#but yes I too am very short. even as we speak I am barely peeping up over the edge of my desk while I type

[bleaksqueak]

Now that my brain has had sufficient time to process that six nine revelation...I'm still reeling. I had a feeling he was going to be taller than the boys based on some of the comments you'd made about Audric when he was younger and holiday mascots but for some reason six nine has broken my brain. As a tiny five two myself, on a good day, I cannot comprehend being that tall and am just going to keep thinking about it for a while

I spend way too much time amusing myself over scenarios of them meeting, fwiw. Lyra and Audun, that is. She's kind of a lanky beanpole herself (like 5'8. I think she's the tallest femme char in the cast, well, of the magi. Pretty sure we'll see Mrs. Rosewood at some point, given that family hails from Lichgate, as stated in the fading bg chp 0 convo between Thackery Rosewood and Grian From HR. She'll definitely take the prize in any magi/maven combination lineup, while Maddie's the shortest adult femme.) But back to the Thorncrofts/Papa, we kept musing that it only felt right if he was the tallest in the already Vertically Proficient family. It especially means that, in full masked/hooded uniform (especially with aura manifested), he must look quite intimidating even to madness consumed, high level corruptions. Hopefully! It'd make the job easier if they did a little pause. Might not lose any extra body parts at least...

[weasleylangs]

opposites attract - f.w.

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Hufflepuff Fem!Reader Summary: The quiet, Hufflepuff bookworm has captured the heart of the mischievous Gryffindor.  Warnings: none! Word Count: 2k

A/N: For the anon that asked for Fred with a Hufflepuff reader who he’s uncharacteristically sweet for! I’m sorry it took so long, I hope you (and everyone else who reads it) enjoys it!! 

P.S let me know if you’d like to be added to a tag list!

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

Y/N sits in charms, completely zoned out. Charms was always her best subject and she was luckily one of those ‘never study, always pass’ students. The same could not be said about her boyfriend, however, who was sitting across the room trying to tickle his best friend with his quill and distract him.

Y/N and Fred were an unusual couple, and no one understood how the shy Hufflepuff girl managed to catch the mischievous Gryffindor’s attention. Fred’s idea of a good time was turning the corridor into a swamp or roughhousing during quidditch practise whilst Y/N’s was curled up in front of a fire, a nice book in her hand. But no one questioned it, because somehow they made it work.

Fred caught her eye and winked. They’ve been dating for six months now and he never gets tired from the shy look on her face when he looks at her. She shakes her head, hiding behind her hair and turning her attention back to Flitwick as he drones on about their assignment. 

When the bell rings, signalling next period, Fred’s across the room in no time. Y/N has her head down, grabbing her notebook and quill when Fred snatched them out of her hand whilst simultaneously grabbing her bag from the floor. “I’ll carry them for you, love,” he said, smiling.

This wasn’t unusual behaviour. Before the couple got together, everyone always thought Fred was a flirt and was hooking up with different people every weekend, and whilst they were right at the time, Fred is absolutely whipped for his badger girlfriend and hasn’t even looked at another girl since their first date. He’s always wanting to carry her books or he’s slinging an arm around her shoulder.

She has him wrapped around her finger and he couldn’t care less.

“You don’t have to do that, Freddie. You know my bag is heavy,” she says trying to grab the bag from him. Fred only takes three classes, considering the three O.W.L’s he received in their fifth year, meaning sometimes he only has one class a day. However, Y/N managed to receive ten, only failing History of Magic (‘Who fucking cares?’ was everyone’s response), resulting in her having multiple classes a day and therefore a very heavy bag. 

Fred, of course, shrugs it off, “I’m a beater, darling. Nice and strong. I can barely tell that you have five textbooks in here,” he says as he winks and causes Y/N’s face to heat up as she swats him on the chest. “I’m just saying you don’t have too, I can carry my own bag,” she pouts. While she knows Fred is more than happy to lug her bag around, she hates the idea that he’s only doing it out of obligation to be a ‘good boyfriend’. 

These insecurities aren’t new. She hears what people say about them and it doesn’t bother her for the most part. Just there’s only so many times she can handle people she’s not even friends with talking about how ‘Y/N isn’t right for Fred’. 

“You have potions now, yes?” Fred asks, pulling Y/N out of her worries as she follows Fred through the corridors. That’s another thing she never expected, Fred learnt her timetable when they started dating so he could always walk her to class. “I do, Freddie. You have a free right, are you spending it with George and Lee?” 

Fred nods, “I sure am, we’re meeting in the One-Eyed Witch passage to pop down to Honeydukes too, you need anything?” Y/N frowns at this. “Freddie, that passage is on the third floor on the other side of the school. You don’t have to walk me to potions,” she tries to grab her bag from him again and he shakes his head.

“Darling, what part of ‘I want to do this’ do you not understand?” While his tone is sharp, he’s not angry. Y/N doesn’t think she’s ever seen Fred this serious, a glint of cheekiness is always present in his eyes but right now, he looks about as serious as Snape when talking about proper cauldron care. 

“I just don’t want to keep you from the boys,” she whispers, tugging at the sleeves of her robes. They stop walking, and Fred drags her body into a hug. “The boys are fine waiting, now do you want anything from Honeydukes.” 

She falters for a second, just enjoying being in his presence. Despite the short amount of time they’ve been dating, Y/N knows what she feels for him is love and she can only hope the tall ginger boy feels the same way in return. His embrace can only be described as comfort, all Y/N’s worries rushing away as his familiar scent of firewood and cinnamon fills her senses.

“Some sugar quills, please,” she mumbles into his robes. “Anything for you,” he replies, pulling away and grabbing her hand. “C’mon, you’re going to be late for potions.” 

-

It’s after dinner by the time Y/N catches Fred again. She’s walking out of the Great Hall when she feels her robes get tugged on and she almost falls over. 

“Hi,” Fred says, “some sugar quills for my sugar quill.” 

Y/N cringes at the cheesy nickname as she thanks him, popping the sweets into her robe pockets, “What are your plans for tonight?” Fred shrugs, more quiet than usual as he plays with Y/N’s fingers. “Nothing, I was… I was wondering if I can come and hang in the Hufflepuff common room with you?” 

He’s shy and Y/N almost coos at it. Fred ‘no filter when he speaks’ Weasley is blushing as he asks his girlfriend to spend some time with her in her house common room, this is a once in a lifetime happening. 

“Of course, Freddie. Any reason why?” It’s not that she doesn’t want him spending time with her. But Fred’s never expressed an interest in spending the night in, rather opting to terrorise Filch or another teacher after dinner.

“You like spending your evenings reading in front of the fire. I feel like I’ve barely seen you today,” he whispers. At this, she decides not to torture the poor boy any further and grabs his hand. “C’mon,” 

They arrive at the common room in no time, no one batting an eye at the Gryffindor waltzing into the common room where he doesn’t belong. In fact, he gets quite a few “Hi Fred’s!” from people in their year. He’s always been popular and well known, so of course, the house of kindness is happy to have him.

“I’m going to run up to my dorm and change, are you sure you’re okay?” Fred nods, sitting himself down on the soft yellow chair in front of the fire. It’s Y/N’s favourite chair to read in and Fred knows it. “Sure am, hurry back before I freeze to death.”

Y/N speed changes, switching out her uniform for some sweatpants, one of Fred’s old jumpers and her favourite fuzzy sock. While she’s up there, she grabs a spare sweater she’s stolen from Fred for him to change into and her copy of ‘Frankenstein’ from her nightstand and rushes back downstairs and straight into Fred’s lap. “Hi,” she whispers, kissing him on the cheek. 

Fred hums a hello as he settles into the soft pillows of the couch. Y/N perches herself next to him, slinging her legs across his lap with her back against the arm rest. “What’s it about?” Fred asks, gesturing to the book she’s just opened. He knows Y/N’s love for muggle books and he loves hearing her talk about them, even though he never understands. “A scientist who creates a ‘monster’ through experiments… It’s one of my favourites.” 

She waves the book in Fred’s face and sure enough, the sticky notes and the plastic tabs are sticking out, referencing all her favourite parts. “It sounds cool, can I read it after you?” 

Y/N is shy about this. Books are very important to her and she feels her sticky notes and writing in the margins are her deepest thoughts, a peep into her soul. But the boy in front of her owns her heart, every single part of it, and she decided then and there, she wants to share every part of herself with him. “Sure, but you have to promise to not judge my notes.” 

He could never, the Hufflepuff girl in his lap turns his heart to mush no matter how much he tries to hide it and he can’t even imagine hurting her. He holds his pinky out, “I promise,” he says as she hooks her own with his and he presses a kiss to her forehead. 

They sit in silence for a while. Fred starts conversing with members of the Hufflepuff quidditch team (“We’re going to crush you next week, Kirke” she hears Fred say at one point and she has to nudge him with her knee to not start a brawl in the common room) while Y/N reads. At one point, her hand ends up in Fred’s hair, playing with the short strands at the nape of his neck. 

When she does this, Fred leans into her touch and his eyes flicker shut for only a second. She thinks she’s finally found a way to quiet him down and she makes a mental note to play with his hair next time she wants to get some reading done. 

The time starts to near 10pm as Y/N starts yawning, and as much as Fred would love to stay, he knows he’ll have enough trouble getting back to Gryffindor tower without George, Lee and their trusty Mauraders Map. “I should probably get going, darling,” Fred mutters after a while and when he looks at his girlfriend, she’s pouting.

“I wish you could stay,” she says and when Fred cocks his eyebrow she laughs, “not like that, you git!” 

She quickly stands, pulling Fred’s gangly body up from the couch and into her arms. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, we have double Defence,” Fred says laughing and she feels his chest rumble with laughter. “Too long,” she mumbles in reply. When Y/N gets tired, she gets clingy which was one of the earliest things Fred ever learnt about her. It’s always one of the cutest things about her.

He walks to the portrait hole, his small girlfriend clinging to his body and he presses a soft kiss to her hairline before detaching her. “Darling, I have to go.”

He feels terrible. He knows she isn’t being clingy to make him feel bad, she genuinely just wants to spend time with him. She yawns again, eyes scrunched closed as she stretches her arms that somehow end up wrapped back around his waist. 

“Okay, you can go,” she gives him one final squeeze before letting him go and looking up at him and before Fred can stop himself the words are slipping out.

“I love you.” 

This wakes her up immediately and her eyes are wide as she looks at him, “R-really?” 

Fred was going to pretend he never said it, worried it was both too early and that she didn’t feel the same way. But the way she’s looking at him, glints of happiness in her eyes and the biggest smile he’s ever seen on her face he knows now is the right time.

“I do, I love you.” 

She jumps on him again, pressing her lips to his. Her lips are soft against his, they always are and the kiss is filled with love and adoration. Neither of them is aware of how long they stand there, embraced in each other’s arms until they’re barely kissing anymore, their smiles too wide. 

“I love you too, Freddie. I love you more,” she says, full seriousness in her face. “Oh love, you won’t win this argument.” He presses a kiss to her lips again before slinking out of the portrait hole, leaving Y/N standing with her fingers pressed to her lips smiling. 

[jjksblackgf]

garfield

pairing — min yoongi x female reader genre — smut word count — 1.4k summary —  “If he knew that you studying Spanish was going to be a huge turn on - and distraction, he would’ve invited you over sooner.” warning — explicit sexual content, masturbation (m & f receiving), cunnilingus

a/n — this one shot is one of my favorites kskjsk, not only I am learning Spanish, but I based this on one of my favorite songs: Pussy Talk by City Girls. I was inspired by the Doja Cat line: “Pussy gives speaches, heartfelt. Said the pussy really talk like it Garfield”, hence the name of the shot. Anywaaays, enjoy <3

“I really think I shouldn’t be here,” you said to him “Is 2 in the morning, you need to focus, I need to study... I don’t think this is the best idea”

“Really, it’s fine” he disagreed with you “I was feeling alone, there’s almost no one in the company right now,” he said “Plus, I’ll be with headphones on, so when I finish this we can go home together”

You didn’t want to agree with him, scared that would interrupt his workflow. But since he wasn’t even going to notice you…

“Okay, go do your thing and I’ll be practicing over here” you stated.

Yoongi puts his headphones on and starts to mix a few recordings for an upcoming song, but in a moment of silence he notices you speaking a few phrases, and now he’s hooked

“Sólo puedo pensar en ti” you said carefully, trying not to have too much of an accent. “Eres el amor de mi vida” He closes his eyes. He heard that one before and knows what it means. His heart is now pounding on his chest, the song his working on no longer being the sound he wants to hear.

He takes a deep breath and tries to concentrate again. He’s working, and you said it wouldn’t be the best. But this song is boring now, it’s not the same as hear your girlfriend say love phrases.

No! No. Work. Focus, Min Yoongi.

“Voy a soñar contigo” Aw, fuck. Great, now he’s getting hard.

He moves in his chair a little bit, trying to get more comfortable, but it only gets worse, the friction is now in his attention and he tries not to cuss. He doesn’t want to interrupt you, nor wants you to know that Spanish turns him on.

He tries to go back to work and starts to click random things on the screen as a way to try to concentrate, but he wants you too much and can’t get you out of his head. 

He has an idea. It’s the only way to get to concentrate again.

He peeped at his back, to see you laying down on his couch, which would make his job a lot easier.

He sits by your side, taking your legs and putting on top of his, caressing your thighs lightly. You look up from your book to see his gaze directed at you.

“You look really sexy talking Spanish, baby” he said softly

“Oh yeah?” you asked with a teasing tone, already know where he’s leading into. You then sit up, removing your legs from his, only to place yourself again on his lap, straddling him.

You come close to his ear and whisper “Estoy enamorada de ti”

He groans at the sound of your voice, his bulge getting tighter. You finally notice his pants, deciding to place a hand on top of his jeans, squeezing it gently. “I told you this was a bad idea” you spoke looking into his eyes.

“Define bad” his voice was commanding and strong. He didn’t want to be teased any further, so he leaned forward to give a sweet kiss. The softness of his lips was the first thing you took notes about, only placing a few pecks, before placing your arms around his neck, deepening the kiss.

For the first few seconds, your lips were locked and still, before you decided to break the kiss and slightly lick his bottom lip. At that moment, his hands went from your wait to strongly grab your ass as a protest.

Before he whined any longer, you kissed him again. This kiss being slow, yet intense. Yoongi made sure his tongue was soft and dominant, but not overpowering. Releasing the grip from your ass, he traveled one of his hands to your back, and the other to the side of your neck, bringing you closer.

You tilt your head to the side and remove his hand from your neck, placing it on your breast instead. You both squeeze it at the same time, the pressure creating two sets of moans. His hand stayed there for a minute before you decided it was time to move it again, this time back at your thigh

“Kiss my neck” you asked after breaking for air. He did as you wished

Starting at your collarbone, he placed wet kisses alongside your neck, increasing the pressure with each kiss. He then reached your jawline, kissing it a few times before biting the same spot.

You went to retribute the kisses at his neck, but this time your hands traveled back to his crotch. You palmed his dick as you reached his ear, biting his earlobe softly.

“You’re going to drive me crazy” he shifted in his seat, looking for more friction.

“Take off your pants, then” you said teasingly. And so he did. Unbuttoning his jeans and lowering down with his boxers, exposing his cock.

Maintaining strong eye contact with him, you licked the palm of your hand before moving it to his tip. He hissed and threw his head back, only to miss you spitting in his dick to lubricate it more. 

As you circled the tip with the palm of one hand, the other went to his length, moving it up and down very slowly to continue with the two different moves. He moaned once more as both your hand were now in up and down movements but circling it in different directions.

“Look at me” you commanded. His eyes were too shut in pleasure to respond to you at that moment “Look into my eyes, Yoongi” the pleasure he was feeling made him seem hesitant, but he wanted nothing more than look into your eyes.

He bit his bottom lip as your hands increased the pressure, and you - knowing damn well what you were doing - licked your lips from side to side, making him growl. He needed to close his eyes again.

But he didn’t want to cum like this, he wanted to cum with you, he wanted to make you feel good as much as he was feeling good. So he grabbed your hands to stop all your movements.

“Lay down” you were confused, but you obeyed. Without missing a beat, he took off your shorts as you took off your shirt, leaving you with your panties only.

He opened your legs and sit in between them, having a privileged view of your soaked panties. He touched your core, moving his fingers up and down a few times before placing his thumb on your clit with circling motions.

Your hands when directly to your bare breasts, closing your eyes to give in to the pleasure. He was still admiring you, studying your facial expressions as he moved your panties to the side and feeling your wet core, using your lubrification to go back to your sensitive spot.

“Yes” you let out loudly “Keep it like this”. He absolutely loved seeing you like this, absorbed in pleasure, but he knew he wanted to do more than just use his hands.

He moved you a little more, so you could be sitting in front of his kneeling figure, placing both your legs on his shoulders, he placed soft kisses on your clit before licking your folds from bottom to top, spreading your juices.

He then proceeded to circle your clit with his tongue but not yet touching it, making you a little impatient. But before you could complain, he sucked your clit, making you gasp and arch your back a little.

He looked up and saw your head thrown back with the arch of your back, hands still squeezing your tits, and his dick twitched, wanting to be inside you. But it wasn’t time for that yet, so he settled with pleasing himself with his hand.

He continued to switch between sucking it and licking it for a few minutes, with a grip on the back of your thighs to keep you from moving. Your hands went to his hair as you felt a knot in your belly and your clench on nothing. Yoongi saw this as a sign to continue at the same pace and sucked deeper as you gripped more of his hair.

You screamed with your release, feeling the hot sensation of Yoongi’s mouth leave your pussy as he gave your clit some space to breathe.

With his mouth glistening and laughing with his signature gummy smile, he said “I thought you were going to scalp me” 

“HA HA” you said, before getting on your knees and pushing him to lay down on your floor.

If he knew that you studying Spanish was going to be a huge turn on - and distraction, he would’ve invited you over sooner.

[michelemoutons]

and at last, the post that maybe three people maximum have been waiting for...

em's comfort retro rally videos: a masterlist!

in a much-needed return to this blog's roots, and as an antidote to all motorsport- and life-related chaos, i now present to you: the first edition of em's favorite retro rally videos!

general disclaimer/info: these videos mainly come from the group B era of the world rally championship (wrc), which generally speaking was in the '80s. i am only human, so expect a lot of bias toward my personal favorites...which will become very apparent as you read this list hehe. also i'm not even gonna pretend to be an expert on this or anything. a lot of these are literally just based on Vibes

table of contents

i. my top 5 rally coverage videos

mainly coverage for television, recorded on VHS and uploaded to YouTube by some truly incredible people

ii. honorable mentions

not rally coverage, but retro rally videos nevertheless

often documentaries, mini-doc features, interviews

for all videos, i have indicated the language (most are in english fyi); if any links fail or videos disappear, send me an ask or DM and i'll remove the culprit/find an alternative link.

and now, onward!

(TW for occasional flash photography in many of the night sequences of the videos, as well as a gif included in this post)

i. my top 5 rally coverage videos

in which my bias toward audi sport, mouton/pons, mikkola, toivonen, and vatanen are put on blast for all to see 🥴 i am not an expert in anything i am just very good at research and a whore for aud—[SNIPED]. for the sake of brevity, i narrowed my favorites down to 5. maybe another time i will share all the rest!

also, a general note about the commentary: sometimes, the commentary around michèle and fabrizia can get... weird. keep in mind, they were the most prominent female team partnership around that time, and the first to nearly clinch a wrc wdc, and to modern ears, the commentators really didn't know how to act around them. personally, it wasn't horrible for me, i just ignored the weirder bits, but i understand if others might find it off-putting. also for the sake of your sanity don't read the comments.

5. Rally of the 1000 Lakes, 1984 | finland

link: overall coverage (eng)

podium: vatanen/alén/toivonen (full final results)

comments: this was definitely a rally for most of audi sport's drivers to forget: bar stig blomqvist, who came quite close to the podium finishers with a 4:14:01 to henri toivonen's 4:12:57! both hannu mikkola and michèle mouton had to retire from the race, which may lead you to wonder: why does this rank among my favorites? well, it's always fun to watch group b rally cars sailing through the air against picturesque scenery, and this video also contains an intriguing (at least for me!) look at the scrutineering process, with drivers at their most casual.

owie :( they were fine though!

4. Lombard RAC Rally, 1981 | britain

link: overall coverage (eng)

podium: mikkola/vatanen/blomqvist (full final results)

comments: hannu winning by 11 whole minutes even after rolling his car in the middle of the forest is actual legend behavior! anyway this was michèle's first wrc outing in britain, and even though she and fabrizia had to retire, they still did quite well, consistently running high in the leaderboards after the first few stages. and that's considering the fact that michèle had a bad cold for much of the rally and had to ask fabrizia to drive the car to service park for her at one point bc she was so tired. which fabrizia did... with a pencil in her mouth. lot of big names in one video—also, jean todt makes an appearance as a co-driver!

shamelessly poached off of one of my text post edits

3. Marlboro Safari Rally, 1983 | kenya

link: overall coverage (eng)

podium: vatanen/mikkola/mouton (full final results)

comments: ok can i just say how stunning the video presentation is?? the opening sequence is just!!! the shots of the wildlife! the sprinting giraffes! wow! anyway the visual of drivers in deck chairs just tickles me for no reason, and michèle please tell me what you ask for at the hairdresser's and also where you got that orange blouse (this is obviously not just specific to this rally, she always eats and leaves no crumbs). this was michèle's first entry and only finish in kenya (and of course it was a podium mwah). it was also her last wrc entry in the A1 quattro, as she switched to the A2 for the rest of her program in the '83 season. also this is one of my favorite podium pictures ever.

lksdjffnnkd there's almost too much to unpack... fabrizia somehow surviving in high waist jeans in a hot car... michèle's do-it-yourself shorts... this podium picture was the subject of a very frantic video chat conversation between myself and a friend at 2am a few months ago

2. Rallye de Portugal, 1982 | portugal

links: short recap (eng) | overall coverage 1, stuck in the middle of two other rallies. timestamps in descrip. (eng) | overall coverage 2, very vibey with cool music (ita... also peep walter röhrl speaking italian)

podium: mouton/eklund/wittmann (full final results)

comments: GOD I LOVE THIS ONE SO MUCH AAAA! michèle's first podium of '82 being a win? this rally being the one where there's footage of her going shopping with fabrizia afterward? (more on that later) them winning by 13 whole minutes? and that's not even considering THEE most poetic victory ceremony of all time! in fact let me talk about that bc the racing and the win aside, that's why it's so high up on my list! literally poetic cinema! it's night, they're standing on top of the car and floodlit and surrounded by cheering crowds but they may as well be the only ones there in their own little world, laughing at each other and barely even having to look to each other when they're raising their hands—like god! shut up! we get it you're besties 😭

i_just_think_theyre_neat.png

and now... last but certainly never least...

1. Lombard RAC Rally, 1982 | britain

link: overall coverage (eng)

podium: mikkola/mouton/toivonen (full final results)

comments: firstly, if you were to ask me about my dream podium, this would be it. hands down, across all series of motorsport, my comfort podium would be hannu, michèle, and henri in any order. (there's such a cute picture of them from this rally on pinterest, standing in order on a staircase. henri is not looking at the camera because he is laughing at something michèle is saying and it's such a Vibe but i cannot find it wah). the battle for second between michèle and henri ran down to literally the last stage, and their times are separated by seconds, which is just wild to me. the context of this rally deserves another post, which i honestly don’t have the energy to make rn, but just take my word for it that it threatens to destroy me if i think about it too hard! anyway this is just such an awesome rally and i’ve watched this video so many times haha

i love this rally so much that i actually had a character in a story i was writing attend the ceremony captured in this picture as a small child and made it a formative moment in her life. no, there is nothing wrong with me.

ii. honorable mentions

(is it obvious who my faves are? yikes)

'Group B - Avec Michele Mouton' (eng) - taken from a longer feature presentation about group b, a segment specifically about michèle. a friend once described its vibes as ‘a synth wave edit of an 80s anime set in a cyberpunk world about racing’

'1983 Audi Sport National Rally with Michele Mouton' (eng) - in which michèle takes journalist sue baker as a co-driver for a spin in an A1 and a rally win. fun behind-the-scenes video

'Intervista a Fabrizia Pons, la Regina delle Note' 1, 2, 3 (ita) - very thorough interview which is mostly fabrizia telling all sorts of stories, including the very entertaining story of how she found out she was going to be michèle’s co-driver. also what a badass title

'2008 Otago International Classic Rally' (eng) - THE BESTIES REUNITE THE BESTIES REUNITE!!! michèle and fabrizia reunite for a rally that fabrizia convinced michèle to join, they suffer some problems but there are plenty of wholesome bestie moments to be had

'Michele Mouton hurls Group B Audi Quattro up Goodwood hill' (eng) - i mean, self explanatory. the sound of the chirping tires? asmr could never. very short watch if you want a quick pick-me-up

'1990 Louise Aitken-Walker feature' (eng) - a video featuring a female rally driver from scotland and her point-scoring run at the rallye monte -carlo. i am convinced that louise was john finnemore’s inspiration or at least an influence for the character of linda fairbairn. no my hat is not made of tin foil what are you talking about

hannu rocketing around michigan back in 2017 (eng)

hannu flying around goodwood in 2015 (eng)

sometimes i listen to fabrizia's recent onboards (yes, she's still at it!) and this one is one of my favorites, from 2016 (ita)

[larryfanfiction]

Disney AU

🌹 Elysian by wonderlou (81k) Beauty and the Beast AU

“What could be it, Niall?” Harry asks gently with a sigh. He slouches down further into his chair, crossing his arms lazily across his chest. He is bored. He has been bored for five years straight, but even more so now that his one interest has shut himself out entirely. Harry had not even heard from Louis, not since last night, not since he had gotten on his nerves so much that he was torn between knocking him out and smiling in surrender to the slight awe he felt. Louis is opinionated like no one he’s ever seen, but his voice is honeyed; high-pitched and indignant. Harry is nothing short of entranced.

Or, Harry is running out of time to fall in love, but with Louis, it seems as if there’s all the time in the world.

🧜🏻‍♂️ The Importance of Body Language by zimriya (11k) The Little Mermaid AU

Harry really has no idea how he’s going to get out of this one. After the little incident with the fishing wire, he’d been told that under no circumstances was he to visit the surface of the water, as he is the heir to the throne and his safety is essential to the continued existence of their underwater society. Or something. Harry loves his mum, but there’s really only so much talk of royal duty a prince can take before he does something drastic. Like purposefully disobey her strict instructions to stay under the sea for the rest of his natural life, and instead swim too close to a human ship and get himself spotted by none other than the unfairly attractive Prince Louis Tomlinson, for example.

Needless to say, Harry is fucked.

🧜🏻‍♂️ Hey baby won't you look my way by larrysbitchx (10k) The Little Mermaid AU

Louis want’s a prince charming. Harry might just be him. But what happens when a human and a merman fall in love?

🐶🐱 We Could Live This Life Forever by dearmrsawyer (31k) Lady and the Tramp AU

When Harry’s adoptive parents bring home a brand new baby of their own, he fears they won’t want him anymore.

A Lady and the Tramp AU where everyone’s human

⚓️ Drowning In Your Eyes by smittenwithlouis (45k) Pirates of the Caribbean AU

“Capt’n Styles, are you certain of this? They be attracted to man-made light.” “What is? Sharks?” The young blonde asks in terror. “Worse than sharks, lad. There’ll be flesh eating mermaids upon us in minutes, mark my words!” Paul huffs as he continues to wave the bright lantern in front of him, “And Captain Styles here, has us bait!” Or: The Pirates of the Caribbean inspired au where Harry is a fierce pirate who holds the heart of a beautiful merman.

👑 Because You Saw Me When I Was Invisible by supernope (32k) Princess Diaries AU

A (not so) loosely-based Princess Diaries AU, in which Harry finds out he’s the heir to the throne of a country he’s never even heard of.

🏹 Not in Nottingham by UserFromPluto (11k) Robin Hood AU

“Love him?” The prince repeated, “and does this prisoner return your love?” Harry did not answer but stood looking at Louis, trembling and heaving breaths. Louis met his gaze, hair falling over his eyes, arms gripped roughly by two guards. “Harry,” he said simply, “I love you more than life itself.”

(Robin Hood au in which Harry and Niall steal the show, Liam’s big heart gets him in trouble, and Zayn and Louis really should stop being arrow magnets)

👠 a dream is a wish your heart makes by theneverending (22k) Cinderella AU

Fairytale retelling of Cinderella, where Harry is a servant boy who’s too kind, Louis is a prince in an arranged marriage, Liam is Harry’s step brother, and Niall is Louis’ dutiful grand duke.

👠 your rainbow will come smiling through by hazkaban (17k) Cinderella Story AU

when harry isn’t working at his stepfather’s cafe, he’s trying to make swim captain and trying to finish all his coursework on time. when he’s not doing any of those things, he’s talking to the boy he met on the oxford hopefuls subreddit. when they decide to meet, he’s elated. he finally gets the chance to meet the boy he’s been crushing on! when the day comes to meet his prince, he learns that his online crush is none other than louis tomlinson, captain of the football team and friend of his terrible stepbrothers. now harry has to decide whether telling louis the truth is the right choice or if it’s better to just let sleeping dogs lie.

🦎 long hair don't care by ballsdeepinjesus (20k) Tangled AU

He catches his breath and stands, brushing dirt off of his breeches when he hears a scared peep behind him. Louis spins around, startled, and is greeted by the sight of an extremely pale boy with extremely luscious dark brown curls. His hand starts to reach out involuntarily to try and pet his hair, but he stops it quickly and tries to smooth it into a bow. He glances up, fluttering his lashes, and levels the trembling boy with a charming smile.

“Hi,” he drawls. He doesn’t see the frying pan until it’s too late. Everything goes black.

[harry is sheltered and louis is a thief. or, a tangled au.]

🦎  You Were My New Dream by larryshares (48k) Tangled AU

Prince Harry has spent the majority of his life trapped within the castle walls, forced to hide from the kingdom he never asked to be born into. He doesn’t want to be the next King of Eroda, because according to his father, kings don’t wear dresses, paint their nails, or braid flowers into their magical hair. And Harry happens to love those things about himself, almost as much as he thinks he could love the new combat instructor his father has summoned to mold him into a more acceptable man, just in time for his impending coronation.

🧚🏻‍♀️ no place to call home by suspendrs (21k) Peter Pan AU

“What are you smiling about, Harrison,” the boy spits, body language suddenly getting defensive. “I’ll have you know that I’m-”

“Harry,” Harry interrupts, giggling. “My name is Harry. And if you’re not called Peter, then what are you called?”

The boy tilts his chin up slightly, surveying Harry like he’s checking if he’s worthy of knowing something as important as his name. “Well, Herschel, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Louis.”

Or, Louis isn’t Peter Pan and Harry isn’t Wendy and Neverland is nothing like Harry thought it would be, but it’s perfect anyway.

🧚🏻‍♀️ Tell Every Lost Boy (that you're my man) by LittleLostPieces (17k) Peter Pan AU

A modern-day Peter Pan AU, wherein Harry struggles with his overwhelming jealousy when Louis brings a new mate into their makeshift family.

Starring Louis as Peter Pan (obviously), Harry as Tinker Bell, the others as the Lost Boys, and Greg as Wendy

🧚🏻‍♀️ faith, trust and pixie dust (and a little bit of something else too) Peter Pan AU

“Are you seriously apologizing for taking out a bullet that was lodged in my shoulder and saving my life?” he asks slowly. “Y—yes?” the boy looks unsure of himself now.

“Marry me—”

For once, the boy isn’t the only one blushing and Louis silently curses Earthen terminology for making its way into his vocabulary.

Taking a deep breath to regain his composure, he coughs out, “I mean thanks. That was very nice of you…?”

“Harry,” the boy fills in quietly, flashing Louis a tentative smile. Louis thinks it suits him well and he mouths the name to himself, liking the way it rolls off his tongue. He watches as Harry hesitates before asking his own question, albeit doubtfully.

“And you’re—you’re P—Peter Pan, right?”

Or, the one in which Louis is a punk Peter Pan and Harry is an insecure flower child.

❄️ The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway by timefornothing (17k) Frozen AU

“Lou! Give me my glove!” Louis held it back away from him, blue eyes glittering with desperation. “No, Zayn. Please, I can’t live like this anymore! We can’t keep the entire world shut out! I can’t live like this!” His words rung out shrilly, making the crowd go silent. Zayn stared at Louis, eyes wide with unimaginable pain. Finally, he swallowed hard, whispering quietly, “Then leave.” He took one more look at Louis before it was too much, then he turned away, stalking towards the back of the room. or the one where One Direction are the characters in Frozen. Starring Louis as Anna, Zayn as Elsa, Harry as Kristoff, Niall as Olaf, and Liam as that stone troll that always knows what to do.

♣️♟ like cabbages and kings by you_explode (60k) Alice in Wonderland AU

When Louis was a kid, he had a series of very vivid dreams about a place called Wonderland. There were rabbits wearing waistcoats and talking cats and ridiculous tea parties, and amidst all the absurdity, there was a boy. A boy with dimples, big green eyes and the sweetest soul Louis has ever known. Louis has always kept a place in his heart for that boy and for his funny dreamworld, and when he’s twenty-five and his life falls apart, it turns out Wonderland might not be so imaginary after all.

🌿 Let's Fall in Love in a Place You Want to Stay by embro (134k) Tarzan AU

A George of the Jungle / Tarzan AU where Louis is a model who meets Wild Man Harry in the Congo. He was raised by apes and barely speaks a word of English and turns Louis' life upside down.

🗡 Dirty secret by iilarryii (122k) Mulan AU

"Dad, you can't go!" Louis yells to his father as he watches him pull out his sword.

"Louis, you know that I have to. It's the pack leaders orders," Dan says calmly. "I need you to promise me that you'll take care of the family if I die."

"So what? You'll just give up?"

"Of course not. I am just willing to die for my family's safety."

"So am I."

The Zoely pack is attacked by rogue alphas and the pack leader orders all alphas over the age of eighteen to protect their pack. Dan Deakin is one of the strongest alphas in the pack, but there is one problem. He has a wife and six kids to feed and look after. Louis is the oldest child and the one who wants to protect their family.

Or a Mulan AU where Louis is an omega who takes his father's place in the war.

📕 You Bring Me Home by reminiscingintherain (22k) Saving Mr. Banks AU

"Are you willing to fly to LA to meet with Tomlinson?" "I suppose I don't really have much of a choice, do I?" Harry grumped. "I'm assuming he's paying?" "Business class all the way," Liam nodded. "And he's kindly arranged for me to accompany you. So at least you're not going to be on your own." "Please do tell how that's a good thing."

Or, the one where Louis wants to turn Harry's book into a film, and Harry's very picky about what happens.

[Saving Mr Banks AU]

☂ Harry Poppins by jacaranda_bloom (32k) Mary Poppins AU

When Louis’ best friends pass away he finds himself with an instant family. Maddie and Thomas are wonderful children but take an immediate dislike to every nanny that sets foot inside their house. After nanny number six is summarily dismissed Louis is at his wit’s end, that is until an unusual man arrives on their doorstep. Harry Styles is like nothing any of them have ever encountered before, and perhaps, exactly what they’ve been looking for all along.

🐎 It's the Climb by lululawrence (25k) Hannah Montana AU

Louis stretched out his back and turned around, startled to see the most beautiful man he’d ever encountered in his life riding towards him on a horse.

He had to still be asleep. This was one of those super weird dreams people had where the knight in shining armor (or in this case, red sleeveless flannel) literally rode up to them calling their name. - The Hannah Montana AU where Louis is a world famous punk rock singer with a stage name of William and Jay drags him back to Tennessee for the summer. In her attempt for Louis to get back to his roots, he just so happens to reconnect with Harry, and things never go quite as Louis expects them to.

🎬 Supposed to Be by kikikryslee (26k) Geek Charming AU

“I’m making a movie for a film competition, and I want you to be in it,” Harry told Louis. “I think you would be a great leading actor in it.” “Why?” “Because it’s you. I mean, who wouldn’t want to know all about the amazing Louis Tomlinson? It would be a great movie.” “You don’t have some weird crush or, like, secret obsession with me, do you?” Louis asked. Harry bit his tongue so he didn’t say “Ew, I have standards.” He didn’t think that would go over well. Of course, that was assuming Louis understood what that meant. — Or, the Geek Charming AU where Harry’s a film geek, Louis’ a popular jock, and they both need each other to get what they want.

🐮  Love and Other Antidotes by haztobegood (16k) Emperor's New Groove AU

Arrogant pop star Harry Styles is transformed into a cow by his bandmate Amy Z after a heated argument. Left in the back of a truck, Harry finds himself at a rural farm hours away from his band. Harry has three days to make it back to London and turn back into a human before his next show. His only chance to reclaim his glamorous life rests with a kind farmer named Louis. They must work together to find the antidote before Amy Z finishes him off and takes over the band.

⚽️ The Game Plan by Justalittlelouislove (5k) Game Plan AU

Louis's life is exactly how he likes it: all about him. When it suddenly gets turned on its head and one little lady makes a huge impact, will he learn to handle it or run for the hills?

🎈 Up by Thingssicant (26k) Up! AU

Louis Tomlinson thought he had everything he wanted. He had a wife and daughter, a good job, a house with a white picket fence, and even a few pets along the way

It’s only when he turned 71 that a load of balloons and poorly timed knock on the door changed his life forever

🏰  Teacups by sincehewaseighteen (25k) Disneyland AU

"Looks like your attraction is not any body’s cup of tea today,” he puns cheekily. Harry rolls his eyes and lifts the box onto the counter easily, dusting his hands off without a blink of an eye to Louis. “I think it might be your costume.”

“Alright, babe, you listen here.” Harry comes forward and makes sure he’s close to Louis’ ear. Louis swallows carefully when Harry speaks. “Cut this shit out, you’re no Peter Pan in my eyes. You’re a fucking twit. I know what you’re like, and that’s all you need to worry about.”

or the au where louis works as peter pan at paris’ eurodisney while harry’s the mad-hatter who works at the teacup ride, and just so happens to be the annoyingly gorgeous man louis is in love with.

🏰  Unbelievable sights, indescribable feelings by serenityandtea (8k) Disneyland AU

Louis and Harry spend a pre-Christmas weekend at Disneyland Paris with their three kids. Lots of fluff, rides and a meeting with Santa.

Everyone says that Disneyland is utter magic.

Louis definitely thinks so when he catches the look on his husband’s face; Harry looks completely ecstatic. Never mind their three children; Louis would go through all this hassle again just to have his husband beam at everything around him once more.

🏰  Acorns and Thimbles by izetta (12k) Disneyland AU

There is a startling amount of Disney films where the couple falls in love after just one day. Louis isn't entirely too convinced of how realistic that is, but he thinks he is starting to understand how they all felt.

Or an AU where Louis is Peter Pan at Disney World and Harry is a park guest.

🏰  Magic by dolce_piccante (3k) Disneyland AU

AU. Girl!Direction. Harry and Louis go to Disney for a wonderful holiday filled with familiar characters, fireworks, and some Magic Kingdom magic.

🏰  Faith and Trust and Pixie Dust by kotabear24 (10k) Disneyland AU

Harry Styles and his son, Lucas, are spending four days at Disneyland for Lucas' sixth birthday. Louis Tomlinson is Peter Pan there, and takes a shine to both the boys. He gives them tickets to a Peter Pan show that night, and spends the evening with the two before spending the night with Harry. Lucas and Harry both find themselves getting attachd to Louis, and Louis finds the same himself.

🏰  Once Upon a Dream by objectlesson (26k) Disneyland AU

“M’not gonna half-ass our fake relationship,” Louis almost snaps, voice sharp with a defensive edge, like Harry wandered too close to a bruise with needy fingers. “Now kiss me again. We’re gonna make every shitty tourist here wish they had stayed in the Midwest. We’re gonna burn Disneyland down with our gay. ”

Harry shuts his eyes and opens his mouth, because he can’t fucking say noto Louis.

Or, a fake dating AU where everyone is lying and they happen to be at the Happiest Place on Earth.

🏰  The Way You Make Me Feel by MiniMangaFan (6k) Disneyland AU

“You couldn’t last a damn day without trying to sleep with me.”

“I can last a whole fucking week,” Harry says, rising to Louis’ challenge.

“Wanna make a bet on that, Styles?”

“You’re on,” Harry grins.

Or, Disney AU where Louis and Harry try not to fuck in public places.

_____________________

Deleted fics we have a copy of (just send us an ask):

⚪️ Bittersweet and Strange by Keep_Calm_And_Read_Fic Beauty and the Beast AU

He agreed to stay so his sister could go free, but he never signed up for this. Beauty and the Beast AU in which Harry is taken prisoner in King Louis 'The Beast' Tomlinson's castle, Master Liam Payne may or may not be a torture specialist, Master Zayn Malik may or may not be the Master of War, and no one will tell him what the hell Niall does around here. Basically, Harry hates his enemy with a passion. Then he kind of has a passion for hisenemy. Then he wonders if he and Louis are enemies at all.

⚪️ The Dreams That You Wish by Keep_Calm_And_Read_Fic Cinderella AU

Cinderella/Ever After AU in which Louis is the world’s sassiest servant, Harry is a closeted prince with a deadline, Zayn is Harry’s chaperone, Liam is given the unenviable task of trying to distract Zayn long enough that his sister, Druscilla, can seduce Prince Harry (hint: doomed to failure) and Niall is the worlds most inappropriate fairy godfather. Destiny, romance, mistaken identity, sexcapades and oblivious!everybody abound in this gross bastardization of one of my all time favourite fairy tales.

More Masterposts

[sunseteyes]

by your side

ㅤㅤ ↪︎ STARRING: hajime iwaizumi; gn!reader

ㅤㅤ ↪︎ THEMES: mutual pining? kinda sad

ㅤㅤ ↪︎ WORD COUNT: 4.6k words

ㅤㅤ ↪︎ SYNOPSIS: this is the story of you and hajime, and how your friendship crumbled when he found out something that was meant to be a secret moments after it was said. 

ㅤㅤ ↪︎ INTERMISSION: this is a part of @samusangel​ ‘s songfics! the song for this fic is ex by kiana ledé. do listen to that song because it’s bop! also, i have finally interpreted my real life story of my 7-year unrequited crush:) yes, most of this fic is based on what happened to me, not all though. i’m kinda hoping to do the ending too lmao. please don’t get too attached to hajime:) enjoy! oh btw i had to add arms on iwa’s pic so if you noticed it, i’ll give yo 10m points (also for the reference for that line haha)

when you first met hajime iwaizumi, it felt as if you had someone who will always have your back, someone you’d always trust, someone who’d continually care about you, through and through. 

that’s how being friends are, right? 

yet why is it that his name alone could hurt you better than anyone’s? why can you still remember the stolen glances and lingering touches that were barely there? 

why is it that even after eight years, you’re still regretting why you said hello that day? 

why? 

from oikawa: hey! from oikawa: i heard that you’re in the photography club from oikawa: please please speak to my friend iwa-chan he can be kinda shy  to oikawa: uhm who is this? do i know you? from oikawa: oh my y/n from oikawa: did you really not have the one and only oikawa tooru’s number?! me?? to oikawa: ...oikawa how did you get my number? to oikawa: and who’s iwa-chan??

“hey iwaizumi-san! come sit here!” you exclaimed, a huge grin on your face as both you patted the seat beside you, eyes looked over at the boy that had just entered the room, a sense of relief passing by his expression the moment he found your gaze. 

“we’re in the same class, right? and i think makki mentioned you before. what’s your name again?” he says the moment he sat on the same chair you urged him to sit on.

“(y/n),” you held out your hand. “-it’s nice to meet you.” 

hajime takes it willingly, a friendly look on his face when he does so all the while responding with, “it’s nice to meet you too. and since i can call you with your first name, then you can call me hajime, if you’d like.” 

“well, hajime it is then.” 

the smiles that you shared were harmless, not even an ounce of hesitating thought crossed your mind when you had your very first conversation with him, as well as the next ones. 

“hey hajime, what’s your number?” 

“hm? have i not given it to you yet? here, let me type it for you.” 

from iwaizumi: hey :) to iwaizumi: yeah yeah i received it hajime from iwaizumi: oh come on from iwaizumi: is saying a hello that hard?? to iwaizumi: hello to iwaizumi: you happy? from iwaizumi: yeah :)

“(y/n), want to join us for lunch? we have a free seat right here.” 

“hajime! i saw a good movie! let’s watch it later? snacks are on me as long as it’s your turn next time.” 

smiles, giggles, laughs, whispers or notes whenever the class is ongoing, always beside each other during club meetings, you and hajime even share each other’s secrets and random text conversations during midnights. in just a short time, you were able to trust him, and he did the same for you. for you, that is indeed an unusual feat--you never trusted people that easily to be honest. 

“have you heard of the name wakatoshi ushijima? i once liked him, y’know.” you say in a low volume, making sure none else hears not just because your words were meant to be a secret that was  never to be talked out loud, but it’s since you and hajime are currently in a club meeting, and you would hate your name to be added in the noisy list. 

“you meant that big guy in section five? are you serious?” hajme scoffs, as if you just said a very insulting thing to him. “you could do better, you know that.”

you scoff, chuckling. “are you blind? he’s as handsome as you could be.” 

“is that your way of saying i am handsome?” he smirks, “i knew i’m your type all along.” 

you playfully smacked him on the leg, making him recoil a bit from your form. 

“you wish,” you muttered, brushing off his claims, not really expecting much by that time. 

still, fate decides to surprise you with a gift you can never take back. 

“hey, what do you think of iwaizumi? you two are quite close, aren’t you?” 

“well,” you say, humming as you try to think of a reply whilst writing down the remaining notes that you should write before the teacher decides to erase the contents of the blackboard. the subject itself made it difficult because it was math--and you always fail on math thus this matter is more important than the topic that your friend was chatting about. 

so you gave a mindless answer. “he’s a dork, but he can be cute sometimes.” you say, a memory of when you had to endure an entire hour of hajime talking about dinosaurs flashing in your mind a ghost of a smile crossing your lips as you continued writing on your math notebook. 

then a tragedy came in almost an instant, not even a single warning to try and prevent that from happening. 

and it changed your whole life. 

it was childish, you could say, and it was the start of a neverending downfall for not only you, but for your friendship with hajime. 

“he’s cute?! hey, hajime, (y/n) thinks you’re cute!” 

when the roars of your classmates reached your ears, you were already sitting upright, eyes wide open, forehead knitted, and mouth slightly ajar. 

what?

the moment your gaze met his, you knew that he believed it; the childish statement that was meant to be platonically true. 

you were misunderstood.

bye everyone, including hajime. 

and by the next day, when the club where you and he first met came, he didn’t want to sit next to you. what’s more, is that he purposely asked his other seatmate to change seats with him. 

he ignored you, the whole time. 

to iwaizumi: hey  to iwaizumi: you don't believe that right from iwaizumi: what? to iwaizumi: what happened earlier to iwaizumi: it’s not true yknow that from iwaizumi: uh from iwaizumi: yeah sure

“you like him, don’t you?’ 

you glared at hanamaki, one that could even send daggers his way if it could. “no, i don’t”

“then why are you so worried? i mean, he still responds to your chats, right?” he mutters, munching on his sandwich all the while watching a volleyball match of your seniors, eyes trained at the ball. 

you frowned, biting your lower lip in contemplation as you recalled when you talked to hajime last night about school work, which was a thing for the two of you before too. 

“yeah,” you say, glancing at the other side of the gym, where hajime sat next to toru, his childhood best friend who was from another class. by then, a rush of sadness and loneliness flushes away your appetite, the sandwich on your hand almost forgotten. “-but he’s completely ignoring me in real life.”

it didn’t bother you much by that time. 

“you’re staring, y/n.”

“yeah, like they do always.” 

you could only roll your eyes at hanamaki and matsukawa, who were your best friends at that time due to the fact that you three had been at the same class during elementary and had continued being close since then. when you became friends with hajime, you merely did so just to have someone to talk within that one club that you shared with him and not with the rest of your classmates. aside from that, you felt comfortable talking to the guy. he really did look friendly and welcoming that it was quite easy to hit him up with a conversation. 

but it didn’t mean that you like hajime. 

right?

you scoff, muttering for the two to shut up before proceeding to enter your classroom, the two leaving you alone since they were not a part of your class. now, you could only bow your head down as you make your way to your seat, trying not to make much of a peep in hopes that no one will have to talk to you and most likely bring up the topic of you “crushing” on hajime when it’s not true at all. 

but guess what? it’s not going to happen when the fact that your seatmate is toru oikawa himself. 

“hey (y/n)! have you had a great lunch?”

the smile that creeped to your face was forced, honestly speaking. although if oikawa had noticed it, he didn’t ask for it further. “yes i did, how about you?”

“well, it was nice, but don’t you think it will be nicer if you join me and iwa-chan instead?” 

the thing with oikawa is that he’s not just chatty with you, but he also tends to tease you with hajime, before that unfortunate day even came. the story behind that is that oikawa merely saw you talking with hajime one time after the club that you two shared and then he confided to you the next day, saying “you and iwa-chan look cute together, (y/n), i swear one day one of you will fall in love with the other,  i’m sure of it.” 

okay, you confirm to yourself that you didn’t like hajime that way is not because you wanted to prove oikawa wrong, but it does seem like toru oikawa was challenging you ever since he said those words to you. 

and of course, you’ll win it, no matter if it was a real challenge or not. 

“how about you, do you have any ideas?” 

eyes followed as soon as the conversation turned to you, including hajime’s--to which you have met as soon as your mind returned to the reality that you temporarily exchanged for the train of thoughts that continued to operate inside of your mind. 

“huh?”

“if you’ve got any ideas for the project,” says oikawa, being the automatic leader of the group due to his ability to instantly get along with everyone and having the real capability of leading them. apparently, the teacher decided to group you with the two, along with two other classmates that you never really bothered to get along well with. “if none, we can just go with what we gathered so far.” 

you broke your contact with hajime after he did, turning your gaze to oikawa with a shake of your head. “no, i don’t have any.” 

the worst part of the situation between you and hajime was that everything seems like a lie. the friendship--it seemed like a lie that you never bothered to correct or initiate to stop. why? 

yeah, you kept wondering why. 

maybe it’s because you always treasure your friends, or that you wanted to prove that what they are claiming is a fake, a lie--that you didn’t have a crush on hajime, and you will never ever will. 

but what if you really did? 

what if all these denials are making you believe that it is true as well? you had been thinking about that for quite some time now and the thought of it alone scares you. sure, you’ve had crushes or you’ve had people whom you liked or had feelings before, but not one that was your friend. it makes you wonder if these so-called “feelings” could have been due to wanting to always be with him and talk to him, but not in a romantic way. in fact, those are what you were feeling towards hajime. 

there’s really nothing you should overthink about. 

you like hajime as a friend, but not as someone you could see being with doing all the romantic stuff that other people do with their significant others. 

for all you know, that thought was sooner diminished. 

“did you cut your hair?” 

“hm? yeah i did-” looking up, a sight that you never bothered to ever think about before was suddenly in front of you--hajime, with all the beauty of his wide shoulders and the muscles of his arm peaking through under his sleeve, extending down to his exposed skin to hi beautiful, veiny hand. 

the only reason you were able to be brought back to school and to where you are exactly was when you felt a fleeting touch by your forehead, brushing away a couple of strands of hair that  was on your forehead, the action waking you up in almost an instant to find hajime iwaizumi stepping back to give you back your personal space, an embarrassed look on his face that he sooner had to look away sideways to “hide” it from you. 

and then he walked away. just like that. 

you didn’t know how many seconds or even minutes you were sat frozen on that bench, the sight of the people practicing dancing in front of you to prepare for the upcoming intramurals that has a cheerleading competition in its event. your mind was floating; maybe up in the sky, plunging through the clouds, thinking about only one thing--or person. 

why he did that, you had no idea. you could only think about all the questions that suddenly popped in your head, the scene continuing on playing like a broken television, replaying and replaying and replaying. 

from iwaizumi: hey that hairstyle looks good on you from iwaizumi: you should keep it to iwaizumi: i ain’t keeping a hairstyle just coz you like it :p to iwaizumi: but… does it really suit me? from iwaizumi: yes :)

“do you like iwa-chan, y/n?”

you were sure you didn’t before but now is a different matter. not after that very small moment that you’ve had in real life after hajime ignored you continually on the outside. 

leaving oikawa’s question unanswered was not a good idea, and he kept pestering you, asking you the very same thing, even as you were with others, merely whispering the words by your ear whenever he has a chance. you knew it was merely oikawa’s way of trying to set his two friends up--that’s if you treat him as a friend anyway.

you ignored oikawa, only until he whispered a different statement one day. 

“i heard one of our classmates likes him.”

now that had caught your attention, unconsciously making you lock eyes with oikawa, who visibly looked pleased with the reaction that he was able to pull out from you. 

“who?”

“the same one who asked you if you like iwa-chan.” 

maybe it was out of curiosity or maybe something else, but either way, that specific reason made you glance towards where oikawa was pointing at, the very same person he was referring to in his words was sitting next to hajime, such an unfamiliar sight for basically anyone since hajime was indeed seated far away from them before, and for you to see them beside each other, it was, what was that word?--unsettling. 

“they obviously like him, don’t you think?” oikawa mutters next to you, his lips pursed together, his eyes narrowed at the same way you were looking as well, the very subjects of your gazes minding their own business, as if they were the only ones left in the world. 

you looked away before you could think about them further, however the scene is still in your mind, evading it and also blocking the previous memory that was stuck in your mind for days--when hajime finally made a “conversation,” with you. well, he didn’t really talk much that time but it was still better than nothing.

 and now, just when he was not ignoring you, this person shows up and flirts with him-

wait, stop thinking about it y/n!

you blamed it on oikawa, like you had always done, ignoring the fact that those blames should be pointed to you instead--you who had an indecisive mind and the one that thought of all of this as a challenge of a game--a game where you should beat all the teasings by ignoring all of them. rather than doing that, you overthought all of them--it was all your fault. 

it was your fault that you’re now having feelings for hajime. 

unbeknownst to you, they slowly built up inside of your heart, his grasps creeping and creeping the more you longed for him in real life and not just behind the gadget that you two had; behind the chats that were merely there, inside an application where you can never know what his real reactions were due to the fact that you couldn’t see him as you two converse. 

it was you. 

it was you whose heart started fluttering as time went by. 

“come on, hug them! it’s a punishment.” everyone cheers, and yet beyond the noise is the panic that rushes through your entire system, your eyes glazed over at hajime, who was looking embarrassed the more seconds passed by. 

you stood there, fidgeting and unable to stop yourself from moving your feet, walking towards mattsun to makki to oikawa, begging them to stop this with merely your eyes, your lips refusing itself to open and say something that you’ll regret. after fully accepting the fact that you were slowly having these pesky feelings towards hajime, you still kept denying it to others. you were still afraid of what hajime would think. yes, sure, he was still talking to you through chats and text messages, even calling you a few times, and you knew that he wouldn’t be that pleased to have others teasing the two of you like this. he gets particularly annoyed whenever he’s “embarrassed” for stupid stuff like this. he deems it “pointless” in his own words. 

it hurts, and that’s why you were also willing to indulge with oikawa and the others during moments like these, the hidden desires of your heart coming true to life even for just this single moment. 

when you finally felt hajime’s arms around you, you felt as if you were protected, nurtured, and secured--and it felt very different. whenever you hug someone, you’ll feel comfortable, yes, but never this kind. in hajime’s arms, you felt a shield that physically safeguarded you from your surroundings, even from the noises that were supposed to erupt by your ears. instead, you heard of nothing but your heartbeat, pounding like a madman inside of your chest, continually for only one person. 

by then have you realized how much you have craved for him. 

you have hugged hajime a couple of times before, but it  was the very first time that you have felt that kind of sensation pass through every cell in your body, releasing a rush of contentment only a millisecond after you’ve felt it. the embrace didn’t last for long, but for you, it was enough. for now. 

that night, he didn’t reply to your text messages. 

to iwaizumi: hey to iwaizumi: are you asleep already?  to iwaizumi: it’s still early though... to iwaizumi: just uhm message me when you read this okay?

when you felt like everything was going back into order before the hug, fate does something again. 

actually, it was you who did it and fate merely attracted you to doing it. 

people are afraid of confessions, most of the time. and apparently, you’re one of those people. no matter if it’s a confession for a petty thing such as telling your friend that they smell a bit or a stranger when you see them having some dirt on their face or stain on their clothes. yet, despite being nervous about it, you still do it. 

for some reason, it applies to your feelings about a confession towards hajime as well. 

the moment you had fully accepted to yourself that you liked him more than a friend would, you knew it was the end for your friendship with him- that you can never bring back whatever that was lost or what was supposed to had been before any of these shenanigans ever happened. 

weeks and months went by, until it had been a year and more since you first claimed that you liked him. by now, you weren’t at the same class as him anymore and guess what? you two were not talking or texting anymore either. 

it seemed as if the friendship just… faded. and even if you had feelings for him, you let it slip from your hands, and yet it was the very thing that you were convinced that you wanted to have all this time--to not let this friendship die. since there was no possible way hajime would ever like you, at least you’ll have the friendship, you’ll still have him with you, by your side, even not as someone you secretly desired him to be. 

“how is he?” you let out, barely able to look at oikawa as you gazed at your feet and the ground, something that is  not even that interesting--to which the other knew and noticed. yet instead of speaking of it, oikawa answered your question. 

“you meant iwa-chan, or me? if me, i’m alright, just a little hungry, do you want to go eat?” 

still, oikawa is oikawa and he did everything to make you look up to him, even if it were of a soft glare, like you’d always do--and you did, earning yourself a satisfied smirk from oikawa, slightly snickering at your reaction. 

“just kidding. iwa-chan is doing fine, just his usual self; iwa-chan being iwa-chan. no one is with him still, if you want to know--which i know you were.” he says, even so far as learning by your side, as if attempting to mutter the last statement by your ear.

even if your and hajime’s friendship were slowly fading away, you and oikawa still kept in touch. you had no idea why but, he eventually became your friend while in the process of this hajime ordeal, plus he was also your seatmate the whole year when you were at the same class. 

oh, and he’s also the only one connected to hajime, so of course, being friends with him was also an advantage for you. at least, there was a mutual friend whom you could talk and confide to about his own friend, hajime. 

“what happened to your confession anyway? i was quite positive you had a chance with iwa-chan this whole time.” you couldn’t see what he was looking at as he was saying those words but you were sure you heard him huff, which meant that he was making this funny expression in his face, one that made you chuckle a bit at the mental scene. 

yet that chuckle turned into a smile--a smile that oikawa could admit that he had never seen in your face before. 

“i confessed i like him, but, well, it’s pretty obvious that he didn’t like me. if he does, we’d probably be dating right now.” 

usually, oikawa would be amused at your sarcastic remarks, but this one, he did not lie it one bit, just like the sad expression that you were making. he felt as if he was in your place, and his heart broke for you, the friend whom his bestfriend had rejected. 

unbeknownst to you, oikawa tried to help you, even so far by “matchmaking” or “promoting” you to hajime. however, it seems the things only worsen the more oikawa does it. 

“why? don’t you like them?” 

“it’s not that.” the very same knitted brows appear on hajime’s expression and oikawa immediately recognized it since it was the same face that he’ll always give when they talk about a conflict--one that hajime doesn’t like talking about. 

oikawa thinks it's childish-- the way hajime ignores all of this and the way you still stay hopelessly devoted to this man. it’s like you’re both prolonging the discomfort and pain that you two were feeling. he wanted you two to just talk it all out so that he wouldn’t be caught in between the two of you, and also because he didn’t like having you and hajime to be in this situation. he loathed having to see you both suffer from your own decisions and actions. 

hajime is a broken man--that much you knew. oikawa once mentioned to you that hajime had his heart broken by someone he liked for several years, and now, he was rather reluctant in liking someone. when you came in the picture, he was already a broken man. that’s why you were fine with having to love him without him loving you back. 

you didn’t mention that it was not painful otherwise. 

“hajime,” 

the recognition that plays by his face amuses you, and you couldn’t help but smile at the sight of him too; his face is not really much different than before, but it was obvious that he had matured a lot and puberty really gifted him with such a handsome, chiselled face. not only that, but his build changed too, even if he did have strong, muscley arms before. now, he looks like a very mature young man. 

which he is anyway, why are you even paying attention to those things?

“long time no see” you say, halting in front of you and for him to fully turn to face you. 

“y/n?” hearing your name being called by him gives you a feeling you once had before. however, you merely brushed that thought away, just in time for him to finally break off of his surprise.

“yeah, it had been.” he says, then pulling out the chair beside him, patting it. “here, let me treat you to a drink.” 

you hesitated, and it seems as if hajime noticed it. “it’s alright if you’re in a hurry, we can just catch up some other day.”

“yeah, i think we should.” you nervously chuckled, and just when you were about to panic at how awkward the sudden encounter was, you were reminded by something. “we can have coffee some other day, but i have something for you.” 

hajime watches as you rummage your bag, your attention focused on whatever you were finding as he takes this opportunity to actually look at you. 

you look beautiful and mature, not so different from before, but you surely bloomed and become a really attractive person. if hajime were to be asked, he would have asked you on a date in almost an instant. yet, it will be proving to be difficult due to the history that you and him had. 

the thought alone makes him want to regret his decisions from before, but he was not willing to say or express it out loud. 

if you would give him a chance though, he’s pretty sure he would take it. he’s very different from who he was before, much mature and capable of being in a relationship. 

he’s ready. 

“here,” you suddenly were extending your hand to him, holding out a piece of envelope that looked very much like a letter. and before he could question it, you spoke. 

“i’m inviting you to our wedding. toshi and i are trying to find people from our previous schools so…. here.” 

the smile that was on your face was bright, and hajime was having a hard time processing everything that was happening in his mind and before he knew it, you were saying goodbye, leaving the invitation on his hand before leaving the cafe, saying that you had some errands to attend to. 

when he was left alone, it took hajime a full minute to open the invitation, seeing the names written on it and reading everything else. he was surprised, but what shocked him the most is that he actually felt different. 

he wasn’t heartbroken, no. it was as if someone had poured ice-cold water on him, the same memory of when you and him talked about the very same man you were marrying playing in his mind over and over. 

it was amazing how fate brought you two in this situation, but it sure didn’t occur in hajime’s mind. when he first met you, he felt like he’d just met someone who will always be by his side, and he knew you deserve the best, that’s why he thought that he did not deserve you. 

now he can only question himself as he looks at the invitation to your marriage with another man, drinking coffee alone and without anyone by his side anymore. 

[diavolodigitale]

Righteous Man's Choice

I just needed a way to rant about this goddamn quest that ruins the vicar’s personality, okay? I could’ve just complained somewhere in the comments but instead I chose to write a story that is 20 pages long. And you know what? It has romance in it just because. I didn’t even like Max that much, but my own fanfic changed my mind (now that I am typing it, I truly reazlize how ridiculous it sounds ). 

The events in the story are happening during and after the quest "The Empty Man".

Genres: romance, Hurt/Comfort, Canon Universe, Flirting, Dialogue Heavy, Arguing, One Shot, Philosophy

Pairing: m!Captain/Vicar Max

Characters: m!Captain, vicar Max, Felix Millstone, Parvati Holcomb, Nyoka, Ellie Fenhill

Rating: M for Mexplicit language or something

Time span: SPORADIC MOVEMENT - before finding Reginald Chaney in Fallbrook ONE STEP AHEAD - still before DEVIL IN THE DETAIL - after dealing with Reginald AS THE TABLES TURN - immediately after the Vision Quest in the hermit's meditation chamber BATTLE FOR THE SUN - after you finish the quest TO ALL OF YOU - after you finish the quest

SPORADIC MOVEMENT

“Hey, Max, got a sec?” asked the captain, peeping into vicar’s room.

“Sure, captain. What is it?” said the vicar and put away the book he was perusing.

“In regards to that favor you asked of me…” began the captain awkwardly and stepped inside. “Since we’re almost done with it, I was wondering if I could ask you for a favor in return. You know, to be even.”

“Whatever is on your mind.”

“Oh, it’s nothing special, really. Just a dinner. With you.”

The vicar looked at the captain inquiringly while tapping with his fingers on the book cover.

“Am I to cook something or…?”

“Nope, don’t bother. I just wanted to spend some time together and maybe talk for a while. I like to know who I’m travelling with.”

“Quite a strange thing to ask for. Are all of your companions entitled for a dinner with you, captain?” asked Max with distrust.

“That’s actually the first time it crossed my mind. Consider yourself special,” mysteriously answered the captain of the Unreliable and smiled.

“Let me get this straight, I don’t want any misunderstandings to occur between us. I… am not interested in you, captain. In that way. Does that influence your decision?” said the vicar, remaining composed and calm.

“Not in the slightest. Frankly speaking, I feel like you’re not interested in any human beings, so I can’t say I didn’t expect this. Guess the cloth of yours gets in the way.”

“Your view of religion is quite obsolete. Having relationships has nothing to do with fulfilling the purpose the Grand Architect bestowed upon me. In other words, I can, I just don’t want to.”

“Well then, now I’m intrigued. My offer still stands, and I’ll be seeing you at seven.”

“Then it is set, it seems.”

“I expect you to know where my quarters are.”

  ONE STEP AHEAD

Vicar Max carefully knocked on the door to the captain’s quarters. He was wearing his everyday blue robe and comfortable shoes. Being always weighed down by the armor on the battlefield, aboard the ship he preferred to change into his old comfortable clothing.

A few seconds of silence passed, and he knocked again, this time with more resolve.

“Yes, yes, I can hear you!” rang captain’s voice from the inside of the room.

The vicar slightly opened the door and picked inside.

“May I come in?”

“Yeah, be my guest,” said the captain without turning around. “You’re just in time, I’m arranging the drinks. What do you prefer? Lager, whiskey, mockapple cider…

“Whiskey’s fine.”

“Will do,” said the captain of the Unreliable and poured the Iceberg Aged Whiskey into a glass half-filled with ice cubes. “I’ll have some cider, hope you don’t mind. I feel more confident when I’m only tipsy.”

“Sure. I’m used to drinking alone, so at this point any company is alright.”

“Hey, stop standing in the doorway, come in. You can sit on the bed. As you can see, there’s barely any other furniture in here. Try to make yourself at home though.”

“It’s been a long time since I felt that way. Thank you,” said the vicar and sat down on the edge of captain’s bed that in reality didn’t differ much from the one he had in his room. The captain awkwardly rushed to him and offered a glass of whiskey and a plate of food.

“Here, some fried raptidon meat and… whatever that is. You are free to refuse if you feel like, just remember that I did my best.”

“Thank you.” The vicar took the plate and sniffed the food. The smell wasn’t that bad. He moved sideways a bit to let the captain take a seat beside him. “Don’t consider me rude,” he said carefully, poking the meat on the plate with his fork, “but recently I realized I still don’t know your name. That is an awful omission, isn’t it?”

“I’m Alex Hawthorn, remember?” said the captain airily and drank out of his glass.

“I’ve heard of what happened to the person who bore that name previously, so in these circumstances that’s more of a title. What about your real name? You know mine, it’d be only fair if you told me yours.”

“I see, you can’t be fooled that easily. Then it’s Teru.”

Captain offered his hand to the vicar, so he had to put away the plate to shake it.

“That is a strange one, I must admit, Teru.”

“Isn’t your full name Maximillian?” spitefully mentioned the captain.

“Fair point.”

“It almost amazes me how easily you agree with me, but not with anybody else. That’s one of the things I like about you, by the way.”

“You make it sound like there are even more of them,” said the vicar and took a gulp of whiskey.

“Many more, indeed,” agreed the captain.

“Are you always so keen on strangers, young man? You barely know anything about me, and yet use any given occasion to throw compliments at me.”

“Not really. It only applies to you, vicar. Seems like something is drawing me to you, but I can’t yet figure out what.”

The vicar took notice of the distance between them. There was no more room to move away any further.

“Your words confuse me. Seems like we have already discussed the matter of attraction, and I politely declined whatever it is that you have to offer.”

The captain faced the vicar abruptly. Ice cubes in his glass clanked as he turned around.

“Hey, Max, can you take my confession now? There’s something that’s been bothering me for some time. I’d like to talk about it.”

“Why, of course, any time is fine. But only if it’s not your attempt to change the subject,” said Max strictly and shifted his gaze from the muddy liquid in his glass to captain’s face.

“Believe me, I didn’t even try. It’s just… I don’t like men as a rule, Max, but I like you. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to throw myself at you,” —the captain lifted his hand as a sign of protest—“so we can have a few more drinks before you decide to leave.”

“Your sense of humor is tremendously bad,” hissed the vicar, clearly annoyed. He looked at the captain awaiting any reaction, but the latter didn’t say anything. “It sounds like nonsense, but I’ll believe you this time, be it your way. Although I must say, this being the truth, your taste is quite peculiar. Can’t think of anything you would find interesting in a man like me, especially considering the fact that I’m much older than you.”

“Actually, I’m more than 70 years older than all the crew aboard the Unreliable. Don’t forget about that,” jokingly retorted Teru.

“Ah, you talk of that nonsense again, how amusing. Still trying to persuade me you are one of the colonists from Hope? I hoped we were done with these delirious talks.”

“I would be glad if you trusted me, but if you don’t, it’s also fine, I don’t mind that,” said Teru, dramatically raising his hands. “Someday I’ll be able to prove you wrong, and if it’s not today, I’ll wait till the next opportunity.”

“I’ll be looking forward to that. But back to what I wanted to say. I just don’t quite understand your trail of thought. There are plenty of other people here who are more or less your age and who would be a better match. Take your new friend Felix, for instance.”

“What about him?” asked Teru right into the glass as he intended to drink. This made his voice sound distorted.

“He’s young and very, how do I put it… lively. I’m sure he shares a lot of your… views about societal matters.”

“Mhm,” briefly responded the captain, shaking up the pieces of ice left in the glass.

“What I’m trying to say is that Felix, as an example, of course, has a lot more in common with you and looks fairly good too, as far as I can judge. Why don’t you like him instead?” asked the vicar, his voice displaying sincere interest.

“Felix’s alright,” murmured Teru agreeingly after a short pause.

The conversation arrived at a dead end. Max sighed.

“It’s very obvious when you don’t want to talk about something, so I’ll just leave it for now. What about—”

“Why don’t you offer Ellie as an example?” interrupted Teru.

“Excuse me?”

“Ellie. I believe she’s also quite young and attractive. You don’t bring her up because she annoys the hell out of you, right?”

“Come to think of it… Maybe so,” agreed Max after considering it and made another big sip of whiskey.

“Then you’re not so goodwilled after all, vicar. You pretend to be the foul option and point fingers at those who are more “suitable”, nonetheless judging them by your own taste and not by how good it would be for me. You’re just turning it all around.”

Max furrowed his eyebrows and looked away, feeling the tension.

“You made your point clear, captain. Now we better stop discussing other crew members.”

“As you wish.”

“Only I have one more question before we completely abandon the topic of human relations if you’re okay with that.”

“Yeah, why not.”

Teru put one leg on the bed beneath him, laid his head on his knee, and turned to face Max. The vicar felt quite uncomfortable being so openly stared at.

“Since we’ve established that you’re somehow interested in me, I can’t help myself but wonder… What is it that you like about me?”

“I like it when you lose your temper,” said captain and hid his smile behind the glass, sipping on the cider.

“Seriously? Out of all things?”

“Take it or leave it, vicar.”

“You have my skills, my knowledge and my experience at your disposal, and you pick this? Disappointing,” retorted the vicar and curled his lip.

“What can I say, call me a freak, but a day isn’t a day if I haven’t seen you being pissed off by something.”

“There is not a single thing about you that I understand.”

“The universe works in mysterious ways, Max.”

“So, you do listen to what I say after all,” sighed the vicar, thinking how not all hope was lost.

“Occasionally. Your voice is soothing enough when you’re not yelling.”

“Of that I haven’t heard.”

“Hey, Max, since I’ve answered your questions till now in all honesty, can I expect the same from you?” asked Teru suddenly twitching.

“I’m always honest, there’s no need to ask for that. What is it that you want?”

“Tell me, what do you like about me?”

“Argh…” The vicar rolled his eyes. “Look, I told you already, I have no interest whatsoever in you and alike. Your attempts are pointless and you’re wasting our time with this.”

“Relax, you made yourself quite clear. I just want you to give it a thought, maybe something will come up eventually,” light-heartedly said the captain, swinging the bottle of cider he intended to continue drinking from. “Just for fun. I know you find it infinitely hard, complimenting someone’s personality or decision making, so let’s just stop at appearance.”

“I don’t see what’s so fun about that, but alright. I still owe you, and it won’t be too much of a chore, so...”

“Watching you being obliging really is the best.”

“Can’t believe I’m still listening to this. It must be solely because I’m intrigued by your demeanor,” mumbled Max, irritated. “Being you must feel strange,” he added more calmly.

“Not particularly. Not stranger than being a renegade vicar, I’m sure.”

“I am not a renegade!” yelled the vicar, getting agitated.

“Not yet, not until we’ve translated your little book. Till then you’re just a grumpy middle-aged preacher.”

“Don’t fucking call me that, I told you,” cursed the vicar and drank all the whiskey left in his glass to deal with his resentment. “Never say that fucking word. I would be glad if I could educate your stupid little bunch, only seems you all here are quite far from the point of rescuing, so bearing that name makes no sense to me.”

“Remembering what you told me about your flock in Edgewater, I’m not surprised. You don’t seem like the type of guy who would go to any length to bring enlightenment to the masses. What’s your part in the Grand Plan then?”

“That is yet to be uncovered. If solving the Universal Equation was that easy, I wouldn’t be here travelling with annoying callow youth to find someone who can translate me a damn book that can easily get me in jail. Again.”

“So, now you finally admit that it’s totally illegal and previously you also served your sentence for being involved with heresy?”

“No, I do not,” snapped Max.

“As expected. You can deny it all you want, I’ve already cracked you, vicar. You were a tough cookie, but I’ve beaten worse. Both figuratively and literally.”

“It’s curious how you claim to read people well, and yet have the worst crew possible, assembled by non-other than yourself. A compulsive drinker, an immature idiot, a rusty bucket of circuits and nails, a vexatious space pirate, an empty-headed engineer and, last but not least, me. What on Earth made you take me aboard, captain?”

“Oh, the first time I heard you swear, I immediately knew we would get along well. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Besides, how could I refuse when you were the one asking to join me.”

“There’s no way for me to understand you, captain, but it’s probably for the best,” said Max thoughtfully. “I like this change of decorations. I think, it’ll help me after a few years of dragging my existence in that shithole people call a colony. I’m glad to be here, with you.”

“The feeling’s mutual.”

The vicar smirked and filled his now empty glass from a bottle helpfully put beside the bed by the captain some time ago.

Their talk continued till the early morning. The food was left untouched and cold.

        DEVIL IN THE DETAIL

“Captain, there’s something I wanted to discuss with you. It’s about Fallbrook,” said the vicar decisively, stumbling into the captain in the corridor.

“Oh, go on, I’m so anxious to hear what you have to say about it.”

“I wanted to apologize,” said Max and looked away. “I shouldn’t have lied to you. I just… really wanted to get this over with and was ready to do whatever it would take. I thought that only by using you I could get to Reginald.”

“I’m not offended or anything, you use or you’re being used, yadda yadda. I just can’t wrap my head around why you wouldn’t explain everything to me later. I mean, I offered you my help even before knowing about Chaney. I learned everything later anyway,” said Teru at a loss.

“I wasn’t considering it would go this far. Frankly speaking, I didn’t even believe we would find him, but you surpassed my expectations,” said the vicar and smiled bitterly.

“Would you look at that, you can say that, too. I only had to let you murder your former inmate.”

“About that… Seems like I got a bit carried away, captain. I appreciate you not intervening, but something tells me I shouldn’t have given in to that rage.”

“I must disagree. You always hold back, but how do you know it’s the right thing to do?”

“My teaching values patience and striving for self-improvement. The goal of our whole existence is to reach enlightenment and realization of how the Universe works, to solve the Equation that sets it into motion. I don’t think it’s possible to achieve that by eradicating all the people you can’t stand. Just can’t help myself.”

“But you have doubts about your teaching, you look for answers beyond the scope of its knowledge, that’s exactly why we’re doing this whole thing. According to your religion, if your choice was incorrect, the Universe would bring you back to where you belong. The lesson the life would teach you might be harsh, but it’s whatever,” said the captain and vaguely waved his hand. “You were angry and did what you thought was right, I’d do the same if I were you.”

“You merely don’t understand how important it is for me, captain. I was hoping I’d finally found my way. I made enough mistakes in my life, so now every one of them counts. That’s why this situation gets on my nerves.”

“Then I’ll share the burden of your blame,” said the captain, as if it was nothing special for him, “after all, it was me who didn’t stop you. In addition, if your Architect came up with a plan for your life and didn’t even bother to inform you about what you should do, then mistakes are inevitable.”

The vicar hemmed and crossed his arms on his chest.

“I’ve noticed some time ago that you’ve got a habit of saying what people want to hear. Do you even have your own opinion, captain?”

“What makes you think it’s not my opinion?” asked the captain, surprised.

Parvati walked past them and greeted them uncertainly, scared by sudden silence that filled the place with her arrival. The vicar waited for her to disappear behind the corner before answering.

“From time to time I hear bits and pieces of your conversations with other crew members. No matter the circumstances, you always have something consolatory to say. The explanation that I find the most plausible is that you chose bouncing from one opinion to the other as your primary tactics. Speaking with the member of the Board, you tend to agree with their regime, speaking with the iconoclast, you support their ignorance... But what do you have in mind? It always interested me.”

“How did I manage to take such a sly-boots aboard my ship?” wondered the captain with a slight note of approval in his voice. “But, on the other hand, I find it pleasant that now you pay more attention to me.”

“Don’t change the subject, captain, I know it’s also a means of manipulation you enjoy resorting to.”

“There’s simply not much to say here. I go for the better outcome, but if something is against my principles, there’s no way I’m going to do or say that. Is that a good answer?”

“As good as any,” nodded the vicar agreeingly, satisfied with rare display of captain’s sincerity.

“Great to hear that. Did you mull over the thing we discussed?”

“Yes,” nodded Max again, now becoming more tense.

“What’s you answer then? Just don’t tell me you didn’t come up with anything, ‘cause there’s no way I’ll believe that, vicar.”

The vicar dithered a bit before forcing the sounds to come out of his throat.

“Perhaps, I could say that I like… I like your hands. Let it be so.”

Teru’s eyes flickered and he clapped in awe.

“Really? How did you realize that?”

The vicar rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue, annoyed that he had to elaborate on the subject.

“I was just watching you, as always. You were picking a door lock and I happened to notice that your hands were extremely elegant and dexterous. For a brigand.”

“Oh, yeah, I had the feeling you like it when I do that,” said Teru complacently. “Are you bewitched by me already?”

Parvati wanted to return to her room, but seeing the captain and the vicar still standing in the corridor made her reconsider. She thought that her business could wait and decided to make her way back to where she came from.

“I wouldn’t say so. It’s just… hard not to pay attention when you use the lockpick so skillfully. I never succeeded in it,” said Max with detachment in his tone.

“Despite that, I still like your hands as well.”

The vicar spread the fingers on his right hand out in a fan and carefully examined them.

“But there’s nothing special about them.”

“They are strong, stronger than mine. Enough of a reason for me.”

“I used to play tossball when I se… was assigned as a vicar to a prison,” said Max, a little confused and not knowing how to react to captain’s words.

“I remember you mentioning that. Did you know that I used to be the token of the team? What a coincidence, right?”

“Yes, what were the odds…”

“I like holding on to your hand when you’re helping me get up after I fall down as I tend to do sometimes,” said the captain in a soft voice, squinting a bit. A sly smirk slowly appeared on his lips. “Actually, I like it so much, that at times I have to be even more clumsy than usual, just to experience it once more.”

“Are you being serious, captain?” asked the vicar, perplexed.

“Do I look like I’m joking? You know what I’m capable of, what’s with all the amazement,” said the captain and hemmed. “And don’t you worry, right now I’m saying exactly what I wanted to say,” he added with the same sly smirk.

“You are so persistent, even though I already told you I have no interest in close relations,” said Max, pretentiously irritated. “I wouldn’t want you to waste your time on some old vicar.”

“Well, you noticed me, that’s a good start. You observed me so closely, in fact, that you already know me better than any other person on the Unreliable, so I’m definitely not the one wasting my time here. And you’re not as old as you want me to think, I know that for a fact. Do you have any other objections?”

“…No, captain, I don’t,” said Max to mitigate further arguments.

“And stop calling me captain, I don’t even navigate the ship. Did you ask my name never to use it after that? That would be typical of you, Max.”

  AS THE TABLES TURN

“What… what happened? I feel like my brains are leaking out…”

Teru scratched the back of his head and looked around. They were still in hermit’s closet and the air was stiff from incenses.  

“You passed out, captain,” said the vicar worriedly while squatting down beside him. “Felix and I here were really worried. Are you feeling well?”

“Yes, of course, everything went just as I planned, under my control.” The captain of the Unreliable stood up and leaned on the wall to keep his balance. “And how are you? The things they said… I can’t imagine what’s going through your head after that.”

“I feel like a new man, actually. Now, thanks to their exhortations, everything makes sense to me,” stated the vicar, being unbelievably calm. Teru looked at him distrustfully. For him, it wasn’t a healthy reaction of a person whose whole life was called pretentious and illusory.

“And you got the answers to your questions? You look kinda weird,” he said, not quite sure of what to make of vicar’s state of mind.

“I don’t need those answers anymore,” confessed Max. “Instead, I finally realized that the questions I asked were wrong to begin with.”

Teru had never seen his face being so peaceful. In any other circumstances vicar’s words would make him happy, but his current behavior seemed too unnatural and at times even intimidating.

“Wait, are you saying… that you now agree with them? But that’s just bullshit!” retorted Teru.

“Captain, you don’t have to worry about me anymore,” said Max and smiled encouragingly in an attempt to make the captain calm down. “I know, I gave you all a hard time, but from now on it’s going to be different. My behavior was unacceptable, and you are the first one whom I want to ask for forgiveness for that.”

“What? What the hell are you talking about? What hard time?”

“My inclination to “violent enthusiasm” made me look like a madman quite a few times. I was foolish enough to consider everyone around me responsible for my sorrows, and it made me even angrier. But now I can see quite clearly, that there was no destination from the start. The world does not obey any laws at all, so what I did my whole life was pointless. Realizing that… brought me peace of mind,” said Max unhurriedly and smiled softly.

“I don’t even know what makes me feel worse, these terrible drugs or your delirious rambling. Stop it,” snarled the captain, not wanting to accept the changes in his companion’s worldview.

“That’s exactly what I said. Now he’s even weirder than he used to be, it freaks me out,” added Felix from the corner he was resting in. “It’s good that you’re back with us, cap, ‘cause being here with him was just… ugh.”

“You’ll need some time to get used to it,” said the vicar, still smiling tranquilly. “I’m sure, you’ll be much better off without my lectures about the Universal Equation and other religious dogmas.”

“What do you mean by that? Are you leaving or what?” asked the captain with apprehension. His eyes bugged out as he was staring at the vicar.

“Only if you want me to. Right now, I’m only saying that I’m no longer a vicar of the Order of Scientific Inquiry. Luckily, that time in my life came to an end.”

“Because you smoked weed and your hallucination lectured you for living your life in a wrong way?” yelled captain instead of asking.

“That’s not what I…”

“It is, Max. I’m in no mood to continue listening to this. See you outside.”

Teru made an effort to push himself away from the wall, and, declining the hand the vicar offered to help, left the room. Without saying anything, Felix followed him, leaving Max alone in the grip of his contemplations.

BATTLE FOR THE SUN

Carrying a bottle of mockapple cider in one hand and all his courage in the other, vicar Max approached the door to captain’s quarters. He took a deep breath and knocked.

There was silence.

He knocked again. Silence once more.

“Captain, may I come in?” he asked, drawing his face closer to the door crack for his voice to reach Teru.

There was no answer.

The vicar tightened his grip on the neck of the bottle. A tiny bit of light could be seen under the door.

“I’m entering,” he said briefly and opened the door.

The captain was sitting at his table, right in front of the huge window with a view over the vast abyss of space. He was wearing his reading glasses and holding a newly found datapad with the information about the Board’s plans.

“Am I interfering?” asked the vicar, closing the door behind him.

“Huh?” The captain turned around and looked at him inquiringly, but almost immediately after that returned to examining the datapad. “No, it’s fine. Is it something urgent?”

“I wouldn’t say so. I just wanted to thank you for your help,” said the vicar, not yet venturing further into the room.

“No need for that,” snapped back Teru.

“I disagree. You went through a lot of trouble to fulfil my selfish wish, so gratitude is the least you deserve after that,” pushed the vicar. His hand was still holding tight onto the bottle.

“Don’t mind it. You weren’t a burden for me or anything… I helped because I wanted to, so you don’t owe me anything. Since your search is over now, you can leave the ship whenever you feel necessary. After all, you got what you joined us for,” slowly said the captain, not averting his attention from reading.

Something snapped in vicar’s head. For him it turned out to be the last straw.

“Right,” he muttered and slammed the bottle onto the tray with other spirits, “Grand Architect knows, that’s not how I hoped it would go. But you want it the hard way, don’t you.”

“What are you—” The captain made an attempt to ask a question, but Max was already behind his chair. Gripping tight to the collar of his dressing gown, the vicar pulled him closer, forcing him to get up from the chair. The moment the captain of the Unreliable stood up, Max pushed him to the table, still holding him by the collar and now blocking his way out.

“You piss me off so fucking much, captain, I can’t stand it. I’m trying to become a better person, and you sit here in your quarters all offended and resentful and ignore my presence,” he hissed.

“So why did you come here in the first place if I piss you off so much?” maliciously asked the captain, leaning on the table behind him.

“I thought you’d want another favor for helping me. So, I decided to take the lead.”

“I don’t need anything, vicar, thank you for worrying,” reluctantly said the captain and turned away.

Having a hard time holding back, Max shook the captain by his collar and gritted his teeth. The leg he moved forward wasn’t letting Teru move an inch.

“On the second thought though, I’d really like to know where these sudden changes in behavior came from,” said the captain, looking up at the vicar. “I could swear you were a new man, and there was no way I’d see these fits of rage again.”

“And what’s your take on this?” angrily asked Max, with no intention to wait for an answer. “I thought it was obvious that a regular trip couldn’t change a person so drastically. I wanted to grow, but, as you can see, I failed. And it’s your fault, Teru.”

“Is it my fault because I told you to embrace yourself and not look for excuses? Or because I wanted to support you in your endeavors? Go on”—the captain shook his head with the air of defiance—“I’m listening.”

“It’s your fault because you…”—the vicar tightened his grip on captain’s collar and tried to gather his thoughts—“diminished my confidence. I thought, my place in the Universe was predetermined, but you made me doubt it. And I fucking hate having doubts. My whole life consists of doubting, and instead of making some of them go away, you just made it worse. What I heard in that room made me think, what if I was wrong all along? That was the only adequate reason why I was in such a state. Perhaps, my destiny is simply my fantasy. In your opinion, captain, what’s then?”

“Then you’re here ‘cause you wanted to be here, vicar. If it wasn’t the Universe that put this damn robe on you, then you did yourself. You didn’t want to be an average worker, and neither did I and many others, so you chose what you saw best. Is it really so hard to realize?”

“But if there’s no Grand Plan, what’s the point? Why would I be who I am if I’m not doing it for some greater good? If the world is just chaos, and not order, as I assumed… Simply agreeing that I was wrong wasn’t the hard part. It spared me from my eternal tormenting. Realizing how it all works, however…”

“You’re making me go insane. Let go of me, my back hurts from standing like this,” said the captain, and the vicar released him from his grip. Teru jumped up on the table behind him and made himself comfortable. “If you want to know my opinion, I don’t think that our complex world could appear from chaos out of sheer luck, I think there’s more to it than that. If you Equation does exist then it’s obvious that the Universe doesn’t do anything to snap you out of the place you’re in now, so let’s assume that you really are a vicar and you’re aim is to carry the “light of truth”. Who cares if your order is a tool of corporate supremacy, we’ve seen worse, that’s not the point here. It’s not what they tell you to think that is important, but how you interpret your teaching. Maybe this religion is far from perfect, but do the words about survival of the fittest or science being the moving force of progress sound nonsensical to you? It gets something right, but getting to the bottom of everything else is your job. If you stop doubting everything you know, rummaging in heretical works so selflessly and adapting it all to your vision, then who’s gonna do it?” The captain adjusted the glasses on his nose and paused for a few seconds. “Do you even get what I’m saying? I already feel confused by my own words.”

“It all sounds much simpler when you put it that way,” said the vicar broodingly.

“There’s nothing complicated about it. If the world were just chaos, our existence would be meaningless, and that’s the last thing I would want. There’s nothing wrong with finding the meaning in not in pointless wandering but in reaching some better purpose. You’re the one who always goes on about how the Plan includes numerous possibilities and ways, so sooner or later you’ll arrive at your destination point. Who even cares, Max. You’re not in the house of your laborer parents, not in Edgewater, not in prison, you’re on my ship so you can do whatever you want, just, for Universe’s sake, stop being a creep. Curse and resent like you used to do or, I swear, I’ll kick you out. I want to see adequate human emotions, not an android with a circuit for a brain.”

The vicar let out a chuckle, but then immediately asserted himself under captain’s gaze. Having his reading glasses on, he looked almost serious.

“And what better purpose does the captain have?” asked Max.

“Right now, my better purpose is finding a better purpose,” said the captain proudly. The vicar still looked to him as though something troubled him and it made the captain feel uneasy. “There’s something else that’s bothering you, isn’t it? What I told you. What’s on your mind? This time I’ll take your confession. Come on, I swear not to let anybody in on what you say, etc., etc.”

“I’ll be honest, when you told me you liked me, I was flattered,” answered the vicar.

“…and then you realized that you loved me all along?” giggled the captain.

“No, thanks the Grand Architect, that’s not what happened,” said the vicar, rolling his eyes.

“Good. It would be extremely boring. So, what about now? I bet you’re scared that I’d want something from you for my help.”

“Don’t say it like you’re in the position to make me do something I don’t want to. We’re all grownups here, and we all know who’s stronger.”

“Oh, seems like you weren’t being bitter about our age difference right now. Missed opportunity.”

The vicar pursed his lips and disapprovingly glanced upon the captain sitting in front of him.

“To cut the long story short, I didn’t intend to react to your words in any way. But your idiotic strategy worked after all,” said the vicar and sighed tiredly.

“I don’t remember having any strategy. What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the fact that you didn’t need to do anything special. I just did what you told me to – looked closer. And it was enough for me to realize… that there’s no place for you in my life.”

Vicar’s last words sounded a bit threateningly. It made Teru fidget on the table.

“Eh, seems like we’re straying further and further away from the topic, don’t you think?” he mumbled uncertainly.

“Shut up and listen,” said the vicar forcefully, “I hate being interrupted. I knew immediately, my destination did not allow for you to be a part of my life. My problems could not be solved and it drove me mad, especially when you were sticking out like a sore thumb all the time.”

“What a shame,” mumbled Teru quietly.

“And now you have also become an obstruction on my way to self-improvement. Because of you I’m getting angry all the time, and the Universe is once again full of enigmas I was so close to solving. The only conclusion that can be drawn from all this is that you have to be punished for what you did.”

Carefully yet confidently the vicar laid his hand on captain’s knee. His eyes were closely observing the facial expression of that one in front of him.

“I feel like this talk dragged on for too long. At which point of the confession is it already considered acceptable to move on to drinking?” asked the captain carelessly, casting a sidelong look at the cider bottle and intentionally ignoring what was happening.

“How fucking annoying can you be,” retorted the vicar spitefully, violently grabbed the captain by his chin and pulled his face closer. “It would be only fair if you had to tolerate the way you made me be.”

“Hey, you were already like this when we met,” chortled Teru a few millimeters away from Max’s face. “It’s not fa—”

The vicar knew exactly what he wanted to say so considered letting him finish the phrase a waste of time. Not trying to hold back, he moved closer and kissed the captain, gripping his thigh tightly. Even applying all the strength he had, the captain wouldn’t be able to resists Max’s drive. Instead, relieved to know that the vicar remained the person he wanted him to be, he gave in to the opportunity, locked his hands behind his back and let out a loud breath.

The vicar heard the pulsation in his ears and felt it was hard for him to think straight. He opened his eyes a bit in an attempt to regain the composure. Right in front of him the captain was squeezing his eyes shut behind the barrier of his reading glasses. Smirking, Max stroked his thigh lightly before reaching out and taking the glasses off. They already left red markings on the bridge of his nose.

“I’ve noticed that after you claimed to be interested in me,” started the vicar, moving away from Teru’s face, “you stopped flirting with every other stranger.”

“Did I do that?”

“You have the courage to look me in the eyes and ask such a question? Don’t try to provoke me, young man. In every colony there was at least a dozen people you would flirt with.”

“Did that irritate you?”

“It didn’t. But now if I think of it, I get the urge to put a leash on you,” said the vicar, perhaps, more seriously than he should’ve.

“Like on an animal?”

“Indeed.”

“You know, Max, it’s ironical how the only animal here is you. Look,”—Teru gripped his lower lip and turned it inside out—“you were so brutal that now my lip’s bleeding. What are you going to do about that?”

“You can always ask Ellie for help. She’s a medic after all,” mused Max, pressing on the wounded lip with his finger.

“Something tells me that if I do that, I’ll get in a more serious trouble than this.”

“You’re quite a fast learner, captain. Don’t do anything to enrage the beast and you’ll be fine,” said Max and smirked.

The captain grinned and leaned back on his elbows.

“So… got any plans for tonight?” he asked nonchalantly.

“I was… thinking about moving somewhere more comfortable. The bed would do nicely.”

Teru raised his eyebrows in surprise and sent a long glance at the vicar.

“My weak knee is at it again.”

“You really are o—”

“Don’t you even dare.”

  TO ALL OF YOU

Felix entered the kitchen in search of some lager left and forgotten in the fridge. Most of the crew gathered there, looking for some ways to spend their free time, but the atmosphere seemed different from usual. At the table in the center of the room the vicar and the captain were sitting and discussing something.

“Max, I got a little problem, just don’t get all riled up. This thing… I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said the captain and pouted.

“Are you fucking pulling my leg right now? We’ve been on it for half an hour and I’ve already explained it to you twice,” growled the vicar at him and landed his hand on the open book laying between them.

“Yeah, well, would you be so kind as to do it again? I promise to try harder.”

Everybody in the room held their breath, awaiting the catastrophe. The vicar sighed.

“Okay, listen here. When we speak about…”

Everybody remained still.

“Oh, wow,” mumbled Parvati.

“Oh, wow,” echoed Felix, having forgotten the reason he came here for.  

“I didn’t even know there was such an option,” went on Parvati with an upset expression on her face.  

“Does this mean he’s finally sane and I can persuade him that Backers are better than Darlings?” asked Felix anticipatingly. The question was most likely not directed at anybody in particular.  

“No, honey, I believe this new privilege is unlocked only by our captain,” said Nyoka and thrusted a bottle of lager upon him.

“You know what they say,” said Ellie, strolling past them, “if a man’s being a dick all the time, he just needs to get…”

“Ellie!” yelled Nyoka, covering Parvati’s ears with her hands.

“Oh, no… now the mental picture of it will haunt me forever,” complained Felix and drank out of his bottle while staring blankly in front of himself.

[whilemysitar-gentlyweeps]

And He’s My Teacher

Chapter 2: Hell is the equivalent to a classroom

{Masterlist}

"I'm in the right classroom, correct?" I asked the closest boy next to me, Jason Bryce.

"Yeah, new teacher, names John or something, but we have to address him as Mr. Lennon," Informed Jason, with a hint of a posh accent thrown into his tone.

"What happened to Mr. Plant?" I kept my sight glued on the man who hasn't noticed the awkward girl, or rather, me.

"Dunno, got fired I bet, his hair may have been to hot for you chicks to handle," He smirked.

"W-wait, you said, Lennon, right?" My eyes enlarged.

"Yes, why?" Now it was his turn to ask the questions.

"No, reason," I shuddered.

In fact, there was a reason. In fact, that reason was a large one. And in fact, I was already going to dread and despise this class.

"Would ye two please stop chattering and-" Mr Lennon looked up, his fan turned ghost-white, his stare on me intensified. He opened his mouth, about to say something, yet luckily for me he shut it. His focus was all on me. He was starring at my ginger hair, emerald upturned eyes, piercings, short skirt with a small little white stain on it. His eyes scanned to my crop top, which showed parts of my pink bra. My socks were knee high, my shoes were black flats. He was taking in every detail of my appearance, and he knew I was noticing him.

"Get to your seats, both of ye," Same Scouse accent I remembered. Same messy hairstyle, same narrow eyes, same dark iris, even the same derp grin.

"Fine," I rolled my eyes, walking over to the isle between the rows of seats. Hazal waved me over to her direction, so I followed of course. Slouching into the seat, taking out my essentials. Which included my pencil, and a piece of lined paper. I wasn't unprepared, I just thought logically.

No one was in the blue desk in front of mine, so I propped my feat on the seat's head. Hazal let out a chuckle at my actions, making me wink at her.

"Miss Martin, may I ask why ye have yer feet on the desk," He stared at me. His hands were on his rather large hips.

"But you just did,"

The room erupted with the sounds of 'oo's" furthermore proving how immature we were. Eyes were on me and Mr Lennon, heads were whipping from him to me. And I was enjoying every second of it.

"Well then, yer right, I'm not questioning ye any further Miss Martin," He shrugged, moving on to his lesson plans.

"Uhm excuse me, Mr Lennon?" My eyes scanned over towards Missy Jones, her hand was raised high, and her chest was puffed out. She was wearing her signature pink lip gloss, berets in her bleach blonde hair, and skimpy clothing. Everyone else in the school knew she was a tease and a hoe. But did she embrace it? No, she denied it. And I frankly have no respect for pretending to be somebody you are not.

"Yes, Miss Jones?" He turned around from the chalkboard.

"How old are you?" She bit her lip, leaning forward on her desk, very much knowing the position her breasts were now in.

"36, why?" He smirked, crossing his arms whilst he leaned against the board.

"You just look super good for your age," She blushed, shifting her body weight towards Amelia Hawkins.

"Thank you," He smiled, "Now back to the lesson," He turned around, resuming where he had left off.

I watched as he paced around the room, calmly. His hands would be thrown into the air when he would speak about something. His hair became sloppier than I thought it could get, but hey I was wrong. His eyes had bags under them, his lips were quite thin. You could barely see his eyelashes. I wanted to hand the man some mascara, but I wouldn't want him touching my stuff.

I'll give him credit however, it was truly amazing how indulged he was with his lessons. His words of jibberish just flew one ear and out the other for me though.

"What's he even talking about," I whisper in Hazal's ear.

"Not sure, I'm too focused on his pants at the moment," She looked my way with a smirk. My eyes soon lowered towards his crotch, yet not seeing a bulge of any kind.

"But he doesn't have a boner?" I turned to her again.

"Who doesn't have a boner Miss. Jones?"

Feelings of itchy-ness had burst inside my body, burning in my skin. All eyes were on me, but I repaid their attention with a smirk.

"I don't have a boner Lennon," My thin pencil found it's way to my mouth, I bit it slightly, tapping my foot with a tempo on the seat.

"Ye will address me as Mr Lennon, or face the consequences and get a week of detention with me," He warned, narrowing his focus at me.

"Oh let Missy have detention, that way she can fuck you," I winked, watching Missy boil up with anger.

"If I hear one more peep out of ye Miss. Jones, I'll send ye over to Mr. Rob-i-soon, understood?"

"Sir, I think ye mean Robinson," I chuckled, beaming with the pride in my gut.

"OKAY OUT OF THE CLASSROOM-" He began

"Oh uh Mr Lennon, your fly is down,"Interrupted Hazal. She dragged her finger in the air, pointing to his crotch.

His fly wasn't down, but it gave me just enough time to flee class without him catching me right when I was doing so. I could always thank Hazal for thinking on her small feet.

Racing down the isle felt rebellious for some odd reason, and I was loving every small second of it. I swung the door open, hearing him holler. Luckily for me, his hollers were cut short by the ear raping sound of the bell.

A/n: Yes I am fully aware John did NOT look like that when he was 36, I just find his 1965 look so attractive

[rokutouxei]

the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

ikemen vampire: temptation through the dark theo van gogh / mc | T | [ ao3 link in bio ]

The challenge seemed pretty simple: to try to befriend the university bookshop’s most sour employee, Theo van Gogh. As a literature major with a boatload of book recommendations on her back, it ought to be a simple task indeed. But as she uncovers what lies between Theo’s pages, the more she finds it harder to become closer to him without having to put the feeling directly into words. What can she learn from Theo about what it means to stay—and how can she teach Theo about what it means to let go? | written for ikevamp big bang 2020!

[ masterpost for all chapters ]

CHAPTER 9 OF 22

You will let my tender hook Catch the folded darkness inside you, let me occupy The dented place at the base of your throat. - "One Life", Carlomar Arcangel Daoana

--

She wakes up late.

Comically late.

No hangover, thank god—but it’s 11am and she’s dressed in lent pajamas in a bed that isn’t her own. She shoots up to sitting position in a second, and standing in a minute, trudging out the room to the bathroom at the end of the hall.

By the time she’s up and out of the room, a little more awake, Dazai and Arthur have already long gone, the only remnants of their presence the bit of glitter that they had wiped onto the sofa they nestled in.

And text messages.

She squints when she reads it, not because she had a hard time reading what it said, but—because she couldn’t believe what it said.

A series of text messages from Dazai:

[ 7:23 | Dazai ] ur still asleep but ur friend kinda hot

[ 7:24 | Dazai ] ofc I woke up first but his eyelashes tho???

[ 8:32 | Dazai ] pls tell me he’s not a douche bc im rly gonna jump him

[ 9:03 | Dazai ] mgonna jump him

[ 10:19 | Dazai ] abt to find out if he’s got the magnum sized dong u promised

Oh, god, what has she done.

With a groan, she heads down the hallway, phone securely in the pocket of the sweatpants, to see Vincent and Theo preparing a meal in the kitchen; Theo preparing some sort of fillet (fish? Chicken?) and Vincent frying some onions and garlic on the stove, filling the kitchen with a nice aroma.

“Good morning,” she says softly, as she shuffles onto one of the dining table chairs.

“Thought you died,” Theo says with a snort; but once he turns around to face her, all derision goes away in his face and is replaced by a quiet surprise.

Vincent beams as he turns to get the fillets from Theo. (It’s chicken.) “Good morning. Did you sleep well? No headache?”

She shakes her head. “Nope, I’m good. Thanks for letting me sleep here last night and for the clothes.”

“Of course, no problem at all,” Vincent answers, turning back to the pan. The chicken makes a sizzle as it meets the oil.

Theo is still staring at her with an odd look on his face.

“Earth to Theo?” she calls out, waving her hand in front of her. “Something wrong?”

“Broer. Why did you lend her my clothes.”

Oh.

“You know how most my shirts are, paint-stained in all the weird places.”

She feels the cling of the cotton around her skin so differently, so suddenly. Oh.

“She wouldn’t have minded, she was drunk.”

That’s correct, but—

Vincent smiles at Theo, the kind of smile one makes when they can see through someone; she’s filled with a kind of relief at knowing that Vincent can do that to Theo. Maybe the man isn’t an impenetrable a character after all. “No need to be shy, Theo.”

“I am not,” he insists, finally tearing his gaze away from her and heading to the sink to wash the used chopping board and the knife. “I just don’t want her wearing my stuff.”

She smirks. He is shy. True, she didn’t get the opportunity to think about what she was putting on last night because she was so tired and knocked out by the alcohol, but…if that was the price she had to pay to see this side of Theo she doesn’t have the opportunity to witness often, then it was worth it. Oh, the ever put-together Theo, brought to his knees by only one person in the world, the one he trusts the most: his brother.  “Is it because your personality is contagious?” she teases, “wouldn’t want to catch that.”

He answers her with a glare. “Reverse. It’s your stupidity that’s contagious.”

“Oh, we’re pretty much equally as stupid, Theo. No need to worry.”

“We are not,” he says, and then Vincent elbows him carefully.

“You really should be a little gentler to your friends,” Vincent comments, as he turns the fillet onto its other side.

Theo grumbles something unintelligible and it makes her laugh. Sitting in the kitchen, watching the two brothers side by side with their back to her as they prepare—she checks the clock—lunch for the three of them, she hums, content. She’s lived alone for all her life here in the campus, and it was one she looked forward to after living in a house crammed with people for most of her life. But sitting here, watching them share the chores and maybe have a little banter with each other—makes her reconsider that maybe, maybe settling down in even the worst of places isn’t that horrible when you’re in good company.

Theo opens the plate cupboard and hands her a set of it with some cutlery. “Set the table at least, freeloader?” He says, though his voice lacks all the venom his words otherwise had.

Okay, she’ll have to reconsider if Theo counts as “good company.”

--

Theo barely survives lunch with her and his brother because of how much he gets teased by the two. He might argue that this is worse than being stuck with her and Arthur because since it is Vincent, he does not get the leeway to have a comeback, only able to grumble in displeasure at being see-through. They stuff their bellies not only with Vincent’s famed chicken with herbs but also with a hefty amount of laughter.

She slides back (slightly disgusted) into her costume to walk back home in, confident that many other students will be trudging along the streets suffering the same fate. (“Not everyone wakes up as late as you.” “There’s bound to be at least one, right?”) When she comes out of the bathroom, there’s a book on top of his neatly-folded clothes.

They speak at the same time.

“I could wash these first before giving it back if you—” “You had that with you all this time?”

Silence.

She breaks it with a laugh. “Yeah, it was a Saturday. I didn’t want to break the schedule.”

“You get so thorough about the weirdest things,” he comments, but he takes the bundle in her arms anyway. “It’s alright, I’ll have them. Let me get you a book, too.”

She follows Theo into the studio, where he crouches in front of some bookshelves. Vincent peeps from behind his easel. “You should walk her home,” he offers, as Theo pulls a few books out of the shelf.

“No, it’s alright, I’ll be fine! I’m not drunk or dizzy. The walk will help clear my head.”

“It’s twenty minutes out,” Theo points out, getting up.

“Just promise that if you find me asleep on the street you’ll pick me up?”

Handing Murakami’s Dance, Dance, Dance to her, Theo grins. “I can’t promise that.”

“Oh, Theo, you know you will.”

Even when she is long out of his sight, the smile on his face does not go away. Even as the day shifts into mundanity. Even as he’s carting a bagful of clothes to the launderette. Even as he picks up some groceries on the way home. Even as he prepares dinner for Vincent, who is a few hours deep into painting.

Maybe for a moment, it goes away, but—

He thinks of her and the smile comes back full force.

--

She spends the rest of Sunday recovering and hiding away in her room after the very socially draining party, but by Monday she’s hopped onto her bike and headed for the literature club’s little gazebo. She’s left a message for Dazai, asking for company. Sure, they spent quite a lot of time together in the past week, after having jumped through thrift stores and boutiques for the perfect Night Circus costume (and yes, she made him read the book beforehand too, for good measure) but Saturday was quite a day. She’s brought a couple of cookies for sharing with him, sitting at their usual spot, looking out at the quadrangle next to it.

“Toshiko-san! Sorry we kept you waiting!”

The plural takes her off guard, and she turns to find that Dazai has brought a rather distracted-looking Isaac along, his hands in the pockets of his slacks. Isaac is always dressed so well—she supposes it’s part of the uniform or something of being seen as a respectable professor—but she sure does want to see him dress down once. T-shirt, shorts, that kind—Isaac seems to take everything too seriously.

The pleasant feeling of seeing a friend she hasn’t met up with in a long time is quickly replaced by confusion, as the science complex is nowhere near the Arts building. “Nice to see you here, Isaac,” she says, but also with the lilt of a question.

Dazai answers said question. “He’s here because he has nothing better to do, so I asked him to come.”

Isaac makes a face that’s both resignation and panic. “He passed by my office.” –and dragged me out because he wouldn’t take no for an answer, she finishes in her head.

“I see,” she answers, even though that’s not really an explanation in itself.

She knows Isaac through Dazai, and Dazai knows Isaac through a very peculiar class: Occultism 101.

A class team-taught by three major colleges in the university—the College of Arts, the College of Science, and the College of Social Sciences—Occultism 101 is one of the more controversial classes on campus because of its nature. It goes through a long history of the evolution and persistence of supernatural beliefs and practices among nations in the world, in that nice gray area between religion and science. There are only two kinds of students in Occultism 101: those who believe and who are genuinely interested, and those who do not believe and would like to spend an entire semester saying “bah! That’s not true!” to themselves all the time.

Occultism 101 is typically taught by professors from the College of Social Sciences and College of Arts with backgrounds in religious practices and other mystical behavior (whether in history or art), and then occasionally, in the middle of the semester, guest lecturers from the College of Science come in to give lectures on how these “supernatural events” may be explainable through scientific means. Say, how the piping system in a building can cause haunted “cold spots”, or how floating dust particles can come up in a photograph as “orbs”, or the likes.

And she doesn’t want to be very stereotypical about it, but a lot of people in the College of Science are pretty… well, square, and so no one really wants to teach Occultism 101, even if it’s only a few meetings in a semester. This is how this job ends up to unwilling, no-choice Ph.D. students such as Isaac.

It was just his luck that Dazai was in the section he taught.

“So, Osamu, care to tell us about your little date last Sunday?” she asks, as the other two have taken their seats across her. Dazai swoons a little at the mention of Sunday. Isaac looks at him with unsureness.

(Isaac has had the miserable experience of being the victim of Dazai’s flirtation at some point in time. One can see how that has instead simmer into a rather tentative friendship. All is well.)

Dazai rests his elbows on the table and places his chin on the palms of his hands. “He’s so dreamy.”

“No he isn’t,” she swiftly replies, without thought.

But Dazai pretends not to have heard it. “He’s not looking for a serious relationship though,” he adds. “Not that I am, either.”

“You aren’t?”

“No, sweetie,” Dazai explains. “But he’s my type and I’m his type and we couldn’t just leave it at that so I have his number now, and a little… arrangement.”

The word hangs in between them, swaying.

Oh no, that’s not any good. “What arrangement.”

“You don’t need to sound so concerned.”

“This is Arthur we’re talking about,” she insists, and the name makes Isaac flinch a little.

“Doyle, the med student?” Isaac asks, and she turns to him, blinking.

“You know him?” Remembering Arthur during the party, her mouth falls into a small o. “He knows you too, doesn’t he?”

Isaac scoffs. “Who in this university doesn’t?” Arthur’s pretty well-known to be a flirt. Something like having a checklist of bedding at least one person in every department—a rumor that would have been a little more shameful if the rumors also didn’t say how he was so good at it.

She nods. “Well, fair enough.”

“No, no, he’s an absolute sweetheart to me, so it’s definitely a you problem,” Dazai insists. “It’s just a friendship with benefits, yanno?” He emphasizes every of the following syllables with his tone and his hands: “Nice, big, hefty benefits.”

And even Isaac, who usually refrains from commenting no matter how much he has to say, has to quip with “Terrible choice, really.”

And she has to agree. “I respect you, but not your taste, Osamu.”

Dazai grins. “Understandable.” He picks up one of the sandwiches she’s prepared. “You make it sound like I’m the only one making bad decisions though.”

“Excuse me?”

He turns to Isaac. “You should have gone to the Halloween party. She brought her little boy toy.”

She scoffs. “He is not my boy toy.”

“You sure do have him around your finger though, getting in matching costumes and all that,” Dazai says. “Spends Saturdates with him all the time.”

The only strategy that will work in times like these is straight-up ignoring him. “Anyway—” she begins, about to steer the conversation away when Isaac speaks up.

“It’s nice to hear you’re getting close to other people,” he says softly. Isaac has a way of speaking that makes it always seem like he’s spent so much time thinking about what he said before he actually said it; so sometimes it’s hard to gauge if he’s saying it casually or entirely seriously.

So she blinks. “You make it seem like I have no friends, Isaac.”

“I-It’s not that!” he suddenly blurts. Ah, there. There’s the usual Isaac. “You’ve spent so much time focusing on your work lately, it’s nice to know you’re relaxing with other people sometimes.”

And he doesn’t say it, but she sure does hear it: the you haven’t been to the astronomy club in a while and it’s made me worried about you.

She doesn’t go religiously, but she used to attend fairly often to hang out with the other members and just look up at the stars. Isaac tries to organize at least two sessions in a month, one to look at the moon, and another to point at the stars. She hasn’t been able to catch them in a bit.

But then, slowly, as the image of the view outside the astronomy club’s hangout is refreshed in her mind, the way the physics building rooftop is just high enough to provide a good view of the rest of the campus below, the city downtown, just at the right place on campus that at night, the rest of the sprawling town’s streetlights trickle out like golden LED veins through the threes—an idea begins to implant itself into her head.

Taking root immediately.

She likes to go up here to think. She really shouldn’t have had permission to go up there on her own, in her free time, since they have rules about club hours and the likes, but Isaac is a close friend and gave her a spare key, so she can come and go as she pleases. And sure, the Grove is a nice, quiet place for book clubs and maybe doing homework if one doesn’t need an electric socket, but up here in the astronomy club’s “the Rooftop”, she feels like she can float away into the vast ocean of her thoughts and get lost in them for a moment.

She feels small up there. And that’s a good feeling.

She won’t tell it to Isaac’s face but it’s one of the primary reasons why she applied for the astronomy club in the first place. The stars are great no matter how dumb she is at physics, but the view—it’s really something else.

What does the world look like from the point of view of a star? How tiny are human lives in the vast expanse of the universe? How long have these stars been out there, how long will they stay out there, how much longer will they stay in this universe more than we will?

…This is why Theo teases her for being a literature major: all these goddamn metaphors.

And for a split second, she thinks…

Maybe it isn’t that bad to share that same quiet space with him?

…You know, to talk books.

“About that…”

Isaac and Dazai turn to her.

“Mind if I sneak in an outsider to the Roof?” she asks, facing Isaac with genuine hope in her voice.

Isaac only shrugs. “Do as you please,” he says casually, taking a cookie from her little box on the table.

And she grins like he’d just given her the light of the world. “Thank you, Isaac.”

Dazai shakes his head, because he knows she’s got no denying herself out of this one the next time.

[twokinkybeans]

Pale Rose - Lion Whisperer AU Chapter 2 [Starker]

Chapter 2: Mister Six AM. Peter groans as he turns around in his bed to slap the alarm. The sun is already shining through the curtains and he rubs the sleep out of his eyes. Peter cracks his back and sighs, slowly raising his hand again to grab his phone. He unplugs it from the charger and frowns when he sees a wall of notifications. He puts in his code and opens his email first. He gasps when he reads his daily donation update. Their donation goal of 100k dollars was met. And kicked out of the park by another 560k. The number of separate donations has him lose his breath. How did so many people find this fundraiser? Peter opens the next email. YouTube contacted him to… Congratulate him? Peter’s eyes go wide when he sees the number in the email and he immediately switches apps to check his YouTube account. How many subscribers did he have yesterday? Around 700k? 

“Holy shit…” he mumbles. 1.8 million subscribers . Peter jolts to sit upright in his bed, his bare chest uncovered from the thin sheet as he scrolls through the countless new comments he has. He pants, not believing what is happening. He’s pretty sure he can’t even read all of them anymore at this point. On his most recent video, the most liked comment sparks his interest. Who else is here because of Tony Stark?

“Oh, no, he didn’t.” Peter switches apps again and opens his Instagram. He stares at another wall of notifications and opts to just turn them off for people who aren’t mutuals. He’s about to hit the search bar to find Tony Stark’s Instagram in the list of people he follows, but with his notification wall compressed to just mutuals, one shines through.

Tony Stark now follows you. They’re mutuals now. Peter immediately hits his account and stares at the latest post. It’s a candid of Peter with Adi and Nedda. Tony didn’t have a phone with him, though, or a camera. How could he have taken this picture? Peter’s breath is stuck in his throat as he scrolls down to the caption, almost afraid of what he might read. Meet Peter Parker. A bright sun, that rivals the one up in the sky, who also happens to work with cats. Big cats. Wakanda’s Sanctuary, almost 300k square feet of land, is the home of lions and other animals that are native to Africa. There, Peter takes care of the animals that are endangered because of human interference. Animals that can no longer be released into the wild; that were saved from horrible private zoos or who fell victim to poachers. I was blessed with both a terrible sunburn and a generous conversation with Peter, in which he told me about his goals to raise money in order to fight poaching and to raise awareness for climate change. I do encourage all of you to watch at least one of his videos, just to get to know him and his feline friends a little better and to give him that small bit of ad revenue to help him achieve his goals. The world would be a better place if we were all a little bit more like Peter Parker. Peter stares at his screen, his cheeks flushed red at the endless stream of compliments. Peter reads over the last line again and again and again and again. Tony’s post got him this increase in subscribers. Tony’s post got him all of those donations. This was all because of Tony. Peter tears his eyes away from the phone to look at the small card on his bedside table. Matte black. No name. Just a phone number. Tony’s phone number. Maybe doing a collab with the billionaire philanthropist isn’t such a bad idea after all... - Peter assesses himself in the mirror. He’s never been this nervous for a video before. Or, ever at all, really. Tony Stark immediately agreed to being present for the move. Even on the phone, the man had been incredibly charming. Peter ruffles his hair in an attempt to make it look good, while sucking at his teeth. He swears quietly, knowing spending time with the lions will mess his do up again anyways. Peter opts to not think too much about it and covers himself head to toe in sunscreen, as he does every morning. He takes one last glance in the mirror before grabbing his baseball cap and putting on his walking shoes. When Peter opens the front door of his apartment at The Sanctuary he gulps and immediately walks back in to throw the door shut with a loud bang. Tony was already there. Right outside his small, messy room. Peter saw him well enough to have the image of Tony’s outfit stuck in front of his eyes. Camo shorts, brown walking shoes and a green shirt. His brown tinted pilot sunglasses hide his eyes mysteriously and fuck. He looks hot. Peter takes a deep breath in through his nose and closes his eyes, trying to calm his nerves. “Here we go…” he whispers to nobody but himself and when he opens the door again, he yelps, refraining from throwing it shut straight away again. Tony’s right in front of him, hand raised to knock on Peter’s door. The older man cocks his head and smiles. “Morning, Rose,” Tony quips. Peter swallows his breath and chokes when he hears the nickname. “You rushed back in, so I figured I’d come say hi.” “Yeah!” Peter exclaims, laughing sheepishly. “I- eh… I saw you didn’t bring a cap. I was gonna grab you one.” He presses his lips together in a smile. Yes. Good excuse. “A… cap?” “Yeah, a cap.” Peter doesn’t know what to say next and awkwardly stares at Tony’s features. “Should I have brought a cap, then?” Peter jolts when Tony speaks again and he points at his own head. “You get sunburnt at the top of your head quickly out there and I’m guessing you don’t want to put sunscreen on your scalp, so…” Peter swiftly takes off his own hat and pushes it onto Tony’s head. The man is startled by the gesture, but doesn’t protest. Peter stares at the man wide-eyed when he realizes what he just did. “-Ah,” he stutters. “Sorry about that, I should’ve asked, shit-” “Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Tony laughs. “I get it, okay? When we first met I was just the random dude you see in the news occasionally and now I completely flipped your life with one post you didn’t want me to make.” Peter stands frozen in place, staring at Tony and pretends that that is exactly the reason why he’s so flustered. “I’m sorry for not asking permission. That’s on me. But- please- don’t feel like you have to do anything for me, okay? You don’t get the title of philanthropist by asking for things in return.” Peter takes a step back and looks at his feet with a frown. Tony clears his throat. “So, what are you gonna use for your head?” Peter looks up so he can stare at Tony again. Tony gestures towards Peter’s hair by nodding. “You just pressed your cap on me. Thank you for letting me borrow it, by the way, but don’t you need the protection as well?” “Right!” Peter exclaims, turning to fall on his knees and crawl under the bed to get a small box. He takes out an old, slightly more worn cap and waves it in front of his own face. “That’ll do.” - “Good morning everybody,” Peter smiles at the GoPro in his hand. “It is currently 7am, we got a busy day ahead of us: we’re going to be switching enclosures for two prides and if that goes smoothly, we’ll hopefully be taking Adi, Nedda and Beru for a walk this afternoon.” Peter looks down at his feet for a second and then back up into the lens with a wide grin. “Now, you must be wondering why I say ‘we’ for the walk, as that’s a thing I do without the volunteers of The Sanctuary, but I actually have a very special guest with me today!” Peter turns around quickly, whipping the camera with him until Tony enters the shot behind him. The man smirks and cocks an eyebrow. “Hello, there.” Peter feels Tony’s hot breath in his neck and has to stay focussed on the camera so as to not to lose his composure. A lot of people are gonna watch this video, simply because Tony Stark is in it, so he has to sell this right. For the lions. At least, that’s what Peter tells himself. “Tony Stark!” “Me!” Tony raises his hands above his head and they both pull a face, resulting in the both of them bursting out with laughter. “So,” Peter says, angling his camera correctly again. “A lot of you peeps have been asking me to make a video from the perspective of someone visiting The Sanctuary as opposed to just me with the GoPro attached to my arm, so I figured I could take this opportunity to see how well you handle a camera, Mr. Stark.” Peter presents the GoPro to Tony who looks at Peter’s fingers for a second. He really doesn’t like to be handed things, but every molecule inside his body is screaming at him to touch the boy, so he does something he rarely allows. With a grin, he takes the camera out of Peter’s hands, lingering a little longer than necessary and turns it until he’s no longer in shot. Instead, Peter’s all the viewer is able to see now. “Hey!” Peter exclaims. “You’re in this vid too!” “Yes, but you are infinitely more interesting to look at.”  Peter scratches the back of his head and looks down, trying to hide his blush behind the worn cap. Tony clears his throat. “You doing your work, kid.” Saved it , Tony hopes. “Don’t think anybody goes to the Sanctuary Channel to watch my face.” “Well-” Peter exclaims, standing upright again with his lips pressed on top of each other. “I was also thinking that this video will be the one most people get introduced to my channel with because- well… You’re in it.” Peter nods, holding his chin with his thumb and index finger. “So, yeah, you can ask me anything that comes to mind. Doesn’t matter if I’ve touched on it before in other vids.” “Well, then, Mr. Parker-” “Peter,” the young man interrupts him. “Feel so old when people call me that.” “Sheesh, kid, you’re what, 22? Just a few days ago you were talking to me about retirement- we’re in the 21st century, people live ‘til 85 at least.” Peter laughs and boy, does Tony love making him laugh. “For the record,” Peter chuckles. “I’m 23. So that’s way older than 22.” Tony snorts. “And my workfield isn’t exactly without danger, Mr. Stark.” “Ha!” Tony exclaims. “Way to make me feel old, kid.” “But-” “If I’m not allowed to call you mister than you’re not calling me that either. Tony, kid. Call me Tony.” Peter hides his face behind his hands. “I’m gonna have to spend a whole day editing this vid, don’t I?” “Probably.” - “Alright!” Peter says excitedly as he hops into the truck. He slowly drives over the Sanctuary grounds.  “Your timing is actually quite ironic, since we’re moving the Avengers today.” “The- oh?” Tony pretends he wasn’t already aware of this. He’s seen the videos of this particular pride. He knows what’s coming. He puts the camera diagonally and Peter chuckles, trying to steer with one hand while flailing slightly with his other to make Tony hold the camera straight again. “A group of four males. Banner, Thor, Rogers and-” Peter cocks one eyebrow with a smirk. “Stark.” “You named a lion after me?” Tony feigns his surprise with a wide smile and Peter scoffs a laugh. “These boys joined The Sanctuary as cubs about four years ago. Were all part of a circus.” Tony snorts and has to stop himself from losing his composure. “That’s not far off from the real thing,” he jokes. Peter presses his lips on top of each other in a grin. “Trust me, Mr- Tony.” Peter gently hits the brake and they slow down. “It’s quite scary.” “Says the kid who works with lions for a living.” “And hyenas,” Peter adds quickly. “And leopards.” “No black panthers?” “That’s the leopards,” Peter chuckles. “Leopards that are melanistic are commonly known as black panthers. But they’re still leopards, really.” Peter shrugs nonchalantly. Tony sniffs once. He’s getting schooled by a boy less than half his age. But he enjoys it. Somehow. Most of the volunteers were already waiting for Peter at the enclosure. There’s a large truck with a cage on top and a lot more commotion than Tony expected. “If you told me there’d be this many people I’d have prepped a speech,” Tony quips. Peter sighs dramatically and gets out of the truck. Tony follows swiftly and stares at how Peter speaks Xhosa with the other volunteers. It looks funny, almost, seeing a white boy speak the language so easily- fluently. After a minute, Tony grows bored, so he turns the camera to face him and pulls a few funny faces at it. When he realizes this video is going to be seen by a lot of people, he brings the GoPro closer to his face and whispers. “That was for your eyes only, Mr. Parker,” he grins.  “Tony?” The older man looks up from the lens when Peter calls out for him and subconsciously, Tony smiles wide at the mention of his name. “You ready for the good part?” Peter shuffles past a few of the volunteers towards the gate and Tony makes his way over to fencing. “Oh, I am very curious, kid.”  It’s not long before Peter’s by himself in the enclosure, the gate closed behind him. He casually strolls around, calling out the names of each pride member. Tony can’t help himself and inches closer to the fence.  “So, these lions are four years old?” “Nearing five, yeah. They were only a couple months old when we found them. Sure made a wreck of my house when I raised them,” Peter laughs. “Pro-tip-” He raises one hand and only now Tony notices Peter’s holding a small chunk of meat in it. “-if you ever raise lion cubs; two at the same time tops. Not three. Never four. Four will make you so sleep deprived you think you have five cubs on your bed.” The boy chuckles at his own comment. “That was an interesting night…” Tony shakes his head with a wide grin. “I can imagine.” Peter suddenly cocks his head- listening. He turns and spots the first lion slowly making his way towards him. “M- Tony,” Peter says, looking back at the billionaire for a second. “Meet Rogers.” “Already have,” Tony groans, which makes Peter laugh. His focus immediately shifts to the lion and he squats, preparing himself for the imminent cuddles. He tosses the meat from his hand directly into the lion’s mouth. “Rogers is the most fragile of the pride. He was severely malnourished when he came here and though he bounced back, the joints in his back legs are not great. M’gonna have to help him get into the truck.” Tony listens carefully. Peter’s voice is sweet and soft. The white lion huffs friendly and presses himself against Peter, who pushes back against him with his head. When Peter opens his eyes, he nods at another lion approaching in the distance. “That’s Banner. He’s curious, but incredibly shy. Also the smallest of this pride. If none of you were here he’d come say hi, but the volunteers make him nervous, so he’ll probably keep an eye on us from over there.” Peter nods in the general direction of where the lion is and Tony turns the camera to get a shot of Banner. Not much later, a gigantic white lion approaches. He holds his head high and has a big mane. When he gets closer, Rogers immediately pulls back and lays down next to Peter. The big white lion claims Peter’s space and attention and the boy laughs as he pets him. “Thor’s the biggest- OOF!” The lion drops his weight on top of Peter, whose smile doesn’t falter. “Also the heaviest,” he adds. The lion huffs once, almost as if he’s protesting against Peter’s comments. “And the loudest.” Peter scratches Thor under his chin and the lion automatically opens his mouth right next to Peter’s face. His head could fit in there twice. At least. And the teeth are absolutely gigantic. The sight has shivers run down Tony’s spine. This is normal . This is Peter’s life. He knows what he’s doing, the boy does this every day. Tony bites the inside of his cheek. Lions. These animals are lions . Yet they act like house cats around him. Thor gets up again and without any incentive, he jumps into the truck. “He knows what’s up,” Tony laughs as he turns to the truck to take a shot of Thor from close by. He’s startled by a low rumble coming from Thor’s throat. “Is that purring?” he asks nervously. Peter stands up again, patting some dirt from the back of his shorts. “Lions don’t purr, that’s a growl. You better take a step back Mr- Tony.” Tony would make an offhand comment on how even though Peter corrects himself, he still ends up calling him mister, if not for the lion’s growls increasing in volume. He takes a hasty step back and Peter tosses another chunk of meat into the truck for Thor to eat. “The only big cats that purr are cheetahs and cougars.” “Now, that’s a fun fact. Good to know,” Tony says sheepishly, trying to hide his nerves.  Tony frowns when Peter gets onto his knees in front of the truck.  “What are you doing?” “Helping Rogers.” “You’re gonna let that gigantic beast step on you?” “Better than lifting him,” Peter quips back. He turns his head and whistles. “Rogie- Rogie, boy, come on!” Peter’s voice is high as he coos at the lion. Tony presses his lips on top of each other to stifle a laugh. Rogie, boy. He should remember that one for the real Steve. Rogers responds like a trained dog, but skips Peter completely by putting his front legs against the truck. He hops, but can’t actually get in. “Buddy, your balls are in my face, could you please get up?” Peter pats Rogers’ thigh before quickly placing his hand down again to brace himself. With great difficulty, the lion places one foot on Peter’s shoulder, not pressing his full weight down on the boy. It was enough of a step to help him get in, though. Peter stands up straight again with a triumphant look on his face. He tosses another chunk of meat into the truck and Steve takes it gladly. Thor had already laid down again, not too bothered anymore. Peter cocks his head at Banner, who’s still a bit away, but has decided to come a little closer when he noticed Thor and Steve entering the truck. Peter smiles kindly and squats, presenting a chunk of meat to the shy lion. Tony is absolutely enthralled by Peter’s control. The boy seems relaxed but if you look closely you can see how in tune he is with everything. How he keeps an eye on his surroundings. Banner creeps closer and when he’s next to Peter, it’s obvious how small he actually is. His mane is also way shorter than that of the other two. Tony stares wide-eyed at how Peter handfeeds Bruce the piece of meat. Handfeeds . “Not scared you’re gonna lose a hand?” “Nah,” Peter replies quietly. “Occupational hazard. And I trust my lions more than I trust humans, to be fair.” “Ouch,” Tony says to make light of the situation, trying to hide how that comment actually kind of stung. Peter chuckles, combing Banner’s short mane with his fingers. “We met three days ago, m- Tony.” “Does it really take you that much effort not to call me mister?” Tony laughs, hoping to steer the conversation in another direction. “I was raised with manners.” He grins at Tony and tosses the next piece of meat into the truck. Banner doesn’t hesitate anymore and jumps into the truck as well. “It physically hurts me not to call you mister.” “Sure, kid.” Tony zooms in on Peter’s face. “Well then, if I get to call you Parker you have permission to call me Mr. Stark.” “Deal!” Peter exclaims immediately. The boy’s smile is so bright Tony is pretty sure he’d be blinded by it if he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. After another minute, the lions in the truck are getting a little restless. Peter sighs audibly and turns to face the enclosure. “You can guess who’s fashionably late.” Peter glances at Tony behind him. “As per usual.” “Time management is not my strong suit! And I was early this morning,” Tony laughs. Peter places his hands on his hips, guiding Tony’s eyes to look at the boy’s pert butt. He quickly looks back up at the back of Peter’s head. Now’s not the time for filthy thoughts… Maybe later. “Staaark!” Peter belts. “Here, boy!” Peter makes a couple of those funny noises he made when Tony first met him. “Why do you do all that? Those… Uwus?” “Wha- the noises?” Peter snorts. “Can’t believe Tony Stark just said uwu.” “Hey-” the older man protests. “You said it first! And I am hip with the youngsters.” “You know what? I suddenly don’t feel so old anymore,” Peter says with a grin.  “You, Parker, are a meanie.” Tony points accusingly and Peter laughs. “Ouchies, that huwt my feewings.”  “Just explain the noise, please-” Tony lets out an overdramatic exasperated sigh, indicating to Peter that he’s not actually annoyed. Entertained, would be the right word. Peter nods with a smile and turns back to face the enclosure so he can make the sound once more. “The huffing is actually me mimicking the sound of a mama-lion,” Peter laughs. “It’s comforting to them.” “See, you could’ve just said that straight away.” Peter shrugs nonchalantly, but before he can reply with another quick-witted comment, they all spot the dark mane emerging from the bushes. Stark really does take his time, slowly placing each paw in front of the other, as if he’s on a catwalk. Tony chuckles at his own thought. Catwalk . Stark stares at Peter as he crosses the distance between them and Peter preps himself by sitting down already. “Stark’s the most affectionate of the four,” Peter says as the lion presses into him. The force with which Stark rubs his face against Peter’s has the boy laugh and push back. “Next to Adi and Nedda, he probably likes me the most out of all the lions here.” He pats Stark’s back. “He’s also the most handsome of all the male lions in The Sanctuary. Hands down.” “Isn’t that subjective?” Tony asks quickly, pretending the indirect praise isn’t making him tingle. Peter shrugs before he buries his face in the dark mane for a second. “For lion standards, this is a pretty boy. Stark’s also the most sexually engaged.” Tony freezes up at how casually Peter talks about this. He wonders if Peter is actually indirectly talking about him. Not about the lion he’s petting. “That is, if we would breed here.” “You don’t?” “I don’t breed captive lions. The ones that we have in The Sanctuary are saved from situations that make them unable to be released back into the wild again. We spay every female to prevent them from reproducing.” “Why not the males?” “Spaying both is a lot of hassle for something that’s not necessary. If we were to neuter the males they would still be affected by the females’ cycles. That’s why we spay the females, who are unaffected by the males." “Ah, that makes sense.” Peter studies the near-black mane on Stark. “Should probably take these boys out for a walk tomorrow. Lower their testosterone a bit.” Peter looks up at Tony and gestures at Stark’s head of hair. “There were a couple of wild lionesses right outside The Sanctuary about a week ago. Stark must’ve picked up on them and their cycle ‘cause he’s a little sexually frustrated right now. As is evident by the dark colour of his mane.” Tony licks his lips. This isn’t happening. This isn’t actually happening. He shifts where he stands, hoping his shorts hide his own growing sexual frustration. Peter smiles wide and gets Stark’s attention by presenting a chunk of meat in front of the lion’s face. He tosses it into the truck and before the others in there can get to it, Stark has jumped in. Peter carefully closes the cage on top of the truck and nods at Tony, who still hasn’t said anything in an attempt to hide how flustered he is right now. “Let’s go!”

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More: Next Chapter (yet to be posted) Masterpost (yet to be made)

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Taglist: @professional-benaddict​ @tonystarkweneedyou​

[owenjoyners]

catching up

“You had superpowers…”

“Yep. A couple different ones actually.”

“Were they fun?”

“Meh.”

Henry talks to Piper about being Kid Danger.

Words: 1958 

Tagging some peeps (tell me if you do/don’t want to be tagged for future fics!): @kiddangers @mychenrymadness @swellviews-finest @rubyfull @bitchmilsky

Henry and Piper have been sitting on the couch for a long time. Like a really long time. Like they have never, ever been this close together for this long, long time. 

They hadn’t despised each other before or anything, but they were both often running around doing a million things. Piper putting herself out there on the internet for thousands of people, and Henry putting himself in danger for the sake of his city.

But after learning how many times she almost lost her brother forever, Piper wanted to be a little bit closer to him whenever she could be, even when doing something incredibly boring like homework. Sometimes they would talk about their days, but most of the time they would just sit without uttering a word. The young girl just came to appreciate the fact that her brother was there, with her, and not being beaten halfway-to-death behind a deserted building. 

She wasn’t on top of him, physically or metaphorically speaking, she didn’t want to drive him away even further than he had been, but being on the same side of the couch didn’t leave much room between them. 

Their parents were out, maybe still at work, maybe somewhere else, but the kids didn’t mind. They liked the house when it was a bit quieter. Now that there were no more secrets between them, both of them found real joy and peace in being alone.

Piper sighed, and looked up from her biology textbook and broke the silence. She didn’t know why she was so nervous to ask her own brother a question, but she was. “Can I ask you something?”

Henry looked up from his copy of The Great Gatsby. “You know I got a D in bio, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” she laughed. “But it’s not about that.”

“Good.” He closed the book and tossed in onto the coffee table. “So what’s up?”

Piper looked down and ran her thumb over the edge of the pages of her book to relax herself. “Why do you do it?”

Henry wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but had a pretty good guess. “My job?”

“Yeah.”

“Honestly,” he stopped, trying to think of a reason. For a question he thought about a lot, he couldn’t seem to find the right answer. What could possibly be the reason he would give it all up for? What was worth losing his life? He started to think about if he dies on the job, what will happen? What would his parents think? Would it be worth it? But the thought that made his eyes start to tear up was the thought of Piper being an only child. Piper, without a brother to care for her when their parents were nowhere to be found.

His baby sister moved the book off of her lap and slid over to hug him before he completely broke down crying. She saw his lip quivering when trying to get out what he was thinking, and felt horrible for asking something so personal. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I never should’ve asked.”

Deep down, Piper was the one thing he cared about the most. Yes, he loved Charlotte and Jasper, he was really close with Ray, he cared about Schwoz too, and really everyone in Swellview, but Piper was the one person he would always put before anyone else. He turned to face her, but instead of looking at her, he hugged her tighter than he ever had and let his eyes soak the collar of her shirt. 

They sat like that for a few minutes, with Henry shrinking himself down so that his face would rest on his sister’s shoulder, and allowing himself to really let it out and cry for what felt like the first time in a decade. His hands were grasping at the fabric on her back, like if he let go he’d disappear and be lost forever. 

Henry was able to pull himself together to give her an actual answer. After a few sniffles, he could look her in the eyes. “I said I would. I made a promise. People were counting on Kid Danger, Ray was counting on me to be there.

“At first,” he continued, “I was doing it because it was new, and fun, and exciting, and it still is, but you get used to being in…”

“Danger?”

“Sure,” he laughed. “And you do get to a point where you start thinking, what am I doing here, why me, and then you remember that you swore to protect people, and to help them. You made a commitment. But after that wears off, and you’re so tired of coming home and having to cover up cuts and bruises and the only things going through your mind are all the worst possibilities, and what if this, what if that, and now, really thinking about it, if I had to pin it down to one reason, it would,” his voice started to break, “be you. It’ll always be you.”

He worried if that was too much. She’s just a kid, and I just unloaded all my emotional baggage onto her and told her my entire sob story. 

“What?” She asked, her voice not even above a whisper.

“For some reason,” he answered, “this town has more criminals than everywhere else in the state combined. They’re out there all the time, constantly hurting people.” He took a second to catch his breath. “People, children even, get hurt every day by these maniacs, and if I can take some of them off of the streets, then maybe it’ll help me sleep at night knowing that there’s less of a chance of you being hurt by someone.”

All the memories of Piper being near the villains flooded his head. She had to go through all of that alone. Henry was nowhere to be found because he was hiding behind a mask instead of being her brother.

“And, Piper, I am so sorry for all the times you were in danger. The balloons, the bugs, Swellview’s Got Talent, all of it. I would never let anything serious happen to you, you know that right?”

Piper had been crying the whole time Henry has been talking. “I know,” she said, wiping more tears from her cheeks. “You’re too stubborn to lose.”

Henry dried his face with his sleeves, and genuinely laughed with his sister.  “Haven’t you seen me get my butt kicked? The news isn’t very kind to us, and there’s plenty more where that came from.”

She giggled at the comment. Then she remembered something. “Hold on a second…”

“What?” He asked. What could possibly be more interesting to a little sister than her brother getting made fun of on the news?

“You had superpowers…”

“Yep. A couple different ones actually.”

“Were they fun?”

“Meh,” he shrugged. 

Super fast reflexes were great, indestructibility was great, but laughing fire was just every kind of awful.

“Well there was the one mistaken for a disease. What was it? Hypo Mobility?”

“Hyper Motility,” he corrected her. 

“Sorry,” she sarcastically apologized. “Still sounds like a disease.”

“Yeah, but it was nice to have, no matter how sickly it sounded. I had to inhale lizard and spider fumes to get it, so that’s cool, I guess.”

“Yuck,” she scrunched up her face with disgust. “But hey, if it gives you superpowers, I guess it’s worth it.”

“Oh yeah, it was,” he sighed, “even if it was only for a short time.”

“Yeah, do you want to talk about what happened with that?”

“Didn’t you hear about it on the news? I thought we did an interview with Trent and Mary” he said, knowing that story had been all over the news that night. 

“A little bit,” she shrugged. “But I asked Henry Hart if he wanted to talk about what happened, not Kid Danger. That guy’s a loser anyways.”

“Hey! I think he’s—” Henry cut himself off when he realized what she was doing. “Oh, right. You know.”

“I sure do.” She smiled.

It made him sad from time to time that Twitler took it away, but his sister had been left in the dark for so long that she deserves it from him. “Okay, but it’s kind of a long story.” 

“I got time,” she shrugged and gave her brother a smile. She really did want to hear the story, but she also wanted to give her brother someone to talk to about all this stuff. And maybe, if he keeps talking now, he’ll talk to her more about stuff in the future.

“So, you know about the computer virus.”

Piper nodded, having learned a little from the interview.

“So we had an antivirus made to kill it, but I couldn’t touch it, since I’m not indestructible, it would take away my powers too—”

“Because the virus was partially made of your powers, so they have the same properties.”

“Bingo,” Henry nodded, sadly.

“But you wear gloves? And you’re pretty much covered everywhere else. How’d it get through them?”

“I had to take the gloves off—“

Piper cut him off again with a sad, drawn out “no!”

“Yeah, the actual virus got on my gloves and if that touched me, my body would’ve been taken over by the virus. So I had to scoop up the antivirus with my bare hands. I mean, I think the entire digital world outweighs super fast reflexes, even if it’s pretty close,” he laughed. 

“Gross. Wait, why didn't you use your mask or something to scoop it up?” She asked. 

“I—” he stopped. Henry closed his eyes in an attempt to calm himself down. He dropped his head, and his voice grew softer. “I didn’t think about that.”

He was ready to start crying again. If he had just taken a second to think for once in his life, he could still have one of the best things that ever happened to him.

Piper saw how sad he got when she made the suggestion, and quickly put herself in his position. She felt awful about making himself upset again, considering she has just given him an existential crisis mere moments before. 

She wrapped her arms around his back and started rambling to try to calm down her brother. “Never mind, that would be ridiculous. You’d have to risk exposing yourself to anyone who could see you, never mind if a news helicopter was flying by. That’d never work. Sorry I said that. What you did was entirely the right call.”  She racked her brain for something else to bring up to get his mind off of the previous and heartbreaking topic. “Wait, you said you had a couple superpowers. What was the other one?”

Henry exhaled before talking. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I was indestructible for like two days, a few years ago. But when I laughed I breathed fire, so we had to get rid of that.”

“Dang, boy.”

“Yeah, that was not good. Being indestructible was cool, but definitely not the fire part. There were a couple of times where I did it in front of you guys and you almost saw me.”

Piper thought of all the times she should’ve noticed that her brother was up to something. All the bad lies and excuses, spending way too much time at work, and even when she thought she knew the truth, she would be easily convinced that it was fake. She laughed. “Yeah, I was dumb.”

“You weren’t dumb. You were little. You’ve grown up a lot in the past couple of years.”

She blushed at the compliment. “I guess I did have a pretty good role model.”

[connan-l]

Quiet moments — Chapter 1: Michel and Maria

Fandom: The House in Fata Morgana

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warning: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationship: Michel Bollinger & Maria Campanella

Summary: A collection of unrelated short one-shots containing interactions between two The House in Fata Morgana characters.

Content Warnings: Very brief mentions of child prostitution, child abuse and suicidal ideation.

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Link on Archive of Our Own

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Notes: I just love making characters who wouldn’t normally interact, well, interact — and I also love giving attention to side and minor characters no one care about, so that’s how it happened. I wrote this on a whim and have no idea when I’ll be able to update it though, so don’t expect anything from me.

This will take place literally anywhere among the main game, Requiem and Reincarnation, so beware of spoilers!

I used the ‘Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings’ on AO3 just by precaution, but I don’t think there will be much to warn about, really. And if there is, I’ll put a content warning on top of the chapter anyway.

Takes place during Door 8, after Yukimasa told his story and Michel went to speak with Maria.

________________________________________________________________

Maria sat next to him and started talking, as promised. Despite being her usual assertive, confident self, she seemed a bit reluctant to discuss about her past — not because she was especially distrustful of Michel (although she still seemed pretty skeptical about everything he had told her), but because it just was her nature, he guessed. Given she was a young woman who grew up alone in a poor, dangerous district, it was only to be expected.

“I’m not actually born in this country, y’know?” She said suddenly.

“You’re not?” Michel asked, but he was not all that surprised. After all, Maria had been an Italian woman in the third door, so although a lot of things had changed in this era, it wasn’t odd that she wasn’t French.

“Yeah. I don’t really remember much about my hometown, though. I left when I was like, five or six maybe. My family… I think they must’ve been merchants or something, and they were travelling here for business. But they got into an accident and died. I had no one else, so I went into an orphanage here. I was a newly-orphaned foreign kid who barely spoke the language at all, so it was pretty rough at first…” She smirked. “But that’s when I met Pauline. She was a foreigner too, so although we didn’t come from the same country, I think maybe we felt some sort of kinship and that’s why we ended up clinging to each other…”

Michel tried to picture the two little girls in his mind; a mischievous six-year-old Maria and a tiny Pauline awkwardly following her around, none of them truly speaking the other’s languages but still trying to understand and play together… This mental image made him smile gently.

“Then you know the rest. Got fed up with the orphanage, ran away, ended up here and started working at the brothel… but anyway, you wanted to hear about Morgana, right? Bet you don’t care much about some ol’ whore’s childhood, haha.”

She laughed light-heartedly — as if she was talking about someone else, a character in a story, and not about her own difficult past. Michel winced instinctively, and hoped it didn’t show too much on his face. Maria had already briefly told them earlier about the abuse she experienced at the orphanage and that she became a prostitute when she was still just a young child. This life seemed so detached and so far away from the one he had lived that he struggled to imagine what it must’ve been like.

“There were… no other options for you at the time?” He asked softly, tentatively. “Maybe you could’ve gone to another orphanage, or…”

Maria narrowed her eyes with an annoyed expression, and Michel understood immediately he had said something insensitive.

“Which options?” She snapped back. “No way on earth I would’ve gone to another orphanage, I was done with that shit. It was the brothel or starving on the fucking street, so the choice was quickly made. Not everyone can be a noble rolling in dough like you, my dude.”

“Wha— How do you know I’m a noble?”

“Well, you just have that aura, you know? Your manners, the way you speak, you seem well-educated… You’re like that cute blonde pipsqueak — it’s just obvious we don’t live in the same sphere.”

Michel wondered if it really was that obvious, or if Maria was just very acute. Maybe it was both. He remembered, centuries ago, that Giselle had told him something similar, too — that he had a ‘regal’ aura, though back then he could never say if she was teasing him or if she was serious.

“I really… don’t consider my life to be that bad,” Maria whispered, her voice unusually quiet. “I mean, obviously it’s not great. I’ve been through some shitty times, I won’t deny that. I certainly wouldn’t complain if one day my good pal God took pity in me and decided to make me rich.”

She looked up in front of her — towards the horizon, her eyes vacant, and started to rub her naked arms. Michel couldn’t tell if it was because she was cold or because she tried to comfort herself from some bad memories.

“But… the simple fact that I am still alive right now makes me feel pretty damn lucky. Not everyone can say the same. So many of my friends — good, nice folks — didn’t get the same chance…”

The more he listened to her, and the more Michel felt kind of… uneasy. Had he ever felt like he was ‘lucky’ to be alive? Even during his darkest times, when he was locked up in his room at the Bollinger estate or during the ten years living in that haunted mansion, he couldn’t remember a moment where just the fact to be alive felt like a blessing. It rather felt like a curse, honestly. He couldn’t count the number of times he thought about dying, about all the times he almost made a suicide attempt — but how every time, old, fond childhood recollections of his brothers would come flocking back and make him hope that, maybe, just maybe, things could get better. But the idea that others may have had worse than him — like the dead girl who he tried to ignore for years and never attempted to understand, because understanding her would mean actually seeing her like a person and not like a formless cackling witch — thus that he should feel lucky never once crossed his mind. Back then, he was way too deep into his own pain and suffering that it never seemed relevant — until he met Giselle, that is.

And now that he thought about it… Michel certainly couldn’t say he had an easy childhood by any stretch of the imagination — especially not after his fourteen years old — but he still had been lucky enough to have been born into a noble and rich family. Aside from those two terrible years he spent being abused by Aimée, he couldn’t recall a time where he felt hungry or missed of anything. The same couldn’t be said of Maria.

Maybe she truly was good at reading people, because she seemed to instantly guess his train of thoughts and added: “Hey now, I didn’t say that to guilt-trip you or anything. I’m not interested in pity, anyway.”

“I wasn’t…”

She sighed. “If you nobles really feel so bad, then actually do something and use your power and money for a good cause, instead of ruminating. Some peeps could really need that.”

“Well… I am technically… not exactly a noble anymore…”

“Oh?”

“I was disowned.” And then I was killed, he thought. But I can’t exactly tell her that. “So I don’t have any power anymore. Though… even back then, I never had any actual power… everything was decided by my father and older brothers…”

“Hmm… Is that so… That sucks,” she declared, before crossing her arms. “So you had brothers?”

“Yes, but…” He took a deep breath. “We… something happened, and… They…”

Michel hesitated. Should he really start talking about himself right now? To Maria, of all people, who he only (technically) first met yesterday? But then he looked at the woman next to him in the eyes, who was silently and attentively listening to him. And he felt the need to continue.

“They betrayed me. And… they’re dead now. They died… a long time ago…”

He felt his chest tightening as soon as he mentioned his brothers, and his hands trembling a little. Maybe he shouldn’t have started talking about them after all. Mell and Nellie’s debacle had already reawakened some bad memories, and right now he needed to stay focused on Morgana and Giselle and—

Suddenly, he felt a soft, comforting pressure on his shoulder. When he turned around, he saw Maria looking at him with understanding green eyes as she was gently holding his shoulder, like an old friend would do.

“I dunno what happened to you exactly, so sorry if I asked something I shouldn’t have…”

“No, it’s fine…”

Maria looked away, wincing a little. “Though I… can relate. I had… well, I’m an only child, but… I did have someone I considered a brother once. And he… also betrayed me.”

Michel frowned, and was going to ask her more details… but then Maria looked at him and smiled.

“He died a long time ago too.”

It was… a strange smile. There was something nostalgic in it. Bitter, maybe. But also tender. Gentle. It wasn’t a smile he’d ever thought he’d see on the face of that rambunctious woman.

“I’m… sorry,” he said, stupidly, not being able to think something more eloquent.

She shrugged. “It’s okay. Like I said, it was a long time ago. I’m over it now.”

Michel could tell by the way she looked away and the sound of her voice that it was a lie. Maybe it hurt less — just like the intense pain of his brothers’ betrayal had slowly faded with time. But it wasn’t something you could just ‘get over.’

“Well, your brothers were idiots,” she suddenly said, and Michel arched an eyebrow.

“What?”

“It sounds like it’d be nice to have you as a brother, so they must’ve been idiots to betray you. I mean, you seem like a handful, but I’m sure I’d have a lot of fun teasing you. Too bad I wasn’t born as your sis. In another life maybe?”

Maria gently punched Michel in the shoulder with a wide grin and a wink, which earned him a chuckle. He wondered how much his life would have changed if he had had a sister in it, especially a sister like Maria. Would it have made things better? Or worse?

He couldn’t tell. However, he certainly wouldn’t refuse to have her as a sibling in another life.

[upthenorthmountain]

This Bowl of Stars - Chapter Nine

For dear @kristanna, on her birthday, I have completed this, the most Herculean of tasks - I have finished This Bowl of Stars. I hope you like it, my friend. <3

Chapter 9

When she woke up in the morning, she knew.

The fire in the woodstove had burnt down, but Anna wasn’t cold - even with the blanket between them, Kristoff’s body heat was enough to keep her warm. His arm was lying loose across her side, but when she stirred he moved it in his sleep and now she could get up without disturbing him if she wanted to.

But she didn’t want to. Because she realised, as she watched him sleeping, that she didn’t want to leave his side, not ever. She loved him, and this tiny single bare room on the mountainside felt more like home than anywhere ever had.

No one had sent her a bird or a note in a long time. Maybe they’d forgotten about her? Maybe she could just - stay. If that was what he wanted.

------

A few more days passed. A week. Anna managed to get everything done that needed doing while Kristoff recovered; he was tired from the blood loss and a bit vague about how exactly he had hurt himself but he was improving and she could tell he would be completely well soon. Neither of them spoke about the pass, or Blackstad. They didn’t speak about how Kristoff had stopped sleeping in the stable, either.

The winter, which had gone on so long that Anna had almost forgotten it was just one season, was finally drawing to an end. The snow between the cabin and stable was worn away and turned to slush, then mud. Icicles dripped from the eaves. The pass must be open, but she didn’t dare say that out loud, and neither did he.

And then - a bird, an ice bird.

It tapped on the door, and when Anna let it in, it just chirped at her and tipped its head, before flying a short distance away. She tried to call it inside, but it just sat and watched her for a moment, then flew away and over the ridge.

An hour later it returned, but it wasn’t alone.

-----

This time it wasn’t a tap on the door. It was a full knock, from a human fist; an alarming sound. Anna was alone in the cabin, sewing in the last ends on Kristoff’s sweater, and she nearly dropped it on the floor. Who could be here? Kristoff certainly wouldn’t knock.

She put down her work and opened the door, carefully. The knocker was a young man in a smart red jacket, looking tired and cold. He was holding the reins of his horse.

“Madam,” he said. “We are looking for Princess Anna of Arendelle. We have reason to believe she has been here - could you tell me where she is?”

Anna noticed the little bird, now, sitting on his shoulder. It cheeped at her.

“I’m Princess Anna,” she said. The guard looked her up and down. Anna squared her shoulders and gave him her most regal look, in the hope it would overcome the darn on her skirt, her messy plaits, the smudge of soot that was probably on her cheek.

The guard shrugged, and stepped back. “She’s here, your Highness,” he said, and it was then that Anna looked past him and saw that there were more men in the clearing. Two were with a sled piled with boxes, and one was riding a large white horse. His hat had plumes on it. 

Kristoff had come out of the stable and was standing, watching, his breath clouding in the air.

The man on the horse leapt down and went straight into a deep bow. “Your Highness,” he said. “I am Prince James of Karlstad. I trust you will forgive our arriving unannounced, but this weary winter has for so long kept us apart. Now that the snows begin to recede, we thought to arrive and claim you, and bear you away from -” he looked around him, his lip curling slightly - “This place. I’m sure it has been a terrible trial for you.”

Anna curtsied. “It’s been - fine,” she said. “Um. Thank you.”

“My men will help you gather your things,” the prince said, “And then we can be on our way and make our camp before dark.”

“The pass is open? I thought…”

“Oh, the men had to clear a few rocks, but we opened it well enough! Enough to get the sled through for your luggage. Where is it?”

“Um. Mostly in the stable.” She waved a hand in the right direction. He wanted to go now? He wanted her to pack up and leave, right now?

“I’ll show you which is hers,” Kristoff said. He hadn’t spoken until now, and he looked only at Anna as he did. She nodded, quickly, not sure what else to do, and he turned on his heel and went into the stable. Two of the prince’s men followed him.

“Is that the peasant you’ve been here with?” Prince James said, his expression horrified. “I hope he has not - inconvenienced you at all, my lady?”

“Incon - no! No, he’s been very kind.”

“Are you sure? If you want I can have him thrashed, it’s no trouble at all -”

“No! Really. He’s been very kind and - everything has been fine, really. Um. Are you sure you don’t want to stay here, tonight? And get a fresh start in the morning?”

The prince looked round, his disdain clear on his face. “I think we’d better get away from here immediately,” he said. “Is there anything of yours inside?”

----

Her satchel was having on a nail on the wall. Anna shouldered it, then walked round the room, mechanically picking up her things and putting them in. He’d come for her, after all. As well he might; they were betrothed. The snowdrifts were, indeed, starting to melt. What else had she expected to happen?

——-

Outside, the prince waited for Kristoff to come out of the stable, then grabbed his arm and held him in place.

“If you’ve ruined her I'll see you hanged,” he said conversationally. “The thought of a princess alone with a peasant for weeks makes my blood boil as it is. If I find out you've touched her -”

“I have treated her,” Kristoff cut in, “with nothing but the kindness and respect with which I would treat any woman, any person. She is quite pure enough for you, you needn't concern yourself about that.” He pulled his arm away. “Have you even asked her if she wants to go with you?”

“What a princess wants is no concern of yours.”

Anna walked out of the cabin. Both men looked at her.

“Do you have everything you need?” Kristoff asked. “Are you warm enough?”

“Yes - thank you.” She hesitated. “Kristoff, I -”

“My lady!” Prince James said. “We must be on our way, or we shall not make the camp by nightfall.”

“Yes - yes, of course.”

“You will ride with me.” He held out his hand.

“Oh - of course -” It was all happening so fast. What could she do, what could she do -

The Prince mounted his horse. One of his men took Anna’s satchel from her and boosted her up to sit in front. Nothing. She could do nothing. 

As the horse started to move, Kristoff lurched forward, two or three almost running steps; and then he stopped. The prince reined in his horse. “Of course, I almost forgot,” he said, and took some coins out of the purse at his belt. “For your trouble,” he said, threw them at Kristoff without looking, and rode away.

------

The cabin was suddenly very empty and very quiet.

All Anna’s things - her shawl, her hairbrush, her journal - had been bundled up and taken away, and his own belongings suddenly looked too small for the space. His new sweater was lying on the bed. The second chair was looking at him and he wanted to throw it into the fire.

Then Kristoff noticed a little sound, one that he’d got used to over the winter but that now seemed out of place. The little tinkly tweeting from the birdcage in the corner. Anna’s birds, she’d forgotten her birds.

Without thinking he grabbed the cage and ran outside. The horses were gone, the trampled up mud and slush the only sign they had ever been there, so he ran a little way up the mountainside and fumbled at the cage door clasp. It pinged open and the first bird poked out its pointed beak and looked at him quizzically.

“Go to Anna,” he said. “I know you can find her, she needs you. Go to Anna, off you go. All of you.”

The birds shuffled out, one by one, and took flight. He watched as they circled for a moment, a shimmering murmuration against the setting sun, then formed an arrow and flew straight and true over the side of the mountain.

He left the cage where it fell and walked home.

-----

The horses walked slowly. The ground was soft, and also Anna could tell they’d been pushed hard to get here and were tired. She sat between Princes James’s arms, and pulled her cloak around herself against the wind.

“Do not worry, your Highness,” he said. “Your ordeal is over. Soon you will be safe in your new home.”

“I was safe,” she said aloud. And I was home, she said in her head.

The prince didn’t reply. Anna turned a little and peeped behind them - nothing but white snow and brown slush, the little cabin long gone but she was sure she could find it. Her whole body felt itchy with the need to jump down and run back.

She turned to face forward again. The cold wind blew in her face and made her eyes water. Or at least that’s what she told herself.

It was getting dark. It wasn’t that late, surely? She wiped her eyes on the edge of her cloak and looked up to see what was blocking the sunlight.

Her birds. He’d sent her her birds. 

She watched as the tiny flock swooped down, chirping and twittering to themselves. The guards behind them shouted and all the men reined in their horses. Anna laughed, leaning forward across the horse’s neck, and the birds flew to her, resting on her arms and shoulders and even her head. Their claws dug into her clothes and hair and she realised they were tugging at her.

The prince had let go of the reins to swat at the birds and Anna took the opportunity to slide down off the horse. She brushed away the birds that were in her hair but let the others pull her along. “I have to - I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to go back, I remembered something -”

“My lady,” the prince said, surprised and puzzled. “Where are you going -”

Once the birds realised she was going the way they wanted her to go - running, jumping over puddles but landing in a few anyway, trying not to trip over her skirts - they let go of Anna’s clothes and just flew alongside her. She realised that even though she was out of breath she was laughing with exhilaration - and she didn’t care about the from, the men and the questions and the plans other people had made for her future. All that mattered was the to.

The cabin looked the same as it always had. The birds lined themselves up along the eaves and put their heads under their wings, evidently feeling they had done what they needed to do and could now rest. Anna knocked on the door.

For a long moment there was silence. Then she heard the bolt shoot back, inside, and the door was wrenched open. Kristoff didn’t look surprised to see her, but he only opened the door part way and leant on the doorframe.

“What did you forget?”

“Nothing.” He stood, still looking at her, still not letting her in.

“I didn’t forget anything,” she repeated. “I remembered. I remembered what I want.”

He still didn’t seem to know exactly what she meant. So she stepped forward and pushed the door fully open; then she put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him full on the lips.

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

Stranger Things (The Eighties Blasts Collection, Part 9.)

Description: Jim Hopper died as a hero. But with that, one certain problem rises up - who will now lead the cops of Hawkins? Hopper thought of that - he decided to write a letter, naming his niece, nineteen-year-old student of Indianapolis police academy, Y/N Hopper as a sheriff deputy in a letter. But anybody in the town doesn’t have a clue that being a cop in Hawkins is way more dangerous than it might seem.

A/N: I know that Stranger Things opening song by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein wasn't actually produced in the eighties, but a) it is the main soundtrack of the whole series and b) it is just a really good example of music which has the power to tense you up.

Warnings: Dustin being seriously smart - I love a smart Dustin, bcs he is such a bright kid. But mostly the gang realizing that they are fucked in the butt. Maybe the kids swearing a bit? Nothing too dramatic or unusual.

Word Count: 3 K

Tagging: @charmed-asylum​ @nemodoren​

Master list: The Eighties Blast Collection

Dustin was actually quite good at giving everyone heads up, calling the kids gang with Cerebro to meet up at your place. Normally, you would watch that kid in awe just because of how intelligent he seemed to be and probably, he was more responsible than Steve by any means. Everyone knew about the super-strange thing in a spawn of ten minutes. After that, Steve drove you to your cabin where everyone was supposed to meet up.

Your conversation with Eleven was pretty much one-sided and really short since you could say one sentence only before you both started crying like little kids. When the words slipped past your lips, the boys got completely silent as you fell back to shock. You could only hear how Elever cried, but the sounds came to you from a distant place, like you weren’t even present at the moment.

After that, Steve with Mike helped you back on the backseat of your Chevy and let you lay there because you seemed to be out of your mind, just trembling.

The Demogorgon really did a number on you - putting you in a state when you were all good for a few good minutes and then you just fell into a complete shock again, these two states being constantly trying to be beaten in between themselves.

You had sloppy memories of arriving back to the cabin - only Steve and Mike helping you out while Dustin unlocked and held the door. They made you drink a cup of hot tea to raise up your blood pressure a bit. 

After other short calls from the phone in your cabin, they made the rest to come - Nancy and Robin. 

There you were, four almost adults and four kids sitting at the table in your house, some eating Eggos or other sweets, some just intensely watching you. You were sitting in the middle between Steve and Nancy while the others sat around the room - in the armchair or on the stools, some even got the chairs from the table. 

Dustin and Max's boyfriend, you still didn't remember his name, were holding the phone and changed when one of their palms started to hurt - there was Will on the phone, telling Joyce and the others what happened.

"So, what exactly happened? We don't have a clue, Hopper, and you still didn't tell us." - Mike said pretty loudly, almost yelled at you all of a sudden. You got why he was like that - he was upset by the unknown. Nobody knew anything at that moment - you were useless and Steve was too worried about you to talk. And even you two didn't know much.

"De-Demorgogon. It's real." - You looked Mike in the eyes and slowly rolled your sleeve up to your elbow to show him that bloody bruise you had there. Everyone looked at it with their breath stuck in their throat; this bruise could certainly win the competition about the most disgusting-looking bruise. Dustin was quietly describing your hand to Will in the background.

"Yeah, we already know that. It is real. Can you tell us something new?!" - Max's boyfriend burst out at you.

"But she wasn't here to see it!" - Both Nancy and Steve yelled at him to make you justice. That made the boy shut up.

"It crept at us and killed an old lady. It was probably feeding itself from her for quite some time. Her arm was bitten off." - Steve said, but nobody seemed to understand one and the exact thing.

"How could it survive inside of that house for so long without anybody seeing it?" - Max asked was the one who asked the question out loud. You and Steve looked at each other worriedly.

"I think that it's evolving. Physically, it is the same as the Demodogs or the first Demogorgon, I couldn't spot no difference there. But its brain isn't the same as it used to be." - Steve answered and looked at you to describe what you've been through. - "It was speaking to us, like when you're having a normal conversation with somebody. It was a bit weird here and there, but basically, it was really intelligent, it responded according to the subject. Let's just say... The Demogorgon was able to track down somebody lonely and who's disappearance would barely anyone notice. It hid the body and fed on it, so it didn't have to leave its nest for a long time."

"But how could you two have a normal conversation with a monster? That doesn't make any sense. Did you not see that it is a Demogorgon right away?" - Nancy asked in confusion. It wasn't too hard to say that something was Demogorgon, really, even if it had similarities to a human. - "That sounds that you're just as dumb as Steve is." - Robin chuckled to brighten up the situation, but you barely noticed it.

"Metamorphosis." - You whispered and looked at Steve. His thoughts weren't exactly as fast as yours, but you knew that he only needed the right push. - “Are we talking about the novella by Franz Kafka?” - Robin asked in confusion.

"No.” - You answered her quickly, before turning your face directly to Steve’s. It almost looked like a perfect position for a kiss... But there was no time for that. You slowly started with explaining yourself to him. - “If it did pretend that it is that old lady..." - You whispered and his eyes widened.

"It can find a new host. It can kill again." - Steve completed your sentence and you nodded at him. The situation was bad. If the Demogorgon would prey down another victim and if it would find a pattern to go with, you could be up for a pretty long play of hiding and seeking with the creature. 

And with that, you furrowed at each other. Nobody knew what you're talking about. Metamorphosis. Weird word, barely used around young people. So Dustin, who gave the phone to Lucas, stood in front of you, opening his palms and watched both of you with a worried expression, which brought everyone’s attention to him.

"Slow down, Hopper, and explain to us what's happening. I heard something about metamorphosis. How is it phasing then?" - At that moment, Robin asked. - "Why the hell you're even talking about metamorphosis? You're trying to look cool in front of the kids, guys?"

“What it even is?” - Max asked and everyone shut up for a minute before turning at her. Max wasn't the brightest or the most observant on mister Clarke’s classes, but that was completely okay.

"Metamorphosis is the most basic way to change your appearance by evolving. Butterflies do that - there are green, small caterpillars in the first place and after everything is done, only a butterfly remains. The completely changed their whole body structure to become something better. In Kafka’s novella, a human person changes into a big bug.” - He explained in a rushed, yet really calm tone. Max looked confused for a minute but then nodded as the two dots connected.

“And it seems to me that the Demogorgon could possibly use metamorphosis." - Dustin finished with a small smile. This was terrifying, yes, but fascinating at the time. Just as with Dart. Once again, you watched that child's face in awe; how could someone so young possibly be so smart? What were the odds? He was basically the opposite of Steve sitting by your side.

“So, you're trying to tell that the Demogorgon could be a pupe at some point to evolve?” - Mike asked in a really ironic tone, looking at Dustin. - “Come on.”

“Unfortunately, my friend, not necessarily. Do you remember Mystique in Uncanny X-Men number 170?” - He asked him. - “Mystique is that blue-ish girl?” - Max peeped from the other side of the room. She loved princess Diana as Wonder Woman, but of course, she knew Marvel heroines as well.

“Exactly that one. She is shifting her visual appearance to look like other people. The skillset she possesses is named...” - “Metamorphosis.” - You finished. - “And think about this, guys. If the Demorgogon evolved the ability to metamorphose itself, it could most likely look like an old, weird lady.”

“Exactly. She was hella weird, but you would describe her as strange and let her be.” - Steve nodded at Dustin, clearly being proud of him. 

“But how it could copy her appearance? Is that even possible? Because the Demogorgon doesn't exactly have the eyes to like... Scan her look.” - Nancy stood up and poured herself a glass of ice-cold water. This was too much to take in. Just way too much. She would even accept some Vodka at that point.

For a moment, there was silence until Robin stood up and looked at everyone as if they were complete idiots even if she was fully silent until that very moment. 

“You didn't hear what Steve and Hopper repeated almost five times?” - She looked at everyone and clapped loudly. - “It was feeding on her corpse the whole time. What if it wasn't hungry?” 

“You mean that it copied the lady’s DNA structure and shifted directly to look like her? That is insane, even for a sci-fi movie.” - Mike stood as well. Almost everyone was standing on their feet like if it was helping them think. 

“We have a shape-shifting Demogorgon and you say that copying her DNA after it ate her flesh is too crazy to be happening, you dingus?” - Steve asked Mike ironically. - “I am not a dingus, but this is just crazy.” - Mike yelled back and that was where Max’s boyfriend got involved. - “It was always crazy, Mikey. Do you still remember the time your girlfriend had some telepathic abilities? That is just reality!” 

“Okay, children!” - You stood up and yelled over them, looking at everyone with a furrow. - “Now sit your asses down and let’s just establish that we have a shape-shifting Demogorgon that eats meat so it knows the structure of DNA of what it is changing into running around Hawkins. Over. That is not everything.” - You spoke in a firm voice. From a moment to moment, everyone could see that you and Jim were actually related. Your, normally smiling and gentle, face turned into the face of Satan as you watched everyone down. Without further ado, everyone shut up and sat down, Max’s boyfriend and Dustin changed place in holding the phone again. 

“Will you let me continue or anyone has anything to say?” - You stood in the head of the table so everyone could be looking at you.

“You are looking better. The coffee really helped, nice to see.” - Dustin smiled at you happily and you just exhaled voice, being almost fed up with that chaotical group calling each other names. How any of them could survive the first Demogorgon was more and more mysterious to you with each passing moment.

“I meant if you had something meaningful to add to the subject.” - You asked in a cold tone and Dustin’s smile just went wilder. For a moment, there was complete silence in the room, so you started to speak again. - “Alright then, let’s move on. We saw the Demogorgon, but its primary goal wasn't to kill me.” 

“How do you know?” - Robin asked, looking at you.

“Because I am standing in front of you on my own feet, speaking with you. There was a delay between it caught my forearm and Steve shooting at it. It had enough time to bite my head off and yet, it didn't.” - You sat back between Steve and Nancy, everyone still watching you. - “It showed me... Something. This is crazy, but it weirdly communicated with me.” 

“It was showing Hopper to you?” - Mike asked confusedly. You shook your head. 

“It did, at least... I think. It was just a small moment. But it showed me something else. This is going to sound so stupid, but I think that it tried to... Warn me.” - You looked at everyone. 

“Will asks about what.” - Dustin asked and you looked at him.

“Okay, so it caught my forearm and when I thought it is going to kill me, I felt so sold that I opened my eyes. I don't know how it did it, but we were in a really cold biome full of snow and ice, some mountains possibly, in the woods, looking at a military camp hidden under the ground. But it wasn't the Demogorgon, as you call it, holding my hand. I think that it was the... How you call it? The Shadow Monster?” - You looked at the others. Even Steve was confused at that moment, he didn't know that any of that happened. 

“The Mind Flayer was showing you a military camp? Could it be in Alaska, possibly?” - Nancy asked and sipped on her water. You got quiet for a small amount of time and then shook your head. - “No. I am ninety percent sure of that. I would recognize the uniforms and technology. This wasn't in America.” 

“And what happened next?” - Mike asked with his mouth opened up, being completely caught up in your story. You looked at him and exhaled before continuing.

“It took me inside, we were basically going through the walls like Casper the Friendly Ghost, and we stopped in a hall full of cells. They were clearly holding many people in there. And when they opened it up, there was a man with long hair and beard, greasy, tired, beaten up. I think it was Jim because he looked at me. I saw his eyes and maybe... He saw me as well.” - You whispered, almost breaking into tears again. Steve was watching the profile of your face, smoothing you over your shoulder.

“You think that it was Hopper because he looked at you for a second? How can you even say that? You can’t be sure about that just like that.” - Max’s boyfriend asked and laughed unbelievably after that.

“A quick question.” - Nancy interrupted him. - “Would you recognize your mom if I gave you only a picture of her eyes?” 

“Probably yes, why?” - He answered with an unsure grimace. Nancy rose her eyebrows at him. - “Because Jim is like a father to Y/N. She knows him the whole life, so I think it is more than sure that she would recognize his gaze between many others. Now shut up already and let continue, Lucas.” - She shushed him down, turning at you again. You gave her an unsure smile, fidgeting your fingers. 

“Then it took me deeper. Into the base floor. There was a huge red tear in the wall shining with some... Red light or what. For a moment, it was completely silent, but just before men dressed in leather suits came into the room. They had MSGs probably, I didn't recognize the type of gun. After that, some huge machine was activated, sending a huge blue beam into the wall.” - At that moment, you were sobbing again, because of the horrific memories going through your head. 

At that point, everyone in the room was completely breathless, watching you. It was terrifying, surely it was, but everyone was curious about what happened next, so you could make sense out of it together.

“And Demogorgons started to crawl out of it. Not one... Or two. It was a pack of six or seven. And the men shot at them, making them crawl into some other door.” - You swoop away the tears. - “Whoever is doing that, they are clearly keeping the Demogorgons in their base and I think that they might be... Training them or trying to understand their species.” - You leaned your head into Steve’s shoulder subconsciously and nobody even commented that, since you were on the edge of falling into the shock or fainting at that moment again, blood dripping from your nose again.

“Will asks if you... Hear a voice inside your head. Or if you have some memories that don't belong to you, impulses, feelings you’ve never felt before... Anything.” - Dustin asked silently as Steve hugged you and brought you closer, warming you up by rubbing your shoulders. You were as cold as ice.

“No. I think that I am just scared, that's all. Or at least, I hadn't noticed anything.” - You answered, wiping the blood away again. 

“I don't think that Mind Flayer made a spy out of Hopper. Do you feel cold?” - Mike asked you suddenly. Everyone was slowly standing up, except Steve, slowly getting away. 

“What?” - You asked in confusion. 

“A simple yes or no question. Do you feel cold?” - Mike asked you again, slowly turning the heater up as if he was looking for something on you. 

“I am cold like fuck, Michael. I am not flayed.” - You told him unbelievably. - “She’s freezing.” - Steve nodded when he held your fingers in his hand. 

“The Mind Flayer likes it cold. We will just test the theory out, we will close the windows and heat the room, okay?” - Dustin asked you carefully. You turned your head to Nancy, who told you that you should do it. For the sake of the children believing what you’ve just said to them.

So they left you to fall asleep under three blankets after drinking a cup of completely hot tea, turning the heater on while they were talking to Will, Joyce, Johnathan, and Eleven on the other side of the phone line. After you slept for an hour without showing any signs of being flayed, they slowly started to go home with only one thought in their heads - there was a new type of Demogorgon in hiding in Hawkins. 

Intelligent and dangerous as ever. 

The Shapeshifter.

[moiraineswife]

Knocking On Heaven’s Door - An Ineffable Husbands Fic

*blows dust off my ao3 account* I am Returned. This time ineffable flavoured. Thanks to the ineffable discord peeps for coaching me through this. U all know who u are <3 

Title: Knocking On Heaven’s Door 

Summary: The apocalypse is averted, but neither Crowley nor Aziraphale counted on one thing not even Agnes Nutter saw coming: Me. And my veritable mountain of angst. Crowley is hurt and sad. Aziraphale is indignant and comforting. H/C ensues. Tw: Eye horror. 

Teaser: “You are many, many things, Crowley,” he said, quietly, “But you have never, not even for a moment, in all the thousands of years I have known you, been cruel.”“

’S far as you know,” Crowley muttered, petulantly.

“I know,” Aziraphale said, calmly, refusing to rise to the obvious bait, “As surely as I know every inch, and every crinkled corner, of every page of my favourite book...I know.”  

Link: AO3 

“I hope that’s booze.”  

Logically, Aziraphale knew he couldn’t have a heart attack. Emotionally, he seemed to be experiencing one anyway.

It was almost quarter past nine on Tuesday, and it had been a pleasantly mild, affable night. Aziraphale, pouring over some of the new books Adam had left in the shop for him to uncover, had found the craving for hot chocolate becoming unbearable enough that it had torn him from his work.

He had then discovered he had no milk in the fridge. He could, of course, have made it with water but...He had standards, thank you very much.

So he had taken a short trot to the little corner shop in the next street, the opening hours of which were almost as unusual as his own, but by some little miracle not caused by him, always seemed to coincide with his schedule.

It had been, perhaps, fifteen minutes, all told, between his leaving and returning, and in that time, something had decided to take up residence on the low couch in the back room. Something that was shaped, and slouched, and sounded very much like-

“Crowley?” he ventured, taking a tentative step deeper into the shop and lowering the milk bottle, along with any delusion of it being an effective weapon against an intruder.

“Were you expecting someone else?” the lazy, achingly familiar, voice drawled from the shadows.

Aziraphale moved closer still and lit a lamp, one of the dimmer ones, out of consideration for the demonic nature and sensitive eyes of his guest, out of habit. And there he was. Crowley, in the flesh, sprawled on the couch in all his lanky glory, looking as though he’d been there all the time.

There was such a familiar rightness about the scene that it took Aziraphale a moment to recall his indignation.

It slammed into him, full force, like a very large freight train, as he remembered how wrong it had felt for so long without him.

“I was expecting you quite some time ago!” he blustered, his emotions a terribly complex cocktail of the type Crowley favoured, driving his voice several octaves higher than usual.

A part of him wanted to embrace the stupid, demonic fool out of sheer relief. He would be lying, which, as an angel, he tried not to do, if he said he hadn’t been concerned about him during his absence.  

But for all that, another part wanted to throw the milk bottle over him to make him react instead of sitting slouching there without an apparent care in the world.

Still another part was still quite tempted to drop the milk bottle all over the floor out of sheer shock.

And another part just wanted to collapse into the nearest chair and massage his temples while miracling up some very strong tea because it was all, frankly, just a little too much to take in.

He did none of that.

Instead he glared at Crowley, as much as he was able, he never felt his corporation quite had the face for glaring. No more than he had had the substance for it, if it came down to it. But for special occasions, he would make the effort.

Then he said, with as much indignation as he could muster, which he was actually quite impressed with, “It’s been nearly-“

“Yeah,” Crowley interrupted with that usual languid cool that Aziraphale normally found a soothing counterpoint to his own rather manic way of dealing with the world, but that right now as just downright infuriating. “Sorry about that. Had some stuff to do,” he said, vaguely.  

As far as apologies went, it was definitely bottom five. And there had been quite a lot of competition for those spots over the centuries.

Aziraphale swelled indignantly, like a very indignant bullfrog. 

“Stuff?” he repeated, with all the infuriated incredulity the angel Gabriel had directed at him once after learning he had used a, not entirely small, miracle to ensure that his favourite sushi restaurant didn’t close down.

“Crowley, I thought-“

“So, is it?” the demon interrupted, apparently not listening to a word Aziraphale was saying, or rather spluttering, at him.

“Is what- what?” Aziraphale said, thoroughly confused.

“That,” Crowley supplied, helpfully.

“Crowley-“ Aziraphale began in his best ‘you’re testing my patience, you stupid demon, just spit out what you’ve got to say so we can return to the little matter of your terrifying vanishing act’ voice.

“What you’re holding in your hand, angel,” he said, impatiently, as though he, Aziraphale, were the one being difficult in this scenario, “What you just went out and bought. Is it booze or what?”

“Actually, it’s milk,” Aziraphale replied, with dignity.

“Milk?” Crowley echoed flatly.

“Yes. I ran out, you see. And I was working, and I usually don’t want for much of anything when I’m working, especially if it’s a particularly good book, which this one was. But all of a sudden I had rather a strong craving for a mug of hot chocolate, but then I found I had no milk. And I could have used water but, well, I’m not an animal, so...“ Aziraphale babbled.

He was good at babbling. Probably too good at it, if truth be told. If there was a religious order that specialised in rambling, he felt sure he should join it. Not that there was ever likely to be anything quite as ridiculous as that, but one never knew.

Somewhere in the back of his mind a small voice was screaming at him and demanding to know why he was justifying himself in this moment, but he wasn’t paying it too much attention.

“Right, yeah, ‘course,” Crowley muttered. “Some things don’t change, I guess, no matter what happens to the world.”

“Crowley-“ Aziraphale began, finally taking heed of that little voice and trying to drag the very resistant conversation back to the ground it should be on at present.

“Even after the apocalypse,” Crowley interrupted him.

Though, as interruptions tend to require the intent to speak over another person to silence them, he didn’t feel that was quite the correct word for what Crowley was doing.

Crowley didn’t seem to be very aware that Aziraphale was trying to ask him questions. Or that he was speaking to him. Or that he was speaking at all.

He simply mumbled on, barely aware that he was speaking for that matter.

“Crowley-“ Aziraphale tried again.

“Sort of apocalypse,” Crowley said, head bobbing vaguely.

“Crowley-“

“Not really apocalypse at all, since Adam fixed it, y’know.”

“Crowley, I-“

“Some things changed, I suppose,” he mumbled, “Some things changed a lot. But not you, eh, angel. You’ll always just be you. Ineffable and angelic and-“

“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed, loudly.

Crowley jerked as though he had just branded him with holy lightning. “Yeah?” he said, raising his sunglass covered face to him, “Sorry. Carried away.”

At last he managed to put down his milk bottle on a nearby table, or other convenient hard surface, of which there were many in his bookshop, by design.  He swept over to the couch Crowley was slouching in, and peered down at him.

Here, he consoled himself, definitely, solidly, here. Physically, anyway. Mentally, Crowley seemed to be somewhere else entirely, but that wasn’t altogether unusual for him.

“Crowley I, I-“ he stammered, but apparently, simply because he now had an opening to speak, it didn’t make the words any easier to say, “I thought that you were dead,” he finally managed to say, in a kind of strangled whisper, as though his throat resisted releasing the words until the very last second.

A half-smile twisted Crowley’s lips at that. Usually his smiles, even the wicked ones, were still tinged with enough humanity that they never appeared all that sinister at all.  And, in all their time together, Aziraphale had never seen one that even scratched the surface of what you might describe as demonic.

This, though...This was not a smile that he recognised. There was something dark in it, something hollow, and ancient, and twisted. He felt some part of himself turn cold in return.

Crowley cocked his head to one side and said, with an admirable attempt at his usual languid ease, which was undercut by the way he had smiled just now,“We can’t die, angel. Remember?”

“I- don’t you be flippant with me!” Aziraphale blustered in response, feeling this reprimand was not at all going the way it had in his head. There wasn’t an awful lot of reprimanding for a one thing. And for another, Crowley clearly wasn’t understanding just how serious this had been for him.

They had passed quite some time, long, dusty centuries even, in the past, where they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of each other but this...This was different. They were different now. Before they had always, ultimately, been working for their respective head offices, and the Arrangement they’d had had always been secondary to that.

Now...Well, now, they had foiled an apocalypse together. They were on their side, now. Wasn’t that what Crowley had insisted to him? Things had felt different, they had been different. He was sure of that.

And he had worried. Being worried was something of a natural state of being for Aziraphale. Even when there was nothing to conceivably be worried about at all, his mind found something, latched on, and made mountains out of molehills until he had something suitably distressing to fret over.

This had begun as a mountain and twisted into a veritable Everest after only a few days. By this point, it had turned itself into an earth-consuming, Satanic sized, world-ending volcano of a thing, and it had nearly been enough to discorporate him all over again.

So, with one thing and another, Crowley’s current lackadaisical attitude, while in many ways expected, wasn’t really cutting it at present.

“I thought something terrible had happened!” He burst out, no longer able to keep his emotions in check, “I thought they had done something dreadful to you, and that’s why you hadn’t come back. I thought you’d been discorporated into a thousand tiny pieces, which had then been scattered to all the worst, most terrible, most twisted, and God-forsaken, isolated places in heaven, hell, and the known universe, to force you to exist forever in perpetual torment and agony!”

“With an imagination like that, you could be a demon, Aziraphale. Sure you haven’t Fallen after our little adventure with the antichrist?” Crowley said, sardonically.

Aziraphale opened his mouth to snap back the reply that this deserved. But then he shut it. And shook his head. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and composed himself as much as he could.

Then he whispered out the final thought, which had been the worst of all, “I thought that I would never see you again, Crowley.”

A little desperation tinged his words, desperation to make the damned demon do something, say something, feel something. So Aziraphale didn’t feel like the greatest fool anyone had ever seen in six thousand years for caring about him.

He didn’t understand how Crowley could be so...So unconcerned, so unbothered by any of this. He knew that the demon liked to put on a front, to pretend ignorance, or obliviousness, or simply that he didn’t care about anything.

But Aziraphale knew him better than that. He knew that that was a front. He knew that the demon did care. He knew that, behind those serpent’s eyes, there was a good heart, and a good person. He knew Crowley...Didn’t he?

“Well,” Crowley said, at last, “Now you can.” He gestured vaguely at his form, slumped on the couch as he had been slumping in it since Aziraphale had first purchased it, “Sorry to disappoint and all that.”

Aziraphale pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long, slow breath, which was all that stood between Crowley and a bottle of now lukewarm milk being smashed over his head.

“Really, Crowley,” he said in exasperation, “Sometimes you can just be so, so, so-“

“Demonic?” Crowley supplied, helpfully.

“Stupid,” Aziraphale concluded, with an affected little shudder to appropriately punctuate the point.

There was a long pause, in which Aziraphale duly hoped that Crowley was considering his recent actions, feeling serious remorse for them, and that any moment now, an apology would be forthcoming. A proper apology, this time.

“Have you got anything to drink?” Crowley slurred, in a way that told him he’d already helped himself to a number of alcoholic beverages on his way over here.

“Have I-“ Aziraphale repeated faintly.

Sometimes, sometimes, Crowley really did test him, really did tempt him to commit all manner of unnameable, unthinkable sins. There many little dinners, for a start. The Arrangement, for another. Preventing the apocalypse. And, in this moment, putting his hands around his throat and throttling some sense into him.

But no. That wouldn’t do. It would not be very angelic of him. So he resisted. With difficulty, it should be noted.

Instead, Aziraphale took a deep breath, stalked purposefully back over to his milk and said, “I shall make us both a cup of tea, and then we will talk about this,” he said, in a tone that strongly implied, you see if we don’t.

“Not gonna lie,” Crowley called after him as he headed towards the kitchen, “I was kinda hoping for something a little stronger.”

“I think you’ve had more than enough already, to be frank,” Aziraphale replied, a little tartly.

“Glad to see the near end of the world hasn’t changed you at all, angel,” Crowley half-shouted bitterly as he retreated into the sanctity of the kitchen.

If only you knew, Crowley....If only you knew.

Aziraphale could, naturally, have used a fairly minor miracle to create them tea but...There was something so familiar, so oddly routine, and comforting, and human about the process of making tea, that he leaned into it, and allowed it to calm him.

When he returned to the living room with the two cups of tea on a tray with a small plate of biscuits to go with it – because he might be angry with Crowley at the moment, but he wasn’t a barbarian – the demon hadn’t seemed to have moved from his spot sprawled on the couch.

With the light flickering on his face as it was now, hollowing out his already gaunt cheeks, and casting deep, dark shadows across him, he almost seemed a corpse.

Aziraphale stuttered in the doorway for a moment, before he managed to step forwards and set the tea tray down feeling a little troubled, all the same.

In all the years he had known him Crowley had always been a being of intense, continual, restless energy. He had to be doing something. Mostly he had to be doing at least two things at once to be in any way satisfied.

Whenever Aziraphale had left him alone for longer than it took to, well, blink, he had usually found him pulling books from their proper places and rifling through them, simply because he could, or was bored, or couldn’t think of a reason not to. Typically a combination of all three.

He opened his mouth to remark on the strangeness of this, but was distracted by a dark smudge on one of the demon’s high cheekbones, and changed tact mid-breath.

“Oh, you have something on your face. Here, let me-“

He reached forwards without thinking, but Crowley raised a hand and brushed it away before he could get near enough to even consider touching him.

“Oil”, he muttered, as Aziraphale drew away, and tried not to let the strangely keen pang of hurt show on his face, “From the car. It’s acting up a little, since Adam fixed it, y’know.”

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said, automatically, internally cursing himself for not sticking to what he had practiced in the kitchen – firm, stern, committed to his indignation.

“What for?” Crowley asked, frowning.

“The car. I know Adam sorted it out for you, just as he sorted out my bookshop,” he looked fondly around at the place, “But I know how much you loved it just as it was.”

“Demons don’t love things, angel,” Crowley replied, harshly, “Kinda the point.”

“All the same,” Aziraphale said, gently, refusing to be baited into an argument of this sort again.  

He had long ago learned not to try and correct Crowley when he spoke like this. It did neither of them any good.

Aziraphale had long since suspected that Crowley’s Fall still caused him pain, even to this day. He had never fully embraced his new role as a demon. There just wasn’t enough difference for him between angels and demons to ever accepted that he was completely one, or completely the other.

But sometimes he snarled, viciously, the truth of his being, as if to remind himself what he was supposed to be, and to reprimand himself for not doing it properly.

Aziraphale had always considered that conflict, tragic as it was, one of Crowley’s greatest qualities. For at the centre of that conflict lay his heart, always at war with his nature.

“You heard from your side recently?” Crowley asked unexpectedly after some time, during which he hadn’t so much as looked at his tea, which had caused Aziraphale to purse his lips at the distinct lack of manners on show, even for a demon.  

“No, I haven’t,” Aziraphale replied primly, sipping his tea pointedly and frowning slightly.

When last they had spoken, Crowley had insisted that neither of them had sides any more. They were simply on their own side.

He shifted into a more comfortable position and then said, “Have you?”

“Nah,” Crowley shrugged with characteristic nonchalance.

Aziraphale relaxed again, though with a slight nagging continuing to badger him all the same.

“Out of sight out of mind, I suppose,” Crowley mumbled, more to himself than to Aziraphale.

He still hadn’t touched his tea.

Aziraphale frowned slightly, and set his down on its saucer with a little more force than was strictly necessary, so it made an audible and insistent little tinkling sound to remind Crowley of his own.

“So,” he said, when it seemed blindingly obvious Crowley was content to sit in languid silence, staring vaguely into space, not addressing the planet-sized elephant in the room between them. “Are you going to tell me where you’ve been?”

Crowley sneered with such unexpected venom that Aziraphale started in surprise, “Since when we do we do that?” he demanded.

Since, but for us, the entire world almost ended. Since we cut ourselves off from our people, and everything we’ve known for six thousand years to do what we both felt was right, leaving us alone in this world, devoid of understanding, compassion, or aid, save for each other.

That was what Aziraphale thought.

What he actually said, rather lamely, was, “Well, you haven’t been around for some time, you know.”

He forced the words to be slow, and measured, forcing a control he certainly didn’t feel in this moment.

He had also tried to inject them with Crowley’s casual coolness, too, but he felt that was stretching the bounds of reality to a point even Adam couldn’t have managed, and gave up half-way through.

“Is it that unusual I might be curious, or even, dare I say it, a trifle worried about your whereabouts?” he demanded. Crowley said nothing, and now feeling rather foolish, he added, “Particularly after recent events I should add!”

Sarcasm was now starting to do rather more than tinge his words. It was oozing into them, filling up the gaps between the words, dripping between the contours of the letters. He did try not to lower himself to such things too often but, well, sometimes one just didn’t have a choice in present company.

Then there were the words themselves, which were definitely starting to run away with him. And he wanted to stop them, he did, he didn’t want to accost Crowley like this, that had never been his intention.

Only, well, now it was happening, and his voice was rising, and he was getting to his feet without ever telling his feet to get him, and he was ranting, yes, definitely ranting now, and a part of him didn’t care because, blast it all, it felt good after all this time.

“I had no idea where you were! You could have been anywhere! Anywhere! Heaven, or Hell, or some other forsaken place in between! I didn’t know when I would see you again. I didn’t know if I ever would see you again!”

He was breathing hard now, as though he had just run a race, but Crowley just continued to sit there, face perhaps a little tighter than it had been before, a muscle twitching in his jaw. But still, resolutely, saying nothing.

When he spoke at last, there was a cold, empty bitterness in his voice Aziraphale had never heard there before, “Thought you’d finally gotten rid of me, did you?” he asked.

This was so unexpected, so utterly, completely impossible to have foreseen that Aziraphale simply stared at him, mouth slightly open, eyes popping, as he continued, “Or maybe hoped-“

“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed, the bite in Crowley’s voice more than sharp enough to pull him unceremoniously from his state of temporary dumbfounded shock, “Crowley, I would never, I-“

“That’s the trouble with me, see,” Crowley said, thickly, his head lolling rather alarmingly on his neck as he fixed Aziraphale with a terrible grin, “I’m like a bad penny. I just keep turning up.”

“You, you shouldn’t say things like that,” Aziraphale said quietly, utterly thrown by the way this conversation was going, which was not at all what he’d anticipated or prepared himself for in the kitchen.

“What?” Crowley demanded harshly, “The truth, you mean? Thought that’s what your lot were all supposed to be about- The truth.”

“The truth can be....brutal, sometimes,” Aziraphale said carefully, “And cruel.”

“Right, well, that’s my department covered then, isn’t it? Is that what you mean?”

“No! Don’t twist my words in a way you know I would never use them,” Aziraphale said sharply, frown deepening.

Something was wrong. He had known it from the moment he spotted Crowley sprawled there on his couch but...Now he knew it.

“You are many, many things, Crowley,” he said, quietly, “But you have never, not even for a moment, in all the thousands of years I have known you, been cruel.”

“’S far as you know,” Crowley muttered, petulantly.

“I know,” Aziraphale said, calmly, refusing to rise to the obvious bait, “As surely as I know every inch, and every crinkled corner, of every page of my favourite book...I know.”  

Crowley said nothing to that, he just swayed slightly in his corner, expression curiously blank.

Aziraphale folded his hands neatly in his lap then examined them as he added, quiet but audible, “And, just for the avoidance of any and all doubt, you are, you know.”

“Am what? A demon? I’d spotted that for myself, thanks.”

“Wanted,” Aziraphale murmured softly. “You will always be wanted by me. And you will always be welcome here,” he said, firmly. “No matter what you may have done, or what may have happened. Always. Unconditionally. Eternally.”

Crowley was silent for a long moment, then he frowned slightly and hissed, “What are you getting at, angel?”

“Something is wrong,” Aziraphale said, simply.

He hadn’t wanted to address things quite so directly, but it seemed he now had no choice.

“Nothing is wrong,” Crowley jeered, in mocking mimicry of Aziraphale, waving his hand.

Aziraphale couldn’t help but notice that it trembled slightly.

“Something is wrong with you,” he pressed, firmly.

Crowley snorted, “There’ve been a lot of things wrong with me for about six thousand years,” he said, sardonically, “Have you just noticed?”

“You are out of sorts, you have been all night,” Aziraphale continued doggedly, refusing to be derailed now that he had started. “This is not- This is not like you, Crowley. Not at all.”

“Maybe it is,” the demon ventured, a cruel twist to his lips as he said it.

“It isn’t,” Aziraphale said, firmly.

If he knew anything in this strange new world of theirs, he knew that.

“Well maybe you just don’t know me as well as your precious old books!” Crowley hissed, baring his teeth at Aziraphale.

“You see!” Aziraphale erupted in frustration, “This is precisely what I’m talking about!”

Crowley suddenly surged to his feet and Aziraphale, startled, took a little step backwards.

He swayed a little unsteadily then said, thickly, “Aizraphale?”

“Yes, Crowley?” he replied, a little uncertainly.

“Go fuck yourself,” the demon spat.

He flicked his fingers in a vicious little movement, and the cup of still undrunk tea shot from the table like a bullet and smashed against the wall.

Aziraphale gave a little gasp as Crowley pushed past him, heading for the door, his shoulders hunched. Too stunned to do anything, Aziraphale simply stood, staring at the shattered remnants of his favourite tea cup lying amidst the slowly spreading pool of overly milky-tea he’d teased Crowley gently about for centuries.

He looked up at the sudden banging sound, which was all the warning he had to realise that Crowley had collapsed to the floor and was now shaking.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale cried, dropping down beside him and reaching out a trembling hand, “Crowley, what-“

He broke off, breath catching in his chest like a fly in a cobweb.

Something dark was trickling from beneath the lenses of Crowley’s glasses. It was black. Black like the ink that gave life to his beloved books and black like, like-

“Crowley-“ he whispered hoarsely.

The tips of his fingers brushed Crowley’s cheek, so gentle, so tentative, as though he were the one that was holy, and Aziraphale feared to sully him with a touch, feared it may crumble him into nothing. And just like that he would be gone again. And Aziraphale would be alone again. And that was a terror worth Falling a hundred times to avoid, but-

“We can’t die,” Crowley breathed softly, panting, as the ribbon of black wound its way down his cheek like a tear. “But we can wish we could.” Something in Aziraphale’s chest stuttered, and died. “We can still hope for it, angel,” Crowley continued, his words slurred, not with drink, he realised, belatedly, but with pain. “We can beg for it. We can pray for it.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, shaking his head weakly, the last efforts of a dying man trying to rid himself of the flies that called for his end.

Crowley shuddered, “But we can’t die, angel. For all our miracles, and all our power, all our divine origins...It’s the only thing we can never have.”

He didn’t want to hear this. He couldn’t stand to hear it. He had wanted explanation from Crowley, but he had wanted to tell him he’d gotten drunk in Paris a month ago and lost track of time until he sobered up. He didn’t want this. It couldn’t be this.

But he couldn’t stop him. He had never been able to stop him. For six thousand years he had drunk in the words of this demon when he knew he shouldn’t, when he knew that it could corrupt his angelic soul and damn him for all eternity.

But it had never felt like damning. It had never felt like corruption. It had felt as though his soul had been the blank pages, and Crowley’s words had inscribed themselves, each one, upon it. He was a part of him, now. He had woven himself into the fabric of his being from the moment he had slithered up beside him in Eden.

After all, a book without words was as pointless as a pen with no paper, as pointless as a teapot without tea, as pointless as good without the balance of evil...As pointless, in fact, as an angel without his demon.

So he asked. Though it broke him. Though it shattered him in a way no discorporation ever had. He asked him.

“Crowley, my dear boy, what did they do to you?”

Crowley couldn’t speak. He tried. He opened his mouth, but for once, no words dripped like honey from that easy serpent’s tongue of his.

Aziraphale didn’t need them to. He never really had. When you knew someone as long as they had, there were some things that didn’t need to be put into words to be known.

His hands curiously steady, for they needed to be, he needed to be, in this moment, Aziraphale reached up and placed his hands gently on Crowley’s glasses.

They were his shield, he knew. The great lie he told the world. There was a vulnerability to him without them. He seemed more naked, fully clothed, without them, than he ever could have standing in nothing but his skin with them.

He paused, trembling, and waited until he got the jerky nod of approval from Crowley before he gently slid them free, folded them up, and laid them down as tenderly as he would a baby bird.

“Look at me,” he whispered softly, sliding a finger beneath Crowley’s chin and encouraging him, gently, oh so gently. “Please, Crowley.”

Crowley, breathing heavily, did as he was bid, raised his head from the pool of shadow that had been his last protection against the horror of reality.

Aziraphale felt his stomach clench, and then turn.

He had known it. He had known it from the first moment he saw Crowley sitting there, somehow, he had known it. But that didn’t make it any easier to witness.

Where once his eyes, his beautiful, bright eyes, like glowing stars in a world of darkness had been, now there was nothing. Nothing at all. Two gaping black holes that silently wept black blood and mourned their own passing.

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered as he collapsed down onto the floor beside him, trying desperately to control himself for Crowley’s sake.

Even though all he wanted to do was cry, and fold him into his arms, and sob until there was nothing left of either of them.

Even though all he wanted was to rage, and storm the gates of Hell and rain holy water down upon them like a hurricane the likes of which had never been known before, until there was nothing left of them. Until he had obliterated it all so thoroughly that the mere memory of Hell was erased from the minds of anyone who had heard of it, and was wiped out from the pages of books that had once held its foul name.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He had to be strong, and he had to be here. Crowley needed him.

“Crowley,” he whispered, pain stretching every syllable of the word.

“Don’t,” Crowley mumbled, shrugging away from him, hunching in on himself, “If I wanted your pity, I’d ask for it.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to deny that he’d been feeling any such thing. Then he closed it again. Angels weren’t supposed to lie, after all...

“Crowley,” he whispered, voice suddenly hoarse, throat tight from his attempts to restrain his emotions, his body shaking for the same reason,“Crowley, you must let me put this right.”

The demon made a small noise of disbelief in the back of his throat, and Aziraphale couldn’t blame him.

He had failed him. He had not been there when this had happened, when he had been taken. If he had, perhaps he might have stopped it, perhaps he might have stopped them when they’d come for him, kept him safe, and-

No.

No had he been there he would have stopped it.

He would have stopped it, and reminded the filthy demons that would do this to him why they should never have so much as looked at his Crowley in a way that might even consider harm to him.

He would have reminded them why he had been given charge of the Eastern Gate of Eden. He would have reminded them why he had been entrusted with that flaming sword. He would have reminded them why Heaven had won the first war and that, just because he was an angel, that most certainly didn’t mean he didn’t know how to hurt. He did. And he would.

The only pity would have been that there would have been nothing left of them afterwards to remind the others.

“You can’t, angel,” he muttered bitterly, shaking his head.

“I can try,” Aziraphale replied firmly.

“I have,” Crowley spat out, hunching in on himself again with a look of pure self-disgust at, what he perceived, as the weakness that confession implied. “I have tried. I’ve tried everything, I- It- It’s hopeless,” he finished, shaking his head, still trembling uncontrollably. “They told me,” he choked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “They told me I could try everything, could try it for another six thousand years, and it wouldn’t make any difference.”

“You haven’t tried what I can do,” Aziraphale said, as gently as he could, holding his tongue with difficulty on the fact that of course the demons would lie to him about something like this, just to further hurt him. “You couldn’t have. Perhaps- They could make insurances against your power, as it mirrors their own, but not against mine.”

Crowley shook his head again, but he didn’t speak, and there was, perhaps, a faint glimmer of hope in him now, that had not been there a moment ago.

“Please, Crowley,” Aziraphale said trying, and failing, to stop his voice from cracking, “You must let me try. You must.”

It was selfish, a part of him knew, and the other part hated him for it.  

Oh he wanted to help Crowley, of course he did. But he also wanted to do something about the abyss of guilt that was opening up within his heart and burrowing straight down into the depths of his soul.

He had let this happen. He had not been careful enough, not watchful enough. He had not been there for him when this happened. Crowley had been forced to go through it alone. And now, in the aftermath, Aziraphale felt a compulsion so powerful it might destroy him if not relieved, to help, to do something, to fix him.

He always had.

Aziraphale stared at Crowley, watched the hope, the faint, terrible glimmer of it, flicker to life in him, like the embers of a fire that still glowed even after it had been doused.

Then, just as suddenly, he watched them die.

“You can’t angel,” he said again, shaking his head more firmly this time, fists clenched tight as if to stop himself begging for it.  

“You can’t possibly know that!” Aziraphale burst out with desperate impatience.

“I dunno if it’ll fix me,” Crowley bit out, his own temper flaring, “But I know your lot aren’t going to like you using a miracle this big on a demon,” he spat out the word as though it were poison. Then he continued, more flatly, “They’ll come for you, angel. And I’ve got enough to deal with it without adding that to the list.”

It would have hurt less if he’d stabbed him.

Crowley turned away, shaking his head, defeated, certain he knew precisely how Aziraphale would respond.

And for six thousand years before this very moment, he would have been right.

Even after everything that had happened, everything they had gone through, everything they had done, he had still not fully chosen a side. Not truly. Not in his heart.

He would have agreed with him.

He would have hurt, and he would have hated himself, and he would have been wracked with guilt about it for several centuries. But he would have remained on the fence. Trying to have his cake and eat it as it were. Not committing. Not choosing.

He chose now.

“Let them,” he said, very quietly.

Crowley started, “What?” he said, sounding a little dazed.

“Let them come,” Aziraphale said, more firmly, “Let them come, and let them try to stop me.”

Crowley was staring at him, mouth slightly open as Aziraphale swallowed and averted his eyes, sitting up a little straighter.

That had been frighteningly easy. He meant it. They both knew that he meant every breath of it. And it should have scared him, it should have terrified him but...But it didn’t.

In the moment, it seemed as though he had only just chosen, and the moment was suitably momentous for that.

But in truth, he had chosen years ago. Centuries, if truth be told.

“So,” he said, firmly, clasping his hands neatly together in his lap, trying to pretend his heart wasn’t beating so hard and fast it felt as though it might explode at any moment,“What do you say?”

At last, Crowley gave a shaky nod of consent, “Can’t do any harm, I guess,” he said, with an awful attempt at nonchalance, as though it didn’t really matter to him whether Azirphale tried or not, outlined by a poignant, desperate hope that Aziraphale felt radiating through the shattered remnants of the thing that had once been his heart.

“Just, just as long as you’re sure, angel,” he added softly, “There might not be any going back after this.”

“I’m sure,” Aziraphale said, softly, “I am surer on this than I have ever been of anything in my life, I promise you.”

Crowley reached out clumsily, found Aziraphale’s hand, and squeezed it once.

“Right,” Aziraphale said, briskly, pushing himself to his feet and trying to push away his mounting emotions with action.

He knelt down, lifted Crowley carefully to his feet, apologising softly as he winced. The he guided him back to the couch he had recently vacated.

Crowley collapsed down with his usual inelegance, leaving Aziraphale to kneel down primly in front of him.

“I’m going to put my hands on your temples now,” he said, quietly, and caught Crowley’s sharp nod of confirmation that he had heard and consented.

Aziraphale gently laid the tips of his fingers on either side of Crowley’s ravaged eyes, took a deep breath, and prepared himself. It had been quite a while since he had done this. Or at least, since he had done anything quite as, quite as bad as this.

“I, I’m going to begin now,” he warned him, “This may sting a little.”

Crowley let out a soft snort of derisive laughter at that.

Taking a deep breath, Aziraphale began softly chanting, his eyes half-closed, focusing, channelling every bit of power at his disposal into the healing, chanting softly under his breath as he did so.

Once or twice he felt Crowley twitch beneath him, but the demon did not pull away, and as he finished, letting his eyes flutter open properly, he could see a bright light flickering within the empty holes where Crowley’s eyes had once been.

 He could see it shaping into eyes, taking cues from Crowley’s body, and mind, and memory, as to what had once been there, putting right what had been lost. He could see them becoming clearer, sharpening, focusing, solidifying-

Then Crowley screamed.

He screamed as though Aziraphale had just shot holy water directly into his veins.

As Aziraphale watched, petrified, he slid from the couch, trembling and clutching his head, still screaming, and screaming, and screaming.

It was the worst sound Aziraphale had ever heard in six thousand years. Worse than the first war between Heaven and Hell, worse than any atrocity he’d ever experienced on Earth, worse than anything he could ever have imagined.

Until it stopped.

The silence that followed was more devastating than the end of the world could ever have been, and every part of him became cold as death in answer.

Crowley’s body trembled. Aziraphale felt his very existence shiver, and he knew that he had made a terrible, terrible mistake.

Crowley had come to him after, after what they had done to him. Because of course he had. Because that was what he did. It was what they both did. They came to each other when they needed someone most.

And they would have known that. Those demons that had done this to him. Of course they would have known that. And of course they would have set things up so that when he inevitably tried to heal him, instead he would, he would-

Oh God. Oh God. Oh-

“Aziraphale-“ Crowley rasped, one hand reaching out blindly, desperately, seeking for him, an anchor amidst the storm tossed seas of his fear, which was palpable.

The angel dropped down beside him and took his hand. Then decided, to Hell with it, and he simply drew the demon into his lap, cradling his body, not sure which of them was shaking more in this moment.

“I feel strange, angel,” Crowley whispered, gazing blindly upwards as though he could suddenly see more than he ever could before. “I feel...I feel...cold,” he frowned slightly, as though he’d just realised the absurdity of what he’d said. Demons were creatures fuelled by hellfire, they did not get cold. Not unless-

“I don’t think I’ve been cold since I, since I-“

He broke off and convulsed in Aziraphale’s arms and in that moment he felt sure – with the kind of burst of blinding certainty that comes with the kind of horrific revelations that leave permanent scars upon the soul – that this would not be a mere discorporation. This had been designed for Crowley to-

“No!” he burst out, giving him a little shake, which was decidedly not something he had ever been taught when he learned healing rituals, but seemed to have the desired effect on Crowley all the same. “No, Crowley I, I forbid this, I absolutely forbid it,” he choked, because if he forbade it absolutely there was no way it could happen.  

“Do you- Do you hear me, Crowley?” he demanded sharply, the effect somewhat ruined by the way his voice broke on his name. “I forbid you, I forbid you to die on me.” He carded his fingers through the demon’s thick red hair, barely knowing what he was doing or saying, “Not now,” he breathed, tears dampening his eyes, “Not after everything.”

“Angel,” Crowley interrupted hoarsely, stirring slightly, “We can’t die, ‘member?”

“Then I forbid you to leave me!” Aziraphale snapped, half-terrified, half-frustrated that, even on the edge of discorporation, the demon was the most vexing creature he’d ever come across in over six thousand years, and entirely overwhelmed. “In any way. At any time. For any reason! Because I can’t- I won’t- I, I refuse to do this without you, Crowley!”

Crowley stilled, and Aziraphale felt the shadow of death whisper on the back of his neck like a cold breeze.

“Crowley!” he cried in desperation.

Aziraphale’s wings burst from his back in his panic, sending books and papers scattering over the floor. In some distant, inconsequential place, he had the shattering of his own teacup.

“Crowley, no! Stay with me now, come on, stay with me. Oh God. Oh God please. Please don’t take him from me. Crowley, Crowley please don’t leave me. Please. Oh what have I done?” he rasped, tears flooding from his eyes as he gripped the demon close to him, as though he thought to fuse them together and keep him safe within his soul. “What have I done? Oh Crowley, Crowley, Crowley-“

Crowley made a soft, muffled sound against Aziraphale’s waist coat, and Aziraphale started, drawing back slightly and peering down at him with streaming eyes.

“Crowley?” he whispered in disbelief.

“Untwist your knickers, angel,” Crowley ground out with characteristic tact, “’M alright.” He patted Aziraphale vaguely on the back and repeated, a little more firmly, as though he knew Aziraphale hadn’t quite taken it in, “’M alright, angel.”

Oh.

Now that he looked at him properly he realised that, by some miracle or other, he rather did seem to be alright. He felt heat and colour flood his cheeks

Aziraphale felt as though he had just aged another six thousand years within the span of around six seconds.

He closed his eyes and deflated dramatically, “Oh thank-“

“Language,” Crowley intoned.

“Sorry,” Aziraphale replied, automatically.

“Fuck” Crowley groaned, shifting uncomfortably in Aziraphale’s arms, “Promise you’ll never do this to me again, angel. It’s more painful than watching you do your magic act.”

Aziraphale snorted, rather inelegantly, through his tears, and hastily wiped his nose.

Crowley frowned up at him, face scrunching, “Angel, are you crying?” he demanded.

“No!” Aziraphale cried, indignantly, “I most certainly am not.”

“You are,” Crowley crowed, with rather indecent delight, given the circumstances.

“I, I-“ Aziraphale blustered, “For God’s sake, Crowley! I thought I had just killed you! I’m sure that in my position you might be a little, well, distressed, too!”

Crowley seemed to seriously consider this for a moment. Then he said, easily, “Nah, wouldn’t be that bothered to be honest.”

“Oh shut up!” Aziraphale snapped, but with a certain level of affection.

Crowley wheezed with laughter. Then just wheezed and began hacking and spluttering in Aziraphale’s arms. Aziraphale, because he was an angel after all, patted him on the back and miracled him up a glass of water.

Aziraphale pulled him a little closer, running his fingers absently through his hair, thinking a number of decidedly unangelic thoughts about what he would like to do to the demons responsible for this whole affair.

Finally, Aziraphale decided that the universe had reached a balance between Crowley’s general well-being, and his shredded nerves. So he scooped the demon up, steered him back to his couch, deposited him there (gently), then moved towards the kitchen.

“Where are you going?” Crowley demanded, something that almost sounded like fear bleeding into his words, one hand half-raised, fingers brushing at the hem of his sleeve.

“Don’t let this go to your head now, dear,” he said, “But I’ve decided you were right. We need something decidedly stronger than tea.”

He returned some time later, rather longer than it should have taken to fetch two glasses and fill them with wine, during which he composed himself as much as he could.

Crowley was still sitting where he had left him, looking only mostly dead now, as opposed to utterly.

Aziraphale gently tapped him on the shoulder with his glass, and waited patiently as he fumbled a little before taking it from him.

He took a long gulp, then considered, as Aziraphale sat primly down on the chair opposite him, and sipped his wine a little more slowly.

Aziraphale opened his mouth to comment on the vintage and the unusual flavours of this bottle of wine in particular that had been lurking in the back of his shop for quite some time now.

But Crowley said, a little thickly, “Six thousand years. Figure I’ve seen pretty much everything there is to see. ‘S no great loss really, is it?”

Aziraphale closed his eyes and bit his lip until it was painful to force himself to control his emotions.

“Crowley, I am so-“ he began, shakily.

“Don’t,” Crowley interrupted him, a bite of impatience in his voice.

“What?”

“Apologise.”

“But my dear,” Aziraphale murmurs softly, unable to stop himself, “What they’ve done to you, I-“

“Wasn’t your fault,” Crowley said, gently.

Somehow, the words didn’t sound mechanical, or knee-jerk, or forced, or even bitter. Instead, there was an aching softness to them, a warmth there has no right to be a...A deep sincerity.

Aziraphale knew, in that moment, that he had heard more truth spilled from his demon’s lips than all the angels of Heaven had ever spoken in their holy immortal lives. Or likely ever would.

And so he spoke his truth. Because fair was fair. And because he couldn’t stop the words from coming.

“It should have been me,” he whispered, hoarsely, trembling, “I should have been there. I should have been punished, too.”

Crowley frowned, frowned the same way he had that time they had both gotten extremely drunk together, around 1932, and he had asked Crowley, jokingly, how long they’d been on Earth together in seconds.

The poor dear had looked so thoroughly confused, and in the end, had broken down sobbing, saying he couldn’t do maths quickly enough because there were always more seconds adding on all the time and he could never count them all.

His face was a perfect mirror of that confusion in this moment, too.

“Good would that have done?” he demanded, finally.

Then he shook his head and taking another swig of wine, as though that would be the end of that conversation.

“I was responsible too,” Aziraphale croaked, unable to find any levity in the matter whatsoever. “Any punishment should have been shared equally between us. The burden should not have been placed entirely upon your shoulders.”

“It’s not as though you asked them to just punish me and leave you out of it. And-“ he added forcibly, voice rising along with a stern finger to silence Aziraphale. Even though he could no longer see him, he seemed to have been able to sense the impending interruption all the same. “Pretty sure I tempted you into it, technically, so you know...”

Aziraphale laughed at that. It was a hollow, bitter thing, and it echoed off all the harsh truths Heaven had carved into him over the years.

“What a mockery they have made of us,” he said, darkly, “When a demon has to tempt an angel into doing the right thing.”

He shook his head, and downed the rest of his wine. He was going to need to open another bottle soon, they were getting through it rather quickly. And with good reason.

“’M glad you’re okay,” Crowley said, so quietly, Aziraphale almost missed it.

“Pardon?” Aziraphale said, with impulsive politeness, quite sure he’d misheard.

“I’m glad that they didn’t hurt you,” Crowley repeated, more loudly this time.

Aziraphale didn’t know what to say to that, so he simply mouthed at Crowley like a stunned goldfish.

Then Crowley suddenly let out an almost hysterical little laugh, that just as quickly choked and died, rising as what he might have sworn was a muffled sob. He took another long swig of wine, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then turned a tortured face to Aziraphale. It took everything in him not to rush forwards and embrace him.

“When my lot took me, I figured your lot had come for you, too,” Crowley said, suddenly, with the inexorable forward motion of a train that has come off the rails, doesn’t know how to get back on them, and cannot stop, so must plough resolutely on and hope for the best.

“I thought that was it. We were both done. No more tricks, no more games, no more chances just- Over.”

Aziraphale stared at him, quiet, gripping his now empty wine glass so tightly he feared it might shatter. But he didn’t really care.

He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t think he could stand to hear it. But he couldn’t not. Crowley needed to say it, and he needed someone to listen, needed someone to share this burden with. And Aziraphale would not, could not turn him away when he needed him.

“All those films humans make, they always say in them that when you’re about to die, you think of all the things you should have done. All the things in your life you would have done you never did, or all the things you would have changed, but I never did.”

“What-“ Aziraphale cleared his throat and tried again, “What, what did you think of?”

Crowley raised his hollowed, empty eyes to him and said, simply, “You.”

Aziraphale nearly dropped the wine glass he was holding. Something, luck, demonic miracle, divine intervention, stopped him.

“I thought of, of all the stupid stuff. Stuff I didn’t even think would matter all that much at the time. But stuff that made me...made me happy. Made me feel like me. D’you know what I mean?”

Aziraphale nodded, then he, he remembered, and managed to rasp out, “I, I think I do.”

“Rain storms in Eden,” Crowley said, a faint smile daring to tug at the corner of his mouth, “Shakespeare in the globe. Jail cells in Paris. Ducks in St James’ park.” He swallowed, throat bobbing, and went on, more softly, “I dunno why that’s what I thought of. I dunno what good it did but...I think it was right. That at the end, it was you and me, the way it was at the start. And I guess, if the humans are right...It just shows that...I did the right thing. That, demon or not...We did the right thing.”

Aziraphale couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe, either. The fact that he didn’t, technically speaking, need to, shouldn’t be considered when determining his emotional state.

“And I figured, one way or another, however it happened, I’d never see you again,” Crowley said, his voice something that resembled more half-whisper than speech, now. “Guess I was right. Even if it didn’t happen the way I thought it would,” he said, gesturing towards his ruined eyes with a stab at black humour.

Aziraphale closed his own with despair.

“That’s the hardest part, y’know,” he mumbled, “It’s not the car, or the driving, or the humans and whatever weird shit they’ll come up with next. It’s not even my plants.. It’s you.”

“My dear,” Aziraphale said, with a near-hysterical little laugh of incredulity, “You’ve seen me for six thousand years. I don’t think you’ll forget what I look like it- It’s not so bad as all that, surely?” he said, with a false optimism that sounded hollow even to his ears.

“But that’s what I was most afraid of. In that moment. When it was-“ he swallowed, “When it was happening.” Aziraphale resisted the urge to leap from his chair and seize Crowley’s hand and hold it tight, as if that would stop the hurting, with great difficulty. “And I realised...I realised afterwards that I was right.”

Aziraphale stared at him. He could breathe now. But he didn’t dare to. This moment felt holy, sacred, to interrupt it with anything, even the faintest breath, would have been sacrilege.

“They were right, too,” he continued, “They knew just how to torture me. Now I’ll never get to see you again, all big eyes and flapping hands ‘cause I drive too fast. Or how pleased you look when they remember at that little cafe down the street that you don’t like your beans touching your toast, ‘cause you’ll never ask. Or that little smile on your face when you read your favourite part of your favourite book for the hundredth time or-“ he took a deep breath, as though his brain had caught up with what his mouth was saying, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to continue.

But then he did.

Almighty be praised. He did.

“Or the way,” he said, so softly, “The way you look whenever you look at me.”

“Crowley-“ Aziraphale began, voice strangled.

“Don’t,” Crowley interrupted him, and he sounded so broken, and so divine, all at once, that he found he couldn’t speak. “Even if I can’t ever see it again, I know, I know what I’ve seen before.” He raised his head, and somehow found Aziraphale, pinned him with that empty stare and said, “I know you, too, angel. And I know...I know how you’ve looked at me when you thought I couldn’t see. I know...Don’t I?” he breathed.

Those last words sounded like a prayer.

Crowley hadn’t prayed for six thousand years. Since before his Fall. And now here he was, metaphorically on his knees, praying for him.

And just like that, Aziraphale felt himself fall.

It didn’t hurt. It didn’t feel like damnation. It didn’t feel as though his soul was burning in the unearthly fires of Hell. It didn’t feel wrong, or traumatising, or like the death he never thought he could know as an immortal but for that.

It felt like coming home.

And so he said, soft, and gentle, and right, “Yes, my dear. You do.”

Crowley sat and stared at him with pure awe on his face. In all the years he’d known him, Aziraphale had never seen that expression before, and had never thought to see it either.

But in this moment, with adoration carved into his features as if by God herself, the candlelight gilding him with a radiant warmth, Aziraphale knew, somehow, that this was how Crowley had looked when he’d painted the stars onto the empty canvas of the night sky.

And he knew, with just as much inexplicable certainty, that that was where he belonged.

Aziraphale was never conscious of moving. He never gave his body instructions to go to Crowley. Yet suddenly, he was there, right beside him, Crowley’s face cradled gently, so gently, in his hands.

And he knew, with a deep, absolute certainty that radiated from his soul, that this was where he belonged.

How absurd, for an angel to belong with a demon. But it wasn’t absurd at all. It was right. Neither could exist without the other. That was the fundamental truth of good and evil. You couldn’t have one without the other. Two sides of the same coin, so to speak. They were both wholly necessary to the other’s existence. They had been for six thousand years and, Aziraphale felt quite certain, would continue to be for another six thousand.

The ball of his thumb traced lightly over the smooth angle of Crowley’s cheekbone, like a sculptor marvelling at his life’s greatest achievement.

And it was.

Six thousand years this moment had been in the making. For six thousand years, every breath they had drawn, every step they had taken, every word that had slipped past their lips had done so to bring them here.

They had carved this moment out from a universe that had never wanted it. With blood, and sweat, and tears, they had made it happen anyway.

Six thousand years.

Six thousand years for a single touch.

It was worth it.

Every single, interminable, ineffable second was worth it for this moment. To be able to touch him like this, skin against skin, their truths laid bare at last, their hearts held out in their hands. It felt rather as though his soul had just brushed against Crowley’s soul, in the most perfect collision since the Creation.

Aziraphale was an angel. He had been made from Heaven, made by God’s own hands, an instrument of Her will, a sliver of her own self.

But not until this moment had he truly understood the meaning of divinity.

“Angel,” Crowley murmured, sounding quite drunk, though he’d barely had a single glass of wine, “I can taste what you had for lunch right now. That better mean you’re about to kiss me.”

Aziraphale huffed out a laugh and shook his head, a smile blossoming across his lips, “You are incorrigible, you know.”

“Demon,” Crowley reminded him in a low hiss, baring his teeth in a terrible grin that immediately made Aziraphale want to kiss it off his stupid handsome face.

“Yes, you are,” Aziraphale agreed, fondly, thumb gently stroking his face. “But I am an angel, and must remember my manners. So, yes, I fully intended to kiss you, my dear, but I had to ask your permission first.”

Crowley let out a soft groan, “You have it,” he breathed, “By everything holy and damned, you have it, angel.”

So Aziraphale kissed him.

Contrary to popular belief, the world did not stand still the moment their lips met. Explosions did not take place within their chests, or their hearts, or their souls. Or anywhere else for that matter. And a choir of heavenly angels did not descend from above to serenade them, which would have been wholly inappropriate, anyway.

What did happen, was two wandering souls that had been lost for a very long time, finally found their way home.

After a long time, or, perhaps, no time at all, Aziraphale was never very sure, they drew apart.

What he was sure of was that Crowley smiled at him when they did, and said, “To us?”

And Aziraphale smiled right back and breathed, reverently, “To us,” before Crowley kissed him again.

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

[donttellpeterparker]

Euro Trip Part 3

Summary: A trip of a lifetime right? Going abroad with your friends and the guy you were head over heels for... how could anything possibly go wrong?

Requested: Yes

Word Count: 3.2k+

Warning(s)?: FFH Based, Please don't read if you haven't seen FFH

Taglist: @editsbyjenny, @campcampie, @peter-parkerdeservedbetter, @jackiehollanderr, @lukesbabylon, @fangeekkk, @kaylaisafangirl, @pfctparker, @mutuallynotmutual

masterlist (x) request (x)

——————————————————

Part 1, Part 2, Part 4

Euro Trip

Eventually after a while I left my room to rejoin the others down stairs. I was freshly cleaned and was wearing a new set of clothes so I couldn't smell the sea water anymore.

''It's aliens, it has to be'' I could hear Ned wonder aloud happily at his laptop. I decided the stairs and decided to sit on the second last one, peering up at the tv screen ahead. The news were in Italian but I could make out most of the words. Thanks mandatory Italian lessons in primary school.

''Well this news says that and explorer was building an experimental underwater generator and was exposed to radiation leading to hydro powers'' Flash chimes in, walking around with his phone. I tried to stifle a laugh at how ludcaris it sounded.

''Yeah, you should definitely believe everything that's reported on the news'' I voiced, Ned turning to face me with a small smile. I returned it before glancing up at the screen once again.

''Spider-man could take him'' Flash speaks to me, eyeing me dead straight. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion.

''What do you think it is?'' I peeked over to see Mr Harris standing next to Mr Fitz, both engrossed with the news on the television. Well they weren't alerted at all, they looked at it with intrigue instead of horror.

''You know, being a man of science, witches'' I rolled my eyes at this but smiled nonetheless at what Mr Fitz had said.

''No, no, no, no we wanna stay, we wanna stay'' My ears perked up at the sound of Peter's voice not too far away, I leaned over the stairs in my spot to see him talking on the payphone. I quickly go back before he spots me.

''Yeah'' Why was I listening in on this conversation anyway? It was none of my business.

''Dr Strange, okay? Dr Strange and no, I don't even know who that was, new guy, I was trying to help him but-'' Wait, what? Now this conversation got interesting. I leaned closer to try and hear clearer though nothing was being said for a little while. Why was he so interested in the Avengers?

''Happy's there?'' Peter questions into the phone, his eyes furrowing in confusion.

''Hey.. Happy'' Peter trailed off once he heard Happy's voice on the other line. What was he doing with his aunt?

''W-what are you doing...?'' Peter grew more and more confused by the second.

''A few set backs, for sure'' I was so beyond confused at the point so I decided to tune out, focus on the tv again.

''Who is that guy?'' Jenny speaks up, her hand on Ned's shoulder.

''He's like Spider-man and Iron man rolled into one'' Brad speaks up with a smirk. He was very impressed with this new 'mystery' guy.

''Yeah right, he's no Spider-man'' Flash's comment again perked my interest.

''What is it with you and Spider-man?'' I asked. Flash turns to me and smiles.

''What? he's awesome okay? And you know... he protects the neighbourhood and he inspires.. inspired me to be a better man'' Flash states almost as if he was slightly ashamed with it. However his demeanor soon changed once he saw Peter.

''What's up, dickwad, thought you'd drowned?'' He asked sarcastically. Peter just smiled and gave him the thumbs up, finding the entire situation very amusing. If only he knew, Peter thought.

''Sounds like he's Mysterio'' Brad speaks to everyone, his arms crossed over his chest.

''Well fatto di mistero in Italian means 'made of mystery', they don't know who he is'' I voice, earning an impressed smile by both Brad and Peter. I just smiled to both shyly and dropped my head down.

''Mysterio..'' Brad tried out the name, Ned and Jenny catching on.

''Cool name'' They said in sync. They soon both turned to face each other in awe.

''Babe'' Once again, synced. I turned my eyes away from the lovey dovey couple and turn to face Peter.

''So how much of that did you actually see?'' Peter figured if he talked to you about it in front of everyone else you couldn't shy away.

''Not much I was... running'' I kept my answers sweet and short, not really wanting to speak with him at the moment.

''Running, right, me too I was also running.. away'' Peter's arms were crossed over his chest yet he still seemed deflated. I just rolled my eyes and glanced away, knowing he was lying yet again.

''So, Paris tomorrow'' Peter speaks again, hating the thought of you staying mad at him.

''Like the Eiffel Tower and stuff...'' Peter trailed on, not knowing where to go with this. His plan was still barely intact after today's events.

''Yeah, you can see everything from up there, they even have this very nice french restaurant on top, it's why it's my favourite place in the entire world'' You glanced down at the Eiffel Tower charm on your bracelet and smiled softly to yourself, admiring it.

''Great'' Peter laughed nervously to himself, feeling himself deflate even more with pressure.

~*~*~*~*

''Okay, drink lots of water and I'm going to get you a vitamin D'' Jenny speaks to Ned with a hand on his shoulder. I glance at the two and roll my eyes but smile anyway, carrying my heavy back pack and dragging my suit case along the concrete. After yesterdays events they decided to reschedule Paris and instead go someplace else. I had no idea where we were going to yet but I woke up very disappointed. Paris was the one place I was looking forward to exploring the most and now we weren't even going.

''Good news! We're going to Prague'' What? I let out a huff as everyone else echoed 'what's' and no's'. I stopped dragging my suitcase and crossed my arms over my chest.

''The tour company called and upgraded us, you should have heard me on the phone, I really gave them hell'' Mr Harris spoke up before ushering all of us to get on the bus.

''Look at our bus!'' Mr Harris exclaims excitedly, being the first to hop on. I follow behind everyone else and peak one last glance over my shoulder. It had only been 24 hours since chaos had broken loose and yet everyone seemed so calm already, as if nothing had even happened in the first place.

''I'm impressed Mr Harris!'' Mr Fitz calls out as everyone else cheer in agreement.

''What happened Peter?'' Ned asks Peter just a few meters in front of me, obviously not seeing me yet.

''Excuse me'' I polite say to both of them as I move my suitcase between them between the narrow alleyway.

''Hey Y/N''

''Hi Peter'' I responded swiftly, not making eye contact. Peter frowns as he watches you approach the bus but quickly turns back to Ned.

''I think Nick Fury just high jacked our summer vacation''

~*~*~*~*

''Yo waddup guys it's you're boy the big F, I am on this very fancy and very nice bus still touring with my peeps for Summer Vacay'' I rolled my eyes at Flash who was only sitting in the row in front of me. I placed my book down and tapped his shoulder, sending him a bittersweet smile.

''Mind toning it down for us commoners?'' Flash visibly frowned and quickly ended his live stream, turning back to the front. I rolled my eyes once more before returning to my book.

''What's up your butt today'' My best friend asks from beside me, reading her magazine. I let out a sigh and turn to face her with a small smile.

''Long night'' I lied, not really up for talking. All she did was nod, not entirely convinced but dropped the subject anyway.

''Wanna do this crossword puzzle together?'' She asks. I smile and nod, grabbing a pen from my backpack as we started on the puzzle together. Peter decided to sit all the way up in the back so he could have some space to think. This whole vacation was not going to plan. First, he ends up messing up the whole airplane ride thing, next is a huge monster starts reigning in Venice and now Nick fury as high jacked his whole vacation. All he wanted to do was to spend some time with you and Ned.

He reached into his backpack and pulled out the glasses case Nick Fury had given him last night. He opened the lid and decided to pop them on, finding a note at the bottom.

''For the next Tony Stark, I trust you, say Edith'' He reads aloud, the glasses going blue and a voice speaking startling Peter.

''Hello, stand by for a full surfaces scan'' Peter's eyes darted everywhere alone the lens of the glasses, watching tabs pop up and down and faces of his classmates show as well.

''Surface scan complete, hello Peter I am Edith, Tony's 'Even Dead I'm The Hero' P.I system, would you like to see what I can do?'' Peter just leans back, dumbfounded but nods anyway.

I cheered along with my best friend once we finished the crossword puzzle, both of us probably sounding like complete dorks. I lent back in my chair and turned my attention to the rocky mountain face outside my window. It was nice to finally sit and relax again.

We soon pulled over at a nearby camp ground. The bus parked and the driver opened the doors. He hoped out soon followed by everyone else.

''Running guys! 10 minutes!'' The accent was quite thick and I couldn't quite placed it. I stepped out of the bus after my friend and scanned his attire with my eyes. Why was he all in black? He kinda looked like an assassin. Wouldn't that be funny, an assassin escorting us across continents.

''I'm gonna go to the toilet with Mindy, I'll be right back'' My best friend speaks up from beside me, pulling Mindy along with her.

''10 minutes!'' I called out, trying to copy the accent our nameless driver had. He must of heard me because he turned to face me and frowned, almost seeming angry too.

''H-hey Y/N, what's up?'' Peter quickly rushed in, patting the guy on the back as if they were pals before he walked back onto the bus with the same scowl etched onto his face. I stared between the both and raised an eyebrow.

''Same as I was three hours ago Peter, I'm good'' I stared back at the bus to try and get a good look at him before Peter jumped in front of my view. He points beside him and laughs nervously to himself.

''So our bus driver is one scary dude, right?'' He laughs again. I just nod my head but keep my eyes trained on the mystery guy.

''You could say that...'' My voice trailed off. My eyes left the guy once I grew bored and instead stared at Peter running off into the distance. Well okay then.

''Turns out I didn't really need to pee, and the bathrooms were really nasty'' I just smiled and shook my head, turning around to face my best friend and Mindy.

''We are in the middle of nowhere, I'd be worried if they were 5 star'' With that we all began to climb back on board the bus.

~*~*~*~*

''Edith?'' Peter asks nervously, popping his glasses back on.

''Hello Peter, how can I help you?'' She replies in her gentle tone. Peter looks behind him frantically, seeing Brad typing away on his phone. He was in major shit.

''Hi, there's this guy who's in our class and he's kinda getting in the way of me and-'' Peter frantically rambles before being cut off by Edith.

''I'm sorry Peter, I am having trouble hearing you, can you please speak up?'' She asks soothingly.

''Brad Davis, he's a student'' Peter speaks a little louder though not too loud for anyone else to hear him.

''Brad Davis, is he a target?'' Edith asks. Peter quickly glances over his shoulder towards Brad. He sees through his glasses the photo he took of him in a compromising position and reads the message being sent to you.

''Yeah, yeah he's a target'' He quickly says, spinning back around before Brad could notice him.

''Brad Davis, finalizing target, initiating strike'' Edith speaks up as Peter sees a bunch of information fly across his lens.

''Initiate what now?'' Peter asks slightly worried.

''Enter center point confirmed, releasing drone into the atmosphere'' Edith says.

''Edith-'' Peter tries to say but it's too late. He spins to face the back of the bus and stands, seeing the drone in the distance.

''Oh my god'' He mutters to himself, taking the glasses off. Flash quickly snatches them out of his grasp and begins to play with them.

''Dope glasses Peter, how did you pay for these?'' Flash asks, flipping the glasses around. Peter looks over to Flash worriedly and tries to get them back.

''They're mine Flash, give them back'' Peter urges.

''Nah Peter'' Flashes continues to play with them as Peter senses the drone approaching closer and closer.

''Flash!" Peter whisper yells, Flash still not paying attention to him.

''Oi, calm down-'' Flash pops them on. Peter desperately reaches for them but ends up slapping him in the face by accident, Flashes head falling back onto his backpack.

''I am so sorry'' He utters quickly before reaching for the glasses and quickly popping them on.

''Edith, don't kill Brad'' He quickly urged.

''Do you want me to eliminate the target on Brad Davis?'' Edith asks, wanting confirmation.

''Did you just punch Flash?'' Casey asks Peter, eyeing him weirdly.

''No'' Peter says to Casey.

''Firing'' Edith says, the drone launching it's mini rocket. Peter's eyes widen. He quickly spins around and shoots a web at the steering wheel, jerking the whole bus towards the cliff. The mirror comes off as everyone begins to panic.

I hold onto the chair for dear life as I see the cliff face growing closer to my window. I inch away and towards my best friend as the bus jerks to the other side and continues till the bus begins to lose control.

We hit the railing causing the whole bus to shake. I see Peter stand up and utter something to himself then bend down again, popping on a pair of sunnies.

''Peter, why don't you sit down and buckle up?'' Mr Harris urges worriedly. Peter looks to him and shakes his head.

''I'm fine'' Peter responds, glancing at you once before back to the back of the bus. I turn my head as well and notice a drone like figure flying through the sky not too far behind the bus.

''What in hell?'' I mutter to myself freighted. Everyone else turned around once Peter called out. We all watched the drone hit the bridge to the east and explode on impact. We all jump back in front, the driver regaining control of the wheel. I turned my eyes to the front to notice Peter standing up still, his hair all disheveled now.

''I'm not feeling too great'' My best friend speaks from beside me, looking pale.

''We need a bucket over here guys-'' I begin to call out but it was too late. She lent forward and puked. The whole class recoiled back in disgust as I just sat there, scrunching my nose.

''And some paper towels'' I finish.

~*~*~*~*

We all hoped off the bus as we got it cleaned and aired out. I walked over to stand by my friend who still looked very pale.

''Okay, Y/F/N sit up the front with me so we can keep our eyes on the horizon, everyone back to their seats!'' Mr Harris called out. Everyone began piling back on the bus but I felt someone grab my hand, stopping me.

''Hey Y/N..'' I turned to face Brad and forced a smile.

''Hey Brad'' I was still very freaked out from what happen minutes before. He glances down at his feet then to his phone, seeming nervous.

''Are you okay?'' I ask, growing a little concerned.

''I had this photo but... it's gone now, what the hell?'' Brad talks to himself, flicking through his phone. I just stare at him weirdly then over to the bus to see almost everyone back on.

''That doesn't make any sense it was just here'' Brad utters.

''Maybe you accidentally deleted it?'' I try, still wondering what was going on. Brad looked up angrily at me.

''That's stupid why would I do that?'' I recoiled and put my hands up in mock surrender.

''I'm sorry'' I apologised, not understanding why he was getting all worked up over some photo. Brad looks at me and frowns, shaking his head.

''No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped at you'' I smile and place a hand on his shoulder.

''It's okay, it's been a rough few days on all of us'' I smile up at him as he smiles back at me, his eyes trailing from my lips to my eyes.

''Come on guys! On the bus!'' Mr Harris calls out. I break the eye contact and recoil my touch, spinning around to jump back on the bus.

''Y/N sit with Peter up front'' I just smile and nod at Mr Harris and took my new seat next to Peter who seemed on edge as well. I wasn't surprised.

''Are you okay?'' He turned to me and nodded, still seeming lost in thought. He turned back to stare out the window as we took off in silence. It was an awkward silence next to Peter so I decided to pop in a earbud, playing some music. I let my hand drop on the seat beside me which landed right next to Peter's. As soon as I felt the warmth from his hand I jumped back a bit, startled.

Why am I still feeling like this around him? He's just a guy who's not even interested in me.

Peter felt his heart speed up a little in his chest, moving his hand slightly closer towards you, hoping you wouldn't recoil again. I felt his hand brush against mine again, my breath hitching inside my throat. Peter picked up on this and smiled, cheating by using his spidey senses to pick up on your accelerating heart rate. I moved my hand closer so that now they were touching, letting the warmth from his touch soothe me.

I glance down then quickly glance away so he doesn't catch me. I smile sheepishly to myself and try to hide my redden cheeks. Peter's were reddening to so he mustered up the courage to take your hand. He trailed his on top of your and rested it there for a few moments, waiting for a reaction. Once he got none he continued, beginning to intertwine your fingers with his. He smiled and bit his lips once you let him hold your hand firmly in his own. He continued to stare out the window, smiling like a huge dork as the forestry now came into view.

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A/N: Part 3! Let me know in the comments what you think! :))) xx Thanks again for reading!