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boldlyvoid · 3 years

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Amoreena | Chapter two

Chapter Two

summary: Heaven is a real place and it's located exactly 14.6 miles away from the FBI, Quantico Headquarters. Off behind a small park, under a fantastical willow tree surrounded by wildflowers, in every colour young minds can imagine.

Don't forget, heaven also comes with angels.

Warnings: fluff, hurt/comfort, depressed spencer, reader has a daughter, falling in love, strangers to lovers

word count: 6k

a/n: this is set May 2021 in my brain just in case anyone was wondering while reading it !! here is the pinterest board and the spotify playlist for the fic too!

from the beginning <3

They were sitting on the steps of the Smithsonian when he arrived. Y/N was a vision in a yellow blouse and blue jeans, basking in the sun's rays when she looked more like sunshine herself, throwing seed at the birds with Amoreena.

He took a deep breath and smiled, waving to get their attention.

“Spencer!” Amoreena cheered, running down the steps and into his arms. Almost knocking her hat off as she leapt into his arms.

“Oof,” is all he can say as he makes sure to catch her, surprised to get this sort of reaction from someone.

She fixes her hat and leans back in his arms, “do you like my outfit? I’m the old man from Tarzan and mom is Jane!”

He sets her down then, watching her stick a foot out so he can get a good look at her olive-coloured jean shorts, button-up shirt and blue bowtie and brown boots. She went all out for her adventure today, making his heart burst.

“I looked into that Milo guy,” he says, showing off his own outfit. Pushing his glasses up and adjusting his red bowtie.

“You look just like him!!!” She was beyond excited, turning to Y/N who was all smiles on the steps.

She stood as they walked towards her, “mom look, he’s Milo!”

“You look great,” she complimented him, that twinkle in her eyes back as she blushed.

“Thank you, so do you,” he said softly. “Both of you are dressed for the right adventure today.”

“What do you have in store Mr. tour guide?” Y/N teased, taking Amoreena’s hand and walking into the museum.

“Dr. Tour guide,” he corrects her softly, making her smile and shove him lightly.

“Sorry,” she teased him, “Doctor tour guide, what is your plan for today?”

“I bought 3 tickets ahead of time,” Spencer admits, taking three lanyards out of his jacket pocket and handing them each one. “We have special access today, just show the guards these and we can go almost anywhere.”

“Are you sure you don’t work here? Not even undercover?” Amoreena interrogated him, narrowing her eyes as she watched his response.

He laughed, “I promise, I helped them on a case once, and my old boss knows the curator, they owed me a favour.”

“Old boss?” Y/N catches it.

He nods lightly, “he quit a while ago to have a family.”

“Smart man.”

“I sent in my letter of resignation last night,” he adds, “if you’re still looking for a literary historian?”

She beamed at him, reaching out an arm to tuck under his and pull him in close. Following him through the doors with Amoreena’s hand still in hers. “I’ll arrange an interview this week.”

The rotunda was one of the coolest parts of the Smithsonian Museum of National History. A beautiful African Bush Elephant greets them in the centre, tusks extending out towards them as Amoreena gasps.

“Wow,” her small voice whispers.

“Cool, huh?” Spencer leans to look at her expression, she’s absolutely gobsmacked.

It makes him smile, that beautiful glimmer of amazement spreading across her face as her small brain tries to understand what exists in the world outside of her mind's grasp. It was priceless, he loved every moment.

“So, I was thinking you could look around and whenever you’re ready, we have access to the Student Centre. You’re going to get to look at some special bones and fossils, and even dig some up!” He was so excited to share the plans with her.

She let go of her mom's hand to flap her arms wildly, excitement coursing through her veins as she shook, grinding her teeth together as she smiled, it was how he remembered feeling as a child when something good happened. Pure joy, excitement level 1000.

“Sound good?”

“Spencer,” Y/N placed her hand on his shoulder, taking over for the speechless child, “that sounds perfect, thank you.”

“The Dino’s are this way,” he leads them down the corridor, through a set of doors towards a large swirling sign,

“Journey through deep time!” Y/N read the sign, smiling at Amoreena as she ran towards it, touching the swirl as she read all the words to herself.

“It’s so sad they died,” Amoreena says so matter of factly that it makes him bite back a smile.

“Yeah,” he agrees with a small laugh. Y/N's shaking her head with a sigh of pure love. “What kind of dinosaur is your favourite?”

“The Jurassic era,” she responds, standing closer to the sign and reading all the words. “Did you know the earth used to be mostly desert? There was a massive heatwave, that’s why they believe dinosaurs were most likely scaled but thanks to the melting ice caps as we recover from the ice age and move back towards being tropical, we’re discovering dinosaurs frozen in ice with feathers and fur!”

It takes his breath away, seeing someone so much like him with a mother who loves every single word that leaves her mouth. Pride on her face as she looks at her little genius and back towards Spencer, waiting for his response.

“So you’ve been a paleontologist this whole time and you never told me?”

She laughs and swats the air, “no, I just read a lot of books.”

“She can read really fast, like Matilda,” Y/N bragged.

“I do too,” Spencer knelled down in front of her. “It’s a very wonderful thing to have a brain as big and magical as ours, never let anyone tell you otherwise okay?”

“Never, I’m the smartest in the kingdom,” Amoreena smiled.

“Yes, she is,” Y/N smiled again, placing her hand on Spencer's back as they continued to walk around the exhibits.

He felt like he had a family, like one of those couples who would go to Ikea and pretend they lived in the sets. This was the most perfect make-believe day of his life, leading a child just like him through a world of things she loved.

Y/N was quiet most of the day, watching them interact with a soft smile and sad eyes. Spencer noticed it but let it slide, he’d ask her about it later when she could be honest with him. He didn’t want to profile her, it wasn’t fair to judge her before he knew her, nor taint the fantastical thoughts he already had about her.

They had lunch in the butterfly exhibit, sitting at the seat by the fountain, Amoreena asking nicely if Spencer could sit in the middle so they could both talk to him. It was adorable, Amoreena was so intrigued by his mind she couldn’t stop asking him questions.

Y/N made him a sandwich and brought him a water bottle, as well as bringing some apple slices and grapes, goldfish and juice boxes for when Amoreena got hungry on the way home. Like a true mom, her purse was full of napkins and hair ties, random books and toys. Rocks, pine cones, everything a young mind would find exciting.

She was like Marry Poppins, pulling everything and then some out of her purse as she searched for something specific. “I brought you something, I’ve had it sitting around the house just moving it to different spots over the years, and thought you’d like it.”

It made him giddy to know she was thinking about him, he couldn’t sit still as he anticipated what it was. She pulled a small metal pin out of her bag then, taking the backing off and clipping it to his pocket.

“Best tour guide ever,” she whispered, reading the words to him with a smile.

“We haven’t even gotten to the best part yet,” he shrugged, pushing down the butterflies in his stomach as they were swarmed by the beautiful creatures.

“It’s like animal crossing in here,” Amoreena said to herself as she looked around, kicking her feet as she sat on the bench, tilting her head back and forth absentmindedly as she took it all in.

He wasn’t sure when he stopped doing that; when he started to mask his true self so much that he no longer felt free in public, taking a moment to copy her movements and just enjoy the moment. Making her smile as she noticed him copy her with adoration, not to tease her in any way whatsoever.

“Can we talk when she’s looking at the fossils?” He asks Y/N softly, knowing that she’ll be the most open when Amoreena’s tiny ears wouldn’t be there to remember everything she says.

“Yeah,” she nods with a small smile. “How about I throw out our garbage and we head to that surprise?”

Amoreena jumped off the bench, tugging Spencer towards the door as Y/N cleaned up, following them eventually.

—

They had the classroom all to themselves and Amoreena was still for the first time all day. Standing in the middle of the room as the lights adjusted, changing the glow from blue to amber as they warmed.

The walls were filled with posters and informative signs, there were glass cases showcasing all the finest fossils and bones known to man. And a sand table in the middle of the room, smocks and brushes for archaeology all set up and waiting for her.

“Once you get all suited up, and we’ll get you a little mask so you don’t breathe in any of the dirt and dust, you can dig up whatever is hidden in there!” Spencer announced.

Y/N helped her into a smock, handing her the brushes and asking her to be extra careful with the plastic chisel and hammer. She was beaming from ear to ear the most toothy smile he’s ever seen.

Y/N stopped to take a photo of her then, holding her instruments in front of the sand table, “get in, we’ll tell everyone that Milo took us on a special tour today.”

Spencer kneeled close to Amoreena, she leaned in and wrapped an arm around him to get him in closer, always being the one to choose how much contact she made with Spencer. He would never want to overstep with someone else’s child.

“Beautiful!” Y/N cheered, locking her phone and slipping it back into her jeans as Amoreena turned to the table of sand, dirt and clay.

She got right to work, not skipping a beat as she leaned in and started to dig. Spencer stepped back with Y/N, knowing Amoreena was going to be in her own little world for as long as they left her alone.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m great, I’m just a little surprised,” her voice is soft, low enough that it stays with him. “You’re really good with her for a fed.”

He laughed, nodding his head as he registered her joke. “Ex fed, and I have a 12-year-old godson, Henry.”

“Ahh, so no kids of your own?” Her voice was small, she took a look at his hand to avoid eye contact and he understood.

“None, no wife, no love children hiding out there in the world that I know of, it’s just me, I promise,” he tried his best to ease her anxiety about introducing a new man into her child’s life.

She nods slightly, “you seem too good to be true sometimes.”

He huffed out a small laugh, pressing his lips together as he looked at her, “pretty sure I’ve been dreaming since I saw you.”

She shoved him as she laughed, “would you like to come back to our place for dinner? I know it’s a little weird, believe me, I know, but we live on my parent's land and my mom’s making enough shepherds pie to feed an army.”

“Yeah I’d love to, I’ll get a cab home after,” he felt a swirling in his stomach, nervous and excited all at once.

“Okay,” she whispered, “or we can get to know each other, and then you could sleep on the couch and I’ll bring you back into DC in the morning? I have to drive in any way.”

He licked his lips and nodded his head, wondering what other kind of invitation this could be. If it was pure hospitality, wanting him to be safe for the night instead of inside some stranger's car, or was she wanting alone time with him.

The thoughts turned around in his head over and over making him dizzy, “okay, yeah I’d love to,” he managed to slip the words out without falling over them.

She smiled, tight-lipped and small. Looking up at him with a new look he hasn’t seen on her yet, one he’s only seen in a few faces in his time, and yet he believed her’s the most.

She was smitten with him as much as he was with her.

He sighed, smiling back at her just as soft. She reached her hand out to hold his, walking towards the table with him in tow. Leaning over Amoreena’s shoulder as she unearthed her new most prized possessions.

—

Amoreena was the funniest kid to drive with, He sat in the passenger seat of Y/N’s car with her in a car seat directly behind him. She was singing, cheering, pointing out the window to show him all her favourite things on the way to her house.

Telling him stories about the make-believe people she created to live in the houses, the trolls under bridges and the names of every cow in the field along the long driveway of her grandparent's farm.

“Bob and Linda are an interesting pair,” she warned him as they pulled in closer and closer. Dirt flying up behind the wheels as she drove fast, knowing every bump and turn from memory.

“They will be asking you every question in the book and if you’re going to be looking at the animals they will insist on putting you in flannel and a cowboy hat, it’s a tradition for visitors,” she explained it in a way where he knew she wanted him to think she hated it, but actually she looked excited to do it to him.

“I can’t wait,” he smiled.

“Amoreena has already told them all about you at dinner last night, so they are expecting her to drag you here tonight,” she pushed the blame onto Amoreena, downplaying her affection for him in a self-conscious way he could feel.

He didn’t want to profile her, but it wouldn’t turn off. He was desperate to know her more, to know if she felt the weird tugging in her heart that made him think soulmates might be real. A pain so intense that if he had to explain it to a doctor, it was like his heart was a negative charge and he was being drawn to her much more positive one.

“We have 16 cats, 46 cows, 13 chickens, 4 ducks, 50 sheep and 1 horse, her name is buttercup,” Amoreena informed him, stealing the attention once again.

“Wow, who’s your favourite?” Spencer turned to her, watching her kick her feet as she looked out the windows.

“Probably Alfonzo our fluffy show cow, or Rufus, our dog,” she said softly. “Sometimes nanny lets him sleep at our house.”

“That’s so cool, I’ve never had a pet.”

“What?!” Amoreena stopped, pressing her lips together as her eyes shot wide open, thinking it was the most absurd thing anyone has ever said.

“My mom was sick when I was growing up so I spent my time taking care of her, I didn’t have time for a dog,” he said softly, saying it in a way that wouldn’t scare her.

“I’m sorry,” Y/N said softly, reaching her hand out to pat his knee as she kept her eyes on the road.

Then she was pulling in past a big house, around the bend behind it, past the garden and the trail to the barn towards another house. It was big and white, probably big enough to have 4 bedrooms. Many levels, with multiple build-ons from years ago ageing to match eventually.

It was covered in vines, ivy and flowers. It was just like miss honeys. He felt something unspeakable, opening his mouth softly to breathe as his eyes trailed up the siding to the shingles.

He couldn’t believe it.

“Home sweet home,” her wonderful voice brought him back to reality. Saying the word that matched the feeling in his chest.

“Wow,” he whispered. His mouth moved to say words, not a single one slipped through the cracks, his lips touching with fake syllables as he stared at it.

“It was my grandma’s, it’s the house she raised my dad in,” Y/N explained as she put the car in park.

“Mommy had me as a gift for GG,” Amoreena added from the back.

“Her great-grandma,” Y/N nodded with a soft smile, biting the inside of her lip as she fought her feelings. That was a touchy subject that he was going to pry into, later on, wanting to know every single thing about the most exceptional women in the world.

There was a cat sitting on their front step, introduced to him as toothpick because he was the smallest in the last litter. And then the name of every single cat on the way back up to the main house.

Simon and Gar-funk-field twin orange brothers, Alaska the all-white one, strawberry shortcake had a red heart on her butt, oven-mitt for comedic effect obviously as if they others weren’t funny enough, as well as shovel and Catrina… all 16 of them had a name and Spencer was not going to forget a single one.

“Welcome! You must be Doctor Reid,” her father was a very large man, it shocked Spencer slightly.

He was like Santa Clause, it was more than a bit of a shock. Thick grey beard, bald head, red flannel and dirty work jeans, probably in his late 60’s. He was what you imagined Santa to look like outside of Christmas, on holiday with his wife.

He looked like a man who lived a long and happy life, he had a wife who cooked good meals for him, he probably didn’t mind sitting back with a beer most nights. There was definitely going to be sports memorabilia inside and a million photos of Y/N and Amoreena, and the purest energy known to man. Family love.

He hated how fast he profiled it all in his mind, trying to drop that aspect of his inner monologue moving forward.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Sir,” he said softly, nodding lightly as he placed his hands in his pockets. Letting it be known he didn’t touch people, and weirdly being respected.

“Please, it’s Bob or Poppy Clause,” he laughed, shifting his attention to Amoreena as she climbed the stairs towards the porch.

“How is my lovey?” Bob asked her softly, “may I have a welcome home hug?”

“Ah,” he smiled and nodded to himself. He was used to it, asking permission for her sensory issues. Spencer was impressed, and a bit emotional at the fact someone his age was respecting a way of life many didn’t care to understand.

Amoreena gave him a hug, throwing herself into his arms, “no beard tickles,” she instructed, holding onto his shoulders as he kept his face away from her.

Y/N placed her hand on Spencers back, “I told you they were a lot, my mom is worse.”

“I feel very comfortable here, don’t worry,” he assured her.

“I should worry,” she laughed, “you’re one of them, oh god.”

“One of who?”

She tilted her head at him, shaking her head, “eccentric, full of life, bursting with weirdness that would probably be a strange purple goo if I could see it.”

He pressed his lips together as he thought about it, nodding softly in agreement. “There is nothing wrong with that, it just means I’m having fun and living my best life from now on.”

“Welcome to the family,” Bob added, a simple saying that invoked a feeling of pride he long yearned for.

—

Dinner was lovely, he’s never had shepherd’s pie before. Learning it was ground beef, beans and potato casserole, and somehow there was also corn in there… he wasn’t sure why it was so delicious but he enjoyed it a lot.

It might have simply been the ambiance that made it so good.

Her mother was the sweetest woman, she made everything from scratch. Including bread that he was obsessed with and a pie for dessert, she was overjoyed to have an expected yet unexpected guest.

Knowing there was a possibility he’d come, but not setting a place for him at the table unless he showed. She wrapped him up in a big hug when he arrived as well as after dinner when he helped her move the plates to the sink.

Her dad offered him a beer after dinner, taking him to the front porch to talk while the ladies cleaned up for the night. Amoreena had a strict bedtime routine to stick to, and it wasn’t his place to witness nor get in the way.

“So,” her dad started the interrogation easily. “I’m sure you wouldn’t be here if Y/N didn’t trust you. And she doesn’t trust many people.”

“I can promise you I’ll never hurt either of them,” he said with the utmost confidence. “It’s been two days and they’ve brought me more joy than I can explain, and I’m never going to take that for granted.”

“Good answer,” he smiled. “Now, farmhouse rules are as follows; you can roam where ever you please, just ask permission before using any equipment, we’re more of a petting zoo than a farm now so the animals are overly friendly, try and keep them inside the gates.”

He was a bit flustered, computing the fact that he just trusted him like that. Maybe he was Santa Clause, making a list and checking it twice, and Spencer happened to cross off every box to land him on the nice one.

“Sounds good,” he smiled. “Thank you.”

“Believe me, sonny, I know what it’s like to want to impress the old man, but it’s all about Amoreena,” Bob warned him. “If she loves you then so will Y/N, and she falls fast.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle, “I’m the same way.”

“That’s what Y/N was saying, I think it’ll be good for Amoreena to know someone like her, we try our best to get her out there and making friends, she’s smart enough to move up some grades but she’s a kid, y’know?” Her father basically describing his own childhood back to him.

“I graduated high school at 13,” he presses his lips together, hoping it doesn’t come off as a brag. Taking a sip of his beer to take the edge off how awkward he felt.

“Do you regret it?”

“No,” he smiled at Bob, who was smiling right back, “it led me here.”

Bob hummed in response, taking a sip as well as he sat back in his rocking chair, watching over the cows in the field as the sun began to set. It was picture perfect, unbelievable.

Wet feet on the hardwood floor caught his attention then, Amoreena was in her PJ’s as she ran towards the door. Putting on her rubber boots and swinging open the screen door.

Her hair was wet, falling into her eyes as she pushed it out of the way, “are you joining the parade and dance party?”

He acted like he knew what that meant, “sure?”

“Yes!” She cheered, “hurry up mom!!”

Y/N walked down the steps slowly, shaking her head as she laughed. “You are so impatient, the animals aren’t going anywhere.”

“No, but Spencer will!”

It made his heartache, the thought of leaving.

“Come on,” she slipped back into her shoes and joined them on the porch. “Off we go, see you later dad.”

“Be good, make wise choices,” he teased her.

“Okay old fart, sleep well,” they had a friendship that was admirable.

Spencer followed with glee as Amoreena said goodnight to all the animals, parading down the path towards their house as she made sure to talk to everything on the way there.

“Every night we pick 2 songs to dance to, it gets all the sillies out and rewards us for a day well spent so we can bless our bodies with a good sleep,” Y/N explains as she unlocks the front door.

A cottage full of books in the middle of the woods, that dream he always had, coming true as she ushered him inside. The smell of coffee drifting towards him as he noticed the brown candle on the mantle surrounded by photos of Y/N and her family.

She placed her keys beside it, kicking off her shoes and making sure Amoreena did the same. In the living room, she connected her phone to a set of speakers, letting the little one pick out 2 songs, queueing them up to play as she bounced with anticipation.

“Tonight’s selection is today was a fairytale by miss Swift, and Anne Hathaway’s cover of somebody to love, form the cinematic masterpiece that is Ella Enchanted,” Y/N announced like she was hosting the grammies, pretending her phone was the mic before hitting play.

He knew somebody to love, the Elton John version, it was a song that Penelope and Emily sang at karaoke when they reached 11 shots each, so not very often. But enough to have him remember the words, singing along with them as they danced.

It was a better workout than Derek had ever put him through, they held hands and jumped around, he twirled Amoreena around, pretending to do the tango with Y/N. Waving their arms in the air, it was the most carefree he has been in ages.

The songs fit the situation more perfectly than any of them seem to realize, he’s falling head over heels in love with this family that he met yesterday. Something in him saying that he needs to stay, that this is where he was supposed to be.

Getting Amoreena into bed was more difficult than Y/N imagined, she didn’t want to stop talking to Spencer. Only finally agreeing to sleep when she learned he would still be there for breakfast in the morning.

“Can you read me a book from your brain?” Her sleep-deprived eyes blinked as she asked him softly.

He looked at Y/N from the doorway, she nodded, patting the bed for Spencer to sit on the edge.

“Any book?”

“Any book.”

“Bedtime for baby star,” he says softly. Remembering all the late night’s he’s heard JJ whisper it on the back of the plane, in the corner of a police precinct in the middle of nowhere, in a twin bed beside his as they shared a hotel room.

“Once there was a baby star, she lived up by the sun. And every night at bedtime, that baby star wanted to have some fun,” he recited the words in an exciting tone, just low enough to soothe her into sleep. “She would sine and sine and fall and shoot and twinkle, oh so bright, and she said ‘Mommy! I’ll run away if you make me say goodnight.’”

Y/N looked at her with a fake stern look, leaning in enough to rub their noses together. “And then her mommy kissed her sparkly nose and said, no matter where you go,”

Y/N kissed her on the nose, “no matter where you go,” she repeated.

“No matter where you are, no matter how big you grow and even if you stray far,” to which Y/N repeated. “I’ll love you forever because you’ll always be my baby star.”

“Goodnight my sweet Amoreena,” Y/N kissed her head softly and stood, Spencer, joined her by the door.

“Can I have a hug?” She asked him softly, he looked at Y/N for approval once again.

She placed a hand on his back as she nodded, watching him lean in and hold Amoreena softly, “goodnight, I had a fun day today.”

“See you tomorrow,” she smiled, closing her eyes for the night.

Y/N replaced her lamp light with a night light, closing the door on the way out of her room as she blew a kiss towards her baby, “love you.”

“Love you more,” Amoreena whispered back.

Spencer was nothing but smiles in the hall as she looked at him, “I’m going to pour myself some wine and sit in the garden, are you interested?”

“Ecstatic actually,” he replied, following her towards the kitchen and letting her pour him a glass.

Behind her house, she had an overgrown garden, every area of her life had a reference to a book somewhere, a story someone else told that she’s now claimed as her own. Living in the world she always wanted, inviting Spencer to stay a while.

She let out a deep sigh as she sat down on the outdoor couch beside him, dropping her head on his shoulder softly, it was more contact than he was expecting. She had barely touched him.

“You should know that I like you a lot,” Spencer spoke softly. “I don’t want you to think I’m just some creep trying to get close to you and your kid, I genuinely think you’re wonderful and Amoreena is magnificent.”

“I trust you, I googled you and everything, don’t worry,” she laughs. “I wouldn’t invite you to the museum and let you give my kid a hug without doing research.”

“Not everything is on there you know.”

“I think you are very wonderful as well,” she said softly, “but I know it’s just the fact that you’re so darn cute that’s making me feel like I should drop everything and invite you into our life.”

“I understand,” he replied. Waiting for her to tell him that this was the last time she’d see him, it was inevitable at this point in his life. Nothing good lasted for long.

“So I need you to know all about me and I need to know all about you before you decide you want to stay because I can’t handle bringing you into Amoreena’s life for you to just leave her,” another deflection.

“You might want to hear mine first before you decide if you want me to stay around her,” it sounded scarier than he planned.

“Alright then, you go first,” she insisted with a small smile, eyes darting past him towards the cows in the field. Not ready to be vulnerable with him.

“I worked with the FBI for 15 years, I’ve helped catch some of the worst people in America, and some of them have vendetta’s against me. As far fetched and insane as that sounds,” he pre-warned her, watching her face drop as she understood the weight of his words.

“I have been framed and sent to prison for three months, I was kidnaped, tortured, drugged, and assaulted, not to mention shot a few times. I have more trauma than you can imagine. So that’s something you have to consider in a future with me,” he whispered so she wouldn’t hear how ashamed he was of himself.

“And the fact know that I can’t always keep myself or you safe, no matter how far disconnected I am from the FBI. It doesn’t matter if I change my name and hide here for the rest of my life off the grid. There are some fucked up minds out there that don’t want to let me experience true happiness. But in all honesty,” he finally stops his long-winded rant. He bites his bottom lip as if he is holding back someone worse than all the things he just said.

“I’m willing to die tomorrow if it means my last day on earth was this fucking perfect.” Tears welled in his eyes, “I am so tired.”

“It’s okay to cry, I would be too,” she says softly, a frog in her throat as she nodded. Tears welling in her eyes as her face scrunched.

He blinked and a tear escaped, slipping down his cheek and being swiped off by her thumb in an instant. She kept her hand on his cheek softly, he leaned into it.

“I’ve been running for so long,” he whispers because then the words don’t really exist. They’re secrets only for her to hear and then they’re gone. “I was basically groomed for the FBI, I was their personal computer and they didn’t give a single shit about the wear and tear on me.”

He started to sob. She cradled his head against her chest in one swift motion, holding him close and rubbing his back. Shushing him softly as he cried into her shoulder.

“You know that Katy Perry song?” she changed the subject as he calmed down, understanding his pain and accepting his warnings, but continuing down the path anyway.

“Summer after high school when we first met,” she sang like an angel. “It was like that, I thought I met the love of my life after I graduated, we got engaged a year later, then he died in a car crash and I was single for a very long time.”

“Then my grandma got sick and she made a bucket list. Number one was to become a great grandma,” her words became whispers as she tried to stop the tears, following Spencer’s tactic even though it failed so miserably.

“I said fuck it. I’m going to have a baby and make my own family, one person I can truly care for and never lose. She’s my world, she was the light of my grandma’s life until it burnt out, she has changed my world in ways I can’t even explain.”

It fell silent as they absorbed each other’s explanations of their issues. The root of their problems, the core of their soul were the most hurt was kept locked away, opening the doors and swapping scrapbook snapshots of terrible memories.

“I think,” she says, finally, like music to his ears. “I think that I’m okay, I’m positive actually that I want you in my life like this. All of you is fine with me, you’re not that scary, and I’m tired of waiting for the right moments because it means losing the people over time missed. I want to live my life fully, I’m at peace with the unknown and with you.”

Peace.

“Not to quote Taylor Swift at you or anything, but she does have a point in that song,” she laughed lightly and he felt her chest jump. Life bursting through her as she made light of an incredibly touchy subject.

“I don’t know the song,” he whispers.

She gasps, “oh that’s the line, I finally found it. Our first fight can be whether or not you like Taylor Swift, don’t even think about how upset Amoreena will be if you’re not, I’ll kick you out.”

He can't stop laughing then, digging his face into her neck as he holds her closer to his chest. Breathing her in as she finishes his laugh in a giggle, rubbing her hands down his back as she presses her cheek to his head.

“I haven’t had the time to listen to her this year I know she’s been busy releasing music,” he admits, “but I’m sure I’ll love it.”

She shifts awkwardly on the couch to take her phone out of her pocket, opening her music and playing the song she was speaking of.

He simply rests his head on her chest, both of them laying back onto the cushions together, finding a comforting spot for their arms as they listened to the words, silently.

He absorbed it all, every word she said bringing forth a feeling he’s never felt before. True understanding, like someone, gets him. Gasping audibly when she says ‘robbers to the east clowns to the west, give you my sunshine, give you my best.’

He wasn’t alone.

#spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #spencer reid self insert #spencer reid request #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine #amoreena

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dariaslore · 3 years

Text

Birds

Set during the Coven's days. Griffin finds out about Valtor's demon form and things may be darker than they seem. Will she go away? Warnings: angst, dark stuff, some contents may be triggering.

She couldn't sleep.

He had told her he would be away all night, when dark magic was stronger and could be practiced at the highest levels. It was one of the many training sessions with his mothers, her presence wasn't allowed this time, the meeting was strictly reserved to the wizard and the three witches. At first they didn't take place frequently, but since a few months, now that the Company of Light was proving to be more of a threat, she had found herself spending more nights alone than usual, holed up in the mansion's library, waiting for his return. He came back extremely tired, without even the strenght to speak, his only desire was to lose himself in the night, hugging her like a safe port.

That night, too much time had gone by. It was three in the morning and he still wasn't by her side. Anxiety was devouring her, tossing and turning in bed, then she would get up and walk back and forth the room, trying to kill time. She would grab a book just to throw it away a minute later. Half a cigarette smoked, the rest was garbage, now she would light up a new one. She couldn't find peace, she knew the three witches and every scar on Valtor's body as well. They always wanted more and more and were never satisfied, he was up for anything just to gain a bit of their approval. And this was lethal.

She left the room they shared and, as her feet were pounding on the floor faster and faster, looked for the room where training usually took place. And there he was.

Gasping, hands shaking and her gaze caught by fear.

She opened the door. The pungent smell of iron flooded her nostrils. She decided to follow its scent. She felt her airway closing and blurring sight, icy needles paralyzed her heart. Her vocal cords refused to vibrate the unspeakable horror in front of her eyes. A connection had been cut off, her pulsating golden irises were screaming and the sound was dying inside of them.

She saw him tossed into the darkest corner of the room, like a used and forgotten toy.

Bowed head, his face hidden by his blond hair in an act of shameless shame. He was shaking, had goosebumps, and she could see his ribs move through the swollen white skin as he breathed. He had never looked so thin and frail, his figure so thin compared to the red scales that swallowed him bite after bite. They started sporadic from his chest and then slowly thicken on his arms and hands deformed into long claws. They painted the portrait of a beast and found maximum expression in the two huge red wings wrapped in a shield, protecting him from the cold of the outside world in an embrace. It looked like the monster was trying to save its own prey. It emphasized the misery, the greatness and strength of the red hunter and the labored breathing of its pale victim. Naked and with his back torn.

Blood overflowed copiously, snaked elegantly dragging its red vital flow downstream, it marked the grooves of his ribs and suddenly fell silent, insinuating itself between the inanimate tiles of the mosaic on the floor. His milky skin was imprisoned in a network of faults of flesh torn apart by the fiercest of beasts. It was scarred, its edges matched perfectly with the width of the claws of his hands, she could feel their power sink into his taut muscle fibers, stretch them to the ends like springs, and tear them away as waste material, a further obstacle to the main organ that he was burning to find. So he dug again, and again, in an unbridled greed for a proof of his humanity. The pain wasn't enough, he wouldn't stop until his claws gripped his beating heart. He had to tear the flesh, the dress of his existence that now felt too tight with the darkness that threatened to overflow and pick him up again in its coils.

"Go away..." he murmured.

Valtor had perceived her presence ever since she had stepped in, fear washing through her veins. She was the last person in the universe who could see him reduced to that. He trusted her, she had been the first person to dig under his surface of powerful narcissist wizard, making him discover a different person. Before her were all the things that weren't and would never be. He was never going to sleep with anyone, he did with her, he had never had a real friend, his mothers had taught him to calculate everything based on utility and how anyone was just a pawn on a chessboard. He had aquaintances, many flirts with countless women and men, and he was never the one in love. And neither were they. For each of his lovers he already knew, the moment when he left their bed, that all that would remain was one more meaningless hot night, an exercise of the word love. They all carried out in the same way, with an absence of words, and he was conscious of being but an object of lust due to his body and his power. And then, she came into his life, the only woman immune to his fiery charme and who even seemed to hate him. He had never spent an entire night on a sofa eating junk food and talking of the most diverse topics, he did with her. He had never received a hug, she hugged him, after a mission with a positive resolution. He never cared for the feelings of others, now he couldn't stand sadness to veil her eyes. She had occupied his heart and not only he loved her madly, she was also his best and only friend. He trusted her, but he didn't trust himself and the monstruosity living inside of him.

"Valtor..."

She couldn't believe it was him. She spelled his name with dragging slowness, almost reluctant to attribute the name of the man she loved to that foul creature. It was him, it had taken two words, a plead to walk out the door and go away.

"Griffin, please, go away, now."

"You're hurt" she said when the only thing her spinning mind could still focus on were his wounds.

"Go away!"

"I wanna help you."

A loud roar cut through the air, and she found herself on the ground, overcome by the power of his claws. It burned and shone bright red on her thigh between the silk of her nightgown, it wasn't too deep, a shallow cut. He had hurt her on purpose for the first time.

Another scream and another sob. Valtor was looking at his hands with wide eyes. He was forced to protect her in the only way his other self knew: violence.

"Are you happy now I've hurt you? Help me? Who do you want to help, a beast? I'm a freak. Look at me Griffin, look!" he cried amid sobs that threatened to suffocate him, too large and noisy that struck his lungs like prisoners in a desperate flight to freedom. A distorted chant broke his larynx, his swan song.

Lying on the floor with an itching cut and blurred thinking, she saw right through Valtor.

She had already heard of those feathered winged creatures earthlings believed in. She realized he was an angel. A fallen one.

He wasn't born for all of this. He was a creature of pure light bound to an eternal exile in darkness, and although the flame that burned within him tended to return to its original light source, it was held back by the iron fist of darkness. She was a creature of the dark too, a witch, but she had decided to be one, he was tainted and that made him the greatest shadow of all. The monster that enveloped him, moving the threads of his very existence, fed every day on the fiery light of his soul, now reduced to a mere flame. His monstrousness came from this destructive coexistence between light and dark, in which only one of the two would have definitively won. The flame burned, it couldn't keep silent and was responsible for his injured back. Darkness was close to him, so he had scratched it off, like a stain on a piece of precious silverware, he wanted to perform a desperate act of purification through his blood to finally wash himself away from the darkness and to get back to the pure light being he had always been meant to be. At least once.

It was written in his eyes which were shyly looking at her through his hair's wheat strands, although he tried to hide them under layers of ice and indifference. His pupils were imprisoned in a web of red capillaries, but they still managed to keep their last drop of pure humanity. It wasn't the same look he gave her every night as he adored her body, neither that of the sarcastic and ironic wizard, it was the one of every time his mothers would have criticized him, of when he tried in every way possibile to impress her, just to snatch her a compliment or a smile. In those moments he tore his heart out of his chest and fed it to his tormentor, craving for trivial affections.

She got up from the floor confident and proud, knowing what to do.

"Go away!" he yelled.

Griffin approached him ignoring all his moans and wrapped his face in her warm hands and traced every feature with her fingers. She felt the difference of texture between his skin and the red scales staining it. She stroked his nose, forehead and lips. She raised the corners of his lips, uncovering white fangs. She smiled and kissed him. Just a smack.

He was blown away, stuck in an idyll that tasted of her. Adrenaline was rushing, he had made it.

She grabbed his hand and looked him straight in the eye, the gold of her irises had never been so metallic. Maybe tired of lies, the purple-haired witch was so determined and a slave to curiosity that she delved into the darkest of truths, even one that would harm her. It wasn't over, she knew it. He was trying to play it cool, but with his eyes in a runaway dance and his smile crooked to the left, he had the classic facial expression of a child who had succeeded in getting away with something.

"Is that all? Is there anything else I should know?" she asked firmly.

That question was a cold shower. He shook his head. He was lying, there was so much more she should have known, the whole side of himself he never had control over. What she was seeing now was just a glimpse of the monster he saw every morning in the mirror, when all humanity crumbled to pieces and his eyes lost their pupils. But he still didn't want that kiss between them to be the last. She would have loved him until there was but a drop of man in him, but after that?

"You're lying Valtor. Show me, don't hold it back"

"Please, I can't!"

She would have run away. He was trying to become human again and she was asking him to show her the monster.

"Just do it!" she ordered, clenched fists and fixed pupils.

"Why are you doing this Griffin?"

She didn't answer him. She was emanating ice from all over her body, posture was stiff, back straight and lips tightened. She wouldn't give up until she got what she wanted.

He started changing, his body turning into the twisted fantasy of three long gone witches, and soon all human features were erased from his face. Stripped of his blond hair, abandoned to the ugliness of his inner skeleton. Now he was way bigger than her, the monster's palm almost the size of her entire face. All his senses were on the alert, looking for the easiest way to kill, the purpose for which it had been built. What she was in front of was a machine ready to kill, plus her neck was so thin.

She didn't even flinch. She did exactly what she had done beforehand. She watched the monster's facial expressions changing, how his blue stoney eyes were boring into her body, finding the most effective way to kill her. And then as if she had read his mind, placed that exact same palm she had held before around her fragile neck, playing the beast's game.

"It would be so easy, wouldn't it?

Damn, it would. The demon could feel her neck cracking under its strength and the air leaving her lungs in her last attempt to breathe.

"Squeeze, what are you waiting for?" she said giggling, but an invisible force was holding the creature back, incapable of applying any pressure. It screamed with rage, not realizing what was going on and why the smile on her face was getting progressively bigger and brighter. She enjoyed the fear flushing down her veins, it was too much to handle and that was making her steady. With her mind blank, she leaned over and with its hand still over her neck, kissed the creature on its mouth.

Leathery red scales began to retreat like clouds after a storm, finally letting his white skin breathe. The demon, his wings were gone.

Valtor broke down in her arms. He was too tired to express the growing happiness inside. He couldn't believe it, something like this had never happened before, getting rid of the other Valtor so quickly was an intangible dream. Everytime his mothers made him assume that form, he would spend hours of excruciating pain, waiting for the beast's claws to disappear. He holed up in the darkness, allowing himself to be consumed bite by bite, seeking in his mind an end to his labyrinth of torment. She had been the first one to get him out of there, a gleam of light at the end of the tunnel. He hoped it could've lasted forever.

He plunged into her eyes like a lost puppy, letting her capture his soul in her thick lashes.

"Don't I scare you? How can you kiss that beast? You must kill the monster Griffin, I'm begging you! Free me, save me, I can't bear it anymore! "

The more he tried to chase it away, the more he felt it crawl through his veins like a poisonous liquid. It was choking him from the inside, he could feel it making its way through his mind, it was making fun of his neurons in a black pool. He felt his head throbbing, unable to contain all that anger and hatred. He screamed in pain in a soundless space, one day he would tear his skull to pieces

"Where are you ?!" he said screaming at the top of his lungs. He couldn't see straight anymore, his whole body shaking with anxiety, blood rushing through his veins and his heart loudly pounding in his chest.

"Hush, I'm right here. I'm holding you, see?"

"D-don't leave ..." he begged her and rested his head on her chest.

"I'm not going anywhere. I'm with you, look at me." She cupped his chin in her hand, so he could meet her gaze again.

"Come on, we must get to our room, your wounds are bleeding."

"Your thigh..." he glanced at her leg with his face twisted in horror. Guilt building up.

"It's just a scratch. A pinch of magic and it will go away. It doesn't even burn anymore!" Griffin tried to reassure him.

She concentrated and teleported them to their room in a quick snap of fingers.

"Can you stand up?" she asked him.

"I- I ..."

"Don't worry, I'll hold you. You can do it."

She put an arm around his shoulder and tried to hold him by the waist, taller and heavier than her, backing him was hard: she had to.

Valtor stood up. Pangs of pain. He was weak, his knees buckling, joints croaking, it was as if his bones were breaking from the inside out on by one. He groaned in protest.

"I know, hold on, it's just one more step."

He freed himself of her grip and met the soft mattress of the bed they shared.

Griffin helped him sit up, covered his lower body with blankets, then she placed her hands on his back, focused and chanted a spell. Wet: blood between her fingers. The magic tickled the torn cells giving them a smoother edge.

"I'll be right back." she said. Then she rushed to the bathroom and, in the wooden cabinet, she found a cotton cloth, some ointments, flasks and some bandages. His wounds were too extensive and deep, she had managed to stop the bleeding and somehow reduce their size, now she had to worry about disinfecting.

"This will hurt just a bit."

"Get your hands off of me, now!"

He spun around, his voice high and firm, swollen veins and a sunken neck. It was a defensive act, it seemed to her the desperate move of an hunted animal fleeing its tormentors, veins darting with fear and aggressive bearing, pretending to be the one who holds power. But she wasn't his mothers, she couldn't get upset, he wasn't lucid and this complete reversal of attitude was proof of that. He no longer held the reins of his thoughts, he was finally letting them gallop on their own, fragments of past and present intertwined together. He proceeded by associations of ideas in an increasingly blurred time boundary: the disinfectant burned like Tharma's lightnings on his legs.

"Calm down. I'm not here to hurt you." she said. She had all her senses alert, he approached her by burying his nose in the hollow of her neck, he smelled her skin, traces in the air, caught violet and amber.

"It's me. Look, it's just disinfectant." she reassured him by pointing to the bottle on the bedside table.

Valtor retrated, recognizing it was the woman he loved and not one of his mothers in front of him. His heartbeat became slow, shoulders down, now he almost seemed like a lifeless doll in front of her. He let her keep on her work without any complaints. She finished dressing, then she bandaged his wounds in deafening silence, she could only hear his breathing.

"Stay there." she whispered softly heading towards the little wooden cupboard in the room.

It had been her idea, she felt like a stranger in that house and the thought of going down four floors each time to get to the kitchen, risking meeting her witches, made her shiver. Of course, she was much freer than any member of the Coven, somehow the Ancestors respected her, listened to her plans and strategies carefully, never a word of mockery, all she had received in years of service was advice, few compliments and an expression she could not discern. They were alert, analyzing her, looking for flaws and weaknesses, Liliss stammered something out under her breath, the others two nodded. She felt watched, stalked, obsessed with the thought that sooner or later they would've chained her too in their perverse game. For this reason she avoided all actions, tried to keep relationships with the three as detached as possible, remaining a puzzle in front of the witch of illusions was her goal.

She opened the cupboard and placed the material on the table. She put some water in the electric kettle, opened the inlaid wooden casket and began to choose the most suitable herbs, lightly caressed each one, letting the fragrances dance in her lungs.

It reminded her of her dad, as she watched him as a child as he made her a cup of tea whenever she was down in the dumps. He caressed the herbs in his study with delicacy, immersing himself in the pungent smells, then he would call her beside him in that olfactory research, telling her the benefits of each plant and how to make the most of them, and it was the sharp rosemary for healing, mint for stress, balsamic anise. In that little corner of nature, with the well-known brilliant notes of the cedar peel and the skilled hands of her father who mashed the leaves, her mind relaxed.

She waited for the herbs to finish their brewing time, then she poured the tea into a white porcelain cup adding a teaspoon of honey.

"I made you some tea. It'll help you feel better. Open your mouth, please."

She softly blew on the cup, cooling it off just a bit, and brought it to his mouth. Valtor followed her command, the smell was heady, notes of lavender, hawthorn and red tea sang as the hot liquid ran down his throat.

When he had finished to drink, she put the empty cup away and wiped his lips with her thumb. She kissed him on the forehead and let him lay down, tucking the sheets.

"Griffin ..." Valtor suddenly mumbled.

"Tell me."

"I- I ..."

"It's okay, you can tell me whatever you want."

"Why are you not angry? I- I ... hid you a part of me."

She had no right to be angry. She couldn't be when those pure eyes were fixed on hers in search of certainties. He was looking for answers and confirmation in her words, when she at first still could not realize what she had just seen. Such nonsense could not be described and questioning was useless. What could be rational about the cuts he carried behind his back or the red scales that covered him? Nothing.

What was rational about the man usually full of himself who was now trembling with fear in front of her?

"Why should I-"

"You must be."

Rather, he wanted her to be. He wanted her to scream, spit every insult, every slimy truth, so that he could sink into the depths of his self-contempt. Yet, she was calm and taking care of him. He didn't deserve it and couldn't stand her stare full of love that should've been directed towards someone way better than him. He was a hero for trying to save her from the horror that bore his name and a coward for wanting her still by his side. She hadn't run away from fear and it pulled her even closer to his heart. It was killing him.

"I know, I should've told you." he continued. "My mothers created it, something I have no control over. They wanted to try a new spell today and things spiraled out of control and- "

"And you hurt your back." she said.

And it hadn't been even the first time.

He was 7 years old, missing incisors and messy blonde curls, when he used to curl up in a corner and gaze out at the sky and the garden below from the large living room windows. He envied the swallows, they were weak, tiny fragile bones destined for a meal to a larger predator, ephemeral existences with a noose around their necks given by the true and only mother nature, yet they sang, they whirled in the sky unaware of any danger in an eternal spring. It was the same with flowers, they would be waiting a whole year to show off their magnetic colors and then bound to perish in a sweet smell that penetrated his nostrils. They all died in a quick smile, almost a game of darts, they threw themselves at maximum power towards the target of no return, as if they didn't care about the ending, it was just a necessary condition for their fleeting beauty. They slowly went towards death not feeling its weight for their entire existence, nothing more than a momentum. Blink of an eye, his irises were now laying on the various paintings hanging around the room: Liliss had an obsession for art and each painting had to represent a specif mood of hers. There were battle scenes, clanging of swords, diaphanous women with bare breasts standing face to face with a young men gambling in the dim black of oil painting. Stormy seas, forests and then aimless flowers and seagulls. Why were they still? What had stolen their right to chase each other across the sky? Someone had decided to enchant them in a precise instant, in a fixed scene against their will, while their fellows whirled free. He felt sympathy for the water lilies forced not to close and for the always red apple stuck in the basket, perhaps because he himself was a still life, the flying, the wanting, the perishing were out of his will, the one of a lacquered image. It was crystal clear in the definition itself, still life, how could a being stained by nothing have vital momentum since its very conception wanted it still? He was still life. In a frame, sick with rot and alive in the stroke of the eternal puppet position imposed by his mothers. Rot bit into his bones, poisoned his nerves and threw them into a muddy puddle where the reflection did not match his will.

His child self decided he would free every little bird from the canvas and destroy all those paintings, he hated still lives, so he bit his lip as hard as he could until the taste of iron flooded his mouth. He moved on to something else, now the game was scratching his skin to color it pink, holding his breath with the utmost force. He learned to control his flames, wanted to test its power and chose his arms as a target. He was a teenager and as he shortened his hair with scissors, he thought what it must be like to stand in their place and be cut off. And he felt it on his skin. It wasn't like anyone would've noticed, the wounds merged with those inflicted by the Ancestors, leaving cords of raised skin. He was their toy, therefore he demanded to be broken and he would help them by making their job easier. Wasn't it what a good son must do?

"At least my blood is red, isn't it?" he said as he interrupted his flow of thoughts. Lips twisted into a sinister smile and wide eyes.

"Of course it is red, but what do you mean?" she replied bewildered.

"It's good news. I'm a beast, it could've been black or blue as well, but it is red just like yours."

His calm tone spelling poisonous words hit her like a shard leaving her heart shattered.

"You're no beast." she said.

"And what would I be if not a creature? These feelings, this warmth towards you, how do I know they're mine? How do I know they're not controlling me and you're just an illusion of Liliss? Are you real Griffin? Can you answer? "

His pupils dilated, he spoke to her in a swirling crescendo, his voice rose, it cracked, its rhythm accelerated hysterically, breathing short and broken, his fingertips digging deep into her arms' skin.

"You can't love me! You just saw it!" he spat out.

She stared in horror at the atrocity of those words. Reality was mangling her eardrums as a cat scratching on a chalkboard.

"Griffin, these eyes, this hair, are just a wrapper, a beautiful case for the most hideous of gifts. If I hadn't looked like this, would you have even looked at me? Would you have ever spoken to me or would you have run away?" he asked. He asked her what she would've done, when he was the one who wanted to escape the mirror every morning. He saw the monster chuckling there behind him, next to his immaculate reflection, laughing, enjoying the blond's stupidity for wanting to conceal his true essence, as if a line of defined eyeliner and eyebrows would've done the trick.

"You're still making questions." she whispered in wonder.

"I must know!" he screamed. "I need to know if you're willing to love a monster, because ... that's what I am."

Griffin cupped his cheeks, her hands so gentle and soothing, and she smiled, the most beautiful he had ever witnessed, a glimpse of light in the pit of darkness his life was.

"You're still questioning, Valtor. You're the answer. You want me to tell you that you are good, that you are a man, to confirm something that runs in your blood, and you still do not know what it is. The answer is your own self, in your doubts. You are worried, you are taking care of something and in this action there is humanity. I cannot give you the answers you are looking for, but I can say that I feel them here. "

She placed her hand on his heart.

"When the spark in you has gone out and your vocal cords no longer vibrate, with no doubt, you'll be a monster. Without even realizing it, you'll spread terror and death, emotions will be unknown to you. But you have those and they're beautiful. You're human, Valtor, this is why you hate the beast, hence you fight. But this back means giving up, these tears on your face, well, they're a victory. I hate the monster, as much as you do, but it's not the one with red scales and big wings. Your own monster is living inside your mind, it feeds off your insecurities and how I'd like to kill it off if I only could! Free you and look at the man, I can say it outloud I- I... L-lo-ve."

Her voice cracked, the word love hard as tears tried to find their way. She held them back and took his hand between hers, in what looked so much like a promise.

"Valtor, I'll never love the beast. I love you."

"What if I were to become one? Would you give up on me? Would you ever leave me in the dark, alone? You'll never leave, will you? Will you always be by my side? Don't lie, please."

The witch hugged him eagerly as her heart broke under the weight of the demons in his mind. The adult with the oversized ego had collapsed into a child to be protected.

She lay down beside him and slowly started stroking his hair, lulling him to sleep. Another sob.

"She left me Griffin, she left me alone in the darkness with that monster. I'm scared."

"Who left you?" she asked softly.

"Believe me, I was good, I had never done anything wrong. I was small, useless, and it was too strong, I couldn't beat it. I was afraid of the dark, and she wasn't there to protect me. So dark ..." he spoke feebly, he turned his head.

Eye frames the void, remembers a room with a forthcoming beast, roaring flames, pain. The vague phrasing, frightened of giving voice to his nightmares, chased his weaknesses with choked breath, tried to catch them one by one, but they were dripping off his lips.

"Who are you talking about?" Griffin asked shaking his hand, giving him all the courage to speak up his mothers never tried to give him.

"Mom." Valtor stammered, gasping. Without even the pronoun my, he was almost referring to entities out of time and space whose name trembled leaving his mouth. She knew he didn't have a mother, the blond man in her arms was a creation of the Ancestors, yet he was longing for a family, bonds made of genes and flesh.

"Mom left me and the darkness came for me. It was so cold, I couldn't move." Darts of frozen darkness, enveloped in himself like a shivering maggot. The creator speaks, the son obeys. The creator breaks his will, sets the rules, commands. Violence, punishment, obedience, blood and broken bones. The cold becomes stronger, snow cuts his face, the son gets tired, he begins to ask questions, he strives to know the purpose of everything. "Your purpose is us Valtor, without us you are nothing" Belladonna ruled.

No words, another cry that desperately asked to be given voice. He was hungry for love.

"I don't want to be a creation. I can't be their son, Griffin. I feel it, I sense it, even they are not that powerful to create life out of nothing. It's burning inside of me, I don't belong to this planet, Whisperia's not my home, but somehow I ended up here with them, the mighty son of the Three Witches. Maybe I wasn't a good child, was I? I wonder if she remembers me. I don't remember her, one moment she was there to hold me, the next she was gone. I can still imagine her touch and scent on my skin, I bet she smelled of roses, because I love roses, don't I? I ask myself where is she now, what is she doing and if she is proud me or if she ever loved me. But she's not here. Belladonna, Liliss, Tharma never left me, though. I know, they're definitely not the mothers of the year, but they never left me. I'm a weapon, I told you, the most powerful of them all, they can't lose me. They hate the man I am, but they appreciate the beast and therefore I'm sure they would never leave me.That's why deep down I think they may care about me, I got what they need. I love them."

He smiled as he tossed his head back among the silk cushions, knowing how much a fool he was making of himself. She was still there, strong and still as always.Trembling lips, every cell of her body was fibrillating, they wanted to detach from it and rush on him like thousands of shooting stars, build him a shelter, save him from his mothers and love him, giving him a bit of that care he had always been denied. She knew her love wasn't enough.

Meanwhile Valtor wondered how much easier it would've been to turn off the light and let himself be swallowed up in an endless dream. Darkness would become his new home, and without even the small glow of its flames, it wouldn't be dark anymore, just nothing. No sound, no fight. Maybe she could've been the one able of dragging him out the pit he had digged himself. He raised his head and tried to meet her gaze for the last time, his lids starting to feel heavy.

"Griffin I don't know how much longer I will be able to keep the monster away. That's why I need to know that no matter what you'll stay by my side. Will you? "

"I.."

Interrupted sentence.

He had already fallen asleep without even waiting for the answer to how much he wanted it to be positive. It was easier to unstich himself from reality and follow the threads towards the dreamlike enchantment, in which the canvas tapestry with their smiling faces imprinted would never unravel.

She sighed. It was her turn to cry now.

She didn't know. That was the answer that was so difficult for her and it was breaking her heart. All the words of courage and comfort that had come easily from her before were now dead in her throat, none of them were for her. She had seen his blood slipping right through her skin, she had touched what was the most intimate about him that somehow managed to appear so right as it sneaked into her bony hands. The red of his blood fingerprinted his pain, left her the keeper of what was dearest to him. As the sea after an undertow regurgitates its treasures on the beach, the darkness in him had left away the most precious of his secrets: she had felt his humanity, now it was up to her to decide whether to wash it away or dry it and no soap would have ever canceled it. She could not wash her hands, she looked at them in the twilight of the night, turned them again and again, searched for escape routes between the lines of her palms, but the more she squinted her eyes in search of a pattern, the further she was pushed away. He was now in her hands.

She threw herself into the silk of the bed and looked at him: eyes closed and his lashes tickled his cheeks slightly. How could a monster be so human? And she, how could she be so hypocritical, unable to give an answer and yet she was hugging him? And fuck, how much the cut on her leg hurt.

Perhaps their relationship was a ship on fire on the high seas. Water and fire, a beautiful tragedy to be consummated in sync until one annihilates the other. Water never dies, it changes shape. The heat of the fire would've forced it into crystalline darts that would hurt the sky like swallows at dawn.

She was a bird. A real one.

Birds fly away.

#winx #winx club #winx valtor #winx griffin #griffin × valtor #valtor #fanfiction

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talesofarcadia78 · 3 years

Text

Sorceress of Arcadia || Becoming Part 1

Summary: Y/n Lake is Jim Lake's older sister. She discovers that she is sorceress and her brother is the Trollhunter. She and the Trollhunters go on adventures together, they save trolls and humans. Along the way, a friend becomes more than just a friend and discovers their secrets.

Warnings: Bruises, mention of blood, pain

Word count: 3,514

Tags: @lunariasilver

Next >> Becoming Part 2

Beep! Beep! Beep!

UHH!

My stupid alarm clock woke me out of my perfect slumber. You rolled over to your side and glanced at your alarm clock. 6:30 AM. You groaned, today was Tuesday, which meant SCHOOL!

After another minute of groaning, you got up and walked over out of your bedroom and into the bathroom. You brushed your teeth and took a quick shower and got ready. You looked at yourself in the mirror.

“Looking good, y/n!”, you thought to yourself and got out of the bathroom and rushed downstairs to the living room. You saw that Jim was already up and making what looked like breakfast but you might wrong though.

“Good morning Jim! Your dear old sister is very hungry! Have you made anything for her?” you asked, walking through into the kitchen.

“Morning y/n! You’re only 18, three years older, not that old. But yes, I have! Here”, he handed you a plate with an omelette and a glass of juice.

“Thanks!”, as you walked out of the kitchen and sat at the dining table.

You quickly finished you’re breakfast and ran upstairs to grab your bag. You noticed that Jim was in your mom’s room, leaving breakfast there for her. You smiled. Jim took so much care for our mom. She was working double shifts lately, and she wasn’t getting enough rest and ‘me time’.

Jim closed mom’s room’s door, and headed downstairs with you.

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As the garage door opened, you saw that the garbage bin was laying on the floor with rubbish spilling out.

“Uh. Raccoons!”, Jim said, annoyed.

He picked up the rubbish, when Toby (Jim’s best friend) rides over to us from him house across from us.

“C’mon Jimbo, y/n, we’re late for school”, he said, buckling his helmet on.

“I know. I was busy with the lunches. One for mom, y/n, me and you”, he said walking with his bike to him and handing him a brown paper bag.

Toby peeked into the contents of the bag.

“I can’t, I’m on a diet”, handing the paper bag back to Jim.

“You’ve been on a diet for 14 years Tobes!”, Jim argued, pushing the Toby’s hand away.

They continued bickering, when I got my bike and ringed it’s bell, catching the boys attention.

“Well I’m heading to school. See ya later!”, you said, riding off

You took in the morning view of the beautiful mountains and canals. You would never want to leave Arcadia. As you rode your Vespa through town, you saw many people driving to work and walking to school. Some people were at the cafe or at a shop. You noticed a guy turn a sign from ‘close’ to ‘open’ for GDT Arcane Books. He was tall and skinny, wearing a black shirt and jacket with black jeans and black shoes. He had raven black hair with blue dyed tips.

Hmm, I’ve never seen him around town before. You knew practically everyone in town except for the students at Arcadia Oaks High, other then Jim and Toby. I rode until your school came into sight, Arcadia Oaks Academy. You didn’t go to the same school Jim because your mom, Barbara Lake, couldn’t afford both of us going to Arcadia Oaks High, so I went to the other school, since it was cheaper.

You parked your bike and hung your helmet on one of the handles. You walked through the entrance and were quickly greeted with your best friend, Rachael and Izzy.

“Y/n! Guess what happened!”, both of them squealed.

“What?! Tom Holland is coming to Arcadia?”, you asked, jokingly.

“Nope! I wish! But I got you-know-who’s Instagram!”, Izzy said, jumping up and down.

You looked over at Rachael, she nodded.

“Wow! Good job Izzy. Now you just need to become friends in the real world, not just the Instagram world”, you said walking over to your locker.

“Uhh....maybe”, Izzy said.

You grabbed your books and shoved them in your backpack, it was an urban backpack, so there weren’t any zips, just weird looking strips that magnetically connected. So you were having a hard time, zips were way more efficient.

You slammed your locker closed and headed to our first class of the day, HPE theory. You were walking to class while talking with Rachael and Izzy when, you saw Jim calling me. you stopped and picked up.

“What’s up, I have my first class in 5 minutes, so hurry”, you said quickly.

“Sorry y/n! I found something in the canals, that was calling my name, strange. But I’ll tell you after school. Bye!”, he said and hung up before you even had a chance at saying ‘bye’.

You put your phone in your pocket and were about continue to class, when you tripped over your feet and descended to the ground. You were ready for the impact but you never felt it.

Huh? You looked up, and saw the same guy from the bookstore. He had grabbed you by your arms. You quickly got up and faced the guy.

“Thank you! I can be very clumsy sometimes. Oh sorry, I’m y/n”, I said, stretching out my hand to shake.

“No problem! I’m Douxie. Nice to meet you y/n. Oh and...”, he said, then ruffled through his pockets and took out two cards.

He handed them to me, GDT Arcane Books and Mr. Benoit’s cafe business cards.

“I work there. It’ll be great to see you around there”, he said, not meeting your gaze.

“Sure! You look new, you just came here?”, you asked.

“Nah. I just don’t really show my face to the public other then at school”, he replied.

“Oh okay. Well, I’ll see you around, bye”, you said turning around to go to class.

“Bye”, he said heading the other way.

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The whole day was exhausting for you. After your last class, you left and went to your brother’s high school.

Jim rode over to me, as well as Toby.

“Hey Jim! How was your day?”, you asked, as you rode your bike along side him.

“It was good, I kinda got into a fight with Steve, cause he was bullying Eli, so yeah...”, he said, trying to sound like it was normal.

“Yeah! Did you see how I chanted ‘let him out! let him out!”, Toby exclaimed, proud of himself. “Good thing your mom’s a doctor”, he said, while mom drove up to us.

“Hey kids”, mom greeted us, rolling down the window.

Toby tried to stop in-front the car while he said,

“Looking sharp Dr. L”, as he stopped and came into mom’s view.

“Thanks Toby. You’re looking sharp yourself”, she complimented him.

“Oh really! It shows?”, Toby says, showing his ‘muscles’.

You chuckled.

While Jim and mom were talking, you waved mom bye and rode to your house. You put your bike in the garage and walked upstairs to your room. You dropped you bag on the floor, and took your laptop out and started doing your homework. Then you heard the front door open, must be Jim.

You ran downstairs, finding him sitting on the edge of the couch and looking at what looked like an amulet.

“I have a feeling that this is what you wanted to show me”, you said, sitting next to him.

“Yeah. Toby and I found it in the canals in the morning. It was calling my name. Strange right?”, he explained.

You nodded. You then looked at the amulet, it looked ancient. Jim suddenly, started talking to it. When the amulet didn’t say anything, he got frustrated and told it,

“Come one speak up or else you’re going up on eBay!”

He sounded stupid at this point, he was talking to an inanimate object for God’s sake! Then we heard something from the basement. We glanced at each other and headed to the basement.

“Uh! Must be raccoons!”, you said, getting a broom for Jim and getting yourself a metal stick.

We headed down the stairs and then saw....nothing. We went further in when you heard something behind you. You tapped Jim’s shoulder and turned around.

A blue creature that had 6 eyes and 4 arms came out of the shadow’s.

“Master Jim!”, it said.

Jim started screaming, when another creature was behind us. It was bigger, had green hair and grey skin, well stone.

“Hi!”, it said.

You wanted to scream, but you couldn’t. Then you looked at the creatures and backed away terrified. You couldn’t hear what they were saying since you were in your own thoughts.

How did they get in? What do they want? What are they? How do they know Jim?

Then you snapped back into reality. The creatures were introducing themselves. The multi-eyed guy was Blinky and the brute was AAARRRGGHH and they were ‘trolls’. Then Jim passed out. You looked at the trolls.

“Don’t go near my brother!”, you shouted at them and stuck your metal stick out at them.

“Do not worry sister of Master Jim, we will not harm him”, Blinky said, trying to calm you down.

But that didn’t work you felt very scared, but you had to look confident, the complete opposite. Then suddenly, aqua coloured sparks started to flare out of your hands and onto the stick you were holding. Then a ball of aqua looking sparks shot out and towards the trolls. It hit them, making them stumble back.

“Hmm. Master Jim’s sister is a sorceress. Who knew?!”, Blinky whispered to AAARRRGGHH.

“I-I’m a what?”, you asked, lowering the stick.

“A sorceress. In simpler words, you have magic”, Blinky explained, “We should make our exit. Lovely meeting you sister of Master Jim. We-”.

“My name is y/n. So call me that”, you said, introducing yourself.

“Oh okay. Lovely meeting you, y/n. Well, goodbye, we will be seeing you soon”, Blinky said and AAARRRGGHH waved. Then they were gone.

You looked down at Jim.

“What have you gotten yourself and me into Jim”, you said, as you picked him up and took him back to the living room.

You set him on the couch, and went upstairs to sleep.

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You had gotten up a bit more early and got dressed. It wasn’t the best outfit but how cares?

You grabbed your backpack and headed downstairs. You looked at the clock, it was 7. You then looked at the couch were Jim was sleeping, he was snoring very loudly. You quickly wrote down a note for Jim:

Morning sleepyhead, I’m out, since you were asleep, no one was going make breakfast, so I’m grabbing something for Mr. Benoit’s. See ya after school. 🤪

You rode you way over to the cafe and placed your bike near a window. You walked inside and was about to order, when Douxie walked up.

“Hey y/n. Were you going to order something?” Douxie asked.

“Hey Douxie, actually I was just going to get black coffee,” you replied.

He help up a coffee cup. You smiled and thanked him as the two of you settled at a table. You drank your coffee quietly, while Douxie ate his muffin.

“Wanna go to school together?” he asked.

��Sure” you replied.

You grabbed your bike while Douxie grabbed his. You both rided along side each other and talked. When the school came into view, Douxie asked,

“Wanna race?”

“Why not!”, you replied.

You both start peddling faster. When thought you were just about to win, Douxie peddled a bit faster. You pressed the brakes, but you didn’t stop. It did not end well. You skidded on the concrete, scraping your hands, making them bleed, and you ankle landed the wrong way when you fell to the floor. Douxie was just about to rush over and help you when a bunch of girls came up to him and started oooing and ahhing over him. He tried to go over to you but he couldn’t.

You looked at your hands, there were bleeding a lot. You tried to stand up but as soon as you did, you fell back onto the floor, screaming in pain. Your ankle was not okay. Douxie had heard your scream, making him loose his patience.

“Excuse me girls! I need to get to a very important person, so please,” he shouted, sprinting to you.

“Y/n! Your hands...”, he said, worriedly, looking at your hands.

He took your hands in his and inspected the scrapes. As he touched your wrist, you winced, he had touched a bruise. He saw you wince in pain, so he quickly apologised. He looked at your ankle, it was turning to a purple shade. Since you couldn’t walk, he would carry you. He placed one of his hands under your knees and the other behind your back and lifted you up.

“Douxie, this isn’t necessary. I can pull my own weight,” I protested.

He had pulled you close to his chest, so you wouldn’t accidentally fall.

You noticed that he was pretty tall, so you wrapped your arms over his shoulders and clinged onto him for dear life.

“You can’t pull your weight, clearly and this was the only way. Plus I don’t think you have a lot of weight to pull,” he said.

He was clearly referring to me being light.

He carried me across the school, getting everyone’s attention. We were about half way to the nurses office when Izzy and Rachael came rushed over to us.

“Y/n! What happened?” they both asked.

“My brakes were not working, so I skidded on concrete and my ankle landed the wrong way so I can’t walk. I told Douxie that I could pull my own weight but he didn’t listen and so he now carrying me to the nurses office,” you explained.

“Well look at the bright side! You’re getting carried by Douxie! Douxie!” Rachael said.

Douxie and you blushed.

“It’s nothing. I can do anything for y/n,” Douxie said calmly.

Izzy and Rachael eyebrows shot up at his statement. Douxie realised what he had said and tried to explain, when you tightened your grip on Douxie. Your ankle started hurting a lot. You winced in pain. Douxie looked at you and apologised to your friends and continued to the nurses office. You whimpered in pain, as it got worse.

“It’s okay y/n, I’ve got you. Nothing is going to happen,” Douxie whispered to you.

Douxie tried pushing the door of the nurses office open with his foot but it didn’t work. A person in the office, noticed you and Douxie and quickly opened the door, letting you in. Douxie laid you down on the bed in one of the room’s. The nurse ushered him out and the nurse examined your ankle.

After you were examined, the nurse told Douxie that she will be fine by the end of the day, and that he could pick her up after last period.

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You had been sitting on the bed all day, having an ice pack around your ankle and bandages on your hand. The whole day was very quiet and boring. Then, you heard the bell ring, school had ended! You didn’t have to wait long, your black and blue haired friend came as soon as the bell rung.

“Hey Douxie!” you said, as he came into the room.

“Hey y/n! How are you feeling? Can you walk?”, he asked, shooting you questions.

“She can’t walk fully yet, she can limp. You’ll have to support your friend home”, the nurse interrupted.

Your eyes become wide when the nurse said that he had to drop me off to my house. Douxie nodded and walked over to you.

“Let’s see how you can walk”, he said.

He offered me his hand for support and you took it. As you put weight on your ankle, it started to hurt.

“Ouch!”, you exclaimed, squeezing Douxie’s hands in pain.

“Yeah...you can’t walk. I am sorry for doing this again,” he said, then lifted you up again. You got out of the nurses office and out of school, were your bike was.

“Hmm. If you can’t ride your bike to school, then you’ll need a lift. Do you have a brother or someone that can pick you up?”, Douxie asked.

“I have a younger brother. He goes to Arcadia Oaks High. I can call him-”, you said when you were cut off by Douxie.

“I can call him. What’s his number?”, he asked.

You told him and then he called your brother.

“Hey, is this Jim? Okay, so I have got your sister, can you pick her up? She can’t ride her bike, I’ll come with you guys since her bag is with me. Bye,” he said over the phone.

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“Hey Jim!” Douxie waved at Jim and Toby, making him come over to you.

“Y/n! What happened? Are you alright?” Jim asked, worried.

“I’m fine Jim, I’ll tell you about it at home,” you said, reassuring him for now.

“Okay let’s go, before it get’s dark...” Toby said, looking at the sun setting.

Douxie looked confused, but he pushed the thought away. He helped you over to Jim, where he his hand stretched out for me to take. I took it and looked confused.

“Jimbo, where am I going to sit?” you asked, gesturing to his bike, where there was only one seat.

“You are going to sit on the seat, while I ride,” he explained.

You nodded. You sat on his seat and he started peddling through town, while Toby and Douxie were following behind.

“Douxie, thank you for helping my sister, it means a lot,” Jim said, as we rode through the town and onto the bridge.

“It’s nothing. I can do anything for her,” Douxie said, but then he realised what he had just said.

You blushed.

“Well I um mean that I can do anything um...” Douxie stammered.

“Anyways! Toby why were you at the dentist?”, Jim asked, trying to start a normal conversation.

“I’ll explain later. Anyways, let’s talk about you, Jim,” Toby said, changing topics.

“What about me?” Jim asked, panicking a little.

“You know, the LOYL,” Toby smirked.

“Yeah Jim, who is this girl? Wait, is it Claire Nūnez?” you teased.

“Uh...um..well...”Jim stammered.

“Oh! Jim you have a crush? Have you spoken to her yet?” Douxie teased.

“Well I did yesterday, during gym class,” Jim said.

“Please don’t tell me you said anything to her in Spanish,” you said.

When he didn’t give you an answer, you knew the answer, he did.

“What’s so bad in talking in Spanish?”, Douxie asked, curious.

“Jim starts talking in Spanish when he get’s nervous, which is usually when he talking to girls, more specifically, Claire,” you explained.

Then your house came.

“Well that is it for the day, see you guys tomorrow,” Toby said, riding to his home across from ours.

You got off your brother’s bike and limped over to the front door and opened it. You collapsed on the couch, tired. Douxie came in and dropped your bag onto the floor next to you.

“Well I’ll see you tomorrow, love,” he said, walking out of the door.

Jim came in and dropped his things on the couch.

“I’ll make sandwiches, you rest,” Jim ordered.

You sighed, you limped over with him and then sat on top of the bench. You looked at you brother, he chopping and looking at the amulet.

“Why don’t you try looking into it?” you ask.

“Maybe I should,” he said, taking the amulet and walking outside.

You followed him outside and sat on the stairs. He looked at the amulet and spoke the incantation.

“For the glory of Merlin, daylight is mine to command,” he spoke, turning the amulet. Then the wind suddenly picked up, and you saw that the rocks started to levitate. Then, blue magic orbs appeared out of the amulet and into Jim heart, then he levitated and armour appeared. Then the pieces clicked together. At first it was very big, which you started laughing at, then it shrunk and fitted him perfectly. He looked like a knight, but without the sword.

“This is so freaking cool!” Jim exclaimed.

“Now you just need a sword to go with the armour,” I commented, when a few more orbs appeared out the amulet and drifted to his hand, which then created a sword.

You were amazed. This was magic!

“Wow!” you said.

Then Jim started to do some ‘cool’ moves with his sword, but when it got stuck into a a rock behind him. You bursted out laughing as you saw him attempt to take it out. He eventually did, but then he got it stuck again. He tried again, and it got out a lot faster. He chuckled when he got it out.

In having discovered all this, on the other side of town, Mr Strickler and Bular were planning to take it from him. But the amulet had found it’s champion, would it be that easy? l

#douxie x reader #hisirdoux x reader #hisirdoux casperan x reader #tales of arcadia #trollhunters

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loveissupernatural · 4 years

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To Love in a Foreign Land

Draco Malfoy x reader

Chapter Three: Friends and Enemies

[ Read Part 1 here ] [ Read Part 2 here ]

You woke up bright and early the next morning, unable to sleep any longer because of the adrenaline pumping through your veins. The greatest adventure of your life was to start today; you’d get to ride on the Hogwarts Express, see the famous castle, and meet so many interesting new people. You took your time bathing, enjoying the scented wash you brought from home and letting the warm water relax your tense muscles. The bubbles from your magical soap floated through the air, sparkling and turning themselves into various shapes of magical creatures, earning an amused giggle from you.

Eventually you stood from the cooling bath water with a content sigh and dabbed your wet skin with a fluffy towel. You dried and lightly curled your hair with your favorite magical brush, although you’d be lying if you said you couldn’t wait to get to Hogwarts so you could just use your wand – it was so much faster and more versatile.

You applied your makeup the non-magical way, thinking of your mother as you did so. The summer after your father’s death, she’d come into your bathroom early one morning as you were brushing your teeth. She didn’t say much. She’d brought her set of makeup and sighed, reaching up to dry the fresh tears from your cheeks.

“Why don’t we do something fun?” she had offered, giving you a watery smile.

You’d spent at least two hours in the bathroom with her that rainy morning, learning all of her fun tips on how to apply makeup. It was the first time you’d smiled, really smiled, since your father’s passing.

It was a happy memory for you and a lovely bit of bonding time with your mom. In the years since, you’d learned a lot from No-Maj magazines and television shows on how to improve your makeup, and you’d even shown your mother the new tricks you’d learned. It was a regular thing now.

You decided to start thinking of something else, considering that you were doing your eye makeup and getting emotional would only make your mascara run. You applied your concealer, highlighter, and lipstick, then quickly sprayed your face with setting spray. You’d learned to apply your makeup magically from your friends at Ilvermorny, but you still enjoyed doing it the No-Maj way sometimes. The motions were repetitive and relaxing.

A quick knock at your door made you jump, but then you heard Eleanor’s sleepy voice.

“Hey, what’re you wearing today?” she asked through the door. You opened it to see her standing there in a fresh robe that matched your own, her hair still wet from the bath. “Oh, wow, you look great!”

“Thanks,” you grinned, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. “Want me to do your makeup?”

“Oh geez, yes please,” she laughed, stepping into your room. She started shaking the towel through her wet locks as she observed the outfit laid out on your bed. “I suddenly hate every piece of clothing that I packed and I need all of the help I can get.”

“Sure,” you said, running a hand over your soft green t-shirt and fitted distressed jeans that were laid out. “I’m not going too fancy today, we’ll have to change clothes on the train after all. But I still want my look to be flattering, ya know?”

“Teach me, oh great one,” Eleanor grinned, and you rolled your eyes.

After helping her find a cute ensemble out of the incredible amount of clothes she’d managed to fit into her large trunk, you got dressed. The jeans hugged your hips and legs in all of the right places, showing peaks of skin here and there through the distressed fabric. You slipped on a pair of modestly-heeled black booties, giving you a bit of height and your backside a bit more definition. You tucked in your olive green cotton tee and smiled at your reflection. You thought you looked attractive yet approachable, which was exactly what you were going for.

Eleanor wasn’t much of a makeup wearer, but she asked you to help her apply the smallest bit. You brushed some mascara over her lashes and lightly tapped her cheeks with a bit of blush. She was happy with it.

“Oi, well don’ you two look brigh’ eyed,” Hagrid greeted as you and Eleanor met him downstairs by the bar. “Excited fer ya trip to Hogwarts, I reckon?”

“We’re so pumped,” you beamed, nodding in thanks as Hagrid bent to pick up your luggage with ease.

“Is the Hogwarts Express as beautiful as everyone says, Hagrid?” Eleanor asked. The both of you followed the large man out of the door, waving goodbye to a sleepy-looking Tom that was wiping the bar.

“Oh, she’s a beaut,” he said with a smile in his voice. “Had a bit o’ trouble fittin’ in th’ compartments after me firs’ year, but lots o’ good mem’ries on tha’ train.”

Kings Cross Station wasn’t a long walk from the Leaky Cauldron, considering Hagrid’s knowledge of some shortcuts not far from Diagon Alley. It was hard to keep up with his enormous strides, though. In no time, you all were walking into the sunlit and busy station, surrounded by bustling men and women on their morning commute. Many were staring at Hagrid, equally in awe and frightened.

“Now, yer gonna find Platform 9 ¾,” Hagrid told the two of you, leaning down to place your luggage at your feet. “You’ll know wha’ to do. Reckon you’ll see sum other students goin’ through.”

“Thank you so much, Hagrid,” you grinned, briefly squeezing his enormous arm. He smiled back kindly through the bushy beard.

“You rock, Hagrid,” Eleanor said. Hagrid tried not to beam, swatting his garbage lid-sized hand in modesty.

“It’s nothin’,” he grumbled. “I’ll see ya at Hogwarts, yeah?”

“See you later!”

Hagrid waved goodbye and turned, his long strides carrying him away from you in seconds flat.

“Hope everyone at Hogwarts is as nice as Hagrid,” you told Eleanor, turning to her and pulling out the Hogwarts Express ticket from your pocket. Platform 9 ¾ shined back at you in metallic gold lettering.

“Well, let’s get a luggage cart then try to find this weird-ass platform,” Eleanor sighed, picking up her luggage with a huff. You did the same, the two of you waddling towards a group of empty carts beside a nearby barrier. After loading all of your trunks, the two of you began searching for the magical barrier in the midst of all of the normal ones.

“I’m so glad that Cinna will be at the castle when we get there,” you mentioned absentmindedly. “She’d be hooting like crazy with all of this traveling.”

“Same with Bebe,” Eleanor agreed. Bebe was her black cat with piercing green eyes and a very fluffy tail. “She would be throwing a fit and attracting all kinds of unwanted attention.”

You stopped abruptly, throwing out an arm to stop Eleanor as well. Both of your trunks swayed dangerously on your luggage carts from the sudden motion.

“Hold on, there’s Platform 9,” you said, pointing toward the clearly numbered sign hanging from the brick barrier.

“And there’s 10,” your friend nodded, pointing as well. “Okay, now where’s ours?”

“Hagrid said we’d know what to do and to look for other students,” you said, almost to yourself. Your eyes darted around, looking for anyone that would stick out from the crowd. Wizards weren’t always the best at selecting inconspicuous No-Maj clothing.

“Let’s see who’s wearing something ridiculous,” Eleanor snorted, leaning on the handle of her cart and resting her chin in her hand. “Someone’s mom or dad is bound to be wearing a lime green fur coat or something.”

The two of you waited for a few minutes, watching the area around the barrier and nervously glancing at a nearby clock on the wall. It was drawing closer and closer to nine o’clock.

Just as you were beginning to worry that the two of you would miss the train, it happened. A group of girls that weren’t much older than you walked toward the platform, laughing at something casually. One leaned back against the brick between platforms 9 and 10, and boom, it happened. She disappeared through the wall. Each girl, in turns, subtly slipped out of sight, the surrounding No-Maj’s none the wiser.

“Thank goodness,” Eleanor sighed in relief.

The two of you approached the platform with caution, doing your best to remain inconspicuous. You’d learned after many years of living with your No-Maj mother that ordinary people tended to miss out on subtle magic even if it was happening right in front of them — because they weren’t looking for it.

You let Eleanor go first while you played lookout. She backed her cart against the barrier and leaned against it like the group of girls did. In a moment, she’d disappeared. You glanced around nervously, but no one had taken any notice. You breathed out a relieved sigh, then copied her movements exactly.

It felt like a warm, soft breeze as you sank through the brick. Suddenly, the station dematerialized and was replaced by a huge black steam engine and a bustling crowd of robe-clad witches and wizards. You grinned at Eleanor in excitement, looking up to see a red sign that read Platform 9 ¾ in slanted gold lettering. The platform was incredibly busy, filled with families hugging goodbye and the sound of rolling luggage and the hum of excited chatter.

“This is it,” you sighed dreamily. A huge smile broke over your face and Eleanor matched it. Your adventure to Hogwarts was officially beginning.

You and Eleanor rushed to the train in excitement, dragging your trunks along behind you. With a bit of difficulty, you both unloaded the carts and heaved your suitcases through the open door with the help of a station employee. Seeing your evident confusion, he told you in a thick Irish accent to take the trunk containing your school robes and to leave the rest with him.

The inside of the Hogwarts express was cozy, but not incredibly roomy, and you recalled Hagrid’s comment. You snorted at the mental image of the giant man trying to squeeze down the car hallway.

“Let’s find a compartment,” Eleanor whispered to you excitedly, grabbing your hand to pull you along. Her palm was sweaty and so was yours.

You both walked past many students in the train corridor, some looking at the two of you curiously. It was obvious that most of the students seemed familiar with who was in their year at this point, so two new faces that weren’t first years caught some attention. You heard some whispering as you passed, but none of it seemed unkind, at least that’s what you were hoping.

Some compartment doors were open, filled with chatting and laughing teenagers, others were closed. A few glanced curiously at you and Eleanor as you walked by and peered in.

“Is there not a single empty compartment on this train?” Eleanor complained, frustration seeping through her tone.

“Hey, maybe that’s a good thing,” you told her hopefully. “It’ll force us to talk to people, right? Maybe make some friends?”

“That’s all well and good,” she shrugged. “I was just kind of hoping we could avoid the staring for a while longer.”

You hummed in agreement. A few heads were poking out of compartments that the two of you had already passed, not bothering to hide their curious stares. You weren’t sure if you were flattered, uncomfortable, or a weird combination of both.

“I do feel a bit like a zoo animal,” you laughed uneasily.

“Damn it, Y/N, we should’ve looked less hot today,” Eleanor joked, lightly shoving your shoulder. “Now the Brits can’t keep their eyes off of us.”

You laughed aloud at her sarcasm.

“Are the two of you lost?”

You almost jumped in surprise at the unexpected voice coming from behind you. You turned to see a bushy-haired, proud-looking girl that was already in her Gryffindor robes with a shiny red badge pinned to her chest. A tall, freckled and red-headed boy stood behind her. He seemed a bit uneasy.

“Oh, hi,” you smiled, a bit surprised. “We’re just trying to find a compartment.”

The girl’s eyes lit up at your American accent, and the redhead suddenly seemed a lot more interested in the conversation.

“Are you two exchange students from Ilvermorny?” she practically gushed, clasping her hands together in excitement. You and Eleanor exchanged amused smiles.

“Yeah, that’s us,” you replied. “It’s that obvious, huh?”

“Well, the accent gives it away a bit,” the boy grinned, and the girl turned and lightly slapped his arm.

“I mean, it’s that obvious that we look lost?” you corrected yourself, laughing at his smart remark.

The girl smiled sympathetically. She reached out her hand. “I’m Hermione Granger, and this is Ronald Weasley. We’re Gryffindor prefects.”

Ron seemed to stand up a bit straighter at that and puffed out his chest. You and Eleanor each shook her hand in turn, introducing yourselves. Ron waved a bit awkwardly but not unkindly.

“So, what’s a prefect?” Eleanor asked curiously, pointing to the badges on their chests.

“We were chosen out of a select number of students in our year to guide our peers and help to uphold the rules,” Hermione stated proudly. “A boy and girl are chosen from each house. I’ve read about Ilvermorny, but couldn’t find anything about student guides.”

“In our fourth year, three students are chosen to help the younger kids with their studies and stuff,” you shrugged. “They’re a bit like glorified tutors, but I don’t know if that’s the same thing.”

Ron’s chest puffed out again, pride in his stance. “We do a bit more than that, I’d say.”

At Eleanor’s giggle, he seemed to remember that he needed to look cool and crossed his arms, leaning against the nearest compartment door as casually as he could. Hermione rolled her eyes at him.

“Well, we’re here to help,” she said, an excited glimmer in her brown eyes. “There’ll be prefects to help you two in whatever house you’re sorted. But you’re always welcome to come to one of us! I’d absolutely love to hear all about America’s magical education. Doesn’t that sound positively fascinating, Ron?”

He shrugged, not hiding his disinterest well. She was obviously a bookworm and he very obviously was not.

“Anyway, there are normally a few empty compartments toward the back of the train,” Hermione said, seeming to remember that you four were standing in the middle of the almost empty hallway.

“Awesome, thanks,” Eleanor smiled.

“I’d truly love to stay and chat, but we’re expected in the prefect’s carriage,” she sighed apologetically, and you had no doubt that she really was sorry to miss the chance to ask you as many questions as possible. “It was lovely to meet you.”

“You too,” you said, and stepped aside so that Hermione and Ron could walk toward the front of the train.

The floor lurched, almost knocking you and Eleanor off balance, and the steam engine whistled. The train was slowly beginning to move.

“Hogwarts, here we come,” Eleanor squealed, clapping her hands. The two of you hugged in excitement, ignoring a few of the people still sneaking peeks at you from their open compartment doors.

You and your friend practically skipped down toward the end of the train, taking Hermione’s advice and finally finding an empty compartment. With a great heave, you swung your luggage up to the top rack and removed your wand from one of the zippered pockets. You hadn’t done magic all summer and the itch was almost irresistible. Eleanor was obviously thinking the same thing, flicking her wand silently at a small magazine she’d pulled from her bag.

“Did you ever get the hang of non-verbal spells?” she asked, not taking her eyes off of the magazine that lay motionless on the bench beside you.

“Eh,” you said noncommittally. You were modest. “We learned it right before break, and most of the class didn’t get it anyway. I’m always a bit rusty when summer ends.”

“Same,” she muttered, flicking her wand relentlessly in repeating patterns. But the magazine still didn’t move.

You pulled a book out of your trunk: Hogwarts, a History: The Revised Edition. You wanted to learn as much about the school as you possibly could before you got there. Not only would the knowledge make navigating the castle a bit easier, but you could almost feel your father inside of the pages. With every new experience, like meeting Hagrid, staying in the Leady Cauldron, and boarding the train, you felt closer and closer to him.

“Oh, shit!”

Eleanor’s scream made you jump, and you realized with a whiff of smoke that the magazine had burst into flames. You bolted out of your seat and quickly drew your wand.

“Aguamenti!” you exclaimed. Water rushed from your wand tip and extinguished the burning pages. You both were panting as you turned your irritated gaze to her. She grinned sheepishly.

“Told you I was rusty…”

“Were you trying to catch it on fire?” you questioned, adrenaline starting to retreat. Your heart was still pounding.

“Um, no,” she practically whispered. “I was trying to freeze it.”

You snorted, holding back a laugh. “Keep that up and you won’t end up in Ravenclaw.”

“I’m just nervous! Horned Serpent won’t let me down. I’m sure the Sorting Hat will see that.”

She waited for you to agree, craving your confirmation. You smiled at her, understanding her nerves. You were not-so-secretly terrified that the hat wouldn’t be able to sort you at all.

“Of course it will be able to tell,” you said kindly, and Eleanor let out a breath she’d been holding.

Determined to help her with her uneasiness, the two of you practiced simple non-verbal spells for the next forty minutes or so. When you froze a magazine page on your first try, Eleanor seemed to deflate. You then purposefully messed up on every attempt until she successfully covered a page in ice. She pumped a fist into the air, overjoyed. You smiled.

Then your compartment door slid open, revealing the bushy-haired prefect.

“Hello,” she smiled. “Our prefect meeting just finished. Would you like to join us in our compartment?”

“Yeah, that sounds great,” you grinned, thankful that a kind student was already taking you and Eleanor under their wing.

The two of you pulled your belongings down from the racks above your seats and followed Hermione down the hallway. The compartment was only a few paces away from yours.

She slid open the door and walked inside, reaching to help Eleanor slide her trunk onto the overhead shelf. A boy with dark, somewhat messy hair and glasses looked up in surprise. He was sitting across from Ron, the redhead that you’d met earlier. Ron greeted you with a short wave, whispering something quickly to the raven-haired boy.

“Don’t be rude, introduce yourself,” Hermione scolded. She sounded like a disappointed mother.

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” the green-eyed boy muttered. He stood and stuck out his hand, albeit awkwardly. “I’m Harry.”

“Hi, I’m Y/N,” you smiled, shaking his hand. It was calloused, but warm.

“Eleanor,” your friend said, shaking his hand as well.

“They’re exchange students from Ilvermorny,” Hermione gushed, sitting down beside Ron. You sat down on the opposite bench next to Harry, then Eleanor sat beside you. “Isn’t that so exciting?”

Harry looked mildly confused. “Ilvermorny?”

“Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” Hermione said, waiting for him to catch on. He didn’t. “It’s the magical school in America,” she explained, looking a bit put out that he didn’t know this. “Honestly, Harry, we learned about other wizarding schools from Professor McGonagall last term, remember? After Christmas she posted the I.W.S.E.P. signup sheet in the common room.”

“I was a bit distracted with the tournament last year,” Harry said, a bit defensive because of her gaze.

Hermione sighed, suddenly looking sad. She looked to Ron expectantly. “You remember, don’t you, Ronald?”

Ron grinned uneasily. “Sure, yeah. Good ole I.W.S.E.P.”

“What does I.W.S.E.P. stand for, Ron?” she asked flatly.

“Uh… well, International, uh, Witch… Witch Switching Event—?”

“Honestly! Just admit you didn’t listen either, Ron!”

“It’s not a big deal,” you cut in, grinning uneasily. “Most of my house didn’t listen either. A lot of the students who ended up doing the exchange program already knew about it way beforehand. I’d decided I was going by my third year.”

Hermione was suddenly very interested in what you had to say, and Ron shot you a thankful look. You could see that Harry was doing his very best not to laugh at Ron.

“Tell us all about your school!” Hermione squealed, scooting to the edge of her seat and resting her chin in her hands. She reminded you of a small child watching their favorite television program. “What’s it like? I’ve read all about the sorting process, it is absolutely fascinating. And that you don’t receive your wand until after your sorting ceremony?”

“Wow, you know a lot about it,” Eleanor said, mildly impressed.

“Hermione knows loads,” Ron interjected. Hermione tried to hide her flattered grin, but the slight flush of her cheeks betrayed her.

Harry was looking out the window, his brow furrowed. His mind was obviously elsewhere.

“Well,” you began, looking away from Harry and back to Hermione and Ron, “Ilvermorny is modeled after Hogwarts, ya know, so not too much is different.”

“Oooh, yes, I read about that too,” Hermione nodded. “The founder, Isolt Sayre, dreamed of going to Hogwarts in her childhood, didn’t she?”

“Yeah,” you smiled, “that’s why one of our uniform colors is blue. She wanted to be a Ravenclaw.”

“Same,” Eleanor sighed. Hermione grinned at her.

“Are you academically inclined?” she asked Eleanor.

“I’d like to think so,” Eleanor shrugged. “I’ve just heard that my house, Horned Serpent, and Ravenclaw are kind of alike. I’ll be happy no matter what house I’m sorted into, but I think Ravenclaw may feel a bit more like home.”

“I was almost sorted in Ravenclaw,” Hermione said, and you weren’t surprised.

“Really? Then why are you in Gryffindor?” Eleanor asked, scooting to the edge of her seat too.

“I chose it,” she said simply. “Books and cleverness are important, of course, but there are more important things.”

“So, the Sorting Hat will let you choose your house?” you asked quickly. Hermione noticed the desperate twinge in your tone.

“Well,” she said gently, “to a degree. But only if you truly belong there.”

You sighed. Hermione looked at Eleanor questioningly.

“She’s nervous that she won’t be sorted,” Eleanor explained, rolling her eyes but squeezing your arm.

“Everyone gets sorted,” Ron assured, certainty lacing his tone. “My whole family’s been in Gryffindor, I remember as a First Year being terrified that I was gonna end up in another house. But it all works out, doesn’t it?”

“Why are you afraid that you won’t be sorted?” Hermione asked curiously.

You shrugged, tucking your hair behind your ear shyly. You never enjoyed talking about this, afraid that you’d come off as bragging.

“Well, this thing happens at Ilvermorny sometimes, during the sorting ceremony,” you began hesitantly. Harry turned his head towards you, the conversation catching his interest. “It doesn’t happen super often…”

“Like, once every decade or two,” Eleanor added. You blushed a bit.

“More than one house can choose you,” you explained, wringing your hands together. “The houses show that they want you when their wooden statues come to life. You stand in the middle of the circle and the whole school is watching from the side and the balconies above.”

“Do you have four houses like we do?” asked Ron.

“Yeah,” you nodded. “Horned Serpent, Pukwudgie, Thunderbird, and Wampus.”

“What happens if more than one house chooses you?” Harry asked. Hermione seemed glad that he was taking part in the conversation, relieved even. You wondered why.

You turned to Harry. “If more than one house chooses you, then the student gets to choose where they want to go.”

“A bit like the Sorting Hat,” Hermione added. “So, what happens once every ten years?”

“It’s not uncommon for more than one house to choose a student,” Eleanor said, “but it only happens once every few years that three houses will show interest. Even rarer that all four want someone.”

“All four wanted me,” you said quietly, a bit embarrassed by the attention. Ron’s eyebrows shot up and Hermione seemed very impressed. Harry seemed impressed as well, exchanging a loaded glance with Ron.

“Imagine the Sorting Hat announcing that it can’t decide,” Ron said to Harry, laughing in disbelief. “Can you imagine? I think McGonagall’s head would explode.”

“Has that ever happened?” you asked worriedly. “I mean, what if the Sorting Hat doesn’t know where to put me?”

“It’s never failed to sort a student in Hogwarts’ history,” Hermione assured you, putting a comforting hand on yours before pulling it away. “I’m quite certain it would just allow you to choose.”

You sighed.

“What house did you go with?” Harry asked you.

“Thunderbird,” you answered, a smile creeping onto your face. You were proud of your house.

“And what kind of person goes to Thunderbird?” asked Ron.

“Well, it’s said that Thunderbird leans toward adventurers and represents the soul.”

“The soul?” asked Harry, brows pulling together.

“The houses at Ilvermorny aren’t exactly like Hogwarts,” Eleanor explained, biting her lip as she thought. “I’m not sure how to explain it. Ilvermorny houses are said to represent parts of a human being. Horned Serpent usually leans toward scholars, so it represents the mind. Wampus leans toward warriors, so the body. Thunderbird favors adventurers, so the soul. And Pukwudgie favors healers, so people who lead with their heart.”

“It’s such an interesting take on things, don’t you think?” Hermione said dreamily to no one in particular. She was like a sponge, soaking up every word that came out of your mouths.

“Why did you go with Thunderbird?” asked Harry.

“People ask me that a lot,” you smiled. “What I told Eleanor is… I guess I see the soul as the root of everything? I mean, it all goes back to that. When we’re born, when we die, our souls are who we are at the most fundamental level. They last long after we leave this earth.”

Harry sighed, nodding almost imperceptibly. His eyes were filled with some sort of pain that he was making an effort to hide. Ron and Hermione watched him, concerned.

“I think that’s a lovely sentiment,” Hermione said to you, “that souls are the beginning and never-ending. That the people we care about never really leave us after they die.”

You smiled, your father’s joyful face flitting through your mind. “Yeah. That’s actually one of the reasons I wanted to come to Hogwarts. My dad was a student here.”

“Blimey, really?” Ron laughed. “Knew you weren’t so bad, you’ve got a bit of Brit in you.”

You rolled your eyes and laughed, Hermione turning to Ron and slapping his arm again. You gathered that this was a common occurrence between the two.

“He was in Hufflepuff,” you said.

“Oh, Gryffindors get along swimmingly with Hufflepuffs,” Hermione chirped. “We normally have a few classes together every term.”

“Bet your dad’s rooting for you to get sorted into Hufflepuff, yeah?” Ron questioned.

Eleanor looked down at her shoes, clearing her throat uncomfortably. You bit your lip and Hermione seemed to instantly detect that something was wrong. Ron, of course, was oblivious.

“Uh, actually, he died a few years ago,” you said quietly. Harry turned to look at you, understanding in his green eyes.

“Oh, damn. Sorry,” Ron mumbled, avoiding your eyes.

“No, you’re fine, Ron,” you said quickly. “It’s not like it’s a taboo subject or anything. I just don’t talk about it much is all.” You shrugged halfheartedly. “I should probably get used to talking about it more anyway, I guess, now that I’ll be at a new school where my dad used to go. I’m just hoping to, I don’t know, get closer to his memory somehow? I know it sounds stupid.”

“It’s not stupid at all,” Harry said quickly. You were a bit surprised by the intensity of his tone. “When I hear things from the professors about my mum, or see a Quidditch trophy that my dad won, I can feel it. Like I’m getting a glimpse at them.”

Ron and Hermione exchanged sad glances. You didn’t miss the gloomy air that the three were giving off.

“Your parents…?” you asked quietly.

“Are dead, yeah,” he answered. He ran a hand through his dark hair, and then you saw it. With an audible gasp, you didn’t understand why you didn’t realize it before. He’d introduced himself as Harry, after all.

“You’re – oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize,” you stammered, “… that was a stupid question, I shouldn’t have asked. I just didn’t know who—who you were.”

Eleanor seemed confused, then her eyes fell upon the lightening scar that was no longer hidden underneath his dark hair. Her mouth dropped open quite unabashedly.

“It’s alright,” Harry shrugged. “It was actually sort of nice, meeting people who didn’t instantly know who I was.”

“Well, uh, it’s cool to meet you,” you said awkwardly.

“Uh, yeah! Like, beyond cool,” Eleanor grinned behind you.

You couldn’t believe this whole time that you were discussing worries as silly as sorting to The Boy Who Lived, the boy who, as a baby, defeated You-Know-Who and survived the Killing Curse. Your problems and fears must seem so small and trivial to him.

Harry offered an awkward but understanding smile. You realized that he must deal with this reaction every time he met someone new. It must’ve been exhausting.

Just then, the compartment door flew open with an unpleasant bang. In strutted two large boys that reminded you of stunted gorillas, following a familiar handsome face and perfectly styled light blonde hair. The atmosphere of the compartment poisoned; you could feel the instant shift in the air. Your three new friends were glaring at Draco Malfoy with all of the hatred and disgust they could possibly muster. You exchanged a glance of recognition with Eleanor, the two of you sinking back into your seats to avoid whatever confrontation was obviously coming.

“Potter,” Draco spat, the name rolling off his tongue like a curse, “just thought I’d drop by to show you this.” He stood up straighter in his fitted black suit, a green prefect pin glinting on his chest. “Someone needs to remind you of your superiors.”

“Big whoop, Malfoy, we’re prefects too,” Ron spat back, pointing to the pin on his chest. Malfoy sneered.

“Obvious lack of judgement, Weaselby,” he smirked. His grey eyes pierced through Hermione, his nose wrinkling in disgust. “If they allow mudbloods to be prefects now, then what’s a blood traitor?”

You and Eleanor gasped at his use of the slur. Even then, he didn’t seem to notice the two of you, too intent on causing chaos.

“And what does that say about you, Potter?” he smirked nastily. “That they get chosen as prefects over you? Not Dumbledore’s little golden boy anymore, are you?”

Draco’s cronies laughed behind him, fueling his ever-deepening smirk.

Harry shot up from his seat, rage radiating off of him in waves that were almost visible. This was obviously what Malfoy came for. His face was twisting into a superior smile. Harry’s wand was clutched in his shaking fist.

“At least my father’s not a cruel, murdering, prejudiced piece of—”

“Harry, he’s not worth it,” Hermione begged, standing to grab Harry’s arm and pull him back.

“Keep my father’s name out of your mouth, Potter,” Draco threatened. He stepped closer to Harry as Hermione continued to attempt to pull her friend back with little success. Harry’s grip tightened on his wand so much that his fingers turned white, causing a few sparks to fly out of the tip. Malfoy’s cronies were beginning to crack their knuckles in anticipation.

You weren’t sure when you decided to do this, or why in the hell you thought it was a good idea, but you suddenly stood. Malfoy and his bodyguards finally seemed to realize that there were two other people in the compartment. Recognition flitted across his face, and you knew that he recognized you from the day before in Madam Malkin’s.

“I could be wrong, but I don’t think anyone in this compartment gives two damns that you’re a prefect, Draco,” you snapped, a confidence in your voice that you certainly weren’t feeling. Harry, Ron, and Hermione gaped at you in shock, both surprised by your involvement and the fact that you even knew who Malfoy was.

Draco was taken off guard, but quickly recovered.

“I heard whispers of Americans on the train,” he said unkindly, eyes glinting but holding the slightest bit of fascination. “I suppose Hogwarts is officially scraping the bottom of the bin nowadays.”

Anger curdled in your stomach and boiled in your blood. You could easily see why Harry was so quick to anger the moment Malfoy stepped into the compartment—he was getting under your skin, too.

“Well, I guess they are if you’re here,” you said, crossing your arms, “and named a prefect no less? They’re obviously lowering their standards. I mean, damn, I just met you and I already think you’re a waste of space.”

Ron snorted behind you, not bothering to hold back his laugh. Hermione even had to slap a hand over her mouth not to giggle. Draco’s scowl was venomous, far more intimidating than the one he’d given you in the robe shop when you’d called him an asshole.

“I’d be careful if I were you,” he said, dangerously quiet. His blue-grey eyes drilled into you, and the most conflicting sensation of butterflies and hatred trickled from your stomach to your toes. “Already associating with mudbloods and blood traitors before you even hit the grounds? Pity.”

“Ya know, I really don’t like that word,” you said, sickeningly sweet. Your wand was at Malfoy’s throat before anyone could react, and Draco’s cronies didn’t seem to know what to do. They drew their wands and pointed them at you, looking at each other with confusion.

Draco’s surprised eyes were locked with yours, his chin tilted up and his Adam’s apple bobbing with a nervous gulp. He was doing his best to act tough, but you could tell that he was uneasy. He didn’t know you and didn’t know what you were capable of. He had been banking on a fight with Harry, not on a fight with you.

“Nah ah ah,” you smiled, shaking your head at the drawn wands of the gorillas flanking him. You pointedly twisted the tip of your wand into Draco’s neck a bit – not enough to hurt him, of course, but enough to make your point. “I’ll hex him before you can even open your mouths.”

They exchanged fearful glances again, their wands wavering. Draco didn’t dare turn his head to look at them, but seethed through his teeth, “Lower your wands, you morons!”

They did as they were told, and you smiled at them. “That’s better.”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione didn’t seem to know what to do either, but their faces were filled with gleeful astonishment. Eleanor was staring at you in awe. You didn’t blame her; you weren’t one to get into fights at Ilvermorny. Actually, you’d never been in a fight; you’d never done anything like this. But the adrenaline rushing through your veins was a heady combination when it mixed with the butterflies dancing in your gut.

“You know what my specialty is, Draco?” you asked, tapping your wand teasingly against his Adam’s apple. He gulped again and closed his eyes, breathing loudly through his nose. “I’m pretty good with non-verbal spells. You’d never know what was coming.”

He nervously licked his lips and stared back down at you, eyes filled with distaste, anger, and something else that you couldn’t quite place.

“And non-verbal as in, ya know, making you non-verbal,” you added with a smirk reminiscent of his own, pressing the tip of your wand into the side of his neck. Again, not enough to hurt him, but enough to make his heart race. Yours was racing too.

You had no idea where this surge of confidence was coming from, but you sure as hell weren’t stopping now.

“If I hear that nasty, disgusting word come out of your mouth again… well, you won’t be saying anything for a while,” you whispered sweetly. Draco’s clenched jaw, the vein popping out of his neck, his furrowed brows and gaze so intense that you couldn’t distinguish between the adrenaline and the butterflies anymore – you realized with overwhelming shame just how hot you thought he was.

You hated yourself.

“You’ll regret this,” he whispered venomously, meant for your ears only.

“Will I really?” you asked, tapping the wand against his throat again. He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for your wordless hex. You stood there for a moment, anticipation building, letting him think that you were going to do it. Then, with a satisfied laugh, you lowered your wand and stepped back. You’d never planned on hexing him, not really, but you wanted him to know that you could, at any moment, without any incantation to warn him.

Draco’s eyes popped open, feeling the sudden loss of contact. He let out a breath that he didn’t realize he was holding, reaching up to rub at his neck. He eyes darted around the compartment, taking in the smug faces of the Gryffindors and the confused faces of his cronies. With intense anger, he realized just how embarrassed he was.

“You better watch your back, Potter!” he spat, pointing a pale finger at Harry’s amused face. “Your luck is running out. He’s got plans for you. He’s going to kill you, just like your boyfriend.”

Harry’s face darkened. Then Draco’s furious eyes darted to you.

“And you,” he whispered spitefully, “you’ll regret ever leaving your backwoods trailer!”

You had no doubt that he meant it, but you hid your apprehension at his words, only raising a skeptical eyebrow at him.

With that, he stomped off down the hall, tailed closely by his muddled friends. You could hear him cursing the whole way.

“Y/N!” Eleanor breathed in disbelief, gripping your arm like a vice and dragging you down to the seat beside her. “What the actual fuck was that? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was pretty awesome—but what the fuck?!”

“That was bloody brilliant!” Ron exclaimed, practically jumping out of his seat in joy. “Will you marry me?”

You all busted into laughter.

“Malfoy might have it out for you even more than Harry,” Hermione giggled, but there was an air of uneasiness. “Not that I don’t think you’re capable of defending yourself, but are you sure that was clever? He’ll be out for blood now.”

“Come on, Hermione,” Ron rolled his eyes, “you’re ruining the moment!”

“Yeah, take the victory, Hermione,” Harry agreed with a grin.

________________________

Thirty minutes later, Harry grabbed a silvery-looking cloak from his trunk, tucking it under his arms and murmuring something about returning in a few minutes. You didn’t think anything of it, but Ron and Hermione seemed a bit skeptical and irritated by the action.

The rest of the train ride was peppered with questions about Hogwarts and Ilvermorny, funny quips about what happened with Malfoy, and a delicious helping of sweets from the friendly trolley witch. Harry never returned.

You hadn’t realized just how much time had passed when Hermione stood up and stretched, instructing Ron to change into his robes. They needed to go back to the prefect carriage toward the front of the train before arrival, she explained. She recommended that you and Eleanor change into your school robes as well.

The Hogwarts Express pulled into a small wizarding village called Hogsmeade at dark, just as you finished adjusting your new robes and helping Eleanor fix her hair. You could hear the chuga-chuga of the wheels slow, and the train lurch as it came to a full stop. Compartment doors were banging open and students were talking, laughing, and running down the hallways as they trickled out of the train.

You and Eleanor grabbed your luggage, stuffed your wands into the pocket of your robes, and set out into the night. The enormous castle loomed before you, quite visible from the village. The lit windows winked at you against the backdrop of the inky night sky.

“It’s Hogwarts,” Eleanor whispered in awe.

You were content.

[ Read Part 4 here ]

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Green Eggs and Ham Reviews: Car (Patreon Review for Emma Fici) “The Green Eggs and Ham Circle of Hell”

Hello all you happy people! And welcome back to my monthly reviews of green eggs and ham for my patron Emma Fici. If you too want a review a month simply join the 5 dollar tier on my patreon, link is HERE. Join soon won’t you, new month starts saturday and if you join by then i’ll add your review to the schedule and the 5 dollars helps reach my next set of stretch goals. So join me won’t you?

Plugging aside we’re back as Sam and Guy finally properly hit the road, we find out just waht the chickaraffe is like, and find out from Michelle that you can somehow make a second impression even worse than an already odiious first impression. So with no real background to cover join me under the cut on the road to meepville, come on inside.

Previously on Green Eggs and Ham: Guy Am I, a failed inventor failed once again in front of a large audience, leaving his dreams broken and himself planning to head to Meepville to take a job watching paint dry. He met Sam I Am, an enegetic animal thief whose desperate for friends, and accidentally swapped suitcases with him, leading to Sam ending up with the Chickaraffe, a rare animal Sam swiped from the zoo. We also let Michelle a smothering mother who treats her child EB terribly by overprotecting her and is in general a smug consdesencing bitch, our main villian Snerz who has someone bringing him the meep and the BAD GUYS, a mysterious mismatched duo after the chickaraffe.

We pick up where we left off: Guy is being stalked by a mysterious shadow. of the chickaraffe.. only for it to turn out to be a friendly, cuddly creature as you’d expect, if a bit destructive as it destroys all the vases in the room, which comically are expensive and in general casuses chaos. it’s a fun scene. Guy gets it to sleep BREIFLY when his complimentary lullabye shows up, but it wakes right after due to the door slamming.

Meanwhile Sam discovers the Chickaraffe, which he plans to take to Meepville, is gone, and we get a cut to Smerz who is not pleased his chickaraffe is delayed by someone and threatnes to put them in his wall if they don’t bring the chickaraffe on time because he’s the kind of sadistic dick who already puts a bunch of animals in a wall for his own viewing pleasure, why wouldn’t he threaten murder or imprinsment for slight inconvenience. We catch up with said BAD GUYZ with Mcwinkle sugarcoating the fact the boss is not happy, and Gluntz not only catching onto that.. but also having alreayd found their perp as Sam bought his kite polevault and snorkel from Lem’s Kite Polevault and Snorkel (”Plummeting out of business”). While they do that Guy gets Sam’s adress from Donna. So it turns out sometimes giving your adress out to random strangers CAN pan out. The last time I did that I got shived by a guy dressed like soundwave on my front lawn.

Naturally given Guy’s luck he winds up running into the bad guys who mistake him for the thief given he has the chickaraffe, and back him into a cliff with a net gun because that’s what BAD GUYS do.. or rather people with that acronym who don’t get how due process or a misunderstanding works. Thankfully Sam swipes their car and rescues guy .. it also has a bunch of hats trailing for some reaosn I don’t know what that’s all about.

So with our heroes to the road, they swap plans... well more like Sam tells his of taking the chikaraffe to meepville and Guy sorta grunts out that he’s going to watch paint dry, with Sam.. not impressed at all and clearly feeling like he’s giving up on his dreams.. Which he is, and to Sam’s credit he’s TRYING to be tactful. Trying is the key word but given the man has no real filter tha’ts understandable. Guy not wanting ot be an accesory to crime gets out and decides to hitchike. Same TRIES to get him to stay because he’s clingy like that, but eventually leaves and Guy is left to wander the desert.

And it’s here... my patience for Michelle runs out. Guy is trying thitchike she passes by, SLOWLY, as in the same speed as walking.. and not only puts up a bunch of security btu calls him a weirdo, without actually ASKING why he’s in the desert asking fo ra drive, assumes he’s going to hurt her and her daughter and says all this within earshot, something he calls her out on. I already had little patience for the character but I assumed you know sh’ed get better, maybe have some depths or something that explained why she’ such a bitch. But no amount of depth can really.. excuse the way she acts. I GET wnating to help keep her daughter safe, I do , I get not wanting to pick up randos on the side of the road. Both things are necessary. But Guy... is clearly not dangerous, clearly not doing anything, and clearly about to pass out from heat stroke.. and you just ignore him and assume i’ts his fault because your a self righteous, smug, selfish sampler platter of bitch. I get she’s supposed to have an arc, so are Guy and Sam.. but Guy and Sam are LIKEABLE. Guy is a bit grumpy but beaten down by life and the world and Sam’s a bit in your face, but is clearly deeply lonely. BOth have things that justify it. Michelle is later revealed to have lost her husband apparently, so I know she has some depth and some reason for how she acts with ehr daguther.. but how she treats guy in both episodes so far just makes her so unlikeable and there’s NTOHING to explain it. She just makes assumptions about him for stupid reasons and treats him like garbage and it’s nto nearly as funny as the series thinks. I do not look forward to 11 more episodes with this character and feel any time she’s on screen she drains the energy out of a show tha’ts bursting with it.

Thankfully she’s gone for the rest of the episode, so Guy is free to have a horrifying heat induced nightmare about green eggs and ham.

Yup. in the best part of the episode, Guy has a small breakdown and we get a horrifying and wonderful acid sequence wher ethe road melts, he’s stalked by green eggs, and ham, which is everywhere, and when he thinks he’s getting some rain it’s in fact green egg drippings. It’s just so delightfully batshit and unexpected. I love EVERYTHING about this. I admit when I woke up today and turned htis on I wasn’t expecting Guy to end up in a heastroke induced nightmarish hellscape with living green eggs and ham, nor did I ever expect htat but I can’t say i’m dispaointed.

He snaps out of it when Sam shows up. Unsuprisingly Sam didn’t want to leave without him, and simply looped around having picke dup some green eggs and ham and some hot and cold choclate.. naturally he accidnetly gives guy the hot choclate first. Still it shows that beneath is all too pushy and needy demeanour.. Sam’s a good guy and genuinely WANTS to help well.. Guy. He looped around entirely aware Guy wouldn’t find a ride probably but would be too stubborn to accept it if he kept pushing so he simply went to get him some help.

Even Guy’s stubborn Grumpusness can’t fight dying of heatstroke so he relucntantly agrees to be travel buddies and Sam nicely agrees to drive while the poor guy get somre rest, especially since the whole escapade with the chikarafffe liekly means he’s gotten no sleep whatsoever.

And so as the episode ends this naturally goes pear shaped as Guy wakes up to find the car about to tumble over a cliff into a lake. TO BE CONTINUED. Next month

FInal THoughts: This episode was okay. I didn’t like it as much as the premire nor really have as much to say about it, as it just wans’t as deep... it was still VERY funny, with tons of great gags i glossed over, like Gluntz having the party she set up for her partner, he intends for this to be his last job, slowly back away as the job’s now longer thanks to Sam and Guy getting away. But while the first half is fine with plenty of energy, jokes and plto progression the second half just stalls: outside of the green eggs and ham circle of hell, there’s really just not a lot that’s funny, with Michelle being ungodly obnoxious and sam being a bit obnoxious, coming on a bit strong with Guy and never once apoologizing to him for getting him nearly captured and arrested. It just drags on and on a bit, and it just isn’t funny to see poor guy tourture dfor rightfully not wanting ot travel with someone who nearly got him captured by shady goons, or get rejected a ride by a self righteous harpy. It’s not TERRIBLE, I still can’t wait to see what happens next, but it’s a marked step down after last episode.

And i’ll see you next month for next episode, here tommorow for the next chapter of life and times and if you fancy joining my patreon, I inend to have an exclusive review of Thunder Force up sometime this week. Until the next rainbow it’s been a pleasure.

#green eggs and ham #netflix #sam I am #guy am I #michelle #eb #gluntz #mcwinkle #snerz #dr seuss

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falcon-eye · 4 years

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Another ficlet featuring Cat OCs which will eventually become a part of a bigger story from @inexplicifics Accidental Warlord AU! This one kinda got away from me, Idk. I wanted to include a little more info on my Cats but after a while I felt like I was rambling. I also feel like the tone is kinda all over the place. I like what I wrote, but Idk about how I wrote it, if that makes any sense. And I’m not satisfied with the ending. I also hope the “deal” makes sense too. Idk. I’m just generally sorry for how weird this one turned out. Any questions, even if they’re just about the characters, please shoot them my way! Hope you enjoy!

The Law of Surprise had never steered Veko wrong. Well, ok, that wasn’t exactly true. It had never fucked him over, anyway. Well...

Ok, see, many, many years before the White Wolf began his reign, Veko and his twin brother Hamra had been traveling with the Cat School’s caravan. They always had, ever since becoming Witchers, although they sometimes broke off for hunts either alone or with each other. Siblings were rare among Witchers, twins especially, and identical twins even more so. Plus, Hamra was... gentle—for a Witcher anyway. He hardly made eye contact and often didn’t talk until absolutely necessary for days at a time, often using signs when he didn’t want to (or couldn’t) speak. Veko was used to it, often either being able to decipher his brother’s signs and gestures, or filing in the blanks himself. This also meant he was frequently his brother’s “translator” of sorts. Despite mostly taking hunts together though, Veko, like everyone else in the caravan, needed a break from time to time. Especially from his brother’s guilty looks.

It’s common knowledge that Cats are the more... emotional of all Witchers, prone to mood swings, rages, and the occasional bloodlust. It’s just how the mutagens made them, as much a fact as the sky was blue. Didn’t make it any easier on any of them, though. Veko knew this all too well.

Although Hamra was quiet, generally incredibly awkward and painfully shy, he too could and had been taken over by his emotions. And unfortunately, Veko was always in the line of fire—literally. The fight had been... stupid. Probably. Now, years later, neither twin can remember what the it was even about, and none of the other Cats were paying enough attention to care. Hamra was too enraged to remember what happened and Veko. Well, Veko, whether he was trying to calm Hamra down or was truly fighting with him, took an Igni to the face at basically point blank range. Sure, the smell of cooking monster was one Witchers eventually got used to, but as it turns out, the smell of your own brother’s flesh burning from his face and neck snaps you out of a rage pretty well.

Veko was out of commission for quite a while, by Witcher standards. The left side of his face, from under his eye down his neck, and disappearing beneath his armor, was a permanent web of tight, puckered scarring. It wasn’t bad enough to lose his ear or anything, thankfully, and no actual holes in his skin, but it was big and grotesque enough that there was no possible way to hide it unless he covered his entire face. So Hamra had to look at his greatest mistake every time he looked at his brother, and Veko had to deal with the sour smell of guilt pouring off of his brother almost every waking moment.

So, yeah, he needed a break and a solo hunt every once in a while.

This one was about as basic as they get; bunch of drowners terrorizing a local village, no problem. Veko took them out with ease. Or so he thought. Going back to the village to claim his pay, he heard an old man crying for help and realized one of the drowners had broken off from the others. Just great.

The old man and the drowner both were stuck in thick mud, a pathetic sight as the man frantically tried to free himself as the drowner clawed at him. Veko literally walked up next to the creature and decapitating it, yanking the old man out of the mud while still in mid swing.

“Witcher!” the old man cried, his knees nearly buckling once he was on solid ground. “Oh thank you Witcher! How could I ever repay you?!”

Sheathing his swords, Veko chuckled. “I mean, coin never hurts.”

As Veko wiped the mud from his face, revealing his burns, the man paled. “I-I don’t... I-I don’t have any money on me,” he said. “Please, sir, there must be something else I can give you!“

Veko sighed. “Not a problem,” he said. “How about this—first thing you see when you get home, I’ll take that. I’ve got to get my pay from your village anyway. Why don’t I stop by your house in the morning?”

The old man nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes sir Witcher!” he exclaimed. “I live on the edge of town, just a little farm, the one with the blue roof.”

“Blue roof,” Veko said, squinting at the old man. “Yeah, it’s suits you.”

The old man looked confused, but Veko waved him off and walked back to the village with him. Luckily, the alderman didn’t scrimp him over on pay, but it still wasn’t a great amount. However, despite actually being paid the amount he was promised, the local inn just so happened to be completely full. Whatever, you win some, you lose some. Pocketing his coin, Veko led his horse a little ways out of town and reluctantly set up camp.

Veko’s horse was a dun gelding, one of the several Law of Surprise claims and other non-coin payments Veko had made over the years. Once, he’d gotten a literal chicken dinner from a family (which he shared with them, godsdamned his bleeding heart). Another time, an old woman he’d saved from a werewolf offered him and Hamra her home for the night, and taught Veko how to knit when he couldn’t sleep. The horse was relatively new, having picked him up from a farmer with a bad wolf problem, and didn’t give two shits about the Witcher. Which was fine by Veko. He wasn’t close with his horses like some Witchers were. This was his eighth horse, appropriately named Eight.

Eight was a bastard of an animal, constantly biting at Veko’s fingers, clothes, weapons—really anything he could reach. He’d also literally kicked Veko in the ass a few times, and once right in the balls, to the entire caravan’s delight. Eight was also a particular fan of loudly chewing the bark off of whatever tree he was tethered to, which made trying to get peace and quiet a bitch. Not-so-secretly, Veko was hoping whatever the old man saw when he got back to his house was a different horse. It was too expensive to buy another one, and despite the fact that he and Eight hated each other, he’d never wish harm upon the animal. He just wanted to be rid of him, that’s all.

But when he arrived at the old man’s home the next day, horse, chicken dinner, knitting lessons—none of it came even close to what was waiting for him.

A petite woman in a pale blue dress covered in splatters of paint slammed the front door open as he approached. Her hair, brunette, was up in an approximation of a bun, but it was hard to tell as it was so messily put together and curled wildly where it escaped.

Veko saw the exact moment she saw his burn scars, but to his surprise, only faltered for a moment. “Witcher!” she shouted, marching right up to Veko and poking a paint-stained finger to his chest. “You can turn around and leave right now!”

Veko blinked down at her. “Uh, excuse me,” he scoffed, “I came here to get my payment. Who the hell are you?”

“Your bloody payment,” the girl hissed, throwing her arms out. “Surprise!”

“Eloise!” the old man Veko had saved came rushing out of his house, taking the woman’s hands in his. “Please, Eloise—“

“What in the hell is going on here?!” Veko exclaimed, making the old man flinch but the woman—Eloise—stood her ground.

“You asked my father to give you the first thing he saw when he came home, right?” she snapped. “Well I answered the bloody door, Witcher.”

Veko took a step back and raised his hands in surrender. “Ok, ok, so this is just all a misunderstanding, I get it. I’ll just—“

“No, no!” the old man exclaimed as Veko turned back to his horse. “Please, Witcher, it’s the Law of Surprise, it’s destiny!”

“Fuck destiny,” Eloise spat. Veko had to agree. But the old man was frantic now.

“To-to go against destiny—“ he continued, before breaking off into a hacking coughing fit that actually had Veko concerned the man would drop right there.

Eloise calmed her father down and held him until his coughing subsided. “Please, papa, you’re going to overwhelm yourself.”

“Eloise, my darling,” the man choked out, “this is all my fault, but please, you cannot go against the Law of Surprise!”

Veko watched the two for a moment before clearing his throat. “Maybe—maybe we can work something out,” he said. Obviously the man was only getting more and more worked up as the conversation went on.

Eloise glared at Veko for a moment before crossing her arms. “It’s ok, papa,” she said, still glaring, “I’ll talk with the Witcher and sort this whole thing out.”

“Y-yeah,” Veko said. “Um. Do you wanna...?”

Eloise grabbed him—actually grabbed him, the balls on this woman!—by the arm and dragged him behind the house, towards a small stable and paddock where a few goats were housed.

“Alright, Witcher, listen,” Eloise snapped. “I don’t believe in all this ‘destiny’ bollocks. The Law of Surprise is bullshit.”

“Hey, I’m with you there,” Veko said. “I normally get like livestock or food or stuff like that.”

Eloise sighed and bit at her nail, staring out across the paddock. “My father believes in all of it,” she said. “My mother died when I was young. Destiny, papa always said. It’s garbage. But my father... he’s very old. I need to take care of him. Whether I believed in all that shit or not, Witcher, I cannot come with you.”

“And I don’t want you to!” Veko exclaimed. “I can barely take care of my horse properly, let alone a human. You’d get killed or something. Why would I want you to come with me?”

Eloise scoffed. “I can think of one reason,” she said bitterly. Veko rolled his eyes.

“Oh please, I’ve got two hands and enough coin set aside for that.”

Eloise actually cracked a tiny grin. “Regardless,” she said, “my father isn’t going to let this go. And I don’t want this to work him up anymore than it already has. I’m afraid for his health.”

“What do you suggest?” Veko asked.

Eloise thought for a moment. Veko’s scar started to itch. It always did at awkward moments, or at least it seemed to anyway, and this was about the most awkward situation Veko had ever been in. This woman was actually... strangely intimidating! Veko turned away to scratch at his face, which seemed to break Eloise out of her thoughts.

“Do you... want something for that?” she asked. “We have some salves in the house just... in case we...”

“No, no, that’s fine,” Veko said as she trailed off in thought. After another moment, Eloise suddenly clapped her hands together.

“I’ve got it!” she exclaimed. “I know how we can appease my father and still make this work.”

Veko nodded awkwardly. “That’s... good, yeah. Um—“

“This will be your home,” Eloise interrupted.

“I don’t follow.”

“Simple,” Eloise stuck a finger in the air. “You’re a Witcher—you travel. So you must spend a lot of the money you earn at inns and on food and things.”

“Or I just sleep outside,” Veko cut in. Eloise waved him off.

“We could tell my father that the Surprise you’ve claimed is the right to come here and stay whenever you’re in the area. Or rather, the right to my home as your home.”

“How does that factor you into it, though?” Veko asked.

“Technically my father saw the house before he saw me,” Eloise replied. “Plus, we could say that I’m a part of the house, that I keep it for you. Or that the house and I are a package deal.”

Veko crossed his arms. “Do you think he’d buy that?”

Eloise crossed her arms back. “He will if you say it.”

Veko ran a hand through his hair and blew out a puff of air. “This is crazy,” he said.

“You claimed the Law of Surprise, Witcher,” Eloise snapped, “not me.”

Veko started scratching his scar in earnest now. “Ok, but what about the village? What are they going to say about you being ‘claimed’ by a Witcher?”

“Frankly I don’t give a damn what they think.”

“What if you want to get married someday?”

Eloise guffawed. “See, that’s the other thing,” she said. “I don’t want to get married. Ever. Having a Witcher ‘claim’ me as his would get every man in town to leave me well alone. This helps all of us.”

As Veko thought on it, Eloise slapped his hand away from scratching his face again. At his shocked face, she merely glared back.

“You’re something else, you know that?” he said. Eloise grinned.

“Why, because I’m not afraid of you?” She laughed. “You bleed just like the rest of us, Witcher. So what do you say?”

Eloise held out her hand and for a moment, Veko actually hesitated. Not because of the deal itself, but because this woman was truly unafraid of him, of seemingly anything, and it made him feel... vulnerable in a way he wasn’t used to. After a moment, Veko gently took her hand—and wow, she had a hell of a grip for a human woman, too! “Deal,” Veko said.

“Now to tell my father,” Eloise said, already starting to drag the Witcher back around the house.

As it turned out, Eloise’s father was thrilled with the idea. Eloise could stay with her father, destiny would be satisfied or whatever, and Veko would get free food and lodging whenever he was around (which probably wouldn’t be for a very long time anyway). The only problem was that Eloise’s father seemed to take Veko “claiming” his daughter and home as... well... essentially Eloise settling down with the Witcher “to start a family”. Veko was mortified but Eloise just smiled and nodded, going along with what her father said until he looked away and giving Veko a look that meant under no uncertain terms would that ever be happening.

A few details still had to be hashed out, but Veko wanted nothing more than to get as far away from this town as possible. How the hell had a drowner contract produced this much trouble?

Later, Veko reunited with the Cat caravan and Hamra. His brother chuckled softly at whatever look was on Veko’s face, and when Hamra signed asking how his hunt was, Veko groaned.

“Took out some drowners,” he said. “And... and Ham, I think... I think I got fucking married.”

Hamra actually burst out laughing, the first time the smell of surprise and amusement replaced the sour guilt that hung to his brother like a cloud, and Veko couldn’t help but join him.

Fuck the Law of Surprise, Veko thought. Never using that again.

#the witcher #inexplicifics #accidental warlord au #falcon writes #witcher oc

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henryobsessed · 4 years

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The Borrower and Her Bean Part 14

Summery: As the door swung open Henry could feel the floor begin to tremor. Were they having an earthquake? he could feel it vibrate through his body. Lina was calling to him, trying to get his attention but he was unable to hear as terror filled his body. Ahead of him was Sandy, but not the young 5ft teenager that puppy sat Kal, no this was a Giant, all he could see without looking up in fear was the large doc martin boots stomping towards him making the ground shake with even more violence. Before he could do anything more several hands manhandled him forcing him under the side table as the large boots stopped directly in front of them. A gigantic hand came into view snatching the phone up placing it on the side table.

Word Count: 1483

Warnings: none

A/N Thank you for your patience through this busy time :)

Part 13 - Part 15

As the door swung open Henry could feel the floor begin to tremor. Were they having an earthquake? he could feel it vibrate through his body. Lina was calling to him, trying to get his attention but he was unable to hear as terror filled his body. Ahead of him was Sandy, but not the young 5ft teenager that puppy sat Kal, no this was a Giant, all he could see without looking up in fear was the large doc martin boots stomping towards him making the ground shake with even more violence. Before he could do anything more several hands manhandled him forcing him under the side table as the large boots stopped directly in front of them. A gigantic hand came into view snatching the phone up placing it on the side table.

A booming voice yelled, "Henry, are you here?" then muttering "must be an old phone" as she continued down towards the kitchen. Sitting on the ground now body visibly shaking Henry could not focus. The truth of how frightening it was to be so small in a world of Giants overwhelmed his scenes. Small hands found his, as Lina's face came into view. She knelt in front of him her mouth moving but no sound registering. He tried hard to focus as her sweet voice broke through the terror "its ok Henry, your safe now. Listen to my voice, breath with me, In, out, that's it" he took slow breaths with her as his heart rate slowed. Her soft smile and sweet voice helped to calm the new borrower until he was able to think rationally. Is this how she felt when she first saw him? At that moment his respect for the borrowers and especially for Lina took on a whole new level of awe.

Melina was worried about her bean, she knew the terror he would be feeling. Thankfully the group was hidden and safe. She sat and listened as the large Girl was talking to Kal "Hay buddy.....(Giggle) ........ I've missed you too, aww I'm sorry it took me so long to get here. Let me get you some food and then I think you need a W.. A ..L ..K" she could hear Kal's yips and from the sound of his nails bouncing off the floor surmised that he was dancing in circles around her. As the cacophony of sounds echoed around the kitchen she kept her focus on Henry. The terror had gone from his face, replaced with amazement. The 10 borrowers sat waiting, listening until the sound of Human and canine had left the building. All breathing a sigh of relief then moved out into the open.

Henry looked to the rest of the group with a sombre face "I am so sorry, I truly had no idea how my presence must have affected you all." Greg stepped forward grinning as he pulled the big man into a hug whilst saying. "It's ok dude, we've grown up with beans being a regular creature we have to live with, but thank you for your understanding" he saw a look pass over Lina's face but it quickly disappeared as she groaned "Dam she had to put it up there" looking up and seeing how high the side table was, they decided to come back once the puppy sitter had returned Kal and left for the day. The now weary borrowers returned to the safety of the walls.

That night after a long and exhausting effort to retrieve the phone Henry treated the families to the food Sandy had left out. It consisted of Cheese, Meat and fruit. They sat around the platter up on the kitchen bench munching happily, sharing stories of there adventures with Henry. Melina chuckled quietly with herself as she remembered Greg's efforts at trying to teach Henry to throw his hook and shoestring rope. His ability to climb was helped by his upper body strength however it took quite some time to teach him how to through it high enough to catch and be stable. She was surprised that Greg trusted Henry enough to let him use his rig. The three-prong fishing hooks were hard to find and if damaged difficult to replace. She looked across at her bean. His face showed fatigue, his body slumped and yet graciously continued to show full attention to her father.

Standing she walked over and placed a hand on her father's shoulder, "Dad, I think I need to take Henry back to his room. It has been a long day." Her father looked closer at the young man he was talking to and could see what Melina was alerting him to. Wishing everyone good night the pair slowly made the long and arduous climb back up the stairs to his bedroom.

His weary body finally found its way to the bedroom. Barely able to keep his eyes open move woodenly behind Melina. Not sure where she was leading him until she entered the dollhouse. After four thankfully tiny flights of stairs, she entered a bedroom. "Come sit" she led him to the bed helping him remove his shirt and then pulled the covers back for him to slip under. Whist tucking him in she said softly, "sleep Henry, I'll be across the hall if you need me. She leant down and kissed him of the forehead her soft lips the last thing he felt before sleep overtook him.

Melina had been awake for some time, in reality, she had not slept well with the events of the day running through her mind. He had surprised her with his awkwardness in meeting the family. However, as the day went on he's demeanor changed showing an appreciation for who they were and the life they had to live to survive. Without the constant fear of his size and his movements, she began to see his personality more. He seemed to tackle any challenge thrown at him no matter how scary or seemingly impossible. Her bean seemed to be competitive as well, watching him with Greg and Carson as they tried to teach him survival skills. His stubbornness also surfaced as he would not stop until he had mastered the skill. Deciding to get up she had dressed and moved from the small room across the hall and poked her head into his room. She saw him tangled up in the blankets a soft snore slipping past his lips. She smiled her heart clenching at the sight before her. Wondering what their future would hold.

Henry groaned the night had been filled with the most amazing and terrifying dreams. Sitting up he turned his body so that he was now sitting on the edge of his bed. He rubbed his hand over his face and stood wondering what the weather would be like today he walked to the window and looked out. Reality hitting him all at once, it really wasn't a dream. The view from his window was that of his room, his furniture towering around him. Closing his eyes he shook his head and tried to remember, Lina, her voice was the last thing he remembered. As he left the room he saw Lina climbing back up the stairs, a small plate of food in her hands. She looked up and smiled the sight caused his heart to flip flop falling into an odd rhythm in his chest. "Morning Henry, I'm glad you're finally awake. I was going to wake you for breakfast but you were sleeping so soundly" she shrugged as she moved past him "Let's eat out here" she opened the door to the outside and disappeared.

Finally able to gather his thoughts he followed her around to the small toy deck chairs he had bought. If he had told himself when he bought these that he would be sitting on them in the future he would have laughed. Catching up and sitting by her side Henry reached for the plate of food she offered him. He shifted fully on the deck chair marveling at how comfortable the wood was. There wasn't any conversation as he ate, but it wasn't uncomfortable either the two of them just sat in companionable silence. Both thinking, reasoning, wondering. Above them, two sets of silvery eyes peered at them watching also wondering if this experiment would work.

A/N Hello wonderfully readers, well it is almost Christmas and life is hectic. This story is heading towards a finish probably 4 or 5 chapters left. I have the story arch that I'm following but as GT lovers I would like to know if there are any story tropes you would like to see happen before it comes to a close.

Thank you for your patience during this busy time, I will still try and post a chapter a week but when and how is a mystery to me :)

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writings-of-dumpy · 4 years

Text

Thank God it’s Friday

A/N: OOOFFFF It’s been a long time. I’m very sorry, my life has been hectic this past year what with graduating and needing to pass my board exam (which I did!) and finding a big girl job (which I also did). So now here’s this pile of garbage that gave me the heebeejeebees, so fair warning. Wouldn’t recommend reading alone at night ...

Summary: Stiles’ first case in the FBI is much more than he bargained for, based on Friday the 13th with inspiration from “Thank God it’s Friday” by Ice Nine Kills., TW: horror, blood, violence

“Stilinski! You ready for a doozy of a case?” Stiles heard his boss, Agent Harold, say from his office door almost as soon as Stiles sat down.

Stiles smiled excitedly, despite it being nearly 7am. “A case for me already?”

“You’re lucky because it’s in your hometown, Beacon Hills. Last guy we sent down there got nothing out of those people, but I figure if we send a former local, it’ll go much better,” Harold said.

Stiles’ face fell. It had been almost five years since he had set foot in Beacon Hills. After he managed a system to handle the full moon by himself even without an anchor, he pursued his FBI dreams. And now, he had to go back as a part of fulfilling that dream.

“What’s the case?” Stiles asked. Harold handed him a thick manila folder. Stiles opened it to find various statements and a request from his father on top, followed by gruesome pictures of barely recognizable bodies and blood spattering on wooden cabin walls.

“A summer camp massacre happened last Friday. About 8 teenagers dead… I don’t know why the PD called us, but it looks like it’s a bit much for a small-town department. Think you can handle it?” Harold said.

Stiles nodded. “Yeah, I’ll head down there as soon as possible.”

Harold left with a nod of approval, and Stiles immediately called his father.

“Hello there, son,” Noah said cheerfully into the phone with a knowing tone.

“Don’t ‘hello there, son’ me, dad. You knew I’d get put on this case, didn’t you?” Stiles accused with a smirk.

“Well, I had hoped….” Noah said and Stiles could tell he was smiling with pride.

“Alright, so… why did you call the FBI?” Stiles asked and opened a blank document and readied himself to write down whatever his dad said.

“Well, like I said, I had a hunch you’d be called to it. And there’s stuff that other agents wouldn’t understand if you get my drift,” Noah spoke lowly. Stiles’ stomach dropped and he took a deep breath.

“I’ll be down there soon…” Stiles said and nodded. Stiles racked his brain about a thousand times while packing, thinking about what he had encountered that could have made such a scene. He knew Scott was away at vet school completing his final clinical placements, so Stiles doubted it was any sort of werewolf, otherwise Scott would be the one on the phone. Stiles did his best to relax once he started driving from his LA headquarters, but the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach was enough to make the hour long ride nerve-wracking..

When Stiles arrived at the hotel in Beacon Hills, a sense of foreboding overcame him. He wasn’t sure if he was simply picking up on the aura of the town or if the blood-soaked images rattled him more than he thought, but either way, he just wanted it to go away. He exited his driver’s seat and grabbed his luggage, then took a deep breath. He was a bit of a nervous wreck, what with this being his first solo case and the possibility of supernatural interference, but he did his best to focus on what needed to be done. He got settled into his hotel room and texted his dad that he was on his way to the sheriff’s station. It was mid-afternoon, so he had hoped the station wouldn’t be too swamped with people who wanted to catch up with him.

“So… what happened?” Stiles asked after he and his father shared a cheerful greeting and they settled in the sheriff’s office. Noah bit his lip and raised his brows for a moment with his head tilted toward the manila folder sitting on his desk.

“Well, the camp is about to open for the season, so the counselors were spending the night like they always do. The night before they were going to let campers in, all 8 of them were killed in the middle of the night. Now here’s the weird part—all campers accounted for and nobody is seen going in or out of the campgrounds before or at the time of the murders on the security footage. There was no sign of any sort of confrontation between the campers, either,” Noah explained as he handed Stiles the file folder with more photos of the crime scene. Stiles grimaced and tried to examine the photos for any signs of supernatural creatures.

“Is there a way that the footage is doctored?” Stiles asked after a moment of consideration.

“It’s an old-school film recorder. I had to scrape off about 40 years of dust just to look at it,” Noah responded with a shake of his head.

“DNA?”

“Campers only.”

“Fingerprints?”

“None.”

“Murder weapon?”

“Unidentified.”

Stiles nodded. After a sigh and a knowing look shared with his father, he said, “Looks like it’s time to talk to Deaton.”

Stiles and Noah drove to the animal clinic the next morning. When they arrived, Stiles couldn’t help but smirk to himself and thanked his father for opening the door for him. He smiled at the memories he had in this clinic, both good and bad. It felt odd to be here without Scott, but he didn’t want to alert his best friend before necessary. He was pretty sure something supernatural was happening, but he needed to rule it out first before he could move on.

They were greeted by a woman dressed in purple scrubs who Stiles noticed was wearing a stethoscope and had a pouch on her hip full of tools.

“Hi, how can I help you?” she asked with a smile.

“We were wondering if Deaton was around? We have a few questions…” Noah said. Stiles nodded and smiled politely at her. She nodded.

“He’s working on notes right now, but I can ask him for you, Sheriff Stilinski,” she said and got up from her chair.

“Thanks, Y/N,” Noah said with a smile.

Stiles quirked a brow at his dad. “You come here often?”

“Well, Liam doesn’t always want to, so I step in. I feel bad for the kid, he’s scared of doctors,” Noah mused. Stiles smirked and shook his head at how little things had changed in the three years since he had been to beacon hills.

“Both Stilinskis… This must be important,” Deaton said as he walked out from the back and motioned for them to follow him to the treatment area that Stiles was all too familiar with. He smiled and waved at the woman who reclaimed her seat behind the front desk. She smiled and waved back politely.

“I’m sure you’ve heard by now about the Beacon Hills Camp killings,” Noah began after they were out of earshot.

Deaton nodded. “Yeah, I don’t live under a rock…”

“We were hoping you could help us… Something to me says… it’s off. In a supernatural-y way…” Stiles explained. “There’s nobody on the camera going in or out, and all the bodies are accounted for.”

Deaton furrowed his brows. “So you have no suspects?”

“None. Not even a footprint,” Noah informed. “What kind of killer leaves NOTHING behind?”

“Either a very meticulous one, or one that isn’t human… I read that the medical examiner concluded the cause of death to be hemorrhagic trauma? Do you have pictures I can see?” Deaton asked.

Stiles responded and reluctantly handed the folder to him, “They’re grotesque to say the least…”

Deaton’s face fell and Stiles could almost see the blood drain from his face as he looked through the graphics. With a sour look, he returned the photos and Stiles tucked them away.

“The cuts are too clean to be any sort of local animal or werewolf… It looks more like a sharp and large knife. Whoever or whatever did that was very clearly not meticulous in any way… I think you’re right, Stiles. There is something supernatural happening…” Deaton concluded.

Noah and Stiles shared a worried look and Stiles felt his heart drop.

“Do you have any suggestions at all?” Stiles hoped.

Deaton’s lips moved to one side of his face, then his eyes darted between the two men, then the floor, and then landed on the door behind them.

“My technician is a psychic medium. I can see if she’ll help you,” he said to them with a shrug.

“You mean like a banshee?” Noah asked.

“Not quite… Banshees have the ability to detect and predict death… Y/N can, well... speak to the dead. She’s done wonders for those in this down who have lost someone suddenly,” Deaton explained. “She can see what happened I guess.”

Stiles was mildly impressed and pleased. If there was someone who could see deaths, then this would be a cakewalk to crack. Stiles and Noah nodded hopefully and Deaton called in the woman who greeted them. She looked slightly nervous and Stiles smiled slightly to himself in amusement. He knew going into the FBI would elicit a bit of nervous energy from everyone he come across in the field, but if only they knew he used to be just like them…

“How can I help…?” she asked feebly.

“Well, the FBI is looking for any help we can get regarding these murders…” Stiles began. “Deaton here tells us you have a gift for finding out what happened to the dead.”

She smiled slightly and nodded. “Well… I didn’t think the FBI would be interested in sanctioning hocus pocus, but I’d like to help in any way I can.”

Stiles nodded. “Well, this part of the investigation, for legal purposes, is to remain off the record. What I’d like from you is something that could maybe give me a hint as to who is doing these horrible things, and how to find them.”

She nodded. “Well, I’m happy to help.”

“Excellent. My name is Agent Stilinski, what’s your name?” Stiles began and held his hand out for her to shake.

“Y/N. Nice to meet you,” she said and shook his hand.

The three of them piled into the sheriff’s vehicle and drove to the camp. Stiles could tell Y/N was becoming more uncomfortable the closer they got to the campsite, so he looked back to ask her more about her power.

“So, you, uh… see what happened to dead people?” he asked.

“Well, it depends,” Y/N said with a shrug.

“Oh.. um, on what?” Stiles continued.

“Well if they know they’re dead, I can just… talk to them. If they don’t, things get… a bit more complicated,” Y/N explained. “It’s hard to explain exactly because every soul is different and responds to things changing differently. Sometimes they see me and respond to me, sometimes they just wander and I can’t make out exactly what’s being said or if it’s to me… Sorry, I feel like I’m rambling, does that make any sense?”

Stiles chuckled slightly, “I think I got the gist of it, thank you.”

Noah pulled through the gates of the camp and parked as close as he could to the crime scene tape. “So uh.. do we need a Ouija board or..?”

Stiles shot him a shocked and disapproving look.

Y/N let out a single-breathed laugh. “No, this should be fine… I might need to get closer, but I’ll tell you what I see or who I speak to.”

Stiles nodded and took out a pen and paper as the three of them got out of the car. There was a sudden shift in Y/N’s energy that Stiles noticed and he watched her closely as she looked around. She stepped under the caution tape with them and her hands clasped together. Her eyes seemed to follow something from the cabin to the lake and her expression slowly changed from curious to distraught.

“Were there any children that were here..?” she asked with a slightly broken voice.

“No, just teenagers aged 16-17…” Stiles said to her. He wondered what she saw to prompt such a question.

She slowly walked up to the cabin marked ’13’, which was where the bodies were discovered, as Stiles had recalled reading in the reports. He was impressed, he hadn’t told her where the crime took place and the caution tape was around the general campsite, not any one cabin.

“Something horrible has happened here…” Y/N spoke in a broken and soft voice. Stiles’ brows furrowed and he followed behind her as she walked into the cabin slowly. He elected not to answer her because he wasn’t sure she meant for anyone to even hear her remarks. A chill settled over the three of them as they walked into the cabin, and the sunlight seemed not as bright in the dingy and freshly cleaned cabin. Stiles would have been happy to have stayed in this cabin as a teenager had he not seen what was in it before the crime scene cleaners were called.

“What happened to you…?” she asked into the room with a tear-laden voice. Stiles noticed her eyes focus a few inches above her next to a bed Stiles recognized to be where one of the victims was found.

Stiles’ heart ached for her upon hearing the emotion she spilled out. He took a glance at his father, who had his eyes trained on her with worry. The two of them, as law enforcement, were taught to be skeptical of those claiming to have psychic or medium powers, but the Stilinskis knew better. While Stiles had never seen anything quite like Y/N’s powers, he was sure they were real. If werewolves and banshees and kitsunes were, how far-fetched could a psychic medium be?

“A man in a mask... He appeared out of nowhere? And went into the lake…” Y/N said as if she was confirming the information with an unseen person as a part of a conversation. A chill went up Stiles’ spine as he realized that she was communicating with a spirit. He wrote down what information he could get from her seemingly one-sided conversation.

“Oh no… No, no!” Y/N suddenly cried out. Stiles watched as Y/N quickly began to become hysteric. She screamed and reached her arms out towards nothing, and fell to her knees with tears running down her face like a fountain. Alarmed, Stiles and Noah rushed to her side.

“Shit-! Y/N, hey, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Stiles said as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders to make her look at him. Y/N’s face was red and blotchy as she cried out in despair, and Stiles worked purely on instinct at this point. He pulled her close to his chest and the two of them rocked back and forth gently. Suddenly, Y/N became limp in his arms. Stiles pulled away to look at her and saw that she had fainted. He felt her breathing against his chest, so he knew she was alive.

“Come on, let’s get her back to the car,” Noah said and ran ahead of Stiles to start it up. Stiles could barely lift Y/N off the floor before her eyes popped open.

“Agent Stilinski?!” she asked in a hoarse voice.

“Um... call me Stiles… Are you okay? You scared the hell out of me,” Stiles said as he helped her to her feet. His adrenaline was pumping and he helped her stand properly.

“I need to get out of here,” she said in a desperate tone. Stiles nodded and grabbed what he had dropped from the floor and the pair headed toward the car.

~*~

“So… a man in a hockey mask and a jumpsuit came into the cabin while the door was locked and butchered 8 teenagers, then went back.. into the lake?” Stiles repeated what Y/N had just said to him.

She shrugged. “That’s what I saw… I was only able to speak to Alice for a moment or two before…”

“What exactly happened that made you.. well..” Noah asked with a gesture from behind his desk at the station they had all regrouped at.

“You don’t want to know,” Y/N said in a serious tone.

Stiles looked concerned. “You said you saw what happened? Meaning..?”

Y/N shifted uncomfortably. “Sometimes… when things are horrific enough, there is a permanent loop for the souls and those unlucky enough to see it… The events that happened play over and over until the spirits somehow break free or otherwise find peace or are banished to move on… So, I saw the events of that night. And that is what caused… well, you saw.”

Stiles frowned and his heart sank for her. “I’m so sorry. If I had known that would’ve happened, I never would have asked for your help.”

“I just hope it wasn’t for nothing,” she said with a small smile.

Stiles smiled back, “Well at least I know to check the lake and look for a guy with a hockey… Hang on…”

Noah and Y/N looked up at Stiles as he stood up and trailed off his sentence. He turned to Y/N and continued, “You only see the dead, right? Then how come you could see the killer…?”

Y/N’s face fell. “You’re right… Whoever did this… is dead. And was dead at the time that they did it…”

“That doesn’t make any sense, how could a dead person kill 10 people?” Noah asked.

“No idea… maybe Deaton has a book or something? I’ve never encountered that before,” Stiles said to himself, mostly.

“Well, whatever it is, I’m sure Deaton has something to help given he deals in magic and supernatural nearly constantly,” Y/N commented.

Stiles looked at her with a blank stare, then spoke. “How do you know that?”

“She’s not an idiot, Stiles. Liam wolfed out right in front of her one time,” Noah commented. Stiles’ eyes grew wide.

“That kid is going to get us all killed one day,” Stiles said with a shake of his head.

Y/N smiled and let out a small laugh. “Well, it wasn’t all that surprising. Once you start seeing ghosts of werewolves, nothing really surprises you anymore.”

Stiles looked at her and gave her a warm and knowing smile. “I suppose you’re right.”

~*~

Stiles and Noah wanted to ask her more questions the following day, and Stiles made a specific effort to make sure Y/N was comfortable with that. She was, of course, and agreed to help them in any way she could. After the horrific events Y/N had witnessed, she was invested in the case. She saw the large ghost of the killer in the hockey mask and the merciless slaughter of all 8 teenagers, including Alice. She spent the entire night researching the history of the town for any pictures or signs that could point her in a helpful direction. She wanted to help the poor souls stuck in the cabin, and she wanted to help Stiles. While she was looking into the history of the campsite specifically, she came upon an article that piqued her interest, which led to may more articles like it. She quickly printed it out and hoped that Stiles would find it helpful.

When she entered the Sheriff’s station, she was greeted by Stiles’ concerned and serious face in Noah’s office.

“We weren’t supposed to meet for another hour, Y/N… Are you okay?” he asked in a low tone.

“Oh.. Right, well, I was doing some research and I found this. There was a boy in 1980 that drowned in the lake, but everything about the case has been redacted from public record except for his name. The picture… I saw that boy yesterday right before I saw Alice. I might be reaching, but I think there’s a connection,” Y/N explained.

Stiles’ brows furrowed as he examined the article printout. He glanced up at her and then handed the printout to his father.

“Do you remember this case, dad?” Stiles asked.

Noah sighed. “I do, but only vaguely. I was a teenager at the time, so I don’t know about the details, just that the boy’s mother was distraught… I’m not sure how this connects to our murder case, though. Kids drown in that lake all the time.”

“Well there’s a lot to unpack there, but for now, that’s exactly my point. At least once a year a child drowns in the lake on a specific day, the anniversary of this boy’s death in 1980. And once every seven years, there is a murder on the lake premises that happened exactly like this one,” Y/N explained as she pulled out article after article to prove her point. She hoped that they didn’t think she was crazy, or worse. Stiles looked over each of the articles handed to him with a careful gaze, and then shared them with his father. The pair shared a look, and Noah shrugged. Stiles then turned to Y/N, who was biting her lip in anticipation.

“So you’re saying that this boy’s death brought on a supernatural murder spree?” Stiles asked.

Y/N shrugged with furrowed brows. “I don’t know, but it’s something. Look at the date of his death, and then the days of each other drowning or slashing…”

“June 13th,” Noah commented.

“In 1980, that was a Friday,” Stiles added.

“And every seven years, on Friday the 13th, someone gets murdered,” Y/N concluded.

Noah looked at his calendar and shook his head with a scoff. “I’ll be damned. She’s right. Last Friday was the 13th.”

“I don’t see a name on any of these… Do you remember what the kid’s name was?” Stiles asked his dad.

Noah thought for a moment and then spoke up, “Jason… Jason Voorhees.”

~*~

Stiles was stunned. The amount of research and care Y/N put into finding this pattern must have taken her hours of dedication. He presumed that she had stayed up all night to find this pattern and decided to take great care when approaching the mother of the deceased child from so long ago. He and Noah knocked on the old wooden door and shared an uncomfortable look before a few moments passed and an older woman opened the door. She didn’t look quite as old as Stiles expected and assumed that she must have been a young mother.

“Hello? How can I help you?” she said once she had opened the door completely.

“Hello there, ma’am, I’m sorry to disturb you this afternoon. My name is Agent Stilinski and I’m with the FBI. This is my associate Sheriff Stilinski, as you may know. We were hoping to ask you a few questions in relation to a recent crime, would you be willing to help us?” Stiles said in a very professional tone.

The woman looked over Stiles’ credentials and opened up the screen door for them to enter. Once they entered the house, Stiles took note of any oddities he could find and he was sure his father was doing the same. The woman directed them to sit at her kitchen table and she took a seat across from them. Stiles pulled out a pad of paper and a pen, and approached the situation as compassionately as he could. This was his first time questioning a witness basically by himself, and he wanted to do it perfectly.

“Now, Mrs. Voorhees, we understand that there was an unfortunate incident involving you and the camp by Beacon Hills lake a number of years ago… Would you be able to tell us about that?” Stiles began.

The woman took a breath and gave a knowing nod. “The death of my dear son Jason… I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of him. Yes, I believe it was the summer of 1980, by boy was only 9 and he had always had a hard time swimming, but when I signed him up for that camp, they were sure that he’d come out a better swimmer and would always be supervised. Who knew that teenagers could be so irresponsible! They told me that he ran off by himself into the lake and nobody knew where he went until the two counselors who were coming back from their break saw his body floating in the lake…”

Stiles wrote down a synopsis in bullet points and gave her a compassionate look. “This must be very painful for you, I’m so sorry for your loss. The reason I’m asking you today is because last Friday there were eight teenagers murdered in their cabin. Did you hear bout that?”

The woman looked shocked, but Stiles saw glint of recognition in her eye. He had a hunch that she did know about it, but wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“I knew nothing of that… Sounds horrible, those poor dears… I must not have read the paper that day.. You don’t think I had anything to do with it, do you??” the woman said and began to express a form of panic that Stiles had seen a few times, but only by people or creatures who were trying to deceive him.

He played it off, “No ma’am, we just wanted to get a full history of every incident that’s happened at the camp. Is there anything else you can tell us about that day?”

She let out a sigh of relief and thought for a moment. “Not that I can recall.”

Stiles closed his notebook and handed her his business card. “Well, if you think of anything, don’t hesitate to call. Thank you for your time, and I’m so sorry for your loss.”

The Stilinskis exited the house and loaded back into the sheriff’s car.

“That old lady is full of it,” Stiles commented once they began driving.

“She knew something and she wasn’t telling us… I think we need a search warrant,” Noah said with a shake of his head.

“How are we going to do that? No reasonable judge is going to grant that to you without some serious evidence,” Stiles added, exasperated.

There was a long pause where Stiles thought through every option he could. Then, Noah spoke up.

“If she’s willing, we can Y/N back there and she can tell us what she sees. Maybe Jason possessed his mom or something, but it seems like we need to get more to this story,” he said. Stiles’ eyes went wide and he looked at his father.

“After what happened to her the last time? Absolutely not. I cannot let her go through that again,” he said definitively and protectively.

Noah cracked a small smile and suggested, “We should at least give her the option. I know she’s invested in this case and I’m sure she wants to do whatever she can to help.”

Stiles thought for a moment and he wasn’t sure if it was his urge to want to see Y/N again or his lack of better judgement, but he agreed and the pair drove to the animal clinic.

“I’ll absolutely do that. Anything I can do to help is something I’m willing to do,” Y/N said when the idea was posed to her.

“Okay great. You and Stiles can go tonight and search for clues, work your magic, and find a ghost killer,” Noah said with a smile. Y/N laughed at his remark.

“Okay.. Um, I’ll meet you at the sheriff’s station at 7, then?” Stiles asked her.

She nodded. “I’ll be there with my Ouija board.”

Stiles’ eyes went wide and he saw her double over in laughter.

“I’m kidding!”

Stiles went back to his hotel and changed out of his suit and into a pair of joggers and a t-shirt to send in his report for the day. He had to carefully choose his words because not all of what he was doing was necessarily sanctioned by the government. If Pamela Voorhees was behind the killings (and he had a strong suspicion she was), he had to find tangible proof, not just ghost sightings from a local and very beautiful and talented medium. He submitted his barely-there report and hoped Agent Harold would be sated given the lack of physical evidence at this point in the investigation.

Once he was ready and the time came, Stiles packed his gun, badge, handcuffs, and a couple flashlights for this ghost excursion. Not very much bothered Stiles, but ghosts were quite terrifying. Ever since he had overcome his demonic possession, anything resembling a ghost gave him the heebeejeebees. He had to power through it, though. Images of the butchered teenagers flashed in his mind as a reminder to be brave and to get justice for them. He pulled up to the sheriff’s station and found that Y/N was already there and dressed in darker clothing as well.

“Hey! I brought snacks. I didn’t know how long we were going to be out, but I figured Cheez-its are always a good option,” Y/N offered him with a smile. “Are you ready?”

Stiles smiled at her offer and nodded. “You do this often?”

They piled into his car and she shrugged. “Not usually this official. I’ve never worked with a man in uniform before.”

Stiles chuckled slightly. “Well, I’m kind of out of uniform at this point, but I do have my gun and badge if anything were to happen.”

“Well still. I usually only do these sorts of things for people who are mourning and want closure from a sudden or unexplained death. I actually had Alice’s mother come up to me in the store today…” Y/N said somberly.

Stiles’ heart ached for her as he imagined the burden of a grieving mother desperately asking for help. “I.. can’t imagine… What did you say to her?”

“I lied. I told her her daughter was with her and resting peacefully,” Y/N said in a serious tone. “It’s not like I could say ‘yeah she’s trapped in a loop where she gets murdered over and over until her spirit can move on once justice is served, which might not be ever because it looks like she was killed by a ghost.’”

Stiles’ face fell. “I’m going to do my best to give them justice. I hope you know that.”

Y/N let out a breath and nodded. “I do. But I also know that this case is probably very frustrating and I’m sure everything we’ve found out so far you’ve kept off the record… While I’m hopeful and I believe in you, I know the reality of the situation.”

Stiles smiled slightly at her saying she believed in him as he pulled up to the caution tape in front of the camp where they had been yesterday. He shut his car off and the air immediately felt more chilled and ominous.

“Alright, let’s get to ghostbusting,” Y/N mused with a sly smile.

“Oh god,” Stiles groaned.

They ventured into the cabin and Stiles could sense Y/N’s trepidation upon walking inside the cabin once more. Only illuminated by the flashlights they brought, the room looked much smaller than in the daylight, and the eeriness about the room was accentuated by the close-by lake’s fog. He saw her eyes move about the room and land on the bed farthest from them and she seemed to go into a trance-like state.

“He drowned in all our sins, he drowned in our mistakes… fueled by the flood we pay in blood the curse of the crystal lake…” Y/N said in a fashion that impressed to Stiles she was repeating after something. Her voice was hauntingly low and almost sounded like a song.

Y/N was seeing a campfire on the edge of the room. She saw the spirits of not only the eight teenagers she had seen before, but countless others gathered around the fire and chanting along to the beat. She couldn’t figure out why they were there, but her gut feeling told her to not join them. For some reason, she couldn’t look away.

She repeated the chant once more, and Stiles saw her eyes water. He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, which she responded to by seeming to break out of her trance and looking up at him with a small and sad smile. She put her hand over his and Stiles took comfort in her warm touch when he suddenly heard a small whistling from outside the window.

“Ki, ki, ki, ma, ma, ma…” the whisper had said in a machine-made sounding rhythmic whisper.

“What the fuck was that?!” he whisper-yelled. He looked out the nearby window and saw nothing but the light fog surrounding a few trees that his flashlight hit with its beam. He turned back to the middle of the cabin.

“Probably the ghost we’re trying to find,” Y/N surmised plainly. Stiles looked at her with a pleading expression and wide eyes.

“I hate everything about that sentence,” he said in a desperate tone.

“OH SHIT!” Y/N screamed and Stiles immediately grabbed his gun and pointed it towards the door where he saw an enormous figure blocking their path. It seemed to be human and wielded a comically sized machete in one hand and an equally large axe in the other. Covering its face was a hockey mask that had two red marks above the eyes that Stiles could only see blackness in.

Stiles stood in front of Y/N and pointed his gun at the figure. “Drop the weapons and put your hands above your head!”

“It’s a ghost, you can’t just shoot it,” Y/N said.

“I can’t let you get hurt,” Stiles responded lowly and addressed the non-compliant figure once more. “Put the weapons down slowly and place your hands on top of your head!”

The figure didn’t comply and instead it began to advance towards them. Stiles’ heart was pounding and he felt Y/N run to the front of the cabin once the large man had cleared the doorway enough for her to sneak by him. Before Stiles could get another word out, Y/N shouted once more.

“Jason Voorhees!” she said. The man turned and faced her and advanced quickly towards her. Stiles fired a shot into his chest from the back and the man didn’t even flinch. Stiles heard anguished screams come from Y/N and he had to think quickly.

“Fuck,” Stiles swore and ran at the figure who had given Y/N a few good whacks from the machete. They were exited from the cabin and Stiles thought to maybe run to the lake. He didn’t have too much experience with ghosts, but he figured it wasn’t going to hurt anything.

“Jason Voorhees!” Stiles commanded, and the figure’s attention was drawn to Stiles. He dropped his hold on Y/N and stood in front of Stiles within a few steps.

“Good, Jason! Kill for mommy!” Stiles heard a familiar woman’s voice say. He looked over and saw none other than Pamela Voorhees standing in the same stance Jason was but with empty hands where she mimed holding the weapons. “Kill him so we can keep getting our revenge on this wretched town!”

Just as he was about to do some serious damage to Stiles, Y/N’s voice rang out.

“Jason Voorhees, you are not of this world, and I command you to leave! I cast you out of this realm and into the next!” Y/N screamed from behind the figure. Pamela’s gaze turned angry and both she and Jason turned toward her at the same time.

“No!” Pamela sneered. “How dare you?!”

Stiles noticed Y/N holding her side as she screamed with conviction at the attacker. “I cast you out!”

Without warning, the figure was gone from sight and only the machete and axe remained. Stiles saw Pamela lunge towards the dropped weapons and grab them, then run at Y/N screaming in anger. Stiles rushed the pair an managed to disarm Pamela and pin her to the ground. He pulled out his handcuffs and began to detain Pamela.

“Pamela Voorhees, you’re under arrest for the assault and attempted murder of Y/N Y/L/N,” Stiles said.

“He was my son and those counselors were off having sex instead of watching him!” she cried out as he handcuffed her and read her the Miranda rights. “They deserved it!”

“I suggest you use that first right before we consider that a full-blown murder confession,” Stiles said matter-of-factly.

Stiles looked over at Y/N and saw that she was stabilizing herself on a tree. She managed to sit down and was holing her side from what he could see through the darkness. Stiles sat Pamela by an opposite tree and pulled out his phone and dialed 911.

“What the hell happened?!” Noah said to Stiles as he ran out of his squad car once he and the ambulance arrived at the campsite.

“Officially, Y/N was taking a jog and got lost, then this lady came after her with an axe and machete from over there,” Stiles said to Noah. “So I arrested her. I trust you can handle her booking?”

Noah put his hands up and motioned for him to place her in the back of his car. Once the car door was shut, Stiles noticed that the ambulance had taken off with Y/N.

“Hey, before you go chasing after your sweetheart, I just want you to know this: I’m proud of you, son,” Noah said with a smile. Stiles smiled back and got into his car and raced to the hospital.

When stiles entered the hospital, he was greeted with a warm smile from Melissa, who happened to be at the front desk.

“Stiles! Hi, I didn’t know you were coming to visit!” she said with a cheery smile. Stiles smiled and gave her a quick embrace. She then noticed his attire, he assumed, and her face dropped. “What happened?”

“A woman named Y/N Y/L/N just got here, I believe?” Stiles asked with hope.

She nodded and went to look on the computer. “Yeah, they’re checking her in now. Looks like she’s still alert and responsive. Room 3.”

Stiles smiled and thanked her before rushing down the hall and pulling the curtain away from the front of Room 3.

“Stiles! You’re okay?” Y/N said. He noticed that a nurse was just finishing up a pressure bandage for the gash on Y/N’s side.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the room unless you are family or significant other,” the nurse said impatiently.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Y/N said to her. “Sorry..”

Stiles blushed and smiled to himself at her boldness. The nurse nodded and left the room and closed the curtain behind me.

“Boyfriend, huh?” Stiles said with a sly smile.

Y/N blushed a deep red that almost matched the blood stains on her hand. “I didn’t want you to leave.”

Stiles smiled and bit his lip. “Well, since I’m your boyfriend, I get to kiss you, right?”

Y/N smiled and let out a small laugh. “I’m pretty sweaty and gross right now, but sure. Pucker up, lover boy.”

Stiles moved closer to her and placed a hand on her cheek. “Oh so now I’m lover boy?”

“I suppose you are,” Y/N responded and the distance between their lips closed. Stiles wasn’t sure if his boldness was feeding from hers or the fact that his adrenaline was still pumping through him, but in this moment he just wanted her to be safe and happy. When he pulled away form her, they shared a small laugh.

“That was really nice,” Y/N said. Stiles nodded in agreement.

“We should do it more often. Not the ghost hunting, but the kissing part,” Stiles suggested.

After they had finished at the hospital and Y/N had gotten plenty of suture in her, Stiles drove back to the sheriff’s station and parked his car.

“How did you know..?” Stiles asked. Y/N gave him a puzzled look. “With Jason’s ghost… How did you know how to make him disappear?”

“Well, when I saw his mother basically controlling him, I guessed that she had summoned him, so I used my ability to speak to the dead to cast his spirit away. I’ve only done it a couple times, and I’m glad it worked,” Y/N said.

“You saved me. Thank you for that,” Stiles said and gripped her hands in his.

Y/N nodded and smiled and held his hands in hers. “You saved mine, too. Thank you. You brought so many souls peace tonight… You should feel good about that.”

He smiled and looked down at their hands. “I’m glad.” As the sun began to rise, Stiles smiled at Y/N and gave her a kiss on the cheek after she yawned. “Go get some sleep.”

“Will I get to see you again?” she asked in a serious tone. Stiles nodded immediately.

“I live about an hour away, so we won’t have to be too long distance,” he said to her. “And.. if you wanted… You could help me out on the next case. Say we meet up next Friday?”

Y/N smiled and laughed with a nod. “As long as it’s not the 13th.”

#stiles stilinski #stiles x reader

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cordria · 4 years

Text

Isolation

Maddie picked up her recorder, thumbing the switch. “Day two of isolation. Things are going… decently. I haven’t killed anyone yet,” she glanced down at the man sleeping on the floor, “although today is a new day.” Letting go of the switch, she sighed and stretched, feeling her back pop into alignment. Although the cot was softer than the floor, it certainly was far from comfortable.

Maneuvering herself off the cot, she stepped over the sleeping form on the ground. She hesitated, debating letting him sleep (and therefore allowing herself some quiet) before deciding the opportunity was too good to pass up. As she walked past towards the bathroom, her foot ‘accidentally’ slammed into his stomach. “Ooh, sorry,” she cooed with a yawn. “I didn’t see you there.”

“No worries,” Vlad groaned, curled up in a ball and awake. “Barely felt it.”

Maddie held back the snort of disbelief. She made it to the tiny bathroom before she rolled her eyes and set herself doing her morning activities. Without access to a shower, there was only so much that could be done, but her teeth were brushed and her hair settled in short order. She took off yesterday’s clothes, rumpled from having slept in them, and changed into a new set. Studying herself in the mirror, she pushed her shoulders back and raised her chin, practicing her posture of aloof indifference.

Then she sighed and dropped herself onto the toilet seat, chin in hands, and glared down at the ground. Two weeks. Fourteen whole days trapped in a small room with Vlad Masters. Maddie had barely made it through yesterday. She would be a wreck by the end of today.

She had no idea how long she sat there, but eventually there was a soft knock at the door.

“Mads?”

The woman tensed, hating when he used Jack’s nickname for her. “What?”

“I… May I use the facilities as well?”

She thought about continuing to sit there. The door was locked - there was little he could do about it - but then scowled and got up. The last thing she needed was for him to be relieving himself somewhere else. Thirteen days of smelling that would add a whole pile of pain on the misery of this experience. The door unlocked and she pushed past him.

“Thank you, my dear,” Vlad said, heading into the bathroom.

Teeth gritted, Maddie headed over to the tiny kitchenette and got herself busy making two cups of coffee. One for her to drink, and one for her to throw on Vlad the second he started doing something inappropriate.

Oh, how she wished she could go back in time and change certain decisions. The experiment he’d set up had been interesting - interesting enough that she’d headed over to his house to help out. Jack had finally set his mind to cleaning the lab, and she’d allowed him to stay home to do that - just her and Vlad running the tests. The first set of results had produced groundbreaking results - groundbreaking enough that she’d set aside the worst of the man’s behavior and stayed to run through the experiment a second time. The instabilities in the testing results had started to grow, but the results were important enough that she’d ignored the issues until it was too late.

Now she was contaminated. Her and Vlad. Contaminated and trapped under supervised isolation for two weeks.

Coffee made, she took the two cups over to the small table and set them down. Sipping at the first cup, she picked up some of the paperwork and started looking it over. The results of bioaccumulative ectoplasmic exposure. The first experiment’s data was usable. The second’s was likely garbage, since they’d suffered such a catastrophic collapse towards the end, but Maddie was eager to search through the data to try to identify what had gone wrong.

“Oh, good. Coffee,” Vlad said as he emerged from the bathroom. He sat down and reached for the cup. “Thank you.”

Maddie - noting he’d sat at the other side of the table instead of scooching right next to her like he’d done yesterday - allowed him to take the cup. Perhaps the man could be taught. She hummed a noncommittal response.

“No creamer?” the man asked. “Heathens,” he scoffed.

Maddie didn’t bother glancing up from the paperwork. They were in isolation - the main creature comforts of home were absent. They were lucky to have coffee at all.

“Why are you working so early in the morning?”

“I like working,” Maddie said, leaving unsaid the sentiment that the only other thing she had to do was talk to him - and she certainly wanted to do that as little as possible. “And I’d like to figure out why the second experiment went so wrong.”

“It didn’t go that wrong,” Vlad muttered. “Small miscalculation, I’m sure.”

She disagreed with the sentiment. She’d ended up in isolation with the smarmy man for two weeks. The experiment had gone very wrong, even if it was just a small miscalculation. And they didn’t have any idea of the long term consequences of their exposure. Their genetic structure could be permanently compromised.

It was hard, trying to think through the experiment without talking aloud, especially after twenty years of that being the practice. If Jack were here, she’d babble away. Between the two of them, they would be able to spot the flaw. She glanced up at Vlad with a sigh. In college, she’d thought the man was competent. Not brilliant like Jack, but at least competent. When Jack had rekindled the friendship last year, she’d downgraded the adjective to ‘somewhat skilled’. But as more and more data had racked up about his borrowed, modified, and plain-old stolen technology - Maddie had decided the man was inept, integrating, obsequious, and indolent.

Would talking aloud help? Or would he be so inclined to interject idiotic and vaguely mysogenistic comments that she wouldn’t be able to keep a thought straight in her head?

Besides, Maddie found it difficult to trust him. He hadn’t looked surprised enough when the experiment had cascaded around them. But certainly he wouldn’t cause potentially devastating ectoplasmic exposure on purpose.

There was a knock at the door. Maddie looked up and watched someone clothed from head to toe in level 1 hazmat suit enter their room, carrying several trays. The face through the hood looked female, but the voice was deep enough to be a male. “Since you’re both up, the doctors need samples.”

Maddie’s nose scrunched. “Fine,” she said.

“Has my personal physician checked in yet?” Vlad asked stiffly.

“Not sure,” the nurse said.

Vlad crossed his arms and legs. “I am refusing all medical treatment and testing until my physician has approved it.”

The nurse hesitated. “I’ll ask. We’ll get started with you, then, Ms Fenton. I’ve got a couple blood draws, a skin scrape, a urine test, etcetera, etcetera.”

“I highly recommend you refrain from testing, my dear,” Vlad said from his chair. “My personal physician-”

“Isn’t covered by my insurance,” Maddie said. “And isn’t any better than the wonderful people who have been treating us at this clinic for the last twenty years.” She sat still as the nurse ran her a variety of tests, checked her heart and lungs, drained eight small vials of blood from her arm, samples were taken from her inner cheeks, and a small jar was handed to her for urine. She vanished off into the bathroom, listening through the door as the nurse tried to coax Vlad into at least giving samples.

“My medical history is too complicated,” Vlad said dismissively, “as I’m sure my physician will inform you.”

“That’s fine, but I’m not getting dressed back up in this ensemble for quite some time,” the nurse responded. “Ms Fenton’s results will be back by the time I’m back in here.”

“I’ll live with that,” Vlad said.

Maddie washed her hands, and handed the cup over to the nurse with a smile. “Thank you,” she said politely.

The nurse smiled back and gestured towards the trays. “Breakfast and lunch. Also a nice, long survey to fill out. Sounds like somebody will be back mid-afternoon, doctor would like it done by then. Need anything else?”

“Cell phone?” Maddie asked hopefully. “I’d love to talk to my kids.”

“I’ll ask about it.” And with that, the nurse was gone.

Maddie grabbed the trays, sorting out the one that had breakfast on it, and sat down at the table. Vlad joined her - this time, he scooted his chair around the circular table and sat down inches from her. She sent him a meaningful look. He either ignored it or didn’t notice. Maddie picked up her fork, fisted it like she was headed to a knife fight, and held it over Vlad’s leg. She sent him a second meaningful look. This time, he paid attention and scooted away.

The fork clattered as it fell to the floor. Maddie blinked down at it, a bit startled, and reached down to grab it.

“Clumsy today?” Vlad said with a tone that was almost purring.

She scowled at him, took a bite of her eggs, and picked up a page full of the data from their experiment. If she was really on top of things, it would be close to lunch before she’d need to look at him again.

This was going to be a very long two weeks.

#dannymay2020 #quick writing #love writing maddie #she's one of my favorites #maddie hating vlad's guts and knowing he's a crooked evil thief is right up my alley #i'd read this fic #someone write it

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maladaptive-ninja-returns · 4 years

Text

It’s The Avengers (03x05)

Loki x Reader Avengers The Office AU (Slowwwwww Burn)

Season 3 Episode 05: Oh no! My Insecurities!

Series Summary: Living in the Avengers facility post-apocalypse in a better timeline Tony Stark has decided to capture every moment by pulling The Office on the Avengers. All of housemates are pretty used to the idea except for you, who had just come here to finish her degree, and the newest member- Loki.

Warnings: one those tropes. one of those sexy sexy tropes

Word Count: what is the science behind wanting to eat so much junk when one has money to spare? I would really like to know so that I can ask my brain how it work without it for sooooo long and then one day decided to go batchit crazy. Maybe I was eating away my insecurities. But then again, when I was anxious I lost weight like anything because I just cuold not bring myself to freaking eat! What is it body and brain?! What makes you crave that dirty dirty foood! *gollum’s voice* tell me you filthy animal!

MASTERLIST in bio, darlings. Tags are open (check bio)

Tony stood in the kitchenette in front of a mixer, adding in a variety of green vegetables present in front of him, a tune on his lips in the form of a whistle that only stopped when he crossed eyes with the camera.

“Oh, hi! Didn’t see you there! I’m just here making myself an amazing green smoothie. Good for the heart and the head.”

Tony took in a lungful and turned the mixer on with a satisfied sigh leaving him. “What a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

The camera panned out to watch Vision walking into the Lounge, a blank expression painted on his face as he tilted his head to watch Tony at work. “You seem quite chirpy today,” he stated the obvious.

“I am. I have made quite the progress in my therapy and I am beginning to feel so much lighter than I was ever before. Letting go of stuff that worries me, you know. Aah, it feels good to not care about a thing in the world.”

The camera settled on Vision’s face. He blinked and tried to furrow his brows as he had seen everyone else around him do. “So, you no longer care about Y/N?”

The mixer was turned off and the container opened to pour the contents into a glass. Tony chuckled. “Y/N will be fine. Loki is there with her. Carol will be meeting them soon enough. I don’t have to worry about much. I’ll look at the footage once I get time from my mini-vacay I’ll be taking in our backyard. You should come too.”

Vision straightened his head and nodded. “I would love to,” he acknowledged the invitation while taking his potion of the green juice offered by Stark, “and I have to say Barton’s worries were wrong about you.”

“What worries?” Tony asked, a bit disinterested, taking a sip of his smoothie.

“That you would, and I quote, ‘go apeshit when you find out that Y/N dawned the role of Dominatrix seducing Loki to help him escape the clutches of a space sex slave trafficker.”

The glass went away from his lips with one smooth movement of his arms. “Say what now?”

Vision had already drained the glass. “He was referring to the whorehouse they escaped from yesterday. Y/N has quite the talent when it comes to weakening the guards of the male of many space creatures. It is quite extraordinary to witness someone so guarded and introverted like her completely expose her-”

His words are halted by the sound of glass breaking. The camera panned out to watch wide-eyed, visibly in shock Tony looking into a void before turning to meet Vision’s gaze.

“Oh shoot. I accidentally let the glass slip from my hands. Butterfingers,” Tony lied. Like a liar. “Don’t worry, you go ahead. I’ll clean it up.”

A natural shade of worry came over Vision’s face, silently staring at the shattered glass and Tony for a few seconds before seemingly coming to terms with it. “...okay. As I was saying, Y/N has quite the talent when it comes to slowly and tenderly pulling apart, one by one, her-”

The entire batch of vegetables was pushed into the sink and the garbage disposal was turned on, drowning Vision’s words while Tony deadpan looked at the camera.

Vision: Acting skills *blinks at the camera* I was trying to tell Tony about Y/N’s acting skills.

“Tony, are you alright?” Vision asked over the crushing of a fresh carrot being shoved down the sink.

“I’m fine,” Tony stretched his lips in a smile while his eyes never let go of the horror, shoving the biggest gourd from the vegetable pile down the sink to murder it while the camera zoomed in on his disturbing expression, “everything’s fine.”

Vision’s golden pupils contracted as he looked at Tony and then up at the camera.

Vision: *sombre mood**holds a cigar in his hand**looks at a distant void* All these years saving the earth, I think Tony has forgotten the meaning of keeping things light.

*turns at the camera* Hm? Oh, no I am not smoking this. This is for adding an intense effect to the conversation *smiles* Rhodey and Sam taught me that.

The Facility Entrance

One camera looked down from the first floor at the dark skin plump lady entering the facility with Happy, being directed towards the elevator. “Who is she?” The camera swivelled from the stranger disappearing downstairs to a curious Scott bending way more than he should over the railing to get a good look at the stranger. He would have almost tripped over if it weren’t for Rhodey grabbing his pants when he did.

“I was just checking for ants on the roof down-on the uhh ceiling there,” Scott tried to explain himself while trying to sound cool and casual- nothing like a normal human about to fall face-first on the ground floor.

“Yeah, and I was looking for a dumb chimp set free,” Rhodey mocked a laugh before gesturing him towards the lounge.

“I would consider myself more of a Panamanian white-faced Capuchin,” he muttered under his breath as he followed the man.

In the lounge, Vision stirred cream into his cup of coffee while Tony seemingly brooded in front of the flatscreen.

The camera looked at an unaware Tony turning his head from the screen, first at Rhodey and then at the elevator when it dinged at the arrival of the woman.

Tony got up as the woman stepped foot into the lounge, taking in the place around her. “What are you doing here? We didn’t have a session today!” Tony called out with his arms open to display his surprise, his eyes bouncing in question from Happy to Rhodey.

The woman in a Mauve dress handed her coat to Happy while passing a look at the cameras around the lounge along with the company. “I was called by a concerned friend about you having an episode here this morning.”

One of the cameras panned in on Vision taking a sip of his coffee while sharing a look with it before disappearing out of the lounge through a wall as quietly as he had come.

Tony stuttered in shock, unable to get words out of his mouth. “Wh-ha-wh-I did NOT have an episode!”

The woman looked at him with a dead expression, not even blinking. “So you did not force a gourd down the garbage disposal?” she asked in a low pitch, even Scott felt a tingle of horror down his spine.

Tony paused for a second before crossing his arms across his chest. “The gourd was rotten,” he simply stated.

“For sleeping with your daughter?” came another dead snap from the lady, leaving Scott’s jaw on the floor with a muted ‘what’. And Tony’s eyes went wide with rage. “HE DID NOT SLEEP WITH MY DAUGHTER! HE SO MUCH AS TOUCHES HER WITH THE WRONG INTENTION, IT WILL BE HIM INSTEAD OF THAT GOURD IN-” Tony paused to look around the room, realising what he just did.

“Congratulations, Anthony,” the lady exclaimed with not even an ounce of sympathy in her voice, “you just played yourself. Now sit yo ass down before I have to whoop it like the time when you and James broke curfew to go party at night.”

Rhodey gasped in full offence. “Mama, why you gotta bring me in every time he does somethin’ wrong?!”

Scott gasped again, looking right at Rhodey, “She’s your mama?!” The delight on his face and in his high-pitched voice was immeasurable.

“You wanna find out, come sit on the couch next to yo brother,” she replied, pointing at the sofa while she herself took the comfy armchair and got her reading glasses and notebook out of her purse.

Rhodey stood there contemplating for a second before giving a nod. “You’re on your own, Anthony.”

Tony sat down on the couch. “Traitor,” he called out to Rhodey’s figure walking away.

Scott folded his hands in front of him and turned to Mrs Rhodes. “What can I get you, Mrs Rhodes? Tea, coffee, juice, Pina Colada?”

Mrs Rhodes smiled at Scott. “Tea would be nice, darling. Thank you.” And turned back to Tony only to be distracted by the image of you and Lulu sitting in what seemed like a parking lot of some Motel made in modern Egyptian architecture. You stroked Lulu’s hair while he purred when Loki walked out of the entrance towards you.

“We got a room. Come on,” he mentioned before walking towards a patio with you and the rest.

“Is that-” Mrs Rhodes did not say anymore as her eyes still tried to come in terms with what she was seeing.

“A live feed with eight-hour delay coming from one of the cameras they have with them. Javier’s behind the camera. He’s a sweet boy. And that dark-haired beast is Loki,” Tony grumbled under his breath, his eyes never leaving the God on the screen.

“I don’t care about him,” she announced, horrified, “what in the name of Christ is that damn thing walking around with your daughter?!”

Tony looked back at the screen, confused. “That’s Lulu. It’s some cat-like alien she adopted. It’s harmless. All it does is hoot and chirp all day.”

Mrs Rhodes’ eyes went away from the screen to a distant void to contemplate something inside her head. “You daughter. Adopted. An alien.” Turning towards Tony with those judgmental eyes of a mother, she almost sang, “Now, who does that remind me of? Honey-” she called out for Scott without taking her eyes off Tony- “might as well keep a bottle of scotch ready for me.”

Fifteen Minutes Later

The camera was now settled outside the Lounge in the balcony with a sneaky Scott looking inside past Tony and Mrs Rhodes at the flatscreen. He was so engrossed in his OTP’s movements, he did not sense Sam walking down the stairs from the garden-cum-bar on the roof. Sam, on the other hand, looked at the man with pure judgement before settling down on the lounge seat behind the strategically set plants in front of the window. “‘Sup, stalker.”

Scott sighed. “Come up with another name, I can’t hear what they are talking about.”

“Why would you want to hear what Tony and Mrs Rhodes are talking about?”

“No! Not them! Y/N and Loki! Tony kicked me out because he’s having a therapy session. I don’t care what those two are talking about. I want to find out what is going on between those two!”

Sam shrugged. “Use their earphones man,” he pointed at Ana behind the camera, who took two wireless earpieces out of frame before handing it to them.

“...just two people staying at a motel for the night. Not to mention stuck on another planet with no one but each other to trust. Now tell me what is not to your liking here, Tony,” Mrs Rhodes’ voice echoed through the earpieces.

Tony head slumped on the headrest of the sofa as he watched the feed.

You entered the decently spacious room coloured in themes of sandy yellow with patterns of blue halfway on the walls, putting your backpack down on the table in the middle. “Wow! This looks so much more decent for a space Motel,” you appreciated.

Loki dropped the bag he was carrying, almost receiving a wince from you. “Careful! The Hardy boys said half of this stuff is to be handled with care.”

“They are shurikens, tasers and canisters of medicines. I think we’ll be fine, darling. And what is with you adding space to everything you see here?”

You swiped a finger at the window sill, impressed at it having gathered no dust at all. “What should I call it then, space buddy?”

Loki paused before letting loose the slightest smirk. “Learn the names of the places you visit. And the people you meet. And the objects you discover. You never know when it might become handy.”

Mrs Rhodes raised a brow at Tony, who was frustrated at not finding any window to point his fingers at Loki.

“Oh, I never thought about it that way,” you stated, before turning away from the windows view to a beautiful garden outside. “So, who’s taking the couch.”

Javier called dibs by jumping on the couch before anyone of you could say something, leaving you and Loki to look at each other before looking at the lone bed.

"Loki," you sang in a suspicious tone, "there is only one bed."

Both Scott and Tony felt their bodies pause everything to lean a little towards the screen.

Loki too, stood still by the foot of the bed, exactly opposite to you. "The receptionist said she can loan us an extra mattress."

You raised your head and your brows. "Did she now." Taking a casual step towards the edge of the bed you stopped you saw Loki cover the same distance as you. "You know, I have had a looong journey. And a space journey on top of that-" you let your finger run itself over the edge of the white sheet covering the mattress- "not to mention I'm a weak little human. So I should-"

"Before you finish that sentence," Loki interrupted with his raised finger, "might I remind you of the one thing that is keeping you safe in this...space. To fight monsters and horny space young adults-"

"You told me I used 'space' a lot."

"I don't care-” he breathed even before your words ended- “that thing is me. So, as a sign of your gratitude I should-”

Before he could finish the sentence, you jumped over the bed and he followed by a nearly screamed out ‘no!’ in your direction, his entirety landing over you.

There lay both of you, crossed upon each other.

“Ar-Are you seeing this?!” Tony yelled over here, flailing his hands at the flat screen, directing Mrs Rhodes’ gaze at the zero distance between your butt and his body.

“Give me this bed, Loki!!” you declared from under him, your voice almost muffled by the sheets and pillows.

“No, I am having this bed and you can fight me if you want,” Loki announced with his claws in the sheets against the movement of your butt to move him away from you and ultimately from the bed.

While Tony was having a crisis, the camera caught another face outside the lounge window staring at the screen with a dropped jaw and a hand to the heart. Another one stared at that dropped jaw, trying to make sense of it.

“Hey,” Sam called out to Scott before proceeding to poke his arm with a finger, “hey. You okay? You havin’ a stroke? You gotta tell me if you havin’ a stroke. Scott. Scott. Tell me if you havin’ a stroke so I can get up and go. Scott. Sco-”

Sam: *deadpan* Oh my God, he fuckin’ dead.

*silence*

*snickers* *gets out his phone* I gotta text Peter this.

“What am I trying to see here?” Mrs Rhodes finally sighed.

Tony’s face felt like she just punched him in the chest. “What do you mea- that son of a bitch trying to get insufferably close to my daughter!” Tony wheezed and hissed and nearly cried.

“Your daughter doesn’t seem to care,” she laid back into the cosy chair while looking at the screen with keen observation.

You held the edges of the bed frame when Loki tried to pull you away. “NO! MINE!” you yelled, never ready for Loki’s pointed fingers coming to poke you in your waist. The sound that came out of you made Lulu jump from the window sill and hide under the sofa. “DO THAT AGAIN AND I WILL FART IN YOUR STUPID FACE!!”

“Not before I pick you up and chuck you on the lumpy mattress they will send over-ow, you are heavy.”

Loki was already grabbing you by the waist, ready to pull you away from the bed to the chair on the other end. But he was not ready for the work of your hands, pulling away on the bed sheet to twist around and wrap him in it, covering his face entirely. Your action made him move back with some muffled curses, his back banging into the wall, letting you get a headstart on that bed. But that headstart too was made up for thanks to his weirdly long legs, his arms pulling on your legs to get you off that frame you were hanging on to with your life.

Both of you grunted and fought to claim more territory than the other before the eight-hour travel wore both of you down to panting and tapping out of this messed up wrestling game.

“Time out,” you tapped, “time out. Let’s be adults about this.”

Loki nodded, turning on his back to breathe and get up. “Let’s go take a walk. Get some air. We’ll decide when we come back.”

“Cool,” you gulped in some spit to wet your overworked throat, “when we get back and still don’t know what to do, Javi can sleep in the bed and we choose between the sofa and the mattress.”

Javier knocked on the side table to bring your eyes to him. ‘I don’t want anything to do with this’, he signed before tucking his head under a tide-pod shaped cushion, leaving you and Loki to sort this bedroom tussle.

“What is it?”

“Everything?!”

“I cannot help you until you tell me exactly what it is that is making you uncomfortable, Tony.”

“Well, for starters, the very existence of this son of a-”

“Anthony.” The stress on his name followed by the death stare brought Tony to calm him down and slump back into the sofa. He raised his hands before letting them drop in defeat.

“You know I just met her, right? She just walked into my life, Roberta. Well, of course, that walking in part was something I did without letting her in on too many details.”

Roberta raised her brows.

“Okay, fine. I didn’t tell her at all. But then this guy came in at the same time she did. He not only deliberately let out the truth, making her leave, but also got her stuck in the freaking space with him!!”

“Really? How did you take it when you realised she knew?”

“I nearly had a heart attack! I thought she would hate me, never want to talk to me. Would cut all ties and disappear...in a manner of speaking.” Tony picked up the Rubik's cube kept on the side table to play with it while restlessly moving his leg where he sat.

“And did she do that?”

“...no.”

“Was she angry at you? Or Loki?”

“...no. She was worried. Anxious even.”

“Hmm. Have you felt the same kind of resentment for Loki otherwise? Before he got stuck in space?”

Tony looked up at the screen at the camera flies powering up and buzzing about around you and Loki as you headed out to check the rest of the scenery in that beautiful motel. “There was this one time when he went undercover with her. Something I did not approve of. Neither his presence nor hers on that mission.” He lowered his voice to whisper, “didn’t have to pretend they were on a date for something so serious.”

Roberta closed her notebook. “Okay,” she announced, removing her glasses and keeping them aside. “Before we go any further, Tony, I am sure you are aware why you’re being so sensitive about Loki hanging out with your daughter. Aren’t you?”

Tony shrugged. “Yeah. Because he tried to take on earth once. He can’t be trusted.”

“Mm-hmm,” there went that brow up again.

“...what.”

“Because you are trying to be her father,” she declared with a swat of her notebook on his anxious leg, making it stop. “You are trying to be a part of her life like any normal person. But you are being way too overprotective when it comes to Loki.”

“Oh, I am not-”

“Did he not save your life?”

Even if Tony tried, he was unable to form words in contradiction. “Did he not save her life? Twice? He has been living with y’all for a good amount of time now. In that time, has he caused any problem that might have suggested he is not fit to be around your daughter?”

Tony groaned. “He’s a GUY!!! AND A BEAUTIFUL ONE AT THAT!!!”

“And you think your girl is some dumbhead who does not know that?”

Tony never got the chance to answer that. “You think she does not know how much potential for danger that guy has? She is not blind Tony. Neither is she a child you need to watch over twenty-four seven. She is an adult who can take care of herself. What she needs from you is not surveillance but an openness to letting her know that you are there for her even if you were not there before. And if- this is a big if- if Loki ever hurts her, you don’t have to stand there with a banner spelling ‘I told you so’. You have to hug her and protect her. And in the name of whatever Lord it is that you pray to, Tony, you have to stop projecting your guilt like this. Her getting lost in space was not your fault.”

“How did you-I never told you half of these things!”

“I have ways to get it out of people, mister.”

“Rhodey,” Tony hissed.

“No!” Roberta swatted him again, this time on his head. “No one blames you for that incident. Neither should you. You hear me?”

Tony nodded with his lips pressed. “Yes, ma’am.”

“So, what is the first thing that you will be doing now?”

Tony clicked his tongue while looking at the flatscreen. “I will...stop making missiles loaded with Loki’s DNA signature designed to blow him up.”

Swat!

“Ow! I’m kidding! Jesus, woman! I will stop guilt-tripping myself and I will stop worrying about Y/N. But that does not mean I will stop working on ways to get her home.”

“And?”

“And...I will be nicer to Loki.”

“Even if he starts dating your daughter?”

“WHYYY would he-” Tony looked at a very serious Roberta looking at him to complete that sentence. “Theoretically. Theoretically, if he starts dating my daughter, I-” he inhaled- “will mind my own business. But you can’t change me in a day. I’ll go after his knees if he does something that directly affects me.”

Roberta clapped her hands together. “Well, we are done for today. We will try some breathing exercises on Thursday along with exploring more of this relentlessness with Loki. Now, go get yo mama some iced tea.”

Tony chuckled at Roberta’s enthusiasm. “Okay. Which one? Peach, lemon, uhh-”

“The one with Long Island in it,” she ended, shifting to the sofa to watch whatever was going on in space. “And bring me some popcorn.”

Motel Galacto-Ra, Eight Hours Earlier

“Loki?”

“Hmm?”

“How are we paying the rent for the night?”

“With our bodies. Ow!”

He chuckled even though his rub hurt from your elbow. "I borrowed some talons from your boyfriends when we left."

You crinkled your brows. "And by borrowed you mean…"

Loki simply shrugged and kept walking through the garden with you. The flowers, some colourful, some transparent to your eye, were in full bloom along the strip of water that flowed from the mountain at the entrance outside.

"Keep me updated on what all is precious on any planet we land, okay? In case I have to barter with someone, you know," you added casually.

Loki smiled at you while you were distracted by the sound of mushing potatoes from your other side. You turned to watch a creature with what looked like boils on his entire body and four arms lean by a lamp post. His green coloured beard hid most of his face but not his beady red eyes looking at you while he grunted. "Lookin' sparkling baby!" He catcalled you, making you mock a disgusted laugh out your lungs.

"Oh my God, there is catcalling even here?" You gasped in whispering tones to your company, continuing to match pace with the God.

“This universe has all sorts of elements, darling,” he sighed, “even the perverted kind.”

“Mmm, I could see that with your old ex-boyfriend in that whorehouse,” you slipped in, watching him watch you from the corner of his eyes. It was hard to keep the giggles in after a few seconds. “Hey, I’m not judging you,” you added, “in fact, I’m in awe. I wish I could have half of that confidence to pull something this big off. You have to teach me. Loki, you have to teach me.”

Before Loki could speak, an eerie whistle came from across the garden. A curvy alien with those Disney-female eyes and tentacles for hairs cooed at Loki. “Look at that fibre making up your limbs. Arrrr! Leave that little thing and come over here, you feisty beast, and I will show those beautiful parts of yours some good time.”

You had to blink yourself to the reality of having to hear those words. Loki ignored it. But the fly cameras could see you didn’t. “He’s more than just a body you space holes! Buzz off!”

An involuntary smile was already coming over his lips, the corner of his eyes crinkling as his lips parted to show his teeth to anyone who was looking. The entire emotion looked so alien yet so beautiful on him. And in the midst of this cheery daze, he opened his pocket dimension to take something out. “Here,” he called out to you softly, bringing forward his hand towards you, “keep this on you.”

Curious and bedazzled by the walnut-sized purple crystal in his hand, you took it with sounds escaping your lungs. “Thanks, Loki. Looks expensive. Wait-” the excitement in your eyes shifting to horror- “is something wrong? Are we not safe here? Are you going to sell your body off to the owner in exchange for the rent? Will I have to find my way back alone? I don’t want this! Let me go talk to the manager.”

“What? NO! Why would you think that?” Loki was truly horrified at the turn it took. “My body would sustain you for your lifetime.”

You thought about it. "Hmm. You would make a good stripper."

"I would make an amazing stripper."

"Ehhh you need a little work though. You didn't do much at Hudson's."

"Hudon. And that's because I was put there against my will. If I wanted I could."

You stared at his unadulterated joy in admitting. "What." Your lips could not stop the smile that was nearly closing your eyes before a snicker left you. "Oh my God, you are so cute," you confessed softly.

Loki tsked and rolled his eyes. "This pendant is for your protection. Keep it close. And take this too."

He opened his pocket dimension again to bring out a small dagger.

"OoooOoooh a KNIFE!" you hissed with excitement in your eyes, going for it while Loki pulled it away from your hands.

"Woah! Calm down, woman! You need to learn how to use it first."

His arm blocking your shoulders did not let yours reach even inches close to the dagger. "Argh! All I need to do is point and stab! Gimme!"

"No. NO! Stop it. You're only getting this when you promise you will use it only in case of emergencies."

You let his arm balance all your weight when you stopped going for the dagger and let your arms dangle on either side. "Ugh. Fine. You can teach me how to use it. Now please give it to me!" When he didn't, you broke into a strong.

"Give it to me, give it to me, give it to me, baby!"

Both of you felt a sudden chill in your body. "I don't know why I suddenly miss Clint."

"Me too," Loki added with quite the discomfort on his face.

“Okay. Follow my instructions by the letter and remember- one move too fast or too slow and it can be the end of you.”

The camera in the flies now zoomed in on your dead expression. “Way to start a lesson on a new skill, Professor,” you spewed.

“Now show me how you hold your dagger.”

You showed him. He pressed his lips and kept his hands on his waist. It took a lungful to get him to speak again. “We are not cutting peppers here, Y/N.”

“How about your hair. Can I cut that?” Loki swatted your hands coming for his locks. “Ow!”

He positioned himself behind you, patting the side of your shoulders. “Straighten your back. Come on.” When he saw you taking your sweet time with it, he poked with his finger on one side of your back, making you jolt forwards.

“Hey! It’s straight! My back’s straight. My boobs are out. What more do you want?!”

“Here.” He lifted your right hand with his. The dagger was shifted in your palm by his pale fingers going pink at the end. The hilt was positioned before his fingers curled yours over it. All through it, the distance became a bare minimum; your back touching his chest while your hair tried to tease his face. “The dagger will always stay away from you,” he stated softly with an ounce of seriousness mixed into his voice. “When the enemy is close to you, use this style to slash him. Run it the opposite way-” he directed your arm with his, his hand still around yours- “and when you come back, your turn it to give them one more wound.”

“Cool,” you exclaimed. The glow on your face along with that undiluted smile stuck till your eyes were something else entirely. This was some unadulterated joy you were feeling, learning to play with knives. Loki was watching your face from the side, not really able to digest that rush properly.

Loki: I have never seen anyone so happy to play with daggers. *shakes his head lightly* *smiles at a distant void* *camera zooms out behind him to show you swishing your dagger in the air in the garden while yelling ‘taste the metal of my shuriken, Sasuke! You unfuckable, overrated snake!*

*camera comes back to pan onto Loki’s face with a smile frozen but the eyes reflecting a newfound horror*

“Now, this one is for long-range combat. Always keep your arm straight and gut your enemy like this. Your other arm will help block and push in defence while this one will attack.”

“Ooh!” you whistled, “this one will go stabby stab.”

Loki exhaled. “Yes. That. Come on. Let’s play it out and see how much you have learned.”

You cooed, moving the dagger in between your fingers quite invitingly. “Roleplay. I like it.”

You positioned yourself opposite Loki. “Ready when you are.”

Within two long strides, he closed the distance, his hand coming for your left arm, trying to grab it. You turned against the pull of his force, to arm the dagger right into his back. “Stab. You’re dead,” you declared.

You couldn’t help chuckle out loud at his expression. “What! Natasha taught me a few moves.”

“When?”

“Remember our weekend getaways?”

“Oh,” Loki was impressed. “Again.”

This time he shed a little part of precaution and came for you. You ducked and blocked one dagger coming for you but missed the other. “Stab. You’re hurt,” he stated right before your leg came for his, bringing him down on one knee, allowing you to point your dagger at his defenceless ribcage.

“Stab. One for one,” you smiled.

His arm wrapped around yours, leaving you with no way to use the dagger it held. His other hand came for the fist you were about to throw at him; his toothy grin smack in your face. “Not laughing now-”

The impact of your leg with his crotch was not a clean shot. But it did the job. Loki’s words drowned in the pool of his own groans as he stumbled over you and you hit your back on the ground.

The flies roaming above took an air-shot of Loki’s grousing figure toppled over you while your expressions reflected a wave of embarrassing cringe you were feeling in your gut. “I’m sorry,” you whispered, cautiously patting Loki’s head.

“Natasha teach you that too?” he grunted with curiosity.

“...yeah.” You screwed your eyes shut, never stopping the gentle stroking and patting of his hair. “Your hair smells nice?” you tried the encouraging words.

You: *sorry expression* It was a fluke. I never meant to hurt him…*cringes* *whispers* or his potential babies? *camera pans out to show Loki breathing in and out throw his mouth while bending his legs and repeating it* You need an ice-pa-

Loki: *jumps away from you* Do not come near me.

You: Come on, Loki. *steps closer* It was just bad luck. And a very very lucky shot.

Loki: No. *walks out of the frame* I’m going back.

Motel Room

Javier's face came into focus as he adjusted the lens on his new- much lighter- camera while checking the live feed on his old one before turning the latter off and packing it to keep in his backpack gifted by the Hardy Boys. The view then flipped to you coming out of the shower in a black tank top and matching shorts.

"This is really comfortable. I should have asked the boys to pack me more of this fabric."

Loki sat on the floor with a device that produced a holographic map of the galaxy they were in right now. He shifted the view with a serious look on his face. You paused the little serotonin rush to sit down on the fuzzy carpet with your knees close to your chest. "So, where are we going next?"

A heavy breath was taken in before Loki pinched out to a location. "Knowhere."

"Nowhere?"

"Knowhere. I know someone there who might be able to get these cuffs off me. Once I'm free I can use the magic to teleport us to a safe place, if not back home."

The crinkle of confusion in your brows was something he saw coming. "Teleportation costs a lot. It takes a toll on me. So I have to make sure I have the required tools and energy before we make the leap."

“...oh. So, back when Cassie and I were stuck on the...uh…”

“Oh,” Loki sat up, “that...was a pure adrenaline rush. And it was only for a matter of seconds so it was easy.”

You did not seem convinced by his words. But something else took dominance in your thoughts. “I’m sorry you had to visit that place because of me.”

Loki simply shrugged. “No big deal. I could do it again if I wanted to.”

*somewhere on earth eight hours later, in the Avengers facility, a Scott Lang clutches his chest and winces*

“Come on let’s sleep. I’m tired from all the training.” You got up and made your way to the bed.

“We didn’t decide on who gets the bed yet.”

“Yes we did-” you were already under the covers, the cosiness making you whimper with ecstasy- “we’re both sleeping on the bed. It’s big enough for both of us.”

Loki thought for a moment before walking to the other side of the bed. “Fine by me. But fair warning, a lot of souls will die wailing tonight.”

You adjusted yourself well, nearly drowning in the fluffy blue duvet, over you. “The only thing killing any souls will be my post-travel farts. I’d suggest you get another duvet from the closet.”

The camera panned in on Loki’s face as he began his ritual of taking off his shoes. “You know, I used to think the reason you do not have any suitors for yourself is because of the over protective elements in your family. Now I’m thinking it might have something to do with you and your tendency to oversha-and she’s asleep.”

The camera zoomed out to show you already beginning to snore with your lips parted.

“Yup,” Loki whispered in a defeated sigh.

The Lounge, Night-time on Earth

Tony alone sat on the sofa in front of the flatscreen with all the lights off, drinking chamomile tea. The clock read twelve-thirty and the grounds were silent- except for the noise of video games coming from the Dorms.

Zuko jumped up onto the couch, nudging at Tony’s arm to let him cuddle against the man. Tony, more than happy to open his arm to let the little pupper crawl into the space and settle his head on his thigh, cooed at him. “Hey there, buddy. How are you doing? Miss your mom?”

Zuko looked up to Tony with his pure puppy eyes, making the man shoot a pure smile at him. “Me too, kid,” he sighed, “me too.”

Both of them turned to the screen to watch you and Loki sleep in the same bed. The top angle really did cover everything, though it made Tony wonder how and why did they get such a good angle. Loki’s head rested on one arm while the other rested on his torso above the duvet, still like a log, breathing like a silent river through the woods. You, on the other hand, slept anything but straight. Your body was sprawled all over your side, your legs awry, the duvet slipping down the edge, snoring quite audibly with drool all over your pillow.

“A part of me is glad she has Loki by her side,” he confessed softly to his company, stroking that soft fur with his fingers. “Don’t tell him that.”

There was a stir. Your hands moved. And then your legs. Your brows furrowed and you slowly turned into a fetal position before a whine left your throat.

“Noooo,” you mumbled in your dense, sleepy state, “don’t take me awayyyyy.”

“Huh,” Tony commented, “she sleep talks. Just like her father.” He smirked.

“No!” your voice grew a pitch higher, “don’t let em take me awaaaay.”

Loki was already opening his eyes, his body on alert as he turned his face to watch the tension collecting on your forehead. Up on his one arm, he bent over you; his movement making Tony pause his whole body and perk up Zuko's head at the screen. Only when he grabbed the duvet to come back and put it over you did the two spectators go back to their normal breathing cycle.

You were tucked into the duvet as discreetly as possible before Loki’s hand stroked your hair to calm you down. The little brush of his hand in your hair worked, making you turn and scooch a little closer to him, giving into his soothing touch.

Tony could see the little smile growing on Loki’s lips. “Mother used to do it when I had nightmares. It always worked.”

Once he was content that you no longer were troubled, he receded his hand, turning on his back to look directly at the camera. The serenity on his face added to the lungful of air he took while studying something Tony seemed to have an idea about.

“I know you can watch us, Tony,” Loki began, making Tony’s tensed shoulders drop, “I don’t know how late though. I know it must be killing you to watch your daughter be trapped with a monster like me in some galaxy unreachable. I can only imagine. But I understand if my company does not bode well with you.”

Tony twisted his lips, still stroking Zuko. “You’re right about that.”

“Just to put your mind at ease, I am not interested in anything twisted when it comes to her,” he continued, turning to look at your placid face squished against the pillow, “she’s better than you lot anyways.”

Tony raised a brow at the screen, making the lone camera recording him from the shadows pan in on the confused surprise on his face. “So, you’re saying you made a friend? She’s a friend? Like best buddies or something? Like do you like her?”

Almost as if Loki could read what Tony would say, his calm face turns back to the camera to seem as serious as possible. “She is tolerable. Nothing more.”

“I’m fine with that,” Tony agreed with open arms.

“She’s stronger than I thought,” Loki confessed, letting his head dip into the pillow to look beyond the camera, “I never imagined her to be this composed in such dangerous places. Makes me think she’ll do fine on that dirty old heap of junk crawling with monsters worse than me.”

“Ha ha,” Tony mocked a laugh but kept an eye out to check whether Loki was really playing him or being serious at that moment.

“Well,” Loki turned back to look at the camera, “doesn’t mean I will pass up on any opportunity to make you claw at your skin whenever you see me close to her.” The broader the smirk on his lips, the more Tony could feel a ringing in his whole body.

“You wouldn’t do that,” he whispered at the screen, “you are too high and mighty for such a cheap play.”

Loki’s tongue darted out to wet his lips, that sick smirk still stuck on that wicked face. “I mean, what are friends if not...close. Right?”

Tony paused the stroking again- making Zuko face him and wonder why his good times were being interrupted again.

“Okay Lulu,” Loki called out the camera, that stirred at the name, “get down from there. Sleep somewhere comfortable. Somewhere you do not have me or her in your view.”

The camera shifted, jumped on the carpet, moved in circles before meeting the fuzzy fabric and going dark.

“Yeah, I’m not falling for that,” Tony admitted, chuckling to himself, “like Y/N is ever going to fall for that. She’s smarter than that. I mean, look at her father!”

Zuko did look at your father but with a tilt of his head as if questioning all that Tony just spewed in the disinterested air.

“What,” Tony looked back at the pupper, who tilted his head again, in the other direction, “oh. Is that what you think? That’s it. No more cuddles with me. Go ask someone else for love, you traitor. I’m not buying you any more doggie toys, you stupid pupper. Shoo!”

124 notes · View notes

hesesols · 4 years

Text

The Devil's Advocate

Day 19 and 21 of Ichiruki month 2020

Summary: Demons are a pain in the neck. Exhibit A: The pint-sized she-demon Ichigo’s stuck with until further notice.

Rating: T

FF/ao3

His mouth is bone dry.

Summer heat renders the humidity inside the tiny studio apartment stifling. Heat and sweat cling onto him like a second skin and the stupid electric fan does nothing to ease it.

It's barely three in the morning when he trudges over to his fridge and parks himself in front of the open doors. The blast of cold air hits his heated body nicely. He almost moans.

Instinctively, he grabs the bottle of orange juice from the side and takes a swig from it- only… it's empty?

He growls, "Rukia, what did we say about leaving the empty OJ in the fridge?"

The culprit spares him a lazy smirk from her end of the couch, violet cat-eyes gleaming from the faint glow of the TV. She tilts her head just so as she sticks her tongue out at him.

"Oops!"

Ichigo wearily sighs and slams the door shut, mumbling something about free-loading she-demons. His life is hardly picture perfect to begin with anyway with his job at the Metropolitan Police as a homicide detective. Work hours are long, and his mornings usually start off with unsolicited gruesome crime scene photos and a diluted concoction of coffee-water that is nowhere nearly as strong as he needs it to be.

Since Rukia moved in though, things seem to have gone from bad to worse.

His neighbours think she's his live-in girlfriend- sweet, albeit a little strange at times. Ichigo snorts. They don't know half of it.

The midget isn't even human.

Underneath a heavy layer of glamour, are two spiral-shaped horns- the colour of it blending near seamless with her nest of glossy black hair and of course, a very noticeable fork-tipped tail, flicking from side to side as she giggles at his obvious annoyance at the OJ-less situation.

Filling his cup with lukewarm tap water instead, he trudges over and nudges at her to move. Wordlessly settling next to her, he then proceeds to ignore her indignant yelp as he splays his long legs on the couch, taking up much of her space.

She huffs and glares at him, which earns her a careless roll of his eyes.

"What are you watching?"

Squinting slightly from the brightness, he scoffs as he realizes that she's watching a Spanish telenovela. Though watching may be an understatement in this case, Rukia is obsessed with them to the point where she becomes a little too invested in the torrid love affairs of the fictional characters on screen. By virtue of her otherworldly origins, she understands every language known to man and speaks in tongues; Ichigo doesn't and thinks it's a feat that he catches the names of the characters in passing.

He grabs the remote control, surprised when she viciously slaps his hand away and hisses, "Change the channel and I guarantee you won't live long enough to see the next dawn."

"I'd like to see you try."

Ichigo snorts and does it anyway. It's hard to take her seriously even with the whole glowing eyes business when she is so tiny that she barely comes to his shoulder.

As a demon, Rukia is surprisingly low maintenance- the most outrageous of her demands since she has gotten herself suspended in limbo in their plane of existence was for him to take her to a bunny café. That being said, she does however take her soaps and TV shows very seriously which explains her aggressiveness as she launches herself at him, her touch burning hot on naked skin as she grapples for the device.

"Give it back!"

Ichigo stretches, holding it in one hand just shy of her reach, taunting her.

"Why don't you make me, midget?"

Growling, she takes him up on his challenge. Violet eyes ablaze as she clambers over him on all four, chewing at her lower lip from the effort. It shouldn't even be possible Ichigo thinks, for demons to be this cute- ahem-fixated with earthly distractions but the press of her lithe body feels warm against him, deluding him into thinking for a second, that Rukia isn't some supernatural being from the nether realms powerful enough to send him flying with a snap of her fingers.

Sometimes, he feels she almost forgets about her inhuman advantages- on purpose. The puff of warm exhale from her makes his hair stand, the sight of her face so close to his jerks his thoughts away from his nonsensical musings. Her shirt hikes up and the collar that is way too loose on her easily falls off her shoulder, showing skin.

He bites the inside of his cheek. She needs to stop prancing around in his shirts.

She has her own clothes to wear. He bought her a full array of sundresses, pants, shirts and skirts. Ichigo thinks it's compulsion that makes her raid his closet and steal his clothes. It wouldn't have been quite so ridiculous if she wasn't so petite, making his worn-in T-shirts look more like dresses with the hem cut conspicuously shorter than normal on her thighs.

Ichigo looks away and takes a quick gulp of water. The heat is doing things to him.

He's not checking her out.

He swears. Honest to God.

He's not suicidal. He wouldn't put it above Rukia to claw his eyes out or alternatively damn him to the deepest pits of purgatories if she found out about him sneaking glances at her.

"Here!"

Ichigo throws the remote back at her, standing up abruptly without sparing her another glance. His skin feels warm- much warmer than it has any business of being under a demon's touch and his mouth dry. No touch of water will ever begin to quench this thirst and tame his racing heart but he is human enough to still try to run from the implications.

It's too hot to think. He grabs his keys and wallet.

"I'm heading out."

Rukia's voice rings up from the couch- cool, unaffected as always. Ichigo hates her a little for it, almost.

"This time of the day? Where are you going?"

"To get some OJ from the corner shop since someone finished it and couldn't even be bothered enough to replace it."

Her grin is impish, not a shred of remorse from her as she sighs and kicks back, reclaiming her sovereignty over the couch.

"Oh, could you grab some ice-cream while you're at it? I think we're all out too."

He grimaces, halts his process of shrugging on a shirt to yell back, "They're full of sugary crap. Too much of it and you're going to rot your teeth!"

Just before he sets foot outside though, he grumbles.

"What flavour do you want?"

The grin she flashes at him is annoying and indolent with her spread out on the couch, like a cat in the sun, pleased with her unchallenged access to her favourite soap and him running errands on her behalf.

The satisfaction practically purrs from her as she smirks and says, "Strawberries and cream."

His cheeks burn and he tells himself that he's too nice for his own good, staunchly refusing to even consider the possibility that she's got him wrapped around her pretty little fingers.

The streets of his neighbourhood are mostly deserted in the wee hours before dawn and the scarcity of people makes the air somewhat bearable despite the heat. He walks home in the dark, his groceries in a plastic bag hanging limply by his side.

Ichigo sighs. It's a horrible thing to be distracted by thoughts and downright disgraceful that it has taken him this long to realize that he's being followed.

He turns the next corner sharply and as expected, the heavy footsteps, the crunch against the gravel of the pavement follows. He hides behind the decrepit wall, bidding his time until the sound creeps close enough for him to make out the shadow of a hunkering man.

Now!

He leaps out from the shadow, swinging the heavily-laden bag like a weapon at his attacker.

The stranger decked from head to toe in black falters from the surprise attack. He is forced to take another step back as the weight hits him dead centre- quickly followed by a punch from Ichigo, letting out a pained groan as his world spins.

"Who sent y- the fuck!—"

The hood of his attacker slips off and Ichigo is more than a little shocked by the ghastly appearance of the creature underneath it. Whatever this thing is- it's not human. Yellow teeth- drool dripping from the corners of the gaping mouth and sunken cheeks make up the most sinister-looking skull-face he has ever seen. The thing's unfocused milky white eyes sharpened at him.

The creature throws itself at him, snarling with claws drawn out and aimed at his jugular.

Forced on the defensive, Ichigo doesn't hesitate. Instincts and years of experience have him throwing the bag of grocery at the ghoul as a distraction to buy him time. He takes off down the street in the opposite direction without looking back.

The bag rips, predictably; the contents of it spilling into the empty streets but it barely slows the creature down.

Outrunning him by a good minute, the creature lunges at him from his blind spot which he clumsily dodges. His back meets the wall of the alleyway, chipping off old paint and the uneven edges bite into his skin through his flimsy cotton shirt, drawing blood. He hisses in pain but there's barely even time to register it as the ghoul lunges again.

The strong jaw of the creature crushes the pieces of garbage Ichigo throws at it, rendering them into splinters. Its movements and attacks unrelenting and aimed to kill.

Weaponless as opposed to the creature's deadly bite and claws, Ichigo has neither the speed nor the agility to fully dodge the frenzied attacks. The odds are stacked against him and with every swipe and snarl; Ichigo feels his chances of survival dwindling.

He is crawling backwards on all four, back against the wall when his hand closes on a steel bar. He thanks the stars and whatever higher power there may be but knows that he is not out of the woods yet.

Grim determination sets in as his eyes harden.

He only gets one chance- one chance to get this right or he's dead and done for.

The ghoul rears up for its attack and Ichigo readies himself.

Mid-launch, the steel bar spears through the creature's twisted body. It gives a strangled cry, black blood oozing and dripping onto the pavement, over Ichigo's battered and bruised body. But Ichigo refuses to let go. He pushes it in deeper until he can hear the snap of muscles and soft tissues, and sees the metal protruding from the other side of the dead monster.

The ghoul flops over dead. Its weight settles on top of Ichigo and he eagerly hoists it off, eager to put some distance between them. The damn thing smells worse than the open sewage and rotten corpses.

Above him, there is an ominous roll of thunder and flashes of lightning that streak through the dark skies. Ichigo picks himself up wearily. He has no intention of being caught in the downpour.

Sharp pain shoots from his side as he hobbles. His hand comes up red and in disbelief, his eyes flit to the wound on his side, cut deep and the shred of cotton or what remains of his tattered shirt is soaked in the bloom of scarlet. The drip—drop of blood follows the pull of gravity, pattering onto the hot pavement.

He's been stabbed, he realizes belatedly and curses, that was his favourite shirt too.

Adrenaline fades and his legs give way from the blood loss.

A drop of something cool slides down his cheek before the torrent of rain follows, drenching him as he lays helpless on the deserted street, too weak to even yell for help.

He heaves a shaky breath, trying to make himself comfortable. The ache of the pain somehow dulling as the rain blurs his vision.

Cliché but he swears he sees his life flashing before him. And at the forefront of his strange musings and equally bizarre life cut short before his time, he remembers his first meeting with Rukia.

There's nothing quite like satanic cults and human sacrifices to brighten up the prospects of the day.

Ichigo grimaced, looking at the crime scene photos with a deep frown as he sipped at his coffee. He should have never taken up Ishida on his offer.

This case had all the makings of a ritual killing. Missing child, dead parent cut open with palms splayed, gruesome markings etched- he scowled; it reminded him too much of his own loss.

A tip-off from Anonymous led him to an abandoned warehouse not too far away from the Docks, the scene of the first murder.

"Don't do anything stupid," Ishida had cautioned him against it, "It's just another prank call. I sent a team out to canvas that area hours ago. There's nothing in that warehouse."

But Ichigo wasn't convinced. Gut instincts screamed at him to take a closer look at it but he also wasn't about to pick a fight when they should be focusing the bulk of their resources and time into finding the missing girl. The first 48 hours are crucial.

He's tough and packing. That made the second part of his decision a no-brainer as he slinked in past the locked gates and rusted metal fences— alone.

What he found inside the warehouse though was enough to make him balk.

"Nothing to report, my ass," he mumbled, carefully avoiding the pile of animal bones strewn along the doorway. He thought he heard the scurrying of rats and other critters as he made his way in deeper, unable to shake off the feeling of being watched.

There's something else in here. He could feel it in his bones.

He drew his weapon as he wandered into a room with what seemed to be a laid altar with offerings of dead flowers and questionable animal remains.

Heavy clouds of sulphur and incense filled the air, making his eyes water. In the centre of the room, was a circle, curious glyphs and runes drawn in red that he strongly suspected to be blood, candles with half-burnt ends flickering.

There's a pull at him towards the circle. He didn't resist it. The minute he crossed the threshold though, the candles were snuffed out and a blinding white light enveloped him. A strange ringing echoed through the room.

When his vision cleared, there was a girl with two horns and a tail standing in front of him, violet eyes searing into his as she bowed somewhat mockingly.

"Took you long enough. I was beginning to think that I'll waste away here for another week before someone shows up."

He stared, slack-jawed at her nudity or rather her lack of shame at her own state of undress.

She was unimpressed. Tapping her foot impatiently, she looked at him and said, "Well don't just stand there and gape. State the terms of your contract and we'll see if something can be arranged."

"Ichigo!"

The memory fades. The same pair of violet eyes are now boring deep into his.

"Rukia," he breathes. Talking is hard but he tries anyway. If it's to be his dying words, let them at least have meaning. Rukia- her existence and the events leading to her presence in his life are the only things that have ever made sense in a world said to have been created by an all-loving God and yet so full of injustice and hate.

"Stop talking! Damn it!"

He thinks she's smarter than that. He's lost too much blood now to ever come back whole. He is beyond saving at this point.

There's a light somewhere guiding him on. Maybe he'll see his mom after this; will she be proud of him- of what he's done with his life?

"I won't let you die."

There's a strange shimmering in the air. The shaft of light shining down on him is suddenly blotted out and he is falling-

Falling-

He slams back into his body and chokes.

The pain is a hundred times sharper and a million times more jarring than he remembers. Brown eyes snap open just in time to see Rukia's kneeling body enshrouded in a silver ashy glow of light; her hand plunged deep into his chest.

The rain plasters her hair to her face; her eyes an unholy combination of black sclera and violet irises. She growls from the effort as her fingers tirelessly trace rune after rune across his broken body. The burnished ring of gold on his chest glows and hums with each and every character added.

Ichigo can only watch on in stunned silence as a cascade of something iridescent is siphoned from her and pulled into him. He thinks he hears singing, sweeter than the song of a nightingale and so beautiful that he thinks he just might cry from it.

She grits her teeth.

"Do you trust me?"

He nods.

She presses her lips to his. He surges forward to meet her and tastes the saltiness of her tears, mingled with that of the rain. There's a cut on her lip from where she had been biting too hard and the taste of it- like honey, decadent and syrupy, lingers on his palate.

The pain- or rather the absence of it grows and he feels something being anchored into place.

His heart.

Her heart.

There's something between them that is beyond words and whatever she's done, Ichigo knows it's life-changing for the both of them. He knows somehow, staring at the identical marks of a glowing glyph on the back of their palm.

They're bonded.

But even the very word seems inadequate to express this shimmer between them. There's a sliver of her- something inhuman— nay, a dark voice whispers, better than human— within him and it makes the world incomprehensibly sharper in his eyes, the taste of the summer air sweet on his tongue and the warmth of her skin so achingly perfect against his own as he holds her.

Pink flesh peeks through his tattered shirt. He is once again healed, whole, rendered into something new in her presence.

"So," he licks his dry lips, "did Hector ever managed to tell Maria that he loves her?"

"You idiot!"

She is shaking her head, calling him names for his recklessness. At length, she stops, and heaving a sigh of deep relief, grins at him, canines showing.

"Welcome back to the world of living, Master."

FF/ao3

The 'I-accidentally-summoned-a-cute-demon-and-now-I-think-I'm-in-too-deep-to-let-her-go' AU

Also detective! Ichigo who solves crime with some help from the occult world- courtesy of his soulmate/familiar/contract partner demon! Rukia.

As always, review, like, reblog, comment or send me an ask to share random thoughts.

#ichiruki #ichirukimonth #irmonth2020 #Day 19: all my demons have your smile #day 21: supernatural #supernatural AU #fanfic #mine #the devil's advocate

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lethargic-caterpillar · 4 years

Text

Cliffs (pt. 2)

Gender Neutral! Merperson x Gender Neutral! Reader

A link for part 1

You were on a ledge as close to the water as you could get without touching it. Your hair and clothes moved wildly with the wind, but you couldn’t hear it. The water didn’t make a sound either, the waves washing up the side of the rock were rough but still silent. The sky was an overcast grey, shedding cool light on the black waters beyond the little cove you knew was behind you.

A dark blue hand grabs you, there was no sensation, it wasn’t slimy or cold just there. You couldn’t scream or fight when the clawed hand-pulled you under the water. It should be freezing, but instead it’s almost comforting as the pressure on your leg slips away.

It was dark, you weren’t able to see even any of the light from the grey skies. The dark water held you in place, looking forward at the nothingness.

You’re finally able to scream as a giant green eye opens in front of you and it’s slitted pupil focuses in on you.

You crack your eyes open to see the morning light shining through your open curtains. The musty smell of the comforter makes you wrinkle your nose and shove it away.

It was three days after the incident with the coast guard. You’d gone to the hospital a town over to check your wrist, it was just sprained so a cast wasn’t necessary but you had it wrapped up. It all felt like one big blur after the creature left. Your grandmother was downright smug when you were brought to the door by Officer Wells and he explained that you had been spooked by something in the water.

Your mother was upset and reluctant to let you go back to the cliffs. “Because I know you’ll go looking and work yourself up.”

You had gone to disprove a stupid myth and now you were being caged by two mother hens. Fabulous.

After throwing your legs over the side of the bed, you reach for the glass of water at your bedside just to find it empty. You hope that neither of your family members were awake yet as you step lightly around the creaky floorboards to the door. The clock on the desk says it’s only 7:30, so you should be safe.

You open the door with your good hand to see that your grandmother’s door was open as well, cursing quietly, you go back into the room for a pair of slippers. The soft material makes your steps quieter while you rush past the danger zone.

Turning quickly to look around the kitchen you jump out of your skin when you nearly smack into your mother. She looks at you, then at your grandmother’s room and back. Sighing into her coffee cup, she walks past you and shuts the door.

“I’d get dressed and get out before your grandma’s alarm goes off,” you grin and run back to your room, sliding around the corner. “Careful!” she whisper-shouts at you.

Thoughts of proving you weren’t crazy drove the last of the sleepy fog from your mind. To whom you were proving you were sane, you didn’t know, but you needed to see. It was an itch that would only be scratched once you were on the old paddleboard, looking into the dark water of the small cove for those green eyes.

You found a wet suit and a waterproof jacket in the closet as well as a pair of water shoes. They were only slightly too big, so you wouldn’t be tripping all over the place. Now, for the paddleboard.

It was tucked away in the back of the shed, faded and worn but it had only maybe been used twice. The water was too cold to use it that often though with your layers you were feeling brave. There would be a shock if you fell in the water, but you’d live.

That’s what you kept telling yourself while you watched the water come up the beach of the cove. The rocky cliffs loomed overhead, watching you debate over how stupid this might be. What if there wasn’t anything out there?

But what if there was?

You drop the board and push it into the relatively calm water, you steady your step up onto it with the paddle. You wobble and clench your core to stabilise, you dig the paddle into the stones to move into deeper water. No eyes yet.

Carefully, you put your hand behind you to sit cross-legged on the widest part of the board. You search the rocks, letting the water keep you floating in the wide cove. Occasionally, you moved slowly towards more secluded, darker spots but the results of your search remained unsuccessful.

The sun was moving higher, and you didn’t have any extra sunscreen with you. Perhaps it was time to turn in and face your grandmother.

You release an exasperated sigh and stretch your legs before standing back up and sticking your paddle back into the water. It hits something hard, and you yank the paddle back up when an ear-piercing cry echoes across the cove.

The creature surfaces five meters from your board causing you to stumble and nearly fall into the dark water. They rub their head, messing up the dark hair and tangling it even more. Pitiful whines and clicks come from their mouth. Their mouth is so full of sharp teeth that it makes the noises less pitying.

They were more humanoid than you originally thought that they might be, having only seen their eyes before you expected something more monstrous. Their sharp and thin features, while made up of dark blue and a muddy brown, were still relatively human.

Your eyes meet theirs and you’re stuck again. The unnatural green was equally beautiful and terrifying, their slitted pupils dilated. The creature doesn’t move any closer but does move to swim in front of you, again revealing the spikes going down their back and ending on a dark tail.

“Mermaids don’t exist,” you shake your head and attempt to catch your breath. Your knee buckles and you struggle to stand up straight while keeping your eyes on the creature who has their head cocked like a puppy. No, not a puppy. A dangerous merperson thing.

When they don't come any closer, you start moving the paddleboard back to shore. It’s awkward but you feel safer when you jump back onto the rocky beach. You drag the board ashore and question what it is that you thought you’d accomplish.

The creature comes a little closer and you move back, they seem to get the memo and move back as well. They make another clicking sound in the back of their throat, you aren’t sure if it’s in warning or conversational. The curious look in their eyes does not look particularly threatening but looks could be deceiving.

You haul the board up and drop the paddle to make dragging it towards a rocky alcove a tad bit easier. When you walk back to grab the paddle, you notice that the creature had moved closer but had sunk a little lower in the water. They seemed content to just watch you walk back and forth, not moving any closer but made the occasional hum or click.

You glance back at the backpack you had nearly forgotten on your rush out of the house. You thought about the camera tucked between an extra set of clothes. With a photo, you could be famous. But the creature didn’t deserve that, to be hunted by dumb teenagers or worse, experimented on in a sketchy lab. You’d never forgive yourself if you became the reason for the creature's demise.

As far as you know, they haven’t actually harmed anyone.

A strong feeling of guilt arises in the pit of your stomach as you turn to leave. The creature lets out a small noise as if to ask you where you were going. But you had to leave, by now the sun wasn’t enough to keep you warm and a cup of tea sounded really appealing.

You promise yourself that you’ll come back tomorrow…. Maybe with a book.

---

I’m trying to write more between online classes, but it’s all garbage so I never post it...

Nothing has changed, still falling asleep at 2 am: The Best Tired Caterpillar~

#exophilia #mermaid x reader #merfolk #monster lover #monster x reader #oml maybe a book #terato

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fastidious-and-a-mess · 4 years

Text

Empty.

I see them everywhere. Everywhere, all the time, every day. They follow me, I think. I don't know what for, but I don't dare to contemplate their reasoning, or else my mind will wander to places of such horrors I think it might drive me mad, if I'm not mad already. I saw the first one exactly 17 days ago, I’ve been keeping a careful count. It was the same day, maybe even within the hour, I can’t quite recall, that I received the notice letter.

It was pinned to the front door of the house I’d been renting for nearly a year. My rent had been missed one too many times and I was no longer allowed to stay. I begged and pleaded and tried to reason as much as I could, the shop wasn’t doing well, they couldn’t get people their paychecks on time, if I could just have one more week, but it wasn’t enough. They gave me three days to remove all of my belongings from the house. “Where to?” I tried to make them understand. “I have nowhere else.” They told me that was not their concern, I needed my things out by Thursday or they’d fine me, so I had no choice.

I called Allison, my daughter, and I asked her for help. Ever since She had gone off the college so many years ago, she had no issue expressing her disappointment in me as a father, and it hurt. She never really approved of me or my choices, called my art awful and ugly, told me it would never sell. And she was right. I was never well-off enough to support myself, and I relied on her help more than I’d like to admit. When I called her, asking her to let me move into her house, she was understandably reluctant. I begged and reasoned with her the same as with the landlords. Eventually, though, she gave in. She didn't understand my position or sympathize with me, she simply gave in to my pleading.

It was when I was loading the boxes full of my few belongings into her car that Wednesday when I saw it.

It was standing behind a tree in the forest across the street, a figure, it looked like a man. It wore a black pinstripe suit and brown loafers. Something appeared off about it, but I could not recognize it at first, as the trees shadowed it from view. I found it somewhat unsettling, that a man I believed I did not know would be staring at me, not moving at all or making any sound, just standing. Soon enough though, my attention was drawn elsewhere when Allison called to me from the house and I quickly forgot about the off-putting encounter.

The next time I saw them was two days later. It was already dark outside, a result of the changing seasons. Allison was still out at work and would not be home for a few hours more, so all that were in the house were me and Allison’s cat. She works for a successful businessman as the manager of his accounting branch. I was always proud of her for that, she had found a way to make a living that made her happy. I think I'm lying to myself when I say I don't envy her for that.

Anyways, I was alone with her cat and I had just finished dinner. I was putting my dishes in the sink when I glanced through the window that spanned above the counter looking into the backyard, and I froze. There they were, two of them this time. I suddenly remembered the creepy moments from the other day as I realized that one of them was the same man from the forest. Except, now that I had a clear view with the light from the house and surrounding houses, I could see that it was not a man at all, and neither was the figure next to it. They were dressed the same way, with fedora hats now, staring directly towards me. If staring was even the right word for it, for they had no eyes. No faces at all. I realized this is what must have been so off-putting about the man from before. I tried to brush it off as teenagers pulling some mean prank, but it seemed to me too real to be masks. “Just the lighting, of course they’re masks,” I told myself, but I was unconvinced.

It continued like this for a few more days, I would see them wherever I was, at least one, usually more. Allison never believed me, I believe she simply thought it was the consequences of being an old man, dementia or paranoia setting in, or both Or maybe she thought I was just going mad, I wouldn’t blame her either way. The first few days I ignored them, tried convincing myself it was a prank, that they’d give up as soon as they realized they wouldn’t get the reaction from me they were looking for. Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me, I told myself, and I was starting to buy into the “paranoia of an old man” belief Allison harbored myself, but I just couldn’t completely convince myself. Eventually though, I decided I had had enough. I gave up on the theories, the more I saw them, the more real they became. About a week after seeing them I decided to go to the police. Allison tried to talk me out of it.

“They’ll never listen to you,” she said, “they’ll just tell you you’re seeing things and send you off. And they’re right, Dad. They don’t have faces, they aren’t real! Please, I really don’t want to have to deal with bringing the police into this.”

She was right again, of course, but I didn’t listen to her. I just couldn’t bear it any longer. So the next day, exactly one week after the first time I saw one of those things, I went to the police. The receptionist, one Dorothy Riggs according to a pin on her chest, didn't take me very seriously, but she put me through to an appointment with a man named Officer Palmer. "He'll get a kick out of this," I heard her mumble to herself when she sent me down the hall, and she took a long drag from the cigarette dangled loosely between her fingers.

I knocked on the open door frame of the room down the hall to which Ms. Riggs had directed me, "Excuse me? Is this Officer Palmer's office?"

"Yes sir, it is. You're speaking to him now," a tall man with broad shoulders and a face that has seen age but chosen to ignore it was standing in the room, flipping through some papers. His graying blond hair was cut crisply and a goofy smile sat upon his stern jaw. "What can I do ya for?"

"I'm being followed," I began, careful to not lead too strongly and drive him off.

"Well now, isn't that exciting? Can you tell me what he looks like?"

"They, actually, it's a group of them. They all wear the same clothes, like out of a detective movie from the 50s, with suits and loafers and even the hats."

"That doesn't really help me here, sir. I can’t do anything with clothes, give me something useful. What are their faces like? Body types, hair cuts, stuff like that." He sat in his chair and pulled a new file folder out of his desk and began filling out the various documents it contained. "I never got your name."

"Smith, sir. Roger Smith."

"Thank you, Roger. Now, their faces."

"Well, uh, that is the thing," a sense of dread washed over me as I tried to recall exactly what the things looked like, something seemed to be keeling my mind from putting together the whole memory, and it frightened me to my core. "They didn't have any."

"Excuse me? No faces?" I could tell I was losing him, I had to make him believe me, I had to get him to help.

"Yes sir, no faces."

"Ok, Roger. I'm going to need you to quit wasting my time here. If you're lying to me, you better come clean right now or I'm kicking you out of my office. I have better things to do." His tone changed quickly, from lax and humourous to something much more stern and unforgiving.

"No, Officer, please, I'm telling you the truth. People without faces are following me and I don't know who they are or what they want. Please, sir, help me," I pleaded.

"I don't have time for this. Get out," he stood up, tossed my file into the garbage basket, and started towards me to lead me out of the room back into the hallway.

"But pl-"

"Nope. I have more important things to deal with than a paranoid old man. Get out of my office."

With that, he kicked me out and I left the station, back at square one, still totally helpless and alone.

Across the street, much to my distress, stood the largest group of those things I've ever seen, ten or fifteen at least. It filled me with such a sensation of horror and helplessness that I had never felt before in my long life. I knew something was coming, something very bad, and there was nothing I could do about it.

That catches us up to now, as I'm sitting in Allison's living room recounting the story to myself alone while Allison is once again working late, and I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm not losing my sanity. I look out the back door, made of sliding glass, where I saw the pair of them only a few days ago. It feels like eons. The dusk is starting to set in, so I can't see clearly, but I know there's something moving in the darkness of my daughter's backyard. The only light on now is a small table lamp on the end table, casting blackness into the corners of the room and leaving the yard abandoned by the light. I hope whatever is out there is her cat, but I fear the worst. As it comes into the small amount of light trickling from the house, I realize it's not one thing, but a group of those faceless creatures so much larger than I've ever seen. I've never seen them moving before either, just standing, unnaturally still, and the sight of their movement is something so horrid I can barely stand it. They move with such an artificial stance, so unnatural and void of life, I could hardly even process it. The fear paralyzes me. They keep coming, there are so many, oh my god there are so many. And they don't stop walking.

They don't stop, keep walking, all the way to the door. They don't stop there either, no, they start pounding. Pounding so loudly on the door, so hard, it begins to crack, and I feel my very soul crack with it. Overwhelming terror fills me up to the brim and I know. I know now. I know what they want. It's me. They want me and there is nothing I can do about it.

The door shatters and they pour into the living room, some of them stumbling over each other or falling flat, all of them clambering towards me. Their movement is hasty now, erratic. I scream, loud and hoarse, but there's no one around to hear, or care.

They're coming closer now, only a few feet of time left in my life, I know, then it will all be over.

And I am powerless to stop it.

They're right in front of me now, reaching out with white and pale and almost plastic looking hands, reaching towards my face.

Only a few inches left.

And now they're on me. I can feel their hands, their skin is cold and the contact is empty.

Oh god, they're all over.

Their hands cover my face and I feel myself becoming empty. Everything fades to black, first my vision, and then my very soul, my life, until there is nothing left.

I scream again, but there is no one and nothing but the empty.

#hi!#so this is that original piece i mentioned last night #it was originally for my creative writing class last year #but i finally got around to pollishing it up a bit #i'm happy with it #any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated!#so uh. yeah.#update: laptop located so a cut has been added!#thank fuck

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