#terrified when it's lip or ian is breaking my heart

[mother-of-houseplants-2]

fiona gallagher // the angry man in the house

[cloudlessly-light]

You take a piece of me with you (part 1/2)

A/N: Hey all you wonderful people! This is an idea that I couldn’t get out of my head, it’s not porn I know, but I hope you still enjoy this! Summary: They had been close to catching Damian Hall for months, but he had always managed to get away. His sights are set on the BAU, and with him comes memories Aaron had tried to forget. Word Count: 2,4k Rating: Teen (What not filth who is this?) Warnings: Canon-typical violence, mention or murder, hurt, hurt/comfort, angst

When Aaron falls in love with Emily, it’s hard and fast and as luck would have it, she loves him too. It happens after she’s come back from Paris, their timing finally right and he just knows that it will last forever. He never voices it out loud, but she knows, just by looking at him. The dimple in his cheek, the softness of his eyes, the way he touches her like she’s something precious, it’s more than enough for her to know too.

She comes back from Paris and a year later they are moving in together, and he has put a ring on her finger. He loves her, and he had never imagined that he would feel this way again. She takes him and his flaws, loves him and Jack with her entire heart and he knows that was something that had once terrified her. She had always been guarded, had worried that she couldn’t be what Jack needed, had thought that she wasn’t enough for him. But as it turned out, she was more than enough, she was everything.

When she got pregnant they weren’t trying. Emily had given up the thoughts of ever having biological children even before Ian Doyle, any resemblance of hope dying when he pushed the wood through her stomach. Aaron had never really dared to ask if she had actually seen a doctor, he didn’t want to remind her of the worst days of her life. But then she pees on a stick one night when Aaron was working late, Jack asleep down the hall.

She almost passes out when she sees the second pink line, her hand shaking and tears in her eyes making them blurry, but it’s there and that’s the exact moment Aaron walks through the door. She’s sitting on the bathtub’s edge when he finds her, still holding the pregnancy test, barely even aware that he was there.

“Emily, sweetheart?” He asks carefully, not sure what’s frazzled his fiancé but worry immediately making his heart beat harder in his chest.

She looks up at him with shining eyes and a smile that’s somehow excited and tense at the same time. When she holds the pregnancy up his eyebrows knit together in confusion, before he too sees the second pink line and for a moment he thinks his heart might actually leap out of his chest from the love he feels for her.

“You-you’re pregnant?” He asks as he falls to his knees in front of her, one hand on her cheek and the other hovering over her stomach.

“Apparently?” The sound leaving her is a mix of a laugh and a sob and his warm thumb brushes a few tears away from her cheek. “I didn’t think it was possible, I just took it on a whim, and I-I-” She rambled when his lips on hers cut her off.

“We’re having a baby.” He whispers when they break apart, his forehead pressed against hers.

 *

 Six years later and Aaron is getting his daughter ready for her second week of kindergarten, braiding her hair and failing miserably.

“Ugh, mom!” Joanna complains when he accidentally pulls her hair too tight. “Daddy can’t do it like you do.”

“Give your dad a break, sweetheart.” Emily sends an encouraging look to her husband. Joanna had been a whirlwind ever since she was born, a copy of her mother with Aaron’s decisiveness and serious frown. “You wanted dad to do your hair.”

“But mom!” She pouts and Aaron has to fight the way she looks exactly like Emily does when she’s being told something she doesn’t like.

“What do you say about a bun instead? Daddy is good at those.” Emily pours her daughter orange juice as she waits for the toast to finish. She loved the simple domesticated life they had, if only for an hour or two before they had to head to work.

“Yeah!” Joanna turns to her dad with a smile, “can you do a bun, please?”

“Of course, Jo.” He kisses her forehead quickly and then proceeds to undo the first braid that he had managed to do. He puts her long, dark hair into a bun and chuckles when she bolts towards the mirror in the hallway.

“You know she get’s that attitude from you, sweetheart.” He tells Emily as she places their daughter’s breakfast down.

“She does not!” She argues and Aaron raises an amused eyebrow in return.

“That’s not what Elizabeth says. And I’m sorry to say, that attitude is all you, sweetheart.” He quips and the look she sends him would have been intimidating if he didn’t know she loved him.

“My mother is not someone we listen to when it comes to parenting advice.” Emily says just as Joanna comes back into the kitchen, Jack in tow. He was in high school now, taller than Emily and close to celebrating his 16th birthday.

“Morning Jack.” Aaron greeting his son who grunted in return, he had somehow inherited Emily’s hate for early mornings.

“Morning.” He grumbled and sat down next to his sister, quickly stuffing toast in his mouth.

“Can Jack walk me to school today?” Joanna asked and that seemed to do the trick, Jack smiling lightly at her. She had been his soft spot ever since she was born, even now she had him wrapped around her finger.

“I don’t know…” Aaron started, Joanna being in school was still new and as much as he trusted Jack, it felt strange not to be the one dropping his youngest off.

“It’s on the way to my school, I can do it.” Jack said and when Joanna all but bounced beside him happily, Emily was quick to jump in.

“Of course Jack can walk with you honey.” She saw Aaron tensing slightly in front of her, he had always been the overprotective one, always needed a little push when it came to their daughter. “But you call us if there’s any problem, okay?” She pushed some of Jack’s sandy blonde hair away from his forehead before meeting Aaron’s anxious gaze. “Stop worrying.” She said as her lips tugged into a smirk, she knew how badly Aaron wanted to argue with her but in the end shrugged.

“Joanna, you listen to everything Jack says, okay?” He holds his daughter’s eye and she nods, her grin wide. It’s the same look Emily would have after winning an argument, and he silently wondered when the three of them decided to gang up on him.

 *

 Aaron got a text just as they arrived at Quantico that Joanna was in school, a picture of the two of them in front of the school attached to the message and he smiled at his son’s diligence.

“Told you it would be fine.” Emily bumped her hip against his and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pushing her closer as they went up in the elevator.

“Just let me worry about my children, and the fact that they’re getting older.” He says before pressing a kiss to her temple.

“It’s strange, they seem to grow up but I just keep getting younger.” Emily hums happily when he chuckles, his lips still against her temple. It’s a few seconds to just be them, before the elevator door opens and the buzz from the office forces them to break apart.

It’s Penelope that rushes towards them first, her high heels clicking against the floor as she looks at them wide eyed.

“He’s back, he’s in DC!” She tells them frantically, her phone in one hand just about to call Aaron and a stack of files tucked under her arm that she hands him.

“Who?” Emily asks while she sees Aaron’s jaw clenching in her peripheral, already catching on before the blonde gets the chance to tell them.  

“Damien Hall.” He says and Penelope nods. The unsub had been on their radar for months, but every time they got close he would go underground, forcing them to move on to other cases. He was one of the worst they’d seen in years, managing to kill men and women without so much as a trace. Last time they had been close to catching him but he had managed to slip away with a threat of vengeance, his new goal to always outsmart the BAU.

“He was picked up on a security camera at the buss station.” Penelope continued as they all headed towards the briefing room. JJ was already there, looking over the videotape of the unsub getting off a bus as she talked to Spencer on the phone.

“… Yeah that sounds good. Hurry though.” She finishes the call, tension on her face as she looks at the trio just walking through the door. “Spence and Morgan are on their way.”

“Hall wants something, he wouldn’t show up in DC if he didn’t have a plan.” Emily said as she grabbed one of the files already on the table.

“He swore he’d get us, I think it’s safe to say he’s going to try and make good on his promise.” Aaron remained standing, his eyes zeroed in on his own file.

“You don’t think he’d come here to Quantico? He wouldn’t be that stupid.” Penelope asked as she turned on her computer just as Dave walked into the room with boxes of reports of Hall’s victims.

“No he’s not that desperate. He’s probably planned for something since last time when we almost caught him.” JJ added as she sat down next to Emily at the table as they both start to dig out everything from the box Dave’s placed in front of them.

“Question is what.” Aaron agreed with a sigh as he picked up his phone, there was no way they’d get home early enough to pick up Joanna from school. With that thought in mind he dialed Jessica’s number, the woman still a pillar of support to them even now. “Hey Jess, can you pick up Jo today? We’ll probably be in late today.” He smiled as she agreed with a light laugh, always ready to save the day.

After he’s hung up they get to work, reading through files and papers they’ve put into boxes to be saved for this day. They all knew that they would end up reading through it all again, had prepared for the day Hall would show up again. They studied the footage of him in the bus station, Penelope disappeared into her office to see if he had left any other digital trace and to look through camera footage hoping to see where he was going.

They work for hours, throwing out theories and ideas but all of them knowing that without a victim, they’d have very little to go on. It’s a thought that no one wants to utter out loud, but is on everybody’s mind.

“He alternates between men and women.” Dave sighs heavily “So he’ll most likely go for a man next.”

“They’re all between 25 and 35.” JJ cranes her neck as she speaks, the tension in her shoulders clear.

“They’re all Caucasian.” Emily adds as she places the paper tray of coffees on the table that she had run down to buy.

“Looking at the people he’s murdered, he’ll probably go looking for his next victim on the streets. They’ve all been homeless, drug addicts and prostitutes.” Spencer who’s standing by the whiteboard turns to them. “Maybe we should start in those type of neighborhoods.”

“We can’t send out teams on a hunch.” Aaron takes one of the coffee cups gratefully, smiling at his wife for a moment. He knew that they were all getting tired, the lack of progress making anxiety creep up his spine.

“I hate to say it…” Emily trails off as she leans into her husband for a moment, searching for his comfort in a way she usually wouldn’t, but a feeling if unease had settled over her.

“But until he kills, we don’t have much else to go on.” Derek finishes for her and she’s grateful that he said it so she didn’t have to.  

Aaron’s hand finds the small of her back, his touch warm and secure like always and she feels the tension in him as well. She looks up at him as her phone starts ringing all the while Dave and Spencer continue to bounce theories off each other.

She looks at her phone and sees Jessica’s name flash on the screen and she immediately feels worry itching at her. She knew that Jessica would never call unless it was something important.

“Emily?” The other woman says the moment Emily picks up.

“Hey Jess, now isn’t really a good time. Is everything alright?” Emily asked, her phone pressed between her ear and shoulder as she looked through the ME’s report.

“Emily, is Joanna with you? Or Aaron?” Jessica’s voice was strained, clearly trying to hold back panic.

“What do you mean?” Emily asked, the blood in her veins turning cold.

“I went to pick her up but the school said she was picked up an hour ago by her uncle.”

Emily barely heard what Jessica said after that, her whole body going numb as she dropped the phone, getting the attention of the rest of the team as it fell to the floor. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thinks she shouldn’t think the worst, but the instant feeling of dread in her stomach kept her from feeling anything else.

“Em?” Aaron asked as Emily stared wide-eyed at them, her face taking on a ghostly color. When she didn’t answer Aaron picked up the phone and heard Jessica’s frantic voice.

“Why did they let her go with a stranger?” Emily mumbled to herself while JJ walked closer, her hand reaching out to steady her friend as her knee’s buckled. Her eyes were wild as she looks at JJ, the blonde looking between Emily and Aaron.  

“What’s going on?” Derek walks closer to her too but then he sees Aaron’s face, a look close to anguish flashing over him before his eyes move towards the open door, the familiar sound of Penelope’s heels breaking through his panic for a moment.

“Aaron! Emily!” She runs through the door and holds up her phone, her hand shaking and eyes glassy. “He has her, Damien Hall has Joanna.”

“Mommy, when are you picking me up from Uncle Damien’s house?”

The room goes silent as they listen to Joanna talk through the speaker and Aaron can’t breathe.

[gallavictorious]

I saw your tags and I think you might need to write that fic of Ian and Mickey recreating their first time when Ian gets a tire iron. 🧐☺️

Okay, so this took me a hot minute, and I did it as a kind of speedwrite so it's rather short and not exactly thought out. I also went off (my own) script a little bit and it got unexpectedly sappy there for a moment... But! Have 1,4k very silly words of Ian and Mickey roleplaying their first proper get together because Mickey gave Ian a tire iron. I hope you enjoy it, dear one – thank you so much for the prompt! I had unexpected fun with it. ❤️

(Oh, and tags in questions are the ones on this post, so all credit to @jenatte for providing the original inspiration.)’

ETA: It’s on AO3 now too.

---

Ow. The fuck?

Reluctantly, Mickey blinked awake. The bright light suggested it was already near noon, but that wasn't what had woken it, that wasn't–

It came again: a hard poke to his back. Not the good kind, either, of Ian pressing his hard-on against Mickey's rear while they were snuggled close, but something cold and sharp. Insistent.

”What the fuck?” Mickey groaned, rolling over on his side and peering up at–

–his husband standing over him with... a fucking tire iron in his hands? Not just any tire iron either, but the one Mickey had gotten him as a gift for their anniversary as a mix of a joke, sentimentality and practicality; it was how they started, sure, and meaningful for it, but also a damn good thing to have, no home was complete without it. He thought that maybe Ian had overlooked the practial aspects, though, in favour of going a little misty-eyed before he started dropping half-assed quips about hard lenghts and Mickey had to roll his eyes and punch his husband in the arm a little bit.

Now Mickey's brow furrowed further as he tried to make sense of the scene. For a brief, terrifying moment, apprehension siezed his gut: was Ian having a manic episode, seeing enemies where there was none? But no; though he feigned a fearsome scowl, there was that glitter in Ian's eyes and a small quirk to his lips that spoke little of mania and everything of being a fucking dork and a tease.

”Give me the gun, Mickey,” he intoned, and Mickey was about to ask again what the hell and what fucking gun and maybe are you feeling okay man because perhaps Mickey didn't have quite as good a read on his husband as he thought he had–

–and then he got it, memory reasserting itself, and he could feel the fucking grin growing on his face quite of its own accord. He'd have felt stupid for not immediately catching on, but give him a fucking break, he'd been sleeping two seconds ago and his days of waking up with a start and ready to fight were slowly and thankfully becoming a thing of the past.

Ian's faux frown broke, as he was unable to contain an answering smile. He seemed inordinately pleased with himself, and with Mickey for getting it. Mickey would tell him he was a fucking idiot, but Ian looked so expectant that Mickey decided to play along instead. No harm in a little weird roleplay to make his husband happy, right?

Besides, it wasn't like Ian standing over him and looking vaguely threatening and very hot didn't do it for Mickey on several levels.

”Okay, fine,” he said, climbing to his feet while doing his very best to appear drowsy and uninterested. It had been instinctive back then, the plan of lulling the irate kid into a false sense of security before pouncing on him and kicking his teeth in for having the fucking gall to march into Mickey's room and demand things.

Mickey made a show of slowly turning towards the nightstand, just as he had all those years ago. He could feel Ian's eyes track his every movement, ready to react to the sneak attack he knew was coming. There'd be no taking him by surprise this time.

His face turned away and unseen, Mickey smiled. Or would it?

He grabbed hold of the bottle of lube on the table and spun around to throw it at Ian's head, took a quick step up and to the side, and as Ian gave a short yelp and involuntary raised his hands to protect his face, Mickey rushed him from the side to push him down on the bed. Ian went with a thud and an oof and Mickey didn't hesitate; he was on his husband in a second, straddling his chest and wrestling the tire iron from him grip.

”What the hell, Mick?” Ian demanded, not bothering to struggle but glaring up at Mickey with wide reproachful eyes. ”This isn't how it went!”

Mickey grinned. ”How it went is I kicked your scrawny ass,” he said smugly. ”Now, how am I gonna do that if you know which way I'm gonna move?”

”I was going to let you win!” Ian protested.

Mickey's eyebrows rose. ”Oh, you were gonna let me, huh?”

”Yeah,” Ian said slowly, eyes narrowing, ”I was going to let you.” And with that he grabbed hold of Mickey's arms and pushed him to the side while using his greater body weight as leverage to flip them around.

”Fucker,” Mickey spat, kicking at Ian's shins. He dropped the tire iron – not like he was actually going to hit Ian with it – to have both his hands free for a renewed assault on his sneaky little shit of a husband, but Ian had already wrapped his his stupidly big hands around Mickey's wrists and was pushing him down into the mattress, grinning triumphantly while Mickey struggled and squirmed beneath him.

”Guess I had a change of heart,” Ian said.

Mickey stilled, biting at his bottom lip as he considered. He was pretty sure he could still take Ian if he really wanted to, mostly on account of him being a ruthless motherfucker with no interest whatsoever in fighting fair. However, that required a level of playing dirty and pulling nasty jabs that went far beyond what he felt comfortable doing to his husband these days.

”Uh-huh, and what's the plan now, genius?” he demanded, opting for snark instead of violence.

Ian didn't answer. The look in his eyes had shifted from triumphant to something thoughtful, and softer.

”Do you think it'd have gone the same way if it'd been me on top of you instead of the other way around back then?” he wondered aloud.

Mickey made a face. It fucking figured that his sap of a husband would turn a promising round of foreplay into a game of sentimental what-if.

”I dunno,” he said, wriggling his hips a little to remind Ian that there were otherstuff they could be doing right now, stuff way more exciting than having a goddamn conversation. ”Does it fucking matter? It didn'thappen like that, and it never would have happened like that either, 'cause back then I didn't give a shit about fucking you up too bad, so I'd bashed your fucking brains out before letting get on top of me.”

He wanted to bite his tongue as soon as he'd said it, but it was too late: Ian's eyes had lit up and his thoughtful look transformed into a smirk. ”Well, I mean,” he drawled, leaning down to put his mouth to Mickey's neck, just for a moment, just a little bit of teeth in the brief touch.

”Fuck off,” Mickey said, but he was laughing. Ian's weight pinning him down was as exciting as it was annoying, as it was grounding.

Ian just hummed. He'd straightened again and was gazing down on Mickey with a look that was so damned fond it made a small blush work its way up Mickey's neck.

”I think we'd have ended up here anyway,” Ian decided. ”Somehow.”

”Oh yeah?”

”Yeah.”

Soft smiles then, as something warm and happy bloomed in Mickey's chest. For a moment, they just looked at each other, eyes resting on the face each of them knew best, loved best.

Ian let go of Mickey's wrist to put his hand on the side of his head, fingers tangling in Mickey's hair as Ian ran a thumb over his husband's cheek. He bent down again, but this time to capture Mickey's lips in a long, lingering kiss.

”I think I was always going to have you,” Ian murmured as they broke apart, forehead pressed against forehead.

A second later he yelped in surprised outrage as Mickey took advantage of his lapse in vigilance to grab hold of his hair and yank his head sharply to the side while pushing up to get Ian off him and halfway down onto the floor. Mickey followed him with a snicker, and off they went again, tousling and laughing and absolutely heedless of any noise they might make.

[eruanna1875]

“Hope the stories are cool.”

At the half-murmured words, Ben turned to their source in the passenger seat beside him, brow furrowed. “What was that?”

Riley, staring out the window of Patrick’s weird-smelling car at the night around them, seemed surprised at the question. “Hm?” When he looked at Ben, however, it was clear he hadn't realized he'd said anything aloud until that moment. “Oh! Uh—" He shrugged it off with a nonchalant grin, turning away again. “Uh, nothing. Sorry.”

Oh, you’re not getting off that easy, Ben thought. “What’d you say? What stories?”

Riley rolled his eyes. “Ben—”

“No, no,” he interrupted, before a snide remark could be made, “I heard ‘stories’ and ‘cool’. Now, what cool stories were you talking about?”

Riley gave him perhaps half of a death glare, and for a moment, Ben thought he was going to ignore the question. But then he sulked back against his seat, and seemed to give in. “Well—” He scoffed, eyes on the ceiling. “Ours, I guess. I mean, we just stole the Declaration of Independence, Ben! The Declara—do you have any idea what this means?”

Ben frowned: maybe he was avoiding the question after all. “Yes, I think you've given me several ideas of the things this could possibly mean.” Besides, I thought you’d be worried out at this time of night, he added mentally.

“Yeah, but I'm not talking about going to prison, and Ian shooting us, and Abigail doing a lot more than slapping and shouting if we screw it up. She’ll probably… I dunno, impale us with those pointy heels or something.” He picked up an old neck pillow (he’d knocked it off the seat when he first climbed up front), and put it in his lap. “You know, maybe that’s why the spy chicks in the movies wear them all the time—if you can get used to running around and doing all those acrobatics in them, they can double as a lethal weapon.”

“Well, what are you talking about, then?” Ben pressed before the conversation could get too far off base: Riley could easily and resourcefully use the smallest sidetrack to avoid a topic he didn’t want to talk about. Kid was practically an escape artist.

“I’m talking about America. They're not gonna let us off with a simple little life sentence. They're gonna have us pegged even after we're dead.”

Ben bit back a comment about him watching too many ghost hunter shows, opting for the simpler, “How do you mean?”

Riley turned to fix blue eyes firmly on Ben; eyes that, to his surprise, he now saw were grounded in a gravity greater than worry. “Ben… whether we win or not, we’re gonna be locked up for basically the rest of time. Why?”

He leaned in closer, and spoke with such certainty, Ben had to suppress a shiver.

“Because we’re going to be in all the American history books for basically the rest of time. Do you understand that, Mr. History Buff? Kids are gonna be learning our names in the future. Your name, my name, maybe even her name—and unless something crazy happens, like really crazy, then…” He sighed, and plopped back against the seat. “Then even if we keep the Declaration away from Ian, we're gonna be the ones they remember stealing it.” He looked back up. “You know that, Ben?”

It took a moment for Ben to find the voice to reply. When he did, he let it out with a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, blinking a few times. “Huh, yeah.” He sat back, stunned, as the full weight of it befell him. “Yeah...” he whispered again.

The fact was, he had thought of it. From the moment he determined to undertake the task, he’d been aware of it. But throughout their escapades and machinations, he had kept it as just that—a fact—an awareness at the back of his mind. He hadn’t thought about it. Not until that moment, in an empty parking lot in the middle of the night. Not until Riley decided to be seriously, deeply right.

And… he wanted to tell him that. He wanted to tell Riley just how dead-center his aim had been. He wanted to confess to him the sudden fear it had struck in his heart. But somehow, he couldn’t. What somehow it was, he didn’t know. But it kept his voice from him.

He started to tell himself he just didn’t want to worry him further, especially with the way things were now, but he knew that wasn’t it. Riley was the one who started this particular concern anyway. It wasn’t a matter of trust, either. This was his best friend—Riley knew things about him even his father didn’t know, and Ben would have willingly put his life in his hands. There were times when he’d had to. And there were times that Riley’s life had been in his hands, his alone, and they both knew it. And for all he knew, that could’ve been what stopped him from saying those words.

You’re dead right. We’ll never be forgotten. And it terrifies me.

Ben’s highest hope, even beyond the actual finding of the treasure, had always been to become a part of history. Just like his ancestors. Just like the Founders. Just like the men who had been his heroes since he was a boy. And throughout his adventure, there had been many times when he had thought to himself, you’re continuing that story. This is the same old tale Grandpa told you, but it’s not over. It’s going on, in this exact minute, and you’re the one carrying it now.

The thought had given him purpose, over all those years. But now, he could not help but wonder what his part in that history would be. Would he be a hero, like those men of history, the knights (official or not) that he had always looked up to? Or would he be the one to bring it all down when he failed?

But, whatever the reason, he couldn’t say all that to Riley. He couldn’t say anything at the moment. So the moment was filled with silence instead, a weighty, waiting silence, on the precipice of what tomorrow might bring. The burden of history, both written and as yet unwritten, was for him in that moment almost physical.

“That wasn’t the story I was talking about when you heard me, though.”

The breaking of the silence almost startled him. Ben glanced up at Riley, confused and close to bewildered. For a moment, all he could manage was, “Then… what—what were you…?”

Riley also looked up, and seemed to notice something strange in his hushed tone. “Oh. Sorry.” What was there to apologize for? “It’s just, I accidentally had, like, a lot of thoughts, while you and Abigail were talking. That stuff was part of it, but it wasn’t the main thing.”

He fell silent a moment, but Ben gestured him on, almost insistently. If there was more, even if it was worse, he felt he had to hear it. What could Riley have possibly meant?

Riley hesitated, then looked down and began fidgeting with a loose string on the neck pillow in his lap. “You were telling her the story. About the treasure, and how you got all that history from your grandpa.”

Ben’s ears perked up: anybody talking about his grandfather got his full attention.

“And I got thinking about it, and I just…” He shrugged. “I wondered about, y’know, what if that’s us someday? What if… what if we’re the ones some cool old guy tells his grandkids about? I mean, I know he still might think it’s bad, but at least grandpas and textbooks don’t really tell stories the same way. I assume,” he added, with a glance at Ben for confirmation.

To his own surprise, Ben felt a smile tugging at his lips. Something in that homier view of history—despite the continued possibility of failure—put him more at ease, as if he were still listening to old yarns at his grandfather’s house, slowly losing the fear of the storms outside. The cloud of heaviness that had been on him began to dissipate. Even the night around them seemed less dark.

Ben breathed a chuckle. “No, you’re right. They really don’t.”

“Yeah, so he’d be telling like a grandpa, not like some bored guy in Milwaukee having to crank out school material! Right? And then, like, he says,” and at this, Riley briefly put on the persona of an old man, complete with motions and raspy grandpa voice, “‘Come here, m’boy, let me tell you the story of the Templar Treasure,’ and the kids go huddle up in front of him with those ginormous eyes little kids always have, because apparently the smaller you are the bigger your eyes look, and he tells ‘em the whole thing, right up to where your grandpa told it, and then—and then he tells about us.”

There was a noticeable pause, as if it even took a little of Riley’s breath away. He smiled softly, almost in awe himself. “He tells about us.”

A few seconds passed before he noticed the gap of words, which he immediately jumped over to continue his own tale. “And—and maybe there’ll be this one kid who actually thinks about it and is like, ‘man, this Ben guy was nuts! He just goes, oh let’s steal the Declaration of Independence, and expects everybody to be totally fine with it? How could anybody deal with such a crazy guy?’ And the grandpa would be like, ‘Well, shucks, I always knew you were a smart kid.’”

At this, Ben laughed. Really laughed, clear and from the heart. How in the world could Riley complain and fret about their plans so heavily, and yet paint the future with such lightness that you could laugh at it? All the time he’d known this kid, and he still couldn’t quite understand him. But he didn’t mind. And, for the moment, there seemed nothing to fear. The weight was gone.

But Riley wasn’t finished. “Oh, but you know he'd still get pulled into it, the same way your grandpa pulled you in—the same way you pulled me in—and end up thinking it's the coolest thing ever, of course. I mean, who wouldn't, if they tell it like a Gates tells it? You guys don't skimp on the history stuff, especially family history. That’s what bought my ticket for this whole… train of thought... thing... in the first place, you and Abigail and all your history nerd talk the whole way here.”

Ben reeled back, taking false offense. “Oh, nerd talk, is it?”

“One hundred percent, man, and don’t you forget it. And it’ll still be nerd stuff when you’re the subject boring another average guy like me to sleep in the back of the car.” Riley threw his hands in the air with an air of finality. “And, who knows? Maybe one of those cute little grandkids gets all inspired the same way you did, and wants to go find a treasure and fight bad guys and figure all kind of crazy puzzles, and, heck, probably decides to go be a knight and stuff, just like u—”

He bit his lip, checking himself. But Ben took note of his near-words. Riley quickly continued on a corrected course.

“You. Just like you,” and he shoved his arm with a smirk, “Mister Sir Benjamin Franklin knighted-at-age-eleven Gates. You and all your Templars and Crusaders. ‘Cause I mean, what kid wouldn't think a guy smart enough to steal the Declaration of Independence, and crazy enough or brave enough to try to save it from the bad guys, was totally awesome?”

Ben was unvoiced. All his mouth could manage was a speechless smile, as he looked at his young friend. He felt like he’d just heard a little brother tell him he was his hero. And… maybe, in a way, he had.

But it didn’t take long for Riley to notice the smile. The moment he did, he covered his tracks with a roll of the eyes, hoping to pretend he hadn’t said as much as he had. “Except for the kids who actually have the misfortune to know you, I mean.” And on “know”, he chucked the neck pillow at Ben’s face, nailing him squarely.

“Wha—they have the misfortune?”

“Yeah, you know, studies show, the coolness-craziness ratio really gets skewed over time, especially where little kids are involved.”

Snatching the pillow from where it had fallen, Ben grinned and replied, laughter in his voice. “Well, maybe they should ask you to tell the story, then. You seem to have it pretty well mapped out.”

Riley gave him a look. “If I live to have grandkids, I might. And if that pun was actually intended.”

Noticing suddenly how the thought had come out, Ben considered it. “It is now.”

“Thought so.”

As he studied the young snark, another thought lit up Ben’s mind. One that simply could not be left under a bushel. But he did hide a growing grin behind his hand, as he prepared to speak again.

“But you know,” he mused, acting thoughtful, “I’m a little surprised at you, Riley. I mean, you left out one of the key historical figures involved in the story of the Templar Treasure. And he’s not one I thought you’d forget, either, let me tell you.”

“Oh great, here comes the history lecture.” Riley turned to him, eyes firmly planted on the ceiling just above Ben’s head, looking like a teen braced for a parental scolding. “Fine. Who'd I miss?”

“The other knight.”

At his confused look, Ben leaned back, gesturing with a bit of storytelling flair himself. “Riley Poole: computer genius and sole source of common sense, fellow treasure protector against the forces of evil and Ian Howe.” Then, as Riley gaped, Ben launched into a series of smaller voices (although he barely tried to sound like a child, let alone the three to four he seemed to be acting out). “‘Tell me more about him, Grandpa! Oh, he's such a funny guy, I like his jokes! How ever did he put up with that crazy Ben? That guy couldn’t have got anywhere without Riley!’”

Riley stared at him for a few seconds. But then, to Ben’s surprise, his mouth snapped shut, and the jaw behind it seemed, for a second at least, to clench. “Come on, Ben, not cool,” Riley muttered, jerking his face the other way. “I was serious.”

Ben felt a twinge of guilt at the almost angry reaction: Riley thought he was being mocked. But before he could feel so (mistakenly) betrayed he cut himself off from anything Ben had to say—a situation Ben really, really hated—he settled a hand on Riley’s shoulder. This earned him a rather cross glance. But, seeing past the glare, he looked his young friend dead in the eyes, with a small, sincere smile.

“So was I.”

The glance lengthened into a full-on stare. “Wait, you—”

Ben could see the exact moment that the words fully sank in. The irritation became stunned surprise, and that turned to a swelling, glowing pride. It wasn’t a joke. Ben meant every word. A smile twitched at his lips. Then the swell burst, short and sudden, in a laugh like a firework. “Wow.”

And it pleased Ben mightily to see it. The sight of those blue eyes lighting up with real joy, with no hint of sarcasm, was rare. And he was doubly happy, because he was also telling the truth. Truth in every single word. Including one word in particular. One that required a little testing. Ben paused, taking the moment in a bit longer, then lifted his eyebrows, almost humourously. “Unless, of course, you’d prefer to drop the knight part…”

“No!”

Ben nearly laughed again at the eager speed of the answer. But Riley, upon realizing the same, nearly stumbled over himself to cover up with, “Um, no, no, that’s fine. The knight part… the knight part works. D-don’t worry about it.”

“Who’s worrying?” Ben grinned, hopes fulfilled. Ever since he’d told Riley about his boyhood knighthood (and truth be told, he’d never really dropped the title, at least in his own mind), he’d found it easier and easier to think of the two of them as fellow knights. But he never said that. He didn’t want to push a title on someone else if they might think it a little childish. That was why he’d needed a test, which Riley had passed with eagerness.

And yet, pleased as he was by that eagerness, it suddenly hit him how easily it could be snuffed out. The nearer they got to the treasure, the greater the danger would grow. He was sure of that. They’d already been through some real perils, and they’d escaped without injury, but how long would it be before they wound up in front of Ian’s gun again, with ever-dwindling negotiables? The old weight began to creep back over him.

“You are.”

Ben looked back up, confused. “I’m what?”

“Worrying.”

Is it that noticeable? “Oh. Am I?”

At that, something inside Riley seemed to crumble, something he tried very much to hide. “Oh.”

Ben furrowed his brow, definitely worried now. What happened? Did I say something wrong?

He started to open his mouth to ask, but Riley seemed to steel himself, taking a breath and lifting his head. “Yeah, and you know, I totally get it,” he said, quickly and in something of an apologetic tone, “it’s a personal thing from your childhood, it feels weird letting somebody else take over it. I get it. The knight part is your thing. So if you don’t want me tacking it on,” he raised his hands in surrender, “it’s fine, I won’t say anything else about it.”

“What?” This was it? After all the—he still felt out of place in Ben’s life? He still felt like he was being just a burden, a tagalong?

“What?”

Ben sighed and shook his head. “You’re not taking anything over. Knighthood is meant to be passed from one to another. And it’s too important a promise to tack on to just anybody.”

“Tell that to Jagger.”

“Too important for me to just tack on, then.”

Riley seemed reluctant to accept acceptance, no matter how many times he’d received it. “Really?”

“Trust me. You’re good. That wasn’t even close to what I was worrying about.”

He let out a quiet breath of relief. “Okay.” The pause wasn’t long, however, before he glanced back up. “But you were worrying, though. That was definitely the Ben Gates worry face.”

“I have a worry face?”

“Ehh, it’s rare, but I know it when I see it. I mean, it’s you. Worrying.” Ben conceded the point with a shrug. “So why?”

“Why?” Ben hesitated, taking a breath, but his mind made itself up quickly. No more. Riley had opened up to him; it was high time, however his friend reacted, he did the same. He slowly let out his breath. “Because I think we’re gonna need the knight part pretty soon. We’re probably coming up on some… well, some pretty difficult chapters of that story, if you know what I mean. And, if I’m gonna be honest,” and at this, his voice dropped, “I’m a little afraid to know the ending.”

Riley stared at him for a silent moment. Ben wasn’t quite sure what he was hoping for next. Hope I didn’t say too much. But then Riley nodded, slowly at first. “Wow. Yeah, I mean, me too, man.” His nodding sped up. “You know, maybe I will keep the knight part after all.”

Ben smiled, relieved, though he wasn’t sure why. “Sounds like a good idea.”

“Yeah.” Riley was quiet only a moment more before he scoffed. “You know, it’s all fine when you’re just hearing about the dangerous stuff the heroes go through. You don’t really think about how threats to your life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness actually feel.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“But hey,” he shrugged, “at least those future-kids are gonna have a heck of a story. I mean, for them, we’re probably coming up on the best parts!” He laughed at his own words, but still grimaced slightly.

Ben smiled. Again, the complainer held the candle in the dark. And in that moment, Ben knew he was glad to have him on this… adventure, or whatever it could be called, no matter what happened. Riley really had been the common sense, the genius, the light (shaded in sarcasm though it was), throughout the whole thing. And Ben was sure he truly couldn’t have gotten this far without him. But he knew they were about to head off into more trouble when they got to Philadelphia tomorrow, very possibly of the life-threatening type. He had to make sure Riley was okay with facing it down.

“Sure you still wanna be a part of it?” he asked, nodding toward him. “It’s a big responsibility.”

Riley tapped the red, metal, tube-like container hanging on Ben’s seat. “I know.”

Ben nodded. “You’re right. There is a very big responsibility to keep the Declaration safe. We have enough danger just from that. But the duty of the Templars, the Freemasons, and the family Gates, now, that's all on me. Not you or Abigail or anybody else. I know I pretty much dragged you into this from the beginning, and if you’d rather stay out of the line of fire, I… wouldn’t mind letting you—”

“Oh no you don’t, Mr. Gates,” Riley interrupted, grinning widely and pointing threateningly, “you made me a treasure protector, same as all your Templars, Freemasons, and family Gates! And I promise you, I’m not about to let you write me out now!”

That’s a good enough promise for me. Then, attitude restored, Ben responded in a tone of dry humour. “Well, then, in that case, I dub thee Sir Riley.” And he smacked him on the shoulder with the neck pillow.

Sir Riley seemed to take offense to the smacking as a personal challenge, and snatched the pillow away. Ben could see a glint of war fire in his eye. However, before battle could be engaged, his eye caught a sight that was becoming pleasantly familiar, to him at least. He laughingly held up a hand.

“Okay, hold up, hold up, Abigail’s coming back.”

“Oh joy,” Riley deadpanned, a little disappointed in the forced ceasefire. Then, with a thought, he smirked at Ben. “You think even she’d be okay in a story? Like as a character?”

“Abigail?” Ben considered her qualifications for such a role. And he found he couldn’t help but smile; smile at her deep passion for history (close akin to his own), her unflagging determination, and of course, her absolute refusal to ever shut up. “Could be.” He chuckled softly. “Could be…”

He looked up to find Riley giving him a very pointed look, so Ben ignored him and glanced out at her instead. As Abigail crossed the parking lot, he pondered her a little longer. “Wonder if she thinks we're the heroes or the villains.”

By the time he noticed Riley’s movement, the window was already halfway rolled down. “Good question.” Riley stuck his head out the window and yelled across the parking lot, “Hey, Abi, do you think we're the heroes or the villains?”

Still halfway across, she stopped to give him a look and shook her head. “It’s Abigail to you, and for the record, I still think you’re lunatics.”

“Well, I knew that!”

“I mean for yelling across the parking lot.”

“Well, if we're stating things for the record, you're yelling too.”

Abigail simply rolled her eyes and resumed her walk. Riley laughed again. “Guess we’re gonna have to call off the Second Revolutionary War, huh, Ben?”

“Oh, you’ll probably break the truce at some point.”

“Keep on your toes, old man.”

Riley smiled, but fell silent as he did so, staring at the dashboard. In the moment before Abigail came up to the car, his voice returned. “So… just to be clear…” He took a breath before he spoke again, and looked up at Ben hopefully when he did. “Knights?”

Ben practically beamed as he nodded: he could finally say it was true. “Knights.”

Riley held up his fist, and they sealed their eternal covenant of knighthood and brotherhood with a knuckle-bump.

A moment later, the passenger door opened. “Also, you took my seat, Bill.”

“Sir Riley, actually. Nice to meet you, milady.”

---

Well, happy Independence Day, folks! Thanks for reading, and doubly so if you've stuck with me all the way through to the end here!

This is my first National Treasure fic, but my second Lord of the Rings fic (the first is ancient and in hiding somewhere). Since NT is so patriotic and honoring of America's history and forefathers, I figured I'd post this today.

The inspiration came from two things: firstly, that fanfiction I posted about a few weeks ago, and secondly, from the story scene in The Two Towers. The kids had the movie on, and I jumped in right around there. And maybe I just had NT on the brain, but that scene just suddenly struck me as very fitting for Ben and Riley. Who are awesome, by the way.

So I wrote up a (much shorter) first draft that day, and edited it over the next several weeks. And now it's done! And I'm rather pleased with it, for my part.

It's also on fanfiction.net and, for the first time for any of my fics, AO3, if you want to check that out too.

Again, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and happy Independence Day!

[deancaskiss]

Tinsel and Tourists Chapter Twenty-Three

Word Count: 2,033 (so many long chapters, oops. Chapter continued under the Read More)

Cas’ POV

Link to ao3 / Link to masterpost

By the time Cas stepped out of the diner, making sure their other cook, Ian, was well equipped to handle the rest of the shift, Cas was shaking with nerves. He’d been thinking about Dean all day; pulling out his phone as often as he could to see little flirty texts waiting for him. It had been a long, long time since he’d felt this giddy; in fact, correction, he’d never felt this way before. Dean made him feel jittery, as if he couldn’t stop his heart rate from kicking up every time Dean crossed his mind.

But none of that compared to the second his eyes spotted Dean waiting outside of the diner for him. Leaning against one of the lampposts Cas had decorated, Dean held a string of tinsel in one hand and a single rose in the other.

Cas' heart swooped and stuttered to a stop, before bursting in his chest, leaving him utterly breathless. He froze for a second, unable to move from the sheer overwhelming adoration Cas felt for Dean.

Pushing off the lamppost, Dean moved towards him, and Cas felt his head spin as his lungs seized in his chest. Dean was earth-shatteringly beautiful. God. Cas couldn't even believe someone as gorgeous as Dean wanted him.

As soon as Dean stepped within a few feet of Cas, it seemed to break the frozen spell and Cas hurled himself into Dean's embrace; arms wrapping around Dean's neck as he crashed their mouths together.

Dean let out a muffled sound- caught somewhere between surprised and pleased- before his arms settled across Cas’ back as he kissed him back; soft and slow and sweet.

When they broke apart, Cas was beaming, nuzzling his nose against Dean’s.

“Well hi there, good-lookin’,” Dean hummed.

“Hi yourself. You look- wow,” Cas said, brushing his nose behind Dean’s ear and placing a kiss there, causing Dean to shudder.

Pulling back, Cas shifted his gaze down to the items in Dean’s hands; heart racing in his chest all over again. “I uh- thought you might like-” Dean stuttered out. Shyly, he offered Cas the rose, and Cas slipped it from Dean’s hand, fingers lingering against Dean’s as he did.

“It’s beautiful,” Cas murmured, completely overwhelmed by the sentiment. No one had ever bought him flowers before, let alone something as romantic as a rose. He glanced at the tinsel, raising his eyebrow. “Why the tinsel?”

Dean coughed, darting his gaze down and laughing softly. “I um- planned a little date for us. And I thought you might want a scarf. But I couldn’t find a single one anywhere. All I could find was tinsel, which sounds so damn stupid when I say it out loud-”

God. If Cas’ heart was racing before, it was absolutely aching now. “You’re adorable,” Cas murmured, learning forward to peck Dean’s lips again. Slowly, he tugged the red and green tinsel from Dean’s hand and he draped it around his neck.

“You didn’t have to humor me,” Dean huffed, darting his eyes away.

“‘M’not humoring you. I love it,” Cas replied, reaching down to grab Dean’s hand, linking their fingers together. “You said something about a date?”

That seemed to shake Dean from his mood, because he looked up at Cas and smiled bashfully. “I uh- hope you don’t mind that I planned something. I hope you’ll like it. We can always do something else if you don’t...” Dean trailed off.

God. Could Dean stop being cute for five seconds? It was really starting to mess with Cas’ heart and he really couldn’t possibly fall anymore in love with Dean if he tried. But when Dean walked them towards one of the parkway paths that wound around the river in town and Cas saw what Dean had planned, his heart tripped out of his chest. Oh God. Oh God. The rose. And now this. Oh. Cas just went and fell even more in love with the man next to him; heart thudding in his chest and threatening to spill over with the sheer love he felt for Dean.

“I hope this is okay?” Dean asked hesitantly. “You’ve probably done this a thousand times because you live here. I just wanted to do something special and-”

Tugging Dean close, Cas captured Dean’s mouth in a kiss; pouring every inch of love he couldn't express in words into the kiss. When they broke apart, both breathless, Cas pecked Dean once, twice more just for emphasis. “It’s more than okay. This is the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me,” Cas murmured, darting his eyes over to the horse-drawn sleigh before resting his forehead against Dean’s. “And, for the record, I’ve never done anything like this.”

“Really?” Dean asked, a hint of hope in his voice.

Cas nodded, blush creeping along his cheeks. "My first sleigh ride."

"Mine, too," Dean breathed out softly, before he slipped his hand into Cas’ again and pulled him towards the sleigh.

There was a little blanket spread across the seat and two little cups, which Dean bent down and picked up before gesturing to the seat. “It um- might not be your hot cocoa, but it’s the best I could do. I made it myself back at the motel.”

Cas felt a smile break out across his face. Dean really hadn’t skimped out. Every single detail was romantic, and it made Cas yearn in the best possible way. Extending a hand out, Dean helped Cas up into the sleigh, before he stepped up a second later. Dean handed him a cup of hot cocoa, then he sat down next to Cas, pulling the blanket over their laps.

“Is this okay?” Dean asked quietly.

Looking from the cup in his hand, to Dean who was tucked up next to his side, and to the two horses at the front of the sleigh, Cas thought he just might melt. Never before had he been treated to something so picturesque. God. He ached with how much Dean made him feel.

“It’s perfect,” Cas whispered, smiling so bright it hurt his cheeks.

Dean beamed back, leaning forward slightly and taping their driver- Caleb, the local Equestrian- on the shoulder. “We’re ready.”

“Great. Sit back and enjoy the ride,” Caleb called back as he whistled to the horses and tugged on the reins. And then the sleigh was off, gliding across the snow.

“How did you have time to plan all of this?” Cas asked as the sound of clopping horse shoes crunched along the snow.

Dean shrugged casually. “Got no case in town anymore, so had the day to figure something out. Sam might have helped a little, too. My idea, but he helped find the resources,” Dean said with a chuckle.

“Sam’s still here, too?”

Dean laughed again. “Can’t really go anywhere. One car between us.”

Cas grinned. “You should tell him to go see Libby. Apparently she now considers him her friend and said it was rude that he hasn’t talked to her in days.”

“Somehow that feels terrifying. My brother and your best friend being friends. I feel like that spells trouble for us.”

“God, you’re right. It really does,” Cas said, tipping his head down to rest on Dean’s shoulder. They lapsed into silence for a few seconds, Cas tracing his thumb over the back of Dean’s hand, before he finally plucked up the courage to ask the thing he’d wanted to know for days.

“Dean?”

“Yeah?” Dean said, resting his chin on top of Cas’ head.

“What are we?” Cas asked and then winced when the phrase came out wrong. “I mean- you said you loved me, but… are we… is this…”

“What do you want us to be?” Dean asked quietly.

The word bubbled up in Cas’ mind. Boyfriend. He wanted that more than anything. But Dean would leave town soon, and a long distance relationship had all new levels of difficulty. But it didn’t stop Cas from wanting. From wanting Dean and only Dean.

“I want you to be mine,” Cas murmured.

“I already am,” Dean replied.

“Exclusively mine,” Cas clarified carefully.

“No one else I want besides you, sweetheart.”

Say it. Say it. Just say it already. “A relationship.”

Dean paused, pulling his head away to look at Cas. “As in… boyfriends?”

“I-I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry,” Cas said, moving to pull away.

“Hey, no, where do you think you’re going?” Dean asked, snagging Cas and tucking him back against his side. Dean took a deep breath, eyes flickering out across the moving white scenery before he looked back at Cas. “I want that. God, Cas, I want that more than anything. I just- need to make sure it’s truly what you want, too. I can’t stay here. God I wish I could. But I’m needed- out there in the world. Bad guys aren’t going to hunt themselves. But I still want this. Want us.”

“What are you saying?” Cas asked, a spark of hope creeping throughout his body.

“If you’re willing to try long distance, I’d very much like to be your boyfriend,” Dean murmured softly, leaning forward to peck Cas on the lips.

“Will you come back and see me?” Cas asked, and God, he shouldn’t have asked. It was only going to lead to disappointment…

“God yes, Cas. As often as I can. Will try and take as many cases as possible up in the Northeast just so I can come spend time with you,” Dean said in a rush.

Cas lurched forwards, catching Dean’s mouth in a searing kiss. “Yes, yes, yes,” Cas babbled, pressing the words into Dean’s lips.

Pulling back, Cas felt lightheaded and dizzy with ecstasy. “My boyfriend,” Cas murmured, pressing his thumb to Dean’s lower lip in shock. Dean pressed a kiss to the pad of Cas’ finger, before gently pulling Cas’ hand away.

“Your boyfriend,” Dean reaffirmed, tilting his head down for a kiss just as a flake of snow flittered down and landed on his cheek. They both looked up in surprise, just as a second, third, and fourth snowflake sprinkled down on them.

“It’s snowing,” Cas said with a laugh, reaching up to brush the snowflake off of Dean’s cheek.

“Couldn’t get much more romantic than that,” Dean hummed, closing the distance between them and kissing Cas long and slow and tender as the snow floated down around them.

The snow suddenly got heavier, and Cas broke the kiss to laugh; looking up at the sky and feeling the snowflakes catch on his eyelashes.

“You’re so beautiful,” Dean murmured into Cas’ ear.

The breath caught in Cas’ throat, and he turned and pulled Dean back into another kiss, this one deeper and more passionate. “You’re the beautiful one,” Cas said against Dean’s mouth, and Cas swore his heart couldn’t beat any harder for Dean. “I love you,” Cas whispered.

Dean kissed him again, mumbled ‘I love you too’, catching between them as Dean tugged Cas into his lap.

Suddenly the sleigh started to slow down, and Cas broke the kiss with a gasp. Dean nuzzled his neck before leaning forward to tap Caleb on the shoulder. “We might have been a little distracted. Would you mind taking us around again, please?”

Caleb glanced back, meeting Cas’ eyes and throwing him a wink. Oh God. Everyone in town was going to know he was with Dean come morning. Oh the joys of small town gossip. Cas moved to bury his head into Dean’s chest as the embarrassment creeped up his spine.

“Sure thing,” Caleb said, urging the horses to pick up speed and keep going.

Leaning back, Dean wrapped his arms around Cas’ back, and Cas felt himself relax into the touch as the snow continued to fall around them. Shifting, Cas pressed his back against Dean’s chest, and this time around they shared sips of hot cocoa, laughing as the snow caught in their hair and pointing out the snowmen that were dotted around the lake made by the kids in town.

The whole thing was absolutely magical and romantic. And as they stole kisses as the snow continued to fall, Cas never wanted the sleigh ride to end.

Tag List Part 1 Below- (please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from the list!)

Tag List: @cas-deserved-so-much-more @hello-x-sunshine​ @bibelphegor​ @likepurplemuses​ @expectingtofly​ @neo-neo-neo​ @shadowywerewolfqueen​ @a-sweet-indisposition​ @feraladoration​ @xojo​

@oganizediguana​ @paintdriesfaster​ @adsp-destielcockles​ @destielangst​ @im-your-huckle-berry @justa-crayon​ @dea-stiel​ @superduckbatrebel​ @destielfactory​ @miluiel-erynion​

@y-yo-a-ti-cas67 @cockleslovesdestiel​ @toxic-nebula​ @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @enchantinghairdoherringwombat​ @proudace​ @galaxymysteryelephant​ @aelysianmuse​ @ramennoodles-dean-cas @you-changedmedean

@gmos-winter-wonderland @deansotherotherblog​ @trekkie24 @geo-val​ @dizzypinwheel​ @hermionevaldez9​ @gimmeprozac @iamsherlockedondoctorwho​ @dickspeightjrs​ @imbiowaresbitch​

@destielle​ @hopefuldreamers-world​ @organicpurplepants​ @dean-you-assbutt-cas-loves-you​ @shut-up-dean​ @sapphirecobalt-1​ @eshaninjer​ @spnobsessed50​ @mishka​ @holygoddessofvictory​​

@jayus-fandom-writer​​ @2musiclover2​​ @rainbowscas @bennedict​ @cassiecasyl​ @jensenacklesruinedmylife​ @can-i-just-stay-in-the-corner​ @chaoticdean​ @destiel-trash-asf​ @tlakhtwritesdestiel​

@bri-winchester @50shadesofcockles @trasherasswood @spittingpagan @castielstolemyheart @becky-srs @phoenix13 @jiminthestreets-bonesinthesheets @deancasology @top13zepptraxx

@love-neve-dies @good-things-do-happen-dean @tearsofgrace @thedirtytrenchcoat @a-porno-with-the-russian-mafia @on-a-bender @moi-the-bard @one-more-offbeat-anthem @naturallyathief @queen-rowenas

[crossovereddie]

Thoughts on 11x06

I had to come back to type this after the episode. I was gonna wait to post until more people are active but everyone’s safety is more important than notes. This was really hard for me to watch. It took me two hours because I kept needing a break. It’s a tough one yall. It’s heartbreaking and really brought out issues I didn’t know I was still dealing with until I reacted so badly to some stuff. Take care of yourselves and I’m here if you need to talk. I’ll have timestamps for major tws in another post coming right after this. I just gotta go back and get the end of those scenes. I only go the time they started.

Okay. So. There’s some trigger warnings that I’ve reblogged earlier. This recap WILL have thoughts about those triggers. If you think you’ll be triggered just message me or send me an ask and I’ll give you the non triggering recap. Stay safe please.

Kev and v intro. They’re having sex behind the bar

I’m extremely nervous for some reason I might not be able to get through this

Bike heist!!

LICKEY RIGHTS

LIP CALLS HIM MICK

MISSION IMPISSIBLE

Mickey is unimpressed

Lip telling Mickey what to do yes please

Fucking Mickey omg

HE LOOKS SO GOOD

THE WAY HE SAYS BRAD

Again Mickey is unimpressed

Lip :(

MICKEY CONCERNED ABOUT LIPS SOBRIETY

AGAIN I SAY LICKEY RIGHTS

Frank is falling the chick he’s boning Monica

Not sure that’s her real name

Wait yeah it is

Frank??? Has to get to work???

Wait her name isn’t Monica

Oh shut now I get what’s happening

“Can I speak to Pope Francis please” LIAM 😭

Poor baby

Lip cooking breakfast. Hot.

I forgot about camis baby

I actually beep bad for lip and Tami

We already heard this argument with Mickey and Ian get new material writers

PRODIGAL THEIF

PINK BOX HES SO CUTE

HE LOOKS SO CUTE GOTTA SQUEEZE HIM PLS

Yeah don’t tell Carl that traitor

MICKEY BROUGHT DONUTS PLS

HES SO CUTE

ITS TOO MUCH

I LOVE HIM

HIS SMILE!!!!!!!!

GALLAGHER YOUTH

THAT MEANS MICKEY TOO BYE

CARL CALLING HIM MICK TOO PLS

I CANT TAKE IT

Poor Liam he’s terrified

“I was hoping the fucker would just die” :(

Shut up Debbie

Mickey is beautiful

Leave Mickey out of it debbie goddamn

I cant fucking stand her

Frank just observing his kids and smiling

Same frank

SHUT UP DEBBIE

OH MY GOD HIS LAUGH IS THIS WHAT YOU HEAR WHEN YOU FIRST GET TO HEAVEN????

“And the smartest” lol

Someone save Liam

“I want Sandy”

We all do kid

Fucking manipulative little I CANT STAND DEBBIE

Sandy deserves better

I hate the Milkovichs!!!!

How did smart sensitive sweet beautiful loving Mickey come from this disgusting family????

MICKEY IS THE BOSS

My heart hurts so him

“Homo sexy” dear god

Mickey is too good he deserves so much better

I love him so much

Let him be happy

Mickey has the biggest heart

They’re actually talking and not fighting

CHAPO STFU

You’re so funny and smart and beautiful don’t forget that baby

SUGAR TITS

And no one is fazed lmao

“He’s actually my uncle and my dad” I fucking hate this show

I forgot Carl makes legit money now

Wtf kinda school is this

This is so fucked up

The twins are so adorable

SHUT UP DEBBIE

“You guys” I hate that but also she’s acknowledging Mickey as “hers” and he’s family :(

Okay this horrifying comment

I hate that it’s just nonchalant

Debbie just keeps talking.

Let’s move on

Mickeys face when she says “butt naked”lmao

LIP CALLING HIM MICK AGAIN

“Talk to you for a minute?”

“Yes. Please”

I LOVE IT

Mickey is unimpressed by lip once again and I’m smiling

They love each other they’re secretly best friends ITS A FACT

HAND SHAKE SO CUTE

MY BABIES

“Blue like my balls” fucking frank lol

They’re going in on Frank’s storyline now

Boss Mickey at it again

Terry’s home

The way his face falls im sick

SANDY BABY

My heart is racing

Mickeys face is breaking my heart

Great now I’m crying

Mickey got emotional

Ian sensed it and touched his neck all fucking sweet

Okay I had to take a little break because I started crying

I love him too much

Fucking Noel is so damn good

My heart is fucking breaking

“Frank’s not a homophobic psychopath who tortured you for years”

Please Mickey deserves better

I don’t wanna hear any Ian slander either.

In this house we protect my son and my son in law I will fight you

“Let’s get the fuck outta here. Lip you coming?” 😭

That was so hard to watch yall. I’m not gonna lie to you. My parents weren’t half as shitty as terry but growing up feeling unloved your whole life fucks you up anyway and that brought out some emotions and feelings I didn’t realize I still dealt with. I had to pause for a good while and cry.

Leave Sandy alone debbie

Terry is disgusting

Okay the homophobic language he uses is definitely triggering so I’ll time stamp that too

Debbie you selfish bitch

Everyone leaving terry outside it’s a yes from me

I honestly can’t concentrate on the other scenes now I’m sorry y’all

I try to cover everyone’s scenes but it’s hard for me today

I’m not okay

Liam is too innocent poor kid

MICKEY LIP AND IAN THE BEST TRIO

We need more scenes

I PAUSED TO TYPE AND THE FUCKING LOOK HES GIVING HIM STOP

They’re besties

Mickey is beautiful

MY BABY BUSINESS BOSS MAN I LOVE YOU

he really hasn’t called him Philip the entire episode wtf

Ignoring Debbie

Now I want fries

Carl is cringy

Mickey drove them home and pulled a gun

Honestly again another heartbreaking scene

Ian’s trying to make him stop

Terry is disgusting and also a coward but we’ve been knew

Noel is the most amazing

Mickey gets teary but doesn’t cry bc I cried enough for the both of us

He’s the strongest bravest ever and I’m so proud of him

I need a hug

My heart hurts so much y’all

I just want him to be happy

I’m a fucking mess

I can’t handle Lip being emotional too

Oh I thought lip wanted to sell the house for himself only but at least they all get their share

Horrible music choice

I wanna tuck Mickey in with his favorite tv show on(911) make him his favorite food to eat in bed and not let anyone but Ian around him for a good 72 hours

The way Ian is looking at him

“Would you take care of me if I was paralyzed?”

“....yeah. Yeah”

“Top you whenever I wanted” “asshole”

His smile is back that’s all I need in life

MICKEY IS TOO GOOD FOR THIS WORLD

RIP DOWN THAT FLAG YES BABY

“That was big of you” “he’s an asshole...I wanna be better than that”

WHEN I TELL YALL I LOST IT I MEAN FULL ON SOBBING

YOURE ALREADY A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER THAN THAT PIECE OF SHIT

YOURE SO KIND AND BRAVE AND BEAUTIFUL INSIDE AND OUT

Ian’s like “back of the head? Gotta grab and hold my boy”

“You are so much better than that” IAN MY SWEET SON IN LAW I LOVE YOU THANK YOU FOR LOVING OUR BOY SO WELL

IAN IS THE MOST SUPPORTIVE HUSBAND

V spitting truth

I want terry to fucking suffer

Don’t do it frank

“Nah” LMAO

Frank loves his son in law

Sandy I love you

I need to hold her

No debbie I LOVE HER

NO SANDY LOVE ME INSTEAD

DEBBIE DOESNT DESERVE YOU

Carl scene was so awful I feel so bad for him this girl is a fucking psycho

That was an actual rape scene what the fuck

Mickey making frank laugh

Debbie explaining? Really?

I hate her

“How long is this gonna take? I’m fucking starving Lip” WHY WONT YOU CALL HIM PHILIP

“We could get on with our lives” well that hurt more than it should’ve

It’s really the end soon huh? 😢

According to captions Ian says “we’re in”

Frank reads his diagnosis

Carl goes to report his rape

That took me nearly two hours to watch. Yeah I usually pause to type but I had to take long breaks after the hard scenes. It was a really hard episode to watch. A lot darker than it has been. I’m not really okay right now. It was emotional but a really good episode overall.

[dramaticviolincrescendo]

A Fitting Finale: Bringing Ian Full-Circle

Is everyone sick of my essays yet? Excellent. Here’s another anyway!

I’ve been trying to put my finger on what it is about Ian’s story in s11 that I love so much. It’s clear that he’s struggling on a number of levels, and he’s certainly spent the first third of the season under so much stress that it’s impacted his moods and marriage. In 11x04, we began to see hints of the tension breaking, and it made me realize that there’s a common trend in Ian’s behavior throughout the series coming to a head in his final act. It’s part of what has him so passionately advocating for Mickey to get a legal job, communicating their need to hammer out the specifics of what their marriage means, and upset at his own employment status.

From start to finish, Ian has been driven by two important motivators: love and fear.

Ian’s deep sense of love and compassion for others is well documented. We know that he will do anything for his family. I’ve mentioned before that Ian is at his best when he’s with them and his worst when he’s not. They’re his support system, and he’s a key part of theirs. They look after each other and rely on one another when the chips are down. They’re all grown up now, Liam being the exception, but those bonds are strong. They’ve matured and branched out to include Mickey, Tami, Franny, and Freddie. Ian’s heart belongs to his family, and he’s given as much of himself as he can to the people he’s been with over the years in whatever capacity they’ve needed him to.

Ian has also always been a fearful character, though not in the manner we typically visualize. He’s strong and motivated, ambitious and sensible, clever and insightful. When he decides that he wants something, he goes for it, from a South Side thug hovering in his orbit to pursuing the highest military accolades despite his small beginnings. Over and over again, we’ve seen him leap into serious and often strange situations in order to achieve his ends or something for the people he cares about. This man stole a water heater from a dead person’s house with his brother and tried to help his best friend hide a body. Certainly, he doesn’t fit the traditional stereotype. He’s not a coward.

But Ian is terrified—of everything:

·        Not amounting to anything

·        Not being worthy of love

·        Being the center of attention

·        Fading into the background and being forgotten

·        Not being able to help other people or those he loves

·        Not having a path

·        Not being in control of himself

·        Not being enough

He’s never said it. He’s never discussed these issues, except perhaps not having control. That isn’t who he is. That’s never been his way. Maybe we should add fear of communicating too, or fear of being seen as weak.

In s1, Ian makes a lot of brave choices. He comes out to three people, two of them family members, knowing how that is viewed in their neighborhood. When Mickey is after him, Ian takes the battle to his doorstep. He turns his back on an arguably easier life in a nice, middle-class neighborhood and a home with a father who would provide for him to live in the constant struggle to which he has grown accustomed. On the surface, he’s one put together kid. But then there’s Kash. There’s this man who preys on him, a middle child so responsible (and so male) that no one thinks he’d fall into any sort of trap—and Ian is desperate to keep him. He fights Lip over it and so painfully tries to make him understand his perspective, that he’s spending money he should probably be using for things he needs to buy Kash music and baseball tickets, to make him like what Ian does so that they can build their so-called relationship. That Kash is married with kids is unimportant to him; that he’s exploiting Ian’s fear of loneliness and not finding love outside his siblings, unthinkable. We know it. Lip sees it, powerless as he feels to do anything about it. Ian can’t. To date, he never will. He’s blinded by a culture that doesn’t believe such things can happen to males, and until Mickey comes along as a viable outlet for his affections and source of the ones he needs, he’s too afraid to be cautious.

Throughout s2 and s3, Ian makes difficult decisions. They’re not always smart, but it takes great strength to commit to the choices he makes: allowing Monica into his life, voicing even an ounce of his feelings to Mickey, pursuing West Point, and running away. All of them, however, are driven by love and fear alike. He’s vulnerable and needs his mother, the one who slaps Frank for shoving him and listens when he feels alone. She assuages his fears by telling him what he needs to hear: that he can do and be anything. We know there’s a danger in that, especially when she takes him to enlist when he’s nowhere near old enough, but it’s still validating for him. It feeds that need for attention but not too much attention, for understanding but not coddling, for love that originates from someone who isn’t his siblings. We see similar trends emerge: fear of losing Mickey on multiple occasions, fear that he’ll forever be in Lip’s shadow when he receives a letter of recommendation instead of Ian, and fear of never having Mickey’s full affections spiraling into fear of facing his own emotions in the aftermath of the wedding. We’ve seen that Ian runs from what he can’t process. He runs from what he can’t handle. He runs when he’s scared, especially of himself.

It continues repeatedly throughout the series. In s4, Ian is afraid of going backwards and once again losing his position in Mickey’s life. In s5, he’s afraid of being a burden on everyone around him, changing them, and losing control of his own mind. In s6, he’s afraid that this is it: his path and his goals have come to nothing, and he’s doomed to fall into the shadows where no one will ever see or love him. In s7, that fear of himself re-emerges when a patient is hurt on his watch and he has to come to terms with the fact that being better doesn’t mean he’s “cured.” In s8, he’s afraid of the void where Monica and Mickey used to be, and it sends him spiraling into a deeper one he doesn’t fear until it’s too late. In s9, he fears a lack of guidance, an indecisiveness born of having been able to rely on his hallucinations to tell him what to do. His path is gone, and he has no options. And that’s terrifying. Then Mickey is there, and he can put some of his fears to rest until they resurge with the idea of marriage in s10. All of a sudden, he’s back where he was in s5, fearing himself but also what he’ll do to someone he loves.

In s11, we’re seeing an Ian far more like he was in earlier seasons: rigidly devoted to having a plan, knowing what’s coming next, and ticking off certain boxes on the list of things you’re “supposed to do” as a married adult male. He’s spent a lot of this season seeking value in his employment and position in their marriage, and the stress has been dragging him down—quickly.

And it’s no wonder: he has every reason to be scared right now.

The thing about prison is that it is what’s known as a total institution. It is removed from society and, as such, operates under its own social beliefs, values, and norms. Like the military, another total institution, prison involves an initial period of sloughing off roles and identities from the greater society and subsequently being resocialized into a new role set. Upon release, a person undergoes the same process in reverse, and there’s an adjustment period to reintegrate into normal society. We can see that process begin when Ian gets in the car with Lip and shudders a bit, unsettled at the prospect of being outside these walls for the first time in months—going home far earlier than anticipated. For many people, it’s a difficult transformation, especially once they realize the full extent of how your life changes as an ex-convict in the U.S.

Ian doesn’t really get to adjust. From s8 to the start of s11, he undergoes a whirlwind of emotion and change. He literally loses touch with reality, starts a cult, commits a felony, is on the run from law enforcement, allows himself to be captured with one final display, goes to jail, remains unmedicated until he’s bailed out, panics at what his movement became, feels alone in the house as everyone deals with their own business and leaves him to his own devices, seeks guidance from above only to realize it wasn’t what he thought it was, can’t find answers, has warring factions telling him how to plead in court, ostensibly takes a plea deal that requires some amount of time behind bars, goes to prison, finds the love of his life there waiting for him, has to let his sister go, is released without Mickey, gets repeatedly screwed over by a corrupt PO, gets engaged, breaks up (sort of), gets engaged again, sees his wedding venue burned down, gets married, and hurtles straight into a pandemic. That’s… That’s a lot. Being a newlywed in a pandemic is a lot without all the rest of it, but this is what Ian is dealing with going into s11, and he hasn’t had the benefit of a stable readjustment and reintegration period.

He’s drowning.

He’s scared.

He has every reason to be. Marriage is scary, especially if you are so young and so in love with the person you’re marrying. Employment is scary, especially for them, because it could mean the difference between paying the utilities and running out of water. Change in general is scary, especially when it hasn’t done you any favors before.

Add all that to what Ian’s behavior has indicated that he’s been afraid of since the start, and you have a recipe for disaster.

To a great extent, that’s what I think his arc is all about this season: learning how to live again. It’s about not being so afraid of himself that he desperately grasps for any stereotypical structure for married life that he can. It’s about regaining the confidence that has always left him clawing his way to the top instead of letting life beat him down. It’s about finding the happy medium where he and Mickey aren’t doing anything illegal but aren’t stuck in a valueless spiral, scrambling and struggling to pay the bills like when they were kids.

It’s about learning not to be so afraid anymore, and I think that’s a beautiful goodbye for a beautiful character.

[starlocked01]

Name for the Order Please?

AO3 Link @tsshipmonth2020 

Masterpost- Next

Day 1 RemRem (RemyxRemus)- Your Soulmate’s name appears on your palm

“Priscilla? A girl? Ewwwww,” Remy had just blown out the seven candles on his birthday cake, eager for the name to appear on his palm. His parent’s laughed at his childish disappointment, assuming the issue was ‘cooties’. Remy grumbled but was soon distracted by cake and presents and relatives showering the birthday boy with attention. 

Weeks passed and Remy was still pretty bummed. He told anyone who would listen how much he hated ‘Prissy Priscilla’ (he didn’t really know anyone with that name). Most people chuckled and told him he’d learn to love her. His most frequent response was to scrunch his eyes and stick his tongue out. He knew his soulmate wasn’t supposed to be some girl! It was a load of horsefeathers! Sometimes he’d just scribble over his soul mark with a marker and write a different name. He really liked the name Charles right now. Why couldn’t his soul mark say 'Charles'?

Years went by and soon Remy was in 8th grade. During a particularly boring math lesson, he was doodling on his arm when he felt a tingle on his palm. Confused, he twisted his hand around to look at his soul mark. His pen clattered to the floor. His soul mark had changed and now said ‘Chuck’. 

“Oh, my gawd!”

“Mr. Nocht, what about geometric proofs could have possibly elicited a call to a higher deity?” the stern teacher interrupted his lecture to call the poor boy out. 

“Wait, we were talking about geometry? Sorry, Mr. L,” Remy replied, earning him a withering look from the teacher and a round of laughter from his peers. Remy kept checking his palm every few minutes, reassuring himself that the dreaded ‘Priscilla’ was gone. ‘Chuck’ he could work with. After class he ran to Emile’s locker, shoving his palm into the other boy’s face.

“What happened I thought your soulmate was ‘Priscilla’?” Emile looked at the soul mark in confusion. 

“Not anymore, babe! I think my soul mark finally figured out that I don’t like girls. Thank gawd,” Remy grinned.

“Fascinating. Tell me all about it later, I can’t be late for English again,” Emile smiled and scurried off toward class while Remy sauntered off to science at his own pace, finally happy with his soul mark and doodling a heart around the new name.

Two days later, at breakfast, he felt the tingling on his palm again. Alarmed, Remy checked the soul mark to find that the name had changed once again. It now read ‘Branch'. 

"What the fu-"

"The next word out of your mouth better be 'fudge', mister," his father threatened, looking up from his laptop.

"My soul mark changed again! Why does it keep doing that? And who names their kid 'Branch'?" Remy looked up at his father who looked bewildered.

"No idea, son. On the bright side, it's decently unique?"

Over the next five years, Remy kept track every time the name changed. Some lasted for weeks while others lasted days. He kept a list of his different soulmates, baffled by some of the more outlandish names like 'Dickwad' and 'Buttplug'. Somehow he was even more worried when the names sounded feminine like 'Reese' and 'Taylor'. By now Remy was certain he was gayer than Ian McKellen and didn't know what to make of it whenever it looked like his new soulmate was a girl. Moreso, he was worried that these revolving soulmates were seeing his name on their palm and deciding to take drastic measures. 

One day, the name changed again and stayed for months. Remy wasn't entirely sure what to make of 'Remus'. After a month he decided he liked the name and hoped he'd like this soulmate.

Just out of high school, Remy got a job at the local cafe, partly to save money towards rent or college or travel- he was taking a gap year to decide- and mostly to feed his growing addiction to coffee. His favorite part was asking for customers' names to write on their cups.

"What can I get for ya, hon?" Remy asked the next guy in line, only mildly flirtatious. His mustache was horrendous but otherwise a pretty face.

"Four shots on the rocks," the man grumbled, clearly still waking up.

"Four shots of espresso on ice, or did you think this was a bar, girl?" Remy smirked but the man looked up with a terrified look in his eye. "Uh, sorry. Espresso on ice then. Name for the order?"

The man cleared his throat and with a small flourish placed his hand over his chest, "Remus."

Remy stopped and looked at him, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. "Remus, huh?" he looked to the back room and shouted, "Virgil! I'm taking my break! You better get out here to watch the front!" He quickly made up the strange order, and refilled his own cup of coffee as Virgil came out from the back, grumbling. Virgil protested seeing that Remy was leaving him with a line but Remy waved him off and walked out from behind the counter to hand-deliver the drink.

"Hi, Remus. I'm Remy. Are you who I think you are?" Remus looked up from the cup at the boy handing it to him, recognition dawning on his face.

"Hey, hot stuff, nice to finally meet you," Remus grinned at Remy. 

Virgil looked over, "wait, Rem, is that Remus? Why didn't you just say that- you jerk!?"

Remy rolled his eyes, placing a hand on Remus' shoulder and leading him towards a table, "yeah yeah, whatever," turning his attention back to his soulmate, "thank goodness you found me I was terrified my mark would change back to 'Priscilla' or some shit."

Remus looked visibly uncomfortable, eyes shifting around the room. "Uh, can we talk outside?"

"Yeah, babe," Remy followed as Remus led him outside to a table away from others. They sat down and Remus leaned in close.

"So I'm just gonna say it. I need you to never bring up that name again," Remus fidgeted with a necklace and took a sip of his drink.

"Wait, do you know her? Because that name was originally what my soul mark said. It changed a lot of times before settling on 'Remus'. Guess no one else could handle me like you can," Remy laughed with a flirty smile, almost missing the look of fear on Remus' face.

"That's because I went through a lot of names before finding the right one. Remy, I'm trans… I hope you're not mad at me," Remus pulled at the necklace so hard the chain snapped. Remy's eyes went wide.

"Oh. My. Gawd! That makes so much more sense! I thought all those names were different people. Oh gi-, babe, of course, I'm not mad! I knew I liked boys back then and I know my soulmate is a man now," Remus looked up with a smile. "So you better be asking for my number here real quick or-"

Remus smirked and pulled a marker out of his bag and scrawled a phone number down the inside of Remy's arm. He stood to leave while Remy stood up to return to the counter to relieve Virgil from social interaction. Remus looked around and quickly grabbed Remy by the collar, pulling him into a kiss. He pulled away with a wink before walking off.

When Remy got home after his shift, he found the list of soulmate names and burned it. Remus was the only name on it that mattered to him anymore.

[lifeisadoozy]

sharing a short dousy video edit i made.

i don't know why but i really like this and thought i'd share it on here too.

should i rant about what goes in my head while making this video? no. will i? yes.

basically the song is beginning middle end by leah nobel from to all the boys i've loved before part 3. this song is basically about two people falling in love from the early years of their lives. since lara jean and peter met when they were kids. but then started (fake) dating in high school and their adventure together started right then and there. anyway, watch the movies if you haven't already. this song fits lara jean and peter so well (i don't know if it was written specifically for them or not).

but daisy and sousa didnt meet when they were kids because of one obvious reason: when daisy was a kid, sousa's dead; and when sousa was a kid, daisy hadn't been born yet. they weren't supposed to meet. so their journey started off separately.

daisy's beginning in shield was rocky, to say the least. but she found a home there with coulson, fitzsimmons and may (i'll get to ward) in season 1. they bonded quite quickly, mainly daisy skye and coulson. i think it shifts when she got shot by ian quinn. everyone in the team, especially ward was terrified and angry at the situation. now. she had a relationship with miles early on in the season, which was broken off. but within the context of the song, her beginning was ward. he was her s.o. she was falling for him when she uncovered that he's hydra. add that trauma to the ones she already had prior to shield. no wonder she has trust issues.

her middle was her powers. even though the story started early in the series, it's still the middle. because she struggled with her powers throughout seasons 2 - 5. the middle would always be the bulk of it all. it's where everything happens. it's the crux of a character, of a person. it's where daisy became daisy. now, in the middle of her middle (pun very much intended), was lincoln. the first inhuman who helped her and understood her. i'm sure they've got their own problems and everything, but it doesn't change the fact that he was someone who knew what she's going through. none of her found family could help her the way he could. this is where i think it gets interesting. seasons 2 - 5, where i said was her middle, and basically the peak/climax of daisy as a character, she was falling for and fell for lincoln. it was known that daisy was still in love with lincoln in season 5. possibly around 2 years after he died. but then we found out that she had moved on from lincoln in the beginning of season 6.

season 6 and 7 is the end of her journey with the team. they're still a family. just a family who occassionally see each other. now in season 6, like i mentioned previously, it was acknowledged that daisy had moved on. the past will always be with her, no doubt. the trauma would stick. hopefully just bits and pieces. but it would still be there until she either had alzheimer's, dementia, any other retrograde amnesia injuries or diseases, or the day she died. she would never forget lincoln or ward, heck even miles. she won't forget her past. unless it was taken away from her. so, back to the topic at hand, she wanted her own fitz. she had grown from the woman she was in the beginning, she had grown from the woman and superhero that she was in the middle. she knows who she is now. with the people she worked with. and the people she calls her family. and also with anyone. daisy's ending was perfect (to me at least). she wasn't looking for love right then and there. she was burnt one too many times. but she wanted that kind of love and support. the love and support that fitz and simmons have for each other. something that daisy lacked all her life. she ended up with someone who gave her what she wanted. and what she needed.

with sousa, it's a little different. because we didn't get to see much of his background and family life. we didn't get to know what his life was like during the war and before the war. we begin to see him in the ssr. we all knew, literally everyone knew, even the characters knew that sousa's practically in love with peggy. except for maybe peggy herself. but i'm sure she had an inkling. she definitely had an inkling. but then things go on and he became chief of the west coast office and he was in los angeles while peggy was in new york. he moved on (or so we thought). he started dating violet and was ready to marry her. he told her he loved her. and he did. it's just that he was also in love with peggy. still. and violet saw that. it's as clear as day. and they broke it off.

we didn't get to see much of sousa's middle. mainly because ac wasn't renewed for a third season. which was such a waste because it ended with so many things left unanswered. but we know that between 1947 - 1955, peggy and sousa broke up. we have no idea why. we don't know if steve was back. nada. all we know is that they broke up. when did they break up? again. no idea. but we know that peggy means a lot to sousa. she's like (sorta; i don't like making comparisons but anyway) sousa's lincoln in a way (i'm not saying that they're the exact replica. daisy/lincoln and peggy/sousa are quite different. but they do have similarities. those pairings are the kind where they want to be together forever but knew that it wouldn't work; my interpretation). she didn't die, we know that. but she's sort of the one that got away. my guess is that it's because shield and the world was more important than each other. which wasn't dissimilar to daisy and lincoln's situation. so, yes. peggy's sousa's middle. she influenced him a lot. and he found himself amidst ssr and shield (just like daisy did).

sousa's end was again, perfect. he went to the future. got to see what the organisation he helped build came to be. he went on an adventure to explore space. which he would geek out over. instead of dying, he got to live. with the love of his (new) life. he may be a man out of time, but with daisy and their ragtag family, he is right where he belongs.

daisy and sousa began with "who the hell are you" and ended with "it's beautiful" (just putting this here because i love that fact).

so. they started pretty quickly, didn't they? 4 episodes in and sousa fell in love with daisy. 7 episodes in and daisy fell in love with sousa. though i doubt that they thought they're in love. but they're falling. or walking towards it. 7x03 was when they met. it's where it all began. in area 51 of all places (foreshadow much?). but what's even more interesting is that technically, they began twice. from daisy's perspective, they met in 6x13 (which plenty of people had pointed out; but @agents-of-fangirling was the most recent). even though they didn't actually meet because sousa was wearing that blue (seriously his colour really is blue) hazmat suit and daisy was disoriented (may dying and all that jazz). but from sousa's perspective, they met in 7x03. where they actually made eye contact and conversed. how many couples can say that the when of their first encounter was debatable?

now. their middle, in the video edit, i used the scene from 7x10. because i think that's a pretty good middle. they had their first first kiss. sousa had no idea that happened. yet, there he was, wanting to help. just like his time-loop self. he extended a hand and she accepted. she accepted help. do you know how much of a development that was??? because i think that it's a huge character development (i still haven't rewatched so don't take my word for it). i think that's a good depiction of their middle. oh yeah. before i forgot. they also had two first kisses. and again, i say, how many couples can say that they had two first kiss? figured i'd choose the scene in the middle of those first kisses (pun intended lmao).

sidenote: did y'all see the devastation in her eyes when sousa volunteered to stay in the 80s? or how her eyes went wide and she started to panic when he was injected in the time loops? sousa's a man of action. and when he says something, he means it. so, his constant concern over daisy and him wanting to help in any way he can, it's his love language.

and then we have their ending. the perfect end to an imperfect couple (because nobody's perfect *cue hannah montana*). daisy got sousa a typewriter. because he's from the 50s. since when did daisy buy gifts for her boyfriends/partners/lovers? and they watched e.t. together? that's normal couple things. even though they are far from normal. but they get to experience it all together. daisy didn't get to in the past. none that we know of anyway. and now she does. also, that smile when she talks about him. that fond smile that grazed her lips at the thought of him. i've never seen her smile like that before (none that i remember; and if she did, well then i'm so so happy for her). she looks happy. serene. and her saying "he's a dork" twice in the season just makes my heart burst with happiness for them.

sidenote: my headcannon is that "he's a dork" is code for "i love him too much to explain it in words."

i'd like to believe that even though it has ended, their story has just begun. they're going through their middle right now. and i hope that they won't end. in other words, their end was not an ending. it was a beginning of a new life.

as daisy said, "we're loving the journey together." keyword: journey. it's a long road up ahead. with countless of challenges and obstacles in the way. but in the end, all that matters is that they face it together.

that's it. thanks for coming to my ted talk (for those who actually read it all the way through, i love you).

[charlettebffxiv]

Prompt #12 Excuse (Extra Credits)

Knowing how all this works is frustrating. That is a sad part of becoming more and more familiar with just how the systems work. Once you’re aware of the bits and pieces of the clock that ticks along your time it gets really, really hard to not hear it. To feel like you’ve made your own choices, and that you are forging your own path. “That is bullshit.” Ogi Nogi was a man of few words, but even for this first outburst from him in a long while, Charlette chided him “Ogi, try and be a little less crass, will you? It’s frustrating, yes, but don’t lower yourself.” The lalafell crossed his arms, looked way, way up at Charlette. Staring her dead in the eye. “No.” Well, she wouldn’t appreciate that, but she could at least understand where it was coming from. As, in the back of her mind, she had a few choice words of her own. That was bullshit.

The Archive, for all its secrets, systems, oaths and rituals, was a fairly simple beast. The firstborn of every family to settle permanently in Willow’s Heart is inducted. The only exceptions are for only children, and those that are already parents or bonded. If this was too much to offer, you left Willow’s Heart and settled elsewhere. Harsh, yes, but everyone had to be bound to the purpose. Once inducted, you took your Oaths, you swore to take no charges, no quests, no ambitions other than the Orders. You were no longer an heir, a spouse, a youngling filled with dreams or ambitions. You became an Apprentice to the Order, and that was your dream and ambition. Breaking these oaths, taking on a new purpose that the leaders of the Order judged had become higher to you, and it was exile. It was upon this precipice that Charlette stood now, with only a hearing between her and said leaders to decide where her future would be going. It could be the disciplinary hearing that set a warning in her histories and left a permanent stain on her record, but saw her returned to the Orders fold and able to continue what had been her life since she was thirteen. Or, it could be the very last time this system made a decision for her, and it would be to send her out to start over, without any chance to redeem herself. Her home would not be her home anymore, her friends and family remain bound to Willow’s Heart. She had been standing on this line for a full twelvemoon by this point, in a grey area of existence that had left her uncertain about either path. That system chafed now, its limitations and it’s injustices hung around her neck each time she sat with her fellow Order members, all of them wishing her a swift return. Exile, though, sat on the horizon each time she was attending to her temporary position with the Botanist Guild. Utterly unknown, terrifying, lonely. Who was she, without Willow’s Heart and the Order? She did not know. Likely nothing. “And that’s bullshit.” Ogi Nogi sat next to Charlette, and poked her in the side. It was a sun of rest, and she was surrounded by her friends in a booth at the Willow’s Heart tavern, The Scholar’s Blush. What else do you call an alehouse that is down the road from a library? “Was I thinking aloud?” Charlette asked, a poor habit she had recently developed in the more isolated moments of her Botany work. She looked up at the people surrounding her. Maxim was holding back a laugh, Chloe was giving her a look that suggested she was questioning, once more, how they could be siblings. A’nidreah looked up from her drink, licking foam from her lips like she had heard nothing unusual. Loash and Alistair, at the same time, did the thing men who fancy themselves stoic do. A shrug, and a quick nod to the side. They very nearly butted heads. “Sorry, but it is something I do wonder about. I, we, have dedicated so much of ourselves to this place. Order or Botany guild, or otherwise. What. What do I do if they decide I have breached the code? Crossed the line? What if I have to go?” the words struggled from her, crawling up her throat and making it twist and pull at them like she wanted to swallow them back down. Once spoken, though, they existed. Can’t take that back. “They won’t. Not if they know what they are doing.” Alistair reassured her. “And they do, you’ve met Emillie. Not a man alive that knows more of what he’s about than him.” Loash’s nod came with a firm grunt too “S’true. He only does clever things.” Loash rarely had a bad thing to say about his appointed guardian though. “I mean you’ve given them no reason to think of you as more than a dedicated Willow’s Heart-ian? -ist? What would you call us? Willow’s Heartdians? Anyway, you’ll be fine. Bobocufu’s probably only got glowing things to say about you.” Maxim flicked his hand, danced around Charlette’s worries and dismissed them like they never even deserved to be said. “Bobocufu only has nice things to say about everyone. She could talk-up the Emperor of Garlemald if he planted a sapling in his front yard.” Ogi Nogi speaks again, though being less helpful this time. Charlette held up a hand to stop anymore reassurances coming her way, taking the time it required to gulp from her cup to think before she spoke. “Thank you everyone. That does help. But we won’t know until it happens. Until then I just need to keep making the best impression I can, if I want to avoid being sent away.” A solemn series of looks fell over the group with the silence. Then Chloe and A’nidreah glanced at each other. The Miqo’te shook her head, but Charlette knew Chloe had made up her mind. “Does it matter?” Chloe asked, getting a few quick looks from everyone but Maxim, and A’nidreah who had decided to look down and focus on her drink. “What do you mean? Of course it does. I don’t want to be sent away from everything.” Chloe leaned forward, and looked at the others around the table. “Everything? Everything is not in Willow’s Heart alone Charlette. I just do not think it would be the end if the world if you, well, went outside for more than a demand from the Order.” Tension gripped the Order members at the table. “You know what I’m talking about when I say everything. I grew up here, this is home.” Chloe squared her shoulders, sat up straight. A mirror of Charlette when she was not willing to back down. “People make new homes all the time.” “Our family is here. Mother, father, the others from the coven.” “They can take a trip, see you and a bit of that world too.” “My botany work was all done here.” “And a lot of it was done out there too. Maxim will make the trip.” Chloe patted the blonde on the chest. He looked between the two, then dipped his head to Charlette “Working with us isn’t based on where you live. We could call on you, when we’re outside of bounds.” “My friends are all here, members of the Order. A’nidreah, Alistair, Loash, Ogi.” She was not balking, and neither was her sister. “There are no other taverns out there? I do not see anyone here so selfish they would never make the time to see their friend.” the others nodded, but it was without looking directly at Charlette. “I do not want to leave.” She finished, firm as she can be, the conversation needed to end. “Maybe you need to, maybe you are lying.” Chloe was not done. “I do not lie.” Charlette had started to feel a tightness in her chest. “That’s a lie.” “What do you want from me Chloe?” Her tone was harsh, it snapped. “I want you to be honest, and I want you to make a choice for yourself.” Chloe was irritatingly cool and calm. “How is ‘I do not want to leave behind my friends, family and home forever’ not honest enough for you?” Was she shouting? She didn’t feel like she was shouting, but her words were coming harder, A’nidreah’s ears were twitching downward. Alistair reached out a hand “Okay, anyone need a refill?” several hands went up, Charlette and Chloe continued to stare at each other. Chloe’s hand went up. Charlette’s followed, slowly. “I’ll help!” Loash was standing as soon as Alistair had escaped his seat. “Me too!” A’nidreah followed. Maxim was trapped at the far end, between the two sister’s, Ogi did not seem to care. Though he did make his escape via the classic. “I gotta pee.” The lalafell slipped out his seat and made his way to the back. The sisters squared off, Maxim tried to busy himself with folding a swan out of his serviette. “Stop lying to yourself Charlette.” Chloe finally ended the tense silence. “Stop acting like you know everything, and know better than everyone.” She felt angry, why was Chloe doing this now? Why did she always have to do this? “I do not know everything, or better than everyone. But I know my sister.” Did she though? It felt, to Charlette, like Chloe was constantly confused by her. “Then why do we fight more than we talk?” It was a good question to ask. It had been this way for a long, long time. “I do not fight you Charlette. You fight yourself, everytime you come close to this. I am just on your side, so you fight me too.” Charlette rolled her eyes, shaking her head and looking away from her Sister. “Come close to what?” she asked, near spitting it. “Choosing what you want, first.” Charlette watched out the side of her eye as Chloe placed her cup down, and leaned forward, elbows on the table, reaching across to try and meet Charlette’s touch halfway. “Be honest with me. Why is being out there, for your own reasons, such a terrible thing?” Charlette swallowed. Her friends had scattered around the tavern, Maxim’s swan was so poorly folded it looked mangled, and Chloe was pushing, like she always did. She didn’t want her to push now. Not here. She felt Chloe’s hands reach the rest of the way, pulling her hard grip from around her cup, and holding on. Her eyes felt warm. “I will not be able to see him any more.” “He is already gone, Charlette. He has been gone for twelvemoons.” “What is left of him is all here. Under Willow’s Heart earth, in our home, in his locker. In the Hall of Honour.” Chloe stood, walked around that table and sat herself next to Charlette, hugging her around the middle with one arm. “That is not what mattered to Fred, you know that. What mattered is how we saw him, you know this better than any of us. You know him better.” Charlette almost smiled, but Chloe saw the little curl of her lips. “Yeah. Maybe.” “Does he still make you laugh?” Charlette thought of him, and she spoke through a tearful chuckle. “Yes.” Chloe just smiled, and held on. “Then he is here.” It was a nice moment, right up until Chloe finished where she was going with this. “No stop using him as an excuse.”

[let-the-dream-begin]

Hogmanay Hauntings Chapter 2 -- Present: Sorcha

Chapter 1

Read on AO3

Jamie thought he might truly be dead, almost wished it. If he were dead, and this was the sight that were to greet him, he would welcome it, embrace it fully, as he’d tried to do on the day of that bloody battle. If on the other side of eternity was that sweet little face of his bairn, and her…

“Hello, Jamie.”

Something guttural tore through him at the sound of her voice. The effect it had on his body was the same as taking a breath after several minutes of being submerged in water: life-giving, but burning, overwhelming.

His mouth flapped uselessly, the neverending stream of tears funneling in. He remained on his knees as she stood there, as if in worship of her. She was dressed exactly the way she’d been on the battlefield, when she’d appeared to him in that nightgown, that shawl. As she was the night she’d said she loved him.

And then it all stopped, froze.

If he was dead, then thank God for that. But if he wasn’t…

“Ye…” he stammered, struck with horror. “Ye’re dead…?”

“No, Jamie.” She shook her head vehemently.

“But Faith...she came to me...a spirit…” His entire body trembled. “I canna bear it...if ye didna live...I...I canna…”

“I did. I did, Jamie.” Her voice remained calm and level, soft and sure. “I am going to live a long, wonderful life.”

He closed his eyes then, letting the wave of relief that she sent his way crash into him and fill him. He opened his eyes quickly in a panic, terrified that she’d vanish.

“Time doesn’t work the way you’d think,” she explained, seeing the expression on his face asking the question that he could not find the air to voice: Then how?

“I’m alive now, just as you are, in a way that our baby never was.” In her living, mortal life, Claire could not speak of Faith without her voice breaking. But this Claire...she seemed to possess a sense of calm acceptance, of all-knowing.

“And I’m here to show you.”

Jamie blinked dumbly, taking a stuttering breath. “Sh...show me…?”

“Show you the present. Mine, and yours.”

His head was spinning.

“Yours…? Ye’ll...ye’ll show me your time, then…? How…? How is that ye’re here, yet ye live…?”

His temples were throbbing.

“Can ye promise me ye’ll keep yer heart open?”

Claire did not speak, just bore those amber eyes into him, as if she was the one reminding him of the promise he’d made to their daughter.

Yes, he’d made a promise, a promise that he intended to keep.

Then he swallowed, hard.

“If you live, and ye mean to show me yer...present.” Another tear trickled down his cheek. “Then...then our child...lives…? In your present?”

Her glow seemed to amplify, to brighten the room. She nodded silently.

“Oh, Christ…” It was barely above a whisper. “Take me there, mo ghraidh. Take me to our living child.”

Her face changed imperceptibly, and she straightened up. Her eyes grew in depth, looking at him in a way that made his bones chill. “Yes. I will.”

She reached around her neck, taking hold of something that he couldn’t see beneath her shawl and nightgown. She pulled it over her head, allowing her curls to dance as the object rustled past them. Then she was holding it out to him, and it swayed in the space between them, back and forth before his eyes.

The pearls.

“Grab hold of these,” she instructed. “And I will take you to our living child.”

He exhaled reverently, lifting a trembling hand. “Thank you, Sorcha...thank you…”

And then his fingers closed around the pearls, and the room melted away as it had with Faith. Jamie prepared himself, even as his gut roiled with the journey they took, to see the wonders of this future, Claire’s present. He prepared himself to see another child with red hair, or perhaps her shimmering brown. He prepared himself to see the electricity she’d spoken of to him, to see…the man he’d sent her back to.

But the images that formed around them were familiar, too familiar.

They were in Lallybroch again, decorated and jolly as it had been when Faith had shown him. He turned in a circle, taking in the sights, counted all five of Jenny’s bairns, and knew that this was indeed the present and not the past.

“I dinna understand…” Jamie whirled around to look at Claire.

“I said I’d take you to our living child,” she said evenly, too evenly. “He’s right there.”

She pointed her finger somewhere behind Jamie, and he turned. His brows were knitted together, his heart hammering with uncertainty. What could it mean, if their child was here?

Then it hit him, like a blow to the face.

Fergus was sitting in the corner, alone, cupping something in his hands that his head was bowed over. Jamie’s sight of the lad flashed in and out as dancing couples and shrieking children whirred past in front of him.

“I said I would show you my present as well as yours,” Claire said. “Your child, the one you can actually care for, is right there.”

Jamie felt an ice cold hand gripping his heart. Guilt.

“Claire, I…”

“When I left you, I thought you’d die,” she went on. “And leaving you tore me in two as much as it did knowing that I was leaving that boy orphaned. It eats me alive almost every night, thinking of him, abandoned. But you’re here, Jamie.”

Jamie took a hesitant step toward the lad, couples whooshing right through his non-corporeal form.

“You left me with one child,” she said, following him. “And I left you with another.”

The hand on his heart squeezed tighter, and Jamie wanted to wither away into nothing. He’d never seen it that way, not once. Claire thought he was dead, he should be dead. He was, in a way. He was no good to this lad.

“Why’s he no’ dancing, no’ eating…?” Jamie said, inching closer and closer. “The lad’s stomach has no bottom, and I ken he drinks the whisky though Jenny tells him no’ to. He should be having the time of his life.”

He took one final step, standing right above him now, and saw what Fergus was cradling in his hands.

Sawny.

Jamie swallowed thickly against the rush of tears.

“He wishes you were there, Jamie.”

Jamie shook his head. “Why should he…? I...I was cruel to him. He’s better off wi’ Jenny and Ian. They’ve a loving home, enough room in their hearts fer him. I’m…”

“His father,” Claire finished pointedly. “You’re his father, Jamie. I know it, you know it, and he knows it.”

“But I...wi’out you…”

“Yes. You are without me,” she said. “And so is he.”

Before Jamie could will his dry mouth to form a coherent sentence, the fiddler ceased, and the crowd applauded. Jenny appeared from behind them, approaching Fergus.

“I’ve barely seen ye eat a thing all night,” she said, half teasing. “What happened to that bottomless fool? Go and eat yer fill.”

“I am not hungry.” He didn’t look up from his hands.

“That’s no’ like you,” Jenny said, crossing her arms. “It’s also no’ like you to let those lasses dance wi’ the other lads.” She jutted her chin over her shoulder at the swaths of young girls holding hands with other lads around Fergus’s age. “Last year ye had at least three of them on yer heel at any given time.”

Fergus said nothing. Jenny’s cheerful mask faltered, and it tugged on Jamie’s heart. She sighed, giving up on taunting the lad with fun and food. She uncrossed her arms and knelt before him, covering his hands with her own.

“Ye ken ye can talk to me, Fergus,” she said softly. Jamie never ceased to be impressed by his sister’s warmth, by her ability to strike the fear of God in her bairns, and yet mother them with such beautiful softness.

Jamie could tell Fergus tried to squirm away, to avoid this, but that he was powerless to stop the silent tears that trickled down his cheeks.

“Fergus…”

“I miss her,” he said suddenly, his voice croaking.

“Aye,” Jenny said sadly. “I do, too.”

“And I...I hate him.”

Jenny’s face momentarily blanched with pain, but she swallowed and hardened her resolve again. “Who?”

“I hate Milord. I hate him,” he spat through clenched teeth. He still did not look up from their joined hands. “I thought he was different. But he is a liar.”

“Different than what, lad?”

“Than...than all the others who abandoned me since I was born.” His voice finally broke, a heartbreaking little sob escaping his lips. Jamie was suddenly painfully aware how young Fergus still was; he was not the grown man that he’d have everyone believe he was. Jamie felt his heart cleave in two, acutely aware that he was causing those tears.

Jenny’s throat bobbed, her eyes glistening. “Oh, lad...ye ken that he…”

“I thought he was different.” It was almost a growl. Fergus finally picked his head up to look Jenny in the eye, his eyes red. “He is not.”

He stood then, wrenching his hands from Jenny’s grip and tossing the wooden snake aside, sending it clattering across the floor. Jenny called after him in vain, and Fergus stormed up the stairs and out of sight. Defeated, Jenny sighed and reached for the discarded toy. She pressed it to her heart and closed her eyes briefly before getting up to tend to her guests again, cheery mask back in place.

Jamie turned to look at Claire, but she was staring at the stairs after Fergus, and he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and comfort her. But even if he could touch her, he knew he was not worthy of giving her this comfort when he was the reason she needed it.

“Do you see?” Claire said, her voice filled with such sorrow that it almost drowned Jamie’s hollow heart. “You told him you loved him like a son, then abandoned him. You gave him that joy of finding a family, and then took it away. Jenny and Ian’s love can’t replace that hope you gave him of having something of his own. And since you sent me away, the least you can do is uphold that promise you made him.”

Jamie hadn’t realized...hadn’t realized that in saying that he’d been making the lad a promise. How could he have been so unknowingly cruel…?

And God, Claire’s voice was so full of shame. She was so ashamed of him, ashamed of how he treated their son. She lie in agony every night wondering about his fate, fate that he held in his hands. And he was failing her, failing him.

“I…” His voice was dry and cracked. “I dinna ken how...how do I…” He ran his hands over his face. “I’m such a miserable wretch wi’out ye...I canna...find the strength…”

“Do you think you’re the only miserable wretch, Jamie?”

Her voice was not cold, and perhaps that was why Jamie shivered. She held out the pearls to him again, waiting.

“There’s something else you need to see.”

My present as well as yours.

His heart skipped a beat, his stomach flipped. Without a moment’s hesitation, he reached out to grasp the pearls, and the melted wax reappeared all around him. He looked deeply into Claire’s eyes, and he could swear that she was brimming with nervousness. Even despite her shame at his treatment of Fergus, she was unable to suppress the emotion of bringing him into this life, bringing him to the baby he’d sent away with her.

The world reformed itself around them, and Jamie immediately knew they were truly in a different place. It was daylight where she’d taken him, yet evidence of that electricity was present on an evergreen in the corner of the room they stood in. A parlor by the looks of it. The tree glowed beautifully, and Jamie could not stop staring at it. There were baubles on the branches that bounced the light around, and a glowing star on the top. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen, yet still familiar. There was garland and holly on the fireplace, around the trim, the likes of which even Jenny would be proud of. He noticed, too, odd-looking, oversized red stockings hanging over the fireplace. And then he remembered:

“Be Yuletide by the time we get back to Leoch.”

“Christmas...I don't suppose you hang stockings by the fire.”

“To dry them off, ye mean?”

A small smile, pinkening the tips of her ears and nose. “Never mind.”

This was the image in her mind that night, a picture of domestic bliss. Jamie choked on the memory, blinking away tears. 

“Come on, Mama!”

Jamie’s heart stopped.

“It’s Christmas morning,” Claire explained softly. “That’s when we open gifts in this time.”

She gestured to the small pile of boxes under the evergreen, red and green, shiny and tied off with bows.

“I saw! I saw all the presents Santa brought!”

The little voice filled Jamie’s ears again, and he could have collapsed to his knees.

“Oh, you did?”

A breathy laugh escaped Jamie’s lips.

“Did you count them?”

“There were a hundred!”

The far-away Claire laughed softly. “Are you sure about that?”

“Uh-huh! Come on!”

And then there they were.

He saw the fiery mop of curls first; his eyes went straight to it. The bairn was wearing loose fitting trousers and a button shirt, red and green, matching the boxes under the evergreen. He raked his eyes over the hand that the child clasped and up the length of the delicate arm, eventually landing on Claire’s face.

Jamie bit back a sob.

She’s so sad.

Yes, she was smiling, the corners of her eyes crinkled, but there was something lingering beneath that broke his heart.

And the bairn had no idea.

Claire was wearing a set of trousers and a button shirt that matched what the bairn was wearing, and he realized at once that his assumption that the child was a lad could very well have been incorrect if Claire was wearing trousers as well. Anything was possible in this time, he supposed.

“Christ…” Jamie couldn’t breathe, his chest was tight. Yet, the first thing that came out of his mouth was: “What’ve ye done to yer hair…?”

Spirit-Claire chuckled, running a hand through her long curls. “That’s the style of the time,” she explained, gesturing to her other self’s cropped, loosely styled curls. “Usually it’s neater than that; you’d probably hate it even more.”

Jamie made a Scottish noise in the back of his throat, but moved closer to the pair of them. The child was kneeling before the evergreen now, and Claire sat cross-legged nearby.

“Here, let’s count them,” Claire said. The bairn seemed not to hear, picking up another box and shaking it next to a little ear. “Come on, I know you’ve been working very hard on counting in school, haven’t you?”

“Where’s Daddy? I wanna open them!”

Claire momentarily seemed like she’d received a needle prick between her eyes, blinking and flinching almost imperceptibly. But then it was gone, replaced again by that sweet, motherly smile. “You have no patience at all.”

“Nope!”

Before the child could scramble away, Claire seized her or him around the middle and brought the little body into her lap.

“School…?” Jamie breathed. “Old enough for that already?”

“They start their first year at four years old here,” Spirit-Claire explained. “It’s called kindergarten.”

Jamie repeated the foreign word. “Sounds German.”

“It is.”

Claire was relentlessly tickling the squirming bairn in her lap, eliciting high-pitched squeals and pealing laughter.

“Our child is bright, already counting all the way to twenty,” Spirit-Claire said. “Even though they only go up to ten in school.”

Jamie laughed inaudibly, his chest swelling with pride. He noticed then that Claire was being deliberately careful about how she addressed the child. “Ye dinna plan to tell me if it’s a lass or a lad then? Or a name?”

Claire shook her head. “I can’t.”

Tears of anger burned his eyes, his throat. “I’m never to know, then.”

It wasn’t a question, but a savage growl of acceptance.

Claire smiled, a soft, tiny smile. “Not never.”

Before Jamie could demand that she elaborate on that:

“Daddy!”

“Here I am!”

Jamie really almost fainted.

Claire had been right about the resemblance.

The bairn darted over to the twin of the man that still tormented Jamie’s mind, and he bent down and scooped up the little body like it was nothing. Resemblance there might be, but there was none of that brooding darkness, none of the twisted sadism in his eyes as he held the child — his child, Jamie supposed — on his hip and kissed the curly red head.

“Merry Christmas, Daddy!”

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” the man crooned softly. It sent a chill down Jamie’s spine, despite the warmth, genuine warmth he heard in his voice.

“He’s good to us,” Spirit-Claire interrupted before he could fully spiral. “I promise, Jamie. He’s nothing like him. He’s a good father.”

He watched the man, Frank, plop a ridiculous red hat trimmed with white wool, a white puff dangling from the end, atop his child’s head, laughing as it fell over the tiny brow, and he knew in his heart that Claire spoke true.

“You left your hat in your room,” Frank said, carrying the child back to the evergreen. “Can’t have that, can we?” “No way!” the child said as Frank put him or her down. The wee thing pushed the too-big hat so that it was no longer blocking any vision, and a wee bottom plopped back down onto the floor in front of the shiny boxes.

“Merry Christmas, darling,” Frank said softly, leaning down to grant a peck of a kiss to Claire’s lips.

“Merry Christmas,” Claire answered, allowing the kiss, returning it.

Jamie momentarily saw red, and he had to blink several times to keep his rage at bay.

He could feel Claire’s tension beside him, feel her glowing presence become brighter and hotter. She didn’t say anything, neither did Jamie. He had no right to, having sent her to him himself. This is what he had wanted.

But neither could he deny that something was missing in that small peck.

And she was so sad.

Frank sat down on one of the couches and Claire remained on the floor, seemingly as far away from him as she could get.

“Can I open now?” the child demanded, looking back and forth between the adults.

“Go on, lovie,” Claire crooned.

Without a moment’s hesitation, little hands dove under the evergreen for a red box. “I wanna open one from Daddy first!”

Jamie saw red again as Frank chuckled softly. It was wrong, the rage he felt at this man’s joy and comfort. There was something remarkable about him choosing to raise this child as his own, something comforting about him taking such joy in doing so. He really loved Claire and Jamie’s child; it didn’t seem like an obligation.

But it boiled Jamie’s blood nonetheless, knowing that it should have, could have been him.

The Claire sitting on the floor watched her child tear the paper off the box, a vague, placid smile on her face. Jamie could not see what lay beneath the paper, but the wean gasped dramatically, flinging aside more paper and bits of what appeared to be a box and fished out from the pile two figurines of horses.

Frank was beaming with glee. “Do you like them?”

“I love them!” The wean held them up higher, illuminating them by the strange lights on the evergreen. Jamie’s breath caught in his throat.

It was a pair, a large black horse and a smaller white one.

Our horses.

Spirit-Claire said nothing as she and Jamie watched what happened next. The Clarie by the evergreen abruptly stood up.

“Claire?” Frank called after her as she bolted from the room.

“I’m going to make some coffee,” she blurted. “And hot chocolate.”

The child broke into an even wider grin, clapping his or her hands in excitement.

“Don’t wait for me.”

“Claire, what  — ”

“I won’t open any that say ‘Mama’ without you!”

Claire didn’t answer. The child didn’t skip a beat, setting the horses aside and moving onto one that said “from Santa,” whatever that meant. Frank ran a hand down his face, unnoticed, buried by the sound of paper tearing.

Jamie didn’t hesitate before following Claire out of the room, trailed close behind by Spirit-Claire. They were led by Present-Claire into a room the likes of which Jamie had never seen. The floor was hard and cold, and so were bits of the wall. There was a great metal box topped with coils, bits of metal that vaguely resembled a water pump, a great white box.

Before Jamie could ask spirit-Claire what the devil he was looking at, the Claire they’d been following collapsed to the floor in the middle of the room, hugging herself around the middle. All else fell away but the need to comfort her, to hold her. Jamie fell to his knees before her, reaching for her, and, of course, finding nothing but thin air beneath his fingers.

“Mo nighean donn…” he whispered brokenly, watching as she shook with silent sobs, sputtering into a hand clamped over her mouth to keep herself quiet. “Claire...I’m here...It’s alright…”

Spirit-Claire didn’t need to tell him; he knew that she couldn’t hear him, that he wasn’t really there.

He muttered in Gaelic, his heart splintering, his hands burning with the need to shelter her from this pain. He was also overcome with rage; Frank sat in the next room, content to let Claire fall apart like this alone, without a comfort in the world. If Jamie were there, were this his house, his family, he’d drop everything to follow her, to coax out of her what troubled her, to apologize for unknowingly upsetting her…

Of course the man couldn’t have known. But Claire’s reaction was clear as day.

Yet here she was, alone.

“My poor lass…” Jamie muttered, silent tears trickling down his cheeks. “I’m sorry...I’m so sorry...I wish I could…”

Then she wiped her face with both hands, taking deep heaving breaths before pushing herself off the floor. She wavered for a moment, and Jamie instinctively reached out to steady her before logic could remind him that he couldn’t. She got her bearings and then made her way to the white box, opening a door and retrieving a bottle filled with what could only be milk. She continued crying quietly, sniffling and shuddering as she poured milk into a small pot atop the coils on the metal box. A fire lit beneath the pot, and through his awe, Jamie realized.

She was using that contraption to make the bairn’s hot chocolate, even as she wept through waves of pain.

She put a different sort of pot on a second coil, likely for the coffee. After the fire was lit beneath the coffee pot, Claire backed away, leaning on one of the counters, breathing heavily.

“Buck up, Beauchamp.”

Those three words, uttered through her teeth, a command, a demand of herself...that was what had Jamie fully weeping.

She’s so, so sad.

Several moments passed of Claire leaning on the counter for dear life, sniffling and shuddering silently, and then the pitter-patter of little feet entered the room.

Claire instantly pushed off the counter, wiping her face and donning a brilliant smile. Jamie watched in awe as Claire greeted her child, smiling and cooing even with her face still stained with tears.

“Look, see?” Claire said, lifting the wean onto her hip. “Your milk is heating.”

“Can I put a candy cane in my hot chocolate?”

“Of course you can.” Claire nuzzled the curls that peeked out from the bottom of the silly red hat. “And,” Claire spun them around, bringing them to the white box where the milk had come from, “Christmas cookies for breakfast.” She clung to the child in one arm and reached up for a container atop the white box with the other. The child squealed with glee.

“Do I get to eat them in the living room?”

“On Christmas? Certainly.”

Claire popped a cookie in her mouth, having opened the tin, and the child opened his or her little mouth expectantly, and Claire obliged, causing them both to giggle with mouths full of cookies, things that vaguely resembled biscuits, Jamie decided.

“Go on, bring these to Daddy. I’ll be right in.” Claire set the child back on the floor, placing the tin of cookies in eager hands.

“Okay, but hurry. I really really really wanna open the big one that says ‘from Mama’!”

Claire chuckled softly, then crouched down to kiss the child’s little nose. “I’ll be as fast as I can.”

With that, Claire was left alone again, bare feet echoing and disappearing. The mask immediately melted away, and that bone-tired grief, that sadness returned, physically sagging her shoulders, making her look smaller.

“How…?” Jamie breathed, watching as she poured some of the warm milk into a porcelain-looking mug and mixed in a brown powder.

He couldn’t finish his thought through the rush of tears clogging his throat: How can she pretend that well?

“You aren’t the only one who is unhappy, Jamie,” Spirit-Claire spoke for the first time in a long while. Present-Claire reached up into a cabinet and retrieved a curved red and white stick, putting the straight end into the mug and hooking the curve on the edge, allowing a tiny smile as she did.

“But you go on for the ones you love.”

Jamie felt that ice cold hand again, and he simultaneously felt like he would burn alive with shame. Here Claire was, being strong for her child, their child, and Jamie could not manage to do the same for the son she’d left behind with him.

He watched Claire pour coffee into two more mugs, and then Frank appeared.

“Are ehm...are you alright?”

Claire nodded wordlessly, her back still to him. “Coffee’s done. Grab the hot chocolate, would you?”

Frank nodded wordlessly, even though her back was still all he could see. “I’ll just…”

Without another word, he left. Present-Claire sighed heavily, two mugs in hand, and followed after him, her chin held high.

Christ...she’s a brave wee thing.

“Jamie.”

He jolted, having stared after her long after she left the room with the coffee. He turned around to Spirit-Claire, and she was holding the pearls out to him again.

“It’s time to go.”

He swallowed and walked toward her. “Claire...I...I’m sorry...I didna…”

“Did you think I was happy?” The pearls lowered. Her tone wasn’t accusatory, not at all. It was even, gentle. “Did you think it was somehow easier for me?”

“I...ye’re...ye’re stronger than me, mo ghraidh. Ye always have been.”

“Oh, Jamie…” Her face softened, her amber eyes turning liquid.

“Will ye...will ye be gone when I touch these…?”

Claire pursed her lips, nodding.

Jamie exhaled shakily. “Christ...it’s like losing ye again…”

“I’ll be back,” she said softly, but did not elaborate. This was not the first time her spirit had graced his fevered dreams, nor would it be the last, he was sure.

“I love you, Claire.”

“I love you.”

He went to reach for her, to close the distance between them, but she lifted the pearls again, halting him.

“You made our daughter a promise...will you make me a promise?”

Jamie nodded, his chin trembling. “Anything, Claire. Anything.”

“You have to be present for him.”

Jamie blinked dumbly.

“He needs you.”

He swallowed thickly.

“Promise me.”

“I…” Silent tears slipped out again. “I’ll try, Claire. I promise I’ll try.”

She nodded, her lips taut.

“Go on, Jamie. Time is running out.”

He watched the string of pearls dangling, swinging back and forth like a pendulum. 

“I love you,” he said again, reaching his fingers toward the pearls.

“And I, you.”

His fingers closed around them, and when Jamie fell to his knees in the pitch-black cave, he was met with unfathomable despair. He could still feel the phantom, white-hot touch of his daughter’s little hand, even if he couldn’t hold her himself. But Claire…

She never touched me.

He wept quietly, all while knowing that the trials of this night were far from over.

[thesassenachswiftie]

Lover Chapter 7: “Afterglow”

Read on AO3

Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5 // Chapter 6

Summary: A chance meeting at a football game from Jamie's perspective, and what happens under the bleachers.

Notes: Thanks so much for reading and all your kind comments on the last chapter! I promise we're almost "Out of the Woods" as far as angst goes (for now).

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter 7: Afterglow

Jamie’s heart was still aching a month after Claire left him. However, his pride kept him from reaching out to her. The truth is, he’d forgiven everything she’d done and everything she could do long before that day. For him, that was no choice. That was falling in love. He threw himself into his work on the farm and his family. Helping Jenny with meals, driving the children to various practices and scout meetings, helping Ian with the unending harvest September brought.

On this particular Friday evening, Jamie found himself at his nephew Ian’s homecoming game. He tried to pay attention to the game, but he really couldn’t wrap his head around the complexities of American football. It was so stop-and-go--what exactly was a ‘down’? It reminded him of battle maps of the Rising he’d seen in a history textbook when he was in high school in Scotland. Naturally, his thoughts drifted to Claire. As the cold September air wrapped around him, he felt it was fitting. His heart had been cold, frozen without Claire’s light and love for the past month. He could have buttoned his jacket, but what was the point of feeling warm?

He didn’t even realize it was half time, until he heard the marching band start playing.  Everything around him was bright and alive, he felt like an island, detached from his surroundings, drifting in the waves. In truth he’d been living like an island all month. He decided to get some snacks to distract himself. He hadn’t sat like this without a distraction all month. At least with Kitty’s soccer games he could focus on the game. Here, where the game was an enigma to him, he needed a task to deter his restless mind.

           “I’m going to go get something to eat, anyone want anything?” he asked his family.  A barrage of orders came at him from his nieces and nephews, and he recited them back--intentionally messing up their orders (much to their amusement) before correcting himself and making his way up the bleachers.

           It was on his way back down that he spotted an unmistakable mop of curly brown hair and almost dropped the snacks he just shelled out twelve American dollars for. Sassenach. His heartbeat immediately picked up to match the beat of the marching band. God, she was beautiful, but she looked so fragile there, cold and alone, head down, wearing a muted blue grey jacket that seemed to match the air around her. He suddenly realized how stupid he’d been all month to ignore her. He’d punished her with silence. How many times had he typed a text to her only to erase it without pressing send? How many times had he pulled up her contact but couldn’t press the call button? Now seeing her like this, she looked so utterly broken. It was excruciating to see her so low. Had his own pride allowed him to do this to her? I blew things out of proportion now you’re blue. He wanted to wrap her up until he saw that beautiful spark light up her face again. He just wanted to lift her up and not let her go. Before he knew it he was beside her, “Claire?”

           “Hi Jamie, fancy seeing you here!” He had no idea how to reply, it was as if he had gone mute. He just stared into those whiskey eyes that looked so full of sorrow. He almost started to reach out to her, forgetting the concessions he was holding. Luckily, she offered to help him carry them and before he knew it they were headed down the bleachers together.

           When she agreed to sit with him his heart was soaring. If simply sitting next to her was all he could have for the rest of his life, it would be enough. I don’t wanna lose this with you. They were actually able to talk and even flirt a bit as she tried to watch the game, but his eyes couldn’t leave her. He felt so comfortable with her, they just seemed to fit together effortlessly. She was so close he could smell her shampoo, something herbal that he couldn’t quite pin down. It wasn’t fruity or overpoweringly floral like some women he had met in his life--it suited her. Having her there, inches from her made him feel bold. He formulated a plan in his head to get her alone, he needed to be closer to her, but not with his entire family right there.

           He had ended his bold, flirtatious exchange by winking to make it abundantly clear what he was asking her. She had seemed responsive. Her face lit up like it had so many times over the summer they shared. He was starting to sweat despite the chill in the air pacing underneath the away team’s bleachers as he waited for her. How long should he wait? What if she wasn’t coming? What if she saw this opportunity to leave again? It’s all me, Claire, just don’t go, please, come to me mo nighean donn.

           After what seemed like an eternity, she came to him. He heard her feet soft on the gravel, approaching him in the dark. He saw his opportunity, and met her, taking her in his arms as soon as he could, ready to take her mouth as he had imagined so many times in the past month.  How many times had he imagined kissing her again? How many times had he tried to recreate their last night together—conjuring the thought of pinning her hands behind her back and making love to her in the soft light of their hotel bed.  He wished he had committed every moment to memory, not knowing it could have been their last. None of that mattered now, his Sassenach had returned to his arms--but just like that, she was gone again running away--but he wouldn’t let her go this time. Don’t walk away. He pulled her back and set her straight. Poor, beautiful, broken, Claire collapsed before him. He sat with her, trying to calm and comfort her, when she could speak, she confessed she was afraid.  

           “Claire, there now, what are you scared of?”

           “I don’t wanna--I don’t wanna do this to you” she sobbed, choking out the words.

           “Claire, what are you talking about?” he could see the pain on her face and he needed to explain, needed to say his piece. “I’m to blame Claire, I see your pain, I should’ve come after you, I shouldn’t have let you leave.”

           “He, it’s all me, in my head. I’m the one who burned us down. I just tried to leave you again, but it’s not what I meant. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know if we can put this back together. I don’t know what’s going to happen to us.”

           “Is this it? Chemistry ‘til it blows up, ‘til there’s no us? Is that what you want?” He placed his thumb under her chin, lifting her head so their eyes could meet. She didn’t look away. “Claire, please just tell me what you want.” Tell me that I’m all you want.

           “I--I don’t know what I want. I thought I did, but now--” she paused. Jamie could tell she was thinking, and let her mind work as he stared into her beautiful amber eyes. Claire could see her pain reflected in his own eyes. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him a month ago in the car, she knew now if she had she would have seen it then too.  He was just as broken as she was. Why’d I have to break what I love so much? Her tears started flowing freely again. “Oh Jamie, I put you in jail for something you didn’t do. I’m sorry that I hurt you. How can you ever forgive me? After all I’ve done--how can we be just fine, how can we be together?”

           “I forgive you, I’ve forgiven you. I swear to it, I wanted to text you, to call you. I let my pride get in the way. I just need to know, Claire, I need to know where your heart’s at now. Tell me that you’re still mine. I need to hear you say it.”  

           Claire realized in that moment that she was fighting with true love. It was like boxing with no gloves--futile, hopeless and most of all painful. She couldn’t keep herself from him no matter how hard she tried.  I thought I had reason to attack, but no. What did she want? She wanted him. She wanted him to be the one by her side, the one she told when she finally got into a residency program. The one to celebrate life’s victories big and small. The one to be there as she put her life together. She knew she couldn’t put it back together without him. He had bared himself to her, and she knew he wasn’t going to let her get away with silence. It was her turn to share her feelings. “Jamie, I want to be with you. More than I’ve ever wanted anything. It terrifies me, but I can’t help it. I’m drawn to you; I can’t explain it”

           Jamie’s hand was still on her face, thumb stroking her cheek, as she spoke, he took her hand in his other hand, entwining their fingers together. Something about this moment told him this love was worth the fight. “Aye, Sassenach, I feel it too. I don’t ken what it is, but I think we’re meant to honor it.” Claire nodded in agreement. They had been drawing in closer to one another as apologies and declarations were made in the dark. Each moment they shared under the bleachers, their faces inched closer together. “Claire, I would very much like to kiss you” he whispered, “May I?”

           “Yes” came her breathless reply.

           Instantly, their mouths were joined. Slowly, tentatively they reacquainted their lips before opening to each other fully. Tongues finding their way back between open lips, teeth finding their way to lower lips. All the pent-up passion of the last month culminated into one enduring kiss.

           Claire finally managed to pull away, realizing where they were. For a moment, they basked in the afterglow of their reunion, meeting again after a painful month of separation, each living a half life. “Jamie,” she panted, slightly out of breath, “take me home.”

           “As ye wish, Sassenach.” he replied, rising to help her to her feet and slipping his arm firmly around her and kissing the side of her head as he led her to the car.

End Notes: This chapter actually has two complete iterations. I orginally wrote it as "Me!" and it worked pretty well, I was actually pretty proud of myself for using such a catchy pop song for such an emotionally weighty chapter. However, as I started to write Chapter 8, I realized "Afterglow" didn't fit after they'd already hashed everything else out. The title really threw me, because we're "meeting in the Afterglow" in the future, but the lyrics hold the emotional weight. I think I'll post the "Me!" chapter as an outtake in case anyone wants to read it, since I am pretty proud of it. Stay tuned for that later.

Thanks again for reading!

[gallavictorious]

Gallavich Week Day 2: Fantasy AU

Summary: Prince Ian is offered up as a sacrifice to appease one of the dragons that haunt his father’s kingdom. Rather than being burned alive or eaten he is inexplicably left to wander the dragon’s lair in peace, as long as he never tries to leave and never enters the mysterious tower chamber. Then he meets fellow prisoner Mikhailo and starts to wonder if maybe this whole sacrificial gig isn’t such a bad deal after all.

Or, Ian Gallagher tells a bedtime story, and Mickey Milkovich is himself.

Fair Warning 1: There’s some Mickey-typical homophobic language in this one.

Fair Warning 2: I wrote all ridiculous 5K of this today (work? what work?) and it’s a little bit of a curious mess. Like, the sort of curious mess you get if you take Lip’s Hall of Shame, @gardenerian’s lovely bedtime stories, the novel “Dealing with Dragons” by Patricia Wrede, the Swedish picture book “Bröllop i Marsipanien” by Lena Karlin, the Greek myth of Andromeda, a bunch of folk tales about shapeshifting lovers, and the questionable old practice of MSTing fics, and then you stuff them all into a Kee and shake her around for a bit and then you pour it out into the shape of a 12 hour long and highly inadvisable speedwriting session.

Read it at your own risk, below or on AO3.

Very Important Note: I make fun of fic writing in this fic. Please note that I’m only making fun of myself and general tropes; any and all allusions to actual fic in the fandom is entirely coincidental.

---

Lest They Say, Here Be Dragons

Hush now, child; settle down. Close your eyes – yes, just like that – and listen:

Once upon a time and elsewhere, there was a kingdom. The people there were no happier than people anywhere else, and poorer than most, but they made do and lived and danced and grieved and died as people have always done.

Jesus, that’s gay.

That is, until the dragons came.

Okay, now you’re talking.

Like a plague they swept the land, winged beasts with fire for breath and ice in their hearts. Every night the fields burned, and the villages burned, and the cattle burned and was eaten. Many a brave people took up arms and went to confront the monsters, and then they burned too.

Heart-broken and terrified, the people went to the king to plead for aid. “Send an emissary to the dragons,” they said. “Reason with them and strike a bargain, or else we are sure to perish.”

What a bunch of pussies. What they should do is, they should use a bunch a cow shit to build a bomb and nuke the hell out of those dragons. Problem fucking solved.

Now, this king was a scoundrel and a drunk and the queen had an unfortunate habit of turning herself into a bird and flying off to more interesting lands whenever the mood took her. They had six children but rarely paid them any mind and fair Princess Fiona, eldest of the six, was left to raise her younger siblings as best she could. False King Francis would have been perfectly content to turn his desperate subjects away if it weren’t for the fact the dragons unchecked rampage threatened the production of the spirits the king so enjoyed. So, donning a mask of compassionate concern, for he was a skilled liar, he promised the people that he would help them. But as soon as they had left, comforted, he turned the task over to his children.

The second oldest child, foxy Prince Philip—

Foxy Prince Philip?

Yeah, you know. Foxy. Like clever.

Why not just say clever then?

‘Cause it’s not alliterative.

Alliter—

Starts with the same sound. Foxy – Philip. Fair – Fiona.

Oh, I get it. Like, Ian – idiot. Ow!

Foxy Prince Philip was known far and wide for being the cleverest in all the land, and by using all his cunning he managed to strike a deal with the leader of the dragons.

“By using all his cunning.” Skimming over the details a bit there, huh?

You really want me to turn this into a Prince Philip story? Hear me go on and on about what a genius he is?

…

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

It was agreed that the dragons would spread out over the kingdom, each one building their own place to live near a village, and that the villagers would bring them food and drink. In turn, the dragons would refrain from casual pyromancy and protect the villagers from harm.

Protection racket, huh. Classic. Starting to like these dragons, man.

In addition, the cruel leader of the dragons demanded that each dragon be offered a child of the land in sacrifice. No matter how Prince Philip bargained he could not change the dragon’s cold heart on this—

Guess he wasn’t so clever after all.

—and so, with heavy hearts and much lamenting, each village drew lots to determine which poor child would be sent as an offering to their new resident dragon. However, in the village nearest to the castle the people grew angry when the beloved blacksmith’s only child, a small girl of just four, was selected, and they went to the king and they said:

“It isn’t fair that some people are asked to give up their only child to appease the dragons while you, who have six children, are exempt from the lottery.”

King Francis, fearing an uprising as much as he feared the dragons (since each was as likely as the other to leave him without a drink), quickly nodded.

“That’s true,” he said. “And fairness must ever be the true monarchs first and most important concern. Though it breaks my heart, I can’t in good conscience watch my people sacrifice their own children without offering up my own. You may take Prince Ian and give him to the dragon.”

At this, the other princes and princesses raised their voices in furious protest, for they loved their brother even if their father did not. But industrious Prince Ian—

Industrious? That really the best you can come up with?

—stepped forward and declared that he’d be happy to give up his life, so that the child of the blacksmith might be spared. And so, as the sunt set, he was taken away to the lair of the dragon that had made its home near the castle.

So let me get this straight… The king is happy to toss Prince Ian to the wolves ‘cause he hates him, and his siblings are all sad and shit but they still let him go off to get fucking eaten by dragons?

Yes.

Uh-huh.

What?

…

Oh, fuck you. It’s just a story.

Totally.

Stepping into the lair, with heart a-hammering but on stubbornly steady legs, Prince Ian set eyes upon the beast that was to be his destiny. He was momentarily relieved to see it was not the terrible leader of the dragons, as he had feared, but a smaller monster he did not recognize. Black was its hide, its eyes a cold sparkling blue—

Gallagher, I swear to god, if you turn me into some lame ass henchman dragon—

Keep interrupting, asshole, and it’ll be a pink fucking unicorn. And hang on, you’ll show up in a little bit.

Setting his jaw, Prince Ian prepared to die a heroic death—

‘Course he did, the stupid motherfucker. Hey, if Prince Philip was so fucking smart, and if he gave a shit about his brother, shouldn’t he have given him, I dunno, a knife or something?

Prince Ian prepared to die a heroic death, because unlike some other people he was not a selfish prick and he actually cared about the people of the kingdom, but much to his surprise the dragon did not burn him. Instead, it just stared at him for a good long while, until suddenly it declared:

“You must never leave the lair, and you must never set foot inside the tower chamber. Abide by these rules and you may live. Break these rules and I’ll rip your heart out and eat it while you watch, and then I’ll burn the castle down with your beloved siblings inside.”   

You tell him, dragon.

With that the dragon took flight and disappeared, leaving Prince Ian to stand alone in the great hall of the lair, confused but alive. The young prince remained where he was for a few minutes, thinking that the dragon might come back, but when it did not he set out to explore his new home. It was big, with endless rooms and nooks and crannies, but it was badly kept, with strange bits and pieces cluttering up the hallways and chambers. Prince Ian found some old blankets and he used those to set up a pallet in one of the nicer rooms, one that had a view over a small, overgrown garden. And then, because it was very late and he was not dead, he went to sleep.

The next day he continued his explorations and managed to find the kitchen. It was full with the meat that the villagers brought the dragon once a month, and remembering that the beast had only forbidden him from leaving the lair and going into the tower chamber, Prince Ian helped himself to a piece of pork that he cooked over a small fire.

Hang on, was there a fridge in the kitchen?

No. This was the olden days.

But the villagers came once a month with the meat? How did the dragon keep from rotting?

That’s not really—

Was it dried? Like a Slim Jim?

… sure. It was dried.

As he was eating, Prince Ian heard a sudden scraping noise behind him.

The hell did he cook it over a fire for then, if it was dried?

He looked up and spied another young man standing in the doorway.

I’m just saying, it doesn’t make any fucking sense, man. Wait, is this me?

Prince Ian frowned. “Who are you?” he asked. “Are you a prisoner of the dragon too?”

The boy shrugged. “Uh, yeah. I guess. I mean, I do some work around here. Clean up and shit, in exchange for not getting eaten. Name’s Mikhailo.”

About fucking time. Only, how is it fair that you get to be prince and I’m a fucking cleaner?

Prince Ian tactfully did not mention how the lair was impressively dirty for a place with a fulltime cleaner but invited Mikhailo to share his meal. As they ate, Prince Ian studied his new acquaintance. He was the same age as but shorter than the prince, with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony.

Hair as black as— The hell was that?

Nothing.

Yeah, okay, then why are you smiling? Eh, fuck you. Prince Ian’s fucking thirsty for Mikhailo, I get it.

Though his manner was somewhat brusque and uncouth, Prince Ian could not help but feel himself drawn to Mikhailo. The boy was funny and easy to talk to, even if he seemed reluctant to say too much about himself or where he came from. Prince Ian tried asking him about the dragon, but despite apparently having lived there ever since the dragon moved in, Mikhailo couldn’t tell him much.

“Hardly ever even see it, man. At dusk and dawn mostly, so I guess it spends the night flying around with the other dragons, terrorizing the peasants or whatever. During the day it holes up in the tower chamber. Guess dragons must sleep too, huh? Don’t fucking go up there,” he added sternly. “It ain’t fucking kidding about killing you if you do.”

Having found a friend, Prince Ian found that life at the dragon’s lair wasn’t all that bad. He missed his siblings and being outdoors and practicing with the soldiers at the castle, and he resented the loss of his freedom, but he enjoyed the peace and quiet, and enjoyed spending time with Mikhailo. However, one thing he soon grew very tired of was eating nothing but meat. The dragon didn’t seem to require anything else, for it was the only thing the villagers ever delivered, and Mikhailo – whose tasks included receiving the monthly tribute – just gave Prince Ian a weird look when Ian suggested he ask the people to bring some vegetables next month.

“That ain’t the deal they’ve got with the dragon,” he told Ian. “Ain’t nobody gonna listen to me if I go trying to change it.”

Yeah, real Prince Charming there, wanting Mikhailo to risk his life so Ian can stuff his face with fucking cucumber.

Undeterred by Mikhailo’s lack of enthusiasm and courage—

Fuck you.

—Prince Ian decided to take it up with the dragon himself. In the weeks since he arrived at the lair, he hadn’t met the creature again, not even once; he’d just heard the powerful swoosh of its wings when it came and went at dusk and dawn. Now he went up the stairs to the tower chamber and there he waited until night had fallen and he noted the scraping of claws against stone inside the room. Then he knocked at the door.

There was a long silence. Then the door slammed open with enough force to nearly undo it from its hinges.

“What are you doing here?!” the dragon roared, terrible in its fury. “I’ve told you to never come here!”

“You’ve told me to never set foot inside the room,” Ian reasoned, fighting to keep his voice calm. “And I’m not. I just wanted to ask if I may have the use of the small garden just outside the lair. I miss being outdoors and I could grow vegetables for Mikhailo and me.”

Jesus Christ, man, again with gardening? Thought you were over it.

“You may never leave the lair,” the dragon, a garden-hating meanie, snarled, and then he closed the door in Prince Ian’s face.

As he fucking should.

“Probably worried one of the villagers will spot you and, I dunno, mount a rescue,” Mikhailo said shortly the next morning when Prince Ian told him of his failed attempt. “Anyway, you’re a fucking idiot for going up there like that. You get it won’t hesitate to kill you, right?”

“Right,” Ian agreed. “But,” he added with a frown, “why hasn’t it yet?”

“You fucking complaining?” Mikhailo snapped, and then he stalked away, and Ian didn’t see him again for three days.

Listen, you get that I get that Mikhailo is the dragon, right? You’re not fooling anyone, Gallagher.

Then, one day, fed up with the dragon being a really annoying prick, Prince Ian grabbed a huge sword he conveniently found lying around in a cupboard, because the lair was a fucking pigsty, suitable for a pig like the dragon, and he went up the stairs and kicked in the door and he cut the dragon’s throat while it slept, and then he went off and found himself a nice prince to marry.

…

…

That’s not how the story ends.

…

Hey, where are you going? Come back- Jesus, I’m sorry, okay? Gallagher, I’m sorry. Just come back here. Tell me what really happened.

Prince Ian woke with a start on his pallet in the lair. He’d had the most vivid dream about killing the dragon—

A dream? That’s the lamest fucking— Ah, fuck. Sorry.

—but for some reason it hadn’t felt as satisfying as he had thought it would. For all that Prince Ian often fantasized about strangling the beast, it seemed he didn’t actually wish to see it dead. With that disconcerting realization in mind, Prince Ian went to break his fast, resigned to doing so on meat and yet more meat. But in the kitchen he found Mikhailo, and on the table in front of him was a pile of cabbage and carrots and onions. 

“Guess the dragon must have talked to the villagers after all,” Mikhailo muttered, refusing to look at the prince. “And, uh, there was this thing I wanted to show you.”

Without waiting for a response, he spun around on his heel and walked out the door. Curious, Prince Ian followed, through doors and up and down stairs he never knew existed. Eventually, he found himself standing in what appeared to be an inner courtyard. It was small and the walls surrounding it very high, but up above the sky was blue. Prince Ian turned his face towards it and for the first time since he came to live at the dragon’s lair he felt sunlight on his face.

“It’s a shithole,” Mikhailo said. For some reason he sounded a little nervous. “But if you wanna go outside, you can come here. And there’s dirt in those bins, so I guess you could grow stuff in them? Just gotta wear this hat. Anyone sees you, they’ll just think it’s me.”

Privately, Prince Ian wondered who’d ever be able to see him behind walls that high, but he wasn’t going to argue. Wearing an ugly had was a small price to pay for being able to go outside, and to have a garden.

He gave Mikhailo a small smile; Mikhailo smiled back.

“Mikhailo smiled back.” Yeah, you bet he was laughing his ass off, ‘cause he thought Prince Ian was a huge fucking dork.

Things were good for a long while after that. Prince Ian spent his days in the garden and in Mikhailo’s company, and though he still resented being locked away from the world it was easy to ignore that when he had something to do and when his plants started to grow and when he was with Mikhailo. The two young men became closer and closer with each passing week, and soon it seemed to Prince Ian as if they had always known each other. He could no longer imagine a life without his friend.

He suspected that Mikhailo felt the same. It was there in the way he laughed at Prince Ian’s jokes; the way he sought him out to do nothing but talk; the way his gaze sometimes lingered on the prince, the look in his eyes unreadable.

Prince Ian suspected that Mikhailo too wondered what it would be like to press their lips together and hold each other tight. Sleep together; map every inch of each other’s bodies.

Hang on a minute, you’re telling me they haven’t fucked yet? The hell they’ve been doing?

I told you. Hanging out. Talking. Laughing.

Jesus Christ, that’s so fucking gay.

Two men not fucking each other is gay? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. One day we really need to talk about all your internalized homophobia.

My interna-what? Ah, shut the fuck up. Continue with the story. All these interruptions ain’t doing much for the flow, you know.

Really? I hadn’t noticed.

Prince Ian became determined to find out if Mikhailo felt the same way as he did. He realized that he needed to be careful, however, and not push too hard, lest he spook the other boy. Even though he was almost sure he could see longing in Mikhailo’s eyes, there seemed to be some invisible hand holding him back. Every time Prince Ian was convinced they were finally getting somewhere, Mikhailo would suddenly pull back, as if stung.

Or as if remembering something. Himself, maybe.

Bu then came a cold, clear autumn day almost exactly one year after Prince Ian had been taken to the dragon’s lair.

Whoa, wait, now you’re telling me they’ve been hanging out for one fucking year and they still haven’t banged?

What can I say? Mikhailo’s a pussy.

Whatever. This story is unrealistic as fuck.

Prince Ian and Mikhailo had spent the afternoon together in the garden, as they almost always did whenever Mikhailo wasn’t busy with any of his mysterious chores (which he still refused to tell Prince Ian much about, but which sometimes took him away from the lair for days at a time). Once it started getting dark they went inside and dined on chicken and potatoes from Prince Ian’s patch, and as so often happened they started bickering and play fighting.

If that’s something that happens a lot you might have mentioned it earlier. Established it or whatever. Those mysterious chores too. What’s that all about?

Oh, my bad. Maybe I should start over? Once upon and time—

Nah, man, you’re good. Just a suggestion for next time.

Thank you.

You’re welcome.

They were chasing each other around the kitchen when Mikhailo tripped over the muddy shoes he’d lazily left there the night before and fell to the floor.

You know these meaningful little comments ain’t actually clever, right? They don’t actually add anything to the story.

I like them.

Prince Ian, ever chivalrous, grabbed hold of his friend’s arm to break his fall, but ended up going down with him instead, pinning Mikhailo to the floor with his big, strong body.

Fucking finally.

Their eyes met and Prince Ian felt his heart starting to beat faster. He could see a faint blush spreading over Mikhailo’s face. Neither of them spoke; neither of them moved. Then, slowly, slowly, Prince Ian leaned in to brush his lips over Mikhailo’s. Mikhailo lifted his head to meet him in a kiss to end all other kisses, a kiss to inspire a thousand love songs.

Uh-huh, and then…

And then they went to Prince Ian’s room and had sex all night long. But when Prince Ian woke the next morning—

Wait, wait, what? That’s it? “They had sex all night long.” How about some fucking detail, man?

Fine.

After having great sex using lots of good lube all night long, Prince Ian woke up alone in his bed.

I hate you.

He went in search of Mikhailo but couldn’t find his friend anywhere. He looked in the garden and in the kitchen and he went to the sad little cellar chamber Mikhailo called his room even though Prince Ian had never actually seen him sleep there.

Because he’s the dragon and sleeps in the tower chamber. Great hint, Gallagher. Real subtle.

Fuck off.

A week passed and Prince Ian was starting to suspect that Mikhailo was gone for good this time. Perhaps the dragon had found out about their tryst and had sent him away? Or maybe Mikhailo was disgusted with what had happened and wanted nothing more to do with the prince? Prince Ian wondered and worried and feared, and when finally Mikhailo returned, stepping into the kitchen like nothing had happened, Prince Ian was so exhausted with terror and regret that his relief immediately transformed into fury.

He yelled at Mikhailo, called him names and demanded to know where he’d been. He named him a coward and—

…

Hey, what’s the matter? You okay?

Yeah. Yeah, man, I’m fine.

You don’t look— Listen, Prince Ian’s just being an asshole, okay? He saying a bunch of stupid shit ‘cause he’s sick and tired of not knowing if he means as much to Mikhailo as Mickhailo means to him. He doesn’t mean it.

…

Mick?

I mean… He probably means it a little. He’s not wrong.

No, he’s— Fine. He means it a little right then. But he is wrong, okay? He doesn’t really understand what’s going on with Mikhailo, but he’ll get it later. He’ll know he wasn’t being really fair.

… yeah?

Yeah. Okay?

Okay.

Great. Maybe we should speed this bit up a little—

Once Prince Ian had finished shouting, Mikhailo just stared at him for a long moment.

“You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about,” he spat, and then he spun around and disappeared through the door.

Prince Ian was immediately overcome with regret, yet he was still too angry and hurt and stubborn to run after the other. He went about his day in a very foul mood and when he went to bed that night Mikhailo was still gone. Prince Ian slept fitfully and in the middle of the night he woke to a loud crash, soon followed by several more. He realized it must have come form the tower chamber and after a moment of hesitation he grabbed his nightgown and rushed up the stairs.

So, he brought a nightgown with him when he thought the dragon was going to kill him?

Of course not. He found it in one of the rooms.

Yeah, okay, but why are there so many rooms in this fucking lair anyway? What’s with all the old stuff there? Didn’t the dragon build the place to live in like right before Prince Ian was sent there?

Mickey. It’s getting late and I’d really love to wrap this up and go to bed. It doesn’t really matter about the rooms. Can I just continue with the story?

Whatever, man. Just thought you should know there’s a bunch of plot holes in your little fairy tale.

 Once he reached the door to the forbidden room, the crashing noises had stopped. Instead, Prince Ian heard whimpers and moaning, as if from someone in great pain. It could only be the dragon – something must be wrong with it.

Yeah, ya think, Sherlock?

Prince Ian knocked on the door. There was no reply, other than more whimpers and moans. Steeling himself, he tried the handle. The door was unlocked.

That’s awfully convenient.

Stepping inside, Prince Ian found the dragon on the floor. It was clearly hurt, for there was dark blood pooling underneath it. As Prince Ian entered, the great beast lifted its head but said nothing and made no move to attack him. It seemed it was too badly hurt to pose any threat.

It occurred to Prince Ian that he could kill the dragon. He could go down to the kitchen and fetch the biggest knife there and then he’d be free and he could go back to the castle and his siblings and—

The dragon made a low, pained sound and let its head fall back to the floor, closing its eyes.

Prince Ian went down the stairs, but he didn’t fetch a knife, he fetched bandages instead. Though part of him cursed himself for a fool, he knew he couldn’t bring himself to kill the dragon, monster or not, and couldn’t bring himself to let it bleed to death either.

That’s a huge fucking mistake. Maybe the dragon never hurt him but it still kept him imprisoned. Prince Ian should be getting the hell out of there when he has the chance.

Hmm, yeah. Choosing to be locked up just to be the person you love does sound like a pretty insane thing to do.

Oh, fuck off. That’s totally different.

Sure, Mick.

By the time Prince Ian returned to the tower the dragon had lost consciousness. The prince set to cleaning and bandaging his wounds, having learned the art of it while training with a medical witch who lived at the castle. It took a great long while; the dragon was large and heavy and the cuts in its side long, if shallow. But Prince Ian was nothing if not determined and eventually he had the beast wrapped up.

As Ian moved to rise, the dragon stirred.

“The hell are you doing?” it muttered, blinking up at Ian. Then it spotted the bandages, and the ice blue eyes widened. “What the— Are you fucking insane? This is a... is a… real bad fucking idea… ”

It sounded… strange, and not just from the pain and blood loss, Prince Ian thought. Sounded not just slurred but softer somehow, in spite of the uncharacteristic cursing; sounded almost familiar; sounded like—

“Mikhailo,” Prince Ian whispered.

Ooooh, big surprise! I’m so shocked right now!

You know there are other uses for plot twists than to shock the reader, right? Or actually, I guess you don’t know, but if you picked up a book once in a while—

Yeah, yeah, whatever. What happened after this great and totally unexpected reveal?

The dragon lost consciousness again so Prince Ian went to bed and slept soundly and when he woke the next day he spotted Mikhailo leaning against the wall of his room, looking tired ad unhappy. He was even paler than usually and there was a stiffness to his posture that suggested quite a bit of pain, but other than that he seemed well enough.

“So,” Prince Ian said, trying for casualness as he sat up on his pallet. “You’re a dragon.”

Mikhailo shrugged. “Seems like it.”

“But only by night.”

“Yeah… We turn when the sun sets, and turn back again when it rises.”

“I didn’t know that about dragons.”

“No one around here fucking does. People realize how helpless we are during the day, they’d kill us in a heartbeat. My dad says— “

“Your dad?”

“The leader of the dragons. The really big, white one? This whole terror and extortion thing was his idea, once he realized that no one in this kingdom has a clue about dragons.”

“Oh.”

“He hates humans. Thinks they’re useless and weak. If he knew I kept you around instead of killing you, he’d have murdered us both.”

Jesus fucking Christ, laying it on a bit thick with the metaphysical shit there, don’t ya think?

You mean metaphorical?

I mean it’s fucking stupid, that’s what I mean.

Might be closer to allegory anyway.

Uh-huh. Nobody fucking cares, Shakespeare.

“So, anyway,” Mikhailo continued, “you should probably try to go as far away from here as possible. Find a ship and go across the sea or something.”

Prince Ian blinked. “What?”

“Yeah, man, you won’t be able to go back to your castle. No way to stay hidden there. I know this guy up in Dikno, he might—”

He fell silent as Prince Ian jumped up from the bed and crossed the space between them in two long strides, and then he gasped loudly as the prince’s lips found his.

It was another one to inspire love songs.

“You idiot,” Prince Ian said fondly when eventually they broke apart. “Of course I’m not going anywhere. Unless,” he added, suddenly shy, “you want me to.”

Mikhailo made a face. “No, you fucking moron, I don’t want you to go,” he finally said. “But my dad—”

“We’ll find a way to deal with him. We’ll figure out how to sort it out and set things right between humans and dragons. We’ll find a way, together. Okay?”

And Mikhailo the dragon looked at his prince for a long moment and then he smiled. “Okay.”

At his prince, huh. Surprised you got room for all those big words in your head when your ego’s taking up so much space. All right, then what happened?

They organized a rebellion against the leader of the dragons, I guess. I don’t really know. That’s another story.

What do you mean, another story? Is this it? You spend all that time setting it up but when you get to the good part with the fighting you just stop?

Yeah, it’s getting really late. Kid’s asleep anyway.

Kid’s been out cold since, like, before the dragons even showed up, man, don’t fucking pretend this story was for her. … you really not gonna continue?

Nah, I’ll continue. But for the next scene I figured we might try a little show, don’t tell…

Oh, really? What’s the next scene?

Make-up sex. Prince Ian fucking Mikhailo’s brains out. And hey, spoiler alert: Mikhailo comes four times.

Four times, huh.

Yeah. So… wanna know how it happens?

Okay.

Okay. It starts like this—

---

So, yeah. There we have it. The things we write for Gallavich Week… XD

I am halfway outraged that this is the longest fic I’ve ever written for Gallavich, but I’m rather pleased I managed to write something for this theme! Guess I’ll go to bed both proud and embarrassed and dead tired tonight. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Where I am, we’re half an hour past midnight, but seeing as it’s still Monday somewhere, I have decided that I’m posting on time. Yay me! @gallavichthings

[amillionmillionvoices]

i couldn’t stop myself. river/doctor fic, based on steven moffat’s dream final episode. tooth rotting fluff, this is. pg. 

time is everything, time is nothing, time is ours

She’s been dying for weeks. 

Slowly, painfully, using the last of her regeneration energy to stave off death. For good, this time—her last body, last go around. She supposes it’s fitting, that her final hours would be spent trying, once again, to defeat them. It makes her a bit sour, if she thinks about it too long—there are so many things she’d rather be doing, people she’d rather be with—but she can’t leave. Not now. Not when this little planet needs her, and, she supposes, if she’s going to die for good she wants to die the way she’s always lived—saving the universe. 

Being an idiot, the voice in her head says, one that still, after so many lives, sounds suspiciously like her wife. 

The Doctor smirks to herself, and tries to avoid the screeching behind her, the door that won’t hold much longer. She tries to tune out their cries, familiar and robotic, with that hint of frenzy she’s never quite understood. 

She understands it now. Their desperation. 

The Dalek fleet is the last of its kind—the rest, destroyed in this grand battle, the one she’s been waging—leading—for years. The Doctor’s Last Stand, they’re calling it. It sounds far too dramatic for her tastes, but it’s not entirely off point. She’ll die here, she knows—on this Dalek ship, by Dalek weapons, alone. 

It’s for the best, really. 

The people fighting down below, they’re counting on her. Not to destroy the ship—no, that would be too easy, or perhaps, too hard, she isn’t sure which. No, the plan is much more ridiculous, much more her style. The Captain of the army had called it ludicrous. 

She likes that a bit. 

Behind her, sparks fly as the Daleks burn down the door, and she knows she has so little time left. 

Typing quickly, she does her best to ignore the searing pain in her side, the pounding in her head she’s felt for days. Everything hurts with the effort of not dying, and there’s no regeneration energy left to pull at her skin. But she has to try. Has to give just one more thing to the universe, and pray that it works. 

Yanking out wires and entering codes, the Doctor finally manages to find what she’s looking for—access to the hive mind. Clara had found it once, when she was an echo, and the idea has lingered so long, just out of reach. There’s no way to destroy them all—she’s tried that before, and always failed. She’s tried deleting herself, but they always remember. She’s tried time locks and explosions and everything else, and they always come back.

This time, she’s trying something new. This time, she’s going to change them. 

Groaning when she finds the slippery entrails, Dalek bits that writhe and slither, the Doctor keys in the last few commands, and takes a deep breath. 

Geronimo, she thinks, from somewhere in her memory, and smiles, and plunges her hand into the mainframe. It’s frankly disgusting, and she makes what she’s certain is a horrible face, but it’s only a moment before the Daleks realize she’s there, in their heads, and they scream. Scream, and fight, and the Doctor slams her eyes shut and tries to breathe. 

She’s always thought about giving the Daleks a piece of her mind, she just never meant literally. 

But she can feel it, feel their anger and their hatred, feel everything they abhor. It tries to sink into her, a two-way link, and she pushes back against it, fights it with everything she has, and remembers: 

Ian and Barbara, their strength and their love. Ace, and the Brigadier, and Martha, and Kate and their bravery, their fierce protectiveness, their love. She thinks about Clara and Danny, dying for love. Thinks about Bill, finding love after death. She thinks about Rose and her happy life with another version of her, in love. Thinks of Amy and Rory and their undying love and Jenny and her love and Yaz and her love and Ryan and his love and Graham and Grace and their love and Susan and Mickey and Sarah Jane and all of their heart, their kindness, their generosity, their love. She thinks of Donna and her love, her mercy, of Davros, and mercy, and the Master, and mercy, the Cybermen, and mercy, the Daleks, and mercy.  She fills her head and her hearts with every moment, every memory from her long, long life of love and mercy and kindness. 

She can feel the Daleks fighting back, feels them claw at her mind; part of her is aware the door behind her is caving in, but she needs more time. 

She thinks of Jack and Jackie and Adric and Romana and Wilfred and Nardole. She thinks of Astrid and Rita and Jabe and Nasreen and anyone and everyone she’s ever loved, who’s ever loved her, who’s ever loved anyone at all and pushes it all toward the Daleks.  

Blew them up with love, she thinks, though she isn’t trying to kill them, not this time. Just trying to save them. Maybe that was the answer all along. 

And maybe it wasn’t. 

She isn’t sure, but she knows it’s getting harder and harder to fight, to prove to them that it’s worth it—all the pain and loss and suffering that comes with kindness. 

So she does what she knows she needs to, though she’s reluctant—desperate, almost, to keep her to herself, to share not a moment of their lives together; but she can’t think about love and not think about her, so she lets it spill over, all those times: 

America, and Leadworth, and Stormcage. She thinks of Asgard and Trenzalore and Elvis. She thinks of Sontarans and she laughs and thinks of the Library and she cries. She thinks of Darillium, and smiles so wide her face hurts more than the pain in her chest, her lungs. She thinks of 24 years and so, so much longer, nipping off in the TARDIS for adventures. She thinks of River’s smile and River’s warm hands and River’s skin. She thinks of River getting ready for bed, wrestling with her hair, River getting up in the mornings, grumpy as all hell. She thinks of dancing with River under so many stars, and catching her every time she jumped or fell. She thinks of I hate you and you’re standing right behind me and loving the stars themselves. She thinks of not one line and more than any living thing in the universe and or you and when one’s in love and this is the reason above all I love him, my husband. My madman in a box. My Doctor. 

She thinks of next stop, everywhere, and behind her, the door comes down. 

She can hear them, the hiss, the almost questioned, exterminate? that doesn’t sound so sure, and yet when she looks over her shoulder there’s a gun aimed at her chest and frantically, she tries to remember more, remember louder and more clearly and more lovingly because they’re almost there, almost, so close—

The Dalek aims, and the Doctor shuts her eyes. 

The gun goes off, and she waits for pain and failure and death. 

Instead, the Dalek groans, and the Doctor opens one eye, confused. 

“Really? An end of the world battle and you didn’t call me? I’m insulted, sweetie.” 

Her voice is a surge of oxygen, sunlight and joy. The Doctor can’t help the smile the splits her cheeks—there’s recognition in River’s voice, fondness and devotion and worry, always, but determination, too. 

“And what sort of time do you call this?” The Doctor echos, and River steps around the Dalek, holstering her weapon. 

“The nick of it, I’d say.” 

“As always,” the Doctor agrees, wants to pull her in close, but pain spikes through her head, and she can feel the Dalek’s fighting back. She hisses, turns her attention back to the mainframe and grits her teeth. 

River appears at her side in less than a second, a steadying hand on her arm. 

“What have you done?”

“Ah,” the Doctor says, wincing in anticipation of River’s ire. “About that.”

It only takes her wife a moment to figure it out, to realize what she’s doing, and River gasps. “You idiot! You’ll burn yourself up!”

The Doctor shrugs. “Last regeneration,” she says, half her focus on keeping the Daleks—all that anger, all that hate—at bay. “I’m dying anyway.”

“No, you’re not,” River snaps, “Let me do it.”

The Doctor glares. “Not a chance.”

“Doctor—” Her voice is desperate, terrified, and the Doctor tries to smile, to be kind. 

“No, really, River. I’m dying. Have been for weeks. I’m on borrowed time.”

River’s eyes flicker over her body, looking for wounds. She won’t be able to see it—the shot she took to the stomach, courtesy of a lone Dalek—but River reads her face, the calm acceptance, and knows. 

Still, she shakes her head. “It’s not too late. We can get you to hospital—”

“And leave all these people?”

“Yes,” River says, but she doesn’t sound so sure, and the Doctor smiles. 

“Liar.”

River makes a kind of desperate sound, one that tears through her. “There has to be something—”

The Doctor shakes her head. “There’s no stopping it, River, not this time. I’m sorry.”

It’s the apology, she thinks, more than anything else, that makes River break, her expression falling, bright tears in her eyes. 

“No,” she says, tightening her grip on the Doctor’s arm. “I can’t let you die.”

“River,” she says, so soft, and with her free hand, pulls her closer, their hips pressed together. She reaches up, and brushes a stray tear from River’s cheek with her thumb. “Where are we, then?”

River swallows. “Last time I saw you was the Bone Meadows.”

Her Eleventh self, she thinks, and remembers: River, still in prison, still learning. Himself, still trying to prove something to her, both of them right at the start of such wonderful falling. 

“You’ve got so much more to come,” she promises. 

River bites her lip, and a surge of affection flows through the Doctor at the sight. “We could have more now,” she tries, but the Doctor shakes her head, leans forward, and kisses River’s cheek. 

“Soon enough,” she promises, and River nods, and finally looks down at the wiring, the open Dalek wound the Doctor is currently hooked up to. 

“What can I do?” she asks, so brave, so kind. 

The Doctor doesn’t think about it, not for a moment. “Give us a kiss?”

River half laughs, but doesn’t hesitate, leans forward and slides her hand into the Doctor’s hair and kisses her, soft and salty and she’s trembling slightly, and the Doctor pulls her in tighter, curls her free hand around the back of River’s neck and opens her mouth, kisses her harder. 

River whimpers, hands clinging to the Doctor and she’s warm and soft and safe and alive, so so alive under the Doctor’s hands and she loves her, has loved her for centuries, millennia, will love her forever. 

She thinks of the screwdriver tucked safely in her pocket, the code she’d written, not two days ago, and prays that it works. 

Under her hands, River moans softly and the Doctor grins against her lips, nips at her gently, refuses to let go. If it’s her last chance, her last moments, this is where she wants to be, who she wants to be with. 

She supposes maybe the universe isn’t so terrible, after all. 

There’s a spark, and a surge that knocks them backwards, the Doctor’s hand, burnt and bloodied, flying from the console. 

“No,” she says, “no, no, no—”

“Doctor, look.”

She pauses, and follows River’s gaze out the large window to the planet below. Everything has stopped. The explosions. Even the ship is silent. And then, the crackle over the speakers, a familiar voice with a strange humility. 

“Mercy,” it says. Below, the Daleks start to withdraw. “We bring mercy.”

The Doctor laughs. It may not work for good, may not last long, but the Daleks are retreating, or turning to each other, to the people, and she can hear bits of questions, “How can we help you?” and “We mean no harm.”

“What happened?” River asks. “Are they—?”

“Good, now,” The Doctor says. “At least for a while. At least as good as I am.”

River smiles. “The best, then.”

“Only with you,” she answers softly, and River shakes her head. 

“Sentimental idiot.”

The Doctor makes to answer, but pain overwhelms her and her knees buckle. She hears River cry out, feels hands lower her gently, but she isn’t on the cold floor, where she though she’d be. River cradles her head in her lap, brushing her fingers through her hair. 

“Please, sweetie—”

The Doctor grips her hand and forces her eyes open, wants to see her one last time. 

“River.”

“Please don’t leave me.”

Her hearts break, and she reaches a shaky hand to River’s face, holds her cheek in her palm. “I need—I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“The TARDIS. Bury me in it, and leave her… on Trenzalore.”

“Trenzalore? Why—”

“Long story,” she says. “Has to be lived. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“You’ll be the only one… who can open it.”

“How?”

“Spoilers.”

River glares, but the Doctor smiles, even through the pain. With her free hand, she grips River’s tightly. 

“I can’t—” River shudders. “I can’t do this without you.”

The Doctor shakes her head. “You‘ll never have to. It’s okay,” she murmurs. “You've got so much more to come. You and me, River. Time and space.” 

“Promise?” she whispers. 

“I promise.” The Doctor coughs, and it hurts so badly, but River is there, and she’s like sunlight through the dark. “Darillium.”

“What?”

“Make sure I take you,” she says breathlessly. “Don’t go without me.”

“I won’t.”

She feels one of her hearts give out, and draws in a ragged breath. “River.”

“I know,” she says, and there are tears on her cheeks as she cradles the Doctor close. “I know, sweetie.”

“Tired,” she manages, and forces her eyes open. “But happy.”

River exhales. “Only you would be happy to die.”

The Doctor shakes her head. “Happy you’re here. My wife.”

“Always.”

With all her strength, the Doctor curls her fingers in River’s hair and rugs her down gently. “You watch us run, love.”

The last thing she feels is River’s lips against her own, River’s hand in hers. 

—

Waiting for River is tedious at best. He’s got a new body now, such as it is, made up of lines and code. He needs glasses—well, not really, but he thinks they make him look rather distinguished—and he’s partial to suits. He takes care of Charlotte as best he can, but the mainframe is overwhelmed and even he can’t fix it from the inside. He knows it’s only a matter of time, however, and tries to be patient. 

He’s a bit better at it this go around, but the way time moves is agonizing, feels awful under his skin and he can’t quite grasp anything, any moment. The years tick by, or maybe it’s only hours, he isn’t sure, and then there’s a surge, and the computer feels like it’s rebooting or dying or maybe neither and then—

Everything calms. The itch under his skin goes away, replaced by an entirely new anticipation. 

He follows Charlotte outside to the courtyard, blue skies everywhere, green grass, and blessed stillness. 

She appears in white, which he can’t help but find a but humorous, a bit fitting. 

“The Doctor fixed the data core,” Charlotte says, and brings River her friends, which, while he’s happy for her, makes him just a tad jealous, for the way she recognizes them and hugs them close. 

He waits, answers their questions dutifully, gives them a tour of the mansion, explains how it works, now that they’re not quite alive, not quite dead. River keeps her eyes on him the whole time, something discerning, calculating in her gaze, but she’s a bit distracted, and he supposes that’s only fair. 

He waits until everyone disperses to find their rooms and settle in before he turns to her, forcing back a smile. “Professor Song, might I have a word?”

River nods, and follows him into the backyard—there are tables and chairs and beautiful bird baths and all kinds of quaint things he can’t wait to show her, doesn’t care about at all right now. 

“How are you feeling?”

“A bit overwhelmed,” she admits. “I never thought—though of course he would, that daft man.”

“Are you happy?”

He holds his breath as she blinks, looks startled by the question. 

“To be alive? Certainly.”

“To be here,” he amends, and tries not to shift his weight. 

River stares off into the distance for a long moment. “I could be, I suppose. It’s just—” She shakes her head, and gives him a wane smile. “I’ve never been fond of confined spaces. Staying in one place.” She shrugs. “I’ll get used to it.” 

The Doctor steels himself. “You seemed content enough on Darillium.” 

River’s neck snaps up and her gaze hardens, so suspicious, his wife. 

“How could you know about—”

He smiles. Soft and warm, and with every ounce of devotion he has in him. 

“Doctor?” Her voice cracks. “How can you be—”

“You didn’t really think I’d let you spend eternity without me?” he chides softly. “I’m much too selfish for that.”

River makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob and throws her arms around his neck. He nearly wilts, holding her so close, buries his face in her hair and breathes her in and she feels solid, feels warm and alive and real and part of him can’t believe it worked, it all worked, and they’re here and together and—

She slaps him, hard, and he grunts, and rubs at his cheek. “I suppose I deserved—” he starts, and then she’s kissing him, mindless of his new face, his new body made of code; mindless of anything or anyone around them. She kisses him fiercely, desperately, arms around his neck and he holds her so tight he’s afraid she might bruise. 

“My River,” he whispers against her lips when she finally parts to breathe. “My wife.”

“Doctor,” she murmurs. “You’re here.”

“Where else would I be, dear?” he asks, and she shudders in his arms. “We’re alive.” 

[gotham-ruaidh]

Pas De Deux - A  Moodboard (Three Part) One-Shot (Part Three)

@iamnottrisha​ - thanks for organizing!

@taamagams - thanks for creating this beautiful moodboard!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

They split the bill for dinner, and then Claire let Jamie take her hand and lead her across the street. Lights in the fountain sparked reflections across all three buildings at Lincoln Center.

 “I’ve never been here before,” she breathed.

 Jamie pulled her tightly against his side, watching people bustle about the complex. “I’m glad to give this to you,” he whispered, kissing her temple.

 Something surged within her – but Jamie was already tugging at her hand, striding toward the building at the back of the square.

 “Sometimes I’m sorry that I didn’t see the original Metropolitan Opera House, before this complex was built by Robert Moses in the 60s.” Jamie’s voice was strong, quiet, as they approached the theater. “But I do have to say – there’s something very special about this place.”

 Once inside, he went directly to the Will Call.

 “Two for tonight’s performance, please. Last name is Fraser.”

 And then she stared down at her ticket.

 “Swan Lake,” she whispered.

 “Of course. I told you it’s one of my favorites. But I didn’t tell you that my sister Jenny is dancing in it tonight.”

 Stunned, Claire met his smiling eyes.

 “How else do you think I could have afforded these tickets?”

 --

 Walking up the curving, red carpeted staircase to their seats was like something out of a dream.

 “Some people say that orchestra seating is the best,” Jamie explained as they carefully walked down the sloping aisle to their seats at the front of the balcony. “But I like sitting up here – you can see the entire stage, plus the musicians.”

 Heavy gold curtains draped across the stage. Claire watched individual musicians warm up in the pit, practicing their scales, laughing with each other.

 “How long has your sister been with the ballet company?”

 “About ten years now – she’s worked her way up to be what they call a principal dancer. And one of only a handful of dancers in the New York City ballet who are actually from New York City. The company truly seeks the best talent from all around the world.”

 Claire thumbed through her Playbill – Jamie was right. Dancers hailed from Kiev, and Buenos Aires, and Paris, and Moscow, and Los Angeles.

 “I don’t see a Fraser,” she frowned.

 Jamie’s finger pointed out a smiling, dark-haired woman. “Janet Murray. She’s married to my best friend Ian – we all went to school together. She’s one of the only married dancers.”

 “Is Ian a dancer as well?”

 “God, no!” Jamie laughed. “He’s a police officer. Passed the sergeant’s exam earlier this year.”

 Claire shook her head, then squinted at Jenny’s photograph. “I’d expected she’d be red-haired, like you.”

 “She takes after Dad’s side of the family – they were all much darker in complexion. I take after Mom’s side.”

 She turned the page. “Jenny is dancing Odette. Is that the main character?”

 “Yes. She’s danced in this ballet many times, but only this season she’s started dancing Odette.”

 Claire set down her Playbill, and took both of Jamie’s hands. “Thank you for taking me here. It’s – it’s all so much more than I ever could have expected.”

 He raised one of her hands to his lips, and kissed it ever so gently. “Thank you for allowing me to take you here. It’s…I’ve never had anyone to share this with. Who would appreciate it.”

 He flushed.

 “Did you ever dance ballet, Jamie?”

 “I tried – but I don’t have the coordination for it. I’d rather be drawing.”

 “So – what do you draw?”

 “Whatever I see around me. I like charcoal – it’s so simple, so freeing. Just a few strokes and life begins to take shape.”

 She crossed one leg, rubbing her boot against his. “Anything in particular that you like to draw?”

 “People. Faces. I drew a lot of dancers when Jenny and I were growing up – I had my Degas phase. It’s very hard to capture movement accurately.”

 “Would you like to draw me?”

 Quickly Jamie glanced at his watch, then fished around in his jacket pocket, producing a small rectangular metal case.

 “That looks like what my uncle would put his cigarettes in.”

 He lay the case on the armrest between them, and carefully flicked it open. “It used to be something like that.” He turned it around so that Claire could see inside – six neat rectangles of chalk, black and white and four shades of gray. “Now I never leave home without it.”

 He flipped through his Playbill, removed the paper insert announcing the casting change for the night, and placed it, blank side up, on his knees. He turned in his seat, balancing carefully, facing her. Began to draw.

 Suddenly self-conscious, Claire swallowed, feeling her cheeks flush.

 “Hold still,” he whispered, eyes flicking between her face and the paper.

 She did, mind racing, watching as he rotated the paper, smudged it a bit with the pads of his fingers, then smiled once it was all done.

 “Here.” He held it out between them.

 It was her, all right – rendered in the most delicate of lines. With just three sweeps of chalk he had captured her brow, cheeks, nose, chin – and smile.

 Simple. Stunning.

 She swallowed, fishing in her purse for a tissue. “Here – I didn’t see anything in that case to clean your hands with.”

 Tentatively she took the drawing, studying it as he wiped his hands.

 “It’s amazing how quickly you can do that.”

 “It’s easy when I have a beautiful subject.”

 She closed her eyes. Knowing he could see her hands shake.

 “What are we doing, Jamie?”

 “We’re going to watch the ballet. I’ll hold you close to me, and tell you the story, and hope against hope that you’ll continue to open your heart to me. And then when it’s done, I’ll introduce you to my sister. Maybe we’ll go for a drink. And I’ll see you back home to Adso.”

 His warm, warm hand carefully rested on her knee. “I hope that one day, you’ll see this drawing and remember every moment – every second – of this night.”

 She swallowed. “I can’t believe I found you.”

 Her hand found his. Carefully he slipped the drawing into his Playbill, set it on the floor, and enveloped her hand in between both of his. “We found each other, Claire.”

 Then a chime sounded, and the light fixtures began ascending up to the ceiling, and they settled into their seats – Jamie’s strong arm around her back, his hand safe between both of Claire’s.

 He kept his promises that night.

 Whispering the story unfolding on the stage:

 That’s Prince Siegfried, and his overbearing mother who tells him he must choose a bride at the royal ball. He’s upset that he can’t marry for love. His buddies try to cheer him up, but it’s no use. As evening falls, Siegfried sees a flock of swans flying overhead, and suggests they go on a hunt to clear his mind.

 Now here we pick up the story a bit later – and we see Siegfried lost at the lakeside. A flock of swans lands – and just as he aims his bow, one of them transforms into Odette. I can say Odette, and not Jenny, because to be honest I can’t recognize her with her hair and makeup and costume. You can see how terrified she is – but Siegfried explains that he won’t harm her. She tells him that she and the other swans are the victims of a curse from an evil sorcerer. By day they are swans, and by night, beside this enchanted lake, they regain their human form.

 Odette tells him that the spell can only be broken if a man who has never loved before, swears to Odette that he will love her forever.

 Then the sorcerer appears, and Siegfried wants to kill him – but Odette persuades him not to, for she fears that if the sorcerer dies, she will be cursed to live under the terrible spell forever.

 Odette and Siegfried fall in love, that night by the lake – and as dawn breaks, she and her companions turn into swans again.

 Now here we are the following evening at the costume ball – where Siegfried has been ordered to find a wife. Here are the girls his mother wants him to marry. And look – here is the sorcerer, in disguise, with his daughter who is disguised to resemble Odette. Siegfried gives her attention, thinking she is Odette.

 And now we see Odette appear in her human form, trying desperately to warn Siegfried – but he doesn’t see her. And he proclaims to the court that he will marry the sorcerer’s daughter. But then the sorcerer shows Siegfried a magical vision of Odette – and he realizes she’s not there. He flees the castle, hurrying back to the lake to find her.

 Odette is distraught. Siegfried appears and apologizes. Odette realizes she can never have the life with him that she wants, so she chooses to die. Siegfried chooses to die with her, and they leap into the lake. This breaks the sorcerer’s spell over the other swans. He dies. And in the last scene of the ballet, the swan maidens watch Siegfried and Odette ascend to heaven together.

 The orchestra rose to a crashing crescendo, followed by a sliver of silence. The crowd rose to its feet with thundering applause.

 Claire turned to Jamie, tears streaking down her face. She caressed his cheek and pulled him close for a long, long, sweet kiss.

 “I’ve never loved before, Claire,” he rasped against her lips. “But I hope – ”

 “I only want to be under your spell, Jamie,” she whispered, pulling him back for more.

[not-close-to-straight]

Free As I’ll Ever Be (Final)

MASTERLIST HERE

*****************

The hotel was shitty at best, the bed one that most likely vibrated at some point but now was years past even having working springs. Ian’s weight sank the mattress damn near to the floor and he knew when Mickey came back and crawled in next to him--

--hopefully crawled in next to him--

--they’d end up sleeping on the gross carpet. 

Oh well. It didn’t matter so long as they were together. 

“Lazy ass.” Mickey came back through the door with arms full of food and drink. “I’m out here busting my ass to feed you and you’re sleeping?” 

“I don’t think anyone has ever slept on this bed ever, Mick.” Ian propped up on an elbow and looked his boyfriend over. “Besides, I don’t speak Spanish.” 

“That’s a goddamn lie.” Micky tossed the food down on the other bed, and kicked his shoes off before sprawling out next to Ian. “I know you speak Spanish. At least well enough to get some food. I got us over the border, you should start pulling your own weight.” 

“But you’re so pretty bringing me stuff to eat.” Ian countered, and Mickey flicked him in the head with a resounding, “Fuck you, Gallagher.” 

“C’mere and I’ll fuck you.” Ian dragged Mickey up over his body and pressed their mouths together, smoothed his hands down Mickey’s back and rubbed into him purposefully, pointedly. “Should use the bed for somethin’ right? And you did such a good job gettin’ us over the border maybe I should reward you.” 

“Yeah, cos walking with a limp for the next two days is a reward.” Mickey rolled his eyes, then rolled himself off of Ian and to the edge of the bed, feeling around in his coat pocket for a cigarette. “Besides I told you, getting across the border is easy when you know as many people as me. A little money, some drugs, whatever it takes to make someone look the other way. Easy.” 

“I couldn’t’ve done it.” Ian countered, and Mickey snorted, “That’s cos you can’t lie worth shit. You start blushing and getting stupid. Just be cool for once in your life.” 

“Be cool?” Ian sat up and tried to wind an arm around Mickey’s waist, tried to tug him back close again. “Mick, come here. I’ve been waiting to hold you since we ditched Damon, come on.” 

Mickey didn’t answer, just got off the bed all together and went to the window to light up, and Ian watched him for a minute, brow furrowed in confusion. “Baby?” 

“Fuck, I hate when you call me that.” Mickey dragged in on the cigarette, pushed the heel of his hands into both eyes as he exhaled. “Don’t call me that.” 

“You love it, and you know it.” Ian got off the bed too, followed Mickey over to the window and took the cigarette right out of his hands. “What are you doing way over here? 

Mickey just looked at him, then looked away. Stared out the window for a second, then back at Ian and then over to the floor. He shifted on his feet, sniffed and thumbed at his nose and cleared his throat--

-- and Ian knew they had to do it now. They had to talk right now before they got any further away from the border, before they got to the beach and to the us Mickey had thought so long about. They had to talk now or they’d always wonder, Mickey would always wonder and Ian knew that this time he had to say it all so Mickey wouldn’t have to wonder anymore. 

“Okay.” Ian whispered, soft and open and as understanding as he’d ever tried to be. “Okay Mickey. Let’s talk. Ask me.” 

“Ask you what?” Mickey spat and Christ, he was angry again, angry like he always used to be but now Ian knew the anger was a cover for the loneliness, the quick temper a cover for the fear, so it was okay. 

It was okay. 

“Ask me um--” Ian swallowed, hunched his shoulders so he wasn’t quite so big over Mickey. “Ask me if I waited for you while you were in prison.” 

“Did you--” Mickey sniffed again. “Did you wait for me while I was in prison?” 

“I tried to date.” Ian said honestly, and he didn’t try to stop Mickey from flinching away. “Trevor was great, but just not for me. Dunno if it was the transgender thing-- I don’t wanna say it was, but I’m not real sure. Either way, it didn’t work out and I didn’t really try. Caleb-- I think that one was Dead on Arrival. But once you and me started writing… yeah, Mick. Yeah, I waited for you and I was gonna keep waiting for you.” 

“Did you… miss me?” 

“Every fucking day.” Ian didn’t hesitate on that one. “Missed you when I was working, whenever I’d see some punk kid mouthing off, every time I went to bed. Even on the few dates. I missed you cos you were in every part of my life and then one day, you weren’t.” 

Mickey was quiet and Ian prodded, “Ask me if I looked forward to your letters, Mick.”

“Ian, I don’t--” 

“Ask me if I slept with my phone ringer on loud right under my pillow so I’d know when you texted me.” He continued. “Ask me if I stayed up way too late talking to you and then got in trouble the next day at work for being half asleep. Ask me if somehow my stupid fuckin’ family finally made me see how much I love you. Ask me if I regret every time I tried to force you to come out, to be like me, to be with me when you weren’t ready. Ask me if I finally realize that you and I were fucking kids that couldn’t help our families and our situations and our pasts and all the crazy we inherited. Ask me.” 

“Ian--” 

“Ask me if I’m free with you.” Ian was whispering now, budging close and touching their foreheads together, tossing the cigarette away so he could push both hands into Mickey’s hair and pull him in tight. “Ask me if I’m free with you, Mick.” 

“...are you free with me?” Nearly inaudible, shaking and terrified and Mickey closed his eyes tight like he couldn’t bring himself to look and see the truth in Ian’s eyes. “Does what we have make you free?” 

“Mickey Milkovich.” Ian rubbed his thumbs over Mickey’s cheekbones and whispered, “Right here with you is as free as I’ll ever want to be.” 

“...promise?” Vulnerable, and it broke Ian’s heart. “Cos the border is right there, man, you could just--” 

“I promise.” Ian swore, cut him off and swore again. “I promise. I’m right here, Mickey. Not going anywhere. What you and I have makes me free. I wish I would’ve known that meant I love you when you said it the night of Yev’s christening. Wish I would��ve known what you were saying, but I know it now, alright? I’m free as I’ll ever be with you, and I love you and I’ll wait--” he nodded when Mickey’s brow scrunched. “--I’ll wait until you’re ready to say it, alright? I can wait.” 

And then softer, “Back when we were kids, I asked Mandy how to tell if a guy liked me and she said I’d know if he got that look in his eye.” 

He laughed quietly, “Fuck, Mickey I stared at you all the damn time trying to see if it was there in your eyes and I missed it a thousand times. I won’t miss it this time, okay? I promise. I see it. I see you.” 

Mickey’s jaw worked like he was trying to speak but the words didn’t quite come, so instead he put his hand just gentle on Ian’s face like he knew the red head liked, brushed through a few strands of shaggy hair and muttered, “Free, huh?” 

“Yeah.” Ian turned into Mickey’s hand and kissed his palm gently. “So why don’t we go find something else that makes us free, huh?” 

“I’d rather find your dick.” Mickey finally managed some snark, and Ian sighed over loud at having the romantic moment spectacularly derailed. 

“Jesus, Mick. Moment ruined much?” 

“Just shut up and kiss me again, Gallagher.” 

***********

Mexico 

The Beach

Somewhere That Doesn’t Matter So Long As They’re Together

“I’m just saying I feel like you could have told us you weren’t coming back!”

Lip was pissed, and Ian held the phone away from his ear for a minute while his brother vented. “Lip.” he said when there was finally a break in the tirade. “Lip it’s fine. I’m fine. I’m happy. We’re happy.” 

“Well are you at least taking your goddamn meds?” 

“Yeah, yeah I can get them real cheap down here. The good stuff.” Ian checked his watch just to make sure the timer was set for his next round. “Everything’s fine, Lip. Stop worrying.” 

“Stop worrying? Ian--!” 

“Kiss everyone for me.” 

“IAN!” 

“Bye Lip.” 

Ian put the phone away and took a drag at his cigarette, glanced up just in time to watch Mickey come  out from the water, shirtless and gorgeous and blue eyes brilliant against all that tan skin and fuck Ian loved him so much he could hardly stand it. 

“Hey firecrotch.” Mickey had a new tattoo at the base of his neck, and Ian’s hand automatically found it when the brunette bent to give him a kiss, same way Mickey’s fingers instinctively brushed over the matching tattoo scrolled at Ian’s cheekbone--- Free. 

“Hey beautiful.” Ian rumbled and Mickey laughed and pressed close again. 

They reveled in slow kisses now that they were free, lingered over soft moments and smiled into each others eyes without worrying that anyone would see or that anyone would care. Ian remembered begging Mickey for kisses when they were kids, Mickey remembered being so damn scared about getting caught but now? 

Now every embrace was slow and tender and they took their time because now they had time. 

“You ready for a swim?” Mickey asked when they finally parted. “Ready to stop blinding the population with your pasty ass and try for a tan?” 

“Yeah Mick.” Ian ignored the pasty ass comment and stripped his shirt off, followed his boyfriend down the beach. “I’m ready for anything with you.” 

************

They got married with their feet in the water, Mickey’s blue eyes glowing like the ocean, Ian’s skin almost as red as his hair because he couldn’t tan to save his life. 

“I, Mikhalio Milkovich, take you Ian Gallagher to be my lobster.” Mickey said solemnly, and the priest squawked in alarm when Ian picked Mickey up and just chucked him into the waves, tackled him down and held him under water until Mickey screeched Uncle and promised to do it right. 

“I Ian Gallagher, take you Mickey Milkovich.” Ian was still laughing as he brushed water from Mickey’s hair and fit a simple golden band to his finger. “To have and to hold, to love until death do us part, and to finally fucking be free together.” 

Kiss your groom. 

“Come here.” Mickey said, but Ian was already halfway there, unable to wait a single minute more to kiss his husband, big hands in Mickey’s hair then down to frame his face, then further down to cover the place where his name was written across Mickey’s heart.

“I love you.” Ian murmured, and Mickey whispered back, “Fuck, I love you too.” 

“You wanna go get drunk and have beach sex?” Ian suggested and Mickey laughed out loud over the priest’s expression and grabbed his husbands hand to race away down the beach. 

They ran away together just like they had when they were kids, except this time they weren’t hiding, this time they were holding hands and shouting about being married and bumping in close to kiss over and over and over--

-- their wedding bands glinting gold like freedom in the sun. 

*****************

SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE FIC!

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