#still get kudos once a month or something

[compacflt]

Sorry for the ridiculous ask (really it's unforgivable), but:

Iceman went to NYC to see A Chorus Line in '87.

2. Confirmed watched Sound of Music with Carole for her birthday.

Am I connecting any dots here and did Ice have to go to Hamilton as a publicity stunt in the last year of the Obama presidency?

oh no anon im being very intentional with my ice-musical-theatre links. its easy lazy writing shorthand for him being gay lol. even if he isn’t actively seeing shows he does put the tonys on in the background every year just bc he likes the color and dancing

he’s not a fan of rap and he doesn’t like how Hamilton bastardized american history for its own political aims thereby convincing multiple generations of laymen of factoids that simply aren’t true (Hamilton was strictly speaking not an immigrant & could only extremely loosely be called an abolitionist of any stripe) but he’s also a milquetoast liberal so he says he likes it for clout but he’s also a military flag officer so no one is really expecting him to go see Hamilton for publicity purposes so idk

the pentagon circa 2016:

[msmorningstaarr]

let me fill you up | Jaime Lannister x F!Targaryen reader

ao3 | masterlist

Pairing: Jaime Lannister x F!Targaryen reader

Summary: You, a Targaryen princess were married into the Lannister fold to ensure the alliance between the two houses, ensuring your eldest brother’s claim to the Iron Throne. Now, Lord Jaime makes your days filled with happiness and makes you eager to present him babies.

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: rhaegar wins AU, no targcest, smuff, fluff, breeding kink, praising kink, a lot of pet names (sweet girl, princess, love), reader has no physical description besides the silvery white targaryen hair, creampie, oral (f receiving), a very devoted husband commited to your pleasure, smut, sex;

a/n: Happy new year! I had posted I wanted to write something like that and it's been a while since I want to write something other than holy and heathen because I must admit I'm not very satisfied with what I've been writing lately. Some validation kudos, comments and reblogs would be very important to me, seriously :') I’ve been thinking in turning this into a small series but I’m not so sure. Could you give me your thoughts on this too? please, enjoy your reading!

Taglist: @princessanglophile @hiroikegawa @hiraethrhapsody

You are sitting surrounded by your maids and children on a breezy night, covered with a fur coat and a crimson silk dress under it. Attentively, you go stitch by stitch and slowly form a lion, sigil of your husband’s house. Ever since Robert’s Rebellion ended and your brother, King Rhaegar Targaryen won, you became promised to the former knight of the Kingsguard, now Lord Jaime Lannister. Life in the lion’s den was not difficult, once Lord Tywin treated her with the most kindness and Jaime was still coming out of his shell. At first, he was your sworn sword in King’s Landing and spent plenty of time together in an unbalanced relationship. Now, you two are sharing a bed after a tumultuous year of war and destruction, as equals. In the beginning, you were sceptical about marrying into the Lannister household, but as the months went by, you found yourself drowned at him. Jaime is careful, gentle and kind. He brings you a small dandelion every morning once he knows it reminds you of home.

His only quirk was the strange attachment to his sister, Lady Cersei. But after being sent to Dorne to marry Prince Oberyn of House Martell and getting distant from each other, your relationship with your husband seemed to finally thrive.

“It appears to be beautiful, my lady.” Said one of her maids, taking care of your youngest son, a small silvery blonde figure of two years of age.

“A bright lion handkerchief for Jaime to carry with him.” You reply, admiring your piece of work. “Do you believe your father will like it, sweetling?” You then ask your eldest daughter, an adorable child of four. Your daughter eagerly nods her head and wraps her hands around one of your fingers to pull the fabric closer to her eyes.

“Dada will love it, mama!” The little one exclaimed, spinning around with the kerchief on her tiny hands.

“What will I love, if I’m allowed to ask?” A tall, blonde figure shows up in your private bedchambers, wearing a classic Westerland attire with a crimson fabric and intricate strings of gold shaped into the sleeves and collar. You smile sweetly to Jaime as he approaches you and grabs your middle child to hold in his arms.

“Papa!” The blonde little girl runs towards her father to embrace his legs and your maids stand up to bow to their lord.

“Have you missed me, dear?” Jaime asked and the fussy children eagerly nodded at him, embracing their father even more. Sometimes, seeing Jaime being so loving and kind towards your children simply melted your heart. You felt the urgency to kiss him and dig your fingers onto his bright hair, begging him for another child. Your cunt ached in pleasure to the thought of Jaime pumping his seed inside of you. You were still young and could bear many more children.

“Mm-rrhm…” You scoffed. “I have missed you too, husband.”

The three children giggled and the child on his arms hid his face on the crook of Jaime’s neck. The eldest covered her laugh with her tiny hands and the youngest beamed along their siblings. Jaime came closer to you and caressed your cheeks with his free hand. Then, a single and gentle kiss he places over your forehead, making your heart flutters with love and passion.

“I have missed you too, my love.” Jaime said, passing his fingertips on your chin and smiling at you.

Your maids quickly stood up and bowed at their overlord as a sign of respect. “Excuse me, my lord, my lady,” Said the servant girl. “Let us take the children so you can rest.”

“But I want to stay with papa!” Said the elder daughter, pouting and crossing her arms. The other two children whined and complained along, but you lowered into their level whilst Jaime talked to the youngest on his arm.

“Sweetlings,” She said, caressing their cheeks. “Your father is rather tired after riding for so long. Go with her, I promise you, your siblings, me and your father will have plenty of time together on the morrow. Is that understood, my loves?”

“I can take you to ride a horse tomorrow and even let you eat lemon cakes before super. What do you think?” Jaime asked, delivering the fussy child from his arms to the other maid. In unison, the three infants agreed and left disappointed. Once you and your husband were alone in your bedchambers, Jaime smiled at you gallantly. You embrace him intimately and are finally able to feel the warmth of his muscular body and feel the softness of his golden hair. His lips reach yours and in a whirlwind of sensations, your cunt is already dripping in anticipation just by a simple touch coming from him. Once he breaks the kiss, he keeps holding you by your waist and gazing at you with admiration.

“You have been gone for too long, love.” You say, passing your fingertips on his lips. He smiles and gives you a peck on the lips before speaking.

“I had duties with your brother, Our Grace King Rhaegar, sweet girl.” Jaime replies, pulling her out gently and grabbing the fabric she embroidered for him.

“I hope you like it, I made it just for you.” You point out, joining your hands to follow him. He keeps smiling as he observes attentively the intricate work you did.

“I shall cherish it and take it wherever I go, dragon princess.” He replied, folding and putting the kerchief in one of his pockets. You giggle as you hear him calling you ‘dragon princess’, a custom he chose to never abandon as a form to remember the late days of their relationship “I wish I had more time to be around and play with the children, I have been missing them and you.”

“They made drawings every day and left it on your desk at your office.” You reply, walking to the window and being followed by him.

“I will make sure to have them guarded in our chambers. Safe as our gold.” He says, hugging you from behind and kissing your neck lightly. You beam in ecstasy feeling his body smother you into a comforting embrace and full missing him.

“Sometimes I still cannot believe we are wedded to each other. You were my sworn shield in King’s Landing!” You exclaim as his hand caresses your empty belly and it tingles by his touch. He grins at your words and says.

“Most people are not so lucky to know your spouse before the wedding day. I consider myself the most lucky man in the world because I could be in your acquaintance from so long ago.” He replies, falling his head on the crook of your neck.

You turn around to be face to face with Jaime, feeling the cold breeze of the rock hitting your back and giving you small shocks as Jaime caresses your back, making you experience a thermal shock and shudder to his touch.

“I feel very lucky to be your wife, Jaime. Most women are not so fortunate to have such a kind, loving and handsome husband.” You mutter as he strokes your hair, in awe with your beauty.

“I guess we are fortunate to be together after so many troubles in war. We even brought new lives into this world to paint a new, brightful history.” He replies, caressing your womb. You stare at his fingers passing up and down your belly and glances at him with a sweet smile.

“And we could have more, love. I must admit I feel empty for so long and I want to give you more children… I know I can give you an entire army of your own. Half lion, half dragon. Unstoppable creatures.”

“You feel empty, love?” He asks, smirking and you eagerly agree with him. “Then allow me to fill you up…” Jaime finished, slowly undoing the intricate laces of your dress to reveal your bare skin under the crimson fabric. In response, you open his attire slowly and little by little his white tunic appears to her eyes.

By this point, your cunt is already sore in anticipation for the moment about to happen and clenches around nothing once he pushes the last section of string holding your garment, releasing you from the pressure tightening your upper body. Jaime pushes down your dress and your underwear is now on display for him, which makes him bite his lip and eagerly take down your white camisole to show him your bare body. You moan as he squeezes your breast and pinches your nipples whilst kissing you. You quickly take off his own undershirt to show off his chest.

“So eager is my dragon princess.” He playfully says, leading you to bed and carefully laying you down. With devotion, he starts to kiss your feet, legs and knees, his hands roaming through your thighs and hips. “Spread your legs for me, little dragon.”

You part your legs, obeying his soft command. “So wet… I can see you truly missed me, my love.” He says, kissing your inner thighs as your body squirms in pleasure before he reaches your intimacy.

“Oh… I have missed you so much, my lion.” You moan your words as he kisses your groyne and passes his fingers lightly over your clit, making your womb tremble and convulse to his touch.

“I can see that, just as I missed you, my dragon princess. Do I have permission to give you a lord’s kiss?” He asks and you only nod in response, making Jaime wet his lips with his own saliva before diving into your dripping core and you to scream involuntarily as his tongue and lips eat you up with full desire. Jaime circles his tongue around your clit and roam around your entire intimacy, making your hips bounce onto his direction. It was his costume to make you come every time before he would be inside of you, now could not be different.

You feel your body explode as if someone threw you into dragon fire as Jaime relentlessly pleases you, making magic with his tongue. Skillfully, he explores your intimate area inch by inch with eagerness, making you dig your fingers on his golden curls, pulling him closer to your cunt and you contorses your body urging for more. Tears of pleasure fall off as you feel goosebumps once you realise you are close to your climax.

As the intensity builds, Jaime's movements become more deliberate, pushing you closer to the edge of bliss. Your breath hitches, and your fingers entwine in his golden locks, urging him on. The world narrows down to the pleasure he provides, the connection between you deepening with every passing moment.

When the climax finally crashes over you, Jaime doesn't relent. He continues to caress your sensitive core with his tongue, prolonging the sweet release. Your body shudders with pleasure, and you feel the bond between you and Jaime reaching new heights.

“Husband…” You try to stop him and give yourself some time to take a breath, but Jaime does not back off and part your legs once more, holding it as he keeps licking, kissing and sucking your pussy.

“No no, wife… let me please you and bring you to climax once more…” He cuts your words and gently goes back, but now he plays with his fingers on your clit, with far less pressure and slowly draws circles around it, taking soft moans from you. Jaime rises to hover over you, a wicked glint in his eyes. His fingers trace patterns on your flushed skin as he leans in for a heated kiss, allowing you to taste the remnants of your own pleasure on his lips. “Taste yourself, love.”

And not so long after, you scream his name as you feel waves of pleasure hitting your body as a lightning bolt hits the ground in a storm. Your body is trembling and your legs seem to be two wooden sticks, barely able to stand.

“Please… inside of me, Jaime… I need you…” You plead with him, pulling his body to be on top of yours.

“Your wish is my command, princess.” He replies, kissing you passionately once more and positioning between your legs. Jaime's eyes meet yours, filled with a mixture of desire and adoration. The anticipation was hanging heavy in the air, your bodies aligned perfectly, and as he slowly entered you, a shared moan escaped both of your lips.

The sensation is electrifying, the culmination of the pleasure he bestowed upon you and the intimate connection between your bodies. Jaime moves with a rhythmic precision, each thrust deepening the bond that exists only between you two.

“My perfect princess takes me so well…” He grows as thrusts into you going back and forth nonstop. You lock him by involving your legs around his waist and feeling his hard cock entering your cunt in full force, reaching your cervix and making you beg for more in his ear.

The room echoes with the sounds of your shared ecstasy, a symphony of pleasure that reverberates through the stone walls. The flickering candlelight casts shadows that dance across your entwined bodies, creating a tapestry of love and passion.

“Put another babe on my belly Ser, please…” You beg him as moans leave your mouth and the sound of crashing bodies fill the room quickly.

“With pleasure, love…” He says once more. Jaime moves with a rhythmic precision, each thrust deeper inside of your pussy in farfetched positions. He missed you too much after months away from you and it shows by the way he kisses you as he moves desperately to have more of mounting his dragon. The room echoes with the sounds of your shared passion, a symphony of pleasure that reverberates through the stone walls. The flickering candlelight casts shadows that dance across your entwined bodies. As Jaime's movements become faster, the pleasure intensifies, and you find yourself on the verge of another climax. The pleasure is overwhelming, and your bodies move in perfect harmony.

With a final, fervent thrust, Jaime succumbs to the ecstasy and releases his seed deep inside of your womb, growling and grunting with relief and utter bliss. You hit your own orgasm as you feel the warm jets of his seed invading your walls and your body squirm and you scream his name, crying out.

Your bodies tremble in the aftermath, and he collapses beside you, pulling you into his arms. The room is filled with a comforting silence as you both catch your breath. Jaime's fingers gently trace patterns on your skin as you bask in the warmth of the afterglow. “Do you think we created one more life for our household, love?” You ask him, laying your head on his chest. The world outside your chambers seems distant, and for a moment, it's just the two of you, lost in the serenity of each other's embrace.

“Depending on your fertile womb, my love, I have no doubts you are.” He replies, caressing your silvery white hair. “But we must endure in our pursuit on a daily routine. Just to make sure our fourth babe is on the way.” He playfully replies, smirking at you, who mischievously smiles back at him and kisses his lips, wiping some strings of sweat from his face.

Jaime presses a tender kiss to your forehead, his voice a soothing murmur, "I love you, my dragon princess."

And you, wrapped in the arms of the man you love, whisper back, "And I love you, my lion shield."

[ao3commentoftheday]

Hey, do you have any advice or encouragement for someone writing for a popular fandom/ship for the first time? I'm more used to posting fic in very small fandoms where a pin drop can be heard or fandoms where the engagement is still managable with several 100 or 1000 stories, so the thought of posting my first fic for a ship that was FOURTH in the top of all time this year sounds like a massive undertaking. I'm actually terrified in a way I haven't been in a LONG time lol

It sounds like you might have stage fright, if I'm reading you right. And that's perfectly reasonable when you think about the size of a fandom that large.

The flip side, of course, is that a fandom that large has folks posting into the tag constantly. You might actually end up with the opposite problem to what you've experienced in a smaller fandom.

In smaller spaces, it's possible to get more comments and reactions because it's small. The people are more eager for stories and artwork. The community knows each other better. You can skim through the tag once or twice a week and be completely caught up with everything, and you can take your time to read everything that interests you and comment and kudos on top of that.

In a megafandom, there are so many people posting so often that your fic might end up being drowned out in the noise. That's not a guarantee, of course! But it's something to prepare yourself for.

If you do end up getting more comments or attention than you can handle, remember that you can always take a break. Put the fic on official or unofficial hiatus. Respond to comments in batches, or only respond to the ones where the commenter poses a question. Take time away - whether that's an afternoon or a whole month - when it all gets to be too much.

The most important thing to remember, though, is that whatever statistics you get on your work those numbers aren't about your writing ability or your likeability as a person. Those numbers are about how many people saw your summary and tags and decided that what you put out there was something they wanted to take in.

What about the rest of you? Have you got some advice for a first time poster to a megafandom?

[dearcarmine]

any of you for me

: ̗̀➛ pairing; miguel o'hara + spider!reader

: ̗̀➛ tags; slight movie spoilers? smut { breeding kink, marking, biting, unprotected vaginal sex, pain play, blood kink }

: ̗̀➛ summary; after months with miguel gone, he finally decides to visit your dimension. you've considered taking a break from him and his absence, but he convinces you to stay.

: ̗̀➛ a/n; 1.7k my first written smut. kudos, notes, comments, and requests are appreciated. female or afab reader. "girl" is used. this is a reupload. yea, this is my work 😭 written during the miguel craze.

archive of our own version

miguel's usually a few dimensions away by this time, later at night. you couldn't help but stare at the gizmo he had lyla deliver to you herself. while miguel was busy, she said. you hated to interrupt him since he took the responsibility of cleaning the multiverse himself, but you'd distract him. he'd always worry. making yourself busy was a better option than waiting the situation out; waiting for him to come back wasn't good for either of you. saving people on your earth, taking care of mayday for pete and mj, and your day job.

few nights ago, peter was taking may back from your place to take her home. you briefly mentioned breaking it off with miguel to peter not knowing that he monitored visuals and audios from their gizmos. you dismissed the topic, not wanting to hold him with you too long. you thinking of miguel and even talking about him led him to your door for the first time in too many months.

your hands sewed the tears in your suit underneath the desk lamp. it was only a few dirt patches and scratches from your earth's rhino, but you've heard worse happening to others in the society. you heard a knock at the door and dropped the needle to answer. miguel stood at the frame with a weak bundle of flowers, "hey," he spoke out of breath as if he ran. his clothes were basic, but you knew he didn't have much other than his suit. his jeans were dark and fitting, and his shirt was a dark grey.

"it's been months, miguel," you let out a sigh, "come in." you left the door and heard as he followed you after shutting it. he plopped the flowers on your kitchen counter and followed you to your desk. you picked up where you left off and sat to sew; he stood beside you, looking down at the torn suit adorned with a dirty version of your spider-symbol. his eyes burned onto you, not knowing much of what to say. his hand soon met your shoulder, "i talked to peter," he began.

you shut your eyes in annoyance and got up, pushing your chair back, "my god."

he cannot keep his mouth shut once a topic surfaces.

miguel followed you as you paced, stopping yourself from walking away completely. "you want a break? i know i've been gone, but-"

you scoffed at his weak defense. months on end, you found something to do, anything, just to get your mind off of him. and now when he wanted some company or to apologize, you wouldn't have it. miguel used to be there for you, but he was just some guy now. although he really missed you, the only way you'd win any argument with him is resisting. you waved your hand in the air angrily, "i've been busy, alright?"

before you could turn away, his hands cupped your face, "you saying you didn't miss me? ¿qué nos pasó?" (what happened to us?)

you groaned, but enjoyed the feeling of his hands on your skin again. it took your all not to melt into his touch. a breathy gasp left your lips as his hands lowered to your waist, "miguel-"

"cariño," he said back sassily.

his head leaned down to meet yours, his brown eyes hypnotizing you just as he knew they would. you couldn't say no to him. miguel wouldn't let you. his fingers rubbed into your hips, massaging them the way you liked. the way he knew you liked. it didn't take long for you to comply, playing along to his antics. part of you was still pissed at him only showing up now, but you'd have time to talk later. he came to your place with a plan, whether you knew it or not; it worked. your hands met his chest greedily, practically clawing at his shirt to remove it. his chest heaved as you got close, brushing against the front of his jeans. your lips met his and he groaned into your mouth, not keeping his off yours until you needed a breath. miguel's fangs brushed against your lips, picking at them slightly.

his hands lowered to his jeans, removing his belt and tossing it to your couch. "how long, baby?" your eyes darted downwards as he discarded his jeans and lifted his shirt, "six months." "and you missed me?" you nodded. he looked you up and down, only in navy boxers at this point. his gaze undressed you, but he expected some participation. "six months later, i know you didn't forget."

you took off your shirt and lowered your shorts. you needed him just as he did you. forgiving him after this would go smoother, you thought. he didn't want to be gone; he dreaded the months apart and cleaning up after anyone else but you...he just couldn't. he only wanted your mess, and you in general.

"you look just the same as i remembered. perfect."

his eyes scanned your body and made you hot; you took a seat on the couch and miguel walked toward you, looking down to admire your face. a sculptors final piece, he mumbled. you leaned foward, your nose meeting his hips as his hand moved over your skin to the clip of your bra. you remembered all the times you've done this before. always the same, but he made every bit of it special. he dropped your bra from his hand and unsheathed a talon, gliding it across your back. you tried to lift your head a bit to speak, but he rubbed your hair and put your face to his waist.

the claw dragged on your back with a sting that caused you to hiss. "how'd you do it all this time? by yourself?"

the casual voice he had made you roll your eyes, "myself."

"so nobody else has been here?" he asked impatiently. "friends only."

it took you a few hisses and huffs before you realized he marked a small "m" on your left shoulder blade. your head lifted as his bent down with a smirk, "loyal. that's my girl." you moved your shoulder back a few times to relax it. his knees met the ground as he kept his eyes locked on you, "can i?" you nodded needily and leaned back into the cushions. your shoulder throbbed only slightly, but he'd make you forget it.

"¿cómo podría dejar esto?" (how could i leave this?)

your thighs parted from his hands. they gripped your skin as the pads of his fingers rubbed and dragged up higher. his lips then dragged down onto them, leaving wet kisses and the occasional nip from his fangs. it was unintentional until he caught a moan from you, noticing how you didn't mind it. "that good?" he went down to do it again, taking in all of his senses before he looked back up. the way you smelled, looked, and the taste of the skin you exposed. he wasn't even there yet. though he didn't need it, he wanted a part of you with him. his tongue slid against his lips before he slowly bit down on you inner thigh, sucking whatever dripped from you.

you looked down, at first confused, but his eyes met yours again. his mouth pulled back, "a part of you. in me. that okay?" you nodded. he'd give anything to make sure the two of you stayed connected. even if it meant your blood staining his tongue.

his arms lifted your legs onto his shoulders and he tilted his head to edge his fang against your panties. a slit through the cloth came easy and you moaned at the small friction you got from his fang. miguel's finger stretched the hole more until he got a clear view of your pussy. he chuckled lowly and moved his fang against your clit, gentle not to poke you. he pulled back, "muy sensible.." (very/so sensitive).

his tongue took over and began licking slowly, making you wait for any kind of pleasure. it was more for him than you until his tongue got deeper. the corners of his mouth leaked with you, making him come up and stand for air.

miguel's boxers didn't hide an inch. he took them down himself and moved your legs back open from closing sensitively. his hand came up to your face, his thumb brushing against your bottom lip. "you gonna leave me?" he whispered sultrily. you shook your head and looked down, waiting for him to get closer. he caught you and smirked before kissing you again. his tip brushed against your clit teasingly before pushing at least the tip in. months without contact like this, months of loyalty made you crazy for this. he could tell with just how tight you were.

miguel thrusted deeper, his waist to yours as the blood from his bite wiped onto his thigh. you whined as you felt a knot in your stomach, whispering broken spanish as you panted heavily and squeezed your eyes shut. your nails dug into his broad back, leaving scratches that drew the smallest of blood.

"fuck- stay like that, don't move," he moans followed by a string of endearments. "i wanna make sure you never leave me, querida."

he kept his pace as you whimpered under him, kneading your breasts in his hands to keep them busy and his eyes entertained as your face scrunched in pleasure. "miguel, please~" you pleaded quiet, but enough for him to hear. his sweat ran down his forehead as he continued to ram into you, slapping his hips into yours mercilessly, building the tenseness in your stomach until you came undone.

"¿puedo? c'mon, baby, please-" he was cut off with his own grunts as he got close, not bringing himself to pull away from you yet. your pussy was aching from his roughness, but you endured it if it meant another second with him. you nodded and gave him permission; he pushed inside you one last time and came. you tapped his shoulder, whimpering into his collarbone, "deep-" you muttered tiredly.

he nodded, "i know," he gave a few thrusts after his release, overstimulating your body in the best way possible. "te voy a dar el mejor bebé." (i'm gonna give you the best baby).

miguel's cock twitched inside you, your cum not making it easy to stay still. the two of you panted as he held himself up with the cushions of the couch and pulled away from you. a small pool of wetness collected onto the couch, "if it takes-" he blinked hard and kissed your lips. he pulled back with a smile and you spoke before he could finish, "it will."

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Triangulum - Chapter 3 - An Unwelcomed Guest

— — — — — — —

Bill’s head hurt.

A searing ache throbbed at the back of his skull while consciousness returned to him once again. No pain in recent memory compared to something like this; even getting his eye ripped out of its socket had been more of an inconvenience at worst. It took forever to regenerate those things!

The closest thing he could compare such intense pain to was his outright death, which sent a jolt of panic through his mind that only furthered his headache. He wasn’t dead again, was he—

“Why would I go through all this effort to bring you back, only to deceive you about what I have to offer?”

Oh. Right.

Any concerns were washed away in an instant as the feathery face of the shelduck drifted to the front of his mind. Not just their face, but the conversation the two of them had shared in the mindscape. The game they had wanted him to play, their contract, the destruction of the barrier as a prize—

—something was wrong.

Even with his eyelid still closed, Bill could physically feel a disconnect with his body. 

It was difficult to verbalize properly—his eye felt too distant from his limbs, and his usual shape felt noticeably altered. As if he’d slipped into a costume with lots of awkward parts, ones that stuck out in ways that forced him to be aware of their existence as he tried to descend down a narrow passageway.

Almost exactly how he’d felt whenever he possessed someone in the past. 

But the way the body suited itself around his existence, it didn’t feel like it would belong to a talking, anthropomorphic shelduck. Even with his eye closed, Bill could still feel a lack of any feathers pinpricking their way through his skin, or a beak protruding from his face—

“When did I ever say you were going to possess me in this game?”

…Ah.

Alright, even he couldn’t ignore a good loophole dodge when he saw it. Point to Tangy for their oh-so-clever little trick; he’d be sure to give them kudos for it later. 

Kudos in the form of soaking their tacky windbreaker in a gallon of rotten tuna fish for a month. Good luck getting the smell out after that one, Birdbrain!

“—what if he’s not even in there anymore?”

“Yeah, he could’ve jumped out after Wendy clunked him on the back of the head!”

“Are we even sure it’s him in the first place? Just sayin’, some random kid cackling maniacally in the middle of the woods isn’t the weirdest thing to happen around here.”

“Everyone just hold on a second, I’m trying to think—”

The sound of frantic, hushed voices stirred him further awake, and he fluttered his eyelid—no, wait, eyelids plural—open the tiniest amount to investigate. 

It didn’t seem like Birdbrain had taken any extreme measures with his vision; he still possessed a functioning eyeball. But rather than being set in the center of his face, his vision had taken a hard shift to the left and weakened to a noticeable degree. And while his vision hadn’t carried over to the right side of his face, he could feel another eyeball rotating around in its socket.

Almost as much as he could feel a set of teeth and tongue in a separate cavity much lower on his face—oh, eugh, he’d forgotten how bizarre it felt to have his face parts separated like this, and not even the fun kind of bizarre!—or a protruding nose right smack dab between his new pair of eyes.

Alright, so Birdbrain had gone humanoid for his vessel. Bit cliché, but nothing he wasn’t used to by this point. And if his mouth and eye placement weren’t enough to confirm this fact, peering open his eyelids further revealed his head to be slumped forwards, gaze fixed on a pair of black-panted human legs that were clearly attached to his body.

Yep, there was no denying that he’d been slapped back into a meatsuit mecha.

An even-riskier peek around him revealed he was currently tied up in some sort of bedroom. One clearly owned by the word’s most generic older woman of all time; creme-colored floral wallpaper decorated the walls, a shelf lined with creepy, porcelain dolls was situated near the door, and a comfortable old recliner had been set up near the fireplace—

—hang on, wasn’t this just the parlor room in the Shack?

“He’s awake!”

Shoot. Guess he’d made it a bit too obvious that he’d regained consciousness.

Bill’s head snapped up to full height at the sudden exclamation, only find himself on the receiving end of a number of different intimidation methods—all to various degrees of effectiveness.

Mabel’s weapon of choice was her beloved grappling hook. One of the better options of the bunch; metal was strong enough to shatter a fragile human skull if aimed at just the right spot and applied with just enough power and force. Terrible for his current vessel, but Bill could appreciate a healthy level of bloodlust.

Stan’s brass-knuckled fists were—admittedly—also an inspired choice, given how effective his fists had been in the past. A fact that Bill was happy to ignore and brush to the side as he shifted his attention over to—

—the random plank of wood in Dipper’s hands, one he was gripping tightly with all the intimidation of a mildly-inconvenienced kitten. Yeesh, had he even tried?

Of course, Pine Tree’s embarrassing incompetence was compensated in full by the gun in Ford’s hand, both the barrel and his own violent gaze locked onto Bill like his life depended on it.

Hmm, that was annoying.

And here Bill had hoped he could keep his return discreet for at least a short while before these suckers caught wind. Maybe strike some fear and uncertainty in their naive minds by staring ominously at them through their windows, only to vanish from sight when they came over to investigate. 

Were their minds playing tricks on them now that they were back in town? Were they simply paranoid as a result of what happened the year before? Or was there really someone watching them beyond the shadows of the trees? 

Maybe if his methods were effective enough, Ford would even start shooting at the woods in a blind panic. Heck, maybe one of the kids would even get caught in the crossfire!

Y’know, fun stuff like that.

But unfortunately for Bill, it seemed like he’d dropped right into the belly of the beast and Ford had gained the upper hand while he’d been unconscious. 

Any attempts to move his new human limbs revealed them to be restrained to the chair he was seated upon; arms tucked behind the back and bound at the wrists, torso tied in place—what, had there been a sale on rope or something? It was a miracle they’d left his legs alone—or maybe they’d just run out of rope by that point?

Nope, an abandoned piece near the far wall rendered that guess incorrect. Maybe they just hadn’t had enough time to restrain his legs, then?

Moving the focus back to his captors, Bill’s gaze bounced from person to person as he took a quick stock of their expressions. Unanimous hatred and fury trying so desperately to mask the uncertainty and fear behind their expressions. The clear desire to come across as intimidating, despite the trembling hands around their weapons.

So much fear, despite having the upper hand over him. Bill was tied to a chair and barely conscious, yet he could get a reaction like this outta them?

Good.

Because otherwise, he had no idea how he would be able to spin this situation to his advantage. With the element of surprise and mobility no longer an option for him, tapping into those fears and insecurities was the only weapon that Bill had left at his disposal.

Speaking of which—

The silence in the room stretched on as the Pines continued to stare at him, to the point where Bill was starting to grow bored. Sure, leaving them forever entrenched in uncertainty might be fun in theory, but that also required him to remain quiet for just as long.

And while that wasn’t an impossible order, Bill Cipher was not the kind of triangle to sit and behave quietly if he had any say in the matter.

He needed just the right comment to break the ice. A perfect reintroduction to his presence in their lives, one that would only strengthen that fear behind their eyes.

“I gotta ask, what didja think a gun was gonna do against me?” he asked with a grin at Ford. “I mean, do you really think regular old bullets are going to be enough to get the job done?”

His pupil flicked over to Dipper. “Guess it’s better than whatever Junior’s got going on over there, though,” he said. “Seriously, Pine Tree, a piece of wood? I guess you might have a chance at beating me in a game of interdimensional rock-paper-scissors, but outside of that, I don’t like your odds.”

Just for good measure, he punctuated everything with his loud, trademark cackle—one that shook the room and everyone in it.

Oh yeah, that’d do the trick nicely.

Sure enough, everyone’s grip on their weapons tensed, the fear in their faces now completely tangible as the worst scenario they could possibly imagine was confirmed.

“Bill.”

It was Ford who spoke first, tone marinaded in venom as he stared Bill down. Such vitriol sent another cackle throughout Bill, his body wiggling with delight against the bonds that held him to the chair. “Aww, it’s good to see you too, Sixer~!” he said sweetly. “What’s it been, about nine months now? Nice beard, by the way. Really brings your face together in a way that those sideburns didn’t, know what I mean?”

His amusement fell with a vindictiveness he made no attempt to mask. “Although if you ask me, I’d suggest taking up that old face-burning habit of yours to clear everything up and start fresh,” he said, narrowing his eye—eyes. “I mean, you’re clearly the expert in burning things around here. Facial hair, bridges, minds with me in them—”

“Stop talking.”

Bill was cut off by the cold, threatening steel of the gun barrel being pressed against his cheek, pupil flitting up to Ford’s own cold, threatening gaze. 

Oh, he was real mad. 

Of course, not even Ford’s ire was enough to silence Bill completely, and he managed a smug grin despite the distortion of his cheek against the weapon’s tip. “Again I ask: just a regular gun? No Quantum Destabilizer? No memory-erasing device or fancy-schmancy magical weapon from your precious journals? You’re really getting dull in your old age, Fordsy.” 

He tilted his head, half in thought and half to give himself some breathing room. “Although I have to wonder why you didn’t just try to kill me while I was knocked out, if you’re this trigger-happy?”

The answer to that one was pretty obvious. Given their initial reactions, they hadn’t been certain if he had actually been possessing someone—and they weren’t about to go and murder an innocent human on the off-chance they were wrong. And now that he was awake and his presence confirmed, they weren’t about to go and murder an innocent human while he was possessing them.

And if that was truly the case, it probably meant he was free to run his mouth as much as he wanted.

Probably. 

Maybe?

“Ooh, lemme guess: you wanted me to be awake before you pumped me full of lead?”

…Heck with it, he couldn’t resist the chance to press a few more of Ford’s buttons. To really test the waters on what he could get away with saying or doing. “Well, I’d love to see you take your best shot at it~!” he continued with a wide grin, one that show far too much of his gums. Guess that was one benefit to having a humanoid vessel again. “I know it’ll probably get a real laugh outta the poor sucker I’m puppeting around now—”

There was a click of the hammer as the tip was pressed further into his cheek, to the point where not even leaning away from it would pull Bill out of its line of fire.

Alright, limit reached for the time being. “Okay, okay, geez, I get the picture,” he said, rolling his eyes in annoyance. “Can I at least ask for a mirror or something? I wanna see what I’m working with over here.”

Okay, maybe one more. “I’d fetch one myself, but as you can see, I’m a bit tied up at the moment~!”

Ha. Hilarious.

Luckily for him, his clever little risk seemed to pay off in the unexpected way of making Ford lower his weapon, with an added bonus of painting a look of confusion across his face. And judging by the looks being exchanged between the other family members, it was clear that his little joke had been far more effective in causing confusion than he’d originally intended.

After a few more minutes of perplexed silence between them, it was Mabel who eventually—and hesitantly—spoke up with a: “You…don’t know what you look like?”

Hmm, an unexpected question to follow the unexpected responses. And a stupid one at that; did she really expect him to give her the honest, unfiltered truth when prompted?

If she did, the answer to that question would be a resounding “It’s funny how dumb you are, Shooting Star~!”, followed by a bout of condescending laughter to drive the point home. 

And the answer to her former question would probably be that same reply and condescending laughter. There was no chance across the entire multiverse that he would tell them about his little deal with Tangy. Birdbrain had said it themselves back in their mindscape: the second they found out that he was playing a game where the prize was the destruction of the barrier, the second Ford would do everything in his power to keep him restrained until the end of the game.

Or, well—more restrained than he was already.

Still, as good as his clever little joke had been, he had unintentionally dropped a small hint to them about his situation. 

Guess it was time to do what he did best; scramble their mushy little brains more than he’d done already and throw them completely off the right track. 

“I mean—it was all kind of a blur when I possessed the guy,” he said casually, leaning back in the chair as far as he could. “Didn’t exactly feel like stopping and sussing out all the details, not when the chance to stretch my legs again after spending nine months as a lawn ornament was right there in front of me—hey, come on—”

The barrel of the gun was at his cheek again as Ford gave him another warning look. “Don’t listen to a single word he says,” he said, directing the statement at the others. “We have no reason to believe that what he’s telling us is the truth, so don’t take any stock in anything he’s saying.”

Bill narrowed his eyes up at him. Spoilsport. Spoilsport and a hypocrite, to boot! “Oh, yeah, that’s rich, Sixer,” he said bitterly. “But I guess you would know what it’s like to give people a reason not to trust you, wouldn’t you?”

His functional pupil bounced over to Stan, the corners of his mouth twitching with the threat of a smile. “I’m just saying: the last time we saw each other, you were promising to finally give me that equation,” he said, with a look back to Ford. “But then when I ended up making the deal, it wasn’t your brain I ended up in, was it—OW!”

The tip of the gun was jammed so hard against his cheek that the skin would likely be bruised in the shape of a triangle later. “Stop talking—”

“Alright, that’s it.”

Before Ford could respond, Stan’s hand was back on his shoulder and gently goading him towards the door. “Ford, come on, let’s just—”

“Stan—”

“He’s tied up, Soos says the rope’s got the unicorn stuff woven into it,” Stan kept trying. “Let’s just step outside for a sec. Kids, why don’t you go with him? I’ll be with you in a few minutes, just—”

“We’re on it.”

Ford opened his mouth to protest further, but Mabel had already taken one of his hands in her own while Dipper claimed the other. “Come on, Grunkle Ford,” Mabel said, giving his hand an encouraging tug. “Let’s go wait in the hallway.”

“Yeah, why don’t you go ahead and leave, Sixer~?” Bill teased with a kick of his feet. “I’m sure I won’t go anywhere while you’re gone!”

A risky taunt, for sure. Ford had turned the gun on him enough times to prove that he was only a few more pokes away from throwing caution to the wind and sticking a bullet between his eyes, regardless of the consequences. Besides, the sooner Bill got the chance to be alone and collect his thoughts, the better. 

But at the same time, any opportunity to get under Ford’s skin was just too good to resist, nor did he have any desire to try resisting in the first place.

It seemed to be a lucky day for him in terms of taunt-rope balancing, because Ford pulled his hands from the kids’ embraces and trudged out of the room with calm, restrained steps. Steps clearly powered by every last ounce of self-control he could possibly muster, ones that suppressed a deep, brooding storm that swelled just beneath the surface.

Good. Seethe harder, Stanford.

Eventually the door shut behind him, leaving Stan and the kids—their own hands now void of any that possessed six fingers—behind. Although it was only a second later when the door cracked open again, and one six-fingered hand reentered their line of sight. 

A hand that Mabel immediately took hold of again before both her and Dipper hurried out into the hallway after him. Leaving only Bill, Stan, and a deafening silence left in the room.

A deafening silence that Bill was quick to break with a casual: “Gotta say, the beard look is waaaay more natural on you than it is on Sixer. Covers your ugly mug way better than his does.”

Apparently Ford had kept all of the restraint for himself because Stan was back to him before he could blink, and Bill had no time to brace himself as the older man grasped a rugged hand around his throat. “Listen to me, and listen good, Wise Guy,” he growled. “I don’t know how you got back here, and I don’t really care how.”

The hand around Bill’s neck tightened as he balled the other into a fist. “But I punched your lights out once, and I can do it again. As many times as it takes for you to stay down for good.”

He moved the first near Bill’s blinded eye, his good pupil following despite himself. “You try anything with my family again, you’re gonna know what it feels like to get punched to death twice. ¿Comprende?”

It was a threat Bill knew that Stan would hold himself to if necessary. One that Bill couldn’t help but feel a twinge of genuine fear towards as those final memories inside Stan’s head came rushing back to him. 

And for a split second, Bill could almost feel the terrifying heat of the flames around them, creeping nearer and nearer as they swallowed every last bit of the room in their destructive wake—

One fatal mistake…

—only for a brief moment, before he flashed Stan another toothy grin. “But seriously, you should keep that beard. Maybe try and convince Sixer to shave his, I don’t know who I was kidding when I told him it looked good—”

His grin spread wider, once again revealing far too much of the inside of his mouth. “But then again, you might have a little trouble convincing him. Considering your poor track record in fixing mistakes.”

Stan punched him. Hard.

And when Bill crumbled with a shout, pain enveloping the area around his right eye that was sure to be bruised within minutes, Stan turned and stormed out of the room.

Yep—flew too close to the sun with that one.

— — — — — — —

Ford had barely made it out of the room before the stress of the situation brought him to his knees, and Stan entered the hallway to the sight of almost everyone else circled around him in an attempt to bring comfort.

Seeing him, Soos lifted his head. “So, is it really him?”

“Sure looks, sounds, and acts like it,” Stan said, pressing a weary hand to his temple. “Alright, so the guy who tried to take over the universe and who we thought was dead is now tied up in the next room, very much the opposite of dead.”

He took a sweeping glance around at the rest of the group. “...Does anybody have a game plan?”

From beside Ford on the floor, Mabel perked up. “What about that zodiac prophecy thingy Grunkle Ford tried to do during Weirdmageddon?” she asked. “Didn’t he say that was supposed to stop Bill?”

“Hey, yeah!” Stan snapped his fingers with an inspired look. “Great idea, Pumpkin, we could try that!”

“But don’t we need all of the symbol-things for it to work?” Soos pointed out. “And out of the original ten, we only have, like—” He paused to count heads. “—six of the people here that we’d need.”

From the spot near the wall where Wendy had seated herself, she lifted her head to join in on the conversation. “Well, then why don’t we just get the other four?” she asked. “I doubt it’d be hard to convince Robbie, Pacifica or the others to help us out. They probably hate Bill as much as we do.”

“We could also try the Quantum Destabilizer,” Dipper added thoughtfully, pressing a hand to his chin. “Grunkle Ford said it could blast Bill back into the Nightmare Realm, but I wonder if that would actually work without a rift to—you know, blast him back through.”

“What do you think, Dr. Pines?” Melody asked, directing the question at Ford.

And suddenly all eyes were back on Ford again, who had yet to move from the spot where he had collapsed after leaving the bedroom—too enveloped in his own overwhelming, smothering thoughts to take any notice to the others’ suggestions.

Bill was alive.

A scenario he had only envisioned in the worst of the nightmares that plagued his head on a nightly basis. A fear that lingered over him like the shadow of a starving predator, waiting to strike its unsuspecting prey when they least expected.

He had wanted to hope so dearly that he’d been dreaming when that child between the birch trees began to laugh in that horrific, familiar way. The bone-chilling laughter that often echoed through the deepest recesses of his mindscape, nothing more than a mere shadow of the one who had once produced it.

But this was no dream, no nightmare, nor a bad memory he could simply banish to the back of his mind—

Bill was alive.

“Dr. Pines?”

“The Zodiac Prophecy is a no-go,” he said, his words forming on their own as he returned to his feet. “The entire town believes that Bill is dead, and letting too many people know that he’s returned could ignite a panic.” 

He cast a tense look around at everyone else. “One would argue that too many people know about his return already.”

“Hey, come on, I don’t think anyone here’s in a hurry to go blabbing about him,” Wendy pointed out. 

“Regardless, it’s not a liable option at the moment,” Ford continued. “And unfortunately, neither is the Quantum Destabilizer. The only power source stable enough to power the device was only obtainable in another dimension, with the assistance of another another dimension’s Fiddleford McGucket—”

“Oh, yeah, that’s gonna be tough to get, then,” Melody spoke up. “Fiddleford's out of town for a few weeks with his family.”

“We had to put our weekly anime club meetings on hiatus until he got back,” Soos added sadly. “But, that gives all of us plenty of time to catch up on our latest show and discuss our thoughts once he’s back!”

Ford raised his hands. “Wait, that’s not what I—”

“Well, what about when he does get back?” Wendy asked. “I mean—like I said before, I doubt he’d be in a hurry to go blabbing to anyone else. Plus he’s probably smart enough to build anything we’d need to get rid of Bill.”

“Wait, I—”

“Yeah, yeah, good point, Wendy!” Stan said, waggling a finger at her. “The guy turned this place into a giant, robotic, triangle-punching whatchamacallit. He could definitely build some fancy-schmancy power source—”

“You’re missing the point!”

Ford’s fist hit the wall before he could even process his action, and suddenly the hallway was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. His frustration lingered for only a second, before he took a look at the concerned expressions around him—

—and the guilt swiftly drowned any other emotions that had been building inside his chest. “Sorry, that was—sorry,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Several pairs of shoulders unclenched as his arm fell back to his side, and Stan moved to him again. “Woah, woah, hey, come on, no one here’s about to judge you for swingin’ a fist,” he assured him. “Feel like outta anyone here, you deserve to do it the most.”

He flicked a thumb back at the bedroom door. “‘Sides, at least you held out as long as you could. I may have given the little jerk a—let’s call it a ‘welcome back gift’.” 

A pause. “I…I gave him a black eye, that’s the joke I was trying to make.”

“Non-refundable gift,” Wendy said with a proud nod. “Nice.”

“Stan’s got a point,” Dipper added from Ford’s side. “It’s Bill Cipher. I feel like if anyone deserves to be angry right now, it’s you.”

“Yeah, sorry for uh—sorry if we sounded like we weren’t taking this seriously,” Soos added. “I know how dangerous he is, and Wendy and I even told Melody everything about him ahead of time. Just in case something like this ever happened, of course. A big bad returning during a moment of peace is a common trope in sequels, after all.”

He rolled his hands together. “And since this is the summer after he died…you know, sequel summer? Just…just sayin’, it wasn’t outta the realm of possibilities.”

“I wasn’t sure how much of it was actually true,” Melody admitted. “But also I’ve seen way weirder stuff in this town. So if you all say that kid in there’s actually an evil triangle demon bent on destroying the universe, then I’d believe it.”

“There, you see?” Stan added. “Ain’t nobody here to judge. You be as angry as you want, punch another wall or two if you really gotta.”

“Although if it helps you swing at them less, clearly we’re all on the ball when it comes to thinking of ways to put Cipher back under the ground where he belongs,” Wendy pointed out. “Maybe the stuff we already suggested won’t work, but putting our heads together like this will probably get us somewhere a lot quicker than when you were just doing this by yourself, y’know?”

“Once again, Wendy knows what’s what,” Stan agreed, and gave her a thumbs up. “If I were still your boss, I’d give you a raise.”

“...No, you wouldn’t.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

He reached over to clasp a hand on Ford’s shoulder. “Point we’re tryin’ to make is that you’ve got your family here for you this time. You don’t have to deal with this alone again.”

“Yeah, Grunkle Ford,” Mabel agreed, casting him a weak smile as she once again tucked a hand into his own. “We’ll do everything we can to help you kick Bill’s butt again!”

Ford’s gaze fell to her face, sweet eyes wide with concern and small hands once again gripping his own tightly. He could feel them trembling, clearly masking just as much fear as he was harboring inside him—

—the same way his had trembled as he pulled the trigger on the memory gun, wiping every little trace of what made his brother himself from his mind. 

He forced his gaze to the man at his right, eyes moving up to the face that mirrored his own to a near-identical degree.

The face of the man Ford had cried over for a week straight while he worked so tirelessly, so desperately to restore those lost memories. For whom he had dug out every last movie reel, scrapbook—even old postcards that Stan had sent during his travels across the country, and with whom he had spent several long night poring over the contents. 

The man whose confused expression shifted to bright realization as the kids read out the jokes from his favorite joke book, jokes he would follow up with every terrible punchline with perfect recollection. The man who suddenly remembered his and Ford’s brush with the Jersey Devil mid-story, only to go on and tell the back half as if the two of them had only experienced it yesterday.

The man who had risked sacrificing all those precious memories, all of who he was for the sake of the world’s safety. For the sake of his family’s safety.

And now Bill was back, leaving that precious sacrifice nothing more than a pointless suffering for Stanley to have endured.

“I’ll figure out a way to stop Bill by myself,” he said suddenly, pulling his hand out of Mabel’s before turning to the others. “Someone’s going to need to stay up and keep an eye on him tonight anyway. I’ll use that time to come up with a plan, and we can reconvene tomorrow.”

He reached for the doorknob. “As for the rest of you, it’s late and you should be getting to bed.”

Everyone exchanged a series of unsure looks, which Stan vocalized with a: “Do you really expect the rest of us to just sleep while you deal with some all-powerful demon all night?”

“Also, do you really expect us to sleep at all with someone like that in the house?” Wendy added. “I mean, I know he’s kinda—”

She made a shrinking motion with her fingers. “—now, but this is the same guy that crawls through people’s heads like a kid in a Hoo-Ha Owl’s playplace, right?”

Ford looked to her, then the other adults with a raised eyebrow. “You said the rope had unicorn hair weaved into it?”

“Well, yeah,” Soos confirmed. “Plus we set up those moonstones, got you that mercury you needed—”

“We have a whole stash of everything in the storage room, too,” Melody added. “If you need any more of anything.”

“Then it should be enough to hold Bill in place for the night,” Ford said matter-of-factly. “And if it’s not—well, I’ll be enough to hold him in place for the night.”

Before anyone could question him further, the bedroom door was opened and shut behind him. Leaving the rest of them out in the hallway, the shrill and barely-muffled greeting of “Welcome back, Fordsy~!” in the bedroom only adding to the unsure aura surrounding them.

Despite the door being closed, Soos held up a hand to the side of his mouth. “Uh, okay! Good night, Dr. Pines!” he called. “Also if you’ve gotta shoot him, please aim the bullets away from Abuelita’s porcelain doll collection!”

Mabel finally let her arm—the one that she had kept outstretched even after Ford let go of her hand—fall back to her side with a dejected sigh. A look that Dipper immediately spotted and moved to her side to comfort her. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” he said reassuringly. “Ford’s just worried about Bill, that’s all. And he probably just wants us to stay safe.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t need to go around makin’ himself unsafe to do that,” Stan said, pressing a hand to his head with an annoyed huff. “Is he out of his mind? What’s he thinking, dealing with all of this by himself?”

Everyone else exchanged a look. “Well, if he doesn’t want our help then…what should we do now?” Melody asked.

With a sigh, Wendy took a wide step away from the wall. “Guess we do what the doc said and try to get some sleep. Dibs on the couch as usual, by the way.”

With that, the shuffled on down the hallway, while the rest of the group silently watched her take her leave. Once she disappeared around the corner, Soos pointed towards a door on the opposite side of the hallway. “Uh, I dunno if it’ll help at all, but Melody and I sleep in the room next to Abuelita’s,” he said to Stan. “If you want, we can sleep in shifts and check in on Dr. Pines for you.”

“And if anything actually happens, one of us can come get you,” Melody added. “Leaving the other person down here to help him if he needs it.”

“Yeah!” Soos said, nodding in agreement. “If anything happens, we’ll come get you, okay?”

Stan hesitated to respond—as if the idea was anything but okay to him—but eventually he gave them a tired nod in return. “Alright, you two. Just keep an ear out for him.” 

He leaned over and placed a hand on Soos’s shoulder. “And—should I not get here quick enough to do it myself—I give you my blessing to punch the pointy little jerk in my place.”

With a look of honor, Soos pressed a hand to his forehead in a salute. “I won’t let you down, Mr. Pines! I’ll even knock out a few of his teeth if I’ve gotta!”

“Good man, Soos,” Stan said, giving his shoulder a pat. “Now get.”

With Stan’s approval, Soos gestured for Melody to follow him to their bedroom. “I’ll be the one to come get you if we need to, then,” she assured Stan as they walked. “That’ll leave Soos open for—well, that.”

And soon their bedroom door closed behind them, leaving nobody but the remaining Pines in the hallway. And with a gruff sigh and the realization that they were the only ones left, Stan turned to face the kids.

Despite the reassurances from everyone else—and even each other—they had shuffled close to one another with their attention firmly locked on to the door of Abuelita’s bedroom. As if they expected Bill to come bursting out of it at any second.

Yep, that was about what he expected.

Another sigh brought Stan to his knees, and he gave the two of them a weak smile. “Well, you two knuckleheads heard everyone. Let’s head upstairs.”

The two exchanged an uncertain look. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Dipper asked.

“Yeah,” Mabel added. “I mean…it’s Bill.”

“If Ford’s so insistent on dealing with this by himself, then he’s probably got a couple of tricks up his sleeve to solve it by himself,” Stan pointed out, and reached over to lightly bap the top of Dipper’s hat. “It’s like you said, he probably just wants us to stay safe. And if he does need our help, then—well, he knows where to find us...”

Even he couldn’t bring himself to try and sound convincing by the end of his reassurances, but he gave both of them a nudge to move forwards before returning to full height. “In the meantime, let’s not give that demon the satisfaction of knowing he’s freaking all of us out and go get some rest, okay?”

After another look to each other, the younger twins eventually let themselves be lead down the hallway. Despite this, Stan counted at least three times where one of them would pause to look back towards the bedroom door, before they finally rounded the hallway corner and the room was barred from their line of sight.

The interior of the Mystery Shack had fallen silent by that point, save for the faint creaking of the wooden floor beneath their steps as they headed for and—after grabbing the bags they had dropped upon arrival—up the staircases that eventually brought them to the topmost floor of the shack.

Mere hours ago, the sight of the old attic would’ve been a nostalgic welcome back, like greeting an old friend after spending so long apart. And approaching the room at the far end would’ve been the equivalent of bringing that old friend into a warm hug.

Warm, friendly, welcoming—

But the air around the trio just felt so miserable as they slowed to a gradual stop outside the bedroom door, and Stan reached a hand to the doorknob. Rather than turn it immediately, he instead chose to direct his attention back at the kids. 

Silent attention—as if he wanted to say something, but struggled to find the proper words.

After a few, long seconds, he spoke with an uneasy: “Hey, uh, if you kids need to—you know…” The hand on the doorknob moved to the back of his head. “You gonna be alright by yourselves up here? You know you can always join Wendy in the living room, or come bunk down with me if you really need to, or something—”

The younger twins looked to each other in silent consideration, until Dipper finally spoke up: “I…think we’ll be okay,” he said, although his shaky tone implied otherwise. “If we’re really that scared, we can always sleep in shifts.”

“Yeah,” Mabel added with a bit more optimism. “And—and we’ll lock our door and window—”

An oink at the staircase drew a pointed finger from her, aimed at the pig who had ambled up the stairs after them. “—and we also have Waddles as an attack hog if we really need him! We’ll be okay!”

Her shoulders fell. “Right?”

Dipper folded his arms with a feeble nod, hands tightly gripping the sides as if he were attempting to keep himself grounded with such an action. “Yeah, we’ll…we’ll be okay.”

Stan didn’t miss this, and knelt down in front of them. “Hey, you two listen to me, alright?” he said, moving a hand to each of their shoulders. “I may not know how the little demon got back or why he’s back at all.”

The hands moved to ruffle their heads. “But what I do know is that I ain’t gonna let him lay a hand on either of you or Ford,” he reassured them. “And I don’t care how long it takes or how many times we gotta kill him before he stays dead. We’ll squash him for good if it’s the last thing we do—”

He was suddenly cut off by Mabel flinging herself at him in a tight hug, with Dipper quickly following suit. Stan remained still for a few seconds, before he wrapped an arm around each of them to complete the hug. “Alright…we’re gonna be okay, okay?”

He forced a smile as the two of them broke the hug. “And hey, look on the bright side,” he continued. “With the puny size he is now, we could probably just step on the little jerk and actually squash him to death!”

Sure enough, his weak attempt to lighten the mood brought a small pair of smiles to their faces. “We could get a pair of really big shoes,” Mabel added, smile widening further as she made a stomping motion with her foot. “Just go squish, like he’s a gross cockroach under a boot!”

“Are you implying that he’s not a gross cockroach already?” Dipper asked with a weak laugh.

“Touché, but I like painting a clear, visual picture of my words,” Mabel explained. “It’s almost as fun as painting an actual picture! Ooh, I wonder if I should paint an actual picture of Bill with a cockroach body—?”

“Save that for tomorrow,” Stan said. “Right now, you two need to get some rest. You’ve got a whole summer to look forward to, and I ain’t gonna let you kids miss a second of it.”

He gave them a wink. “Even with a sudden triangle-shaped cockroach thrown into the mix.”

Both gave him a smile—much wider than before—in return before finally shuffling to the door and pulled it open, revealing the waiting bedroom on the other side.

Aside from a lack of almost any dust on the furniture—had that been Soos and Melody’s doing?—the bedroom had remained mostly untouched since the previous summer. A few scattered googly eyes rested on the floor beside a forgotten food bowl for Waddles on Mabel’s side of the room, while several crumpled pieces of paper still filled Dipper’s old wastebasket.

And while uncertainty and fear still lingered in the air as the kids stepped inside, a bit of that old, nostalgic warmth did seem to be sneaking its way around them in a reassuring embrace. A reassurance that despite the evening’s stress, this was still a place they could call a home away from home.

After one last little smile at Stan—one he returned in full—Mabel shut the door behind them. Stan continued to wordlessly stare at the door for a few minutes, attention focused on the clicking of the lock, then the creaking of the wooden floor on the other side.

When he was sure the sound had reached their beds, he finally turned and shuffled back towards—then down—the staircase, continuing onwards down the hall on the second floor until he reached the door to his own bedroom.

It was only once his hand touched the doorknob that his entire posture sank from exhaustion.

His hand once again lingered for a moment as he looked back towards the staircase that lead downstairs—before he shook his head and trudged on forward into the bedroom.

— — — — — — — — 

It was barely an hour later when Stan firmly concluded that he was not falling asleep anytime soon.

How in the heck was he supposed to sleep at a time like this? Bill was back! The evil triangle demon that had tried to take over the town—town? Universe?—and had haunted his brother’s mind for literal decades!

Ford had always downplayed how much weight Bill truly held over his mind, always reassuring Stan that he was fine whenever the topic came up in conversation and was always quick to change the subject to something unrelated. 

But if Ford really thought the guy who slept in the same cabin as him for months on end wouldn’t notice him crying out in his sleep—the names Bill, Cipher or both being shouted into his pillow with so much hatred and fear more times than Stan could count—then Stan had a bridge to sell him.

And if he really thought that he hadn’t picked up on the subtle little ways Ford would flinch or the way his mood would shift on occasion—probably due to some unearthed memories about Bill, ones that Stan so desperately wished he could just punch as hard as the guy who had burned them into his brother’s mind—then Stan had two bridges to sell him.

“But then again, you might have a little trouble convincing him. Considering your poor track record in fixing mistakes.”

With a grunt, Stan rolled over onto his back and squinted blindly at the ceiling. He didn’t trust the pointy little jerk as far as he could throw him but he’d raised a good point. What right did he have to stand—lie around and call Ford an idiot for not wanting to talk about Bill, especially when he’d been the one in charge of getting rid of Bill in the first place?

He felt his thoughts drift to the earlier events of the day, before all the Bill stuff had started. Soos’s wedding announcement, the tour of the new exhibits—

“The very weird point they’re to make is that none of this would’ve happened without you building the shack to begin with, Grunkle Ford. So in a way, a lot of this is because of you!”

“Well, we kinda have you to thank for the idea, Dr. Pines. You and the kids, of course.”

It didn’t bother him. 

Really, it didn’t.

So what if Soos wanted to give Ford the credit for tying the knot with the girl he liked, or for giving them the smart-guy science methods to make the exhibits more exciting? Even if Ford was terrible at hiding his Bill feelings, at the very least he’d seemed pretty flattered by all the praise. 

He’d felt appreciated, nostalgic over the new, science-y ways that Soos and Melody were bringing in customers. The kids were excited to be spending time with him this year.

Ford felt like he belonged.

What kind of jerk would Stan be to take that happiness away from him, especially after all the years that had been taken from him already?

At at the end of the day, it didn’t matter if people slapped Ford’s name over every single one of his own accomplishments. Honestly, after stealing his identity for three decades, Stan would willingly give up a few of his own accord if it made Ford happy.

If Soos wanted to give Ford credit for building the place that inevitably lead him to his fiancé—even if Stan had been the one running the place when Soos started working here—then fine. If him and the kids wanted to give Ford credit for the exhibit ideas—exhibits that were wildly improved from the two-bit slop Stan had been pushing for the past few decades—then fine.

It was fine.

But if there was one accomplishment that Stan thought nobody could take away from him, it was the ability to keep his family safe. Not just them, but Soos, Wendy—the entire town. They had all called him a hero, finally saw him as someone worth a darn—

At the end of the day, he had finally proven he was worth something to someone.

And then Bill came back, alive and unharmed. Stan had failed to kill him good and proper, and now he was back.

Now he was back, and now Ford and the kids had to spend their summer in fear.

Now he was back, and Stan was truly worthless again.

After staring at the ceiling for about ten more minutes—and waiting another ten minutes for his nightly body aches to settle—he fumbled for his glasses on the nightstand and swung his legs over the side of the bed. And with the groan of a man whose bones were older than he was, he pulled himself to his feet, trudged out of the room and headed down to the first floor of the shack. 

The light of the TV stopped him at the living room doorway, and a quick peek into the room revealed that he wasn’t the only resident of the house who was still awake.

Despite the TV running some early morning infomercial for a cheap and useless product—one worth more than its share of that hyper-specific brand of scorn and mockery that only a snarky teenager could provide—Wendy’s attention was firmly glued to her phone as she tapped away at the keys.

At the sight of Stan in the doorway, however, she lifted her head with a curious look. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Whaddaya mean? Clearly I’m sleepwalkin’.”

“Haha,” she said, snapping her phone shut. “Gonna try again with Dr. Pines?”

“You know it,” Stan said, and placed a hand on the doorway frame. “You, uh—you holdin’ up okay out here?”

“Psh, don’t even start,” Wendy said, waving him away. “I mean, sure, I’ve got my share of worries about that little megalomaniac being back—”

She flashed him a grin. “—buuuut I think a lot of ‘em were pretty evened out by the fact that I got to clunk him in the back of the head with a bat!”

“Oh yeah, that was great,” Stan agreed with a smirk of his own, before pressing his hands together in a squishing motion. “Isn’t it soooo satisfying? The little jerk talks suuuuuuch a big game, but you hit him once and he crunches like a soda can.”

Wendy cackled at that, although her expression fell again as she cast a glance upwards. “How’re the squirts handling it?”

Stan followed her gaze up to the ceiling. “Well, they’ve stayed in their room so far, so my money’s on ‘probably as well as they can with somethin’ like this.’”

“Mmm…”

She flipped her phone back open, fingers once again tapping at the keys. “At least they’ve got each other through all this,” she mused. “The two of them combined are some of the toughest and strongest kids I’ve ever met. No matter what happens, they’ll get through it so long as they stick together.”

“Yeah,” Stan agreed, with a glance back towards the hallway. “At least they’ve got that goin’ for them…”

Both fell silent for a moment, before Stan turned to leave. “If you hear any yellin’ going on down the hall, it’s because I’m trying to convince Ford to go to bed,” he told her. “If I succeed, make sure he actually goes up to bed, okay?”

“You got it, boss.”

— — — — — — — —

The room was silent, save for the scratching of pencil to paper as Ford continued to write. 

Not for a lack of trying on Bill’s part; he had made several attempts to strike up a conversation with Ford already, but all had been shot down by either a menacing glare or the flash of the gun he kept within reaching distance.

And while neither were enough to completely shut Bill up, he did fall silent after the dozenth-or-so attempt to take advantage of the chance to gather his thoughts.

He’d agreed to play a game with that stupid duck and they’d plunked him back down in front of the shack. He assumed it had been right in front of the shack, at least; he did recall being greeted by the concerned faces of Mabel and Ford, along with some faint, blurry remarks about how he’d potentially fallen out of a tree—

—thank you, Birdbrain—

—but there was always a chance that they had stumbled across his body somewhere else and simply brought him to the shack to keep a closer eye on him. 

Regardless of how it had happened or wherever those suckers had originally found him, he was back in town as Tangy had promised. Sure, it had been a sneaky drop off with several details of what that drop off entailed omitted. But at the same time, they had still kept their word.

And while Bill still had plans to dunk that silly little windbreaker of theirs in tuna fish—perhaps with the added flair of tossing in a bottle of itching powder, Melt-Your-Skin-Clean-Off-Your-Bones-Juice, and maybe a splash of lime for taste—he could at least respect how much effort they had put into getting him here at all.

Planned retribution aside…eh, game could recognize game.

And speaking of game—

His thoughts shifted to the deal they had agreed upon, sealed with both a handshake and a signature. Three months, they’d said. He had exactly three months to play. Three months to find all the pieces of their dumb trinket and put it all back together again, Humpty-Dumpty style.

He briefly considered the idea of not playing their game at all—out of sheer spite for their deviousness in getting him here—but the idea was discarded as quickly as it formed. Despite their underhanded methods to get him back to town, they had been very clear about how strictly they had to stick to their contract. And even if they’d been lying about the legitimacy of said contract, they had still foolishly locked themselves into a deal with Bill himself.

Whether or not they truly planned on upholding themselves to their side of their deal didn’t matter—if he won their little game, Bill would either have a destroyed barrier or a duck subjected to an eternity of slow-roasting over an over fire in the Nightmare Realm. Maybe in the case of the second option, such torture directed at another being would be enough to get his buddies off his back when he returned.

Heck, maybe he’d even get a spiffy new jacket out of the deal!

And that was simply the worst case scenario. Best case scenario, the barrier would be gone and no one would be able to stand in his way ever again.

And a prize that valuable was enough for him to humor the tacky idiot and romp around an annoyingly-familiar hick town in a meatsuit for a summer.

Even with his current situation, escaping wouldn’t be a difficult task to accomplish. Sure, he was tied so tightly to a chair that it would make Harry Houdini blush—he would know, he dabbled in a bit of dealmaking with the famous magician back during the height of his career—and the ropes apparently contained some of that fancy-schmancy unicorn magic that the household had used to protect the shack last year.

A fact that soured Bill’s expression for a brief moment, but at the end of the day, even a magically-laced rope was still just a rope. And any rope could be cut with the right tool, or by the right sucker.

The sound of paper being ripped from a notebook distracted Bill from his thoughts, and a mischievous grin poked at the corners of his mouth as he cast a look in the direction of his six-fingered warden—just as the discarded page was crumpled into a ball and tossed it into the unlit fireplace.

Well, a sucker by any other year was just as gullible—or whatever.

Sure, Bill knew Stanford Pines would rather chew off his own extra fingers than be unpromptedly helpful to him in any way, shape or form. But even if a few details about the bigger picture had to be omitted—it wouldn’t be the first time when it came to Stanford—there were always ways for Bill to get people to do what he wanted.

The scratching of pencil to paper began again, and Bill lightly tugged against the binds that held his wrists. Well, while there were always ways to get people to do what he wanted, even he knew it was highly unlikely that he’d manage to trick Ford into freeing him tonight. And the near-silence of the room was starting to become agonizingly dull. 

To reiterate an earlier point, Bill Cipher was not the kind of triangle to sit and behave quietly if he had any say in the matter. Even if Ford was attempting to keep a lid on things now, there was always a way to annoy him into tossing out a few bits and pieces of information he had gathered in Bill’s absence. Perhaps some of that information would be of use to him.

Or maybe he would only succeed in getting the gun shoved in his cheek again.

Either way, the fifteenth attempt at starting a conversation was always the charm~!

“You know,” he began with a light kick of his feet. “I’m surprised you haven’t bombarded me with questions about how I got back yet.”

He saw Ford’s hand twitch in the direction of the gun, keeping his attention still firmly focused on his writing. “Don’t pretend you don’t want to, Fordsy!” Bill continued. “You and I both know for a fact that you’re a man beckoned by the call of the strange and bizarre.”

He winked at him with his good eye. “And let’s not kid ourselves; I’m the strangest and bizarre-est guy you know~!”

Another kick of his feet, his feet lightly bouncing against the chair legs. “Even if I no longer have access to your mind, I can tell you’ve got a billion questions about me buzzing around in that lump of wet meat you call a brain,” he continued. “Questions like ‘How did he get back?’ ‘Why is he human now?’ ‘Why, oh, why did I think that a simple memory gun would be enough to defeat someone as powerful, as amazing, as unstoppable as Bill Cipher?’”

Ford’s hand inched closer to the gun as Bill kept talking: “You must’ve felt so proud of yourself for that memory gun trick, by the way,” he went on. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did, it was a smart move that only a brainiac like you could’ve drummed up in the short time you had.”

A wink. “Well, lucky for you I’m not the kinda triangle to hold a grudge,” he continued. “In fact, I’d even be willing to answer a couple of those hypothetical questions for you! And to call us even, you can always just answer a couple of mine in return. Like what you’ve been up to in the past nine months~! Come on, I’ll bet you’re just dying to tell me all about how you grew that beard of yours!”

The hand wrapped around the grip, and Bill settled lower in the chair with a sigh. “Fine, I guess it was too much to hope for a chance to catch up with an old friend,” he said with a dramatic flair to his tone—

—one that immediately shifted into something far more malevolent. “But then again, I guess I wouldn’t find any of those around here, now would I?”

Bill paused, giving Ford him a few seconds to chime in—only to roll his eyes when he heard a click from the gun as Ford turned off the safety catch: “Oh, come on, Stanford, are you really telling me that you’d rather spend the entire night alone with your thoughts than to spend five minutes holding a conversation with me?”

“Yes.”

It was the first word, sans any threats, he’d managed to get out of Ford all night, and it was annoying enough for Bill to sink further against his restraints with a huff.

Not a defeated huff; if a stubborn, old fool not giving him what he wanted was enough to stop Bill Cipher, then he wouldn’t be Bill Cipher. If he’d possessed enough patience to wait eons for a functioning portal, then he could certainly possess enough to get a few words outta Ford over the course of a single evening.

And as soon as Ford stopped being so difficult—you couldn’t avoid talking all night, Sixer—he'd be in business.

The distant sound of floorboards creaking somewhere on the other side of the shack perked Bill up again with a look towards the ceiling. Guess the rest of the household was fighting back the urge to sleep with a stick.

The sudden lack of pencil to paper also caught his attention, gaze bouncing back to where Ford was seated. He hadn’t moved, but Bill could still see the pupils of his sunken-in eyes shift towards the door with mild curiosity.

Mild curiosity that vanished the second he realized Bill was watching him, and his focus immediately returning to his notes after clicking the safety back and leaving the gun where it rested.

Hmm.

“Fine, you don’t wanna talk about what you’ve been up to for the past few months?” he tried again. “Fair enough, I really didn’t wanna hear about it. Why don’t we talk about about something else, then? Like the kids, perhaps?”

The hand was back at the gun without pause. 

“They’re looking well, older even. Or do they?—I’m still fuzzy on the details of the aging process of you mortals,” Bill continued. “Or if you don’t wanna talk about them, we could always talk about your brother. Can’t believe he’s still wildly swinging those fists around like a wild animal, especially when that didn’t even work the first time—”

The gun was ignored completely as Ford crossed the room in an instant, the vitriol behind his eyes hot enough to burn straight through Bill’s skin, blood, skull—his everything, until it bore a hole right through to the other side of his head.

A motion that made Bill jump against his better judgment—his blackened eye instinctively twitching as he remembered Stan’s earlier show of force—and for a fleeting moment, he expected another hand around his throat in seconds.

Before Ford could react proper, however, a loud knock pulled both of their attention to the bedroom door. After a silent breath of relief, Bill shot Ford a cheeky grin. “Sounds like you’ve got company~! Unless they’re here to see me, which—I mean, who could blame them if they were?”

Ford glared at him before turning back to the door. “Who is it?”

“Jersey Devil. Who d’you think it is?”

“...Come on in.”

The knob turned and Stan slowly entered the room, casting a silent look between the two of them before settling his gaze on Ford. “Just checkin’ in. How’s, uh—” he began, then paused. “—how’s everything going?”

He was clearly talking to Ford, and making an obvious effort to ignore the triangle-shaped elephant in the room. So naturally, Bill had to do everything in his power to make his presence as loud and obvious as possible.

“Everything’s peachy~!” he piped up, with another wiggle against his binds. “Ol’ Fordsy and I are having the time of our lives catching up on things! In fact, I think he was just about to tell me about what the kids have been up to for the past few months?”

He flashed Ford a wide grin. “Come on, Ford, I’ll bet they’ve shared a ton of stories with you~!”

Stan pointed a finger at him. “Hey, you’d better watch that mouth of yours, before I come over there and make it match your eyeball.”

“What, you’re gonna punch it?” Bill asked. “Go right ahead, I was just lamenting the fact that my mouth and eyeball are separated in this body.”

He giggled mischievously and flashed him a wide grin. “Your fist’s about the size of a mouth-sized eyeball, right? Just asking, because the second you swing it at these puppies—” He gave a warning snap of his teeth. “—I can’t promise that you’ll get it back.”

“Everything’s fine, Stanley. Go get some sleep.”

Ford’s tone was so scripted and hollow, like the words he actually wanted to say were being held back by a metric ton of steel. More than just the physical steel plate installed in his head, a whole dam of metaphorical steel was keeping the flood of Ford’s true thoughts at bay.

And judging by the way Stan’s features twisted with uncertainty at his brother’s words—only until he spotted Bill eyeing him and promptly shifted his expression into a look of disdain—there was clearly something keeping his own thoughts hidden as well.

Oh, it killed Bill to not know what they were thinking. To lack the ability to act as the metaphorical wrecking ball that could smash through all that steel in an instant, leaving him free to pry open every last little thought, rivet by rivet, bolt by bolt.

Well, at least he still possessed the ability to verbally taunt them~! “You heard the big guy, Goldfish~! Why don’t you run on back to bed while the adults talk?”

“Why you little—” Stan began, then paused with a look of confusion. “Goldfish, what—”

“Your sign in the Zodiac Wheel,” Bill elaborated. “You know—that little goldfish thing on your hat! Although I guess it could also be a reference to your constant desperation for fortune and fame, combined with your childish dream of dragging Sixer off on some ridiculous, insignificant boat adventure. You know, first part’s the gold, second part’s the fish?”

He tilted his head. “Of course, I could always call you Fez instead, but that just sounds silly. It’d be like calling Question Mark Shirt or Pine Tree…I dunno, Other Hat? Hmm, kinda like that, actually.”

“...Welp, that one’s on me for asking,” Stan said, and promptly turned his attention back to Ford. “I did need you for something, though. Apparently Soos found a few more moonstones that he said we should lay out in the hall—”

“Well, feel free to lay them there,” Ford said, making his way back to his chair. “One at each corner, evenly spaced…Probably a smart idea to stick one at the end of the hallway for good measure—”

“I really think we need your help with it,” Stan urged.

“Not if you follow my instructions.”

Bill’s eyebrows shot as far up his forehead as they could get, expression lighting up with sadistic glee. Oh, oh—they were fighting~! “Aww, I’m back for five minutes and you two are already at each other’s throats again!” he said with a mirthy twinkle in his eye. “Man, even after all this time, you Pines Twins still can’t get along!”

He began to rock back and forth in the chair with delight. “Come on, punch each other in the face!” he demanded excitedly. “Give Sixer a black eye that looks worse than mine!”

He stopped rocking for a moment, and cast a look down at the chair. “Hmm, I forgot that you mortals haven’t evolved to the point where you can hear the voices of inanimate objects,” he said. “I can’t even hear just how much this chair is probably screaming from the way I’ve been rocking it back and forth.”

With a cackle, he proceeded to rock back and forth even harder. “Hehe, I’ll bet the guy’s absolutely livid right now—ACK!”

The chair suddenly tipped over and crashed—Bill and all—to the floor with a loud clatter. With his limbs too restrained to catch himself in any dignified fashion, Bill quickly found himself with his face squished into the lavender rug near Abuelita’s bed. 

Both Ford and Stan stared at him for a moment, their disagreement temporarily forgotten at Bill’s misfortune. However, Stan snapped back to reality first and took advantage of the other two being distracted long enough to pull Ford towards the door and out into the hallway.

Bill barely had time to bark out an irritated: “Hey, get back here and pick me up!” before the door was pulled shut behind them. With a irritable huff, he attempted to rock the chair again in the hopes of adjusting to a more comfortable angle.

And after a moment of struggling, he finally succeeded in rolling the chair onto its—and by extension, his—back. Leaving him completely flat on the floor with his gaze pointed upwards at the ceiling.

Well, at least this angle was more familiar.

— — — — — — —

“Stanley, I said—”

“I know what you said,” Stan replied, closing the door shut behind them. “But you know I’m gonna try and make you sleep tonight, right?”

“And you know I’m not going to do that, right?”

“Ford—”

“How on Earth am I supposed to sleep with Bill still alive?!” 

It was like something had finally crashed right on through whatever wall Ford had built up in his mind, the stress he had tried desperately to repress all evening spilling out of him in an instant. “The memory gun should’ve worked,” he muttered in a panicked tone. “It…it destroyed everything in your mind, right?”

“Well, yeah, everything—” Stan began. “But—”

“There had to have been something he did, something that protected him,” Ford rambled on, mostly to himself. “Was it a spell? Some kind of failsafe? Did he catch onto our plan—”

“Woah, woah, hey, just breathe for a sec,” Stan interrupted. “Yeah, this is exactly why you’ve gotta let someone else babysit the little jerk while you get some sleep. You’re not gonna get anywhere if you’re too tired to think straight.”

And maybe if Ford got some sleep, he could shift some of the burden to Stan’s shoulders where it belonged. Yeesh, the poor guy had really been holding back earlier. Had he really been this stressed all evening?

…As if Stan needed to ask.

“You’d be surprised at what I can accomplish during an all-nighter,” Ford assured him. “Back in my college days, I once started a twenty-thousand-word essay at ten in the evening, and had it on the professor’s desk by six the next morning.”

He pressed a hand to his forehead. “And when you first arrived here to help me hide the journals, I believe was on my fourth consecutive day of staying awake.”

“Fourth?!” Stan sputtered in disbelief, before he shook his head. “No, no, just gonna ignore that for now—it’s not like I got any room to talk when it comes to bad sleep schedules. But also you are not staying up four days to deal with this by yourself.”

He reached over to place a reassuring hand on Ford’s shoulder. “Come on, Stanford, let me help you,” he urged. “At least go get an hour of sleep. I’ll stay down here, keep him quiet—heck, I’ll duct tape his mouth shut if he gets too mouthy with me.”

He balled his free hand into a fist and thumped it against his own chest. “Let me help you put that pointy jerk twenty feet back under the ground, and make it stick this time!”

Ford’s eyes fell to the hand on his shoulder and followed it up to the desperation in his brother’s features.

An expression near identical to the one he had worn after being blasted by the memory gun. Confusion mixed with a desire to understand…

It was like they were back in that clearing in the woods, the natural warmth of the sun draping itself back over the town, after the blood-red skies of Weirdmageddon had barred it from sight for so long. Stanley kneeling in front of him and the kids in a dazed trance, no recollection of whom he was or the sacrifices he had just made.

All of which he had assured Ford was worth the risk while they swapped clothes back in the Fearamid, beneath the wretched tapestries of the remaining Zodiac members, an ear perked on both ends for Bill’s thundering footsteps reapproaching the main room.

But had it been? Had it been worth the risk?

Up until Mabel’s scrapbook method, they had no way of knowing that Stanley would’ve been able to return to his usual self. And as far as they knew, that cure only worked when presented with the memory gun’s effects.

What if Stanley got involved again, only for something worse to happen to him than lost memories? What if he couldn’t simply be scrapbooked and home movie’d back to his usual self again this time around?

What if—

“Yeah, well, if they keep on bein’ that thrilled, you’re gonna have to bust out that necromancy spell to talk to me.”

“I’ve made up my mind, Stanley,” Ford said, and turned back to the door. “You go get some sleep.”

“Wh—Ford!”

His brother’s name fell on deaf ears as Ford promptly open and shut the door behind him. Stan continued to stare at the closed door, too dumbfounded to properly react. 

Ford really didn’t want his help with Bill? He could understand sending everyone off to bed earlier, but he was still turning down his help when it was just the two of them?

He raised a hand to the doorknob, the temptation to try and properly sway Ford into letting him help rising in his chest—

“Mr. Pines?”

Stan nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of a voice from the other bedroom in the hallway, and he turned to see Soos standing in the doorway. “Everything alright? …I don’t have to punch anyone yet, do I?”

With an exhale, Stan forced his hand back to his side again. “Yeesh, Soos, don’t sneak up on me like that or I’m gonna be the one who starts swinging. But nah, everything’s fine. Just thought I check in on Ford, is all.”

“Alright,” Soos said with a small smile as he held up a fist of his own. “But I swear, I will throw a punch if I need to! I made a promise, after all.”

He paused, and switched the fist to another hand. “Although maybe I should use this hand,” he said thoughtfully. “Don’t wanna accidentally break my Shack-Brochure-and-Fanfic-Writing hand on his face, you know what I mean?”

He swapped back to the first. “Although it’s probably better to use your dominant hand to punch—”

“Go to bed, Soos.”

“You got it, Mr. Pines!”

He shut the door, leaving Stan once again by himself in the quiet hallway.

Stan cast a look back to the door in front of him, his hand moving towards the doorknob again.

The same way it had when Ford had called him to the shack all those years ago, eyes bloodshot and features sunken from a lack of sleep—four days, Ford?!—and he’d showed up without a second thought to help.

Despite all the time they had spent apart, Ford had relied on him enough to seek out his help. Despite everything, Stan had still held some worth in his brother’s eyes.

And how had Stan proven that worth to his brother?

By tossing him through some massive, otherworldly portal for thirty years, stealing his identity, and ruining his life.

By getting huffy over a simple thank you and nearly dooming the entire universe.

“But then again, you might have a little trouble convincing him. Considering your poor track record in fixing mistakes.”

By not doing the one thing that had actually granted him worth, and killing that stupid demon proper.

He slammed his hand back down to his side again in a balled fist, and headed back down the hallway.

Forget it, he’d try again tomorrow.

— — — — — — —

“So, how’d the fight go~?”

Not even Bill’s shrill tauntings could pull Ford out of his determined state as he returned to his chair and notebook, the tip of his pencil once again dancing across the paper with incredible speed.

From the floor where he’d fallen earlier, Bill cast him a sour look. “Oh, real mature, Sixer. You’re really not going to pick me up?”

Ford’s hand clenched tighter around the pencil as he went to scratch out his latest idea—one that joined the dozen other scribbled-out ideas above it—before moving down to the next empty row on the paper and starting again—

“Uh, hello? Stanford? I’m talking to you!”

Talk then, you vile little demon.

The tip of the pencil snapped and Ford was unable to bite back his frustrated grunt of surprise. Right on cue, a cackle started from the floor as he reached for a pencil sharpener. “Hehe, I heard that~!” Bill chimed in a singsong voice. “Guess we know who lost the fight, eh, Grumpypants~?”

Ford paid him no mind as he quickly sharpened the pencil back into a point and returned to his work with that fierce determination from before.

No matter how many scribbled-out ideas he had to toss into the fireplace, he was going to find a solution to this problem.

No matter how long it took, no matter how much he had to verbally endure at Bill’s hand again—

—he would make certain that his brother’s sacrifices hadn’t been in vain.

“...Okay, seriously, are you going to leave me down here all night?”

— — — — — — — —

Mabel couldn’t sleep.

Ever since she’d settled into bed—a snoozing Waddles curled up at her side—her eyes had stayed glued to the ceiling. At first she’d tried distracting herself by holding mental conversations with the mold spots permanently stained into the old wood, but not even Daryl could lift her spirits at a time like this.

Every few minutes, her gaze would move to the bed across the room, a question lingering on her tongue for a moment before she returned her attention to the ceiling.

It was around midnight before she finally vocalized her lingering question with a quiet: “You awake, Dipper?”

Her answer immediately came in the form of blankets shuffling as Dipper rolled over to face her. “Of course I am.”

She rolled over to face him proper as well, both pairs of eyes shifting to the triangular window of their room. The moon hung high in the night sky, its beams of light shining through the glass and illuminating the floor in a way that would normally be comforting.

Tonight, however, the sight of an eye-shaped object through the triangular frame was just a painful reminder of what waited for them just a few rooms below.

“I can’t believe he’s back…”

Dipper turned his gaze from the moonlight and back to his sister at the sound of her voice. “Did you see Grunkle Ford?” she asked quietly. “He was so scared…”

“I don’t blame him,” Dipper admitted, placing a hand to his forehead. “We went through all of that trouble to kill Bill, and it didn’t even work.”

He slid the hand down to cover his eyes, but immediately lifted it again to peek over at her. “Hey, you saw it, right? How much he looked like me…”

There was more shuffling—this time on Mabel’s end—as she sat up in bed completely. “It was like when I saw him during the puppet show,” she said, pulling her legs to her chest. “Except the hair and eyes were different this time around. His left eye wasn’t all—”

She covered her own left eye with one hand. “His hair color’s different this time, too. I wonder why?”

“Who knows?” Dipper said with a shrug. “Although I guess meeting—or re-meeting a guy who looks like me isn’t the weirdest thing to happen in this town, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Mabel agreed. “Still…why’d it have to be that guy? Why does he have to ruin everything?”

A sad hum escaped her as she hugged her knees close. “So much for getting to spend more time with Grunkle Ford this summer…”

Dipper let his arm fall before he sat up in bed. “Hey, come on, you really think it’s gonna take all summer for Grunkle Ford to get rid of Bill?” he asked. “He’s spent the last thirty years traversing the Multiverse! He’s explored more dimensions than we could probably even think of on our own—dimensions where everyone lives underwater, dimensions ruled by talking robotic octopi—”

When Mabel plopped sadly back against her pillow again, Dipper paused for a moment to think. “—dimension where the air is made of cotton candy instead of oxygen?”

As he’d expected, the concept twitched the corners of her mouth with mild amusement. “Ugh, I’ll bet that dimension is soooo tasty,” she said. “I wonder what they do when it rains, though? All the cotton candy would just melt and then they’d have no air—ooh, I’ll bet they have like, a ga-ZILLION of those cotton candy-making machines ready for when that happens!”

“Anything’s possible in the Multiverse,” Dipper said with a nod. “My point is that Grunkle Ford’s been around, and he’s probably picked up a lot of different ways to get rid of Bill! Even if the methods he’s tried already didn’t work—and even if we can’t use stuff like the Zodiac or his Quantum Destabilizer—I’m sure he’s got something up his sleeve.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. And if none of those work, we could always come up with some ideas for him! Like—like—”

She flumped her arms across her blanket with an exasperated huff. “Well, I’m too tired to think of anything now, but I’m sure we could think of something!” she said, scrunching her face in concentration. “What if we…I dunno—”

“Oooh!” Dipper snapped his fingers with inspiration. “What if we got one of those time travel devices, strapped one to Bill, and then rocketed him to a date so far into the future that he’d never be able to get back to our time?”

Mabel pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle, but her amusement faded almost immediately. “Nah, that wouldn’t work. He could always trick and possess someone super far in the future, and they could help him get back here,” she pointed out. “Like what he did with that Blendin guy, remember?”

“Oh, yeah…”

The two fell silent again, the only noise that could be heard was the gentle summer wind rustling the forest outside their window. “We should probably sleep for real,” Dipper finally said. “We can just…do what we told Grunkle Stan we were going to do and take shifts, right?”

“Well then, you sleep first,” Mabel said, once again in an upright position as she reached over to pull Waddles close to her. “And like I said I was gonna do, I’ll let Waddles stay on your side and be your guard hog while you sleep.”

Waddles followed up her remark with a groggy little oink of reassurance, and Dipper let out a chuckle. “Yeah, and what’s he gonna do if Bill pops up in my dream?”

“I mean, you can always dream up a dream Waddles to eat him,” Mabel suggested. “He looks like a corn chip, right? I’ll bet dream corn chips taste just as good as real ones!”

She plapped a hand against the top of Waddles’ head. “Plus then when you wake up, you’ll have the real Waddles right there to comfort you!”

This got a full-on laugh out of Dipper. “Alright, alright, point made. Send him over.”

Mabel leaned over the side of the bed and gently set Waddles to the floor, giving his little rump an encouraging pat. “Go on, boy! Go protect Dipper from the dream nacho!”

With another tired little oink, he ambled on over to Dipper’s side of the bedroom and oinked up at him for assistance. “Go ahead and set an alarm on your phone, Mabel,” Dipper said, and reached down to pull him up onto his bed. “What should we set it to? An hour? Hour-and-a-half?”

“An hour works for me,” Mabel said. “But if you don’t actually sleep for that hour, I will not hesitate to stay up longer out of spite!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sleeping…”

Dipper settled back down under the covers while Waddles snuggled up next to him, and it wasn’t until Mabel heard Dipper’s light snoring that she finally dared to tear her gaze from him and reach for her phone.

That was good. At the very least, he’d be getting some sleep tonight.

She looked to the window again—the moonlight still faintly illuminating the darkened room—and crawled out of bed to stare outside properly. Despite the tall trees that surrounded the shack on all sides, there was little to block the ocean of stars that painted the night sky.

After staring for a bit, she turned and crawled back into her bed. With another look at her brother to make sure he was still asleep, she dug her hand between the mattress and wall, the tip of her tongue poking out between her lips in determination as she fumbled around for the unseen object she sought so desperately.

She knew it was a longshot that it would’ve remained in the same place for nine months—given the dustless state of their room, Soos would’ve been the most likely candidate to find it if he searched-slash-cleaned hard enough—but eventually her fingers brushed against something and she pulled it out to investigate.

It was an old, dusty piece of paper, the same one she had crumpled and tucked in its hiding spot almost a full year ago. The edges were frayed and torn and the tint of the paper was a sicklier yellow than she remembered—but the jagged writing on the front was still just as legible as the day she’d found it in Stan’s car:

“Note to self: Possessing people is hilarious! To think of all the sensations I’ve been missing out on—burning, stabbing, drowning. It’s like a buffet tray of fun! Once I destroy that journal, I’ll enjoy giving this body its grand finale—by throwing it off the water tower! Best of all, people will just think Pine Tree lost his mind, and his mental form will wander in the mindscape forever. Want to join him, Shooting Star?”

Mabel stared hard at the paper for what felt like an hour—although in reality, it was probably no longer than a few minutes. She read and reread several times over, every cruel word like a knife to her vision and gut, before finally crumpling the paper in an angry fist and shoving it back down between the wall and her mattress where it belonged.

She settled back against her pillow again, and turned back to Dipper’s bed. Still fast asleep, with nothing more than the occasional twitch or shift in place.

He was sleeping, supposedly without nightmares. That was all that mattered.

She continued to stare at him until the sight made her drowsy, before turning her attention back to the various mold spots on the ceiling.

Daryl was going to have to work overtime tonight if he really wanted to lift her spirits.

[aeor-is-for-reccing]

Older Favourites: A Shadowgast Rec List

This week, we have a recurring theme to cap out the first month of the new year- Older Favourites! Check under the cut for 11 fics that are over a year old, and don't forget to comment and kudos if you like them!

Fundamental Forces Other Than Gravity by mllekurtz (TheKnittingJedi) (40676, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

A sweet collage AU one-shot where they are both a bit vulnerable and the m9 is its usual chaotic self.

Reccer says: I liked it!

Hold Me Close (But Not Too Sweet) by AnaliseGrey (5312, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: Choose Not to Warn

Dom Caleb gets Essek out of his head with ear clamps and oral sex.

Reccer says: I liked it!

multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance by mousecookie (10003, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek and Caleb end up on the opposite side of Resonant Echo in a dangerous place.

Reccer says: Fascinating concept and interestingly written

only code it knows is rote survival by Chrome (12637, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

In a world where Trent makes it back to Eiselcross before the Nein do, Essek spends a night under the effects of the Feeblemind spell. Caleb undertakes a duty of care, and the Nein learn how Essek feels about them beneath everything.

Reccer says: Always love Feeblemind!Essek and this one is lovely in all the care the rest of the group gives

(perhaps i may) elaborate by demonstration by marsastronomica (10057, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Aeor flirting, flirting, flirting, and smut. Funny but loving.

Reccer says: This is one of my favs of all time. The characterization is great. A rare confident Essek. Tons of great lines too and the Nein are perfect.

we never do go over (we always gotta go through) by Chrome (17169, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

after a final battle with the Tombtakers, Five times Essek woke up with level(s) of exhaustion and one time he didn't.

Reccer says: It's so tender! An interesting take on a possible end to the arc and a wonderful demonstration for (the consequences of) Essek's power

Lay Your Bones by ladyorpheus (53587, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

The M9 rescue Essek, meet his brother, and muse on family.

Reccer says: One of the very first fics I read in this fandom and it's always stuck with me. A real ensemble M9 piece with shadowgast at its heart.

Like darkness to a dying flame by Sangreal (, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Caleb Widogast, arcanist in the service of His Excellency, Prime Magister Ludinus Da’leth, and antiquarian at large, travels to the ancient city of Ghor Dranas in search of a powerful drowic vestige that he believes can help him turn back time. He finds his vestige... and something more.

Reccer says: So. This fic. It is a fever dream, a fantasy-warped nightmare. Art in text. Heavy like lead in your mouth. Fucked up and absolutely gorgeously written. I think about it like once a week still. (Eldritch horror-Essek and Caleb succumbing to obsession and tentacles.)

shrimp vision by nevenne (5662, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Humans can’t see in the dark. They see well in sunlight, however, and their eyes are exceptional for distinguishing color and depth. Drow can see at night, but more importantly, they can see in complete darkness as their eyes have accustomed to tracking the invisible heat radiating off objects and living flesh. There is a series of unfortunate complications to co-existing with a human arising from these facts.

Reccer says: It's funny and hot and there's some great drow biology in it!

Troublemaker by SaltCore (1309, General) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Kittens, while precious, do tend to cause problems on purpose. Good thing Essek is already smitten.

Reccer says: Amazingly sweet domestic fluff

learning all the old things by hanap (1353, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek cooks a meal for Caleb and himself.

Reccer says: It's super sweet and domestic

Aeor is for Lovers is an 18+ Shadowgast Discord server. The above fanfic recommendations were pulled from our community for this weekly event. All fics, unless otherwise specified, will primarily feature Shadowgast. Have any questions about what this is? Check out the FAQ! Next week, we’ll be back with non-penetrative sex!

[sequinsmile-x]

300

Emily, Aaron and their love as observed by their friends.

AKA - the five times the team see them love each other, and the one time they don't even try to hide it.

My 300th Hotchniss fic

Part 1/2

-x-

Hi friends,

I truly cannot believe we are here, that I have written 300(!!) fics about these two idiots. I went back and forth a lot on what to write for this, but I got an ask requesting a fic where the team see these two being all soft with each other and it's perfect. A return to my fluffy roots.

Thank you so much for still being here, for interacting with my fics and still making me feel nothing short of giddy whenever I get a comment or kudos. Writing makes me feel better, and it never gets any less amazing when people tell me my writing helps them too.

Anyway, here is part 1 of this two 2 part fic to celebrate this milestone. Part 2 will be up in the next day or so.

Here's to the next 300! <3

-x-

Words: 5.3k

Warnings: None!

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

Dave

He smiles as he looks around his backyard, a mix of happiness and scotch making his skin fizz as he watches his friends have fun. 

It was something they’d all needed after another day full of close calls. Their jobs had always been dangerous, had always come with the risk of one of them getting hurt, but ever since Emily had died, since they’d had to bury her, it all felt sharper. He’d come to wonder at the end of those long seven months when she was dead to everyone other than JJ and Aaron if something was up, if he had the full truth, but even when she walked into the conference room he hadn’t quite believed it. 

“I’ve got to say,” Emily says, walking over to him as if he’d summoned her by thinking about her, a wry smile on her face, “I’m impressed at how quickly you pulled all of this together.”

Dave takes a sip of his drink as he looks at her, “It helps to have connections.” 

Her smile turns mischievous, a spark in it he worried he’d never see again for a while. She’d been different when she came back, wearing her trauma, the things she’d somehow survived, as a veil. Something that kept her further back from them all than she had once been. Then something had changed out of seemingly nowhere, her smile was real again. She joined in when Derek and Spencer were playing pranks on each other. He chastised himself for not putting two and two together, for not realising her shift in behaviour matched up with Aarons, how they both seemed happier than he had ever known them. 

It was only when they told them that they were together that the pieces fell into place. He’d claimed to already know, something Emily rolled her eyes at immediately, but they’d covered it well. Even now he had to watch closely to see the small moments between them. It didn’t surprise him, they were both intensely private even separately, so together they’d go to lengths to protect their relationship - even from those who cared about them. 

If he hadn’t already known about them, if they hadn’t finally admitted to the change in their relationship just a couple of weeks ago, he would have figured it out the moment Emily stepped into the bank. Aaron had been beside himself, a tension in his shoulders and jaw that Dave hadn’t seen in years. When Emily emerged from the bank, okay but shaken, she’d all but thrown herself into Aaron’s arms, their embrace tight as they whispered things no one else could hear to each other. 

“I guess it also helps that you’ve planned four weddings before,” she quips, and he rolls his eyes, shaking his head at her.

“Three,” he corrects, “I’ve been married three times.”

She shrugs playfully, suppressing her smile as she presses her lips together, “Sorry. Three.” 

His response is cut off as Aaron walks over, a smile on his face as he passes Emily a glass of wine. 

“Here you go, sweetheart,” he says, his smile getting wider as she looks at him. It’s as if they briefly forget anyone else is around when their eyes meet, so focused on each other that Dave thinks he could catch fire and they wouldn’t notice. 

Emily smiles softly and presses a kiss to Aaron’s cheek, side steeping a little closer to him so she can wrap her arm around his waist, “Thanks, honey.” 

Dave can’t help but smile as he watches them, how Aaron wraps his arm around her shoulders, his palm against her bare arm as he smiles at her. They were being affectionate with each other in a way they usually would be, encouraged by a mix of alcohol and the remnants of the danger she’d been in earlier, and it only confirms what he already knew.

They were in love with each other. 

Emily frowns at him when she turns and looks at him to find that he is still watching them, “What?” 

He shakes his head and clears his throat, “Nothing.” 

She narrows her eyes but turns back to Aaron, tilting her head as their eyes meet, “Want to dance?” 

Aaron hesitates, grimacing slightly as he looks towards the dance floor, “I’m not a big dancer, Em.” 

She places her hand on his chest, her fingers playing with the open neck of his collar, and she bats her eyelashes, something Dave can see from where he’s standing, “Come on, please. For me.” 

Aaron sighs and shakes his head, “Fine, for you,” he says, pressing a kiss to her lips before he shifts his hand to her lower back to turn her towards the dance floor. He turns and looks at Dave over his shoulder and looks pointedly at his friend, “Don’t say a word.”

He holds up his hand in defence and smiles, “Wouldn’t dare.” 

He can’t help but watch as they dance together, again lost in their own little world as they move around the dance floor. Aaron whispers something that makes Emily laugh, her head turned towards him as she captures his lips in a kiss, either not caring or not realising that everyone is looking over at them curiously. 

As he walks towards the bar for another drink, he can’t help but wonder if this was the only wedding he’d be hosting in his backyard for his friends. 

___

JJ

She grimaces as she slams down the empty shot glass, shaking her head as the liquor burns her throat. 

“Another round?” 

JJ groans as she looks up at Penelope, shaking her head vehemently, the movement making her feel briefly even drunker, “Absolutely not.” 

Emily sips her beer, her face covered in a scowl as she tries to chase away the taste of the absinthe, “I’m with JJ,” she says, clearing her throat, “Is it just me, or did absinthe used to go down a little easier?” 

“It’s not just you,” JJ assures her, and they both chuckle. Penelope huffs and sits back down, rolling her eyes at her friends.

“You two used to be fun.” 

Emily chuckles and places her hand on Penelope’s arm, “We’re still fun,” she insists, “But Aaron is on his way to pick me up and I really don’t want to throw up in his car.” 

JJ can’t help but smile as her friend mentions her boyfriend, how her eyes light up slightly, her usual ability to school her features inhibited by the number of shots Penelope had forced on them. In the two months they’d known about Aaron and Emily they’d given very little away about their relationship. They kept it to themselves, to the point where often if JJ didn’t know they were together she wouldn’t see it. They’d always been private, and even tonight Emily hadn’t said much, no matter how much Penelope tried to pry information out of her. 

She was happy for Emily, and for Aaron too, delighted that they’d found the happiness that they deserved after everything they’d been through. 

At the mention of Aaron and Emily’s relationship, Penelope immediately lights up, her nose scrunching up slightly, “It’s still so weird to hear you call him that.” 

Emily smiles and furrows her brow, “What, Aaron?” She asks teasingly, sipping her beer as her smile turns mischievous, “Did you really expect me to call him Hotch after we started fuc-”

“Okay, stop,” Penelope says, shivering slightly, “I don’t like to think of him like that,” she says dramatically, “I’d prefer to carry on thinking of him as a once a year, in the dark and under the covers kind of guy.”

Emily laughs, throwing her head back as she does so, the sound loud and joyful as it escapes her, “I can assure you Pen, that absolutely is not the case.” 

JJ looks up as she hears the door to the bar open and she spots Aaron walking in, and she waves him over. It catches Emily’s attention and she looks over her shoulder, her smile impossibly wide as she turns back around and gets out of her chair. 

JJ watches as Emily bounds over to Aaron, slightly unsteady on the high heels she’d been complaining about all night. She wraps her arms around Aaron the moment she makes it to his side, and his hands land on her waist, steadying her as she almost stumbles against him. She stamps her lips against his, and JJ has to hide a laugh behind her drink when Aaron pulls back, his eyes nervously darting over to her and Penelope. Emily leads him over, both of her arms wrapped around one of his as he smiles slightly awkwardly, endearing in a way that JJ wouldn’t have expected. 

“Hello Sir,” Penelope says, sitting up straight, clearly trying to act more sober than she was. 

Aaron chuckles lightly and shakes his head, “Hi,” he says, looking back and forth between the two of them, “You don’t have to call me Sir we’re not at work.” 

Emily chuckles and buries her face in his shoulder, kissing him through the thin material of his shirt. He pulls her slightly closer, his hand running up and down her side, and it’s something thats so tender, so soft, JJ aches. It was all the proof she needs that this was it for them, that they truly were the happy ending they both deserved. 

“Do either of you need me to take you home?” He asks, clearing his throat and attempting to hide a smile as Emily clearly grabs his ass, her well known tactile nature when she was drunk making an appearance. 

JJ shakes her head, “No, thank you though. Will is already on his way and he’s going to drop Pen home too.” 

He smiles and nods and looks down at Emily, his smile adoring as she looks up at him,” You ready to go?” 

She nods and looks over at her friends, waving goodbye instead of hugging them like she usually would, seemingly unable to tear herself away from her boyfriend. 

“Let me know when you’re home, okay?” She says, and both JJ and Penelope nod, she smiles at them once more before she and Aaron turn around and leave. JJ watches them until they are no longer in the bar, disappearing into the night outside. 

“They are adorable,” Penelope says and JJ smiles as she looks at her. 

“They really are,” she agrees and then she feels her phone vibrate in her pocket, and she pulls it out to see a message from Will, “Oh Will is here.” 

They finish their drinks and head outside. She smiles as she spots her husband leaning against his car, his arms crossed over his chest and a smile on his face. 

“Hi darling,” he says, smiling as she walks over and kisses him, “Did you ladies have fun?” 

She smiles as Penelope stumbles as she tries to get into the back of the car, “Some of us more than others.” 

She walks around the car to get into the passenger side and she hears a laugh that sounds a lot like Emily’s. She follows the sound and freezes when she sees her, happily on Aaron’s back as he gives her a piggyback. Aaron is walking towards his car, Emily’s shoes in one hand and the other one of her legs, securing her to his back as she leans in, her lips against his ear as she laughs. 

It was something she wouldn’t believe happened if she hadn’t seen it herself, a playful moment between two people who so rarely showed that side of them, but it was also full of love and tender care. She can imagine Emily complaining that her feet hurt and Aaron immediately offering to help. 

“Ready to go darling?” Will asks, pulling her out of what she was watching and she turns to look at him and smiles as she climbs into the car. 

She tries to spot them again but can’t and she sighs happily as she settles into her seat, happiness for her friends warming her from the inside out. 

___

Spencer 

He was always the first to the jet. 

It was a pattern he knew well. He’d be there first, then Aaron. Then JJ, Dave and Derek in that order. Emily was always last, never late but always last, a smile on her face as Dave inevitably made a comment about it. 

It was the first thing he’d noticed. Emily suddenly started arriving just a few minutes after Aaron, an air about her that Spencer hadn’t seen since Ian Doyle had torn through their lives. He couldn’t place it, his curiosity mostly focused on why she was all of a sudden consistently showing up to work just after Aaron, disrupting the pattern he’d long since relied on. It’s only when he spots Aaron sneaking out of Emily’s room one morning, Spencer’s morning hunt for coffee interrupted as he hid out of the way so the other man didn’t spot him, that he put it together. 

They were seeing each other. 

After that, he noticed so much more. How they’d sit next to each other at every given opportunity, how they’d seek each other out in a room, a tension in their shoulders until they saw each other. They were both undeniably happier, and for a reason he didn’t understand keeping it to themselves. He kept the secret for them, never hinting that he knew, even when they finally told the team that they were together he simply smiled and nodded, aware that no one would have expected him to pick up on it anyway. 

He checks his watch and looks at the time, huffing out a breath. He looks out the window and, right on schedule, he spots Aaron and Emily on the tarmac. They’d dropped any pretence that they weren’t travelling in together the moment they told them all about their relationship a few months ago. He watches them curiously as they stop a few feet short of the steps leading up to the jet. 

Aaron has both of their go bags slung over his shoulder and they are holding hands. Emily lifts their joint hands to her lips and kisses the back of his hand, smiling as she says something Spencer can’t hear before she leans in and stamps a kiss to Aaron’s lips. He then pulls her into a hug, his hand running up and down her back for a moment before he says something too, kissing her cheek before he pulls away. 

They step apart from each other, and Spencer realises that he’s watching them switch from Aaron and Emily into Hotch and Prentiss, a transition that appears seamless as Emily walks up the stairs to the jet first. Aaron just behind her, her bag over his shoulder the only sign that they were anything other than colleagues.

“Morning, Spence,” Emily says, smiling as she steps onto the jet slipping into the seat opposite him. 

“Morning,” he replies, flashing a smile at her as Aaron places their bags in the overhead compartments, and he nods as they make eye contact, “Hotch.” 

“Morning Reid,” he says, his smile turning slightly soft as he looks at Emily, “Coffee?” 

She nods, “Yes please.” 

Aaron turns to go to the kitchenette but turns back, “Reid?” 

He shakes his head and holds up the coffee he had in his hands, “I’m good, thank you.” 

Aaron disappears behind the curtain and Emily turns to look at Spencer, smiling curiously as their eyes meet, “You okay?” 

They smile at each other. Spener had never had a sister, but he wondered if this is what it felt like to have one. He’d mourned Emily in a way that still hurt if he thought about it, the loss of her leaving a hole in his chest that he still felt at times. He loved her as a friend, as someone he knew he could trust with his life, and he wanted nothing more than for her to be happy. 

He nods and clears his throat, “Yeah, I’m okay,” he replies, smiling at his friend, his lips pressed together as he tries to figure out what to say, “I’m…I’m happy for you and Hotch.”

She smiles, her cheeks going slightly red as she avoids eye contact and looks at the table between them, “Oh,” she says, biting her lower lip “Thank you. I’m happy for us too.” 

Aaron walks back out, unaware of the moment he’d walked in on and he places a cup of coffee in front of Emily before placing his down. 

“Don’t panic,” he says dryly as he sits down next to her, “But they ran out of Splenda,” he says and she scoffs, but before she can say anything Aaron reaches into the pocket of his suit jacket and pulls out two single serve packets of Splenda and places them in front of her, “Good thing I came prepared.”

“My hero,” She gasps playfully, the sound turning into a chuckle as she kisses his cheek, seemingly briefly forgetting where they were, Aaron smiles and clears his throat, looking quickly at Spencer, and Emily does the same, clearing her throat as she sits backwards, “Thanks for the coffee,” she says, smiling as she tears the packets open, paying attention to her drink as she adds the sweetener in, her smile turning playful as she looks back up at him, “Hotch.”

They look at each other in a way that Spencer doesn’t entirely understand, smiles passing over both of their faces very briefly before Aaron responds. 

“You’re welcome, Prentiss.” 

___

Penelope 

She was excited to spend the weekend with Sergio. 

Penelope hadn’t wanted to give him back to Emily at first, knowing she’d miss the company of the adorable black cat, but she knew it was the right thing to do. He was Emily’s pet, a piece of normality she deserved after everything she’d been through. 

So when Emily asked if she’d watch Sergio for the weekend since she knew she was going away with Aaron and Jack, a weekend away just the three of them, she’d jumped at the chance. She’d got out all of the bits and pieces she’d bought when she had Sergio, meaning all she needed to get from Emily was the carrier and Sergio himself. 

Penelope knocks on Emily’s front door and waits patiently for a few seconds as the door opens. Emily smiles as she pulls it open, stepping back to let Penelope in.

“Pen, hi,” she says, looking as gorgeous as ever, even though she was simply wearing her pjyamas made of a t-shirt and leggings. She was fresh out of the shower, her hair damp against her large light grey t-shirt, darker patches of material over her shoulders wetted by her hair, “Good timing, I only just got out of the shower.” 

Penelope chuckles as she looks around, keeping an eye out for the cat, “Where’s my man?” 

“Well-” she starts, but she’s cut off as Aaron walks into the room, his hair equally as wet as Emily’s, with Sergio in his arms, the cat laying in his embrace like a baby, his black paws reaching up for his face. 

“Em, someone’s acting up. I think he knows we’re going away for the…” he says, trailing off when he realises they aren’t alone, his back immediately straightening as he looks at Penelope, “Garcia,” he says, clearing his throat when Emily raises an amused eyebrow at him, a reminder of a conversation Penelope hadn’t been privy to, “I mean, Penelope. Hi.” 

She suppresses a smile at how uncomfortable he clearly is, and she decides to be as calm about this as possible, knowing if she made too big a deal of seeing this tiny insight into their lives they’d both clam up. 

“Sir…Hotch,” she says, watching as Emily walks over to Aaron and leans against him, taking the opportunity to scratch Sergio under his chin, “I didn’t realise you’d be here.”

“Well,” he says, shrugging slightly, “Jack is with Jessica this evening, so I thought I’d help Emily with her packing for our trip.” 

Emily scoffs playfully, “I can pack by myself.” 

“Sure, sweetheart,” he says, seemingly more relaxed by the second. Penelope can’t help but look at them, how comfortable they are together, how easy it seems for them to be around each other. She feels almost giddy as she imagines their future, a baby in Aaron’s embrace instead of Sergio, and she has to shake her head at herself to stop herself from getting carried away. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sergio more relaxed,” Penelope says, laughing as the cat stretches as if he knew he was being spoken about. 

“Oh, Aaron is his favourite person in the whole world now,” Emily says, taking the cat from Aaron, laughing when he tries to scramble back into his arms, “We’ve been replaced, Pen.” 

“This is such a betrayal, Serg,” she gasps playfully as she takes the cat from Emily, scratching his head, and when she looks back up Aaron has his arm wrapped around Emily again, his hand against a t-shirt Penelope now realises must be his. 

“In Sergio’s defence,” Emily says, her palm on Aaron’s chest, “He does give excellent hugs.” 

They all stand in silence for a few moments and Penelope just takes the chance to watch them together, how they look at each other as if no one else was in the room. She wishes she’d meddled more years ago when she first brought up the option of Aaron as a potential date to Emily. She wanted them to have had this for so much longer than the six months they had, but she also knows that they needed to get to where they were now for this to work, that the timing was right. They’d survived everything they had to make it here. 

“I’ll make sure to send you pictures of him whilst you’re gone,” she says, scratching Sergio’s head, “As long as you do the same,” she adds, laughing as she winks at them. 

Emily laughs and walks over, hugging her friend and leaning in to kiss Sergio’s head, her voice low and conspiratory, but purposely loud so Aaron still hears her, “I’ll get a picture on the beach for you.” 

Aaron rolls his eyes lovingly but doesn’t say anything as he hands over the cat carrier, holding it open as Penelope puts Sergio inside of it. 

“Have a lovely weekend,” she says, picking up the carrier, “I’ll make sure no cases come through.”

“Penelope…” Aaron says warningly, his tone lost as Emily talks over him.

“Thank you, you’re the best.” 

They exchange goodbyes, and as she leaves she turns back and catches sight of them before the door closes. Aaron wraps his arm around Emily, her surprised yelp ringing out in the hallway before the door shuts, and she just about sees him lean in to kiss her before they disappear from view. 

Sergio meows from his carrier and Penelope looks down at him before she starts heading towards the elevator, “Come on Serg, I think it’s time I start getting you ready to be a big brother.” 

She wondered if it was too early to plan a bachelorette party for her friend before she was even engaged.  

___

Derek

He knows he’s the one who struggled with their relationship the most. 

Everyone else was happy, almost giddy, when Emily and Aaron told them they were together, but it had left him with a bitter taste on his tongue. The fallout of finding out about Emily’s past, and the decisions she’d made, were still difficult for him to grapple with. He didn’t know how to feel about the fact she’d ended up with their boss, the man who had led them all to believe she was dead for seven months, so he’d distanced himself from them both. 

His mother had always taught him if he didn’t have something nice to say, he shouldn’t say it at all, so he says nothing. He knows neither of them are stupid, that they would have picked up on his feelings about it all, but they don’t say anything either, nothing more than a sharp look Aaron would send in his direction if he blew Emily off when she asked if he wanted to get a drink after work. 

Derek listens as Penelope gushes over them, how she whispers to him about what they’d been like when she went to pick up Sergio just a few weeks before, how she even bets him $50 that Emily and Aaron are the real deal, but he still struggles. He hadn’t seen them interact romantically beyond a quick kiss here and there when they were out as a group, and he couldn’t see it. Couldn’t see the softness that he’d had described to him by two people he’d never seen that way with anyone. Even when Aaron was married to Haley he kept that part of his life to himself, never giving more of a hint than his arm around his wife’s shoulders in a bar. 

Emily sighs next to him, blowing air out through her lips as they kept an eye on the building the unsub was in, the team all around them. 

“You ok over there Prentiss?” 

She nods at him, her smile tight as she raises her hand to her lips, biting her cuticle, “Yeah,” she says quickly, “I’ll just be happy when this takedown is over.” 

She’d made her feelings on it clear, her unhappiness that Aaron was going in alone to a hostage situation so the unsub didn’t hurt anyone else obvious from the moment the idea was floated by them. 

“Hotch can handle himself,” Derek says, raising an eyebrow at her, “He’s been through worse.”

“I know what he’s been through,” she snaps, her control on a knife edge as she looks at him, “Better than you do. I just don’t…” she shakes her head and chuckles, looking back at the building her boyfriend had walked into, “I don’t see the need for unnecessary risk.” 

“Would you be this worried if it was me or Rossi in there?” He asks, genuinely curious, “Or is it just because you’re sleeping with him?” 

She looks sharply at him, a scoff escaping her as her eyes harden, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” 

Before he can reply their radio clicks and the local detective’s voice comes over it, “The suspect is apprehended, we need a medic.” 

Emily’s eyes go wide, and she presses the button on her radio, “Who we do need a medic for?” She asks, already walking towards the building, shaking off his arm as she goes. 

“Agent Hotchner was hit.” 

Emily takes off at a run and Derek follows her, yelling her name but she ignores him, rushing into the building before it’s officially cleared. He’s only a few paces behind her, and he’s relieved when he walks in to find Aaron conscious and sitting on the floor, a cut on his forehead as he hugs Emily tightly, her arms wrapped around him. 

“Are you okay?” She asks, cupping Aaron’s cheeks as she sits back on her heels, her eyes scanning over his face, “He said you were hit, I thought…”

“Sweetheart,” he says, placing his hand over hers on his cheek and turning his head to kiss her palm, an intimate moment Derek feels strange observing, but he can’t tear his gaze away, “I’m okay. I promise. He hit me with his gun.” 

Emily sighs and leans forward, as if the air had been knocked out of her as she kisses him, the kiss desperate as a breath shudders out of her, “I’m so…I thought…” 

“I know,” Aaron says, tucking some of her hair behind her ear, comforting her as if she was the one who’d been hurt, “I’m okay, I promise.” He repeats, his smile kind and loving as he pulls her hand from his cheek and kisses it, “I’m okay.”

She nods, a sound escaping her that Derek thinks is close to a sob and she smiles, “I love you.” 

“I love you too,” he replies, and Derek feels frozen in place, his assumptions about their relationship shattered around his feet. He only realises he’s staring when Emily looks at him, residual anger from his comment outside still lingering in her eyes. 

“Morgan, can you get the paramedics, he needs looking at.” 

Aaron sighs, “Em, I’m seriously-”

She places her hand on Aaron’s shoulder without even looking at him, holding him in place, “The paramedics please.”

Derek nods wordlessly and leaves, making a purposeful choice not to walk back in once he’s directed the EMTs to where they are, making himself busy by directing civilians around and helping the local cops. It’s later when Aaron walks out with nothing but a bandage on his head, Emily by his side, hovering nearby as much as she can with them still being in a professional setting. It wouldn’t take a profiler to see how she was barely holding herself together, how seeing the man she loved hurt had shaken her, and all of a sudden all the unkind thoughts he’d had about their relationship weigh heavily on him. 

Aaron is insistent on seeing the case through, already talking to Dave, waving off his concern as he talks about their game plan when it comes to interrogating the unsub. Derek walks over to where Emily is standing, her gaze fixed on Aaron as if he might disappear at any moment, her cuticle back in between her teeth. Derek takes a deep breath and walks over to her, scratching the back of his head as he makes it to her side. 

“Em-”

She groans and looks at him, “Can we not do this right now, Derek?” She asks, sounding nothing short of exhausted, “I don’t-”

“I wanted to apologise,” he says, cutting over her, knowing he wasn’t going to say it otherwise, “I haven’t been a good friend lately,” he says, looking over at Aaron, “If he makes you happy, that should be enough.”

She nods and crosses her arms over her chest, “Yes, it should be,” she says, raising her eyebrows as she looks at him and shrugs, “I don’t understand what your issue with this is. I…I think have an idea but I don’t want to get into it now,” she says chuckling humourlessly as she shakes her head, “But can I just ask you to do something?”

He nods, “Of course.” 

She smiles wryly, “Can you maybe get your head out of your ass before we get married and have kids?” She says casually, “Because thats where this is going, and it would suck to not have you involved in any of this.”

He thinks it might be the most honest thing she’s ever said to him, certainly the most vulnerable. Layers of herself that she’d hidden from him, from them all, for years shining through from under the armour she’d had since she was young. It makes any lingering negative thoughts about their relationship disappear and he nods, reaching out and squeezing her arm. 

“I think I can do that,” he says, smiling softly at her, and she smiles too, briefly squeezing his hand before she steps away, walking towards Aaron as if pulled towards him.

Derek stands in place and watches as she walks over, her hand on Aaron’s back as she steps next to him, both of them relaxing in each other's presence. 

He sighs as he turns away, looking for something to do, and he idly realises he owes Penelope $50. 

-x-

Tag List:

@ssa-sparks, @ptrckjcne, @lyds102, @glockleveledatyourcrotch, @hotchnissenthusiast, @danadeservesadrink, @ssamorganhotchner, @emilyprentissisgod, @notagentprentiss, @freesiasandfics, @emilyshotchniss, @thecharmingart, @paulitalblond, @hancydrewfan, @camille093, @whitecrossgirl, @moonlight-2-6, @rawr-jess, @florenceremingtonthethird, @jareauswife, @ms-black-a, @beebeelank, @aubreyprc, @zipzapboingg, @psychopath-at-heart, @criminalmindsgonewrong, @fionaloover, @kinqslcys, @prentissinred, @ccmattis-22, @denvivale317, @thrindis, @hotchsguccitie, @cmfouatslota77, @alexblakegf, @aliensaurusrex, @prentissxhotch, @emobabeyy, @victoiregranger, @stormyweatherth, @wanderingdreamer009, @ssablackbird, @luhwithah, @lex13cm, @prentiss-theorem, @dont-emily-me, @mrs-ssa-hotch, @jocyycreation, @itsmytimetoodream, @hotchnissgroupie, @controversialpooh, @capsshinyshield, @canuck-eh

Join my tag list here!

[sageandlily]

October 2023 favourite reads (Kpop boygroup edition)

🕸Hi! another month come to an end quite fast this year and it's the spooky season month, Ocrober. I didn't read that much fic this month because I got caught by a lot of stuff in my life and social media has been draining me for some reason. But, this month fic recs mostly in greek gods, mythical creatures and bridgerton-ish theme. Once again I always wish that both the stories and the writers (who are amazing, beautiful and talented!) gets more recognition and appreciation.

May November be an amazing month for all of you who came across this post🖤

Viewfinder (🔞Seungmin x reader x Lee Know) by @seospicybin

Absolutely love the dynamic between reader and the boys. What a roller coaster!

Collateral (🔞I.N x reader x Hyunjin) by @seospicybin

As somebody who currently trying her best to applying job in magazine industry, this fic really hit something on me.

Gladius Maximus (Son of Zeus!Bangchan x reader) by @neo-shitty

I'm a sucker for anything demigod or percy jackson inspired so when this fic came on my for you page, I immediately click on it and I'm not regretting it.

Star Lost (Son of Zeus!Bangchan x reader) by @neo-shitty

The sequel for the fic above.

Enemies to lovers (Son of Aphrodite!Hyunjin x reader) by @taelme

I just wanted to tell you how much i love this fic and you're such a talented writer bcs i re-read this fic 3 times!

Too Hot Too Handle (🔞Felix x reader) by @seospicybin

In conclusion: the title tells you all😵‍💫🥵.

The Secret Admirer (San x reader) by @edenesth

I'm a sucker for enemies to lovers trope and San is so ashuekwlfh.

For Me (Mingi x reader) by @hwanchaesong

I'm waiting for the sequel dear writer!

Patience (🔞Seungcheol x reader) by @fantasyescapes17

I'm in my bridgerton rabbit hole when suddenly this fic came out in my for you page and I am HOOKED.

The Siren's Call (🔞Felix x reader) by @petrichor-han

Just a beautiful writing also Felix as a siren?? i can imagine how majestic he is.

The Most Lonely Creature (🔞Yeosang x reader) by @atzfilm

Honestly as a Yeosang biased atiny, this was one of my fav mythical creature fic of him. I've re-read this twice hahaha

Project Omen (🔞Wooyoung x reader x Hongjoong) by @atzfilm

I just wanted to tell you how much i really like this fic bcs this one has been in my mind since i read it last August?? I decided to re-read it several times and it still got me. Kudos to you, such a talented writer!

Thank you for checking this post! See you next month🖤

[bad-and-drawn-that-way]

Electric Love - Full Chapter

Want early chapters? Read on Ao3!

Chapter 3: What's in a Deal?

Link to Chapter 1

Notes: Support me by reading on Ao3! Kudos and comments help motivate me to see multi-chapter fics through to the end! I'll be posting announcements for the updates here. Chapters will come out on Ao3 BEFORE tumblr.

Word Count: 5628

Tag List: @sle3pyh3ad2

The extermination was coming in six months.

News spread immediately after the Princess of Hell met with the angels and to say Hell was freaking out was an understatement. For the first few weeks after the announcement, you avoided going outside as much as possible. No one was in their right mind and the more you kept your head down in your little cloaked observatory, the better.

Baxter really had been a game changer when it came to your living situation. You’d put in a lot of hard work fixing up the abandoned place and it looked pretty nice. Too nice for the dark corner of the Pride Ring you were in. He’d given you a cloaking device that made the observatory look as shit and abandoned as the rest of the dead neighborhood while the inside was in comfortable condition.

Even with the system in place, you slept with one eye open as you noticed more sinners slink into the area. Due to the recent news, it seemed some were considering using the district as a potential hideout for the upcoming extermination. Everyone was on edge and nothing felt safe.

Despite this, you had a life to live. Everyone did. Which is why after a while, things went back to normal. You buried yourself in your work to avoid dwelling on the anxiety of the shitty afterlife you were dealt and that was that. Work wasn’t the only thing occupying your attention either.

For the first couple of weeks, since Vox had gracelessly stumbled into your life, there was silence. Not wanting to get anyone’s hopes up, you kept your mouth shut and didn’t tell anyone about the deal you had made. Even with the protection of the deal, you didn’t doubt that someone as powerful as an Overlord could easily double-cross someone like you.

But then it happened. First, it was just one of your friends texting the group chat you were in that they were free of their contract. You’d all hopped on a group call and planned a celebration while she happily cried uncontrollably. She had no other explanation for Valentino’s change in heart other than him telling her that he simply got bored of her services and didn’t want to waste the studio slots on her. While that comment did bruise her ego a bit, she was too relieved to care. 

Then it hit all at once. Everyone on the list was suddenly blowing up your phone with the news that they’d been released from their contracts and could start a new afterlife with their newfound freedom. Apparently, Valentino had covered up the entire thing by saying it was a quality cull for the sake of his image. Only a few people took the time to wonder if there was something more to the whole thing. Especially since some of the sinners he released were fairly popular for their work.

The only time you left your home for anything other than basic errands was the night you all gathered at a club and celebrated over the weekend. It was one of the craziest parties you’d ever been to, filled with drugs, sex, and a lot of happy crying. 

You thought that was the end of it. Life would go back to normal aside from the growing political tensions between Heaven and Hell. You would stay cooped up and work your ass off on putting together your game and keep to yourself aside from the occasional night on the town with friends. So you personally thought your disbelief was entirely warranted when your day was interrupted by a certain overlord knocking on your front door.

Vox tapped his foot impatiently as he looked around the neighborhood. The place was a piece of shit. It wasn’t like anyone hiding out here would be stupid enough to attack someone with his reputation, but he still felt unsettled as he knocked again and waited for you to let him in. He wasn’t in the mood to repeat what happened the last time he barged in unannounced.

The sound of you crashing about behind the large double doors could be heard. It took a moment before you finally appeared, opening the door with disheveled hair and a bathrobe lazily hanging off of one shoulder, barely revealing your pajamas underneath.

"Vox," you breathe before you chuckle awkwardly. "I'd say you should have called first, but you don't have my number."

"Technically I could if I looked hard enough," Vox chuckled as he looked at the disheveled state you were in. “But is it really so surprising that I’d check in after finishing the last of our little deal?”

"Kinda, yeah," you shake your head as you step back to let him in. You were immediately skeptical. There was no way Vox came all the way to such a sketchy corner of Hell just to be told he did a good job. He wanted something and you weren’t too keen on having that discussion out in the open. The faint shimmer of a cloaking barrier could be seen in the doorway. "Come on in."

The overlord stepped inside, his eyes flicking around the room and taking in everything that he could. He’d only seen the small office tucked in the back of the observatory the last time he was here. There was a big circular opening with a broken-down telescope that connected to the dome-like ceiling in the middle of the room. A desk covered with papers was pushed up against the side of the telescope and you’d split the large space into three areas in an attempt to refashion the space for living purposes. 

There was a kitchen made out of plug-in appliances and mismatched furniture on the left. Vox cringed as he saw the power cords working overtime just to keep everything running. The telescope seemed to act as a secondary office for you and you had a couch with a TV setup not too far from it to imitate a living room space. There were also dozens of boxes filled with junk that he had to imagine originally belonged to the observatory and you just never got around to disposing of properly. 

"Can I get you anything?" You say as you step into the main space after closing and bolting the doors behind you. Annoyed that your bathrobe keeps slipping off of your shoulder, you fight with it for a moment before foregoing it entirely and tossing it over a tower of books.

"Coffee, if you have it," Vox replied as he followed you into the small living room area. “The amount of shit I’ve had to take care of every since the bimbo leading Hell fucked us all over has left me running on caffeine for the past month.” 

He didn't mind the sight of books being stacked up on top of each other as he glanced around, taking in the area. Though the place wasn't the best-looking, it was evident that you had put a lot of work into making it livable. Considering how it looked on the outside, he could only imagine the state the place was in back when you found it.

You start prepping a fresh pot of coffee, wanting some for yourself as well. "So, my friends texted me," you say.

You turn and lean against the counter to look at him properly while the kitchen appliance worked its magic. "They all told me the same thing. How Valentino cut their contracts, saying he was doing quality control for the studio out of the blue. You kept your end of the deal."

"Yes, I did. But that's not the only reason I've come here," Vox murmured as he idly looked at some of the papers on the coffee table in the corner. "I couldn’t help but be intrigued by your… connections.”

You quirk an eyebrow at him as you watch him put down a paper that doesn’t keep his attention. “What about them?”

“At first, I didn’t care too much about your friends,” Vox admitted. “But I couldn’t help but shake the image of you with Angel Dust. So I did some digging and I’m just going to cut to the point. You’ve been to that hotel the princess has been running, haven’t you?”

You cross your arms, studying him carefully, “Well, aren’t you quite the stalker?”

“I like knowing things,” Vox waved you off with a frown. “But for good reason. It’s true, right?”

“It is,” you shrug, not seeing a reason to hide it. “At first, I just went to visit Angel. Helped him move in and stuff like that. The group there grew on me and I help out around the hotel sometimes if Angel and I aren’t already doing something else.”

Vox grins and you immediately catch on to his line of thought. "I'll say it now, don't get your hopes up," you warn him as the coffee pot beeps behind you. "I care for Charlie and Angel Dust a lot. I helped you against Valentino, but I won't betray the hotel."

"I’m not stupid,” Vox chuckles. “You’re a fool if you think that I don't already know you wouldn't betray them." The overlord scoffed as he watched you turn to search the cupboards for mugs. 

"You're far too compassionate for your own good, little drama queen,” Vox said with a roll of his eyes as he walked over to you. “Which is why you're rather easy to read. You claim you don’t care about the power struggles in Hell, but in the same breath, you helped me against Valentino… That tells me that you may be willing to strike up another deal."

Your fingers freeze just as you’re about to pluck a mug from the shelf. You knew it was coming and yet, it still caught you off guard. "...What did you have in mind?"

"You see, my dear old rival Alastor has been up to something and I don’t know what. He's getting a bit too close to little Miss Morningstar for my own comfort, and it's becoming… rather bothersome." Vox murmured as he watched you idly. "Though that's just the surface; there is also the fact that I'd like to be able to keep a constant eye on him. As you well know, Alastor enjoys playing with his cards close to his chest..."

“So what?” You frown as you pour the coffee into the mismatched mugs. “You want me to spy on Alastor?”

“Precisely,” Vox grins. He’d chosen someone too naive and careless the last time he attempted to get eyes on the inside of the hotel. You met the requirements Velvette had clearly laid out and unlike the snake, you had proper potential. Still stupid in your own ways, but not like the previous dumbass he’d tried to use for this particular purpose.

"And why would I do that?" You frown. "You've already played the card you had with me. There’s nothing else I could possibly want from you.”

"Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure," Vox smirked as he took one of the mugs. "I’d like to think our last little exchange was rather beneficial for us both. I’m nothing if not resourceful and everyone has their price.”

"And you think you know mine?" You frown, pulling open your fridge and grabbing the ingredients to turn your bitter black coffee into a mocha. The fact that Vox was drinking his black disgusted you, but you supposed when he needed that much coffee to get by, he didn’t have the time to be picky. "Even if I were to agree to this deal, it'd come with a lot of conditions. I meant it when I said I won't compromise the hotel."

"I’d expect nothing less,” Vox shrugged as he took a sip. “And we’ll get to that part next. Right now, you want to know what’s in it for you. Any smart demon wouldn’t bother with a deal that didn’t benefit them in some way and I’ve got just the thing.”

You’re completely unimpressed by the shift into a sales pitch, but say nothing as you mix chocolate powder and raspberry syrup into your drink. 

“I know that you have rather a deep love for your work and your creations, so if you were to help me keep an eye on Alastor... I’m happy to give you what you want more than anything,” Vox grinned as he prepared to offer you what he was thoroughly convinced was the key to pulling you under his wing of control. 

“More than just money, more than that Radio Demon could ever offer you… I’m willing to give you your very own company. A company that would allow you to complete whatever project your heart desires with the full financial support of a top-tier overlord in Hell.”

Vox smirked as he watched your movements slow to a stop throughout his sales pitch. “Does that sound interesting to you, little drama queen?"

He knew he had you. There was no way he didn’t. He’d done his research and saw how low your statistics were. You’d posted art and various other types of content on your social media and you had a following, but it wasn’t large. Especially not compared to what he knew it could be. The game you were working on was clearly meant to be your big debut into the industry, but even without that, the quality of your work was nothing to scoff at. With the power and control he was offering you, your numbers would skyrocket. You’d no longer be a team of one and could bring your visions to life at a much higher speed with far more efficiency than you could dream of on your own.

Your hesitation speaks volumes and he’s just waiting smugly for you to take the bait. However, instead, you just smile softly and shake your head. "You're going to think I'm crazy, but I'll actually pass on that."

There’s a beat of silence as Vox replays your answer in his head to make sure he heard you right. He nearly dropped the mug in his hands as he comprehended that you genuinely just turned him down.

"You're… joking, right?" Vox exclaimed in disbelief, as he set down the mug on the counter. "You're going to pass up on being the owner of your very own company with infinite financing and control?”

"Yup," you say with a pop for emphasis. "My content is my heart and soul. It's my passion. It has to be built up from my hard work, my dreams, and my well-intentioned connections. If I let someone else just hand it all to me on a silver platter, it wouldn’t be the same at all."

"You're absolutely insane," Vox muttered, shaking his head as he questioned your sanity entirely. "You’re seriously refusing my deal? You refuse infinite fucking funding?! All because of what? Pride?”

"Yeah," you said easily with a relaxed grin as you went back to stirring your drink like you hadn’t just casually declined all the power and money to make your dreams come true.

The overlord took a deep steadying breath as he tried to process the absolute stupidity of your decision. There wasn’t a single sinner in Hell that would pass up on a deal like this, and you just... turned it down in favor of hard work and dedication. The insane stubbornness of your choice left him speechless.

"That being said," you hum thought thoughtfully. "I do think you have something else that I'd be willing to trade for."

The overlord's attention snaps back to you, looking over you skeptically. "Oh, well now I'm curious... What could you possibly want more than an entire goddamn company?"

"It’s something you actually brought up during our last deal,” you say as you sip your drink and lean back against the counter. “I know Valentino would never release Angel Dust's contract willingly," you start carefully. "So instead, I want you to distract Valentino. For as long as I uphold my end of the deal regarding Alastor, you will do everything you can to protect Angel Dust from Valentino's anger and abuse.”

"Protect Angel Dust from Valentino's abuse..." Vox murmured as he shifted back. It wasn’t an easy request. In fact, Vox wondered if it was even possible. He was already running scenarios and contradictions over in his mind as he considered the possibilities. "And… how would you want me to go about doing that?"

"Subtly," you sigh. "If you're too direct, it could just make Valentino angrier and more violent with Angel. Butter up Valentino, distract him, send other sinners his way, whatever it takes. Just… lessen the damage and keep Valentino from catching on.”

"Hmm... that is quite a fascinating challenge you've given me…” Vox murmured as he ran his thumb along his chin. “But, I think I can manage.”

If anything, your proposition intrigued him. Rather than getting to just hand you money and power, which he had plenty of, you were putting him in just as sticky of a situation as the one he wanted to put you in. It set the playing field on equal ground. Neither of you were asking the other to completely betray their factions, but you were both putting each other at high risk.

"I'll keep tabs on Alastor, just like you want,” you frown. As much as you hated the idea of doing it, Alastor was one of the only people at the hotel you had no real connection with. He’d never seemed interested in what you had to offer, so he didn’t waste his time on you. Likewise, you were too focused on Angel and Charlie to pay him much mind either. 

“However,” you clarify. “I'll only relay the information I discover of his personal activities. Anything involved with the hotel or Charlie is off-limits."

"Hm..." Vox murmured, considering the terms of the deal. "Very well then, I'll agree to these terms. I may not be a fan of the hotel, but ultimately I don’t care about it half as much as I do Alastor. I want to know what he’s trying to gain from the hotel, but anything involving the princess’s little pet project doesn’t particularly interest me anyway.”

You pause, thinking hard before nodding. "One more condition. If Alastor catches me and kills me for what I'm doing for you, you have to keep protecting Angel Dust from Valentino until whatever you had planned for lessening Valentino’s influence is underway.”

"Hmm..." The overlord murmured as he thought for a moment before he slowly nodded. "Very well, I accept these terms. I’ll protect Angel Dust until I take Valentino down for my own schemes. Do you have anything else to add before we conclude this deal?"

You shake your head, "I'm guessing you'll want to make at least one other deal with me one day. Knowing that, you'd be foolish to try to loophole or double-cross me with this deal. So I think we're good to go."

"I think you have a rather good understanding of me, little drama queen." The overlord grinned. Every time he thought he knew what to expect, you managed to pull the rug out from under him. Rather than being annoyed by the change in his original plans for this deal, he was excited and curious to see what other surprises could come from being involved with you. "Alright then... with that being said, we should seal our deal."

Your magic flares, as the familiar purple mist flows gently around you. You hold out your hand, ready to seal the deal. For the protection of your friend, you were willing to betray Alastor. You may not have hated him like Vox did, but you were somewhat wary of him. The way he always seemed like he was hiding ill intentions behind his permanent grin never settled well with you. There had been times you wondered yourself what he wanted from Charlie and while you weren’t as close to the princess as you were with Angel, you could tell if things kept going the way they were, you’d care for her just as much as any of your other friends. With that in mind, this was a risk you were willing to take.

The overlord's own magic flared to life, blue electricity filling the air. Your hands connected and the mist and sparks swirled around each other in a bright flash before dissipating entirely.

You slowly pull back, flexing your hand as you feel the sparks from his magic still tingling your skin. "So that's that," you hum.

"Indeed it is," The overlord murmured as he let out a quiet sigh of relief. "Our deal is sealed. There’s no going back now. You realize that, correct?"

"I know," you say softly as you accept the weight of knowing there was a good chance if you got caught, Alastor would broadcast your slow and gruesome murder on the radio for all of Hell to hear. "At least if shit goes south, you'll find out pretty quickly," you chuckle dryly, cringing at the thought.

There was a faint hint of a smirk that appeared on the overlord's face as he considered your words. "Well, if nothing else, you’ve earned my respect. You’re fully aware of what’s at stake, yet you agreed to the deal anyway. You are either insane... or extremely brave."

"Why not both?" You chuckle. You were putting your life at risk, and you had rejected his offer of riches and power, opting for the protection of a friend instead. To say your priorities were skewed would be an understatement to most sinners.

"The longer this little game of ours goes on, the more I want to pull you into the world of Hell’s politics," The overlord murmured with a smirk. "I’ve seen your video game work and I won’t deny it has potential, but I think you underestimate your potential for something more.”

You cringe, sticking your tongue out as if the very thought of it left a bad taste in your mouth. “Pass. I’ll leave the evil overlording to you and your stupid bow tie.”

“Fuck you, it’s classy,” Vox snickered as he shook his head. “Plus, how much room do you have to talk when I haven’t seen you wear proper clothing since we’ve met?”

“Fuck you,” you say playfully with a grin. “We’ve only met twice and both times you’ve shown up without warning to my home. Are you seriously telling me you lounge about in your time off in that getup?”

“Bold of you to assume I have time off,” Vox chuckled. “Now... it seems that we both have our parts to play in this deal. You’ll keep tabs on Alastor, and I’ll protect Angel Dust from Valentino when I have the opportunity to do so. I’m around often enough, but it may take a moment for me to get the hang of things. Do you have any other thoughts you wish to add before we part ways?"

You try not to show that you're disappointed in how quickly the meeting is ending. It was true that someone like Vox didn’t exactly have the time to spare to chat with you. It’s not like you were friends or anything. Just convenient dealmakers. But you’d be lying if you didn’t say you found your interactions to be fun despite the risk that came with them.

"How do you want me to get ahold of you if I learn anything about Alastor?" You ask.

Your phone suddenly vibrates in your pocket and you jump with a startled yelp, spilling some of your drink on your shirt. Vox laughs as you grumble and lightly kick at his shin. When you pull out your phone, his face is mocking you from the screen.

“I have access to every device with a screen in all of Hell,” Vox smirked as you tried to swipe away his face to no avail. “I’ve put my number in your phone and yours is now in mine. I have access to anything on your device I want. Your notes, your texts, your camera, your microphone. I can see anything I want, whenever I want. It shouldn’t be too hard to get my attention.”

You huff, crossing your arms after you shove the phone back into your pocket. "Stalker."

The overlord's grin narrowed. "I prefer to think of it as surveillance. But if you prefer to think of it as stalking, it's up to you."

You roll your eyes and shake your head with a melodramatic sigh, "No more reading fanfiction on my phone in the shower for me." 

The overlord couldn't help but laugh at your comment. "I wouldn’t necessarily complain.”

Your face feels like someone just set you on fire and Vox smirks as he mentally checks another point in his favor in the little game of back-and-forth between the two of you. It was extremely amusing for him to see how the occasional little comment here and there threw you off your game so easily. He was used to all sorts of depraved commentary from Valentino and Velvette’s sass was unmatched. Pulling reactions out of you so easily was delightfully entertaining.

Acting like he hadn’t just casually dropped such a comment, Vox switched back to a more businesslike demeanor as he added. “Just know that I will be checking in every now and then, regardless of how often I hear from you. You’ll have to start going to the hotel more as well and I’ll know where you are from now on too.”

Shaking off your embarrassment, you give a mock salute with two of your fingers as you make a note of the conditions of your deal, "Yes Sir, Mr. Stalker, Sir."

The overlord smirked slightly back at you before he chuckled. "Well, little drama queen, it looks like our business with one another has concluded. I’ll keep in touch."

----

It was a while before you finally had a substantial update for Vox. Neither of you were too surprised that it would take time before you could naturally find anything of use. Still, it left you feeling unsettled not having anything to offer. You didn’t want to risk Vox getting fed up with your lack of results and calling the deal off. Especially after the shit show that happened at Valentino’s studio when Charlie tried to get time off for Angel. But now you finally had something.

Charlie had been freaking out as the clock whittled down the time until the next extermination. So much so, that she had put aside her raging daddy issues long enough to invite her father to the hotel. When she asked if you’d come to the hotel to provide emotional support and help in case things went south, you happily agreed. You’d been coming by more often and as you suspected, you ended up growing even more attached to the hotel and the rag tag team keeping it together. 

Every time you visited, you had to push down the dark, squirming guilt that behind every laugh, every smile, every mishap, was an ulterior motive. You were always watching Alastor out of the corner of your eye. Waiting for something, anything that could be of use to Vox that didn’t involve the hotel. 

Between the chaos of Lucifer setting off something competitive in Alastor, the unexpected appearance of Mimzy, and the chaos that came with Charlie’s desperate attempts to prove her point to her dad, there was finally a crack in Alastor’s carefully composed disposition. 

While everyone was preoccupied dealing with their own slice of the chaos, you ducked into one of the empty rooms and pulled out your phone. Vox hadn’t been kidding how easy it was to get ahold of him. All it took was a single text with nothing more than his name and the little bubbles that showed he was typing immediately let you know that you had his attention.

Vox: What is it? Did you discover something of note regarding Alastor?

Y/N: I did. It seems like he's under a contract with someone. I don't know who or what the details are, but I overheard him talking in the hall, and it sounds like someone else might own Alastor's soul.

The overlord's eyes narrowed as he read your text. The idea of someone having a contract with Alastor intrigued him, as it was the potential to have a certain level of control over the radio demon.

Vox: I see... and was there any indication as to who they were?

Y/N: He's too tight-lipped to let something like that slip. But honestly? My bets are on Lilith. She disappeared at the same time he did, and she’s of higher status.

Vox paused as he read the text and considered your words. Valentino and Velvette were bitching about something he hadn’t been paying attention to as he slipped out of the room and rolled the possibilities over in his mind. His heart was racing and he could feel the static sparks dancing across his skin. He finally had something. 

The big unanswered question that had been haunting him for so long came with no hints, no arrows pointing him in a direction that could finally give him the answers he was owed. But now? Even if the information you’d given him was circumstantial, it was something. After seven fucking years of having nothing, there was finally a straw for him to grasp at.

Vox: I see where you are coming from. Lilith or someone of her caliber would have something of interest worthy of a deal. The real question is what could be worth a deal like that to Alastor? And what did he offer in exchange?

Vox: This is good. Like really fucking good. If you find out anything else, let me know.

You send him a little thumbs-up emoji before asking,

Y/n: Have you been protecting Angel Dust?

All Vox wanted to do was retreat to his surveillance room and get to work on digging up what he could with this new lead you’d given him. He was already marching his way through the penthouse shared between him and the other Vees as he typed.

Vox: It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve been ensuring that Angel Dust has received a very minimum level of abuse from Valentino. So, yes, I have been protecting his soul for you little drama queen. It is our deal, after all.

Y/N: Stop calling me that >:((((

Y/N: And thank you…

Vox barked out a laugh at your irritated response. He hadn’t realized he’d given you a nickname, but now that he knew it bothered you he would be sure to double down. He ignored Velvette asking him where he was off to in such a rush and simply waved off Valentino with promises of updating them later as he stepped onto the pad that’d take him down to his lair.

He was too glued to his phone to notice the look of bewilderment the Vee’s exchanged from where they sat on the couch. They’d only seen him so attached to his phone when he was in a foul mood from dealing with work shit. They’d never seen him with such a downright giddy grin like the one he was unknowingly wearing as he started a call on your phone without warning.

Not expecting the call, you jumped with a startled gasp as his face suddenly flooded your screen.

“Shit, fuck- motherfucker!” you swore under your breath as you grabbed at your phone in the air, trying not to drop it.

Vox laughed as you tumbled with the device and if you weren’t broke as hell, you would have considered chucking it out the window.

“Vox!” you hiss quietly as you step further into the empty hotel room and away from the door where anyone in the hall could hear you. “You can’t just hack into my phone and pop up without warning when I’m at the hotel! What if I wasn’t alone?”

“I tapped into the microphone and didn’t hear anyone else,” Vox rolled his eyes with a smug grin as he made his way to his surveillance setup. “I’m not that stupid, drama queen.”

You groaned, hating the corny nickname even more as you heard him say it out loud. “My point still stands, you shitty stalker.”

“You’ll learn to love it,” Vox chuckled as he sat in his dark office chair and swiveled around to start doing some research on his computer. “Now then, where exactly did you hear about this contract Alastor may have?”

"One of his old friends came to the hotel to escape some loan sharks,” you say slowly as you sit down on the bed. You take your time, trying to consider what you believed was safe to tell Vox without giving too much away. “I overheard someone telling him what to do regarding her, and it was brought up during the argument. They didn't know I was nearby."

Vox hummed as he started looking into the disappearance of Lilith and the events leading up to it. "Interesting... very interesting indeed. So Alastor may have made a deal with Lilith before they both went off the radar… If not her, then someone of similar status…”

You nodded and hummed along as he began to go down the rabbit hole of research and theories. The sound of Charlie and Lucifer having a heartfelt showtune moment down in the lobby softly reverberated through the walls of the hotel and you couldn’t help but smile as you listened to Vox’s excitement as he followed the lead.

Now if only you had noticed the shadow in the corner…

[fishedeyelenz]

ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE BLACK CHRISTMAS FANDOM

Hello everyone who's been following my writing and art and OC's!! Your support has warmed my heart, and got me through some thought times. Thank you very much for sticking by me, commenting, sending me kudos and asks regarding Dilf Billy and my oc-verse I made around him!

However... I have come to realize I have made Billy, at least the older 45-50 year old version of him my own. Very much my own. I think there's a discrepancy between my characterization of him, and how he is portrayed in the movie/novel/commentary. Another thing is that I love him too much. I want to make him my own, not an interpretation of a pre-existing character...

So that's exactly what I am going to do! I'm taking him and making him an OC. Currently I am in the process if changing up his backstory to make him distinct from Billy Lenz, though the Dilf version we see in Rats in the shadows and partially in So give me coffee and tv will stay similar.

My goal is to create a group of ocs consisting of the character formerly known as Billy, Camille, Bean and other side characters who will exist in a story about an ex serial killer father. I'm still early in the rework, but I feel like I don't have change too much.

What this means I will effectively be distancing myself at least partially from the Black Christmas fandom, at least in terms of my content creation though these past few months I have been in a rut given college preoccupying most of my time. I still love Black Christmas, it will remain one of my favorite movies forever. I cherish the friends I made and the experiences I had, but I want to move on to more original creations, uninhibited by primary existing source materials.

I will still interact with fan works in terms of reblogging art and writing , and I will most likely draw more of Billy Lenz and the other characters from the movie in the future. Anything regarding Camille, Bean, "dilf Billy" though, will be something divorced from Black Christmas, entirely its own thing, though obviously inspired by it.

Will I return to writing for Black Christmas? At this point I am uncertain. I have a WIP of a priest!au thing for Dilf Billy, which if I ever get around to finishing I would post under the pretense that it's a Black Christmas fanwork. However, I am not sure if I will finish it, given that I don't really have the time, and at the moment motivation to really work on it. Another story idea exists too, one which would better fit into the Black Christmas ethos with is very dark tone and heavy subject matter (while still remaining a smut work) which I would gladly have exist as a fanwork.... But once again I am lacking the time and want to do it. It would be a very big project, all things considered.

So what now? I will keep all my Billy Lenz/Dilf Billy content up on my blog, my AO3 will stay intact (though I will forward this announcement onto there), and I won't change my tags on Dilf Billy related posts. Moving forward, though, everything created for my oc inspired by Billy Lenz/Dilf Billy Lenz will be tagged as that. I need to come up with a new name for him first...

I will also make a post regarding how the plot of Rits/Sgmcatv would have went if I'd finished them, to give you guys some sort of conclusion. Though the new oc story with Bean, Camille and the new Billy oc in it will very closely follow Rits original storyline. Most of the events of Rits are canon still in regards to Camille's and Bean's backstory, with of course some caveats (no Brahms, Camille and "Billy" meet differently etc.). But the large majority of the plot points and story beats are the same.

I will be happy to answer any further questions, as my inbox is open. I'm sorry to disappoint anyone, but I've felt the need to move on, to elevate this story. I hope I can be forgiven. Now I bid farewell to this part of my life and creative era, and look forward to the new.

[loserdiaz]

fic rec friday fun! 💌

rules: share the links to your wonderful words with the most hits/most kudos/most comments/most bookmarks /most words/least words

tagged by @spotsandsocks @littlebitofdiaz @prince-buck-diaz and @bekkachaos 💗

most hits, most kudos and most bookmarks

and this is when the feeling sinks in ( i don't wanna miss you like this ) mature | 17.4k words

Buck was supposed to come home in a couple months, pretty close to Eddie's birthday. He was finishing his tour with the Navy and then they'll get their happy ending. That's how it was supposed to go.

Then two officers showed up at Eddie's door with a flag and thanking his husband for serving their country.

And everything changed.

2. most comments

believe in one thing (i won't go away) mature | 24k words

"I think— I think we should go to therapy. Together." Eddie says one night and takes Buck completely by surprise. "Therapy? Together?" "Yeah, like, couple's therapy or something. Frank told me he can recommend someone for us." "Eddie…" Buck says slowly, as if he's trying to explain the hardest math problem in the universe to a five year old. "We're not, uh— We're not a couple." "No, I know." Eddie frowns and looks down, fidgeting with the beer in between his hands. "But we're partners." He says, this time a lot lower that Buck barely hears it. "Right?"

or; the one where buck is figuring out stuff after waking up from a coma, eddie misses his best friend and they go to couple's therapy.

3. most words

made my way to a life i would choose | explicit | 26.1k words

In which Eddie transfers from his station to the Dispatch Center to be the LAFD Liaison, change is hard, staying away from Dispatcher Evan Buckley is even harder and not falling in love with the man is god-damned impossible. Eddie makes his way to a life he would choose and to a family who will choose him back. or affectionately called the buddie at dispatch fic <3

4. least words

I'm the one on the phone as you whisper | teen and up | 1.2k words (it has 999 kudos so if someone wanted to go and read it and leave a kudo i wouldn't complain about it 👀)

"Hey, how do you feel about an impromptu romantic date at a fancy restaurant with the love of your life?" He asks once he hears the call has been picked up. There's silence on the other line for longer than it's normal and Buck is about to check if Hen hang up on him when someone finally speaks— and Buck suddenly feels sick to his stomach. "Okay." Says the voice that is certainly not Hen's. The voice that's been haunting Buck's every dream for forever. "Eddie?" Buck chokes out, stuttering and hoping to God it's not him. "Yeah…" Of course it is..Buck looks up at his ceiling again, cursing the damn universe and its awful sense of humor. He's sure its laughing at him at this point. "Why? D-Did you mean to call someone else?"

or: Buck's date cancels but he has already made the restaurant reservation, so he decides to call Hen and ask if she'd like to take Karen there. He dials the wrong number. It all works in the end.

honorary mention to famous buck au bc it might not fit in any of this categories but it's still one of my fave fics i've written:

he never thinks of me (except when i'm on TV) mature | 18.1k words

"I have been in love, yes." He says after the most torturous of seconds. "Would you mind expanding on that?" Buck hesitates for a few seconds and then Eddie sees the exact moment he decides 'fuck it' as he straightens in his seat. "There was this guy in high school. He was my best friend." Wait. Hold on. Eddie freezes. Is Buck— Is Buck talking about him? or: In which Eddie finds out years later that his unrequited feelings for his high school best friend were not actually unrequited, Buck is stupidly famous now and they pine. They get there in the end, they just need to get their timing right. Inspired by the prompt: “you’re famous and just got asked if you were ever in love this should be good– WAIT WHAT."

tagging (no pressure): @monsterrae1 @buddierights @barbiediaz @cowboy-buddie @transbuck @transboybuckley @honestlydarkprincess @bigfootsmom @lesbianmaygrant @maygrantgf @buckitup @the-likesofus @spaceprincessem @alyxmastershipper @elvensorceress @ebdaydreamer @greyacebuckley @starlingbite @lovebuck @mysteriouslyyounggalaxy @911onabc @hippolotamus @shortsighted-owl and anyone else who wants to do it! 💗

[tanthamoretober]

Never-Not-Commenting November

Tanthamoretober is COMPLETE. The archive collection is closed, and we had a truly incredible 101 works submitted through the month. We don't have anything up our sleeves writing-challenge-wise for November, but stay tuned for ~winterfest~ coming to a December and January near you.

Our challenge to all of you this month is to spend some time showing some love to the amazing works posted this month!!!

Introducing Never-Not-Commenting November, a silly name for a really important challenge: leave as many kudos and comments for works posted in October as you possibly can.

How does this work?

Browse through the works in the Tanthamoretober AO3 collection, and read them! Once you've read them, leave a comment telling the author what you liked about their story! Did you already read a fic and forget to leave a comment? Leave one now! Did you read it when it first came out and enjoy it again on reread? Comment again! However you feel it's most authentic to show love, we want you to show up and do that.

Will there be prizes? Will I get in trouble for not doing it? The best prize of all is the warm, fuzzy feeling you get from knowing that you made a Willow fic author feel happier. We are not going to be tracking commenting because it's too big a data management job; this is going to be on the honor system. We're not your parents, nor do we wish to be, but you will know if you cheat.

We will however be putting together some posts with optional commenting achievements. We trust you to track whether you hit these milestones on your own, and if you do, feel free to reblog the post - like giving yourself a badge.

Okay fine I like badges. Where are the badges? Links to come as the amazing stellar @myrebelliousphase works her art magic, but the milestones are:

Never Not Commenting November Novice: I left AO3 comments on 5 fics!

Never Not Commenting November Apprentice: I left AO3 comments on 10 fics!

Never Not Commenting November Master: I left AO3 comments on 20 fics!

Never Not Commenting November Knight: I left AO3 comments on 40 fics!

Never Not Commenting November Nice, Dude: I left AO3 comments on 69 fics!

Never Not Commenting November Semprum Sorceror: I left AO3 comments on EVERY fic in the tanthamoretober collection

I left some comments on fic in October, as people were posting. Can I claim a badge? Yes, of course! We still would like it if you try to leave a few extra comments through November, but obviously if you're trying to aim for one of the higher-count badges and you've been reading through the month, we don't want to make it impossible. What if I comment on other Willow fics that aren't in the Tanthamoretober collection?

We love that for you. Go nuts. Claim a badge. However, we'd ask that if you're commenting on non-Tanthamoretober stories, you only "count" comments you leave between November 7 and November 30.

I'm shy about leaving AO3 comments, do you have any advice?

If you're nervous about leaving a big comment, or if that's not your style, try practicing with saying a few words! If you already left kudos but want to let the writer know you reread it, even a simple comment saying "Leaving kudos, again, I liked this!" is a great way to share your love. Here are some prompts that might help you feel inspired to leave a comment:

was there a particular line or phrase that you liked? Why did you like it?

was there something else you liked about the fic?

Do you have a favourite small detail about the fic? Why? how did the fic make you feel? Do you feel comfortable sharing that feeling with the writer?

Did the fic each you anything? if so, what?

Is there anything else I can do to contribute?

Yes! If you're a reader feel free to make posts of fic recs. These are posts where you share a link to a story or stories that you enjoyed, and explain why you liked it to help other people find stories they might enjoy. If you are a writer who contributed a story to Tanthamoretober feel free to put together a roundup post of the stories you added to the collection during this time. If you tag us (@tanthamoretober) in your rec posts or roundup posts, we'll reblog them during the month of November!

Anything else?

This should go without saying, but we are trusting you all to be kind, respectful, and appropriate when leaving comments. No one likes unsolicited criticism, even if the intent is to be "constructive." The goal of this is to spread love and appreciation, and we expect you to treat authors with the care and gentleness that you would like to be treated with. If a story truly is not to your taste, you are not obligated to leave feedback.

[toburnup]

Is there a way you personally think people should support your fics?

Whenever I write I’ve always been a ‘I’m grateful someone read it even if they didn’t enjoy it’ type of person but recently I’ve seen a lot (like seriously a lot) of people saying, if you don’t comment on fics (on ao3) you aren’t supporting them or the creator. I know I don’t feel that way about what I write because I’m not really a good writer and I’m just happy if one person likes it because that means someone took time out of their day to read but now I think maybe I’m an asshole for not like commenting on everyone’s fics?

You’re like the best writer of fics imo so I’m wondering how you feel about all of it? And I’m sorry that I haven’t left any comments on your work if that’s truly the correct way to support!

well. this has been a topic of conversation for a long time, and everyone will have a different take on this, but here's mine.

the downside to reading without commenting is that hits on their own.... don't really mean anything. hits just mean someone opened it, it doesn't even mean that they read it. i've opened lots of fics, started reading, found out it wasn't for me and closed it. it still registers my hit. kudos means they technically scrolled to the end of the page and clicked a button. they're nice, but i consider kudos w/o a comment to be the equivalent of "i didn't hate it" (i'm sure many would disagree, but this is my take!)

so, yes, i'm a firm believer in leaving comments. i will always comment on a fic when i read it, because if i had 5-10 minutes to read a fic, i have 30 seconds to write a quick comment. if i had an hour to read a fic, i have 5 minutes to write a longer comment. but i have the same mentality for eating out - i only go out to eat when i have the $ to leave a tip.

obviously, there are some fics where i end up leaving much longer comments, but i build that into my reading time (so if i'm about to read a friends fic where i know i'm gonna Ramble, i hold off until i have adequate time). does that mean i sometimes don't get to fics right away? yes. but for my own sake, i'd rather read it and write a comment while it's fresh.

i don't think you're an asshole lol, but i think you're kind of devaluing comments. and devaluing your effort as a writer! you're putting hours of free work into something they enjoyed, i don't think it's too much for you to ask for people who engage w/ your work to leave a comment.

the biggest pushback i see from people who don't comment is that it takes a long time, or that they don't know what to say. and to that, i say: i have people who simply leave a 💕 in a comment and that's enough. it still tells me way more than a lone kudos. and the people who put the time into leaving longer comments are just my heroes. the backbone of fandom, imo (my repeat essay commenters are like.... truly amazing, amazing people).

confession, i used to be a kudos-no-comment reader. i still remember the first comment i left as an adult (this was a few years ago) - it was on a WIP that hadn't been updated in ? a couple months, and i was like. i NEED to tell this person how much i loved this. and i felt stupid as hell writing the comment, but i powered through out of sheer stubbornness. and the author replied, and they said something like "i've been struggling writing the next chapter, and this helped!" and then they fucking updated the fic like 2 days later 😭😭 it changed me, i swear. so, with that...

comments are especially important for ongoing fics, because people will only leave a kudos once. that ratio of hits:kudos:comments can mess with the author (like 1000 hits, 100 kudos, and 10 comments is significant!). that's why i'm (now) a big believer in reading WIPs and supporting them along the way, it's disheartening to see the hits go up and nothing else.

i'm very grateful for the amount of comments i get! i think i'm really lucky in this way. occasionally i'll get a comment from someone who tells me they've never commented on any fic before, and like!! yay! the first one is toughest, but it only gets easier after that.

another important aspect of comments is it builds relationship between the reader and writer. i love seeing familiar usernames and icons, and i notice when people haven't commented in a while and it always makes me happy when they pop up again. i also really like replying to comments. it takes... multiple hours but it's my favourite part of the process second to writing the fic itself. i also occasionally will poke around on someone's profile and if they've written a fic, i'll give it a read. it's a good way to make new friends.

anyway. i'm not saying all this to tell you to comment on my fics, but more to gently encourage you to reframe how you think about comments in general. it's like... why we clap at the end of concerts. just because we're in the room doesn't mean we enjoyed the show, so we do things like cheer! clap! scream! we make our opinion heard.

comments are like clapping 💙 it's free to do, and shows our appreciation. why wouldn't we do that?

[ao3commentoftheday]

This is my reluctant fandom rivalry story. It’s long. Please bear with me. 

A couple years ago I got into a major (read: very active) fandom. I wrote a few fics, then began what would become my longest WIP to date. That WIP generated a lot of interest, and as the smut escalated, I started getting more engagement with a fic than ever before – especially after posting a scene in which the characters finally hook up, in a very kinky and unexpected way. While working on this story I was following the work of other writers, and at one point a certain author who is pretty prolific and well-established in the fandom posted a finale to a work that they hadn’t updated in a long time. 

Seeing as how this work featured an uncommon ship dynamic for the pairing I write for – which my WIP also featured – I was interested to read this particular work. Then, when I got to their newly-added finale, I was astonished: it featured a scene that very closely paralleled the hook-up smut scene that I had just posted about a week or so prior, to a startling degree of similarity. So here were two characters in a very specific relationship dynamic—ages differing from canon—who were hooking up in the exact same way as my characters (also of this age/dynamic), down to the very same environment and scene context – the same uncommon blocking; same uncommon smut scenario – in a way that I’d thought was highly original when I wrote it (I haven’t seen anything like it before or since), and posted very close behind when mine was posted! The author even went out of their way to say that they’d actually written that scene “months ago,” and were only just getting around to finally posting it… /: *suspicious eyes*

You can see where I’m going with this. 

While not exactly plagiarism per se, that author received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from their many followers, while my chapter received a comparably modest response (though still very positive by my own standards, being so new to the fandom). I also worry that a good number of shared readers had encountered the other [popular] story, first, then caught up with mine after, only to wonder if I had copied the other author (unless they bothered to go into “chapter index” -> “full page index” to confirm publication dates, it would’ve looked like mine came after once I posted the next chapter). 

I decided not to confront them about it, though. There was no way I could prove that it wasn’t “parallel thinking,” even if it would make for a very odd coincidence. The wording was not the same, but it was structured very closely to what I’d written, including certain spicy details. I didn’t want to stir up drama in a new fandom, especially with such a popular author, lest I inadvertently alienate myself. 

But here’s the thing: I decided to just be flattered that my work had "inspired" theirs, and I tried to get past any lingering resentment by befriending them. Left kudos and the occasional nice comment on their work. Followed them on tumblr. Liked/RB’d their posts. But they steadfastly ignored me completely, for reasons I can only guess at. We have many common mutuals and they never like/reblog even my most popular posts (though these must cross their dash), though they will promote similar posts by anyone else. 

Over a year later, I’ve continued to follow this author’s work, keeping an eye out for other “coincidences” (though it’d be very ballsy of them to "borrow" from me again, since my work is more widely read now). Meanwhile, I have risen in popularity, myself, and while still not as popular as that author, I’m very proud of my own contributions to the fandom, and feel that my writing is a lot stronger than theirs. So I really shouldn’t let it get to me, but seeing them around all the time, being praised for their mid-level works and interacting with so many of my mutuals (while giving me the cold shoulder) still rankles me. Recently they even posted something about showing common courtesy by not stealing others' work in fandom, etc. that really rubbed me the wrong way. I stewed over it for way longer than is healthy. 

Any advice on how to navigate this one?

I want to enjoy my time in this fandom, but their ubiquitous, icy presence and my own lingering paranoia casts a pall over my experience.

This is one of those situations where you either need to confront them directly and let the chips fall where they may or you need to block them on every platform you share and pretend they don't exist.

You can't seem to get past what happened in the past, but you're also not talking it out with them. That means that you're stuck where you are until something changes. That thing is either messaging them directly or removing them from view.

Do not write a callout post. From what you've outlined here, you have a suspicion with no solid facts one way or the other. Writing a public post will just create fandom drama and having been tangentially involved in that before, do. not. recommend.

Personally, I think you need to evict them from your mind because they've been living there rent free for too long. But that's just my opinion. What do the rest of you think?

You can also find this ask mirrored over on Dreamwidth.

[hlficlibrary]

HL Fic Library 🌚 Supernatural Fics

Remember to leave kudos and a comment on the fics you enjoyed to show your appreciation! You can find the library's other recs here.

🦇 domestic monsters (series) by @g-uttertrash {E, 234k}

Harry is a witch from a long line of power, an ancient line that’s one of the strongest left alive in their hemisphere. He can cast spells without a word if need be, fly on a broomstick, and has a black cat (a kitten, really) named Felix that is his animal familiar. He can shape galaxies in his cupped hands and can destroy them just as easily. He can choose exactly how to use his power, for encouragement and support, or for more nefarious causes if he wishes to.

And as fate would have it, he’s scared of haunted houses.

(Harry is a witch who carries around a stuffed pumpkin, Louis is a vampire with too much time on his hands, and their best mates Zayn & Niall aren't exactly what they seem...)

🦇 Collision by itjustkindahappened / @tequiladimples {E, 226k}

Mythology/Fairytale!AU in which Louis is a dainty fairy with a temper who wants to be intimidating and Harry hurts people. Naturally, they hate each other.

(Featuring Liam, the big and not-so-bad wolf who’s got a thing for humans, Zayn, a human with supernaturally good looks, and Niall, the cupid who just wants his job to be easier.)

🦇 Run Like the Devil by benzos / @churchrat {E, 139k}

Harry stops pouting, but his frown is still fixed in place. “Are you sure?” he asks. “You know it’s your soul you’re signing away.” He sounds…sad? No, that’s not right, but there’s something.

Christ. This is the most incompetent demon Louis’ ever met. If he hadn’t seen the red of his eyes he wouldn’t believe he was a demon at all. How’d he get this job if he isn’t trying to convince Louis to deal? Or is it just another trick? A ploy for sympathy?

“I’m sure,” Louis says. “Come over here and kiss me.”

Supernatural AU. Louis hunts demons; Harry's the strangest demon he's ever met, and he keeps fucking meeting him.

🦇 House of The Rising Sun by @itsmotivatingcara {M, 101k}

“It wasn’t me.” Louis said after they’d walked a block in silence, Harry glanced over in surprise but this time Louis didn’t meet his eyes, instead looking ahead. The moonlight cast shadows under his striking cheekbones, and not for the first time, Harry thought he was eerily beautiful - though immortality would likely have a hand in that. “It was supposed to be, but I got caught up in something else.”

“Something more important than murdering a witch” Harry snarked, “Will wonders never cease.”

He felt Louis’ irritation before he spoke again, “Careful, little lamb.” He murmured.

Little lamb.

Harry despised the nickname Louis had given him when they’d first met nine months prior. Little Lamb to the slaughter, Louis had said mockingly.

Or The Originals AU that no one asked for.

🦇 Black with Autumn Rain by whimsicule {T, 93k}

“Thank you,” Geoff says, taking a sip of his tea. “What did you tell him?”

Louis has a sip as well, lets the tea burn down his throat too quickly, too hot, and he feels it all the way down to his stomach. “The truth. Essentially,” he replies after a moment, licking his lips, relishing the slightly bitter taste of the brew that’s never quite strong enough for Louis’ liking. At least it’s not decaf. “That my dog scented it. That I didn’t touch the body. That I came here first thing.”

Geoff nods pensively. “Did he believe you?”

“Probably not. There’s only so many people who can drown on dry land before it gets fishy.”

or: Harry is a journalist, Louis has lots of secrets and the moors aren't exactly the ideal place to rekindle a lost romance.

🦇 The Devil In My Brain by @princesshalo {E, 74k}

“Jesus Christ!” Louis yells as he jumps back in reaction to Harry once again popping up out of nowhere.

Harry doesn’t even flinch.

“Quite the opposite.” He jokes, holding out one of the drinks for Louis to take. A freshly sizzling vodka Red Bull; his favorite.

Louis’s initial reaction is the thought you remembered.

His rational brain says, “No thanks.”

“Louis.” Harry says it like a concerned parent, the tone of it matching the way his mum used to say Boo Bear, you have to eat your vegetables to grow up big and strong, and that ignites something feral within him.

“Satan.” He counters, same tone coupled with a glare and a pair of arms crossed over his chest.

Louis used to be good friends with Harry, until he woke up alone and immortal with no one to blame but The Devil himself.

🦇 Tied to Fate by @littlelouishiccups {E, 52k}

After his estranged father’s death, Harry inherits a castle in England that has belonged to his family for generations and he knows nothing about. When he breaks up with his boyfriend, Harry decides England is the perfect place for a small vacation. He isn’t prepared to meet Louis Tomlinson, a ghost who once lived in the castle and has haunted it for over five hundred years. He’s even more unprepared to fall in love with him.

🦇 we should open up (before it's all too much) by @disgruntledkittenface {M, 43k}

“I’m not–” Harry breaks off, his voice strangled as he clutches his phone in his hand. He takes a breath and looks up, trying to keep the tears threatening to spill over at bay. “Louis, I’m not very good company these days. I–”

“Harry,” Louis interrupts, his raspy voice soft and soothing. “I get it. Sometimes it’s just easier to be alone, yeah?”

Harry nods, blinking back the last of his tears.

“But it can get lonely,” Louis states. Harry nods again even though it wasn’t a question, finally looking back at him. “So why don’t we try being alone, together?”

Struggling with grieving and depression since his dad died, Harry has never felt so alone. It’s too much to cope with on his own, but he feels like a burden when he tries to open up with people.

Then he meets Louis.

🦇 The Haunting of Louis Tomlinson by @helloamhere {T, 31k}

“I'm not afraid of ghosts,” Louis said.

Every single magnet unstuck itself from the fridge and fell to the floor in a clattering cascade.

“I'm only a little afraid of ghosts,” Louis said.

OR: Louis is a plucky Gothic Heroine, Harry is a Mournful Spirit, and Big Country Houses are full of mystery and suspense, as Big Country Houses ever are!

🦇 Where the World has Come Together by LadyLondonderry / @londonfoginacup {M, 26k}

For the crime of elven blood running through his veins, Louis Tomlinson spends his days protecting the human kingdom he’s been cast out of. Forcibly tied by magic to the very walls that encircle the city, he and the other guards do what they can to find some semblance of a life.

Then, against Louis’ wishes, someone new is added to their number. How is he supposed to share living quarters with a monster?

🦇 The Blood of Love by @mugglemirror {E, 25k}

Harry is a nurse and Louis is a painting worth more than a thousand words. As desire and darkness encompasses him, Harry has to learn the secrets of Thorne Hills manor before he succumbs to the mystery that surrounds him.

🦇 Campus Creatures by @kingsofeverything , YesIsAWorld / @louandhazaf {E, 25k}

It’s senior year for werewolf Louis Tomlinson and vampire Harry Styles, and as presidents of their respective fraternities, they’re determined to do it right.

Though what that means is anybody’s guess.

🦇 In the Strangest of Ways by SunTomato / @sun-tomato {NR, 17k}

Louis Tomlinson is a historian with English Heritage, specialised local history and folklore. When he is hired to research the origins of a mysterious music sheet, he soon finds he’s not the only one at the manor; a dark presence keeps following him around. The more time he spends at the historic site, the clearer it becomes that something tragic happened here. And when the haunting sounds of a melancholy piano piece accompanied by the vague shadow of a beautiful male figure appear, Louis is determined to find out who this beautiful man was and what happened to him…

🦇 it's time to find your wings again by we_are_the_same / @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed {T, 12k}

The first reports are dismissed, as tall tales or folklore. As mental illness, poor Bathilda, she’d gone loopy. As people simply getting scared in the dark woods and seeing things, making things up. Magic isn’t real. Mythological creatures aren't real.

But then the first one is caught. A faun, that little Meg from around the corner swears has attacked her in the woods, and everyone comes to the marketplace to see the faun be hanged for its crimes. Louis doesn’t want to go, but at the same time, he finds himself unable to stay away. Not when this proves what he’s wanted to believe all along, that magic is real.

Louis is twenty when he starts working at the prison. His fascination for supernatural creatures had turned into something most closely resembling loathing over the years, due to the many stories of their evildoing, and although he still doesn’t believe in hanging them for their crimes, he does believe in keeping the town safe. In making sure that his siblings get to grow up without fear of being kidnapped or hurt. As the oldest son, it feels like his duty to make sure that no creature in the wide area will ever pose a threat to anyone.

🦇 Far Afield by QuickedWeen / @becomeawendybird {T, 11k}

Harry Styles is a witch who owns the best flower shop in Manchester. Lottie Tomlinson is planning her wedding, and brings her brother along to her first appointment. Both men have been having a bad day and sparks fly.

🦇 Just Your Jinx by @larryatendoftheday {T, 10k}

Harry Styles may or may not have accidentally jinxed his extremely fit new neighbor, and it's not so easy to make things right.

🦇 Babe, There's Something Lonesome About You by patdkitten / @babyarcanacasey {M, 8k}

Louis is a hedge witch, who lives a lonely, solitary life. He's quite happy with his shop in Door County, selling New Age magics to the tourists. He also has his cats and his birds to keep him company. But his best friend Liam thinks he needs someone around, and he's got just the person: Liam's friend Harry is coming to the area for the tourist season and since Louis has all this space....

🦇 Somethin' Old and Red by nonsensedarling / @absoloutenonsense {NR, 5k}

There was a ritual with these things. He’d pour a splash into a wine glass —his favourite little joke was telling humans he loved a nice glass of red every now and again— then sat down in his living room and listened to music while he drank. Every time he changed the record —or, what was it they called them nowadays? 8tracks? MP3s? Playlists? It was difficult for Harry to keep up with the technology, especially as much as things had changed over the last few decades— he would change the music before refilling the glass. He liked to savour his meals. He could get at least two evenings out of a bag that way, which worked very well for Harry’s schedule. His wine glass was in front of him on the counter, and he was ready to pour.

🦇 The Hidden Hills Restaurant by amomentoflove / @daggerandrose {E, 4k}

“Are you sure you want to hear about this? Wouldn’t you rather hear about what I’ll do to you? How often? How long? How many fin—“

“I like to get to know my potential clients before agreeing to anything,” Louis says and lays down the menu. He’s thinking of steak. Something meaty, juicy, and hearty.

Harry’s arched eyebrow at the word ‘potential’ doesn’t escape Louis’ notice.

or the one where Louis is a personal feeder and Harry is the vampire to be his next client

🦇 Rapture by @allwaswell16 {E, 3k}

It was New Year's Eve in Victorian London, and a lonely vampire could no longer resist the stunning lamplighter he watched night after night.

Or, a vampire Harry fic because what says the holidays like Victorian vampires?

🦇 Just a little taste by @lunarheslwt {G, 3k}

“Little dove,” Louis crooned, making Harry shiver a little, affected, “you’re shaking. Do you want to bite?” Harry stilled. He knew what Louis was asking. He knew Louis probably could sense how in dire need of comfort he was. He knew Louis was offering. And yet- “No,” he whispered, even as he felt the strong urge to let his lips trace the well-known path to the spot he usually bit into, “I could hurt you.” “Harry, my darling, you haven’t hurt me once in the numerous times you’ve needed to bite. Today will be no different. You know it’ll do you good.” Harry sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, torn. In the end, it was an offer he was too weak to resist. “So…do you want to? Little taste?” “Yeah,” Harry rasped out, “please.”

Or, Harry is a vampire that comes home one night, grappling with the darkness that comes with being one. Louis offers him unwavering love, acceptance and the one thing he needs but is reluctant to ask for; permission to bite for the sake of comfort and safety seeking.

[fellow-travelers-fic-recs]

Fellow Travelers Fic Recs | Current WIPs: Feb 2024

Active WIPs with most recent updates posted in the past month featuring time travel, road trips, fake dating and some rare pairs. Happy reading!

✨ Be sure to show the authors some love and appreciation with kudos and comments on the fics you enjoyed!

*Authors: if your tumblr (or other socials) isn’t linked, and you'd like it to be, let me know and I'll be happy to add it. Or, if you are linked, and you'd rather not be, please contact me and I will remove it.

✍️ A Disaster, Beyond Measure by drabbleswabbles* [NR, 1K, 1/?] Hawkins Fuller is a campaign manager with a PR disaster on his hands. The solution involves pretending to date none other than Timothy Laughlin.

Featuring: unrealistic portrayals of the life and job of a campaign manager for the sake of the fake dating trope.

✍️ Manhattan by @morulezopelforever | OpelForever  [E, 17K, 17/?] This story is based on Tim's brief romance with Father Gallagher when he was still a student at a Jesuit university in New York, a few years before he met Hawk in Washington. I believe that this little tale of a lost first love broke down any boundary that might have stopped Hawk from starting a courtship with Tim.

Part 1 of The Violet and the Rose

✍️ Too old to play (and too young to mess around) by @bejeweledmp3 | ninav [M, 15K, 2/5] Kimberly Fuller goes on a two-week vacation to San Francisco, in which she: drinks excessive amounts of tea, gets betrayed, cries more than she should, eats donuts, and seeks out truth with the help of a man she only knows from a presentation card; not necessarily in that order. But mostly, she finds her father in every least expected place. And learns to make her peace with what that means.

✍️ I Sing the Body Electric by telescape8* [M, 17K, 7/?] Modern AU. It all starts on Election Night 2016. Tim falls hard. Hawk falls harder.

✍️ Sands of Time (Turn Backwards) by @brouill3r | brouiller [NR, 10K, 4/?] 1987 Hawkins Fuller is full of regrets for the life he's lived, though Tim once told him he regrets nothing. Hawk so wishes he could say the same. In the still night air of a hotel room, clutching a cracked paperweight to his chest like it's carved of the finest gold, Hawk gets his wish. Or, a time-travel fix-it fic that nobody asked for.

✍️ What Happens in Washington by Adidastommo* [E, 7K, 4/?] Hawk knew better than to begin an affair with someone who worked with him, let alone someone who worked for him. It was beyond risky. But, when the recent college graduate Tim Laughlin begins working as his assistant, Hawk starts to challenge his better judgment.

✍️ Sempiternal by winstarkasm* [NR, 7K, 5/20] Sempiternal : eternal and unchanging; everlasting “I will find you, openly choose you, love you without conditions, and be the person you deserve.” - Hawkins Zebadiah Fuller

✍️ We’ll be on the road like jack kerouac  by @jesterlesbian | captainquint [M, 2K, 1/5] He tried to think of what Tim would do or say. The man who had only spoken to his son a handful of times over one weekend in 1968, but had seemed to understand him far better than Hawk ever had. The business card felt like it was burning a hole in his pocket. An idea burst to life in Hawk’s mind. This was an emergency if he’d ever seen one. “What would you say to coming with me to San Francisco?”

Or, Hawk and Jackson go on a cross-country road trip to San Francisco.

✍️ Beautiful Things by @carrotcakecrumble | LuxLox [M, 1K, 1/4] -- I turn away from the radio I’d just been tuning, there’s a crackle and pop on the wave, but Miller’s ‘Over the rainbow’ is just about spattering through in tune. Kenny says something about how he loves this one. It could be the first time he’s hearing it, for all I know. He falls in love with everything. – A multi-chapter fic following a young Hawk and Kenny throughout their relationship, from beginning to end.

✍️ Send Back the World by Anonymous [NR, 2K, 1/?] There is nothing so bitter as regret. And nothing so sweet as a second chance.

Or, Hawk gets yet another chance to fuck it up again.