the meeting was over when people started exiting the room. He was vaguely aware of Jem telling him with a strained voice that the three Centurions assigned to his security would arrive at the NY Institute that very evening. One of them was Tiberius Blackthorn. Kit stormed out of the room without a word, ran to the bedroom that had been assigned to him, and locked himself in. As if a lock could protect him from the ache that had started growing in his chest.

*****

The three Centurions came in through a Portal a little before twilight. They were led to the training room where Jace, co-head of the New York Institute, had been spending his afternoon.

Jace gracefully jumped from one of the rafters as soon as the door opened to reveal the newcomers. They seemed to be moving in a V formation, Tiberius Blackthorn standing in front, flanked by the two other Centurions.

Jace strode across the training room to meet them, his hand outstretched.

He had come across Tiberius Blackthorn several times in the past few years, not frequently, but enough to see him grow from a lean boy into a man. However, now that he was seeing him up close, Jace could not help but feel a jolt of surprise as he took in his delicate features, silver gray eyes under impossibly long eyelashes, cupid’s bow lips so red the shade could have been used for expensive make-up, his pale white skin a sharp contrast with his frame of black hair. Jace was not into boys, but he had to admit that Tiberius Blackthorn was strikingly handsome. In fact, one could say his beauty was… otherworldly.

He must have his pick of girls, Jace thought.

As he was shaking hands with Tiberius and glancing at the two other Centurions watching him expectantly, he said “Welcome to the New York Institute, Centurions. Kit is training right now, maybe we could make the introductions later; not that you, Ty, need to be introduced. I can show you to your rooms, so you can start unpacking-”

Jace started to move forward, only to realize that Tiberius had not been listening to him at all. He stood motionless, staring at something across the room, his gray eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. His face, which had been pale white a minute ago, had turned a deep shade of crimson.

Jace followed his stare to a corner of the training room where Kit was doing crunches, his abdominal muscles showing where his shirt lifted. Admittedly, Kit had changed a lot since the first time Jace had met him. To say he had grown into his looks was an understatement.

Kit’s body was tanned, all broad shoulders, narrow hips, and sharply defined muscles. His blond hair and white shirt were drenched in sweat. Kit seemed to be absorbed in his own world, eyes closed, headphones on, loud music blasting in his ears.

Jace revisited his earlier statement. Boys, then. Tiberius Blackthorn must have his pick of boys.

“Tiberius?” Jace insisted. When he failed to receive an answer, he tried in a more commanding voice, “Centurion?”

Tiberius snapped out of his daze, then, and straightened his back, as if in a military drill. He turned and led the way out of the training room, his two guard dogs following in his footsteps.

Jace sighed. He had the feeling the situation was about to get even more complicated.

Chapter 2 - A sense of déjà-vu

Kit had disappeared into his bedroom after training, to shower and dress for dinner. He tried five different shirts, before settling for the first one. He kept pacing, cursing, until he gathered up the courage to walk out of his hiding place.

When he finally came in the Institute’s dining room, Kit realized that he had no reason to be nervous after all. Ty was nowhere to be seen. There were two Centurions though, sitting at the table, with their backs very straight, as if a cord were pulling them upward. Was that part of the training at the Scholomance? Kit wondered.

One of them introduced himself as Anush Joshi. He was tall and dark haired, and had a friendly face, Kit thought.

The other was a girl, with white-blond hair. Kerstin Lindquist. She had apparently grown up at the Stockholm Institute. She was very pretty and looked more like a Barbie doll than a Shadowhunter. But Kit had learnt that, where Shadowhunters were concerned, looks could be deceiving. Deadly so.

They were both wearing casual clothes, rather than their Centurions’ uniforms, and that helped Kit warm up to them. So far, his encounters with Centurions had not been the friendliest. That was an understatement. He could only count one of them he actually liked. Well, “liked” was a big word. Diego Rosales, who was now the Inquisitor.

They made polite conversation with Simon and Isabelle, who had joined them. Clary and Jace were apparently caught up in Institute business.

“So, any juicy news from the Scholomance?” asked Isabelle, as they were having dessert.

Kit saw Anush and Kerstin exchange an uneasy glance.

“Not much fun, actually,” said Anush, closing the subject.

“Is Tiberius getting along well with everyone? I know Maximilien Verlac holds him in high esteem.”

“He is the best of us,” Anush said simply. “He actually makes us all look like sword-wielding idiots.” Kit could not help but notice the fondness in Anush’s tone as he was speaking of Ty.

“Yes, but what about friends?” enquired Simon.

“He has friends. We are his friends,” said Kerstin defensively. “But he does keep to himself most of the time. Himself and Irene of course.”

Irene? Kit felt his heart squeezing into his chest. Blood pounded in his ears, a mixture of dread and rage.

“Oh, I heard about Irene,” said Isabelle, her eyes glittering. “She’s a Carpathian Lynx right? Catarina Loss told me all about her. Where is she now?”

Kit felt relief wash over him. He hoped no one had noticed his emotional rollercoaster. Wait- Tiberius had a Lynx?

“Yes, well, Catarina Loss is the one taking care of her, while Tiberius is away,” said Anush.

“So, I guess he doesn’t have a girlfriend” Isabelle pursued. Kit murmured a silent thanks to Isabelle and tried very much to look uninterested.

“Well, he is definitely popular with the female crowd,” said Kerstin. “Although he is gentle and kind, he is as difficult to approach as a wild animal. And girls do love a challenge. Better yet, a mystery. Of course, being drop-dead gorgeous is certainly a bonus. But he is not interested.”

“What do you mean, he is not interested?”

“Girls – even boys – gathered the courage to ask him out, but he never said yes to any of them. Well, from what I’ve heard. Tiberius is a gentleman and doesn’t talk about those things. Anyway, it seems that after a while, people stopped trying. Some even started calling him “the marble statue”. Beautiful as a Greek god, but cold, emotionless” Kerstin sounded angry. “Rejection and jealousy make people spiteful”. Kit decided he was growing to like that Kerstin girl.

“Of course, people who actually know him, know that this could not be farther from the truth” said Anush. Kerstin nodded vigorously. Kit felt a twinge. How well did they know Ty? Well enough, it seemed. Was any of them secretly dating him? Was that the reason they were uneasy earlier?

“Talking about Ty, will he not be joining us?” asked Simon.

“Sometimes he gets engrossed in work. Skips dinner. I will bring him food later”. It was Anush who had spoken.

“I’ll do it” said Kit, speaking for the first time in a while, before he could stop himself.

Everyone at the table turned to look at him. So much for being inconspicuous.

They all started heading to their rooms a few minutes later and Kit exchanged briefly with Simon to know which bedroom had been assigned to Ty.

*****

Kit tried to ignore his growing excitement and the hard beating in his chest as he hurried down the scarcely lit corridors of the Institute. He was just turning around a corner when he collided with a tall figure. They both stumbled on the floor, Kit landing on top of the stranger. Kit lifted himself on his elbows to look at his victim. His heart skipped a beat when he recognized who it was, even in the darkness. Not a stranger at all.

“Kit,” said the not-stranger.

“Ty.”

Kit moved then but did not stand. Instead, he kneeled so that he was sitting directly on Ty’s chest.

“Does this feel like déjà-vu to you?” Kit was relieved and surprised he had managed to sound calm and casual. That’s it. Get it together. Stay cool. He flashed his best smile. “Although, it seems, the tables have turned.”

Despite the dimness, Kit could not miss the two perfect V shaped eyebrows raising as Ty answered. “If so, I make a poor criminal. I didn’t even have time to fill a backpack with stolen goods before I got caught.”

Kit’s smile grew even wider. When had Ty learnt to respond to jokes? To make jokes?

“Didn’t you? Is that a stolen knife you are carrying or are you just really happy to see me?”

A look of confusion crossed Ty’s face. Well, maybe not all jokes.

Kit stood up, lending a hand to Ty, who gratefully accepted it. As their hands touched, Kit felt a little fire igniting in his body. Well not that little. And it was spreading. Stop. Stop it now. Stay calm. Stay cool. You’ve got this.

“So, I was actually looking for you. As you did not join us for dinner, I wanted to bring dinner to you. Your friend Anush told me sometimes you skipped meals. But not on my watch. The Angel forbid my bodyguards pass out on me, when I am in such grave danger” said Kit, in what he hoped was a conversational tone.

They were both standing now, facing each other. Although Kit had grown several inches in the past years, Ty was still taller than him. Kit cursed silently. Would he ever stop growing? If Julian was any indicator though, Ty’s height was not a surprise. He was leaner than Julian, though not as lean as he used to be, his muscles had developed, and his shoulders were broader and… Kit was grateful for the cover of darkness while he was making this assessment.

Speaking of which, Ty’s gaze seemed to be moving over Kit, mainly focusing on his hands, searching for something? That’s when it struck Kit. Food. He had just announced to Ty that he had brought him dinner. Kit wanted to smack himself. What kind of idiot finds a lame excuse to go see the guy he has a crush on and actually shows up without the excuse.

“You can see I have no food on me,” said Kit before he could take it back. Kit wanted to smack himself. Again.

Ty just smiled. “I can see that you brought the dinner I was going to eat before you came to see me.”

“Says the criminal without the booty”.

“Order out?”

“I have a better idea,” said Kit. No need to tell Ty he already had dinner. He could eat twice. He needed the fuel. Right?

Chapter 3 - Herondales love but once

They settled for an Italian restaurant, a short ten minutes’ walk from the Institute, since Ty didn’t want to wander too far in case something happened. However, he seemed to think they were safe going out that evening, as if he knew something Kit didn’t. Kit decided not to investigate the matter. He trusted Ty knew what he was doing.

Kit mostly talked about his time in Devon, with Jem, Tessa and little Mina.

Ty told Kit about the Scholomance, his experiments with Livvy and Irene’s funny habits. He also gave Kit news on the Blackthorns.

“So… As I was told, you are considered quite the catch at the Scholomance,” said Kit eventually, when he could no longer hide his curiosity. “So much so that you keep turning girls... and boys, down.”

Ty stiffened.

“Apparently,” Kit carried on, “you are a mystery that begs to be solved.”

“I am not a mystery,” Ty shrugged. “I am just different. Nothing mysterious about that.”

“Does this mean you are not interested in having… relationships?” Kit tried very hard to sound casual.

“Christopher Herondale,” said Ty, with a small smile. “Are you asking me if I am interested in sex?”

Kit chocked on his drink. Ty waited until he had finished coughing.

“I am different,” he said. Then, turning his face away, “But not in that way.” Wait- was Ty blushing?

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I was just wondering why you rejected all the offers you received. You know, when you could…”

“Satisfy my appetites?” Ty offered, raising one of his perfect eyebrows. “Is that what you are doing?”

“What do you mean?” Kit started.

“I have heard of your reputation, Kit Herondale, the heartbreaker. Collecting flirts, never looking for a serious relationship.”

“That’s not entirely true. Well, that last part is true, but I am not a heartbreaker. I never lead anyone on, never offer something I cannot give.”

“I am sure you don’t,” said Ty. And Kit knew he believed him.

“I simply cannot have a serious relationship,” explained Kit. “For two reasons. The first is that being who I am, it’s dangerous to be associated with me. If any of my enemies sensed that I was seriously involved with someone, they would use that person to get to me. And I can’t allow that.”

“So, you are sacrificing love for the safety of others?”

“Well… That leads us to the second reason. You know what they say about Herondales?”

“A lot is said about Herondales. What are you referring to?”

“Herondales love but once.”

“So, you are having fun, until you find the one,” said Ty. It sounded like a statement, not a question. His expression was unreadable.

I already have, thought Kit. Instead, he said “Let’s go, we don’t want the Clave to discover we are out here having a conversation about relationships, when I am being hunted down by half the Shadowhunters and Downworlders in New York”.

Ty could not argue with that. So, they paid and left. Outside, the sky was darkening with clouds.

Chapter 4 - The First Kiss

As Kit looked up at the sky, rain started pouring down his face. “I should have anticipated this. The sky was full of clouds”.

“Cloud,” said Ty. “One of the words you like.”

Kit turned to look at Ty, who was staring at his right shoulder. “You remember them?”

“Whisper, cloud, secret, highway, hurricane, mirror, castle, thorns”. Ty spoke them so fast Kit barely had time to register them.

In answer, he smiled and whispered, more slowly, “Glass, twin, apple, whisper, stars, crystal, shadow, lilt”.

Ty’s eyes lit up and crinkled at the corners the way they did when he was very surprised.

“I have new words I like, you know,” said Ty, after a moment.

“You do?” Kit was staring at Ty’s eyelashes. Drops of rain were captured there, like diamonds glittering on a dark curtain. His wet hair was plastered to his head, dark wet curls partly obscuring his forehead and cheeks. He was so beautiful it hurt.

“Love, two, kiss, kite, lips,” whispered Ty.

Kit’s eyes widened and immediately searched Ty’s, and that is when he realized that Ty's gaze was no longer directed at his shoulder, but at his lips…

*****

Kit made a move toward Ty, but Ty had already raised his hand, as if to stop him. In the same movement, Ty gently pressed his long, calloused fingers on Kit’s lips, tracing their shape, uncovering their smoothness. He was whispering softly, so low that Kit could not make out the words.

Ty’s other hand came up as well and he was staring at Kit in wonder as his fingers moved slowly across Kit’s face, caressing the line of his jaw, stroking his cheeks, smoothing his eyebrows, leaving a trail of heat everywhere their skin touched. Kit closed his eyes, as if it could slow the fire burning through his body.

Ty exhaled, as if relieved by Kit’s reaction to his touch. He brought both his hands on either side of Kit’s face then, gently cupping as he pressed his mouth to Kit’s jaw, not exactly kissing, but rather enjoying the experience of his lips against Kit’s skin.

“Ty,” murmured Kit, in a daze. He felt his knees buckling under him and gripped Ty’s shoulders to steady himself. Ty gasped in surprise and stepped back. Kit moved forward to tighten his grip and ended up pushing Ty against the wall.

They both froze, staring at each other.

Ty swallowed and whispered, “Did I- did I do something wrong?”

Kit laughed at that, shaking his head. “Ty- you know, you are the cleverest person I know, but sometimes I swear...”

He crossed the very small space left between them. Ty’s lips were still parted in surprise as Kit crushed his own lips against them, using the opening to taste Ty’s mouth with his tongue. Another gasp from Ty. Kit barely had the time to silently curse himself for being so forward – this was their first kiss, he ought to do things more slowly – long, urgent fingers were already moving up his back, his shoulders, and down again, resting for a few seconds against his hips before going up again. It was as if Ty was drawing a pattern, butterfly’s wings, on Kit’s back. Gentle at first, his strokes became more and more demanding, until Ty’s hands slipped under Kit’s shirt and nails were digging into flesh. Ty seemed to be lost in the need to touch Kit, every part of Kit, as if his life depended on it. Well, if Ty was not being careful, why should he restrain himself?

Kit met Ty’s eagerness with his own, and it quickly became a chaos of tongues, bites, desperate touches. Kit could taste rain, metal, and musk, as his mouth continued to explore Ty’s – or devour would be more accurate. It was as if they were naked, skin against skin, through their water-soaked clothes. In that moment, Kit’s experience and Ty’s lack thereof did not matter. Neither of them could identify who was doing what, as they entangled their limbs and melted their bodies under the pouring rain.

Chapter 5 - When all hell breaks loose

Kit and Ty hurried back to the Institute, soaked to the bone. They slipped into Kit’s bedroom, as it was the closest to the entrance.

Kit kicked his shoes off and started to undress, lifting his shirt, then paused, looking over at Ty as he realized he was not alone in his room.

Ty caught Kit’s gaze then and locked it. Slowly, deliberately, he started to undress, taking his time with each piece of wet clothing, until he was standing naked in front of Kit, save from his boxer shorts. Two chains were tied around his neck. One with Livvy’s locket and the other one with a silver, heron-shaped pendant. A gift from Kit.

Kit felt his whole body catch fire as his gaze roamed over Ty’s body. He literally took his breath away.

Marble statue, you say? In that moment, Ty looked anything but. He was disheveled, his cheeks flushed, his eyes wide and questioning and his breath quickening.

But he was standing still, making no move toward Kit, leaving Kit to decide what happened next.

Kit swallowed hard. He removed his shirt then and threw it on the floor. Once he had decided on his course of action, he could not get fast enough to Ty. They collided, stumbled, and fell on the bed, Kit landing on top of Ty.

Kit cursed as he tried to undo the zipper on his jeans. “It’s stuck”, he said.

“Wait let me help- Oosh” Ty was cut short as Kit, still struggling with his zipper, inadvertently elbowed him.

“By the Angel, Kit, no need to knock me out. I am willing!”

“Didn’t you know? it’s payback time.”

They burst out laughing then, but it was not long before the sound of Ty’s laughter did things to Kit’s insides, that made him instantly turn serious.

As Kit started kissing his way down Ty’s body, all his senses attuned to him and only him. The scent of Ty, the sound of Ty’s raspy moans, the feel of Ty’s soft skin over taut muscles as he traced circles with his tongue around Ty’s navel.

Kit felt exhilarated. He could not believe this was happening, that he was finally touching Ty the way he had always wanted to and that Ty was not only fine with it, he was begging for it.

As Kit started stroking Ty’s hardness through the material of his shorts, Ty started shaking, his breath coming in short gasps.

“Kit” he chocked. “By the Angel, Kit- What are you doing to me?”

His voice was rich and deep, with a rasp that reminded Kit of the first time he had heard Ty’s voice. It fueled Kit’s own arousal.

“Beautiful” said Kit, as he remembered, the sound muffled as his lips moved against Ty’s skin. I love you Ty, I love you so much.

Kit froze. He had not said it out loud. But it was as if he had been brought back to Lake Lyn, to that moment when his heart had been ripped apart. The evening spent with Ty had brought pieces of Kit’s heart back together, each of Ty’s smiles acting like so many stitches.

But if his heart were healed, if it became whole again, did that not mean it could break again? And if It broke again, could Kit survive it?

Kit scrambled out of the bed and nearly tripped on his own feet. Such a graceful escape for a Shadowhunter, he thought.

He looked at Ty then, who was sitting up, clearly confused, his hair tangled, and his cheeks flushed. The white blanket was barely covering his body. Kit blushed as he looked away and swallowed hard. “I think we should stop here. For now.”

Ty got out of bed. His hands were shaking as he gathered his wet clothes, which were scattered over the floor. His head was bent, so Kit could not see the expression on his face. “I am sorry. I must have misunderstood.”

“No, you have not!” Kit almost yelled. “I wanted this. I wanted you. I want you.” I want you more than I have ever wanted anything in my whole life, was what Kit thought but did not say.

“So, help me understand.” Ty had already put his wet jeans on. Kit exhaled, his sigh a mix of relief and regret. “You say you want me, but I was lying naked in your bed and you were touching me, making me feel things that I never…” Ty swallowed. “And then you stopped. You just stopped and jumped off the bed as if you couldn’t get away from me fast enough. Is this- is this a game to you?”

“No, of course not!” Kit took a deep breath. “I want to press pause for a moment. And rewind. I want us to spend time together, to go on dates, to get to know each other, before- “

“Get to know each other? As if we are strangers? Is that what you think?” Ty’s eyes were huge. Shock. Disappointment. Well, Kit couldn’t help but be disappointed as well. Ty was fully dressed now.

“I think – it’s been three years since we’ve last seen each other, and we may have changed, I know I have changed, and it would be best if we got to-“

“I. Know. You.” Ty enunciated each word. “I know you, Kit. And I thought you knew me too”, he whispered. His voice sounded tired. Defeated. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists. Kit almost wanted to give him something to grab hold of.

“I do know you…” Kit pleaded, realizing with horror how wrong his explanation had come out. How it might have been construed. As if what they had had three years ago could be wiped away, could be forgotten. It could not. Kit had tried to forget and then stopped trying as he had realized how precious it was. Sacred. Neither time, nor distance, nor life, nor death could touch it. What they had shared, what they used to have, was perfect. Up until Kit ruined everything by confessing his feelings.

Of course, he knew Ty. He knew all of him and loved all of him. He just wanted Ty to know him. The new him. Maybe if Ty took the time to learn to know the new Kit, he could fall in love with him. As Kit was in love with Ty.

“I just want you to know me, too. The new me.” He tried to explain but felt like he was failing.

“You were right” said Ty, after a moment. His hands had stopped moving and were clutched into fists. “You don’t know me. You don’t know me if you thought I was about to give myself to someone I considered a stranger.”

He went to the door and paused. “You are doing it again, you know? You can’t just make your way into my life, become part of who I am, and just leave without a look back. Without a single word. Leaving a mess that I am expected to figure out on my own.”

And with that, Ty stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Kit crumpled to the floor. For hours, he sat there, his bare back against the wall, wondering how the best day of his life and the worst turned out to be the exact same day.

Chapter 6 - Thank God for Livvy Blackthorn

Kit didn’t remember how, but he had somehow managed to crawl into his bed, sometime during the night, and had fallen asleep tossing restlessly.

When he woke up, the sun was high up in the sky, and its light shone on a familiar figure sitting on his bed, legs crossed. Kit blinked.

“Livvy.”

She wore the same white dress she had at her funeral and her Blackthorn blue-green eyes were staring at him with a pained expression. She looked exactly the same as she had the last time he had seen her.

“So. How bad did you screw things up this time?” she said.

“I didn’t just screw things up,” said Kit, sitting up. “I obliterated them. I am a wrecking ball.”

Livvy rolled her eyes. “So dramatic. You know, I never cared for soap opera when I was alive, and this has not changed with my untimely death. Thank the Angel.”

“So what should I do?” asked Kit.

“Listen to me, Kit. And I am telling you this as a fifteen-year-old ghost to an eighteen-year-old man. GROW. A. PAIR. Tell him about your feelings.”

“I already did!” Kit yelled desperately. “And… and he didn’t care. He didn’t care.”

“That doesn’t sound like Ty-Ty,” said Livvy dubiously. “When was that?”

“Three years ago. Near Lake Lyn. When we were… when we were raising you as a ghost.”

Livvy snorted. “So, my brother asked you to assist him in a resurrection ritual and you took that as a romantic date? Beats flowers and a fancy restaurant. Oh wait – where Dru is concerned – it probably does,” she added as an afterthought.

“It wasn’t like that!” cried Kit. “I knew what we were doing was wrong, and I tried to stop him and it just… came out.”

“Well, you certainly did” said Livvy.

“What?”

“Never mind. I have other things to do so please, Kit, can you do something for me and spare me hours of explaining how your confession of love – as grand and romantic as it must have been – probably sailed right over Ty’s head as he was, you know, BUSY RAISING HIS TWIN SISTER FROM THE DEAD.”

“Fine! I’ll figure this out on my own. Since you are so busy with… ghost stuff.”

“Don’t be rude. I have things to do. Ty and I are leaving in a short hour. A mission for the Scholomance.”

“WHAT? But I thought-“

“As important as you are, Kit, Centurions cannot simply abandon all their missions to play bodyguards for you. This is why three Centurions were assigned to your protection. Two of them will remain at the Institute, so you’ll be fine.”

Kit already felt Ty’s absence as a hole in his chest.

“How long?” he asked.

“Two or three days. Don’t worry, we’ll do as fast as we can. In the meantime, work this out. And Kit?”

“Yeah?”

“This was me being nice. Since it’s clear that you are not doing it on purpose. I know how much you love Ty.”

Kit flinched.

“But Kit- Don’t. You. Dare. Hurt. My Brother. Again.”

She looked like an avenging angel then, and her blue-green fiery gaze was the last thing Kit saw before she disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Chapter 7 - Let’s kick some Cohort ass

The two following days passed in a blur. Kit was returning to his bedroom after training one evening when he saw a package left on his bed. He opened it and emptied the content on his desk. There was a folded note and a necklace. Kit felt a jolt of uneasiness as he recognized instantly the whitish-green pendant with the Chinese characters carved into it. Even though he had only learnt a few Chinese words from Jem, and didn’t know how to read them, he knew exactly what the characters meant. When two people are at one in their inmost hearts, they shatter even the strength of iron or bronze.

It was the pendant Jem had offered Tessa over a hundred years ago, when he had proposed.

With a growing sense of dread, Kit opened the folded note and read. We hold someone you love. If you want to see her again, meet us at the following address. Alone. If you warn the Clave or anyone at the Institute, we will know. And what you’ll find there will be her dead body. The address printed at the bottom of the note seemed to be in a residential area, a 30 minutes’ walk from the Institute.

A flash of memories went through Kit’s head. Tessa smiling indulgently at him as he made yet another one of his bad jokes. Their banter about books and movies. Tessa carrying a giggling Mina and staring at Jem adoringly, as he was making faces to make them laugh. Tessa singing to Mina - loud enough for Kit to hear – the song his mother used to sing to him. Well, the mother who had given birth to him. Tessa was also his mother now.

When he snapped out of his daze, he was fully dressed in Shadowhunter gear. Thankfully, he always kept weapons in his room and was now heavily armed. He didn’t pause to think as he walked to the window and started escalading straight up to the Institute’s roof. He would not go through the corridors and risk being followed by someone at the Institute. He had noticed the way the Centurions sometimes seemed to suddenly appear out of thin air when he thought he was alone.

Perched on the Institute’s roof, he felt grateful for all the training Jace had put him through. He now knew that, as much as Jace could jump from unexpected, impossible heights, so could he. He had even trained to jump out of a Malachi configuration. Theoretically. Jace had smiled conspiratorially at the time, telling him it was a talent that could always prove useful.

He drew two runes, Heightened Speed and Surefooted, sparing a glance, as he always did, at the Voyance rune at the back of his right hand. He only paused to take one deep breath before jumping from the roof and landing gracefully on the ground. He murmured a silent thanks to Jace and almost wished his mentor were there for a high five.

He made it to the location in short time, although it seemed like hours to him.

He tried to circle around the meeting point, but it appeared empty. Just when he thought about doing another round, he heard laughter coming from an alley surrounded by two brick buildings. He peered his head. No one. He started as he heard a creaking noise behind him. Spinning toward the sound with his sword raised, he saw a familiar figure standing a few feet away.

It was one of the Centurions who had been assigned to his security. The Swedish blond girl, Kiersten Lindquist. She held a finger to her lips, hushing him, and slid silently next to him.

“It’s a trap,” she said low in his ear. “I have sent Anush back to the Institute for reinforcements. I’ll distract them and you run. Don’t – and I repeat – whatever you do, don’t let yourself get caught. It’s you they want. They will not hurt me if they are still looking for you. They would want to use me as bait.”

“But– Tessa…”

“She’s fine,” snapped Kiersten. Then, more gently, “please don’t mess up our plan.”

Wait– Kit thought, there was a plan?

Before he could ask, a dozen Shadowhunters – and it was plain they belonged to the Cohort - were circling them. They were calling themselves the Imperishable Order, now. Same shit, different name, thought Kit.

“Hey Barbie girl,” drawled one of the Cohort members. He looked very familiar. “We have no quarrel with you. We just want the Herondale Faerie-slut. Leave us be and we will not harm you.”

“Manuel. I see you haven’t changed,” said Kiersten calmly. “You’re still a disgrace to the Scholomance.” She drew her longsword and shouted, “NOW”.

Kit sprinted, knocking down two Cohort members on his way, disappeared around the corner of the nearest building and scrambled up its wall with a dexterity that would make both Jace and Jem proud. Up on the roof, he could see six Centurions had been dispatched to look for him. He glanced at the battle taking place beneath him and heard shouts as a newcomer joined the melee and incapacitated a Cohort member in a record time, before turning to fight two others. Kiersten was fighting two on her own.

Kit decided to check on the hunt party. Only two of them had decided to climb the stairs up to the top of the building, while the others were searching the area. Suddenly, he heard in a loud, clear voice, “STOP. STOP now, put your weapons down or I SWEAR TO GOD I will cut Barbie’s throat.”

He hurried back to stand at the edge of the roof, to assess the situation below.

Kit watched as the newcomer – a tall figure wearing a Centurion uniform – took a step forward and kneeled, laying his two blades on the floor. He raised both his hands as he stood. The moon lit his face. Kit gasped. Ty. No, no, no, Ty. I am so sorry.

Manuel strode to stand behind Ty, encircling him with his arms and lifting a knife to his throat. He was almost standing on tiptoe as Ty was taller than him, and it would have been comical if not for the dreadfulness of the whole situation.

A few feet away, facing them, another Cohort member had Kiersten in a headlock.

Kit had to force himself still. His hands were clutched into fists, his entire body trembling with the urge to fight. He kept repeating Kiersten’s words in his head. They will not hurt me if they are still looking for you. They would want to use me as bait.

“Well, well, look who we have here” said a woman’s voice and Kit recognized it at once. Zara Dearborn.

“Is this… Julian Blackthorn’s younger brother? The weird one? Well, whatever they say, he is hot as hell.”

Manuel laughed. “I figured you would say this, Zara. We all know you have wet dreams about Julian Blackthorn. No shame in that. You know what they say, keep your enemies closer and all that.”

Zara spluttered. “Seriously? You really want to talk about this? How about your crush on Emma Carstairs?” And in a mimicking voice, “Oooh Emma, you have such pretty blond hair and you’re such a badass, and you have this long, beautiful sword making up for my tiny, little…”

“Let’s make a truce,” said Manuel. “When we get back to Alicante, the Blackthorn Ken here will be all yours.”

“That’s actually a great idea. The look on Emma’s face when she finds out that her little brother-in-law and I…“

“I’m sorry, Zara, but this is not happening” said Ty, in a loud, clear voice, that didn’t betray a flicker of fear although he had a knife pointed at his throat. Kit felt a surge of pride. “No offense, but psycho bitches are not my type.”

Kit could see in the distance silhouettes running in their direction. He sighed in relief. Reinforcement was coming. He jumped from the roof and landed directly behind Zara, pointing his sword in her back in almost the same motion.

Several gasps of surprise.

“You think that jump was high? I can do it in my sleep,” said Kit, showing off.

He winked at Ty then, who was glancing his way, pride glittering in his eyes.

Kit knew he needed to stall until reinforcement arrived. Admittedly, the Cohort members were already doing most of the job.

“So… Manuel, I have to admit I am a bit jealous. You see, I have been fantasizing about holding Tiberius in the exact same position for years now.”

Ty, who had not betrayed a flicker of emotion until then, flushed a deep shade of red.

Manual smiled viciously. “Oh, I see. I guess all Faeries are queers.” And then, he spoke in Ty’s ear but loudly, so everyone could hear, “So, who’s the bitch?”

Ty didn’t answer but looked pointedly at Zara.

“Let me translate for you, freak. Do you hump him? Or does he hump you?”

“Come now, Manuel. This is the 21st Century. Keep up” said Kit, flashing his best smile. “We believe in equal opportunities.”

“OK guys, did I miss something? did we really run into Cohort members or some hormone-crazed teenagers posing as such?” it was Barbie – sorry, Kiersten – who had just spoken.

No one answered as this was the moment when Jace appeared out of nowhere and knocked down the person who had her in a headlock with the flat of his sword.

Kit pushed Zara away, with such force that she ended up sprawling on the floor.

He instantly turned to where Ty was standing… looking down, his foot resting on top of Manuel’s body, which was writhing on the ground. Manuel was staring at his hands, his forearms, which were covered with red rashes and blisters, his face a mask of shock. A powder substance was eating away his knife, which had somehow landed a few feet away.

Kit saw Ty put away a small vial filled with red-purple powder, with a satisfied look on his face.

All hell broke loose.

A fleeing Cohort member was swept off his feet as a whip circled around his foot and Isabelle, looking like a warrior goddess, pulled vigorously.

An arrow lodged itself in Zara’s thigh as she tried to stand up. Alec, standing a few feet away, had already pulled a new arrow. He looked… bored.

Kit knocked down another Cohort member using only his right hook. Because, well, he could.

In a few minutes, they had rounded up the wounded and tied their hands behind their backs.

The party that had been sent to search for Kit came back to an incongruous sight.

Zara, Manuel and the other Cohort members who had remained with the Centurions were now huddled together in the middle of a circle made by Anush, Kiersten, Ty and Isabelle, who was slashing at the air with her whip as to make a point to whoever thought they could chance an escape. Kit thought she looked like a hot school teacher scolding her very, very naughty pupils.

The search party turned around, making a run for it… only to be met by Jace. He was leaning casually against the side of the wall, his arms crossed.

“Hey, guys” he drawled. “Looking for something? Your dignity, maybe?”

One of the fleers launched himself at him, weapon raised, and Jace simply ducked out of the way as he drew his own sword.

Kit sensed a movement behind him, just as he was facing another one. Glancing backward, he saw that Ty had joined him to cover his back. He felt heat – the heat of the battle, the heat of Ty's body so close to his – as they fought back-to-back, four opponents at the same time.

Alec and Jace eventually joined them, and it was almost over before it had started.

The remaining Cohort members joined their friends in the circle where Kiersten, Anush and Isabelle had remained. Isabelle had put away her whip and was staring at her nails.

Clary finally swept in, gracefully, not a single hair out of place, and started drawing a portal.

“Sorry we are late” she said, standing next to Simon who was carrying large paper bags. “We had to stop to buy us dinner.”

Chapter 8 - What’s the point?

With the Cohort threat being mostly quashed, the following weeks passed uneventfully.

The Centurions remained at the New York Institute, as there were still other Cohort members and Faeries looking for Kit.

Kit and Ty never mentioned the fight they had had on the first day Ty had arrived at the Institute. Their friendship resumed; major events left unspoken.

It was as it had been before they had performed necromancy spells together. As if they had not raised Livvy’s ghost (except for the fact that they were seeing her every day). As if they had not lost all contact for three years. As if they had not kissed under the rain.

Kit still remembered though. How Ty’s lips had felt against his, the taste of his mouth. Rain, metal and musk. Kit could not forget the feel of Ty’s skin under his fingers, under his lips, the scent of him, the noises Ty made when he was aroused. He blushed, sometimes, thinking back to those intimate moments he had shared with Ty. And of course, there were the glances they cast at each other, the shiver of excitement when their hands accidently brushed, when they walked side by side and their shoulders touched.

Kit had started helping Ty with his missions for the Scholomance, and it was as if Sherlock had found Watson again.

“How many times do I have to repeat myself? I am not your Watson,” had said Kit one evening, when they were doing research on demons’ poisons in the Institute’s library.

Ty had smiled one of his rare smiles. “Well, Kit, that’s exactly what my Watson would say.” And Kit had blushed at the way Ty had naturally said “my Watson”.

Days went by, and everyone at the Institute carried on with their own routines.

This is probably why no one expected the events that occurred that evening.

Kit was returning to his bedroom after a late-night training session. He heard noise coming from the library. He stopped to peer inside, his brows furrowed, only to see Jace standing with his back to him. He thought he saw a flash of red hair.

“Jace?” called Kit.

Jace froze. When he slowly turned, Kit could see that he was carrying Clary in his arms. She looked fast asleep.

Kit felt an increasing uneasiness. Something was wrong. But this was Jace right? If there was anyone Jace would never, ever hurt, it was Clary.

“Jace? Rough night? I know Clary is probably light as feather but do you… need a hand?” asked Kit, unsure how to act.

As Jace said nothing, he took a step toward him.

Jace took a step back. Something was very wrong indeed.

“Stop! It’s not Jace!” yelled a voice that Kit instantly recognized.

Kit turned to where Ty stood, in the doorway, holding two daggers. His face was covered in scratches, his lips bruised, a deep red cut on his upper lip. He clearly had been into a fight.

“Not Jace from this world,” Ty continued. “It’s probably Jace from another world. That’s one of the few possible explanations at least.”

“How do you know?” asked Kit.

“Details” was all Ty said. And Kit believed him. If anyone – save for Clary, where Jace was concerned – could notice small inconsistencies, like in a game of Spot the Difference, it was Ty. Ty could see objectively, without the blurring curtain of expectations or preconceptions.

Jace – well, his evil doppelganger – stiffened. “Will you make me regret I didn’t kill you?”

“You didn’t give my friends that chance. They trusted you and you took them by surprise. Why spare me?” said Ty.

“I didn’t fool you” said the fake Jace. “I figured you probably knew Jace, the one from this world, very well. And I saw the heron-shaped pendant you carry around your neck. I thought this meant you had earnt the love – or at least the trust – of a Herondale. Sentimental me.”

“Leave Clary. And we will not hurt you,” said Kit, although he carried no weapon.

Jace laughed. He had moved to stand close to an open window and seemed ready to pounce. He would not try to jump with Clary in his arms, would he?

“You will not hurt me? The Jace from this world must be too soft, if you think you can bargain with me.”

In a swift movement, he had shifted Clary’s body in one of his arms and drawn out a sword.

It all happened in a blur. The sword flew. Ty launched himself in front of Kit and the blow hit him with such force that he was thrown back against Kit, who caught him in his arms. Kit crumpled to the floor, holding Ty.

Kit was filled with a dreadful sense of déjà-vu, as he looked at the knife protruding from Ty’s chest. He had not been there at the time, but he imagined that was what Livvy must have looked like in the Council Hall. He had imagined it, although he had tried not too, often enough. And he was probably in the exact same position Julian had been at the time.

Kit was barely aware of the sound of footsteps and shouts. People around him assessing the situation. It seemed the “other Jace” had somehow escaped. Without his prey. Clary was safe.

“No, Ty. No. Please don’t leave me.”

Kit was kneeling on the floor, carrying Ty’s limp body in his arms. He started rocking.

“What’s the point, Ty? What’s the point of Watson’s whole existence if there is no Sherlock? What’s the point of me if there is no you?” Tears were rolling down his cheeks. But he could not feel them. He could not feel anything.

Kit did not even bother to grab for his stele, he knew it was too late for that. Through his numbness, Kit gently lay Ty’s body on the floor and ripped his shirt. With desperate hope, he placed both his hands on Ty’s chest and willed him to heal. He remembered the time he had made the horses of the Riders of Mannan disappear. He thought about drawing that strength, all his strength, all his will, into healing Ty. He heard voices softly murmuring to let go of Ty, that it was over – but he did not listen to any of them. He shoved away anyone’s attempt to grab him.

He did not know how much time had passed but eventually, he felt a flicker of movement. It was barely there but Kit knew he had sensed something.

Ty gasped and his silver-gray eyes flew open. They widened in amazement. “Kit…“ he said. “I knew you would find them.”

What? What did I find? Kit wanted to ask. But he could not find his voice. Relief had washed over him, and although he was drained, he felt giddy with it.

He did not hear anything further, as Ty slipped into unconsciousness a second later. It was not long before Kit himself collapsed on top of Ty’s body.

*****

Jace, carrying Clary in his arms, Isabelle, Simon, Alec and Magnus stood in a circle in the Institute’s library. In the middle of the circle, two bodies were lying on the ground, one resting partly on top of the other, as if in a lovers’ embrace.

Their skin appeared to glow from within and one of the boys’ exposed chest seemed to be pierced through with bronze-colored light.

*****

It was late in the night when the dean of the Scholomance, Maximilien Verlac, slipped through the door of the Institute’s infirmary. The room was mostly dark save for the moonlight filtering through the windows. He did not notice Kit, sitting on the floor, next to Ty’s bed.

He was entirely focused on Ty, his expression one of deep sorrow and… something else. Kit recognized that look. It was the look he probably had himself when he was glancing at Ty and thought no one was seeing him.

Kit knew then, that Maximilien did not only admire Ty as one of his best Centurions. He loved him.

Suddenly, Maximilien fell on his knees. “Oh, Tiberius. What did I do? I am sorry. I am so sorry,” he whispered.

Kit shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

Maximilien snapped out of his daze and stood. Even in the darkness, Kit could see his cheeks were flushed. “Christopher Herondale.”

“Kit, please” answered Kit.

“Kit?” Maximilien’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, I see…”

Kit didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt uneasy.

“What is it? What is it that you see?”

Maximilien hesitated. He looked at Kit for a moment, considering.

Then, he explained, in a resigned voice. “One day, Tiberius returned from a mission to the Scholomance with very deep wounds that couldn’t heal. The demon poison had spread. We had to keep him in the infirmary for three days. He was delirious. He kept calling a name. Your name. Asking why you had left him. Why you never said goodbye. He also talked about the characters of the book he holds so dearly…saying that Sherlock was not Sherlock without Watson. It seemed like nonsense to me.”

Maximilien exhaled deeply. “I thought Kit was a girl’s name. Short for Katherine, in French Catherine. It could also be short for Quitterie, another French girl name. When Tiberius woke up, and I asked him about it, he simply shrugged and did not explain. We never talked about it again.”

Kit didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. He just nodded, closed his eyes, and waited for Maximilien to leave.

Once he was alone with Ty, Kit lay down on the bed next to him, not quite touching, but close enough to feel the heat of his body. Ty’s face was turned to his. Kit fell asleep to Ty’s soft breathing, each exhalation caressing his skin like feather across his cheek.

Chapter 9 - Do I see you?

Kit and Ty were sitting at the edge of the New York Institute’s roof. They were staring in silence at the lights of the city under the twilight sky.

Ty had fully recovered, but Kit knew a scar could still be seen across his chest, a reminder of his sacrifice for Kit’s life. The scratches on his face, the cut in his lips were still there, but fading. Despite them, and maybe also because of them, all Kit could see was the most beautiful face he had ever set his eyes upon. Ty was wearing a hoodie and it made him look younger, more vulnerable.

“Why did you do it?” said Kit suddenly, breaking the stillness. “Is it because you are a Centurion and have sworn to protect me? Or…” He took a deep shuddering breath. “Or is there another reason?”

At first, Ty said nothing.

After a few minutes, he finally spoke. His voice seemed softer, younger somehow, as if Kit was not sitting next to the Centurion, but next to the boy who had held a knife at his throat, a few years before. “I don’t know. Why do you think I did?”

“Do you… love me?” Kit’s voice was shaking. He was staring straight ahead, not wanting to meet Ty’s eyes.

“You know, Julian once told me that to love someone was to see them. I didn’t understand at the time but…”

“But what?” said Kit, and he forced himself to turn, slowly, to meet Ty’s gaze.

Kit did not think he had ever seen Ty look at him, at anyone, this way. His silver-gray eyes were piercing, as if he could see through Kit’s. Ty always had an intense gaze, but this was different somehow. His eyes seemed to glow with a secret, like he knew something about Kit that Kit did not.

“When you enter a room, without even having to look at you, my entire body seems to sense you and to relax, as if I had been waiting for you all along.

But when I do look… I see that your eyes are different shades of blue, the way the sky changes colors, all through day and night. I can see the way, sometimes when you are sad, you smile to hide it, but your smile does not quite reach your eyes. I can see the way, when you are truly happy, you do not smile but your whole face seems to light in a fiery glow. I can see that you think sometimes you are a coward when in fact you are the bravest person I know. I can see in the way you hold yourself, in the way you hesitate, that you think you are unworthy. That you don’t deserve anything, any protection or any attention, and when you are shown any affection, you cringe, as if to shield yourself from it, but cannot help the flicker of hope in your eyes. And it makes me want to give you everything I own. So… what do you think? Do I see you?”

Kit had never heard Ty speak so many words in a row before. He didn’t think anyone ever had. He knew, somehow, that this was not a rehearsed speech, that Ty had simply compiled a list of things he noticed about Kit, and kept them in his brilliant mind, the way he would remember the number of windows on a building, the various benefits of bees or the different stages of most animals’ migration cycles.

Kit smiled at Ty then, and it touched his eyes. Tears were rolling down his burning cheeks, alight with a fiery glow, as he answered. “You see me”.

He put his arms around Ty, then, and held him tightly. More tightly than he’d ever held anyone, except for that one time on the London Institute’s roof.

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palimpsessed · 3 years

Text

Writerly Ephemera

I was tagged by @amywaterwings @mostlymaudlin @tea-brigade @effing-numpties @captain-aralias @bloodiedpixie . This is so cool, so thanks for sharing yours! ❤️

Per Amy: We add little bits of ourselves to our writing, scattering memories and places and phrases and things into our stories. The game is to find five examples of this, of YOU, in your writing and show everyone.

I don’t really feel like I put much of my own experiences into my fic, probably because I don’t feel like I have a lot of experiences to pull from. (That’s not me being self-deprecating; that’s me never going anywhere or doing anything.) So, let’s see what we come up with!

Going to tag here. I feel like I’ve gotten to this late so I’m not sure who has been tagged. Anyway. No pressure, loves. Just saying hi. 🥰 @theflyingpeach @bazzybelle @otherworldsivelivedin @unseelieseelie @wetheformidables @caitybug @nightimedreamersworld @foolofabookwyrm @stillmadaboutpetra

1. I have put the most of myself into A Man of Letters. I have my degree in English Lit and when I was in college, I was at the height of my Jane Austen obsession. So I sort of built my degree around the development of the English novel. My senior thesis was on a book called Evelina by Frances Burney, who was one of Austen’s greatest literary influences. Evelina is an epistolary novel—told entirely in letters. I love the epistolary form, for the same reason I love dialogue and texting fics. It’s such a fun narrative technique and can reveal so much about individual characters. It’s actually a bit like the way Rainbow Rowell uses multi POV in her books. Anyway, my love of the epistle was on full display in this fic, which is ofc told in letters. —Do I share a passage? That’s like...the whole fic 😅 So, idk. Here’s Simon being a disaster as he meditates on letter writing:

Dear Penny,

As I start this letter, I already know I'm not going to post it. I know I won't be able to bring myself to do it, because of what I have to say to you. I do feel bad. It's not that I don't want to tell you. And you know I'm so much better at writing things down than saying them out loud. It's only that I feel like this would all sound better coming from me in person. I just don't think I'll be able to make you understand in a letter. I'm still trying to understand myself. And writing all of this down helps me with that. Even if I'm only pretending to write to you, it makes me feel better, to think of you on the other end. I promise I really will tell you everything as soon as we're together again.

2. Also for A Man of Letters, my fascination with Regency fashions, in particular the dandy, was a major factor. I did an art book about this, comparing how fashion has changed over time, especially in regard to gender. (I also did an art book based on Evelina, since I’m on the subject. I minored in book art. 😁) I always fancied the look of a Regency dandy, so that was my gift to Baz.

Whoever has been working their magic on Salisbury should in fact be the person to whom I offer my eternal devotion. Alas, I am left to flounder under the burden of lusting after a man who is incapable of dressing himself.

The utter and unmitigated shame.

Salisbury wore a forest green wool frock coat that set off the golden highlights in his brown locks. This was accented with a green and aubergine striped silk waistcoat that was trimmed in white piping and felt much too daring a pattern for the man. (I don't care if he was a soldier; it takes a hardier man than him by half to choose a stripe like that.) His charcoal trousers were enticingly snug, but not so much to prove lethal. His cravat and points left much to be desired, though that likely reflected poorly on his ability to keep himself in order, rather than the ability of his valet. (Good God, maybe the man doesn't even have a valet!)

3. When it came to my countdown fic, To the Manor Borne, I had Shep make a reference to Cluedo, because Pitch Manor would be perfect for a real life game. Behind that, is the fact that my family played a lot of Clue and I watched the movie a whole bunch growing up, to the point where my sister and I used to quote it to each other. This was a way to pay homage to that. He also talks about playing the game Murder in the Dark, which was one I played at Halloween as a kid. One of my cousins was dressed as a ghoul with glow in the dark face paint and we were in my grandma’s creepy upstairs. Perfect vibes.

I’ve seen the kitchen and the dining room and the library and the study and the parlor. Walking through this house is like playing Clue. (They call it Cluedo on this side of the pond, because they like to be difficult.) (That was a whole thing. Do not get me started.)

I keep thinking Colonel Mustard’s going to pop up out of nowhere and brain me with a lead pipe.

And:

What kind of games do you play with magickal friends who don't have magic? Twister? Not with the wings and tail. Cards? Baz and Penny would cheat. Or accuse everyone else of cheating if they didn't win. Murder in the dark? With these people, in this house, I knew it would turn literal fast, and also it was like ten in the morning. Hide and seek? Simon and I would hide and everyone else would ditch. Snowball fight? World War III.

4. I’ve referenced Mozart in my fics a couple of times because when I was first getting into classical music, I was listening to a lot of Mozart. My sister had a CD of some of his early symphonies, and my local classical station does “Mozart in the Mornings” which happened to fit in the exact time slot between two morning classes I had my first year in college. I’d go sit in my car with a cup of tea, and just vibe with Mozart as my soundtrack. I’ve name dropped him in both A Man of Letters and To the Manor Borne. Also, Mozart wrote 12 variations on the melody shared by Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, which is a lovely tie in. (I also had the gang sing/cast The Holly and the Ivy, which is one of my favorite Christmas carols, and by strange coincidence was playing on the radio at the same time I wrote that scene. 🥰)

"It's a songbook," I tell him, like he can't figure that out for himself. "Did you know that Mozart wrote twelve different versions of the same song?"

He's laughing. "Mozart did not write Twinkle, twinkle, little star, Simon."

"You know what I mean."

"He composed twelve variations for solo piano on the French folk melody Ah! Vous dirai-je, maman."

"Sure. Anyway, this is for the violin. For you to play."

He's still laughing, and I'm trying to figure out what's so funny, but then he kisses me again, on the lips this time, so I figure maybe I'm still doing okay.

Only one more to go! What will it be? 👀

5. Therapy! Eheheh...😅 Look, it’s no secret the gang needs it. And tbh, so do I. Haven’t actually managed to get myself to go yet, and I think that’s where a lot of my “send them to therapy” happy endings come from. I did it in Use Your Words and To the Manor Borne. I started Chamber by Chamber with SnowBaz already in therapy, and then structured the whole thing around therapy that they give to each other and to themselves. It didn’t really fit in A Man of Letters, but if it had, I absolutely would have done it. I’ve only shared from two fics so far, and since it could kind of spoil the ending to Use Your Words (tho saying this may be spoiler anyway...), here are two snippets from It’s a Kind of Magic, Part I of Chamber by Chamber.

I've been working on articulating my needs. We both have. Ordinarily, I'd be afraid of pushing him away by making demands when he's on the verge of a spiral, but my therapist insists that I can't go on treating Simon with kid gloves. If I never ask him for anything, he'll think he doesn't have anything to give.

And

When I told that to my therapist, she said that I needed to talk it out of me and she'd help me find ways to work through it all. She said I needed to talk it out with Baz, too, so that he'd know how to help me when things got bad again—that was something else she said, that things would get bad again, and that I'd need to be prepared for that. That I couldn't expect things to be easy, and just go away.

6. BONUS! I think the biggest way I include bits of myself is in the AUs I’ve chosen to write. I have three I’m planning that say a lot about me, so I’m going to talk a bit about them here. There is ofc my Scooby Doo AU, inspired in large part by the fact that I watched it all the time growing up and also, my sister continues to be obsessed with it. When we were young, my parents were doing a lot of work on their house and we’d take family trips to the hardware store. My sister and I hated it, so we’d wait in the car with my mom and she would entertain us with “Scooby Doo stories”. Other AUs I’m planning? Troop Beverly Hills—please tell me someone else out there loved this movie the way I did when I was 5. It was very influential to baby me and I remember wishing for nothing more than being able to dress like Shelley Long. So, I’m going to let Baz do it, because I think he deserves it. 🥰 Lastly, tho it will probably be the first I write, is my Cupid and Psyche AU, from when I was heavy into mythology and religion. Since these are all forthcoming projects, I don’t really have a snippet. Instead, here’s Baz comparing Simon to Eros, which is what started my brain on that particular AU.

I am lost. I barely know anything about Salisbury, but I can't help being drawn in. At one time, I could have comforted myself that I was only so smitten with him because he looks like he was sculpted by Praxiteles. That excuse grows weaker with every encounter. He's the furthest thing from a lifeless tribute to beauty in marble as one can be. There is something deep and dark and feral inside of him and I want to claw it out. I want to see it, to let it free. To taste his wildness and his pain.

#tag game #writerly ephemera

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random-fandom1 · 3 years

Text

I’ve been thinking about this for ages and have just gotten round to writing it.

Some quick background information before we start. Peter is 27 in this and is dating Bucky who is genetically still 28 - 32 because of the cyro freeze. They’ve been dating for 3 years now and no one knows they’re dating (well, maybe some people know. They live with two assassins so Natasha must know, Wanda must suspect at least and Loki knows because he walked in on them doing the you know once. They had to slave after him for a week to make sure he didn’t tell anyone).

It’s not like they’re hiding it but are at the same time. Who knows what Steve and Tony would do if they found out their precious little peter was dating one of their closest friends.

Enjoy!

__________________________________________

The avengers have just finished fighting a villain, some kind of alien or something. Like any other time they’re in a fight, they didn’t all get out unscathed. It’s not too bad this time, Peters just fractured his wrist and dislocated his elbow when swinging around and falling. His dads (and Bucky in secret) insist that he goes to the hospital wing to get it checked on.

This is how they’ve ended up in this situation.

6:48 pm

“But Jamieeeeeee! I want to do the interview, it’s James Corden. You know how much I love James Corden. My hand and arm are fine!” Peter whines trying to get out from under the scratchy hospital sheets Bucky wrapped him in. Bucky rubs the bridge of his nose, sighing deeply. He loves his boyfriend but he can get really whiney and clingy when he’s doped up on pain killers.

“Doll, you know you have to stay here. We’ll have plenty of times to go on to The Late Late Show in the Future. For now, you have to rest,” he says as a nurse walks into check his vitals, “I’ll be back later Peter, be good for the nurses”. Bucky starts to exit the room, looking back as he reaches the doorway to see his boyfriend chatting away to the nurse with a pout on his face. ‘He’s probably asking her if she can discharge him without his dads knowing’ he thinks to himself. James smiles to himself as he walks down the corridor to the main floors so he can get ready for the interview.

8:34

It was going well. The avengers had just been introduced and had taken their seats on the 3 couches they brought out for them (Couch 1 = Tony, Steve, Natasha and Thor/Couch 2 = Wanda, Vision, Clint and Pietro because he never died/Couch 3 = Bucky, and supposedly Peter.) Tony and Steve were running late but promised they’d make it by 8:45. Traffic must of gotten bad because of all the paparazzi.

Once the audience had stopped cheering and they had all been introduced to the audience, James started off with the obvious question.

“I notice that we are missing a few people. Does anyone know whats happened to the Roger-Stark family?” James asked. Before anyone could answer they heard a voice coming from the back of the audience

“We’re here, we’re here. The Stark-Rogers are here. This one insisted we take him, no matter how much meds he was on. Children am I right?” Came the voice of the one and only Tony Stark-Rogers. Tony walked in front of Steve who was carrying Spiderman who was wrapped in a blanket burrito. They walked to the front where the rest of the crew were sitting, Steve going to the last couch to dump Peter.

Bucky could feel his emotions swirling around in him. The frustration of Peter not listening to his advice, worry about his boy’s injuries and if they’ve healed properly as well as adoration for how adorable he looked wrapped up, while completely out of it. As Steve puts Peter on the couch, he let out a small ‘oof’ which James had to resist cooing at. Instead, he gives Steve a nod of acknowledgement and returns to surveying the area with a cold, emotionless look on his face, trying to keep up his dangerous, assassin persona.

At least that was what he was trying to do. It was kind of hard to be a murderous assassin when your precious boyfriend is all tired and clinging onto a blanket a mere 3 feet away from you. He tries his hardest to ignore him. He really does. But all hope is lost when Peter starts to slowly shift closer to him, muttering something about the warmth and ‘my bucky bear’. Peter, bless his little drugged out self, slowly and discreetly shimmies over to his boyfriend. All the attention is on the most well known of the avengers at the front so no one notices Peter nuzzle into Bucky’s side.

“Babe, doll, what are you doing? We’re on live TV.” Bucky whispers, subconsciously wrapping his metal arm around his boy.

“Oh Jamie, your nice and warm,” Peter says, muffled from where his head is buried in the crook of his neck. Everything blurs out in the background and the only thing Bucky can focus on is Peter. About how his steady breathing is hitting the exposed skin of his neck and how his petite frame is starting to koala hug his own muscular built one. The boy is perfect in his eyes. His boy is perfect. His. He can’t help but to copy his boyfriend and bury his own face into the boy’s neck.

“Bucky, what are you doing back there?” Comes an English accent from somewhere around him. As if on instinct Bucky replies,

“Hugging my boyfriend what does it look like?”

There’s gasps heard around them

Shit! He must have zoned out badly. Bucky looks up from where his face was in Peter’s neck, face a scarlet red and eyes like a deer caught in headlights. Looking around him, he sees a majority of the avengers with their eyes wide open, mouths agape. The crowd aren’t much better. The studio is dead silent. Peter lifts his head slowly, totally dazed, and innocently asks,

“What did I miss Jamie?”

Buckys eyes land on his boyfriends face, momentarily relaxing but quickly his eyes catch the ones of the people in front of them. His best friend and his best friends husband. Peter’s parents.

Gently placing Peter to the side, Bucky stands up with his arms out, as if he were approaching a lion. Steve has a look of shock and hurt on his face while Tony’s is radiating off pure anger.

“We, I can explain. Stevie just - fuck, Stevie just listen to me. I love h -”

Before he can finish the sentence Steve is grabbing him by the arm and taking him backstage into a private room.

8:58

“MY SON! MY SON BUCKY! You were telling me about this relationship for months! About how you’ve been seeing someone, someone younger. But you don’t really have a choice now with people your age, you can’t exactly go chasing 102-year-olds who look 30! He’s 27! Buck, how, why, Bucky -” Bucky cuts him off by placing a hand on his shoulder and massaging

“Stevie just shut up,” Bucky still knows how to shut him up when he’s about to have a panic attack, “Look, first I want to say that I’m actually only physically in the 28-32 age range. You are now older than me punk,

“Secondly, I’m sorry. I wish I didn’t feel this way, you have no idea how many nights I wasted trying to convince myself that I didn’t like him. I love him, and he loves me. You know better than most that you can’t control who you love. Peter, god Peter deserves so much better than me but I’m going to stay with him for as long as he’ll have me. I, I just adore him with every cell in my body. He makes me happy, when I see him he just lights up a room. I, I just love him, words can't express how much ”

Steve stays silent for a moment, looking deflated. Like the small, frail boy he was back then. He looks at Bucky and in that look, Bucky knows, knows that he is forgiven, given half the permission he needs, that he still has his best friend.

“Come here Punk,” Bucky says stepping over to Steve and pulling him into a tight embrace.

"Love you Buck"

"Love you too, Stevie"

9:17

Bucky and Steve had been hugging for just over 7 minutes when Tony barges in with Peter groggily walking in behind him. He's still confused on what's going on, why are his dads so angry at him and Bucky?.

"Bucky," Tony starts off, "I give you forgiveness, a roof over your head, I fucking convinced the government that you weren't a threat! And you go ahead and date my SON!" You can see Tony slowly growing more angry by the second. He continues

"I'd have every intention to throw you out if it weren't for the fact that your Steve's best friend and Peters boyfriend. That would hurt them and I dont hurt those who I love, not anymore. So, I'm here to hear out your side of the story because funnily enough, doped up Peter can't really say things that make sense.'" All eyes turn to Bucky as he gulps but nether the less, starts talking

"Tony, and Steve because I didn't tell you the whole story. I'm going to be honest with you guys, yous deserve to know. I want to start of by saying that I am forever grateful for everything yous have ever done to me. I love yous,

"It was 4 years ago, just after I moved into the tower when Peter came up to me. The kid wouldn't shut up. I wanted to be alone, at least that's what I thought I wanted. We slowly became friends. I trusted him with my life. I helped him with school work, he helped me with nightmares. We clicked, we worked. Feelings started to develope after a while and one night when we were studying on his little balcony, he kissed me and I kissed back. We've been dating 3 years now and they've been the best 3 years of my life. I love him, so so much. So please, don't make us break up, I don't think I'd survive without him. He's my light, my star. I want to marry him and start a family, live in a house just outside of New York so its still convenient for spiderman and avengers business. Maybe have a dog and definitely some goats. I want all that with him" Bucky finished with a tear rolling down his cheek. He really hoped Tony would understand, understand that they love each other

Tony sighs and rubs his forehead. All the gears in his head are turning and he's getting a headache. Tony sighs.

"Well, I guess there's not much I can do. I believe you Bucky, your a good man. I give you my blessing or whatever to date him. Can we go home now" Tony says walking away, talking to no one in particular. Steve chases after him, leaving the boyfriends alone in the studio room. Bucky is grinning like the Cheshire cat, that's not how he expected that to go. There was definitely more shouting in his head. Peter suddenly comes up to him and plonks a kiss right on his lips.

"Well then Bucky Bear, shall we go home?" Peter holds his hand out but instead of taking it, Bucky scoops him up and carries him out of the room.

"Of course doll, anything you want"

#peter parker #winterspider #tony stark #bucky barnes #avengers #superfamily #steve rogers #marvel #cute #stony #james corden

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hyper-cryptic · 3 years

Note

Oh yes, an ask ! What's the opinion/relation of Kate on the others companions ? Do they have a bestie ? Does she hate/dislike one of them ?

Hell yeah!! I am glad you ask about her, I absolutely adore talking about Kate! By the way, really funny fact, I have actually romanced most of the companions (Danse, I am coming for that ass), but canonicaly, their partners are Hancock and Nick! :D

Cait:

She admires her! Like, a lot! They think she is a super strong person, in both meanings! She loves how brave, how sassy she is! She’s just really fun to be with overall in Kate’s opinion!

About her drug addiction, Kate never really minded, but they were really concerned about her health. When Cait told her that she wanted to be cured, they didn’t hesitate to help her.

Kate knows Cait can be a better person, especially under her influence! She constantly makes subtle comments that might make Cait change her opinion on things. Every once in a while they sit down to talk about her insecurities if she’s ok with it!

Funny extra: Since their names sound literally the same, Kate asks to be called Kat! Or to call Cait, “Irish Kate” tho expect a very angry irish person coming down your way.

Curie:

Absolutely LOVES her!! They love her curiosity and optimistic personality! Thinks she’s adorable.

They were very supportive of her wanting to be a synth, she thought it was very interesting! Though, was also very worried about how they would get to it...She was relieved that she didn’t have to take anybody's life!

Kate loves to make Curie flustered. It’s honestly adorable to her how she gets mad about getting compliments because she gets distracted, or confused. She lets her know why, tho! Hahah.

Codsworth:

He is family. He had been since before the war. It was the only person she could actually be herself.

When the bombs dropped she couldn’t stop thinking about him, if he was fine, if he had survived. When they got out of the vault, she was so happy to see Codsworth alive and well.

Kate wasn’t able to leave Codsworth’s side during 1 whole months, if it wasn’t for him and Preston, she would’ve given up on everything, on the ‘whealth, on shaun, on herself.

She adores his dumb sense of humor and his ridiculous british accent.

Danse:

She...likes him? She certainly enjoys his company and thinks he is kind and great but his bigotry and loyalty to the BOS makes her really uncomfortable.

Kate could connect to him on an emotional level, but never actually be interested in him, no matter how much they tried. BOS was just a major shit that made her uneasy. She only joined because they could be helpful to get rid of the Institute, and she was going to until…

They straight up refused and told off Maxson, but he didn’t give her the choice. When Haylen begged them to hear out Danse, they told her that she didn’t need to worry at all and would do everything in her power to keep Danse safe. They tried to change Maxson’s mind about Danse, about synths, but as she expected, he didn’t. After this whole incident, she quit the BOS and decided to destroy the Institute with the Minutemen.

She offered him to stay with her, on the lighthouse, but after a BOS attack to a settlement she left him in, Danse insisted to let him live alone, that it wasn’t safe to have him living there so close to Shaun. Kate sadly had to agree, she couldn’t risk to lose Shaun or any of her companions. She still goes and visits him every once in a while! Even got him to meet Shaun! They got along and share a love for cowboys.

Deacon:

LITERALLY BESTIES. Imagine those girls in highschool that are always together, wear matching clothes and call each other “slut”, “whore” and “bitch” affectionately? That’s them.

They literally wear matching clothes when they travel together. (I make ‘em wear matching clothes…)

Kate always introduces them as “ The Death Bunnies”.

She catched up immediately with his compulsive lying. She doesn’t mind it, in fact she might even go along with it, depending on the context and what type of lie it is. She tries to help him with it, along with his impostor syndrome (...which comes...literally sometimes?) and he tries to help her too. Hoes got each other’s back.

If they aren’t with their partners, they are with Deacon. Hell, even when they are with Nick and Hancock she brings him, of course if it’s not private. Deacon gets along with Nick so it isn’t much of a trouble...but they literally have no idea why Hancock dislikes him, tried to ask him but he said “some things are best left unknown”, which left Kate even more curious but respected his...privacy...I suppose? She asked Deacon, he said that it was no biggie, but to get Hancock to hold a long grudge like that is really weird so she can’t believe him. What did he do? She might never know...

They adore him overall, and loves his dumb comments, which she tries to always reply without bursting in laughter.

Dogmeat:

Light. Of. Her. Days. Well! Of course after her partners!! *gulps*

They can’t go on with her days if she doesn’t pet Dogmeat at least...twice. She gives him kisses, pats and plays with him at the end of the day.

When they first met Dogmeat, they almost couldn’t believe it. It was like a light in the dark, he definitely made her days easier as she was trying to stay stable during those 2 dark months.

She almost never goes out with Dogmeat because she is really worried the radiation might affect him, or even die out there. She usually has this fear with most of her companions, but specially him, as he is a literal animal and will probably not know if something is really dangerous or not just looking at it.

She usually falls asleep with him on the couch.

Hancock:

Do I really even have to say anything? He is her everything along with Nick.

Kate’s first impression of him was: “Oh. FUCK. HOT?!”

Okay but really, she found him attractive and interesting after that first interaction. They had their doubts about him..you know him being a politician and all, but they quickly disappeared the more they interacted with him. Damn, the more she knew about him, the more she was interested in him.

About Bobbi, she was totally into robbing McDonough, she did question Bobbi a lot though, as she instantly noticed how shady she was. She actually realized they were going for Hancock instead mid-way but waited to get there to confront her, make sure she was right. She didn’t do it for Hancock, instead because she wasn’t going to rob somebody who didn’t deserve being robbed. Tried to tell her to get out, nobody needed to be hurt but Bobbi refused to, so she had to pull the trigger. She knows it was the right thing to do, but can’t help but think if it could’ve ended differently.

She loves Hancock so much, they can’t stop thinking about him. “What would Hancock think about this?”, “Hancock would love this”, “I wish Hancock could see this”, “I miss Hancock”, literally being so clingy.

Overall, she thinks he’s such an amazing person: he’s kind, he’s brave, he’s funny, he’s understanding, he’s adorable, he’s caring, he’s determined, he’s (very) handsome...I really could go on.

She tries so hard to get him to understand that he is an amazing person. He appreciates the efforts.

“watch you sleep” by girl in red is totally their song.

MacCready:

LITERALLY A LITTLE BROTHER. They adore him! They love how funny and sassy he is.

Kate had to constantly tell him that she doesn’t care about caps and that he can keep ‘em if he wanted, that it looked like he needed it more than her, and she’d be right!

When Mac told her about Duncan she was upset at first, how could he just leave his child like that? Never acted on it, since she knew it would make it worse, but she could quickly understand where he came from and why he did what he did. Didn’t hesitate to help him find the cure for Duncan.

They share a love for snipers and long ranged weapons so...that’s a topic they talk about a lot!

They both geek out about Silver Shroud every once in a while! Listen to the plays together and stuff like that!

Nick:

HERE WE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

They didn’t like him when they first met. They liked Nick’s humor, but couldn’t stop thinking about how much he acted like a cop, and let’s say Kate had their share of bad situations with cops because of race, and shit like that. Kate didn’t know a lot about synths at the time, so she just guessed somebody programmed a fucking cop persona into him. And she wasn’t going to deal with a cop bot that probably had a stick up his ass.

Eventually, when she got so oversaturated with work, and stressed out with the whole Institute shit, she decided to go and do some of the cases with Nick, she couldn’t wait to show this “cop” that even a “civilian” could do his work. As she worked through the cases, she began to notice that Nick was...actually ok? She had more knowledge about synths at this point, but still didn’t understand how Nick worked exactly. He did tell her that he was a prototype, between Gen 1 and Gen 3, so she quickly realized that he was no ordinary bot. She eventually warmed up to him, and could see the appeal.

It was like a bomb dropped inside her head when Nick asked if she was doing fine. Kate had never actually opened up with anybody, not even with Hancock. She mostly worked over her depression and anxiety by keeping herself busy and unhealthy thoughts like “they need me to be strong, I am a role model right now.” with the whole being a General thing, and the fact that so many people relied on her. Kate tried to be dismissive of it, but Nick could see right through her, and insisted that it was ok to open up. She had to get really drunk to do any of that shit! So they told him that they should both go to a “more private place”, as an excuse to get her hands on some alcohol. Didn’t end up drinking any alcohol, and just spilled most of it. Found comfort on his “origin story” with Diamond City.

He was a huge part in her full recovery, along with Hancock and Deacon. But honestly? If it wasn’t for him, it would’ve taken her snapping at anybody and being confronted about it to actually open up to anybody.

She didn’t realize she had any feelings for him until a month after that event. That they were storming into Eddie’s shelter that she realized that they loved him. All of this they were doing for him, the cute comments, the praising and trust they had in him...it became so clear why while he was talking to her after killing Winter, she couldn’t help herself but to dump on him why he was not just “a shell” how he was so much more than that. She didn’t actually confess her feelings to him there, but they were pretty close to doing it. If it wasn’t for her thoughts stopping her from doing it, what would happen with Hancock now? She still loved him deeply...

Eventually, two weeks after, they took a break at the end of the day from missions with Nick, at the empty bar that she had built inside the Castle. It was midnight and mostly everyone had gone to sleep, so they could talk about whatever they wanted and get as drunk as she wanted. They were having so much fun until Nick brought up something she had said that day they ended Winter’s life. Fuck. God, they wished they hadn’t been so busy to actually sit down with Hancock and ask him what he thinks of polyamorous relationships because she was way too drunk this time to stop herself from doing anything stupid. And she didn’t, Nick did, he corresponded but said that he couldn’t let her do this to John. Hah! Little did they know Hancock was super into the both of them. (I actually want to make a lil’ fic about this!!)

They just love him so much and connect with him on a whole new level. He and John make them so happy, she literally couldn’t ask for anyone or anything better than what they have going on.

I know it isn’t exactly a love song, but “Agnes” by Glass Animals reminds me of them.

Piper:

WHAT A LADY, AM I RIGHT? They adore her!!

She is literally her kind of lousy! Always speaking her mind, always speaking the truth. She admires what she does.

I really don’t have much to say about her, just that they really like her and that she thinks she’s a good friend and overall good person!

Was totally in to beat up McDonough’s ass.

Preston:

They think he is amazing!! He is so kind and caring, they like him a lot!

Let’s say that he liked him so much at some point they got together during those two months. It wasn’t a stable relationship and they both acknowledged that they just didn’t work. Besides, he was there when she met Hancock, and had this look in her eyes that he had never seen. Not to worry tho! He has been testing the waters with Sturges lately! ;)

They function better as friends! Besides, it was quite awkward for Kate their General/Soldier dynamic they had going on, so that was another thing!

She thinks he is so cool and amazing, and they let him know this!

Kate teases him about when they were a couple and they laugh it off.

Honestly, he was a big help for Kate during those months and she is really grateful for all his help. They were both really important for each other.

X6-88:

They didn’t get to know him as much as they wanted.

It all was happening so fast, they couldn’t do anything to convince him to get out of the Institute before it was too late.

And it was. They had to kill him along with the other coursers.

In their time as companions, they thought he was enjoyable to be with. He looked like he could be saved, but...yeah.

They made him a grave in the Institute’s remains.

Aaaaaaaaand, that’s all!! Gosh, that was loooong!! Can you see I was really eager to talk about Nick and Kate’s relationship? Yeah, that shit is long.

(I literally finished this yesterday...at 2 am or something)

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cherryplasmids · 4 years

Text

☆ the lives you’ve left behind ☆

pairing: donny donowitz x reader

fandom: inglourious basterds—post-movie sequence

anon request: hi girl! i love your writing and i was wondering if you still write for donny donowitz? if you do i was wondering if you could do an angsty one? that's all i ask, you could take that and run with it however :)

notes: the reader has a kid — aldo is referred to the reader’s child as ‘uncle’ but that doesn’t mean they are actually related. also, aldo is married to a girl name jenny

— the child is a boy named Alex for filler purposes

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"That's your daddy," You whisper, pulling the tiny bundle of joy closer to your chest.

The infant, swaddled in a pale yellow blanket decorated with small brown bears, yawns but does not take notice of your words. Instead, Alex twists, stretches his arms out and settles back onto your chest. Without a care in the world, he just relaxes in the warmth that you've given him. An inkling of envy flashes through you—you would do anything to be that carefree again. But the war ruined everything, including your unbridled youthful attitude.

"Handsome, isn't he?" You question as if the little one will respond. You'd be more scared than anything if he does. You wave the 4x6 photo forward to entice your baby to look. "The most handsome man I've ever seen. Everyone thinks so too, even your uncle Aldo but he won't admit to that.

"But don't worry, baby. You'll be just as handsome and charming as your old man was."

As if he understands, the boy babbles happily, spit freely spilling over his lips and onto his cheeks. Grabbing a Kleenex from the bedside table, you wipe his face. It doesn't deter him. He continues to express his enjoyment through spit bubbles and random giggling. Your heart swells at the sight—his happiness contagious enough to erase your woes for the night.

When the sun rises, you'll tell Aldo all about the affection your newborn has been showing. He'll run down the street to coddle his nephew.

You don't continue until your baby boy calms down enough to the point where spit no longer seeps out of his mouth. By then, sleepiness is taking hold of him. He gives out a deep yawn. One of his tiny hands grips your right thumb while the other curls into a fist and rubs his eyes. A smile quirks at your lips. You take that as a sign to turn in.

“I’ll tell you about your daddy’s love for baseball tomorrow okay? I’ll even show you his prized baseball cards. but you can’t tell him or he’ll have my head.”

He’s knocked out by the time you lay him down. You pray he’ll sleep through the night, allowing you to earn to some much-needed shut-eye he’s deprived you of for months. After tucking him in, you tuck the photo of Donny under his pillow. You press a gentle kiss on his forehead, whisper a few sweet words to him, and then glide out of the room, leaving the door ajar in case he wails for your attention. You make do with this system until Jenny, Aldo's wife, takes you shopping for a baby monitor. She knows a lot more about baby care than you do.

Sleepiness is taking you hostage too with a yawn escaping your lips every 1-2 minutes but you had housework to complete before the morning arrives. Mostly just clearing out boxes of gifts the Donowitz family had sent from Boston. Some of them were open, others weren’t. Gifts like a microwave or other kitchenware were left in their respective box. You’ll deal with those on a later date.

There’s one box, though, that remains sealed. You inspect the plain cardboard container and see a word written across one side in neat cursive. But it isn’t the penmanship that has you gasping and dropping the box in shock.

No, it’s the word 'Donny' labeled across the surface that does.

It takes a moment or two for you to shake off the shock and another to get down to the ground. Sitting cross-legged, you stare at the box as if something will pop out and yell “surprise”—a harmful prank that will send you wailing for something you no longer had.

The knife seamlessly glides across the tape and you wonder when you reached for a knife in the first place. Your body is moving on its own accord without a thought concerning your mental wellbeing. While your heart thuds painfully against your ribcage, your hands steadily tear open the cardboard overlaps.

Taking a deep breath, you open the flaps and find a single sheet of paper covering the rest of the objects. It reads “for my darling daughter, with much love.” It’s signed “Mama Donowitz”.

Underneath the letter reveals a boatload of miscellaneous items from Donny's youth that he's shown to you with pride. His prized Lefty Grove signed baseball, favorite Wrigley's chewing gum, and his worn and torn favorite baseball glove stood out the most. Little things like that made you grin to the point where your cheeks reached your eyes. Anecdotes of Donny's childhood run through your mind—his voice echoing pure excitement. You take your time admiring each item, trying to permanently engrave them into your memory just like you had with his stories.

Then you find Donny's baby socks, embroidered with his name in red string. All resolve you bottled up for months disappeared instantly. You completely crumble.

You press the little socks to your chest as tears freely stream down your face and onto your neck, coating the bare skin with liquid. A wail bubbles up within you, crawling up your throat at a steady pace. But when you open your mouth to scream, nothing comes out. It dies in your throat. The only effort you can commit to is to rock back in forth, allowing sobs to shake your body. If someone saw you, they might have thought you were convulsing. They might have even called the ambulance.

The sobs don’t stop until hours later. By the time your heart calms down from its burning thrum, exhaustion envelops you.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Aldo kicks some dirt on the side of the road while lighting up a Chesterfield. It doesn't take long for him to reach your house since it's down the road. He checks his wristwatch before knocking on the front door. He has about 45 minutes to meet Jenny at the factory. He'll spend 15 minutes here for coffee before leaving. You always made better coffee than his wife.

After some knocking and no response, Aldo takes it upon himself to check through the windows. Most of them are covered by curtains but the window facing the breakfast table isn't. He peers through, searching for you and his nephew wrapped in your arms.

Instead, he finds you on the floor with no baby in sight.

Aldo runs to the back door and searches for the hidden key. Besides the backdoor, he digs under the false rock where he remembered he put. It’s gone. The Chesterfield falls into the hole. He crushes it out and fixes the dirt on top. As an act of impulse, he stands up, goes to the backdoor, and punches out the small window panels on the door. The glass breaks easily and shards pierce his hand just as smoothly. Just glancing at it, he can tell his flesh is free from any lingering shards. A clean slice on his wrist bleeds moderately.

He reaches on the opposite side of the door and tugs at the locks. Not a second later, the door slams open, and you shoot up in an upright position.

Immediately, a fury of questions spews out of Aldo's lips, blending together and becoming unintelligible to your groggy brain.

"Is it morning already? I swear I took a five-minute na—" You see Aldo's bleeding hand and gasp, reaching out to inspect his wound. Your current position on the floor completely escaping you for a moment. Aldo lets you worry for right now.

You drag him up to the sink and run his hand over the open water. "Will I be alright, doc?" His odd accent leaves a few letters out. It reminds you of someone you try not to think about. "Ain't seen such a wound since the war."

Briefly glancing at him, he throws a wink and you gratefully smile. "You're the bane of my existence." You take his hand out of the water to wrap it in a big Band-Aid. It has crude miniature drawings of Mickey Mouse that make Aldo question them. "Just in case either your kids or mine get hurt, they'll immediately cheer up at seeing Mickey. Band-Aid should really invest in designing their product. Who knows how much money they could make?"

Aldo agrees as you finish. "You'll see another day, lieutenant"

He crookedly grins at you and thanks you for your service. You offer him some coffee which he enthusiastically agrees too. He checks his watch as he sits down at the breakfast table. Jenny will have his head if he's late. But he doesn't worry too much about that. She'll understand once he explains what happened.

"Mind tellin’ me why I caught a heart attack on this fine Thursday mornin’? Findin’ you sprawled out like freshly ran over roadkill?"

"Disgusting, Aldo." You say while passing him his mug of coffee. You turn around to fix yourself a toasted bagel with cream cheese. "I guess I was so tired last night that I fell asleep sorting out the gifts." You lazily wave your hand at the unsorted boxes on the floor.

Aldo walks over to the opened box in the middle of the kitchen and grabs the socks you dropped hours ago. He looks them over and notices a letter embroidered on the top. 'D' in red thread.

"Those are Donny's." You confirm. Aldo meets your glazed gaze.

Aldo sucks in a quick breath. It finally clicks in his head. Jenny will understand.

“Darlin—" You look up at him with such a depressed expression that immediately shuts him up. All he does is gather you in his arms and rests his chin on your head.

He hears you mumble something about how small Donny's feet were before you silently cry into his chest.

After a few seconds, Aldo's cheeks become wet with his own tears as he mourns over not only his friend but the lives he left behind.

────── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ────── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ──────

word count: 1,661 published: august 21, 2020 edited: n/a

#donny #donny x reader #Donny Donowitz #sgt donny donowitz #donny donowitz fanfiction #donny donowitz x reader #donny donowitz imagine #inglorious basterds #inglourious basterds x reader #inglourious basterds imagine #inglourious basterds fanfiction #x reader #imagines #eli roth #my writing #fanfiction #anon requests

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cheri-translates · 4 years

Text

[CN] Kiro’s R&S - Youthhood (Eng Translation)

🍒This R&S (少年时代) was part of the Dream Heart Lake event which will unlikely come to EN🍒

Cancelled Kiro’s R&S:

> top experimental subject (by another user)

> stunning young idol

> youthhood ♡

> heaven’s home for children (by another user)

[ Chapter 1]

Kiro sits on the highest flight of steps of TKTS. With the scorching sun directly overhead, he’s queuing to purchase discounted tickets to “Wicked” with Pei En.

TKTS, which sells discounted tickets, is located in the bustling Times Square in New York, USA. Behind it is the NASDAQ screen, and on both sides are shops selling Disney products and all sorts of fast fashion brands. The buildings in front and in the surroundings have gigantic, neat and pretty advertisements.

Among them, a gigantic “The Avengers” poster above the subway is the most attention grabbing.

This is a representation of the era. It’s a symbol of the 20th century, and is also similar to the cyberpunk world of “Blade Runner”.

“I’ve got the tickets!”

Pei En waves the two tickets to “Wicked” in his hand. Pei En is the guitarist in his band. Kiro’s agency formed a band for him, and most of the band members are French locals. Only Pei En is of mixed blood like Kiro - a child from a Jew and an Asian.

“If the performance had gone smoothly, we would have reached earlier!”

They have a final performance in New York as part of their tour, and would have to leave after, rushing to Los Angeles, California.

“This time, I’m going to hide the donuts in an even more secret location so the person who inspects the tickets wouldn’t discover them!”

While Kiro says this, he finishes the donut in his hand.

Donuts from Dunkin’ Donuts are very sticky. Only Kiro can treat such things as delicacies.

His ringtone sounds. With a glance at the number on the screen, he hangs up immediately. Pei En is very curious to know who the caller is. He has expressed curiosity regarding everything involving Kiro, and Kiro knows why.

“Is it that fellow Lawrence again?” Pei En asks. Lawrence is the agent of their band.

“Nope, but it’s definitely a harassment call.”

“It should be.”

Pei En seems to be a carbon copy of Kiro. Aside from his hair not being golden coloured, he is extremely similar to Kiro in terms of bubbliness and openness, and how simple-minded he is.

[ Chapter 2 ]

After purchasing the tickets, both of them return to the agency. Lawrence is at the side, looking through the program booklet for their performance tonight. Lawrence is overwhelmingly ambitious. He won’t give up until he bags a Grammy Award for the band.

“Did you know? Another group of strange people came to look for you again.”

The moment Lawrence sees Kiro, he pulls the latter to a corner. Pei En curiously watches on.

“What kind of people did you provoke? They look like they shouldn’t be trifled with.”

Kiro shakes his head. “What do you mean by ‘they’? Fans?”

When Lawrence sees the innocent and harmless expression on Kiro’s face again, he knows that his questions wouldn’t get him anywhere. Kiro always manages to find ways to conceal himself.

“How’s the preparation for the concert? You’re the lead singer, and all the girls are flocking here for you!”

“I’ll definitely perform even better than usual!”

Kiro looks to be full of zest and in high spirits. He genuinely loves being on stage, and loves how he radiates brilliance. Who doesn’t like seeing fans go into a frenzy over them and be captivated by them? It enables Kiro to fully feel that he is still living on this earth. And that on this earth, there are still so many people who like him...

“I’m guessing you went to buy a souvenir again today.”

Lawrence comes to such a conclusion after glancing at Kiro’s bag. Kiro has a hobby - to buy some souvenirs wherever he goes, whenever convenient.

From Paris to Munich, Zurich to Stockholm, Vancouver to Montreal - wherever he goes on tour, he would buy local fridge magnets and postcards, and he would always buy two sets.

He wants to collect these things, so if a day comes when he can meet her again, he would show them to her, and say:

“Look! This world is so beautiful, and you no longer have to be afraid.”

But till now, he has yet to find her. He remembers her eyes. One day, he will find her in a vast sea of people.

“Did you know that the agency from China has sent someone to negotiate with us? They want you to sign on with them, and the amount they’re giving you is basically--”

Lawrence’s tone is exaggerated. “How are people in China so wealthy!”

“What if I said that I wanted to go to China?”

“Hey, buddy, the band can’t do without you.”

“Haha, Pei En is much more outstanding than I am.”

At this point, Pei En is still watching them. Kiro understands him too well. He’s much too curious. Also, he’s only curious about Kiro, which could very quickly expose Kiro’s hidden identity.

Did that group of people actually send Pei En to monitor him...

He kind of underestimates Pei En though.

“But that fellow is always so absent-minded. God knows what he’s thinking about.”

[ Chapter Three ]

Americans enjoy overstating things. At one moment, they go “only God knows...”, and at another moment, they go “for the sake of God...”. Some people can’t stand it, but Kiro finds it very interesting.

Very quickly, Kiro begins rehearsing with the band. His style of singing changes a lot. When they were in Europe, they mostly played rock music. When they reached America, they started playing country or jazz music.

Kiro likes the southern accent of the keyboardist from California. But Lawrence prohibits it. “The southern accent is the most crude and coarse form of English! Why can’t you learn the way the British speak?”

Lawrence has always favoured people who can speak eloquent British English - to him, only such people are refined and elegant. But Kiro grew up in France. When he first started learning English, he tended to pronounce “ch” as “sh”. Actually, French is genuinely elegant and pleasant to listen to. And English tinged with a slight French accent can make one absorbed in it.

The concert ended smoothly.

The fans are cheering in a frenzy outside, wanting them to perform one more song. But the agent has already told them to leave.

Pei En and Kiro take a car and rush to the theatre to watch “Wicked”. This is the final Broadway show they want to watch, and it was a shame that Kiro didn't get to watch the well-known Hamilton.

At the entrance, that group of fellows stopped him again.

The person standing at the forefront is a Caucasian woman. She walks up to Kiro elegantly and greets him, signalling for the person next to her to bring Pei En away.

“I’ve already given you a response through e-mail, and I hope you won’t disturb me again.”

The Caucasian woman proceeds as usual, showing him an FBI ID.

Kiro grumbles in his heart.

“I swear I won’t disclose the contents of ‘The Avengers’. Even though I’ve already watched it on my laptop, I’ll definitely watch it again in the cinema!”

The Caucasian woman laughs.

“Mr Kiro, you’re very humorous. Even though we know that apart from Disney, you’ve also hacked into Universal Studios and Paramount Pictures, we’re not here to talk about this.”

She continues: “KEY - that’s you, isn’t it?”

[ Chapter 4 ]

Kiro doesn’t respond, his eyes widening as he glances around.

“In order to track down your IP address, we had to destroy four computers.”

“Are you looking for me to make compensation for the computers?”

“Mr Kiro. Ten years ago, you expended no effort to hack into our computers, and left behind a string of mysterious characters.”

The Caucasian woman smiles at him amiably. Kiro’s expression grows serious. Ten years ago, that KEY who hacked into their organisation wasn’t him...

“Ten years later, you’re back again. I think you're trying to provoke us.”

“I don’t have such an intention.”

“Whether or not you do, we can’t let you continue this way. Mr Kiro, this is a serious issue. We are now sending you a sincere invitation, and we hope to work together to do more noble things.”

Kiro is silent. He had previously found a clue leading to his own master. Finding out that he had entered the American FBI website and left behind a series of symbols - he thinks this is message to him from his master. As such, he entered it as well, and found that series of symbols, but until now hasn’t been able to decipher it.

It’s a series of very strange symbols, reminiscent of a new language formed using Latin and Roman symbols. He managed to decipher it a little, and it appears that the series of symbols seem to be pointing him to a location.

And the FBI had found him quickly, sending him an e-mail. It was a solemn reminder that if he was unwilling to be enlisted by them, he would lose his rights to use a computer forever.

“You’ve stated these things clearly in the e-mail, and I’ve already replied.”

“I don't think you have considered the severity of this matter. Mr Kiro, we can detain you.”

"In that case, I’ll just sing in jail then!”

Seeing the displeased look on the Caucasian woman’s face, Kiro continues smiling simple-mindedly.

“I hope you wouldn’t regret this in the future.” The Caucasian woman leaves a final statement that is often found in a script for a classic villain. She leaves with the large group of people.

Pei En walks over frantically, and Kiro walks towards him as well.

“Tell them that I’ve met with some trouble, and will need to leave America immediately.”

Pei En pretends to be puzzled.

“You understand the meaning in my words, don’t you?”

For the first time, Kiro looks at him seriously. During serious moments, he doesn’t smile.

“Where do you plan to go? We can send you to Russia.”

Pei En is no longer smiling. His expression changes, along with his entire aura.

As expected, Pei En is much too similar to him. If Kiro were to leave the band, Pei En could take over his position as the lead singer, and that group of people had considered this fact too.

[ Chapter 5 ]

The face of the little girl surfaces in Kiro’s mind again.

The girl is lying with him, and is all smiles as she looks at him.

“Don’t be afraid. When I’m out, I’ll buy you donuts, okay?”

The girl draws the shape of a donut in the air.

Back then, Kiro didn’t speak. He just stared at the ceiling in a dazed state.

“Don’t worry that I won’t have enough money. My dad will give it to me.”

Kiro remains wordless, quietly listening to the little girl speak.

The little girl struggles to pull on his hand.

Their fingers lace together, the warmth from her palm gradually coursing into Kiro’s heart.

“Don’t be afraid. I’ll protect you.”

Kiro turns to look at her - to look at her determined brown eyes, to look at how the corners of her lips angle upwards. Kiro slowly learns how to curl the corners of his lips from her. It’s the first smile to appear on his face.

Suddenly, the door is flung open. A group of people wearing doctor’s coats enter and drag him away. The little girl watches him in a daze, and he stares back at her. They agreed to go out to have donuts - can they still eat them?

“I want to return to China.”

Pei En shakes his head, alarm in his eyes. “Why? There’s so much freedom here, and I’m the only one who monitors you. And I’m inclined to trust you more now. You won’t betray us.”

“No... I still want to go back.”

Not just for the little girl. The symbols left behind by his master seem to point to a certain location in China... Where exactly is it? And why did he leave the symbols with the FBI? Could it be the place he’s hiding at right now?

No matter what, he wants to solve this riddle.

“All right. I’ll handle it for you as soon as I can. I think you’d have to use a false identity this time.”

“As long as everything goes smoothly, it’s fine.”

“Don’t worry, there’s nothing they can’t do.”

He wants to wait till he returns to China before telling Lawrence about what happened. Lawrence will definitely be extremely frantic. After all, he’s been following Kiro ever since he debuted in France.

And Pei En will definitely be happy. He can finally take over Kiro and become the favourite member of the group, and obtain love from the fans.

Kiro is someone who doesn’t lack love. But he always subconsciously wishes that he could obtain even more love. More and more...

[ Chapter 6 ]

Before Kiro retuned, Pei En gave him materials pertaining to the agency in China.

“Your agent is called Savin. He doesn’t seem as eager for instant success and quick profits as Lawrence. Mr Savin is a very amiable person, and you should be very happy interacting with him.”

“Is he one of your people?”

“I don’t know.”

“You really don’t know?”

Pei En shakes his head. “I rank too low, so I don’t have the right to ask. I’m just an elementary spy.”

Kiro nods, taking his luggage and preparing to leave. He’ll set things straight eventually.

“Kiro, I don’t think you’re transparent. They say that what’s in your heart is easy to guess, which is why they put me by your side. But I think they have underestimated you.”

Kiro looks at Pei En’s troubled eyes, then showcases his signature sunny smile.

“How can that be? Do you want a postcard? When I get to China, I’ll mail you one. I also want to mail them to Lawrence and the members from the band. Treat it as an apology.”

Like Kiro, Pei En showcases a sunny smile. “In that case, we’ll wait for your news. You’ll definitely be at the height of popularity in China.”

“Let’s work hard together.”

“Yes!”

After parting with Pei En, who has been with together with him from morning to night for so long, Kiro lifts his luggage and embarks on an unknown journey.

As what Pei En said, he isn’t transparent. His brilliant smile conceals something underneath, just as the brilliant sun shrouds darkness underneath.

Hidden in the depths of his secrets are things even darkness doesn’t know of. If darkness had a mind of its own, it might think it doesn’t fit with this pure and simple youth.

Just as how everyone think he’s a simple, innocent Kiro, the sunlight casted on him can pierce through him completely, the rays of light refracting onto the floor.

Actually, since a very long time ago, he was no longer a youth...

But, for her sake, he's willing to become a youth again.

“Don’t be afraid, I’ll protect you.”

He once again recalls what the girl said to him.

“This time, I’ll be the one protecting you.” Kiro says excitedly. He stands outside the JFK Airport, his eyes staring directly at the sun.

“I’ll find you, and protect you. I even have a mountain of souvenirs stored in my luggage. I’ll give them all to you. And my purest heart - I’ll give it to you too!”

Other cancelled R&S: here

#mlqc #mlqc cn #mlqc kiro #cncancelled #my emotions went on a field trip while translating this

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