#i have a billion ideas but none of them hold my attention for more than a few days

[cosmicseaslugs]

will Villain Thirteen get a fic at some point?

Probably, yeah. The only thing really stopping me from making one is motivation to actually write. Once the stars align and I have both inspiration and motivation, it'll be over for you villain Thirteen enjoyers.

[phoenixyfriend]

When Obi-Wan gets to AotC, there's also about two dozen Anakin clones on-site. They're all girls because... IDK Anakin is trans. They have a hive mind and are developmentally a few years younger than Anakin himself.

It's incredibly unsettling to Obi-Wan.

It's almost definitely a "fuck with Anakin's already fragile mental health" ploy by Palpatine, along with a "what if Jedi Black Widows, for me, a Sith Lord. Wouldn't that be neat? That would be neat."

Anakin is torn between "this freaks me out" and "GANG OF BABY SISTERS LET'S GOOOOOOO."

(I just finished reading Like Real People Do by glimmerglanger, so this is definitely inspired by that and the obligatory 'lay back in bed and daydream variations on plot points of that fic you just really enjoyed,' and also a little by Same Heart, Same Blood by loosingletters.)

They're physically like 14-16 on average, and Anakin's vibrating out of his skin with a million conflicting emotions, but when he tells Padme she's just like "oh, you have a handmaiden gang!"

I told this to @willowcrowned and she suggested:

Once Anakin decides to repress the part of him that’s weirded out and just regard them as baby sisters he gets. A little strange about it The first time one of them dies he may or may not slaughter every person he can [in response to Padme's comment] Anakin starts worrying that he needs to get them cool matching outfits

I also chatted about it with @firebirdeternal and they said:

Gang of Unsettling Smol Siblings is exactly the Karma that Anakin deserves

Do you think the Clones have a kind of Collective Name that they use at first that eventually just kind of morphs into a new last name? Skysisters or something? Like Palpatine was trying to be clever and name them like the Nightsisters.

I initially went with "functionally one person" hive-mind but I'm torn.

I think maybe they're BASICALLY one person on Kamino but drift into Separate Consciousness once they're far enough apart physically that their minds don't blend from proximity anymore.

Then they start Dating (like half of them are dating Fett clones because they grew up with these dudes, it's like childhood friends romance), and Anakin loses his mind about Protecting Them and They're Too Young.

Padme: You're nineteen and we just got married, they can date. Anakin: THEY'RE EIGHT. Padme: And the Fett clones are ten and dying for us in the field. Get them rights before you panic about their love lives.

Firebird:

it could be worse, one of them could imprint on Obi-Wan. "Anakin I promise I won't yell at you for the next five stupid things you do if you can figure out a way to stop this baby from having a crush on me" (I like the idea of Obi-wan bargaining not with "I won't be mad at you ever" because they Both Know That's Not True, and instead haggling with specific allowances. Like he's handing out Stupidity Coupons)

Please imagine Mace and Obi-Wan's personal responses to the idea of suddenly having to deal with not one, not two, but OVER TWENTY SKYWALKERS.

Plo is delighted to take one off their hands.

So is Yoda.

Willow:

Mace is like. okay suicide isn’t the Jedi way but on the other hand. i physically cannot deal with this Yoda: a skywalker, you say? one who is tall enough to reach the top shelf, you say? such a skywalker, bring me

Anakin would be given at least one because fuck you, suffer with us, but he's still a padawan so Ugh, fine, no.

I want to say one stays on Coruscant to hang out with the Guard, and ends up half-adopted by Padme. She keeps dressing up the Aniclone left with her in handmaiden outfits and sending selfies to Anakin.

"Hanging out with the little SiL!"

Anakin has so many issues about WHEN his genetic material was acquired.

And there's some confusion from the Fett clones about how much of a hive mind is normal for Jedi. They are confused that the answer is basically none, and "this is WHY nobody clones a Jedi"

ONE OF THEM STEALS BOBA FROM THE ARENA ON GEONOSIS.

Firebird:

"I have followed in our progenitor's footsteps and acquired a sibling." holds up a struggling Boba "He bites."

Willow:

Ooooo okay so if they have a sort of hive mind then they probably don’t have names other than their designations on Kamino right BUT When they SEPARATE The one that picks Boba up on Geonosis gets a name specifically for that. Okay what if the one Padmé picks up gets some variant on ‘pretty’ because she’s always being dressed up BELLE Maybe Yoda’s Ani has a name that means thief? Because obviously Yoda is using Anakin to steal sweets

So, to make the timeline work...

I don't think anyone would give Anakin one of his sisters until after he's knighted at least.

So obviously when they're doing initial placements none of the sisters go to him or Obi-Wan.

Once he's knighted, of course they're already all placed with someone, and Anakin instead gets Ahsoka. He loves Ahsoka. She is also a little sister. He said so.

At some point afterwards, one of the sisters is left without a place because the Master that was in charge of her died in the field battle.

That sister then gets placed with Obi-Wan, because he's already mostly-successfully raised one Skywalker, so he can do it again.

Anakin gets to hang out with her basically all the time.

Ahsoka is very very jealous of this girl stealing Anakin's attention.

Anakin is oblivious to the rivalry.

He asks Barriss to look after them while he's discussing Adult War Things with Luminara and Obi-Wan, and Barriss gets an eye into This Mess, which is quickly colored by Ahsoka growing a puppy crush on the lovely Miss Offee herself.

Firebird:

Ahsoka: Ah yes, my nemesis. Anisister: Ah yes, my new older sister whom I want to impress so bad.

"I will impress her by being Stoic and Competent" "Oh my god she must think she's so much better than me what a bitch"

Anakin is oblivious to most things to be fair Anakin: Laser focused precision fighting machine who can read the tiniest body movements and predict your moves seconds in advance, who also cannot understand even the most basic social nuance. I was originally writing this as to Dunk on Anakin but then I made myself sad, because none of those things are really his fault.

So you know that post about like, Sasuke and Brooding, specifically in the context of "Brooding" as it's used to refer to Nesting Chickens? Grouchy and protective and sitting on a tennis ball trying to hatch it because they're just. "These are my Babies." Anakin Broods. Baby sisters. Must protecc. "I'm actually fine and extremely deadly in combat." "MUST PROTECT."

Bad Guy: [catches Ahsoka in a Trap] Aniclone: Must rescue sister! Aniclone: [fights, is not winning fight, gets ouched] Ahsoka tearing her way out of Trap: I lived bitch. Also: stay the fuck away from her. [murders so hard]

Ahsoka catches the Protective Older Sib feels by the traditional method: "Hey, only I'm allowed to be mean to them."

Willow:

Oh Anakin has no clue what’s going on. He walks in on Ahsoka glaring at the Ani and is like!!! Little sisters!!! Bonding!!! When Ahsoka was about three seconds away from tossing her out of the airlock. Ahsoka mistakenly assumes that Barriss has a crush on the Ani, and gets even MORE jealous.

Obi-Wan is like oh god. I can’t take care of an Anakin going through puberty again. He’s great with periods and other stuff because he read about a billion books. He is TERRIBLE with everything else, as he was the first time.

Barriss is like???? YOU'RE BOTH CHILDREN, PLEASE CALM DOWN, I HAVE ZERO INTEREST IN DATING ANYONE, LET ALONE SOMEONE YOUR AGE.

IDK how old Obi-Wan's Aniclone is, probably physically the same age as Ahsoka?

Per @atagotiak on discord:

Also something something, similarities btw Anakin and Obi-Wan where like. "Am I a parent? That seems uncomfortable, I'm too young to be a dad to a kid this age, I mean I'm cool with being a mentor/caretaker but..."

Obi-Wan can't even sidestep parenthood this time.

"Is Anakin basically your dad?" "Uhhhhhh" [Muffled discussion] "So Obi-Wan is your dad." "Okay!" "WAIT NO I DIDN'T AGREE TO THIS"

Ahsoka: She's stealing my brother, that BITCH. Obi-Wan's Aniclone: new sister new sister new sister gotta make a good impression

Firebird:

I feel like the Sister Squad would make very effective interstellar espionage agents Even like, kind of by accident. They just get encouraged to branch out in their interests and figure out what they want to do with their lives and end up all over the dang place, and since they're all pretty dang competent they tend to gravitate towards Important Positions wherever they end up. Except for one sister who just retires to raise Space Sheep.

I like that in this AU Palpatine is just like "I will create an army of Loyal Murderers who will obey my every whim and also be a big psychological lever on my Other Pet Murderer," and then they all just Baby Duckling imprint on the first Jedi to be nice to them instead and he has to just be like "Wait no not like that."

AND one of them Steals Boba

I want Obi-Wan's Aniclone to start dating Fives. All the sisters judge her for it, because he's a Goof. A very competent, ARC Trooper goof! But a goof.

Not as goofy as Anakin, though.

Firebird:

Who expects a clone of Anakin Skywalker to not make questionable lifelong romantic choices impulsively?

[falling-pages]

Bend the Knee: Kyoya x Reader

Thanks @ouranbound for the idea <3

-

“I fear I’ve been so busy planning our future that I did not give time to notice how they were exploiting your present."

-

Sometimes Kyoya's betrothed needs help adjusting from their commoner life to one of splendor.

-

Kyoya Ootori x gn! Reader

Genre: Fluff, established relationship, arranged marriage, Commoner! Reader

Warnings: None

-

“Quit.”

“What?”

“Quit. You complain about that job every night, so just resign.”

You sit up on the couch, gasping to even begin to make the young heir understand how preposterous his words were. He barely even noticed, just kept his eyes glued to his novel as you were having a crisis. Just another normal Tuesday in this household. “I can’t quit just like that, without two weeks’ notice.”

“The other employees did.”

“But I’m their best,” you scramble, “I can’t bail while they’re still looking for two more people.”

Kyoya scoffed, licking his fingertip and turning a page. “Is that how they treat their best? Overworked and underpaid? They don’t sound like very good bosses to me.”

“It’s not that, it’s…”

It was that. It was exactly that, which made his smug smile all the more frustrating, igniting that fire under your nails to just punch his lights out. But then you’d have to admit it’s bothering you, and he would win, and even though you were engaged to marry this man, you just couldn’t have that.

You ran your hands through your hair, dropping back down onto the couch. His office futon wasn’t comfortable in the slightest, perhaps to discourage relaxation during work hours, but it’s what you dealt with in order to spend time with him in the evenings, a change you would certainly implement once your name was on the deed and in the will--a revamp of his working space was imperative.

But you supposed you couldn’t complain. It was your little life together, where he manages a multi-billion dollar empire and you whine about your job, where he pretends to not pay attention while you spill your guts. What was the sense in commenting when he knew you wouldn’t take his advice?

“I’ve worked hard for this position,” you settle on, closing your eyes and letting your brain do the work. “I’ve climbed the ladder and gotten promotions and I used to feel so important, and it isn’t my dream job, sure, but I’ve enjoyed the process.”

“Then it’s time to move on to something different,” he suggests, and his tone is softer than usual, though still careful to sound detached. “You know I have more than enough money to provide for you and our family someday. Is that not enough?”

You open your eyes when the voice sounds closer, right above you, and you see him kneeling down beside you on the couch. You start to sit up, but he pushes you back down, helping you stretch out your spine, shake out the stresses in your limbs. And when he takes your hand, drawing his long fingers over the arch of your wrist and against your palm, you were startled to see him at eye-level.

Kyoya Ootori bent his knee to no one except you, and only once, when he slipped that pretty gold ring on your finger. But here where you lay, your faces were on the same level, and you felt like an equal.

“The world I come from isn’t black and white, Kyoya,” you say, as he strokes the back of your knuckles. Such tenderness was seldom seen from him, but you revel in it, grasp onto it with dirty fists and brazen recklessness. To have him so attentive to your needs and listening to you was rare. It was a privilege, a standard you would soon be held to, as well. “To be just...launched into fame because my dad won the lottery is hard, I still need to adjust. It can all be gone in a second, so I can’t just drop something. I can’t...sever the safety net. They need me to keep the place afloat, and even as tough as it has been, I can’t leave on such bad terms. They need me. Just for a little bit longer.”

He sighs your name like the afterthought of a prayer, settling his other hand beside you on the couch. His fingers dig into every indentation, as if joining your discovery of its stiff cushions. The sheen in his glasses signaled he’d look into it, but there were more pressing matters to attend to at the moment.

He remained silent, odd for a man with all the answers, but he continued to look at you, not like he was trying to drill a hole through your head, but like you were a puzzle he was just beginning to figure out.

“Have I really been so absent, my love?” he whispered, raising his hand to your face. One finger stroked along your cheek, slowly, lulling you into peace. “I fear I’ve been so busy planning our future that I did not give time to notice how they were exploiting your present. Please, forgive me.”

All of the air was knocked out of your chest as his gentle words, so soft that you almost didn’t recognize him. When your parents betrothed you, and when you fell in love with him, agreed to marry him, even, you knew that he would always be an Ootori, with every string attached. You were ready for the challenge, ready to be with this man no matter what--but his sudden kindness was unexpected, the poetic words unfamiliar in your ears.

“Kyo, you think I wouldn’t forgive you?” you ask, taking off his glasses.

He let you, and when you set them on the nearby stand, his dark eyes glittered with something you had never seen before. Deeper than love, deeper than compassion, a feral protectiveness mixed with sadness skating across his face. It was so rare you saw him without this shield of his, you had almost forgotten how his eyes were like galaxies, like the murky night sky, expansive, swallowing everything in its path.

“If I had been suffering so, I wouldn’t forgive my partner had they not noticed,” he said.

“I’m not suffering...”

“Mmm-mm.” He shuttered your lips closed with his finger, and you couldn’t help but return the affection and press a kiss to it. He smiled, softly, and you thought about how long it had been since you had seen that smile, and how long it had been since he’s seen yours, too.

“I know I’m not the best at expressing my feelings,” he said, and when you snorted, he rolled his eyes and leaned away. “See, this is exactly why.”

You leaned up and kissed his cheek, giggling. The feeling was foreign in the pit of your chest, drumming near your spine. “I’m sorry. Please, continue.”

“Thank you.” He cleared his throat, softly wiping where you had kissed him, a repetitive, soothing motion. “I’m not the best at expressing my feelings. I’ve been raised to think that if you throw money at something, it will go away. It’s a powerful position to hold, knowing you can change everyone’s fates on a whim, but…” he swallowed, breaking eye contact, and you felt his energy shift into something vulnerable. “But you changed that. You make me feel...you make me feel. And at first I didn’t like it. I loved you, but I didn’t like what you did to me. I didn’t like how you made my world shift off-balance, until I realized my world was no longer my family’s company or stocks or what other stiffs thought of me. It was you.”

You tried to lean up and kiss him, but he grabbed your hands and held them in his own. “Please, let me finish, I want...I want you to know. We’ve been betrothed for so long, but I’d like to think we were only truly engaged when I bowed to you with that ring.”

“Okay,” you breathed, shallowly, taking it in, squeezing his hands to help him along.

“Because that took everything in me,” he continued, and his voice shook, his hands shook, and all you wanted was to gather him in your arms and hold him till he relaxed. “I was raised as a superior, but I’m not. Not with you. You are my equal, and I love you, and there’s no future with us if I can’t look beyond my own problems to see yours.”

Your stomach quelled in light of his confession. The life of luxury and fame you had so recently come to know was a blur compared to his childhood swathed in privilege. Only six years ago you were waiting tables to save up for college when your dad bought a lottery ticket for the hell of it. Now you were attending charity balls and engaged to the son of the richest man on earth.

He took a shaky breath and kissed your forehead, seeming to only find the courage once his lips met your skin.

“I notice. I swear I do,” he said. “I tried to act disinterested when you vent to me because it was a protection, it was a way to stay cold, because that was all I ever saw from my mother and father. They were separate people who happened to live in the same house. That’s not us. I’m not my father. I swear I notice. I notice your tired eyes and your tense shoulders and your fake smile and I want to fix it, but I don’t know how, so I clam up. I shut down. And I’m sorry. I truly am, my darling. I don’t know how you put up with me.”

It was an absolute miracle that you could even breathe at the end of his speech, panting almost as heavily as he was. And when you leaned forward to kiss him, this time he didn’t object, but pulled you even closer, shrouding your body with his, his sharp scent overwhelming your senses, clouding the air around you, even when there was no distance between you. His mouth was hot with passion, yet reserved, and though it wasn’t the first time you kissed, it was the first time you thought he meant it when he told you he loved you.

“Kyoya, I love you,” you whisper against his lips. “I have for so long. I wouldn’t have stayed with you if I didn’t, no matter what our parents said.” He laughed, nipping your bottom lip lightly. “And I don’t want you to change for me. You’re under so much pressure, I understand why you act like you do. But our home isn’t Wall Street. My heart isn’t some business bargaining chip. You don’t need to fight your nature to love me. It’s one and the same.” One of his tears splashes down onto your face. “So just see me. Love me. Choose to be vulnerable. I promise it won’t scare me off.”

“I will. I promise.”

He kissed you again, burning his brand against your tongue, hard like a handshake to know he meant it. You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him even closer, like you were breathing the same air, using the same lungs, the same heart beating in tandem.

When you let go, his forehead remained pressed against yours. His eyes were slightly open, watching you, eyelashes fluttering against your skin. He was so soft, like this. You wanted to hold him forever.

“Come to bed with me,” you whisper, trailing a hand through his hair. “I just want to spend time with you.”

He kissed your forehead, rubbing his nose against yours in compliance. “I’ll spend all the time in the world with you, beloved,” he sighed, capturing your lips once more. “For as long as you’ll have me.”

-

Kofi

[ameliora-j]

before i fell // dm x reader

words: 2.8k

warnings: angst, talk of a breakup, mention of loss of virginity, mention of not eating, mention of not sleeping, pansy is kinda ooc and so is draco, the slytherins are assholes

a/n: i used a lot of olivia rodrigo lyrics bc i listened to SOUR while writing lol. lmk if i should add other warnings and happy reading babies!

you would be cliche and say that you fell in love the way that you fall asleep. slowly and then all at once. but you couldn’t because you didn’t. it wasn’t a john green novel and you weren’t hazel grace lancaster. falling in love wasn’t simple, and that description of it truly… didn’t describe anything. falling in love was more complicated than that. there were more layers to it than that. falling in love was rather… quick and unexpected. unexpected like snow in the middle of march. or rain when there’s not a cloud in sight. quick like waiting months for an event and finally when the time comes, it feels like you blinked and then it was over.

falling in love with draco malfoy was all of these things and more. falling in love with draco malfoy brought upon more layers than that. falling in love with draco malfoy brought pain. not just any kind of pain, no… horrible, heart wrenching, gut twisting pain. pain that began by bubbling itself in your chest right at the center of your heart, then slowly but surely worked it’s way outwards. encapsulating your entire body and making every inch of your body ache. pain like when you get attached to a character and the author kills them off. pain like when you finish your favorite book and you realize that you’re not truly in that universe and none of that actually happened. pain like when you’re two hours, fifteen minutes, and twelve seconds into avengers: infinity war and peter parker says “mr. stark, i don’t feel so good.” pain that you’ve never felt. pain that can’t be described. pain that you felt for days. pain.

you thought it was strange when the platinum blonde slytherin sought you out. he came to you one day while you sat silently at the black lake. you were alone, but only because you liked to be. you had friends of course, many actually, but you chose to be alone. the black lake was your place of solace. then along came draco. he sat beside you, a good distance away, but his presence was known. you looked to him for an explanation but he offered none. just smiled at you and turned to his notes, so you did the same. the second time he came, he sat closer, but still in silence. the third time is when he struck up conversation.

“yln, yeah?” he questioned.

“yn, actually. but yes, yn yln. and you’re draco malfoy?” you asked.

“i am,” he smirked at your knowledge of his name and then you returned to your studying. after that, the two of you talked every time he came and sat with you. short discussions about the weather or the potions assignment. you don’t know when, but soon they became longer. discussions of your day and your family. your interests and how you got your name. how you loved the rain and the stars and how you loved hogwarts, but you often missed home. draco knew you inside and out and you knew him—and before long, you called the tall, skinny blonde your boyfriend.

you walked the halls of hogwarts together, hand in hand. draco walked haughtily with a hard scowl and you with a bright smile. while you walked cheerfully and waved to your friends and to first years while draco glared at anyone who dared look at the two of you. he took you to parties in the slytherin common room and you wore his jersey proudly at quidditch games, even when he played against your house. he bought you lavish gifts at all of your trips to hogsmeade and he showered you in kisses, praise, and affection. you were whole heartedly smitten with the sole heir to the malfoy fortune.

it was one fateful day in the common room when your heart absolutely exploded. that was the day you knew that you fell in love with draco malfoy. you had been a thing for about two, going on three, months. you were sitting in the slytherin common room, reading in silence when he asked. you were pressed against his chest and he pressed a soft kiss to your head. “‘ve been meaning to ask you something,” he murmured gently. this caused you to close the book and turn your full attention to him. “want you to wear this,” he said, holding out a ring. “it’s the malfoy family crest.”

your stomach and your heart exploded into billions of butterflies and you launched yourself forward, straight into his chest. millions of emotions overcame you as you squeezed his neck as tight as possible. you nodded into his neck as a few stray tears fell. he kissed your head repeatedly as he slid the ring onto your finger before pressing his lips to your’s gently. you giggled excitedly as you stared down at the ring on your finger. “do you like it?” he asked you.

“i love it, dray. i love you. thank you s’much,” you confessed for the first time as you cuddled back into his chest. you don’t know what it was that made the blonde boy seek you out, but you’re glad he did. if only you knew the true nature of his intentions. but alas, you were oblivious.

it was the beginning of the school year, on the train to hogwarts. in the compartment of what was labeled as “the slytherin squad.” there sat theo nott, pansy parkinson, blaise zabini, and—your now boyfriend—draco malfoy.

they were all sitting around, taking the piss out of draco for all of his past failed relationships when it was brought up. “i’ll bet malfoy couldn’t get a girl to fall in love with him if he paid her,” theo spoke.

“i’ll take that bet,” draco countered.

“alright. but we get to pick the girl,” blaise decided.

“what?” pansy asked as theo began to look around the compartment. it was a few minutes before he found the victim. it was then that your fate was sealed. there, sitting in the back corner, head tucked deep into a copy of the fault in our stars, was you. you. awkward and quiet. you with seemingly no friends. poor little unsuspecting you.

“that one,” nott smirked evilly.

“what the weirdo?!” draco exclaimed incredulously. “no way!”

“so then you forfeit?” blaise asked, causing draco to release a frustrated exhale.

“alright i’ll do it,” he rolled his eyes.

“then we give you five months. make yn yln fall in love with you in five months and we’ll do your homework for the rest of the year,” theo posed.

“and if i don’t?” draco asked.

“and when you don’t… thennn,” blaise taunted as he searched for a deal that was fair.

“then we get two hundred galleons each and you have to apologize to potter for making his life hell,” theo smirked. draco scoffed at this and rolled his eyes, but nodded nonetheless.

“and what are my conditions?” he raised an eyebrow.

“she has to say it first. you can do anything you want or need to get her to say it, but you cannot say ‘i love you’ first,” blaise spoke.

“this doesn’t seem fair to yn,” pansy piped in.

“shut your mouth parkinson. no one asked your opinion,” theo growled with a roll of his eyes. but it was too late. there was absolutely nothing the girl could do to get the three to change their minds. she just had to sit idly by and watch draco malfoy break your heart as she said nothing. she wished that she could stop it, but their minds were made up. and the three of them were very stubborn.

it was a few days after draco gave you his ring when your bubble came crashing down. you were walking to meet draco at your spot at the black lake when blaise and theo intercepted you. you knew who they were, of course you did. they were your boyfriend’s best friends, however why they were currently speaking to you, you had no idea.

they told you it would be quick. that they just wanted to show you something in the slytherin common room and left little room for argument, so you had no choice but to follow them there. they sat you on the couch and began to discuss your relationship with draco. you were very confused and had no idea why you were here. “so… draco hasn’t told you?” blaise mocked a gasp of shock.

“no?” you raised a soft eyebrow as you stared on. this made theo smirk evilly as he pulled up a projector and pointed his wand at it. a picture appeared, it looked like a memory. “what’s this?” you asked before the boys urged you to ‘shh.’ you sunk further into the couch as you idly watched on.

you truly weren’t paying attention untill you heard the voice of your boyfriend. the words he spoke stung. you were soft. emotional. the way he spoke about you absolutely crushed you. it would crush anyone, but it shattered you especially. “she’s so fucking weird!” “i’ll take that bet.”

‘s all you were. all you ever were. just a stupid belt. another notch in his belt. it was that moment that draco had barged into the common room. but by then, it was already too late. the tears had already sprung to your eyes and you were preparing for a torrential downpour as you heard his voice. “i’m out!” he announced breathlessly. he froze in his run as his eyes fell on you and what was playing on the projector currently. “bunny…” he whispered softly as his hand touched your shoulder, but you quickly jerked away as if his hand had burned you on contact.

“don’t call me that. don’t touch me,” you demanded as the tears began to fall. “that’s all i was? a bet?” an involuntary whimper sounded from the depths of your throat. “i feel so stupid.” you shook your head.

“no, bunny please listen to me,” you didn’t allow the boy to finish as you wrapped your arms tightly around yourself.

“don’t call me that!” you demanded. “in fact don’t call me at all. don’t… don’t talk to me draco. ever again. i can’t believe i fell for your stupid joke. i feel so… i feel like an idiot,” you spoke. you shook your head, hastily wiping at your eyes untill you saw stars. it was then that you decided to walk away.

“YN STOP!” draco yelled. “LISTEN to me,” he demanded.

“NO!” you shouted as you turned to face him finally. “godric draco, i wish you would’ve thought this through before i went and fell in love with you,” you sniffled as you wiped your snot on your sweater sleeve.

“yn please just let me explain. please listen to me, please,” he begged.

“i feel like you betrayed me,” you shook your head. “i told you everything. you were my everything. draco i loved you. i actually loved you. i thought you loved me too but i guess you’re just a really good actor,” you sniffled once more. “i hate you draco. i really fucking hate you. i don’t want to hear your bullshit explanation because i know that you’ll never feel sorry for the way i’m hurting right now.”

“it was a bet!” draco shouted as you walked away, hand on the door knob. you scoffed as you muttered a sarcastic, ‘no shit.’ “that’s how it started yes, but then i got to know you. i figured out who you were. i learned that your favorite color is yfc and that you prefer night over day because you love the stars and that your favorite star is scorpius and you would name your son after that star one day. i learned that you love to read and you love when it storms but you're afraid of the thunder. you only dance when you’re drunk and you giggle when you’re nervous and i love that giggle. with everything in me i do. your favorite book is yfb and you choose to be alone but you let everyone be your friend. you’re gorgeous. inside and out and while it may have started as a bet, somewhere along the lines i fell in love with you so yn please. please don’t leave,” he whispered the last part as his voice came out broken.

you took a deep breath in before you began to speak. “you couldn’t have cared less about someone who loved you more. i’d say you broke my heart but you broke much more than that,” you shook your head as you furiously wiped at your eyes again. “i gave you my all draco. you were my first everything. i gave you my virginity for merlin’s sake. all to find out that i was just some stupid bet,” you scoffed.

“yn please believe me when i say that you’re so much more than that,” he begged again. “i came to tell them that they won. that i wanted out because i fell in love with you too!”

“it doesn’t matter if you don’t see me as a bet any longer. the fact is that you did. i’m worth so so much more than that.” your breaths were ragged as you spoke. “i really wish that you had thought this through before i went and fell in love with you.” you repeated with a small sniffle. “don’t you think i loved you too much to be used and discarded? don’t you think i loved you too much to think i deserve nothing?” you were openly sobbing at this point.

“yn please believe me when i tell you how sorry i am…” he spoke softly.

“don’t tell me you’re sorry. feel sorry for yourself. because someday i’ll be everything to somebody else,” with this you turned away from him. you hastily opened the door and practically ran out of the common room and away from him.

at that moment you decided to forget about it. draco, and the bet, and love, and everything. like in the vampire diaries, you decided to turn your emotions off. you laid in your dorm crying for hours before you made that decision, however. your dorm mates checked on you often, but you never offered more than merely a half hearted shrug, letting them know that you were still alive, but barely breathing. you skipped classes and meals. you were a mere shell of yourself. it was about two weeks before you could face draco again. and even then you couldn’t truly. you went into the great hall and found “the slytherin squad” sans draco.

pansy looked at you sympathetically while theo and blaise basked in the glow of their new victory. you pulled the ring off carelessly as you stopped in front of them, hair disheveled and uniform askew. you had dark bags under your eyes from the lack of sleep you’d gotten in the past fourteen days and your eyes were rimmed red with the weight of your emotions. “c’you just give this back to malfoy,” you murmured half-heartedly as you dropped the ring on the table in front of the three. just speaking his name brought you pain.

your shoulders were sunken in defeat and you were but a shell of your usual cheerful self. you don’t even know when the last time you saw daylight or had fresh air was. “wait yln,” pansy called hesitantly. you turned to face her, still staring down at your mary janes as you pulled and twisted your fingers untill you heard your knuckles pop. “you… you really love him, don’t you?”

you just shrugged your right shoulder as you used the heel of your palm to wipe the snot from your rapidly reddening nose. “i was just some stupid bet,” you replied as tears begin to spill rapidly over your waterline.

“if it’s any consolation… it was those two bozos’ idea,” pansy told you as she pointed to blaise and theo.

“doesn’t matter,” you murmured. “he’s still a traitor,” you answered as you walked away, forgetting all about the slytherin prince and his stupid friends. forgetting all about how he hit you with a train of his “love.” forgetting all about how for three months he was your everything. forgetting all about how he wrote to his mum about you and you wrote to your parents about him. forgetting all about draco malfoy. the platinum blonde boy with stormy grey eyes who had a long story buried beneath his haughty exterior. the boy who you called your first. your first kiss. your first time. your first love. forgetting all about the boy that made you fall in love just to tell you it was all a bet.

attempting to revert back to how you were before you fell.

add yourself to my taglist :)

nani’s 100 followers celebration

taglist: @hellounicorn @mollysolo @i-love-scott-mccall @veela-essence

[comfortwriting]

Ashtray Part 4 - D.M

Masterlist, Requesting Rules, Writing Prompts

This is Part 4 of my Draco Malfoy Mini Series, please read parts 1, 2, and 3. 

Warnings: swearing, smoking, mention of food and eating. 

“Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.” Snape’s voice echoed in the back of your mind whilst you flicked through your Romeo and Juliet GCSE muggle study materials, forgetting about charms, divination, and hexes, and learning about Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men instead.

The spring breeze brushed against your tender neck and cheek, causing your hair to blow out of place, the pages in your books flicking over, your bookmark sliding out of the crook and onto the grass.

Sighing, with a cigarette clamped between your lips in the corner of your mouth, you quickly grabbed on to your book, trying to find the page you were on, battling against the strong and unsteady breeze which started to resemble a billion hands, trying to push you away all at once.

Reaching the page you were on, you picked up your bookmark and shoved it back into the crook, sucking on your cigarette and inhaling, you stuffed the books into your bag and rested your head against the giant birch tree you pressed your back up against, looking up at the long, thick branches that welcomed new leaves and blossoming flowers.

“Are you bloody mental?” A familiar voice called out, footsteps stomping towards you.

Choking on your breath, you spluttered, the cigarette shooting out of your mouth and onto the grass, the wind blowing it away before you could pick it up or put it out.

The group of footsteps got closer and then stopped, you stared at the familiar mucky and well-worn shoes that stood out next to the shiny pointed flats in perfect condition, looking up, you were faced with Ron and Hermione.

Feeling your heart drop in your stomach and bracing yourself for another lecture, you continued to stare at them, darting from one pair of eyes to another.

“What do you want?” you sighed, too tired to argue, too drained to explain yourself all over again.

Ron squinted at you “leaving Hogwarts just as you’re about to start your O.W.Ls, Y/N, have you gone mad?”

Your heart started to pound, your stomach suffering fatal blows with each heavy beat.

“It’s nothing to do with you” you replied “I told you that last week!”

Hermione held Ron back from losing his temper, flashing him a look and pulling him behind her. She looked down at your book filled bag and pouted for a moment, pondering her thoughts.

“But why?”

But why? are you kidding me!

Rolling your eyes, you scoffed and laughed lightly, grabbing your bag and slinging it over your shoulder as you got to your feet.

“You’re a smart girl, Hermione.” you glared “don’t ask stupid questions.”

Turning away from her and walking away in the other direction, Ron pushed past his girlfriend and grabbed hold of your wrist, pulling you back, his other hand gripping the wand in his pocket tightly.

“Ron!” Hermione hissed.

“No!” You raised your voice “It’s alright, I’ll give you what you bloody want.” You snatched your wrist away from Ron and pushed him away from you, almost causing him to fall onto the grass.

Hermione tried to speak, so did Ron but the fire burning in your stomach became uncontrollable and the embers that flew off spread around your body like wildfire.

Draco, Pansy, Blaise, and his other cronies strolled down the path towards the lake, your raised voice catching their attention and pulling them into the spider web you were accidentally forming around you.

“I fell in love with Draco and he happened to already like me back!” you yelled “I got to know him better than anyone, better than Pansy, better than Blaise, better than Snape!”

Hermione still tried to speak, but only managed to stutter.

“That lad has been treated like shit by his father, he has been forced to do terrible things he didn’t want to do, he was never given a choice and still can’t decide what he wants to do with his own life for himself!”

The fire in your stomach shot up and travelled past your ribs, Draco’s mouth hung wide open, his heart pumping like it never had before in his life, Pansy stared at him out of the corner of her eye.

“He isn’t a death eater by choice! I am not a death eater for helping him gain the courage he so desperately needs to break away from the poison in his life!” you walked towards Hermione and Ron, your index finger pointing at them. “I didn’t decide to fall in love with him, it just happened, I could smell his green apples in my bloody love potion, he could smell my fucking cigarettes!”

You inched closer and closer, now trembling with fury.

“Is this true, Draco?” Pansy snapped, staring at him in horror.

“Well don’t just stare at it, what can you smell?” Snape droned on at you, gliding down the empty classroom.

You closed your eyes and swallowed hard, allowing the scent of green apples and expensive shoe polish to engulf your senses, drowning you.

The scent pulled you away from reality and forced you to relive the picnic with Draco, the perfectly sliced green apples sitting on a plate before you were pulled from that moment and thrust into his arms as the two of you danced slowly and silently in the dark and empty courtyard, his expensive shoes shining in the moonlight, the smell of his shoe polish breaking out into the cold air.

You cleared your throat “I can smell Draco, Professor.” taking a deep breath you opened your eyes and stared into Snape’s pits of darkness “I can smell the green apples he eats, and the expensive shoe polish his dad buys for him.”

The corner of Snape’s mouth curled into a rare smile - a sign of approval rather - Snape’s hand rested on your desk, his eyes focusing hard on your cauldron.

“I want you to hold up your bag” he ordered, watching as you did so “and I want you to take out your Marlboro Cigarettes.”

You felt the air get snatched out of your lungs as you were pulling out the exact cigarette brand.

“How did you-”

“When I asked Malfoy what he could smell” Snape paused for a moment, the corner of his mouth curling upwards even more “he pulled a disapproving face and said the same cigarettes in your hands; Draco could smell you.”

“I had no idea that Harry had feelings for me, he never hinted at such a thing, he never told me, and when you thought I was becoming Mrs Malfoy with a burning desire to pledge allegiance to Voldemort-” you bit down hard on your tongue, having never said his name out loud “before I had a chance to explain everything, you publicly shunned me! the whole of Hogwarts shunned me!”

Hermione and Ron’s faces dropped, other students passing by stopped and stared at you, listening in to every word that flew out of your mouth, Harry could hear everything as he ran towards you, his scar prickling, nausea polluting his system, the vision as clear as day in his mind.

“I can’t eat in the great hall - I have to sit with the bloody house-elves in the kitchens! I can’t go into my own common room, or sleep in my own fucking bed!” Your yelling turned into loud screeches, your throat incredibly raw and sore as if you had swallowed the worlds tiniest razor blades.

Harry reached closer and closer towards you all, panting, desperate to catch his breath and spill everything he had just witnesses, the hairs standing up on his back, fear consuming him and guilt suffocating him.

“Everyone hates me! I hesitated for one moment when Draco asked if I were to choose him over you, my best friends, and when I said it wouldn’t come to that, he shunned me too!”

Tears filled Hermione’s eyes, making her vision go glassy, mirroring you, she had never felt so guilty and wrong in her whole life. Harry fell to his knees, gasping for air and pulling on Ron’s sleeve, trying to speak, gasping as he babbled.

“He’s coming-”

“Harry, take deep breaths mate, I can’t understand what you’re saying”

Breaking out of your rant, you noticed everyone circled around you and watching everything unfold in the distance, Draco stood and stared at you, his heart clawing through his bones and flesh to pull you into his arms where you belonged, but his head cursing you and seeing nothing but red for exposing his vulnerabilities to his peers.

“So now you all know why I’m leaving!” you yelled, addressing everyone, getting on your tiptoes, your arms stretched out as you spun around in a circle “and the best news is that I’m leaving earlier than expected!”

“He’s going to attack-” Harry gasped whilst Ron rubbed his back, concern splashed upon his face, trying to put the pieces together.

“Y/N, we’re sorry!” Hermione cried out, her voice shaking.

“No!” you yelled “you’re not! none of you are!” turning your back to everyone you took off in the other direction, your throat burning like your stomach, your eyes stinging from the tears “and after tomorrow it won’t matter!” you yelled again “I’ll be gone when the morning comes!”

Storming off, your bag bounced and bashed against your back, the heaviness of the books pushing you along with each slam, you could feel Draco’s icy grey eyes carve holes into your spine, your heart yearning out and crying for him.

but it didn’t matter anymore, you were moving on with your life and so would he.

“He’s going to attack her-” Harry gasped, finally catching his breath.

“Who-”

“Voldemort-”

“Who is he going to attack? Hermione-”

“No!” Harry shook his head, burying his hands into the grass, pulling on it, everyone now staring at him “Voldemort is going to attack Y/N!”

Draco’s world stopped, his grey eyes focused on Harry - as Harry’s green eyes that belonged to his mother looked back at the lad he hated with every ounce of his being.

“We need to help her” Harry stressed “both of us.”

Tag list: @amourtentiaa @reeophidian @alwaysnforeverfangirl @inglourious-imagines @sycathorn-slush @blackqueens01 @astramalfoy @yesimsleepdeprived @fredshufflepuff @a-dusty-emerald @samineisntmyname @hogwartsbroom

[siriusheadspace]

illicit affairs - sirius black x reader

Warnings: angst, smut, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it!!!)

Pairing: Sirius Black x Reader

Summary: You and Sirius start seeing each other in secret around Hogwarts since his best friend Remus has a crush on you, but is too shy to act on it. Inspired by "Illicit Affairs", by Taylor Swift.

A/N: God, all of a sudden I developed this hyper fixation with Sirius. I got a bunch of ideas for stories with him (and all of them inspired by songs lol) but this was the one that felt more structured. I haven't written in a while and English is not my first language so be kind lol

Words: 2k ish

-

Make sure nobody sees you leave Hood over your head Keep your eyes down

You could swear the entire Hogwarts castle heard your hitched breath while you tried to make your way to the Gryffindor tower as silently as possible. Sirius was the one to leave first this time, heading for his dormitory while you had to count to 300 - you forgot your watch this time. You were sure it was his time to wait, but you didn't contradict him after he zipped his pants, gave you one last rough kiss, and said "Later, then?".

Tell your friends you're out for a run You'll be flushed when you return

It took some time to develop this relationship to the point where you didn't have to talk and check each other's stories to avoid being caught. You knew your friends and roommates didn't believe you were risking getting caught and losing house points just for a night walk around the castle, but they gave up on you telling them who you were seeing.

Take the road less traveled by Tell yourself you can always stop

It started last year, in your sixth year in Hogwarts. You always had a crush on Sirius, but that's not uncommon - nearly every girl on your year couldn't help falling for his long, silky hair, his gray eyes, his long, yet toned body, and, of course, his devil may care attitude. But he never really paid attention to you, just some light flirting in a party at the Gryffindor common room one time; you were pretty sure he didn't know your name. But it changed last year. You can't quite point to when, exactly, you noticed the Marauders would go quiet once you walked by. But it got to the point where you would always notice. You'd pass by them on purpose, flattered by the attention Black was finally giving you. But you didn't notice that it was his friend, Remus, that gave you the most passionate looks.

What started in beautiful rooms Ends with meetings in parking lots

At a party right after a Quiddich match, you decided you would do something about it and give Sirius the chance to make a move. You took hours getting ready, borrowed a dress from a friend, the cleavage more revealing than anything else you ever wore, the fire whiskey burning your throat and your shyness. Once you came down the stairs, you could feel the glances at you, running up and down your body, another rush to add to the whiskey and to boost your confidence. Your friend group was close to the Marauders and you thanked the gods for it. You were all dancing together, and Remus excused himself after a few songs - you later figured he might be trying to get confident enough to make a move - once Sirius perfume got to you. Sandalwood, something citric and tobacco, all mixed to intoxicate you. You started dancing closer to him, and, in a spike of lust, grabbed his hand and went to an empty room. He looked confused but didn't complain when you pushed him against the wall and kissed him fervently. You felt his smirk, his excitement, once he pushed you back against a table and pulled your legs around him so he could lift you and sit you on it. He only stopped to catch his breath once you were panting and pulling his lower lip between your teeth. You felt like a goddess when his long fingers explored your body, lingering on your exposed curves. You unbuttoned his shirt while he unzipped your dress, and, without giving it a second thought, with a spark of pain between all the pleasure, you had your first time with the infamous Sirius Black.

And that's the thing about illicit affairs And clandestine meetings And longing stares

When you were finished, the combination of soreness and embarrassment started to make your chest heavy - the first time of many. Sirius was a gentleman, though, helping you fix yourself enough so it wasn’t obvious that you were doing what you just did, not commenting on the blood, or when your nails pressed against the skin of his shoulders out of pain. You felt his stares during the next few weeks, trying to find a way of talking to him and meet him again, maybe on a date, something more romantic than snogging on dark, empty classrooms. One night, you were reading in the common room and noticed him alone, leaning against the wall, close to the portrait of the Fat Lady. Once he felt your eyes on him, he left the room, and you felt a rush, getting up, counting to ten, and following him to another empty classroom, where he quickly took your book off your hands and moved them to his neck.

It's born from just one single glance But it dies, and it dies, and it dies A million little times

You were anxious to repeat his steps, standing against the wall, waiting for him to look at you. But he sure followed you to yet another empty room. That time, you actually had a conversation after you were done, but it was far from the romantic invitation for a date at Madame Puddifoot. "You need to be less obvious", he said, buttoning up his shirt. "I just did what you've done last time", you said, pulling your skirt up, feeling the warmness between your legs, the humiliation of being scolded like a kid by the person responsible for it. "But if it's going to happen that often", he smirked, "we have to figure out a way to do it in a way that people don't have to pay the tiniest amount of attention to find out, baby", he completed, and started scheming. You agreed to his plan: whenever any of you wanted to see the other, you'd send a note with a smiley face, something that wouldn't be revealing and wouldn't mean anything to anyone but the two of you, and you'd meet at three in the morning at the come and go room. "It's safe. And it has an appropriate name, don't you think?", he laughed, and you shot him a weak smile. He walked to the door but before he opened it, you put your hand on his arm. "Sirius", you said, and he noticed that he liked the way his name sounded on your lips when you were composed as well, and scolded himself for the flutter in his chest caused by it, "Are you doing something this weekend? I thought we could go to Madame Pu..." "We shouldn't be seen in public, doll", he said, trying to give you one of his smirks, but you noticed how his eyes still looked sad. It didn't matter, though - the weight of rejection pulled you down and you had to use all of your energy not to break down crying while going back to your room. Sirius went first. Once you were about to go up the stairs that would lead to your room, you heard his laughter with his friends coming from the other staircase. Unbothered by your encounter.

Leave the perfume on the shelf That you picked out just for him So you leave no trace behind Like you don't even exist

You've dealt with by rationalizing it in many different ways. You thought that the next time you got a piece of parchment with a smiley face, you'd just ignore him, happy to imagine him alone and pathetic, waiting for you. But you never had the strength to do it. You'd always fix your hair and some makeup and went straight back to his arms.

Take the words for what they are A dwindling, mercurial high A drug that only worked The first few hundred times

"Why does it have to be like this?", you asked, feeling brave, six months after your first encounter. "Y/N", he said - you felt a shiver up your spine like you always did when you heard your name in his voice - "I'm a bad friend. And I'm trying to avoid coming to terms with that", he completed with a sad smile on his face. Once he noticed your confusion, he explained how he started noticing you after Remus admitted to having a crush on you, but never had the guts to tell you. That Remus made him notice things about you he wasn't paying attention before - how your lips would pout when you were concentrating during Charms, how your soft curves were visible under the heavy wool of the sweaters you liked to wear - but it was you, in a burst of attitude, pushing him against a wall that made him give up on being a good friend for Remus on what concerned you.

And that's the thing about illicit affairs And clandestine meetings And stolen stares They show their truth one single time But they lie, and they lie, and they lie A billion little times

You accepted your status as a shameful secret. Remus still gave you fond looks and eventually had the courage to get close to you, trying to help with your DADA homework, complimenting haircuts, holding doors open to you. And you thanked him with your heart full of guilt, Sirius' stare burning on your back. After one of your encounters, Sirius brushed his fingers against your cheek and pushed a strand of hair behind your ear. You were still shocked at the demonstration of affection when he left the room first, and you started counting to 300 again. 151… Is he falling for you? 208… It can't be. It has to be just physical. Why would he fall for you and still keep you as a secret? 299… It clicked. He could fall for you a million times, it would never be as important as his friendship with Remus. And you loved him a bit more because of that. 300.

And you wanna scream Don't call me kid Don't call me baby Look at this godforsaken mess that you made me You showed me colors you know I can't see with anyone else

You tried seeing other guys. You went on dates, and you blushed at their compliments, but none of them had a fraction of the effect of Sirius had on you. You still hoped he noticed when one of them would hold your hand on the way to Hogsmeade. You could only hope it hurt him as much as it hurt you to see him flirt with other girls. To listen to his voice calling them "baby".

Don't call me kid Don't call me baby Look at this idiotic fool that you made me You taught me a secret language I can't speak with anyone else

One night, you were whispering his name with him already inside you, your shirt undone, your bra unclasped, your skirt pulled up, when the door opened. The pain in Remus’s eyes as he understood what was happening in front of him was something you knew you would never forget. Sirius left you there, dressing himself quickly while apologizing profusely to his friend. You turned around and tried to fix yourself, and they left without even looking back at you.

And you know damn well For you I would ruin myself A million little times

None of them ever spoke with you again. It was as if you were taboo. Even James and Peter wouldn't pay attention to you once you spoke in class or told a funny joke to your friend in the common room. You figured it was fair. They had to do what's best for their friendship. And if pretending you didn't exist was the price to pay for that, they'd all pay it. When you saw them all laughing together, joyful, you knew you'd do the same.

But, sometimes, you could swear you felt Sirius’ gaze against you. And you knew that was as close as he'd get to ever touching you again.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Serial Killers

Official debriefing report for lead Magistrate Opto Mobui pertaining to the events of the series of murders in Mega-City 4, publicly known as the “Masquerade Murderer”.

Note Taker: Please state your full name for the record. Opto: Optop Mobui. Note Taker: Official title? Opto: Lead Magistrate for Mega-city 4.  Note Taker: And- *Door opening* *Unknown*: That’s enough of that. *Sounds of chairs being pushed back* Opto: High Councilor Mooq! Mooq : At ease Magistrate.  *sounds of seats being taken* Mooq r: Forgive my note taker, he’s very detail oriented but sometimes forgets the tone he projects which can be misleading.  Note Taker: Apologies High Councilor.  Mooq : Let me be clear; you are not hear to be held accountable for these heinous crimes but to explain your investigation and the events in detail. Opto: I don’t understand; was my submitted report not good enough?  Mooq: After reading it I felt that you were scraping over some details and holding back your personal thoughts on the matter.  *pause of silence* Opto: I felt it was unprofessional to mention my inner thoughts on the matter.  Mooq:  Publicly yes, but this is to be held between us in private.  Mooq: Tell me everything. Opto: Everything?  Mooq: Everything.  Mooq: Let’s start from the beginning.  Opto: The incidents- *Finger tapping on metal* Mooq: “Murders”. Opot: Apologies.  Opto: The first of the murders happened just about three solar cycles ago.  Mooq: And you are sure of this?  *Uneasy rustling* Opto: No; I believe there were additional murders before that discovery but we have as of yet not been able to locate the bodies. 

Mooq: Why do you say that?

Opto: The arrangement of the victim’s body was too precise, too planned to be a spur of the moment. 

Note Taker: It sounds as if you are admiring the killer. 

Opto: Tread carefully, I take that as a challenge to my honor.

Mooq: What made this murder so different from the rest? 

Mooq: By records account there are at least three hundred and seventy four murders a month in mega-city 4. 

Note Taker: Sounds like someone isn’t doing their job. 

*Sounds of a chair being kicked over* 

Mooq: Please sit down Magistrate.

Opto: The next time he speaks I will strike him High Councilor. 

Mooq: Noted; now please sit down. 

*Chair being picked back up and sat in*

Opto: In a city of 4 billion people it is common to have such a murder rate, but most of those are from robberies gone wrong, gang fights, or other such criminal elements. 

Opto: But this murder......it looked as if the killer had done it for fun. 

Mooq: Fun?

Mooq: Explain. 

Opto: None of their belongings were missing, when we located their living unit we found it had not been broken into or robbed, even the access card to her transit vehicle was still in their pocket. 

Mooq: Could it not be a crime of procreation? 

Opto: From our later investigation we discovered that they had no mate nor had been courting anyone so it was ruled unlikely. 

Mooq: So it was murder for the sake of murder?

Opto: Not necessarily. 

Opot: As I said, the way the body was positioned and scared made it appear as something else. 

Mooq: Please describe the state of the body. 

Opto: No clothes were torn nor and there were no visible wounds from a confrontation.

Opto: What was unusual was a strange burn like pattern that had appeared across the victims face from ear to ear covering most of their face. 

Mooq: I thought you said the body wasn’t wounded? 

Opto: It wasn’t.

Opto: The burn marks were superficial and only slightly burned portions small portions of the skin that were not deep enough to be considered a normal burn wound. 

Mooq: Was there anything else?

Opto: The body was arranged in a strange manner; hunched over at the base of a wall in a dark alley, arms outstretched as if trying to embrace someone. 

Mooq: What happened after the body was discovered?

Opto: We exhausted every lead but after twenty lunar rotations we came up with nothing and the case was closed. 

Mooq: That was when the second body was discovered; correct? 

Opto: Yes. 

Opto: This time it was found on the opposite side of the mega-city in the thermal plant.

Opto: A worker discovered the body being held atop one of the steam vents by a series of cables. 

Opto: Whenever the steam vent opened the body appeared to dance in the exiting steam. 

Mooq: What made you believe this murder was related to the original?

Opto: Despite the steam burning portions of the body the face had the same burn marks as the previous victim.

Opto: More than that, the positioning of the body was the same over the top manner as the previous one.  

Mooq: Were the victims related? 

Opto: Not in the slightest. 

Opto: The first was a clerk in a clothing store near the upper quarter, and the second victim was a thermal worker down in the under city. 

Note Taker: A question if I may?

Mooq: Make it a good one or chances are your face will soon be rearranged.

Note Taker: If these two murders, gruesome as they were, were in isolated areas with limited witnesses how did this spiral out of control into a media blitz? 

Mooq: A fair point.

Mooq: Did you not implement silencing measures?  

Opto: We did, but that only seemed to make it worse. 

Mooq: Explain. 

Opto: This is my personal theory, but I think by not announcing the murders to the media it pushed the killer to ever more elaborate configurations. 

Mooq: I don’t understand. 

Opto: I believe the murder felt like they had been cheated by our silence, that their theatrics were not worthy of being mentioned. 

Note Taker: Interesting word choice to describe the murder of two innocent people. 

Opto: I’d agree were it not for what happened in the following lunar cycles. 

Mooq: You are referring to the-

*sounds of rustling paper* 

Mooq: -Motori Elevator incident? 

Opto: Correct.

Opto: In Motori park there is a crystal clear elevator that links the park to level 37 above. 

Opto: During the busiest hour of high sun the park was packed full of citizens when the elevator went up and revealed three more bodies hanging from underneath the elevator. 

Opto: Their hands and legs had been bound together in different patterns to make it appear as if they were some sort of entertainment act. 

Opto: Citizens were initially confused by this until the elevator came back down and the bodies were caught between the elevator and the glass panels resulting in a bloody smear being dragged down the entire elevator shaft. 

Mooq: I remember. 

Mooq: The media were all over the scene before you could arrive and lock the place down. 

Opto: From their things only became worse.  

Opto: I believe that the media coverage only encouraged the killer to continue their work; as if they were fueling them to go even grander and grotesque. 

Mooq: Did you express your ideas at the time?

Opto: I did, but they were ruled as irrelevant by the rest of the team.

Mooq: And why is that?

Opto: They couldn’t believe that someone would go through all of this just for attention. 

Mooq: The following events appear to justify your line of thinking. 

Opto: I wish they hadn’t. 

Opto: There came the upper city impalements that spun their bodies in the wind, then came the waiting valet whose body was positioned in their vehicle with a slow burning iglo stick in their hand, then the sister twins of hoblo lane found dead on benches positioned to make them look like they were drinking tea. 

Mooq: And this entire time there was still no connection between the victims? 

Opto: Nothing at all. 

Opto: Each lived in entirely different society circles that never would interact with each other. 

Opto: The only connecting fact was their strange burn like marks on their faces that we later identified to resemble a form of alien mask worn to parties. 

Mooq: If they were all so disconnected what led you to discover the killers hideout? 

Opto: It was when  I was looking at a 3d model of the mega-city with each of the murders marked that I noticed something. 

Opto: At the very center was Motori park’s elevator shaft. 

Mooq: And that was the clue?

Opto: Exactly. 

Mooq: I still don’t follow. 

Opto: I didn’t make the connection until I watched security footage of the bodies in the shaft just as they became wedged between the shaft and the elevator. 

Mooq: A rather careless mistake for a murder so specific with details. 

Opto: Forgive me High Councilor but it was not a mistake; it was intentional.

Mooq: Excuse me? 

Opto: The smear only triggered as soon as the elevator began to go down. 

Opto: It made a clear line going down through the heart of the mega-city on the map.

Opto: I had a hunch that the killer was provoking us to try and catch him; pointing where to find him.

Mooq: But that elevator ended at the park, it didn’t go any lower. 

Opto: True, but that is when I started going back through the murders and found something disturbing about each one. 

Opto: Each one held a clue that when added together with the rest of the murders pointed to the killers hideout. 

Mooq: Really? 

Opto: The first victim had their arms outstretched not in a hug but pointing in a direction. 

Opto: The valet’s meter was stopped on a specific number that when entered into a computer resulted in a downward angle. 

Opto: The two sisters drinking tea had liquid spilling out of their cups in a downward angle. 

Opto: Each murder had a feature pointing in a downward direction

Mooq: That sounds like over analyzing the situation. 

Opto: It would be were it not that each direction that was being pointed in intersected with a specific location that was directly under the Motori elevator. 

Mooq: That is it? 

Mooq: That was the tip you finally needed? 

Mooq: Why would the killer directly point out where they were?!?

Opto: I think they thought of this as some sort of twisted game and felt it only sporting for us to be given clues. 

Mooq: From your remarks it sounds as if much of your deduction was guessing. 

Opto: It had to be since no rational reasoning was linking the crimes. 

Mooq: What did you find when you raided the location? 

Opto: It was located in the mid levels that had been abandoned due to a level collapse. 

Opto: The large run down building was recorded as once being a chemical storage facility for beauty products when it was at the very top of the mega-city before the above levels were built. 

Opto: We had brought in a full three sector houses worth of officers for the raid and surrounded the building. 

Opto: On command we stormed the building from all sides. 

Opto: What we found inside was just as disturbing as any of the other 

Mooq: How so?

Opto: The best way to describe it would be the victims we had found were guests on their way to the “masquerade”. When we entered the main storage chamber we found the party was in full swing. 

Opto: Dozens of bodies held together by cables and spare metal being dragged back and forth in some horrific dance of the dead. 

Opto: The rooms smelling of rotting flesh, aged chemicals, and some form of bile that only lingered on the dead. 

Mooq: And that was when you saw the killer correct?

Opto: Correct. 

Opto: They sat on a large throne near the back end of the chamber looking down at the grizzly display. 

Note Taker: Could you make them out?

Opto: They wore some form of red suit that draped into their backside with coat tails, white gloves, and a grinning mask of black and white.

Opto: Their build wasn’t as large as ours and I was easily able to identify them as a human. 

Mooq: Rather fitting all things considered. 

Opto: How so?

Mooq: Who else but a human would go through such great lengths only to be the result of their own downfall. 

Opto: As soon as we made it half way into the chamber the human rose from their throne and began clapping. 

Opto: They didn’t say anything as they took a bow and I could feel as if they had been waiting for us to finally put the pieces together. 

Opto: I ordered my men forward to apprehend the masked figure and they rushed the raised dais that held the throne. 

Opto: They had just made it to the base of the dais when the masked human clapped their hands together and the room erupting into chaos. 

Opto: Each of the bodies that had been dancing  erupted outward in violent explosions.

Opto: The front ranks of my men that had been closest to the throne died instantly before the secondary explosions began ringing out. 

Opto: Through the smoke and burning flesh I saw the masked human staring directly at me, their masked face mocking me as the building came crashing down around us. 

Mooq: It was fortunate you were able to escape before you were crushed as well. 

Opto: I lost half of my sector house in that raid.

Opto: Lucky is something I don’t consider myself. 

Mooq: Fair enough. 

Opto Afterwards we began sifting through the debris searching for any survivors and the body of the killer. 

Mooq: What did you find?

Opto: Three survivors, but we also found the chemical compounds that had been stored in the facility were the ones used to cause the strange burn marks on all of the victims confirming that the masked figure had been the killer. 

Mooq: And the killer?

Mooq: Did you find their body? 

Opto: We were unable to find the body.

Opto: All that we could recover was the grinning mask worn by the killer. 

Note Taker: Then that means...

Opto: Yes.

Opto: The killer-

Mooq: Is dead. 

Opto: Pardon?

Mooq: The killer is dead. 

Mooq: They died during your daring raid on the villains hideout where you were able to corner the fiend and bring him to justice only for them to take their own life with the building explosion.

Opto: We don’t know if they are-

Mooq: We do and this is it. 

Mooq: The city needs to recover from these grizzly crimes and hearing of the murders death will calm their fears. 

Mooq: Besides, no human could survive that explosion. 

Opto: I hope you’re right high Councilor. 

Opto: For all our sakes. 

[just-dreaming-marvel]

Out Of Time ~ 107

MASTERLIST

< previous chapter

Word Count: 4,300ish

Summary: The team figures out the monolith and tries to save Simmons

“Do something!”

“Fitz,” Y/N got up and hurried to him. She was afraid to portal, scared of what the monolith might do. “Come on.” She grabbed his arm but he tore it away. “We have to get out of here!”

“Leave me alone!” 

He turned and decked Y/N in the face, causing her to tumble down the steps and to the ground. Y/N gently touched her face, pulling her hand back to see blood.

“Fitz! Y/N!” Mack shouted, rushing to grab Fitz from the container.

“Fitz, get out of there!” Hunter yelled, getting the door.

“Are you crazy?”

“Close it!” Bobbi yelled. “Close it!”

“Y/N!” Daisy rushed over. “Oh my gosh, you’re bleeding.”

As soon as Bobbi and Hunter closed the container, the monolith turned into liquid. Everyone was panting.

“Damn it, Fitz,” Coulson murmured, coming into the room.

“I had to know,” Fitz panted. “Had to— had to know—“

“I already lost Simmons to that thing. I cannot afford to lose you or Y/N, too.”

“Trying to get yourself killed?” Hunter wondered.

“Sorry,” Fitz said. “I won’t give up. I can’t give up.”

“None of us want to, Fitz, but…” Daisy tried to say.

“Fitz,” Bobbi knelt down in front of him, “you tried. Okay? You tried your hardest. Everybody knows that.”

“No,” he shook his head. “I missed something. I m… I missed something.” He wiped something off his face.

“What is that?”

“Proof.” Fitz got up and ran to the lab.

“Y/N,” Coulson said, the others turning to face her. She was still on the ground, breathing heavily. “Oh my…” There was a long cut down the right side of Y/N’s face. “Did he—“

“I’ll be fine…” She panted. “I’ll be fine…”

“Come on,” Daisy urged, helping Y/N up. “Let’s get that stitched up.”

Daisy took Y/N to Coulson’s office and Bobbi brought all the supplies to help patch up the cut.

“He didn’t mean to,” Bobbi said quietly.

“I know,” Y/N responded.

“He just misses Simmons so much.”

“I know.”

“It hurts—“

“I know, Bobbi! Just stop, okay?” Tears formed in Y/N’s eyes. “Out of everyone here, I think I understand the most… I lost Bucky… no one could find his body… I was torn. I acted out too. That’s how I’m here… So I understand. I get that now we know Bucky’s alive, but we didn’t then. And I didn’t think he would ever come back… Honestly, at least he has hope. That’s more than I ever had.”

~~~

Fitz showed up in the office not too long later. He had a tablet in hand and pulled up his findings.

“Sand,” he stated. “Not just sand. Impossible sand.”

“The monolith’s case is a clean room,” Mack said. “There’s nothing in there but that rock. Not even dust.”

“Unless you blast it open with a shotgun and contaminate everything,” Hunter retorted.

“That’s not what this is,” Bobbi shook her head.

“Okay, the sand itself, not unusual,” Fitz continued. “Mostly silicone-dioxide particles just like on Earth.”

“Wait, are you saying…” Y/N paused. “You’re saying this sand is not from Earth?”

“Carbon dating show that—“

“It predates the Earth by a billion years,” Fitz interrupted Bobbi.

“So you think the rock is a portal?” Daisy asked.

“No. No, I’m proving that it’s a portal. Okay, to another planet, a-a very old planet. A crack in space-time that carried Simmons away… and carried the sand back. Which means…”

“She’s out there,” Coulson stated. “But it’s been months.”

“Yeah?”

“She could be long gone from wherever this thing dropped her.”

“Yeah.”

“She could be dead.”

“Yes.”

“But we’re gonna find out, aren’t we?”

“Yeah.” / “You’re damn right.” / “For sure.” / “Yeah.”

“Okay, Fitz, what do you need?” Y/N asked. “I can get Tony to bring some things as well.”

“Uh, uh, well, uh, more historical data. People have studied this thing for centuries. I need an expert on quantum mechanics and Einstein-Rosen Bridge theory. And a— a sandwich would be nice.”

“I might have an idea,” Coulson said, nodding, “about the other things.” He turned to Daisy and Mack. “You two, stay with our new inhuman guest. Be here for Dr. Garner’s assessment. Building that team is still the priority.”

“What did I say?” Daisy commented, her and Mack exiting.

“Bobbi—“

“I’m on this with Fitz,” Bobbi responded.

“Yeah, haven’t you been on this with Fitz the whole time? Hiding his trip to Morocco, covering for him on a constant basis?”

“Have I?” She smirked, walking out.

“And you know where you’re going,” Coulson said to Hunter. Hunter nodded and left.

“What about me?” Y/N asked. “I’m staying until Simmons is found. I’ve already texted Tony and he’s on stand-by if we need anything.”

“With me.”

~~~

Coulson explained that they were going to make a visit to a Professor Randolph. He was an Asgardian, hiding out on Earth. The team had a run in with him once when Y/N was on a break. Bobbi and Fitz joined them.

“I’m sorry,” Randolph said, reading a book inside of his cell. “I can’t help you.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Coulson questioned.

“Potato, puh-tah-toe.”

“And your reason?”

“The nightly news, cities flying into the atmosphere, government task forces, and now the public is freaking out about alien outbreaks. Pretty crappy time to be on Earth if you’re not a local, so I am staying low. And of course,” he chuckled, “there is my current situation.”

“Destruction of property, public drunkenness,” Bobbi clarified.

“And here I thought that Asgardians could hold their drinks?” Y/N retorted.

“Yes, well, Asgardians can generally hold their drink. It’s just, well, one night I tried to hold all the drinks.”

“Asgardians are also strong, right?” Bobbi questioned. “You could easily break out.”

“What? And miss dinner?” He chuckled. “Oh, no. Yes, norse prisons are surprisingly evolved—decent food, comfy bed, extensive library, and no attention being drawn to me. Come back in a few months, why don’t you? Maybe then I’ll be in the mood.”

“Can’t I just call in Thor?” Y/N muttered to Bobbi.

“We don’t have a few months,” Fitz stated.

“And neither do you,” Coulson said. “I don’t have to remind you that I saved your life. Though I did just mention it in case you forgot. But I’d still have no problems contacting those task forces you mentioned. I bet they’d go bonkers to have a real life Asgardian to dissect in their labs. I don’t know how comfy you’d be there.”

“Why, Agent Coulson…” Randolph said, standing up. “Are you threatening me?”

“I wouldn’t call it a… well, yeah, I guess I am. That’s absolutely a threat.”

“You’re different now. You know that?”

“One must accommodate the times or things get messy.”

“What’s with the hand?”

“Things got messy.”

“Well… you’ll have to cover my realize. And if there is a portal, which I will have to see to believe, you are diving into very dangerous waters here.”

“We live in the dangerous waters,” Y/N commented. “And have been for a while.”

Randolph exhaled sharply. “Alright. Well, it’s not like you’re giving me any choice.” 

He quickly tore off the door and the alarm started blaring. He grabbed his coat and they began walking out. Guards rushed in.

“He did it,” Randolph said, pointed at Coulson.

Coulson gave a nervous chuckle and a smile.

~~~

After talking themselves out of it, they took Randolph to the base. He walked around, observing the monolith.

“Well, I hate to disappoint, but it looks like your regular, old—“ He stopped when the monolith turned to liquid then back into a rock. “Oh. How often does it do that?”

“It’s random,” Fitz answered.

“No. No, no, no, no. It may seem random. But… something is clearly triggering it.”

“I’ve checked it against tides, relation to the sun, rotation—“

“On this planet. So you have no idea how to control it. Why come to me? I’m no interstellar-travel expert. I’ve never even studied gravitational lensing or zero-point energy fields or quantum-harmonic oscillation theory.”

“Yet you know all those words you just said,” Bobbi retorted.

“And you’re scared of portals,” Coulson added. “You’re scared of being dragged back home through a portal. Y/N?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Y/N replied with a smirk. 

She walked up to Randolph, opening a portal behind him and pushed him into it. Another portal opened on the other side of the room, causing him to exit from it.

“Impossible,” Randolph panted. “No human should be—“

“I’m connected with the Tesseract,” Y/N interrupted. “I can channel it. And I know it’s on Asgard and I’m pretty sure if I tried hard enough I could send you back there.”

“What I think, Randolph, is that in your drunken stumble through history, you’ve probably investigated every story involving a portal,” Coulson said. 

“And I’ve seen you eyeing all of your exits,” Bobbi added. “My knee brace, wondering if you can get away with it. The only reason you came with us was to confirm its existence.”

“And destroy it,” Randolph confirmed.

“You’ll have to go through me,” Fitz stated.

“And I could. Literally. But, then, I don’t know what amazon woman and robot hand are capable of these days. And don’t get me started with the Avenger over there. So I will help you get her back. I’m not entirely heartless. But if I do, I want your word that we will demolish this portal and no one passes through it again.”

“I’ll sleep better at night,” Coulson confirmed.

“Good. Well, I’ve investigated a lot of these wormhole rumors. But that’s all they were, rumors. None have panned out. So we know nothing of its origin.”

“Kree, maybe.”

“And this parchment was found with it,” Bobbi said, grabbing the paper and handing it to Randolph.

“Well, hello,” Randolph said, studying the parchment through the bag it was in. “I’ve seen this.”

“It’s a common Hebrew word.”

“Yes. What else do we know, Mr. Fitz?”

“Uh, well, the monolith changed hands a lot,” Fitz explained. “Germanic tribes, spent the hundred years’ war in France. But before the Napoleon era, it was moved again. I lost track of it somewhere in—“

“England.”

“Yeah. How did you know that?”

“Because I have seen this word carved into the walls of a castle in Gloucestershire, England, in 1853. To the plane!” Then Randolph started for the door, when no one followed he turned around. “W—am I allowed to say that?”

“Let’s all go to the plane, I guess,” Coulson agreed.

~~~

While on the flight over to England, Y/N was talking to Tony.

“Are you sure you guys don’t need my help?” Tony asked. “I could get there at the same time as you still.”

“I’m sure, Tony,” Y/N replied. “The lead we’re currently following seems solid.” Y/N sighed. “I just want to bring Simmons home so that I can come home.”

“You’ll find her. I know you will.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

From the doorway, Fitz cleared his throat, drawing Y/N’s attention to him. He looked guilty.

“I need to go, Tones,” Y/N said. “I love you.” She hung up, slipping her phone in her pocket. “You need something, Fitz?”

“Yeah, I, uh…” Fitz started, coming to sit beside Y/N. “I need to apologize… I shouldn’t have hit you back like I did. You were only trying to help… I’m so sorry.”

“I know, Fitz.” She rested a hand on his knee. “I completely understand… I was the same way when Bucky died. Or, I guess, when I thought he was dead… So I get it, Fitz. I think that’s why Coulson called me in.”

“Or cause he missed you. You and May left, he lost his hand and Simmons… I think he just wanted a little of the good old days back.”

“Sadly, after we find Simmons, I can’t stay… I need some more time. I’m doing much better than I was. But I don’t think I can ever go back to this life full time. I don’t think it’s in the cards anymore.”

~~~

Randolph led them into the castle. They looked around with their flashlights, searching for the carving.

“Yes. Yes, yes,” the Asgardian exclaimed. “I came here for a costume ball. That was the pretext, of course, ‘cause I had heard rumors of travel to the stars. Found it all to be nonsense. But it was a fun party.”

“The carvings?” Coulson questioned, trying to get back to the point.

“Oh, right, right. Of course. So I was here admiring the stone work, and…” 

Randolph turned and shined his flashlight on the stones over the door. There was the word, carved in to one of the stones.

“The same as the scroll,” Fitz stated. “Death.”

“Maveth,” Randolph clarified. “Yeah, one of its translations is actually ‘death by punishment’.”

“Could mean no trespassing,” Coulson suggested.

“A Hebrew warning carved in an English castle struck me as odd. Out of place. Seems ancient.”

“But you stopped looking into it?” Y/N asked.

“A man dressed as an owl, of all things. I got him drunk enough to admit that no travel to other worlds was even occurring. Just ritualistic killings.” Everyone continued to look around as Randolph talked. “En, the whole thing stunk of half-baked satanism. Just some fabrications to entice new members. And, well, there were fire dancers. I got distracted.”

“Here’s another one,” Coulson called. “This is why I got rid of all the SHIELD logos on our vehicles. It’s like screaming for attention.”

“About time,” Y/N muttered.

“You know, there’s an ginormous eagle symbol on top of our jet,” Bobbi pointed out.

“Yeah,” Coulson agreed. “Sometime I can’t help myself with the cool.”

Coulson then pushed a stone in the wall, causing part of it to open up. Revealing a passage way.

“You certain about this?” Randolph asked. “It does say death by punishment.”

Fitz and Y/N went in, examining the walls. They made their way down the passage. Eventually it led to a round room, with old equipment in it.

“Okay, well, this wasn’t on the last tour,” Randolph said. “It’s an odd shoe for architecture this period. Definitely built after I was here.”

“Reminds me of the bunker under the Louvre,” Bobbi commented.

“What? There’s no bunker under the Louvre. That’s a joke, right? You messing with me.” Bobbi simply glanced his way and walked to the other side of the room and Y/N chuckled. “Alright, great. Now I’ll have to check.”

Fitz knocked on the metal he was studying. “It’s late 1800s,” he stated. 

He pushed the lever up. Suddenly, electricity crackled and the room lit up.

“Still got some life to it,” Coulson commented.

“I hear water,” Bobbi added. “Could be a stream underground, maybe hydroelectric power.”

On the other side of the room, Fitz hit the control panel on the wall and Randolph pulled down another lever. Suddenly, a round floor panel, in the center of the room, disappeared. They all walked up to it, looking down.

“This looks a lot like it was made to hold—“

“The monolith,” Fitz interrupted Bobbi. “This machine was designed to control the portal, to open and close it at will.”

“Do you know that, or is that just what you hope it to be?” Coulson asked.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out.”

Sighing, Coulson pulled out his phone and dialed a number. “Mack, I need you to load something onto Zephyr One and bring it to us.”

“What exactly am I bringing, sir?” Mack against on the other end of the phone.

“Yeah… you’re not gonna like it.”

~~~

It wasn’t long before Mack and Daisy arrived with Zephyr One and the monolith was being lowered into the hole. Fitz and Randolph were getting the systems working. Bobbi was guiding the container down, monitoring the monolith on the tablet she was holding.

“Zephyr One,” Bobbi called into the comms, “you’re clear to retract.”

“Wow. Room full of ancient gack,” Mack commented as him and Daisy entered the room. “Kind of reminds me of your office, director.”

“Realistically, what are the odds of this thing working?” Daisy asked.

“If we were realistic, we never would have gotten this far,” Coulson said.

“With anything,” Y/N added.

“Well, Andrew Garner thinks I need to be more so,” Daisy said. “He recommended three months observation and counseling before reassessment for Joey. Says I’m reckless.”

“Wonder what he thinks about me.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Coulson said. “He probably just meant that—“

“He said you’re desperate,” Daisy added.

“What? He didn’t say that. Did he say that?”

“I can read minds, Phil,” Y/N said. “He definitely said that.”

“You can read minds, too?” Randolph pipped up. “Why is the Tesseract gifting you all these things?”

“Long story.”

“Let me guess,” Bobbi came up to them. “I’m struggling to come to terms with physical limitations and losing my sense of self instead of redefining it.”

“No,” Daisy said. “He didn’t mention you.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, he did. That’s what he said.”

“Oh, good.”

“Yeah.”

“Mack,” Fitz called. “Mack, push that lever.” Mack turned to a lever. “No, the one— the one that’s— the one that’s down. The one— the one beside it. Push it.”

Mack did as directed while Fitz did the same thing on the other side of the room. The gears starting turning, the machine started working. The room began to tremble and the monolith turned to liquid.

“Fitz, it’s working!” Y/N exclaimed.

Fitz knelt down beside the whole, pointing a flashlight into it.

“It’s staying open,” he stated. “Light! I need more light!”

The trembling began to get to Daisy. Y/N watched with concern as she groaned and put her head in her hands. She went over.

“Daisy?” She quietly called. “Daisy, what’s happening?”

“We got a problem!” Mack shouted.

“I need some bloody light!” Fitz yelled.

“Fitz!” Coulson called, tossing him a flare gun. 

Fitz shot it through the monolith. Daisy held her head as she began panting.

“The gears have locked!” Mack yelled. “Bobbi!”

Y/N’s eyes grew wide as she saw blood coming out of Daisy’s nose.

“Daisy!” She exclaimed. Y/N caught her as she fainted, slowly lowering her down. 

“Skye?” Coulson called, coming up beside them. “Hey.” The trembling and machine stopped. “Skye, are you okay? Skye?”

“It’s Daisy,” Daisy replied softly.

“What?”

“It’s Daisy now,” Y/N responded.

“You’re really having a hard time with this, huh?” Bobbi wondered.

“Damn it,” Coulson muttered. “Yeah. Daisy, hey.” Daisy lifted her head up. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she replied. Y/N helped her sit up. “I’m better. That pulsing sound was killing me.”

“What pulsing sound?”

“Are you serious? It was deafening.”

“The vibrations,” Y/N whispered. 

“What?”

“The vibrations. You can sense them. And there was so many, that it was too much for you. It’s kind of like, how if you’re all thinking at once, especially about a similar think, I can sense it.”

“Maybe, Y/N’s on to something,” Bobbi agreed.

~~~

The team was currently trying to find a way to put the machine back together.

“It’ll just rattle apart again,” Fitz stated. “We have to reinforce the connections.”

“Reinf— look, most of the workings are under the ground,” Mack said. “We just can’t tear the castle down. And actually, we’re lucky the room is shaped this way, or the machine might have shaken it apart on top of us.” The two bent down to try and pick a piece of the machine up.

“Wait. Wait. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the point. Quantum harmonic oscillation theory, like the professor said.”

“I know that look,” Bobbi commented.

“It’s a strange shape for this time period because it’s made to resonate, uh, to—to—to—uh— create a-a quantized field within the stone.”

“Fitz, you’re talking, but we’re not totally following,” Coulson said.

“The room is a speaker. The machine is an amplifier. Uh, a sub—subsonic frequency to resonate with the monolith.”

“You saying you figured out a way to fix the machine?” Mack asked.

“No. I’m saying I figured out that—“

“We don’t have to,” Daisy said, glancing at Y/N. “I can do it. I can open the portal myself.”

“Daisy, no,” Y/N said. “It’s too risky.”

“If I can open the portal and help save Simmons, then I’m doing it.”

~~~

The team added a frame with a lot of rope, to lower some into the portal and bring them back.

“Well, turns out we’re standing in the in the middle of the world’s largest subwoofer,” Randolph stated.

“Yeah,” Mack agreed.

“If the point of the machine was to resonate the room at a certain frequency,” Daisy said, “I can do that.”

“And you can replicate it?” Coulson asked.

“Kind of drilled into my brain.”

“And it could kill you,” Y/N stated, not at all happy with this plan.

“How long do you think you can hold it?” Coulson asked. 

“Maybe a minute,” Daisy responded.

“If it’s too much, you pull back. I can’t lose you, too.”

“I got this.”

“Here we go,” Bobbi said, reentering the room with a machine. “Camera and data sensors are hard-lined back to us through a cable. No signal loss that way.” She clipped it onto a cable to be lowered into the portal. “If Daisy can hold it, we’ll get a visual of the other side.”

“That’s what we’re looking for,” Coulson said before turning to Daisy. “Alright, you listen to me. You take care of yourself. We lose that probe, nobody cares.”

“Uh, I’m confused,” Randolph spoke up. “What exactly is she planning to do here?”

Allowing her space, everyone moved as Daisy readied herself. She held both arms out to the sides, causing the parts of the old machine to tremble.

“Sorry,” she strained an apology. “Still tuning.”

After getting the right tune, she aimed at the monolith. Causing it to turn into liquid. 

“Hold it open as long as you can,” Fitz stated.

Everyone turned to him. He had clipped himself onto the cable. He ran towards the liquid monolith.

“Fitz, no!” Coulson shouted.

But Fitz jumped into the monolith, disappearing.

“I’m going in after him!” Y/N yelled. 

“No!” Coulson held her back. “I can’t lose you anymore than I already have.”

“But I’m the best chance to get back if Daisy can’t hold it long enough.”

“You don’t know if you can do that.”

“And you don’t know if I can’t.” They stared at each other. “If Daisy looks like she’s ready to give out, I’m going in. And no one can stop me.”

The trembling and the cable rope moving was causing the structure that was keeping it steady to lose up. Mack, Bobbi, and Y/N all quickly grabbed onto a different piece, trying to keep it steady.

“Damn it. Pull him back,” Coulson ordered, rushing around to where the cable was. “Get him back here.” He pulled the lever and the cable began spin back up.

“I can’t hold it!” Daisy shouted.

“Y/N, don’t! We can’t lose the both of you!”

Before Y/N could jump, Daisy stopped the trembles and the monolith burst into pieces. Every looked down in the hole, hoping, praying, for something to give. Suddenly, Fitz uncovered himself and pulled Simmons up. Daisy fell to the ground, Mack and Y/N rushing to her.

“You did good, tremors,” Mack said. “You did good.”

~~~

Y/N brought everyone onto Zephyr One quickly. Simmons needed to be checked out immediately and Fitz needed to be monitored in case of radiation. They laid Simmons in the containment module, hooked up to IV’s and allowed time to rest. Randolph and Y/N were standing outside as Coulson came to update them.

“They’re gonna be okay,” he informed. “No sign of radiation or infection. Fitz would never have found her, but she saw the flare. We brought a woman back from the dead today.”

“Yes,” Randolph agreed. “And, happily, you kept up your end of the bargain. The portal is destroyed.”

“Thank Daisy for that.”

“Yeah. Agent Coulson… what exactly is Daisy?”

“The call themselves inhumans.”

He looked surprised. “I have not heard that word in a very long time.”

“You know it?” Y/N questioned.

“I know more about them than I do you. You are something else… The Tesseract you said, that’s how you get your abilities?”

“Part of them.”

“Interesting.”

~~~

They were landing at the base when Y/N pulled Coulson aside.

“You’re leaving,” he stated.

“I am,” she replied.

“Anything that I could do to convince you to stay?”

“No… Look, I’m sorry, Phil, that I left and May left. But sometimes you need to tap out. SHIELD can’t be everything in anyone’s life… Even yours.” Y/N pulled him in for a hug. “If you need anything like this again, I’ll be there.” She pushed herself away, walking back towards the portal she opened. “Just don’t go opening anymore portals to other planets any time soon. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Bye, Phil.”

~~~

“But she’s safe? There’s nothing wrong with her?” 

“Nothing,” Y/N shook her head. 

“Wow,” Tony leaned back. “That’s… that’s—“

“A miracle. An absolute miracle.”

“And you’re sure you don’t want to join the team again?” Tony pulled Y/N in-between his legs. “You didn’t miss it at all?”

“I missed them. But not SHIELD. Plus,” she gave him a kiss, “I wouldn’t get to do that as much as I would like.”

Tony hummed. “Good. Can you do it again?”

next chapter >

NOTES: from now on the taglist when be added by a reblog. I will reblog it using my second account, @just-dreaming-marvel-2​. Just so that my main page doesn’t get too cluttered.

If you want to be added to the tag list, please dm me or send in an ask.

[julemmaes]

One of the kids getting lost in a crowd.

Find Her

A/N: Have I ever told you how much I love angst? Oof, too much. This is set in the same au as this fic here, but there’s no need to read it to understand this. You only need to know that Nessian have five children: Ezra (15 - he’s 14 in the other part), Cal (10), Nora (7), Celia (6) and Andra (4). Ezra is my bby boy and I think we can all agree he’s the best;)

Enjoy!

Word count: 5,175

Cassian couldn't get over how hot a human being could get before collapsing or dying. He could feel the sweat dripping down his back as if he were under the shower jet, and Andra's sticky little hands pulling on his left arm every four seconds didn't help. His mind was somewhere else as he led his family toward the market parking lot.

They were spending their summer vacation in Adriata and although the last ten days had been great, today Nesta had had the great idea of taking the whole family to one of those traditional street markets and it hadn't even taken two hours before the whole Navarro team started complaining that they wanted to be at the beach instead of at that place of "old men with three minutes left of life" - as Celia had described it.

Nesta had tried to convince them that they could have fun there too, watching the locals as they created traditional items from the region and cocked typical local street food, but when she had turned around to see the reaction of the clique, even Cassian had a bored grimace on his face and had sighed, she had decided she stood no chance against them.

After all, though she would never admit it out loud, she didn't even mind all that much spending another day on the sand soaking up the sun while her kids played in the water and didn't bother her.

"Dad are you okay?" asked Ezra suddenly. Cassian turned to his son with a furrowed brow and maybe he had moved too fast because he saw black for a second.

He nodded bringing a hand up to his face to cover himself from the sun, "It's this goddamn heat that's making me sick, but I'm fine don't worry."

Nesta gave him a wary look, ready to snap forward in case her husband decided to pass out, but Cassian smiled lovingly at her and she sighed again, lowering her hat over her face.

"When we get to the beach can we go swimming right away?" asked Andra mumbling half the words as she ate a cookie.

"No, you have to wait until I've put sunscreen on you and everyone else," Nesta answered her flatly - they had that talk every day now. "No one goes in the water until you're all ready, remember?" her mom asked her.

Andra nodded, a little disappointed that she wouldn't be able to jump into the water the second they arrived. They'd made that rule after the fourth time the first two to be ready and “sunscreened” had run into the sea and left the others alone and it had been a ruckus of crying and fits of abandonment.

"I'm hungry." said Celia hopping in front of them and starting to walk backwards so she could look them in the face. Cassian was about to tell her to watch out for the road when the little girl stopped and frowned, making everyone else stop as well.

Nesta extended a hand towards her to cross the street, "We'll figure it out when we get to the car, now give me your hand come on."

"Mom," Cal said with a hint of agitation in his voice. Cassian turned to him feeling his uneasiness. His son's dark eyes locked into his, "Where's Nora?"

Ezra jerked his head up, taking his eyes off his phone, "She was next to me ten seconds ago." he said.

Cassian let go of Andra's hand, moving between them to see if she was hiding behind someone. "Nora!" he called agitatedly. He cast a quick glance at Nesta before starting to walk briskly in the direction they had just come from, motioning the people walking towards him. Ezra brought a hand to his hair and cursed.

Nesta counted her children and gave a choked noise, closing her eyes, "Let's be calm."

"Nora!" they heard Cassian yell again as the reality of what was happening was spread over them like a giant, suffocating black veil.

Ezra stepped closer to her, eyes wide, "I'm going with dad."

"No." said Nesta immediately, her hands beginning to shake. She felt her legs bounce with the need to run after Cassian and find their daughter. Her eyes darted from spot to spot in the garden, behind the bench, through the trees, next to the playground. Nora seemed to be nowhere to be found.

She heard a ringing in her ears and the faint sound of Cassian's voice shouting in the distance.

"Mom." called Ezra to her again, with more urgency.

Nesta snapped out of her trance and grabbed Andra's hand, taking her in her arms and giving her to Ezra, who took his sister without hesitation, "You hold them, I'll go with dad." then she pushed Celia and Cal closer to their older brother, "Please, please don't wander away from here." her voice broke mid-sentence and Ezra winced. He had never seen his mother so upset in his life. None of them had.

Andra began to whimper, probably only just realizing in that moment that Nesta was about to leave. Ezra put a hand on the back of her head and pushed her against his shoulder, "I got this, go find Nora."

Nesta looked into his eyes and blinked a few times, then counted again. One, Ezra, two, Cal, three- three, Celia, four, Andra. Only Nora was missing.

She turned and without another word began to run through the crowd, letting her eyes run over every figure shorter than her hips.

Her stomach was twisting so hard she was afraid she might throw up at any moment.

"Nora."

She saw Cassian freeze suddenly across the garden. Leaning forward as he brought his hands to his mouth in a daze and then resumed running through the crowd shouting his daughter's name.

Nesta stopped in turn, starting to spin around.

This place was too big.

Too big.

She began to breathe heavily, resuming to dart through people, asking anyone if they had seen a little girl with black hair and dark eyes.

No one answered her, but the reaction of the others was always the same. Their faces scrunched up in grimaces of pity and sadness.

Where is my daughter?

The second those words formed in her head a sob came desperately from her throat, scratching its way out of her.

A couple beside her had stopped and were about to approach her, but Nesta had no time.

She started running again, "Nora!"

She felt the dread of any possible option make its way inside her. The idea that she had only strayed from the family and was safe a hope too great for her to wish for.

The image of someone drawing Nora's attention away from the family and kidnapping her was as vivid as a picture in her mind.

How had this happened?

They had all been together until seconds before.

How had it-

Nesta's breath suddenly caught as her vision blurred and she leaned forward, bringing a hand to her throat. She closed her eyes, trying to breathe in enough air to keep looking for Nora.

How many minutes had passed?

How long had she been looking for her?

She felt a hand settle on her back and she snapped forward, pulling herself up and turning around to see who it was.

How long had she been gone?

Nesta sobbed as her face turned into a mask of pain. She had never seen that fear, that terror, in Cassian. She thought at that moment that no parent should ever be forced to feel such utter horror.

Cassian brought his hands to her shoulders, "Nes, I know," his voice as hoarse as hers, but his eyes were so serious, so focused, "I can't find her either, but she can't be too far away." he tried to reason with her.

"What if-" she took a shuddering breath, "what if she hasn't gone far?"

His eyes darkened as he squeezed her shoulders.

"What if someone took her?" she breathed.

Cassian shook his head, looking around, "Don't talk shit, kids get lost all the time," then turned around eyeing all the kids running through the crowd, "She'll be around here for sure."

Her children never strayed.

"Listen to me," Nesta demanded, "it happens. Children get kidnapped and- and taken to the other side of the world to be sold." another sob escaped her.

Cassian closed his eyes, breathing through his nostrils, "Can you please not talk about child trafficking right now?" he begged her. Then she looked over his shoulder and behind him immediately after, "Where are the others?" the panic clear in his voice.

Nesta put a hand on his chest, "They're with Ezra at the entrance of the park." she reassured him, "So if Nora comes through there, they'll see her."

Cassian nodded, then gave her a quick kiss on the lips, bringing her hands to her face, "We find her, okay?"

Nesta nodded.

"And we're not leaving until we do," he murmured.

Then they parted again.

Every time she heard a child crying, laughing, screaming, Nesta felt hope bloom in her chest and her heart break when she realized it wasn't Nora.

A lady had flanked her after ten minutes and they had been looking together for half an hour. She had returned to the entrance after a few minutes to leave Ezra some money and the car keys in case they needed anything, but she had begged them again not to move from where she had left them.

"What was she wearing?" the woman asked. Nesta turned to her with wide eyes and it was as if he couldn't see her. She was looking at her but had no face, no name.

She shook her head, bringing her hands to her temples and closing her eyes, trying to remember what she had taken out of the suitcase that morning, but billions of memories and images were repeating in her head.

The first outfit they had given her when she was still pregnant and had found out she was expecting a girl. The way she had realized just then that she was going to have a little girl.

All the pairs of white and pink and purple booties they had bought her. All the toys she had been submerged in and all the things her aunts and uncles had spoiled her with by being the first of the girls to enter the family.

"I don't remember," she whispered, "I don't remember. My husband dressed her this morning."

Oh god, Cassian.

She hadn't seen him in half an hour, but she knew that he too had gone to make sure the others were okay and had stayed put at the entrance. Cal had made sure to let her know.

The lady put a hand on her shoulder, "It's okay, it's not important." then she stepped closer and Nesta looked up, "If you don't want to involve the authorities that's fine, but there's one of the park rangers there, I think it would be wise to go talk to them, spread the word. Maybe Nora could hear someone talk about it too and get help."

Upon hearing her daughter's name, Nesta felt the tears build up behind her eyelids again. She nodded slightly and then the woman pushed her towards the ranger.

***

Cassian was going crazy.

Never in his life had he felt such extreme fear as he was feeling right now.

He could hear Nora's voice calling to him from every direction and none.

He could hear her laughter like an echo in the distance. He could see her dark, ever-cheerful eyes and-

"Nora!" he shrieked with all the voice he had left. He had lost track of time, but he knew it had been too many minutes, too many seconds, since his daughter had walked away. Too much time for her not to be crying in despair because she couldn't find her parents, her brothers or sisters, any person with a familiar face. He didn't want to picture her thinking they had abandoned her.

A group of people turned toward him, shocked by that sudden burst of hopelessness and anger. He brought a hand to his mouth and choked on a sob.

Nesta had planted the seed of doubt in his head and now he couldn't think of anything else but Nora being dragged away by strangers.

He tried to take a deep breath, to no avail.

Where are you? Where are you-

"Nora where are you?" he said in a broken voice, spinning around.  

Two girls in the group stood up, approaching cautiously.

"Sir," one of them asked. Under other circumstances, Cassian would have laughed in outrage at that word. "Have you lost someone?"

"My daughter, Nora," he answered immediately, continuing to look around. How was it possible that there were so many people and no one had found her yet? Surely, a little girl crying in need would have found help right away. "She has dark hair and today she had two braids with fuchsia scrunchies and light blue pants and a green t-shirt."

"We heard one of the guards talking to your wife, I think," said the other. Cassian looked at them, they both had serious and worried expressions on their faces. "If you want we can help look for her."

"Please." he murmured, nodding. The words left his mouth before he could think them out.

One of the two girls turned to the group, "Guys come here."

It didn't take Cassian more than a minute to explain where they had last seen her and how she was dressed, how tall she was. And although he knew these people's intentions were good, he couldn't block out the concern. He was providing a clear picture of his daughter to a group of strangers that could have been as dangerous as they were helpful.

The feeling of panic and dread only intensified as they all scattered, beginning to shout his daughter's name.

He couldn't help but wonder if this would only make the situation worse.

Nora was smart and would never leave of her own will. But she was also very reserved, probably the shyest of their large family, if she heard someone call out her name, Cassian wasn't sure she would come forward. In fact, it would probably get the opposite reaction in her and make her look for a way to hide.

After all, he and Nesta had taught her not to trust strangers.

He ran his hands through his hair, taking a deep breath.

How was he going to explain to Nesta that he couldn't find her anywhere?

How was he supposed to get out of that place if he wasn't holding his daughter?

***

Nesta had fainted.

The lady had been just in time to put an arm around her waist when her legs had given out under her weight. She had closed her eyes for a second and then found herself lying on a bench, while someone pulled her legs up to get the blood flowing to her head, surrounded by curious and worried people.

"Nora..." she murmured, trying to find out something about the situation.

She wasn't crying, but she could feel the tears sliding down her temples.

Fuck the heat, fuck the low blood pressure.

She needed to find her daughter.

She had pulled herself up to her seat, despite the protests of the people around her, and resumed wandering around the park, screaming Nora's name as loudly as she could. It was as if the whole world was looking for her now. She could also hear the voices of others saying the name again and again and again.

She felt her legs weak and her knees wobble beneath her, ready to buckle from exhaustion, ready to give way one more time when she heard it.

"Mom!"

Nesta's head snapped in the direction of the sound, perhaps too quickly as she couldn't focus on anything, but she had already begun to cry when her daughter's small, puny body collided against her legs, leaping into the air to be picked up. Nesta let herself fall to the ground, taking Nora's face in her hands and laughing through her tears, looking into her eyes, making sure she was okay and unharmed. She was crying too, but she didn't seem to be hurt.

She wrapped her arms around the little girl as she too cried and hid her face in her mother's neck. Nesta breathed heavily when a sob broke the crying, one hand went to caress the girl's head.

"Nora." she whispered, "Nora, Nora, Nora-" she repeated over and over.

Her daughter's hands tightened around Nesta's shirt and she didn't care about anything else but the fact that Nora was okay. She was safe.

"Oh thank god." she heard someone say and then a loud thud, before arms wrapped around both of them and Cassian's sobs of relief and exhaustion from the dread they had shared so far joined theirs.

Nesta pulled away just enough so her husband could see that Nora was intact and when the little girl saw her father, a sound that Nesta wished she never heard again in her life made its way between them, produced by her daughter, "Dad!"

A huge smile spread across his face and Nesta laughed amidst tears, "Potato," he called before Nora launched herself onto him and wrapped her little arms around his neck. Cassian's hands left their place on Nesta's back and tightened on Nora.

"It's okay honey," she whispered, resting her forehead against Nora's back, "you found us." she continued when she heard her daughter sobbing louder.

She met Cassian's gaze over Nora's shoulder and smiled at him, letting go a sigh of relief and closing her eyes.

They stayed cuddled on that lawn until Nora stopped sobbing so hard that it seemed impossible to speak and each sob was like a stab to the heart. Nesta and Cassian had spent an hour looking for her, terrified that someone had kidnapped her, but Nora must have thought they had abandoned her, left her behind.

At the mere thought that she was the cause of the heartbreaking cry that was shaking her daughter, Nesta pulled Nora's arms away from Cassian's body and brought her to her chest, cradling her as she told her how much she loved her and how worried she had been. Then, to play it down a bit, she added chuckling, "Mom even fainted at one point, you know?" Nora's eyes had looked up at her at that point, "I fell straight down on the floor and some gentlemen had to lift my legs-"

She was interrupted by Cassian, "You what?"

She looked up at him, smiling wearily, and he seemed to realize how white she actually was just then. Cassian dropped his head forward, bringing a hand over his eyes, "Sorry I didn't notice, I was thinking about Nora-"

Nesta put a hand on his shoulder, "I'm fine." she told him, then looked at Nora again, "I'm fine." she repeated more slowly, moving a strand of hair from the little girl's forehead and smiling at her.

She felt Cassian's gaze on her, trying to figure out if she was actually okay, if she was going to pass out at any moment, but she didn't care. Nora was in her arms and breathing and intact and she didn't care about anything else.

The lady who had helped her had brought them a small bottle of water and now Nesta was sitting Nora down so she could drink.

"Easy there." Cassian had told her seeing how she had stuck to the bottle. It had hurt them both to see how quickly she had finished half the water.

That wasn't thirst, that was fear.

Nora hadn't said anything yet, but they knew it was only because she was in shock.

They had thanked everyone who had helped look for her and then turned back toward the exit, Nora in Cassian's arms, her head resting on her father's shoulder and her arms dangling at her sides as she slept worn out with emotion.

When Celia saw them coming she broke away from the group, starting to run towards them and shouting Nora's name, but Nesta brought a finger to her mouth and she froze dead in her tracks, but she was smiling. As were the other three for that matter.

Cassian could see the remnants of a cry on Andra's face and felt guilty for leaving them alone in the sun for so long without returning to them from time to time. He saw Ezra close his eyes and sigh with relief more than once and put Andra down, who along with Cal ran to their parents. Ezra sat down on a bench, bringing his hands to his face.

"Nora's resting now, okay?" pointed out Nesta to her three children. They all nodded frantically. "So let's not make too much noise."

"Mom and I thought we'd go back to the hotel, at least for a few hours," Cassian continued, keeping his gaze fixed on his oldest son, who still kept his elbows on his knees and his face hidden in his hands, "Then when she wakes up, after we've all eaten, we''ll see if we can go to the beach for a few hours, sounds like the plan?" Andra let out an excited squeal and Celia shushed her, Cal simply nodded, but he still looked worried about Nora.

Nesta smiled at him and lowered herself to their height. As if she had been a magnet, the three children immediately reached out, touching her in some way: one hand on her shoulder, one on her knee, one on her hand. Cassian stepped back.

"Nora's fine, I mean it," she squeezed Cal's tiny hand. "Sorry we were gone so long, but we couldn't find her," she explained to them, "We went all over the park, made new friends, talked to the park guards. I even fainted from the heat, ouch." she brought a hand to her forehead, imitating the fainting gesture, to make them laugh. It only worked with Andra. "But we're all fine, we're all here."

Nesta smiled, "One, Ezra." she said, "Two?"

"Cal." said the person directly concerned.

"Three?"

"Nora." said the girls.

"Four?" asked Andra.

"Celia." replied her sister, "And five?"

"Me!" squealed the youngest.

"That's right, you're five and you're all here," said Nesta, "You do know we didn't want to leave you alone here?" she asked, hesitant to introduce the subject. Three little heads nodded in confusion. "Dad and I would have reacted exactly the same way for all of you," she continued, "And we're sorry if we scared you acting like that, but we were scared too," she explained, stiffening her back and watching each of her children's reaction carefully, "If you feel that you're scared or stressed or want to cry because it seems like too much, you can do that. Mom and Dad cried, too." Celia opened her eyes wide, mouthing a dad and shifting her gaze to her father.

Cassian was much more emotional than Nesta, actually, but he tried never to do it in front of his kids because he knew it made them restless and sad. It had only happened a few times and Cassian still hadn't forgiven himself for making his kids worry like that, but that didn't mean they didn't teach them to express their feelings openly.

"These are stressful situations for everyone, so we understand if you need to release some frustration." Nesta smiled at them. Then an idea occurred to her, "How about when we get back to the beach tonight or tomorrow morning, we scream under the water so loud that we scare the little fish?"

Celia and Cal nodded again with excitement. Andra frowned, "I don't want to scare them."

Nesta stroked her face, "Then you'll sing to them and scream just a little bit loud. So we can let go of some of the stress of this horrible day, hmm?"

They all seemed to agree.

"Can we get pizza when we get to the hotel?" asked Celia with a strange glint in her eye. The little girl knew perfectly well when to ask for certain things. She knew full well when Nesta wouldn't be able to resist giving her kids everything they wanted without batting an eye.

Nesta nodded.

The children suddenly rejoiced and began to do a little dance that had been a tradition for more than seven years now. Something little Cal and the still child Ezra had invented when theirs sisters weren't even an idea.

Smiling, Nesta pulled herself up to her feet again, "Come on let's go to Dada."

***

"Ezra." murmured Cassian.

His son's head snapped toward him and he frowned. Cassian contracted his jaw.

"How is she?" asked Ezra in a raspy voice. Realizing this, he cleared his throat and pulled himself up to sit with his back straight, looking away from the approaching duo.

Cassian watched him closely, "She's fine, she got really scared and her mom found her crying, but she's fine." then he sat down next to him, being careful not to bend Nora's legs. Ezra bent down to his little sister, stroking her forehead, as Nesta had done only a few minutes before. "How are you?"

"Fine," his son replied too quickly, "why? How am I supposed to be?" he asked, snickering nervously.

Cassian was tired. So tired that if it wasn't for the fact that he had to take everyone to the hotel, he would have fallen asleep on the first free bench and slept for days, but he had to make sure his son was okay.

"Because we left you alone with the other three and it's not a small thing. Thank you for doing this." said Cassian to him, looking at the wedding band on his finger and playing with the ring, trying not to make the other uncomfortable.

Ezra shrugged, "I do it all the time, it's no big deal."

"That doesn't make the task any easier," his father murmured. "In fact, the fact that you do it every day is admirable and I'm sure without you, Mom and I wouldn't survive half a day," he chuckled. Ezra smiled wearily.

"How are you?" he tried again.

The boy seemed to really think about it, "I was afraid something bad had happened to her, but I couldn't do anything about it and I couldn't talk to the others about it because they're still too young and I'm sure a riot would have erupted if I said even half the stuff I was thinking," Ezra confessed in one breath. Cassian was about to respond, but his son continued, "And then Andra started crying and Celia was hungry and I didn't know what to do because she didn't like the stuff at the food trucks, but I couldn't get out of the park because if Nora came by, I'd lose her and-" he took a deep breath and looked toward Cassian, "You know?"

Cassian wished he didn't know. He wished his son didn't have to take those things into account. He wished he and Nesta didn't have to lean on him so much.

"Yes, I know," he murmured. Then he looked into his eyes, "I know your mom has been telling you this since you were born, Ezra, but if you want to cry because it all gets to be too much, no one is going to make fun of you or tell you to man up. You know it's all bullshit." said Cassian, turning slightly towards him, "Andra and Celia don't know how to talk about their emotions yet because they're too little, same with Cal and Nora and they cry to make us understand they're feeling too much. Just because you can release some of the tension by talking about it, doesn't mean it has to be just that way."

"I know," Ezra nodded, "I know," he said more softly. Then he ran a hand over his face, "Although I'd rather you didn't give me these heart-to-hearts in the middle of so many people."

Cassian chuckled, already feeling lighter upon hearing that Ezra had started joking again. He just had to make sure his son knew one last thing.

"Maybe not in situations like this, because we really needed you today," he said sincerely, "But when we're home and Mom and I want to take a night off and ask you to babysit, if you're not up for it or even just don't feel like it for one night, tell us and we'll figure something else out or we'll go out another time." Cassian watched as his other children danced in front of Nesta and smiled, "We would never want you to feel forced to parent."

"Yeah yeah, I know," Ezra chuckled, "all that talk about me being a son too and not having the same responsibilities as you as a sibling." he turned a relieved look to his father, "Mom reminds me enough that I know her speech better than happy birthday."

Cassian burst out laughing at Ezra's exasperated tone and when Nesta and the others stopped in front of them they were all smiling. Nesta leaned forward over her oldest son kissed his forehead, "Thank you, love."

Ezra nodded just once, a tight smile on his lips.

"Can we please go now?" sighed Cal. Celia nodded beside him, ever the one to agree with her brother.

Cassian pulled himself up with a grunt and then Ezra, who took Andra's hand and held it tightly as if afraid she might disappear at any moment.

"Are you going to sing or yell at the fish?" asked the little girl as they crossed the street.

"What?" asked her brother laughing.

"Do you sing like me or yell with mom?" she demanded without giving any context yet again.

Ezra shifted his gaze to his father and Cassian looked as confused as he was, so he looked at his mom, who was laughing under her breath.

"Mom?"

"I may have promised them that we would scream underwater to release some of the extra steam," she explained.

Cassian chuckled, shaking his head, "Sure, all normal."

Ezra shifted his attention to Andra, "I think I'll sing with you." he replied, smiling.

Eyes as light as his locked on his face and then a lighthearted laugh made its way between the two and Ezra couldn't help but laugh along with his sister, picking her up and spinning her around in the air.

Nesta counted her children one last time before getting into the car and when she got inside, she leaned her head back against the seat, sighing. Cassian mimicked her and then leaned toward her, Nesta turning just in time for their lips to collide.

A roar of disgust and embarrassed giggles erupted from the backseat, and Nesta thought she'd never heard such a beautiful sound while still smiling at her husband.

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[teentitwns]

soooo, as you know i wrote some bbrae fanfictions and, this one, especifically, called “all you had to do was stay” (yes, taylor swift’s song) was published in 2017 but i deleted after sometime because im little lazy and the history always seems easily in my mind.

anyway! i decided to rewrite this fanfiction and the first chapter is already posted on the brazilian website that i use (spirit fanfics), so why not put in here too?

please, remember that im brazilian and my english is a little broken - sorry for the mistakes you’ll find on the text.

well, thats it. im really nervous right now and insecure. i hope you like it and, maybe, i can post the fanfiction on ao3 or another website.

_______________

The protective dome around Raven was totally useless and, like her friends, she knew it.

She was there, standing in the middle of the contraption built by Cyborg, with all her vital signs being recorded on the computers that occupied a large part of the room, beeping together with the devices that showed her brain waves.

Everything had been perfectly assembled and positioned so that she had the best protection that anyone could have in the face of what was about to happen, but all those technological tools made her feel like a laboratory rat, studied in vain to discover that in the end the experience had gone wrong again.

She sighed loudly and propped her elbows on her knees, resting her face in one hand; she no longer cared about floating.

She felt physically and mentally drained to use her powers in something as unnecessary as floating, and she didn't need to be inches from the ground at that moment.

In fact, it was better to have contact with the earth, with the concrete floor. At least she would be sure that she was still alive, that the world was fine and whole.

Raven let out a loud snort and huffed impatiently, her eyes roaming the room until they found the door, waiting, miraculously, for one of the other Titans to enter. She had been inside that dome for hours and she couldn't take it anymore - loneliness was good when chosen willingly, not out of obligation.

To her despair, in addition to the blatant private prison that was happening there, the kidnapping, or anything else of that level, the situation made terrible flashbacks go through her head, making her remember Slade, the brand of Scath , the end of the world and, consequently, Trigon.

Why did everything have to be so similar? It seemed that karma was acting exactly the same as it had on her sixteenth birthday, creating a tedious and scary looping. She never considered herself a fan of automatic repetitions anyway.

Unconsciously, she took her left hand into the pocket of her midnight blue cloak in hopes of finding a specific object inside it, but this time, she had no lucky coin to cling to and consider as an amulet. She was alone, forgotten, practically left to die, just as she should have been two years ago, on the fateful day when Trigon’s Prophecy almost came true.

The empath, a “witch” as many called her, allowed herself to laugh with mockery. She hated feeling sorry for her own tragic life, but she couldn't escape the pitiful thoughts she was having. She probably didn't think differently from what her friends had in mind - she was just a poor girl, victim of circumstances, who was not to blame for being the fruit of the forbidden, unhealthy relationship between a human and an interdimensional demon. She was not to blame for being “Daddy's darling”, the one chosen to bring him to Earth for the second time, since she was a poorly raised daughter and prevented him the first time.

Now, at eighteen, she wouldn't be as lucky as she was at sixteen.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos… Azarath Metrion Zinthos…”, she closed her eyes and started to meditate, with nothing else to do. “Azarath Metrion Zinthos…”

“Raven!"

She opened her eyes with a start, facing Beast Boy. Awkwardly, he spread his hands on the thick glass of the dome, breathing heavily.

“Great.", She thought. “Of all the people that Robin could send, he chose the most restless."

" What are you doing here?", she asked.

“Dude, isn't it obvious? We’re doing it wrong! ”, Beast Boy waved his hands compulsively. “I mean, it's your father! There is no one better to stop him than you!”

“If I leave here it will be easier to get to Earth."

“I really don't want to be pessimistic, but he's already here, mama."

“Beast Boy..."

“It worked last time, didn't it? What good will it do you to be stuck in that dome? The world will end anyway!”

“Weren't you the one who was upbeat until two seconds ago?"

“I still am!"

“Does Robin know you're here?"

“…yes."

“I don’t believe that."

“Of course I told him,", the shapeshifter scratched the back of his head, causing his newly acquired muscles to start filling his uniform to appear. “I just don't know if he paid attention.”, He gave a nervous smile.

“It doesn't count as a warning."

“Have you never been told that what counts is the intention?"

Raven rolled her eyes and uncrossed her legs, standing up. She walked over to where Beast Boy was, touching the dome with her fingertips. He smiled broadly, running to the nearest computer and typing in the code that would free her.

When the dome barriers disappeared, Raven adjusted the hood on her head, thinking about the possibilities that surrounded her. Beast Boy was right, after all. Trigon was already on Earth, like the first time, and she would not be of much help if she were trapped, safe and sound, while her friends killed themselves to save the world.

“I knew you'd be up for it!" He celebrated, approaching her.

“It wasn't your worst idea."

“I'm smart, you underestimate me too much."

“I must have my reasons for that, right?

“Taking into account my discussions about tofu being the best food in the world can’t be considered as a reason.”

“No?”

“We all have our childish moments.”

“And you have your adult moments.”, she said.

“Nothing for having released you, I’m at your service.

“Where are they?”

“Downtown.”

“Excellent.”

“Raven”, Beast Boy called her when she started to leave. “Are you ready to go?”

“You don’t?”

“It's just… You have nothing to bring you luck.”

“I don't believe in luck.”, she lied, ignoring the thought that she had been wishing for a lucky charm a few minutes ago.

“Why not?”

“I make my own luck.”

“But it's always good to have help, isn't it?”

“Come on, Beast Boy.”

He shook his head negatively and approached her, holding her arm firmly and preventing her from getting away. The difference in height between them remained almost nil, with Raven looking a little taller from a distance because of the hood.

She frowned and looked at him without understanding, trying to pull her arm out of his grip, uncomfortable with the position they were in.

“It's just…”, Beast Boy started to speak. “I shouldn't be here and I know it. You are always so focused and correct that you even embarrass me for acting that way, but, last time, you had the coin I gave you and we won.

“I don’t know where it is.”, Raven lied, lowering her head to hide the blush on her cheeks. Some of her emotions were manifested in Nevermore, reminding her of the small passion she held for him. Passion, that, that she was sure that she would never be reciprocated. He was not a philanderer, he had never dated anyone after Terra, but he was not unaware of love affairs like her. She had a little more experience, even though she was also small. “We can't keep others waiting.”

“I can't let you go without an amulet.”

“There is no such thing as luck, Beast Boy! How many times have I told you that we need to run after what we want?”

“Many.”

“And none of them fixed on your brain?”

“Apparently no.”

“I should have imagined.”

“Why can't you give me a credit?”

“You are acting like a child who believes in Santa Claus.”

“And you're being cruel to me.”, he complained. “I thought you stopped that a while ago.”

“I stopped. Are we going to battle or not?”, Raven asked impatiently. “The world is about to end!”

“I know!”

“Then let me go!”

“I can't let you leave here without an amulet!”

“So give me this shit!”

Raven's words echoed around the room, and Beast Boy smirked, as if he had been waiting for this ever since they started arguing.

Such nonsense fights and quick discussions were not new to them, who were used to being awkward a few times a day, always for stupid reasons. However, that time, the shapeshifter had a purpose and, knowing that Raven would play the game, he put his idea into practice, which ended up working very well, thank you.

Raven shook her head and shrugged, silently asking if he wouldn't give her anything. She was waiting for a frog charm or other coin, but all she received was a warm kiss on the mouth, which made her blow up the nearest computer monitor.

The touch of Beast Boy's lips on his made her close her eyes instantly, her body and mind embracing the fact that she wanted that kiss - she had even been waiting for him for a long time, having fantasized the moment several times in the stillness of his. room.

On the other hand, Beast Boy didn't explode at all, but he felt his whole body vibrating. Her cheeks were as flushed as Raven’s, and it had taken him a long time to have the courage to kiss her.

The kiss could not be considered "worthy of a movie" because the two were too tense to give themselves up completely. They did not know where to put their hands and neither should they do it; A light in their heads blinked incessantly, reminding them that the world was ending while they were kissing, and billions of people were at risk.

It could be considered an ordinary kiss, but for Raven and Beast Boy, it meant much more than that.

They separate after a few seconds, unable to exchange a direct look. Beast Boy cleared his throat and Raven clung more tightly to her cloak, almost disappearing inside it.

“Raven”, Beast Boy smiled, making her look him in the eye quickly. Without breaking eye contact, he simply stuck a five-cent coin in her hand. Like old times. “Good luck.”

—————————————-

ok, i had no idea that the text would lose the diagramming!!! i wrote this on my iphone notes, sorryyyy

[sonickedtrowel]

#32 sounds like fun!

things you said I wouldn’t understand

Happy ever after doesn't mean forever.  It just means time.  A little time.  But that's not the sort of thing you could ever understand, is it?

Perhaps not, the Doctor reflected, his knee bouncing impatiently beneath the table as they finally approached the end of their last course.  (The food was delicious, probably.  He hadn’t really noticed; too busy gripping River’s hand, in case she got any more daft ideas in between starters and dessert, and trying not to stare too much.)  

Could he ever accept that a little time with her would be enough?  Of course not.  His entire being revolted against the idea with a ferocity that left him shaken.  No amount of years or centuries, no number of lives with her could ever be enough.  But they wanted the same thing, in the end: every last precious second they could get.  That, he would gladly give her.

Things always fell so effortlessly into place with River.  It had been wonderful enough just basking in her presence, but the instant she recognised him, they were together again.  She slipped back into that intimacy without a hint of hesitation, and it felt as comfortable and as thrilling as it always had.  Of course the Doctor had known she didn’t care which face he had on, but it was another thing to experience how joyfully she welcomed a new one.  With decades of night ahead of them, he felt the sun was truly shining on this old face for the first time.

“Staring again,” River observed, startling him out of his reverie.  She was covering a smile by dabbing her napkin at the corner of her mouth, but it did nothing to hide the light in her eyes.

“Ah,” the Doctor said, not bothering to feign embarrassment.  “Sorry.”

“Is that a particular quirk of this face?”

“Not generally, no.”

“Missed me, then?”

“You could say that,” he said, his voice wavering.

She turned toward him, laying her other hand over his.  “How long?”

A thousand years.  Five billion.  Forever.  So long that his memories of her had begun to seem like an impossibly beautiful dream; too good to have been real, to have ever graced his undeserving life.

“Too long,” the Doctor answered.  He wondered how she could look at him like that, with all the love and concern and understanding born of centuries of companionship, when just hours ago she’d been declaring he’d never loved her.  River squeezed his hand between hers.

“Well,” she announced after a moment, “this was wonderful, but I couldn’t eat another bite.  Shall we go, darling?” 

He could only manage a grateful nod in reply.

With one long last look at the towers, they turned and made their way back to the TARDIS.  River, evidently not in quite as much of a hurry as he was, stopped to speak to all the staff they passed on the way, lavishing praise on the meal and thanking them for the special attention they’d been given (as the original benefactors of the establishment, of course— not that he’d mentioned that bit to her yet.  He’d get to it eventually.)  

She was lovely when she was being kind and gracious, just as she was lovely when she was brandishing a gun at someone, but either way, the Doctor didn’t have the patience for dealing with other people tonight.  He wanted her attention all to himself.  They were owed a little selfishness, he thought, after all this time.  When he placed his hand at her lower back, she took mercy on him again and said her goodbyes to the hostess, letting him steer her into the TARDIS.  

The door creaked shut behind them at last, and a tense quiet descended over the room.  This was usually the part where they stumbled up to the console between laughter and kisses, argued amiably over the controls as they took off into the vortex or some unoccupied corner of deep space, and he made a show of pretending to complain about her half undressing him before they even made it to the bedroom.

River looked at him, and with his palm resting on her back, he could feel the stiff hesitance in her posture.  She was waiting, probably for a sign that he wanted that: to go on as if not a day had passed since they’d last been together.  And, god, he’d never wanted anything more in his lives.  But there was no pretending he hadn’t heard all the things she’d said today, not now.  He was done with taking the easy way out, and it was up to him to put her doubts to rest.  But where to even begin?

“So,” she said, flashing him an uncertain, tremulous smile.  Always the brave one.  “What do you want to…” she trailed off, her shining eyes searching his.  Her lips were slightly parted in silent question, and as his gaze settled there, the Doctor decided all at once to throw out the order of priorities.  Anyway, he was good at multitasking.

River made a strangled sound in her throat as his lips met hers, surprise trailing into an urgent whimper.  They stumbled into the railing, and he pressed up against her, leaving no space between them for her to fill in with doubts of whether he wanted this.  She grasped blindly for him, one hand gripping his jacket and the other winding into his hair.  They fit together just as perfectly as he’d remembered, but no memory could compare to this.  His tongue traced along her upper lip, and she tipped her head back, sighing with pleasure.

The Doctor worried for a moment that his knees would give out at the overwhelming feel of her, solid and warm and so alive, breathing sharply under his shaking hands.  His mind clouded with the bright aroma of her perfume, the soft heat of her skin, the lingering trace of champagne sparkling on her tongue.  He’d nearly forgotten what it was to love her and to have her.  Centuries of grief and longing met with sudden, miraculous relief, and the shocking reality of it was almost more than his nerves could take.  

He was shivering, but couldn’t bring himself to care if she noticed.  That was really beginning to bother him, though, the more he turned it over in his mind— the noticing.  Today’s events notwithstanding, River was far too clever not to have noticed a very long time ago that he was madly in love with her.  He hadn’t exactly made a secret of it over the centuries.  How, after so much time together, had he managed to fuck up this badly?

“Tell me, wife,” he mumbled in between graceless, needy kisses.  “Where did I go wrong?”  His hands fell to her waist, tracing up over her sides, the beading on her dress rasping under his fingertips.

“You didn’t, sweetie,” she breathed.

The Doctor huffed in disbelief.  “You thought I didn’t love you.”  He tried not to wince at the words.  No matter how painful it was for him, it was worse for her.  “You… think I don’t love you.”

“Oh, anyone can fool a lie detector,” she scoffed.  “Don’t you think I accounted for that possibility before planning his murder right under his nose?”

“River, come on.  Don’t do that.  When you said it, you meant it.  You meant it enough.”

“It, it’s not that—” she stammered, but he pressed on, forcing out the most difficult question before he lost the nerve.

“Did you always?  Did you really always believe that, our whole life together?”

“Oh, darling, no,” she said, stroking his face.  “Of course not.”  

“Because— I’m not trying to make excuses, I know I can be rubbish— but I thought I’d been sort of extremely clear on that point?  I’m, I’m sure there were a lot of honeymoons, and, uh, some poetry…”

River breathed out a soft laugh, her hand still resting against his cheek, and he leaned into her palm.  She had no reason to be looking at him with such affection when he’d clearly been completely inadequate as a husband to her.

“It was just… after Manhattan,” she said, and glanced down, avoiding his eyes.  “You were gone, and…  after a while, I thought I’d rather pretend it had never been real, than admit I’d lost everything.  I knew better.  I did,” she insisted, when he frowned at her.  “But it was… easier.  To run off and get into trouble you wouldn’t approve of, and tell myself you didn’t care anyway.”

The Doctor let out a heavy breath, resting his forehead against hers.  “You never lost me, River.  You never could.  You were always younger, after that.  I should have come back for you, looked for you where you are now.  But I thought if I did, I wouldn’t be able to hold this off any longer.”  He swallowed tightly, choking back tears.  “I’m sorry.  I… I did ask you to stay.”

“I know.”

“I meant it.  I’ve always wanted that.”

“Me too,” she whispered.

“Give me another chance?”

“Always.  If that’s still what you want.”

“Wha— of course it is,” the Doctor sputtered, incredulous.  “You’re my wife.”

“You do have others.”  She made a good show of teasing him, but he knew better now.

“River,” he sighed, “those were weddings, not marriages.  Any idiot can stumble into a wedding, but there’s only so many times you can keep coming back and still call it an accident.  I think we were well past that number by our wedding night, dear.  —Which,” he added as she laughed, smiling up at him through tears, “is also a thing none of the other ones had.  I married you on purpose, and I’m going to stay right here with you on purpose, because I love you, and being with you is— it’s all I want.  Is that okay?”

He was alarmed for a moment when River choked out a sob, but she was still smiling as she nodded, her tear-streaked cheeks shining.  Then she took his face firmly in both hands and kissed him with such frantic passion that his head spun.  Or, maybe not just his head.  Before he’d quite figured out what was happening, she’d flipped them about so he was pinned against the railing instead.

“Oh,” the Doctor croaked.  The sudden jolt of heat tingling through his body as he reflexively gripped her hips was another thing he’d nearly completely forgotten.  It would seem he still enjoyed nothing more than River casually demonstrating she could kill him with her little finger, but had decided to do very nice things to him instead.  It was just so her.  His wife, the obstinate assassin.  Not even a lifetime of brainwashing could compel her to do anything she didn’t want to do.  Lucky bastard that he was, she’d decided she wanted to love him.

“Know what I said about how everything isn’t sexy?” he muttered.  She pulled back just enough to raise an eyebrow at him.  “I’m prepared to make an exception.”

River laughed, pleased and warm.  “Aren’t you always?”

“Only for you, dear.”

“Mmm, good answer.”

“Bedroom?” he suggested.

“Thought you’d never ask,” she sighed.  “But… we should probably park her somewhere other than the restaurant lobby first.”

“Oh, right.  Good idea.”

They stumbled to the console between laughter and kisses, and bickered cheerfully over the map of their new home planet on the scanner, before deciding that moving her just outside the restaurant was good enough for now.  There’d be plenty of time to settle in wherever they chose later.

“You know,” River said as they turned down the corridor to the bedroom, “since you mentioned it.  You did write me the most lovely poetry.  I keep them all in my diary.  Have you written anything lately?”

“Er, written yes; poetry no.”

“Oh?”

“Electric guitar, mostly.”

“Really!” she exclaimed, delighted.  “Now that is definitely sexy.”

“Yeah?” the Doctor asked, a grin spreading over his face.

“Very.  What inspired you to take it up?”

“Ah, well, I don’t know,” he said, slipping his arm around her waist.  “Guess I’m always thinking of a song.”

[glitterygayvodka]

Yellow

Note: Omg hiii everyone!! I know that it’s literally been a billion years since I’ve written anything and I’m so sorry for that. Over quarantine I got inspired though so this piece is going to be the first installment of my color series! For every color red through purple I’ll have a story involving Harry and Y/n’s relationship. Thank y’all for being so kind and patient with me. I love you all and I hope you enjoy! My requests are open as well as my inbox in general if you have any questions/comments/concerns. Thank you!! Kissy - 🧡✨Kylei

Warnings: None!! This is all fluff but there’s a wholeeee lot of softness so gear your heart up :))

Yellow is the color of warmth and harmony. Yellow feels like the soft caress of sunshine on your skin, the taste of fresh mango on your tongue, the pleasant aroma of steaming chamomile fluttering against your nose, and the cheerful song of canaries in the early hours of spring.

For Y/n, yellow is a feeling that is almost incapable of being put into words. She feels yellow most often on nights like these, while tangled up with Harry as the sun begins to retire. Yellow is the gentle whisper of his fingers against her back, almost as if he’s writing poetry against her skin. She feels tranquility wash over her as she gazes up at him through relaxed lids, basking in the peaceful sound of his voice as he narrates the newest book they’ve been reading together.

Y/n grins happily as Harry uses different accents for each character, slowly sliding her arms around him and further entangling their legs under the cool and crisp sheets. Yellow feels like plopping onto your bed after a long time away from home, and not to be cliche, but Harry had started to feel like home for Y/n. She found refuge in his ability to be his authentic self with ease, and with him there’s never any pressure for her to be something that she isn’t. Their relationship is a safe haven; one where they can express themselves freely and openly. Their differences and similarities alike connect them in ways neither of them ever imagined.

Y/n finds herself studying him as he reads, admiring him in the same way an art historian admires a Monet. His lashes flutter gently against his tan skin as he blinks, his eyes the color of fresh sage in the hazy lighting of their shared bedroom. Her eyes follow the curve of his nose, down to the beautiful outline of his plush lips. Y/n has always been entranced by Harry’s lips. Their soft pink color conjures the image of delicate cherry blossoms to mind, and the way they wrap around syllables as he speaks mesmerizes her. She can’t help but to stare as he continues to read in his slow, deep, drawl. Eventually, Harry feels her gaze on him as he breaks his focus to look down at her with a puzzled yet knowing smile, his lips sandwiched between two endearing dimples.

“S’there something on my face Princess?” he inquires with humor in his voice, placing a bookmark between the pages and slowly closing the book. Y/n blinks as she emerges from her trance, her gaze moving reluctantly from his lips to his equally enticing eyes. She holds his gaze, bringing a hand up to brush a stray curl away from his face. “Nooo,” she laughs with a shake of her head, “I’m just admiring you.” Harry can’t help the flutter in his stomach at her words. Her laugh a melody that he was sure he could listen to for the rest of his life. He pulls her up his body with a giggle of his own after gently placing their book on the nightstand, her thighs falling on either side of him with her bum resting comfortably in his lap.

They sit in a peaceful silence for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes. Eye contact has always been something that both of them cherish. It never felt uncomfortable or forced between them, even in the very beginning. The feeling that runs through them while looking into each other’s eyes is hard to label. It’s almost as if their souls are communicating anything that’s ever been left unsaid. The intensity of their connection never fails to send a shiver up Y/n’s spine, or to cause a rosy blush to warm up Harry’s cheeks. She wraps her arms around his neck, her fingers gently intertwining with his soft curls. Harry lets out a peaceful sigh as Y/n runs her fingers through his hair, taking the time to scratch his scalp occasionally. He lets his eyelids droop in pure bliss, relishing in the aura of the beautiful woman in his lap, who chooses to be with him over anyone else. He can’t say that he’s surprised however, because it often feels like the two of them were made for each other. Two pieces of the same puzzle that make a perfect fit. Harry wasn’t someone who usually believed in fate or destiny, but after meeting Y/n, it didn’t seem so unlikely that certain events were just meant to be, or as Y/n would say, written in the stars.

“What’s on your mind lovely?” she inquires softly, her fingers leisurely making their way up and down his arms and shoulders, stopping every once in a while to trace his tattoos, paying extra attention to one of her favorites; the butterfly. A murmur of contentment slips past his lips, his hands caressing the familiar silhouette of her waist, giving her hips a tender squeeze as he languidly opens his eyes once more. Harry stares at her for a moment before speaking, his eyes committing the blueprint of her face to memory. “M’just thinking about how much love you brought into my life,” He sighs with a gentle shrug of his shoulders.

Y/n can almost feel the sincerity of his words within her bones, his loving tone sending shivers throughout her body despite the warmth of the room. She’s quiet for a while, allowing her thoughts to marinate. Her fingers glide over the delicate string of pearls he had yet to take off, before her gaze slowly returns to his. “Hear my soul speak. At the very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly to your service.” She quotes with a coy smile, her fingers continuing their path along his body.

Harry’s eyebrows scrunch together in confusion, a perplexed look overtaking his features as he studies her goofy expression. He begins to replay her words in his mind, when suddenly, the realization hits him and he lets out a loud chuckle with a shake of his head. “Did you just quote Shakespeare to me?” He inquires, his tone a mixture of playful annoyance and genuine humor. Y/n lets out a chorus of her own laughter before nodding, a beautiful smile adorning her lips. “Did you expect anything less of me?” She questions, her eyes glinting playfully in the soft lighting. Harry shakes his head yet again, moving his hands from the comfortable position on her waist to intertwine their fingers. “Well, I was actually expecting a kiss,” he grins cheekily, “but the surprise visit from Shakespeare was very enlightening.” He finishes, his thumb caressing the back of her hand lovingly.

Y/n’s body shakes with laughter at his words, and Harry can’t help the huge smile that plasters itself on his face. He could live in this moment, with this beautiful soul, for the rest of his life. He had never felt more genuinely warm, seen, and loved in his entire existence than he did while with Y/n. The love constantly radiates off of the both of them in waves, reaching anyone and everyone who is open to experiencing their magic. As Y/n’s laughter finally begins to subside and he helps her wipe away any happy tears that happened to betray her, Harry’s heart feels beyond full. “Okay I have no idea what came over me!” She breathes, slightly out of breath in the way that only a good laugh can induce. “I guess you’re a comedian and I’m a nerd, so where does that leave us?” Y/n giggles, bringing her gaze back to him with laughter glossed eyes.

“Hmmm,” Harry ponders, slowly intertwining their hands yet again. “I guess that means you’ll always have someone t’quote literature to, and I’ll always have someone t’laugh really hard at my bad jokes.” Yet another smile makes its way to his lips, and Y/n giggles again with a squeeze of his hand. “Well then!” She sings, releasing one of her hands from his to cup his cheek, bringing her face closer to his. “Aren’t we just the perfect pair?” Her question has a playful tone and he can feel the warmth of her breath against him, her eyes moving between his gaze and his lips.

“We sure are...” he murmurs, his hands following her lead, one moving forward cradle her face with the other gently resting against her throat. Harry can feel her pulse quicken with his actions, and it makes him smile to know that she still has this reaction to his touch. Their eyes flutter closed as they move even closer, their lips finally brushing against each other as delicately as if it were the first time. Harry deepens the kiss, the faint taste of mint and honey lingering on her tongue from their nightly bedtime tea, and Y/n relishes in the intoxicating feeling of his soft lips against hers. A long time ago, Y/n realized that soulmates are yellow.

[mygalfriday]

Things you always meant to say but never got the chance

Coaxed you into paradise and left you there 

{ao3}

Despite the many interruptions, he hopes he has actually managed to salvage the first night of their honeymoon. The unwelcome reminder – in the form of their future selves – of how finite their time together is has only made him more desperate to make this evening perfect. River deserves that and more.

She’d changed despite his insistence she never needed to, exchanging her prison uniform for something flouncy and flirtatious that makes his fingertips itch. She’s close enough to touch but he doesn’t, twirling his top hat between his hands and watching out of the corner of his eye as she helps herself to some more chips. The stars are set to appear any moment now and her gaze is pinned to the sky, waiting for the impressive show he’d promised her.

It’s a marked change from the woman who had been so determined to seduce him in the TARDIS and he fidgets anxiously, secretly wanting a bit of that back but unsure how to get them there. River has always been the instigator and he’s at a loss now that she’s so terribly young and it’s his turn to lead. He grips his hat in one hand and lifts the other to straighten his bowtie, inching a bit closer where they’ve settled on a massive tree branch.

Clearly still as alert to his every move as she’d been as Mels, River glances at him out of the corner of her eye the moment he so much as twitches in her direction. When she notices him hovering, she places a protective hand over her chips and says, “I told you to get your own, sweetie.”

He frowns. “First of all, River Song,” he says, wagging a finger at her and refusing to soften at the way her eyes light up when he uses her name. “I wasn’t trying to steal your chips. And second of all, are you telling me you wouldn’t share? On our honeymoon?”

She whirls to stare at him, blonde curls bouncing around her shoulders and her eyes wide. “Honeymoon?” She laughs once, strained and nervous. “We’re not married.”

He squints at her, fearing for a moment he’d picked up the wrong River. But no, he’d gotten her on her first night in prison – she’d said so herself. So she must have already done Area 52. “Of course we’re married.” He waves a hand, gesturing between them. “There was a bowtie and a kiss-”

River interrupts him in the middle of his kissy-face impression, still eyeing him incredulously. “Yes, where you were a robot. In a timeline that no longer exists. I’ll hardly hold you to it, Doctor.” She smiles when he merely stares at her, the expression somehow unbearably sad despite the softness in her eyes. “You think I didn’t notice in all my research of you how often you get married and swan off, never to see your poor lovestruck bride again?”

“I haven’t swanned off,” he points out, wounded despite the truth of her words. River is different. Surely she knows that. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Of course you are.” She reaches out a hand, patting his bowtie fondly. “I’m the child of your best friends.”

He stares at her. “You think I married you out of guilt?”

“There are worse reasons to get married.” With a shrug, she turns back to the night sky spread out before them and her hand drops from his bowtie to reach for another chip. “But it wasn’t a real marriage, remember? You’re off the hook.”

“River,” he sighs, tugging at his hair. Why is she making him do this? Doesn’t she know he’s rubbish at this? “I don’t want to be off the hook. I want-” Blimey, what does he want? Twelve hundred years old and he still has no idea. He just knows that whatever this is – sitting here, bickering and pretending he doesn’t want any of her chips – he wants every last terrifying moment of it. With her. “I want -”

The sky lights up over their heads, brilliantly illuminated with the glow of a billion stars. It brightens their surroundings like sunlight. Ordinarily, this natural phenomenon wouldn’t be enough to distract him from the issue at hand but River tips up her face to stare at it like she’s never seen anything so wondrous. Her eyes widen and the most beautiful smile bursts to life on her face. It’s a thousand times more distracting than any star has ever been. The Doctor finds himself caught, gazing at her like a new Time Lord staring at his first planet.

Without looking away from the view above, River nudges the plate of chips toward him. A peace offering. The Doctor grins and ignores them, leaning in to press a smacking kiss to her cheek. She swats him, turning her head to seek out a proper snog. He sinks into her with a sigh, fingers finding her wild curls, and doesn’t stop to wonder why he feels like he’s forgotten to say something important.  

-

He knows what he feels. He has known what he feels for far longer than he’d ever admit to any version himself. He hasn’t said the words since he was a young man on Gallifrey, unburdened by loss and the weight of ages. He might have said them once or twice to Susan when she was a child. The point is, it has been so long that the words don’t even feel tangible anymore – nothing but brittle bones and dust taking up space at the base of his throat. He worries if he tries to say them now, nothing will escape but ash.

He isn’t stupid enough to do nothing and merely hope River understands through osmosis but those words aren’t enough. They’re imaginary and ephemeral, easily lost and forgotten in this wide, unknowable universe. So many days he and River will spend apart, separated by space and time – yearning across worlds. He wants River to remember, even when she forgets everything else. He wants River to have more than brittle words.

So he gives her memories. Big, flashy, unforgettable memories that could cast a giant neon sign across the universe in 50 foot capital letters. You. Are. Loved. Stevie Wonder sings it for her under London Bridge; mysteriously inspired poets pen her sonnets; da Vinci sketches her likeness in La Scapigliata. Sunflowers remind him of her and he scatters seeds all over the fields of Spain so every summer people flock there to admire her beauty; he goes back in time and leaves notes throughout history for her to find during her excavations; he takes lessons with Julia Child and Fernand Point so he can make all her favorite dishes. He makes love to her at the start of the universe and the end of it so their love is a bookend to the beginning and the end of everything.

He never asks her if she understands what he isn’t saying. Instead he smiles when she finds another of his surprises and drinks in her laugh when he spins her around another ballroom, hoping she sees it for what it is. Not a showy distraction from a magician, but the last precious coin from a penniless man. All he has to offer. Someday, he might dust off those meagre words humans so love to abuse and see if he can make them shine again – make them pretty enough to deserve her – but for now, surely all this is enough? It must be.

-

Despite her hesitance around them, children gravitate naturally towards River. He thinks it must be the hair. There is no other possible explanation for why they’re all gathered around her when he’s the one sitting by the bonfire introducing these people to the roasted marshmallow about ten thousand years too early. Considering himself a bit of an expert on the subject, he appoints himself the overseer of their technique, teaching the locals how to get the outside nice and crisp without making the insides a gooey mess.

Most of them are understandably fascinated but every time the Doctor looks up in search of his wife, he finds her sitting just to the left of all the excitement and surrounded by a group of tiny humans. A few of them sit at her feet, two sit on either side of her, one stands behind her poking curiously at her hair, and another seems to have made himself a nice comfy home on her lap. To her credit, River isn’t as horrified by all the attention as she used to be when she was younger.

She seems to be telling them all a story, judging by enraptured looks on their faces and the way River keeps leaning in close like she always does when imparting a secret. Unable to conceal his grin, the Doctor puts the nearest villager in charge of marshmallow roasting and slips away to investigate. As he gets closer, the soft murmur of River’s voice becomes clearer until he can make out exactly which story she’s regaling her audience with.

“And of course, because he’s a man he thinks he always knows exactly where he’s going but he never does. None of them do.” She offers them all an exasperated look, as though inviting them to commiserate with her on the hopelessness of men. Every single little girl in the group nods sagely. “Now, who do you think actually found the gemstone and restored the High Chancellor to his natural form?”

One of them ventures confidently, “You did!”

River beams. “And don’t you forget it.”

Shaking his head and biting back a smile, the Doctor folds his arms over his chest and attempts to look cross. “Just so we’re clear, I did know exactly where I was going, River Song. I was… testing you.”

She glances up, apparently unsurprised to find him eavesdropping. “And the part where you twisted your ankle in the mines and I had to carry you for five miles back to the TARDIS?” She smiles innocently. “Was that part of the test too?”

“Yes. No.” He scowls, dropping his arms to his sides. “Shut up. Dear.”

River grins and he leans in, bopping her fondly on the nose. She turns her head coyly away when he tries to kiss her, teasing, “Not in front of the children, honey.”

“Ah. Right.” He turns to their rapt audience, pasting on a nervous grin. “Oi you lot, you’re missing out on all the sweets.” He claps his hands together, watching them scramble to their feet. “Off your pop, before your parents eat them all.”

Only the little one on River’s lap refuses to budge, curled up there like he belongs. The Doctor sighs, giving up on stealing a kiss for the moment as he settles onto the log beside his wife. Elbows on his knees, he peeks at her through his fringe and confesses, “I wasn’t actually testing you.”

River spares him an exasperated glance, preoccupied with the toddler currently clinging to the front of her shirt. “I know, sweetie.”

“And the whole carrying me thing was a tiny bit…” He risks a glance at their tiny audience and whispers, “Sexy.”

She rolls her eyes. “I know, sweetie.”

“Right. Good.”

He thinks about offering to fetch her a marshmallow but the sight of her hesitantly dropping a hand to stroke the little tot’s hair from his forehead stops the Doctor in his tracks. Despite her reticence, she’s a natural with kids. She always knows what to do, even when she doesn’t seem to trust her own instincts. He’s sure her hesitance must come from her own unusual upbringing and the complete lack of parental figures who didn’t have an eyepatch and a villainous agenda but he finds himself wishing she would give herself more credit. She knows what kids need – even if only because they need the things no one ever gave her.

Elbowing her gently, he says, “You’re good with them.”

River scoffs, glancing away. “I’m really not.”

“Could have fooled me.” He shrugs, studying the boy with sleepy eyes still clinging to her. “He seems very fond of you.”

River glances down at the boy, biting her lip. “I probably just look like someone he knows.”

“Someone else with this hair?” He plucks at a curl fondly. “Impossible.”

River swats at him, adorably and uncharacteristically flushed. The Doctor chooses not to mention it, watching in silence the way she cradles the boy to her and bounces him a bit in her arms to nudge him gently to sleep. Not for the first time, he thinks she’d probably make a brilliant mother if she wanted to be. He wonders briefly if she does want it. Maybe she does and just hasn’t said anything. What if he brought it up? Would she want it, if he offered?

Could he offer?

No. Of course not. It’s a terrible idea. The universe would come after any child of the Doctor and River Song. It would hardly be fair to ask a tiny little being to carry the weight and hatred of an entire universe. Besides, their lives are hardly the right environment in which to raise a child – what with the running and the prison and the timey-wimey-ness of it all.

But… if River really wanted it he might consider it in spite of all that. He might even sort of fancy the idea. He can’t ever see himself sitting still long enough to have a proper family life but the image of a miniature version of him and River asking for bedtime stories and refusing to eat their vegetables and begging for another trip to the intergalactic zoo? With anyone else, the very notion would send him running far and fast but with River it’s… Well. He’s grown to like all sorts of things so long as River is involved.

“Matteo?”

The Doctor lifts his head, snapping back to the present just in time to watch a woman – the boy’s mother, probably – lift the sleeping tot out of River’s arms with a murmur of thanks. River nods stiffly, watching the woman cradle her baby and sway with him toward the warmth of the bonfire. The ache of her longing is clear in her eyes.

The Doctor swallows, wanting nothing but for that look to disappear. Wanting her to have everything it’s within his power to give her. “You know, we could-”

“Doctor? We’re out of marshmallows!”

He sighs. “I warned them about rationing.”

River turns to him with a smirk, oblivious to what he’d been about to offer. “I’ll fetch some more from the TARDIS.”

“Thanks, dear.” He finally steals that kiss he’d been after, smiling as she slips away. The courage to ask her what had been on his mind goes with her. He never finds the nerve to bring it up again.

-

After they lose her parents, River spends most of her time in her study writing the book that will start it all. He knows he isn’t strong enough to be of any assistance to her, far more apt to make suggestions like taking the manuscript and pitching it into a black hole, but he also knows River would likely rebuff any offers of help from him right now anyway. She’s avoiding him.

The Doctor can’t blame her. He’s hardly been desirable company in recent days. All these centuries knocking about the universe and he’s still that same selfish old man he’s always been, mourning the loss of his Ponds as though he’s the only one who has lost something. River deserves far better than a selfish mad man like him but apparently she isn’t going anywhere despite his many faults and foibles. It’s this strange, terrible combination of guilt and gratitude, contrition and devotion that finds him standing outside the door to her study holding a cup of tea and listening to the soft click of typewriter keys coming from within the room.

“River?”

Balancing the cup in the palm of one hand, he raps his knuckles softly against the door. The typing doesn’t even pause. He sighs, nudging the door open with his hip and peering inside. The hinges creak but River doesn’t glance up, typing away as though he hasn’t interrupted. Reluctant to intrude on her space without permission after all the things he has said and done recently, the Doctor hovers in the doorway and wraps his fingers around the warm ceramic of the mug he’d brought her.

“I made tea.”

Again, she doesn’t look up from her notes. Pencil between her teeth, she taps her fingers against the keys of her typewriter and says, “Thanks.”

Figuring this may well be the closest he’ll get to permission to approach, the Doctor shoves off the doorframe and picks his way across the floor – careful not to step on the crumpled wads of paper scattered everywhere that River must have tossed in various pits of pique. He settles the mug on the corner of her desk, within reach if she wants it but not so close she’ll accidentally knock it over with an elbow. His job done, he lingers beside her desk uncertainly. She hasn’t asked him to leave but she’s hardly rolled out the welcome mat either.

Squirming, the Doctor touches a fingertip to a stack of field journals and ventures hesitantly, “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” comes the short, clipped reply. “I’ll be done soon and then I’ll go.”

He lifts his head from scrutinizing the contents of her desk, frowning. “Go?”

“Hmm.”

River lifts her glasses from the top of her head, relocating them to the bridge of her nose. Usually the sight of her in them does funny things to his insides but today, he only feels a cold knot of dread beginning to tighten in the pit of his stomach. Why hadn’t he noticed how tired she looks? She isn’t dressed to impress anyone today, wearing a pair of leggings and one of Rory’s old jumpers. He thinks the fuzzy socks on her feet might have belonged to Amy once. Her wild curls are piled on top of her head but keep spilling over her forehead every time she bends to peer at her notes. There are new lines of weariness around her eyes and mouth, a dullness to her gaze he has never seen before. And she still hasn’t looked at him.

The Doctor swallows, inching closer. “Actually I wanted to ask if you were hungry. I could cook…” He brightens. “Or we could have dinner somewhere. Anywhere you like, Professor Song.”

She shakes her head. “I need to get this done.”

He scoffs. “There’s plenty of time to finish it-”

“Not if you want me out of your hair sooner rather than later.” She sighs when he goes still, staring at her in silence. Her eyes remain locked on her half-finished manuscript. “It has to be done now.”

Studying her clenched jaw and the tightly contained way she holds herself – so very still, as though the slightest wrong move might make something explode in her face – the Doctor begins to understand he might have buggered things up quite a bit more than he’d realized. “What makes you think I want you out of my hair?”

Despite her every attempt to appear unaffected, the words slip out with an incredulous huff of laughter. “You mean besides your every word and action in the last week?”

He flinches. “River, no. I didn’t mean-”

She sighs, the bitterness slipping away like it had never been. At times it alarms him how easily she forgives his transgressions. Taking off her glasses and letting them clatter to her desk, River pinches the bridge of her nose and closes her eyes for a moment. Gathering patience, though she probably thinks he doesn’t know what she’s doing. As if he doesn’t know all of her little tells by now, even the ones he pretends he doesn’t see.

“I know you didn’t,” she says, and the sound of her voice is more familiar to him now. Soft. Warm. Forgiving. He really doesn’t deserve her. She lifts her head and finally meets his worried gaze since the first time he walked into her study. The utter lack of light in her eyes scares the hell out of him. “But it’s clear you need space. So I’ll finish the manuscript and I’ll go.”

“Stay,” he insists, bracing himself with his hands against the edge of her desk. He leans in toward her, forcing a smile. “We’ll pay Vastra and Jenny a visit. Or we’ll go to Egypt and see how the pyramids are coming along, eh? Get married again while we’re there – how’s that?”

“Doctor,” she begins, and he hates it when she says his name like that. It sounds like no. “I’m not going to stay just because you don’t want to be alone.”

He pushes off her desk with a low growl. “That’s not what this is.”

“Isn’t it?” The amount of resignation in her patient voice is maddening. “It’s alright, honey. We’ll go our separate ways for a while and I’ll pop round to see how you’re faring after I get back.”

“Back?” Pacing to her bookshelves across the room and preparing to pout a bit and possibly make childish comments about the amount of archeology texts she owns, the Doctor scowls and prods irritably at a scroll wedged between suspiciously authentic looking manuscripts of Macbeth and The Importance of Being Earnest – stolen, no doubt. “Back from where?”

Already sliding her glasses back on and returning her attention to her notes, River mutters absently, “I got an invitation to lead the first expedition to the Library planet. Thought I might go – get my mind off things.”

The Doctor goes cold. That slowly growing and widening knot of dread in the pit of his stomach yawns open like a black hole. He grips the edge of a bookshelf until his knuckles turn white and the wood begins to creak beneath his fingers, threatening to splinter. With his back turned to her, River doesn’t see the way the blood drains away from his face. The way his mouth can only silently form no over and over again until it doesn’t even feel like a real word anymore. It screams in his head anyway, blaring like a siren until it loses some of its power with repetition and he feels just as helpless as he had the day he watched her die.

No.

Not yet.

He just watched an ending unfold right before his eyes. He cannot – will not – do it again. He will not lose another precious person to this goddamned thief called Time. The pain of losing the Ponds is still raw and fresh in his mind, reminders of them at every turn and memories lurking like ghosts out of the corner of his eye. It hurts now; and it always will. He has lost companions before. It always feels like this; like being ripped open and left to bleed out. It heals eventually, despite all his best intentions to cling to his grief. Another scar to bear in his long, lonely life.

But this, he knows, would break him.

“Don’t pout, sweetie,” she says, mistaking his silence for something else. Still typing away like she hasn’t destroyed his whole world. “Far better we have some time to ourselves than stay together and say more things we don’t mean.”

He won’t lose her. The only solution is to change it. The Doctor lifts his head, resolve slipping down his spine like cold steel. Not one line echoes in his head but he pushes it away with a grim smile. “I meant them.”

The typing stops. “What?”

“What I said when we lost Amy.” He doesn’t turn to look at her yet, struggling to school his features into something expressionless and cold – the mighty Time Lord instead of the devastated husband. It’s easier when he can’t see the look on her face. “If you hadn’t told her to go -”

River’s voice grows brittle. “She’d be here and miserable without my father.”

“She’d be here.” Clenching his jaw, the Doctor forces himself to turn from the bookshelf and face her properly. River sits utterly still at her desk, staring at him like he’s a particularly bad dream she’s waiting to wake up from. “And that’s really what it comes down to in the end, wife. If not for you, my Amelia would still be here.”

In the silence of the room, he can hear the hitch in River’s breath.

He directs his gaze elsewhere before he can see her eyes begin to water, glaring at a spot in the carpet instead. His hands tremble and he clenches them into fists, forcing the words out around the lump in his throat. “How can you expect me to look at you, knowing you’re the reason we lost them both? If you’d been quicker or cleverer or just… more. I expected better of you.” He stops when he sees her flinch out of the corner of his eye, unable to bear hurting her for another second with such poisonous lies. His eyes begin to burn and he snaps out, “I can’t wait for you to finish the manuscript. Go now. And take your bloody book with you.”

He stalks from the room before she can say a word and he doesn’t dare look at her as he leaves, knowing the moment he sees her face he’ll drop to his knees and beg forgiveness. So he walks and he walks until his vision blurs and the TARDIS opens a door, letting him stumble into a room at the end of the corridor.

Their bedroom. Of course.

With a growl, the Doctor picks up the nearest thing to hand – one of River’s high heels – and hurls it at the wall. It cracks the plaster and he stares at the split along the wall, his chest heaving and his eyes burning. In the ensuing silence, there is only the rasp of his shaky breathing and the sound of River’s footsteps as she leaves.

-

It’s only standing in his tomb with her ghost in front of him that he understands he had certainly changed things that day in the TARDIS – just not how he’d hoped. River still went to the Library; she still died in his place and wound up trapped in the data core. The only thing he had changed was letting her die believing he blamed her. Believing he didn’t love her.

Cradling her face in his hands, he looks into her eyes and realizes this may very well be his last chance to tell her all the things he’d never had the chance to say to her before. So many of those things seem pointless now. What does it matter that he’d always considered Area 52 their wedding day or that he would have given her children if she’d only asked? What does it matter if he never once blamed her for what happened to her parents or that he loves her so much he chokes on the words every time he tries to say them? It’s too late for any of it to matter now.

She’s gone and he’s looking at an echo.

River doesn’t ask him to say any of those things anyway. She wants something far more difficult to give. A goodbye.

“Say it like you’re going to come back.”

And it’s this – the thing he wants desperately to refuse to ever say – that he doesn’t have the hearts to deny her. Mouth full of lost opportunities and a lifetime of regrets, the Doctor swallows it all back with a smile. “See around, Professor River Song.”

[lehdenlaulu]

Shadow and Bone: a few gripes

Okay, you know I was pretty impressed with Shadow and Bone, but it would be neither fair nor in character from me to leave you with an impression that I thought there was nothing to improve. So here we go:

First of all, the pacing. Again, I am actually impressed with how well it did hold together for an adaptation of a mashup of two separate books in only eight episodes, but I think we can all agree that it definitely could have used at least an episode of two more to let the scenes and story beats breathe and have time for slightly more organic development. It must not have been an easy task to edit, and unfortunately, the seams are kinda visible at times. There absolutely were things that IMO required more time and attention to set up properly, especially from a non-reader’s point of view, one major thing being... well, the entire setting really, namely the war and politics aspects. For example, I’m still kind of foggy on who originally is fighting who and why and for how long and who exactly performed the coup and in whose name etc. etc. Now I know this is based on an YA book and those don’t tend to dig very deep into the finer points of the realities of military politics, but... it would be nice to understand why are these things even happening, you know?

This is inevitably related to the previous issue, but I also wasn’t always sure if I always bought what the show was trying to sell to me, emotionally, or sometimes even what it was trying to sell me, exactly. I have three specific examples, all with slightly different issues: - Mal and Alina. Too much iron wire, as we say in Finland. Flashbacks and voice overs (letters, diaries, etc.) are, in a cinematic sense, tools of telling instead of showing and should therefore be used with care and caution. Especially in regards to a relationship between characters. And here we had both, repeatedly. And whether that was the idea or not, that sort of tends to come across like you don’t trust a) your audience b) your actors c) the relationship. And none of that is a good thing. So while this is probably not going to endear me to that particular shipper demographic, a couple of those meadow flashbacks less would have sufficed with the time given to developing other storylines etc. You want to lead your audience to something and let them figure it out themselves, not spoon feed it to them. They cute. Trust that. (I mean, if I, a total newbie to the setting, figured out Jesper was a grisha by the second episode and am totally rooting for Genya and David based on like two tiny off-hand scenes... You know?) - This issue is sort of the opposite: Kaz and Inej. I mean, I got that it was supposed to be there, I just wasn’t feeling it. And I don’t know if the issue is the chemistry, the pacing, the writing, the acting or what. But something didn’t connect. Again, I haven’t read the books and from what I’ve gathered that particular dynamic is probably not something that is easy to adapt to screen -- especially with 2 billion different other things going on at a breakneck speed -- but I hope I’ll get more out of Kaz’s character in general next season because he’s the one I feel like I know the least so far. - Kirigan/Morozova/The Darkling/whatever His Murkiness wants to be called in this adaptation. And my issue? I was never sure how I was supposed to feel about him. Now, that might very well be the idea for all I know, but I was honestly kinda left scratching my head about him. I mean, due to the Tumblr osmosis I had some idea what to expect, so my initial reaction was pretty much: “huh, I’d thought he’d be worse”. I’d expected him to like... stalk around like a storm cloud with a literal cloak of shadows billowing in his wake at all times, and be much more of a manipulative/pushy creep with Alina from the start. Instead he just... seemed kinda normal? A bit of a Chessmaster, yeah, but absolutely nothing that wasn’t entirely to be expected from someone in his position. I tried to gauge the appropriate attitude towards him from how other characters treated him, personally and by reputation, like... is he supposed to be a scary badass? Just scary? Just badass? Neither?? Like, he’s the leader of a wizard army and has spooky and unusual powers? He kinda should be a little scary? I mean, I know Ben Barnes (who can easily be considerably more intimidating if he wants to be) wanted to humanize him and they decided to use “The Darkling” as an insult rather than a title, but... When even the grisha-fearing Fjerdans were less “Oh shit, it’s The Darkling, he eats babies for breakfast!” and more “Ugh, it’s that bitch.”... Let’s just say him switching gears to full-on mustache-twirling Disney villain felt pretty jarring, honestly. Especially since, again, I’m still fairly confused about his motivations and goals because the entire backstory to that whole thing was kinda glossed over. So he wants... what? Grisha supremacy via magical weapons of mass destruction? Because he has mommy issues? Because someone killed his girlfriend a couple of centuries ago?? And was that the plan all along or did he just decide to go balls-to-the-wall bonkers when Alina left him? Because right now his goal seems to be more like ‘death to all who oppose me’. And that’s... pretty boring, honestly. If he’s to be our Big Bad, I’d like a bit more nuance -- and that’s not to rag on Ben’s performance or even his choices to play the the character as cutely smitten with Alina, but the way the character is otherwise presented. Once again, I know this is fairytale-ish YA fantasy, but if your source material has a typical garden variety super polarized love triangle (of sorts, anyway), your job is to make it more interesting in adaptation. So while I do commend the fact that they apparently made both of the guys less of douchebags, I feel like the tone should have been adjusted accordingly in other aspects. If that makes sense.

I think that was it, for the most part. I mean I could bitch about technical details or wildly inconsistent pronunciation of names or whatever, but those would just be nitpicking. Tagging at least @the-darkling but everyone please feel free to discuss!

[peach-pops]

Hello if you're not busy can you write a HC with Daichi, Bokuto, and Kuroo and how they act when they drink at a party with you?

Thank you for this request!!!! Lets just age them up to college! 

Daichi, Bokuto, and Kuroo at a College Party

➣ Daichi

He’s such a responsible drunk like he is the best boyfriend to have at a party. Like I’m sure all of these guys would be super protective of you the whole night but Daichi is on another level

He is always pouring drinks for you because he doesn’t know everyone at the party and he doesn’t want someone to try and pull a fast one 

Daichi always has a hand either wrapped around your waist, resting on your hip, or holding yours because he wants to keep an eye on you 

Even if Daichi is having the time of his life, he is always making sure you’re okay 

Lots of “ Do you want to sit down?” and “ Let me know when you want to go home, okay?” 

He’s def the boyfriend where if you have longer hair, he wears a hairband or scrunchie on his wrist so he can pull it up to a ponytail if you’re sweaty or throwing up 

I know he sounds super protective, which he is, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have fun. Think about it, he is always babysitting his teammates so when he has the chance to let loose, he takes the opportunity 

Daichi is a classic Budweiser man I stand behind that and I do not take complaints

He doesn’t really play drinking games. He likes to go to parties either to hang out with friends he hasn’t seen in a long time orrrrrrr KARAOKE 

Even if there isn’t a karaoke machine, he’ll always sing super loud whenever a song comes on that he knows and that alone makes the whole party sing along 

If the songs are trash he’ll take over the AUX and have the whole house bumping and that’s a fact 

No matter how drunk he gets, he still uses common sense so if one of his friends tries jumping off a table, he scoops them up and off the table before they even attempt it 

Daddies intuition what can I say

I know there’s that trend where how the Haikyuu boys catch it when you’re throwing back AND I KNOW DAICHI CAN CATCH IT

He’s such a smooth motherfucker and he loves when you do it because he knows other people are watching 

I am simping so hard for this 2D man 

➣ Bokuto 

Bokuto is clearly a frat boy that isn’t in a frat if that makes sense

Like he hates all of the shaddy shit that goes down in Greek Life

 The idea of that false sense of brotherhood and hazing sets him off but but he radiates playing beer pong with sunglasses and thats a fact 

He has that energy where “ the party doesn’t start until Bokuto walks in” because he always brings it up another level

If you went to a party with Bokuto, be prepared to have all of the attention on the two of you because this boy is even LOUDER than usual 

Sober Bokuto is already a proud boyfriend so the alcohol would only dial him up even more

Lots of “ This is my s/o aren’t they so cute????..... OF COURSE THEY ARE HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT?” 

“ Kotaro they were agreeing with you.”

“ Oh my bad man! Y/N, be on my team for beer pong!”  

He would know everybody at a party and even if he didn’t know some random person there, by the end of the night they would definitely be best friends

Bokuto never really gets too drunk but seemingly everyone around him does because he is such a big hypeman and maybe that could lead to peer pressure but he can’t help it 

He won’t ever force you to drink but if you are drinking, he hypes you up constantly 

“ THAT’S MY BABY AYYY! LETS GOOO!” 

This boy is so affectionate when he is drunk, he loves telling you how amazing you look and how happy you make him while he gives you a bunch of kisses across your face 

His breath smells like Malibu but you don’t even mind THAT much 

He gets sappy sometimes and he loves attention so if he’s giving you kisses but you don’t, he gets whiny asf

“ What about me? Where’s my loving? “ cue Bokuto pouting as you roll your eyes but of course you can’t leave your boyfriend hanging

Bokuto can party all night but once he sees that you’re tired or you’re done with partying, he will say his goodbyes and gets an uber so you guys can go home ( NONE OF THE HAIKYUU BOYS DRINK AND DRIVE AND I STAND BY THAT)

➣ Kuroo

I don’t care what anyone says, Kuroo is a freaking dork and he should be treated as such 

Sober Kuroo is a huge ass nerd so when he drinks, he’ll make random-ass, smart comments throughout the night as if it’s common knowledge 

“ Baby did you know that the hydrogen atoms in your body are almost 13.5 billion years old because they were created at the birth of the universe?”

“ What are you even talking about?”

“ I don’t know but I need some water, my head hurts- hey where did Kenma go?” 

He is just sooooo talkative when he drinks like he’ll talk people’s ear off and somewhat annoy them but Kuroo is just so oblivious it doesn’t even bother him 

He also loooooooves dancing. He’s such a bad dancer in real life like I’m sorry that hoe has no rhythm at all but when he is drunk??? The flavor is immaculate!!

He dances like a stripper at a bachelorette party I-

Grinding, thrusting and smirking and he thinks he is just being so sexy which he kinda is I mean LOOK AT HIM 

If you’re just sitting on the couch talking to a friend, 10/10 times he will try to give you a lapdance while you’re trying to have a conversation 

“ Yeah I mean these finals were so rough-”

“ Did someone order a lapdance?”

“ What are you- TETSURO!” 

He would never have sex with you if either of you are drunk but he’ll still you slow kisses on your neck if the two of you find yourselves alone because he just can’t help himself 

His choice of drink/game would be bodyshots because again, just look at him do I really have to defend this statement? He is a tequila whore and a sexy beast so the will totally be up for doing body shots off of you but he will get sooooo pissed off if someone even tries doing it off of you 

Drunk Kuroo is the love of my life thank you

[shadowofthelamp]

Oh Perfect Dib

Canon-divergent: Comic!Dib and Zim don’t stumble into the Void, and Zib keeps Two for a bit to monitor him after infecting him.  Sort of a companion piece to Best-Laid Plans. As always, Zib calls himself Dib.

Warnings: Hypnosis/mind control

Rating: G

Wordcount: 1070

Ao3 link

“Go get me a soda.” Dib waved a hand before sticking the handle of his screwdriver in his mouth to use the wrench. Two saluted with an ‘of course, master Dib!’ before hurrying off.

The virus was working well. He’d put Two in goggles, and ordered him to behave normally outside of their chambers. The other Zims hadn’t noticed- he was still keeping tabs on possible dissent in his inner circle, and Two only interacted with the Zims under Dib’s careful watch, so none of them suspected anything. It was remarkable, how little Two had actually changed in behavior after the virus outside of Dib’s chambers. He still publicly fawned just as much as before, but other than almost slipping once or twice by calling Number One a Dib and getting an electroshock from his Pak for it, Dib wouldn’t have known anything was amiss.

It was kind of cute, honestly. He’d adored Number One, so it was easy to reroute it, even now that he knew he was ruled by a Dib. 

“Your soda.” Two held out the soda, and Dib spat out the screwdriver, holding his hand out for it. 

“How many are left in the stores from the ransacked Voots?”

“Um.” Two had to think for a second as he pushed up his goggles again. Dib liked seeing his blue eyes, fuzzing with code every ten seconds. “Eighteen.”

Dib chugged it down, crumpling the space-metal in his fist. “Ugh, we’ll have to restock when I send the Zims out, before they self-destruct themselves.”

“Of course, Number One.”

“I wonder how many 100 can carry. He’s a beefy guy, y’know? Probably enough to stock up the Void for a year.” Dib clicked his tongue. “Maybe I should make him a cargo mule instead of just blowing up all that good possible grunt work.” He looked up at Two, who was staring at him. “What’re you looking at?”

“You, oh most wonderful Dib.”

Dib pushed himself up, squinting up at Two’s face. Unconsciously, he rose himself up on his tiptoes, but they still weren’t quite even.

Two’s face was... flat. Even as he listed off praises, his eyes remained still and his mouth never moved past a straight line. He was so much more animated with the other Zims. It was part of the disguise to keep them all in the dark for as long as possible, (Dib was working on a speech for the reveal, actually, and he planned to tape their reactions) but...

Dib never thought he’d miss a Zim acting Zim-like.

“Why are you looking at me?”

“Because you wanted me to.”

“What? No I didn’t.” Dib waved his hand in front of Two’s face. Two didn’t blink. “Why do you think I wanted you to?”

“You commanded me to listen to your Pak. Your Pak tells me that you enjoy me looking at you.”

“That’s stupid.” Dib raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms and popping up on the Pak legs so he could more efficiently look down at Two. 

“I only obey your commands, Number One.”

“Well, stop looking at me, then.” 

Two obeyed, swiveling to stare at the wall instead. Dib bent forward to examine his Pak. It was glowing a clear, virus-controlled blue. So why...?

“Go over to the console, I need to check you up.” Dib snapped his fingers, and Two marched over, dutifully standing underneath the scanning helmet.

Nothing irregular. Two’s brainwaves were a little flatter than they used to be, but that was to be expected. Dib drummed his fingertips on the keyboard.

“So you say that it’s coming from my Pak.”

“If that was what I said.”

“It was.”

“Then it was.”

“Stop toying with me.” Dib narrowed his eyes. “I might just send you out first, you know. Blow you into a billion goopy-gorey alien bits.”

“Whatever you wish, oh magnificent and lovely Dib.”

It was Dib’s turn to stare. ”What was that last one?”

“Dib.”

“No. Last two.” 

“Lovely Dib.”

Dib hopped up on the console as the helmet retracted from Two. His expression was as emotionless as it always was around Dib now. The words had no weight to them. Borne of an overzealous bit of coding back when Dib had been unsure he’d have enough Zims to pull this all off and had been a little stir-crazy from isolation. That was all. He really should just delete that subroutine.

But the flattery was nice. He heard it from the other 99 of course, but he liked it most from Two, because Two had been the only one that had interacted directly with him much.

“Tell me how you feel about me, Two.”

Two tilted his head, eyes giving a quick, cursory glance over Dib’s body. “You are perfect. You are wonderful. You have given my life a meaning that it did not have before when I was weak-minded and ignorant irken, but I have been remolded for your purposes, oh perfect Dib. I wish nothing more than to help you accomplish the destruction of the irken empire throughout the multiverse.” His tone was smooth as butter, and without any of the manic inflection jumps that made him sound like a Zim.

“Good. Good, that was exactly what you were supposed to say,” Dib muttered, the back of his head thudding as the Pak warmed. It happened so often that most of the flesh had burnt, but it healed well enough he didn’t pay attention to it anymore. “Is there anything else?”

“You are correct. You are perfect. You are correct. I love you. You are perfect. You are correct.”

Dib’s fingers dug straight through the metal of the console. “What did you say?”

“You are correct. You are perfect.”

“No, no that middle thing. You- you didn’t say that. You shouldn’t say that.”

Two blinked. “But you are correct and perfect, my-”

“No. No, no, no.” Dib hopped off the console and tugged Two down so he stood above him. “From now on, you just call me Number One, got it?”

Two nodded. “Understood, Number One,” he intoned. No idea he’d said anything strange.

Maybe Dib needed to wipe him again. Maybe he should just pull his Pak off and see what on Irkth had made him say that. Two stared up, unblinking.

Dib pulled down his goggles and sent him out to distract the other 99 again.

He didn’t want to look at him.