#don’t look too much at Nari this was my second time ever attempting to draw him so he’s. wonky

[krystaldeath]

[ewritesfanfics]

A/N: Ok so, I don’t post anything, ever. I’m very much a lurker. But ROTT just ... I couldn’t just sit and do nothing. So I made this blog, and here’s my attempt at a fanfic, with some changes to cannon. The ones important to this piece are that Archie did not stay with Charlemagne, and Krel and Douxie built the new amulet together so they’re a lot closer. This takes place just after the fight between Skrael and Nari, and also contains an idea of mine around a lore change and for a possible either rewrite of ROTT or a continuation, and whichever form it takes would be a much longer fic, which is why this short piece doesn’t have a title. So if people find it interesting and want to see more, please let me know. I’ve never really written fanfic before so I apologize if any of it sounds weird or stilted. If people like this and I do write the larger piece, I’ll probably be posting it on Ao3.

---

Douxie can only watch in horror as the Ice Titan stabs into the torso of Nari’s, ice creeping over and between rock and roots and vines, seeping into the crevices and joints, growing and pulling, straining to rip her titan apart. Her shout of pain and rage echoes across the valley, and she retaliates, one massive leg driving into the Ice Titan’s torso, her vines growing into it, taking purchase where they can, drilling into the glacial limbs and twisting into its heart, determined to take him down with her. The titans rage and the earth shakes as they push and pull, trying to tear each other apart while trying to keep themselves together long enough to kill the other. With a last surge of strength, each is ripped apart with groaning rumbles from the titans and screams from Skrael and Nari. Both titans crumble.

As they fall, Douxie immediately takes off towards the devastation, moving so quickly, Archie is thrown from his shoulder. Though his friends call out for him, his blood is pounding too loudly in his ears for him to hear. Or perhaps, he simply doesn’t care. As he runs, his friends can see the wisps of blue emanating off him, rotating around him, and finally encasing him, his magic aiding him in his desperation to get to his friend, his sister in all but blood.

Breaking into a clearing beneath sky-piercing shards of rock and vaulting broken glaciers, he spots a small green body spotted with melting ice and blackened patches akin to frostbite, limp and still amongst the ruins, the grass beneath her wilting. Every plant in this clearing seems paler, droopier, as if in mourning.

No, not Nari! Not her too! 

Douxie immediately runs to her side, his magic dissipating as he skids to his knees, caring not for the blood that now stains the legs of his dirty and ripped jeans. He reaches out, trembling, almost afraid to touch her, to find out that he failed Merlin, failed his friends, failed her.

But he swallows that fear down into a thick knot in his throat, that’s as far as it will go, and carefully he grips her shoulder and turns her to face him. For a second he cannot breathe, her eyes closed and body unresponsive, half of her face blackened and dotted with small spots of frost. He draws her close, cradling her in his lap, unable to comprehend that she might be gone. Gently, he pushes a strand of hair from her serene face with a shaking hand, and it’s then that her eyes crack open, the golden of her good eye dull, the other now completely black.

“Nari?” he breathes, hoping blooming in his chest while despair cramps painfully, not wanting to allow the hope to grow in case he is wrong.

But the small smile that weakly graces her face blows that despair away, and the relief he feels lifts the weight in his chest, overflowing as tears begin to stream down his face. He draws her in for a tight embrace, sobbing hysterically into her shoulder.

“Nari!”

“Douxie,” is all she says, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

He draws back again to look her in the eyes. Her very much alive eyes.

“You’re going to be ok, I’m going to get you back to Camelot, and I’m going to fix you, and you’re going to be ok!”

At that, a sadness creeps into her lidded gaze.

“No, Douxie. My story ends here.” As quickly as his heart soared, it drops, sinking like a rock down into his stomach.

“No! No, you’ll be ok, I can fix this!”

Nari reaches a weak hand up, gently placing it on Douxie’s wet cheek, her thumb wiping away a tear.

“It will all be ok. You will leave here, fight Bellroc. You and trollhunter and friends will save the world.”

“And you’ll be coming with us,” he says, unable to hold back new sobs, deep, soul-wrenching sobs. “Please, Nari.”

“No. I will not. Thank you for protecting me. I have had fun. I am happy I was with you. Now-” her hand slides from cupping his cheek to splaying her fingers on the center of his chest- “You must listen. Bellroc and Skrael and me, we are the holders of the Primordial Arcana. Our magics made this world. They cannot be without masters, not now that the seals are gone. With no masters, they will run wild.”

“W-what?”

“Hisirdoux Casperan, I give to you the Life Arcanum.”

A green light pulses beneath her hand, and Douxie gasps, feeling it pulse beneath his skin. He can feel the energy thrumming through his entire being, from the prickling at the surface of his skin down to the humming at the center of his heart, and intertwining with the magic in his body. It is an ancient, primal feeling, a sense of the sheer age and immensity of this world and for a second it threatens to overwhelm him. There’s a sharp pain and a feeling as if he is being pulled out of his body and in every direction while simultaneously being crushed under the enormity, and then his magic and his soul are pulled into alignment with the heartbeat of life itself. The world lights up around him, every soul alight and burning bright, from the trees around the clearing, to the bugs and the grass they hide in, to his friends coming into the clearing, to the steadily dimming light of Nari. Just as quickly as it started, it stops. Douxie can feel something within him has been forever changed.

“You must find Skrael now. His arcanum will not linger long, you must get it before it escapes. It will help find who is right. Go, my wonderful Douxie, save the world. No more running.”

With that, her eyes fall closed and her body stills, and before Douxie can properly process, her body wafts away in wisps of green, gold, and purple magic, returning to the earth she loved so much. Douxie’s hold drops, collapsing, his arms suddenly empty as yet another of his loved ones is carried away on the wind.

And with that, he throws his head back and screams.

He screams and once again the world vibrates around him, only this time resonating with his soul-wrenching, all-consuming grief, his magic lashing out wildly around him, lighting up the clearing in vibrant blue, the plants twisting and writhing, cracks shooting up the remains of the titans, causing them to ominously creak and groan. Douxie knows he cannot give in to the black hole inside him, that he has to find Skrael’s arcanum and they have to get to Bellroc, he has to do it for Nari, he can’t fail her again, but in this moment he is certain that he will be destroyed, that he will surely drown and be lost.

Despite the magical maelstrom surrounding him, a fluffy head has managed to push through the storm and has found its way into his side and a pair of arms follow shortly, wrapping securely around him.

Blinking bleary eyes open, he can make out through the tears Archie, who he immediately scoops up, and he can see that the pair of arms around him are blue and glowing. Krel.

He folds into himself as his screaming turns to hitched wailing, and so too does his magic, fading, leaving the clearing dim and still once more. He collapses into Krel’s secure embrace, still holding tightly to Archie. Krel wraps his other pair of arms around him, tucking his own head next to Douxie’s, and Douxie curls further into him. He doesn’t say anything, knowing there is nothing he could say to take away Douxie’s pain, so he just silently holds him, running his fingers through Douxie’s hair in an attempt to help ground him. Meanwhile, Archie does his best to maintain a steady purr, keeping himself pressed into Douxie’s chest as he knows Douxie needs when he is distressed, having taken up this position many times over the past 900 years. His wizard now needs it more than ever.

More arms soon appear around them. Jim. Claire. Toby. Blinky. Aaarrrgghh. Together they do their best to hold the broken pieces of their friend together.

After a couple moments, Douxie manages to gather enough strength to choke out, “Need to find Skrael. Get his magic.” He starts to move, wanting to fulfil what Nari asked from him, but Archie presses his weight further into Douxie, and Krel’s arms hold firm.

“No, I need to –”

“Hush, Douxie. Let us handle it,” Archie says. There’s some murmuring between everyone before Claire pulls away, citing that Douxie taught her a containment spell that she can use to hold Skrael’s magic. She quickly departs, taking Aja and Varvatos with her as backup, just in case (at Jim’s insistence).

And so, with that out of the way, Douxie fully gives in and grieves, wading through the ocean within him, anchored by Archie and Krel and the others, keeping him from being swept away.

[miss-tc-nova]

Taboo Indulgence - Riku x Reader

Have you ever read any of @lucky0stars YMX x Reader fics? You should. They are amazing! Seriously, check them out. That’s what got me thinking about relationships between GoL and SoD characters. I don’t think I got exactly the dynamic I was hoping for, but without making a gigantic series of this, I probably won’t. So tada!

Also, screw coming up with a title for this!!!

~~~~~

              Nary a noise breaks the silence upon arrival. A canvas of stars stretches across the sky, framing the pale moon that graciously grants its borrowed light. It’s a beautiful night tonight on Radiant Garden; it makes me excited to see him again. I’ve been keeping tabs on him for a while now and finally, after some weeks, I’ve managed to intertwine our paths once again.

              Excitement bursts in my chest when I catch sight of the young man up ahead and my feet swiftly carry me in his direction.

              Breath suspended in my lungs, I stalk towards my prey. His head is bowed, watching the little device in his hand; however, his attention is not entirely employed in the screen. He pauses to glance around but I’m lucky enough to have found cover around the corner of a shop. His walk resumes, as does my stalking.

              Grinning ear to ear, eager to get my hands on him, practically trembling in anticipation, I reach out.

              My fists snag his jacket and the full weight of my body throws both of us back into the dark portal. The second our feet reconnect with solid ground, he rips away from me, retaliating with a keyblade ilms from my skull but never connects. Our eyes meet and his teal eyes shift from fight to something much brighter.

              “What are you doing here?” he says, putting his all into sounding annoyed.

              Smile none perturbed, I hum, “Oh, you know, caught wind that my favorite Guardian was traipsing around Radiant Garden and I just had to have some fun.”

              “How many times have I told you to stay away from me?” Despite our opposition, his guard drops.

              “Nine. And yet you ended our last little rendezvous with ‘Remind me to teach you some manners the next time I see you,’” I say in a rather spot on imitation of him if I do say so myself. “So it seems to me, that you were expecting me to come crashing into your life again, Riku. And who am I to disappoint.”

              Oh, my joy is tremendous in seeing that frown as his words are turned on him.

              He grumbles, “Yeah, well, you still don’t have any manners.”

              “You didn’t like my little sneak attack?” I feign shock.

              “No, otherwise it wouldn’t be called an attack.”

              “Sure it would.” Twirling around, I wave to the peculiar rising falls. “Besides, just look at this view. How could I find someplace so beautiful and not share it? You should be honored.”

              His teal eyes look out at the water. With a sigh, he dismisses his keyblade. “It is pretty; more than it is during the day actually.” I grin but he’s not really having it. “Was there actually something you wanted me for?”

              “No, not really,” I hum, my gaze following the water to the sky.

              When I realize there’s no response, I turn to him. There’s something on his face I’ve only seen glimpses of. Since we met in the Realm of Dreams, Riku’s made a point of keeping me at arm’s length with a serious attitude. I can’t blame him, but now and then, he slips up and shows me someone gentle and almost innocent. However, this is the first time he’s worn that expression while looking at me. It’s almost as if he wants to interact without his usual bite and I find myself now and then hoping that he will.

              And then he realizes I’m watching him and glares.

              “So you just wanted to be annoying.”

              “Aren’t I always annoying you, Riku?” I say with a cheeky shrug.

              “I suppose that is your M.O.,” he mutters. “So what did you get up to since your last ambush in Arendelle?

              “Ah, you know. Some heartless here, some terror over there. The usual.”

              His head shakes. “You’re impossible to understand.”

              “I don’t know why. I’ve been perfectly honest with you.” His skepticism is palpable. “Oh you wound me! How could you ever assume I would lie to you?! Go on, ask me anything.”

              He ponders his opportunity. “What were you doing in Twilight Town last week?”

              I shake my head, hands raised. “Well I can’t tell you that.”

              “You said you’d tell me anything.”

              “No, I said I wouldn’t lie.”

              “Okay, fine. Why do you keep following me?”

              That’s a question I could answer in a heartbeat: it’s fun. But that’s a shallow answer; I know that and I’m fairly certain so does he. Admittedly, his response to my pestering had first marked him as the perfect plaything, but I can’t actually write him down as just a toy—not anymore. Still, I’m not entirely sure what it is that draws my wandering feet back to him. I suppose, if I were being honest with myself, I want to see the person he is when he doesn’t know I’m watching: someone bright in spite of his darkness. I’ve seen his sincerity and perseverance and those are things to be admired, even if we are on opposing sides. Even if I can’t name them all, there are reasons I keep coming back.

              Fuck.

              In lieu of this enlightenment, I find my gaze hitched on his mouth. Sparks flicker in my chest, but I grin nonetheless.

              “Because it’s fun. Don’t you enjoy our little run ins?”

              The instant protest dies on his tongue. “I…I don’t know.”

              That’s not the answer I was expecting, but it spurs the hope growing in me. I decide to start pushing some boundaries. With his guard against me nearly gone, it doesn’t take much to push him up against a rogue stone.

              “That’s not a no,” I say, my eagerness creeping into my voice.

              A blush tints his face. Despite my forwardness, Riku seems more mesmerized than appalled.

              “No…it’s not.”

              My excitement is getting away from me, compelling me to lean closer. “Between the two of us, I believe you’re the peculiar one here.”

              For the first time, he cracks a smile, albeit, something wry. “I’m starting to think so too.”

              “Are you aware of how easy it would be for me to dispose of you in this instant?”

              “I am.” I see the anticipation in the way in his mouth writhes.

              A smirk plays at the corner of my lips. “And you still trust me?”

              My advance halts, his shuddering breath ghosting across my lips. I’ve been at the steering wheel of this rollercoaster relationship, doing whatever pleased me in the heat of the moment; but I won’t take this. No, this is far too important to be stolen on a whim. I need to hear him say it, no matter how my heart flutters.

              “Yes.”

              Relief bleeds into my soul, but at the same time, the madness I’d barely been able to contain ignites. The dread that spreads across his face at my resultant expression is absolutely precious.

              “What a shame.”

              I plunge headlong into my avarice, drowning Riku with me.

              With each kiss, part of me assumes the novelty will weather away—that I’ll finally be content. What a fool I am. I crave more and more with no end in sight. No matter the pressure, the duration, the angle: I simply cannot get enough.

              Riku is barely more than a passenger in this experience, struggling to keep up as I string him along. Of course, what participation he can sneak into my barrage serves as encouragement. When he finally falters though—breaking the kiss to gasp for air—I retaliate. My hand pulls at the silver hair and his lips curl back in a grimace, but he gives me what I want: access to his neck. The moment my lips graze his skin, his body goes rigid. As I trace the muscle with my tongue, I finally seem to be making ground on this greed when I hear his breath stagger. A new wave of eagerness crashes down on me as I take hold just above his shoulder.

              Sufficiently satisfied with the mark left behind, I survey my victim. His brows stitch together but do nothing against the pink tint painted across his cheeks. Even his eyes burn with a hunger I assume matches what I feel.

              I let my hands trail from his hair to cup his face.

              “My, aren’t you just beautiful,” I whisper.

              That shade deepens and, without hesitation, Riku places a hand behind my head to begin another round. This time, he attempts to lead, but my gluttonous response brings him down to my level in a back-and-forth of action and reaction. It’s not quite the vindication of having him a floundering mess beneath me, but I admit, I like the bite he tries to fight back with.

              Suddenly, fingers ensnare my hair, ripping me away from the object of my desire. I can hear him shouting as I’m being led away in pain. When released, I just have time to see the dark portal disappearing, leaving me in the wastelands of the Keyblade Graveyard. I whirl on my attacker with a homicide on my mind.

              I am royally screwed.

              Golden eyes burn with the fury barely contained on the rest of his face. I could’ve lied through my teeth to just about anyone, maybe even the old man himself, but the one person I came here with is the one person who could tear the truth from me.

              “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Just like his expression, anger smolders beneath his words.

              The question is rhetorical; he already knows the answer. Still, I have to say something.

              “What? Didn’t you want him on our side?”

              Xehanort slights his eyes at me. “Are you bringing him to the darkness? Or is he taking you to the light?”

              “Excuse me?!”

              “I trust you. You could damn near kill half our members and I would have your back.” His rein on his composure is slipping. “But this! How could you choose him over us?!”

              “How fucking dare you!”

              “HOW CAN I NOT WHEN I FIND YOU MAKING OUT WITH THE ENEMY?!”

              He has a point, but I can’t admit that. “Please. You of all people know how little a kiss can mean.”

              “So then what did it mean to you?”

              Glaring straight into his eyes, voice low and steady, I answer him. “It meant nothing.”

              “Bullshit.”

              Of all our friends, Xehanort could be the most observant and calculated. He probably saw ages ago what it took me until today to realize. I never had a chance against him.

              “You came here with me to save them.” His bristling smooths out and Xehanort releases all the emotion riled inside. With cold ruthlessness, he looks me dead in eye. “And if I have to, I’ll save you too.”

              I can’t fight him, and I can’t lie to him; I’m just…

              Fucked.

              “Xehanort…”

              “I’ll keep your secret for now.” I won’t be able to get another word in—this conversation is over. “But if I find you with him again, there won’t be any more secrets to keep.”

              Leaving me heartbroken and miserable, Xehanort disappears into a Dark Corridor. I don’t know who I was trying to kid. I told myself a million different things when meeting with Riku—it was just a game, I wanted to screw with him, I was bored—but I wanted to see him because I was interested in him.

              Now I have a choice to make and there’s no one to blame but myself.

[twinkleton]

a broken promise - married!douxie x reader

Bring on the angstt! This fic was inspired by @alovesongshewrote​‘s imagine called Pick Who Dies, linked here. She’s such a lovely writer and part of the reason why I even starting writing fics to begin with! This fic is my interpretation of the final battle with the Arcane Order. It’s also an alternate end with my Married!Douxie, where him and the reader don’t get their happily ever after. Please enjoy!

tw:blood

tags: @clarencebells @purplesinnerw​

Bellroc sneaks up behind Douxie, the man being too focused on helping Y/N with Skrael to notice. They send a blazing fire towards Douxie, hitting him in the back and knocking him down. They take the advantage and grab him, kicking his leg in a weak spot so he can’t get up. 

“NO! LET GO OF HIM!” Y/N roars, taking her eye off Skrael, wondering what on Earth was taking Archie so long with finding the Trollhunters. Skrael takes notice of Y/N’s lack of attention towards them, and seizes the opportunity. They skulk behind her, taking their staff with two hands and aiming at her lower back.

Douxie notices what they’re doing a second too late.

“Y/N, LOOK OUT!!”

An immense amount of pain pierces through her as Skrael rams their staff through her abdomen. Y/N kneels to the floor, face contorted in horror as she looks down to witness the weapon be wrenched out of her. Her ears are ringing - unable to produce any sound as she collapses to the floor. 

Douxie can’t think. He can’t breathe. It feels as if his lungs were malfunctioning, no supply of air to be found. They’re still working, for if it weren’t for them he wouldn’t have been able to let out such a harrowing scream. His throat feels on fire and his wrists are definitely bruised from struggling, but it’s nothing compared to the agony in his heart. He’s desperate for any sign of life from his beloved, but she remains on the ground terrifyingly still.

“Y/N! Y/N! YOU’RE GONNA BE FINE! JUST ANSWER ME!”

Skrael’s relishing in the chaos, shamelessly cackling at the scene before him. Bellroc joins in too, their voices shifting in and out. Douxie is still fighting against them, trying to reach for his staff. 

“LET GO OF ME! Y/N! PLEASE!” 

Bellroc strikes him down with their left fist, cursing at him while they slam their foot onto his back. 

“Look at you, you’re as pathetic as an earthworm. Why don’t you shut up and we can watch her die together,” Bellroc sneers as they yank Douxie’s head up by the hair. A pool of blood is starting to surround the girl’s body. 

Y/N can hear faint calls of her name, but her mind refuses to respond. Her body is freezing, a clear warning sign of death looming over her. She almost wants to give in to it. To be free of all this pain. Yet, her eyes reluctantly open, and she sees Jim, Claire, Toby, and Archie hiding behind a wall. They’re waiting for an opening. It’s time to give it to them. 

After what seemed like an eternity, Douxie finally notices a small sign of hope. Y/N’s left hand raises off the ground. The two demigods cease their laughing. Their curiosity lets the witch try to get up, as she slowly picks up her head from the floor, the ends of her hair caked in blood. 

The hall is deathly silent, which is a good thing as Douxie would not had otherwise been able to hear his wife croak out, “I’m okay, Douxie. We said for forever remember?”

It’s debatable whether Douxie was laughing or crying. However, the real answer was that it was a bit of both.

“Yeah, we did love.”

Her hands begin to glow. She smiles warmly at him. Nine hundred years wasn’t enough. 

“Time to end this, darling.”

With every last bit of her strength, she twists behind herself, and blasts Skrael in the face with a blinding fire. They’re sent flying across the room. Gritting her teeth - she rolls back onto her stomach, pushing herself off the floor onto her knees. Bellroc attempts to kill Douxie, but is interrupted by a ray of Y/N’s magic, thrown to the opposite side of the room as well. Her final move is throwing up shields around the kids as they charge in. When she thinks she’s done enough, she topples to the floor once more. I’m so sorry, Douxie.

Douxie is torn, wanting so badly to sprint over to Y/N, pull her into his arms, and escape out of there. But, in order for all of this to be truly over, he has to help his friends. So, regretfully, he picks up his staff, turns towards them and joins the battle. 

Y/N’s blows to the demigods had weakened them to the point that they had become rag dolls to the heroes. Toby swung his Warhammer, colliding it into Skrael’s stomach, knocking the wind out of them. They stumbled back, only to be knocked down by a swift kick from Jim. He jumped on top of him, pummeling him with his fists before raising Excalibur high above them. 

Being too weak to move, Skrael uncharacteristically begins to panic. “No, no, we’re Gods, We’re supposed to bring this world back to order!”

“The world has no order, that’s what makes it so incredible. What it does need is peace. And it will achieve it, without you.”

Jim strikes his blade down, finally bringing the immortal to their end.

Bellroc witnesses their siblings end and is enraged. They no longer care for their mission and just want to see everyone burn. They lift their staff up high, creating an inferno storm above them. Luckily, before they can make use of it, Claire opens a portal right beneath them, and they fall into it. The storm evaporates. She opens the next portal high above them, the sorcerer plunging towards the ground. 

Once they hit the ground, Douxie draws up a sigil below them, a gravity spell that keeps Bellroc glued to the floor. They let out a maddened roar. 

“This is for Merlin,” Douxie vows, eyes glowing that familiar blue again. He rises up into the air, charging an attack. Then, he slams his staff down, a gust of magic slicing through the air and into Bellroc, sending them to their doom. Douxie descends back down, and they listen to the final member of Arcane Order’s pathetic wheezing.

They hear Bellroc’s final breath, and the group doesn’t know how to respond. However, Douxie wastes no time in rushing over to Y/N’s body. She had not moved a muscle since the last time he saw her and it horrified him. The puddle of blood had only grown wider, and her skin was paler than ever before. 

The rest of the group follows him, circling around Y/N while Douxie kneels down to pick her up. He brings her into his lap, pressing his head against her chest. He hears a single faint beat, and cries in relief. 

“Y/N, wake up. We did it,” his voice sounds cracked and hoarse, body shaking with overwhelming nerves. He caresses her face, wishing she would just open her eyes!

“Douxie...” Claire whispers, holding Jim’s hand firmly and willing herself not to cry yet, holding out hope for Y/N. The same can’t be said for Toby however, who’s letting his tears fall freely. 

Douxie’s breathing becomes erratic as he gently starts shaking her, “She said she was okay, she’s okay, she’s- oh God please, wake up!” He lays his forehead to hers, pleading for her. Then, he hears her voice, faint as a mouse, “I can’t, I can’t.” He snaps his head back up. Y/N’s eyes are half-lidded and unfocused. Eventually, she gazes towards Douxie, and he clutches her face, full of worry. She gives a weak half grin, not strong enough for anything more. Tears shed down the sides of her face. She doesn’t want to break his heart, but her time has been cut off. 

“I can’t, love. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I love you. So much.” Despite her best efforts, her eyes slowly shut, head relaxing in his hands as her soul leaves her body.

Somewhere out there, Nari feels an empty spot in the world once more. 

Archie cautiously walks towards her, jumping onto her chest to listen for a heartbeat. Nothing. He looks up at Douxie, reluctantly shaking his head, eyes glistening. “She’s...she’s gone.” He can’t bear to look at his old friend - lost in his own grief as well. 

“No, no she can’t be gone! She can’t!” Douxie squeezes her body, hot rivulets of tears spilling down his face, rocking back and forth. However, just like his Master, she turns to dust, leaving behind the ring her made her so long ago. 

Claire latches onto Jim, wrapping her arms around him, letting herself cry now having confirmation their friend is dead. The Trollhunter hugs her tightly, frustration and sorrow clouding his mind. Toby throws off his helmet in anger. None of this felt like a victory. 

Douxie sobs at the sight of the ring, grasping it in his hand and bringing it to his heart. She left him. He’s never going to wake up to her smile again, or hear her comforting words of wisdom again, or feel her soft hand against his cheek ever again. He’s spent the majority of his everlasting life with her. Continuing without her was never something he thought he’d ever have to do. 

“Doux...I’m so sorry,” Jim calls out to him. He empathizes with the wizard, knowing he’d feel the exact same if Claire was in Y/N’s place. 

Douxie doesn’t have the motivation to look up at them, still hopelessly bent over where she used to be. “I’ve lost her. She’s supposed to be here with me. I can’t-I can’t live without her!”

Archie makes the first move, rushing to Douxie so he can nuzzle his head against his. Douxie fervently embraces him, hugging him so tightly while he weeps. Claire joins them, followed by Jim, then Toby. They mourn the loss of their friend together. The weights on their chest slightly lift, healing each other. 

Y/N watches the scene, thankful that her husband has their friends to take care of him. Morgana lays a hand on her shoulder, telling her it’s time to go. It’s full circle as Morgana leads her to her new home, where this time, she’ll be waiting for him. 

[accioecho]

Tkem novel 13

Chapter 17 “A joint investigation”

Tae-Eul’s grand plans for the two of them that night consisted of dropping by the shooting range, winning the biggest prize there and walking through the quiet city streets.

The soft stuffed lion was definitely bigger than something that fit the palm of a hand. Tae-Eul successfully hit all seven targets and gave Gon the bulky plush toy.

Tae-Eul’s shooting abilities were incomparable. Gon was no match for her. Sure, when he saw Tae-Eul’s remarkable skills he had first felt a little embarrassed by his poor performance. However that feeling had quickly been replaced by pride.

Gon held the toy against his chest, dimples crinkling, a content expression adorning his face.

“Why do you like that stuffed animal anyway?” Tae-Eul asked when she saw his proud smile.

“Because it’s a lion. It resembles you. Lions are fierce, courageous. And impressive.”

“Ah, I see.”

Her shoulders shook with mirth. They had barely spent half a day together and she had laughed several times already.

Gon put his arm around her. They were walking side by side, like any other regular couple. Spending time together like this… It would be really easy to fall into the quiet comfort of daily life.

As they neared her house, Tae-Eul finally broached the subject she had avoided until then. She  had initially planned to bring up the subject as soon as she saw him but she had also really wanted to spend the precious time they had without any interference. Just her and him.

“Answer me without letting me go.”

“I won’t.”

“I want to ask as soon as I saw you but I was holding back. I waited for you as a detective but also as myself all this time.”

Gon halted his steps and turned to her. Eyes slightly widening, lips forming an uncharacteristic grim line, he grabbed her shoulders. Truth be told, there were a lot of things he had wished to discuss with Tae-Eul as well.

“Has something happened? Were you threatened by someone? Because of me?”

“I guess that means it will happen. That’s why you came.”

So much for a quiet daily life together. The idea of a regular life would have to wait some more.

Their eyes locked. Tae-Eul held Gon’s sharp, worried gaze.

“What is it?” Gon asked.

“Is there a dome stadium named K Stadium in the northern region there? With a capacity of 16,890 seats?”

“How do you know that? Did you look that up too?”

So she was right. Tae-Eul’s face tinged with concern. She had a lot to explain. Her hands slid inside her pocket and pulled out the usb key, the tiny item held tightly between her fingers.

Without waiting any further, Tae-Eul hastily ushered Gon to her place.

Gon, who had mostly hung around Tae-Eul’s now very familiar courtyard, who had never gone further than the Taekwondo Dojang, suddenly found himself stepping into the intimacy of her bedroom. Although he was there for a very specific purpose and not in the context of a romantic date.

Gon briefly looked around his surroundings. Her room was sprinkled with countless pictures from her childhood. A few shelves were pushed against the wall and were filled with books she had probably all read. A multitude of other belongings littered the small space.

Slowly approaching her bed, Gon carefully placed the stuffed lion next to her pillow.

They both sat down by the desk. Tae-Eul turned on her laptop, slid the USB key in its slot and played the audio file.

Gon didn’t need to listen for long. He recognized the news anchor’s voice. This was a piece of broadcast from the Kingdom.

“Is it?” Tae-Eul asked.

“Yes, it’s news from my world. But you found it here?” His mind was sent reeling at the thought of Tae-Eul’s discovery. “Who else knows about this?”

“Just me for now. I can’t really tell anyone about this. Nobody will believe it anyway.”

“What are you thinking of doing?”

“I need to investigate further and figure this out. This was my case, before I even met you.”

He respected, no— liked her bravery. This trait was one of the things that made Tae-Eul inherently her. But just this one time, he wished she was less courageous.

“It could be more dangerous than you think.” Gon swallowed the lump in his throat.

“That’s why I thought about just covering it up. But… if I cover it up, then no one will ever find out about this, since there would be only two people who know about this. Me. And the culprit.”

He was wrong.

She was braver than he thought.

She was brave and amazing.

“The two worlds shouldn’t get mixed up like this. They’re supposed to stay on their respective paths. But the two worlds are already colliding, and I’ve discovered it. So what else can I do? That’s why I decided to investigate. I’m a police officer in the Republic of Korea.”

He couldn’t stop anything then. Changes were already in motion, there was nothing he could do to prevent danger from reaching Tae-Eul.

She was in danger the moment she met him, yet she showed no fear, her sense of justice unwavering.

As the King of a nation, responsibilities weighed heavily on his shoulders. Tae-Eul equally felt the same responsibilities as a government officer of the Republic of Korea.

For a tiny second, Tae-Eul had worried Gon would perhaps hold this against her. She was wrong from the start.

Gon still seemed to be lost in thought, his mind going over the recent events. His posture was stiff, eyes unfocused and looking into the distance. As an attempt to distract him, Tae-Eul forced out a shaky laugh.  

She also shared his sentiments. What were the odds that the one case she had been investigating for the past few weeks turned out to be tied to another universe. This was bigger than simply the two of them. She had no idea what she was getting into and she felt apprehensive by the sheer unknown that lay ahead of them.

Despite all this, there was one thing that she was sure about.

Gon probably didn’t know this.

Yes, she had always been courageous. But in that instant, the reason that gave her strength, the reason why she felt she could be braver was because of him. Because he was by her side.

“So tell me everything you know about this. This is a cooperative operation that only we can do.”

“How goes the order of command?”

“I’m your superior of course. I give the orders here.” Tae-Eul answered without hesitation.

Gon let out a small chuckle and reached into the inner pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a neatly folded enveloppe that contained a copy of Lee Lim’s death certificate and fingerprints confirmation. With shaky fingers, Tae-Eul grabbed the document.

“Lee Lim? That’s…”

“Yes, the traitor. If he’s alive, he’ll be 69 right now. You should find someone who matches his age, blood type and fingerprints. In my world, his body was found the year after he committed treason. But the body… was someone else’s.”

Something was definitely strange. Staring at the file, Tae-Eul sat still, all muscles in her body tensing up. This was beyond their imagination. That a dead person could somehow still be alive.

Tae-Eul knew this was possible though. Because out there stood a gate leading to another universe. A parallel world, where individuals that looked exactly the same as in the Republic existed.

“If Lee Lim is alive… He’s here, using that body’s identity.”

“That’s right. We have to figure out what he’s done here for the past 24 years.”

“I’ll look into it. But until I figure it out, do just 17 things. Stay quiet, don’t draw people’s attention, don’t tell anyone you’re a king, keep Jo Yeong out of trouble, don’t use any guns, contact me whenever you go somewhere. And I’ll tell you the rest when I think of any.”

“I’ll do as you order. Just do two things for me.”

Wondering what he would say, Tae-Eul turned her face towards Gon. He wore an unreadable expression and wouldn’t meet her gaze.

Gon pursed his lips. He hesitated for a moment, and then finally spoke his mind.

“Don’t tell me not to come. And don’t tell me not to leave.”

“…”

“I have to go back sometimes, and when I do, I want to come back soon. Whichever it is, if you tell me not to come or leave, I don’t think I’ll be able to do anything.”

Even in normal circumstances, people easily got tired of their partner when they stayed apart for a short time. In their case, a whole universe stood between the two of them, like a wall standing firm and tall. Gon deeply hoped Tae-Eul wouldn’t experience any difficulties or become weary.

This was the very first time he felt this way. He knew this was selfish of him. In all his life as a King, ever since he was born, he never once harbored any selfish interests.

“So I’m asking you not to get exhausted. I feel like a lousy man after saying that. Am I?”

Still staring at Gon, Tae-Eul slightly nodded.

“I’m confused about which part you were nodding to.”

Tae-Eul let out a small giggle and started tidying up the desk. There was a time not so long ago when Tae-Eul thought she would never understand him. That was when he first came to the Republic, babbling about parallel universes, quantum mechanics and what not. She thought he was just a crazy guy and they would never be on the same page.

Before she knew it, she found herself understanding Gon’s way of thinking and perfectly being able to read his feelings. Because she was the same.

“You should go now. Yeong must be sick with worry since he doesn’t know where you are. He must be waiting for you.”

“Why would you think Yeong doesn’t know where I am?”

Tae-Eul abruptly stood up and went to the window to look outside. Seeing the empty courtyard, she looked around her surroundings.

“He’s following us around here too?”

“I guess I’ve made you curious. I’ll be off now.”

“There’s something else I’m curious about. Am I really not in your world?”

Gon who was about to open her bedroom’s door, stopped in his tracks.

“Eun-Sup and Jo Yeong. Nari and that palace worker. Even this person has the same face. Do I really not exist there?”

Gon stood still, unable to confirm or deny. His silence was answer enough.

“I do, don’t I?” Tae-Eul didn’t know what to think. This felt strange.

“I wanted to wait until I was sure before I told you. But it looks like it. There seems to be a person that looks like you, yes.”

Long after Gon was gone, Tae-Eul couldn’t shake the image of her double existing somewhere in another world.

—

“Your Majesty. You must return to the palace. I can’t protect you here, your Majesty. What is this place, and how long have you been coming here? Your Majesty, we don’t have a life here.”

Unable to hold back, Yeong let out all the things he’d been thinking about but couldn’t say aloud when they were with Tae-Eul and Eun-Sup.  

Always looking out for him. Always defending his best interests. Gon was proud of him.

And he was about to relieve him of these daunting, heavy responsibilities.

Ever since their first meeting when Gon was eight years old, not once did Yeong disappoint or upset him. Yeong had become his most loyal subject, his best friend, his brother.

He felt guilty and sorry. But he was the only person who could carry out the task he was about to give him.

“You’ve endured a lot, Captain Jo. Yeong-ah. I can’t leave the palace permanently or give up coming here altogether. So you have to help me.”

[yeahinoticed]

Trimberly Pirate AU

There are Very Many ideas in my head. If you’re interested in them, take a look at my feeble attempt at fic writing below.

Perhaps they were fated to meet, or maybe it was simply chance. Either way, there was no turning back. Their story was an inevitability - its movements as sure as the tides themselves.

A Pirate AU wherein Trini is a notorious pirate captain, and Kimberly just wants to be free.

Read it on AO3 here!

She had never expected to be here. Though Zack’s plans were wild to be sure, she had to concede that more often than not, they worked. Still, she’d rather it was him in her place. But as great a strategist as he was, Zack was terrible at keeping his cool. His excitement was likely to get the better of him, and if it happened here, it would spell the end of their careers - and most probably their lives. They just couldn’t risk it. Trini fiddles with the gaudy looking brooch pinned to her lapel. It looks like any other - a brassy little trinket engraved with a crown, vibrant red gemstone studded proudly in its centre. They’d picked it up in Havana last year, not long after their first success. Trini had been adamantly against spending their newfound gold on such frivolous things, but Zack would insist it was a token of celebration, a small purchase he’d treasure forever. It was hard to say no to such blinding enthusiasm, so she’d simply rolled her eyes and turned away, which he’d obviously taken as approval. Trini thought he’d get bored of it and sell it at the next port for some other shiny thing, but true to his word he’d held on to it, and the cocky grin he’d worn when brandishing it at her this morning had her reconsidering their partnership. Nevertheless, it was becoming useful now, so she supposed she couldn’t really fault him. 

She’d always thought such things were kind of tacky. Blatant shows of wealth and title weren’t really her style. They make you stand out. And in her line of work, standing out makes things a whole lot harder. Yet here she is, clad head to toe in a flashy formal ensemble. The mustard coat, the breeches, the stockings, the dastardly wig and feathered hat - the whole lot. The frills of her shirt tickle her neck and hands, a constant irritation in the back of her mind even as she peers up at the garish manor before her. Rendered cream walls, framed by extravagant trimming reflect the bright midday sun so brightly that they almost glow. The dark gravel path up to the manor is edged with smooth stones, dividing it from verdant garden beds which are somehow both calculated and unruly at the same time. At the base of the path, two uniformed guards flank an ornamental wrought iron gate. Its bars twist intricately to resemble thorned roses, and its top edge is studded with spikes. They glare at her, suspicion evident in their faces, hands gripping their rifles ever so slightly harder - imperceptible to an untrained eye. She understands their wariness - while her linen garments give the impression of status, she isn’t their typical wearer - no woman is. Trini might be accustomed to the blade, but it was time to put her sharp tongue to use.

 “State your business ma’am”.

 “Isn’t it quite obvious, good sir?” she replies. The accent doesn’t come easily to her, and if the guards notice, they give no indication of it.

 The one who had spoken looks to his comrade, visibly apprehensive. It was a difficult situation for him. If he gave the wrong person trouble, he’d be out of a job before evening. Yet he couldn’t simply stand aside, for then he wouldn’t be doing his job at all. He hadn’t signed up for such dilemmas. He sighs. 

 “Your invitation?”.

 “This is all hardly necessary” Trini remarks as she slips the folded letter from her inner breast pocket. The guard scans it over, thumbing the seal that identifies its sender. When he scans it a second time, his eyebrow quirks.

 “Forgive me ma’am, but you don’t quite look like an ‘Oliver’ to me”. His partner scoffs at this, before clearing his throat and making to smooth the collar of his regimental red coat, directing his gaze somewhere in the distance. Trini replies without missing a beat.

 “My father was quite set on the name before I was even born. Though I do wish someone had talked him out of it, I don’t very well mind being named after my grandfather”.

 The guard squints at her, before his frown eases in thought. Her reasoning wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility. 

 “Very well, Miss Bennett. I’m sure Governor Hart will be glad for your arrival. I apologise for the inconvenience. I do hope you enjoy the party.”

 At the guards nod, Trini makes her way through the gate. 

 “It’s quite alright, I get it all the time”. 

 ---

 As she steps into the main hall, Trini is struck by the atmosphere. A low chatter echoes off the stone floors, intermittently joined by the soft clanking of cutlery. She can still hear the familiar whispers of the ocean in the distance, beckoning her back sweetly. Around her, the guests are dressed much the same as she is. They converse with false smiles, many holding silver goblets filled with what she can only assume is a fine wine. A guard stands at the foot of the main stairs, rifle up against his shoulder. She passes another who stands at the entrance to the dining room. There were more than she thought there would be. How bothersome. She isn’t two steps into the room when the idle noises of the manor are joined by the gentle moan of a violin. A grand wooden dining table is set against the main window, adorned with an assortment of food, though she’s sure it normally resides front and centre. As tempting as it looks, it's not what Trini is here for. She lets out a quiet chuckle. Zack would’ve been right squiffy by the day's end, if he’d come along. The people in the room begin to pair up, swaying slowly to the violin’s song. While she’d prefer not to partake, she’s sure to arouse suspicion just standing here - and she’s not sure she could hold a real conversation without giving herself away. 

 Trini glances around the room. Standing by one of the large windows is a woman in a silken, rose coloured dress. She’s strikingly beautiful, with her dark brown hair in an elegant updo. It catches the afternoon light in a way that steals Trini’s breath for a moment. She’s about to look away, find someone else, when the woman turns, meeting her eyes. After a pause, the stranger smiles faintly, tilting her head in silent questioning. Rats. With one deep breath, Trini slips back into her persona. It was time to dance. 

 ---

 Kimberly Hart has attended many a party in her twenty three years. Her father’s parties, his friends’ parties, his enemies’ parties. It was expected of her really. Don a pretty dress, be receptive (but not too receptive) to her potential suitors. Gossip idly with girls who have far too much time on her hands. She didn’t mind it, most of the time. She had to admit though, it could get a little boring. This was her father’s third ‘dance’ of the year and it was only February. He had to keep up appearances of course. How else would his peers know of Port Royal’s thriving trade if he did not celebrate it with fine wine and finer appearances. Even so, Kimberly could only tolerate the advances of so many men. Nobles, with promises of glamour and comfort back in the motherland. Merchant sailors who weave tales of wealth and adventure that seem just a little too crafted to be true. Naval captains who think their pride and ranking should have her swooning at their feet with nary another word. Every so often, there’d be one or two who would have her attention. Whose silk tongues and vibrant eyes would draw her in, if only momentarily. But she’d find soon enough that her biting wit was never appreciated for long, and the smooth talking would always give way to frustration. It seemed she was simply a prize to be won, a hill to be conquered. Bragging rights. Quite frankly, she was sick of it.

 And so, Kimberly finds herself standing by the front window of the dining room, eyes ensnared by the gentle ebb and flow of the waves upon the beach. Her mother used to tell her stories of the ocean - stories far grander, far more fascinating than those of her suitors. Stories of sleepless nights in raging storms. Of brilliant new lands and people and creatures. Of days spent in song and nights spent in stupor. She’d always wondered what it was like out there, beyond the confines of her father’s estate and everything it represented. Would she go? If given the chance? The thought is at the forefront of her mind when she feels the familiar pressure of a set of eyes, trying and failing to be inconspicuous. Turning quickly she seeks them out, finding a woman who seems just out of place. She’s wearing an embroidered suit, woven linen in a yellow far too green. The hair of her grey wig is pulled into a ponytail beneath her feathered tricorne. Her attire is interesting, yes, but Kimberly does not recognise her. She recognises most of her father’s guests. She feels her lips twitch upwards at the woman, holding her gaze from across the room. 

 Something flashes across her watcher’s face, gone too quickly to identify. The woman strides towards her, light on her feet. There's a vague slant to her hips, an unfamiliar swagger that Kimberly thinks might betray some unknown truth. What secrets were held in her small frame? She presents her hand, palm upturned. “May I have this dance?”.

 Kimberly takes her hand, finds it unexpectedly rough and calloused, but gentle. As if their union was a cue, the music picks up, the rest of the band joining the violin as its pace hastens. They begin to dance a casual rigaudon, Kimberly following the stranger’s lead. She waits for her partner to address her, watches her eyes flick about the room. They’ve stepped around each other three times before Kimberly breaks the silence.  “The strong silent type then?” 

 As if only just remembering where she was, the woman’s eyes snap towards her. Her brows knit together. “Pardon?”.

 This was unusual. Kimberly’s suitors would usually rush to fill silences, trying desperately to keep her eyes upon them. It seems her current partner barely cares for her existence. “You haven’t spoken a word to me since you asked me to dance”. She’s surprised at the venom that laces her words - it hadn’t been intentional.

 “I’m quite sorry madam”. With a turn, they dance in the reverse direction. “I was simply admiring the Governor’s manor. It’s quite beautiful. Have you been here before?” 

 Kimberly almost stops dancing. She searches the other woman’s face for any sign of jest, finding nothing but honesty and vague inattention. It was absurd to think a guest to this party would not know her name, though she supposes it could be possible. Her irritation fades quickly, replaced by a mounting curiosity. “My family is close to the Governor’s”, she lies. 

 Her partner’s only response is an idle hum. 

 With their next step, Kimberly’s eyebrow quirks. She pulls the woman into a twirl under her arm.  “And you are?” she inquires.

 Seemingly startled by the movement, the other woman stumbles slightly, before regaining her footing and resuming their dance. “Bennett. Oliver Bennett”, she replies firmly. Pulling Kimberly into a twirl of her own, she smirks. “Merchant extraordinaire”.

 Kimberly mulls the name over. Oliver Bennett. It sounded vaguely familiar, but any recognition she might have had was fleeting - as out of reach as a feather in the breeze. Though the woman had said it quite confidently, it had a strange sort of inflection. In fact, now that Kimberly thought about it, the woman’s accent was unfamiliar. It sounded vaguely English, but her words were more rounded, had a rich and intriguing depth to them, like they were dripping with such experience that it bled into their very sound. Kimberly’s stomach dips in a way she’s sure could be addicting. She returns her attention to Miss Bennett, only to find that her eyes are once again fixed elsewhere. She follows her gaze, finds it trained on the staircase in the entry hall. With a tilt of her head, Kimberly drapes an arm over her partner’s shoulder, pulling her closer with every step. “Extraordinaire, hmm?”.

 The woman drags her eyes back to Kimberly’s and holds them there for a long moment. Her smile turns upwards. “You sound surprised, Miss…”

 “Clarke”, Kimberly supplies, flinching internally. It had been the first name to enter her mind. She banishes the thoughts that surround it. Not now. “It's not every day I meet a woman merchant” she admits. “You’ve piqued my interest Miss Bennett”. 

 Though it seems the other woman’s attention is now firmly upon her, Kimberly makes no move to increase the distance between them again. This close, she can see the depths of colour within the other woman’s eyes, reflecting the light of the setting sun. They glint with unspoken secrets, not unlike the pieces of foreign jewelry often brought by traders upon the tide. Promises of a world much larger than anything Kimberly had experienced. 

 “Some would say my methods are...unconventional”. The merchant’s words bring her out of her reverie. They serve only to deepen her curiosity.

 “However do you mean?” Kimberly presses. 

 “Trade secrets, Miss Clarke - I can’t simply give them away”, she replies with a wink. “But I have to be smart you see”. Another twirl brings their faces impossibly close together, and she whispers her next words carefully. “There are pirates out there you know”. 

 Kimberly is about to press further, when the sharp ringing of the town bell cuts through the manor, signalling another day’s end. The music begins to fade, and the woman detaches and spins away from her with a sly smile, disappearing amongst the meandering throng of people moving from the dining room into the entrance hall. She scans the small crowd, but any traces of the woman’s yellow coat and devious grin are gone as swiftly as they had come. It's only once she turns back to the window that Kimberly notices how fast her heart is beating. 

[birdwonder]

Could you do a little scenario of the bucci gang where the fem! s/o dies, but then come back as a vampire? ( Can you also make it like a narancia x reader? ) Thank you so much in advance❤

|| call me Bobo the clown because i think i strayed from what you wanted dhjsdj. i dont think i’ve ever written angst properly before so i REALLY winged this but i hope the ending makes up for it! if u wanted smth a lil different feel free to ask again. also i may have made this more Naranacia heavier than Bucci Gang orientated, if that’s ok!

tw : angst but im not good at it ! also death

Narancia Ghirga | I missed you. 

It wasn’t fair.  This wasn’t fair. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, FUCK. Why did everything bad have to happen to him?! Why was it always him that bad thinks had to happen to?

First his mother, and now you. Narancia couldn’t take it anymore; his heart couldn’t take it anymore. He had thought that he found someone to finally fill that empty place in his heart that was waiting for endless amounts of love and affection, and he did. It was you. 

You did everything and anything to make Narancia happy; laughed at his jokes, danced with him, listened to his interests and horribly rapped along with his favourite songs. All the little things to keep a smile on his face that were the world’s biggest things ever for him. Words alone couldn’t tell you how much he appreciated you - no. Loved you. God, he loved you so much and everyone knew it.

Bucciarati, Fugo, Mista… Even Abbacchio who never cared for romantic things.

Too many hours were spent between Fugo and Narancia over the raven haired male ranting about how wonderful you were, and how when he was old enough and smart enough, he wanted to marry you and treat you everyday as though you were a queen. The blond had seriously had enough at one point, finding the fact the two of you were constantly tiptoeing around your feelings for each other to be almost insufferable - his breaking point being when drawings of you and Narancia standing on top of an enlarged Aerosmith replaced where equation answers should be.

After an hour of pressuring from his younger friend and the Ghirga refusing to even attempt asking you out had passed, he finally caved and decided to try his luck. It was you after all. The best thing that’s ever happened to him, aside from joining the Passione, you could never break his heart!

But you did - and it was his fault, not your’s.

He was so stupid to get attached to you. The two of you were in the mafia, you were gangstars, not two teenagers in a romantic story. It was expected that lives would be lost but Narancia’s naïvety convinced him that the two of you were somehow immortal. That was until you were killed.

You were taken out in cold blood and left just that, the same thing that stained the young gangster’s hands that held your body as he screamed at the sky and God for letting this happen. Why? Why you? Someone, anyone, just tell him why.

It wasn’t just him who mourned either. Fugo held you close to his heart as he did Narancia, seeing the both of you as his two idiots, grateful that you were around to help encourage your mutual friend to try hard in his studies. The moment he found you lying on the ground, lifeless and sprawled out as a pathetic display, hot tears ran down his face as he proceeded to punch a brick wall with enough force to roughen and tear his skin. “I could have helped her! I should have been here!” Fugo yelled to himself, though it was drowned out by Narancia’s blood curdling cries for you to wake up and that he was sorry for not finding you sooner.

Fugo only stopped punching the wall when Bucciarati gently took hold of his wrist, the Capo holding back a look of pain to help support those who he thought needed it more. Inside however, he saw himself as a poor excuse of a leader. You were the helpful kind and always tried to support Bucciarati when the weight of being in charge got to him, and how did he repay you? By letting you be killed.

No one was in high spirits in that moment.

Giorno could only stand a far distance away, silently apologising to your spirit for not being able to have set his goal sooner to stop you from having to meet this fate. Next to him was Trish, who had known for you a far shorter time than anyone else though knew that the two of you could have had a close future while pitying everyone else’s loss. Abbachio failed to even look at you. He was a mixture of pissed and distraught yet failed to show either emotion, keeping his back to you instead. He didn’t have the will to look at his fallen friend.

Unlike everyone else, Mista played a foreign role. He sucked up what he was feeling and consoled Narancia instead. 

He was the one who pulled away the kicking and screaming teen that yelled that you had to be alive. The one that held him close and let his sweater be stained with enough tears to revive a drought ridden river. It hurt but he knew it hurt Narancia more. 

After the shock had subsided, your body was respectfully moved somewhere safe and in the open so you could be found. Time was of the essence and with other Passione members coming after Trish, there was no time for a proper burial that they could attend. 

Everyone had stayed strong after that but there was still a sunken feeling in their hearts; Narancia’s worst of all. 

__

“How… How can you be here?”

The words were quiet and airy when Narancia spoke, his eyes wide and jaw almost dropped when he saw what was in front of him. Specifically, who. 

Free flowing hair whipped in the night’s wind, the shine of moonlight illuminating the figure of someone that the stand user knew too well. You were there, right in front of him in the open as though you had never been murdered in the first place. 

A smile made it’s way onto your lips as you fixed the loose strands, parted lips revealing two prominent fangs that required a double take and a rub of the eyes to be officially accepted. Taking a step forward, you crouched down to caress the cheek of the love of your life who had dropped to his knees from the shock of seeing his deceased crush stand before him.

“No, you’re dead. I saw your corpse, [F/N]! You can’t be here!” Narancia tried to argue though it was truly between himself opposed to him trying to reason to the dead girl walking in front of him. His tears ran down his cheeks, thinking that this was a cruel trick being played on him or an enemy stand trying to get to him. 

“Nari, it’s me, baby,” you assure him, talking to him gently in the same tone you always used for him when he was upset or angry. It was like a child hearing a mother’s lullaby for Narancia. Therapeutic and loving. “I’m back and I’m so, so sorry I left you.”

It was you - it had to be. 

No one could talk to him let that and make him want to leap into their arms, not a single soul would even try to use such an affectionate nickname either or place their hands on him like you would. It really was his [F/N].

Hiccuping from his tears, he let out a wail before throwing himself towards you, arms wide and trying to cover every inch of your cold, paler body, his strength almost making you wheeze. Who could blame him though? He felt as though as soon as he let you go, you’d be gone again. “[N- N/N]! Tesoro! My [F/N]! I, I missed you sooo much!”

Narancia’s gross sobbing only worsened and you laughed a little, rubbing his back slowly in circular motions while your own watery beads started to form, threatening to spill at any second. “Not as much as I have, Nari! You won’t believe what happened for me to get here - I woke up as a vampire! It was all thanks to-”

“I don’t care!” He cut you off. His head lifted to look up a you, a smile and teary eyes meeting your own. “It doesn’t matter how you’re here, I’m just glad you are! I needed you so much and now you’re back so- so, we can go back to doing what we used to! And I can finally tell you, I love you [F/N!]”

The quick paced ramble was a lot to take in for you yet you managed to understand it in no time, your first reaction to lovingly hug Narancia with all your returned might and kiss his forehead. “I love you too, baby, I won’t ever leave you again.” 

[soocouldbemyonlystar]

CTA: The Beginning

Genre: Chaebols AU/fluff

Length: 2.3k

The Arrangement Pt1

A/N: I know, this is long over due. I actually hit my goal in early December then we got word we were moving back home and there was packing and moving and unpacking and renovating and family then Covid. Oh yeah, I forgot the crushing weight of thinking this is crap and no one likes it... you know, all the awesome things my anxiety loves to make me believe. Anxiety can kiss my ass cause I love this edit and I hope you all do too.

Plump lips parted in a long sigh. Do Kyungsoo let his school bag slip off his shoulders and wiggled out of his navy blazer, hanging it in the closet next to his blue hoodie. 

"Mom, I'm home," his voice cracked as he threw his bag back over his shoulder and made a dash for his room. He dodged Nari at the top of the stairs, narrowly avoiding the stack of towels she juggled. 

"Slow down, Young Master," her tone was enough to hasten his speed.

"Good evening!" He sang to her, his deepening voice an unusually smooth lilt. 

Nari set her lips in a straight line, but as Kyungsoo leveled his round eyes at her, blinking rapidly, she broke into a smile.

Waving him off, she continued down the stairs as he slipped into his room. 

Changing out of his uniform was the best part of his day, though most days were spent entirely in that uniform. At least this one was more comfortable than the one he'd had for the last few years. High school did have some perks. It also came with more classes, harder curriculum and the added stress of worrying about college and career. 

Not that he really had to worry about a career. He was an only child and as long as he wasn't a blithering idiot, he would inherit his family's business, The Ganghan Company. 

And he wasn't a blithering idiot. 

But, Kyungsoo didn't like school. In fact, he hated it. Tests, studying, and group projects where everyone was graded together. Kyungsoo was at the top of his class, but it wasn’t because he was particularly smart or liked to learn. It was what his parents expected of him. The long hours, constant studying, and after-hours cram school were all for his parents’ benefit. 

It was a good thing that he happened to learn quickly. It never took him long to master a subject. 

Kyungsoo dragged his books and journals out of his bag and set up his desk. There was a system, book to the left, journal to the right, pens and highlighters to the right of that. There had to be organization.

Kyungsoo popped on his headphones, turned up the music (Chanyeol's remix of American R&B songs) and began to study. There was a paper due soon and a round of exams that followed. He would likely be studying late into the night, which he hated since sleep was his one true love.

Once his groove was set, it would take a disaster to bring him out of it. Nothing short of an earthquake, or a tornado ripping the roof off could pull him from his concentration. Except his mom staring at him like a stalker from his bedroom door. He ripped the set off his ears in a frenzy.

"Jeez mom, could you announce yourself? You scared the crap out of me." 

"I did. Your music was just too loud for you to hear it," she chided.

His mother approached with a tray loaded with spaghetti and bread sticks.

"Whaa, what is this for?" It was one of his favorite dishes, but it was rarely made in the house. He was lucky his parents allowed him to try whatever he wanted when they ate at restaurants, but at home, it was strictly traditional.

"It’s been a while," she sat it on the space he had cleared off, "and you have been working so hard lately." 

"Got tests coming up," he said between bites.

"There is something I wanted to ask you though, completely unrelated to the food." 

"Mmm," Kyungsoo only gave half his attention. Nari’s spaghetti was too good to not savor every bite.

"Lee Jae-Eun is going to the same academy as you now."

He grunted, "Who… oh… you mean Auntie Joo Hyuns’ daughter?"

"Yes."

"Ehh,” he shrugged, “What about her?"

She sighed, “well… her mother is afraid there are some girls that pick on her. I was hoping you could keep an eye out for me?" 

"Mom… no! That's creepy." Kyungsoo moped.

"Oh, really Kyungsoo! I'm not talking about stalking her. Just keep an eye out. Her brothers are older, one has already been sent to the states and the other doesn’t see her during school hours. If you see something just let me know. Or maybe stand up for her." 

"I don't get involved in other peoples’ problems, Mom." 

"Well that's a lie if I ever heard one. Do you think I didn't know that you hid Park Chanyeol in this room for two weeks last year when he fought with his father? Why do you think there was extra food on your dinner plate?" She scolded.

"Uhh… but he's my best friend." Kyungsoo's voice cracked. He hated it when that happened.

"You have eight best friends, and you would help any one of them. This is my one and only best friend’s daughter. She's practically family. Please help me out this once." His mother pushed.

She had a point. Their families ran in the same circles, they attended the same parties… only neither of them were particularly social. There was only one time they had met that he could remember, when they were 6 or 7. He had just wanted to read his books, and Jae-Eun just wanted to draw in them. Kyungsoo hid any time their moms were together. He had so little interaction with her he couldn’t even remember what she looked like.

Only the fact his mother had let slip that she wanted them or marry. Jae-Eun was the girl they intended to be his wife.  

Kyungsoo sighed, he should have known it was no use to say no, he could never deny his mother. "Alright, I'll keep an eye out and if I see anything, I will let you know. But that's it." 

His mother wrapped her arms around Kyungsoo's shoulders, squeezing tightly.

"Thank you, my sweet boy." 

Kyungsoo shrugged her off. Ugg, feelings! Why did his mom have to hug so much?

"Okay, okay! Don't get so worked up about it." 

She snatched her hands away. "Right, you're a high schooler now. Too cool for mom." 

His mothers’ attempt to be understanding elicited a groan from Kyungsoo. 

"I’ve got to study." A feeling of guilt washed over him for brushing her off, but he just didn't like to be touched. He sighed in relief when she left his room.

Kyungsoo put his headphones back on and read as he finished his dinner.

**** 

He didn't keep an eye out. 

As a matter of fact, Kyungsoo completely forgot about the conversation. Tests and papers filled his time, friends took up what was left. It wasn't that he didn't think it was important. He did, but Kyungsoo's mom had just asked at the wrong time. There were too many coals in his fire.

Two weeks passed. The girl didn't even cross his mind. He aced his test and got a perfect score on his essay. He should be skating easy right now, but his super, awesome best friend, Byun Baekhyun nominated him as class leader at the beginning of the year and somehow, he won. Being class leader came with certain responsibilities, like running errands for the teacher.

It was pushing into his lunch time, and that was an unforgivable offence. Stupid responsibilities, stupid Baek and his stupid volunteering, making Kyungsoo be social when all he wanted was to keep his head down and get through this.

He took the south stairs, it was rarely used and popped out conveniently near the teachers’ offices. Getting this done and making it to lunch was top priority. This was one of those times when lunch would be the only break he had for the day, unfortunately luck was not on his side.

Between the second and third floors, a group of girls had another one cornered. Kyungsoo slowed, it would be better to take another route, he didn't want to get involved in someone else's mess.

It was that moment, as he turned away, he remembered what his mother asked. Kyungsoo swiveled on his heels and crept further down the stairs. Han Bora and her cronies circled the girl, her face hidden from him. 

"You think you are so much better than everyone else. Just because your parents are rich you turn your nose up at everyone," Bora mocked.

"That makes no sense, your parents are rich too or you wouldn't be in this school. Not that it seems to be helping you much," the girl replied.

Bora huffed, "this girl… yah, Lee Jae-Eun… I'm your senior in this school. You think you can talk to me like that?" 

Kyungsoo's eyes widened. So, Lee Jae-Eun WAS being bullied, and he had to come upon it today of all days.

"You have to give respect to earn respect." Jae-Eun said simply, holding her books to her chest.

Bora's best friend Choi Min-Ji flung her hand, smacking the books out of Jae-Eun's arms. Jae-Eun stumbled backward in surprise and another girl shoved her back to Bora.

"I should teach you a lesson. Knock some sense into you."

Jae-Eun held her head high, "Will that make you feel better about yourself?"

"Hey…" Bora yelled. Then she swung.

The slap bounced through the empty halls.

It echoed in Kyungsoo's head. Long, dark, hair flew in a fan as Jae-Eun's head spun from the force. It made Kyungsoo's stomach turn. He considered stepping in but Jae-Eun straightened, raising her head to Bora in defiance.

"Maybe you should try that again, you're still ugly inside."  

What the hell? Why would she provoke Bora further? The girl wasn't one to be intimidated nor was she forgiving. Jae-Eun would only make it harder for herself. He had attended school with Han Bora for most of his life. Last year, while she was in high school and he was still in middle, was the most peaceful year he had experienced. 

Another slap rang out across the halls and Kyungsoo's stomach dropped to the floor. He should do something. At least help her escape.

Before he could come to his senses, the folder flew out of his grasp, raining paper down the stairwell. His hands held tight to the rail as he faked his feet out from under him and stumbled down the remaining steps. 

"Sorry… sorry, excuse me," he clumsily reached for his papers and Jae-Eun's books as Bora and her minions laughed.

Kyungsoo straightened the papers in the folder, keeping his head low. He would be embarrassed if someone walked up on him being bullied, the girl probably didn't want to be seen.

A stray paper appeared in his gaze. His eyes lifted, and met hers, Lee Jae-Eun. She knelt directly in front of him. Wide eyes were on his, both cheeks an apple red. 

He couldn't turn away. She looked different from the picture his mother had recently shown him, her school picture from the year before. The round face had thinned out, making her appear older, her eyes seemed more exotic, lips fuller. His tongue darted out nervously to moisten his own.

She wiggled the paper in front of him. Kyungsoo blinked, dropping his gaze again, taking the paper she offered.

"Thanks," he whispered.

"Mmm," she acknowledged him, pivoting to gather her books. Taking advantage of the girls’ amusement, Jae-Eun slipped past them and scurried down the stairs. 

His heart pounded. What the hell had just happened? Why had he just stared at her like an idiot? Damn, he was an idiot. She had escaped, and he was surrounded by girls.

"Hey, Do Kyungsoo, do you like her or something?" Bora laughed.

He didn't even know her, but he sure as hell was impressed so far. If she were to be his future wife, he couldn't find it in him to be mad. 

And he protected what was his.

"Han Bora," he faced her, his deep voice steady and solid, "Don't mess with her again. This is the only time I'll ask." 

Laughter rang out among the girls again. 

"Or what? You don't scare me, the school doesn't scare me, my parents don't even scare me!" 

Maybe not, but he could guess what did.

"Choi Min-Ji, your parents work at Ganghan, don't they? Kim Young-Ah, yours too? And Bora, your dads’ even a Chairman for Ganghan. I've seen all three of you at Ganghan company parties. MY companies’ parties."

Kyungsoo wasn't familiar with using intimidation, but somehow, he felt he could pull it off. Astigmatism caused him to squint and look angry most of the time. His voice wasn't even cracking, it was low and smooth and felt a little dangerous. If they kept messing with Jae-Eun, he would be.

"It would be a shame if they were to suddenly find themselves out of a job, connections gone with no prospects. That life you're so used to, this fancy school you think you run all a distant memory. You’d lose that nice, big house and be sent to a public school. You’d actually have to do your classwork; daddy wouldn’t have the money to pay off your teachers then." He glanced at the other three girls who followed her around. "I bet I could find where your parents work as well. Ganghan reach is quite extensive."

Bora huffed, "you couldn't… you wouldn't."

"I can and will if I hear you mess with her again."

The girls fell deadly quiet. The fear in their eyes told Kyungsoo he had made an impact. He could get used to that.

"Why would you defend her? What is she to you?" Bora shook her head in disbelief. 

Kyungsoo stuck his hand in his pocket and started down the stairs, "She's family." 

He left the six girls in the stairwell to finish his duties, confusion on their faces.

[anistarrose]

Entropy (The Owl House)

Summary: As a witch, Eda thrives on unpredictability and chaos. Unfortunately, so does her curse.

Word count: 1734

Warnings: mild violence, but it’s no darker than the show itself

AO3: archiveofourown.org/works/22518526

The first of what I expect will eventually become many Owl House fics from me! This story is set a few months before Luz’s arrival to the demon realm, but also has some big spoilers for Episode 4, so beware!

***

Eda believes that unpredictability is a witch’s best friend. Magic should always be a little wild, a little feral, a little chaotic, a fickle force of nature that keeps its users on its toes. Predictable magic is weak magic, diluted magic, practically homeopathic magic that’s left with nary a spark of what once made it so fierce and formidable.

This is the philosophy that’s made Eda the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles. It’s the philosophy that’s helped her dodge imprisonment for decades. It’s even the reason why against her better judgement, she invited a scrawny little demon with an extreme superiority complex into her home — and as loathe as she is to admit it to King’s face, the little wannabe tyrant has brightened up more of her days than she’d ever expected.

Adherence to a status quo leads only to stagnant magic. Routine makes the bile in Eda’s heart run dry. Variety is the spice of life, and despite all the challenges she’s had to overcome — or perhaps even because of them — Eda is living.

But the most potent curses are always the most ironic ones. The ones that weave themselves not out of foreign magic, but out of the victim’s own nature, turning strengths into weaknesses and prides into secret shames.

In Eda the Owl Lady’s case, this means that her curse is very wild, very feral, very chaotic, and never predictable. When the feathers begin to sprout and she feels the telltale pinpricks of quills in her hair, when her fangs begin to elongate and her stomach makes its appetite known through bloodcurdling growls, she only has a matter of minutes at best before she loses herself — only a few minutes, at best, to find her elixir and stave off her transformation.

And if there’s no elixir in reach to be found, well… her last few moments of lucidity are best spent ensuring that no one will be around to see her in this state, both for her sake and theirs.

***

Eda is unceremoniously tossed into a Conformatorium cell, unable to get to her feet before the cold iron anti-magic gate slides down in front of her. The gaps between the rungs look plenty wide enough for King to slip through, which means either the guards haven’t noticed him shuddering and trying to hide in Eda’s arms, or they just don’t care enough about whether he escapes to bother securing him better.

“The Warden will be seeing you shortly, Owl Lady!” one guard barks from behind his beaked black mask. “I’m sure the two of you will have plenty to discuss!”

As their jailers leave, King wriggles out of Eda’s arms. “Are they gone?” he meekly asks, poking his snout out between the bars and peering down the hallway.

“Yes, but not for long,” Eda grunts as she attempts to draw a small spell circle in the air. A few sparks surround her fingertip, but fizzle out before the circle is complete. “Drat. They learned their lesson from the last time I broke out of this place.”

“Then looks like it’s the King of Demons’ turn to save the day!” King declares, raising a tiny fist. “And what better place to find recruits for my army of darkness than here, in this cesspool of sinister machinations and forbidden black magics!”

He pokes his head into the adjacent cell, in which a demon with foot-long pointed nails leans against a wall. “You there! You look like a foul, black-hearted creature if I’ve ever seen one! How about you join my prison riot?”

“Are you joking? There’s nothing foul or black-hearted about overthrowing an unjust government institution that misuses its authority,” the demon scoffs, continuing to polish their nails. “Come back and talk to me again if you think of something that’s really evil.”

Muttering to himself and shaking his head, King trots over to the prisoner on the opposite side of Eda’s cell. “How about you? You’ve got a lot of life left ahead of you — do you really want to spend it all in a prison?”

The baby in the cell ignores him, preoccupied with repeatedly stabbing a knife into the floor.

King trudges back to Eda’s side, head hanging. Very quietly, he asks: “Eda, what if I’m just not cut out for demonic tyranny?”

“Oh, don’t be silly.” Eda rubs his head. “I’ve never seen a demon more power-hungry than you are, you evil little thing. And hey, it’s not all bad — now you know exactly what types of demons not to recruit for your army of darkness!”

King’s mood immediately lightens. “You’re right, I just need to look on the bright side of things! Like how at least you didn’t have your staff with you today, so it’s not going to end up locked away in the warden’s contraband pile!”

Eda tries to retort that if she’d had her staff, she never would’ve gotten captured in the first place — but her throat has gone dry. After all, she hasn’t had anything to drink in hours.

Why do the torches in the hallway suddenly hurt to look at?

“All they actually confiscated was that orange potion you were drinking,” King goes on, completely oblivious. “Good thing they didn’t take anything important, ha!”

Eda runs a hand through her hair. Her fingers graze quills, sprouting from her scalp.

No! Not here, not now! Not in front of —

“King, you have to leave,” she hisses, falling to her knees and clutching her chest. “Squirm through the bars and run. I’ll catch up later.”

“Are you serious? I’m not leaving you!” King exclaims. “I can’t fly back home unless you carry me!”

He’s so precious.

So stubborn.

such dumb, easy prey

“I know a way to break out of here, but it’s — it’s — you’ll just get caught in the crossfire if you stay.” Eda claps one hand over her mouth, hiding her extending fangs, and with her free hand, picks up King by the scruff of his neck and stuffs him through one of the holes in the iron grate. “The guards will all be distracted in just another minute or two, so don’t waste your chance! Run and meet me back at the Owl House!”

no, little demon

come back inside, little squirrel creature

Halfway across the Conformatorium’s main chamber, a door creaks open, and King finally takes it as his cue to bolt.

so bright

too bright

can’t see

kill the lights

“Eda the Owl Lady!” Warden Wrath’s voice echoes. “I’ve been waiting so long for this moment…”

new demon

bigger demon?

bigger meal

Warden Wrath is wholly unprepared for the explosion of claws and feathers that tears through iron like it’s parchment, then barrels out of the Owl Lady’s cell with a scream that would cause a banshee to lose their voice for a week. The monster rakes a clawed hand across the wall, shredding half a dozen torches into tinder with a single blow — then turns to face Wrath, baring her fangs and grinning.

Wrath has read of the bloodthirsty strixes, the owlishly metamorphosed victims of potent curses — but he’s never encountered one face-to-face, never stared into these black eyes that are simultaneously so empty and so cunning. A lesser warden might turn tail and flee, but Wrath knows his duty.

Strixes are unnatural. Improper. Unpredictable. Feral.

Unsuitable for society, but a worthy opponent for him.

He charges, swinging a scythe-hand, and Eda effortly catches it with her fangs. She swings Wrath around like a toy, sending him careening into the wall — but he has a trick up his sleeve, and he transforms his hand into a hammer that pries Eda’s jaws open before she can extricate her teeth from his flesh.

Wrath laughs as Eda recoils, as she spits out dark ichor and shards of shattered yellow fangs. The acidic ichor sizzles as it lands on the cobblestone floor, and its ghastly smell reaches Wrath even through the herb-stuffed beak of his mask.

Seeing their warden stagger backwards from the pool of acid, two guards rush Eda — a mistake, they realize a few seconds too late. They add a degree of entropy to the battle that the strix exploits, whirling around and delivering two powerful kicks from her rear legs — and before Wrath can even admonish his inferiors, they’ve been flung on top of him, their heavy metal armor pinning him to the ground.

Eda licks her lips, advancing slowly, savoring the moment. A tiny drop of icor dribbles down her chin from the corner of her mouth, and her batlike ears twitch with delight.

Wrath’s arms are pinned, and any sudden shapeshifting movement will surely provoke the strix to lunge before he can get an attack off. Unable to remove his mask, yet left with no other option, he points his head at Eda as best as he can, and opens his mouth.

As the spout of flame incinerates the likeliness of a raven beak and spills out to fill the hall, Eda screeches and extends her wings so quickly that a sonic boom tears though the Conformatorium. Cast-iron gates are shattered, cobblestone is pulverized into rubble, and leagues of demons and witches run free.

Nearly overwhelmed by the stampede, Wrath staggers to his feet just in time to see the strix take flight, and soar out the skylight at the top of the prison dome.

***

Eda awakens beneath a tree, scattered patches of feathers still present where the early-morning sunlight hasn’t yet crept through the leaves to dapple her skin. As she collects herself and steps out into the direct sunlight, her transformation fully reverts — though her stomach still grumbles for flesh and blood. She’ll just have to get home quickly and quell it with an elixir, instead.

When she walks into the Owl House, King almost immediately springs into her arms and breaks down sobbing. “I was so worried! I ran like you said but I heard so much screaming and I saw something get lit on fire and I wasn’t sure if that was what you meant to do or —”

“I never do exactly what I mean to do,” Eda tells him, forcing a smile. “It wouldn’t be very wild and unpredictable of me if I did, would it?”

She sets King down on the couch. “But you can always count on one thing — I’m never leaving home without my magic staff again.”

[split-n-splice]

Oop, a longer chapter. Bear with me.

[Chapter Guide | FFn | Ao3]

40. Whose Side – 3

Her foul mood was expected, but her curt greeting still stung like a viper bite.

“I-I’m sorry I’m late,” sputtered Drakken, glancing at his bitter passenger. Making up excuses was a lost cause, but the feeble explanation tumbled out of his mouth before he could think to match her callous attitude. “I slept through my alarm, a-and I got distracted, and then you didn’t answer when I called so I figured I had best come check on you, but you weren’t home—”

“Drakken,” she interrupted tersely with a voice cold and sharp as ice.

He gulped. “Yes, Shego?”

“Shut up.”

He bit his cheek to silence an objection. The van idled a moment more as he studied her dark glare fixed dead ahead, her arms folded tight across herself and the faintest hint of green glimmering from between her fingers, visibly containing how upset she was at – at him? What had he done? Besides forget to pick her up from Buckley’s again? He wracked his brains quickly, but decided figuring her out was best saved for another time.

Attempting to appease her didn’t suit the image he was going for. He’d have to work on it. Nonetheless he couldn’t stop himself from piping up. “It’s not too late to pick up some Chow.”

Shego was silent.

Drakken turned the van around and said nothing of it when she dug out a pack of smokes from her pocket to light one up. He certainly kept his eyes off her every time she brought it to her lips to take a puff. Or he tried to, anyway.

By the time he’d navigated his way back to the Cow-n-Chow, she’d relaxed enough to kick her feet up on the dash and tune the radio. That came as some relief, but he knew better than to believe the danger had passed. Drakken was ready to order her usual for her when she spoke up, requesting salad instead. Erring on the side of caution, he ordered her usual anyway, which she tucked into and finished without a word before demanding another stop for a video rental.

He anticipated being presented with a dark and ominous film, but instead she returned to the van dully announcing she could use a laugh, and flashed the cover of a detective comedy. He had mixed feelings about the whimsical man in the picture, but ultimately decided it wasn’t his movie to watch and so the only opinion he spared was a grunt.

“Anything else?” could have been asked a little more nicely, but she could have answered a little more crossly too so he counted his blessings.

“Yeah. Do you have popcorn back home or should we pick some up?”

A sound of frustration snuck out of his mouth, but at least he could nod.

She’d get her popcorn and movie, and he – he had a backlog to catch up on. If there was any urgency to complete projects though, he quickly forgot about it when Shego’s fingers curled around his arm as he made to cross the tech lab to head downstairs. Weak against her pull, he followed her lead with nary a word in defiance.

He barely stifled his protest when he was shoved down onto the couch, his shoulders feeling strangely sunburned where she’d pushed him. “Shego, I can’t—,” was all that made it out of his mouth before her cold stare shut him up. He sat stiffly in place for a minute, contemplating ways to get out of a goodie-goodie comedy he already owned a copy of. He told her where the popcorn was when asked, but otherwise kept his lips zipped tight as the buttery aroma warmed the stale air.

Shego still wore the same stony glare as she wordlessly turned down the lights, popped in the tape, and threw herself down on the far end of the couch, guarding her bowl of popcorn she didn’t seem keen on sharing.

By the light of the previews, Drakken dared to watch her from the corner of his eye – and before they were over, he’d found the gall to unzip his lips. “Do I need to build a brain tap machine to figure out what has you so…so…,” pissed off would not be a safe choice of words, he decided as Shego’s glare turned to sear through him. “Because I can and I will.” How hard could it be? Like a lie detector, but more in depth, right?

“Stay. Out. Of my brain,” she ground out. Slumping further and drawing her knees up, she added in a small grumble, “Jackass.”

He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve her ire, but he knew a brain tap machine was off the table. For now.

Drakken crossed his arms and willed his gaze to stay on the television, but it strayed once more as scenes he’d seen before played out. She couldn’t be that angry at him for being so unfashionably late, could she? Puzzled, he stared until her jaded gaze darted to him, if only for a split second.

He hardened his own frown on the television, willing his arms to unfold, bracing himself to stand on the count of three – or ten – or one hundred. He made it to the count of sixty-five when he bit the bullet. His butt was lucky to have made it an inch from the cushion when a hand snapped out, nails digging into his shoulder. He could smell the trace of fabric smoldering beneath Shego’s palm, and felt the tremble before she retracted her grip and stuffed her hands in her armpits to hide the faint green glimmer emanating from her palms.

Swallowing and setting his jaw, Drakken stared down the moody young woman who did not appear to be enjoying her movie whatsoever. “I have better things to do with my time than—,” he began tersely, but of course was interrupted by his puzzling company.

“Lipsky, you are going to watch this normal movie with me, on a normal couch, on a normal television,” she said, her voice bearing a threat of consequence if he dared defy her. “And it’s going to be – I’m going to be—,” she was swallowing hard then as if to gulp down the frog in her throat, batting her lashes to blink away – oh for Pete’s sake, were her eyes misty?

This wasn’t a tearjerker movie, but he glanced to the television anyway as some silly, borderline obscene, gag played out.

“Yes?” he carefully urged, playing the odds she might shed a little light on the situation.

Shego all but blew up on him, flipping the bowl of popcorn balanced on her knees in the process. “NORMAL!” she shouted in frustration, and in the dim light, he caught a glimpse of the green embers fizzling and oozing from her palms as she clawed the air as if she wished to wring someone’s neck. “I want to feel normal! Just for a little while. So please. Forget about anything outside of this room for the next ninety minutes. Just shut up. Shut up and watch the fucking movie with me.” Given the daggers she shot at the television, it was a wonder she didn’t pelt it with plasma.

The startling outburst had Drakken pressed to the far corner of the couch, but at least she didn’t paw at any tears. She looked as though she’d rather throw punches before she let tears roll down her cheeks, though he was sure he saw the threat looming by the rapid flutter of her eyelids. He studied her as she curled into herself again.

He scoffed and gestured to his own blue skin. “Normal? Shego, normal is something people like us aren’t likely to be getting back,” he blurted out, much colder than intended. Even if true, once the words left his mouth, he braced to be struck with a punch, or maybe a glow-laced punch, or maybe hands around his throat, or—

Shego drew a shuddering breath and continued to glare at the television as though that would be enough to let out whatever pent-up frustration he was caught in the crossfire of. “It’s not just that,” he barely heard her grumble into her knees.

“Then what?” Drakken carped. She’d said shut up. He should have listened.

Thankfully a reprimand – verbal or physical – didn’t come, though he was so braced for one he was starting to cramp up. Shego was quiet for a long moment, until finally she exhaled slowly as though to calm herself. He swore he could see it, like breath on a chilly morning or a thin wisp of smoke after taking a drag. “It’s personal,” she said decisively.

In that case, whatever business she had with his television and couch tonight was none of his. Before second thoughts could weigh him down again, Drakken stood and played deaf to her displeased grunt behind him. He glanced to the door. He did have things to do. But he also had something he’d wanted to show her. He’d even tried to tell her so earlier, but she’d been determined to make him sit and keep her company.

“Do you mind if I—”

“Yes,” she snapped.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!” he griped back, barely without whining, and pinched the bridge of his nose before trying again. “I think you’ll like it. I was really looking forward to showing it to you.”

It was the truth. He’d intended to show her the rare orchid sometime this evening, ever since she’d asked about it on the ride to Buckley’s Brew. And right now, she sure looked like she could use something to lift her spirits. Though there was also a risk, given the funk she was in, that she could destroy the specimen without regard to its value or the lengths he’d gone through to construct the miniature biosphere to grow the picky plant in, let alone the seeds he’d acquired in a high-stakes gamble. With a little work under the scope, the plant he’d genetically-modified himself months ago had been brought to bloom years ahead of schedule.

Shego’s misty-eyed glare burned into him for a long moment before she gave a stubborn sniff and reached for the remote to stop the movie with a loud crackle of white-noise filling the room. “Whatever,” she said coldly. “I’m going to get dressed for bed.”

It was barely six in the evening – but Drakken refrained from bringing that up as she shouldered past him. Her burnt mattress and linen had yet to be replaced. He desperately hoped that by tomorrow, his couch wouldn’t need to be replaced too. He frowned down to the marks she’d left on his coat, blue fabric singed black where shoulder pads ought to be, and discarded the victim of his volatile hot-tempered accomplice over the back of a barstool.

He slowly counted to three – only three – before leaving his living quarters and into the tech lab. Already, Shego was nowhere in sight, but as he passed down the hall toward his office, he heard the shower running. He tried not to slow or pause or lean toward the washroom door, but he didn’t make it past in time to miss a distinct sniffle inside. She couldn’t possibly be that upset he’d failed to pick her up from Buckley’s. Personal, she’d said. Then it was none of his business, he reminded himself, squaring his shoulders and stalking off for his office once more.

She wanted to be normal, she’d stressed. What was that supposed to mean? Drakken again wracked his brains. What was her idea of normal? Was she homesick? Did she regret passing up her opportunity to rejoin her brothers? Just a few nights ago, when he’d mistakenly brought his own personal woes to her, they’d sat together in front of her television and she’d drowsily reminisced about piling up on the sofa for family movie nights, failing to console him through his acceptance that he may never see his own family again – though he could barely relate to whole idea of family movie nights as an only child. Did she miss that? Not being alone? He knew she had four brothers, at least, and a father, and presumably a mother too – in other words, some aspect of her normal was a sizable family. He was only one person, and he was not crowding henchmen into his quarters to substitute for a family. Androids and henchmen had to be a sorry substitute for family anyway.

Drakken stopped at the bottom of the staircase, sighing wretchedly and rubbing at a crick in his neck.

It was quite possible he was off the mark, but if she wouldn’t tell him what was on her mind and he couldn’t devise any mind-tapping devices to get to the bottom of it himself, he was left to speculate. Unfortunately speculating was bound to give him a headache. Leaving Shego to sort herself out was possibly for the best, he decided, but he still turned for his desk to retrieve the orchid he’d left there.

He froze in his tracks when he lifted his eyes from the stone floor to see an uninvited figure sitting sidelong in his office chair, holding the glass pod containing the plant. Unplugged from what was essentially its life-support system, the delicate little biosphere was scarcely more than a glorified flowerpot, but it was still infuriating to see the intruder turning it over so carelessly.

The wave of alarm washing over him had Drakken scanning the room, frantically questioning where he’d had that blasted intruder alert button installed. That’s right – it was at the CCTV system desk across the office, in convenient reach of any henchman on security duty. Why didn’t he have a henchman stationed there anyway? He should know better than to let his guard down with a perceived threat in the area! He grit his teeth, inwardly berating himself.

“So,” cooed the young woman behind his desk before he could storm up to her. “Who’s this for?”

Frozen, Drakken couldn’t help a nervous gulp. There was no way she could know he’d brought it up from the basement for Shego. Then again, maybe she did. He thought out loud sometimes, and this stranger had the gift of invisibility to make spying a breeze. “Shego,” he growled through his teeth, though it wasn’t so much an answer as it was the irate wish for his accomplice to be beside him to explain the woman’s presence.

Miss Kimbley arched an eyebrow and smirked. “She doesn’t go for flowers,” she informed as if offering a helpful piece of information. “Oh, but try a fish dinner!” she recommended instead, smiling wider and chuckling, though Drakken failed to see what was so funny as there was certainly nothing comical about the territory she was suggesting. Even the henchcrew was strongly advised against cracking jokes of such nature.

Cheeks warming over, Drakken fixed a grimace on his face and hoped it was enough to mask his fluster. He sputtered something indignant and incoherent before he could stop himself, and he bit his tongue with a grunt and tried to form the words right before he spoke again. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?” he demanded, crossing the room to yank the spherical biosphere from the intruder’s hands. She was Shego’s acquaintance, but he was certain Shego wouldn’t have willingly invited her in.

The woman shied back just a little bit at the bite in his tone, but then she rose to her feet, pushing the biosphere aside to stand toe to toe. Drakken decided to set it down for safety’s sake, though the thought occurred too late to cradle it in his arms and make a mad dash upstairs for Shego. Instead he glanced across the room toward the CCTV desk, wildly seeking the button to sound the alarm, and lurched back from the fingers spreading over his chest.

“I have an offer for you, Mr…?” said Miss Kimbley, but he recognized a honeycoated tone when he heard one.

“Drakken,” he hissed. He batted the hand away, taking a swift step back toward the staircase – and most importantly the alarm button across the room. “Dr. Drakken.” Hadn’t he clarified that earlier? Alias or not, maybe he shouldn’t be giving his name out to a potential Global Justice spy. Even so, if she had something to offer, she had something to gain, and it was practically reflex to inquire, “What do you want?”

Despite another step back, the intruder was invading his space once again. “Better question,” she chimed, giving the bottom of his tie a tug. He snatched her hand this time, and tried not to consider how cold her fingers felt compared to Shego’s, which he could so often feel warming him even through his gloves. She didn’t let up, clearly not taking the hint nor offence to his scowl and raised lip. “What do you want, Doctor?”

Impulse urged him to snap at her that he wanted her out of his lair. The woman was trespassing, therefore posed a threat, and he was inclined to trust Shego’s judgment that he ought to keep his distance. Which was hard to do with his back against the wall. His mouth was dry. Where was that button? Better yet, where was Shego?

“Whatever she’s offering, I can do better,” said the confident pretty little thing before him in a voice that made his stomach give a sickened flip-flop. An odd shimmer like a mirage glazed over the woman and she was gone – to the naked eye, anyway. He knew better than to believe she had left, not when he still felt the invisible touch running down his stomach and—

If he hadn’t had a reason to panic before, he certainly did at the first tug of his belt.

“Hands off, missy!” snarled Drakken, leaping to the side and stumbling over his own feet. He reached for his waist – everything was in place – and just to be sure everything was in order, he tucked his shirt in a little neater.

The ghost of Shego’s past was visible again, down on her knees, a chafed look on her face for a split second before one of deep consideration settled in its place. Her gaze strayed from him as he regained his composure, her hazel eyes darting to his filing cabinet. One of the drawers had been pulled open. Had she been rifling through his files? Without a doubt, if she was here to spy.

“You need a thief, right?” she said, taking a stab at finding his sweet spot from another angle. “Assassin? Watchdog? I’m your gal.” She stood, gesturing to herself.

She most certainly was not his gal. He didn’t have a gal. And even if he did, even if Shego – Drakken stopped that thought in its tracks and gnashed his teeth, hoping his glare was as menacing as the ones he practiced in the mirror. But by the slow bat of the intruder’s fake eyelashes, it was not.

“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” he ground out, gesturing to the stairwell to signal it was time she took her leave. If she couldn’t take the hint, then he didn’t need someone on his crew who needed it spelled out for them.

Priscilla Kimbley glanced from the stairs to him, the calculating look still set in her furrowed brow. “Look, man, I need a change of pace,” she said pointedly, taking a step closer once again, but he squared his shoulders and balled his fists and she paused. Hopefully intimidated. Hopefully thinking twice about trying underhanded persuasion a second time. “Looks to me like Shego struck gold here. I saw some of your shit in the basement. Pretty wicked stuff.” Her wry smile was back. She couldn’t still be pushing for what he thought she was, could she? She didn’t look like the henchwoman type. She wouldn’t last a week in villainy.

Drakken glanced across the room to the button again. He could press it now, and Priscilla could be gone by the time the henchmen assembled, and if Shego was still in the shower – well, whatever the case, the intruder would be long gone before anyone could hope to catch her.

“Shego is more than I can handle, thank you,” he said stiffly, stepping toward the stairwell and nodding up it. He needed this woman out of his lair, before Shego could see her and he risked having another catfight on his hands. “Goodbye, please leave.” If only it was that easy. She understood the hint. No one was that stupid.

She still took her time sauntering over to him. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she said flippantly. “She’s not even giving you one-hundred percent.”

True, he wasn’t taking advantage of his accomplice’s full potential, but she did what he asked of her and that was enough. He still couldn’t stop his brow from scrunching as the intruder passed him and took the first step up. He nearly reached out to snatch her by an arm. “What do you mean?” he all but demanded.

The young woman paused to glance back. “She’s on drugs,” she answered simply, as though it were obvious.

And maybe it was obvious to anyone who knew the troubled superhuman. He’d like to think he knew her well enough. He’d smelled evidence on her before, and she’d made a friendly offer the other night and had the paraphernalia and everything. “I am aware she smokes—”

Priscilla Kimbley laughed, the single bark echoing up the stairwell, and she clamped her mouth shut as if only realizing now how well sound traveled in the lair’s stony corridors. “Nah, not that kind,” she said, toning it down to little more than a giggle. She set her hands on her hips, beaming down at Drakken, and he hated having to tilt his head to look up at the woman standing several steps above him now as she explained. “This shit puts her out cold. And I do mean cold. Total chill pills. Those megalomaniacs pulling the strings of that little superhero team of hers use it to keep her under control. I can get you some, if you wanna mess with it.” She gave a nonchalant shrug, as if offering to give him some miracle drug to control someone as dangerous and unpredictable as Shego was no big deal.

“I-I know about that too,” he bluffed. But did he really? He’d had a suspicion she’d been taking something, but it could have been anything. Truthfully he hadn’t given it much thought, but he wracked his brains quickly now.

When she’d first arrived, she’d skulked through his lair half-asleep occasionally, sometimes grumbling about withdrawals late at night amidst her unique issues – issues which were just now proving to be not as benign as he’d thought, if her crispy mattress had anything to say about it. If such a drug did exist, why in the world would she be back on it? Was she relapsing? She couldn’t be. She’d been so excited to use her full power when he’d made her the enhancing gloves – why would she self-sabotage herself to turn down the heat? Where would she have even gotten such a drug?

Drakken’s mind didn’t finish reeling through the possibilities before he blurted, “She doesn’t take them anymore—”

The intruder scoffed and reached into a pocket, producing a little orange bottle. She rattled the contents. “And you believed her?” she jeered down at him.

Drakken made a reflexive grab for the bottle but the woman held it out of reach with a wicked snicker before surrendering it without further difficulty. He couldn’t believe his eyes. It had to be just a bottle of aspirin, but the label – bearing a bar code and dosage with the instructions Take with food before bed, prescribed to simply Shego – looked legitimate enough, even if it didn’t clarify what the drug was. He trusted his accomplice leagues more than this shifty intruder, and he trusted her not to weaken herself – not to mention, if she was taking it, then she would have to be in contact with the supplier, Global Justice, and there was no way—

“I’ll let you sleep on it,” said Priscilla, interrupting his doubtful train of thought. She smiled again as she backed away up the staircase. “Roofie her if you don’t believe me. Only way you’ll get to have a little fun with her.”

He had plenty of fun with Shego – Vegas and the stolen station wagon were still fairly fresh in his mind – but as the words sank in, he concluded that spray painting graffiti and pushing cars off cliffs wasn’t the kind of fun this woman was suggesting. He opened his mouth to object, to defend himself or Shego or them both, but the intruder had vanished in the blink of an eye.

Maybe Shego hadn’t been over-exaggerating when she’d said the woman was not a friend. Maybe she’d had every reason to attack her when she’d arrived on her doorstep.

Stupefied for a second too long, he was late in diving up the stairwell, reaching out to grasp at open air, hoping to catch the invisible lady in his lair, but his hand met only empty air. “I am not drugging my partner in crime,” he hissed out, knowing she must still be near enough to hear him, and strained to listen for the slightest breath or shuffle of retreating feet.

He heard nothing.

Still clutching the pill bottle in one hand, daring not stow it in a pocket lest the intruder merely steal it back – invisiblity had to grant an innate talent for pick-pocketing – Drakken climbed the staircase a few steps more, his free hand outstretched and feeling uselessly for the invisible intruder. When he decided it was a lost cause, he let his hand fall and he snorted his frustration. An invisible woman who didn’t want to be caught would be a challenge to catch without a full sweep of the lair with infrared goggles, and he simply didn’t have enough for every henchman, nor did he have his own handy.

“I am not drugging Shego,” he repeated to himself, though as he returned to his office, pills in hand, he had to wonder how often she drugged herself. He tried to guess how many pills were in the bottle – the label specified 30 – and wanted to believe that most, if not all, were still accounted for. Where had Shego even gotten the pills? Had she brought them from Go City? She couldn’t possibly still be in contact with that rotten Global Justice – that would make her a spy, wouldn’t it? He trusted her not to be a spy. He knew it in his gut! Her brothers, on the other hand…

He shook his head but it didn’t clear up the plague of second thoughts he had now about his partner.

Drakken dropped himself down in his desk chair and pushed up his glasses to rub his weary eyes until stars burst behind his eyelids. Friday night, Shego had behaved especially strangely. He didn’t want to consider the possibility it wasn’t just the alcohol to blame – but he’d been sober enough at the time she’d stolen his cheese to make out her cursing to herself about needing to eat with something she damned with enough profanity to make a sailor blush. Looking at the bottle of pills now, the instructions take with food served as a jigsaw piece he didn’t want. The puzzle was coming together and he didn’t like the picture it formed.

How had Priscilla Kimbley gotten hold of Shego’s medication anyway? Were they working together, conspiring against him? No, of course not. Shego clearly had a beef with the woman, and she reminded him at every opportunity.

He’d very much like to believe Miss Kimbley was pulling his leg, but evidence pointed to Shego’s use of the mysterious medication. He shook the bottle around again and counted carefully – recounting at least two more times for good measure. There were a few missing. So what? That was proof of nothing. That Kimbley woman could have easily stolen a few. And if Kimbley had stolen them from Shego, then she would be missing them.

As Drakken was battling to convince himself that his companion wasn’t taking some strange chill pill provided by Global Justice, soft footsteps descending the staircase made him jump.

It was only Shego, in her googly-eyed owl pajamas and soft green slippers – not the sight one would expect in a lair of all places, but regrettably a sight for sore eyes nonetheless. Her hair was still damp, and her voice was a little on the hoarse side when she croaked, “Hey,” in greeting.

Drakken didn’t realize how fast he could move until he’d stuffed the bottle in his pocket and come to stand beside her. “Are you ready for that movie now?” he blurted, though he wasn’t eager to watch it himself, if he was being honest. Somehow it felt like an appropriate change of subject.

She sniffed, nose stuffy, and gave a weak smile. “I’unno,” she said with an effort at dry wit, “are you ready to be cute and cuddly?”

His legs felt weak and his heart thrummed meekly against his ribs. He wasn’t cuddle material nor did he strive to be cute, yet the prospect she might think so gave him an itch to try it out anyway. “I-I’m—let’s not get ahead of yourselves,” he stammered with a nervous smile.

She reached out for his arm, fingers curling delicately into his sleeve. She didn’t inadvertently burn him when she touched him this time, though by the look of concentration skewing her face, she was trying hard not to. “You wanted to show me something?”

In that moment, he tried to forget just how nice she smelled fresh out of the shower, and tried to think of how lovely the orchid did instead. And then he sharply reprimanded himself – because giving the orchid a whiff when his nerves were high would only heighten them, and he didn’t need any mood enhancers, for good or for bad, at a time like this. Neither did Shego, for that matter, but he turned back for his desk and the biosphere anyway.

“Now, it’s not for keeps,” he warned, gesturing to his desk and the flower on it. “But it looks nice, no? Y-you probably shouldn’t sniff it. It has strong effects on the brain. Amplifies – uhm – maybe when you’re in a better mood.” The blossom was largely unstudied, but by what he had gathered, the potent flower could act as ecstasy or it could plunge a person into depression, and cause any number of wild mood swings depending on the circumstances.

He went on to explain the exotic pink blossom to her, the lengths he’d gone to cultivate it, and its potential – but she looked bored the entire time his mouth was moving. Maybe that Priscilla woman was right, he considered, disheartened as he set the biosphere aside. Shego really didn’t seem all that impressed by flowers, even flowers as difficult to grow as genetically-modified orchids in climate-controlled biospheres. He made a mental note to find some she did like – and corrected himself that it was only to prove Shego’s indifference wasn’t withstanding among all flowers. No one hated flowers that much, except maybe the odd villain or two who utterly despised healthy ecosystems.

Shego pulled at his sleeve. “Okay,” she said, sounding bored to death. “You like gardening. Great. Can we go back upstairs and play pretend now?” She seemed more stable now, at least.

Drakken couldn’t help a sigh. “Do I have to pretend to be cute and cuddly?” The idea still had him uncertain. Especially the idea of cuddling – a possibility seeming realer by the moment, and with her no less – well, it made his insides do a nervous jig. There were more productive ways to spend his time, and yet he was compelled to bend to her will.

She flashed an impish smile. “You don’t have to pretend.”

“Good.”

“Because you already are, flower boy.” She turned away then with a small laugh at his grunt of indignation.

Despite what should have been an offence to his villainous ego, he followed her back up the stairs. His smile on her back faded though, and he reached almost involuntarily for his pocket and the pills in it. Pills prescribed by Global Justice.

Keeping his eyes up, he studied the back of her head, eyes inadvertently drawn to something that stood out against the sheet of black. Maybe he just hadn’t walked close enough behind her to see them before. There wasn’t much to see there on the back of her head – except, of course, a grey hair or two he hadn’t noticed until now with her hair damp and sticking flat around her shoulders.

Following Shego back to his quarters, Drakken tried not to stare too hard. She seemed too young for grey hair, but he was mindful enough to keep the thought to himself. She wasn’t older than she said she was, was she? No, of course not. He’d first met her as an awkward teenager – well, technically she still was a teenager – but it was only four years ago or so that he’d first encountered her. She’d been in rough shape, but thinking back, she’d still been very much a kid then. He hadn’t been in the best shape himself either, and he’d been in even worse shape when he’d ditched her at that lonely rest stop in the middle of nowhere.

Something about that fateful day echoed at the far reaches of his mind, just out of his grasp. Something about Subject B.

Drakken mulled it over as he made a fresh batch of popcorn while Shego sheepishly swept up the mess she’d made earlier.

It wasn’t until she was sitting on his couch, awaiting his return with the bowl, did it finally resound clearly in his head and out of his mouth. “Subject B is liable to break down in a matter of years,” he muttered incredulously to himself, staring down at the grey strands standing boldly against her unnaturally iridescent raven locks.

The thought of cellular damage crossed his mind. If her body hadn’t adapted to her alien power, the plasmic fire would have destroyed her years ago as surely as it would have anyone else’s who came in contact. Thankfully the first round of researchers had clearly been wrong about her – try as she might, Subject B hadn’t destroyed herself during the metamorphosis – but that didn’t mean they were entirely wrong, either. Without a so-called chill pill to suppress the flame, was she still at risk of hurting herself? Had Global Justice been doing her a favor by regulating her alien glow in some way?

Shego glanced back at him innocently, tearing her eyes off her movie. “What was that?” he barely heard her ask.

“Nothing,” he answered quickly, sitting down awkwardly on the far end of the couch, the bowl of popcorn set on the one cushion between them.

He tried to face the movie and eat popcorn one puff at a time from the palm of his hand while his companion snacked by the handful. He didn’t make it long before his eyes slid across to her, the thoughts still wreaking havoc in his head.

She caught him staring. “What?”

“Nothing,” he blurted, gaze snapping away briefly. “Um. Actually.” He was sitting on the pill bottle in his back pocket. He shifted, but it didn’t make his rear feel any better. Unabashedly studying the woman in her pajamas now, the question “Are you on any special medication?” escaped his trap.

Shego quirked her brow at him, suspicion fleeting on her face, but she laughed awkwardly. She took a guess, “Like…what? Birth control?”

He had to dismiss that one the best he could, awkwardly scratching at his neck. “Ah, no. That probably couldn’t hurt, but no, I mean – what I’m asking is – I’m just wondering if you’re taking anything. That’s all.” He swallowed and waited.

She dropped the wry playful act, her glare hardening on him. “No,” she denied, though he could hear the lie laced in her tone alone. “What makes you think that?” She needed to work on her deception skills.

“Nothing. Nothing, just…” Drakken blurted, realizing he was just as bad. His own pulse thundered in his ears. If Shego had put Priscilla up to giving him the pills, she’d be expecting him to come clean, wouldn’t she? And if she hadn’t, she’d have to expect him to return the stolen item. And if they were stolen, and if she was on medication, then maybe she needed them. “Well, actually, you said something the other night. And I just thought, if they help…maybe you’d want these back. I believe these are yours.” Swallowing doubt and anxiety and anything else, Drakken fished out the bottle from his back pocket and held his hand outstretched, bottle in his palm for her to take.

Shego’s eyes locked on the bottle. She reached for it but withdrew her hand just as quickly, wringing her fingers. “No, thanks. I don’t need that shit,” she spat – only to change her mind in the next instant. Before he could argue it or retract the offer to return the medication, she snatched up the bottle and jumped to her feet.

“It might be for your own good, Shego,” he called, leaping up to follow her to the kitchen. Her hands were emitting green cinders as she fought with the child-proof lid. He smelled melting plastic. She was heaving for breath. She was angry. What was she so angry about? It was a damn good thing he hadn’t let her sniff the flower.

“Fuck off!” she shouted vehemently, chucking the bottle with full force in the general vicinity of his sink. The half-melted bottle shattered, little white pills scattering. Before the pills had even stopped bouncing, she scrambled forward to collect him, cursing to herself. “Whose side are you on anyway?” she snapped back at him, voice cracking, as he approached the kitchen island.

“Yours!” Drakken blurted in reflex. “I mean – I thought – I thought you were on mine, is what I mean. And if they help you, maybe you should—”

“No,” she spat. She was trembling, throwing every pill she found into the sink under the running tap. She slammed cabinet doors to find the switch for the garbage disposal. “No, no, no,” she repeated to herself, to every pill she disposed of. He heard her counting them under her breath.

Once the distraught superhuman was sure that every tiny pill had been thoroughly destroyed and washed down the drain, she hovered over his sink, shaking her head as she ran her glowing hands beneath the steaming stream of water while the garbage disposal snarled tirelessly.

Drakken was quiet for a long moment, standing cautiously on the other side of the kitchen island though he knew he wasn’t out of the danger zone. Once her tremors had subsided somewhat and the steam had stopped billowing, he crept forward, daring to stand beside her and shut off the faucet. When he reached for her shoulder, he was just about zapped by the energy radiating unseen from her body.

Despite the shimmer of unchecked green glow glistening over her skin, Shego turned sharply toward him, her face thudding into his chest and arms constricting around him, squeezing the breath out of him in a bear hug comparable to his mother’s. The only difference was Shego was not his mother, and her body burned like a furnace against him, namely her hands digging into his back. He winced. The plasma burns eating holes in his shirt would need lotion later.

Bearing it, Drakken squeezed his eyes shut, choosing not to look so closely at her grey hairs, evidence she might very well be breaking down in some way. She was certainly breaking down on an emotional level, anyway. Cute and cuddly, he reminded himself as he gingerly held her by the shoulders, desperately hoping to channel whatever cute and cuddly part of him she’d been hoping for tonight even if it wasn’t his normal.

He knew the third degree was coming when his companion went rigid and roughly shoved him back, an accusatory glare written across her face. Drakken didn’t wait for her to demand answers before opening his big mouth to spill the beans.

[paigenotblank]

Making the Naughty List

Pairing: Twelve x Rose Rating: Explicit Series: As It Should Be

written for @dwsecretsanta for @serindipitysays (I am so sorry for it’s lateness!!)

tagging: @doctorroseprompts for the 31 Days of Christmas prompts: workshop, gingerbread, naughty and/or nice, santa and/or elves, mistletoe, friends, family, celebrate

Read at AO3 or TS

--

Rose breathed in the steam wafting from her mug before taking a sip of her tea in an attempt to chase away the fog of sleep. The soft material of her pajamas slid across the skin of her legs and almost tempted her to turn around and go back to bed. She’d barely made a sound as she padded into the console room, but the Doctor lifted his head from the mess of wires that comprised his latest project and homed in on her.

“Rose!” He jumped up from his seat and ran over to his wife. After kissing her on the cheek, his eyes took in what she was wearing and his forehead wrinkled. “Why so many layers?

Rose glanced down at the cotton flannel pajamas, heavy socks, and thick robe she had on. She stepped into the Doctor’s personal space and ran her finger down his chest. “Don’t think I wasn’t gonna surprise you with my new Christmas teddy…” Rose leaned back and directed the rest of her comment toward the ceiling, “but it was bloody freezing this morning.”

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah…”

Rose narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“I picked up Bill. She’s in the galley getting something to eat. The TARDIS probably didn’t want her to be scandalized if she caught you wearing...or not wearing...that-”

“It wouldn’t be the first time we scandalized her,” Rose said with a purr to her voice.

“Yes. And the last time she walked in on us, it was a month before she’d step onto the TARDIS again.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “It was a month for her, you cheated and skipped ahead.”

“Well, I’d rather not have it happen again. The only one I want ogling my wife’s backside is me.”

Rose laughed. “More like you don’t want to hear her go off on your pasty white arse for two hours.”

“It’s almost Christmas, I didn’t wake up this morning with the intention of being abused-”

“Did you sleep last night?”

“No-”

“Then you can’t complain.”

The Doctor’s eyebrows drew together. “Oi, I didn’t make myself Scottish to not complain.”

Rose shook her head with a fond sigh. “Doctor...”

“It’s Christmas, Rose.”

“Time machine. It’s not Christmas just yet.”

The Doctor crossed his arms. “Semantics.”

Rose smiled her tongue touched grin. “How the tables have turned, my love.”

The Doctor couldn’t help himself, he leaned in to chase after that teasing appendage.

“Oi! There are others on board!”

The two sprung apart and looked sheepishly in Bill’s direction.

Rose handed her mug to the Doctor and moved swiftly across the room to give Bill a hug. “Sorry, darling. I promise I’ll try and behave.”

Bill snorted with a roll of her eyes. “That’ll be the day. You two are so sickeningly in love it makes it hard for those of us sadly single to be around you.”

“Oh! What happened with Penny? Was it because we-”

“No. It was nothing that you two did. She’d been surprisingly accepting of me traveling around with aliens.”

“Oi! Not an alien. Still human thank you very much.” Rose crossed her arms with a huff.

“Fine. A time traveling alien and his immortal human wife.”

A smile tugged at Rose’s lips. “Glad we got that sorted. So what happened with Penny? I thought it was going well?”

Bill flopped down in one of the many seats scattered around the console room and shrugged. “Her ex came calling. They’d been together for 11 years, and decided to give it another try.”

Rose sat down next to Bill and wrapped her arms around the younger woman. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. We’d only been dating a few weeks. I hadn’t gotten a chance to get too attached.”

Rose stood and pressed a kiss to the top of Bill’s head. “I don’t believe that for a second. When you love, you do it whole-heartedly. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”

“Me too. You remind of Rose when I first met her,” the Doctor said fondly. “Chip obsession and all.”

Rose snuggled into the Doctor’s side pressed her lips to his shoulder. “Shut up.”

“You’re still one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever met and aren’t I just the luckiest man in the universe to have you.”

Rose’s breath caught in her throat and she twinned her fingers in her husband’s unruly locks. Raising herself onto her tippy toes, she pulled him down for a kiss.

The Doctor tugged her more firmly against his front and groaned when Rose did that thing with her tongue that he liked so much.

Bill sighed loudly.

Rose pulled back with a blush.

“Sorry, Bill.”

“I want it on the record that you only lasted about 2 minutes into your promise. You think I’d be used to it by now. Oh, wait. I am.”

Rose shook her finger at Bill. “Hush. I know you’re used it, but still it was insensitive of me. You’d think my husband of 50 years was rubbing off on me.”

“Oi!”

“Rude and not ginger. It’s who you are, love.”

The Doctor grumbled and headed for the console. He started flicking switches and throwing levers, a little harder than was necessary if the flickering lights of the rotor was any indication.

Rose leaned back against the railing and smirked at his antics.

“So where are we headed today?”

She drew her eyes away from her husband’s backside and to her young friend. “Christmas dinner.”

“But Christmas is still nearly a week off.”

“We knew you’d want to spend your Christmas with Moira, but since we have this magnificent time machine you can spend ours with us, too.”  

Bill grinned brightly. “Well, then it’s a good thing I thought to bring your gifts with me, wasn’t it.”

“You didn’t need to get us anything.”

“Presents?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “I swear sometimes I think I’m married to a 2000 year old toddler.”

“You weren’t calling me a toddler last night when-”

Bill shot up out of her seat and covered her ears. “Absolutely not. I draw the line at having to hear replays of your sex life.”

Rose hissed, “Doctor..”

“Fine. Sarah Jane’s it is.”

“Who’s Sarah Jane?”

“An old friend who invited us for Christmas dinner.”

“Oh, but-” Bill tugged on her jacket.

“She is especially looking forward to meeting you.” Rose said to Bill with a smile.

“Me?”

“Sarah used to travel with the Doctor and she runs a...sort of support group for former companions.”

“Support group is a bit of an exaggeration, dear.”

Rose’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “Oh, I don’t know, Doctor. Love ‘em an’ leave ‘em seemed to be a bit of a thing with you. I can see why-”

“Club! It’s more of a club for former companions! Monthly meetings, dinners, fond reminiscences of traveling with me.”

Rose snorted. “They hardly ever talk about you.”

“What?”

“They do have dinners and Sarah Jane is very good at finding out if someone needs something and offering her support, but it really is just a small group of people who’ve had an experience that’s difficult for most people to relate to who get together and have a good time with each other.”

“Me! That shared experience was traveling with me! How can they not even mention me?”

Rose walked up to the controls and took over from the Doctor in piloting the TARDIS to their friend’s house. “Well they don’t have a rule about not talking about you, but Martha said their actual adventures with you hardly ever come up.”

The Doctor stood pouting while Rose flipped the final lever sending them spinning into the time vortex.

The TARDIS landed with nary a bump. Rose kissed the Doctor on the cheek and pushed him toward the door. “You and Bill head on out, I’ve got to get changed. I’ll hardly be a mo.’”

--

Rose closed the door behind her and stopped short less she crash into the Doctor. “You didn’t have to wait for me.”

The Doctor backed up and casually leaned against the wall opposite the TARDIS and pointed above them. Rose glanced up to see a small sprig of mistletoe. “Didn’t want to miss my opportunity.”

Rose shook her head, but stood on her tiptoes to press her lips against his. It started chastely enough, but the Doctor wasted no time in pulling her closer and deepening the kiss.

They broke apart to the sound of Jamie’s disgust. “Ugh! Someone really ought to toss a bucket of ice water over the two of you. Can’t you even go twenty minutes without a public snogging session?”

Sarah Jane chided Jamie as the four of them walked from the hallway to the dining room, “I think it’s sweet that your parents still love each other after all this time. Not many couples today make it to even 10 years, and here they are more than 50 years in.”

Jenny stood from her spot next to Bill to give her mother a hug. “It is sweet Aunt Sarah, but you don’t have to see them all the time. They’re incorrigible. The last time we went on a family trip, Mum managed to lose half her clothing and then they got arrested for public indecency.”

Jamie nodded at his sister. “And when they took Bill to-”

“No!” Bill yelled and covered her ears. “We are not ever going to talk about what happened on Centaurius Prime.”

Rose blushed and pushed the Doctor toward a chair. “Okay, okay. We’ll behave.”

The Doctor smirked. “At least through dinner.”

Bill smiled at Jenny. “I’m gonna go on a trip with Jenny and Jamie, so you two can…” Bill gestured between the Rose and the Doctor, “celebrate Christmas however it is you want.”

Jenny grabbed Bill’s hand under the table. “We’ll bring her back in a week.”

Rose arched one eyebrow. “A week our time or yours?”

“Yours.”

Rose pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. She’d seen the attraction between the two, but it always seemed that one or the other was in a relationship and hadn’t been the right time. Poor Jamie. Having to be around the two of them for the foreseeable future with Jenny being just like her father.

She glanced at Clara who was laughing at something Danny said, then to Jamie who was looking longingly at Clara. Rose sighed. Poor Jamie.

Mickey carried a turkey in from the kitchen, followed by Martha, as Sarah Jane announced, “Okay everyone, time to eat.”

--

Rose stepped out of the TARDIS and into a frozen landscape with snow blowing all around her. She pulled her parka hood tighter and turned toward the door. “Doctor, this isn’t Woman Wept!”

The Doctor stepped out of the timeship with a quirk to his lips and locked the door behind him. “Oh, really?”

Rose narrowed her eyes at her husband, not trusting the casual tone to his voice in the least. “What are you up to?”

“What do you mean?”

“This wasn’t the TARDIS taking us off course. You’re up to something. Where are we?”

The Doctor slipped Rose’s hand into his own and squeezed. “A little Christmas surprise. C’mon, love.”

Rose huffed in mock annoyance, but she knew she’d follow the Doctor anywhere he asked.

They walked through a forest and were protected for the most part from the storm by the surrounding evergreen trees. When they emerge from the forest there was nothing but snow and snow drifts for miles. Rose shivered and rubbed her arms.

“Are you sure you know where we’re going?”

The Doctor scoffed and pulled some mittens from his pocket. “When was the last time that...you know what? Don’t answer that. I know exactly where we are. We’ll be there in just a mo’.”

They rounded an embankment and came to a stop before a singular pole decorated with red and white ribbon standing no taller than the Doctor in the desolate landscape. Rose tilted her head. “What on Earth?”

“Where on Earth, you mean.” He nodded to a small engraved plaque running down the side of the marker.

Rose leaned in closer and gasped. “The North Pole? But there’s nothin’ here.”

The Doctor pulled Rose up against him and leaned in for a kiss. Her eyes fluttered closed as their lips touched. The Doctor spun her in a circle past the decorative pole and when she opened them once again they stood at the edge of a bustling little town. It looked to Rose like they were standing inside a snow globe. The world outside was hazy and although she could see the blizzard raging beyond, there was a protective screen keeping all but a light flurry from getting through.

Rose’s mouth hung open as she twirled around to take everything in. “But…”

The Doctor grinned and whispered in her ear, “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“No! You’re not serious!”

The Doctor’s smile only grew brighter and he reached out his hand to her.

They walked toward the picturesque village, and when the Doctor saw a small, pointy eared fellow hustling past, he called out, “Oi! Where’s your boss?”

The elf stopped in his tracks and looked the Doctor up and down. “He’s a little busy with it being Christmas Eve an’ all.”

“Christmas is still a month off.”

The elf shook his head. “I don’t know what yer smokin’ Big Guy, but tonight’s Christmas Eve.”

“Forgot to check the coordinates again, Doctor?” Rose poked her tongue out of the side of her smile and batted her eyelashes.

The Doctor bristled and dragged Rose toward the biggest building. “He’s an old friend, I’ll find him myself.”

The elf chuckled. “Yeah, good luck with that Big Guy.”

The Doctor stormed off with Rose trailing behind him trying to keep her laughter in check.

“Big Guy? I’m not the Big Guy.”

Rose giggled. “I don’t know, compared to the elves you are pretty big.”

“They’re not elves, Rose. They’re Noellians. And Santa is their king. And speaking of Santa, he’s the Big Guy. Not me.”

“Maybe there’s somethin’ you’re not tellin’ me. I mean red bicycle when I was 12, right? Have you’ve just been hidin’ it from me all these years?”

The Doctor ruffled his hair and stammered. “That...that was just me being a sentimental old fool.”

Rose stopped him and pressed a kiss to his lips. “But you’re my sentimental old fool, and I love you for it.”

They reached the workshop and saw groups of elves running to and fro.

The Doctor called out above the cacophony. “Oi! Anyone seen Santa?”

One of the elves snorted. “Good luck with that, mate. It’s the night before Christmas.”

“I just want to introduce my wife to Santa.”

“You picked a fine bloody time, Big Guy.”

“Stop calling me Big Guy.”

The elf shook his head and walked off.

The Doctor once again grabbed Rose’s hand. “Come on. His office is this way.”

When they made it to Santa’s office it was empty, and the Doctor huffed his annoyance and ran his hands through his curls. His long curls.

He needs a haircut. Rose looked him over rather appreciatively - the way his hair stood puffed out and his jacket and shirt stretched across his chest. She leaned back against the door and snicked the lock. Unzipping her coat as she moved, she sauntered toward the Doctor.

“What- What are you doing?”

“Trying to make it onto the naughty list?” Rose let her coat drop to the floor.

“Rose…”

“Yes, Doctor?” Her shirt, trousers, and boots soon followed. She hopped up and sat perched on the desk in the center of the room in only her bra and knickers.

The Doctor unfastened the button of his own trousers and caged her in between his arms. Rose snuck her hand into the Doctor’s pants and grasped his cock. “Rose!”

“You’ll find I can be very, very good at being very, very bad.”

“Bloody hell!”

The Doctor lifted Rose’s hips up and dragged her knickers down her legs. When they were free, she wrapped them around his waist and pulled him down for a kiss.

He dropped his hand between her legs and ran his fingers along her slit. Her head fell back as he entered her with one finger and then another. She blindly pulled at his clothing and pushed them away from his body as best she could.

“Doctor, if you don’t fuck me right now, I swear to-,” she cut off as he yanked her to the very edge of the desk.

He lined himself up to her entrance and slowly pushed into her heat.

They both stopped breathing for a moment until Rose wriggled against him. He pistoned his hips and withdrew before slamming back into her. Rose braced her arms behind her sending Santa’s lists fluttering off the desktop.

Rose giggled earning a glare from the Doctor. “Sorry, but I think I’m literally on the naughty list.”

“You’re too coherent is what you are.”

The Doctor reached a hand to his wife’s temple and caressed the side of her face. With the next thrust of his hips re-entered her body as well as her mind. The sensation of being filled by him body and soul ramped up her arousal like it always did and she had to work at not coming then and there.

The Doctor for his part adjusted the angle he was entering her so that with every pass he was hitting her clit.

Rose’s breathing turned ragged and she clenched her muscles around the Doctor’s cock dragging a moan from him.

“Come for me, Rose.”

“I need-”

“What, darling? What do you need?”

She shook her head from side to side and met each of his thrusts.

“Love?”

Frantically, Rose pulled the Doctor closer and rested her temple against his. One of his hands fluttered to her chest, pushed her bra up, and squeezed the soft flesh.

“Oh!”

His agile fingers flicked over the nipple and Rose screamed her release. Her orgasm pulsed through their bond and pushed the Doctor into his own climax. Their mutual pleasure rippled back and forth drawing the experience out for the both of them. The Doctor’s legs gave way and he collapsed onto Rose.

“Sorry.”

“I don’t mind.” Rose ran her hands up and down the Doctor’s back. He hadn’t even taken off his coat she realized with some amusement. They hadn’t had a shag like that in ages.

The Doctor finally pushed off of her and helped her straighten her undergarments. He handed her her clothing and then tucked himself back into his pants and trousers.

Rose jumped off the desk and fixed the papers that they’d knocked off as best she could.

“God. I can’t believe we just did that.” She ambled over to the door and grinned at the Doctor over her shoulder. “Let’s go find-” She pulled open the door to see Santa standing there with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. “Santa!”

Rose blushed and attempted to smooth her clothing as if that would hide what they’d just been doing. Santa sniffed, the heavy sent of sex still strong in air.

The Doctor opened his mouth, but Santa just raised his hand and sighed. “If you had to pick a night to visit, at least you’re here at a time when I needed you.”

Rose blinked, suddenly tongue tied.

The Doctor walked up behind her and rested his hands on her hips. “Oh? What seems to be the problem, Nick?”

“The sled’s thermal regulator is on the blink. Can’t take the chance it’ll go while I’m off delivering tonight.”

“That’s easy. I can fix that up in no time.”

“Your sled has an engine? What about the reindeer?”

The Doctor looked at Rose as if she’d dribbled on her shirt.

“Well, how was I supposed to know Santa is real, but the reindeer aren’t?”

Santa grabbed his belly as he chuckled. “Oh, ho ho, my dear, the reindeer are as real as I am. They’re in the yard outside playing. They just haven’t flown the sled in years. I don’t know why they stopped, but I didn’t want to push them to do something they didn’t want to anymore when I had the technology to fly the sleigh without them.”

“So they just hang about?”

“Yes. It’s a little lonelier out there without them, but I love them all the same.”

“Can I see them, while you and the Doctor tinker?”

“I don’t tinker, Rose Tyler! I am an expert in mechanical-”

Rose kissed the Doctor’s cheek before looping her arm in his and heading for the barn where the sled and reindeer were. “You absolutely tinker, sweetheart.”

Rose was so excited to see the reindeer - Rudolph really did have a bright red nose - that she didn’t even notice when the Doctor and Father Christmas slipped off together to look over the issue with the sled’s engine.

The deer for their part seemed to love Rose as well. They surrounded her and jostled each other for her attention.

Rose ran her hand along Rudolph’s flank and his nose lit up a bright red. Rose clapped her hands as all the reindeer took off galloping around the paddock hopping and jumping with joy. Rudolph kicked off the fencing to launch himself into the air. Rose’s breath caught in her throat as he raced across the sky twirling and looping against the inky backdrop.

The other deer bounced around the pen trying to follow, but couldn’t get more than a few feet off the ground.

Rose’s fingers sparked with golden energy and her eyes took on a similar glow.

The reindeer rubbed against Rose and with each touch of her hand against their heads and necks, they shimmered with energy from Bad Wolf. Before long, Santa’s whole herd was flying and frolicing in the air.

“Well, I’ll be…”

Rose turned her head and saw Santa standing along the fence line watching the reindeer with a gobsmacked expression on his face.

“Why’d they stop pulling the sleigh? They look so happy up there flying.”

“My dear, this is the first they’ve flown in nearly 35 years. I...I can’t believe it.”

Rose held up her hands and looked at her palms. “Oh.”

Santa asked, “How’d you do it? Get them to fly again?”

“I…”

The Doctor walked up behind her and kissed the back of her neck before resting his hand on her waist. “She’s fantastic, my wife.”

Santa nodded while watching his pets. “That she is, Doctor. More impressive than you at any rate.”

At the Doctor’s affronted gasp, Santa grabbed his belly and laughed. His twinkling eyes met Rose’s and he winked. Her grin widened and a hint of her tongue poked out the side.

“I’m so glad you came to visit tonight, Doctor, Rose.”

“It was our pleasure.”

Santa’s smile turned wicked and Rose blushed. “Shut up. I didn’t mean like that!”

“Don’t worry about it, I do understand. Come back to the house and meet my wife. And you have to promise to have dinner with us in the new year.” Santa began walking toward his home with the Doctor and Rose trailing behind him.

“Oh, we’d love to! Wouldn’t we, Doctor?” Rose turned to the Doctor and he couldn’t say no to her in the best of times, let alone when her eyes were shining brightly and her cheeks were flushed with excitement.

“If you’d like.” He took her hand and continued onward.

At the door of Santa’s cottage were a pair of identical, arguing elves.

“I’m telling you-”

“No! I’m telling you-”

“Cane. Candy. Enough with the yelling. The lads are coming out with me tonight and they need to be hitched up to the sleigh.”

Both elves turned in unison, mouths dropped open. “Are you feeling okay, sir?”

“The deer haven’t flown in decades.”

“Maybe we should call the missus to check you for a fever.”

“Do you have the chills?”

“Maybe you’re feeling hot and clammy?”

“Oh, hush you two.” A young and gorgeous redhead came to the door shaking her head. She leaned in and kissed Santa on the cheek. “Now go on and do as Santa asked so you can come back and have my gingerbread and cocoa.”

The Doctor’s eyes had gone wide, and Mrs. Claus grinned wickedly. “What? You’re the only 2000 year old alien allowed to have a hot, young human wife?”

The Doctor’s eyes widened even further and Rose covered her mouth in an attempt to smother her giggles. “She’s got you there, Doctor.”

Rose and Mrs. Claus shared a smile. “My name’s Holly. It’s a pleasure to finally meet the infamous Doctor and Rose Tyler. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Oh, thank you. I, uh...how’d you know about us or well me? I’ve never met Santa before.”

Holly’s nose crinkled with her laugher. “No, but, well, Nick just knows these things. And when he met the Doctor a few years back, you or rather your absence really made an impression, so when we heard you were back in this universe-”

“How on Earth did you find that out?”

Holly shrugged. “Everybody nowadays has an Elf on a Shelf. They’re like nanny cams for Nick and the other Noellians ”

“No!”

Holly nodded at Rose. “Yup. There’s very little that happens on Earth, that Nick doesn’t know.”

“Isn’t that a little...I don’t know, unethical?”

“Why? It says right on the box that the Scout Elves report back to the North Pole.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think people really believe that.”

Mrs. Claus laughed. “Probably not, but…,” her mouth pulled into a wry smile, “how much more honest can we be about it?”

Rose bit her lip.

“Enough about that. Come in for some hot cocoa, we have another 15 minutes before Nick has to hit the sky.”

--

The fire in the TARDIS library was crackling and giving off authentic waves of heat. Rose was cuddled up against the Doctor’s side, eyes fighting to stay open. “Ho’ come you never tol’ me you met the real Santa b'fore?”

The Doctor ran his hand along Rose’s arm and kissed the crown of her head. “I thought it was a hallucination caused by the psychic attack by a telepathic, alien parasite.”

Rose’s eyes snapped open and focused on the Doctor’s profile. “You wha’?”

“I didn’t realize he was real.”

After a long drawn out moment, Rose’s giggles got the better of her and she collapsed backward onto the rug.

The Doctor braced his arms on either side of her. “Are you quite alright, love?”

Her chest rose and fell with the effort of calming her breathing. “Tryna catch my breath.”

“Would you like some of mine?”

Rose’s tongue poked out from between her teeth. “That might be a good idea.” She lifted her hands to the back of the Doctor’s head and ran her fingers through the soft hair there.

She drew him to her and soon enough thoughts of anything but their shared pleasure was chased from their minds.

[weepylucifer]

Shortie with David during the war

tw: homophobic slur

----

Tucked behind a tree, out of sight from the rest of the men, they were allowing themselves a rare moment of privacy.

Normally this would occur at night, nestled in their shared foxhole, or sometimes, when they could get it, in the luxury of a tent, normally they would have been more careful, but tempers were frayed, and David found he couldn’t wait. Thomas had removed his helmet, and David tugged him closer, ran a hand through his hair. Gratefully, Thomas leaned against him, a solid weight in his uniform, loaded with all his equipment. They all wore so many layers nowadays which it was rarely safe to remove, and touch was so scarce. David felt keenly the starvation for it, felt it resonate within and reflected by his lover. Captain Nightingale was not invulnerable, no matter what the lads thought. He needed comfort just like any other man, and David was here to provide. A good lieutenant was an invaluable aide to his commanding officer, something David knew all too well.

“My songbird,” he murmured, let his hand slip lower, cradled Thomas’s jaw. “Do we have time, do you think...?”

“Not much,” Thomas said, even while he put a hand on David’s and lifted it away from his face to kiss the open palm. “Krauts might be aware of our position already. We can... stay, for the moment, just like this.”

“Right.” David kissed him, intending for it to be brief, but Thomas chased his mouth with his own, and he made that little... sound, and all caution was dashed. David wrapped an arm around Thomas’s waist, pulling him closer, flush against his front. Thomas embraced him in turn, kissing him hungrily, so needy for any touch, anything they could give each other in this brief, stolen moment, any gentleness that the war usually didn’t permit.

Just as they let go, ready to return back to the company and be soldiers again, as David looked up, he caught sight of a movement between the snowy trees. Startled, he stared over Thomas’s shoulder and directly in the face of one of their privates.

Not a Kraut, he thought in momentary relief as his mind identified the uniform as distinctly British, but the relief was short-lived, and pure panic followed on its heels. He saw us.

Thomas, having noticed him tense, took a step back. “What is it?”

David broke the embrace, stooping down to pick his helmet up and plunge it back onto his curls. “Nothing, sweetness,” he whispered. “Just wait here a minute.” No need to bother Thomas with this just yet when it might all get cleared up. Their Captain had so much on his mind. A good lieutenant was an invaluable aide.

The man had turned and gone, fled, rather, back to where they were dug in for the approaching night. David pursued, and caught up to the lad.

“Private, a word.”

The man’s steps didn’t slow.

Arkwright, David’s mind supplied. That was his name. Clive Arkwright. A replacement, first mission in the field. Barely of age, barely with the company a week. The staff in his hand all new and shiny. David rested his hand on the handle of his own, scratched-up, much-used one. “Arkwright!”

The private stopped and turned. “Sir.” It was almost a sneer.

David drew level, and caught him by the arm. “What did you see, private?”

“Don’t touch me.” The kid yanked his arm out of David’s grasp. “Once we get back to CP, I’m reporting this. Disgusting...”

The disgust couldn’t be helped. The consequences...

Discovered. Even as the horrors of warfare piled on, this still frequented David’s nightmares. For so many years they’d been so careful. Now David felt hot and cold all over, his heart hammering in his chest to the point of pain. Hell, hell, this must be what the hell feels like that the Christian boys always talk about...

“You will do no such thing, private,” he said, lowly and more quietly than he felt. “That’s an order.”

The kid spat at his feet. “I don’t take orders from a rug-muncher.”

He might as well have slapped David in the face.

For an endless moment, David was reeling, left to imagine the torment that would come. The court-martial and then, who knew what would happen then. At best, this would see them dishonorably discharged, ousted from the Folly, everything they had worked for in tatters, needing to start over somewhere far away with nothing of note. Neither of them had a huge inheritance to draw on. For an endless moment, David saw in his mind the pained faces of his parents. And this was the best of the possible outcomes. At worst...

At worst...

He imagined his beauteous songbird, who had done so much for King and country, locked away behind bars, now painted a deviant. Or worse, an institution, and people attempting to reform, to break and re-mold. G-d, please, David begged in silence, I don’t care what they do to me. But please, spare Thomas.

And within that endless moment--

A voice shouted, “Incoming!”

Muscle memory took over as the shells whistled overhead. David threw himself down beneath the husk of a dead tree, unclipped his staff from his belt and covered it with his body, the thin length of wood that was so vitally important to any serving practitioner. He cast his shield and then, eyes screwed shut, breathless, he waited.

Explosions, stationary bursts of light, tinged his world in red. Debris collided with his shield and bounced off. The sound of trees splintering, of shells whistling and finding home, someone shouting orders, urging the men to cast shields and find cover. And the screams. And the screams.

And after a minute, an hour, an eternity, the silence.

David staggered to his feet, not yet quite daring to extinguish the shield. Alive another time, miraculously alive.

The trees were -- gone, the untouched snow a grubby mess now. Splintered wooden ruins surrounded him, like some giant’s fist had hit the scenery and swiped it all away in one uncaring blow.

He had to get to the others. See if they were okay. Check for wounded - find Thomas.

In his dazed state, he nearly tripped over the body a little ways off from where he’d crouched to wait out the shelling.

Right, the boy. The boy he’d been talking with. The one who’d wanted to report them.

Clive Arkwright.

The boy hadn’t found cover fast enough. His legs were twitching, still attempting to get the body to its feet, perhaps simply convulsing in a desperate, senseless effort. Everything above the waist was mangled. Blood was gushing from a torn throat, the hand trying vainly to clutch it shut already weakened, growing limp. David stared at him.

It was not the first body he had seen, not by a long shot. Yet, he stared, rooted to the spot.

The boy’s mouth opened and closed a few times, but no sound escaped. David could imagine fairly well what word the numb lips formed. Could see the plea in the boy’s eyes.

And David...

...David, valorous, faced uncertain ruin, lifted honour over the intact lives of himself and his lover, his Captain, The Nightingale, this beacon of hope that the men so fervently relied on, he sealed the boy’s throat shut with a strong, steady hand, lifted him up on his shoulder, called for the medic, and maybe Clive Arkwright still died here, the wounds too grievous to salvage, but maybe by the slimmest of chances, a week later, Clive Arkwright awoke in a field hospital, and two weeks later, Clive Arkwright smiled at David and said, thank you, sir, and said, I see now, lieutenant, and sorry for what was being said, but maybe...

maybe not, because that was how it happened in fairytales, and life was not a fairytale, and Clive Arkwright still delivered a report, and David watched powerlessly as his love was torn away from where he was so desperately needed, as his love was torn away to rot...

...and David couldn’t take that chance.

David felt cold as he stared down at the young man, and the least he could do was force himself to wait it all out, bear witness until the last possible second, and he pressed his lips together and he did not look away as the young man’s eyes widened, perhaps in the pain of his death throes, perhaps in a horrible understanding of what was going to have to happen.

And the coldest part of David, the one part he forever flinched from, whispered, Oh, now you’ll take help from the likes of me?

He waited until the young man had stopped twitching. It was a matter of nary a minute. Then he called for the medic.

Then he crouched against the nearest intact tree and threw up what felt like everything he’d ever eaten, and couldn’t reach down quite far enough to purge his disgust with himself.

[carbonitekisses]

Last Chance for Honor

In which Jon breaks down after learning of his parentage, 

From a distance, dragonsong echoes eerily through the godswood trees. Jon quickens the pace and wills himself to ignore the call. He may not be a Stark but he holds no allegiance to the three-headed dragon.

Jaime arrives at Winterfell to fulfill an oath,

His horse nearly throws him off when it hears dragons screeching high above them. He uses his metal hand to try and calm his horse and grips the reins with his left. The horse is not the only one left skittish and wary; people fearfully scan the sky and seek shelter. Jaime himself tenses as he remembers the ambush in the Reach. Burn them all... She really is her father's daughter. Jaime strokes the horse’s flank to soothe him before urging him forward once more.

and Daenerys learns of Cersei’s betrayal. 

The king slayer stands in the middle of the Great Hall. He ports nondescript leathers and clothing, nary a roaring lion in sight. The only marking upon him is his golden hand—his sword was removed upon his arrival. He is vulnerable and defenseless, surrounded by both northerners and Unsullied preventing escape.

Also on AO3.

"She killed them. Daenerys killed my father and Dickon because they wouldn't bend the knee." 

"Don't say you're sorry. You didn't do it. You didn't know; I can tell that much."

"Why did you bend the knee to her?"

"And if we survive the Night King, what then?"

"Even if she ignores that the Baratheons won by right of conquest, the throne could never be hers by blood right."

"I mean that she's not the last Targaryen."

"I think you know, Jon. You're not simple. You never have been. Dragons don't let just anyone mount them."

"At the Citadel I—Gilly, really—found the High Septon's diary. And Bran confirmed it. Rhaegar and Lyanna married. And you, you're—"

"Listen, to me! Eddard Stark did it to protect you at your mother’s behest. If King Robert found out who you really were he would have killed you. Friendship with your father be damned."

"Jon, you're my brother. Snow, Targaryen, I don't care. But—"

"You can't just ignore this. Secrets like this will make themselves known."

"You believe that? That she won't care that you have a higher claim?"

"You know the Free Folk, you know the North. They'll never bend the knee to her. They might keep quiet while the dead march. But once this war is over I won't be surprised if a war between the living comes to pass."

"And if they don't bend the knee? Will she have them all executed like she did my father and brother?"

//

The memory of his father-turned-uncle is strongest here in the godswood. Jon remembers watching Ned Stark tend to Ice underneath the careful supervision of the heart tree’s weeping face.

The heart tree has never looked more heartless and cold.

Jon wishes he didn’t have a heart. His treacherous brothers should have done him the favor of cutting the pulsing muscle out of his chest. If Jon was a heartless man he would use Longclaw to tear and rip apart the bleeding face that’s watching him now. 

Instead, he unsheathes Longclaw and unleashes his anger and fear upon an ash tree. He lifts his arm back and hacks away at the tree’s trunk.

     Hit,

His father was never his father. 

     after hit,

He can't ever be a Stark. He isn't even a fucking Snow. 

    after hit, the tree takes it all without complaint.

He bedded his father's sister without knowing who she was, who he was, and–and–

Jon stops Longclaw mid swing and stares up at the cloud-filled sky. He opens his mouth to scream but instead chokes on unshed tears.

Winterfell’s bastard.

That is who he believed himself to be.

For the entirety of his life he had hoped his mother would still be alive. It did not matter if she was low or high born. And his fath–his uncle had promised to tell him. On the Kingsroad he had said—he had said—

Now, even his parting words, and where he said them, seem to mock him. 

“You are a Stark. You might not have my name but you have my blood. 

"The next time we see each other, we’ll talk about your mother. I promise.”

He drops Longclaw into the snow, uncaring of where it lands. Tired and drowning, Jon falls against the butchered tree, its mangled flesh scraping against his own. The ground lures his weight down down down until he's on his knees. 

For a second time, he mourns the loss of the man that raised him. The first was upon learning of his death. Now, upon learning he was never his father at all. He mourns the loss of a mother he will never meet. Not in this life and perhaps never in death. He mourns a father who will never compare to the man who raised him. A king who cast aside his wife, abandoned his children, and threw the seven kingdoms into the lion's den.

Sam was right; Jon knows that his lord fath–Lord Stark hid the truth to save him. He hid it under snow and in Winterfell’s crypt. Half-lies and omissions became a truth the world accepted because it was better than believing the honorable Lord Stark would lie—never minding the dishonor a bastard's existence brings. 

Jon wonders if his life was worth such trouble. 

He is the most honorable man I’ve ever known. He lied to the world, tainted his honor, and safeguarded the lie until his death to keep a promise of protection. Jon feels a sense of kinship and understanding with Eddard Stark. He might not be my father but in this we are alike.

The tree's scars run deep and jagged underneath his examining fingers. I'm a liar, too, like him. 

I compromised my honor to protect the North and all those who inhabit it. It is an uneven exchange, he knows. My honor is a paltry price to pay. 

Snow melts underneath his knees. He laughs. And laughs and laughs and cries. He's bent the knee to a tree of no consequence. He's bent the knee to a plant but never to her. He never did bend the knee to Daenerys Targaryen. Jon digs his hands through his hair and attempts to pull out the rotten memories that have taken root inside.

Wights on fire, Viserion falling. A hazy figure looming over him as he lies frozen-boned and immobile on a boat heading south. Tiny skulls littering the Dragon Pit. Hooded violet eyes following him. Dragons on a cabin door. 

Silver hair, panting breath, skin that tastes of smoke and—

Jon savagely shakes his head but the memory clings on and refuses to leave. Pleasure, the memory says, you found pleasure in your aunt. Don't deny it; you’re a Targaryen. He found pleasure in her arms and she found pleasure in his; her moans and scratching hands told him so. If he hadn’t heard of her barrenness he might’ve never done it; the possibility of bringing another bastard into the world a cruelty he refuses to commit.

Jon knew crossing the threshold into her room would bind him to her for however long she wished it. When he looked down at her, waves crashing against the hull of the ship, he saw storms of fire in her eyes—inconstant and mercurial. He saw a queen who made no efforts to rescue her allies. He saw a woman hungry for power and prophecy. He saw a conqueror ready to take flight for the Red Keep at any moment, threatening to kill thousands for a metal chair.

(Missandei had claimed her to be benevolent and just. She told him how the Dothraki and Unsullied followed Daenerys and chose her as their queen. He wondered at how such an intelligent woman didn't notice the hypocrisy in her words; Westeros never chose Daenerys and yet she waged an unnecessary war to claim a continent that had already suffered under Fire and Blood.)

And so he gave her what she wanted and desired. She wanted him to warm her bed and so he did; he fucked her and she fucked him. He believed his body would be an inconsequential thing to give; he never gave her promises of love or affection and she didn’t ask for them. Daenerys wanted him, and he needed her.  He needed her to never stray. He needed her to be truly committed to the Great War. He needed her to stay and fight, and not abandon the North like she did the Sands, Tyrells, and Greyjoys. 

He sealed the exchange with a kiss.

Jon had yielded to the idea of a future with her, if she wanted that of him. Affection, he thought, wasn't inconceivable. He would have stayed at her side for however long she desired it.  

I thought I could perhaps love her, in time. Jon rubs his face clear of frozen tears. But now? I can't continue this play. I've fallen into a trap of my own making and, he thinks of his family, possibly dragged them into it as well. The very people I've sworn to protec—

A raven caws and startles him. Jon looks above at the intruder. Its plumage is sleek and midnight black; it shows a keenness in the glint of its eyes. The black bird cocks its head to the side, and flies to perch itself on the heart tree's branches. Out of the thickness of the trees comes Ghost. He is as quiet as ever; white fur and red eyes a reflection of white bark and blood-red leaves.

"Ghost? What are you doing here, boy?"

His snout sniffs the snow around Jon, as if looking for something. Finally, he raises his head with Longclaw's grip in his jaw. The direwolf drops it before him, and urges him to take it. Once he does, Ghost walks in the direction of Winterfell only stopping when he sees that Jon isn't following him. Unsteadily, Jon braces himself against the ash tree and stands. His direwolf has never led him astray. There must be something happening in Winterfell.

The raven flies away to someplace Jon cannot see or follow. I'd almost believe it was waiting for me to leave. 

Jon sheathes Longclaw and casts one last glance towards the heart tree. Keep my secrets, tree. And guard my heart, too. The weeping face stares back. 

The ash tree weeps sap as well, but Jon pays it no mind. It has no face and therefore no mouth to betray him with.

Jon follows Ghost back to Winterfell.

As they get closer to the keep, Jon tries to cast off the dread that's climbed onto his back but finds it a futile task. Sam's whispered fear has lodged itself within his lungs and poisons him with each ebb and draw of breath:

"And if they don't bend the knee?”

He thinks of everyone who has opposed Daenerys so far. He thinks of little Lyanna Mormont. He thinks of Lord Manderly. 

He thinks of Sansa.

His cousin. His headstrong and willful...cousin; a woman he knows will never accept Daenerys as queen, especially after learning of the Tarlys; the lady of Winterfell who has held the North together during its most turbulent time; a Stark whose influence and importance Daenerys has taken notice of and mentioned to him more than once.

"Will she have them all executed like she did my father and brother?"

From a distance, dragonsong echoes eerily through the godswood trees. Jon quickens the pace and wills himself to ignore the call. He may not be a Stark but he holds no allegiance to the three-headed dragon.

Winterfell rises before him and he is Jon Snow once more.

//

Jaime’s horse nearly throws him off when it hears dragons screeching high above them. He uses his metal hand to try and calm his horse and grips the reins with his left. The horse is not the only one left skittish and wary; people fearfully scan the sky and seek shelter. Jaime himself tenses as he remembers the ambush in the Reach. Burn them all... She really is her father's daughter. Jaime strokes the horse’s flank to soothe him before urging him forward once more.

Bronn, the self-serving ass, decided to stay in Wintertown's shabby imitation of a brothel. "I'm not about to ride in with the Lannister that killed the dragon queen's father—I've seen her burn others for far less.” A dark look passed quickly before he said, “Call me a coward if you want, I don't care. Come and get me if they let you live, ey?"

And so it is that Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, rides into Winterfell alone and with no fanfare—a pitiful, though well-deserved, contrast to the last time he came. Back when he was despised for being a Kingslayer, not a Lannister. 

Perhaps Bronn had the right of it, he thinks as he’s almost immediately apprehended upon passing through the gate, even I wouldn’t ride into Winterfell with Jaime Lannister if I could help it.  

Faces with hollowed out cheeks sneer and yell out. Lannister, they curse and hiss, Kingslayer!

For these people there is no distinction between the two. Both are markers of depravity and cruelty. He refuses to lower his head in shame as he is escorted to gods-know-where. He cares not for their opinion. Judgement and a chance for honor lies elsewhere—and he is ready to face it.

//

The king slayer stands in the middle of the Great Hall. He ports nondescript leathers and clothing, nary a roaring lion in sight. The only marking upon him is his golden hand—his sword was removed upon his arrival. He is naked and defenseless, surrounded by both northerners and Unsullied preventing escape.

Daenerys presides over the hearing at the center of the head table, flanked by Jon, and Sansa Stark. Her council is present as are Bran Stark, Ser Davos, Lyanna Mormont, a northern lady, a lord from the Vale, and a lady knight. She and the north hold little love for the maimed lion. Let's see how well this lion fares.

“I see you are alone, Jaime Lannister,” she says his surname with veiled contempt. “When should we expect your sister’s armies to arrive?”

"There are no armies. There never was. I'm the only Lannister soldier you will see north of the Neck."

Daenerys remembers seeing Jamie Lannister for the first time.

This man, she had thought, this man took everything away from me when he killed my father. 

Daenerys had looked at the murderer before her and had seen him for what he was. He wasn't the extraordinary creature that prowled her nightmares when she was a little girl. His skin bore no markings of wickedness. The hair atop his head was golden and soaked in sunlight. His armor was well-crafted but held no magical qualities. He was lacking a hand of flesh but that was the extent of his uniqueness. He was an ordinary mortal man. She was almost disappointed by him.

Jamie Lannister would have fared better under disappointment.

Today, Daenerys seeks justice and retribution.

"'I will march them north to fight alongside you in the Great War': is that not what she said?" she looks to Tyrion. "Your sister pledged her forces to fight alongside us in the war against the dead." Her eyes flick away from her Hand; he resolutely refuses to look at her, preferring to stare stupidly at his brother. "I withdrew mine and marched them north because she promised to do the same."

She should have never trusted a Lannister. 

Lannisters are not lions, they are snakes hiding amongst the grass waiting to strike and sink their fangs. While Daenerys is here in this white wasteland, Cersei Lannister is reclaiming every last inch of land she had lost. All the sacrifices she has made turn to ash in her mouth at the thought of Cersei sitting calmly on the Iron Throne. I should have razed the Red Keep to the ground as soon as I landed on Westeros. Daenerys recalls how affectionately Tyrion spoke of his older brother. There was love there. Perhaps Tyrion never stopped working for the usurpers. Why should I believe there is wildfire underneath Kings Landing? He could very well be lying in order to save his family. Olenna Tyrel had the right of it. She was no rose, or lion, or wolf. She is Daenerys, mother of dragons, the last Targaryen in the world. The throne is my birthright. I've forgotten my house words: Fire and Blood. I would be queen of the seven kingdoms by now if I hadn't forgotten them.

She opens her mouth to order the Unsullied to apprehend him but Sansa Stark speaks to the right of her. "Why have you come north, Ser Jaime?"

"I'm no longer a ser, lady Sansa."

"The question still stands," Sansa Stark leans forward, "If your sister has failed to fulfill her pledge, why have you come north?"

"My sister does not control me. I cannot ignore what I saw at the Dragon Pit. And as somebody told me," here, a small smile, "This goes beyond houses. I have come to pledge myself to—"

Daenerys scoffs, "You murdered a king, my father, who you were honor-bound to protect. You have just confessed that your sister, Cersei Lannister, has broken her own oath to me. Why should I believe you? For all I know, she could have sent you to kill me. It's an efficient and tested strategy, using one Lannister man to kill a Targaryen monarch."

"Out of all the dishonorable things I have done, killing—"

Tyrion tries to silence his brother, "Jamie—" 

"Killing your father is one I do not regret." Daenerys wishes she had Drogon here to burn away the defiance in the set of his brows. Strangely, his eyes deviate from hers and land somewhere to the right of the head table. "There are others I deserve to be punished for. But I will not apologize for plunging my sword into the mad king. If I hadn't he would have leveled King's Landing with wildfire. I'll never apologize for it."

How dare he speak about my father's murder in such a callous manner? She's aware her father was not a gentle man but she is tired of being reminded of it time and time again. It is not a statement he makes but an accusation against her. She is not her father. "You should watch your tongue, Kingslayer, lest you find yourself at my dragon's mercy."

"I've witnessed your dragon's 'mercy' in the Reach. Forgive me if I'd rather face the butcher's block. "

The lord from the Vale shares a look with the Mormont girl sitting next to him. He clears his throat and asks, "Speak clearly, Lannister. What happened in the Reach?"

Tyrion finally turns to look at her and Daenerys hates him for it. She will not be shamed for standing her ground that day. It is within her right as queen to execute any and all traitors. They are all hypocrites, these Westerosi. They execute with ropes and swords. She does it with dragonfire. In the end the result is the same, one less soul in the realm of the living.

The Kingslayer glares at Tyrion before whipping around to address the table where the northern council sits. "You don't know?" His question is met with silence. "She burnt a thousand wagons—most of which contained the last harvest." He takes a step forward, " She burnt—"

Sansa Stark interrupts him and tartly asks Ser Davos how many animals her dragons have been fed since they arrived.

Daenerys knows what she is trying to do and she will not stand for it. Sansa Stark might be lady of Winterfell, but Daenerys is her queen. She snaps to the right and wets her lips, "The Targaryen forces brought their own wagons of food, Lady Sansa, in case you’ve forgotten."

"I have not, your grace. Three hundred wagons is an easy quantity to remember—and fewer than a thousand. You brought some wagons of grain but little if any livestock which is what your dragons feed on." The red-haired Stark continues facing forward, not turning to look at her. "I ask again, Ser Davos: how many animals have the dragons devoured since landing in the north?"

The Onion Knight gives Daenerys an apologetic glance before answering, "Near seventy, my lady."

She continues her questioning, asking if they have all come from the Targaryen stock. Ser Davos replies in the negative, and Daenerys turns to Jon, incensed at his sister's attempt to undermine her. She had told him to keep his sister in line. He looks just as angry as her when his eyes meet hers before softening. Daenerys is glad at least someone sees how unnecessary this conversation is. Her dragons can eat whatever they want; without them the north will fall. 

"Lady Sansa," Jaime Lannister says her name with urgency and takes a step towards the head table; Daenerys appreciates how Jon reflexively places his hand on Longclaw to protect her. "Burnt bushels should be the least of your worries. The woman sitting next to you burnt my men alive after they defeated the Tyrell army in Highgarden. Her and the Dothraki ambushed us as we were transporting the harvest back to the capital. The woman you have all proclaimed queen burnt Randyl Tarly and Dickon Tarly alive after they refused to bend the knee. Just like Aerys Targaryen did to your grandfather and uncle, she murdered a father and son."

Silence reigns in the Great Hall. She hears Jon's leather gloves tighten around his chair's armrests. 

"I am not my father." She will defend herself if no one else will. "I let them choose. And they chose to die."

She hates Jaime Lannister and rues the day she offered Tyrion Lannister the golden pin that rests upon his doublet. Who is this oathbreaker to condemn her for handing out justice in her own kingdom? "It is within my right as queen to execute traitors. I now offer you the same choice, Kingslayer. Bend the knee to me or refuse and die."

"His life is not yours to take, Daenerys Targaryen," a whisper denies her from the right of Sansa Stark. "His life is not yet forfeit."

Bran Stark unnerves her. He knew about her brother and how he died. He knew about Viserion. The youngest Stark speaks truths and secrets as easily as others drink wine. If it were any other to interrupt her...Daenerys notices even Sansa Stark seems surprised by her brother's claim.

"Jaime Lannister pushed me out of the broken tower. He is the one that crippled me. His life belongs to House Stark."

The monster in front of her hangs his head in shame. The hall erupts with noise. Daenerys hears Jon speak for the first time, "You fucking—"

The crippled boy raises his voice, "It doesn't matter; we don't have time for this." The Great Hall falls into a tense silence ready to break at any moment. "Jaime Lannister, step forward and join oathkeeper. Fulfill the oath you swore—" he pauses, and beckons the lady knight. She stands with both her sword and the Kingslayer's "—here is your last chance for honor." 

The Kingslayer is taken aback by Bran Stark's words. Here is your last chance for honor? What does he intend to do? Nonetheless, after taking his sword from the lady knight, he bends the knee in front of the head table and lays the sword on the floor. It is only right, she thinks, after what he did to her father. There is a sense of vindication, having the Kingslayer at her feet.

"I offer you my services, Lady Stark." Daenerys' jaw tightens. "I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours if need be. I swear it by the old gods and the new."

Sansa Stark confidently stands, her voice cloyingly innocent, "And I vow that you shall always have a place by my hearth and meat and mead at my table. And I pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you dishonor." Jaime Lannister lifts his head and looks at Sansa as if she were his salvation. Daenerys tastes blood. "I swear it by the old gods and the new. Arise."

The traitor and murderer rises, now cloaked under the protection of House Stark—no, of Sansa Stark. 

Daenerys has been robbed of justice. She has been denied retribution.

Yes, Olenna Tyrell was right. She is a dragon and she is tired of listening to clever men with clever plans that never work in her favor. 

I will take what is mine with Fire and Blood.

[beatriceinmessina]

Halloween Terrorfest, Day VII: ‘A disquieting metamorphosis’

(A note: This one was hard to write -- I always get so neurotic about writing James and Francis because damn it, I must do justice to Mr. Harris and Mr. Menzies’s wonderful performances!  And don’t take a shot every time I’ve written ‘Francis’ here -- you’ll black out, but it’s not a fic about our favorite captains if they’re not saying each other’s name so many times!)

(TRIGGER WARNING for general death.)

The wind whistling past his ears is what wakes him.  Above him, the endless grey expanse of the sky, beneath him the pebbles pressing into his back.  He raises himself on his arms and, sitting up, realizes that the movement does not cause him the pain he’s been living with for God knows how long.  He stands and the familiar ache in his bones does not make itself known.  He takes a step, and another step, and finds he can walk without impediment.  A memory comes to his mind, hazy for half a second before crystallizing.

‘Then you are free, hm?  Mine your courage from a different lode now -- friendship.  Brotherhood.’

‘Are we brothers, Francis?  I would like that very much.’

Francis.  Where is Francis?

James looks around him.  The sky, the ground, the horizon and nary a soul in sight save for himself.  How he came to be here, he realizes, he does not know; the last he remembers is the tent, the candlelight, Francis’s hand in his own.  Something burning in his throat, a deep sleep.  No matter to that.  He must find the others, find Francis.  So he sets out, walking in what he hopes is the direction of Back’s Fish River.

He walks and walks and still he feels no pain, and wonder how he’s healed so well.  No matter, he reminds himself.  He can think on it later, when he has the time.  He can think on it when he has seen everyone set foot on English ground.  

Day turns to night and night turns to day before he stops and notices that he is not tired as he always was before.  Another puzzling revelation to forget until the time is right.  He should, he supposes, be grateful for this newfound strength.  

Another day and night he walks and, when he thinks he will never find them (we were all so ill, he remembers now, how could they have gotten so much further?), he sees in the distance a rounded shape.  Whether it is a rock or something living he is too far away to know, but he treks on towards it.  With any luck it will at least be something abandoned in their journey.

As he approaches he can see its fur; an animal, then, or one of the Netsilik.  He does not speak the language, but if there is anyway he can make his intentions known, he will attempt to.  They may have seen some trace.

‘Hello!’ he calls to the figure (a person now, he thinks), who does not take notice.  He calls to them again as he gets closer, and still they do not turn around.  They remain in their spot, hunched over, and James has to walk around in front of them to see their face.  

Oh.  Oh, God.

Looking right at him-- 

‘Francis?’ James asks, his eyes stinging.  ‘What are you -- where are the others?’  A question without a point.  Dead, of course.  But here he is, and here Francis is.  A surplus of luck indeed.

Francis stares at him.  No.  He stares at the ground James kneels in front of.  Through me.  He is looking through me.  James swallows, blinks his eyes once, twice, thrice.  He says Francis’s name again and receives no response.  He reaches out and lays a hand on his shoulder, feels the slope and muscle beneath layers of fur and still Francis does not so much as twitch.  James draws a shaky breath.  What is wrong with him?

‘Are you alright?’  Nothing.  ‘Francis, I’m… my hand, it’s on your… my God, I’m right here.’  It’s harder and harder to speak.  ‘I don’t know where I’ve been or where everyone else is, but I’ve been walking for days.  We can’t be so much further from the river.’  Still nothing.  ‘Do you understand?’  He hears his voice trembling.  ‘Do you… do you see me?  My God, Francis, what’s happened to you?  Have you lost your senses?’  The questions go unreplied, and his hand falls as Francis rises, walking in the direction James came from.  James runs after, falling into step beside him and unable to keep back the tears despite knowing they will freeze to his flesh in this cold.  

‘Is it me?  Is there something wrong with me -- damn it all, Francis, can’t you at least make clear that you can hear me?  I’m here.  I’m right here.’  He tries to seize him by the arm and turn him round, but Francis slips from his grasp and keeps walking on.  ‘Please.  Please, let me -- what is wrong?’ James pleads, his vision clouded, at an utter loss for any other words.  Is Francis angry with him?  Has he lost all sense and cannot hear nor see nor feel?  Has he gone mad?  Or is it I who am mad?  Or am I in Hell, and this is my punishment?

‘Captain!’ a voice calls behind him.  ‘Captain Fitzjames!’  James turns around, relief and despair flooding him in equal measure: someone can see him, someone can hear him, but Francis cannot.  Then he is angry with me.  What is it that I have done?  How will I make it right, if he is this furious?

Goodsir and Hartnell stand ten feet from him, their coats snapping in the wind.  Goodsir walks to him.  ‘He can’t see you, sir,’ he says softly.  ‘I’m sorry.  He can’t see you nor any of us.’

James’s mouth is dry.  ‘What do you mean?’

‘Captain.’  Hartnell glances at Goodsir before looking at the ground.  ‘What’s the last you remember?’

‘Sleep.  I fell asleep…’

‘Sir.’  Goodsir shakes his head.  ‘I don’t know how to tell you any other way.  Captain Crozier is the only one left alive.’

‘Then you are…’  James laughs a laugh that rings half-mad in his ears and shakes his head back at him.  ‘No.  I must be dreaming.’

‘You’re not, sir.  All of us, we’re -- we’re trapped here.  Whether we’re our souls or ghosts none of us can say but we’re trapped here.  We’ve been keeping an eye on him for some time now; we thought perhaps you had been luckier than we had.’

‘Then what?’  He is angry, all of a sudden; why, since they had to die, are they not relieved of this place?  Why can they not know some semblance of peace, after everything?  ‘What is there now?’

‘The rest of us,’ Hartnell says, ‘and not much else, I’m afraid.  But, Captain…’  He swallows.  ‘Will you come with us?  We’ve a camp and we don’t need for food or sleep.  Mr Bridgens and Mr Peglar have been retrieving the books we left behind.’

‘No.’  James can hardly hear himself speak.  ‘I’ll stay with Francis.  I’ll not be able to make trouble, will I, now,’ he adds wryly, his voice trailing off miserably to reduce the question to a phrase.

‘He’s alright as he’ll ever be,’ Goodsir says.  ‘We find him every day.  There’s a Netsilik band taken him in, Captain.  He’s one of theirs now.’

‘And Lady Silence?’ James asks, and regrets asking when Goodsir’s face falls.  ‘I’m sorry.’

‘She’s gone,’ Hartnell says.  ‘They exiled her for losing the creature.  We’ve yet to see her.  But you’ll still see him every day if you come with us, Captain.  We’ve missed you.’

‘I’ll not come with you right now.  Perhaps I will find you in a few days, but I want to see him with them.  I want to know that he’s found some kind of life here.’

‘Alright, then.’  The corners of Goodsir’s mouth lift in an attempt at a smile.  ‘We’ll see you sometime.’  They turn and leave, trekking away to the east.  James watches them; they seem to disappear into the encroaching fog after a while.  He turns in the opposite direction and follows in Francis’s wake.  Please, he thinks, let him have some kind of family, some kind of joy with them.  He needs it as much as any of us, perhaps even more so now.

[jui-imouto-chan]

Prince and His Protector Ch.2

Ao3 Link (to chapter one): https://archiveofourown.org/works/16708918/chapters/39188446#workskin

Markus' shoulders raise minutely, tension building in his muscles.

Something about this man has him seething.

Perhaps it's the way he slinks around Connor, arms slithering over his shoulders with fluidity. Connor shivers, and Markus can't tell if it's a good or bad sign.

His head hovers near Connor's neck, the smooth column that Markus wanted to mark and claim as soon as Connor bared it in the throes of ecstasy, but Connor forbade him from it. In the moment, it was with a sultry smile and teasing tone that Connor'd said Markus would have to work for the right. But even so far gone, Markus knew that it was for his own safety, as he's the only one to have tended to Connor after the meeting with Amanda and would immediately be found as the source.

"You're quite the catch," the suitor declares, eyes curved into crescents as he cups Connor's cheek and caresses his freckles with a thumb. Markus' skin crawls and flares with heat. "I just might consider you."

He represses a growl. Consider him? Consider him?!

Markus forces himself to take quiet, deep breaths, wanting to look away but unable to. Maybe for fear of the man doing something untoward to Connor, or, worse yet on Markus' mind, Connor reciprocating. But then Connor's sable orbs move to gaze longingly in his direction, and Markus feels a wash of shame and disbelief at his own stupidity flood his body. The prince and his budding relationship had gone into bloom not so long ago, and even with the newness of this development, these feelings have been longrunning.

It was Connor, after all, who'd confessed his feelings to him. And the sincerity of the declaration, the alluring tone and words and the seductive smile, the cries of his name muffled against the fabric of the sheets, the pillow covers, against the meat of Markus' shoulder as they intertwined; the tender kisses and quiet moments of tranquility, the shared warmth and the affection they express in secrecy--it's all Markus', and Markus' alone. Connor had said their first was his first. His first kiss, his first time having intercourse. Markus is his first love, his first romance, his first lover. Those firsts are also all Markus' to cherish.

It's selfish, greedy, to want to keep Connor to himself. To hide him away from all the suitors and the appraising eyes. But he can take solace in the fact that the sight of Connor falling apart from desire or smiling warmly in adoration are ones only Markus is privy to.

"Thank you very much, sir, but it appears I have an arrangement following closely to this one to attend to, and must prepare myself for it immediately, if you'll excuse me." Connor separates himself from the man with grace, tapping Markus' shoulder in a way that would appear impersonal to anyone else. Where he presses, however, is a spot still tender from where his nails had dug in during their intimate activities. "Come along, Markus."

They leave the room with nary a backward glance, Markus following his prince closely. He's surprised upon Connor stopping abruptly, the prince turning to him with an unreadable look on his face. Connor's eyes dart around their surroundings, and then Markus catches his lips quirking up before his back is pressed to a door nearby, leading into a room used for training guards once Connor turns the knob.

"C-Connor--" Markus is silenced with a pair of plush lips pressing to his own. Connor must have been biting them while they'd been walking, as evidenced by their slight puffiness and vibrancy. Connor's body molds to his own, hands moving up to cradle his jaw and stroke his neck, Markus fighting against the urge to pull Connor closer, his hands instead moving to Connor's shoulders to move him away. "What's gotten into you? We could easily get caught in a place like this."

"Markus, it was so awful, having his hands on my body when they could have been yours," Connor admits, his thumbs brushing over stubble, frown drawing his lips down.

Markus sighs, sliding his hands down Connor's arms to move to his flanks, then to his hips, pressing their hips flush. He leans down to rest his chin on Connor's shoulder, angling his head so he can whisper into Connor's ear, "I know, my love. I had to refrain from harming him and tearing you away, myself. But until we can make some change, we can only endure." Markus presses a soft kiss just behind Connor's ear, his lover's breath fanning over his neck in a soft sigh of disappointment.

"I love you, Markus."

"And I, you, my prince."

Connor smiles against his nape, nuzzling in and inhaling his scent. They sit, basking in each other's presence, reveling in the warmth of the other's body, in the warmth the other sparks within them. Markus takes in a sharp breath as Connor's mouth opens, the brunet enclosing it over a patch of skin and applying the slightest bit of suction, his tongue swiping softly over it. The guard's pulse jumps.

"Connor, dearest," Markus breathes in sharply when the lighter-skinned man grazes his teeth over the flesh, pelvis rocking into his, "I'm not sure if this is the best place to do this."

His love hums. "I'm not quite sure if I care. Unless you don't want this right now, don't tell me to stop."

The problem here is that Markus wants this too badly. Every moment he can have this man is a good one, and he can't bring himself to tell Connor 'no' when the stirrings of want pool low in his abdomen. Connor's fingers are again on the back of Markus' neck. He pulls away from the juncture of Markus' shoulder to gaze up at the taller, eyes shifting from caramel to syrup, molten and smoldering. Their lips meet, and it's not long before their tongues mingle, breaths shared; respiratory functions are secondary in the face of passion, the two of them unwilling to part. When they do, it's reluctant but momentary.

The prince's legs tense and Markus only has but a split-second to ready himself for when Connor jumps up and wraps his legs around his waist, swinging around to get Markus stumbling over to the mats nearby. Thankfully, the weapons rack was closed and secured well, so there's little risk of harm to either of them. Markus groans into Connor's mouth as Connor knocks the backs of his knees with his heels along the way, sending the two of them crashing to the floor. They had parted before this, luckily, but as soon as Markus' back touches the floor, Connor is upon him, lapping at his tongue and mapping out his mouth.

It's sloppy, but Markus doesn't quite care. He nibbles at the tip of Connor's prodding tongue, using his hands to press Connor onto his pelvis, rolling their lower halves together. Connor tosses his head back, baring his throat, and Markus is quick to latch on. "I desire you so greatly, Connor. More than anyone I've ever known before."

"Good," Connor gasps, bearing down on him with hands roving over his shoulders, squeezing them to try and ground himself. "Let it remain that way, then; I'd go mad otherwise."

Grinning, Markus nips at his skin, requesting permission, and Connor seems to debate for a moment before mouthing, 'To hell with it,' and nodding in acquiescence. He can't even regret his decision when Markus' teeth sink in. There's no holding back the moan that bubbles out of his throat, the fire that courses through his veins.

"Please, love, take me again."

Markus turns them over, grabbing at Connor's wrists and forcing them down against the mats. "Are you sure you know what you're asking for, my prince? This is a dangerous game you're playing."

Ankles press into the muscle at Markus' lower back. "Show me."

A dark chuckle, and then Markus is making to remove Connor's garments, beginning with his navy overcoat and working the buttons that go to the middle of his blouse, his mouth at the hollow of Connor's throat and traveling down with every bit of skin made available to him. Connor puffs above him, fighting against Markus' hold weakly, wanting to touch, but Markus first wants to leave his mark on every surface of Connor's body, to prove that this man is his should anyone dare attempt to declare otherwise.

Blotchy pink marks follow a trail down across Connor's chest. Just as Markus prepares to tongue one of Connor's nipples, which is already peaked and hardened, there's a click of a knob and a door opening. Markus flattens himself over Connor.

Connor's eyes are wide, breaths softened forcefully and held as long as he can manage. Seems the situation has caught up to him, sobered him. Their hearts pound against one another, seizing in fear with every step nearer to where they lay, barely concealed by seats and weapon containers nearby.

The footfalls move away, towards a rack across the room, a few items rattling. There's a pause, during which they stop breathing and don't even let themselves think, their heartbeats still so loud in their ears that they're afraid the person will hear them.

Finally, the person retreats, exiting the room with a huff.

Connor shakily sighs. His arms wrap around Markus weakly, a tiny tremble wracking his frame.

"I was so scared."

Markus leans his head down, kissing his skin softly. "I was, too."

The prince squeezes him tighter. "I don't want to lose you, Markus. I'd give my life first."

"No." Never. Markus wouldn't live if Connor were to die. Every bit of his beating heart stays with this man and leaves with him, too.

"Then not even in death may we part, hm? Quite fine with me, then." Connor pushes Markus up, reaching for his discarded clothing. He's swift in getting the material up his arms and over himself, Markus mourning each bit of skin once more being concealed with a frown that borders on a pout. "Let's go."

Markus stands with his prince, adjusting his own clothing. "Where might we be heading?" he asks, stepping to stand behind Connor as they exit the training room.

Connor sends him a secretive smile, the syrup orbs now delving into mocha and maybe even chocolate. Markus will need new paints to record these newfound hues, and maybe larger canvases to take in more of his latest muse. The sway of his hips as he walks is more pronounced, exaggeratedly so, and Markus is starting to get an idea. "I told that pesky rat that I had arrangements to prepare for. The oils I need are in my chamber."

"Oils?" Markus thinks for a moment, then begins to choke on his own saliva, coughing. Connor laughs at him. Once he manages to get himself under control, he stares into his prince's eyes with an expression that displays how utterly gobsmacked he is. "You-You are downright sinful, my prince. Even after all that happened in the training room..."

"I wanted to, ah, reward you for putting up with my selfishness all this time. And I promise you, I'll do my best to grant you peak satisfaction with your gift." The brunette winks and continues along, nearly leaving Markus behind. The guard rushes to catch up, thankful that by the time he does, they're just around the corner from Connor's bedroom.

Markus turns the knob before Connor can, his chest pressing to Connor's back, and as soon as the door begins swinging inwards, he's crowding Connor into the room.

The prince spins around and wraps his arms around Markus' neck, pulling him down to connect their mouths. He kicks the door shut and then wraps that leg around Markus' lower back, the two of them moving back towards the bed.

Unheard by the two, a curse sounds behind the door before footsteps echo down the hall.

[harrowingheavens]

WHILE  MY  MUSE  PAGES  ARE  IN  PROGRESS  .

i really am trying hard to find the perfect muse page since i don’t wanna be lazy, but i’m still in the process of doing that while everything else is done, so here are my mains. my selective kids will be in another post. i won’t be posting my private muses for now since i don’t have to, but here are the open kids!

MAIN  .

hansel, bungee, and nemo ( fcs: jeonghan / svt, hoshi / svt, and elkie / clc ): they run a channel called firefly farm and do stupid things that probably end up hurting them or in danger of hurting them, also other things like generally idiotic behavior with a mix of different personalities. these are the main people of the channel, but there are other interns and editors / people who appear on their channel long term, but they are the original squad. hansel’s basically the dad / mom, bungee’s the impressionable brother, and nemo’s the crazy sister.

yomi ( fc: hani / exid ): she runs a popular custom seamstress shop. also often originally designs the clothes she makes for other people. in her ‘i’ timeline, she does underground work like running a system of escorts under the superiority of monarch mafia. in her ‘ii’ timeline or any other ones where it is not specified, she does not do other work than what included her shop. also?? the ‘yandere’ character thing is very ingrained into her character within ships.

koe and caspian ( fcs: vernon / svt and joshua / svt ): uni kids. koe is a drama and theatre student and literally will ignore his grades for it, but he is often forced to at least care a little. procrastination is basically him. caspian is his best friend and a major in literature. both of them are also instagram models who are connected to brands. caspian is a close friend of jeonghwa’s.

flore ( fc: the8 / svt ): ambiguous god of youth, flowers, and spring. also the symbol of nature and spring. because of his symbolism and concept, along with his effeminate behavior and opinions. everyone calls him the goddess flora, so there is debate on whether he is a god or goddess, which he is a full god.

sangwon and hyori ( fcs: sehun / exo and chaeyoung / twice ): sangwon is the ceo of yoo industries and his sister hyori is his executive assistant / secretary. both have different ways of overworking themselves, and both attempt to stop the other from overworking. they are also connected to monarch mafia as associates.

polaris ( fc: yooa / omgirl ): alien, but her species acts as a placeholder of existence. really curious about earth life and is VERY obviously an alien, but everyone just calls her weird and takes it with a grain of salt. no concept of personal space and very touchy. everything interests her. attends uni majoring in dance and drawing. friends with everyone so she knows everyone, also friends with lilith and admires her hard as fuck. basically a puppy and child and obvious alien in one body.

lance ( fc: taeyang / sf9 ): ceo of his family’s confectionery company and head of the ryu house as well. based very loosely on ciel from kuroshitsuji. thinks he’s better than everyone else, probably is. has a demon maid he’s made a connection with. former rivals and now associates of arson’s company. unidentified underground work.

arson ( fc: hwiyoung / sf9 ): ceo of the family’s toy company and head of the tang house. loosely based on alois, but it is very, very loosely based. also has a demon maid, and he’s very much a spoiled brat who throws tantrums when he doesn’t get what he wants. isn’t afraid to harm other people. unidentified underground work.

jangmi ( fc: seolhyun / aoa ): counselor, specializes in family and relationships, but she covers a broader range of issues. kinda hypocritical because she herself doesn’t know how to maintain her own relationships. has major family issues. major workaholic.

niki and chey ( fc: zhengting / 9 percent ): twins. both are popular on social media for their salon works on their accounts and work accounts ( chey: sweetsinclair, nail artist / niki: soursinclair, makeup artist ). chey is really sweet and into pastel fashion.  she also bakes a lot. niki is kinda an asshole and doesn’t deal with bullshit. he’s also big into cooking and eccentric fashion and conspiracy theories.

nari ( fc: undecided for now?? ): starving artist that works at an art gallery as a janitor. used to have anger issues and has grown to be the softest soft you’ll ever know. pastel goth enthusiast. also volunteers at the local orphanage and does a variety of things there: including helping those with anger issues and helping them volunteer as well.

knox and halls ( fcs: minhyun / nuest and wanna one, jihoon / wanna one ): they run a youtube channel with two other people. knox also is a self-employed photographer, popular through his instagram. halls works as the assistant self defense teacher for self defense classes.

chanri and jaeun ( fcs: kang taeri / ulzzang and seungkwan / svt ): they are a paranormal investigator team that also works to help others get rid of the hauntings that plague them ( they ARE amateur exorcists, but that’s not something they do often so it remains amateur. usually it’s not them doing exorcisms because other people are certified and they only have the barest knowledge, but it has come to the point where they needed it ). chanri is the psychic medium of the duo; jaeun is the tech nerd out of the two. chanri also has a side thing of reading people’s fortunes, etc. does this when they work, too.

scottie ( fc: eunwoo / astro ): witch for hire. also works at yejin’s natural, herbal remedies shop. kind of a grouch. he has an older sister he’s very protective of. also has a huge reach of connections.

rikiya ( fc: kenta / jbj ): shrine familiar. with no connected landgod, he is lonely in the shrine his lady and goddess left once humans had abandoned them. he could be childish and immature, but he could also be manipulative ( and the range spans between minor to MAJOR ).

kairi ( fc: yves / loona ): gym teacher and tennis coach for a private school ( from kindergarten to high school ages ) for kids with behavioral problems. former special forces soldier. keeps that from the people in the school she employs within. the students love her, the staff loves her. she only coaches tennis, but she will substitute coach for other sports.

bomae and gun ( fcs: mj / astro and rocky / astro ): best friends and each other’s right hand man. bomae is doing emergency room nursing and gun works within his grandmother’s/uncle’s restaurant. both, though, as much as their parents hadn’t wanted them to, are quickly on their way to becomes very high-profile individuals within the underground world.

taemin and yumin ( fcs: taeyong / nct and chaeyoung / twice ): a government associated agent ( his organization also dips their hands into their own individual work ). close friends with kairi and also has a recommendation to place her within his team. emotional recluse and very aggressive in his social repellent. yumin is his sister, and they are on tense terms. she is a literature teacher, and she’s REALLY a big book nerd. she and taemin do not speak often. she also knows kairi and speaks to her sometimes. since yumin does not speak to taemin and taemin likes to keep it that way, kairi gives taemin updates on his sister. they are both estranged from other family members additionally.

charlotte and caleb ( fcs: nana / after school and jeonghan / svt ): cousins to taemin and yumin. charlotte is on tense terms with taemin, and caleb is a bit of a ditz and isn’t on tense terms with anyone. charlotte is an uprising direction that focuses on vagueness, beauty, femininity, and monstrosity ( brief desc ). caleb works as a match maker, using specific methods and practices that have helped many people. also has others working as socializers and counselors and customer reference in his building. charlotte and caleb are very close, and they speak often ( because caleb always wants to talk and he’s the ‘baby’ so she lets him ). they have enough of a relationship with their parents to have dinners every 3 months with them.

zen and jei ( fc: yanjun / 9 percent and huang zitao ): both are close friends ( along with bonnie who is in the selective list ). they all came to korea together from america and are always busy with work, whether it’s their model work or any other scheduling they have. zen is the dad, older brother of the 3, and jei is the spoiled brat. jei always tries to get people to buy food for him.

seong and theodore ( fcs: jae / day6 and wonpil / day6 ): both are childhood best friends who moved from america. seong is a trust fund prodigy genius that is working as a certified doctor at the age of 25, now 26. theo’s a church boy that goes to church and reads his bible :( he’s a tattoo artist, and he has a shit ton of tattoes on his arms and body in general. generally restricted to his mid section to chest, front and back, and his arms. he also has very fragile health as his immune system is not well. he stays with seong because his parents don’t trust him to be by himself with his health. and he doesn’t mind since seong IS his best friend. they live in a 4 bedroom house. theo gets looks when he wears his arms out and he isn’t self conscious about it, but there are times where people will comment along the lines of ‘your arms look like that and you're the son of a pastor????’ these comments make him uncomfortable. very strong in his faith.

meiqi, manchu, yuma, jaemin, elliot, and daisy ( fcs: elkie / clc, xiao gui / 9 percent, renjun / nct, mark / nct, mina / gugudan ): fraud squad. forgery. cover ups. faked accidents. general underground work you need done? they got it. manchu’s the boss man, meiqi’s the second hand. they all have a family like connection, but they do keep each other at arm’s length.

bones and hyde ( fcs: jungwoo / nct and lucas / nct ): boss man and right hand man of boss man of monarch mafia, which he stole from his biological father. brothers. they both work in hyde’s restaurant, but they are involved in the crime life. faceless leader of monarch mafia, no one knows what he looks like. hyde is basically his guard dog, and he does a lot of his dirty work.

jane ( fc: ren / nuest ):  member of monarch mafia. unashamed pretty boy with anger issues. don’t make him mad pls!! brute strength of monarch mafia. does a lot with issues that are or could get physical. no patience.

dakota and seongja ( fc: bang yongguk and kaeun / pledis ): tattoo artists and work with theodore. softies. all of them, esp theo. dakota also has a crappy immune system and gets sick easily as well as his health being very fragile at times. seongja is a fallen guardian angel / ‘fallen star’ and she keeps track of her person’s life while trying to curve their misfortune into something good. seongja and dakota are best friends.

taeri and taeun ( fcs: jiu / dreamcatcher ): blind twins. their parents are wealthy, but they never give their daughters much attention. they were raised by their grandparents basically. taeri used to stop other people from bullying taeun and does make rash decisions out of her anger. does a special program that will allow her to work as a teacher to those with disabling visual impairment. workaholic. taeun works as a library aide, and she also reads and teaches braille to the children that come for the lessons. she’s also very sof. they live together, but they constantly have aides visiting them to help.

eunja ( fc: jimin / aoa ): works as an online news author, working through an other website / company as well as her own blog. she travels a lot as well. though, currently she’s working and helping at an orphanage her friend and friend’s mother is bringing back. she balances this and other work. basically a puppy? always hyperactive and has energy to spare. very open about her opinions, but she doesn’t like to dissatisfy other people. also a witch that has an affinity for time and relativity, space and matter, etc.