#i usually ask for holidays/religious activities what I can do to help out in anyways

[shadow-tism]

Reminder that Ramadan is starting tonight!!

Many of those who are used to celebrating and taking part in Ramadan may not be able to this year with the amount of people affected by the genocide taking place.

Please be kind to others during this time, possibly donate to help those with gofundme’s and the esims are always a good option.

Ramadan Mubarak ☪️

[possiamo-andare]

Just You (1)

JJ x Reader x Rafe (love triangle)

MASTERLIST

word count: 3.1k

summary: A new girl moves to OBX and a love triangle ensues. Your usual yearning, fluff writing :)

a/n: gosh, it has been too long. university has me swamped but since it’s the holiday break, i will try and update as much as i can. as of rn my other fic, sweeter, is on hold, while i try to write more and get back into the groove of things :) love y’all <3 

~

Many people do not care to know the difference between new and old money. To the working class, new and old money were relatively the same. To some extent, that was true. People that had either new or old money were rich nonetheless but when you grew up rich like Rafe Cameron did, the difference was all that mattered.

The main difference was how the money was procured. Old money was passed down. No one from old money had to work since they were born rich. Their manners were taught at a young age. New money meant that they had worked for what they had. At some point, they were not rich and now they were. They were not as defined and they had to be taught, at an older age, how to act. Rafe’s mother used to say you could see who was from old and new money from their ties. If it was a man, their ties would be neutral colours, nothing flashy. People from new money usually had something to prove and so they would buy extravagant things. For women, it was their heels. Women from old money had small heels that were polished as well. Women from new money had tall heels and they had never learned that they should polish the heel along with the shoe.

Growing up as someone from old money, Rafe had normalized that there was a divide between the rich people in Figure 8. Of course, there was a divide between the Pogues and the Kooks but that divide was course and palpable. This divide was subdued and rarely ever spoken about. Kooks that came from old money lived on the west side of Figure 8 while the Kooks from new money resided on the east. This unspoken rule proved to be useful since the two groups of rich snobs never liked to speak to each other anyways. This rule had been in place years before Rafe was even born and he had thought it would still be there even after he died. That is, until Y/N moved in down the street.

It was at the beginning of June when she moved in. The first sign that things would end terribly was when her family pulled into the parking lot. Her mother drove a beat up blue Camaro while her father trailed behind in a black motorcycle. Most people that lived on the west side of the island didn’t have flashy cars but they were well maintained and not so loud. Everyone knew they were from new money before they even exited their cars. And when they did, it was confirmed these people had just become wealthy.

Rafe’s family, like most on the street, watched from their windows as a tall, burly man with a long black beard and sunglasses opened the truck of his wife’s car and carried two large bags in the door. His two sons, both similar in size and features, followed after him. They carried two pink suitcases inside as the man’s daughter and wife stayed outside to open their garage.

Rafe’s eyes glanced over their house. It was one of the bigger houses on the block but it looked more like a huge cottage than anything else. His mind went to the thought of hippies invading their neighbourhood. He gulped. If they were some type of laid back, motorcycling hippies, he’d go crazy for sure. He knew Sarah would love them though; she always complained about how boring their neighbourhood was. But boring meant normal and that’s what Rafe wanted.

As his mother gossiped on the phone, Rafe watched the mother and the daughter laugh together. The mother looked like a hippie. Her hair was tied up on the top of her head and it had clearly not been brushed. She wore a light green skirt that reached to her ankles which then led to the flip flops that she wore. A white t-shirt was tucked into her skirt and she had big bracelets of all different colours dangling off her wrists. The daughter’s style was similar to her mother’s. She wore pink bootcut jeans and a white crop top, black chunky platform boots pulling the look together. Her hair was different from her mothers and was let down to blow in the breeze. They all looked like polar opposites from everyone else living in Figure 8.

At first, Rafe could care less about the girl or her family across the street. Granted, he would religiously watch through the window for when she would come outside to ride her bike around the neighbourhood with her brothers, and yes, he would sometimes wait until she was outside for him to take out the trash but he didn’t like her. If anything, it was the opposite. Rafe was too good for her. At least, that’s what he led himself to believe.

The first time he spoke to her was two weeks after she moved in. His mother had told him to stay away from Y/N’s family and Rafe had done an amazing job at doing so. Unfortunately, that all stopped when he had to pick Sarah up from school. She had thrown up in the middle of one of her classes and since both his mother and father were at work, the responsibility was on Rafe to pick Sarah up and make sure she was okay. Although reluctant to go back to his old highschool, Rafe knew he’d be in trouble if he was late in picking up his sister. When he entered the school's administration office, he finally came face to face with the girl he had been watching for two weeks now. Except, her back was turned to him as she argued with the secretary.

“That’s what you call a vegetarian dish?” Y/N raised her voice, not particularly enjoying being ignored by the school administration. When she first had come to this school, she had checked off on her form that she needed vegetarian dishes for lunch. Now, everyday since she had come, they had served her horribly chopped up lettuce with vinegar.

“Miss -” Ms. Buzden said, placing her phone on hold. It was the student’s lunch break so she usually called her sister during this time but Y/N was keeping her from doing so.

“Y/N.” Y/N smiled, finally happy she had caught the woman’s attention.

Ms. Buzden rolled her eyes, sighing deeply. “Y/N, dear, if you have a problem with lunch, please take it up with the lunch ladies.”

Y/N sighed, leaning against the secretary’s desk. “I tried to, Beth, but she told me to come here. I will not be ignored.”

Rafe was almost as surprised as Ms. Buzden was when Y/N used her first name. As he stood behind Y/N, waiting for his turn to ask where Sarah was so he could sign her out, he watched in slight amusement at the fact she was nonchalantly complaining to the secretary.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you dear.” Ms. Buzden forced a smile, finally looking over Y/N’s shoulder to Rafe. “Rafe, sweetie, you’re here to sign out Sarah?”

Rafe hesitated for a moment, knowing Y/N’s eyes were on his. He felt as if an imaginary spotlight had shown on him for a solo and he had forgotten the words. His eyes glanced toward Y/N for a moment but it did not help his stage fright. Her beautiful eyes were squinting in his direction and for a moment he thought he would faint underneath her stare. His eyes quickly returned to the secretary’s and nodded quickly. In an embarrassing turn of events, Y/N spoke before Rafe did.

“Hey, I know you.” Y/N’s bracelets clang together as she lifts her hand up and points at Rafe. “You’re my neighbour. You’re always watching me through your window.”

As the secretary busies herself with printing the paperwork, Rafe busies himself by stuttering and gasping for breath at the accusation she had just posed. In an attempt to save himself from anymore embarrassment, Rafe tries and fails at coming up with a good excuse. Instead, he denies the accusation entirely.

“I do not watch you.” Rafe stubbornly blubbers out. He’s trying not to seem so embarrassed but she’s caught him so off guard that there’s nothing else he can do.

Y/N snickers, watching the poor boy stumble on every word. For someone older than her, he was not very mature. “No, you’re right. Watching would imply a causal aspect to the activity. More like you stalk me.”

This time, Rafe boiled over with anger. How dare this girl accuse him of stalking her? Rafe did not chase after any girl, no matter how attractive she was. “That’s a bit arrogant, isn’t it? To think everyone’s eyes are on you?”

Y/N continued to smile, unbothered by Rafe’s obvious rudeness. She shrugs, looking back to the secretary for a moment and grabbing her terrible vegetarian lunch before looking back to Rafe. “Not everyone’s. Just yours.”

And with that, she leaves the office. And Rafe knows he is screwed, because he just met the love of his life.

~

JJ Maybank shared almost everything with his friends. Emphasis on almost. They had always relied on him to be the funny one. To always goof around and take nothing seriously. So, when his dad first started beating after his mother left, he said nothing. He felt it was an unnecessary burden to put on the people that truly loved him. Eventually, the bruises and scars were too overwhelming to keep a secret anymore and he began to confess all his issues to his friends. But even then, as JJ tried to open up to the people he cared the most about, there was one thing he could never share.

He was scared of love.

Not just any love, but specifically romantic love. Every time he felt himself begin to develop deep feelings for anyone, he soon backpedaled and left them hanging. It was too scary to give himself to anyone. It would be a lie if he said it had nothing to do with his mother leaving. He had always believed that there was no love greater than his parents when he was growing up and when his mother left, it shattered him. Of course, he never blamed her for leaving considering how abusive his dad was but it killed JJ to know she did not want him to come with her. He had begun to believe that she didn’t think he was important to bring along. He believed that if she truly loved him, she wouldn’t leave without him. That’s what scared him the most; the fact that someone can change their mind about love so quickly.

So, JJ ran at the first sign of love. And he never shared this with anyone. Until that day.

In early June, when Y/N had first moved to OBX, there was a Start of Summer Fair. Right after classes ended on the last day of school, people in the community organized a fair for everyone who was excited for the summer to start. It was exactly two weeks after Y/N had moved in. Exactly two hours after she spoke to Rafe. Funny how the world works.

Behind the fair, there was a small lake where rarely anyone ventured. It was usually muddy and no one in their right mind would go swimming there. With that being said, JJ wanted to go swimming there. He had spent a solid hour with his friends at the fair before becoming exhausted. It wasn’t so much that his friends were exhausting him but a girl named Anna was. He had gone out with her once and had never called her back (as per usual) but she had not picked up on the hidden messages JJ had given her. Instead, she followed him around during his entire time at the fair like a little lost puppy dog. Just as she announced she was going to the bathroom, JJ had almost died from boredom. Thankfully, her going to the bathroom let JJ slip away from his friends and sneak away from Anna.

“What do you want us to tell her?” Kie asked, watching as her best friend was breaking off from the group.

JJ shrugged, not possibly being able to care less. “I don’t care. For all I care, tell her I died.” A bit harsh, yes, but that’s how JJ operated. Abandon them before they abandon you.

The idea to hide near the lake hit him as soon as he left his friends. No one went back there, not if they wanted an infection. Although slightly disgusting, if that was what he had to do to get away and have a moment of peace, he would make that sacrifice. Unfortunately, he found no peace because the second the lake came into view between two thick trees, JJ saw a girl in the water. At first, he was going to leave, maybe even shout a quick joke her way for getting in the dirty water. But when he saw what she was doing, he became curious and couldn’t help but venture forward and investigate.

Y/N, too invested in what she was currently doing, did not see JJ approaching at first. Daisies had begun to grow around the lake, which was already odd on it’s own, but some of them floated on the surface level of the lake. Y/N thought a bunch of Daisies would be a good surprise for her mother so, in an effort to be thoughtful, she emerged herself, from the waist down, into the water. She was not afraid of the muddy water staining her white dress (she had worse stains on her clothes), even excited to show her mother the lengths she went to to get the Daisies. So, with one hand, she held onto a wicker basket full of Daisies and with the other hand, she grabbed a hold of the daisies in the water.

JJ watched in complete and utter fascination as this girl who he did not recognize, fearlessly went into the lake and plucked some Daisies to put in her basket. She almost didn’t even look real. He blinked quickly to make sure she was even actually there. When he opened his eyes and she was still there, he was glad he hadn’t imagined her.

Finally, Y/N sensed a presence that was not her own. Quickly turning to her right, she made eye contact with JJ and her face softened. He was the least threatening person she’d ever seen and something about him made her heartbeat pick up.

She brushed this feeling off and instead, with a small smile on her lips, spoke confidently. “Hello stalker.”

JJ blushed, shoving his hands into his pockets and taking a few steps closer to the lake. “I’m sorry. Was just wondering what you’re doing here. No one comes here.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” Y/N quips backs, a playfulness in her voice.

JJ thinks he might faint. “Um, well, I’m hiding.”

Y/N giggled. “Me too actually.” She grabs more daisies and puts them in her basket. She looks back up at JJ and speaks to him again. “Who are you hiding from?”

JJ gulps. He doesn’t want to scare away this girl by telling her why he’s come back here. He knows anyone else would judge him but, as he looks at her, he can see she would never judge him. “I’m hiding from a girl.”

Y/N nods, not expressing any disgust and JJ’s heart jumps for joy. “I see. Ex-lover, I presume?”

JJ shrugs. “We only went on one date.”

“Must’ve been a terrible date.” She jokes, and JJ realizes that she’s completely stopped what she’s been doing to listen to him.

JJ shakes his head, focused on her cute round cheeks. “Not really. She was nice.”

Y/N pouts. “Then why are you hiding from her?”

JJ feels as though it is too complicated to explain. And besides, how would he start? He’s never told anyone why he truly has never had a girlfriend. But something about this girl makes him trust her completely. He knows it’s the arrogance in her eyes. “I’m scared.”

Y/N nods, as if she understands him completely and he feels as though she does. “I see. You know, when I get irrationally anxious over something like this, I play the What If game.”

JJ’s brows pull together in confusion. “What?”

Y/N moves through the water and closer to the edge where JJ stands. When she arrives at the water’s edge, she reaches her hand out for JJ to grasp. He hesitates first and knows it’s because he likes her so much already and this will be the first time they will touch. The first time he’ll feel her skin against his is beside this muddy lake. Eventually, he grabs her hand and helps her out of the water and he knows, the second his hand touches hers, she’s his dream girl. His hands are on fire and he feels a pit in his stomach grow as her hand grips tighter onto him. There’s a spark and he’s sure there has never been anyone else that made him feel this way.

“The What If game,” Y/N starts, placing her basket on the ground. She starts to ring out the water from her dress but continues to keep eye contact with JJ. “is really easy. Here; tell me a fear you have about falling in love but make sure it starts with ‘what if.’”

JJ thinks for a moment. There are so many and he doesn’t know where to start. Finally, he chooses his biggest fear. “What if she leaves?”

Y/N smiles. “What if she doesn’t though? But, what if she does and then you find who you’re actually supposed to be with? The game is to just rationalize every irrational fear.”

JJ nods, a small smirk growing at the corner of his lips. “You’re not one of those girls who believes every breakup brings you closer to your soulmate?”

Y/N laughs. “Yeah, I wish. I’m not your manic pixie dream girl - wait, what's your name?”

JJ extends his hand, ready to feel her skin again. “JJ Maybank. Yours?”

Y/N smiles and shakes JJ’s hand. This should be interesting, she thinks. “It’s Y/N.”

“So, Y/N,” JJ starts, her name feeling good coming from his mouth. “If you’re not my manic pixie dream girl, then what are you?”

Y/N smiles. She was right. This is definitely going to be interesting. “I’m just yours.”

~

tagging; @tovvaa​

[giaourtopita]

Hi ♡ Could I ask for some headcannons of the brothers on how they'd spent Valentine's Day with mc?

valentine's day headanons with the brothers

thank you for the request!! i know it isn't valentine's day here anymore but it still is somewhere else so here you go!! also, some parts are bigger than others!! i hate this holiday but i hope you'll enjoy this!!

warnings; gn mc, lots of cuddling tbh.

- first of all i would like to say that i think that some of the brothers wouldn't know of valentine's day, or the devildom would have something along those lines but not quite. that is because valentine's day is not an actual religious holiday.

lucifer

- he woke up early in the morning and didn't say anything about valentine's day, he was acting normal during breakfast.

- during the student council meating he was taking more and more work to do from home and was more than ready to overwork himself like usual.

- diavolo noticed that maybe lucifer wasn't aware of the holiday in the human realm so he had to physically take all the new paperwork from his arms and force him to go home early for the day.

- mc was upset that he didn't know but then again he's very busy so they couldn't exactly blame him, his attitude towards work and his handful of brothers were too much for one person to handle, human or demon.

- in fact instead of doing something very fancy mc wanted something simple to do with him.

- they decided that spending a relaxing time together would be much better than going at ristorante six and just dining.

- mc prepared his favourite food while he was at the meeting. they thought maybe they could stay at one of the common rooms if no one was going to use them.

- their first choice was the planetarium or maybe the attic, since the latter used to be lucifer's sanctuary.

- when they finally decided which one of the two was more appropriate to use lucifer was already home.

- without any explanation mc dragged him to the planetarium where they also brought their mattress, the food they had cooked and drinks.

- mc and lucifer spent the rest of the day and all of the night in the planetarium eating, having a few drinks and holding each other. it was a nice change for lucifer who barely had any time to himself.

- needless to say lucifer was embarrassed he wasn't able to do anything for them but he started planning for next year so he can make it up to them.

mammon

- he knew about it, the witches were nagging him to give them their money back so they can get valentine's day gifts.

- he was annoyed at them, why do they keep summoning him?? all he wants to do is spend time with mc not with some witches.

- once they stopped with the summons, he started thinking if what to do.

- mc wasn't done with rad for the day but mammon didn't want to wait, once mc was out of one of the classes. they both skipped rad and headed back home.

- mc knew something was up because normally mammon wouldn't skip rad unless he wanted to be punished by lucifer.

- they told it would be better for him if they both got back at rat while they still could but mammon had other plans.

- they went back home and changed their clothes, mammon didn't want the both of them to wear the rad uniform out, people would spot them much easier.

- "mc i saved up some money and you can choose your gift for valentine's day"

- mc didn't really care about gifts, their gift was right in front of them so they just kissed him and informed him that they would rather spend time with him than go shopping on this day.

- they went to a convenience store instead and got snacks so they could eat while watching a movie.

- they started watching the movie and ate their snacks but soon enough they found themselves ignoring the movie and snuggling up against each other.

- mc was petting his hair and mammon was laying on mc's chest. mammon still couldn't help but blush, but he was glad that he got to spend time with mc without his brothers or the witches interrupting them.

leviathan

- also knows about it, he has watched many human world anime so he knows.

- levi doesn't really like it because it's a normie holiday but he's allowed to do normie stuff once in a while especially if it's with his normie.

- even though levi was very shy to talk to them about it for valentine's day he had made a whole plan on what to do that day.

- he started buying chocolates and other kinds of heart shaped snacks ahead of time so no one would suspect he would do something a normie would do.

- when it was finally valentine's day all the snacks and gifts he ordered from akuzon.

- he called mc to his room but acted like it was a normal day.

- mc also prepared something for valentine's day, they were going to wear a maid outfit to surprise him.

- when mc arrived in his room, he didn't expect them to look like that. he was a blushing mess when he saw them he even tried turning around to hide how red he looked but mc stopped him.

- he was very excited for valentine's day that he felt like he would ruin his plans by talking about them in front of mc.

- levi gave them all the gifts he got them, mc gave him a soft kiss on the lips right before two laid down on his bathtub to watch some shoujo anime.

satan

- he knew about valentine's day but didn't really think mc would like it as a holiday.

- he probably thinks it's kind of a stupid holiday anyway but for mc he would celebrate it.

- also acted like it was a normal day.

- using his connections he got them a reservation at ristorante six. since he really likes spending time with mc but he knows that some of his brothers are very clingy when it comes to them he would use this an excuse to go out with them.

- after rad was over for the day satan told them to put on their fanciest outfit because they would go out at night, he also made sure to tell them to keep it a secret from his brothers since they would probably ruin it for the two.

- they talked about valentine's day and what they did during the day, it was so calm and satan had so much fun that he thought maybe valentine's day isn't that stupid.

- once the dinner was over they headed back home, mc bought him a new book. it was a romance novel, perfect for the occasion, they thought.

- mc gave it to him, it was wrapped in a pink wrapper and there was a pretty green bow tied around it.

- satan unwrapped his present and seemed really excited to read it. mc suggested he read it for both of them when it's time to sleep.

asmodeus

- when mc told him about valentine's day he got very excited, i mean in a way he IS the avatar of love so this is his specialty.

- mc whoever told him that they don't want to go to a club again. mc told him what they had in mind and he got so so excited!!!

- asmodeus is probably the most artistic out the all his brothers so he really liked the idea of going on a picnic date to paint.

- they prepared together two baskets, one with food and another one with art supplies, asmo really liked this idea as it wasn't what he was used to. in his mind, people failed to realise that he was much more than a narcissistic horny person.

- this date cheered him up, and it made him feel truly loved. sure people loved his looks but no one seemed to care much about his personality so this made his heart beat a little faster, in a good way.

- they decided they would paint each other as a competition. asmo won and as a reward he asked mc for a kiss. mc gave him not one but three kisses, one on the forehead, one on the right cheek and a final one on the lips.

- after they finished with the picnic, asmo suggested they take a bath together. asmo started running bath and mc took all the dirty utensils and started washing them. once mc was done they went to asmo's bathroom and joined him in the bath.

- nothing naughty happened except asmo kept kissing mc's neck.

beelzebub

- he didn't know about valentine's day but when mc told him about he got pumped.

- mc told him they wanted to bake sweets with him to celebrate.

- mc had to warn him not to eat any of the ingredients before they started.

- beel tried his best not to eat the ingredients but he did eat some raw cookies. mc really did appreciate how hard he tried not eating anything so it was all good.

- once all those goods they baked were done, the two ate them. it was a really fun activity and beel really liked it.

- later during the day beel found some limited edition heart shaped chocolate in one of the shops that sell sweets like that. since beel was one of the best customers the shop owner gave him a few of those chocolates for free.

- beel came home excited and gave them to mc as they told him that that's how humans do it in the human realm.

- mc pulled him into a tight hug and told him that they should share the chocolates.

- they spent that night cuddling in mc's bed, beel laid down first, mc gave him three kisses one on each corner of his lips and one on the lips before laying down on beel's chest.

belphegor

- mc had been complaining the mattress in their room was too firm for their liking (belphie didn't like it either).

- since he knew about valentine's day he decided to get them (he was going to use it too obviously) a new mattress.

- he out of all people knows the best what is comfortable and what is not.

- he took mc mattress shopping for valentine's day, mc wasn't 100% okay with that however they were he had something in mind for the both of them to do.

- belphie took them there and started laying on every bed. he pretended to be asleep so mc would kiss him to wake up.

- though he did fall asleep a few times on the store, they eventually managed to find a mattress that was good enough for both.

- once it was time to put it on the bed, belphie left for a moment.

- he came back with his cow pillow. mc couldn't believe he was just going to sleep on a mattress without any sheets.

- "this is also your present"... "no it's not my pillow i just got you a matching one"

- mc also bought him a gift. it was a puffy body pillow with a cow print matching to his original pillow.

- once they made up the bed, belphie made mc use their new pillow and mc made belphie try out his new pillow. resulting the two in falling asleep while spooning each other.

(i don't even know if half of what i wrote makes sense it's 4:30 am and i have to wake up in a few hours i-)

[qqueenofhades]

The photo set you reblogged of Yusuf and Niccolo helping throughout time just filled me with so many happy feels and it made me realize that it seems so common in media with immortal couples that they take breaks from each other and reconnect after a few decades. Which is a great trope but seeing these two that seems to have been attached at the hip since the day they met just fills me with all the heart eyes.

(I haven't read your fanfics for them yet. I know I'm a bad fan but if it helps I havent been able to read anything since all this started but while writing this ask I got the feeling that all this rambling I spewed out is a big theme)

Hush. Bad fan nothing. We all are coping with this stupid, awful year in different ways, some of us by escaping into fandom and some of us being unable to engage with it and some of us doing both or anything else. You certainly don’t owe me or anyone any obligation to interact with our content, fic or otherwise. So just to have that there on the top. You’re good, hun. :)

ANYWAY, thank you for giving me a chance to meta a bit on the boys and their relationship and to have a window into what my brain looks like pretty much 24/7 these days. (I blame them.) I keep thinking about all the ways this couple is depicted in the TOG film and how lovely it was and how unusual it is for me to have an OTP where I actually love them in canon and don’t need to violently disavow it in order to create AU fan content with just the characters. (See: Timeless, Game of Thrones, pretty much any show I’ve hyperfixated on at some point.) I love AUs anyway, because that’s the way my brain works, but the fact that I can also enjoy canon just as much is rare for me and for a lot of us. I saw a post somewhere remarking on how the fanfic for Joe/Nicky isn’t fixing anything, which is usually the point of transformative fanworks: we take something that canon atrociously fucked up and fix it. But in this case, all our interpretations are based on actually appreciating the way they’re presented in canon and wanting to enjoy that and uphold it, and that -- especially with a couple like this one -- is shocking??

Like. Despite my historian gripes about the occasionally incongruous details for their graphic-novel backstories (which are the only things I HAVE fixed in my fics), I’m just... deeply appreciative of the care which everyone, writers and actors and all else, put into depicting Joe and Nicky and their relationship. And god YES, one of the things I love the absolute MOST is that they’re a loving, faithful, committed, happy married queer couple over centuries, and that seems to be the case for as long as they’ve known each other/ever since they got together. (See Booker’s “you and Nicky always had each other.”) These fools can’t sleep apart from each other even when they’re stuck on a freight train in the middle of nowhere, they flirt like teenagers at dinnertime and even when they’re strapped to gurneys in a mad-scientist laboratory, they make out to enrage bad guys and also because they’re just still that goddamn into each other after all this time.

I think it was Marwan Kenzari who pointed out that there’s simply no way to truly state the depth of their knowledge and devotion and commitment to each other. They’re 950 years old. They have known each other since they were in their thirties; they’ve been husbands for literal centuries. There is no way anyone else in the world could possibly come close to replicating the kind of bond they have with each other, and neither of them have ever had any inclination to look, because why would they? Especially with the fact that queer couples in media, even otherwise sympathetically portrayed ones, often have Drama and Third Parties and Promiscuity and whatever else (because of the tiresome old canard that Gays Equal Hypersexualized!), and Joe and Nicky don’t need or want ANY of that. There’s no urge to make their relationship a cheap source of soap-opera conflict. It’s the rock and the center and the core of both of their lives, and everything they do stems from that.

There have been some great metas/comments on how neither Joe and Nicky are sexualized, they dress like stay-at-home dads during quarantine (Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli are both objectively gorgeous men, and they’re out there looking like that, god bless), and the viewer is never invited to goggle at or fetishize their relationship. There are no leering or exploitative camera angles on anyone, and their expressions of love aren’t posed or intended to titillate the audience, they’re just solidly embodied and natural and lived in. It’s never bothered to be stated clunkily in dialogue that they’re a couple; we just see them exchanging looks and smiles in the early part of the film, and then we see them spooning on the train after the mission in Sudan, which confirms it.

At every turn, the narrative celebrates the kindness and love shared by the Immortal Family, the individual characters, and Joe and Nicky, especially and explicitly in queer form. The villains of the film are also defined by how they react negatively to that love. @viridianpanther​ had a great meta on how Keane as a villain is especially set up to menace Joe and Nicky as the narrative representation of toxic masculinity, aggressive heterosexuality, and the usual “Kill Your Gays” trope that we’ve all come to wearily expect. But instead, after that scene where Joe and Nicky fight Keane, Nicky is shot and comes back to life in Joe’s arms rather than dying permanently like we probably all momentarily expected, and then Joe gets to FUCKIN’ BREAK THE NECK of the guy who enacted that violence.... good GOD. The first time I watched it, I almost couldn’t believe it was happening. (This goes for the whole film, but especially that scene.) Like... when do we get that?? When do we EVER get that???

Obviously, there are so many stereotypes, whether visually or in behavior or character traits, that could have been assigned to a gay Italian character (excessively dramatic, effeminate, fashionable, etc) or a gay Arabic/Muslim character (explicitly announcing He’s Not Like Those Muslims, having to actively reject his heritage to make him more palatable to westerners, being tormented over being gay, etc) and Joe and Nicky subscribe to none of those. I get very emotional about Joe referring to Nicky as the moon when he is lost during the truck scene partly because it’s SUCH a common motif in Arabic love poetry. To call someone your “moon” is a beautiful way to say they’re the light of your life, and since the Islamic calendar is obviously lunar and the holidays, months, and observances, are set by the phases of the moon, this also has a deeper religious significance.

I don’t know for sure if they did that on purpose, but it it’s a lovely and subtle way of showing us how Joe clearly doesn’t have an issue with being both queer AND Muslim, and is able to draw on both facets of that identity in a way that a lesser narrative would have denied him. And that is just really wonderful. Yes, we’re seeing these characters when they’ve had centuries to settle into themselves, but there are plenty of writers who would have forced those conflicts artificially to the surface, rather than letting them be long in the past. It’s the same way when you watch a film set in the medieval era, it wants you to know that it Is Set In The Medieval Era. Cue the filth, misogyny, racism, violence, etc! Rather than it being a lived-in reality, it has to be jarringly drawn attention to, and I’m just so glad they didn’t do that with Joe and Nicky. And for them to have met in the crusades and fallen in love??! Come on. That’s just rude. Rude to me, personally.

Anyway, this was a rather long-winded and feelsy way of saying that these characters are constructed, acted, and written organically in such a way that you hate to even THINK of them being separated, and it’s not because they can’t function without each other, but because they are two halves of a whole. We also see that the characters themselves can’t stand being forced apart: Joe’s freakout in the truck scene when Nicky briefly won’t wake up, Nicky making sure to tell Joe that he’s glad he’s awake in the lab, the whole post-Keane fight scene that I talked about above, the way Nicky fights ferociously to get to Joe when Merrick’s stabbing him, etc. For that to be given to the queer couple, where the strength of their love and devotion is reinforced as one of the emotional goals of the story, and for that queer couple to be written in the way that Joe and Nicky are, both individually and as a unit, is just so very rare.

Because yes, there’s plenty of drama and angst and pain in their lives, but there’s none at all in their relationship, and that’s what fans keep telling TV writers the whole time: they WANT to see the couple confront things as a unit, rather than being kept on tenterhooks the whole time and forced to go through manufactured or artificial drama. It would feel especially wrong for Joe and Nicky, who have known and loved each other for 900 years. The fact that their respective actors also put so much care and love into them is very obvious, and makes me feel even luckier that they’re played by people who clearly get them and honor them and know what they’re doing.

Basically: of course Joe and Nicky have been with each other the whole time, and of course we’re all drowning in feelings over it, and I feel very blessed that this ship exists, and I very much need the sequel ASAP. Thanks.

[lovelylogans]

paper rings

i like shiny things, but i'd marry you with paper rings uh huh, that's right, darling you're the one I want i hate accidents except when we went from friends to this uh huh, darling, you're the one I want

part of the wyliwf verse.

ao3 | other fics on tumblr | coffee?

warnings: food mentions, underage drinking, drinking, slightly tipsy/drunk adults, proposal, complicated parental relationship, this one is really mostly just fluff y’all but please let me know if i’ve missed any!!!

pairings: moxiety, logince

words: 9,924

notes: okay. so, SOMEHOW, it is the first anniversary of me uploading the first chapter of where you lead, i will follow!!!!! i remember where i was when i uploaded the first chapter; i was studying abroad, and i thought that i may as well keep on writing during the trip, since i always keep writing, and this was the project i felt most passionate about, at the time. and now, a year later, the world certainly looks very different, and my life does, too. but this project is still going. i love this little universe, so much, and i’m so happy and proud and grateful that all of you keep reading it, and you’re cheering these characters along right beside me. so, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so very much for reading. and happy birthday to this little universe.

patton’s been basically vibrating with excitement since monday, and now that it’s actually friday michel’s banished him to his office because “your happiness is scaring the customers,” but patton can’t help it!!!!

it’s labor day weekend, starting today, which means at any minute logan’s going to be coming into town, straight from yale, his first time being home since he moved into his dorm about three weeks ago now, which means logan’s gonna be home!!!!!!!!!!! 

he’s due back in town any minute!!!!!! he’s going to be here for about four days!!!!! logan and roman are going to be in town for four! entire! days!

sure, patton has seen him at friday night dinners, but that’s not the same as him being home! patton can pester him about classes and how frequently he’s taking breaks and ask questions about how he’s settling in and any potential new friends, because sure, he and dee are roommates, but patton wants to ask questions about his other dorm roommates (suitemates? it’s technically suitemates, isn’t it?) because patton only got to see just a glimpse of them on move-in day, so he doesn’t really know much about them, and—

and patton has a lot of questions and a lot of things he wants to know, generally, and also, logan’s going to be here!!!!!

patton looks down at the paperwork on his desk, considering it.

yep. he cannot focus on this at all. it’s basically a lost workday, at this point. goodbye productivity, he hardly knew thee. it’s time to go and sneak downstairs under the guise of checking in on the guest’s dining room, but really to sneak a cup of coffee and maybe also a cookie.

he descends the stairs.

“no,” michel says, without looking up from the guestbook.

“i’m just checking on the dining room!” patton protests. “i’ll be out of your hair, in and out, you’ll barely even notice me.”

“too late,” michel says, then, “stop making that facial expression.”

“i’m smiling, michel,” patton teases. “i’m happy.”

michel grumbles something in french, and patton’s about to ask what he’s saying, when he hears the door open. he swivels to see—

logan.

he’s wearing the navy blue yale sweatshirt patton bought him when he made his college decision, part of the pack of “yay yale, go yale!” stuff patton had kind of went nuts on—he can see an unbuttoned shirt and a loosened tie underneath it, along with a pair of jeans and sneakers that host a couple of roman-penned doodles. he’s got cocoa’s leash wrapped around one hand, cocoa panting happily at his feet, and he’s holding onto the strap of his backpack with the other.

patton’s moving before he can even think about it; logan drops his backpack to the ground, and patton’s wrapping his son up in the biggest bear hug he can manage.

logan’s done growing now, and is still firmly stuck at taller than him, something that when he thinks about it too much still strikes him as strange and still makes him a little bit emotional. logan smells like the laundry detergent he and virgil bought in bulk for him, and something patton can’t quite pin down, maybe something Inherently Yale, and maybe he’ll never be able to pin it down, but patton crams down the wave of sadness at the idea of him and logan growing apart; kids grow up, that’s what they’re supposed to do, he reminds himself.

still. all of those complicated feelings aren’t quite enough to quell the wave of my baby’s home, my baby’s home!!!!!!! happiness and excitement that’s been building since logan mentioned over phone that he was going to come back to sideshire as soon as his friday class was over.

patton draws back, hands on logan’s shoulders, beaming.

“there’s my college-goin’ boy,” he teases. “how’ve you been, kiddo?!”

logan’s lips twitch up into a smile, and patton feels his heart swell up with fondness at the sight of it.

“good,” he says, then, “i have eaten basically nothing but dining hall pizza for three straight days.”

patton laughs, and claps him on the back. 

“very collegiate,” he quips. “i’ll keep the secret from virge, if you want. i’m assuming you’re probably not going to want pizza, then?”

“like grandma and grandpa will serve us pizza tonight,” he says, adjusting his grip on cocoa’s leash; patton reaches out a hand, and logan hands it over as he picks up his backpack.

“true, true,” he says, and reaches down to pet cocoa, because she’s butting up against his shins in a clear ploy for attention. “i know, yes, you’re a very good girl—well, clearly you’ve been by the house, do you want to hang out here or—?”

“please get him out of here,” michel shouts from the front desk, and patton pivots, holding up the leash. 

“but cocoa is here!” patton says teasingly. “you don’t wanna kick out cocoa, do you?”

cocoa wags her tail at the mention of her name. she loves michel; patton really doesn’t know why, but ever since patton had taken her to work for the first time, back when they were training her as a puppy and didn’t think she’d do well shut up at home all day, she’s always made a beeline straight for michel.

michel, also, is very much a dog person. he watches the westminster dog show religiously each year, and his two chows, paw-paw and chin-chin, probably eat better-quality food than patton’s parents. and ever since he’d discovered that cocoa’s part chow, well...

it’s moved him to look at least tempted to take back his continual askings for patton to get out.

“no, that’s okay,” logan says. “i was going to ask if we could stop by the diner, anyway?”

“hungry?” patton guesses, and smiles a bit when logan nods.

“didn’t have time to stop for lunch,” he admits sheepishly, and patton gasps, only a little jokingly.

“oh, well, we definitely have to get you right to virgil, then,” he says. “he’ll get you something nice and healthy and not dining hall pizza—we’re going now!” he calls to michel.

“good riddance,” michel says, perhaps a bit less enthusiastically than he would have if it was just patton and logan, and if cocoa wasn’t part of the deal.

patton’s about to head over to the inn’s parking lot, but logan says, “can we walk?”

“oh! yeah, sure!” he says. “wanna see the town, huh?”

“just—cocoa,” logan says awkwardly, and moves to take back cocoa’s leash. “and it’s, um. nice out today. have you taken your allergy medicine?”

“yes, no sneezing because of pollen from me,” patton says, not to be deterred, “and you missed the town?”

logan grumbles something, and then moves to check his phone, and patton directs his grin out toward the inn’s grounds.

it’s that sweet point between summer and fall, where all the sweltering heat and humidity has died down, but the fall chill hasn’t quite crept in yet; the leaves and grass are all still green, the sky still a perfect shade of cloudless blue, but there’s a slight breeze that tempers any of the heat of the bright sunshine. 

it is very nice out today.

it’s the perfect backdrop for a walk with his son and his dog; cocoa eagerly plants her nose against the ground and spends most of the walk sniffing every little plant, weed, and patch of grass she can find, while he asks logan all about classes and dorm life and how his first quizzes and papers went; he knows most of this, from their daily phone calls, but it’s still very nice to hear logan say it without the distortion of the phone’s speaker.

it’s probably good that they’re treading old ground, conversation-wise, because people keep stopping them on the sidewalk. 

dot and larry beam at logan and patton. babette and morey stop in the middle of a walk to enthuse over the pair of them. emile’s walking toward remy aserinsky’s café, and clasps his hands together and gushes over them. mrs. torres nearly starts crying at the sight of the pair of them. 

patton guesses people are really happy to have logan back in town? which, like, fair, he doesn’t blame them, not one bit. logan’s the best, and his absence has been keenly felt during all sorts of town activities; mayor porter had even stopped him after the last town meeting, bemused, holding out a paper of pr-perfected answers that always frustrated logan about needing to include, asking where on earth logan was, he’d usually emailed the mayor’s office three times to get these answers.

except the occasional visitor seems like it’s almost nothing, when they approach the main square of town; there’s a veritable crowd.

patton, bemused, looks around at them: his neighbors, the business-owners in town, even a few of his workers—it’s like half the town has turned out, and patton turns to logan.

“is it a holiday or something?”

“hm?” logan asks, distracted by making sure cocoa doesn’t tangle her leash around a telephone poll.

“it’s just,” patton says, and jerks his chin out toward the crowd. logan seems to catch sight of all of them, and his eyes narrow, just for a moment, before his facial expression smooths back over into indifference.

“it’s not a holiday, to my knowledge,” logan says. “but who knows, with taylor involved?”

patton acknowledges this with a slight laugh. “i bet it’s double-coupon day at the store, or something. i can never keep track of all the promotional deals that he puts on. i haven’t seen any posters for festivals or anything.”

“that’s probably it,” logan agrees, still somehow distracted by cocoa, who has long since freed herself. 

they draw closer to the diner, and his son lets out a laugh, and surges forward, and runs to hug a familiar face, also grinning from ear to ear.

“roman!”

patton watches roman rush forward, wrapping his arms around logan’s waist and picking him up off the ground, spinning him around with the force of his hug, and he can’t help but smile when he hears logan laugh; to patton’s knowledge, this is the first time they’ve seen each other since they went off to school.

“my love!” roman enthuses, setting logan on the ground but keeping his hands wrapped around his waist, “mi querido, my beloved, oh, i have missed you—”

“i’ve missed you too,” logan admits, barely above a whisper, and as patton’s politely averting his eyes from them kissing, that’s when he notices something strange.

the curtains are drawn.

virgil never draws the curtains, not even when they’re closing at night. the last time patton can remember that happening is when they painted the diner, nearly two years ago.

and there’s a CLOSED FOR BUSINESS, ONLY OPEN FOR DANES, SANDERS’, AND PRINCES on the door.

“do you think virgil’s doing something at the diner?” patton asks logan and roman, who have stopped kissing, but they’re holding hands.

“what?” he says.

patton gestures to the curtains.

“oh,” logan says. “maybe you should go in and check.”

“if he’s doing something—”

“he would have deliberated it for months at a time and argued the pros and cons with you,” logan says pointedly. “i barely managed to convince him to re-upholster the seats a couple summers ago, remember?”

patton does. “but still—”

“he specified that it’s open for us, go check,” roman insists, at a pitch barely below a squeal, and so patton slowly opens the door to the cheerful jangle of the bell.

and he’s overwhelmed by yellow.

there are bundles, heaps, mountains of yellow daisies; crowded in every booth, sitting at the center of every table, fighting for space among candles that definitely weren’t there before, clustered around the feet of the table. there’s the biggest daisy chains that patton’s ever seen, ringing the diner’s ceiling, brushing against the pride flags behind the counter, and pots of daisies sitting in every chair, every booth. 

patton pivots slowly, trying to take it all in—daisies bundled up in mugs, daisies twining pillars, bouquets of daisies tucked into every spare surface, every spare nook or cranny, soft instrumental music that patton definitely knows, even if he’s never heard this particular version of it—and he knows, he knows something big is going on here, hovering just at the edge of his brain but refusing to click, and he hears footsteps, turning to see.

virgil’s stepped out of the kitchen, through a clearly designated path from all the daises, there’s so many daisies, and smiles at patton.

“hey,” he says softly.

“hey,” patton breathes out. “what’s—” he struggles for a word, still trying to search for what this is, what the sense of déjà vu is—“all this?”

virgil smiles at him. there’s something nervous, in his face, making his smile a little awkward, and virgil wipes his hands on his jeans. he’s wearing the homemade hoodie, the one virgil wears most often, the one patton loves best, and his dark outfit looks strangely out of place in all this brightness, these florals, all this cheerful yellow.

he has That Look on his face, the soft one, the loving one, that always makes patton feel like he’s melting into a sentimental, happy little puddle of goo.

“so, turns out,” virgil says, “a thousand yellow daisies sounds super impressive, but once i got them all piled in here i decided i needed, like, way more, so i’m pretty sure i’ve bankrupted the east coast out of all the yellow daisies it’s got.”

“i’m sure you did,” patton says breathlessly. 

virgil’s smile quirks at the edges. “you don’t remember?”

“i—”

“i mean, you were pretty specific, but i don’t blame you, it was eighteen years ago,” he says. “and you were kind of preoccupied with a lot of other things, it being logan’s first christmas eve and all the rest of everything going on, back then.”

and then, very suddenly, it clicks.

“ but proposals… that’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, right? it should be planned. it should be magical... it should be—it should be more. there should be music playing and romantic lighting and a subtle buildup to the popping of the questions. there should be a—a thousand yellow daisies, and candles, and—and more than just an oh, i guess.”

“oh,” patton breathes. all of a sudden, he feels very dizzy, and very warm, and the thoughts in his head could really only be described as the sound a kettle makes when water comes to a boil.

“yeah,” virgil says, “so” and he slowly gets down on one knee. patton is distantly aware of some clicking sounds.

“virgil,” patton says thickly, vision already blurring with tears, even as virgil smiles up at him, removing a small velvet box from his hoodie’s pocket.

virgil clears his throat, but it doesn’t stop his voice from sounding rough as he begins, “when i first thought about us being married—” 

patton can’t help but let out a choked noise, somewhere between a sob and a laugh of sheer delight. married. married!!!!!!!!!

“—i thought that maybe this part would happen like how we’d moved in together; we’d slowly come to the realization, and figure out that we’ve basically been married the whole time, and maybe go off and elope, with the kids in tow. 

“but then, well, i kind of remembered something you said, and i realized i agree. this—us—it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. you are a once-in-a-lifetime thing. you and logan and roman—the family that you’ve helped make and bring me into—that’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, one that i cherish, so so much. you let me into your life, you let me be a parent to your son, our son, and i can’t—i can’t thank you enough. for everything that you’ve done for me. i don’t know who i’d be without you in my life, and i don’t ever want to find out.”

patton sniffles, and hastily reaches his fingers to swipe at his eyes under his glasses, because virgil’s going blurry, and he doesn’t want to miss this. he doesn’t want to miss a single second.

“you deserve the—the big romantic gestures, with the daisies, and the candles, and the music, and wedding with cake and cookies and flowers and dancing and—and everything you want, i’ll try my best to give it to you, because you deserve—” virgil’s voice breaks, and he clears his throat. 

“you deserve everything, anything, that i can give. you deserve the very best in life. you’ve been through so much, and you’re the strongest person i know, and i just—you deserve everything good in life, everything you want, and, for whatever reason, somehow, you’ve chosen that you want me, and—and i’m so grateful for that, for you, every day, and i want to show you that, and i want to give that to you, because i love you.”

“i love you too,” patton manages to squeak out. his cheeks are wet, and aching.

“so,” virgil says, drawing himself up as straight as possible, cracking open the ring box, and patton lets out another sobbing laugh, like he’s so full of joy he can’t help but let it escape his body somehow, “patton thomas sanders. i adore you. i love you more than anything in the world. i—i am not sure how many times i can communicate i love you, i feel like i don’t have words big enough for how i feel about you, but. i want to spend the rest of our lives trying. will you marry me?”

“yes,” patton bursts out the millisecond the question’s fully out of virgil’s mouth, “oh, my goodness, yes, yes, a thousand-million times yes, virgil—”

virgil breaks into a relieved smile, and he fumblingly removes the ring from the box and catches patton’s hand, his own hand shaking. he holds onto patton’s hand to steady himself—or steady patton, patton thinks he might be shaking too—and carefully slides the ring onto his finger.

it fits perfectly.

patton lets out another sobbing laugh at the sight of it, the ring on his finger, they’re engaged, they’re going to get married, and virgil rises to his feet, smiling the biggest patton’s ever seen him, and—

“oh,” patton sobs out, and pats down his pockets, even if he knows full well he doesn’t have it. “oh, this is so silly, it would be so much more romantic if i had it on me—”

logan clears his throat.

patton had nearly forgotten he was there, but he whirls, and—

and logan’s smiling, just a little, but his eyes are wet enough that patton can tell he’s emotional over this, too; roman’s clasping his hands to his chest, practically bouncing up and down, clearly just barely holding in every comment he could possibly make.

and logan’s holding a camera in one hand, and the black velvet box that patton’s been hiding in his knitting supplies since logan helped him pick it out in the other.

“oh,” patton says, beaming. logan knew, logan knew about this, logan knew and he went by the house to get the ring box for him, and patton loves him, so so much, and he leans in and rocks onto his tip-toes to kiss his son on the forehead before he takes the ringbox from him, and spins to present it to virgil, opening it—

and virgil laughs, and this time he’s the one who’s crying, and patton can’t help but laugh, too, opening the box.

“virgil—”

“yes,” he says immediately, smiling so big, and patton is so in love with him, and patton lets out a messy, sobbing laugh.

"can i ask?”

“oh! sorry, sorry—”

“marry me?” and “yes” leaves virgil’s lips as soon as he asks, and patton manages to slide the ring onto virgil’s finger, and virgil immediately cups patton’s face in his hands and leans down for a kiss.

and cocoa’s barking at their feet, knowing that something’s going on and excited to get in on it, and he can hear the clicking sounds of logan taking pictures, and roman is hollering behind them.

and everything is perfect.

⁂

virgil feels so jittery with happiness that he thinks he might vibrate to another plane of existence.

patton had scooped up a discarded daisy chain fashioned it into a flower crown that’s nestled in the midst of his curls, and every time he looks at virgil he bursts into delighted laughter, eyes crinkling up with a smile, and he’s adorable, and virgil is so lucky, feeling the urge to reach out and touch patton, just to make sure that it’s all real.

they’re engaged. patton said yes. patton had also been planning on proposing.

virgil thumbs the ring on his finger—still new to him, even with the retro look it’s got going for it, still something to get used to, but the metal’s already warm. it’s fairly simple: a gold band with a single diamond inlaid in some kind of silver rectangle, flush set, ‘cause i read that lots of little stones are bad when you work with food, since you don’t wanna get anything lost in the dough and stuff, patton had explained, and then he’d bitten his lip and asked do you like it? as if that was even remotely in the realm of possibility, as if virgil could not like the engagement ring that patton got him to symbolize their commitment to each other for forever.

virgil had tried asking patton the same thing, though, and patton had spun his gold band around his finger—well, it looked more like two gold bands joined around several small diamonds—and said “you silly goose, of course i love it” so virgil figures that their emotions are the same on this particular subject.

they’re alone, just for a bit; roman and logan had dashed off to get the champagne that roman had apparently badgered his mother into buying for them on his behalf, so they’re sitting together on the floor of the diner, surrounded by their thousands of yellow daisies.

“i just,” virgil says, and fiddles with the ring on his finger, before looking at patton. “we’re almost married.”

patton giggles, leaning forward to press their foreheads together. “we are,” he agrees.

“i love you,” virgil says, giddy and almost a little helpless, because he couldn’t think to say anything else, he couldn’t think of words big enough, but—but patton knows that. he’d told him.

patton twines his fingers into virgil’s hair, and pulls him in for a kiss.

patton is an exceptional kisser; virgil has known this for years. but apparently, they get exceptionally clumsy when the pair of them are beaming so widely that they can barely even move their lips together, and they keep trying until patton laughs and virgil breathes it in, lightheaded with the euphoria of all of it, and they break apart.

“we’re so happy we can’t even kiss right,” patton howls with laughter, which gets virgil to start laughing, which means the pair of them are cackling like hyenas at each other as the bell jangles, roman calling out “who wants champaaaagne?!”

virgil tries to explain, but he catches sight of patton, flower crown gone askew from their kissing attempt, which just sets him off again.

logan sighs “dads” at them, which makes virgil even happier, which turns to him grinning even wider which means he’s laughing louder, and roman rolls his eyes at logan, grinning, looping an arm through his.

“they’re happy,” roman says.

“overjoyed,” patton offers, grinning.

“elated,” virgil tacks on.

“ecstatic,” a voice says, which is when he notices ms.—isadora, right, she’d told him to call her isadora, but it took a lot to break eighteen years of habit—and he and patton scramble to their feet.

after a pause, logan adds, reluctantly, because he cannot resist a word association game, “jouissant.”

“ooh, good one,” patton says. “that’s a ten dollar word right there, look at what you’re learning off at college!”

“from the french,” isadora says. she’s holding the champagne bottle awkwardly; virgil had learned on the day after both logan and roman moved to college the amount of times she had drunk alcohol could have been counted on one hand, then, but after that day it was escalated to two. patton moves to take it from her, looking at virgil, clearly about to ask for—

“i don’t have champagne glasses,” virgil realizes.

patton says, “i think mugs’ll work, it’s not like we’re going for class, here.”

virgil acknowledges that with a shrug, and, after checking with isadora, goes to gather five mugs. 

patton’s the one to pop the champagne, and virgil quickly moves to put a mug underneath it to catch anything fizzing over—he just mopped these floors, before all the daisies had come in—and patton splashes a generous amount into it.

they end up splitting the bottle among five mugs, and roman lifts his, clearing his throat.

“to virgil and patton!” he declares. “we have seen this coming since i was five—”

patton elbows him jokingly, grinning.

“—and we wish you all the best together,” roman finishes. “salut!”

“salut,” they all echo, clacking their mugs together in a chaotic rendition of cheers, and patton smiles at up at him.

“aren’t we supposed to link arms or something?” virgil asks him an undertone, and patton’s smile widens.

“save it for the wedding,” he says, in the same undertone, with a sly grin that he barely hides with his sip of champagne, and virgil has to hide the silly grin that springs onto his face with his own sip of the bubbly, sweet champagne.

isadora sips at her mug with all the delicate class that he should have expected, but it’s still kind of funny to watch her lift her pinky and sip demurely out of a gaudy SIDESHIRE PRIDE PARADE branded mug, which has more rainbows on it than possibly anything else virgil owns.

roman breaks off with patton to start making his own daisy chain, and they tug logan to join them, too, so that leaves isadora and virgil standing alone together.

“congratulations,” she offers quietly, and virgil smiles at her.

“thank you,” he says, equally soft, touched.

a pause, and then, “remus would be thrilled.”

theres a prick of bittersweetness near his heart; not nearly enough to puncture the happiness, but enough to twist his smile, just a little bit.

“he’d try to pull a carrie at my wedding,” he says, and isadora smiles. it’s a very nice smile, one that he almost never sees.

“part of the reason he’d be thrilled,” isadora agrees. “still. regardless. he should be here congratulating you.” a pause, a sip of champagne, before she says, “he would be proud of you. as am i.”

virgil swallows down the sudden lump in his throat.

remus had, almost always, relentlessly teased him, on the rare occasions he’d had dates as a teenager. the baby’s growing uuuuup! he’d croon, and then proceed to attempt to sabotage him, “lovingly,” with something that virgil could easily undo, but something that would distract him from any mounting anxiety over a date. 

he thinks remus and patton would have eventually gotten along. it would have been a rocky road, to be sure, but. they probably would have bonded over fatherhood, over their sons being friends. maybe because virgil cared deeply about both of them. he’ll never know, though.

“thanks, izzy-dory,” he says.

isadora’s smile has its own bitter quirk to it, at the re-emergence of a nickname that no one but remus had had the bravery to use on her; but, somehow, it isn’t sad, even as they’re remembering their own shared grief.

because she’s right. remus would be thrilled.

⁂

patton feels like he’s filled up with helium and he keeps bursting into peals of laughter at absolutely nothing at all.

virgil had taken over driving, like he usually did when he came to friday night dinners. they’re a bit late, patton’s sure, because when he and virgil were changing into their suits patton kept giggling, because they’re almost married, and then he got distracted by trying to kiss virgil again, so—

so, they’re a bit late, but he got engaged today, sue him.

virgil’s holding his hand, the other one on the steering wheel.

“i wonder how they’re gonna react,” patton muses, because, well, it shouldn’t exactly be a surprise, they moved in together a while ago and patton’s been pretty gosh-darn clear that virgil’s gonna be the one he’s spending the rest of his life with. he really hopes they aren’t gonna be too... well. them about it.

virgil says, “i did ask your dad about a family ring, a while ago—”

“oh, shoot,” patton says, turning to face him. “i totally didn’t think to do that!”

“essie got the family ring,” virgil says reassuringly, “so you didn’t miss anything, there isn’t a male family ring, as far as i know, but—but they had some forewarning, at least.”

“well, good,” patton says decisively. “they’re gonna be happy about this, okay? they’re gonna pop open some cristal and say congratulations and they are gonna like it.”

“that’s the spirit,” logan says dryly from the backseat.

“that it is,” patton says, and squeezes virgil’s hand. “anyway, logan, you’re home! do you have anything you wanna do over the weekend?”

logan considers this, before he says, “virgil told me he was planning this for this weekend, so—”

patton turns slightly. “you did?”

virgil shrugs. “i knew you’d want lo to be there.”

patton beams, and presses a kiss to virgil’s knuckles. 

“roman was planning on something tomorrow with all of us,” logan continues, “but otherwise—i think the regular things. the bookstore, the press, the diner.”

“roman’s planning something, huh?” virgil says warily.

logan smiles, and doesn’t say anything else. virgil grumbles to himself.

“he’s a journalist, he knows how to keep secrets,” patton says, and, teasingly, “especially if they’re from his boyyyy-frieeeeend.”

logan mumbles something under his breath, turning ever-so-slightly red, and patton grins.

they end up plotting out a loose plan for logan’s weekend: a shopping spree of all the latest books at the bookstore, topping up any school supplies logan might have forgotten at home, doing the laundry logan had hauled back from yale, and an investigation of the library’s most recent shipment, hanging out with roman, and lots of diner food.

they pull up to the sanders’ house, and patton takes a deep breath, squeezing virgil’s hand one last time before he gets out of the car.

as soon as he walks closer, virgil immediately laces their fingers back together, squeezing.

“if you want, if they end up turning on us, we can go,” he says, in a low voice. “this day’s for us, right?”

“right,” patton says, and lets out his breath. “and who even says that they’ll react bad anyway?”

virgil doesn’t answer that—probably a good choice on his part, since he’s most likely already overthinking and patton is nervous enough—and logan knocks on the door.

his mother opens it.

“finally, you’re here,” she says, and they file in after her.

“sorry we’re late,” patton says, smiling, “we got a bit held up.”

she sighs. “well, nothing to do to fix it, then—come in, come on, would you like a drink?”

“um,” patton says, “well—”

“now?” virgil says in an undertone.

they enter the living room, where his dad’s already fixing himself a scotch at the drinks table.

“why not?” patton says, equally quiet; if we don’t, they’ll be upset we didn’t say right away, patton tries to communicate with his eyes, and virgil seems to understand, squeezing his hand.

“hello, logan,” his dad says, turning. “how’s yale?”

“busy,” logan says. 

“hey, dad, why don’t you come over and sit down?” patton offers. “we, um, we have some news.”

richard and emily exchange a glance, before they sit on the couch together.

“what?” his mother says, turning to face them.

“it’s, um,” patton says, and makes the mistake of looking over at virgil, who is giving him That Look which makes his heart burst into butterflies and he can’t help but giggle, “well—”

“we, um,” virgil says, trying to help, but he can’t help smiling, too, and patton covers their held hands with his own—hiding his ring from view, coincidentally.

“oh, my god, you didn’t,” his mother says, aghast.

patton blinks, and virgil squeezes his hands harder. “didn’t what?”

“oh, my god, you did,” she says, a look of horror blooming across her face.

“now, emily—” richard says.

“you eloped!” his mother fumes, slamming his hands on the couch cushion and standing, and patton yelps out “mom!”

“i knew it, i knew you’d do anything to keep me out of your wedding!” she rants. 

“mom, that’s not—”

“well, that is just cruel, patton,” she continues, overriding his attempt to intervene, moving to begin to pace, “a mother waits and plans for this day, even your mother, and tonight you just waltz in here—”

“we’re engaged,” patton bursts out. “we didn’t elope, i mean—well, we’re going to get married. in the future. since we’re fiancés now.”

his mother stops in her tracks.

“oh.”

she slowly sinks down to the couch.

“mom...?” he prompts, because he can’t really interpret the look on her face right now.

“who proposed?” she says.

“i proposed, but he had a ring too,” virgil says.

“it was very romantic,” patton says, and he can’t help but smile at virgil, all soft and silly. 

“i was there, it’s true, he was very romantic,” logan confirms.

“oh,” richard says, attempting to blink off whatever whiplash must come from expecting your son to have eloped only to figure out he’s gone about the thing properly, for once. “well, congratu—”

“when’s the date?”

“oh,” patton says, caught off guard, and looks at virgil. “um—”

“the venue, the florist, the registry?”

“we got engaged today, mom,” patton tries to point out.

“i know that in a million years, you would never let me plan your wedding,” his mother starts, sounding a little wistful, and oh, no.

“um, mom—” patton begins, because. well, he’d expected the “differing social classes,” protest, he’d expected the “he’s not well-educated enough” protest, he’d expected, maybe, the “we revoke every little thing we’ve done to signify approval,” protest, or maybe even “we will start openly attempting to sabotage your relationship now.”

he hadn’t expected the mother-of-the-groom version of bridezilla. mother-in-law-zilla, maybe?

“i gave up on that dream a long time ago,” his mother continues, putting on the full, oh, what could have been, i miss that dream so face. emotional manipulation, emotional manipulation, he chants to himself, trying his best to summon emile’s voice. “yours was going to be a russian winter theme—the romanovs.”

huh. that sounded strangely familiar, but patton couldn’t put a finger on it; his brain’s been doing that a lot today.

“before the firing squad or after?” logan asks, in a blank, studious tone that only barely masks the sarcasm, and virgil just barely manages to stifle his snort. patton elbows him in the side.

“snow white roses, trees with white lights and candles, snow everywhere—”

oh, well, that doesn’t sound too—

“—you arriving in a silver sleigh with white horses...”

aaaaaaaand there it is.

“wow,” patton manages to get out, and she deflates.

“you hate the idea.”

“no, it just—” patton says, and struggles with how to put this delicately. “it doesn’t seem very... us, mom.”

“yes, well, it would have been beautiful,” she sniffs. “what will it be now? burgers and fries for the dinner? you walking down the aisle with a ketchup dispenser in hand?”

“hey,” patton says, a little sterner. 

“i dunno, pat, a diner wedding could be cool,” virgil says jokingly.

“what do you think of the romanovs?” his mother says, giving virgil her most withering stare.

“they probably had it coming,” he says, stone-faced, and patton elbows him again, a little harder.

“happy day,” patton says, and looks at his mother. “let’s celebrate the engagement now, and leave all the wedding planning for later.”

frankly, it had probably been kind of naive to assume that his mother wouldn’t try his best to butt her way into wedding planning; she had gone into raptures about the potential of his debutante gowns and future outfits enough when he was younger to ohhhh he’d forgotten about the wedding talks. that’s where he’d heard all the talk about the romanovs.

well. at least it isn’t a bad reaction, he figures.

“yes, yes,” richard says. “ah—champagne?”

“yes!” patton says eagerly, ready to get past his mother attempting to worm her way into wedding planning. “yes, let’s—let’s do champagne!”

“elsa!” his mother calls, then, undeterred, “you know, it’s tradition for parents to help pay and plan for the wedding, and if we could just get in touch with your aunt celine, i bet most of your father’s side of the family—”

“small wedding, mom,” patton says, “we’re probably going to want a small wedding.”

he glances at virgil. “right?” he checks.

“yes, small wedding, absolutely,” he confirms. “my family, your family, the town—”

“the town constitutes a small wedding,” his mother says, doubtfully.

“we were talking about champagne!” patton says quickly, as elsa comes into the room. “um, elsa, can i go help you find champagne flutes, preferably until my mother exhausts this topic of conversation?”

“you’re doomed,” logan says, and patton tries his best to glare at him.

he can’t really manage it, though. 

because, well. he can’t really blame his mom. he’s very excited about his wedding, too.

patton decides to take this as a win, even if he knows he’s going to spend the rest of his evening trying to dissuade his mother from throwing money at their wedding.

⁂

“okay, spin, twirl,” roman says.

virgil sighs, but does so, awkwardly; he’s wearing a purple flannel and a pair of black jeans, very regular for him. like, not very fashionably forward of him, but very regular. roman surveys him, squinting.

“since when do you need to do outfit approval for an outing?” virgil grumbles.

“since always,” roman says happily, before he smooths his hands over virgil’s shoulders; he supposes the whole thing is semi-formal—he’s wearing a white top tucked into a red skater skirt, which he guesses passes for cute but semi-casual. “okay, but, hang on, what if—”

“how many times have i told you i don’t want a makeover,” virgil says wearily.

“and how many times have i listened?” roman says. “it’s not even that much, anyway, just—” 

he digs out a jacket that pairs well with it, a black one, one that at least takes virgil’s outfit to i threw it on to i at least attempted to plan, which virgil shrugs on with a sigh, and roman immediately sticks his fingers in virgil’s hair.

“hey—”

“i’m not even doing that much,” roman says, correcting virgil’s bangs, before stepping back. “okay, now you’re set.”

“finally,” virgil grumbles. “why don’t you do this to patton and logan?”

“because patton is very set on his sense of dad-fashion and logan at least has some kind of officious-looking thing going for him,” roman says. “you are just helplessly grunge.”

virgil rolls his eyes, but gestures for roman to go ahead. roman skips down the stairs, catching logan’s hand, because they’re together, in the same space, where roman can touch him and not just see his face over grainy video call.

“hi,” roman says, and presses a kiss to his cheek. “ready to go?”

logan smiles at him; unlike patton and virgil, he knows exactly what’s going on.

“we all are,” logan confirms. 

“right!” patton says brightly. “what’d you have in mind, kiddo?”

“you’ll see,” roman says, instead of stating an elaborately crafted cover story he’s sure he could come up with on the spot—virgil not knowing what’s going on means he won’t be super surprised when roman leads him to, well. the thing.

he keeps a tight hold on logan’s hand as they walk, swinging it between them. they hadn’t really gotten to spend a lot of time together yesterday, with the engagement and logan’s grandparents and all, so roman is absolutely planning on capitalizing on logan time when everyone else is occupied. 

it’s an easy walk, from patton’s house to town; the weather’s still really nice, and the breeze feels nice on his legs, and logan’s hand is cool in his, and the closest thing he has to dads are behind them, trying to be subtle about their reinvigorated lovebird honeymoon phase but failing miserably.

roman squeezes logan’s hand. “so, my big yale man—”

“nickname denied,” logan says.

“all right, eli-logan—”

“slightly better,” logan says, then, “wait, you researched yale nicknames?”

“of course i did, that’s four years worth of new material there,” roman says. “so, anyway, i have news for you.”

“news?” logan says, startled.

“um, yeah,” roman says. “i asked my mom and caught up on all the taylor gossip, i bet you could write an exposé over thanksgiving break. so, i’ve got common knowledge, and town meeting stuff, and apparently my mom’s got some info for you, so i managed to get her to tell me that so you know everything before everyone else—”

a little smile breaks out on logan’s face, and he leans in to press a kiss to roman’s cheek.

roman blinks at him, but smiles. “what was that for?”

“just,” logan says, and he smiles wider. “you look very pretty today.”

roman preens; he did put extra effort into his hair, and he’s wearing a bit of makeup, a fun little glitter look on his eyes, and he usually wears skirts on special occasions, he used to wear them more when he was a kid; he borrowed this one from charlotte.

this skirt would be pretty short on him, if it weren’t for the fact this skirt is too big for her. most ballet women are tiny; charlotte’s 5′5″, and she’s the tallest of his new friends. 

“well,” roman says, and preens even more obviously, so that logan will laugh. “obviously.”

logan’s laugh buoys him all the way to the point where they’re nearly to the town square, and he can hear the rush of noise, and music.

“what’s going on?” patton says curiously.

“well,” roman says slyly, and moves aside. “go and see.”

patton breaks into a smile, probably remembering the last time that roman told him to go see something.

“roman,” virgil starts, and they turn just in time to see.

the town square’s decked out with all the yellow daisies that virgil had used to propose, and a banner that says PATTON AND VIRGIL’S ENGAGEMENT PARTY, and the gazebo’s twined with blue and purple ribbons and there’s stacks of presents, and there’s a cheer that comes from people gathered: his mom, and a ton of girls who go to the dance studio, and mrs. torres, and emile and remy, and dot and larry, and babette and morey, and even taylor, all here for—

“what’s all this?” patton says, delighted.

“well,” roman says. “since i’m a poor college student and couldn’t exactly afford an elaborate engagement present, i figured i’d do the next best thing and give you an engagement party.”

“roman,” virgil says.

“i—i made it so that there’s music, and dancing, and food and stuff,” roman says, gesturing vaguely, “so even if it’s a party for you, the attention won’t always be on you, since i know how you feel about—”

he gets cut off, though, because virgil cuffs him gently around the head and pulls him in for a sidehug.

“you’re a good kid, roman,” he says, gruffly, and roman can’t help but smile. he feels like his heart is glowing, from the happy look on patton’s face, to the outward expression of fondness from virgil, to the way logan’s looking at him all proud like he’s doing something super special.

“well, duh,” roman says, like he isn’t grinning so big that he’s sure it’s messing up his makeup. “go on, go, it’s time for the party!”

and so virgil goes to patton, who takes his hand and drags him straight for the throne-like chairs that are set up for them to start opening their presents, and logan bumps up against his shoulder.

“i still can’t believe you did this,” he says quietly; they’ve been facetiming a lot so logan could help plan it, so it’s not like this party is news to him.

roman shrugs, and leans into logan’s side in a blatant ploy; logan obliges him, and wraps an arm around roman’s shoulders.

“well,” he says. “they’re important to me, too. i wanted to do something special.”

logan presses a kiss to his temple, and says, “wanna get some cake?”

“hell yeah,” roman says, and so they go and get in line to get some cake.

⁂

the sun has set, there are twinkling lights on, the music is playing, the party is still going fairly strong, and logan sways to the music.

this mostly has to do with roman dragging him out to dance, and he’s obliged, mostly because of how happy it makes roman, how excited he gets, how beautiful he looks.

roman’s hair is sweaty and has long since become a bit more of a wreck than it originally was. the glitter around his eyes has smeared a little, and his sweat catches the light, making him gleam and glow in a way that is unfairly attractive, for his version of being a sweaty mess.

he’s never, ever going to be as good a dancer as roman—for one, he hasn’t been training for nearly fifteen years—but he’s perfectly content to dance with hm, so long as he can see roman look this great, be this happy.

the song ends, and roman whoops, putting his hands up in the air, before he fans at his face.

“want a breather?”

“yes,” logan says gratefully. he runs fairly frequently, but he also isn’t nearly as in shape with roman (again, training for nearly fifteen years) and his feet ache.

roman grins at him, grabbing his hand so that he could drag logan out of the crowd, and logan follows along, trusting roman’s sense of direction in a crowd far better than his own.

they pop out somewhere near the beverage table, and logan spies, somewhere deeper in the crowd, his dad trying to twirl virgil around and virgil awkwardly ducking his arm, to gales of laughter from his dad.

“they’re happy,” logan notes.

“yeah,” roman says. then, “do you think sookie’ll kill me if i steal this bottle of champagne for us?”

logan glances over at roman, who’s grinning, and holding up a recently-opened and not-very-depleted bottle of champagne.

“it’ll be worth it,” logan decides, and roman giggles, before taking logan by the hand again, dragging him to the exact place that logan expected.

they settle on the steps of the gazebo, stretching out their legs and beholding the crowd. roman sighs, pleased, and logan tries his best not to stare at roman’s tanned thighs and the way they look in that skirt.

he has been doing that quite a bit today.

“champagne, my good sir?” roman says, mockingly officious, and logan blinks.

“we forgot to grab glasses.”

“well,” roman says, and takes a swig directly from the bottle, before offering it to logan. “i’m pretty sure you don’t have cooties, and if we do, we’ve definitely cross-infected each other by now.”

“well, who knows what kind of super-cooties you could have picked up in new york,” logan says, and tries his own swig; he’s less practiced than roman, and he gets a near-painful mouthful of fizz and bubbles that makes him cough, just a little.

“a joke!” roman says, thumping him gently on the back. “college really has taught you things.”

logan rolls his eyes, and bumps his shoulder against roman’s.

they technically both got drunk for the first time at the same time; patton had offered his house for it—you’ll both probably get offered to drink at college, and i want you to try it somewhere where you know you’re safe just in case, all right? patton had said, and so they’d drank candy-flavored drinks in glass bottles and roman had tried to experiment with bartending and they’d kissed a little but logan’s pretty sure that he’d fallen asleep in the middle of it, because the next thing he remembered was waking up with a dry mouth, draped over roman, on the floor of the living room.

he hasn’t drunk very much since; unsurprisingly, roman likes parties more than logan does.

they swap the bottle back and forth in mostly companionable silence, watching the party go on; patton and virgil get champagne flutes clanged at them a few times, making them lean in and kiss each other to cheers from the crowd; the music rumbles on, and roman dances in place, singing along quietly; they watch emile and remy dance, and kirk’s bizarre arm-flailing that might pass as dancing.

logan feels warm, and pleasant, and a little floaty, and he turns to rest his head on roman’s shoulder.

“this is nice,” he says.

“yeah?” roman says, amused.

“i—this is really nice,” he says earnestly, and roman snorts, adjusting so that he can cup logan’s chin in his hand and examine his face.

“are you tipsy?”

“moderately, i think,” logan admits, and roman throws back his head to laugh, before cupping logan’s face in both his hands.

“you’re adorable,” roman teases, and he leans in to kiss him.

logan hums happily into his mouth, leaning into it as much as he can. he’s missed this; he’s missed him, so bad. this is his first time living away from roman, his first time not going to school with roman there, to talk to him at the press or for logan to steal into the studio to watch roman dance. it’s been harder than he thought it would, to be away from him. from home.

but he’s here now, and he’s so happy, and he feels so warm inside.

his dads are getting married, and roman is right here, kissing him, and logan parts from him with a dreamy little sigh.

“i love you so much,” logan tells him, and roman’s face goes soft.

“well, i love you so much too, bulldog-an,” roman says, and brushes some of logan’s sweaty hair out of his face, ignoring the face logan made at the highly questionable bulldog logan pun. “like, so much.”

“oh,” logan says, relieved, “good,” and roman laughs, but not in a mean way, not at all.

“you’re a peach, baby,” roman says, and logan rests his head on roman’s shoulder.

the party’s still going; it’s a slow song playing, and his dads are dancing slowly, eyes closed, completely in their own little world.

“you know,” logan says thoughtfully, “when i propose to you, i wouldn’t mind something like this for us. i think that’d be nice.” 

roman laughs, a little nervous, and he says, “what?”

“when i propose to you,” logan repeats. “or when you propose to me, i guess. however. i don’t care which way. but a party like this, then, it’d be pretty—mmph,” because roman’s pressed his lips against logan’s, hushing him.

and oh, logan has missed kissing like this; feeling like he was melting into it, hyperaware of every swipe of roman’s tongue and promising hint of the scrape of teeth and the taste of champagne on both of their tongues, roman’s hand a warm presence he can feel burning through his shirt that’s inching lower and lower, and logan twists his fingers in roman’s shirt in kind, dropping down to squeeze at roman’s bare thigh—

“this skirt,” he growls, “has been distracting me all day.”

“yeah, i know,” roman says, pleased, wiggling into the touch, flexing his muscles on purpose, “that was the goal” and how could logan not lean in to kiss him even more at that, spreading his hand as wide as he could to feel as much of roman’s soft skin as he could, kissing him heated and quick and desperate, and—

and there was the clanging of champagne flutes starting again, someone hooting and hollering, and roman and logan broke apart.

well. logan kept a possessive hand on roman’s thigh. because feeling up roman’s muscles was just very nice.

“we should probably get back to the party,” roman breathes, and he’s still close enough that logan can feel the breath on his face.

“i—yeah,” logan says. “we probably should.”

roman laughs, and leans in to kiss him on the cheek. “i’ll get you some water first, though. stay put, okay?”

“okay,” logan agrees, leaning back; well, as much as he can lean back, when he’s sitting on stairs.

roman giggles, and walks off, with more swaying to his hips than he usually would, looking over his shoulder to give logan an ostentatious wink.

logan can’t help but burst into a smile.

i’m going to marry that man.

⁂

"wait! wait, wait, wait, wait,” virgil says, frowning, wrapping his hand around patton’s wrist to keep him from going into the house, and patton bites his lip to keep himself from laughing.

listen. patton knows he’s a lightweight. he usually plans for these kinds of things, so that he doesn’t end up drunk off his butt from what would usually get other people teetering their way from tipsy into drunk.

with that, it follows that he’s been around virgil drunk more than virgil has been drunk around him.

but the champagne had been flowing, and everyone had been eager to fill up the newly... affianced? newly fiancéd? the engaged couple’s drinks throughout the entire party.

and as such, virgil is frowning, almost over-exaggerated, clearly going through some kind of calculation that must make sense in his drunk brain.

“i gotta do the,” virgil says, and vaguely mimes something. “the carry-you-over thing.”

it clicks in patton’s brain, then.

“you want to carry me over the threshold?” he asks, amused. “honey, that’s what newlyweds do. people do that when they get married.”

“we’re basically almost married,” virgil argues, and patton tilts his head, considering this.

look, he’s not sober either, okay?

“all right,” patton agrees with a laugh, holding out his arms. “carry me over the threshold, darlin’.’

virgil beams at him and, carefully, gets into place.

“ready?” he asks, and, when patton nods, lifts him with a small grunt, and patton squeaks as his feet leave the ground, wrapping his arms tight around virgil’s neck.

virgil slowly ascends the porch stairs, patton beaming at him, until virgil comes to a pause.

“what?” patton asks.

“the door,” virgil says.

“oh, i can get—”

“i’m not putting you down,” virgil says, as if offended by this potential slight to his ability as a good fiancé, and scowls at the door, as if he’ll be able to open it with telekinesis. 

“no, virge, i mean—” patton says, with a laugh, then, “hang onto me tighter?”

virgil obliges, and patton reaches over, twisting the doorknob.

“there,” he says, satisfied.

virgil leans ever so slightly to smack a kiss of gratitude to patton’s cheek, before stepping carefully over the threshold, making sure that patton doesn’t bump his feet or his head against the doorframe.

and patton expects that to be it, for virgil to set him down right there, except he keeps going, ignoring cocoa barking excitedly at their feet.

“virgil!” he squeaks.

“night, logan!” virgil calls to logan, who calls out a cheerful “night!” and moves past them, clicking his tongue for cocoa to follow him, for her to go out one last time before bed.

and virgil keeps going, moving up the stairs much more slowly than they usually would, a combination of the pair of them being tipsy and giggly, and virgil climbing the stairs with patton in his arms.

the door’s slightly ajar, and so virgil turns to bump it open with his hip, and carries patton across that threshold, too, and, at last, deposits patton on the bed, patton bouncing ever so slightly with his landing, bursting into laughter.

virgil immediately looms over him, crawling above him, and patton giggles at the sight of him, moving to cradle his cheeks in his hands. 

“my big strong man,” patton purrs, “you’re such an amazing almost-husband—”

virgil dips and immediately moves to devour patton, and patton gasps into his mouth, snaking his arms around virgil’s waist. virgil bumps noses with him, and patton laughs, adjusting, before he surges up and kisses him again, and he feels so excited, all of the energy of the party resurging and making his blood heat and patton presses himself closer and nips at his lips and kisses him, and virgil gasps into his mouth, and—

“you’re drunk,” patton groans, and virgil sighs, resting his head on patton’s collarbone.

“but kissing,” he whines into patton’s chest. “and—other things.”

patton snorts, nudging virgil so he rolls off of him, and he does so easily, with no resistance.

“you’ve had to tell me to not get too eager when i’m drunk,” patton says, “and now i’m telling you.”

virgil pouts, and it is awfully difficult to not just dive right back in and kiss him, when he’s all rosy-cheeked, and he’s got kiss-swollen lips. 

“nope,” patton says, and swipes a kiss across his cheek. “payback for that one time after my final final exams.”

“you were drunk,” virgil protests.

“and so are you!” patton says, laughing. 

virgil lets out a long, weary sigh, and grumbles, “fine,” rolling away from patton.

“aw, lovely,” patton says, and puts his hand on virgil’s side, shaking him a little to get his attention. virgil pretends to mope—or maybe it’s not pretend, virgil can be a sulky drunk, and he usually is, until patton draws him out of whatever corner he decided to brood in, and then he gets all blushy whenever patton kisses him on the cheek or gives him gestures of affection or pays attention to him, generally—“hey, honey, we can still cuddle, n’stuff.”

virgil visibly perks up at that. he rolls back over.

“yeah?” he says hopefully.

“yeah,” patton says, “of course we can cuddle, just—we should get ready for bed, first, and then we can cuddle all you want.”

“mkay,” virgil says, and steals one last kiss before he ambles away to go brush his teeth, even as patton squawks after him, because that’s cheating, they aren’t supposed to kiss and stuff when they’re drunk, those are virgil’s rules!!!

patton ends up butting up against him in the bathroom, bumping his hip against his, and they brush their teeth together, making funny faces at each other in the mirror. 

they tumble into bed together, patton letting out a relieved groan.

“the party was very fun,” he sighs. “but i am very tired.”

“seconded,” virgil groans, wrapping an arm over patton gracelessly; it’s like he wants to touch as much of patton as possible, hug him as close as he could, and patton smiles, burrowing closer.

a beat, then, “okay, i know that i’m the one who said we should follow the rules, but—”

“mm-mm,” virgil grunts, and patton sighs.

“yeah, i figured.”

“well,” virgil says, after a beat. “look at it this way. we’ve got the rest of forever to kiss and stuff before bed.”

patton hides his grin at the thought of that in virgil’s chest; he knows their rings are resting side-by-side on their nightstand table, their symbol of their commitment for the rest of time.

virgil’s right. they do have forever.

and that sounds just about perfect to him.

[ajokeformur-ray]

Spending Christmas Eve with Arthur & surprise kiss under mistletoe (headcanon) ☺️🎄

Implied smut at end.

I feel like this is really bad? IDK.

You had been planning your Christmas with Arthur for months.

Nothing and no one were going to stop you from spending the entire holiday with Arthur.

Not even you.

“Y/N, you don’t have to do this for me.” 

Though he was speaking as quietly and as patiently as he usually does, you could tell by the hopeful glint in his eyes and the anxious way that he was toying with the cuffs of his beloved yellow hoodie that Arthur really did want to do all of these things with you.

“Yeah, I do, Arthur.” At his uncertain dart upwards with his eyes do you say, “I want to.”

Whatever your usual Christmas plans are, Arthur wants in on them all, no matter how silly or childish they seem.

When you tell him that you’re deciding to spend the holiday with him, though???

Poor boi loses his mind.

He laughs in disbelief, so hard that he ends up crying.

 He shakes his head, apologising as best as he can, but you just tug him into your arms and you hold him, your fingers stroking easily through his dark locks as you calm him.

His laughing fit only makes you even more sure of your decision. 

You want him to experience every possible tradition, food, activity, game, etc. about Christmas.

Whether you’re religious or not, he wants to do everything with you. All of it. 

Whether you think he’d enjoy it or not is a moot point, because he’s with you and so therefore he would enjoy it.

Arthur loves the music of the season!!!!

You woke up once in the night, not sure of what had woken you, but as you came to you realised that Arthur’s fingers were trailing up and down your arm, his fingers tapping out the beat to the last song which had played on the radio before bed.

You smiled, pulled him closer, and Arthur crooned some lyrics in your ear; his soft voice being just what you needed to lull you back into Morpheus’ embrace, though even a deity can’t protect you as well as Arthur can.

“Arthur, honey, what would you like for Christmas? Not what I want, not what we need for the apartment, what do you want?”

An edge of frustration crept into your voice. 

You had asked him this so many times and you heard his answer in your head before he even said it:

“I already have everything I want.” His intense stare and the happiness on his face says the next word for him, which settles like a blanket of snow between your bodies:

You.

Soon enough, it’s Christmas Eve and you’re really getting into the swing of things now.

You leave out some gingerbread biscuits and mince pies for Father Christmas and his reindeer (you both know nothing’s going to touch them but you want Arthur to get the full experience; he would have missed out on it all when he was a child).

You both go to bed, giddy as children, and your jaw aching with how wide you were smiling as you pulled him into your arms, sleep finding you both quite quickly.

The first thing you decide that you need to show Arthur in the morning, on the big day, was your personal favourite thing about Christmas:

Giving presents!

You hadn’t labelled any of the presents you had gotten him, you had only wrapped them. 

You had already given other people their presents, anyway.

With Arthur out in the living room tidying up the cups and plates and emptying out his ashtrays, it seemed convenient to reach under the bed and pull out all the presents you had gotten for him.

You had wrapped all of them as best as you could, putting so much effort into it that you had even impressed yourself, and now did you take them to the living room, your knees almost bowing under all the weight.

Arthur lingered in the doorway of the kitchen, his green eyes inquisitive.

“Y-Y/N, wh-what are you doing? Shouldn’t you have given those out before today?”

With a truly happy smile on your face did you look over at the absolute love of your life.

“I have.”

You saw that he still didn’t understand and, knowing that he would respond to your next words with painful laughter, did you say, “Arthur, honey, these are yours.”

Three, two, aaaaand - 

Painful laughter ripped forth from Arthur’s throat and you nodded solemnly, crossing the room to comfort him.

You held him tightly through the attack, stroking his dark hair and kissing his temple and you stayed.

When he was calm did you lead him to the gifts you had gotten him. 

You felt bad that you hadn’t gotten him more, but you had already spent too much money this month so it was the best you could do.

Arthur only ever deserved your best.

You got him: a new journal, a proper winter coat, the biggest multipack of cigarettes you could find (even if you disliked the vice, you wouldn’t deny him anything and so with a wrinkled nose had you bought them), more makeup for work (he had literally been scraping the bottom of the barrel this morning, a concerned frown on his face as he looked at the calendar - another two weeks until payday; he couldn’t go that long without Carnival), another clown wig, and - a bright red two piece suit.

To you, it wasn’t anything special and you felt guilty that you couldn’t give him more.

Arthur unwrapped every present slowly, his flat palms tracing over every gift which was cushioned in his bony lap as he undid the tape with spidery fingers. He folded the discarded paper and you knew it’d become pressed in the pages of his new journal as irrefutable proof of this night.

With reverence did Arthur look over everything you got him, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, his cheeks damp with overflowing love as he looked up at you like you were an angel.

His angel.

He told you as much before he kissed you deeply in thanks; his lips so fierce against your own that it made your toes curl in your socks.

Then, he crossed over to the tiny desk in the corner of the room and grabbed his battered brown journal and joke book, flicking to a certain page easily and holding it out to you.

“I couldn’t afford to get you a gift,” He mumbled, embarrassed, the tips of his ears turning the same delicate shade of pink as the one on his cheeks, “But I… here, Y/N.”

You took the journal, seeing Arthur struggling so completely for words made you deeply curious, and your eyes roamed over the page, a blush coming to your own face before you focused on the very first word and read it slowly, savouring the pages upon pages of scribbles, doodles and words; some crossed out, more misspelled and some written with care.

It was all about you - your favourite things were drawn around the corners of the pages, smiley faces and crooked love hearts dotted the pages and acted as punctuation, things you had said to him or done together, things he wanted to do with and to you…. pages upon pages… you counted eighteen before a sealed envelope fell out of the journal.

Quickly did Arthur scoop it up. “T-That’s the journal finished… I - I wanted to write you something, to give you something to open.”

Arthur moved all of his gifts over to the armchair which Penny used to sit in so that you could sit on the sofa, holding the envelope in your hands.

You were getting teary eyed just seeing your name written in Arthur’s writing, and with a slight shake to your hand did you break the seal, Arthur sitting beside you and taking your other hand.

With his other hand did he pull his trick out of his trousers pocket - a piece of mistletoe.

He had refrained from buying a pack of cigarettes in order to buy it fresh and he had kept it in his pocket all day, waiting for the perfect moment.

He watched you read his letter once, twice, three and then four times; your emotions playing out on your face like a film.

He watched as you teared up, smiled, gasped softly or squeezed his hand as you read the letter a fifth time.

“Arthur, I - you - I love you so fucking much”

“I know,” A quiet murmur of truth, “I love you too. You’re my everything.” 

Distracted sufficiently by his letter did Arthur reach his arm up to hold the mistletoe over your heads.

You followed his arm up, up, and smiled.

“You know what my favourite part of Christmas is?”

“What?” You smiled even wider, knowing where this was going.

“Following traditions.”

In a rare bout of confidence which channelled his future self did Arthur claim your lips with his and the rest of the day was spent in a blissful haze of love, lust and everything in between.

The Arthur Fleck/Joker Defense Squad @writings-of-a-gen-z                      @x-avantgarde-x       @insomniabird      @mavalenovaninagavi     @itwasrealenough     @morrisonmercurymalek     @rand0ms-fand0ms     @rafaelina-casillas     @aclownthing        @vivft                  @help-i-am-obssessed      @autumnaffection       @taintednihilist   @vladtoly   @mg-woolf99      @misstgrey92  @that-s-life   @dopey-girl-blogs         @seeking-dreamland      @sweetheart-syndrome      @heartxfdesire @xmusichealsthesoulx       @0callmejude0      @the-one-that-likes-riddles        @hannibalsslut       @folliaght            @freeeshavacadoo         @bingewatchingmylifegoby       @unlovedbyeveryoneandeverything @okamiredfoxx       @sp0okysp0oky  @the-pandorabox      @mardema @jibanyyan        @honeyflvredcoughdrop         @emissarydecksetter @jokerfleckk         @epidendroideae         @chuuntas          @stillmabel       @pumpkinpeyes       @onehystericalqueenposts       @the-jokers-wolf       @nalsswa  @justahyena       @arianatheangelworld  @soullessblondbitch @gothamslittlejester  @twentyonestarrynights  @sirianfromsixties @kissmeclownman    @joker-is-my-hero  @lazyloosah  @lovesickkloxx @ladylovelyluna      @live-love-loki  @clownerybbxx   @tragicarthur    @anmach123      @rommie-chan      @arthurflock     @lucyboytom              @anti-peach       @immortal-bi-bitch    @hearthurfleck      @crazieroutthere      @curlystark     @hailmary-yramliah    @sagyunaro     @playinthedarktillitsgoldenagain     @jokeringcutio      @xenthefox   @mijachula@stcrrynightsinneverlcnd      @cheyennejonas22    @mrjfleck      @pauli1100     @smitten-susie    @actualkey     @callmejokerfleck   @jaylovesbats    @itsforyoubitch      @ridiculousnerd     @killerprotector3579       @soulsdontbreaktheybeeend     @fantasticwinnerclodexpert                  @arthurs-sweater      @pinkie44pie    @tsukiakarinobara      @prettyxlittlexpsychoxprincess   @elodia-gahan   @yours-mia    @rustyt33th     @parkdonghoons      @lady-carnivals-stuff      @hobi-hobi-kyo-kkyu      @jupiturde        @incognitofish      @j-sux      @nothing-but-a-comedy      @tahliamalfoydepp 

[jerepars]

Throwing Copper Extended Chapter Notes

2 / 5 The Queen of Lower Chelsea

Hyperlinks appear in blue (underlined on mobile). The story is posted here. Direct link to this chapter is here.

“You should think about getting the hell out of Dodge,” James said boldly. “What was it you said that night, before Devon called you for dinner at the winery? You wanted to get big enough so no one could hurt you. Don’t you think you’re well past that now? Do you really need every last little light in New York City? You should go with George, to whatever island he found in the Caribbean.”

Well, let’s get right to it, I guess. This chapter is named after “The Queen of Lower Chelsea” by The Gaslight Anthem. One way or another I was going to find a way to get a reference to this because there’s mention of a queen, New Orleans, and New York in the lyrics. James’ dialogue here borrows from the line: American girls, they want the whole world, they want every last little light in New York City.

“How did we get here?” she wondered. “With you being the one trying to pull me back from the ledge and asking where my respectable convictions went?“

The opening lyrics to The Get Up Kids’ “Holiday” are questions: What became of everyone I used to know? Where did our respectable convictions go?

I am of the opinion that the album this song is from, Something to Write Home About, is perfect from beginning to end. Any time I can refer to it, I do. Sometimes I have a bunch of random dialogue in mind before I start writing a chapter and I knew right away Teresa was going to say this. I think it’s fitting. I’d like for Teresa to have self awareness and recognition of what she’s gotten away from, whether that be good or bad.

It didn’t seem like it’d been so long ago when she was voicing her distaste and disapproval for the way James lived, for the things he’d had to do, so deeply ingrained in a world of criminal activity that was new to her. Teresa remembered how hollow his voice had been when he’d said that’s the wrong answer after he’d asked her what they should do about Lopez’s guy who tried to short them on payment and she’d said, with worry, to let him go. It was only the second time she’d worked with James, and she’d been naïve then. She’d been naïve still, months later when she told James he was a good person and that’s not who you are about cartel operations that ended with casualties—though she believed she was right about those things. But as she moved up, and in her quest for expansion, she’d burned bridges and done wrong, setting aside her inconvenient convictions. Teresa always told herself it was for survival, for the good of everyone around her. But there was a seduction to vengeance, and sometimes it was without guilt that the flames licked at her face and she chose wrath.

To look back at 1x03, it can really be seen how both James and Teresa have changed over time working with each other. First of all, the way he says “that’s the wrong answer” (0:56) is...somehow really appealing. Lol. And then you look at their body language and facial expressions throughout this scene, so different from the way they are as the series progresses.

To me, it seems they go through a role reversal of sorts, over time, because James gets softer and Teresa goes scorched earth.

“When I was summoned to Bolivia by El Santo, Pote gave me that card with the psalm on it. It was important to him, symbolic, because if I had it on me, it meant I’d be protected, and I’d be back,” Teresa explained. “So give me something. Something that matters. I’ll give it back.”

James was glad Teresa had that fire in her, that determination to get through anything. He was glad, too, that she could acknowledge she might be about to walk into the belly of the beast. But the cynic that he was, James thought they had a narrow shot at playing the meeting right without everything blowing up in their faces, and he didn’t think symbolism was going to change the outcome.

“Superstition isn’t going to save your life, Teresa,” James said.

This section indirectly calls back to “Throwing Copper” by Touché Amoré, the song the story is named after. It’s the last bit of the song: But if superstitions can give someone faith, then I’m throwing my wallet and begging for change.

James’ constant observation of flickering light in Teresa’s eyes can’t be the only call back to the title, right?

One of the first things James ever said to her was I’m not religious, whoever they stole this car from is after Teresa made a snide comment about the rosary hanging from the rearview mirror, as he’d raced against time to the airport. She remembered everything about her early interactions with James. She remembered his longer hair that was a little too perfectly messy—tousled. She remembered he spoke to her coldly and never smiled, even though his eyes were warm. She remembered when he’d covered for her, something he’d decided to do of his own volition, more than once, and how it helped her understand who he really was. She remembered seeing the chain against the skin of his neck, the necklace usually tucked under his shirt. She hadn’t seen the pendant until the night when Eric’s men followed them to the cemetery to retrieve Camila’s reserve money, and Charger had to pull a bullet out of James’ shoulder after the car they were in was shot up.

One of my first ideas for this story was Teresa asking for something valuable, to be returned, to “protect” her and make sure she was going to get out of the meeting okay. So I went back to something from the first season, something that the show’s wardrobe department has probably long forgotten about or lost in a box.

James’ necklace is actually visible in the very first shot he’s in ever, in 1x02, around 6:30 of the episode. It’s not tucked into his shirt. But then, in later scenes, still in the warehouse, it...disappears. He’s still wearing it though, because you can see the chain a little bit (2:29) while he’s waiting to go through the metal detector at the airport.

It’s visible again in 1x07, when he’s all bloody and has to get the bullet removed from his shoulder (0:20), and in 1x11 when he’s talking to Camila on the phone in the trailer (0:29).

And then we never see it again! It’s just absent in every other season. I don’t know why this bothers me so much, but it does. I guess I consider the accessories that characters have to be part of the world building and continuity.

So I wrote it in, gave it a backstory, gave it purpose. Yes, this is really the kind of thing that goes through my mind. 

“Yes.” Teresa nodded. “Nothing comes cheap. Not even me.“

In this whole back and forth between Teresa and Devon, I like that it starts with him saying she doesn’t have a bargaining chip but she manages to turn it around on him. I imagine that canon Teresa would be able to do the same thing, too (after all, she makes the smart move to send Lil’ T to his mother in 3x05).

Anyway, this piece of dialogue is inspired by the bridge in “The Queen of Lower Chelsea”:

Well they say these days Nothing comes cheap And everything has a price Everyone has a price Nothing is free Not even me

In 2x01, Teresa says “everything in life has a price” when she and James are at Rolando’s memorial (a moment that’s also mentioned in the chapter) as she’d devastated about Brenda. Earlier in the chapter, regarding Oksana’s death, it’s mentioned that everything has a cost. So it’s all connected.

After a while, James closed the distance and touched her face. Teresa held her breath when he wiped under her eyes with the pad of his thumb. Then he held her jaw, his fingers at the back of her neck.

”You’re gonna be fine,” James said.

There’s this moment in 1x08, when James is talking to one of the hotel maids (0:56) for information. And she’s freaking out because the cartel is in her house. James wipes at her tears with his thumb. I find it to be a confusing moment because it’s like...is he doing it to calm her down? Is he doing it threateningly (the whole scene is pretty threatening anyway)? 

But me, I’m like, yo, when do we get to see him do that to Teresa?

She was apologizing not only for pressing on his wound but for everything, preemptively, for the tough spots she put him in and for what she’d done that he didn’t know about yet. She really did know how to do a number on him, she thought, inflicting pain like a flame that burned him to let him know they were both still alive.

The last line is a reference to Bayside’s “Duality”: you’re the flame that burns me so I know that I’m still alive.

[gaygwenpool]

*slams fists on table* MYSTELEON

I knew you wouldnt disappoint! :D  tho you already know most of these lmaoo  lotsa credit to @herbofoo anyway, i dont remember which of these you came up with but Patchwork wouldnt be the same without your Good Good Content! (And of course thanks for all your patience as i cry about comics lmao)

I’ve lost all shame long since ive started shipping them so brace yourself for the self-indulgent cheese that is Chameleon/Mysterio in my Patchwork verse. (its reallly. really Melodramatic. i gave up all pretense.. also under the cut cuz its long..)

ask meme

Who cooks:

Mysterio! Although Chameleon is objectively The Superior Cook thanks to the long years of being a servant to picky russian nobility BUT exactly because of that, he really doesnt enjoy it, even less when cooking for others and not just himself. So it is usually Beck who prepares meals (that are not bad either, they are just simpler) but as often as they can, they eat out. That said, Cham is very well aware Quentin loves his cooking so sometimes, he makes them something. (Being sick isnt so bad when it means Chammy bringin you a big bowl of hot borscht :)

On the other hand, Cham has quite a sweet tooth which Q notices Fast and decides to learn how to bake. It took more effort and failed tries than it could have, mostly because he got cocky, how hard could this be and just. kept forgetting he put stuff in the oven.. But now he makes quite delicious cookies n cakes which make Dmitri almost tear up because tasty + Quentin baked something Specifically for him?? 

Who does the laundry and other chores:

Mysterio’s laundry is usually booby trapped so he has to clean it himself and he doesnt even let Cham near it. And he keeps forgetting gadgets in his civvies. Not to mention that again, for the same servant reason, Cham really doesnt enjoy house chores in general, so he usually just gets his own clothes cleaned somewhere else (especially since his fancy suits and even fancier gowns are the highest quality and delicate materials, he doesnt even Know how to clean them..) 

As for the rest of the chores, its pretty balanced, although Cham has more of an eye for things that needs to be cleaned up (and Beck already has cooking duties) so he does a tad more. 

How many children do they have + Any pets:

In my Patchwork universe there’s a whole Thing about Leon, the Chameleon of the Ultimate universe but I’ve tried to type up a short summary and failed, it’s a long story lmao ^^;; and anyway he isnt exactly their kid, he is just much younger than them and they ended up sorta mentoring him. 

However, they have Celavi, the escaped ex-spy beluga.(Yes, it started as a joke based on this post that accidentally grew more and more serious until @herbofoo and me were too attached to let it go) She counts pretty much as their adopted daughter that they both spoil to hell and back, I mean no surprise, she saved Cham’s life once and sometimes, she helps out with heists. (Mostly for the show, you should have SEEN the look on Spider’s face when a beluga splashed him. He is used to humanoid sharks, to Hydroman.. not like. real life beluga that LAUGHS at him) Beck’s voice: “Dont you dare to insult her, SHE IS PERFECT AND FLAWLESS and A GOODNESS INCARNATE!! -she is literally a deserted russian spy that was trained to gather everything that could be used to harm USA-yea, i have a soft spot for those ;)“

She was always surprisingly clever so she never really counted as a “pet” and at one point, she even bonds with a symbiote (together they are Vague, again long story ah ha). They dont talk but have quite some range of vocalisations so communication isnt a problem. 

Who’s more dominant: 

They both have pretty dominant strong personalities (ok chameleon’s a bit more complicated with that but like.) with big egos who dont like others questioning their superiority. (Of course not at the level of like Doc Ock etc, they are surprisingly flexible and good team players that can be willing to let someone else take the spotlight if they are Nice) But the whole point of their relationship is that neither of them is dominant over the other, they get enough of that literally everywhere else. It’s very reassuring to be so sure that they are on equal footing, cooperating, no hidden nooses around their neck. Especially in their line of work of course! 

(Also, for the other interpretation of this question: anythin remotely sexual happens Pretty Late in the story and both of them are somewhere on the ace spectrum so it doesnt happen that often but they are both verses tho Beck bottoms more)

Favorite nonsexual activity:

MOVIES!! Sprawled on the giant comfy couch, closer than technically needed, cuddling and watching old movies with great special effects and/or great actors! Listening to Beck excitedly rant through the most dramatic speech of the story as he explains how the next cliffhanger is done with hydraulics! Focusing so hard on the stars in his eyes and his excited tone and gestures and just the tone of his voice you forgot to listen to the words themselves! Watching Cham’s face flawlessly mimic the faces on the screen in a blink of an eye and secretly guessing which one will he pick next. Feeling his head slowly fall on your shoulder, eyes closed, his mask smooth but not tense, instead just.. peaceful. Slight ping of annoyance, after all, this is A Classic movie dammit, but it’s gone in a second because Mitya hasnt slept since thursday and you are just relieved he is finally getting his rest. Feeling his warmth under your hand on his shoulders and suddenly never ever wanting to get up again.. EHM. anyway

PLANING HEISTS TOGETHER!! and more or less successfully executing them but planning is actually even more fun aside from the Big Reveals and Entrances which are actually harder to coordinate than one would think! 

Lots of shobiz/job talk actually, they really enjoy what they do! Lots of people already mentioned that in their hc compilations but i agree, they love goin to see all kinds of movies and plays and performances as well as acting various scenes with one another!  

Their favorite place to be together:

NEW YORK CITY BABEYY. Sure they love to travel and see other countries (and cause mayhem there) but.. they love their mess of a city, it’s never the same without the webhead around as well as the bazillion of other heroes n villains bashin each other’s heads. 

Any traditions:

Oh so many pop culture references and inside jokes, oh my god. One time, they spent the entire heist (and its planning period) speaking strictly in famous movie lines and titles, Max and other sixers tried to join but didnt last too long :’D 

Beck also has a habit of taking pictures of people with Interesting faces or styles he sees and sends them to Cham. Also another fanon classic: together they have a running game, disguising themselves as moderately famous people and the other guessing who..

Their “song”:

‘This is me’ from the Greatest Showman, i just live for the two of them singin it in Cham’s car,off key but fully immersed and living it. 

What they do for each other on holidays:

Neither of them are religious but that doesnt stop Beck from going ALL OUT at any opportunity, Sin Six doesn’t do any heists around holidays because you Know he’d make them dress for the occasion or worse, write them themed lines…  They still meet for Christmas and Hanukkah and sometimes other holidays too because this is my AU and you can pry festivities-related shenanigans from my cold, cold hands. It’s always at Beck’s place tho because he can turn his hideout into the tackiest holiday-themed showcase but he aint roping them into it.  

On the other hand, Cham despises American commercialized holidays in general and Christmas time especially, since it’s not a big thing in Russia and  also once again, he has family issues for days. (Although relatively speaking, he is pretty over these, he is not gonna like mope around or anything) 

Anyway, what they do for each other is that they try to compromise, Dmitri doesnt sneer at stupid kitsch decorations every 5 minutes and Quentin ..chills a little. :’D To be fair, Beck makes everything fun and having Cham there makes Beck appreciate the details more instead of just goin into BETTER!BIGGER! frenzy.

Where did they go for their honeymoon:

After the fuckin Ages of pinning, when they finally end up together for realsies, they wanted somethin Big and Flashy! (Well Beck wanted and Cham kinda too but also with the option to merge with the crowd unnoticed and take some chill time) Anyway they went on a whole world wide tour! Starting with a luxury cruise, they took their time, lots of crime sprees to plan and execute, lots of local shows to see, lots of dumb heroes to fool, they’re gonna have it all! 

Where did they first meet:

Around the time when Cham and Hammerhead had their criminal empire running Fisk to the ground, Otto decided the Sin Six should team up with them for their ressources needed on one heist or something. They agreed but Cham insisted on actually going in the field, it’s been a while since he really stretched his face legs like this and the mafia life was starting to bore him. Doc made him team up with Mysterio much to the fishbowl’s dismay because why do they need another disguise artist?? He is the Master Of Illusions dammit, he can run circles around this guy, what the fuck Otto?? So at the start, he pouts and fumes under his helmet and in general he is his v unpleasant self but… He can’t help but notice that the new guy is a real professional, he even uses Traditional masks, he likes the same movies… And most importantly, he is actually interested in Mysti’s craft, asking questions and even LISTENING to his long winded answers… At one point he even wondered if that X thing was meant as a HOMMAGE to the Y movie, the Six never did that!! (Usually the rest of the sixers dont know the reference, heathens, and when they do, they mock him for it, that he’s copying ideas and mixin them ridiculously.  BUT THIS GUY GETS IT!!) So it doesn’t take long for them to hit it off, of course at this point without any real Trust behind it but it’s a start. 

(Though Beck does pay a visit to Otto like, buddy pal i know you’ve been planning on manipulating these crimelords to your end somehow and honestly, any other day i’d be down, i actually had a robot prepared for my own backstab but i was thinking they werent that bad and maybe we Could hold our end of the bargain this time and just. leave each other on good terms? Mabye? Obviously it’s purely out of respect for our teammate Kraven since him and Chameleon seem to have some history, nothing more, definitely nothing to do with how bright Cham’s eyes were when i was showing him the back of my stage… ) 

What do they fight over:

this whole post has been a mountain of cheese but im bringing more! Honestly, goin through my notes on Patchwork, their biggest arguments have always been about.. the other one not taking proper care of himself :’D Or them lashing out because they were scared and worried about the other and they cant stand being so vulnerable while the other pretends it’s not a big deal because they dont know how to handle genuine concern directed at them. 

Do they go on vacations, if so where:

GIVE!!! BECK!!!! HIS!!!! ISLAND!!!!!!They actually do have one, it’s where Celavi spends most of the time and they visit her often. But never for too long, neither of them can actually spend too long doing nothing.. 

[timeisacephalopod]

Belated

I thought hmm, lets write a little Tony/Eddie/Venom thing for Reasons. And yeah I know Tony’s bday was two days ago but still. I’ve decided that this is a thing I have written for a fictional character’s belated birthday!

*

Tony’s half buried in paper work ready to throw all caution to the wind and throw himself out a window when Eddie walks in looking pleased with himself. Probably means he sniffed out a good story and he’s found something compelling but he doesn’t look like an absolute human disaster so he’s not too deep into it yet. Once he is he kind of looks like he’s homeless and Rhodey doesn’t really get the charm but Tony once watched Eddie overheat to the point of just fucking losing it and sitting in a lobster tank at one of the fanciest restaurants in Manhattan so he thinks Eddie is the best. Venom being around doesn’t seem to help that except now maybe he’ll eat the lobsters instead of just bothering the hell out of them.

“Happy birthday,” he says, walking over to him and behind his desk, greeting him with a kiss.

Except Tony’s kind of confused. “Wasn’t my birthday last week?” he asks and Eddie frowns.

“No, honey its today. I... who forgets their birthday? And why would you assume everyone in your life also forgot your birthday?” he asks. He looks extra confused but that’s probably just the way Eddie’s expressions work. Rhodey finds his over expressing annoying but Tony thinks it's endearing.

“You all have lives, its fine,” Tony says. Pepper’s always busy running around doing things for him, Eddie seems to have found himself some new thing to rip apart for the next couple months, and Rhodey regularly gets shot at so he figures they all have more pressing concerns. 

Eddie sighs. “Sometimes I think you’re a prick and then you do something sad like make excuses for why everyone in your life would forget you were born. We didn’t forget, Tony, you got the date wrong. How did you forget when you were born?”

He shrugs, “I don’t memorize useless details. And in your defense I am a prick,” he says. They both know it, though Eddie is obviously a lot less hostile then when they met. He seems to have fallen for Tony’s charms, which he’s been reliably informed are pretty disarming.

Eddie leans in and gives him another kiss, “no you’re not, but you play one well,” pulling away and dropping his bag on Tony’s desk. Its disrupted his thread bare attempt at organizing his own life- not exactly his strong suit admittedly not that he’d tell Eddie he's managed to mess up what little organization he had. He pulls a stack of files out of his bag and drops them on top of Tony’s already too large pile of paper work. “Happy birthday, an organized list of all the moral and ethical problems I have with your company,” he says, grinning like its the best gift ever.

Tony snorts and starts laughing, shuffling closer to Eddie. He lays one hand on Eddie’s hip and pokes at the pile of folders with the other. “Well this is... intimidating.”

“Yeah, but you’ll look through it all because you do genuinely want to be a good person. You should be glad I didn’t go with V’s gift,” he says, wincing.

Fuck, Tony can only imagine when one of the first five things he did in Eddie’s body was eat several people’s heads. Sure, V turned out to be an overly sappy romantic ass goo alien but that’s a pretty rough start to things and now Eddie has to live with kind of eating people that one time several times. “Was it flowers?” he asks.

Eddie laughs, “that was suggestion like... fifty two. After I banned violence, drugs, sex- don’t give me that look it was a soft ban because that’s not a present, terrorist activities, harassing children, petty crimes of all varieties, eating heads, murder, grand theft auto, breaking and entering, space, possession, and about a half a dozen other things. He’s not too good with presents.”

“Well, he did alright with the cat,” Tony points out. V doesn’t really get Christmas, turns out his species wasn’t too cuddly and had no holidays, but he does have all Eddie’s memories of it. Conveniently, he tends to lean more towards Eddie’s view of Christmas as mostly a capitalist holiday that’s far more about big businesses making money, overworking retail employees, and present buying pressure that leads to suicide than the happy stuff. And that doesn’t even touch on Eddie’s view of religion. Though to be fair V probably gathered a lot more religious vitriol from Tony than Eddie.

“He’s threatened to eat that cat at least once a day since he decided to pick it out. Claims he’s a dog person,” Eddie says.

“Dogs are bigger, usually, so I’m not really surprised. More meat.” Given the look on Eddie’s face Tony’s going to assume V has agreed with that statement.

“We are not eating dogs,” Eddie hisses. Mostly he only does that around Tony, but its hilarious when he does it in public because most people don’t really recognize him anymore so he looks like a homeless loon being led around by a celebrity. Or at least he did before he became recognizable again through Tony’s fame and yeah, Tony knows all Eddie’s opinions on celebrity culture. None of them are positive and yeah, Tony can see why that is.

“Tell V to go hunt New York rats at night. He might have fun with that,” Tony says. “Wait, does Venom have a birthday? That a thing his species does?”

Eddie shakes his head. “Says he doesn’t have a proper earth date translation for his hatching day and I know he didn’t come from an egg so that’s a horrifying term to use. Do not enlighten me, V. I’m happy to stay in the dark.” He makes another face and Tony assumes V has let out some detail Eddie didn’t want to hear.

“That ever get annoying, the voice in your head?” he asks. Feels like it’d be exhausting. Tony doesn’t even like his own voice in his head let alone some random alien who decided pretty much on a whim to save the world strictly because he likes Eddie. Though to be fair Riot was an asshole and Tony was sick of being compared to Carlton Drake anyway. Guy was like cartoonishly evil. Though Tony will admit that he was good looking and damn smart, even if that didn’t really turn out to be a good thing later.

“Sometimes,” Eddie says, “but mostly  V offers some good entertainment on human customs. Turns out his species tended to eat each other to solve problems. He thinks our petty politics is fun to watch.”

Yeah, an alien would find that funny. Or everyone outside of America at least until America decides to invade for oil or some other resource. “So who did he want to possess?” Tony asks, grinning.

“No!” Eddie says, presumably to him and Venom.

*

Tony’s laying in bed pretending to have died when Eddie walks over and crawls over him, laying his entire weight on Tony’s back. He sighs because of course Eddie would find the most inconvenient way to get him to stop taking up the entire bed. “This is a king and you’re like three feet tall. How is it that you take up so much space?” Eddie asks as Tony starts wiggling around.

“Ask the cat, she’s a hell of a lot smaller than me and she always manages to take up at least half the bed.” Eddie rolls off and Tony props himself up. “Thanks for the present by the way, half the stuff you pointed out happens to be things I was already looking to fix.” But Eddie is a fuck of a lot picker than him and its nice to have someone trying to hold him to account. And Eddie has no problem doing so, he gives Tony his opinion on a lot of things all the time whether or not he wants to hear them.

“Yeah, I got you something else too but its taking eighty years in the mail so I had to improvise,” Eddie says.

“Let me guess, you refuse to use Amazon,” Tony says.

“Look, that fuckstick can’t even pay his workers and he’s the richest guy in the world, and what’s all that crazy shit about pissing in-” Eddie starts but Tony cuts him off before he really gets going.

“Jeff Bezos is a prick, I get it. Actually, might get stuck at the same charity event with him next week so I can bring you along if you want to punch him,” Tony says.

The bright look of unbridled glee in Eddie’s eyes makes him smile. Yeah, he’s maybe argued a lot about Tony’s wealth, but he at least appreciates that Tony does his best to spread it around a little. Its just that he has trust issues and he knows how corporate charity works- its all tax write offs and siphoning money out of most of the ‘donations.’ So he does his best to do his research and lucky him Eddie is probably a little too good at it so he’s got some more reputable charities to share with. And he thinks its fun to pay off random people’s debt. If he’s having a bad day he’ll pick a person and bam, debt free. He likes making people happy so Eddie only kind of side eyes his money.

Generally that means he only brings it up like twice a day instead of non-stop and if nothing else Tony can appreciate that he’s passionate about his views. Rhodey thinks he’s annoying but Rhodey isn’t dating him so he can deal with it.

“Yeah, alright,” Eddie says but the way he says it tells Tony that he’s not talking to him.

“Do not eat his head, V!” Tony says, panicked. “I do not want to deal with the fallout of that. Just ruin his life like a normal person. Get JARVIS to help, he’s been helpful in my long standing efforts to ruin Hammer.”

“Yeah, pretty sure all you two have managed to do is turn Hammer into the knockoff version of you, but he uh... seems to like that so I don’t know.”

Tony damn well knows he looks offended because that’s the fucking rudest shit he’s ever heard. “What did you just call Hammer?” he asks.

Eddie realizes his mistake right away and Tony fucking resents that he looks a little dead behind the eyes because he was the one who damn well decided Hammer was good enough to be the anything version of him. “I would sooner take Carlton Drake as the cheap version of me than Hammer,” Tony hisses. “At least Drake was actually smart and hot! What’s Hammer? He looks like he came out of the womb dressed as the class clown who decided to be an accountant!”

Honestly Tony resents that Eddie sighs at that. “No V, you can’t eat Hammer’s head,” Eddie mumbles.

“Yes you can,” Tony tells him.

*

Tony’s attempting to make coffee while also ignoring Eddie due to his previous transgressions. Compare him to Hammer on his birthday. The disrespect. Eddie walks out of their bedroom and Tony resolutely ignores him as he starts looking around the pent house for some reason. Tony side eyes him as he moves a bunch of papers around- Eddie’s, not his, knocks the pillows off the couch, and picks up the cat. He looks at Cotton for a moment, frowning before he shakes her a little. She meows in an annoyed, disgruntled way and Eddie sighs, releasing the cat.

“Uh, the fuck are you doing?” Tony asks eventually.

Looking for me says a voice in his head and Tony throws his coffee cup, startling so badly his entire body jerks and he slips, falling on his ass.

“Oh thank god I thought he went and possessed some random secretary so he could go eat heads!” Eddie says, rushing over to him.

“Oh no, you stay back there you don’t get to come near me or V after comparing Hammer to me!” he says, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

Eddie sighs. “Tony-” he starts but Tony has already picked himself up and turned around with his arms crossed, ignoring him.

So rude. Venom agrees. We should eat Hammer V says, perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

Tony sighs and it pains him to do this, truly. “V, we can’t actually eat Hammer,” he says in perhaps the most dejected, upset tone he’s ever produced.

Eddie gives him, Venom technically, an offended look. “You decided to crawl into him in the middle of the night and risk killing him so you could eat someone?” he asks, hand pressed to his heart quite like an offended PTA mom. “V, you better get your ass back in here!” Eddie tells him, pointing at himself.

He compared you to Hammer. We should leave him, go sight seeing V says.

Tony rolls his eyes. “V you aren’t going to manipulate me into carrying your ass out of here because Eddie put you in the dog house.”

“Venom!” Eddie says, voice rising.

Tony swears to god he feels Venom extend from his body and that is some worrying fucking shit how’s Eddie put up with that? “Tony thinks you sound like an offended PTA mom,” Venom tells Eddie and Tony squints.

“Since when the hell are you a rat?” he asks.

Venom turns to face him, “you take that back! I am not vermin!”

“No, technically you’re a parasite now get back here,” Eddie tells him.

“Maybe I will find a new home with hosts who appreciate me,” Venom says, sinking back into Tony and he does not like that.

“How do you get these things out?” he asks.

Eddie walks over and leans in, squinting at Tony shrewdly except he’s actually looking at Venom and Tony’s not sure how he knows that. “If you don’t get back in me I will play Bohemian Rhapsody at top volumes with Tony pressed against the speaker!” he hisses.

“That kind of sounds like fun minus the speaker thing,” Tony says.

“They don’t do so well with loud noises and vibrations,” Eddie explains and oh, that makes sense. Tony watches as black goo extends from his hand to Eddie’s and it almost looks resentful for it. Or maybe Tony’s imagining that.

Tony gives Venom a sad look as the last of him disappears back into Eddie. “I’m so sad he won’t ever experience Freddy Mercury like the rest of us,” he says, hand pressed to his heart.

Eddie sighs. “V says your music taste is heinous and he would rather listen to my music.”

He listens to exclusively shitty electronica music. “I’m leaving you both,” Tony tells him, turning and walking away.

[mareshmallow]

However Long it Takes pt ii

The city bustles with activity, more so than usual as the final preparations are made. Streamers bearing Montfort’s colours fly in the wind, weaving through the streets. There’s an air of excitement that I’ve never felt before. We didn’t have much holidays in Norta, not ones we were willing to celebrate. Religious ones had faded with time, though I knew a few who did observe them.

Tyton strolls beside me, seeming more at ease than I’d ever seen him. Why shouldn’t he be? This was his home, something he was familiar with. I however refuse to drop my guard. The wind stirs my hair, tickling my cheeks. I tuck it back furiously wishing I’d brought a hair tie. Tyton glances at me, vaguely amused. “Careful or you might rip it out next time.”

I huff and swat at a few stray strands. To my shock he reaches out and tucks them neatly in the messy bun I’d piled on my head. His finger trails along my cheek and I find myself reveling in his touch. It’s unlike anything I’ve felt in so long. His deep eyes bore into mine, though they were a different shade from the one I longed for. The image of Cal’s face has me pulling away sharply. His hand falls to his side before he stuffs it in his pocket. A persisting blush crawls up his neck and I find my own face heating.

“We’re here,” I manage to say, squinting at the sign that dangled off the side of the shop. It was a cute little thing, with a white lattice trim to compliment the pale pink. A bell chimes when I push open the door announcing our entry. A tall, willowy brown-skinned girl grins at us from behind the wooden counter. I smile back. “Hey, Priya. Is Gisa around?”

“She should be in the back getting the last few bits ready,” she tells us. Priya hops down gracefully and waves us over. Tyton and I share a look before following. She pushes aside a white curtain to reveal Gisa hunched over a suit

The simplicity captures my attention first. It was velvet in a deep shade of red, near purple. Gold metal cuffs the wrists but doesn’t touch the skin. The front is open with a revealing half top, almost like a bra in the same shade.

I clear my throat and Gisa looks us, sheepish. “Oh come on, your idea of style is any scrap of clothing that’s clean.” I shrug. That was fair.

The fabric was smooth, surprisingly so. I pinch it between my fingers, admiring it’s texture. “Priya did the metalwork,” Gisa explains when I examine the the cuffs. Priya blushes. “You did most of the work anyways,” she protests, trying to brush off the compliment though she was clearly pleased. They begin to jabber back and forth and Tyton nudges me. “You’ll look beautiful, as always,” he murmurs softly. I dip my chin to hide my rising blush. He laughs gently.

His fingers tip my chin and once again I find myself in his gaze. “I love it when you get all embarrassed, it’s cute,” he grins. I swat his arm. “You wish.”

“Mare, you have to try it on!” Gisa exclaims, gathering the suit in her arms. She thrusts it towards me and we all look at Tyton expectantly. “Oh, yeah um…”

“Shoo shoo!” Priya insistently repeats, making brushing motions with her hands. Tyton scrambles to do as she says and I laugh to myself. He was still working on opening up, and the vibrant personalities that belonged to Gisa and Priya threw him off.

They pull on the suit with my eyes closed, per Gisa’s request. The rustle of fabric is all I hear before two dreamy sighs. Someone presses something into my hand, the top I assume and I pull it on myself. I begin to open my eyes but Gisa squeaks. “Close them!”  I shut them tightly once more, wincing at her screech. “Can I open them, please? I won’t look, promise.”

She hums, considering. “Nope.”

“Turn around please,” Priya directs. I do as she says. “Ok good, now you can open your eyes but don’t look down.”

I blink furiously as my eyes adjust to the light. Keeping my gaze straight ahead I follow Gisa out. Tyton’s propped himself up in a floral patterned chair and he gazes out the window. When I enter his head whips towards me and I watch as his eyes widen. He visibly swallows and it takes everything I have to not fidget. “Is it that bad?”

Gisa wheels a large framed mirror out and spins it to me. “Okay, look!”

I sigh and face the mirror. Gisa had obviously worked hard on this and I’d warned her that I wasn’t the best choice for finery. I wouldn’t be accounted for if she was disappointed but I trusted her judgement.

The waist pinched but the rest flowed out slightly to the ankles and cut itself off neatly, exposing a sliver of skin. The jacket fits snugly against my form and the cuffs gleam in the morning sunlight. The revealing top displays my brand with pride and Gisa adjusts it while I watch the girl in front of me. She looks vaguely otherworldly and not at all like me. Priya twists my hair into a simple knot and pins it with deft motions, leaving a few strands to fall freely.

“So... what do you think?” Gisa asks, nervously chewing on her lip.

“It’s beautiful Gee, your work always is,” I say in a daze. I’d never worn something quite like it but leave it up to Gisa to shoot for something unique. I turn to her and smile. She’d always had an eye for these things and a brilliant mind. It used to be the subject of my envy. Now it only made me feel pride.

“Good,” Gisa grins in relief. As if I could ever tell her I disliked her work.

“How about you, Tyton?” Priya asks. He looks startled at being addressed. Perhaps he expected we forgot about him sitting there. ”Surely you will attending as well?”

“Of course,” he replies. “Though I don’t need--”

“Nonsense,” Gisa waves him off, catching Priya’s meaning. They share a look and I can tell from the glint in her eye they won’t be letting him off so easily. I chuckle into my hand. Poor Tyton was really in for something. He catches my laugh and wilts, looking appropriately regretful at coming with me.

The girls heave him out of his seat and whisk him off. I can’t help but cackle and he shoots me a glare. Oh well. If I had to suffer, so did he.

***

I press a few coins into Priya’s hand as discreetly as possible. She tries to refuse them but I halt her. “For what you’ve done. Getting Tyton to wear something suitable is no easy task,” I wink at her. She accepts them after a long moment with a bow of her head and an easy grin.  “I find myself drawn to challenges.” Her gaze strays to Gisa as she speaks. I follow it to where my sister stands conversing with Tyton. He catches my eye and saunters over, oddly at ease.

I raise a brow at his change in attitude and he extends a hand in an absurdly dramatic manner. “Shall we?” I shake my head at his antics but put my hand in his anyway letting him pull me along through the door. We leave the shop like that and I don’t retract my grip and neither does he. This was harmless, I thought. We were both lonely, and it wasn’t like I’d invited him to bed. Somehow it still felt like betrayal, but oddly freeing. The thought makes me hold on tighter, all the way back.

***

The servants fly in and out, more of in a rush than I’d ever seen them. Carmadon catches my questioning stare. “Holly’s coming to visit and Dane and I wanted her to feel as welcome as possible,” he explains.

“Oh,” I say. Clearly, I’d forgotten about her arrival but he doesn’t take offence. “I guess I got so wrapped up this morning,” I apologize.

“It’s quite alright,” he smiles. The plate of chocolate-covered strawberries we’d been eating lie abandoned now but I trust Farley to take care of it. As if hearing my thoughts, she enters the parlour with Clara nestled in her arms. The little girl squirms in her mother’s grip, babbling. She was a year old now and though she couldn’t form a proper sentence that didn’t stop her. Another figure enters with them. Blue marches in proudly despite her arms being painted in a mess of colours and her braid askew.

Carmadon sighs. “Do I even want to know?” He receives no reply and gathers his daughter in his arms. “Dadda, look!” She displays her painted limbs. “I’m actually blue!”

“Lavender Blue, what did I tell you about making a mess?” he says sternly. She hums in consideration. “That it wasn’t good?”

He flicks her nose. “What do you think your mother would say about this? And your father?”

Blue winces. “Please don’t tell mom and dad. Pretty please?”

Carmadon pretends to think. “You have to promise to not do this again and I’ll consider it.”

Blue nods furiously. “Promise.”

“She was painting again,” Farley huffs. She has a smudge of white that streaks across her cheek. Clara pokes at it.

“I wanted to make a present for mommy,” Blue responds, crossly. “She said I was getting better last time.”

“And I meant it,” a female voice trills. A woman enters with Davidson, both of them at ease. He looks more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. The woman wears a grin with eyes only for Blue. She shrieks in delight and hops over to her, jumping into her outstretched arms. The woman embraces her and I can only assume that this was Holly, her mother.

“My dear Lavender, what have you been up to?” Holly laughs, examining her daughter’s arms. “Dane?”

Davidson shifts uncomfortably. “I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

Holly laughs again, the sound strangely musical. Her kind eyes land on me and she smiles, holding out her free hand. “You must be Mare Barrow. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dane only ever says good things.” I smile back, clasping my hand in her own. To my surprise, they are soft, not hardened by battle. “It’s wonderful to have met you as well. Your daughter is quite-”

“A handful?” Holly suggests. I flush. “Somewhat.”

Clara has found her way onto the floor and crawls over to Blue. Holly bends over and sets her down. “Who do we have here?”

Farley steps forward looking torn between greeting Holly and scolding Clara for interrupting. She settles on the former. “This is my daughter, Clara.”

“What a beautiful name!” Holly exclaims. “Perfect for a lovely little girl,” she grins down at Clara. Farley smiles warmly though it’s tinged with sadness and I understand why. We share a quick glance. “Thank you. She was named after my mother.”

Holly catches the look. “Oh, I see,” she draws out. Her voice was faint. Carmadon clears his throat. “It’s good to see you, Holls.” I raise brow at the nickname. He envelopes her in a hug, dwarfing her easily. She was slight woman with delicate features and black skin with a warm red undertone.

I knew that Holly and Carmadon were good friends and they’d conceived Blue for him and his husband to raise. That was pretty much all I knew. However, the relationship between them was unlike anything I’d seen. Davidson had told me she was a singer, the kind that was born of talent not blood and travelled often.

Though she was a newblood, a nymph. Not a particularly powerful one though. She came to visit as frequently as she could so I was told. I think back to when we’d had our first night here and Carmadon had alluded to children between Newbloods and Silvers. I wonder what Cal would think if he were here. My heart flutters at the thought. Would he see what I saw? A chance, a future?

Carmadon sweeps an arm at Farley. “This is General Farley, an esteemed member of the Scarlet Guard’s Command.” Farley straightens. “She is a vital member in the relationship between Montfort and her own people”

“I commend you for your work, General. Thanks to you, my daughter won’t suffer the fate of war,” Holly says, inclining her head. Her eyes flash with something dark before it’s wiped away.

Farley swallows heavily “We do what we can to protect them,” she responds softly. Her gaze strays to Clara wobbling around while Blue holds her arms. Both mothers watch as their daughters giggle, oblivious to the complications of the world. I’d been that way once. Carefree with my siblings, confident in the knowledge that my parents were the shield against any horrible thing.

Davidson frowns. “Where’s Eli? And Nadine for that matter?”

Carmadon blinks for a moment. “I have no idea.”

Holly eyes him. “Seriously?”

Farley sighs. “They went out, relax.” Davidson is clearly upset by this but when he opens his mouth in protest Farley cuts him off. “They’re old enough to handle themselves.”

“I don’t mind putting myself in danger, but my children are a different story,” Davidson grinds out. “It’s not safe for them to go out alone.”

“Perhaps it’s for the best,” Carmadon reasons. He lays a hand on his husband’s shoulder and looks at me pleadingly.  I pretend to not notice. There was no way I was getting into that.

“How so?” Davidson bites. His leg bounces with nerves. Holly takes his hand in her own. Her touch seemingly having a calming effect. “You know Eli and Nadine. They’re good kids and you’ve raised them well.” Davidson slumps into a seat, absorbing her words.

“If it helps...Nadine’s improved immensely in combat,” Farley shrugs. “If she continues training with me, she’ll be unstoppable.” I huff in amusement at her barely disguised self-praise.

Even Davidson cracks a smile. “I’m sure she will.”

Footsteps pound through the hall and we all rise to our feet. Lightning pulses beneath my skin, ready to be called upon. Eli and Nadine burst through, both panting and out of breath. She holds a creamy envelope in her hand. I know that this must be one of Davidson’s correspondences. The sparks recede back into my skin as I watch her hand the letter to Davidson.

They looked strangely alike in demeanor if nothing else. You could almost say they were related though she was not his daughter in the adopted or biological sense.

Davidson scans the letter, his expression infuriatingly blank. I catch sight of the Nortan seal on the front and my heart gallops in my chest. I already fear the worst but it’s not the kind I expect.

He clears his throat before reading the words aloud.

“The honourable General Calore and his uncle, Julian Jacos have accepted Montfort’s request to have them at our Independence Day celebration.”

I’m out of the room before he can continue. I run and run until I swear I can hear Maven’s mocking laughter dodging my every step. It’s almost childlike and full of glee. I whirl around to find him grinning by a pillar. I almost gasp but he’s gone before I can.

No, no, no. He only ever came in the night, this wasn’t real. Did this mean he would pop up at any time? The real Maven would delight in that immensely. I collapse and shove my head between my knees, rocking back and forth.

Still his laughter doesn’t fade.

[theburninglilac]

Journal Entry #1

Okay, so here’s the thing. I'm not good at journaling! I want to be so badly, but I’m just not. Alas, we will power through and I want to tell you all a story. I have had a good life, overall. I love my family, and they love me. I’m surrounded by a great support system that aids me through my everyday life -- I’m content. But, I miss my grandmother.

My grandmother passed away when I was just nearing eleven years old. This isn’t a sob story, trust me. Well, I mean, it really depends on how you look at it. I don’t see it as a sob story, I just see it as a realization that could have been avoided if I tried a bit harder. What does that mean, you ask? Well, let’s chat. 

For real this time . . .

My grandmother used to be my best friend, we were just the same. We both were practically blind, hated country music, and had an undying love for Cherry Garcia ice cream. Basically twins. 

Well, Sundays in my family were extremely important. Not for religious reasons per se (I was religious, but usually that was focused on my father's side.) Sundays were a day of relaxation and good food. And trust me, my great-grandmother knew good food. Great-Grandma was a woman with taste. You didn’t know heaven until you broke off the head of her gingerbread men at Christmas time. She could make something delicious out of nothing. 

She had birthed ten kids. Ten kids, can you imagine? I’m an only child, and sometimes hearing stories about my youth is too much for me. Anyways, nine of her ten children went on to have kids. Some went on to have multiple, and some had one. My grandmother, or meem, (childhood nicknames never cease to amaze me. Like, seriously, ‘meem’? What does that even mean? Where in the world did I even get that name?) Anyways . . . my grandmother had one biological child, my mother. But, she had one step-daughter, who was my grandfather’s, “peep” (again, with the childhood nicknames . . . ) biological daughter. My aunt. My aunt was always close with my grandmother. Always. And, so was my mother. My grandmother was a loving woman, who smoked a bit too much and drove an unmistakable green jeep for most of my life.

I always had an issue with her smoking. I hated that she was ruining her lungs because the second you heard that specific cough; the one that would start small and build and build and build, until you never knew if it was going to stop, scared me. I grew up with most of my family on my mother’s side smoking. It was always an afterthought seeing my family gathered on the porch with their lighters and packs of Camels in hand. The smell of cigarettes was never exactly comforting growing up, but it was familiar. 

My mom hated when everyone smoked around me. I was diagnosed with asthma at a very young age. I’ve been to the ER more times than I’d like to admit for my crappy lungs, and cigarette smoke never helped. Well, my grandmother was one of the worst smokers in my family. She would smoke up to a pack or more in a day, and it got to the point where she had to be put on oxygen.

I’m not sure if I have any pictures of her without an oxygen tank strapped to her person.

Anyways, Sundays were my favorite. At my great-grandmother’s we’d all laugh and eat, gossip and smile. Those breakfasts will always be a fond memory in my mind.

Everyone seemed genuinely happy . . . I was genuinely happy. My parents were yet to be divorced, everyone was alive and well, and there was a whole lot of love being spread. 

As much as I love breakfast with my family, after breakfast was my favorite part of the day. Meem and Peep’s house. 

My grandparents lived in a small trailer located on the Hudson River. It was a single wide, molding in some areas, and no appliance was from the 2010s. Nonetheless, it was my favorite place in the world. Because I adored my grandmother. 

She was a painter, and I loved watching her particular strokes on the pieces she worked on. She never was mad at me either, unlike my grandfather. My grandfather is a stern man. He is brute and terribly blunt, but he has a good heart. His passions include hunting and rodeos, which I was never a fan of, so it was hard seeing eye to eye with him all the time.

As an only child, I made my own fun, playing with dolls by myself, making up stories that only I heard, and reading books that I borrowed from the public library. I wasn’t allowed any electronic devices until I was in middle school, so for years, I made my own fun.

One of my favorite activities was having my grandmother lie down with me and make up stories as I napped in her room. I’m sure if she were still alive today she would roll her eyes at the thought, because I asked her to make up story after story . . . but, she always did. 

As a child, I was never “in the know” about my family’s finances. My father is a factory worker, and my mother is a manager at a store, but also ran a babysitting service when a was young. We were your everyday middle-class folk, living in a boring middle-class house, on a boring middle-class street, in a boring middle-class town. I liked boring though because as a child, I didn’t know boring. Boring wasn’t a concept I understood. 

I remember one Christmas I really wanted a doll called “Lalaloopsy.” I wanted it so bad, and that year, they were all the rage for young children between the ages of five to twelve. As Christmas day approached, I remembered opening up the present from my grandmother and shrieking with joy. It was the doll I wanted. The very doll that I wanted for the majority of the year. It was in my hands, and I couldn't have been any happier. 

I hugged my grandparents tightly and thanked them, but as I did, I remembered the smile my grandmother had on her face. It wasn’t happy. It was almost sad . . . but why would that be? It’s Christmas day! We're opening presents! This is fun!

Come to find out, my grandparents struggled financially that year. That present was from my mother and father, with a gift tag that was from my grandparents. They couldn't afford gifts that year. And knowing that after my grandmother’s passing broke my heart. 

It’s not just because of the money, that this news broke my heart. It was the fact that my grandmother was willing to give anyone anything. She went as far as giving her neighbors, a couple who struggled even worse financially, their beautiful faux Christmas tree. I was disappointed, because as a child I had zero concept of money, and thought this completely ridiculous. Instead of their beautiful Christmas tree, my grandparents opted for a small two-foot faux tree that couldn’t fit ornaments. 

As I’ve grown, I can finally appreciate the selflessness of my grandmother and her services to so many people. Will I ever know if she actually wanted to keep her tree? No. But, do I know it most likely made the day of a couple who were more in need of holiday cheer? No doubt.

As the years passed, my grandmother’s health decreased rapidly. And, as this happened, my parents filed for divorce. Most people said it was completely out of the blue -- I thought it was completely out of the blue. But, I grew older and realized just how different my parents were. And just how their differences hurt each other, rather than encouraging each other.

When I was eleven I dealt with a lot. At least in my opinion. My dog died, and being that I had no siblings, this was a difficult loss. She had cancer . . . everywhere. She couldn’t be saved, and when she was put down, it pained me. Secondly, we moved. Not far, sure . . . but, we moved. I didn’t want to leave my boring house, on my boring street. But, we did. And I still miss that house. Thirdly, my parents' divorce. I cried for days because of this news. I loved my parents being together. I really did. The idea of having parents divorce, when I lived in a family (my father’s side) that said divorce was sinful, scared me. I grew up listening to my family a lot, to which I regret. They taught me ideals that I simply don’t hold anymore, thanks to their traditional views and outlooks. But, nonetheless, I needed my parents to stay together. See, here is the thing. I‘d like to believe I’m religious. I think God is real to an extent, but I believe in science. I’d like to think there is something after death, but I'm terrified of the idea of Hell. 

I think that’s what I’ve always struggled with when dealing with religion. I don’t want to be scared to devote myself to a religion, because frankly, I am scared of it. If it wasn’t worse than divorce, I’m a bastard. Yeah, I said it. I was born out of wedlock, and my parents didn’t “tie the knot” until I was eight. They had been together for more than a decade before their wedding, but when they had me, the bible had declared me a sin. Not even my choice. I was a sin the second I was brought into this world. Not that I believe that anymore, but as a child, I doubted my self worth. Though, I didn’t exactly know the concept of “self-worth” as an eleven year old, I did know that sometimes I felt ashamed for no reason. I’d look around at my family, my cousins, and aunts and uncles who lived happily together. I wanted that.

When I had these thoughts I constantly confined to my grandmother, she always knew what to say. She always made me feel like I was worth it. She loved me through thick and thin.

This leads to my fourth reason of, ‘Why I Dealt with A Lot When I Was Eleven.’ 

My grandmother was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and died, all within ten days. 

I know this isn’t a sob story, but God, I sobbed. A lot. Remember how I said she was a smoker? Well, once she went on oxygen, she quit. She did it! She was the first sibling in her family to quit smoking. But, she was the first to pass away. 

Ironic right? 

Well, as the days went on, my grandmother couldn't speak. It physically hurt her to speak. I remember leaving the hospital on one of her last days on this Earth feeling mad. Little ole’ me, mad at my grandmother because she had cancer. I wasn’t mad at the fucking cancer, I was mad at her. 

I left the hospital with my dad, and she hadn’t said she loved me. It’s not because she didn't want to, it’s because she fucking couldn’t. I called my mom in tears, I just wanted to hear my grandmother. That’s all I wanted. So, my mother put my grandmother on the line with her small flip phone to tell me she loved me. 

Her voice was so scratchy, I knew it hurt. I had to have hurt. But, between the tears and anger I had towards her, I didn’t care about her pain. She said she loved me. But, that wasn’t MY grandmother. That wasn’t the woman I had known for my entire life. That wasn’t the woman who liked orange flavored cinnamon buns, and The Golden Girls. This sounded like a complete stranger.  

I gave the phone back to my dad. I didn’t want to hear her. Because hearing her say “I love you” on repeat felt too painful. I knew that this was going to be my last call with her, and instead of saying “I love you too,”  . . . I cried and handed the phone back to my dad. 

I regret that to this day. 

Because, two days later, she died. I had no grandmother anymore. And, I had been too scared and angry to say “I love you,” because I knew that would have been the last time I did so. 

At the funeral, I couldn’t get out of my mother’s car. I was too sad. My tears had puffed my eyes so much I couldn’t see. And with my parents' fresh divorce, there was tension in the air. Could you imagine? On top of the grief and sorrow, the tension between my parents was so thick it could be cut with a knife.

In the days leading up to my grandmother's funeral, I told my mom I wanted to write a speech. I wanted to speak to the crowd of people in front of me and redeem myself from my last phone call with her. But, when I built up enough courage to walk into the funeral home, I saw everyone. Tears were being shed, people were hugging one another, and suddenly the tiny piece of composition notebook paper in my hand didn’t feel important. 

I’ve always been uncomfortable around deceased people. This is funny because I live right across the road from a cemetery. But, when deceased people are on display, I can never build up the bravery it takes to approach them. Because they look alive. With makeup done nicely, and a beautiful outfit to go along with the makeup. Seeing a deceased body never felt real, because by all means of appearance -- they looked alive.

It took a lot that day to approach my grandmother. This was the first time I had seen her without an oxygen tank by her side in years, and she wasn’t wearing her glasses. I studied her face for a long time, then I prayed. My grandmother wasn’t intensely religious. I think she believed in God, but to what extent -- I’ll never know. So, as an eleven-year-old kneeling down and “praying” I spoke to whoever was willing to listen. Whether it was a God, or my grandmother, maybe no one, who knows . . . I still spoke. After my praying, I plucked up all the courage I had to hold my grandmother’s cold lifeless hand. I wanted to throw up, that I remember. I was so overwhelmed, but it felt nice in some sense. Because at that very moment, I was in my own world with just my grandmother again. I couldn’t say it was a happy moment, but maybe somber is a good word for it.

I placed the speech I had written for my grandmother in her palm and wrapped her hand around it. It was our secret. One last secret, before I said goodbye. 

The months after her passing were tough for everyone in my family. Arguments were made, feuds were started, and by six months of fighting, Sunday morning breakfasts no longer happened. I had never realized how much my grandmother affected the entire family. Once she was gone, siblings were blaming each other for her death, my grandfather practically fell dormant, and my parents fell into what would become a multiple-year distaste for each other. All because of my grandmother.

I suppose no one in my family had a heart like hers. I never felt the warmth of happiness around anyone, that I had felt with her. She was pure magic. 

I’ve grown up my entire teenage life, turning adult life, without her. There are days where I beg her to give me a sign that she’s watching. Some days they come, some days they don’t. My family was never too tech-savvy when I was a child, so there is a lack of pictures of my youth. This means there’s a lack of pictures including my grandmother.

I miss her. Sometimes I still feel anger at myself, because as I grow older it’s harder to remember what she looks like. 

I no longer can remember the sound of her voice. 

I wish I could hug her once more. Or drive around in her ridiculous green jeep once more. Maybe even make fun of country music together. 

I wish she could have watched me grow older. Maybe watch my graduation. Drop me off at college. Help me decide on my prom dresses. God, the things I wish we could’ve done. But, life moves on. I miss her, but I can’t dwell in the past, because she simply wouldn’t have agreed with that decision. 

I pray she doesn’t hold a grudge against me because of our final goodbye. 

I pray that she watches over me and smiles because of my achievements. 

I just hope she’s happy now.

[mistressofmuses]

Spirit of the Season

“I just… really want her to enjoy the holidays after everything that’s been going on,” Grace finished with a sigh.

Her grandmother’s spirit hovered just a few feet in front of her, giving her a thoughtful look.

“Are you sure that adding something else supernatural to the mix is really the best way to do that?” the ghost asked. “The supernatural is what created the stress in the first place.”

Her grandmother was right. No one knew how it had happened, just one day about a month before, people had woken up with… superpowers. X-man style, pretty much. Some were fairly general, like Grace’s had proven to be; she could make things happen by willing them to do so. Also, she was talking to her grandmother, who had died about three years back.

Jazz, on the other hand, had gotten super speed. She hadn’t yet figured out the triggers to activate it, which had led to several frustrating days of missing her destinations by accidentally speeding miles away in seconds, and then having to walk back the old-fashioned way when she couldn’t trigger it again.

Now it was creeping toward December 25, and even though neither of them was religious, Grace still wanted to celebrate Christmas. It was maybe a little immature, but she’d always believed strongly in some kind of holiday magic around this time of year, some kind of spiritual presence that she felt to the core of her. The kind of magic that made kids believe in Santa and flying reindeer, that made everything feel like it could be as wonderful as the world portrayed in a classic carol.

Jazz was proving to have absolutely zero holiday spirit at all, not even wanting to put up a tree or lights. She was so stressed about her new power that she sometimes avoided even getting out of bed, terrified that she’d accidentally speed into a wall (again), leaving her with a goose-egg on her forehead and probably losing them their security deposit.

When Grace had tried to talk to her, Jazz had said that she needed proof of the holiday spirit and magic that Grace was talking about. She said that she’d believe in a holiday miracle when she saw one, and until then, she was happy to play the Grinch character. She’d be more willing to play along some other year, maybe, if she got this speeding under control, but she just couldn’t put on a happy face under the circumstances.

Grace understood, and she didn’t want to push Jazz to act a certain way, but… the holidays and the feeling they gave her were one of the most comforting, glowing feelings Grace had ever known. If Jazz could feel that too, then she just knew it would make her feel better.

Her grandmother’s spirit cleared her throat politely. Not that a ghost even had a throat to clear, making it even more obvious it was solely to get Grace’s attention. “You know, girl, the least you could do is pay attention when I’m bothering to be visible right in front of you.”

“Sorry, Gram. Will you help me?”

“Why Santa Claus?” her grandmother asked.

“Well, I’m not going to ask Jesus to appear to her,” Grace laughed.

Her grandmother didn’t seem to think it was quite as funny as Grace did, but it looked like she was suppressing a smile. It was harder to tell on the blue-white figure that looked almost like an unfinished sketch of the grandmother she’d loved her whole life.

“All right. I’ll do my best to help bring about the manifestation of Christmas cheer. But if this backfires, it’s on you alone, I hope you realize that.”

Grace nodded, and between one breath and the next, her grandmother had vanished.

She closed her eyes and envisioned as hard as she could, Santa Claus. The dominant cultural depiction of him, and the good will warm feelings he symbolized. And sending it all towards Jazz.

~

It was late on Christmas Eve when a sound in the living room woke both Grace and Jazz. Jazz was up and out of the room before Grace had even woken enough to sit up. As she sat up and looked toward the hall, she saw Jazz seem to just appear in the hallway, and then rapid-speed toward the living room.

Grace got up to follow, much more slowly by comparison. But she had a sudden idea of what might be in their living room, if her and her grandmother’s efforts had paid off. Their apartment didn’t have a fireplace or the accompanying chimney, but they did have a balcony. If Jazz was about to have a genuine encounter with the embodiment of holiday cheer, Grace did not want to miss it.

She rushed down the short hallway, reaching the living room just in time to see Jazz, holding a heavy hardcover book like it was a weapon, rush forward in a motion blur to slam into a red-garbed man. The man collapsed backwards, having been hit with a hefty book moving faster than a car on the interstate.

Jazz stood over the other figure, brandishing the book like she was ready to take a second shot. Then she got a really good look at the figure, and the book fell to the floor.

She looked up at Grace with wide eyes. “Babe, I think I just killed Santa Claus.”

~

Jazz had not killed Santa, it turned out. But he was unconscious, and they could not wake him. Just to be on the safe side, Grace even called on her grandmother, who confirmed that Santa was not in any danger of dying (wasn’t he immortal? Could he be killed?), but that didn’t solve the immediate problem.

Grace’s grandmother didn’t offer any additional assistance. She just glared at Grace and reminded her, “It’s on you.”

They got Santa as comfortable as possible, on their couch, covered in a throw blanket. Even unconscious, Grace was filled with a sort of warm, bubbly feeling. It made her want to hug the man. Hopefully he’d still let her do that after he woke up.

“Did it ever occur to you that rushing full-speed—which is considerable for you—at someone while brandishing a weapon is not the appropriate way to meet someone?” Grace asked.

“I thought he was an intruder. He was an intruder! Shit, I didn’t think that Santa, who is, surprise, apparently real, would be in our living room! And it’s not like I can control the speed thing anyway. I wasn’t planning to hit him like that.” Jazz was pacing, running her hands through her long, dark hair repeatedly. Every few repetitions of her path across the floor, she’d sort of flicker into her super speed, and practically teleport across the room.

“But you do see that he’s real, right?” Grace asked. This was emphatically not how she’d planned this to go, but it had to still count as proof of concept. Santa was real, holiday magic was real, that should still mean something.

Jazz did not seem to be feeling the magic. “What the hell are we going to do? This is Santa. It’s Christmas Eve.”

“You are so on the naughty list,” Grace said, meaning it to be teasing. But then she had to admit with a cringe, “I bet we both are.”

“Oh my god,” Jazz said, stopping her pacing and clenching her hands in her hair. “But there are plenty of kids out there who aren’t on the naughty list. And now Santa is unconscious in our living room, and all those kids are going to have the worst Christmas ever!” She looked like she was about to cry.

“Shit,” Grace said, the full implications of the current situation hitting her like a ton of bricks. There was no way they were going to be able to get the gifts to the kids who needed them. Then she got just the beginning of an idea… “Just how fast can you run?”

~

It was the longest night of Jazz’s life, and it felt nearly as long for Grace.

Sure enough, as per the traditional cultural incarnation of Santa, parked on the roof of their apartment building there was a sleigh hitched behind a team of reindeer, the bed of the sleigh filled with bags of toys and other gifts. The animals were docile, and Grace did her best to explain the situation to them. They were magic reindeer so maybe they’d understand her. She tried her hardest to envision them understanding and cooperating, and then they set off.

The reindeer seemed to have some similar power to Jazz in addition to the whole… flying thing; they made it between neighborhoods almost instantly. At each of the neighborhoods, Jazz would take the armload of gifts designated for the local children, and then race from house to house distributing them.

The stress of the situation seemed to help her turn on the speed more reliably, at least. Grace filed that piece of information away. Jazz’s stress about her powers had probably been part of why she’d been having such a hard time with them.

And part way through the night, she actually seemed to start having fun. When she got back to the sleigh (where Grace waited with the reindeer), she started mentioning things about some of the families she’d visited, if briefly. The toys all seemed perfect for the children they were being left for, things that the children genuinely wanted, rather than what adults would have picked out for them.

After they’d reached the halfway point of the night (which was even longer than usual, as they raced the sun, crossing timezones to follow Christmas Eve night to finish their work before Christmas morning,) Jazz seemed completely delighted by the task. The different traditions she could see on display in households. The decorations. The variety of cookies and other treats left out for Santa, so many different family recipes and favorites. She brought some of all of them with her, saying at least they could give those to Santa, so he didn’t miss out. Lots of households left carrots and apples for the reindeer, and she gave those to the team pulling the sleigh.

Finally, they made the last deliveries, just as the light of Christmas dawn was starting to show in the eastern sky in this last region.

They had to rush back to their building, ‘parking’ on the roof, and cautiously returning to their apartment. They found Santa Claus awake, and neither of them knew what to say, and then they both began to apologize, words tangling together and competing, both trying to take the blame.

Santa didn’t even reply at first, he just stood, and reached out to pull both of them into a hug. He smelled like Christmas cookies and cinnamon, and it was one of the best hugs Grace had ever gotten.

“I think you righted your wrongs admirably,” he said. “You did what you could to help others, and I think you even learned something from the experience. I just hope the next time you’re slated to learn a lesson, I don’t have to get hit over the head.” He laughed, and the sound was every bit as rich and warm as it had ever been described. “You’re both off the naughty list. Now have a Merry Christmas.”

~

@yourbookcouldbegayer (I forgot to tag you when I posted this last night! I'm forgetful when tired.) Prompt was: "If it’s a fanfic, make it an AU: One of your characters develops superpowers, and Charlie Brown-esque, accidentally puts Santa Claus (or a St. Nick-ish figure) out of commission. Now they have to fill in for them for the night. (If your character’s not Christian, take the opportunity to make several ironic jokes… I know I will!)”

I’m not real thrilled with how this one turned out, but I might try to revise it into what I was going for at first. In this draft the idea I had sort of fizzled, and then I had to rush a bit to get it done. Also, I wasn’t 100% sure how to make the situation “Charlie Brown-esque” because I’ve never actually seen that movie in its entirety! But from what I recall, Santa Claus isn’t a figure in that movie. So hopefully I hit on it with the “character who is not feeling the holiday vibes” thing. :)

[theunofficialchurchofsatan]

“Satanism Isn’t a Congregational Religion” (Essay by Magister Bill M)

The 6/6/06 High Mass in Los Angeles was a most extraordinary event that I shall always remember. In the weeks that followed, some had asked me why the Church of Satan doesn't hold these sort of official, large-scale events more often. Some would even ask, "So when's the next event?" Well, our Church doesn’t work like that. This isn’t to say that Church of Satan members never get together in person. As a member myself, I have been to more than my fair share of not just Satanic group rituals, but also Satanic weddings, Satanic funerals, screenings of films created by Satanists, Church of Satan affiliated art shows, music performances, parties for Radio Free Satan, members’ birthday celebrations, and numerous other gatherings. But I know that when it comes to such meet-ups, I’m more of the exception than the rule. Most other Church of Satan members hardly ever meet with other members in person, usually by choice. Here are some of the reasons why you don't see the Church of Satan throwing large, official, public gatherings all the time:

First and foremost, Satanism as a religion does not require group gatherings. Satanism is simply not one of those religions where adherents regularly congregate for services every week, or collectively have specific traditions for particular holidays. Obviously the Church of Satan is not a “church” in the sense of a physical building, but rather with the more general meaning of that word: a body of people who all share adherence to the same religion (Satanism). There’s no need for the Church of Satan to have municipal churches for Satanists to go to, or different regional branches. Satanists know that if they want to conduct a Satanic ritual, whether as solitary or with a group of other Satanists, then The Satanic Bible contains all of the information they need. No special conducting ministers, special buildings, or official sacred relics are required.

Likewise, Satanism acknowledges that the desire and frequency of Satanic ritual is going to be different for different Satanists. It would be silly to expect the Church of Satan’s administration go through the hassle of scheduling and holding services worldwide for members who may or may not want to show up. More importantly, Satanism isn’t a religion for people who need to be led by the hand to do the things they want to go out and do as individuals, so it makes sense that the effort of pursuing and scheduling such activities should be upon the individual members who wish to do so, not the Church of Satan’s central office. As the old saying goes, you get out of membership what you put into it.

Satanism isn’t a religion for people who need to be led by the hand to do the things they want to go out and do…”

It’s worth mentioning however that for Satanists who do wish to network and meet up with other Satanists, membership in the Church of Satan still offers some enormous privileges. Like any organization, it helps facilitate the meeting of like-minded people, and the filtering out of most of the rest. For example, our members know that by restricting a gathering to only fellow Church of Satan members, you greatly filter out the clueless devil worshipers, Illuminati conspiracy theorists, dangerous Christian zealots, and other undesirables who would likely respond to some Craigslist ad asking for “Satanic ritual” participants. This membership privilege even extends to on-line interaction, as Church of Satan members know that private, members-only internet forums have an overwhelmingly higher quality of content and discussion than that of Satanism forums open to the public. The latter often attract proselytizers, spammers, anti-Satanism trolls, those with questions already answered in the www.churchofsatan.com FAQ documents, full-blown lunatics, and so on.

Many Satanists want to keep their religious affiliation a secret. Satanists take no shame in being Satanists, but we know the reality of the prejudice many people can and do hold against anybody known to be a Satanist. We learned that all too well during the Satanic Panic hysteria of the 1980s. While there are many Satanists who have careers and lifestyles that allow themselves to be out-of-the-closet as Satanists, not all Satanists do. Some would thus like to keep their affiliation a secret, to help secure their career, relationships with family members, and personal safety in their local communities. So it may be in a Satanist’s best interest to avoid going to any Satanism-affiliated events with high media exposure, or at the very least those with lots of guests taking and uploading photographs with their smart phones. The Church of Satan respects the privacy of its members, especially in light of the Satanic virtue of self-preservation and awareness of the Satanic Sin of counter-productive pride.

Security is a valid concern. This is in line with the choice to keep affiliation secret, and it's probably the most important reason of all for discouraging large, frequent, public gatherings. Advertising such large Satanist gatherings may eventually motivate some religious nut to show up with a bomb strapped to the chest, just to show us that "explosive" love Jesus has for us. I know we made sure we had no shortage of cops and bomb-sniffers on the night of 6/6/06, not to mention a maximum allowed number of attendees and other precautions.

Many Satanists, by their nature, are not very social creatures anyway. Some even say they simply hate leaving town, or hate collaborations or social gatherings of almost any type. In fact, it's not unheard of for a Church of Satan member to possibly go through his or her entire life without ever meeting another fellow member in person. These members have their own reasons for having joined the Church of Satan, but social networking simply wasn't one of them.

Just because two people are Satanists is no guarantee that they'll get along. In fact, members are not required or even expected to all get along with each other. This is a natural byproduct of having so many strong-willed individuals who, despite embracing the same core philosophy, personally manifest Satanism in vastly different ways. If two Satanists have personal conflicts with each other, it is suggested that they simply behave like adults and not associate with each other. The implications of this with social event organizers, let alone attendees, should be obvious. Which brings up another point:

What's fun to one Satanist may be a burden to another. Assuming you can get a large number of Satanists together, and get them together periodically, it begs the question of what form the proposed gathering should take. We have our standard ceremonies in The Satanic Bible and The Satanic Rituals, but what about other activities? With so many strong individuals in the Church of Satan, it's ridiculous to think that there's some type of social event that everybody would consider personally enjoyable.

Satanism is not a cause, and we’re not media whores. In recent years click-bait internet articles about alleged Satanists protesting in public or doing other publicity stunts to enrage Christian fundamentalists have proliferated. Some of these people don’t even consider themselves to be Satanists, but rather were just self-described atheists jokingly dressed as cartoonish “Satanists” for the sake of protesting, not unlike how some atheist protestors pretend to embrace the “Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster” parody religion to challenge creationists. Others do call themselves Satanists, but their actions show that they're missing the boat when it comes to Satanism (see the essay “Mirror, Mirror” by Magus Peter H. Gilmore).

… the Church of Satan has no official political position, as it leaves political stances up to the individual members.”

The Church of Satan is not a lobby group, and as such we don’t go out of our way to stage demonstrations together. In fact, the idea of a Satanism lobbying group is rather contradictory. First of all, the Church of Satan has no official political position, as it leaves political stances up to the individual members. Also, as it has been said, Satanists view Satanism as a tool, not a cause. Satanism is one of the few religions that state quite clearly that it’s not for everybody. We know there’s no real point in attempting to get “equal time” for Satanic nativity scenes, make Satanism palatable to the masses, or try to turn Satanism into a civil rights issue. Over the decades, we’ve seen self-labeled “Satanic” groups attempt to do these sorts of things, and not surprisingly they never end up accomplishing much of anything but noise. The bottom line here is that a protest gathering is the last sort of public gathering you should expect the Church of Satan to be doing.

You don't need an "official event" to get together anyway. As mentioned near the start of this essay, the opportunity to hook up with fellow Satanists is always there. And although the Church of Satan isn't a social club, many Satanists through their affiliation have invariably met others with common interests and ended up developing incredible friendships. I know I certainly have. But many like myself simply don't have the desire to plug every road trip or birthday party as some "official Church of Satan conclave" open to others. Some of the other reasons listed above help you understand why.

In summary, it doesn’t make any sense for the Church of Satan to try to have large, frequent congregations of its members. The reasons listed above range from aspects that are impractical to things being contrary to the principles of Satanism. Still, no matter how many times it’s explained what the Church of Satan is and isn’t, some people remain willfully ignorant. This is particularly true for people who compulsively bash Anton LaVey or the Church of Satan. They erroneously think that the Church of Satan should be actively holding rituals for its members all the time. They can't seem to grasp the idea that the one-time membership fee is a membership fee, not a transaction for services. They mistakenly think that we have an obligation to play the victim card and act as public pests for the media circus. When they don't see the Church of Satan doing these things, they ignorantly conclude that we don't "do" anything as an organization.

As already stated, the Church of Satan is not a "church" in the sense of a building where people go to worship weekly. It is a cabal of individuals, and a mutual admiration society of real-life do-ers who commonly embrace and apply the principles outlined in The Satanic Bible. If you want to see what the Church of Satan is “doing,” you should look at what its members are doing. The official news feed shows great examples every week of members knowingly applying the principles of Satanism in their lives in different ways towards tangible ends. And these are just the ones who decided to keep the Church of Satan posted! Many members are out there moving the world in ways that would be hindered if their audiences knew of their affiliation. We’re not wasting our time just trying to think up new ways to piss off Christians. And while events like 6/6/06 and other official “conclaves” can make life-long impressions for fellow Satanists, we also know the strengths of working in the shadows. We are operating in the real world, applying Satanism to our careers and life passions, in order to advance ourselves as individuals. We create music as musicians, write and publish books as authors, advance technology as engineers, create artwork as artists, serve in law enforcement and the military, affect justice as lawyers, create our own films and radio shows, raise children, work for animal welfare, professionally conduct scientific research, and so much more. Church of Satan members are especially aware of this when they do get to meet other fellow members in person and hear their stories about what they do in life. I know I am. That’s why we call it a “mutual admiration society”. Like any other religion, organized group ceremony has its place and purpose, and other large social events certainly have their benefits and rewards. But just as the herd is foolish to mistake sensationalist news story headlines as the only activities of “Satanists” (or more generally, take the media as reality), members of the Church of Satan know that the real strengths lie in individual and collaborative action, not congregation.

So enjoy the rare and enriching gatherings with other fellow Church of Satan members, should you choose to attend. Appreciate them for what they are: special gatherings meant to mark significant dates in aptly chosen locations, kept secret from the outsiders until they have been safely enjoyed by the members of our cabal!

[reekierevelator]

Beyond Burns

a short story

I was getting set up to record my latest spacecast on holiday trips to Mars, - Spacex starships were offering a special deal, - when in barges the director, slamming the door behind her.  

‘What does the big data analysis tell you to spout on about this time?’ spluttered the red-faced human, in her usual sensitive way.

‘Summer holidays – trips to Mars.’

‘Oh, not that old shite again.  Same every year.  Hell’s teeth, we don’t employ robot vidcasters just to end up doing what everyone else does. Post-festive season it’s all diets and holidays, same old same old. Now listen to me Chuck, I’m after the interplanetary broadcaster medal and the other stations are already all over the new technology. We have to do better than RADG, who got that whizz-kid to do an interview with James Watt.’

‘Who?’

‘Who knows, an engineer or something, hundreds of years ago, the point is Chuck that if they can do it so can we. We need to get our act together, get on this bandwagon quick, or else we pack our bags and get out.  It’s a cutthroat business – well, not for you obviously, maybe cut your cables and sell you for scrap if no-one else wants you, but at least you don’t have any bags to pack.  Listen hard Chuck, we’re up against it, so do it now while it’s still just this sound across time tech stuff; get in right away before upgrades escalate it to visuals and prices follow suit.’

‘But all my algorithms are geared to entertainment, holidays and so on – what do I know about history, engineers?’

‘It doesn’t have to be James Watt, numpty. We can set up the new tech to beam in on anyone selected.  Even this sound-only stuff is expensive though, so we need a well-known name.  It’s January, you know that red red rose song? I’ve always had a hankering to know more about that bad boy.’

‘Who?’

‘Name of Robert Burns, numpty.  I can’t be the only one still knows the name, even if it’s hundreds of years since he was around.’

‘Where do I find him?’

‘For God’s sake Chuck, it’s over a year since you were working out of Moon West. You need to be all about Earth people now. He was an Earthling. Ok, I know this is tricky for robots but you’ve got to remember Earth people can be as interested in their ancient predecessors as in red planet holidays.’

‘You do know they’ve worked out that water problem on Mars now.’

‘Will you forget Mars Chuck.  Just do as I ask, ok? Bobby Burns. Get on to him. Record him. Get him on the WSKY worldcast.’  The director flung her head back, turned on her high heels, flecks of saliva spraying from her mouth, and slammed the door on her way out. All work and no love life, that woman’s heading for a heart attack.  I suppose I might be too if I had one.

I searched my Universal Knowledge databanks and checked out this Burns guy. Apparently an Earth human born 1759, died 1796. An entertainer. Wrote some songs and poems. That must have been what passed for entertainment in those days.  And I thought, that’s only thirty-seven years, hardly enough time for a simple human to have done very much.  

I switched on my motor control and rolled off to see the engineers. This new-fangled technology annoyed me intensely.  I mean I was only built five years ago and already my memory capacity can’t keep up with all the new software updates. It’s the middle of the twenty-first century, the Earth’s dying on its feet, anyone human who can afford to is escaping, moving to the Moon, or buying a holiday home on Mars or Venus - some even taking a punt on Mercury - and so my mad boss lumbers me with this nonsense about new tech and tells me to talk to an ancient geezer from centuries ago. I mean, jeez-o.

The engineer android showed me the kit and explained how to set date and time and to use GPRS Historical Module to pinpoint the human I wanted to talk to, and some kind of one-way microscope to get a visual fix. Then there was this contraption to shout though so that your voice somehow carried back through time. The engineer said it would probably sound a bit tinny to the recipient, especially given my five year old voice activation system. He warned me the humans were all ensnared by religious controllers back then and it might sound like some ethereal voice of God to him when he heard it.  But then he smiled that ingratiatingly metallic smile of his and added that he knew any good media jock – such as myself – would be well-used to talking to total randoms at any distance and putting them at ease.

Since this guy Burns hadn’t lived that long, for a human anyway, I decided that to get anything at all interesting out of him I’d better set the time module for his last couple of years. He’d at least have had time to do something.  I fixed the controls for 1795 and told the engineer to locate Robert Burns and tie me on to him. My databanks said he ended up someplace called Dumfries in a bit of the Earth called Scotland.

The engineer locked on to a scruffy looking human, half-dressed in breeches and black waistcoat, living in some dingy accommodation in a squalid street called the Mill Vennel. Then he turned to me and clicked his metal joints into the thumbs up sign.

Surprised, I pressed my voice activation speaker close to the horn and shouted ‘Hey there, Bobby, this is Chuck, coming straight at you from WSKY Earthwide, - and, oh yeah, I’m about two hundred years away.’

There was a slight time delay before I heard: ‘Whit the Deil!!’  Whit’s that rammy in ma lug?’

‘Hey, like I said Bobby, it’s me, Chuck.  You won’t be able to see me…’

‘Whit, are ye hidin lik some kin o wee sleekit cowrin tim’rous beastie?’

‘No it’s this new tech Bobby, no visuals yet, maybe in a few years - once the android geeks have worked on it…’

‘Is this God speirin? I canna unnerstaun. Whit d’ye want o me? An can ye stop ca’in me Bobby?’

‘Ok what name do you prefer? My databanks are throwing up options – there’s Bobby, Bob, Bert, Bertie, Rob?’

‘Rob? Aye weel Rab, Rabbie then.’  

‘All good, - Rab it is, and what I want here is just for you and me to have a chat Rab – maybe I‘ll ask a couple of questions – you ok with that Rab?

‘You’ve a gey peculiar voice God.’

‘Like I said Rab, I’m Chuck, can’t really claim to be a deity as such. Call me inhuman if you want. I don’t mind. I can’t take offence. You can say what you like to me.’

‘I canna unnerstaun ye. But syne yer no God, that’s something forbye. I canna deny I’ve had mair than a few run-ins wi the Kirk in ma time. Yet, I’m aywes interestit tae hae a blether wi ither chiels an hear their stories.’

‘You’ll need to speak up Rab, the sound’s having to travel quite a long way. Can you just behave like a typical human who walks along entirely by himself and bellows into some mini-microphone that’s radio-linked to the communicator in his pocket.’

‘Whit? Oh I can bellow alright.  Gin ye ever heard me recitin ma verses at the Tarbolton Bachelors Club, the Crochallan Fencibles, or even in The Globe ye widna doot it.’

‘Well, that’s good to know Rab. But I see all those get-togethers involved drinking alcohol.’

‘Aye, an whitfor no? When chapman billies leave the street, an drouthy neebors neebors meet. There’s naethin wrang wi the nappy. Wi tippeny we fear nae evil; wi usquabae we’ll face the devil.’

‘You could be right Rab. Not something I can comment on.  For me, it’s just another way to rust the bodywork. So can we do the usual stuff?  Check through the data - What you do, where you came from, how you got into the business, famous friend anecdotes, women you’ve known – you know, the usual stuff. When we’re done my monomaniacal medal-seeking big boss director will bung you some compensation for your time.’

‘A ken the big boss type. Ye shouldna worry aboot yon high heid yins that think ower much o theirsels Chuck. Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord wha struts an stares an a that? Though hundreds worship at his word he’s but a coof for a that. For a that an a that, his ribband, star, an a that, the man o independent mind, he looks an laughs at a that.’

‘Well Rab, that’s certainly something I’ll add to my memory bank, but robot unemployment is on the up these days and the second-hand market is down.  It’s the metal scrapheap that beckons if my boss gets vindictive.’

‘Ach, dinna be feart man. Did I heard you say ‘compensation’?  Does that mean money?’

‘Sure, cash, spondulicks, filthy lucre.’

‘I’ve aywes suffered wi bein awfy short o the siller.’

‘Glad to be able to help out Rab. So let’s get started – early life?

‘Aye weel, let’s see, ma faither, a gairdner, tenant farmer, wis pit aff a fairm in Kincardine, near Stonehaven. Cam tae Ayrshire an met ma mither. Build his ain but’n’ben at Alloway for a vegetable gairden. The faimly grew so he needed mair room. He took oot a loan for a tenancy at Mount Oliphant. Found it wis gae stony grund.  The loan wis lik a millstone. Seiven bairns an me the auldest. We a had tae chip in wi the fairmwork soon as we were able. An later we flitted tae a fairm at Lochlea but naethin much changed. Ma faither wisna weel then an I wis the man o the fairm at fifteen. Hard, hard life. Aywes freezin or mingin, or baith; workin masel tae death.’

‘But what about college Rab?’

‘College?  I went tae schuil at Kirkosward for a few year, stertit when I turned six. Ma faither wis mad keen on the learnin but. Scrimped an saved. Got me a tutor for two year, learning French, studying English. An efter that faither taught me hissel – geography an sic lik. An then a year o the mathematics in Ayr. Aye, I wis well educated, nae ignorant ploughboy. I’ve aye been wide-read. An then ma mither taught me tae. Ma mither wis born Agnes Broun. She hadna her letters at a’ but she wid sing as braw as the laverock.  Mony a song I took fae her, an a bit o the fiddle anaw.’

‘My data banks say you wrote songs yourself? My boss seemed to know one.’

‘Aye, scrieved the first few at fourteen. They skipped ben ma heid gin I grappled wi the plough. They went down well wi the lassies. Mind, even at the schuil there was yon Peggy Thomson. Ye ken, the sweetest hours that ere I spend are spent amang the lasses O. At Lochlea there wis an eager lass, Elizabeth Paton. Oh aye, but gie me a cannie hour at e’en, my arms about my dearie O, an war’ly cares an war’ly men, may a gae tapsalteerie O.  She had ma bonnie wee bairn an we ca’d her Elizabeth. But a wis too young yet an her faither wadna let us mairry.’

           ‘But what became of your daughter?

           ‘Died. No lang syne. I canna speak o it.’

           ‘Sorry to hear that Rab.’

‘Aye, it angers me the whiles. State o the warl. Politics.’

‘How do you usually vote Rab?’

‘Vote? Nae French Revolution here frien. Nae restoration o Scots independence. Sic a parcel o rogues in a nation. Wid the lik o me, a tenant fairmer, hae the franchise? Na, na.  An them that’s tried fechtin for it are in Botany Bay.  Ye can nae mair speak oot loud aboot sic things as murmur the Fiscal. But yet there’s weys if it’s dressed up in a sang. Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled - now’s the day and now’s the hour - wha for Scotland’s king and law, freedom’s sword will strongly draw, freeman stand or freeman fa, let him follow me. Mair for Thomas Muir o Huntershill that for Bruce.’

‘I see, so you wrote protest songs, political songs Rab?’

‘It’s no jist yon Whigs an Tories man. It’s a muckle brawer, bonnier thing. Like I say, then let us pray that come it may - as come it will for a that, - that sense o worth o’er a the earth, shall bear the gree an a that. For a that, an a that, that man to man the world o’er, shall brithers be for a that. Ma favourite poet wis aye Milton.

‘But the data has you down as more of a ladies man Rab.’

           ‘Aye, the lassies, mony a fair charmer. They lik’d me as muckle as I lik’d them. An Chuck, just in case ye really are God, I’ve suffered my penance in the Kirk for athing. But yet O Lord, confess I must at times, I’m fash’d wi fleshly lust, an sometimes too in worldly trust, vile self gets in. But Thou remembers we are dust, defil’d wi sin. O Lord yestreen Thou kens wi Meg, thy pardon I sincerely beg, O may’t ne’er be a living plague, to my dishonour. An I’ll never lift a lawless leg, again upon her. Besides, I further maun avow, wi Leezie’s lass three times I trow, but Lord that Friday, I was fou, when I cam near her. Or else, Thou kens, Thy servant true, wad never steer her.

           ‘It’s still Chuck, Rab. There’s no gods for me. But I’ve heard humans say confession is good for the soul, so it’s as well you got it off your chest Rab.  So this whole fame and celebrity thing; how did that happen?

‘Ach, I’m aye sayin I’m a fiddler an a poet. But fairmin wis ma livin. An I wis a’ set tae gie up the fairmin an flee tae the Indies when a freemason pal o mine agreed tae print up a wheen o ma poems. He cam awa wi six hunner copies an yon buik wis read a ower the land. Rax it frae ma shelf for ye the noo if ye lik.  They read it even up Glesca wey, so I gaed north. That’s where I fell in wi a lass fae Campbeltown, Mary Campbell, ma Highland Mary. But she vanished. I went on tae Embra tae see yon man Creech. He printed mair editions. I wis the toast o the toon richt eneuch, invitit here, there, and everywhere. I met yon laddie Walter Scott an a’ the bigwigs. Creech said he’d buy the copyricht.

So I toured the hail country frae Highlands tae the Borders, gaitherin tunes the whiles an waitin for Creech tae stump up. I wis makin new words, better words, for thae auld tunes. I met yon greatest o fiddlers, Neil Gow, in Dunkeld. We talked o the rubata tempo, an I telt him tae save Scotland’s strathspey, its staccato, fae thae continentals lik Mozart wi their legatos an sustenos. They didna unnerstaun it. They drain the life oot it wi tremolo an vibrato till it’s sterile – and them bein paid for it anaw, no lik us. Mozart’s faither agreed wi me did he no? He kent the auld tunes an telt his laddie tae let them be.

‘The database says you were the first folk song collector; that you insisted the culture resided in the medium. The medium was the message.’

‘Aye, I kent the Italian musicians settled in Scotia. I collected sangs fae the Borders, an Gaelic tunes anaw; even Russian tunes; an Irish tunes I got fae ma sister in Dundalk. Ma favourite tune’s ‘Yestreen I had a pint o wine’; ma words tae an Irish melody. Ach, strathpeys, highland jigs, borders’ hornpipes, slip jigs, reels, - I ken them a’.  Ken the notes an rhythms. I mixed them a’ thegether, jist lik I jumbled the words o a’ the dialects o Scots wi English words an Auld English tae.

An in Embra waitin for Creech did I no fa’ in wi yon Agnes McElhose. That wis a lassie cast off bi her waster o a man, left her wi twa bairns. But she wis a rare beauty, Clarinda tae ma Sylvander when we passed notes, but we ca’d her Nancy. Aye, it wis hard when I maun tak leave o her. I telt her ae fond kiss and then we sever, ae fond kiss goodbye forever. But that’s a ahint me noo. I’m long bye cooried doon wi ma wife, Jean Armour, ane o thae Mauchline Belles.’

‘So she’s been good for you?’

‘Aye, for mony a year. Chuck, my luve is like a red, red rose that’s newly sprung in June. My luve is like a melodie, that’s sweetly play’d in tune. She gave me twins, a boy and a girl, - of course we ca’d them Robert an Jean, - even afore we mairrit in ‘88. An mind, there’s been seiven more since.’

‘Ok Rab, that sounds great. So do you have time to do anything else nowadays other than looking after your family?’

‘Weel I’m at the songs yet, an still scrievin mair poems. Near eight hunner o them noo. But still, songs dinna pey the rent. Whit spare siller I hid got I’ve gien tae ma brither, Gilbert, tae help wi his fairm an his faimly. An noo ma health is no up to much. The consumption ye ken, a fair scunner.’

‘My database interprets that as pulmonary tuberculosis Rab. That’s not so good.’

‘Naw, ye’re richt. I’m wastin awa tae naethin. I’m bound whares ghaists and houlets nightly cry. But Jean an the ithers, they’re dependin oan me. I��ve taen a post as an exciseman. I maun ride a horse ilka day ower half the country, rain or shine. Then nichts I’m at the scrievin for a yon numbers. I’m pressed sae hard there wis even nae time tae gang tae ma ain dochter Elizabeth’s funeral  An forbye, the sawbones noo prescribes bathin in the freezin Solway every day.’

‘Sounds tough Rab, but time is nearly up.’

‘Time near up?? Aye, weel, ye’re lik as no richt. Ye sure ye’re no God Chuck? Ye ken I’ve no been richt for ages. I’ve telt abody this last wee while ma time is surely comin gey soon.  Aye, it’ll a’ be ower afore I get much aulder.’

‘What I meant to say was we need to wind up our chat Rab; keep down the new tech expenses etc.’

‘Aye weel, it’s been a grand wee blether Chuck.  I hope the bother atween you an yer big boss-man get sortit oot.’

‘My big boss is a woman Rab, a lassie you would say, but thanks anyway.’

‘A lassie? Michty me, whit lik? Sic an antrin thing Chuck. This lassie, is she bonnie?’

‘Tall for a human, I’ve heard her called sexy, fiery, knows what she wants and works hard to get it.’

‘She wadna bide up by Alloway? I’m no deid yet Chuck an I aince kent a lassie lik yon. There's nought but care on ev'ry han', in ev'ry hour that passes O, what signifies the life o' man, an' 'twere na for the lasses O.  Bring her ben the hoose gin ye call roon again an I’ll gie her a sang or twa.’

           ‘Well, I can ask Rab.’

‘Guid man. But here, Chuck, my jo, I canna see ye, but I’ll haud oot ma haun. And there’s a hand my trusty fiere, and gie’s a hand o thine, and we’ll tak a right guid-willie waught, for auld lang syne.’

‘Ok Rab, I’m stretching my metal limb across the centuries.’

‘Brawly done Chuck.’  

‘And hey, that ‘auld lang syne’ thing, I’ve heard of it. My databanks tell me you did a song of that name; say it’s going to be really big for you. But, ah, unfortunately it won’t be published till after you’re dead. Oh, and apparently everyone will sing it to the wrong tune, using a Major 6th for a Reel instead of the Minor 6th for a reflective Air.’

‘Ach I hinna time tae care Chuck. We’re a’ jist passin through. Even you. An whit we leave ahint is fur ithers tae dae wi as they will. But mind the whiles we’re here, it’s ne’er how much God’s gien ye, it aye whit ye dae wi whit yer gien.’

‘That’s food – well, drink - for thought Rab. This spacecast will certainly be something different. You’ve added a lot to my human emotions databank. I can even see the Moon and Mars-dwelling types taking to your output once the recording is re-broadcast around the solar system. Maybe my boss really has got something going for her after all. She’s pulled you up from the depths of her human brain cells and she’s going to put you out there again. Maybe have you on the spacecast again soon Rab. Teach us a few of your songs. And you’re right. In the end we are all scrap, but maybe on the next time-tube visit we can catch you in your younger years.’

‘Ach, awa wi ye.  I see ye in ma heid Chuck; fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face. An gin ye’ll be quicker than Creech wi the ‘compensation’, or I’ll be deid afore it comes. I canna even offer a wee deoch an dorus. Ach, I’ve composed mony an epitaph Chuck. It’s time I wis awa noo an scrieved ma ain.’

‘Ok, bye for now Rab.’

Just then the door crashed open and in strode the boss. ‘Well, how did it go? Tech work ok? Lively discussion? Am I in line for the interplanetary broadcast medal after all?’

‘Aye,’ I said ‘a that an a that, but a coof for a that.’

‘Are your sensors causing problems Chuck?  Sounds like your wires are crossed somewhere. I swear you’re more trouble than you’re worth.  If it wasn’t for the state of WSKY’s budget I’d replace you tomorrow with one of those shiny new supercyber androids coming out of the Mars mega-factory.

‘He was asking after you, great leader. Very interested to hear about you. Said he was keen to meet you, sing you some of his songs, and happy to invite you into his home if the tech ever allows it.’

‘Well, Chuck that’s really not a bad idea. He was a handsome man. Did he mention red, red roses? I think we’d have a lot to, er, talk about. Maybe you do have your uses after all Chuck.’

[mental-health-advice]

Hey, I'm 21 y/o student and I've been struggling with depression and self-harm since I was young(earliest memory around 8?), but I still really struggle with fighting certain urges eg when I go back home for the holidays or bdays I get so overwhelmed by everyone getting up in my face, and if I display any sign of discomfort I'm often made to feel like I'm just being an awful person. I've found that when I go back to where my family lives I'm taking far more drugs that I normally(B 1/3)

would, as usually it’s only when I can afford to, so it’s not impacting me in terms on money, but when I’m there it’s like everyone want me to fail as a person, I went vegetarian every time I was home my dad in particular always shoved meat with strong scents under my nose, laughing at how stupid it was. But if I got annoyed everyone said it was my fault for trying anyway.. I want to feel good but I cant, I’ve tried counselling & therapy but it feels like those people seem to agree that (B 2/3)

it’s really just my fault, I’m just not seeing it from their perspective etc, but I’ve been trying for so long now, I’ve tried so hard and I feel like giving up… I can’t find a reason to keep living some days… What can I do if no one takes it seriously… my mum only showed ‘concern’ when she found my meds 4 years ago nothing mentioned about it since… I feel tired so much and I just want to stop existing…-(B 3/3)

Hey there, B. I am sorry that you are still having thesestruggles. I know how hard it can be to be around people whenever we arefeeling bad. Being a vegetarian is wonderful, so good for you. I am sorry thatyou are getting mocked for doing it. You deserve to be treated right. I cangive you some advice on how to cope with these different situations.

              Duringthe holiday season there are a lot of stresses that don’t really help peoplewho are mentally ill. You can develop some good coping methods to help you getthrough these tough times. If you feel lonely or isolated, seek out community, religious orother social events. They can offer support and companionship. Volunteeringyour time to help others also is a good way to lift your spirits and broadenyour friendships.  Sayingyes when you should say no can leave you feeling resentful and overwhelmed.Friends and colleagues will understand if you can’t participate in everyproject or activity. If it’s not possible to say no when your boss asks you towork overtime, try to remove something else from your agenda to make up for thelost time. Don’t let the holidays become a free-for-all. Overindulgenceonly adds to your stress and guilt. Have a healthy snack before holiday parties so that you don’t gooverboard on sweets, cheese or drinks and get plenty of sleep.

         There are better coping methods thanabusing drugs. You will feel a lot better if you develop some of thesehealthier habits. Know what triggers you to relapse. Takecare of yourself, mentally and physically, to ward off these triggers.Try to control stress by taking some time for yourself. It is important topractice self-care during times when you aren’t feeling well.

         Withall of the problems that you are having, I would recommend that you talk withsomeone. It doesn’t have to be a therapist but I do think one could help you.Try to bring up these issues to a close friend or relative and see if they canconsole you or give you some advice. If you have had bad experiences with therapistsbefore, then I recommend trying a different therapist. None of these problemsare your fault.

         Ifyou feel like you can’t handle these feelings or that your drug abuse has gonetoo far, please see a doctor. Going to a hospital may be what ultimately makesyou feel better. I have been inpatient at the hospital for mental healthreasons and it has helped me exponentially.

         Iknow that you can get through all of these rough times. Remember that wehave a live chat service that is available to everyone. You can send in arequest or see if an admin has posted that they are online. I wish you luck!

Contents Page 

-Rachel

“The sun will rise and we will tryagain.”

[evilkitten3]

Ad Nihilum, Chapter Four: Ab Existentia

AN: Not getting many reviews for this one… talk about discouraging! Still, this fandom (most fandoms, come to that) has always preferred shipping fics over anything else, and romance has never really been my genre. On top of that, Anzu is despised by a huge portion of the fanbase (as is generally the case with most major female characters in an anime where most fans are yaoi fangirls). Eh, it doesn't really matter, though – I'm relatively new to this fandom, and most people who read my stories are in the Fairy Tail fandom. So there's that too, I guess. Anyway, here's another chapter of this. I hope you enjoy it, I really hope you review it, and if you decide to tell all your friends about it, then that's… a bit weird, actually, but you do you. Kitty out.

Warnings: Disassociation, flashbacks, nightmares, possibly squicky imagery, Kaiba being Kaiba, suicidal thoughts, and your daily dose of existential identity crises

Chapter Four: Ab Existentia

Atem finds the drawing the next day, after he's gone through the morning ritual of coaxing the Thief out of his mind and back into reality. He picks it up carefully, squinting at the katakana on the side. Now that he's out of Yuugi's body, it's much more difficult to read Japanese characters. He can manage katakana and hiragana fairly well, but it takes him awhile with kanji. English, something Yuugi himself was still learning, had been lost to the former Pharoah entirely.

"A… tsu… ya…" he reads slowly.

"Ashiya," the Thief corrects him. Atem jumps slightly, not having heard the other ex-spirit reenter the room. It only takes him a moment to regain his composure.

"I thought this one was 'tsu'," he says, pointing to the second character.

"'Tsu' and 'shi' are almost identical in katakana," the Thief slips across the room, slipping a shirt on. He's been more active lately, Atem thinks absently, and then wonders whether or not that's a good thing.

"Why didn't you write it in hieroglyphics?" Atem asks. He realizes the answer a second later, and the Thief doesn't bother dignifying the stupid question with an answer, simply rolls his eyes. Peasant literacy, Atem remembers, wasn't really a thing back in Ancient Egypt. "She's beautiful," he says before he can stop himself.

"She was," the Thief replies calmly. "My– his sister's wife." Atem frowns.

"Yours," he objects. The Thief just shrugs. "Your sister married a woman?"

"Kul Elna didn't really care about gender," he says. "As far as we were concerned, people did what they did. My father fell in love with my mother after he saw her break up a bar fight by smashing a stool over someone's head, or so he said." Atem smiles slightly.

"She sounds like quite the woman," he muses. "Ah, not to say–"

"She would've liked you, I think," the Thief cuts him off, not really paying attention. Atem wonders whether the Thief realizes who he's talking to – this is the closest thing they've ever had to a civil conversation. "At least, as much as any dirt-poor peasant can like royalty. Always said royals spent too much time on their asses and not enough doing their damn jobs." Atem can't stop himself from smiling.

"I can't say I disagree," he admits. "A lot of things happened that shouldn't have. I couldn't have stopped all of them, but there were some things I certainly could have."

The Thief doesn't reply. When Atem turns to look at him, his eyes are a million miles away. The Pharaoh sets the drawing down on the nightstand as carefully as he can.

"I'll be back later," he tells him. If the Thief hears him, he doesn't show it. Atem keeps the image of the girl in the drawing – Ashiya – in his mind for the rest of the day.

***

In history class, Bakura zones out. The teacher isn't saying anything he doesn't already know, for once, so he just absently doodles. When he looks down at his notes, he realizes he's been writing in a completely different language.

בָּבֻרָ

He doesn't realize how fast his breath is coming until the teacher's panicked voice shakes him out of his thoughts. He looks up, tries to speak, and feels his knees buckle as the world around him fades to black.

***

The rest of the gang finds out what had happened to Bakura at lunch, courtesy of Otogi, who was in the same history class (as was Kaiba, but he hadn't shown up that day, for whatever reason).

"Did you know what set him off?" Jounouchi asks. Otogi just shrugs.

"If he fell asleep, he might've had a nightmare," Anzu says. Marik tenses. He knew that Bakura, like Marik and Yuugi, was having nightmares, but he was fairly certain no one else knew. Anzu catches his eye and shakes her head. "I guessed," she tells him, "but thanks for confirming." Marik bites his lip and looks down.

"I guess he didn't want to worry us," Honda says. A pointless endeavor, in his case – Honda always worried about Bakura.

"Officially, it was just lack of sleep," Yuugi reports, sitting down in between Marik and Anzu. "He went home early."

"Lack of sleep generally doesn't cause panic attacks," Otogi points out.

"They can cause hallucinations," Marik tells him. "Those can definitely cause panic attacks." And I should know says the look on his face. Otogi nods, thoughtfully.

"He could just be sick," Jounouchi says hopefully. Anzu rolls her eyes.

"Yeah, of course he could be, but when have things ever been that simple?" she frowns as her chopsticks break unevenly, before wrinkling her nose and getting over it.

"Normally?" Otogi says, grinning. "They usually are."

"Nothing about any of this is normal," Yuugi murmurs.

"Well, sure," Marik smirks, leaning back against a tree. "I mean, you hang out with a bunch of freaks, Yuugi; what did you think was gonna happen?" Jounouchi lunges for him, intent on giving him a noogie, and Marik ducks out of the way, sniggering. The rest of the group laughs.

"Not sure if you realized it, Marik, but you're part of that 'bunch of freaks'," Honda calls over Anzu's head. "No backing out now, buddy, you're already on the Christmas card." Marik freezes for a moment, before relaxing slightly.

"I don't celebrate Christmas," he says nonchalantly, examining his fingernails. "I was under the impression that it was a couples' holiday in Japan, though." He gasped dramatically, pressing his hands over his chest. "Honda-senpai! Are you trying to ask me out?" Honda chokes on his ramen, and Yuugi laughs so hard he falls into Anzu, knocking her bento out of her hand. Tako-shaped sausage spills onto the grass.

"Yuugi!" Jounouchi says, horrified. "Now you owe Anzu a new sausage!" Both Yuugi and Anzu turn red, and the rest of the conversation is spent cracking jokes and trying not to think about Bakura or the Thief or the dreams – memories – still plaguing almost half of their little group.

***

Isis doesn't know how to react to any of this – to her little brother helping Yuugi talk to the Pharaoh, to said duo resurrecting the Pharaoh, to the Thief being cast out of the shadows to balance Ma'at's scales. And now the Thief is staying at Yuugi's house, trapped somewhere between the realms of sanity and madness, in a body that – if Yuugi's theory was correct – was probably a worse fate than being devoured by Ahemait. The religious part of Isis reminds her that the gods knew what they were doing, but she can't help but feel more than a tad disgusted at their choice of punishment for the Thief.

Was it because he'd stolen from the dead or because he'd tried to destroy the world? Were the gods trying to punish the Thief King or the Spirit of the Millennium Ring? And most importantly, did it matter? Was this an actual punishment, or was it just spite? The fact that the line could get so blurred was cause for concern. For the first time in a while, Isis finds herself longing for the certainty she'd had when she bore the Millennium Tauk – but that was gone, long gone, and Isis knows well enough that there are some things mortals were never meant to know.

***

In the village of Kul Elna, there was an old woman named Bitya'a – an outsider, who'd come to live there when her granddaughter had fallen in love with the village chieftain's daughter – whose milky white eyes had forever been unseeing of the surrounding world. But there were whispers amongst the people of the village that Bitya'a saw more than anyone realized.

This woman, they said, this outsider – this woman whose eyes had never absorbed a glimmer of light – could See.

***

Seto Kaiba has missed so many days of school that there are teachers who are genuinely surprised to see him when he shows up to class. It had no effect on his grades, as the teen was a genius, and everyone understood that he had to put his company before his education. After all, Kaiba technically didn't need to go to school – he chose to. He wanted to learn (the way other people had; without collars and harsh words and a cold terror filling his lungs at the mere thought of failure). He probably could've tested out of all of his classes, should he choose to, but no one ever asked why.

Recently, however, the number of absences for Seto Kaiba on the attendance lists had shot up, which usually only happened when KaibaCorp was working on a new device (or an upgrade for the existing Duel Disk system) or when a soon-to-be-fired secretary accidentally made a mistake in scheduling a meeting. Teachers had learned not to ask, as the explanation was generally clipped, sarcastic, or so full of technobabble that it was nearly impossible to decipher.

This time, unbeknownst to the general public, the absences were entirely unrelated to business. Yuugi Mutou and his group of friends were, most likely, under the impression that Kaiba was preparing to challenge Atem to a duel – and assumption that, in fairness, there was a certain amount of truth in. But there was another reason for his absence, one that didn't necessarily relate to Duel Monsters (at least, not entirely).

Yuugi Mutou was the King of Games, and Kaiba had made it his life's goal to defeat him. Even after he learned that yes, Yuugi was indeed possessed by a Pharaoh, and yes, that Pharaoh was technically the one who'd won the title, his goal shouldn't have changed because Yuugi beat the Pharaoh. Yuugi was, undeniably, the King of Games, and Kaiba had challenged him for the title multiple times since the Ceremonial Duel.

But it wasn't the same. Kaiba wanted to be the best, and Yuugi currently was the best, so it only made sense for Kaiba to want to Duel him. And it would have, but Kaiba didn't want to Duel him. He wanted to Duel Atem. Perhaps "wanted" was the wrong word – he needed to Duel Atem. Atem was the one who had beaten him so many times, Atem was the one who had been willing to let Kaiba die in order to win, Atem was the one person in all the world who was truly a worthy opponent. The obsession was becoming a problem. Going to school felt almost like an act of masochism nowadays, because Yuugi was there and the Pharaoh wasn't.

And then, out of nowhere, Atem had returned. He'd come back to the world of the living, in his original body, and for a moment Kaiba had been foolish enough to hope that his return would calm the insane thoughts that ran through his head when he thought about Dueling his rival – thoughts that ranged from acceptable-yet-annoying to frighteningly dangerous. One time, he'd almost considered consulting a professional after the thought that maybe he could Duel Atem in the afterlife had crossed his mind (but that would cause problems for his business, so he simply pushed the thoughts to the back of his head and carried on).

And then there was the matter of how to handle all of this. Kaiba shut his eyes and rested his chin on his interlaced fingers, frowning. It would be easier, he thought to himself, to make a list.

Item the first: Atem was back, and Kaiba needed to Duel him. Easily solved – he simply had to approach and challenge him.

Item the second: Atem was back, and Kaiba had no idea how to challenge him at all. Problem – how to challenge an Ancient Egypt Pharaoh to a children's trading card game wasn't exactly something one could Google.

Item the third: Atem was back, and Kaiba needed to shove that thought aside and go back to school. Also easy – he knew how to compartmentalize his thoughts and feelings, and all he really needed to do was avoid the Dweeb Patrol™.

Item the fourth: Atem was back, and Mokuba was probably getting worried. This was a problem as well – he really couldn't fool his brother, especially not over something like this.

Item the fifth: Atem was back, and the words "Atem is back" were starting to preface every thought going through Kaiba's head. Easily solved – all he needed to do was challenge him to a Duel.

Kaiba groaned, rubbing his temples as he realized that his train of thought had not only fallen off the track, but was now trying to go in circles despite being overturned, badly dented, and probably also on fire. And so, Kaiba did what he always did when his brain was racing thirty thousand miles over the speed limit – he went back to work.

***

"Damned brat!" the old woman cuffs the child upside the head, scowling. "You think I don't know when there's a runt like you running around causing trouble?"

Wrinkled skin, sightless milky white eyes, a scowl that could petrify the gods themselves

"I don't approve of this arrangement," she'd grumbled, watching her granddaughter kiss the village chieftain's daughter. "They're too young for marriage. It won't lead to anything but disaster." Something in her sightless eyes glimmered, and told listeners that perhaps she didn't truly mean the words she spoke.

Too old to stay with the traders' caravans, too close to her only surviving relative to bear being parted from her

"Don't you know what happens to little brats who sneak around after dark? The gods will send scorpions after you!"

"Scorpions?"

"That's right. Enormous scorpions – twice the size of a caravan! Back inside with you, brat!"

Harsh words concealing good intentions, a proud nod at a great achievement, stories woven with such care that it was easy to forget they weren't real

"The caravans will not return."

"What did you See, grandmother?"

"…Never you mind, brat."

***

As the Thief's pencil details the worn scarf that covered the old woman's head, he wonders to himself if Bitya'a had known the true reason that the traders would never again set foot in Kul Elna. He likes to think she would've warned them all, but Bitya'a had been old and fatalistic and might have thought there was nothing to be done. She wouldn't necessarily have been wrong. But it's far more likely for the gods not to have shown her anything – to take away Kul Elna's one chance at survival.

The Thief wants to hate them for it – wants to scream and curse and break things and get back at them, but he can't. The bottomless pit of hatred that had welled up inside of him had only grown during the three thousand years he spent inside the Millennium Ring with Zorc, but it all seemed to have vanished upon his defeat.

He's tired, now. Too tired for vengeance or hatred or even grief. He just wants rest and he doesn't think he can ever forgive Yuugi and Marik for pulling him out of the blissful nothingness of wherever he'd been before. And Marik, that bastard, didn't even have the decency to let him go back.

He wishes he had enough strength left to hate them, but that only lasts a moment before the tattered souls of his people pull him back into his mind to remember all the things they no longer know how to remember on their own. His days are filled with the whispers of the dead and his nights with Yuugi, Marik, and Bakura dragging him through memories that aren't quite his but aren't not. He can't decide which he hates more.

AN: I'm gonna end this chapter here, since I think this is a pretty good stopping point. I'm tired… anyway, I've been working on a few more YGO fics, but I doubt I'll post any of them until this one is done. Shouldn't be too much longer – I'm pretty sure I know how I want it to end. Just gotta get there. Well, thanks for reading, let me know what you thought, and I'll see you later. Kitty out.