#reckon it will be this or none of the main suspects
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if the christmas body isn’t dean after shirley comes back and kills him then i don’t wanna know tbh
#or mick but i don’t think danny would come back so soon#reckon it will be this or none of the main suspects#unless maybe nish killed by vinny or maybe eve#or vinny dead#what are people’s thoughts?#eastenders#ee spoilers#ish?
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The Fella Part 10 (James Maguire X Quinn!Reader)
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Summary: A family occasion takes a turn for a worse when Mary tells her aunt Bridie to drop dead, which she takes seriously. At her wake, Michelle has the bright idea to bring laced scones, which are taken and distributed among the guests.
A/N: credits to @crumpets-are-better-with-jam for writing out the script of the episode for me :)) btw just a warning, it gets a bit heated a little towards the end, but not too much i think. Also talks of drugs bc duh
***
It was becoming a bit difficult to keep up with who knew about Y/n and James’ relationship and who didn’t. Y/n’s sister Erin knew that she fancied James, but wasn’t updated on the fact that they had been dating for over three months now. Clare knew that the pair were going out after catching them kissing at the Take That concert a few weeks ago. But the rest of the group and the teens’ families were none the wiser.
Except for Y/n’s father, Gerry.
One night, everyone was hanging around the Quinn household. There were movies, loads of chatting, and some dinner. But with so many people in the house, it was hard to have even a moment alone with James. So, while everyone argued over what to put on next, Y/n snuck out to the front room, boyfriend close behind.
“I thought we weren’t gonna try to keep things a secret,” James said as he leaned against the wall, Y/n tucked into his side and holding his hand.
“I know Jamie. But with situations like this, I think it’s better to sneak away. I mean, imagine the shock that would come to Mammy, Granda, or Michelle if any of ’em found out.”
“Yeah…” James sighed, realizing Y/n was right.
“Now imagine if all three of them found out at the same time.” Y/n laughed at the idea while James’ eyes widened in horror. “Besides, wanting a moment to ourselves isn’t all bad, right?” She asked, looking up at the boy.
“Right.” He mirrored her soft smile before leaning down to catch her lips in a kiss that was eagerly returned.
So eager that the two didn’t hear the door open.
“You’re lucky it’s me catching you two instead of your mother,” Gerry spoke, startling Y/n and James, who jumped apart. He felt a bit awkward catching his daughter kissing her boyfriend, but he didn’t look too surprised that she had a boyfriend in the first place.
“Da, I can explain.” Y/n tried to go on, but Gerry held up a hand, signaling her to stop.
“I already know.” He said with a smile, hands clasping behind his back. “About you two. Never would’ve if they didn’t decide to film that concert you girls went to.” That new information mortified Y/n and James. But they didn’t have time to fully react, because Gerry continued. “I think the three of us should have a little chat.”
***
The conversation wasn’t as bad as Y/n thought it would’ve been. Gerry was clearly happy and okay with the relationship, just wanting to make sure that they weren’t doing anything too serious. That topic might’ve been the most embarrassing part of the interaction for Y/n.
James, on the other hand, seemed scared shitless the entire time. But Y/n suspected that her father wasn’t so hard on him because of how he was treated by his father-in-law. He probably didn’t want to create some kind of a cycle. Plus, Gerry was pretty fond of James, even before he learned about him and his daughter being an item.
The entire talk played on a loop in Y/n’s head as she sat in church with the rest of her family, waiting for their relative’s wedding to start. Soon enough, the familiar tune of ‘Here Comes The Bride’ started to play, and everyone in the room stood.
“Where do you reckon Aunt Sarah is?” Y/n asked her sister Erin, noticing that a family member was missing from their pew. But her question was soon answered when Sarah entered the room and started walking down the aisle, dressed in white. “Good God.”
Gasps and murmurs filled the room as Sarah went to stand with her family in the pew, revealing a horrified bride and her father behind her.
“Jesus, but that taxi took forever, so it did.” Sarah sighed. The bride-to-be looked at Sarah, absolutely appalled as she passed by. “Ach, isn’t she gorgeous?”
Mary rolled her eyes and looked up towards the sky as she took a deep breath.
“Give me strength…” She muttered.
***
Y/n was a bit surprised that the Quinn family, mainly her aunt Sarah, was still invited to the reception. But that didn’t stop her from trying to have a good time. She, her sister, and her cousin drank and danced around as they waited for their friends to arrive.
Soon enough, Erin spotted their friends, nudging her sister and cousin to gain their attention. They quickly ran to the venue entrance to meet with the other girls and James.
“Muthafuckas!” Michelle yelled in greetings, arms spread out and grin wide.
“How’s it been?” Clare asked with a smile.
The sisters and Orla all had different responses, but had the same reaction when Mary snuck up behind the three of them.
“Girls!” The shout startled them, and everyone whipped around to look at her.
“Jesus, Mammy,” Y/n muttered.
“I said you could invite one friend to the reception. One!”
“Mammy, they don’t come separately,” Erin said, rolling her eyes. She thought her mother would’ve learned this after years of friendship.
“We’re like one big set,” Y/n said, gesturing to the group of teenagers.
“Aye, we’re pack animals, Mary,” Michelle said. Mary was about to say something, possibly tell them to leave or further reprimand them, when James spoke.
“I love your hat, Mrs. Quinn.” He said with a smile, eyeing the accessory. Mary smiled, and the girls were surprised to see that her slightly sour mood had seemed to disappear.
“Thanks, son.” She said, giving him a nod before looking at the whole group, a bit more serious. “No wild carry-on. Do you hear me? We’re in enough bother as it is. Best behavior.”
“Completely.” Clare nodded, taking the commands to heart.
“You’ll have no trouble from us, Mary,” Michelle said with an innocent smile, which should be worrying. Mary walked off, and Michelle turned back to the group once she was out of earshot. “Okay, girls, who wants to do drugs?” Y/n snorted at the complete 180, but Michelle was completely serious.
The girls, mainly Michelle and Erin, like always, had a back and forth about the drugs and someone named Macca and so on. Y/n used this moment to turn to James, almost glued to his side at the back of the group as they all walked around the reception party.
“Trying to butter up Mammy, are you?” She asked teasingly, thinking about how James’ little comment completely changed her mother’s sour demeanor.
James laughed a little, throwing his head back, and Y/n couldn’t help but smile stupidly at the boy. He shrugged.
“Well, I figured I might as well start now to try to get on her good side. It’s only a matter of time, I think.” Y/n nodded in agreement.
“We could tell them.” She suggested after a small moment of silence. James perked up, both surprised and delighted by the notion. “I mean, like you said, it’s only a matter of time. And they’d probably prefer hearing it from us over walking in on us doing something.”
James’ cheeks reddened at the sentence. He blinked a few times, his mind clearly drifting off to some kind of thought.
“And by something… you mean like-” Suddenly, the lights dimmed, and music started blasting through the speakers. Y/n lit up in excitement along with the rest of the room, while James looked a bit confused at the commotion that started to happen.
“‘Rock the Boat’! It’s ‘Rock the Boat!” Clare squealed as she recognized the song.
“Happy fuckin’ days!” Michelle said, and the girls ran to the dance floor. Y/n was dragging James behind her, who seemed slightly alarmed by everyone’s intense enthusiasm.
Everyone sat on the floor in long, giant rows, fighting for space. The girls were able to push their way to the front, synchronously dancing with the rest of the party people. There, the girls continued their drug conversation, with Y/n and James now joining in.
“Look, Michelle,” Clare said to the girl behind her. “Drugs are illegal, drugs are addictive, and perhaps most importantly, in this country, you can lose your kneecaps if you’re caught doing them. And I like my kneecaps, Michelle; they suit my knees.”
“You do have crackin’ kneecaps, Clare.” Orla smiled at the girl, having to leave to the side and turn her head to look at the blonde.
“Is that true?” James asked, lips close to Y/n’s ear.
“What?” Y/n turned around, almost startled by how James was to her face. “Clare’s kneecaps?”
“No. I mean losing your kneecaps.”
“Oh. Clare’s a bit dramatic, Jamie.” The girl turned back around to face ahead. “But she’s a bit right, I think.”
“What?!”
Before any conversations could continue, a dull but loud thud was heard from a corner of the room. Everyone looked to see Aunt Bridie lying on the floor, with the Quinn family looking at Mary in shock.
***
The next few days felt tense at the Quinn household. It was mainly the teenagers being fearful of Mary, because they believed that she was the reason for her Aunt Bridie’s sudden death and didn’t want to be her next victim. The house had never been so clean and tidy.
“I just cannot believe it.” Mary’s tone was almost flat as she stared off into space, clutching her teacup and rarely ever sipping it.
“Listen, Mary,” Sarah said, sitting in the chair beside her. “No matter what you’ve done, you’re still my sister. I’ll stand by you.”
“I haven’t done anything, Sarah.”
“Exactly, love. Everybody knows you didn’t mean to kill the old boot.” Grandpa Joe paused to take a sip of his coffee. “God rest her soul.”
“I didn’t kill her,” Mary responded, immediately tired of the assumption.
“You know what I mean, not kill.” Joe looked around as if he would find the word he was looking for on the wall. “Hex.”
“I didn’t hex her either, Da.” She said defensively. “It was just a very tragic-”
“My mother, she had the gift too, y’know.” Joe interrupted. “By God, that woman could make her enemies drop like flies.”
“Look, I don’t have any gift,” Mary said, letting go of her teacup to lay her hands flat on the table to show finality and seriousness. “There’s no dark forces at play here. I just said somethin’... unfortunate that happened to-”
“Cause her death?” Sarah asked.
“Coincide with her death.” Mary corrected.
Ah, yes. Mary telling her aunt Bridie to drop dead and then her actually doing it was just an unfortunate coincidence. Nothing more, nothing less.
Meanwhile, at the sink, Y/n dried the last dish that Erin washed and handed it to Orla to put away. The three girls had been working as quietly as possible, not wanting to disturb Mary. Erin was the first to speak, turning around slowly with a nervous tone.
“Right. Well, that’s the dishes done. Would you like another cup of tea, Mammy?”
As if remembering she even had a cup of tea, Mary looked down at the cup and took a quick sip.
“No, I’m fine.”
“I’ll just grab the Hoover n’give the stairs a bit of a going over.”
“Aye, and I can sweep the hall and such,” Y/n added, trying to remember the last place she had seen the broom.
“And I’ll maybe do a bit of dusting,” Orla said.
Mary raised an eyebrow, suspicion of the girls pulling her out of her dazed and solemn mood.
“What’s gotten into you all?” She asked. “What’re you up to? What’s going on?”
“Nothin’!” Erin answered, still seeming a bit scared. “We just thought that we should pull our weight a bit more, Mammy.”
“You do so much for us, Aunt Mary.”
“Aye, Mammy, you deserve a bit of a break.”
“I can’t hex people, girls,” Mary said frustratedly. “It was an accident.”
As if on cue, Gerry waltzed into the kitchen and smiled at his wife. He placed a hand on her shoulder as part of a greeting.
“So, how’s the Wicked Witch of the North West?” The question seemed so loving and innocent. Y/n would’ve laughed if Mary hadn’t seemed like she was actually about to murder someone.
“Who put fifty p in the eedgit?” Joe asked, glaring at Gerry. Gerry looked at him confused, wondering what he had done this time.
Mary groaned, dropping her head into her hands.
“God, how am I going to go to this wake?”
“It’ll be grand, love,” Joe said. “But listen, say if things do get heated, try not to rise to it. The last thing we want is another dead body on our hands here.”
Mary stared up at Joe with a blank expression.
“I’ll do my best, Da.”
***
Later that evening, the Quinns and McCools arrived at the wake. Everyone seemed a bit surprised and startled to see Mary, clearly believing the rumors that she had been her Aunt Bridie’s undoing. After a slightly awkward encounter with Eamon, Bridie’s son, the girls escaped everyone by going upstairs to the room that held Bridie herself.
“She really suits bein’ dead, doesn’t she?” Orla said after a good moment of solemn silence, staring down at the woman.
“What?” Erin seemed disturbed by what her cousin had said, but Y/n nodded.
“No, yeah, I agree. I like her better like this.”
“Y/n, she’s dead.”
“Oh, so you’re saying you liked her better living?”
Before Erin could answer, the door to the room opened. The girls turned to see Clare peeking her head through.
“Can we come in?” She asked in a whisper.
“Why are you whispering, Clare?” Y/n asked, tilting her head in confusion. Clare paused, thinking it over.
“I don’t know.”
The rest of the group crowded around Bridie’s casket. Michelle and Clare walked to the end by her feet, and James decided to stand behind Y/n. He rested a hand gently on her shoulder, as if to comfort her, and she raised a hand of her own to lay on his, as if to thank him.
“Thanks for comin’, guys.” Erin sighed, seeming slightly distressed now. “It’s nice to have a bit of support in this very difficult time.” Everyone seemed very confused by the statement.
“You thought she was a dick,” Michelle said.
“I never said that.”
“You did, Erin,” Orla said.
“I’m pretty sure we all thought she was a dick, but you were the vocal one about it,” Y/n added.
“Aye, I’ve definitely heard you say it,” Clare said.
“Okay, can I just check something?” James asked, clearly focused on something else. The girls looked at him, waiting for him to continue. “Everybody else can see the dead body, right?”
Everyone took a glance at the body in question, trying to figure out what the problem was.
“It’s just Bridie, Jamie,” Y/n said.
“It’s Bridie’s corpse.” The boy corrected. “It’s Bridie’s dead corpse.”
“It’s her wake. What were you expectin’?” Michelle asked, rolling her eyes.
“Haven’t you ever seen a dead body before?” Erin asked.
“Of course not!” James nearly yelled, shocked that Erin would even ask such a question. Michelle scoffed.
“Christ, but the English are weird.”
Orla leaned down close to Bridie, taking her face in her hands and looking up at James. She had that childlike but absentminded wonder in her eyes and smile that she always had.
“You can touch her if you want.”
James flinched, moving his hands to Y/n’s hips as he took a slight step back. As he moved back, he maneuvered Y/n to act as a shield between him and the dead body and Orla. James looked at Orla in disgusted shock.
“Why the hell would I want to touch her?” Y/n snorted at James’ suddenly high-pitched voice.
“It’s nice.” Orla smiled brightly.
“Stop it.”
“It’s just a dead body, James,” Clare said in a comforting tone, trying to get him to calm down. “We’re all gonna be one someday.”
“Oh, thanks for that, Clare!” Horrified, James brought Y/n closer until her back was pressed against his front. It was as if everyone else was some sort of strange or bad energy that could only be warded off by Y/n, and she was happy to go along with it. “Yeah, that’s helped!”
“It’s okay, Jamie,” Y/n said, patting one of the hands gripping her hips. James relaxed just a bit, but was still weary because of how weird this whole situation was to him. “Calm yourself.”
“It really makes you think, doesn’t it?” Michelle said solemnly, staring at Bridie for a second before looking at the girls. “Death.” She sighed dramatically, and everyone immediately wondered what she was up to this time. “It just… just makes you wanna… do everythin’ and just… try everythin’.”
“What’s going on, Michelle?” Clare asked, looking at her suspiciously.
“Yeah, what are you on about?” Y/n eyed the girl with a raised brow. Michelle suddenly seemed excited, a stark contrast to her fake grimness.
“Do you wanna see something’ class?” Michelle then threw her purse, which was, for some reason, big and bulky, onto Bridie’s feet. Someone would’ve reprimanded her for disrespecting the deceased by using Bridie as a table, but they were too busy watching her pull a big Tupperware out of her purse. “Prepare yourself, girls.” She then popped the lid off to show what was inside. She looked at her friends excitedly.
“Scones?” Erin asked, clearly unimpressed.
“That’s right.”
“What’s so class about scones?”
“Scones are lovely.” Orla countered, seeming a bit offended by Erin’s uninterest.
“Aye, I like scones.” Clare nodded.
“No, these aren’t any old scones, girls.” Michelle insisted, shaking her head. “These are funny scones.”
“Funny’s the right word, alright,” Y/n said, reaching for one of the scones in the bin to look at it. As she dropped it back in with the rest, she looked at Michelle with a tilt of her head. “What’s so special about ’em?”
“They’re drug scones!” Clare squeaked, pointing urgently at the food. “She’s put the drugs in the scones!”
“Too fuckin’ right, I have,” Michelle said with a grin. “I wanted to do brownies, but this was the only recipe my ma had, so…”
“I don’t think it’s that hard to find a brownie recipe, Michelle,” Y/n said.
“I’m not goin’ out of my way to find a brownie recipe, Y/n.”
“We talked about this, Michelle. We agreed.” Clare said, bringing the conversation back to the drugs.
“No, we didn’t,” Michelle argued. “Anyway, drugs aren’t illegal when you put them into food. Everybody knows that.”
“I’m not so sure about that, Michelle,” Y/n said.
“Is that right?” James asked sarcastically, almost glaring with bewilderment at his cousin. “I’m not sure that’s right.”
Just then, the door opened, and everybody froze. An old woman walked in, and the girls quickly recognized her as one of the caterers for the wake.
“Any cups up here?” She asked, walking towards them while looking around. She spotted the tub, and before anyone could stop her, she reached out and grabbed it. “I’ll take that.” The woman said simply before leaving the room.
Everyone stared at where the scones had once been, panic running through them all.
“What the fuck just happened?” Michelle asked the room. Y/n looked at the girl with wide eyes.
“I believe a caterer just took your funny fuckin’ scones to give out at our great Aunt Bridie’s wake, Michelle.”
After another moment of feeling frozen, everyone went downstairs as fast as possible without drawing attention. Defeated and not knowing what to do, the girls sat down on the steps. As they settled, they watched Joe pass by with one of the scones in hand.
“What are we gonna do?” Clare asked frantically.
“It’s fine,” Michelle said shortly. But everyone could tell she was just as panicked as the rest.
“It’s definitely not fine!” Clare hissed. “There’s drug scones down there. People’ll eat the drug scones, then we’ve drugged those people, Michelle.”
“Our granda included.” Y/n butted in, resting her chin on the top of James’ head, who was sitting on one of the steps just below her. “Lord knows what’ll happen to him.”
“So?” Michelle said, clearly worried but trying to seem aloof. “Drugging people isn’t a crime.”
“You’ve a very loose grasp of the law, Michelle,” James said, rubbing at his eyes in disbelief and exhaustion.
“What kind of person brings hash scones to a wake?” Erin asked with a scowl. Michelle scoffed.
“Typical.” She said. “I try to do a nice thing, and this is the thanks I get.”
“A nice thing?” Y/n repeated in disbelief, turning back to look at Michelle. “Oh yeah, how nice. Let’s all get hopped up illegally at a wake. Oh, wait. We can’t, because someone took your stupid scones!”
“It’s terrible,” Clare added, sounding as panicked and scared as usual. “There’s old people down there; what if an old person takes one?”
“Why does everyone get so sentimental about old people?” Michelle asked. “Old people are arseholes.”
“We’ve got to get ’em back, girls,” Erin said, starting to get scared of the thought of any of her family having a funny scone.
“Look, I’m not disagreeing with you. I bought that stuff so I could get high, not your great Uncle Colm.”
“Oh Christ, I didn’t even think about that,” Y/n muttered. Colm was already a character to begin with; him being high as balls would probably turn him either more boring or unmanageable. Y/n stood up and faced the girls. “Here’s the plan. I’ll head to the kitchen to grab whatever’s left. The rest of you go and find the ones that people have taken and pray that they haven’t taken a bite yet.”
“And remember, girls,” Erin said, standing up with her sister. “Be subtle.” Everyone nodded and split up to do their tasks.
Y/n went to the kitchen and quietly crept to the swinging door. She took a quick look, saw that the few people inside were occupied with different things, and carefully walked in. She was surprised to see her father ranting about cross-contamination and using different bowls. Y/n wondered if he had been roped into helping in the kitchen, but whether he was forced or had volunteered, she smiled at the sight of his sudden passion.
Y/n spotted the scones, about half the amount from the last time she saw them, now plated on a serving platter. While reaching for the plate, the door opened behind her.
“Now listen here, you.” Y/n flinched and turned around quickly, recognizing the voice to be her granda Joe. But he wasn’t looking at her. As usual, he directed his pointed look to Gerry, who looked at his father-in-law, both confused and annoyed.
“Yes, Joe?”
“I just wanna say…” Joe trailed off, getting closer to Gerry and putting a hand on his shoulder. Gerry and Y/n looked at the old man in bewilderment when he laughed. “I think you’re doing a fine job.” Then he patted Gerry’s cheek before turning around and walking out of the kitchen. “Keep up the good work.”
Gerry and Y/n turned their shocked stares to each other once Joe was out of the room. The only thing that broke their eye contact was a timer going off, which somehow snapped Gerry back into his working mode. Using the opportunity of her dad’s distractedness, Y/n swiped the platter and walked out.
The girl soon realized that she and her friends never agreed on a place to meet after retrieving the scones. But not wanting anyone to see her wander around with a platter of scones, she snuck back upstairs, where she was surprised to see James slowly wandering the hallway.
“Hey,” Y/n said with relief, glad it was him instead of a stranger. Or worse, her mother.
“Hey.” He smiled at her, holding up a scone as he walked closer to her. “Found your uncle Colm with this.” He sat the scone on top of the others.
“Thank God you got it before he took a bite.” Y/n laughed lightly, James joining in. “Were you just waiting for someone to come up?”
“Yeah, I thought being up here would be better than wandering around where everyone else was.”
“Smart.” Y/n nodded once, looking around the empty hall. “What do you suppose we do about all of these?”
The two thought for a moment, racking their brains for an idea. James suddenly snapped his fingers.
“Remember when you snuck over to mine that one night, and we watched Goodfellas?”
“Aye, Ray Liotta was a dream, wasn’t he?”
“Sure.” James rolled his eyes at the comment. “But do you remember how Karen got rid of the drugs?”
Y/n took a quick second to think about whether or not she did, in fact, remember. The most memorable things of the night she snuck over to James’ were Ray Liotta, the snacks James had snuck up to his room, and kissing each other to keep loud talking or laughs from gaining the attention of the rest of the household.
“You think it’ll work?” Y/n asked once she remembered what James was talking about. “I mean, these are scones.”
“What other options do we have?” James asked. And to be honest, Y/n couldn’t think of any.
The sound of a knob turning startled the two teens. They scrambled to hide the stolen platter of scones behind them just before the bathroom door a bit down the hall opened up. A middle-aged woman that Y/n barely recognized walked out, and Y/n and James smiled politely at her as she passed.
Once she was down the stairs, James and Y/n ran to the bathroom, locking the door behind them.
“Let’s just wait for the others here,” Y/n said, balancing the platter on the sink so she wouldn’t have to hold it any longer. “So… what d’ya wanna do?”
It took a few seconds of silence before Y/n and James rushed at each other, quickly becoming a mess of tangled limbs and clashing lips. The couple rarely had time alone for things like this, the heat of the moment always being ignored because of the fear of being caught. But with a locked door, a few minutes of making out couldn’t do much harm.
Y/n’s hands buried themselves into James’ curls, tugging at them as he backed her into the wall next to the door. A hand cupped the back of her neck while the other stayed gripped on her waist, keeping her in place. Not that she’d want to leave.
James’ lips strayed away from Y/n’s, leaving featherlight kisses across her cheek and jaw before settling on her neck. The hand on Y/n’s neck pulled back her hair, giving James the access he needed to nip and suck lightly at the sensitive skin just below Y/n’s ear.
“Are you marking me?” She asked, breath hitching. She wasn’t opposing the matter, far from it, really. But she was a bit surprised to have this kind of behavior coming from James.
“Just a bit.” He replied breathlessly, kissing the slightly sore spot before returning to Y/n’s lips. “For a bit of fun, y’know?” Y/n giggled. She was lucky that she could probably hide the soon-to-be mark by keeping her hair down.
“Sure, just a bit of fun.” She replied, pecking James’ lips a few times.
The two were able to get themselves straightened out just before the rest of the girls found them. They closed the door behind them, and James caught them all up on the plan.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this.” Michelle sighed as she and the rest of the group broke apart the scones and dropped the crumbled bits into the toilet. “It’s fuckin’ heartbreaking.”
“Believe me, Michelle, it’s better this way,” Y/n said, grabbing another laced scone. “Granda’s had one, and now he’s acting, like, really fuckin’ weird.”
“You’re being paranoid.”
“He was nice to Daddy.” The group made noises of shock and disbelief. “Exactly. And if Mammy starts asking questions…”
“You’re Ma won’t trace it back to us.”
“Are you serious?” Erin asked Michelle. “She traces everything back to us. She traces things we haven’t even done back to us!”
“Are you sure this’ll work?” Clare asked James.
“This is how you get rid of drugs, Clare.” He said confidently, as if this wasn’t the first time he’s had to do this. “I’ve seen Goodfellas, like, twenty times.”
“Aye, good movie,” Y/n commented as she brushed her hands on her jeans to get rid of the crumbs that stuck to her nervously sweaty palms.
“That’s not the only way.” Orla countered. “I watched this film once about this girl who was tryin’ to hide drugs, and what she did was she shoved them right up her—”
“I’m not sticking a scone up my hole, Orla.” Michelle hissed. Orla shrugged, raising her hands in defense.
Once everyone was done breaking down the scones, Clare sighed, seeming as nervous and panicked as always.
“Okay, I’m gonna flush.” She did so, and everyone watched as not much happened. “Is it working?”
“‘Course it’s working,” James said, still sure of his plan.
But then the water started to rise, and everyone started to panic.
“Jesus Christ!” Erin yelped in a high-pitched voice. “Why is the water rising, James?”
“I don’t know! The water didn’t rise in Goodfellas!”
“We’ve clogged it.”
“Who has a plunger?” Orla asked, seeming to be the most calm of the group.
“I’m afraid I left the house without me plunger tonight, Orla,” Erin replied, clearly sarcastic.
“Aye, me too,” Orla replied seriously. “Nightmare, so it is.”
The toilet started flooding faster, and the girls scrambled around in a panic. Scone water was beginning to spill onto the floor, and everyone had to stop themselves from gagging as they tried to find a way to clean it up. This situation couldn’t possibly get any worse.
“Dear God…” Everyone whipped around to see the adults of the Quinn and McCool families, plus Bridie’s son, Eamon. Erin laughed nervously, deciding to be the one to find an excuse.
“It looks worse than it is.” Was all she said, which really wasn’t much of an excuse.
“My mother was right about you people,” Eamon said, horrified and angry. “Wild animals have more manners.”
“We didn’t have a plunger, Eamon!” Orla shouted.
“Get out!” He yelled. “Get out!”
The teens did so gladly, running out of the bathroom and out of the house. They gathered on the front lawn, and they couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the evening. But they still feared what would happen when Mary walked out.
“The night wasn’t all that bad, I think,” James said quietly, only Y/n being able to hear him. She looked up at him curiously.
“How so?”
Instead of speaking, he raised his hand to cup her neck, gently tapping where he had bruised her. She gasped, pushing his hand away before the two of them fell into laughter, not caring about the confused looks their friends gave them.
“I’ll see you Monday, then?” He asked when they had calmed down a bit. Y/n caught a glimpse of her mother leaving the house before she answered.
“If I live that long.”
~~~
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i was a very online teenager. i struggled with in-person interpersonal relationships and spent a lot of time on a much less sanded down internet than the one we have today. and my peers at school were on that same internet.
so of course i saw porn of various kinds, from goofy flash videos to the standard catalogue of shock images (goatse, meatspin etc.). like most kids my age, we took it mostly as a big joke. it was exciting mostly only because it was forbidden, like swearing. so people would talk about something like 2girls1cup, and whether you'd seen it, in much the same way you'd talk about having seen gory shock horror films like Saw. none of this was particularly upsetting or shocking. (i found gore way more discomforting, in general.)
even so, the whole environment was rife with repression. and frankly, 'imply someone is gay' ('batty boy' is one especially goofy slur i remember) being a default category of joke did way more damage than knowing some people are into scat or playing a flash game where you can see a drawing of some boobs. implicitly sexual insults would be common, often playing on someone's naivete. i got very used to 'do you have ginger pubes'. tricking someone into saying something 'sexual' without understanding, and then laughing at them, was another one - i suppose it functioned a way of showing your proximity to the mysterious adult world of knowing about sex.
so after a few years of that, i went through a whole period of just... trying to distance myself from having anything to do with sex. we didn't have 'asexuality' language back then, but i probably would have jumped on it if it had been available. 'sex is gross' was the only frame i had to distance myself from how my classmates talked about sexuality, because i didn't have a handle on what was really up, just that i didn't like it. projecting 'i am above it all and find it disgusting' was a form of armour that calcified around me and ultimately did tons of damage to my ability to understand my own feelings. as i got older, this got mixed up in the moralistic rhetoric of online 'social justice'.
when i got to university and finally started to knock down that wall, i had to speedrun figuring out "how to do relationship". (i dived into polyamory head first, and of course that all went as badly as first relationships usually do.) it's been messy.
i reckon if i'd been willing to approach subcultures as a teenager that had given more room to experiment with like, desire and expression and so on... like if i hadn't let the background contempt get under my skin, for the emos and furries and whatever other 'having too much of the wrong kind of fun' social group we were all supposed to hate... i would probably have been a lot happier! if i'd had any out gay people around me before age 17!
the idea of trying to make sure people never see anything ever related to sex until they're 18, outside of whatever the government deigns to allow to be said in sex ed class, is so hopelessly arse-backwards. it's not going to work - a generation that grew up on the internet is going to be way better at getting to what they want to see than the censors are at blocking it, so the main function of the censorship is to reinforce the idea that they're looking at something shameful and secret. it's not going to protect kids - if anything i suspect it's going to make them more vulnerable to exploitation and mistreatment, either by adults who can offer 'access to the forbidden secrets of sexuality', or by their peers by producing this dumbass hierarchy. and tbh i think knowing about all the weird fetishes there are in the world is actually a really beneficial thing, in the same category of 'seeing your grandma's tits at the spa'.
unless, i guess, what you really want to do is teach everyone how to bypass censorship and distrust authority figures? i think there might be better ways to do that, though!
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1. Pilot : 1x1
2. Wendigo : 1x2
3. Dead in the Water : 1x3
4. Phantom Traveler : 1x4
5. Bloody Mary : 1x5
6. Skin : 1x6
7. Hook Man : 1x7
8. Bugs : 1x8
9. Home : 1x9
10. Asylum : 1x10
11. Scarecrow : 1x11
12. Faith : 1x12
13. Route 666 : 1x13
14. Nightmare : 1x14
15. The Benders : 1x15
16. Shadow : 1x16
17. Hell House : 1x17
18. Something Wicked : 1x18
19. Provenance : 1x19
20. Dead Man's Blood : 1x20
21. Salvation : 1x21
22. Devil's Trap : 1x22
23. In My Time of Dying : 2x1
24. Everybody Loves a Clown : 2x2
25. Bloodlust : 2x3
26. Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things : 2x4
27. Simon Said : 2x5
28. No Exit : 2x6
29. The Usual Suspects : 2x7
30. Crossroad Blues : 2x8
31. Croatoan : 2x9
32. Hunted : 2x10
33. Playthings : 2x11
34. Nightshifter : 2x12
35. Houses of the Holy : 2x13
36. Born Under a Bad Sign : 2x14
37. Tall Tales : 2x15
38. Roadkill : 2x16
39. Heart : 2x17
40. Hollywood Babylon : 2x18
41. Folsom Prison Blues : 2x19
42. What Is and What Should Never Be : 2x20
43. All Hell Breaks Loose: Part 1 : 2x21
44. All Hell Breaks Loose: Part 2 : 2x22
45. The Magnificent Seven : 3x1
46. The Kids Are Alright : 3x2
47. Bad Day at Black Rock : 3x3
48. Sin City : 3x4
49. Bedtime Stories : 3x5
50. Red Sky at Morning : 3x6
51. Fresh Blood : 3x7
52. A Very Supernatural Christmas : 3x8
53. Malleus Maleficarum : 3x9
54. Dream a Little Dream of Me : 3x10
55. Mystery Spot : 3x11
56. Jus in Bello : 3x12
57. Ghostfacers! : 3x13
58. Long Distance Call : 3x14
59. Time Is on My Side : 3x15
60. No Rest for the Wicked : 3x16
61. Lazarus Rising : 4x1
62. Are You There, God? It's Me Dean Winchester : 4x2
63. In the Beginning : 4x3
64. Metamorphosis : 4x4
65. Monster Movie : 4x5
66. Yellow Fever : 4x6
67. It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester : 4x7
68. Whisful Thinking : 4x8
69. I Know What You Did Last Summer : 4x9
70. Heaven and Hell : 4x10
71. Family Remains : 4x11
72. Criss Angel Is a Douch Bag : 4x12
73. After School Special : 4x13
74. Sex and Violence : 4x14
75. Death Takes a Holiday : 4x15
76. On the Head of a Pin : 4x16
77. It's a Terrible Life : 4x17
78. The Monster at the End of This Book : 4x18
79. Jump the Shark : 4x19
80. The Rapture : 4x20
81. When the Levee Breaks : 4x21
82. Lucifer Rising : 4x22
83. Sympathy for the Devil : 5x1
84. Good God, Y'All : 5x2
85. Free to Be You and Me : 5x3
86. The End : 5x4
87. Fallen Idols : 5x5
88. I Believe the Children Are Our Future : 5x6
89. The Curious Case of Dean Winchester : 5x7
90. Changing Channels : 5x8
91. The Real Ghostbusters : 5x9
92. Abandon All Hope : 5x10
93. Sam, Interrupted : 5x11
94. Swap Meat : 5x12
95. The Song Remains the Same : 5x13
96. My Bloody Valentine : 5x14
97. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid : 5x15
98. Dark Side of the Moon : 5x16
99. 99 Problems : 5x17
100. Point of No Return : 5x18
101. Hammer of the Gods : 5x19
102. The Devil You Know : 5x20
103. Two Minutes to Midnight : 5x21
104. Swan Song : 5x22
105. Exile on Main St. : 6x1
106. Two and a Half Man : 6x2
107. The Third Man : 6x3
108. Weekend at Bobby's : 6x4
109. Live Free or Twi-hard : 6x5
110. You Can't Handle the Truth : 6x6
111. Family Matters : 6x7
112. All Dogs Go to Heaven : 6x8
113. Clap Your Hands If You Believe : 6x9
114. Caged Heat : 6x10
115. Appointment in Samarra : 6x11
116. Like a Virgin : 6x12
117. Unforgiven : 6x13
118. Mannequin 3: The Reckoning : 6x14
119. The French Mistake : 6x15
120. ... And Then There Were None : 6x16
121. My Heart Will Go On : 6x17
122. Frontierland : 6x18
123. Mommy Dearest : 6x19
124. The Man Who Whould Be King : 6x20
125. Let It Bleed : 6x21
126. The Man Who Knew Too Much : 6x22
127. Meet the New Boss : 6x23
128. Hello, Cruel World : 7x1
129. The Girl Next Door : 7x2
130. Defending Your Life : 7x3
131. Shut Up, Dr. Phil : 7x4
132. Slash Fiction : 7x5
133. The Mentalists : 7x6
134. Season Seven, Time for a Wedding! : 7x7
135. Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel : 7x8
136. How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters : 7x9
137. Death's Door : 7x10
138. Adventures in Babysitting : 7x11
139. Time After Time : 7x12
140. The Slice Girls : 7x13
141. Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie : 7x14
142. Repo Man : 7x15
143. Out with the Old : 7x16
144. The Born-Again Identity : 7x17
145. Party On, Garth : 7x18
146. Of Grave Importance : 7x19
147. The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo : 7x20
148. Reading Is Fundamental : 7x21
149. There Will Be Blood : 7x22
150. Survival of the Fittest : 7x23
151. We Need to Talk About Kevin : 8x1
152. What's Up, Tiger Mommy? : 8x2
153. Heartache : 8x3
154. Bitten : 8x4
155. Blood Brother : 8x5
156. Southern Comfort : 8x6
157. A Little Slice of Kevin : 8x7
158. Hunteri Heroici : 8x8
159. Citizen Fang : 8x9
160. Torn and Frayed : 8x10
161. LARP and the Real Girl : 8x11
162. As Time Goes By : 8x12
163. Everybody Hates Hitler : 8x13
164. Trial and Error : 8x14
165. Man's Best Friend with Benefits : 8x15
166. Remember the Titans : 8x16
167. Goodbye Stranger : 8x17
168. Freaks and Geeks : 8x18
169. Taxi Driver : 8x19
170. Pac-Man Fever : 8x20
171. The Great Escapist : 8x21
172. Clip Show : 8x22
173. Sacrifice : 8x23
174. I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here : 9x1
175. Devil May Care : 9x2
176. I'm No Angel : 9x3
177. Slumber Party : 9x4
178. Dog Dean Afternoon : 9x5
179. Heaven Can't Wait : 9x6
180. Bad Boys : 9x7
181. Rock and a Hard Place : 9x8
182. Holy Terror : 9x9
183. Road Trip : 9x10
184. First Born : 9x11
185. Sharp Teeth : 9x12
186. The Purge : 9x13
187. Captives : 9x14
188. #thinman : 9x15
189. Blade Runners : 9x16
190. Mother's Little Helper : 9x17
191. Meta Fiction : 9x18
192. Alex Annie Alexis Ann : 9x19
193. Bloodlines : 9x20
194. King of the Damned : 9x21
195. Stairway to Heaven : 9x22
196. Do You Believe in Miracles : 9x23
197. Black : 10x1
198. Reichenbach : 10x2
199. Soul Survivor : 10x3
200. Fan Fiction : 10x4
201. Paper Moon : 10x5
202. Ask Jeeves : 10x6
203. Girls, Girls, Girls : 10x7
204. Hibbing 911 : 10x8
205. The Things We Left Behind : 10x9
206. The Hunter Games : 10x10
207. There's No Place Like Home : 10x11
208. About a Boy : 10x12
209. Halt & Catch Fire : 10x13
210. The Executioner's Song : 10x14
211. The Thing They Carried : 10x15
212. Paint It Black : 10x16
213. Inside Man : 10x17
214. Book of the Damned : 10x18
215. The Werther Project : 10x19
216. Angel Heart : 10x20
217. Dark Dynasty : 10x21
218. The Prisoner : 10x22
219. Brother's Keeper : 10x23
220. Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire : 11x1
221. Form and Void : 11x2
222. The Bad Seed : 11x3
223. Baby : 11x4
224. Thin Lizzie : 11x5
225. Our Little World : 11x6
226. Plush : 11x7
227. Just My Imagination : 11x8
228. O Brother, Where Art Thou? : 11x9
229. The Devil in the Details : 11x10
230. Into the Mystic : 11x11
231. Don't You Forget About Me : 11x12
232. Love Hurts : 11x13
233. The Vessel : 11x14
234. Beyond the Mat : 11x15
235. Safe House : 11x16
236. Red Meat : 11x17
237. Hell's Angel : 11x18
238. The Chitters : 11x19
239. Don't Call Me Shurley : 11x20
240. All in the Family : 11x21
241. We Happy Few : 11x22
242. Alpha and Omega : 11x23
243. Keep Calm and Carry On : 12x1
244. Mamma Mia : 12x2
245. The Foundry : 12x3
246. American Nightmare : 12x4
247. The One You've Been Waiting For : 12x5
248. Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox : 12x6
249. Rock Never Dies : 12x7
250. LOTUS : 12x8
251. First Blood : 12x9
252. Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets : 12x10
253. Regarding Dean : 12x11
254. Stuck in the Middle (With You) : 12x12
255. Family Feud : 12x13
256. The Raid : 12x14
257. Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell : 12x15
258. Ladies Drink Free : 12x16
259. The British Invasion : 12x17
260. The Memory Remains : 12x18
261. The Future : 12x19
262. Twigs & Twine & Tasha Banes : 12x20
263. There's Something About Mary : 12x21
264. Who We Are : 12x22
265. All Along the Watchtower : 12x23
266. Lost and Found : 13x1
267. The Rising Son : 13x2
268. Patience : 13x3
269. The Big Empty : 13x4
270. Advanced Thanatology : 13x5
271. Tombstone : 13x6
272. War of the Worlds : 13x7
273. The Scorpion and the Frog : 13x8
274. The Bad Place : 13x9
275. Wayward Sisters : 13x10
276. Breakdown : 13x11
277. Various & Sundry Villains : 13x12
278. Devil's Bargain : 13x13
279. Good Intentions : 13x14
280. A Most Holy Man : 13x15
281. ScoobyNatural : 13x16
282. The Thing : 13x17
283. Bring 'em Back Alive : 13x18
284. Funeralia : 13x19
285. Unfinished Business : 13x20
286. Beat the Devil : 13x21
287. Exodus : 13x22
288. Let the Good Times Roll : 13x23
289. Stranger in a Strange Land : 14x1
290. Gods and Monsters : 14x2
291. The Scar : 14x3
292. Nightmare Logic : 14x4
293. Optimism : 14x5
294. Unhuman Nature : 14x6
295. Byzantium : 14x7
296. The Spear : 14x8
297. Nihilism : 14x9
298. Damaged Goods : 14x10
299. Prophet and Loss : 14x11
300. Lebanon : 14x12
301. Mint Condition : 14x13
302. Ouroboros : 14x14
303. Peace of Mind : 14x15
304. Don't Go in the Woods : 14x16
305. Game Night : 14x17
306. Absence : 14x18
307. Jack in the Box : 14x19
308. Moriah : 14x20
309. Back and to the Future : 15x1
310. Raising Hell : 15x2
311. The Rupture : 15x3
312. Atomic Monsters : 15x4
313. Proverbs 17:3 : 15x5
314. Golden Time : 15x6
315. Last Call : 15x7
316. Our Father, Who Aren't in Heaven : 15x8
317. The Trap : 15x9
318. The Heroes' Journey : 15x10
319. The Gamblers : 15x11
320. Galaxy Brain : 15x12
321. Destiny's Child : 15x13
322. Last Holiday : 15x14
323. Gimme Shelter : 15x15
324. Drag Me Away (From You) : 15x16
325. Unity : 15x17
326. Despair : 15x18
327. Inherit the Earth : 15x19
328. Carry On : 15x20
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prepared to eat these words possibly but i’m… really not convinced that jaune’s going to have the villain arc that so many people seem to expect from him in V9. ominous fiery knight in the teaser, sure, it does seem like a nonzero possibility but i have yet to see an argument for how he gets there from guilt-stricken self-hatred and grief that doesn’t boil down to “…and then the ever after brainwashes him”
1. the ever after appears to respond to emotions, and 2. the release date trailer has ruby encountering a figment of her younger self; it seems more likely to me that the knight is, well… that. a manifestation of what jaune feels about himself that he will need to confront.
further, it would feel extremely odd imo for the volume that promises to be about exploration of the main characters’ self-identities, their chosen purposes, their understanding of themselves as heroes, to maneuver jaune into a major antagonistic role—the story then becomes about team rwby alternately fighting jaune or trying to save him, relegating their own desperately needed reckonings to the narrative margins. either the release date trailer is flat out lying by making ruby’s lack of identity beyond heroism its centerpiece or whatever’s going on with jaune isn’t meant to pull focus, and in light of how overtly V6-8 built up toward ruby having a crisis of identity after taking up the mantle of humanity’s savior the latter feels several orders of magnitude more likely.
i’m just. doubtful that a jaune villain arc of any significance can happen at this point without turning into the locus of the volume’s identity theme, and rwby is frankly Better Than That; on the other hand, there is a second and only slightly less salient question undergirding V9 and that is whether or not the kids are equipped to stop salem, and i think THAT is likely to be where jaune fits into the narrative arc. because i don’t think the answer to that question is a matter of capability. how do you stop a desperate woman who cannot be stopped by force? you have to talk to her. the inescapable fact is that this conflict does not end until salem either wins or they negotiate with her; the kids are not equipped to do that now, but i suspect they will be by the time they make it back to remnant.
and, very conveniently, salem’s heroic foil is stranded in the ever after too, isolated and grappling with his private demons while team rwby try to find their way home without him because none of them know that he fell. i think they’re probably going to trip over him at a critical point in the “how do we stop salem?” narrative arc and jaune, who a) is by a wide margin the likeliest hero-side character to be able to think about salem’s side of this conflict (because his own ordeals fairly closely mirror hers), and b) has already had the seed planted re: salem being possible to reason with, will be integral in revealing the answer.
(check mr. tactics guy’s expression when salem Releases Them in witch, then ask yourself this: why did the woman who can effortlessly pin people to the floor with a snap of her fingers deliberately withdraw the restraints holding her captives before she fought hazel to, notionally, prevent him from giving those captives a window of opportunity to escape? bc jaune noticed that. he didn’t have the chance to think about it right then but now he’s stuck in wonderland with nothing to do but agonize about whether he could have done something, ANYTHING different so that penny could still be alive. and: he really didn’t have a choice during the battle. he had seconds to act; his semblance does not heal injuries anywhere near that quickly. but what if he could have done something before that battle to alter the course of fate? what if he’d acted on that moment of confusion back on the whale, for example. what if he’d followed that perception of something not adding up to the bizarre but logical conclusion that salem decided to let them escape for some reason, what if he’d gotten oscar off the whale and left the ace-ops to blow her up instead, would the ultimatum have still happened, would the evacuation and the catastrophic fight that interrupted it have gone differently? would it have happened at all?—the answer is probably no, it wouldn’t have changed very much in the grand scheme, because even if ironwood used his nuke blowing salem up she would’ve been back in an hour or two tops and penny had already been infected by the virus by then. but think about how irresistible this line of thinking might be to a guy whose self-esteem was already on the floor before cinder murdered his friend right in front of him, when his desperation not to lose anyone else and his hatred of himself for not being able to save pyrrha has been what drives him since beacon fell. this poor kid’s brain is going to be fucking devouring anything, any inkling of “maybe if i had done this penny wouldn’t have died” whether it’s rational or not. and like… they gave him that beat of “huh???” after salem set them loose for a reason.)
#also reading other peoples jaune speculation feels so.#i am watching a different show and mine is better
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I made a list of all the supernatural episodes in case anyone want to check them off as they watch them! 😊
Season One
- [ ] Pilot
- [ ] Weddigo
- [ ] Dead in the water
- [ ] Phantom Traveler
- [ ] Bloody Mary
- [ ] Skin
- [ ] Hook Man
- [ ] Bugs
- [ ] Home
- [ ] Asylum
- [ ] Scarecrow
- [ ] Faith
- [ ] Route 666
- [ ] Nightmare
- [ ] The Benders
- [ ] Shadow
- [ ] Hell House
- [ ] Something Wicked
- [ ] Provenance
- [ ] Dead Man’s Blood
- [ ] Salvation
- [ ] Devil’s Trap
Season Two
- [ ] In my time of Dying
- [ ] Everybody loves a clown
- [ ] Bloodlust
- [ ] Children shouldn’t play with dead things
- [ ] Simon said
- [ ] No exit
- [ ] The usual suspects
- [ ] Crossroads blues
- [ ] Croatoan
- [ ] Hunted
- [ ] Playthings
- [ ] Nightshifter
- [ ] Houses of the holy
- [ ] Born under a bad sign
- [ ] Tall tales
- [ ] Roadkill
- [ ] Heart
- [ ] Hollywood Babylon
- [ ] Folsom Prison Blues
- [ ] What is and what should never be
- [ ] All hell broke loose part 1
- [ ] All hell broke loose part 2
Season three
- [ ] The magnificent seven
- [ ] The kids are alright
- [ ] Bad day on black rock
- [ ] Sin city
- [ ] Bedtime stories
- [ ] Red sky at morning
- [ ] Fresh blood
- [ ] A very supernatural Christmas
- [ ] Malleus maleficarum
- [ ] Dream a little dream
- [ ] Mystery spot
- [ ] Jus in bello
- [ ] Ghostfacers
- [ ] Long distance call
- [ ] Time is on my side
- [ ] No rest for the wicked
Season four
- [ ] Lazarus rising
- [ ] Are you there? God it's me, Dean Winchester.
- [ ] In the beginning
- [ ] Metamorphosis
- [ ] Monster movie
- [ ] Yellow fever
- [ ] It's the great pumpkin Sam Winchester
- [ ] Wishful thinking
- [ ] I know what you did last summer
- [ ] Heaven and Hell
- [ ] Family remains
- [ ] Cross angel is a douche bag
- [ ] Afterschool special
- [ ] Sex and violence
- [ ] Death takes a holiday
- [ ] On the head of a pin
- [ ] It's a terrible life
- [ ] The monster at the end of this book
- [ ] Jump the shark
- [ ] The rapture
- [ ] When the levee breaks
- [ ] Lucifer rising
Season five
- [ ] Sympathy for the devil
- [ ] Good God, y'all
- [ ] Free to be you and me
- [ ] The end
- [ ] Fallen idols
- [ ] I believe the children are our future
- [ ] The curious case of Dean Winchester
- [ ] Changing channels
- [ ] The real Ghostbusters
- [ ] Abandon all
- [ ] Sam interrupted
- [ ] Swap meet
- [ ] The remains the same
- [ ] My bloody valentine
- [ ] Dead men don't wear plaid
- [ ] Dark side of the moon
- [ ] 99 problems
- [ ] Point of no return
- [ ] Hammer of the gods
- [ ] The devil you know
- [ ] Two minutes to midnight
- [ ] Swan song
Season six
- [ ] Exile on Main Street
- [ ] Two and a Half Men
- [ ] The third man
- [ ] Weed, Bobby
- [ ] Live free or twi-hard
- [ ] Family matters
- [ ] All dogs go to heaven
- [ ] Clap your hands, if you believe
- [ ] Caged heat
- [ ] Appointment with Samarra
- [ ] Like a virgin
- [ ] Unforgiven
- [ ] Mannequin three the reckoning
- [ ] The mistake
- [ ] And then there was none
- [ ] My heart will go on
- [ ] Frontierland
- [ ] Mommy, dearest
- [ ] The man who would be king
- [ ] Let it bleed
- [ ] The man who knew too much
Season seven
- [ ] Meet the new boss
- [ ] Hello, cruel world
- [ ] The girl next-door
- [ ] Defending your life
- [ ] Shut up Dr Phil
- [ ] Slash fiction
- [ ] The mentalists
- [ ] Season seven time for a wedding
- [ ] How to win friends, and influence monsters
- [ ] Death’s door
- [ ] Adventures in babysitting
- [ ] Time after time
- [ ] The slice girls
- [ ] Plucky, Penny whistles, magic, menagerie
- [ ] Repo man
- [ ] Out with the old
- [ ] The born again identity
- [ ] Party on Garth
- [ ] Of grave importance
- [ ] The girl with the dungeons and dragons tattoo
- [ ] Reading is fundamental
- [ ] There will be blood
- [ ] Survival of the fittest
Season eight
- [ ] We don't talk about Kevin
- [ ] What's up Tiger mommy
- [ ] Heart ache
- [ ] Bitten
- [ ] Blood brother
- [ ] Southern comfort
- [ ] A slice of Kevin
- [ ] Hunteri heronici
- [ ] Citizen, fang
- [ ] Torn and frayed
- [ ] LARP and the real girl
- [ ] As time goes by
- [ ] Everybody hates Hitler
- [ ] Trial and error
- [ ] Man's best friend with benefits
- [ ] Remember, the Titans
- [ ] Goodbye, stranger
- [ ] Freaks and geeks
- [ ] Taxi driver
- [ ] Pac-Man fever
- [ ] The great escapist
- [ ] Clip show
- [ ] Sacrifice
Season nine
- [ ] I think I'm gonna like it here
- [ ] Devil may care
- [ ] I'm no angel
- [ ] Slumber party
- [ ] Dog Dean afternoon
- [ ] Heaven can't wait
- [ ] Bad boys
- [ ] Rock and a hard place
- [ ] Holy terror
- [ ] Road trip
- [ ] First born
- [ ] Sharp teeth
- [ ] The purge
- [ ] Captives
- [ ] #ThinMan
- [ ] Blade runners
- [ ] Mother's little helper
- [ ] Meta-fiction
- [ ] Alex, Annie, Alexis, ann
- [ ] Bloodlines
- [ ] King of the Damned
- [ ] Stairway to Heaven
- [ ] Do you believe in miracles?
Season ten
- [ ] Black
- [ ] Reichenbach
- [ ] Soul Survivor
- [ ] Paper moon
- [ ] Fanfiction
- [ ] Ask Jeeves
- [ ] Girls girls girls
- [ ] Hibbing, 911
- [ ] The things we left behind
- [ ] The hunter games
- [ ] There's no place like home
- [ ] About a boy
- [ ] Halt and catch fire
- [ ] The executioner song
- [ ] The things they carried
- [ ] Paint it black
- [ ] Inside man
- [ ] Book of the Damned
- [ ] The werther project
- [ ] Dark dynasty
- [ ] The prisoner
- [ ] Brothers keeper
Season eleven
- [ ] Out of the darkness into the fire
- [ ] Form and void
- [ ] The bad seed
- [ ] Baby
- [ ] Thin Lizzie
- [ ] Our little world
- [ ] Plush
- [ ] Just my imagination
- [ ] Oh, brother, where art thou?
- [ ] The devil in the details
- [ ] Into the Mystic
- [ ] Don't forget about me
- [ ] Love hurts
- [ ] The vessel
- [ ] Beyond the mat
- [ ] Safe house
- [ ] Red meat
- [ ] Hells angel
- [ ] The chitters
- [ ] Don't call me Shurley
- [ ] All in the family
- [ ] We happy few
- [ ] Alpha and Omega
Season twelve
- [ ] Keep calm and carry on
- [ ] Mamma Mia
- [ ] The foundry
- [ ] American nightmare
- [ ] The one you've been waiting for
- [ ] Celebrating the life of Asa fox
- [ ] Rock never dies
- [ ] Lotus
- [ ] First blood
- [ ] Lily Sunder has some regrets
- [ ] Regarding Dean
- [ ] Stuck in the middle ( with you )
- [ ] Family feud
- [ ] The raid
- [ ] Somewhere between heaven and hell
- [ ] Ladies drink free
- [ ] The British invasion
- [ ] The memory remains
- [ ] The future
- [ ] Twigs and twine, and Tasha Baines
- [ ] There's something about Mary
- [ ] Who we are
- [ ] All along the watchtower
Season thirteen
- [ ] Lost and found
- [ ] The rising Sun
- [ ] Patience
- [ ] The big empty box
- [ ] Advanced thanatology
- [ ] Tombstone
- [ ] War of the worlds
- [ ] The scorpion and the frog
- [ ] The bad place
- [ ] Wayward sisters
- [ ] Breakdown
- [ ] Various and sundry villains
- [ ] Devil bargain
- [ ] Good intentions
- [ ] A holy man
- [ ] Scoobynatural
- [ ] The thing
- [ ] Bring ‘em back alive
- [ ] Funeralia
- [ ] Unfinished business
- [ ] Beat the devil
- [ ] Exodus
- [ ] Let the good Times roll
Season fourteen
- [ ] Stranger in a strange land
- [ ] Gods and monsters
- [ ] The scar
- [ ] Mint condition
- [ ] Nightmare, logic
- [ ] Optimism
- [ ] Unhuman nature
- [ ] Byzantium
- [ ] The spear
- [ ] Nihilism
- [ ] Damaged goods
- [ ] Profit and loss
- [ ] Lebanon
- [ ] Ouroboros
- [ ] Peace of mind
- [ ] Don't go in the woods
- [ ] Game night
- [ ] Absence
- [ ] Jack-in-the-Box
- [ ] Moriah
Season fifteen
- [ ] Back and to the future
- [ ] Raising hell
- [ ] The rapture
- [ ] Atomic monsters
- [ ] Proverbs 17:3
- [ ] Golden time
- [ ] Last call
- [ ] Our father, who aren't in heaven
- [ ] The trap
- [ ] The heroes journey
- [ ] The gambler
- [ ] Galaxy brain
- [ ] Destiny's Child
- [ ] Last holiday
- [ ] Gimme shelter
- [ ] Drag me away(from you)
- [ ] Unity
- [ ] Despair
- [ ] Inherit the Earth
- [ ] Carry-on
#supernatural#list#episodes#binge watching#the cw#dean winchester#sam winchester#arthur ketch#john winchester#jensen ackles#jared padalecki#castiel#misha collins
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hi besties !!
idk what to do with myself, so i chose to rank the episodes of supernatural solely based on their title. i will be rating each season separately. also disclaimer i have not watched all of spn and don’t remember what happens in which episode. i’m only rating how much i like the episode titles. sometimes even with explanation!! have fun spn mutuals and everyone else
ranking under the read more
Season 1:
Dead in the Water (reminds me of the song which is now stuck in my head)
Route 666
Hook Man
Scarecrow (reminds me of the mcr song) (i think I’m sensing a theme)
Hell House
Phantom Traveler
Bugs
Something Wicked
Devil's Trap
Faith
Dead Man's Blood
Salvation
Bloody Mary
Home
Shadow
Nightmare
Provenance
The Benders
Asylum
Skin
Pilot
Wendigo
Season 2:
In My Time of Dying
What Is and What Should Never Be (for these first two i actually prefer the german translation)
The Usual Suspects
No Exit
Folsom Prison Blues
Simon Said
All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1/2
Hollywood Babylon
Houses of the Holy
Crossroad Blues
Heart
Born Under a Bad Sign
Tall Tales
Bloodlust
Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things
Everybody Loves a Clown
Hunted
Nightshifter
Roadkill
Croatoan
Playthings
Season 3:
The Kids Are Alright
Sin City
Dream a Little Dream of Me
No Rest for the Wicked (reminds me of the song- *gets shot*)
The Magnificent Seven
Bad Day at Black Rock
Time Is on My Side
Red Sky at Morning
Bedtime Stories
Mystery Spot
Ghostfacers
Jus in Bello
Fresh Blood
Long Distance Call
Malleus Maleficarum
A Very Supernatural Christmas
by now i have realized that i just don’t like one-word titles that much.
Season 4:
Lazarus Rising
Lucifer Rising
In the Beginning
Family Remains
Wishful Thinking
Heaven and Hell
Sex and Violence
The Monster at the End of This Book
On the Head of a Pin
The Rapture
When the Levee Breaks
It's a Terrible Life
Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester
Metamorphosis
Criss Angel Is a Douche Bag
Monster Movie
Death Takes a Holiday
Jump the Shark
Yellow Fever
It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester
I Know What You Did Last Summer
After School Special
Season 5:
The Song Remains the Same
Abandon All Hope
Dark Side of the Moon
Sympathy for the Devil
Fallen Idols
Two Minutes to Midnight
Swan Song
Point of No Return
Changing Channels
The End
The Devil You Know
Free to Be You and Me
Swap Meat
Hammer of the Gods
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
I Believe the Children Are Our Future
My Bloody Valentine
The Real Ghostbusters
Sam, Interrupted
The Curious Case of Dean Winchester
99 Problems
Good God, Y'all
Season 6:
The Man Who Would Be King
Exile on Main Street
Family Matters
Let It Bleed
The Third Man
Appointment in Samarra
The French Mistake
Unforgiven
Frontierland
The Man Who Knew Too Much
You Can't Handle the Truth
And Then There Were None
Mommy Dearest
Weekend at Bobby's
Caged Heat
Like a Virgin
Mannequin 3: The Reckoning
Live Free or Twihard
Clap Your Hands If You Believe
My Heart Will Go On (i don’t like titanic)
Two and a Half Men
All Dogs Go to Heaven
Season 7:
Death's Door
Hello, Cruel World
Defending Your Life
Time After Time
The Girl Next Door
The Mentalists
Repo Man
The Born-Again Identity
Out with the Old
Party On, Garth
How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters
Of Grave Importance
Slash Fiction
There Will Be Blood
Meet the New Boss
The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo
Reading Is Fundamental
Survival of the Fittest
Adventures in Babysitting
Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie
The Slice Girls
Shut Up, Dr. Phil
Season Seven, Time for a Wedding
not to be hateful but I don’t feel like the titles are getting any better…
Season 8:
As Time Goes By
Blood Brother
Southern Comfort
Torn and Frayed
Goodbye Stranger
Heartache
Trial and Error
Sacrifice
Bitten
Remember the Titans
Taxi Driver
The Great Escapist
Clip Show
Freaks and Geeks
Everybody Hates Hitler
Hunteri Heroici
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Pac-Man Fever
Citizen Fang
A Little Slice of Kevin
Man's Best Friend with Benefits
LARP and the Real Girl
What's Up, Tiger Mommy (at this point i’m realizing that i hate one-word and really long titles equally)
Season 9:
Stairway to Heaven
Devil May Care
Heaven Can't Wait
I'm No Angel
Rock and a Hard Place
King of the Damned
Holy Terror
Sharp Teeth
First Born
Bloodlines
Do You Believe in Miracles?
Meta Fiction
Road Trip
The Purge
Blade Runners
Alex Annie Alexis Ann
Mother's Little Helper
Bad Boys
Captives
I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here
Slumber Party
Dog Dean Afternoon
#THINMAN (jesus not the hashtag…)
Season 10:
Paper Moon
The Things We Left Behind
Paint It Black
Black
The Executioner's Song
The Things They Carried
Halt and Catch Fire
The Werther Project (everything with “the __ project” automatically slays)
Angel Heart
Reichenbach (i am painfully reminded of a certain tv show)
Dark Dynasty
Book of the Damned
There's No Place Like Home
The Prisoner
Girls, Girls, Girls
Brother's Keeper
About a Boy
Inside Man
The Hunter Games
Soul Survivor
Hibbing 911
Ask Jeeves
Fan Fiction
Season 11:
Form and Void
Don't You Forget About Me
Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire
Brother, Where Art Thou?
Love Hurts
Alpha and Omega (i don’t even have to say it)
Just My Imagination
The Vessel
Hell's Angel
All in the Family
We Happy Few
Into the Mystic
The Devil in the Details
Beyond the Mat
Safe House
The Bad Seed
Red Meat
The Chitters
Don't Call Me Shurley
Baby
Our Little World
Thin Lizzie
Plush
Season 12:
Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell
American Nightmare
The Memory Remains
All Along the Watchtower
The One You've Been Waiting For
Family Feud
The Future
Who We Are
Rock Never Dies
The Raid
First Blood
The Foundry
The British Invasion
Ladies Drink Free
Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox
Stuck in the Middle (With You) (not huge on the bracketed titles. perhaps i’m just a hater)
LOTUS
Twigs & Twine & Tasha Banes
Regarding Dean
There's Something About Mary
Mamma Mia
Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets
Keep Calm and Carry On (we are not in 2012 anymore)
Season 13:
Exodus
The Rising Son
Tombstone
Let the Good Times Roll
Lost and Found
Advanced Thanatology
The Bad Place
Beat the Devil
War of the Worlds
Bring 'em Back Alive
Devil's Bargain
Unfinished Business
A Most Holy Man
Wayward Sisters
Patience
Good Intentions
The Scorpion and the Frog
Funeralia
The Big Empty
Various and Sundry Villains
Scoobynatural
The Thing
Season 14:
Damaged Goods
Gods and Monsters
Prophet and Loss
Moriah (went to school with someone named moriah)
Mint Condition
Lebanon
The Scar
Absence
Peace of Mind
Nightmare Logic
Unhuman Nature
Ouroboros
Byzantium
Stranger in a Strange Land
Don't Go in the Woods
Optimism
Jack in the Box
The Spear
Nihilism
Game Night
Season 15:
Carry On
Our Father, Who Aren't in Heaven
Last Call
Inherit the Earth
Raising Hell
Golden Time
Proverbs 17:3
Last Holiday
The Truth
The Trap
The Gamblers
Back and to the Future
Drag Me Away (From You)
Atomic Monsters
The Rupture
Unity (reminds me of a song i hate)
The Heroes' Journey
Galaxy Brain
Destiny's Child
Gimme Shelter
if you read all of this i’m impressed and want to study you like a bug
have a great day <33
#btw i have a broken keyboard where the letters a y & Q don't work. i had to copy and paste them for everthing (except the actual ep titles)#so you better be impressed with this !#supernatural
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In Defense of Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, and Echo
I want to clarify that I like Crosshair. I used to love him and I just kinda like him now, but he's a great character. I hold nothing against his fans. I just want to talk about how people are slandering these 4 like they did everything wrong when everything they did was pretty justified.
I need to talk about Crosshair's chip, because that affects how we all view these final episodes. While I agree things don't add up completely, Cross has no scar, nursing a headache, etc., his behavior DOES indicate he is telling the truth.
Chipped clones have been shown to show loyalty to the Empire above all else. They killed the jedi, they'll kill innocents, they forget all sentimentality, and we see with Jesse that they will more than happily die to accomplish the chip's commands. The Batch has experience with this with Captain Grey in the premiere and later Wrecker. Chipped clones are basically battle droids.
Crosshair does not act like that at all. He shows sentiment and loyalty to personal history, he defies orders to even kill his fellow imperials, and he puts aside his anger in order to escape Kamino. NONE of those things are congruent with him having a chip in at all. So while it doesn't add up completely either way, the evidence honestly seems to favor that he's telling the truth as his behavior is a huge tell that has not been shown to be able to be countered for more than a few seconds (love you Rex) while an absence of a scar could indicate a variety of things and the headache can honestly just be chronic pain from his insane head injury in Episode 8. I'm not saying that is the truth, but what I am saying is the evidence provided can easily line up to more than make it believable that Wrecker, Echo, and Tech believe he has it out.
Wrecker does know what a chip feels like, so we all expected more empathy from him, but Crosshair is not acting the way did Wrecker did AT ALL. Wrecker lost all control and immediately tried to kill the people he loves most, while as stated Crosshair is exhibiting almost opposite behavior. Wrecker knows what a chip does to you and Crosshair is definetly not showing that, so why would Wrecker show empathy for it? Wrecker knows first hand that is not what the chip does to you so it more than makes sense that he sees Crosshair's behavior and story and believes it.
Crosshair's intense feelings of Supremacy and loyalty to the Empire are not out of no where. We see in TCW that he is incredibly cruel about regs, he has always hated them. So considering the journey he went on this season it does feel like a realistic progression of belief.
Crosshair also is hurting his own cause here. Now we as the audience know for sure he had it in for Episode 1, we are shown explicit evidence. We have no idea when he got it out though due to the lack of a scar, and his refusal to specify hurts him here because what he actually did as himself vs. chipped is VERY important. I also want to say that while the audience knows Crosshair has the chip in in Episode 1, no evidence is provided to the Batch to know that, so Crosshair saying he had it out "a long time ago" means it is reasonable that the Batch could even suspect everything he did since Episode 1 was him. And here's a quick rundown of some things he did this season that the Batch would know about:
Obeyed Order 66 and shot at a child jedi even when ordered to stand down
Advocated to kill civilians to the others
Shot Wrecker and used him as bait to lure the others out
Lead dozens of Troopers to Bracca to kill them
Went out of his way to order his troops to kill Omega during that confrontation within earshot of Hunter
Tried to burn them all alive with an Ion Engine
Contributed to the oppression of Ryloth
Arrested Howzer, a clone who was trying to do the right thing
Spouted supremacist jargon about how they are superior to regs (something Hunter, Tech, and Wrecker have been shown to be softening up on)
Said the might of the Empire was the only way and basically gave them all the choice to join or die.
And remember, our heroes just got the revelation that potentially all of those actions were taken of Crosshair's own free will. They have every right to be harsh or unwelcoming after that. Sure they didn't try to rescue him but he also tried to put multiple blaster bolts through their heads, no one is innocent.
So the general coldness and harshness is more than understandable considering that Crosshair just admitted to trying to get them all killed on multiple occasions on his own free will, that would sour your relationship with anyone I reckon, so why are they expected to be okay with Crosshair doing all of that?
Anyway, to specifics. When Wrecker says Crosshair never even tried to come back and that they would have taken him, there is truth to that. During both Bracca and Ryloth, Crosshair was right there and had opportunities to turn heel and help them all escape, but he never did. I've seen this described as victim-blaming but you guys need to realize that Crosshair has potentially done ALL of this of his own free will and is actively trying to pull the others to the Empire. Wrecker is right, Crosshair put more effort into killing or converting them than he ever did in returning. It's harsh but it's true.
And Tech saying it's in his nature is like, classic Tech. I don't necessarily agree that they all have set paths due to their biology like Tech does, but Tech began this season rattling off about how Wrecker was made to be the way he was, this is just how Tech rolls.
The one I see a lot is after Crosshair rescues Omega and they still have the guns up and then never thank him. First of all, Crosshair never thanked them either for saving his life so let's not go around expecting any shows of gratitude from everyone. But more importantly, how were they supposed to know that Crosshair was saving Omega? As a viewer I legit thought he was aiming for Hunter there, it makes more than enough sense that they pulled their weapons on him. And considering their recent history, it makes sense that all three of them keep their weapons up longer than needed, both Hunter and Omega are potentially at risk. We all saw how quickly all of them drew their weapons in Episode 13 at even the slightest hint of danger to Omega. Considering everything before, it makes sense they kept them up until he disarmed himself, that's just good self defense honestly.
And my final point:
CROSSHAIR WAS NOT ABANDONED AT THE END OF THE SEASON
He was given multiple invitations and opportunities to join. Sure, he was not made to feel all that welcome, but even after all of the season and the finale, Wrecker stops to ask if he is coming and Hunter gives him one last chance. He was given many opportunities to go with them. He said he made his choice, that isn't abandonment, that's stepping away.
In Conclusion
Honestly all 6 of the main characters really dropped the ball on this season's conflict and no one is blameless or unjustified.
I'm not mad about it because it makes for compelling character drama, but everyone involved kinda didn't do their best, so maybe let's not slander one side over the other?
(Small lists of commenters who showed interest is seeing this: @violettavie @shilsvampsinger @rain-over-kamino )
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playing games (harry hook x reader)
prompt: “just admit it, you wanna kiss me.” “maybe you wanna kiss me and you think that using reverse psychology would make me kiss you.”
summary : harry and you tease and flirt with each other all the time, it’s like a game for the both of you. but is it still a game if you both start developing feeling for each other?
warnings : none
gif is not mine
Being the daughter of Dr. Facilier came with perks. For starters, you were feared by most people in the Isle which meant that the majority of the time no one interfered with your business. This meant that you could do pretty much whatever you wanted whenever you wanted which was wicked awesome. Second, you had been gifted by the spirits from the dark side with powers and while your father hadn’t been able to do magic without the help of his “friends from the other side” you could. Of course, magic wasn’t alllowed on the Isle, so you kept your abilities to yourself and seldom used them. You suspected your magic was one of the main reasons why your father despised you. He was jealous of your power. Your three brothers, on the other hand, had only inherited the charm and vicious manipulation from him which was probably the reason he preferred them over you.
“I’m heading to Ursula’s.” Your twin brother, Maximilian, told you as he jogged down the stairs. “Running some errands for dad. Wanna join?”
You studied your twin for a second. You were fraternal but the reasemblance between you was uncanny. He was the copy of you, just with different eye color and the body of a male.
You pondered for a second, before slamming your book shut. You stood from the couch, and smirked at your brother.
“Count me in, lil’ bro.”
“Gods, (Y/N). Just two and a half minutes.” He whined, hating when you reminded him that you were older.
You pretended to think. “According to my calculations, that still makes me older.” You grinned widely at his annoyed face, tapping his cheek twice as you walked past him and out of the house.
You both walked quietly for a few seconds, side by side. As usual, people stayed clear from your path, knowing not to mess with you unless they were prepared to face the consequences.
“So...” Your brother started, giving you a curious glance which you caught. By the look of his face you knew that whichever question he was going to ask you were not going to like it. “Harry Hook?”
You rolled your eyes, knowing exactly where this conversation was going, and punched him in the stomach with your elbow, not softly.
His groans were followed by chuckles.
“You’re creating something out of nothing.” Was your reply.
But was he really?
Harry Hook. You knew him all too well, more than you would’ve liked to admit. Hook had the tendency of being a flirt. He was charming and his pretty face combined with his hot accent had every girl in the Isle falling weak at their knees for him. All girls except you. You simply weren’t interested in the Scottish pirate (or at least you hadn’t been) and you reckoned that drove him mad. Therefore, out of frustration or maybe just amusement, Harry Hook had made it his life mission to get you to fall for him. He would tease you and flirt with you. Some days, you played his game just out of boredom and some days you didn’t even spare him a second glance. You knew that the sudden changes in your behavior drove him mad and you found that hilarious. He was obnoxiously annoying, but your interactions were oddly entertaining.
“Why did you agree to come with me, then?” Maximilian challenged, raising his eyebrow at you, the teasing tone never leaving.
“I was bored out of my mind.”
And he’s a good source of entretainment.
“Liar, liar. Little witch on fire.” He replied in a song song voice, laughing loudly as he dodged the arm you swung at him. He walked faster and away from your wrath still laughing at you.
“Asshole.” You mutter under your breath, jogging to catch up with him.
----
“Look what we have here!” Uma exclaimed as the two of you walked into her shop. “Witches, witches.” She exclaimed with a laugh, clapping her hands togheter as mischievousness filled her eyes. The whole room laughed at the comment, clapping their hands and following their captain.
“They should be fun to mess with.” She whispered excitedly to Harry, who sat besides her with his usual smirk on his face. He looked directly at you, meeting your gaze. You rolled your eyes when you saw the wicked grin that took over his features.
Oh, she definitely will be fun to mess with.
You looked around the place, looking calm and unbothered.
You didn’t knew for sure, but you were pretty certain that your dad had sent your brother for supplies for his potions. Ursula’s Fish and Chips was a restaurant, for a lack of a better word to describe the place, but the Sea Witch also sold some interesting artifacts to the villains she didn’t despise and your father happened to be one of them.
“Shrimpy!” Your brother exclaimed back, feigning innocence and excitement.
You snorted, pressing your lips together to suppress a smile.
Every single person in the room held their breath, except for Gil who giggled which earned him a glare from both Uma and her first mate. You saw Harry’s muscles clench and he went to stand up but Uma placed a hand on his chest and prevented him from doing anything.
You and your brother couldn’t have cared less if the comment offended her. Uma was harmless to a certain extent, you just had to know which buttons to push in order to make her angry but not aggressive. Luckily both of you were magnificent at pushing people’s buttons and driving them up the wall.
“You’re lucky I like you, Max.” Ursula said, sending him a cold glare.
“Oh, I most definitely feel privileged.” He retorted, giving her a wink. He moved towards her with you walking close behind.
Uma gave him the fakest smile she could’ve. When she realized everyone was still staring, she turned around. “What you looking at?” She growled, her voice booming around the small restaurant. Instantly, every person went back to whatever they had been previously doing.
“The Facilier twins.” Uma said, glaring one more time at your brother before looking your way. “What could possibly bring you here?” She tapped her chin as if she was pondering the answer. It was a rethorical question, she knew exactly why you were there.
“Well, definitely not for the food.” You muttered, looking around the place in disgust.
Maximilian snickered.
“What did you say?” Uma asked furiously. She was the person that took care of the place and she treasured it, even if she wouldn’t admit it. She wasn’t about to let you go around disrespecting it.
You had no problem answering back, provoking her. After all, causing fights was almost as entertaining as messing with Hook. “You heard me.”
Uma debated for a second before deciding to let it slide. She wasn’t in the mood for fighting with you or your twin, who could get very defensive and protective when it came to your safety.
Uma held your stare, daring you to look away and back down but you didn’t. You never backed down from a fight. She rolled her eyes in annoyance and looked away and back at your brother. “Annoying twin-“ She said as she pointed to your brother and nodded her head to a door adjacent to the kitchen. “-come with me.”
“Malicious twin-“ You interrupted her.
“Oh, that’s a big word. Are you proud?” Your brother snickered again, coughing to hide his amusement.
She gave you a cold glare and continued. “-stay here.” She sent a look Harry’s way and grinned slyly. “Keep Harry some company.”
“It’ll be my pleasure.” You replied smugly, sending a grin Harry’s way. He winked at you, smirking.
As Maximilian walked past you he whispered in your ear. “Creating something out of nothing, you said?” Which earned him a slap in the back of the head.
“How you’ve been, Hook?” You asked the pirate after moving towards him and sitting on the stool next to his. You turned around to be able to look at him directly in the eyes, placing your elbow on the table and lazily resting your face in your hand.
Harry didn’t miss a beat. Flirting with you was probably one of his favorite things to do. He liked the way you would easily fire something witty back and how you always maintained your composure, never letting it be known if you actually liked him or not.
“Better now ye’r here, love.” He replied and you chuckled at the cheesiness. No one but you noticed the way your heart skipped a beat. “Hadn’t seen ye n’ a while. Where ye’ve been?”
It was true, you hadn’t seen the pirate in a couple of weeks. You wouldn’t admit it but you had intentionally stayed away. Lately, you had been starting to feel a little something in your chest whenever you spoke to Harry and that scared you. You had tried to stay away in order to make the feeling go away and you had succeeded. Or so you had thought.
“Oh, you know, busy.” Your eyes held a glint of mischievousness which made Harry’s heart race. He loved that look on you, the look where you showed that you had been up to no good.
“Busy doin’ what?” He was quite curious, after all there wasn’t much you could do on the Isle.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” You teased.
“I very much would.” Came his reply.
You smirked but offered no reply.
He looked at you. Really looked at you. He noticed the speck of colors in your eyes and how your hair seemed to fall perfectly. He noticed the softness of your skin and the plumpness of your lips. Without giving any thought to what he was doing, he raised his hook to softly trace the outline of your face.
Your heart stopped and for a moment you didn’t knew how to react but you quickly regained your composure and grabbed the curve of his hook with your hand, gently pulling it away from your face.
“Hands to yourself, Hook. Wouldn’t want to give anyone the wrong impression.”
He let out a soft whistle at the comment, the smirk never leaving his face. This was the reason he was so drawn to you, you were witty and smart. You were also cunning and mischievous which drove him crazy. The cherry on top was that you were pretty, the most beautiful gal he had seen in his entire life.
Harry had been crushing on you ever since he had laid eyes on you. His feelings only intensified when he realized that you were the one girl he couldn’t have. You simply were “not interested” as you had told him years prior but then you would do things such as flirt back when he flirted with you which left him wondering if your words were still standing. You were infuriating and he couldn’t get you out of his mind.
He wasn’t sure if you felt the same way. Some days he was sure that you were attracted to him, the way you would look at him with what seemed to be tenderness and affection could not be faked, but some others you would pay no attention to him. He was going mad trying to figure you out. He settled for at least being able to flirt with you (he would be lying if he said it wasn’t entertaining), but he knew there was something between you two, a connection that went deeper than the stupid game you two had been playing from some time now.
“I think people r’ gon’ get the wrong impression anyways with the way ye’re looking at m’ lips, darlin’.” He shot back, eyebrows raising in amusement when you eyes widen the slightest. “Just admit it, you wanna kiss me.”
You did. You very much wanted to kiss him.
You would not allow yourself to lose your composure (no matter how kissable he looked) so you scoffed, rolling your eyes but the small smirk on your lips gave away the fact that you weren’t really annoyed by the comment.
You cocked your head to the side, licking your lips and biting them softly. You didn’t miss the way his eyes wandered down to look at your lips then back at your eyes. You raised one eyebrow, smirking. “Maybe you wanna kiss me and you think that using reverse psychology would make me kiss you.”
He chuckled, moving so that your faces were now only centimeters apart. “So what if I do.”
Before you could reply or even process his words a sound behind you made the both of you back away from each other with a jolt. You turned around in time to watch Uma and Maximilian cross the door they had gone into a few minutes prior. Your brother carried a small black box in his hands which probably contained the ingredients for your dad’s new potion (making potions was something that maintained him entertained, a hobby he had picked over the last years at the Isle).
Your brother eyed you and Hook curiously. The glint in his eyes told you that he knew something had happened, but he didn’t say a word. Good thing he didn’t or he would’ve earned some good punches to the gut from you.
“Always a pleasure doing business with you, Uma.” Maximilian said cheekily, turning his attention to the Sea Witch’s daughter.
She looked irritated which left you wondering what your brother had done to leave her so annoyed. The thought of Max bothering Uma brought a little smile to your face. Seeing her pissed off was fun even when you hadn’t been the one bothering her.
“Whatever you say, Facilier. Just get out before I lose my temper with you.” With that she walked into the kitchen and was gone.
Max gave you a look which meant that you had to leave to which you nodded your head. Leaving right now was probably a good option, you didn’t know what to respond to Harry and you sure as hell didn’t knew how you felt.
Turning around you gave one last look at the Scottish pirate before doing something so uncharacteristic of you that it left the both of you stunned.
Your sudden boldness surprised him, but it surprised you even more. You leaned in to leave a kiss just in the curve of his mouth. Close, but not close enough. A teasing kiss.
Pulling away you sent him a wink, looking more confident than you felt. “See you around, Harry.”
He was rendered breathless. He wasn’t quite sure if it was due to the kiss or the fact that you had just called him by his first name, something you had never done before. Maybe it was both.
“Yea’.” He whispered mostly to himself, his eyes not leaving your retrieving figure. The place where your lips had met his skin tingling ever so slightly.
Once you were out of the shop, you shoved Maximilian who was already in the process of opening his mouth no doubt to tease you endlessly.
“Not a word.”
#harry hook#harry hook x you#harry hook x reader#harry hook x y/n#descendants imagine#disney descendants#descendants#descendants 2#descendants 3#uma#gil#happyyyandcrazyyy writing
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Rewatching Hannibal 1x07 Sorbet, and noticing how much of it is about what happens when you don’t become the mask you wear for the rest of the world. What happens to the part of you that’s stubbornly distinct from your façade, when it’s been trapped behind it for so long that even you aren’t sure what it might look like when viewed (...seen). The fear that it’s malformed and pitiable, followed by the slim, terrifying hope that the person who glimpses it might care more about it than about your meticulously-ornamented shell. (Which, among other things, hoo boy if that ain’t a Big Queer Mood... fitting, really, that this is the episode with a gratifying little revenge fantasy about medical homophobia, serophobia, and hostile assumptions about what “ugly little secret” you must be hiding.)
And in that context, one of the Thomas Harris quotes remixed into this episode makes a lot more sense to me than it did on previous viewings: “I see [the Ripper] as one of those pitiful things sometimes born in hospitals [...] They let it die. But he doesn’t die. He looks normal. Nobody can tell what he is.” It’s a demonstration of the thing Hannibal finds most terrifying and alluring about Will: he keeps seeing through all the personae and person suits. At this point it’s through a glass darkly, but still with shocking clarity, considering he doesn’t even know what--who--he’s seeing. Hannibal spends the episode coming up with new misdirections on the spot to test him: the “Chesapeake Ripper or organ harvesters?” red herring, the little game of “two lies and a truth” with the Ripper photos in Quantico. And every time, Will demolishes the misdirections and acknowledges the tiny scraps of truth, almost effortlessly, without even realizing what he’s doing. The episode ends with Will skipping out on the Extremely Person Suit dinner party to go examine its ugly underbelly: the Ripper cases that put the food on the table. Of course Hannibal is secretly delighted at the snub.
It’s the prospect of being seen that forces Hannibal to reckon with what the thing under his many masks might look like. The thing that so stubbornly refuses to die, even when starved of connection or recognition. And the unpleasant truth is that that thing looks a lot more like Franklyn than he’d ever want to admit.
Franklyn is so cringe-inducing to watch as a character--and no doubt even more unpleasant to interact with--that, as with Freddie Lounds, the audience kinda has to wonder why Hannibal hasn’t killed him already. I suspect the answer is that he has a weird soft spot for Franklyn as a form of painful self-recognition. Trying to help Mr. Secondhand Embarrassment Personified is like watching a well-hidden, well-guarded part of himself walk around naked, no manners or charm or cultivation, none of the protections that make his person suit so well-tailored. The part that craves connection but has no idea how to go about it, the part that’s fascinated with (curious about) other people but avoids looking at the stunted void it fears is where its sense of self should be. Or, to get all purple about it: Franklyn is a man who flinches at the threshold of his innermost self, but shorn of all the exquisite mental architecture Hannibal's built himself to live in, reduced to begging anyone nearby for shelter.
Even in the next episode, Hannibal goes out of his way to encourage Tobias not to murder Franklyn, which is about as much mercy as he ever shows to people he has personal affection for but wouldn’t hesitate to kill for pragmatic reasons. Of course, because he’s Hannibal, he ends up murdering the poor bastard himself with no hesitation or remorse--but it’s not because of some line of unbearableness that Franklyn finally crossed. It’s because his desire to spite Tobias was stronger than any hope of sparing Franklyn, who by that point had probably seen too much anyway. In his next session with Bedelia he tells her one of his little sideways truths--yes, it’s funny on its face to see him go “I feel responsible for what happened to him” about the man whose neck he snapped with his own hands, but I do think he feels regret if not remorse, for not managing to engineer a situation that kept his cringey shadow self out of the line of fire.
(Side note: I suspect the reason Freddie Lounds didn’t get eaten in the very second episode is that she was the only other person to see through Will’s protective suit of “socially inept smol bean who is very distressed by the insights he gets from his Unspecified Problems Disorder.” Sure, she’s an absolute bitch about it, but she’s an absolute bitch who can pull off outfits even more outrageous than Hannibal’s--she appeals to his sense of fun. As soon as he realized she’d clocked Will as absolutely fucking seething with all kinds of dark potential 24/7, he decided her rudeness and vulgarity were far outweighed by the entertainment value of having her around to cause problems on purpose.)
(Side note #2: All of this neglects the main casefic plot, which does connect to the same themes, but somewhat less directly. The other person going around without a mask in 1x07 is Devon Silvestri, who’s also kind of an inept schlub when viewed for what he really is. He didn’t arrange that crime scene to look like a Ripper murder, he just panicked and GTFO’d--all the conflation comes from Jack Crawford’s desire to find the Ripper and from Hannibal seizing on it as an opportunity for misdirection. It does lead to some fun playing with “are the mutilations for Art (artifice, performance) or for more prosaic uses of the organs?” when the answer, of course, is that the difference between the Ripper murders and the botched organ theft is “why not both?” Silvestri’s one real deception is to pass himself off as an emergency first responder (his day job) while he’s working his less altruistic sideline, and we also get some fun triangulation when Hannibal has to take on that role for real. Will sees him, gets his first good look at Hannibal’s mastery of this skillset that he once cultivated as part of his person suit, but also sees him looking absolutely in his element as he uses his power over life and death to preserve life. He sees it even more clearly against the backdrop of Silvestri’s dubious competence and furtive discomfort with what he’s doing. In his conscious mind he accepts the best possible interpretation of that glimpse, even as he feels a bunch of less-conscious connections snap into place at the sight--ones he isn’t ready to face yet, but boy is he having Big Feelings about it. Some of which may or may not be diverting blood from his brain, and/or setting him up for uncomfortable wet dreams about Hannibal’s hands in his viscera, but thaaat’s probably a topic for another post.)
Anyway. Sorbet as an episode is about the exact opposite of “fake it ‘til you make it”--it’s about the self that doesn’t become what it performs, the wonder of having someone glimpse it no matter how well-hidden it is, and, crucially, the terror of finally examining what someone else may have glimpsed and finding it stunted, ugly, even pitiable in its isolation. Neither the “thing that doesn’t die” quote nor any of the stuff with Franklyn makes sense, IMO, without the realization that Franklyn is an uncomfortable mirror of what’s under Hannibal’s human veil--and that Hannibal is equal parts intrigued and freaked the fuck out that Will keeps catching glimpses of him through the veil.
#hannibal#meta#sorbet#hannibal lecter#will graham#franklyn froideveaux#freddie lounds#sure is a bunch of tasty Mortifying Ordeal bullshit in this episode#here have some tl;dr about it
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Can you please explain why you like Warren more than Sanders? I was too young to vote in 2016 but I would've voted Bernie in that primary, and I plan to do so this year(I'll vote whoever the Democrat party chooses in the real election, I understand the dangers of not doing so). I don't know much about the differences in their policies except that Sanders is slightly more leftist and a relatively simple comparison between the two would help. And how big of a factor should his age play in my vote?
Thanks for asking!
I think the best place for you to start, if you want everything explained in depth on each issue far more eloquently than I can, is to simply read the Political positions of Bernie Sanders and Political positions of Elizabeth Warren pages on Wikipedia, which outline their positions on pretty much everything you could think of. The main difference in how people perceive them lies in the fact that Bernie has been a democratic socialist for his entire political career, while Warren became a Democrat in 1996, and is viewed by the hard left as still being too pro-capitalist and/or pro-military and/or too ethically suspect and/or untrustworthy and/or could change her mind and betray them again. For a certain subset of people for whom purity of ideology and/or the strength of conviction is only ever demonstrated by never changing your mind and only ever having held the right positions, the fact that Warren’s political positions have changed over time seems dangerous, and that she isn’t as purely “socialist” as Bernie means that she is, in their eyes, a lesser candidate. As I said in the earlier ask, we will never have an American president who is completely free from the toxic elements of American ideology. There are things that I don’t fully agree with Warren on, absolutely. But lashing into her as a secret spineless corporate shill who would completely betray the progressive movement if she was elected has nothing to do with reality, certainly nothing that reflects her actual rhetoric and voting record, and once again demonstrates the tendency of a certain subset of Bernie supporters to completely refuse anything less than their candidate no matter what, and that is… frustrating.
Let me be clear: Warren and Sanders are my top two choices. Policy-wise, they’re the only candidates proposing anything I want to actually see enacted. I completely support anyone who wants to vote for either of them in the primary, and indeed, I ended my last post by strongly urging the anon (and anyone else who identified ideologically with Bernie) to vote for him in the primaries. I myself get a cold shudder at the idea of having to vote for Biden or Buttigieg as the Democratic nominee (even if I don’t think it’ll happen). I don’t want to have to do it, which is why I keep urging progressives to turn out in droves and vote their conscience in the primaries: that way, we won’t even end up in a situation where we have to hold our nose and vote for a nominee we don’t really like, don’t support, and who will continue more ineffective centrist policies that don’t address the real problems in the country. If progressives vote in sufficient numbers, we will get a progressive nominee that we can actively vote for and feel good about, rather than one that we can barely stomach. If we sit home and only let the moderate/centrist white Democrats vote in the primary, that is the nominee that we will end up with. Gross.
So in other words, I am not here to stoke the worrying and self-inflicted factionalism ongoing between Sanders and Warren supporters who have to outdo each other with My Ideology Is Better Than Your Ideology. That was exactly what I was critiquing in the earlier answer. I think both candidates align well with my values, I would vote for either one of them without qualms, and I think they are proposing policies that broadly target the major issues at hand. Destroying one to try to advance the other is unnecessary, counterproductive, and doing half the Trump/GOP machine’s work for them. It is a hollow moral victory in shouting echo chambers on the internet that has no real-world value and helps no one at all in the long run, except for feeling smug that you have The Most Pure Doctrine. Yay. Still not helping us get rid of Trump. So vote for whichever one you want in the primary, and then vote for whoever wins in the general. Like I said above, if progressives turn out in sufficient numbers, we won’t end up with a terrible candidate in the first place.
I like Warren because she has shown a consistent willingness to learn, grow, to take feedback and adjust her policies accordingly, to engage with community leaders, and, frankly, to demonstrate a more nuanced awareness of intersectionality and identity. Bernie has a tendency to struggle with differentiating class and race, dismisses “identity politics” and can confuse it with tokenism, and still holds the position that, essentially, socialism and economic justice will fix everything. Even the left-leaning The Guardian has found some grounds to criticize him on how he has handled this. I think that Warren is more aware on some levels as to how multiple factors inform an individual’s politics, not just economics and social class. But guess what: these are still minor quibbles and the kind of nitpicking that I get to do at primary stage! I’m still completely happy to vote for the man in a general election! Nothing that I say about Bernie here disqualifies him from my support if he’s the progressive candidate that comes out on top! And none of what I say below about Warren should be read as some sort of insidious attempt to prove that Bernie doesn’t hold these positions too/passive-aggressive slam on him, etc. etc. I’m simply explaining what I like about her particularly.
I like Warren because her plans are detailed, workable, based on extensive research, highlight multiple values that I have in common with her, and give practical recommendations as to how to implement them within the existing framework of the American political system (as well as, where needed, changing it radically). Her policy documents specifically highlight the African-American maternal mortality crisis, valuing the work and lives of women of color, protecting reproductive rights and access to care/abortion services, funding, respecting, and supporting Native Americans and indigenous people, supporting the LGBTQ community on many fronts, cancelling all student debt on day one of her presidency (as an academic with a lot of student debt, this is a big issue for me), confronting white nationalist terrorism, getting rid of the electoral college, regulating and breaking up market monopolies, taxing the shit out of billionaires, holding capitalism accountable, fighting global financial corruption and “dark money” in international politics, introducing immediate debt relief for Puerto Rico, overhauling immigration policy to make it more fair and welcoming, fighting for climate change especially as a racial justice issue, ending private prisons and federal defense budget bloat, recognizing that just throwing endless money at national security issues has not fixed them, drastically revising and ending a foreign policy currently based on endless money and endless wars, breaking up Wall Street economic monopolies and misbehaviour, transitioning to 100% clean energy and Medicare for All, reinvesting in public schools, and… I could go on, but you get the gist. She is a lawyer, professor, and senator with public and professional expertise in many relevant fields. She used to teach bankruptcy law and economic policy. She is smart and tough, but can break complicated concepts down and explain them clearly. She has earned the endorsement of black women’s groups and over 100 Latino leaders. And: yes. It’s time for us to have a female president. It just is. I feel strongly about it.
Warren was recently attacked for putting out a plan related to how the U.S. military could drastically reduce its wasteful carbon footprint and help combat climate change, as this was clearly proof that she was in fact just a lip-service progressive and didn’t want to, you know, apparently abolish it entirely and pretend it didn’t exist and personally tell everyone in the military what a bad person they were. I am not a fan of anything about the U.S. military-industrial complex. But if you don’t recognize that it’s largely composed of poor, working-class people of color and/or economically deprived people who have no other career option, that veterans are discarded instantly the moment they’re no use to the war and propaganda machine and that any politician is going to have to reckon with this, and that you can’t snap your fingers and make it go away, then that’s also not helping. Warren has also been attacked for not wanting to get rid of capitalism entirely, as if that is a remotely feasible or workable option in 21st-century America. She has voted for and suggested regulations and wealth taxes and major restructuring and everything else you can think of, she proposed and founded the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and so on. But for some people, this still is Just Not Good Enough. Which…. fine. You don’t have to vote for her in the primary if she’s not ideologically the closest candidate to you. Once again, the point of the primary is to pick whichever candidate you like the most and to do everything to help them win, so you aren’t stuck with a bad choice when it comes time for the general. But acting like this is a huge and horrible disqualifier and that she’s an awful corporate hack who will just be terrible (her main crime not being Bernie/competing against him) has nothing to do with reality, and everything with having to win internet woke points and ideological militancy arguments. It’s not helpful.
Since the earlier post went viral, I am now getting random hate or completely bizarre misinterpretations of my argument or whatever else, none of which I will answer and all of which will be deleted out of hand, because I am just not interested in trading insults about this and/or engaging in pointless arguments with people who have already made up their mind. But for some people, it’s apparently really threatening to say that if you only vote for the best ideology in the primaries and then quit in a snit fit before the general election, you’re not helping. You’re not doing anything useful. Everyone who was reblogging the post and agreeing with me was around my age or older; everyone who was reblogging it to slam me was usually a lot younger. And I’m glad that 21-year-olds feel that winning the ideology battle is more important than having a functional government, but: sorry. I’m old and I don’t have to listen to that, and I’m not going to. Perfect cannot be the enemy of good, or even better than what we’ve got now. And let’s be clear: anything would be better than what we have now. It would directly save lives and impact policies, and if you can’t admit that because you’re too hung up on how Elizabeth Warren might Be A Capitalist Pig Who Likes Billionaires, please, please get off the internet and go outside.
Would Warren, Sanders, or even Buttigieg or Biden lock immigrant children in cages and concentration camps at the border and commit deliberate slow-motion genocide by denial of care and access? No. Would they actively roll back Obama-era regulations protecting LGBTQ rights, the environment, climate change activism, and anything else you remotely identify as a progressive cause? No. Would they start a needless war with Iran, build a border wall, stoke Nazis and white supremacists, pander to all the worst parts of American insularism and xenophobia, collude with Russia, lie about everything, destroy all regulations and policies that don’t benefit anyone but the rich, white, and male, fill their administration with convicted felons and homophobes and people who want to rob us blind, and be aggressively incompetent, unprepared, malicious, stupid, angry, and dangerous to both the country and the world? No. So the various attempts to claim that there is “no real difference” between the presidency of a non-Sanders Democrat and Trump are… please, please sit down for a moment and think about what you’re saying. I realize this is, again, a hard position to hold when you depend completely on having The Right Ideology, and nuance, complexity, evolving positions, and willingness to be open to new ideas are not things that are valued in zealots on either the right or the left. I don’t know what fantasyland these people are living in, when they act like not voting for a non-Sanders Democrat against Trump would be a great moral victory or proof that they’re too good for the world that the rest of us have to live in, or think that the election into being about some magical chance to make the entire capitalist global military-industrial system vanish. It won’t. It won’t even if Sanders wins the presidency. Change only comes slowly and systematically.
This is once again, long. So to summarize:
1) If you want to understand the differences between Bernie and Warren from a place outside just what I say, go and read their policy summaries on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Look on their websites, compare their plans, do your own research, and don’t fall into the ideology-war trap just for the sake of looking better on internet arguments.
2) Vote for Bernie in the primary! Please! We want a progressive candidate who will make genuine change! We don’t want one who is just a moderate Republican but has to be a Democrat because moderate Republicans no longer exist!
3) I like Warren for many reasons and will be voting for her in the primary, but will vote for Bernie (or anyone else) who wins the primary and emerges as the nominee. I only wish that all Bernie supporters would give the reciprocal guarantee. There is a subset – again, not all – who are only loyal to him and nothing else, and who seem to feel that if they can’t have him, not voting is a better or more “moral” choice, even if the alternative is Trump.
4) For me, Bernie’s age is an issue. I can’t answer for what it might be for you, but he would turn 80 in the year he was sworn into office. He also did have a heart attack and would have a year of grueling campaigning to go.
5) Factionalism and ideology wars and loyalty to one person, rather than even trying to consider the lives and people that are at stake, that have already been lost, and that continue to suffer from Trumpism, is not helpful, not empathetic, and not more moral. You can sit and feel self-righteous all you want, good for you. People are dying. Refusing to make a change because it can’t be all the change, all at once, is not and will never be how this works.
Anyway. I hope that helped you.
#politics for ts#long post#as a note#any further hate sent to me will continue to be deleted out of hand#go outside and pet a puppy#ideology is great#but it cannot be confused with morality#or replace actual action#the system is terrible#but it is the system that exists#and change will not be overnight#in any case#so yes#okay that's really enough politics for... a while#i think i need some happy fandom land for a bit#stupidassh0le#ask
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Title: Mr. Yellow Dies
Fandom: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
Summary: When Jane Oliver approaches Dirk Gently's Holistic Agency about a murder she thinks might have happened years ago without any clues, evidence, or even a victim, the agency quickly agrees to take the case. Dirk, Farah, and Todd find themselves at the Oliver family's Halloween party while investigating and have to participate in the family's Halloween tradition: the murder mystery party game. Will solving this fictional murder help them uncover anything about the real crime they're investigating, or is just a distraction from the actual case? And who died, anyways?
Written for the Halloween @dghdabigbang! @browneyes-asiandragon made some lovely artwork accompanying the story so please go check it out! It’s really amazing!
I’ve included the fic on here but you can also read it on ao3 if preferred.
~
Mr. Yellow Dies
Knock! Knock! Knockity-Knock!
There was a pause before the sound of footsteps could be heard coming from inside the house. The front door creaked open. The man opening the front door was tall, well-built, with dark hair that flopped nicely over his forehead. He smiled at the trio that stood on his doorstep but his eyes betrayed confusion. "Can I help you? You seem a bit old for trick or treating."
Todd Brotzman looked at the man standing next to him out of the corner of his eyes. What were the three of them doing there? They certainly were an odd trio--Holmes, Watson, and a Care Bear, all a good fifteen years too old to be ringing doorbells asking for candy. What was his plan? He'd been vague as ever on the way over, assuring Todd that it was a party, a party for the case, and everyone loved parties, now, didn't they? So come along!
The whole ordeal had started with a simple statement. “I’ve been invited to a party twice,” Dirk Gently announced to his friends proudly in their agency’s office. “And, as much as I’d like to think this shows I’ve come far in my social standing, I’m afraid there will be no possible way for me to attend this party twice at the same time.”
"Two invites?" Farah Black said. “You got two invites to the Olivers' Halloween party?”
“Indeed I did, Farah!” Dirk said.
Todd set down the files he had been sifting thru. “How’d you manage that?”
“My natural charms and talents, of course,” Dirk said, pretending to be offended. “Geez, Todd.”
"What’s the plan, then? I don’t want to sit around, waiting for a report of two party-crashers getting shot." Farah pursed her lip. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Todd said. “I’ll stay back.”
"Au, contraire!" Dirk said. "Farah will be accepting my invitation from Jane. I will be going with my invite from Lenny. And Todd will be going as my date."
"Right, okay," Farah shrugged.
"What?" Todd said.
That had been five days ago. Since then it had been a flurry of finding costumes, Dirk obsessively dragging Todd and Farah into any Halloween themed store he could find, arguing he hardly ever went to parties, much less costume parties, so they should indulge him. Todd secretly thought that it was very likely Dirk had a long streak of elaborate costume parties from his days back in England, but he held his tongue. Seeing Dirk delighted by styrofoam coffins and confused by slutty fireman costumes was worth keeping his own suspicions withheld.
In the end, Dirk had somehow managed to convince Todd that a Sherlock-Watson duo costume was a good idea. “You see,” he pointed out, “no one would suspect actual detectives to dress as detectives for Halloween! That would be absurd.” Todd agreed that, yes, it would be absurd. Dirk bought him a bowler hat anyways.
Farah had been quietly indecisive about her costume all month. Todd hadn’t been sure what she’d go as--she’d shown interest in a variety of things, from a champion scuba diver she said was a childhood hero to the main character of the action novels she’d been obsessively reading during downtime in the office. In the end, she ended up with a Care Bears onesie Tina had lent her after, from what Todd understood, a very long phone call about how stressful Halloween was and a subsequent long drive to Bergsberg on the 30th.
Back at the front door, Dirk smiled at the man questioning them. The man was quite handsome, with a square jaw and tough cheekbones. Almost too classically handsome, Todd thought to himself. But it worked with his costume--some variation on Dracula--which became apparent when he opened his mouth and showed off his tiny fangs.
"Max Oliver?" Dirk asked confidently.
"Yes," the man said, eyebrows raised, fangs revealed in the O his mouth formed. "And you are?"
"Dirk Gently," he said, pushing the front of his deerstalker cap out of his face. "I was invited by Lenny. This is my date, Todd, and this is the lovely Farah Black, who was invited by Jane."
"I've never seen any of you before in my life," Max admitted. "I didn't know guests could invite guests, either."
"It would be a bit awkward to send Todd home now, wouldn't it?" Dirk said pointedly.
"Dirk," Todd groaned.
"No, I mean, I didn't realize Lenny could invite guests," Max said, shaking his head. "Although, I suppose he's never really been one to follow our family's ideals."
"Is that so!" Dirk said, giving his friends a pointed look.
Max nodded. "It isn't my place, of course, but I consider him an outsider to our family." Max stared up and down at the three of them, as if to make a point that they were even more outsiders than Lenny. After a beat, he sighed and opened the door for them. "You might as well come in. I’ll at least give Mother the final call on you three."
Dirk smiled and gave his companions a thumbs up before walking into the house after Max. Todd and Farah followed, Todd already regretting his itchy costume, Farah already regretting her lack of weaponry.
Max led them into a lounge where five other people sat around in couches and chairs, chatting quietly to themselves. Todd only recognized one of them--Jane Oliver, their client. She was the reason they were here in the first place, the reason the case had been opened. She was small both in size and presence, the youngest of the three Oliver siblings, still in her teens. She was wearing a mostly plain, long red dress, which Todd assumed must be some sort of Princess--Princess Bride? Cinderella? Sleeping Beauty? He hadn't the slightest clue.
Jane was sitting next to an older woman, presumably her mother, the infamous Cordelia Oliver. Cordelia was the owner of the local community theater and a force to be reckoned with. She had lost some of her dazzle with the passing of her husband, Jules. Jules Oliver had been her partner in the theater, her partner in their home, her partner on the stage. Losing him meant she had lost love. Yet none of her fierceness faded; if anything, it grew into a strong and steady resentment towards the world and life itself.
Dirk smiled at two men sitting on the couch opposite Cordelia and Jane. "Lenny! Daniel!" he said. Daniel Oliver was the middle child of the family. College-aged and somewhat unmotivated, he was a stand out in his family of determined extroverts. His boyfriend, Lenny Anderson, seemed to represent everything the rest of the family couldn't stand about Daniel and worse. His lazy nature, lack of care for anything, inability to make and hold commitments annoyed the Olivers on the best of days. Lenny couldn’t keep a job, stay on a major, anything. At least he made Daniel happy.
Max flocked to a woman standing alone by the bookshelf. Adrianna Waye. She was the star in most of the local theater productions and Max's fiancé. She was gorgeous, elegant, and, by all accounts, extremely unpleasant to be around. Cordelia loved her.
Farah and Dirk had been doing most of the research on the family, while Todd had been going back and tracing old case files, trying to find a crime or a missing person or an unsolved murder that would otherwise connect with the case. He hadn't found anything, not anything they could confirm at least. Todd reflected on how this had all started. Jane Oliver had stumbled into the agency one day, clutching a yellowed composition notebook and trembling a bit, explaining that she had seen a crime, a murder, as a child. She had blacked it out and forgotten it until now, but going back through her diaries, she had found her recounting of the crime. It was dark, she explained, so she couldn't really tell them who or what. She thought it was a man--or maybe a boy. It was someone with a small build, and they were attacking another person brutally. She couldn't remember what happened after that, just terror, sheer terror.
They had a murder to solve. With no evidence of the murder having actually happened besides a child's diary. No suspects, no victims, nothing. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency gladly took the case.
The crime had taken place in the backyard of this family property, Halloween ten years ago, when Jane was only six. At least, she said, according to her diary. Her memories of that Halloween were all jumbled--something about her family, lots of yelling, some sort of dispute. And the crime, the attack that she could only remember that she forgot.
"Max?" Cordelia asked. "Who are our other new guests?"
"I don't know, Mother," Max answered evenly. "Why don't you ask Lenny? Or Jane?"
Cordelia narrowed her eyes and focused her gaze on Lenny. "Leonard?"
"Geezy, m'am," Lenny sighed. "I invited Dirk here as a plus one."
"You're already a plus one!" she shrieked. "And what about these other two?"
"Todd is my plus-one!" Dirk chirped.
"A plus one can't invite another plus one who invites his own plus one!"
"Ah," Dirk said quickly, "but wouldn't me having invited my own plus one make us our own set of guests?"
"Daniel, do you know these men?" Cordelia demanded.
"A bit," Daniel said without looking up from his phone.
"And what about this woman? Who the hell is she?"
"Ah," Jane said softly. "Mother, I invited her." After Dirk had determined who was accepting what invitation, they had reached out to Jane to tell her about Farah, not wanting there to be any mix up. They had decided on a brief backstory and that was that.
"Who is she?" Cordelia demanded.
"She's a school tutor. She tutors me and some of my friends in the library," Jane answered evenly. Todd wondered if they should at all be concerned about what ease and grace their client was able to lie through their teeth. But really, he thought, that was what they were all doing. They had no reason to be at that party.
Cordelia Oliver knew that.
She was a queen surveying her kingdom, and she was not pleased with what she saw. Todd felt himself holding his breath, ready to be kicked out at any second. To his surprise, she sighed, deciding this battle was not worth fighting today. "Fine," she said. "You can stay. You're lucky the party kit I bought comes with extra characters."
"Party Kit?" Todd said, feeling any ounce of relief of not being kicked out dissipate.
The Olivers had a tradition, a tradition that went back for at least the last eight years, maybe more. They would every Halloween have a murder mystery themed party. They would purchase a "party kit," either from an online retailer, or, some years when they felt particularly excited, commissioned from a friend. The kit would give each guest at the party a character and a few clues. In the course of three rounds they would develop their characters, discover and investigate a "murder," and have the murderer finally revealed in the third and final round. It was truly perfect for a family of actors, though as the kids grew up and her husband passed away, it was something Cordelia clung onto more than anyone else. The schitick was getting old. But she wouldn't let go.
Cordelia started passing out envelopes with character names on them. "You all know how the game goes," she said, a stage voice taking over, complete with pause for dramatic effect. "Tonight, one of us will die. Tonight, one of us will kill. Tonight, we will all solve a murder." Jane looked white as a sheet hearing her mother's words and looked to Dirk. Dirk smiled back at her reassuredly.
"We have a few extra guests tonight," Cordelia continued, handing an envelope to Adrianna and another one to Max. "Let us hope they survive the night."
"God, Mother," Daniel said, continuing to focus on Candy Crush rather than the manila envelope he'd been slipped. "There's no need to be so melodramatic."
Cordelia paused and looked at him with stony eyes. "Tonight," she said, "we are all actors. Whether we like it or not." Lenny smiled at his boyfriend encouragingly, reminding him it wouldn't be too bad. Daniel glared back at him. He knew this tradition far too well and was not pleased to put on a performance for his mother’s sake.
"Great!" Dirk said, happily accepting his envelope. "So, how does the game work exactly?"
"There are three rounds," Max said, walking away from the wall to behind the sofa his mother sat at. "Round one, we all open our envelope and look at our character and the clues we are given. We mingle as the characters, deciding whether or not we want to share our clues with the others."
"Round two!" Cordelia jut in. "Someone will have instructions telling them they will 'die.' After their 'death' occurs we will have another round in which to mingle and see if we can discover which of us might've had the motive to 'kill.'"
"I feel as though we've grown out of this, mother," Daniel said. "It's just glorified Mafia. When will you give it up already?"
"I find it very fun, Daniel," Cordelia snapped. "It's the least you could do for your poor mother."
Daniel sighed.
"And what about the third round?" Farah asked lightly.
"Third round, we open this envelope," Cordelia said, holding up an envelope that. Unlike the manila ones she had handed out, was a deep red. "It has the answers in it. Then we will find out who was right and who was wrong and who was the killer."
"What a dreadful and yet surprisingly delightful game!" Dirk enthused. Cordelia narrowed her eyes at him.
"Quite," she said. "Now, let the games begin."
Everyone began opening their envelopes. Todd ripped the top off of his, wondering how this was in any way going to help them solve the case. Had Dirk known they were going to play this game? He gave Farah a look, who seemed just as lost as him. She shrugged and went back to reviewing the papers from in her envelope.
Todd reviewed his envelope. He was playing as a character called “Mr. Red,” an older gentleman who was a banker. The only clues he was given was that he suspected Mr. Yellow, one of his bank’s employees, of fraud, and that his character saw Madame Orange and Mrs. Indigo discussing something in hushed voices on his way home from work one day. Todd grimaced. They were really about to play live-action Clue.
"Todd." Todd jumped up in surprise as Dirk slipped up next to him. "You know I'm not one for a classical approach," Dirk said, keeping his voice hushed, "but I must admit this situation compels oneself to do some very non-holistic detecting."
"Wouldn't the fact that the situation has arisen at all make it holistic?" Todd pointed out.
"Ah! Great assisting, Todd, or should I say," Dirk looked down at Todd's papers and then back up at him with a pleasant smile, "Mr. Red."
"You're excited for this, aren't you?"
"Quite! But seriously, Todd. Please consider trying to use this as an opportunity to ask key questions that seem like they're about the game but are actually about our investigation."
"Dirk, we still barely have any idea of what we're investigating," Todd sighed.
"Having time set aside to mingle and interrogate should help then!" he replied before disappearing into the room.
"Let round one," announced Cordelia Oliver, "begin!"
Todd sighed, feeling out of his depth. He looked around the room, seeing that people had already begun to talk quietly and exchange clues amongst themselves. The one person left by themselves besides Todd at this point was Daniel Oliver.
Todd sat down next to him. "Sherlock abandoned you, ey, Watson?" Daniel asked, raising an eyebrow but looking otherwise completely disinterested in the appearance of a new person in his vicinity.
Todd laughed nervously. "Dirk? Ah. Well. He's playing the game, same as all of us." He swallowed. "So... what's your character?"
"Mr. Maroon," Daniel said with a slight roll of his eyes.
"I'm Mr. Red," Todd said.
"Practically the same names," Daniel complained. "I know there aren't that many colors in the rainbow, but they could've come up with a better theme. Colors? Mysteries? Incredibly overdone, if you ask me."
"You'd know better than myself," Todd said.
Daniel snorted. "I know far too well. Do you want my clues?"
"Sure," Todd said. "Are you just supposed to give them to people like that?"
"Not if you want the game to be harder," Daniel said. "But I'd rather this be done as quickly as possible. So my character doesn't trust Mr. Yellow or Mrs. Grey."
"I also suspect Mr. Yellow," Todd admitted.
"And it's supposed to be a mystery." Daniel shook his head.
"You've done a lot of these, then?" Todd said.
"Every year. Since what feels like forever. Mother has gotten persistently more annoying about it since Dad died." Daniel looked resentful. "She can't let go of it."
"That must be hard for your family," Todd said.
"Maybe for them," Daniel replied evenly. "I'm glad he's dead."
“Oh.” Todd said. "You don't feel like you're one of them, then?"
"No. I don't want to act. I don't want to be the center of attention. All of them are hardworking attention whores. I truly feel like this tradition is the pinnacle of that. It makes me feel sick."
Todd felt his stomach curl in an uncomfortable way. "You should be careful," he said.
Daniel rolled his eyes. "What, are you going to impart some wise-wisdom on me? I don't care. I don't even know you."
"You're right," Todd said, trying to ignore the feeling that he needed to get Daniel off of the track he was on, lest he fall into the same self-destructive hole of lies that Todd did when he was his age.
"I'm sure you think I'm ungrateful and selfish. But they're cruel to me. And they don't like Lenny either."
"No?"
"No. They hate him even more than me. If I'm a black sheep, he's an entirely different animal to them."
"Five more minutes of round one!" Cordelia shouted from across the room.
Todd stood up from the couch awkwardly. "I should talk to some more people," he said. "Nice to see you, Mr. Maroon."
Daniel rolled his eyes.
Todd wandered around the room, trying to find someone else to talk to, and eventually ended up tapping the shoulder of Adriana Waye, who had been standing by herself in the corner of the room. She flinched and then turned around, her bright green eyes first looking a bit surprised and then totally disengaged.
"I'm Ms. Grey," she said. "I'm Madame Orange’s maid, working for her and her daughter, Mrs. Indigo, and her son-in-law, Mr. Yellow. And you?"
"I'm Mr. Red," he replied. "Uh... I'm a banker."
"The bank owner?" she said quickly. "The man who owns the bank Mr. Yellow works at?"
"I think so," he said.
"Hmm," she said, and Todd got a very distinct feeling that she did not like him at all, although he could not tell if the impression came from her acting or real judgement she was imparting on him.
"I, uh... I think Mr. Yellow is committing bank fraud," Todd said lamely, looking at his notes.
"Would you kill him if he was?" she said, her blue eyes hard and intense.
"What?" Todd said, shrinking back.
"In the game,” she said, her gaze softening slightly. “Obviously.”
"Oh," Todd said. "Wouldn't it be strange for me to suspect myself? I mean, wouldn't that kind of defeat the point?" He paused. "And we don't know Mr. Yellow is going to be the one to die, yet!"
Adrianna looked across the room at Max. "Mr. Yellow is certainly going to be the one to die," she said. "You’ll see."
"How do you know?"
"It's the way these games always work," she said. "God, who invited you again? Have you really never done this before?" Todd shook his head and Adrianna looked exasperated. "Cordelia should've kicked you out."
Todd didn't have a good argument for that. He coughed nervously, feeling weirdly squeamish looking at her dark grey eyes. "So what are your clues?"
She looked absolutely done with him. "You cannot ask me for my clues as yourself. You need to discuss the situation with Ms. Grey as Mr. Red."
"I guess I misunderstood," he said. "You really enjoy the acting part of this, huh?"
"It's a good thing I do," she said. "I'm our theater's biggest star for a reason."
"Cordelia likes you a lot, then?"
Adrianna shrugged. "She likes me. And she loves Max. And Max loves me. It all works out."
"One minute left!" Cordelia shouted.
Adrianna looked irritated. "I really spent some of my time talking with you, huh?" she said, stalking off before Todd could answer.
Todd slouched, taking a deep breath, looking around the room before making eye contact with Farah and meeting her across the room. "I'm Dr. Violet," Farah explained. "I’m Madame Orange’s physician. And you?"
"Mr. Red," he said. "They seem like an awfully happy family, don't they?"
"Mr. Yellow and Mrs. Indigo? Or the Olivers?"
"The latter. Although the former might be true, too, I'm having a hard time keeping up."
She nodded. "Fictionally and factually miserable in both cases. I have a good feeling about our case, though."
"Yeah?"
"I was talking to Jane. She's sweet, you know? And I think we're very close to cracking the case."
"She didn't do it, though. Right?"
"Oh--no. No. But I think someone here did."
"That doesn't exactly make me feel incredibly comfortable being a party crasher here."
"That's the end of round one!" Cordelia shouted.
Dirk noticed Farah and Todd talking together and walked over to them enthusiastically. "Well!" he announced. "I'm not sure what I just learned, but I definitely learned something, which will definitely help solve one, if not two, cases! It's true one has a bit more importance to it, but I'd like to think that in solving our fictional case we'll solve--"
Dirk was cut off by a loud scream from across the room. Max Oliver let out another large cry, holding his hand to his chest, before having his knees buckle underneath him, falling down on his knees, letting out a final sob before collapsing on the floor.
"Oh my god," Farah said.
Cordelia walked over to where her son lay sprawled across the floor and then looked up across the others in the room. "A murder," she said. "Has been committed. Mr. Yellow is dead." Adrianna gave Todd a pointed looking from across the room, her hazel eyes piercing. Todd looked away.
"How ghastly," Dirk said with some enthusiasm. "What a wonderful performance."
Max sat up from his place on the floor and beamed. "Thank you," he said, fangs sticking out.
"Now, for round two," Cordelia announced. "Max will not be able to participate. You must talk amongst yourselves and try to discover which one of you is the killer. We will have ten minutes. Let round two... begin!"
"Alright," Todd said. "I suppose we should get back to mingling..." He looked over to see Dirk's eyebrows furrowed, deep in thought. "Dirk?"
"Todd," he said quietly. "Farah. I have the strangest feeling the case of Mr. Yellow is much more tied to our case than we'd thought."
"How so?" Farah asked.
"I'm not quite sure," he said. "Let us try and discover who killed Mr. Yellow. And perhaps that will reveal it to us."
The three nodded and scattered across the room.
Todd found himself in the unfortunate position of being under the immediate scrutiny of Cordelia Oliver.
"I," she announced, "am Madame Orange. I'm afraid we've never had the chance of meeting before."
"Mr. Red," he said shortly. "Banker, Mr. Yellow's boss, I think."
"Ah, yes," she said, face sorrow clouding his face. "My son-in-law’s employer. Isn’t it tragic what has happened to Mr. Yellow?"
Actors, Todd thought, are insane.
"Right," Todd said. "Erm, do you have any idea who... killed him?"
His willingness to play along seemed to please Cordelia. She raised an eyebrow playfully. "I have some idea," she said. "He had a few enemies. I heard," she leaned in, her voice taking on a conspiratorial tone, "he owed some people money. Would you know anything about that? As the banker?"
"Oh," Todd said, trying to remember if he did. "Uh, no. I don't think I knew that. Although I..." he paused, grabbing his notes and looking them over. "I suspected him of committing some sort of fraud."
"Hmm!" she said. "Fraud at the bank isn't a good look for you. Do you think that could stir yourself to kill?"
"Uh--no?" Todd frowned. "I guess I don't know. Am I supposed to defend myself?"
Cordelia seemed disappointed at his breaking character. "It's up to you," she said tightly. "But if you've killed someone, we'll find out in the end, when we open the envelope with the answers to the case."
"Oh," he said. "Well--I guess I don't think Mr. Red, er, me, did it." He paused a beat. "And... why didn't you do it?" he asked, knowing giving Cordelia an excuse to talk should lighten her up.
"Mr. Yellow was my daughter Indigo’s husband! I loved him as if he were my own son. I wouldn’t lay a hand on him unless he did something to hurt my daughter.”
"But what if he did?” Todd pointed out. He looked at his notes. “I saw you discussing something with Mrs. Indigo the day before his death. That doesn’t look particularly good for you, Madame Orange."
"You don't look unsuspicious yourself, Mr. Red. Although I don't think you killed Mr. Yellow."
"No?"
"No. You don't have it in you."
Cordelia turned on her heel and went away to talk to someone else, and Todd felt weirdly stung by her harsh assessment of his fictional banker self.
He wandered across the room, trying to find someone to talk to. He walked past Max and Adrianna who were talking in hushed tones in a language that didn't sound familiar to him. He decided not to interrupt them and turned around, nearly running into Jane Oliver.
"Oh dear," she said. "I am very sorry, Mr. Todd."
"It's okay!" he reassured her. "And tonight, I'm Mr. Red."
She nodded. "I'm Mrs. Indigo." She sighed. "I'm Mr. Yellow's wife, apparently. A bit awkward, I think, for several reasons."
Todd smiled. "Fair enough. I am--or was?--his employer at the bank. I suspected him of fraud. Would you know anything about that?"
"The only way Mr. Yellow was ever a fraud or a phoney was in real life, Mr. Red," she sighed, playing into her character lightly. "I do believe he was having the most awful affair with Mrs. Grey."
"I suppose that made your character--you, I mean--pretty upset."
"Yes." She sighed. "I think it's likely I did it. Or--Mr.s Grey’s husband, Mr. Maroon."
"It's kind of funny suspecting yourself."
"I think it makes the most sense," she said evenly, then in a lower voice, "thank you, by the way. Dirk said you and Farah have been invaluable in helping with..." She looked around. "...with a case."
Had he been helpful? Had any of them been helpful? Todd felt as though he was getting nowhere, stuck in a sludge of clues and names and characters and confusing bits in the middle. He wasn't sure he had done anything effective to help Jane Oliver. He thought about denying her claim, telling her to take it back, telling her that her impression wasn't true. But he swallowed it in his throat. Be nice, Todd.
"You're welcome," he said. "We're trying our best. To solve..." he paused, and added, feeling kind of silly, "...Mr. Yellow's murder." That made the girl laugh, which pleased him.
"Speaking of Dirk," Adrianna said, "here comes Mr. Green." Dirk approached the two of them, grinning brightly.
"Todd! Jane!" he addressed them both with enthusiasm. "I've got half a mind that this is going somewhere!"
"I sure hope so," Todd said.
"I'm glad you think that," Jane said with her shy smile. "I think I'm going to go try to talk to Adrianna." She made a face. "Tell me what you find, later?" she asked Dirk.
"Of course," he promised, waving at her as she made her way across the room. "Todd!" he turned to Todd, his deerstalker hat flopping in front of his eyes. He pushed up the rim. "I think I've found out my motive for killing Mr. Yellow!"
"That's great, Dirk, but.... what? Do you think your character killed him?"
"Oh, no," he said quickly. "I'm Mr. Green, by the way, if I hadn't mentioned it to you. And I don't think it's awfully likely I am the killer, but I love my brother Mr. Maroon a lot, and his wife Mrs. Grey cheated on him with her employer Mr. Yellow!" Dirk sounded enthralled. "The way this game is played is absolutely fascinating, wouldn't you say? I think we should definitely buy one of these for the office during holidays."
"Dirk," Todd said, "there are three of us who work in the office. And... Mona sometimes. I don't think that's enough people."
Dirk frowned. "I guess not."
"Do you have any idea who actually killed Mr. Yellow? Or... about the other thing?"
"No," Dirk admitted. "Well, maybe. There's so many different threads in this game. And it's not exactly... how I do detecting. I think you or Farah would have a better idea, quite honestly. I’ve had a very fun time getting into character and developing Mr. Green, though. I wasn't given much, so I gave him a new profession! I've decided he works for the secret--"
"Dirk," Todd cut him off. "We need to focus. Right?"
Dirk looked a bit put out. "Can't hurt to have a bit of fun, too."
Todd backtracked. "Sure, of course, but I think we're running out of time to investigate--"
"End of round three!" Cordelia announced loudly. The chattering continued. "End! Of round three!" she holler. This time, a hush fell across the room.
"Everyone," she said, her voice commanding the space, "let's gather round in a circle and discuss our theories of who killed Mr. Yellow." She stood behind where Max sat on the couch and put her hands on his shoulders protectively. The party goers made their way to the couches and chairs situated in a nice circle around the coffee table. Once everyone had settled down, Cordelia smiled, although she continued to stand behind Max instead of sitting in the circle herself.
"If someone can say who killed Mr. Yellow and why, with certain accuracy, they win the game." Cordelia held up a bright magenta envelope. "Once everyone has given their input, we'll open the envelope and see who was really the killer. If you are accused of being the murderer, you may defend yourself if you think someone else has done it. Now who would like to start?"
Todd felt Dirk beside him tense in excitement. He wondered if this did have any connection to the case they were here to solve, or if it was a red herring, a detour that would eventually lead them somewhere completely different in order to actually solve the case.
"I'll start," said Adrianna. "I think Mrs. Indigo did it."
Jane frowned. “My character? I guess I don’t think it’s entirely impossible I did…”
“You found out Mr. Yellow was hiding some things from you,” Adrianna said. “Including his affair… with me, Mrs. Grey. So you killed him.”
“Jane?” Cordelia asked. “Do you have someone else you think could’ve done it?”
“I think Mr. Maroon would’ve had half a motive, for the same reason as I.”
“Leave me out of it,” Daniel groaned. “I think it was… uh…” He looked around the room, seemingly trying to pick someone else to become the scrutiny of the conversation. “Madame Orange. She found out Yellow cheated on her daughter.” He shrugged. “She’d be as mad as anyone else.”
Cordelia pursed her lips. “That’s assuming I even knew about the affair. Perhaps I didn't even know until he died! How would you know?”
“Everyone wanted to kill Mr. Yellow,” Dirk muttered to Todd.
“Madame Orange was angry after her check up with Dr. Violet before the murder happened,” Farah pointed out. “Although she didn’t say why. It could’ve been about the affair.”
“Everyone wanted to kill Mr. Yellow!” Dirk said again, sounding surprised. Todd looked at him and he grinned back.
“I was upset because my gardener, Mr. Turquoise, had quit in a huff.”
“You fired me!” Lenny butted in. Todd realized he’d barely spoken to half of the people playing the game, feeling suddenly like he’d shown up for a test he hadn’t studied for. “And I certainly didn’t kill Mr. Yellow!”
“Alright,” said Cordelia. “But I deny that I did. I still find Mr. Maroon awfully suspicious.”
Daniel glowered at his mother. “If you won’t admit it, I’ll accuse someone else. Like….” He looked around the room. “...my brother. Mr. Green.”
Dirk smiled. “It could have been me,” he said. “I love my brother, Mr. Maroon. I found out Mr. Yellow was having an affair with his wife. And I felt this was an affront to my family. But I think we are focused much too narrowly on the what and the why. In fact,” he said. “I think we are far too focused on this game.”
“Too focused on the game?” Lenny said. “Isn’t that the point of the final round?”
“The point of the final round,” Dirk said confidently, “is to find out who killed Mr. Yellow and Max Oliver.”
“Oh,” Todd said softly. Dirk had solved it.
“I am Mr. Yellow,” Max said.
"Exactly! So the question we have to answer," Dirk continued, "is who killed Max Oliver. I, of course, have my own theories, but I would like to share last. Mrs. Cordelia. I still find you a bit suspect. Why don't you tell us again why you aren't the killer?"
Cordelia stiffened in offense. "Why am I not the killer? You must be kidding me! I just went over this. I wouldn’t hurt my own son!"
"Ah, but perhaps Max wasn't the child you wanted. And neither was Daniel. And neither was Jane. You wanted a child who was a star, Mrs. Oliver. And you knew you'd never get that if you didn't intervene yourself."
Adrianna narrowed her eyes. "He knows this is a game, right? We aren’t our characters."
Dirk's eyes lit up. "Ah! And Adrianna Waye. What an interesting piece of this puzzle you are."
Adrianna shifted uncomfortably. "Don’t even bother accusing me of killing him. I was the one who was having an affair with him. I was one of his only allies. It wouldn’t make sense."
"No, you're right," Dirk agreed. "It wouldn’t make sense. Besides that, a lady such as yourself seems unlikely to get her hands dirty with murder." He paused. "She'd make someone else do it."
Adrianna turned to Max and laughed. "What is he talking about? This isn't connected to the game at all."
"You know what it's about--"
"Ah!" Farah cut in. "I have a theory. Did Lenny's character actually do it? Mr. Turquoise was Madame Orange’s gardener, so maybe he saw something at the house, like the affair. Blackmail gone wrong type situation."
Dirk nodded. "Lenny seems a bit suspicious, doesn't he?" He looped around the living room, ending behind Lenny's chair. "Lenny, what do you have to say to that?"
"I don't know,” Lenny said. “I don't think my character ever actually interacted Max, though, did he?"
"Exactly," Dirk said. "Lenny is too much of an outsider. He might not like Max, but there was no reason he would want to kill him. He wasn't even present at the crime scene. Now, Daniel, however..."
"Wouldn't it be my luck to pick the character who's the killer three years in a row?" Daniel sulked, shooting his mother a look.
"Of course Daniel could have been jealous of Max. Jealous of how his mother adored him and doted on him. But... that doesn't explain why he would kill him." Dirk turned to Jane. "Do you understand what I'm getting at, Miss Jane?"
Jane's eyes widened. "But I still don't understand! Who--who did I see die on that night?"
“Who did you see die on what night?” Cordelia turned to her daughter, her eyes narrowed. “Jane, is there something you’re not telling me?”
“Sorry, mother,” Jane whispered softly. “But yes. Ten years ago, I saw a murder.” Dirk gave Farah a small nod and Farah quietly moved to block the one door that led out of the study. Todd moved towards the window, having a strong feeling that any possible exit was soon going to quickly need to be blocked. Jane continued, “These people have been trying to help me solve the murder, mother. But… But I don’t know who did it, or who even died…” She trailed off, looking small and lost in her big velvet chair.
“You’re detectives?” Cordelia demanded.
"Indeed,” Dirk said. “Quite a good disguise, right? Now, Jane, the person you saw being murdered on that night was your brother, Max."
"But that's absurd!" Cordelia burst out. "Max is right here!" Max stood behind his mother, his expression stony.
"That," Dirk pointed to Max, "is certainly someone going by the name Max and living his life as if he were Max Oliver. But that is not your biological son, Max Oliver. He was killed on this day, ten years ago, in your back garden."
"Don't be absurd," Max cut in, his voice cold and stiff. "You've been talking nonsense all night."
"Have you ever," Dirk said, "met an actor who was so incredible that sometimes you didn't even know they were acting?" Todd got the very distinct feeling Dirk was thinking of Mona. "I have. And I will tell you this much. When someone who is talented enough chooses to not be found, they won't be."
"You're crazy," Max said. "You have no proof."
"Alright," Dirk said. "Maybe I'm wrong. Then answer me this. How come you and Adrianna talk in a language no one has ever heard when you think you're alone?"
"What?"
“Oh!” Todd cut in. "And is that why Adrianna’s eye color shifts so dramatically? I wasn’t imagining that?"
"People's eye color can shift--"
"Not from light blue to deep brown they can't,” Dirk said, nodding at Todd.
Max snorted. "Just because you're dressed as a detective doesn't mean you can say whatever you'd like and expect it to go over."
"Alright," Dirk said. "Let me read from this journal," Dirk said, reaching into his trenchcoat and pulling out a copy of Jane's diary that they had photocopied and brought along. Todd hadn't realized Dirk’s intentions in bringing the copy along--but he wasn’t sure Dirk had known until this exact moment, either.
"’October 31st, 2008,’" Dirk read aloud. "’Dear Diary, Today I saw something very frightening. It was during the Halloween party, I went out in the back garden to get a bit of fresh air and because everyone was very loud. When I was out there, I thought I heard someone screaming. I thought maybe it was one of my brothers, and so I ran. I saw a figure in the dark standing over someone else, but when I got to where I saw their silhouettes across the garden, they were gone. I saw something I thought could've been blood or beer or water but it was too dark to see. I'll go and see if it's still there tomorrow. I don't know what I saw. I went inside and told mama and papa about it. Papa joked that I'd seen a ghost on Halloween. I don't know. Love, Jane.’"
"I know who Jane saw that night," said Dirk. He pointed at Max. "She saw you. And she saw her brother, Max."
"I am her brother Max," Max replied evenly.
"Oh please," Dirk said. "Will you give that up already? You may live as Maxwell Oliver but you were at least not born that way. You weren't born in this town, or, quite frankly, even this planet."
"What're you going to do about it?" Adrianna said, rising to her feet.
"Adrianna," Max snapped. "Sit down."
"I'm going to..." Dirk said confidently, and then stopped. "Well, I hadn't really thought of that."
“It’s true,” Jane said softly. Cordelia had stepped away from Max and was now standing behind her daughter. She placed a hand on Jane’s shoulder, looking tense. Jane looked up at Cordelia. “It’s true, mother. It was Max I saw on that night. It must’ve been…”
Max frowned. “Are you really going to believe this, Mother? Believe all this slander about your favorite son?” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve been so good to you… an absolute star, in fact. Don’t tell me you believe some sort of alien-murder plot thought up by a stranger over the word of your own son?”
Cordelia Oliver's eyes clouded over. "I'm not sure, Max."
"I cannot believe this," Max said. Adrianna fidgeted in her chair uncomfortably. "Do you know everything I've given for this family? Everything me and Adrianna have given for you, Mother?"
"What are you?" Dirk asked curiously. "You must be something quite interesting. And..." He paused, his nose bunched up. "...and either undetectable or fifteen years new to this planet."
"We were undetectable," Adrianna said.
"Adrianna!" Max barked. "Will you shut up?"
"Oh, give it up, Max," she said irritably. "He's caught us in our game. Might as well admit it." She turned to Dirk. "You wouldn't really believe it if we were from a different planet."
"I certainly would," he said. "I've come across a fair few extraterrestrials in my time. I don't suppose you communicate through music on your planet?"
"What?" she snapped. "No. Don't be stupid. You were right, we communicate in our own language. And these weren't our original forms." Max glared at her, his lips pursed in determined silence. "But there's no way for you to prove that, you know? That's the best thing about what we are."
"Oh god," Cordelia said, holding her hand over her mouth.
"And what is that?" Dirk asked.
"Can't pronounce it in your language. In fact, you numbskulls hardly have the language to describe it. Leech? Reincarnate? Phoenix?" Adrianna seemed almost pleased by this, as if the fact that she was somewhat undefinable was a final act of rebellion against whatever separated her from them. "The point is," she said, "we take on different forms over our lives. We essentially could live forever--as long as we kill before our vessel dies. When that happens, we take on the form of whatever we last killed."
"Woah," Dirk said.
"What happens to the body?" Farah said, eyeing Max and Adrianna nervously while still guarding the door.
"We become the body," Adrianna said as though it were obvious. "The last vessel we occupied turns to dust once we leave it for good, once there's no use for it anymore."
"And you killed Max and took his body," Jane said softly, looking Max straight in the eyes. Max frowned and looked away.
"What--what now?" Daniel asked nervously, looking between Max and Adrianna. The room was filled with a tense air.
Max sighed, breaking the silence. "This is truly awful," he said, his tone almost bored, "I never wanted it to come to this, and I am very sorry. I did love you, Mother," he said to Cordelia. "Unfortunately..." He reached into his coat pocket, pulling something small and metallic out, "...the two of us will have to kill all of you now that you've discovered our secret."
Max Oliver had a gun. The room broke out into hectic noise. Cordelia screamed, Daniel let out a large stream of profanities, Todd started to argue with Max, and Dirk shouted something about everyone needing to talk this out, please, and not have so much killing all the time. Everyone was on their feet in a few seconds. Todd and Farah exchanged a look, guarding the door and window respectively, not sure if they should run or stand their guard. The only person who remained sitting was Max Oliver.
"No one move!" he barked. "Shut up!" And he was pointing the gun, and the room quickly fell silent. "You see," he said. "You all have made this so hard for me and my dear EtTew0si." He stood up from where he sat and went to the bookshelf, grabbing a candlestick. He handed it to Adrianna who smiled at him and kissed his cheek.
"Now who's first?" Max said, sounding almost bored. Todd gave a sideways glance to Farah and mouthed the word "gun." She shook her head, mouthing back a long sentence. He had forgotten he couldn't read lips.
"Oh Jane," Max said. "Why not you? This whole dilemma is your fault, now, isn't it?"
"It's not my fault," Jane said, trembling but holding her voice steady. "None of this would've happened if you hadn't hurt Max."
Max pursed his lips, ignoring her comment. "Come here, and we'll make this quick and painless," he said.
"No," she said, holding her ground.
Adrianna shoved her forward from behind, pushing her with the end of the candlestick. "Do what he says!" she said.
Jane opened her mouth to make a retort but decided against it. She looked back at the other people in the room, staring hopelessly.
"My dear sister," Max said, pointing the gun at her head. Adrianna stayed behind her, holding the candlestick up. "I am sorry it had to come to this."
"No, you're not," she said, tears forming in her eyes.
"You're right," he laughed. "I'm not."
The next few seconds were a whirlwind. Farah leapt up from her place by the door to in front of Max, grabbing Jane out of the line of fire as Max pulled the trigger. Adrianna, not realizing what had happened before it was too late, didn't dodge and instead was hit squarely in the head with the bullet Max had fired. Adrianna barely had a second to let out a cry of pain before her body turned to dust, drifting down to the floor, lifeless. Max whirled around, still holding his gun, pointing it at Farah and Jane where they sat on the floor.
"You think you're real smart, huh?" he demanded. "What--"
A bang fired in the room.
Max stopped talking.
Max stopped breathing.
Max fell over onto the floor, fading into a pile of dust.
Across the room, Cordelia Oliver held up her pearl handled pocket purse pistol, smoke still drifting off the tip of the weapon, tears streaking her face.
*
The next week, Jane Oliver visited Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective agency. She knocked lightly before walking into the office. "Hello!" she said.
"Jane Oliver!" Dirk said, his entire face lighting up. He jumped up from his desk. "How are you doing?"
She smiled sadly. "This whole ordeal has been a lot for my family... but I think we are better for it. We've all been trying to understand, of course. But it's brought us closer too."
"I'm glad to hear that," Farah smiled, looking up from her desk. "Thank you for visiting, Jane."
Jane nodded. "I’m to give you these." She passed two envelopes to Dirk.
He looked at her, confused. "What?"
"For the case," she said softly.
"Ms. Jane, I was under the distinct impression that we were not taking payment from you," he said. He passed the envelopes back to her. "In fact, I insist on it. I don't want to take money from you."
She laughed. "It's not from me. It's from my mother. She's going through a lot, as we all are, but she's extremely grateful to you guys." She shrugged. "She didn't actually tell me what was in those. Just to deliver it to you three."
"Well, thank you," Dirk said, surprised, taking the envelopes back from her.
"Yes!" she said. "And thank you guys... for everything. The truth is hard, but I'm glad I know it. And..." she turned to Farah, "thank you for saving my life."
Farah smiled awkwardly. "I mean, yes. Of course. That is... yes. You're welcome."
She beamed at them. "I'll be sure to recommend you guys, although I don't know how many other sixteen year olds have use of a detective agency."
Dirk smiled. "Thank you Jane."
She nodded once more. "Goodbye!" They waved and wished her well and then she was on her way.
"I wonder what Cordelia sent," Todd said.
"Let us see!" Dirk said. “This first envelope is addressed to ‘Dirk Gently & Co.’ Fancy!” He tore the envelope open, pulling it out and looking it over. His eyes widened.
"What?" Farah said.
"Yeah, what is it?"
"I don't think we'll have to worry about agency finances for a while," Dirk said, eyes wide. He passed Farah the check from inside the card.
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh-kay!” she said. “Well. We should definitely send a thank you note.”
“She wrote a note, too,” Dirk said. He read aloud, “‘Dear Dirk and Company, I never did like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. However, the three of you I found quite tolerable. To think I would’ve lived with and loved an imposter my whole life if not for your agency. Much thanks. Sincerely, Cordelia Oliver.’”
“I guess she’s got a heart under her mean exterior after all,” Todd said.
“‘P.S.,’” Dirk read. “‘I am assuming you will be quiet about the disappearance of my ‘son’ Max. I hope this check more than manages that.’”
“Oh,” Todd said, and Farah laughed.
“Well!” Dirk said, setting down the card. He smiled at his two friends. “I think that’s another case solved with arguable efficiency.”
“What’s the other envelope?” asked Todd.
“I don’t know…” Dirk looked at it. “She wrote something on the front... ‘I couldn’t be bothered to open this after what happened. but I thought one of you care want to know more than I. Sincerely, Cordelia.’”
“Oh!” Farah said. “It’s the envelope from the game--the one that has the killer in it.”
“I didn’t even realize we never revealed the fake killer,” Todd said.
“I did,” said Farah. “Open it?”
Dirk nodded, pushing a pencil thru the top, ungracefully breaking the seal. He popped the envelope open and looked inside before pulling out a tiny slip of paper.
“Oh God,” he said, sounding exasperated. “Of bloody course it had to be.”
Farah raised her eyebrows and he passed her the paper. She looked at it and frowned. “Crazy coincidence, that’s all.”
“Let me see that,” Todd grabbed the paper.
“Farah, nothing ever ends up being mere ‘coincidence’ with me,” Dirk said pointedly. “Ever.”
“Alright, that’s weird,” Todd said, tossing the paper back onto the desk in front of Dirk. The three of them started at the paper for a moment, saying nothing.
“I say we break early for lunch,” Farah broke the silence. “My treat.”
“Avoidance,” Todd said. “I like it.”
“Burgers?” Dirk chimed in. “I love it.”
The three of them stood up and cleared out of the office, turning off the lights and locking the doors to the office. In the now quiet office lay the small slip of tangerine paper on a desk. It read, in plain cursive, Madame Orange is the killer.
*
End
#dirk gently's holistic detective agency#case fic#dghda#dghda halloween mini bang 2020#fanfiction#dirk gently fanfiction#my art
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Stealing Valuables
So I totally missed the first day of Felix July 2020. So I hope you all enjoy my medieval robin hood-esque AU for Felix Month Prompt 2: Thief.
Stealing Valuables
The bark of the tree was rough enough that Felix could feel it through his threadbare gloves. But the tree wasn’t chosen for the quality of its bark – it was sturdy, easily able to bear not just his weight but the weight of several others. One day, he was sure it would build a fine house but today – it was
He brandishes his sword.
“Stand and deliver!”
He was outnumbered, but of course he was – the valuables in the carriage warranted such a retinue. Or rather, all the guards were all under that impression. They halt at the sight of him. His eyes darted from face to face. None of them looked to be particularly intelligent. So perhaps –
“You.” He snaps his fingers to get the first guard’s attention. “Do you know what this carriage contains?”
The guard, stone-faced, says nothing and tightens his grip on his own sword.
“Mm, alright. Not a talker then,” Felix says casually and turns to the next man, “How about you? Know what’s in the carriage?”
The man turns his head to look at the coverings that obscure the window. “Weren’t our job to know,” he says gruffly shrugging one shoulder.
“Interesting.” Felix looked at the last two men. “And you two? Never curious?”
These men look at each other in a silent debate. The taller of the two speaks up, “The Queen said –”
Felix sneers and cuts him off.
“T-the Qu-qu-queen said?” He mimics mockingly. “What. That you were to protect the carriage? How can you even properly protect the carriage when you don’t know what’s inside?”
He gestures without flourish to the grand carriage, “Anything could be in there.”
“Enough,” the guard with the gruff voice says, “The way I see it. It don’t matter that the Queen didn’t tell us.” He walks over and thumps the door with the flat of his hand. “Easy enough to guess it’s full of gold, like.”
He makes his way back to point and levels his sword at Felix, “And you’re getting none of it.”
A tense moment passes where Felix stares down the length of the fine metal nearly touching the tip of his nose. Internally, he smiles to himself, thinking gleefully ahead to how that angry face will transform when he discovers just who he is. A bird caws loudly some distance off. The guard takes advantage of Felix’s momentary distraction to swing the sword high.
Felix dodges and the whistling blade swings into empty space. “Gold?” He questions, sounding amused. “You think its gold in there?” He laughs, “No, no, friend, it’s something much more valuable than that.”
“Getting sick of you,” the second guard grumbles before advancing to assist his friend.
Felix spins. Metal clangs against metal. Felix successfully fends off one blow after another. Careful, he thinks to himself and reminds himself that he doesn’t want a real fight. If the other two guards engage, then that would mean his capture. Which would likely mean an audience with the Queen. And he certainly doesn’t want that. Not yet. So out loud he says, almost playfully, “I rather think you should take a peep into that carriage.”
Felix leaps backwards and ducks the second guard’s sloppy thrust.
“I promise,” Felix says with a grin, “It’s seriously worth your wile.”
Guard one tries to catch him unaware but it’s no use, Felix has the sturdy tree at his back so, when he ducks, the guard’s sword lodges itself deep into the trunk.
Felix uses his opponents struggle to dislodge his sword as an opportunity to land a solid kick to his chest, winding him enough to allow him space to wriggle past and fight in the open again.
“What are you two just standing there for?” Guard two yelled as he attempts to charge Felix, “Come and help your fellow man!”
Felix, in response, sticks out his leg to overbalance the second guard and smashes the hilt of his own sword into the back of guard two’s head, sending him sprawling.
The last two men, who have been watching the fight unfold, ignore their fellow soldier. Both men have found that they have no desire to join. Why would they? Their opponent is outclassing the two best fighters in the group – what chance do they have? So instead they stand a safe distance away and plot.
“So.” whispers the shorter guard to the taller, “What’d you reckon’s in there?”
“Dunno.” Says the taller to the shorter, “Not gold.”
“What. You believe this scamp?”
“Peace, Archibald,” the taller guard said holding up a hand. “Not saying that. It’s just – he’s awful confident innit he?”
“Suppose. Say Roberts,” Archibald said before wincing as he watchs his brothers-in-arms collide with one another while the bandit laughs from his perch in the tree. He cuts his eyes upward to meet his companion. “If it isn’t gold, then maybe it’s something else. Perhaps… something that could be put in our pockets and not be missed?”
The taller man smiles, showcasing his uneven teeth, “Perhaps.”
“Then let us away.” Archibald said with a short flourished bow.
They edged closed to the carriage, careful to stay out of the main fight. Not that it was much of a fight to begin with. Though outmatched, the mystery man had clearly been trained well. Roberts squints at the blond – who had just tripped their leader – and thinks that there was something eerily familiar about him. Briefly a memory superimposes itself over the bandit. But what he sees would be impossible. He blinks hard and turns back towards Archibald, who is busily picking the lock.
“Why even bother with that?” Roberts complains.
A sudden thump startles both men. “Yes, why are you bothering with that?” Felix asks, standing on the carriage roof. His sword glints menacingly in the sunlight. Roberts gulps. And the lock snicks open quietly. Now, with the thief in dispatching range neither men move to open the door.
“Well?” Felix asks impatiently, crouching down. He fights the urge to roll his eyes. “Are you going to open the door or not? How about I do it for you?”
Both Roberts and Archibald flinch backwards at the man’s sudden movement. But the door simply swings open to reveal its contents to the world.
“I –”
“But –”
They say confusedly, overlapping one another. The point-guard leader approaches, angrily wiping away mud from his face. “You two…” He begins to growl but stops short at the sight of the open carriage beyond their shoulders. His eyes widen in shock. “What. On Earth. Is. That?”
“Why – its rocks!” The fourth companion gapes uselessly after having finally cleared the spots from his vision from the last unfortunate collision.
It was true. From floor to seat were rocks of every size.
“I told you – you were transporting something valuable.” Felix sheaths his sword, “What’s more valuable than a lie?”
~
A heavy silence hangs over the group for a second. Wind rustles through the trees. A bird caws.
The pointe-guard recovers from his shock first. “Who are you?”
“None other than Felix Graham de Vanily,” Felix smiles. He bows low, executing a ridiculous flourish that wouldn’t quite be out of place in court.
“No, you can’t be,” the guard says, shaking his head from side to side, “His Majesty died two years ago.”
Felix laughs loudly and deeply. “Ah, yes – my favourite lie. As you can see,” he gestures to himself. The guards all follow his hands, as they take in his care-worn, and possibly once fine, clothing. “I’m still here. Tell me, how is my dear wife Lila?”
The pointe-guard stiffens at the insult to his Queen and grasps the hilt of his sword. How dare a common thief refer to her majesty with such irreverence. “You blackguard!”
“Peace, David,” Roberts says wearily, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve cannot beat him.” Suddenly, his earlier thought seems less impossible but still he hesitates before adding, “I do believe the man speaks the truth.”
“Look.” Roberts swallows down the rest of his doubts and points at the sword, “Is that not too fine a blade to belong to a common thief?”
“He could have stolen it off of the very body of the king he claims to be!” David blusters, hand still on his hilt.
“Aye, he could’ve” Archibald nods sagely before joining in, giving Roberts a wink of support, “But did he not fight finer than you and Lysander combined?”
“He’s skilled, I’ll give him that but –”
“But nothing,” Roberts cuts in. “He was trained and trained well. Why would he go to such lengths to show us a deception only to deceive us himself?”
David, for all of his bluster, deflates immediately and sits down hard as the implications become clear to him. Roberts stills for a moment as a thought occurrs to him. Why would someone go to such lengths in the first place?
“Good sir?” Roberts calls up, “Why would you go to such lengths to reveal this to us in the first place?”
Felix, for his part, had already made himself comfortable on the roof of the carriage and swings his feet through the open door. He hums, pleased that his initial assessment of their intelligence was incorrect. “Why?” He repeats back. “Lila and her scheming guardian’s deceptions have gone on too long. I need men, good men, if I want to take back my kingdom.”
Roberts nods, “Aye, so you disguise yourself as a thief in the woods so she would suspect nothing. Clever.”
Felix chuckles, “Oh, but I am a thief – after all, I’m stealing an army.”
~~~~~~~~~
I hope everyone had fun reading! Does it surprise anyone that Lila is a usurper? Gosh, she’s gonna be annoyed that the hit she put out on her husband wasn’t successful.
#felix month 2020#felix july 2020#felix au fic#ml felix#miraculous ladybug#felix graham de vanily#well I say that but really its still fanon felix with his canon name#ml fanfic#felix prompt#felix month prompt thief#king felix#queen lila#definitely a loveless marriage#hawkmoth is her guardian
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episode origins p1
i was watching moriah earlier today and was wondering what the significance of the name moriah was, so i searched it up. i’ll explain it here in this. i wanted to learn which episodes have titles derived from pop culture, literature, etc. so i put together this list. it’s not complete, feel free to reblog with more!
why did i waste hours on my life on this, you ask? i don’t know.
season 1
pilot: obviously, all the first episodes of shows are called pilots. nothing new here.
wendigo: they’re fighting a wendigo
dead in the water: the phrase means “unable to function, move”.
phantom traveler: the name of the demon they’re fighting
bloody mary: based off the legend
skin: shapeshifters, also there might be a meta about how it’s a metaphor for dean
hook man: they’re fighting a hook man
bugs: bugs
home: they go home
asylum: they go to an asylum
scarecrow: scarecrow
faith: the concept of god first comes into play here, i thought that was pretty interesting. that’s why it’s called faith, duh. dean + faith is explored.
route 666: racist truck yes
nightmare: sam’s visions
the benders: i think it’s based off of the bloody benders, a family of serial killers
shadow: meg’s stalkery?
hell house: it was literally a hell house
something wicked: originally chanted by WITCHES in shakespeare’s macbeth. the full line is “something wicked this way comes, open locks, whoever knocks”. obviously the shtriga is a witch and it refers to that.
provenance: painting provenances, it’s in the episode
dead man’s blood: they use dead man’s blood
salvation: being saved or protected, like the boys and john do with the family
devil’s trap: the devil gets them in a trap. and they built a giant devil’s trap too.
season two
in my time of dying: based off of the led zeppelin song [x]
everybody loves a clown: based off of the gary lewis song [x]
bloodlust: i think it’s for the vampires but they were also a band in the 90′s
children shouldn’t play with dead things: based off of the 1972 movie
simon said: the whole “you do what i say” thing with andy and evil andy
no exit: it’s a song by blondie and in the episode h.h. holmes captures blondes...? am i just clowning
the usual suspects: based off of the 1995 movie
crossroad blues: based off of the robert johnson song (fave!) [x]
croatoan: i like this one. okay, so you guys probably know about the whole roanoke/croatoan thing in the 1600′s. so there’s a theory that the settlers were wiped out by a disease (similar to this town). also, the town would disappear off of the map.
hunted: gordon hunted sam
playthings: dolls, but the little girl was the grandma’s sisters plaything
nightshifter: a shifter in the night
houses of the holy: based off of the led zeppelin song and album [x]
born under a bad sign: based off of this song [x] there are a bunch of others including jimi hendrix but...?
tall tales: yeah i think this one is self explanatory
roadkill: someone got killed on the road
heart: werewolf heart but also how sam gave his heart to madison aww also there’s a band called heart
hollywood babylon: based off of the book by the same name
folsom prison blues: based off of the johnny cash song!! [x]
what is and what should never be: based off of the led zeppelin song [x]
all hell breaks loose: yes it did
season three
the magnificent seven: based off of the pretty famous western go watch
the kids are alright: based off of the who song [x]
bad day at black rock: based off of the 1955 movie
sin city: there’s a bunch of songs but the city was sinning so
bedtime stories: they were bedtime stories
red sky at morning: the full phrase is “red sky at morning, sailors take warning”. with the theme of this ep it fits pretty well.
fresh blood: fresh blood yes
a very supernatural christmas: i’m not sure. i think it’s based off of a christmas album?
malleus maleficarum: a 1400′s book of witches. latin for “hammer of the witches”.
dream a little dream of me: i love this song! based off this: [x]
mystery spot: mystery spot
jus in bello: i can’t really explain it but here [x]
ghostfacers: g h o s t f a c e r s
long-distance call: long distance call
time is on my side: based off of the rolling stones song [x]
no rest for the wicked: a biblical quote that means “evildoers will face eternal punishment”. also, “one’s work never ceases”.
season four
lazarus rising: in the bible, lazarus is the righteous man, which makes dean the righteous man. and he rises. so.
are you there, god? it’s me, dean winchester: based off of the judy blume book (maybe?), are you there, god? it’s me, margaret.
in the beginning: they go back in time
metamorphosis: with the rugaru but also sammeh
monster movie: monsters and movies
yellow fever: referring to the disease i think, but also there are a few songs
it’s the great pumpkin, sam winchester: based off of it’s the great pumpkin, charlie brown.
wishful thinking: yeah
i know what you did last summer: dean + hell, sam + ruby. is it based off of the shawn mendes song? i don’t think it is because this came out way before the song.
heaven and hell: opposite sides meet, dean’s hell experiences.
family remains: there are remains
criss angel is a douche bag: idk?
after school special: based off of the abc program? i think?
sex and violence: there was a lot of sex. and violence.
death takes a holiday: death took a holiday
on the head of a pin: i’m not sure but this article is interesting, maybe related. probably related. [x]
it’s a terrible life: based off of it’s a wonderful life? i love that movie btw
the monster at the end of this book: ughhh! yes!!! first of all there’s a sesame street book by the same title. also, chuck actually was the monster at the end of the book! that’s crazy. insane.
jump the shark: “(of a television series or movie) reach a point at which far-fetched events are included merely for the sake of novelty, indicative of a decline in quality.“ probably the whole long lost brother thing.
the rapture: a belief that christians will rise to “meet the lord in the air”. kinda like jimmy does.
when the levee breaks: based off of the led zeppelin song [x]
lucifer rising: lucifer rose
season five
sympathy for the devil: based off of the rolling stones song [x]
good god, y’all!: cas goes to find god
free to be you and me: a marlo thomas album and the brothers split up
the end: yeah it’s the end
fallen idols: i think we get it
i believe the children are our future: a lyric from a whitney houston song
the curious case of dean winchester: based off of the short story, the curious case of benjamin button.
changing channels: channels were changed. the end.
the real ghostbusters: based on the 1985 animation
abandon all hope: the full phrase is “abandon all hope, ye who enter here” and that pretty much sums up this episode.
sam, interrupted: i’m not sure?
swap meat: meats were SWAPPED.
the song remains the same: based off of the led zeppelin song [x]
my bloody valentine: based on jensen’s movie. but also the band?
dead men don’t wear plaid: based on the 1982 movie
dark side of the moon: a pink floyd album
99 problems: that one jayz song whatever
point of no return: a 1993 movie but also the poto song hehe
hammer of the gods: based off of the 1985 book i think? it’s about led zeppelin so probably yeah.
the devil you know: means that it’s better to deal with a situation you understand than one you don’t.
two minutes to midnight: this phrase is commonly used as a countdown to a global catastrophe (i.e. the fucking apocalypse)
swan song: someone’s final performance before retirement (i think this is about both brothers because it’s sam last battle and dean’s last fight before living with lisa)
season six
exile on main st.: based off of the rolling stones album [x]
two and a half men: it was a sitcom? but idk if that’s where it’s from
the third man: based off of the 1949 noir thriller? maybe? but there were also three men so idrk
weekend at bobby’s: it was a weekend at bobbys
live free or twi-hard: based off of twilight and that bruce willis movie that i watched once way back when
you can’t handle the truth: truth goddess. soulless sam gets exposed ig
family matters: based off of the 1989 sitcom? maybe
all dogs go to heaven: based off of the 1989 movie? probably
clap your hands if you believe: i think this is an original title idk
caged heat: based off of the 1974 movie i think
appointment in samarra: probably based off of the 1934 novel of the same name
like a virgin: based off of the madonna song [x]
unforgiven: sam does unforgiven things
mannequin 3: the reckoning: not sure
the french mistake: just... just read this link [x]
and then there were none: based off of the agatha christie novel of the same name
my heart will go on: y’all all know what’s up [x]
frontierland: they went to yeehaw town
mommy dearest: based on the 1981 film? maybe?
the man who would be king: based off of the 1888 novel by rudyard kipling
let it bleed: based off of the rolling stones album/song [x]
the man who knew too much: shares a name with the 1956 film
season seven
meet the new boss: they met the new boss idk
hello, cruel world: sad sam
the girl next door: there’s a 2004 romcom with the same name
defending your life: a 1991 romcom! wow!
shut up, dr. phil: sam and dean became philanthropists idk
slash fiction: hahahahaha i think we know what it means but wHY is it called that?
the mentalists: they met a bunch of magic people wow!
season 7, time for a wedding!: more like season 7, time for a slightly r*pey episode and GARTH!
how to win friends and influence monsters: based off of the 1936 book how to win friends and influence people
death’s door: they were at death’s door idk
adventures in babysitting: based off of the 1987 movie by the same name
time after time after time: based off of the cyndi lauper song? [x]
the slice girls: prolly based off of the spice girls idk
plucky pennywhistle’s magic menagerie: yeah idk
repo man: it’s a 1984 film too
out with the old: they were fucking around with antiques
the born-again identity: obviously based off of the bourne identity which i haven’t seen in forever
party on, garth: hahaha
of grave importance: it was very important
the girl with the dungeons and dragons tattoo: probably based off of the movie/book the girl with the dragon tattoo.
reading is fundamental: reading is fundamental. go read a book.
there will be blood: there was blood
survival of the fittest: everybody fought idk
okay i’m gonna stop here for this one because i’m tired asf and i’ll do part 2 later
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Character Intro: Ryvaeryn
Role: Protagonist
WIP: Blood Ties Trilogy (high fantasy, adventure, romance)
Appears in: For The Crown (book one), For The King, For The Country
WIP Intro for For The Crown - link
Basics:
Age: 26
Nickname/alias: Ryn, ‘Lady Ryvaeryn’
Species: shapeshifter (bengal tiger)
Home: Fiska’s Crossing, southern Terrana. (population 57)
Profession: bookbinder (apprentice), masquerades at court as Lady Ryvaeryn of Merrana (a fictional estate)
Identifies as: female, bisexual (she/her)
Family: none known
Relationships before trilogy: Lowe, long term girlfriend
Relationships during For The Crown: Elthian (love interest and confidant), Kalen (best friend), Corri (close friend), Skye (friend), Pab (mentee)
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Excerpt from opening scene:
The ship jolted and I stumbled back, barely gripping the port window frame in time. My throat tightened. Sure crashes were few and far between, but there were precedents. I had more important things to discover than how loudly I could scream.
“First time?” The man asked, unaffected by the sudden movement. I nodded. Casting a wary glance out the window again, I watched the city slide out of sight, replaced by an endless oceanic horizon as the airship began to angle toward the base.
“Don’t worry,” he flashed a smile, “they’ll help you prepare for landing, and the guards at the base are very friendly to newcomers.”
I stiffened, swallowing hard. With my best attempt at casual interest, I asked, “are there a lot of guards at the base?”
He turned his head to me and his eyes flashed gold. I blinked, was that the rising light outside? I pulled back my mind regardless, my best impression of someone who could guard their thoughts.
“Several, but they’ll mostly be checking the supplies coming through,” he gestured to the piles of assorted goods, “so you won’t have any trouble once you get to your seat.”
“Oh.” I bit my lip, then remembered my plan and cleared my throat. “Thanks for the warning.”
“Of course.”
Silence fell between us, and I felt the slow descent shudder up my legs and churn my stomach. I clutched at it. That sensation was not natural, and I’d rather climb every tree in my forest before feeling this again.
Entrance:
Ryn enters the story in an airship cargo hold, after stowing away there in order to reach Mantha, the main setting, where she can discover more about her family. Having lost both parents at ago one, and raised by her human grandparents until their deaths when she was 15, she doesn’t know where her family is from, but has recently discovered a book that indicates there may be answers in Mantha’s library. She has come with a half-baked plan and a burning determination to find answers.
Journey:
When she is denied access to the Cossalier City Library on grounds she is not Manthan, she looks for other ways in. She breaks into the castle library, then the city library, being caught both times, and finally is given the choice to pretend to be a noble and join the court, or go home. With assistance from a new friend, she manages the former, and when the court takes off on a tour of Mantha, she joins them, knowing that any mis-step will mean her ejection from the country, or worse.
Relationships:
Over the first installment, Ryn meets the fixtures at the court. She forms a companionable relationship with Elthian, each finding the other’s company refreshing, and this slowly transitions into more than friendship. She also becomes close to Kalen, Skye, and Corri, and develops a strong distrust of Joal, Elthian’s best friend.
The more she becomes embedded in the court, the more she becomes a suspect to the antagonist. Her identity, relationship with Elthian, and the lies that got her there make her a target, and in addition to discovering her identity, she must dodge their attempts to end her, and control her own deep seated rage, borne of generations of injustice to her family.
Writing Ryvaeryn:
I knew writing Ryn would be fun, but I didn’t think it would be this fun. She is funny, naturally kind, easily distracted, wonderfully impulsive and embodies chaos. She acts on half-baked plans often, is defiant, determined, and reckless confident enough to throw herself into a situation she knows nothing about. Ryn is a reasonably good liar, and her sheer will makes her a force to be reckoned with.
--
Links to:
Character Intro - Elthian (MC)
Character Intro - Joal
(Taglist below the cut)
Blood Ties tag list: @whisperswritings @stand-inthe-rain @fantasy-shadows @halrose @romanticatheart-posts @hopefulmoonobject @angelolytle @albarnesauthor @fantasy-penman @ofinscriptions @jynecca @jc-shay @venomouspen @k-nazario @raenawrites @the-starlight-chills @crazycoffeemermaid @ardawyn @bookish-actor @waterfallofinkandpages @the-writister @thewriteblrarchives @kryskakikomi @theredscreech @ardawyn @jcckwrites @kryskakikomi @hiding-between-words @thewordsinthesky-andstars
(If you would like to be added to or removed from this list, please let me know!)
#BT Ryvaeryn#for the crown#blood ties trilgy#blood ties for the crown#original character#character introduction#for the crown ryvaeryn#my wip#character development
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This one got… epically long. Like, over 7k words. Based on one of @grumpyhedgehog’s headcanons with her Jedi Lyra and the trash panda extraordinaire. Main pairing is Draike/Lyra (Smuggler/Jedi OC) pre-relationship, secondary pairing of Theron/Knight. I should also warn for a very brief foray into a M rating. For reasons that will become very clear about halfway through.
He didn’t care what anyone else in the Alliance said, Draike Highwind was in the very firm opinion that life on Odessen was boring. The pace around the base had practically slowed to a crawl the past few months, what with them officially laying low and trying to stay off the galactic radar while the rest of the galaxy started to ramp up back into their umpteenth war. Not that Draike liked the constant state of war they all seemed to live in, but at least out there things were happening.
A thin trickle of condensation ran down the side of his glass, and he flicked the droplet across the cantina table, watching it skip along the smooth polished metal surface. It wasn’t the most entertaining diversion — no, he still had a few hours left before that particular game started again — but hey. It was better than watching paint dry. Another trickle worked its way down the side of his glass, and he tried to see if he could get further distance.
“You do realize,” a pleasant voice chimed in, “they make coasters for that.”
Draike lifted his attention from the very interesting and oh-so-important glass of booze to see the familiar form of Lyra Dorn, standing next to his table. As usual, she was looking stereotypically Jedi, decked out in armor and robes even though they were just stuck here in this boring excuse for a base of operations. Her honey blonde locks swept back from her face as she arched a delicate brow at him. He spied a datapad in one hand, and in the other a platter filled to the brim with fried Capellan turg-root, roast gorak, and Ahrisa.
“I’m just livening up the place,” Draike said drolly, by way of greeting.
Lyra almost rolled her eyes, but seemed to catch herself before plopping down in the chair opposite him, delicately setting down the platter in the center as if it were some sort of offering. That was all the invitation he needed, and he snatched up a turg-root.
He was already halfway through chewing with when she let out a half-sigh, half-laugh. “Yes, those are for you.”
He just returned the remark with a crumb-filled grin, as if to say, “I know.”
That got past her internal defenses, and she was unable to suppress her urge to roll her eyes. The twitch at the edge of her lips let him know she found it amusing though, despite whatever airs she liked to project.
Summoning some modicum of manners, Draike finished off his bite and waved a hand at the plate. “You can have one too.”
“Oh, how magnanimous of you,” she said, but there was no sting to her tone, and she politely pinched off a piece of Ahrisa, setting down the datapad as she did so.
He eyed the device, disguising his suspicion with an easy smile as he snagged another turg-root, smothering it in one of the spicy sauces ringing the platter. “What you got there? Some spicy HoloNet fic? Apparently the latest trope everyone’s writing about is the poor betrayed rebellion commander and their traitorous spy lover.”
“How do you know that?”
“There is nothing to do here. I get bored.”
“Those are about your sister!”
“Look, it’s not my fault she professed her undying love to her stupid boyfriend in front of an open broadcast to the entire galaxy!”
“And that’s your brother-in-law now.”
“Don’t remind me,” he grumbled. “Okay, so if you’re not reading fictionalized accounts of my baby sister’s love life, what’s the datapad for?”
She shot him a look, as if to ask him once again why she would ever read trashy romance about a real person in her life, much less a relative of his. “It’s…”
“Yes?”
“For your reports,” she sighed.
“What? My reports?” he sat up a bit straighter. “Why?”
“Someone made me aware that you’ve been having difficulty getting your reports turned in on time,” Lyra said hesitantly, “and so I thought I’d help you out with them.”
Draike managed to summon his most offended face to bear. “So you bring me a giant platter of my favorite food as a ruse to trick me into working?”
“It’s not a ruse,” she was quick to reassure him, “it’s a… peace offering. And fuel for the brain.”
“It’s a bribe is what it is.”
“Oh, and so what if it is?” A little bit of haughtiness was beginning to creep into her tone, accent thickening ever so slightly as his combativeness managed to puncture her friendly demeanor. “You need to get your reports done, and I’m willing to help you write them because I am a good friend. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is I don’t need help writing my reports,” Draike said, crossing his arms as he leaned back into his seat.
“What... yes you do! Theron said—”
An almost maniacal grin spread across his face before he even realized it and quickly smothered it. Usually he was better at keeping a good Sabacc face, but for a moment, even that was eclipsed by the momentary and purely malicious glee that stole through him.
“What was that?” Lyra asked.
“What was what?”
“That look.”
“There was no look.”
“Yes, there was. I know that look—Draike.”
One of the most boring parts about living on Odessen was the rules—and the paperwork. On his own, he only had to do the bare minimum of paperwork to get his cargo runs in. Just enough legality to keep people off his back. It was annoying, but he did what he had to. And at some point he just let Risha take care of that sort of thing — he secretly suspected she enjoyed the tedium. Alas, those salad days were behind him. Here they liked to dot all of their i’s and cross all of their t’s. They wanted a flimsi trail and records for runs, but also stupid things like, incident reports. Which unless something really exciting happened was just an absolute snore fest.
So, he’d made a little game out of them.
Because of course the one person who was hounding him the most for all of this pointless paperwork was his new brother-in-law. If there was something Draike liked less than being told what to do — it was being told what to do by a joyless workaholic that was giving it to his baby sister every night.
“Your report was supposed to be handed in this morning. Do you need any help getting it—?”
“Oh no, help isn’t necessary. I’ve already got it done.”
An adorable little frown of confusion creased Lyra’s face. “Then why the delay?”
“No one, and I mean no one gives Draike Highwind orders,” he said proudly. “Shan will get the report when he’s good and ready.”
Bless her heart, Lyra always seemed willing to believe the best in Draike, even more than most people. That belief was getting tested at the moment, as he could see the wheels starting to turn in her head. She hadn’t put the pieces together yet, but she would soon.
“I’ve got, oh,” he made a show of glancing at the chronometer, “about nine hours and fifty four minutes to go before turning it in.”
As if in triumph, he picked up another turg-root and ate it with an almost perverse pleasure. This time he didn’t try to smother the big grin that blossomed in full on his face.
The thing about Shan was that he was way too predictable. Mister Super Secret Agent Man and dedicated workaholic was never too far from a datapad, whether it was in the war room or in his own quarters. If something were to come into his inbox tagged as urgent, his type couldn’t resist taking a look. No matter what they were doing. And hey, what could Draike say if maybe the message was perfectly timed to chime in right at the most, ahem, romantic portion of Shan’s evening? And if the report itself had been a little more exciting than expected, so exciting that it completely distracted Shan from any other plans, well that was just a side benefit. He was just trying to keep everyone entertained. And of course every report had a twist ending, because Draike was really giving like that. The twist being that the giant cliffhanger he was building up to was all a sham, and that the incident report was really just a boring waste of time all along.
By his reckoning, Draike was pretty sure that he’d successfully prevented any nighttime activities between his sister and brother-in-law for at least a week now. If Shan was sending Lyra to do his dirty work, it meant he was probably getting desperate. Perfect.
Lyra let out a long suffering sigh, still acting as if she was trying to negotiate some all-important intergalactic trade deal instead of just trying to get her best friend to do some pointless paperwork. “Look, if it’s already finished, I could send the report in for you. Theron does need to sleep some time you know.”
He just snorted and shook his head. “I love you, sweetheart, but you don’t mess with a man’s data stream. If Shan has a problem he can come and talk to me—”
Draike’s statement ended in a lurch, his whole body going rigid as he suddenly processed his own words. He slid a look over to Lyra, who blinked back at him. The hints of a smile were starting to form at the corners of her mouth, something she tried to hide by taking a prolonged and yet somehow delicate bite of her Ahrisa as if she hadn’t heard anything at all.
It didn’t really matter how much she pretended though, because he knew what he’d said. It was as if the entire, expansive cantina had somehow managed to shrink in those few seconds, the natural carved stone walls closing in around him. His chest tightened, each breath a little harder to pull in than the last, as all of the blood drained from his face.
Panic could take on many forms — it all depended on the person. Some people go rigid and weren’t able to move. Others hid theirs with anger or lashed out at others. Some didn’t hide theirs at all, going into full on hyperventilation. But Draike Highwind was none of those types of people. And so he scanned the room, desperately searching for salvation, and found it in the tall form of a Wookiee at the bar.
No actual coherent thought was in his mind as he leapt to his feet, Lyra, the datapad, and platter of food seemingly forgotten as he loudly proclaimed for every patron of the cantina to hear. “Hey, Bowdarr!”
The wookiee looked up with an inquisitive growl.
“You know I love you, right? I love all my friends!”
Bowdarr shook his massive furry head, neither confusion nor resignation registering on his face as suddenly the much shorter human had crossed the threshold, practically slinging his arm around the taller being. Without missing a beat, Draike slung his other arm around the Mon Cal that was also at the bar.
“You too, Guss!”
“Oh, Captain! This is so unexpect—”
“Hey, you! Droid!”
C2-N2 had been dutifully sweeping up a mess over in the corner of the cantina, and the protocol droid looked up in confusion, as if not expecting to be pulled into this of all conversations. “Oh, Captain Highwind, as flattered as I am by your affections, I don’t—”
“What? No. I don’t love you.”
“Well I never!”
“You’re taking good care of my sister, right?”
“But of course, Captain Highwind. I am the primary expert on comfort in all of—”
“Yeah, yeah yeah. You know how much I love her right?”
An audible and communal sound of confusion rippled through the entire cantina. Apparently, this was news to everyone on base.
“In fact,” Draike continued, broadcasting at the top of his lungs to drown out the dissenters of his brotherly affection, “you should go let her know that. Right now.”
The protocol droid practically saluted him as he scuttered off to do as he was told. Orders taken, Draike turned to give the next, and possibly most important person in his life, the good news, and proclaimed to the bartender on duty his undying love for the perfect glass of whiskey that he poured every night.
Off in the corner, Lyra sunk further and further into her chair the louder Draike got, eyes raising up to the ceiling. As if somehow, counting all of the flecks up there would somehow, magically, get him to stop.
This was the perfect plan, if Theron did say so himself. Not that he was really saying much at the moment. Just enjoying the slow, slick slide, the enveloping heat, and the low but appreciative noises filling the room. It had been far, far too long. That was, of course, a nice chunk of his good mood—just having some nice quality time with his wife. But it had the added benefit that he’d finally managed to outwit his stupid brother-in-law’s attempts to derail it. There was no way Draike and his late reports could screw this up. All it had taken was rearranging several meetings and some nonessential business to get the afternoon off.
And Theron was putting the time to good use.
His lips wandered their familiar route, starting just under the shell of his wife’s ear, slowly making their way to the hollow of her throat. Just the way she liked it, if the fingernails digging into his back was any indication. That’s right. Just like that. He let out his own sound of appreciation, and just a little more and he’d—
That thought, and the precious rhythm he’d been building up, was completely shattered as the telltale hiss of hydraulics cut through the room as the door to their quarters whooshed open. Both occupants in the bed went completely still, wide eyed and dumbfounded as a little breeze of recirculated air drifted in from the hall.
Before Theron could say anything, or even twist in what was now a very awkward position, a cheerful robotic voice called out from the doorway. “I have wonderful news, Master!”
A frown of confusion stole over Grey’s face, clearly perplexed by whatever was more important than their privacy.
Heedless to this breaching of protocol, C2-N2 continued on obliviously. “Your brother was just telling the whole of Odessen how much he loves you and how much you mean to him. He urged me to make sure I was taking the best possible care of you that I could!”
At this point, any glimmering hope of continuing their previous activities had now been shattered thoroughly. Theron let out an inarticulate growl as he disentangled himself, flipping and turning even as the bed’s coverlet, previously shoved out of the way magically flew up to cover both occupants propriety. Just about at the same time, Theron had grabbed the nearest pillow, and had chucked it as hard as he could towards the doorway.
It was a marvelous throw. One for the ages. Truly, Theron had missed his calling in Huttball. Unfortunately, pillows weren’t nearly as aerodynamic, and it flopped to the floor several feet away from its intended mark.
“Oh my!” Seetoo exclaimed.
“Close the door!” Theron’s snarl echoed across the expanse of the room.
“Oh, quite right!” Seetoo hit the button for the door to close, and it swished shut behind him. That task completed, he turned back to the bed as if awaiting further instructions.
“I meant for you to shut it with you on the other side!”
“Well, you must be more specific in your wishes if you—”
“Get out!”
“How rude.”
Theron flopped back on his pillow, or he would have, if he hadn’t flung it across the room. Instead his head hit the mattress with a slight spring and bounce back. The motion made him nostalgic for thirty seconds ago, when that bounce back had been for different reasons. He glared at the room in general, as if it had betrayed him. After thoroughly expressing his displeasure with his environment, he turned to look at his wife.
“First it was the manipulative Force parasite in your head interrupting us. Now it’s your brother.”
By proxy no less.
“Did you just compare my brother to Valkorion?” Grey asked. He couldn’t tell if she was offended or in agreement with him. At the moment he didn’t particularly care.
“If the evil shoe fits!”
At some point, Draike’s near maniacal effusion of love for every person and object on Odessen had finally run its course. Probably around the time that Bowdaar had practically shoved a bottle of whiskey into his mouth. It had been an effective measure of finally getting the endless stream of affection to stop.
It had been a little while since that point. So much so that Draike had migrated from his laze-a-bout in the cantina over to the Logistics Hangar. He wouldn’t have said that he was consciously avoiding Lyra or anything, but at some point he’d looked back to where he’d abandoned her at the table and realized that he may have made things a little awkward. There was an itchy feeling on the back of his neck as a tiny in voice in his head told him that he needed to apologize to her. That voice sounded a little too much like his mother for his own comfort, so he studiously avoided it.
Besides, a far more logical part of his brain said that he had nothing to be sorry for. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
He looked up from his contemplative perch to see his brother-in-law angrily storming in his direction. Draike took in Theron’s untucked shirt over rumpled pants, the lack of belt and mismatched slippers in place of the normal calf-high boots, bloodshot eyes, twitching brow, and a possibly new undiscovered vein bulging in his forehead. As an expert in the field, Draike recognized the all-too-familiar signs of someone who had dressed very hastily. That same wide, nexu-like grin spread across his face at the sight.
Okay. Maybe he had done one thing that was technically wrong. But why did it feel so right?
The open display of amusement did nothing to quell the spy’s rage, as he finished closing the distance and furiously poked a finger into Draike’s chest. He growled something distinctly unflattering in High Gammorese, and while Draike tried to hold his mirth in—he didn’t really try that hard, because he almost doubled over laughing.
This only egged Theron on, and the next string of curses mixed in several other languages. Who knew the man was a polyglot?
“I will have you know that my mother was a saint,” Draike managed to get in between wheezes, “and you better not let your wife hear you talking about her like that.”
That seemed to break through Theron’s sexually frustrated rage long enough to stem the seemingly endless, nearly incoherent tirade. But the anger was clearly still simmering. If looks could kill, Draike was pretty sure he would have been a puddle of incinerated goo on the floor of the Logistics Hangar. Of course, he’d been on the receiving end of far worse looks. Shan would need to bring his A game if he wanted to attempt to intimidate Draike Highwind.
Theron started again, in Basic this time. “You son of a—”
“Ah ah, a saint,” Draike reminded him, possibly a little too mockingly.
Theron’s mouth shut with an audible click, and breathed out a long whistling breath through his nose.
“You know, Shan, you really should put a little more care into your wardrobe. Tumble bunny slippers? Really?”
The spy wrinkled his nose, the newly discovered vein seeming to bulge again with a freshly ignited rage. “You sent that droid into our quarters on purpose!”
“Who? Me?”
“Yes, you!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Draike widened his eyes, the complete picture of innocence. How was he supposed to know that Theron was trying to route around his carefully crafted plans and engage in a little afternoon delight? Truly, it had just been a cosmic coincidence that had turned out in the smuggler’s favor.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Highwind! I know what you’re up to!”
“And what is that?” Draike blinked languidly.
“I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of saying it out loud!”
“Oh, no,” he tsked sadly, “is there some trouble in the bedroom with you and the misses?”
“Knock it off!” Theron snarled. “What the hell is your problem?”
That sort of language utterly wounded Draike, and he displayed that the only way he knew how, by dramatically clutching his chest and crying out in the most melodramatic fashion. “I’m just upset that I wasn’t invited to the wedding!”
“What?” Theron asked flatly.
“It was always my dream to walk my baby sister down the aisle — and your elopement ruined that!”
“…no it wasn’t, you goddamn liar!”
“I’m wounded, utterly wounded!”
Theron pivoted on his heel, letting out an inarticulate frustrated cry.
“You know what would cure that bad temper?” Draike couldn’t help himself. “A little good quality time with the little mis—“
The rest of his sentence was drowned out by another particularly vile High Gammorese curse as Theron stormed off. A final “Turn in your goddamn reports!” echoed across the hangar, and Draike couldn’t hold it any longer and broke down in laughter.
There was really only one problem with Draike’s plan to completely avoid any potential awkwardness with his best friend — and that was when you completely avoided someone, it had a tendency to compound the issue of not seeing them. In fact, Draike had been so successful in his efforts, by the time it occurred to him that maybe he’d overreacted a little, and the encounter itself had probably long faded from her mind, Lyra was nowhere to be found.
Which was just rude. People shouldn’t be able to use his own tactics against him. There had to be some sort of rule or code against that.
Naturally, all inquiries made in regards to her whereabouts were completely and utterly casual. As he had carefully cultivated an upstanding reputation of detached aloofness that had served him well. If he appeared too eager for anything, someone might get the bright idea in their head to saddle him with more responsibility — maybe mistake him for the other Highwind on base that seemed to thrive under that sort of thing.
And it wasn’t like Lyra was the most entertaining Jedi or Force user on base to hang around with, she wasn’t even the most entertaining person—because apologies to everyone, Guss would forever and always hold both of those titles. No contest. No contenders. It was just the cold, hard facts of the situation.
But if Draike was being honest… her company was missed some. Bowdarr didn’t laugh at his stupid jokes that he told in an attempt to cheat—er, strategically get the upper hand—at Sabacc. The wookiee just let out a non-amused growl and called him on it. And Guss just kept trying to palm the cards himself. It just wasn’t the same. He would hang out with Gault, but both Hylo and Theron had strictly forbidden it, as if they were convinced the entire base would erupt in flames if the two of them engaged in a battle of wits.
(And there was no way in hell he was ever going to sit at a table with that Rattataki, no matter how many lewd invitations she offered.)
So, Draike had been forced to turn to the very last place that he would ever dare to find answers: the duty roster.
“Who the hell is Houch Plehnt and why is he flying my ship?”
“Last I checked, the Khoonda was registered to Master Dorn, not you.”
Draike looked up to see one smirking and insufferable spy staring at him over the brim of a large mug of caf.
“Shan.” Any joviality in the greeting on Draike’s part was forced. “Nice to see you up and at ‘em. Still suffering from that acute case of prolonged sexual frustration?”
“Well, since you asked so nicely,” a wide, unrepentant grin spread across the other man’s face, “I’ve found that if I wake up early enough, there’s definitely enough time to fit in a quick bit of quality time with the little lady. Sometimes twice.”
“Gross! That’s my sister you’re talking about!”
“A wise man would know better than to ask a question he didn’t want the answer to.”
“Don’t think I won’t camp outside your door and bang pots at random intervals!”
“I think our guard droids might take issue with that.”
“HK-55 loves me and you know it!”
“Where are you going to find the pots?” Theron challenged, taking a long sip off his mug.
“I have friends in the kitchen!” Draike crossed his arms. “They’ll hook me up.”
“Don’t you think you’re going to excessive lengths to ‘protect your sister’s virtue’?”
“She’s a Jedi, I think she’s entirely capable of protecting her own virtue,” Draike sniffed indignantly. “Besides, this has nothing to with her, and everything to do with you.”
“And what did I do now?”
“You let some moon jockey take my ship out!”
“Again, not your ship.”
“Well, it’s the closest thing I’ve got to one until we track down where mine is,” Draike huffed.
“Guess it’s a shame you were off pouting somewhere when Dorn got her mission then,” Theron said a little too casually, taking another long, slow sip from his mug. “She had to go find another pilot since you were incommunicado.”
Draike tried not to look as put out as a he felt. Lyra knew that he was bored out of his skull and she had just left him here? And had gone off with some moon jockey? Who probably couldn’t even take off without scraping the paint? Houch Plehnt — what kind of name what that anyway? Man probably didn’t even know how to handle his blasters! (Pun partially intended.)
“You don’t just hijack someone’s crew, Shan!”
“Oh?” There raised those eyebrows again, another sip and a smirk. “Your crew, eh? I didn’t realize things were so… official.”
“They’re not,” he snapped back, perhaps a little too quickly. “We just have an understanding—she knows how bored I am! And she just leaves me here?”
“What she left you was this message.” Theron paused in his sipping and smirking long enough to produce a datapad. “Not that it’s any of my business.”
“It’s not.”
Theron shrugged, picked his mug back up and began to amble off. Presumably to his next meeting, or a rigorous and boring round of coding, or something equally dull and chaste per the elaborate fantasy that Draike was concocting in his head.
“You still haven’t sent in your report for the Kathol Rift incident yet.” The spy didn’t turn around or even flinch at the silent, rude gesture sent his way. “Maybe you’ll have some time to finish it now, since you’re so bored and have nothing better to do.”
“You know, Theron, I never pegged you as some flimsi pusher,” Draike called after him, which seemed to break through the smug haze, because he saw the spy’s shoulders stiffen, as if that insult had hit particularly close to home. “I guess we all become the thing we hate, eh?”
“You’re the one with the problem here, Captain, not me,” came the sharp reply, before the spy stalked off.
Draike glared at his retreating back, and when that had finally disappeared off into the bustle of the Odessen crowds, he turned his ire back to the traitorous duty roster that had started this whole thing to begin with. He ignored the datapad in his hand for longer than was probably necessary, before finally flicking the thing on.
Hey you. Got a little job to do in Taris. Couldn’t find you to see if you wanted to tag along. Houch Plehnt volunteered — should be back in a day or two. Wish me luck, he’s… not as quick with his blasters as you are. If you know what I mean. See you later, friend.
He glared at the datapad and the text on it, trying to smother the rising and conflicting emotions welling up in his chest. The walls weren’t closing in like the other day, but that nagging voice was starting to whisper in the back of his mind. In particular he kept staring at the word “friend” over and over, as if trying to parse out if it was some sort of hidden message.
It was stupid, that’s what it was. If she wanted to get herself killed by letting some random person with lesser skill at the helm of her ship, then fine. So be it. See if he helped her steal it back again if the jerk decided to fly off without her. Of course, that might strand her on Taris, which was not exactly friendly territory to have to try and navigate a flight out of.
Whatever. It wasn’t any of his business. He had better things to do. Like go teach Guss how to cheat better at cards.
In between about the thousandth time of trying to demonstrate the proper way to palm a card, and Guss accidentally spraying the entire Sabacc deck across the table, Draike had to admit defeat on his latest venture. The game of 76 Card Pickup was only entertaining about the first three times in a row, and then it just became dull. Like everything else around this place.
While he was amazing at most everything he did, Draike would have to admit that maybe he could have been a more effective tutor if he didn’t keep getting distracted by trying to calculate the average duration of a roundtrip between Wild Space and the Ojoster sector. Granted, a talented pilot could shave off a little time from that route, but he was pretty sure Houch Plehnt was anything but. Did the man even know the front end of his blaster from the back?
Not that Draike was concerned.
Because he wasn’t. He just had to find some way to fill his time, and unfortunately he’d been reduced down to basic algebra problems that most school children learned in their third year. And he wasn’t put out. How could he be? It wasn’t like he and Lyra had any formal arrangement (no matter how much Shan tried to slyly imply) to not go on missions without each other… they just… hadn’t for a long time. It wasn’t an expectation exactly, it was just the way things had been for a while. Help each other on assignments, hang out in the down time. Keep the ever encroaching boredom at bay for a little longer.
He also would not define himself as moping about the Logistics Hangar, with Guss trying to pick up an entire Sabacc deck off the floor where he’d accidentally flung it for the umpteenth time, when the Khoonda made its landing again. The ship’s owner emerged down the boarding ramp, covered in something utterly foul. Draike had almost no warning before a particularly sticky and odious arm was flung around his shoulders, an unidentified muck slurping itself onto his jacket.
“Hi,” Draike said, one hand discreetly covering his nose. “Miss me?”
“Yes,” Lyra enthused as she laid her head on his shoulder, further smearing the gunk of whatever covered her onto his skin.
He valiantly did not cringe at the slimy sensation. “You know that you stink, right?”
“It’s your fault,” she insisted.
“I don’t recall smearing you with the most disgusting substance known to man. That you’ve now smeared all over my best jacket.”
“Good,” she said firmly, “ and it is your fault. You disappeared on me, forcing me to take Houch as a pilot.”
“What kind of name is that anyway?”
“Don’t change the subject,” Lyra wrinkled her nose. “He was so afraid of getting bit by a Rakghoul he refused to step off the ship. So I had to get samples for Lokin myself.”
“Wait, so this stuff is—”
“Yes,” Lyra said lightly, “Rakghoul guts.”
“This was my best jacket!”
“Was being the operative word. Now it’s just a jacket covered in guts. We match!”
Draike sniffed indignantly, which was a mistake because all it gained him was a giant whiff of the odious stench emanating from the Jedi. “Why did you not shower?”
“Because Houch was so afraid of being infected he quarantined me in the cargo hold. Wouldn’t even let me near the refresher.”
“It’s your ship!”
“Trust me,” she muttered dangerously, “I know.”
“He still in the cockpit? I can go give him a hug on your behalf.”
“You’d do that?”
“Bastard stole my ship and by proxy ruined my favorite jacket. He’s got it coming.”
“You do realize it’s technically my ship, don’t you?”
“Why does everyone keep bringing that up?”
“Well, you have fun talking to Houch,” Lyra said breaking away, “I am going to go take a shower and then burn all of these clothes.”
“Looks like I’ll be doing the same,” Draike muttered petulantly.
“And be nice to Houch.”
“No promises!”
The conversation itself was normal. Friendly side-hugs and spirited banter but… as Lyra walked away, Draike couldn’t help but feel something about the encounter was different. The barbs just a little more pointed, and Lyra avoiding catching his eye. She had usually been quick to follow up the banter with some sort of reassurance, but this time she just walked away. It wasn’t like this was the first time he’d been an ass, and she had always let him off the hook before. He wasn’t sure why this time was different, but it was.
He watched her go, that same matronly voice in his ear starting up in its familiar scolding refrain.
The expletive slipped out on its own accord. His jacket was thoroughly ruined. It was a nice jacket. He’d just finished breaking it in. The sleeves were no longer stiff, and it had breathed so much nicer than the cheap synthleather ones that they kept in stock here on the base. Also, Houch Plehnt really needed a sticky Rakghoul gut hug. But mostly the man just needed to be kicked off and banned from ever re-entering the Khoonda.
Is that all you should really be thinking about right now? — the infuriating voice in the back of his mind asked.
He tried to come up with some excuse, some flim-flam to distract it, but arguing with one’s self was the first sign of insanity. He couldn’t give into it now, not after managing to keep his wits about him being stranded for five years on a backwater planet while the galaxy passed him by. That would just be insult to injury.
Fine. Fine. He’d listen to the stupid voice just this once.
It was much, much later when he found her out in the nerf pens. After a shower, burning his jacket, and covering one asshole Rodian pilot in rakghoul guts — not necessarily all in that order — he walked into one of the dirtiest places on base. It seemed almost pointless for Lyra to scrub herself clean and then go commune with the giant stinky beasts, but this was where she liked to hide out when she was trying to pretend she wasn’t upset. Like that time they had to steal back the Khoonda from the Corellian shipyards. Or the anniversary of dates that she’d never really explained the significance of.
Just like those other times, she was petting the nose of one of the giant, gentle creatures. Leaning in and saying something low. He spied a small smile playing at her lips, even if there was the air of something else about her. Like even with her big animal friends she felt she had to pretend that everything was fine.
Draike cleared his throat, and both Jedi and big nerf head looked up at him. He held up a bag from the mess hall as an offering, and her eyes lit up at the familiar sight. She gave the big beast another affectionate pat on the nose, whispering something before wiping her hands and ambling over. Just like all of the other times, they took a seat on one of the fallen logs that served as a makeshift bench.
They didn’t exchange a word, but he pulled out the to-go containers and utensils. She took his offering, removing the lid and inhaling the spicy scent wafting out. The smile that played at her lips was different from the ones she graced the nerf with, and she arched a brow at him. The noodle dish wasn’t her favorite Dantooinian variant, but it was the closest he could wrangle up. Thankfully, the grumpy cook wasn’t in the kitchen today, so he’d been able to negotiate a special order.
“Smells spicy.”
“I’m surprised you can smell anything over that nerf,” he said.
She shook her head, lips pressing together lightly, but the expression was a familiar mix of exasperated amusement. Not the slightly edged smile she’d greeted him with in the hangar, so that was probably a good sign.
“I don’t recall this being on the menu today,” she remarked lightly.
“I called in a favor.”
“How big of a favor?”
“There’s an extra container of hot sauce in here. You’re liable to lose a few taste buds.”
“Ah, that was quite the favor,” she mused. “The kitchen never wants to make it spicy enough.”
“You just have to know how to ask nicely,” Draike shot back, “and also slip them a few credits when no one’s looking.”
She slurped up a noodle with more gusto and noise than was necessarily proper, but the genuine smile blossoming on her face counterbalanced the breech in manners. For a few minutes, they were content to munch on their food as they watched the giant stinky beasts graze. It was almost tempting to just let the companionable silence stretch on, but he was supposed to be listening to the stupid little voice in his head, so…
He took a little time preparing the noodles for his next bite, seemingly focused on getting the absolute perfect twirl as he spoke. “I turned in the damn report.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her pause in the middle of her chew, shaking her head almost in disappointment. As if that wasn’t the actual issue. He continued to twirl his fork slowly, gathering more and more noodles and sauce. She was the one that left him behind, and yet he had swallowed his pride and given that stupid smug spy the satisfaction of having his precious paperwork turned in on time.
You know that’s not the real issue here, that damnable maternal voice in his head whispered again.
He ignored the voice. It only got one good deed out of him per month. That was the deal.
“You left me here,” he said continuing to twirl the noodles into what was starting to resemble a monstrous bite.
“You disappeared,” Lyra shot back. “What was I supposed to do? Refuse a mission because you were pouting?”
“I was not pouting,” Draike said huffily.
“Then what were you doing?”
He didn’t have an answer for that, so instead of replying he stuffed his now epically sized pasta twirl into his mouth. It was a mistake, as there was hardly any room to chew, and the spicy oil of the sauce set his cheeks on fire. Gamely he looked at her and shook his head, pointing at his full mouth as if in explanation that he couldn’t answer her question with his mouth full. The effect was ruined by the fact that he could feel a bead of sweat start to trickle down his face, his traitorous body betraying the fact that he was not as immune to the level of spice that she enjoyed in her dishes.
Lyra quirked a brow at him, unimpressed by his obvious skirting of the issue, while an oddly satisfied smile threatened to quirk at the corners of her mouth. It made him feel as if he had stepped into some sort of well-planned Dejarik maneuver she had been planning from the beginning of the game. Although Lyra Dorn really wasn’t the evil mastermind type.
“It really stung, you know,” she said after a moment of literally letting him sweat, “that you’d avoid me instead of talking to me about whatever was wrong.”
He could have had a perfect follow-up quip for that to distract and derail the conversation, but his mouth was still both on fire and impossibly stuffed with noodles which prevented him from forming any coherent sound. So he just let out a muffled series of noises in protest.
“Chew your food,” Lyra said, that eyebrow quirking again.
He snorted out an annoyed breath and tried to find a way to safely chew his monstrous, ill-conceived bite. He felt not unlike one of the big, stinky piles of fur chewing their cud. In retrospect, perhaps this maneuver of stuffing his face to avoid questions had backfired, as he was now at the mercy of anything else the Jedi had to say.
“I’d never strong arm you into saying or doing anything you didn’t feel,” she continued. “The fact that you don’t trust that…”
He shook his head at her, still unable to form coherent words.
“No, you don’t trust me?”
He shook his head again.
“No, that’s not what you meant?”
He nodded.
She sighed. “Can we just both agree to not do that again? Neither of us goes incommunicado when something’s wrong and… you never leave me at the mercy of a Houch Plehnt again. Fair?”
Draike couldn’t sigh, could only snort out a very long and aggrieved breath through his nose and shrug in an exaggerated manner — but he nodded. That seemed… fair.
“Good.” Lyra shot him a small, almost mischievous smile. “You know you’re being uncharacteristically silent.”
He tried to say something, but his mouth of noodles prevented more than an impolite, disgruntled sound.
“Chew,” she reminded him again, that little smirk still blossoming further. “So, did you get up to anything fun while I was gone?”
He let out another incoherent noise of frustration, unable to form proper words around the fire on his tongue and the noodles trying to slip out of his mouth.
“It’s impolite to talk with your mouth full, Captain.” Lyra clicked her tongue, and took a delicate, small bite. “You know, these are really good.”
He wrinkled his nose at her and tried to communicate his plight with his eyes.
She just flashed him another wide smirk, leaning over so she could bump his shoulder with hers. “You want some of my extra sauce to help wash those noodles down?”
Her only reply was a disgruntled grunt.
#swtor fanfiction#smuggler x oc jedi#smuggler/the voidhound#jedi oc#theron shan x jedi knight#Theron Shan#Female Jedi Knight/Hero of Tython#otp: nerfherders#oc: draike highwind#friend's oc: lyra dorn#oc: greyias highwind#otp: adorkable#thank you for the prompt!#grumpyhedgehog#greyfic#fanfic#swtor#tumblr seriously had it in for this ask#it has locked me out of doing read more's over on my 50shadesofgreyias sideblog#so i couldn't post over there#and when i tried to post over here and make it nice and pretty and formatted#it ate the ask#in a way that would somehow break the read more and eat the whole post#so...#i resort to this#sorry anyone under 18#avert your eyes#do not click on read more#that's the best i can do
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