#the person who wrote this fic 2 weeks before this aired is a genius

[claudia-kishi]

🤭🤭🤭

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Rachel Nobel / Rae Lynn

Rachel Nobel, aka Rae Lynn, has 2 fics at Gossamer, but she’s written many more X-Files stories than that. You can also find fics by her at AO3 and various other archives. She’s one of the rare, special authors who’s posted numerous fic during the show’s original run and again in recent years. Big thanks to Rachel for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)? Absolutely. I joined a Facebook group for fanfic writers where someone recognized my name and asked about some of my stories that have disappeared from the Internet, and I almost fell off my chair. On the other hand, I go back and read original-run fanfic all the time - the Wayback Machine is my best friend for all the late great fanfic archives. Like fine wines, they get better with age! What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it? I was fairly young during the peak of the fandom - I was only 12 when I started watching the show and discovered the fandom online. A few years ago, right around the time we learned the revival was coming, I wrote an essay I called "How 'The X-Files' defined my adolescence," in which I wrote: "If you think about it, 'The X-Files' is a lot like adolescence: You start out thinking it's going to be a little hokey, NBD, and then you end up in its thrall, captivated and occasionally hugely let down. A lot of people behave strangely, and no one gets out unscathed. Mulder, in his own weird way, is the perfect mirror for an adolescent: He doesn't fit in; his life careens between being utterly consequential to the fate of the known universe and being completely pointless; he's socially awkward and can't quite nail it down with the girl of his dreams."

So for me, the fandom is inextricably bound up with adolescence, that feeling of vacillating between desperate loneliness and being on the verge of something enormously significant. Take romance: I was a bit of a late bloomer, and when all my friends were exploring their first relationships I was watching Mulder and Scully navigate this beautiful, complicated, soulful relationship without ever even kissing. That was deeply affecting for me as a teen.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)? I started out on mailing lists - there was an EMXC mailing list and one that I think was called X-Angst. [Lilydale note: There was a mailing list called XAngst Anonymous.] This was back at the dawn of the Internet when I only had 10 hours of AOL access a month, and I remember using what AOL called a "FlashSession" to log on, download all the fanfic from the mailing list and log off to read it. I vividly remember the excitement of watching all that new fanfic flood my inbox! Later on I was on atxc. During the long summer between "Gethsemane" and "Redux," it felt like fanfic was at its peak. There was a group of about a dozen women who got together (virtually) to discuss a work in progress by Lydia Bower called "Primal Sympathy." We called ourselves the "Primal Screamers," and we had our own website with fanfic recommendations and other discussions (it cracked me up to locate us as an entry on Fanlore.org). I was still in high school at the time and I was the youngest member; I felt like I had been accepted into a cool underground club. I worshipped these women, who were fanfic writers themselves. They taught me everything I knew about how to be a decent, respectful, enthusiastic consumer and writer of fanfic and fandom. [Lilydale note: I’ve talked enthusiastically about the Primal Screamers here before, including their fanfic primer.] What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general? In the '90s, I would have been embarrassed to tell anyone I read fanfic, let alone that I was writing it. Now, I look back on it and realize how talented and smart and passionate we all were. It's something to be proud of. What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show? The first episode I ever saw was "Shadows," which was on in reruns between the second and third seasons. I don't think "Shadows" is an episode that anyone today would consider thematically significant, but something about seeing those office supplies float spookily through the air - it wasn't like anything I had seen on television, and I wanted in. What got you involved with X-Files fanfic? I've always been a person who, when I am interested in something, seeks to learn more about it. So I guess I got online as a 12-year-old with this new interest and discovered fanfic. It was thrilling to find out that so many talented people were taking characters I loved and bringing them to life for me. When the screen faded to black each week and I wondered, "That's it? What next?", fanfic was always there to fill in the blanks and take Mulder and Scully to the next level. As a teenager, I was self-indulgent enough to think I had something to contribute, too. Most of what I wrote in the '90s would today make me cringe. I remember literally paging through the dictionary in search of erudite words I thought Mulder and Scully would say! But occasionally I'll feel brave enough to read an old story and I feel encouraged to see a spark: a turn of phrase or a fragment of dialogue that I still feel proud of. I write professionally now, but I've never written fiction that isn't X-Files fiction, so it's something that has really allowed me to hone my creative juices in a different way. What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom? Sometimes I feel like the Statler and Waldorf of the fandom, like I'm sitting up in the balcony grousing "Back in my day...!" Because the fandom is remarkably robust, and I've gotten involved with it to an extent on Twitter and AO3, and now all these young whippersnappers idolize Mulder and Scully just as much if not more as I ever did! Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files? Not really, no. I've of course consumed a lot of media since The X-Files that I wanted to discuss with others - I'm a huge "Harry Potter" nerd, and I was outraged when Netflix canceled "The OA" - but strangely I've never had the urge to read or write fanfic about anything other than "The X-Files." Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully? Every Thursday night! I watch a chosen episode with a group of fans on Twitter and tweet about it - #tbtXFiles. That's great fun. There are episodes I've seen dozens of times over the years and episodes I think I only ever watched once, and it's always enlightening to watch them again with a certain critical eye. When I was a fan during the original run, I really idolized Mulder; I loved episodes where we saw him in all his cracked genius glory. Scully was a trailblazer of a character, of course, but I think the fandom has evolved over the years to give Scully her due. Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom? I was fairly stunned when the revival came around and I realized that people were still writing X-Files fic, and that a lot of it was so good. So yes, I do read fic on Archive of Our Own. But my heart is always with the early days of fanfic. In the revival when Mulder says "I've always wondered how this was going to end" - that felt to me almost like a love letter to fanfic authors who had been trying to answer that question for 25 years. Surprisingly, I've never had the urge to read fic in another fandom. Every time I try, it just feels like I'm cheating on Mulder and Scully. Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors? My favorite author back in the day was Kipler. Her stories were just like real episodes of the show I could vividly imagine in my mind. I adore syntax6, particularly "20" and "The Birthday Stories," because of the way she perfectly and poignantly captures vignettes that span the entire series. Another favorite is Dawn and her "Blood Ties" series - I started out as a "NoRomo," and Dawn was one of the authors who made me believe Mulder and Scully could have a romantic relationship that really worked. And I always had a soft spot for Profiler!Mulder stories, so to this day I mourn the unfinished state of the great Kronos fic "Ascent to Hell." One fic I always come back to that captures profiling Mulder really well is "Domination of Lies," by cslatton. And then there are stories that I consider classics: "Corpse" by Livengoo, "Oklahoma" by Amperage and Livengoo, the "Revelations" and "All Hallow's Eve" series by Windsinger. What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise? I have a soft spot for a story I wrote called "Human Credential." I was attempting, a quarter-century after the first season of the show, to set a story in the very early days of the partnership (which these days is one of my favorite kinds of fanfic to read), and I felt like I nailed it. Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online? I have been doing both of these, as a matter of fact! Or in my case, they are oldies that made it online but vanished when Geocities went belly-up, for example, that I sometimes go back to and reshape. Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work? As the swallows return to Capistrano, I seem to always return to writing fic at periods of transition in my life. The first time I "retired" from fanfic, I wasn't even in college yet! If one can be nostalgic at 21 years old for something one gave up at 17, I was nostalgic for fanfic, and I picked it back up again in grad school. Then I became a teacher and a wife and a mom and years passed, and the revival seduced me back into it again. But the vast majority of fanfic I've written is firmly planted in the first seven seasons of the show - poor Mulder and Scully never seem to get to grow up in my stories. What's the story behind your pen name? I wrote under a lot of pen names over the years! When I first started writing fanfic, no one knew anything about Internet safety and it didn't occur to me that it wasn't wise to use my real name. There was a period when I would have been mortified if anyone discovered my stories under my real name - now, at least I can write it off as a youthful indulgence! When I finally grew into a more mature writer, I started using the name Rae Lynn, which is almost-but-not-quite my real first and middle names. Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions? As far as I know, unless my friends and acquaintances have done some sleuthing, only my husband knows I still write fanfic. And he's never read it, though he's kind enough to give me a glazed-eyes indulgent smile if I ever talk about it. Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now? I am xraelynn on AO3! I have about a dozen stories there - some of them I wrote 15 years ago and some of them are brand spanking new. Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Fanfic is a true labor of love. Fanfic authors don't write fanfic for money or fame; they do it because they love it. Sites like AO3 and Tumblr have made it so much easier to show your appreciation to writers (::gruff reminiscing voice:: back in my day, you had to send them an email, and now you can just click the "kudos" button!). I can only speak for myself, but I really thrive on that feedback - otherwise I'm just Mulder in his cramped hovel of a home office waiting for Scully to nag me to shave my beard. Every so often I think about the fact that there is so much high-quality writing about these characters I've loved for decades just available on the Internet for free and it feels like a true gift.

(Posted by Lilydale on May 4, 2021)

[austarus]

Harrison Wells (Eobard Thawne) x Reader - Integrated Revelations (1/3)

**A/N: The picture/edit/gif does not belong to me.

*I attempted a thing where I try to get back into the groove of writing for my murder speed husband... It’s probably shit, but here goes nothing. Sorta another theory I’ve had and had all these scenes connect together. I’m a shit writer so... Also, I’m dying and crying. Hahaha. I literally am dying. My uni work online is being ridiculously overwhelming along with my work hours for school. I really need a week with no deadlines or work just to get caught up with three weeks of work for certain classes. I really need to take a break. But I can’t, started to loose sleep. Can’t even have time to write or play Pokemon Reborn. Anyway, that a bit of an update from me. I wrote this back in July, hoping to have written a fic a week (which turned out to not happen, but hey, I tried) until October to post things. Also this most likely has grammer errors. I’m sorry. Once again, a shit writer. Please don’t forget to comment, like, and reblog. It means a lot to content creators of all kinds!

Word Count: 3584

Part 2  Part 3

“Well...” Eobard’s raspy voice didn’t seem to alarm the two speedsters that had phased into the Time Vault. The futuristic speedster had sat with a leg crossed over the other, and elbow resting on the arm of the chair. “Things just got a lot more complicated, didn't they?” Eobard pushed from the chair, standing up and taking a few steps forward. Nora and Barry looked on, one adorned a look of uncertainty and the other masqueraded his rage and pain through the years. “Barry Allen.” Barry nodded along, gauging the black-haired man’s façade. “But which Barry Allen? Clearly, you're… from a lot later than this one.” Eobard maneuvered his body and pointed to the unconscious form of an earlier Barry Allen.

“Way later.” Barry simply answered, looking indifferent.

“Way later,” Eobard echoed the response, putting emphasis on the word ‘way’. The scientist nodded along, pursuing his lips as his electric blue eyes flickered to Nora. Before anyone could speak, could even move the Time Vault door dematerialized. Nora watched as an earlier version of yourself entered the Vault hurriedly and out of breath. You had entered looking over your shoulder with a tablet in hand. You had been scanning for the supposed Time Wraith that had attacked Barry, but not your present time Barry.

“Eo, I traced-” You froze in place as you turned your gaze forward. Fear crippled your heart as you saw a version of Barry, much older through the years, and a woman not too far off his from his age. You swallowed thickly, clutching the tablet tighter. There’s three Barry Allen’s now?? Who the hell decided to break time? A small throbbing sensation erupted at the back of your head, but you dismissed it. Eobard had swiftly moved to stand in front of you. His eyes connected with yours for a moment.

“You knew?!” The young woman spoke up, stepping forward towards you which caused Eobard to hold out a subtle arm out to the side to keep you behind him. “All those years.” The older man narrowed his eyes at what the female had called out to you. You frowned at her words in confusion. Who is she? An image flashed through your mind of the woman, smiling proudly at Barry while wearing a dark purple and white suit with a yellow emblem. She clearly knows who I am, but… What even happened? Are they from a different future? You pushed away the image to the back of your mind. “How could y-”

“If you even think about touching her, either of you, then you’ll regret ever running back here,” Eobard steely replied. You took a step closer to your speedster boyfriend in case something were to happen and he needed to speed you away to safety. Not that you needed saving, but you were still working on defending yourself via your lessons with the futuristic speedster. So, they’re from the future, and I’m guessing far off from this other Barry, but not too far for him to age too much. You spared a small glance to the cuffed and unconscious Barry Allen on the ground. It hurt your heart to see him vulnerable like that, but Eobard had confided to you his suspicions regarding this Barry Allen. One Barry Allen problem at a time. Taking a breath in, you remained silent and studied the two speedsters that confronted your speedster.

“Let it go.” Barry grabbed onto the speedster’s shoulder, holding her back. Oddly enough, Barry’s words coldly cut through you. 

“Now,” Eobard’s cocky attitude returned to him as he established the safety of your presence. He had that kind of affect, putting himself on the air of superiority and intellect with his attitude and words to belittle the person in front of him rightly so to get the desired reaction he wants and anticipates. Eobard knows how to tug on Barry’s strings. “Who's your friend? Let me guess. Jesse Chambers- No. Maybe Lawrence. Wait- Danica Williams-”

“-It doesn't matter who she is.” Barry cut off Eobard’s rattling of names.

You eyed Eobard’s deceptive small smile as he held Barry’s gaze then turned to the young adult. The female remained silent, avoiding Eobard’s icy eyes. “She's your daughter.” You scrunched your face in confusion before the neurons clicked in your head after a few seconds. Lemme guess, she’s a speedster that ran back in time and met a younger version of her father. Weird flex bro, but whatever. You do you. If I was a speedster, I’d do things differently. Obviously not up to scale what with the tampering that Eobard likes to do with the timeline to get his way with things. “You've brought me your daughter.” Your eyes flickered back to Barry before taking another look at the female and seeing a bit of resemblance, other than the fact that she was a speedster like him. Then the article Eo’s been obsessing about did reveal something true. Barry does take Iris as his wife. The West-Allen family. “It's, um... Dawn, if I'm not mistaken.”

“Nora.” The young speedster forced out after briefly glancing at her father.

“Nora. Oh, that's nice.” Eobard turned back to Barry with a smirk, “At least you still have one.” That’s cruel, Eo. “What- Nora- time travel's so weird-”

“Why did you come here?” You found the nerve to speak up, moving to stand beside the man masquerading as Harrison Wells. I’m not going to be afraid; I can’t always cower behind Eobard if something unexpected happens. I need to take things in my own hands. Even if they do find out about- You cleared any evidence of distress at their sudden appearance from your throat, “What do you want?”

“I need him to fix this for me.” Barry held up a broken tube-like device in his hand.

A thought hit the genius scientist instantaneously, his blue eyes widening. Turning your body, you saw Eobard take a few steps backwards, “No...” The headache didn’t go away, instead intensifying slightly by the second. Negative emotions flooded your system at Eobard’s crippling composure. He shook his head at them. “No, if you're here...” Eo turned to face the unconscious Barry, cuffed to his motored wheelchair, pointing to them and him. “And he's here... that means-”

“-You don't get home.” Barry simply stated. Your heart shook, terror and dread feeding into your system at his words. Uncertainty of the future- your future with Eobard- plagued you. How does this all end?

“I get home!” The yellow speedster whipped his head around in agitation, his voice raising with every statement. Barry smirked cruelly as he shook his head. You held your breath at Eobard’s spiking wrath, you hadn’t seen him this angry since General Eiling’s interference with The Flash and Plastique. Even then he’d mask his resentment to pull the strings in the game strategically. “I get home. I go home! I get everything-”

“-You don't go home, Thawne.” The Scarlet Speedster halted the Man in the Yellow Suit. Eobard clenched his jaw. You reached out a hand to rest it on his arm in an attempt to calm him. His eyes met yours for a fraction of a second. You felt the tension hang heavily in the air. “Unless… you help me.” Barry held up his broken device once more, mockingly this time. Your eyes flickered to the ring on his right hand. Similar to Eobard’s. A future version of Cisco must have been able to figure out how to use microtech to compress Barry’s suit. He’s the greatest mechanical engineer that I know. Eobard’s shoulders sagged a fraction as Barry held his ground. Turning around, the genius scientist rubbed his face before kicking the spare Barry in annoyance. Barry, all clad in black, winced because he probably ended up feeling that kick. You and Nora remained silent, eyeing the exchange between both speedsters.

Eobard shifted his body back, hands on his hips and fueled hatred present in his eyes. “What do you want?”

“Like I said, you're gonna fix this for me.”

“To do what?”

“Drain dark matter.”

What could Barry possibly need with Dark Matter? Hasn’t it done enough damage? “Whose dark matter?” You crossed your arms with the tablet close to your chest, a frown on your face as Eobard stepped beside you once more.

“None of your business.” Barry sneered at you. You narrowed your eyes at his demeanor, the young man who you gradually grew close to and considered as another brother like Cisco.

“Barry-”

“-It is our business.” Eobard retorted, taking your hand in his tightly. Both men were frustrated at the others persistence.

“No, it's not.”

Eobard started, letting go of you and rounding heatedly on to Barry, “There's no chance that I help you-”

You reached a hand out. “-Eobard, don’t-”

- It's none of your business-”

“-Cicada's!” Nora blurted out. Silence filled the room between the four of your, outbursts settling. You blinked a few times, taking a step back and resting a palm against your temple. Grimacing, you cast your eyes down as images of a half-masked man in green stood with a dagger. A glowing dagger with a look of emptiness and death in his eyes. That man looks dead to the world, as if willing to kill for an estranged purpose. It’s so cold. You shook your head subtly and stood your ground, unwilling to show weakness, but you saw Nora’s eyes shift when she looked at you. Barry eyed his daughter with a sort of incredulous look while a calculating and analytical look flashed through Eobard’s eyes.

“Cicada's.” The name seemed so familiar to Eobard as it easily slipped of his tongue. The hushed tone in Eobard’s voice expressed a calm before the storm. A deceptive man full of secrets and knowledge of many, many years to come. Especially when it came to The Flash. “The one who got away. You want to destroy Cicada's dagger, don't you?”

“We want to save lives.”

A cynical laugh leaves your speedster’s lips as you pursed yours, trying to tease out the logics from Barry. “You want to save lives.” Eobard chuckled mockingly at Barry’s response. “I bet you do. I bet you do. Especially your own, right, Barry Allen?”

“Look, that me,” Barry pointed to the other version of himself in the room, “he's gonna wake up soon. He sees me standing here, your whole timeline is gonna be blown to hell. You're never gonna get home. You know that's true!”

“I know! I know!” Eobard sighed, his facial expression contorted, and his eyes held a different motive as he flicked his gaze to Nora, who hadn’t stop taking glimpses of you. “Where are my manners? Can I get you a cup of water?” You rolled your eyes at Eobard’s ploy.

***

The four of you had moved to the small lab, far from the Cortex in avoidance of Caitlin and Cisco. The timeline was a fickle thing to speedsters, Eobard had told you that. But oddly enough, when it came to Eobard it seemed to be malleable to his every whim. Tools and spare wires littered along the desk your speedster boyfriend was working at. The monitor held a camera feed of the Time Vault where Barry’s unconscious younger version was still unconscious.

How hard did Eobard hit him? Like, how the hell is he still asleep even through all that yelling and seething??

“Here,” you handed Nora a bottle of purified water.

“Thanks,” she quietly spoke, you nodded at her. You really didn’t know what to think about someone who knew you in the future, yet you had no idea who she would be until a few years later. Would I even still be in this time period by then? Or would Eobard had kept his promise? … Nothing’s making any sense right now. You felt frustrated for not really being part of their conversations. You were… just there.

“So, who made this?” Eobard examined the piece of teach as he started working on it.

Barry answered with pocketed hands, “Someone smarter than you.”

“I doubt that,” You snorted as Eobard laughed at Barry’s statement. Leaning against the dark blue beam of the side lab, you crossed your arms avoiding Barry’s gaze when he glanced over to you. You chewed on the inside of your cheek. “If so, then why come here? Why go through all the trouble to come here when you can get help from the person who made it? Why then would you need Eobard’s help?”

“We-”

“It’s… complicated,” Barry sighed before Nora could finish saying anything, pocketing his hands.

“I think that’s an understatement to the type of trouble that seems to find you, Barr.” You crossed your arms. “At least a Time Wraith didn’t follow you this time. Which I’m still having trouble tracking down.” You nodded to his former self on the monitor. Barry rolled his eyes at you.

“You know, Allen,” the yellow speedster wheeled around, electric blue eyes meeting Barry’s green gaze, “for your plan to work, you're gonna actually have to have his dagger in your possession...”

“We've got that covered.”

The villainous speedster raised an eyebrow at the forensics scientists. “You got that covered. How’s that?” He humored them.

“With this.” Nora pulled out a dark piece of metal, holding it out for you and Eobard to observe momentarily.

“What is that?” You piqued up, causing Nora to look over at you. An odd emotion flickered in her eyes. Eobard reached a hand out to it only for Barry to pluck it from Nora’s grasp. Your eyes flickered between the two then back to Nora. She didn’t seem to be cautious around you and Eobard at all. Revealing the reason for aid and showing Eobard exactly what he seemed to want to see. You weren’t a genius, but you obviously saw the pointed looks that Barry subtly gave his daughter. The cogs were turning in your head as well as in Eobard’s. He masked his growing speculation about the two speedsters.

“Is that-”

“It's a piece of Savitar's suit, yeah.” Barry stoically responded, since Nora had already shown Eobard the metallic piece, to Eobard’s oncoming question before he could even finish. Barry knew Eobard recognized the object, shaking his head that that cat was out of the bag for this secret too.

“Savitar?”

“Savitar. The Future Flash and the self-proclaimed God of Speed, kitten,” Eobard simply explained as he worked. Images of a metallic suit flashed through your mind as it hummed with energy; a familiar face shrouded in shadows and a hauntingly course voice. “A twisted time remnant of the man you know to be your friend. Another big bad that Barry’s had to face in the future, primarily due to the mistakes of his growing unhappiness. Isn’t that right, Flash? The pain you’ve caused the people around you just for you selfish wishes.” Barry rolled his eyes but remained silent.

“Eobard, play nice,” you scolded the older man, “they’re still guests here after all.”

“Hmph. You know what's funny about your dad, Nora,” the futuristic genius caught her attention, “is he hates me. Hates me with a passion, and yet a version of him, this Savitar, is a much bigger jerk than I ever was. Did you see the face?” Eobard gestured to his own face, primarily to one side of his face while snickering “Did you- did you see the, like, pizza face-” Nora awkwardly stepped from foot to foot, looking away.

“-Pizza face?-” Eobard Tiberius Thawne you owe me so many fucking answers when we get home because these images aren’t making as much sense as they should.

“-Can you hurry up?-”

“-Yeah, I'll hurry up.” Eobard smugly nonchalantly threw the tiny screwdriver onto the desk. He picked up a different on. “I gotta tell you, Allen, using Savitar's suit, it's a smart idea.”

Barry tilted his head to his daughter. “It was hers.”

Eobard gave her a hard look. His eyes flickered towards you then turned around. “Clever girl.” You picked up an odd indication in his tone. The speedster narrowed his eyes at the tech as he ignited it, illuminating in his hands to signal its functioning aspect. On the monitor, the four of you noticed that the other Barry was coming to consciousness. Eobard inhaled silently. “Oops.” Eobard swiveled his body around to hand them the piece of tech. “Gotta go.” Barry narrowed his eyes, quiet hatred behind them as he took the tech from his nemesis. “I still look forward to seeing how this all pans out. Nora. Kitten, make sure they see their way out,” Eo glanced at you one last time before speeding away in a torrent of red-lightning to the Time Vault. The three of you watched as the villainous speedster reclaimed his rightful place, crossing his legs once more. An analytical look across his features.

You spoke before the two speedsters sped away in a torrent of lightning. “Cicada’s the one with the lightning-shaped dagger, the one that glows ominously? Heartless eyes? Breathing problems?”

“Yeah? How did you…?” Nora trailed off. Barry figured that your powers were still manifesting themselves and it seems that their run back in time has triggered sporadic post-cognitive images to be revealed through certain key words.

“It doesn’t matter how-,”

“Your powers are still developing,” Barry interjected, pocketing the tech safely. “It seems that our visit has amplified what you can do. Let’s just what it doesn’t shift anything else”

He knows about my powers… Right, time travel. “Just be safe. I-I don’t know too much and I’m not sure what the future holds, but whatever trouble you two have run into just be cautious. Not for me, but for the ones you love. The past will always have some sort of domino effect to the future. I may not be able to time travel, but Eobard has taught me a thing or two about it.” You stopped, looking off to the side while rubbing your arm. “Barry?”

“Hmm?”

“Just answer me this one thing.”

“… It depends.”

“I know, timeline and speedster stuff. But…” You took a breath in, “Is he safe?” The speedster avoided your eyes. You swallowed thickly, moving your gaze to Nora. “Does he live?” She opened her mouth a fraction, moved by the desperation evident in your eyes

“I can’t answer that.” Barry whispered without hesitation, an alien emotion behind those eyes, replacing the kindness and warmth the Barry you knew had. It was bitter. “Nora, it’s time to go back to the night it all began.” Barry flashed away to the pipeline. Nora remained.

“I’m sorry,” She whispered, your body felt numb at the absence of answers. You turned back to the monitor, running both hands through your hair before picking up a spare tool and frustratingly throwing it at the wall. Picking up the tablet once more, you ran some algorithms and diagnostics privately on your powers as you made you way to the Time Vault.

Eobard’s head perked up in question at your entrance. He remained seated catching your troubled look. You only whispered, “We need to talk after this is over,” before leaning against the wall and tapping at the screen of your tablet. He hadn’t missed the embittered look in your eyes, the prominent frown on your face. A peculiar emotion hidden behind those lovely eyes of yours when the speedster had been so accustomed to seeing lights and twinkling of stars within your irises.

Eobard rubbed his wrist as he attained messy hair due to Barry and Nora’s revelations. You speculated he had been running his hands through it in thought as he tried to decipher the truth and what his next plan of action would be. King vs King. Eobard and Barry. It was a dangerous game and it’s clear that Team Flash are Barry’s pieces to move while Iris was by his side. From the future’s perspective. But you… at this point, you hazard a thought of what Eobard saw of you as. Queen… or Pawn. Pursing your lips, you shoved those thoughts away as your mind reminded you of all you and he had gone through since he had revealed himself and his truth to you. But right now, you were feeling so conflicted and insecure at how everything would play out. He promised to take me home with him… That we could start a life together. I don’t want to be used up and thrown away again. I’m tired of being broken and alienated.

The restrained Barry shifted once more in abrupt confusion as he found himself slumped against the cool metal of Eobard’s motorized wheelchair. A prop to his act. His mind felt foggy and arms felt heavy, particularly his right hand. You stopped tapping and eyed him indifferently because you really had no idea how to feel, but you realized you need to be cautious with how you act and what you say until you and Eobard clear things up from earlier events.

Barry’s eyes darted rapidly to the seated, smirking speedster in front of him then to you then to the metacuffs before lingering back to Harrison. The Scarlet Speedster assessed the guarded expression on your face. You saw this Barry feign confusion, eyebrows raised as he eyed the metacuffs and Dr. Wells. You cracked your neck as Eobard did a little hand-wave gesture to Barry. The young speedster looked baffled, probably at getting caught, as he opened and closed his mouth.

“Now, who are you?”

[thepandapopo]

His Star

This is my first FE fic in over ten years. The last time I wrote anything for FE was back in FE7 which, to this day, is my second favourite game of all time.

I have been on a Claudeth binge lately and since it is our favourite deer’s birthday tomorrow, I thought I would try my hand at a fic.

This is most likely going to be a multi chapter fic as I am spinning the plotline in my head as we speak, but whether or not that plot bunny makes it to paper is a different story.

Pairing: Claude x F!Byleth

In which Byleth falls sick for the first time in her entire life, but those who slither in the dark insist on making her life difficult. 

OR

The one where Claude fears he won’t make it in time.

Chapter List: 1 / 2 / 2.5 

Masterlist

XxXxXxXxX

“Professor, you need to rest!”

For someone so demure and dainty looking, Marianne is deceptively strong. Though, Byleth thinks absently as she lets her former student push her back down onto her large 4 poster bed, she shouldn’t be so surprised since she’s seen even Raphael himself bend to the gentle bishop’s will in the odd instances that he sustains a critical enough injury to land himself in the healer’s tent.

“Don’t worry, Professor. I’m sure Seteth will be able to hold down the fort while you recover.” Leonie says from her place at the foot of the bed. Despite the fact that the war has been over for nearly 6 months, her lance is still clipped neatly to her belt, next to her sword scabbard - close enough within reach to attack on a moment’s notice.

Since the end of the war, Leonie had taken it upon herself to act as the new Queen’s Head of Royal Guard. When Byleth had questioned the orange haired girl about her decision, she was merely met with a grin and a simple “I would be a terrible apprentice to Captain Jeralt if I let anything happen to his only child.”

“I’m... sorry.” Though the words themselves are not strange on her tongue, the unfamiliar dryness of her mouth and stuffed nose make Byleth sound weaker and more hesitant than she would have liked.

Leonie snorts, “you don’t have to apologize for catching a cold, Professor. Especially one due to stress. Despite what I think of you when you’re on the battlefield, you really are just a person like anyone else - of course you’re bound to get sick every now and again.”

Still, Byleth broods silently as she watches the blue haired healer usher her other student out the bedroom door, she has never gotten sick in her entire life until now and it just seems a tad bit unfair.

Fusing with the progenitor goddess has several advantages, but unfortunately it seems like being immune to illnesses is not one of them.

As her eyelids begin to lose the fight against consciousness, Byleth cannot help but let her mind wander longingly until she falls asleep dreaming of beautiful emerald eyes and a crooked grin that shines brighter than the dawn.

----

It only takes one week of being bed ridden before everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

Byleth is finally starting to feel well enough to stand up without feeling like she has ingested a vial of Claude’s infamous dizziness poison, when the scouts return with a report that the remnants of the Imperial army have joined forces with Those who Slither in the Dark and are marching for Derdrui, the country’s new capital.

It does not take a tactical genius to figure out that they are coming for the newly appointed Queen and Archbishop of the United Land of Fodlan.

Urgent messengers are sent out to all the nearby houses, requesting any available troops they can spare without leaving themselves vulnerable. It’s almost laughable the pitiful number of men that show up to help fight, but the arrival of all her golden deer is enough to raise Byleth’s morale and hope that she can conquer this disadvantaged fight without her schemer by her side.

Despite the protests from her students - former students, she corrects herself - Byleth steels herself and leads the meager army at her disposal in a defensive formation. This is her duty, after all. Without her, troop morale would falter and that in itself can be the deciding factor in a battle. Additionally, though she has not used it in several months and truly, she does believe in all her students’ skills, Byleth cannot help the unease that creeps up her throat when she thinks about her precious deer on the battlefield without her Divine Pulse. She has fought so hard to make sure they lived to see the peaceful world Claude and her dreamed of, that it would seem like a cruel joke only for them to fall now.

Even sick, the Ashen Demon earns her reputation. Fells of enemies fall to the Sword of the Creator as it burns with power, whipping around its wielder like a snake striking with deadly precision at the enemy’s weakness. Byleth refuses to let any enemies get close to the city. Her people have already been ravaged by war. They deserve peace, not another battle at their front step.

Hilda is somewhere to her left swinging Freikugel and cleaving through enemies with all the difficulty of a hot knife slicing through butter. Byleth is tempted to relocate the pink haired girl to the back line to act as a final barrier, but she knows that those orders will fall on deaf ears.

“If you insist on going out there Professor, then I have to come and make sure you don’t die. Can you imagine what Claude would say if he came back to find you dead? He would mope for the next century!”

Ignatz and Lysithea are further back providing cover with their long ranged attacks. Arrows and black magic rain from the sky, piercing through unsuspecting enemies and carving a path for Byleth’s battalion to advance and cut through the ranks of the enemy.

Somewhere to her right, she can hear Raphael’s battle cries above the cacophony of sounds. Judging by his sheer volume, Byleth knows that he is doing well despite being far outnumbered. Besides, the brawler is accompanied by Lorenz and Bernadetta, and while Lorenz specializes in black magics, he knows enough healing spells to keep them afloat. Plus, no matter how timid she is off the battlefield, Bernadetta is a force to be reckoned with when protecting her loved ones. Especially her mountain of a husband.

Marianne, Leonie, Felix, Ingrid, Seteth and Flayn are scattered elsewhere to protect against the enemies from crushing them in from both sides, but as the battle wages on, it becomes more and more apparent that their ranks are thinning and those that still stand are beginning to feel the fatigue of being outnumbered three to one.

The battlefield has long since warped into a jigsaw of cracked earth and chasms, courtesy of some nasty earth spells from Those Who Slither In the Dark. Where there should be rolling plains leading out onto the salty water of the ocean, there are now steep cliffs of jagged rocks jutting out of the ground, and despite her best efforts, Byleth eventually finds herself cornered on the precipice of one such cliff.

It can’t end like this.

Another enemy falls to her sword and Byleth barely has time to parry an oncoming arrow before another wave of nausea assaults her body.

She knows she’s probably burning up right now. Mint green strands of hair are matted to her skin with dirt and sweat, and the pounding behind her eyes is growing increasingly difficult to ignore. Byleth is pretty sure that had it not been for her father hammering in years of battle instincts into her, she would have had her head lopped off ages ago.

Despite how much she tries to will herself to stay in that cool, collected mindset that has won her numerous battles, Byleth cannot stop the tightness in her chest that accompanies the tears of frustration accumulating at the corner of her eyes.

She wanted to see Claude again. To feel his arms around her. To fall asleep to the steady pounding of his heart that seemed to inexplicably speed up every time she let her body melt into his. To let herself drown in the scent of pine needles and spices.

She could try using the Divine Pulse, but where would she rewind to? A few minutes would not be enough to make a drastic enough decision to turn the tide in their favor.

It’s not fair.

Goddess. She is so tired. But she cannot give up. Not when she has a promise to keep.

“I love you. With everything I am. And the next time we see each other... it will be at the dawn of a whole new world. A peaceful, happy world.”

Claude...

The ground beneath her feet teeters and he sky is suddenly above her. It is a brilliant blue with fluffy white clouds and even though she knows she is falling, she cannot help but be reminded of the first time Claude invited her out on his wyvern and they spent the afternoon soaring and diving through the air on a beautiful day just like this.

Claude... I’m sorry I couldn’t keep our promise...

She thinks it is a trick of her mind, but right as Byleth feels her consciousness slipping away, she hears his voice one last time crying out her name with such fear and anguish.

Then, there was nothing.

----

“BYLETH!”

Claude feels his heart stop and clench painfully as the familiar black and green figure tumbles off the edge of a jagged cliff.

He is shooting across the battlefield on his wyvern’s back before he can even spare a thought to how absolutely reckless it is to fly so low in the range of archers.

Behind him, he vaguely registers his generals shouting at him in alarm and Nader barking out orders to support the retreating Fodlan forces.

All he can think about right now is getting to His Star in time.

Later, he will wonder to himself if perhaps he might have the power to pause time as well, because although it was probably less than 4 seconds, Claude swears that the world around him slowed as all of his senses honed in on his one goal.

Please, goddess, let me reach her in time.

---

To those who participated in the Final battle with Those Who Slither in the Dark, they would recall vividly the moment when a loud battle cry rang out from the east heralding the arrival of the Almyran army.

They would also recount the arrow of white and gold that shot across the battlefield towards the Queen whom had made her last stand on the edge of a cliff before fainting from exhaustion and tumbling down to the depths below.

Above the din of weapons clashing and cries of agony rose a single name, cried out with such fear and panic that even those who knew not whom the shout belonged to, felt their hearts clench painfully with the raw emotion.

Although not many could say for certain what happened next, all the surviving Fodlan soldiers would recall shortly thereafter seeing their former leader, Claude von Riegan, atop his white wyvern loosing arrow after arrow on the lingering enemies with such brutal efficiency that reminded everyone exactly how he had ended the war.

When the fighting ceases and casualties are tallied, fear for their Queen runs rampant through the soldiers. For those who have had the privilege of fighting under the combined leadership of Claude, the master tactician, and Byleth, the Ashen Demon, they know how strong the bond is between the two, and although they have their doubts, they allow themselves to let their worries melt away when they see Claude exit the medical tent with a look of such knee wobbling relief that he has to lean on a nearby wall to stop from collapsing.

XxXxXxXxX

Ugh. I hate how this ended. I’ll come back and fix it another day.

Anyhoo, hope you all enjoyed it!

Chapter 1

Next: Chapter 2

[sugarcoated-eloquence]

Foreboding (Targets: Part 2)

A/N: Hello, hello! Welcome to the shitshow, aka my blog. This is part two of a potential 4/5 part series that I am co-writing with the lovely @sweetestrequiems. Click here for Part 1. Each chapter is focused on a different queen or issue related to the queens. This specific chapter is Catherine Parr centric, but the other queens are all very present. 

Please note the following ships are canon in this fic’s universe: Parrlyn, Aramour

{Trigger warnings: anxiety, mention of blood, slight violence}

I should also note some passages are written in German and Spanish and should be google searched to better comprehend the story. 

Taglist: @sweetestrequiems, @theatergirl06, @silverpetals97, @six-fragile-dreams, @patdfobmcr-yt, @frogs-in-clogs, @mindless-pidgeon

Other than that..... enjoy! Below the cut.

It would not stop.

The constant feeling like something would go wrong.

Katherine Howard could not tell if it was the anxiety, or if it was something else. She physically felt okay, and everything seemed fine, but for the life of her, the girl could not put her finger on that bad feeling. Being so lost in her thoughts, Howard was found, brows furrowed, staring down at her food, rather than eating it. Of course, this raised concerns with her cousin, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour. Boleyn’s face began to reflect the concern when she raised an eyebrow. Seymour had more of a sad-looking face, but nonetheless, the worry was quite present.

“Katherine?”

“Hey, Kitty… you okay?”

The two voices snapped Howard out of her trance. She looked up, shaking her head seconds after her attention went to the two women. “Yeah, yeah! Just had something come across my mind is all. I’m fine, really. Guess I’m just getting the typical pre-show jitters everyone gets,” which wasn’t a lie, either. But, Katherine did feel a pang of guilt in having to be dishonest with Jane and Anne. Howard was one of the Queens who always got some pre-show anxiety, alongside Catherine of Aragon– (much to everyone’s surprise)– and Boleyn. It wasn’t a rare occasion, though, considering they had just about an hour before they had to head to the theatre. It wouldn’t seem like much now, but this feeling Katherine Howard was having was not a good one.

––––––––––

During the matinee, Katherine could not shake off that constant thought.

But she was not alone. The feeling had begun to haunt her cousin Anne.

Anne Boleyn’s eyes began to glance around the audience, knowing that Katherine was in the middle of delivering the roast of the century to Jane, Catherine Parr, and Anna of Cleves. A certain man had caught her eye up in the upper level; the second row in the left Circle Slip of the Arts Theatre, to be more precise. Something about that blond hair. And cold, blue eyes. Something about the way he was leaning on the railing while he sat began to bother Anne. Her attention snapped right back to the show when she heard Katherine say, “I can’t even begin to think of how I could compete with you all. Oh wait, like this!” to signal the start of All You Wanna Do. But even with her focus on the show, Boleyn’s glances kept going back up to that strange man.

“I think we can all agree I’m the ten amongst these threes!”

What about him bothered Anne Boleyn so much? She did not know. 

Was it his face? No, he seemed to be fairly attractive. Was it the way he stared at all of them? Possibly, since he seemed to be rather uncomfortable when Aragon brought up Leviticus and Mary in No Way. He also looked disgusted during Boleyn’s spotlight in Don’t Lose Ur Head. He looked very, very abhorred with Haus of Holbein and Anna of Cleves. But his eyes when Katherine Howard was singing screamed danger, and Anne could see it. Her frequent glancing that first day saw him tense up upon a few lines:

“Tall, large, Henry the Eighth. 

Supreme Head of the Church of England. 

Globally revered, although you wouldn’t know it from the look of that beard.”

And the end of All You Wanna Do, as far as Anne could tell from where she was on the stage, had him gripping the railing tightly. Was anger the reason he furrowed his eyebrows, or something else? The distance was not helping her much. Overall, she was picking up a few assumptions just from the one matinee show. This guy was either a historian that pretty much agreed with Henry VIII’s horrible decisions in life, or someone the Queens knew personally. What Anne decided to think though, was the former. Maybe this guy was just a historian and unimpressed with the show, right?

That first show could have not ended sooner. But as the lights on the stage went somewhat dim to allow the six ladies to exit, Anne Boleyn paused and allowed the others to go in front of her. She kept her gaze on that very man, and watched him stand up, turn around, and head on out of the seating area. The fact that she was the last one to leave concerned Cleves a bit. Right before she could even reach the dressing room, the queen in red put a hand on the green queen’s shoulder. “Moment mal, Anne. Was stört dich? Du hast anscheinend nicht dein gewohntes Lächeln am Ende der Show gehabt,” the German gently gave the shoulder a squeeze. Boleyn found herself sighing. “What’s going on? You normally smile and you were barely holding one up today by the end of the show,” Cleves made herself translate what she had previously said. 

“I don’t know, honestly. I guess I thought I saw someone that Maggie knew in the audience. It was weird. I’m normally not out of it either. Anyways, if Aragon took the couch, she’s going to regret it. It’s my nap time,” the cheeky grin came back to the ruby lips. A nod from Cleves, and the two were well on their way to the dressing room. Was Aragon on the couch? Absolutely. And Anne 100% kicked her off of it just so she could lay down and sleep after she changed back into her comfortable clothes. No space buns, no makeup– just a giant hoodie and some sweatpants. 

––––––––––

The other dressing room was a little more lively for a good while.

Katherine Howard was up on her feet, bouncing around with energy. Catherine Parr had decided to join her this afternoon. What were the two doing while Jane Seymour took the time to answer some tweets and messages? Dancing. The two ladies were dancing, which was almost the catalyst for Jane setting her phone down and joining them. In fact, she just wanted in on the fun. The three danced around for maybe half an hour, before a yawning Katherine Howard took to the couch to take a nap herself. Parr and Seymour stayed awake, with Parr looking for her notebook and Seymour going back to the tweets and messages.

“Cathy, look at this,” tapping her counterpart on the shoulder, the blonde woman moved her phone to be between them both. “It’s us with our kids!” If there was one thing Jane Seymour loved about the fans they had, it was all of the fanart of them with their kids. A smile was brought to Catherine Parr’s face as she looked up to meet Jane’s eyes. “If there’s one thing I have always appreciated, it’s that they know we aren’t the only Tudors that kicked some serious ass.” The laugh both of them shared was quiet, as to not wake Katherine up from her post-show nap. 

The calligraphy pen twirled around Parr’s fingers for a solid minute or so before she finally began to write. Each queen had their thing to do post-matinee if it was a two-show day.

Catherine Parr wrote notes about her performances.

Jane Seymour responded to fans. And to as many of them as possible, too!

Both of the Beheaded Cousins slept their time away.

Anna of Cleves did various things, such as meditate and listen to music.

Catherine of Aragon normally left the dressing room to find a quiet spot in the theatre’s backstage to pray.

This normal routine was going to be shaken up a little too much. So much that Boleyn and Howard were too tense to take their usual between show naps.

––––––––––

The same seat every damn time.

Who the hell was this guy?

And why was he now looking so bitter towards Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard?

Three weeks since the mystery man had first caught Boleyn’s eyes in the middle of a performance. But now it was a pattern. Two night shows and a matinee, and always on the exact same nights. Exact same seat, exact same everything. This was starting to piss Boleyn off, and scare Howard. He looked at them with more than just malicious intent in his eyes, to the point that Katherine sometimes blanked on her lines. It was to the point when Anne was singing, she’d put more emphasis on “Hold up, let me tell you how it went down.” just to spite him. This historian guy, or whoever he truly was, did not settle well with the cousins.

But on the night of a Sunday performance, the Queens all got a rude awakening they were not ready for. And the two to be given the first wave were none other than the Beheaded Cousins themselves:

Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard.

––––––––––

This tension was so chilling that it even caused Anne to fumble a few of her lines. Even the infamous “Yeah, I read.” was not the usual confident, snarky remark it usually was. Having made eye contact with the mystery man while trying to deliver the line was definitely part of it, and for a moment there was a stiff awkwardness in the air. They’d recover quickly, of course, but the general consensus between the group was that something was wrong, and it didn’t take a genius to figure it out. 

The man quickly left, before the end of bows, and somehow located an usher and told him he was an old friend of the girls’. The girls weren’t too akin to refusing to meet people, so immediately after stagedooring and meeting fans, they all headed backstage to meet whoever had requested a personal meet and greet. Kit’s the first through the door and she stops dead in her tracks. Those eyes. They were the same bright blue eyes that she saw in her dreams at night, the same eyes she stared into right before… well… 

She swallows, backing up a little. Anne comes crashing through the door, chaos embodied, and happily dances around for a moment before noticing the anxiety seething from Howard’s small frame. “What’s wrong, love?” Kit simply points to the man, and Anne’s heart drops to her stomach as well. She too, can’t look away from those crystal eyes. The blond hair. The everything. 

Anne can barely talk above a whisper could even tell it was him would make the situation less real. Maybe it wasn’t, maybe he was just another person. One can hope, but no luck there, Anne. She can feel Kit shaking, and reaches to take her hand, letting out a shaky breath and considering shouting for Parr. 

The others trickle in quickly after, the ‘mystery man’ still just staring at the two cousins with ferocious intensity. The last to enter, though, is Jane Seymour. The metaphorical mother of the group, the caretaker, any other synonym you can think of. Jane is never one to cast judgement. She walks in, and despite the obvious tension, says a polite hello to the man. He simply nods in response. 

Parr joins Anne at the hip, whispering to her. “Is he what’s got you all rattled, love?” Anne lets out a small nod. “It’s him.” 

That statement reaches Jane’s ears and immediately her demeanor changes. She stands up a little straighter, setting her microphone down on the dressing room’s main table, and just looks at him. She moves a little closer, pushing the other girls behind her, and she can only say one thing. 

“...Henry?”

He steps forward, and while the other girls move back, Jane stays planted to her spot. He smiles, trying to turn on the charm, reaching for her hands. “The one I truly lov—” He’s cut off by a slap. Yes, Jane Seymour just slapped a man. He brings a hand up to his red cheek, eye showing that it indeed, hurt. Cleves stifles a laugh.

“Don’t ever associate that word with me. You don’t know what love is.” A few tears well up in the blonde’s eyes, but refuses to let them fall. Not for him. “Love isn’t keeping your wife from holding her newborn child!” Her voice breaks slightly, but she takes a deep breath, centering herself. 

“You all look so different.” The scruffy voice chimes, and immediately Kit visibly tenses up. She, unlike Jane, is unable to hold the tears in. Though they flow silently, they flow heavily. “There’s no need to cry, Katherine… or should I say ‘Kitty’, now?” 

“Don’t speak to her. You do not have permission to do that.” Jane moves to block his view, but he simply repositions himself. Anne elects to go in for a dig. The devilish smirk returns, though small, and she gives Kit’s hand a squeeze before moving a tiny step forward. 

“You know, mate, if you’re still having trouble… you know, with your little friend, we can get you a prescription for Viagra. Or Cialis, plenty of options.” She emphasizes ‘little’ by using her thumb and pointer finger to indicate his size. It makes Kit smile a little. The silence in the air was broken by a stifled laughter. That had to be the funniest thing Cleves ever heard Boleyn say outside of the wit written in the script. Aragon gave her a nudge, but even she agreed with the sentiment.

The blond man, finally revealed as the reincarnated Henry VIII, just narrowed his eyes. “How funny, laughter coming from someone who couldn’t perform.” Anne’s smirk went away, as she looked back towards Cleves with a hurt expression. Cleves’ grin was gone, with gritted teeth behind a closed mouth replacing it. Aragon let out a sigh. “That’s low for the man who so easily says he believes–��

“Catalina, don’t even get me started on you either.”

Not a single comment from Catherine Parr. She just stood there, feeling herself drift between a rational mind and pure impulse. Did this guy just come back to insult them, and get a second wind to take Katherine? Oh no, that was not happening. She saw it all, too. Jane’s reddening face from holding back the tears, Cleves’ rather tame anger, Aragon’s scowl… Kit’s pale face from the fear, and Anne being powerless. Jane Seymour honestly, had lost her mind way before Catherine Parr did in this scenario, but… there was always going to be a breaking point for the quiet one.

“So you and your whore cousin think you can just slander my name like that? I’d have you both back at the scaffold in front of the Tower if I had–”

“Scaffolds don’t exist anymore, you twat,” Boleyn hissed under her breath. 

“Enough, Henry.”

This was where Parr had enough. The other Queens gave a glance at their surviving counterpart, who wasn’t even looking up at him. She was staring at the floor, but for now. “Cathy, you should probably not… y’know, say anything,” Boleyn barely managed to get that sentence out, considering the crushing feeling she had inside of her chest. All that got as a response was a laugh.

“The survivor, Catherine Parr. Tell me then, my love, are you just as stubborn as you were back then?” He got every other one to crack, but little did he know that he would be the one about to shatter like glass. “Because you should’ve been the one to meet an untimely fate like your counterparts here. Of course, new body means a second chance at being able to–”

Henry stops when he sees Parr’s shoulders shake a little. She’s… laughing?

That’s why she was looking down. When she did look up, one saw her smile shining on like a light. Safe to say, Catherine Parr was about to tear someone apart. “You’ve still got quite a loud mouth for an old man. Tell me, did you ever finally learn to take care of yourself, you bobolyne? Thinking you have any right to talk to the mother of not only your damned son, but also the woman who was loyal to you for twenty four years?! And even better, the one you so graciously called your sister after your marriage? You’ve got to be kidding me right now.”

Jane felt a little insulted that she had to take a jab at Edward, but had the feeling it was necessary considering the situation. Hopefully Parr would apologize for it later on.

“Okay, okay… fair. Not bad, Parr. But why do those two get to wear shiny chokers while the rest of you have crowns? Does it further emphasize my point that Anne Boleyn’s just a hell of a tempting woman and that Katherine Howard–”

The smile from Parr’s face faded. The anger was present and everyone was mortified to see someone so quiet speaking up like she was. With vitriol in her voice, Catherine Parr officially lost her temper. 

“You KNOW exactly what the fuck happened, Henry.”

Aragon felt herself go to cover Katherine’s ears as her goddaughter began to lose her composure. “You KNOW why they have to wear those. You know damn well the crimes you fucking committed against them both, especially Katherine! She was a child, Henry! A fucking child who got manipulated and used! I want to hear nothing from your mouth, you snoutband! You have nothing to defend yourself with!”

Wiping a tear or two away, Jane Seymour began to lean into Anna of Cleves for some form of comfort. Even the German was surprised to be hearing the resentment coming out of such a powerful and rather cool-tempered woman. Just as Henry went to open his mouth, he stopped.

“Oh no, no sir! You have no right to talk here! Anne Boleyn lost her head over what, your delusions that she was out and about with men when you were just going around like you weren’t married? And because of that, she has to struggle to change her name? Are you actually insane or some shit?” The northern accent Parr had was thick. She was angry, and her voice said it for her if her facial expression did not. “Jane Seymour never got to hold Edward because you took him straight away for his christening. And she had to sit there, alone, in bed! Suffering through illness until she died without saying goodbye to her baby boy!”

Boleyn goes pale. Where did this anger even come from? She had no idea, but Parr was scaring her.

“My damn godmother was near a saint with all of the bullshit she had to put up with! Twenty four fucking years, and it wasn’t Anne who ruined the marriage. It was YOU. Aragon did some insanely remarkable things despite how you treated her! And Cleves! You just decide to take Cleves and humiliate her because she wasn’t beautiful enough for you? You’re an absolute wandought, Henry! You brought a Spanish lady and a German lady out of their comfort zones all because you didn’t know how to use your damn brain!”

At this point, Aragon had managed to sneak off into the dressing room, with Cleves now being the one to hold Howard. Boleyn was now hugging Seymour, actually terrified of not just Henry, but Parr.

Henry began to go pale. He was not going to recover from this.

“Who am I missing… let’s see, Katherine Howard? No, I got her. Anne Boleyn? Also got her. Jane Seymour? Check. Anna of Cleves? Check. Catherine of Aragon? Oh, yeah, her too. Would you look at that… I’m the only one left. Surprise surprise, the fucking survivor surviving again and this time, she gets to give it to you the exact way she wants to.”

“Cathy–”

“Shut up you lot. My turn to finally talk.”

A flinch from the group. Aragon had to take glances in and out of the dressing room.

“Oh wow, Catherine Parr. The survivor. The one who draws lines in arbitrary places, blah blah! She had two other husbands, what good could have she done being a Tudor queen? I DIDN’T TAKE ANY OF YOUR BULLSHIT IS WHAT I DID. Those books that everyone rumoured a woman was writing? Surprise, you tallowcatch! It was me! I’m the famed author of Tudor history. And I published under my own name once your pitiful body finally died. That can’t be that bad, Cathy. What a sad excuse for a sob story, right?”

Katherine Howard began to tremble more than she already was in Anna of Cleves’ arms. Catherine Parr made herself stand face to face with Henry.

“Ah, right, because she survived she deserves the backing vocals. WELL GUESS WHAT, HENRY? I’M HERE TO STAY. I HAD TO GIVE UP MY LIFE, MY LOVE, AND WHATEVER ELSE I WAS DOING TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR SORRY ASS. You might have forced these women into submission but no, I am not going to submit to some sad old man. You took away their rights, you took away their children… and poor Katherine…” A laugh. “You took poor Katherine’s childhood. You turned her into a disgraced whore. She is not and will never be one. She is a victim of your bullshit.”

“Catherine, my love–”

“No excuses now, Henry. I’m through. Your love ran cold years ago. And call me love one more damn time. See what happens.”

“My love–”

The weight of the sleeves helped Parr send her fist flying into his face. He stumbled back, feeling a warm sensation drip from his nose. Blood. He… was bleeding? “You actually got the nerve to punch an English King? You’re a mad woman, Parr. I’ll have you thrown on that scaffold just how–” A second punch, and this time, there was an audible crack of sorts.

“You wear a crown, but you’re no king. You’re a disgrace to human life, Henry. And this is for all of the women you hurt, manipulated, abused… and killed,” a lunge forward. The third strike was to his jaw, and the fourth was a solid kick to the chest with her heel being the first thing to make impact. Henry, having been taken by surprise from every hit, stumbled right back into a pair of men. Shaking her fist off, some of the blood ended up getting on the floor, and part of it remained on her hands. 

“I’ll be back, Catherine! Mark my damn words! Let go of me, you imbeciles!”

“Like hell you’ll be back!”

And just as she took a step forward, Aragon went to hold on to one of her arms. “Someone help me hold her back!” Aragon needed the help. Parr was under such a fit of rage she was dragging her godmother across the hallway. Seymour had to let go of Boleyn to try and hold on to Parr’s other arm. She slowed down, but still had enough adrenaline surging through her to keep going. Cleves just gave Howard a gentle kiss on the cheek before running over to help the other two ladies. No arms? No problem. She just held on to one of Parr’s legs.

Boleyn pulled her cousin into a tight hug, feeling a shaky exhale leave her body. “Kitty? Kitty, are you okay?” Just a nod. Howard was terrified to open her mouth after seeing the ungodly wrath unfold before her eyes. “I-Is… she mad at us, Annie?” Quiet and almost inaudible. The poor girl was terrified to even talk out of fear that Parr was not just angry at Henry, but at them too.

“Catherine Parr, what in God’s name has gotten into you?” Aragon furrows her eyebrows. “This is not you. What is going on? Talk to me, please.”

Anne reaches to take Kit’s hand. “She’s… upset. Not at us, I promise.” Anne had to admit, all of the ferocity coming from Parr scared her a little bit. The yelling reminded her a little of when Henry first stormed in and accused her. Of course, she would set it aside, but it was scary in the moment. She looks in Kit’s eyes, which are now full of tears, sighing and pulling her into another tight hug and rubbing her back. “It’s okay, babes… He’s gonna go away and we will be okay, I promise. The girls aren’t gonna let him get to us.” Kit just buries her face into Anne’s shoulder and lets out the remainder of what she wouldn’t let out in front of Henry. Thank goodness the men had taken him into another room until the police arrived. 

Anne pulls out of the hug for a moment and then walks Kit outside. “You look absolutely knackered, love… maybe we should head home as soon as all of this is over. Do you wanna change into something else? C’mon.” They both decide to change, but do so in the staff bathroom rather than in the dressing room. On the off chance Henry was able to see into the dressing room, they didn’t want him to see anything. Anne also thought a door with a lock was the safest. 

Once they finish hanging up their costumes, the two settle into the couch, and just hold each other. Anne hums a little of La Vie en Rose, and quickly, Kit falls asleep. Anne doesn’t mind. They were all done with the day, it had already put them through the ringer. 

There’s an apparent veil of exhaustion amongst all of the women, except Parr.

Sure, Henry had been apprehended at this point and he was stuck with his hands cuffed behind his back, but that didn’t stop him from being inches away from Parr’s face with a very devious smile. “I’ll be back, Catherine. And you six will have to deal with me all over again. Especially Kat–”

“Like hell you are!”

Catherine Parr broke her left arm free from Catherine of Aragon’s grip, and her right arm from Jane Seymour’s. The right hand took a vice-like grip on his shirt collar before her left fist came swinging at full power, and thensome since the weight of the costume added force. That impact had a very, very nasty sound to it. Even Cleves flinched at it, soon seeing the blond man fall straight to the floor with a bloody face. “Get anywhere near us and I will have you laying your head on a prison bench just how you made poor Katherine and Anne lay down as you murdered them!”

The officers picked up the unconscious Henry, and kindly thanked Jane, Anna, and Aragon for their cooperation. Parr however, got a warning, but that was about it.

Giving it a moment, knowing they would be out of earshot at this point, Parr releases a rather annoyed grumble. “He’ll fucking pay for his crimes against all of you. I swear on my life he will rot in a prison cell for what he did. If he thinks he can just show up out of nowhere and come back here to take us for fools, he’s wrong,” she almost hissed at the end. The thickness of her accent was making Aragon concerned, since to see someone as rational as her goddaughter be in such a state was a rare experience. Cleves and Seymour both looked up with mortified faces. Ever seen revenge personified as human? No? Now you have.

And her name was Catherine Parr.

“What in heaven was that?” Maggie asks, getting up and peeking out into the hallway. A small laugh. The thud was actually loud enough to wake the cousins, and they both get up, confused a little, and sleepily walk to join her at the door frame. Anne rubs her eyes and yawns, looking at Henry, now being pulled up by two police men. 

She glances to Parr, and then to Henry, and upon sight of Parr’s hands, she lets out a small, startled gasp. His blood was actually on her knuckles. Probably mixed with her own, if her knuckles had bust. Kit has a similar reaction, coupled with hiding behind Anne at the sight of the wicked man. “Cathy… let me help you get cleaned up. Mags, can you grab the first aid kit out of my backpack?” 

“Let’s just go home, first.” Parr says, a little cold, while watching an officer take Henry away. She wanted to watch up until he was inside of the car, so she could ensure he was going away for good. The other officer asks her a few questions about the situation, and she tells him everything that happened, down to the fact that they would be filing a restraining order, and that Henry was not allowed to see their show again. 

––––––––––

The six women had gone home after waiting… maybe an extra ten minutes after Parr finished talking to the police officer. The car was dead silent on the ride back to the house, too.

“I’m actually mad about the fact that he’s actually attractive now,” Boleyn rolls her eyes as she walks in after Seymour. “I’m kidding, obvs. But how is he alive? We’ve been free for… who knows how long now and he comes back? What did he want, anyways?” Seymour turned to face Boleyn, giving the brunette a gentle pat on the head. “It sounded like revenge, but I think Cathy has the actual answer to that. We can talk to her when she’s a lot calmer, though… she’s very…”

“Upset, angry… name it, I am probably feeling it.”

“We all are, love…” Anne goes to her, gently taking her hands, looking at them carefully. One’s very busted up, and the blood has now dried and solidified. “Let me clean you up, c’mon.” She motions to the kitchen, and the two head in there, Parr sitting on the counter while Anne gets the first aid kit out. “I’m not ashamed of what I did today.” Parr stares at the floor, expecting some sort of lecture or argument to happen, but it doesn’t.

“You protected me. That’s all I could ever want.” Anne kisses her quickly on the cheek before pouring some hydrogen peroxide on a gauze cloth. Before she starts to press it to Cathy’s knuckles, she looks the girl straight in the eyes. “Don’t be mad for how much this is going to hurt, please.” 

While those two work on that, the other girls drop their bags next to the door and slump into the chairs around the kitchen table, an apparent awkwardness in the air. Jane is the first to speak, and it’s absolutely filled with regret and apology. “Ladies, I am so sorry I lost my cool today. I shouldn’t have gotten so ‘up in arms.’ He just… I never…” She’s tearing up a little, and Kit offers a hand for her to squeeze as she tries to work through her words. She takes a deep breath, brushing some of her blonde hair out of her face. 

“I never got to tell him all of that. All of the resentment.”

Cathy grumbles from the counter, agreeing with her statement. “He sure got a taste of all of my resentment.” Her cheeks were reddening, and Anne doesn’t know what else to do past wrapping the girl’s knuckles, so she lays a kiss on them, hoping that will calm her down. “Shhh… no need to get worked up over that toff, not again.” Her hand goes to hold Parr’s face. “Let’s be happy, okay?” 

“Jane, we all had every right to react the way we did. Even Cathy had a right to bash his ugly face in.” Kit nods reassuringly, and the other queens mumble words of agreement, Anne and Parr silently making their way over to the table. Something about Parr’s energy was off, but the queens wouldn’t question it for the time being. They were all rattled, it didn’t take much to see it. 

“I just feel that as the mother of the group, I reacted rather rashly. I think–” She has to hold back some tears. “I think I should’ve composed myself.” This ends with the ladies all essentially tackling Jane with a group hug, even Parr, though not really seeming to want to participate. It was getting late, anyways, and it was almost time for her to begin her nightly writing. It would help.  

Anne clears her throat. “I think you did perfectly, Jane. He’s an absolute tosser for thinking he could face all six of us at once.” Kit laughs in agreement, and the two head upstairs. Parr quickly dismisses herself, Aragon trailing quickly behind after giving Jane a tight hug. 

Cleves takes Jane’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Gute Nacht, Jane. Versuche nicht zu viel darüber nachzudenken.” Jane sighs. “Still don’t speak German, love.”

“Try not to think too much about it.”

“Catherine,” Aragon knocks on the open door, furrowing her eyebrows. “Mija, what got into you today? That isn’t you. Where… where did you even go?” A sharp look from the sixth wife to the first, before it softened up. It eventually became more of a look of shame as Parr’s eyes went to the bandaged hand. She really did do a number on herself, but that blond haired Tudor nightmare deserved it. She wasn’t wrong, was she? Or, had her morality become such an ambiguous grey area that maybe it was wrong for her to have sucker punched the man who beheaded Katherine Howard so unfairly.

The shameful eyes look up, seeing Aragon’s concern despite the slight scowl. “I’m sorry, Lina. I… no se. Yo lo vi y... Me congelé. Es como si todo el sentido racional dejara mi cuerpo y me quedara con impulso. Lo juro, no... siempre así. Tu lo sabes! Aunque asusté a todos, no?” The hurt in her voice was evident. Parr knew she became the morally ambiguous of the group, which was normally not the good thing. Aragon’s expression lightened up just a little as she approached her goddaughter, and pulled her into a side hug. “Sucede, amor. Pero no te enfades tanto con alguien tan horrible. Seguimos amándote, y siempre nos preocuparemos por ti. Ninguna de nosotras te tiene miedo, y eso te lo prometo.”

Those last words gave Catherine Parr just a little bit of hope. Catherine of Aragon gave one last hug to the woman before heading on out the door, but not without “Don’t stay up late.” being the last thing she said to the sixth wife. 

Kit and Anne stand in the hallway, chatting before going to their rooms, which were across from each other. “Lock your window, Annie, please.” It’s evident that Kit is still very worried about Henry figuring out where they live or figuring out how to get in. Anne nods, despite the fact that they lived on the second floor.. “Of course.” The girls hug and in a matter of seconds, they are both behind their respective closed doors. 

Kit leans against the door for a moment after closing it, but not locking it, and a few silent tears fall before she starts to change into her pajamas. “You’re okay. You’re safe.” She mumbles to herself, turning on her string lights and turning off the main light of the room. She debates what kind of music to listen to, mulling over it for a few minutes before turning on some classical. It was different, but it would work. 

Anne, on the other hand, immediately goes to lock her window and pull the shades closed, which was slightly saddening because she did enjoy looking at the night sky before she fell asleep. She sits on the edge of her bed for a moment, deep in thought about Cathy. She had to admit, the girl she saw today was one she had never seen before, and one she was pretty afraid of seeing again. That fire, while endearing… shook Anne a little. She has to force herself to shake off the thought that anger immediately translates to a person being anything remotely similar to Henry. 

“Right, then… bed it is.” Anne shuts off her lights and lays down, picturing that starry sky in her own mind. It would do. 

Jane settles in with the current book she was reading, a copy of Pride and Prejudice. A story of true love, one could say, and the text was actually helping to calm the blonde down about the events of the day. Aragon peeks in for a moment, and Jane gives her a soft smile, an unspoken agreement that they would be okay.

Though it seemed as if everyone was settling down, Catherine Parr had a storm bigger than a hurricane brewing inside. 

––––––––––

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

Catherine Parr let that be the only sound to fill the silence. Normally, it would be music or something, but not tonight.

The calligraphy pen in her hands danced around her fingers, barely having touched the pages of the open notebook. Her vision was still blurred, much to her own surprise. Wrath was a powerful thing, and to have something take over the body for an amount of time would lead to consequences later in the night. In her case, it was a very horrid case of insomnia. While she dealt with insomnia most nights, she had the slightest feeling this was not the typical time to go to bed at 2 in the morning case. The pen began to slow down in her hand, and she held it still for the first time that whole night.

“It’s not the first time you write about how you feel, Cathy. It’s fine. It’s perfectly fine.”

It was not fine.

No matter how many times she told herself it would be fine, she could never believe it. Catherine Parr saw her hand shake, just the slightest, every time she wrote. Every memory from the last few hours was hazy, but simultaneously at the forefront of her mind. The usually clean lines of her penmanship were just the bit off from the feelings. Word after word, the anger began to flow onto the pages like water flowing down a river’s stream. So shaky, and so violent were the movements of Parr’s wrist. In comparison to the surprisingly smooth transition from thought to thought, her actions made her look a little crazed. One could even say she looked oddly desperate to finish writing.

Almost as if she was running out of time.

She was a writer in her past life. An author, really. The woman wrote books, psalms, meditations… name it, she probably has a manuscript of it somewhere. But this? This was not her. This frantic drive to write and write until the pages could take no more and the ink began to go through them was not Catherine Parr. In a way, it was almost symbolic. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

There it was again. The ticking of the clock.

Time was no longer a relevant thing for Parr. She just let the time go on.

Last she could remember, it was midnight. But nay, the clock spoke otherwise. A glance at it revealed it to be four in the morning. Her hand and wrist were cramped up, and the tears that she felt falling were drying on her face. The pages had become full of nonsensical phrases, mostly a result of the anger still in her system. But that anger began to fade from anger into a depression.

Why couldn’t she be stronger?

Why didn’t she do enough at the moment?

The pain finally struck her heart. Silence began to be her worst enemy, and something she thought she’d never do is what she did. Parr slams her hands on the desk, crying out, almost as if it were a scream or cry for help. The scream was enough to wake up Catherine of Aragon in an instant. A second and third one woke Jane Seymour and Anna of Cleves up. The fourth one got to Anne Boleyn. In a worried hurry, Aragon got out of bed and ran down the stairs to get to the door before almost ramming it down with her own body.

“Cathy? Mija, what’s the–… Cathy?”

What she saw was a torn woman in front of her. Her bandaged hand had a little blood seeping through the ends. Some of the curls were sticking to her face, and her eyes were all puffy and red. Aragon gently pulled Parr up and into a tight embrace. “Escúchame. Todo está bien, Cathy. Estamos en la casa.” Normally, Aragon had a commanding nature that gave off the feeling of someone being safeguarded behind a wall, but this was one of those moments she was willing to let her wall down. Parr’s grip tightened, with the tears coming back and rushing in like an ocean’s grey waves.

Catherine learned just a smidge of Spanish for her godmother. Enough to get by with a conversation or two, but she was not fluent in any way. “Duele, Lina,” a sniffle. “Todo esto duele y no hice lo suficiente para ayudar.” And there was something about her goddaughter using Spanish in such a defeated manner that made Aragon crack a little on the inside. Her own eyes were welling up with tears as she looked to the door.

Seymour, Cleves, and Boleyn.

All three of them with wide eyes and fairly concerned expressions. But it was Anne who saw the tears forming in Aragon’s eyes and threatening to spill. The two lock eyes and it takes everything in Anne to not crack too. She gives Aragon a look that says, ‘Let me try.’ Lina nods and gives Cathy’s hand a small squeeze, and Anne goes and kneels on the floor in front of her. 

The other three stand in the hallway, knowing it was probably best to give the two a moment. “Did that not wake Kitty?” Cleves pauses, and then points in the general direction of Howard’s room, loud classical music streaming through her closed door. 

Anne takes Parr’s hands. “Cathy, please talk to me… please, love.” It takes Parr a moment to look into Boleyn’s eyes, which are also filled with tears at this point. “It kills me to see you hurting.” A hand goes to wipe some tears from Parr’s cheeks. It lingers there, cupping her cheek, Anne’s thumb reflexively going back and forth to wipe more tears as they fall. 

“It kills me to see you hurting.” Her statement is coupled with a small voice crack, and not one that you would usually find endearing. This was out of pure sadness and anger. She sighs. “I should’ve done more.” She looks at the floor, past Boleyn, though her head is now resting on the girl’s hand. 

“He’s the one that deserves to be on a scaffold!” She starts to sob again, leaning forward, and Anne catches her, in a sense. Shaking with anger, she lets it out, nearly soaking Anne’s shirt in a matter of seconds. “He deserves to die! Why is he here?” Her breathing becomes slightly erratic, heaving breaths joining in with shallow sobs. 

The three in the hallway silently elect to let the two work through it. It really seemed as if Anne was the only one who was going to be able to get her to calm down, even if only a fraction. Aragon lingers for a moment, and then decides finally to go back to her room, leaving the door open in case anyone needed anything. Jane does the same, but reads for a few minutes before going back to sleep. 

Anne isn’t sure what to do, so she stands both of them up, having to support Parr a little, and just holds her, swaying back and forth slowly. “Shh… babe… he doesn’t deserve your tears…” Anne, you preach this, yet you’re a mess too. Albeit, a mess because Cathy is crying, but a mess nonetheless. “He… he’s getting his karma. He has to watch us thrive. And he can’t do a damned thing to us. We’re untouchable.” She was also telling herself this. 

Parr nods quietly, latching on to Anne even more, as if letting her go would mean she’d disappear into thin air. Though she hadn’t actually said it, she knew she loved Anne. More than anything, and if punching Henry in the face was what she had to do to protect her, she’d do it every day for the rest of her life. 

“Can I sleep in your room tonight?” She speaks softly, voice scratchy as a result of the outburst. It was nearing five o’clock at this point, but it didn’t matter. With no hesitation, Anne replies with a simple “Of course,”  pulling away slightly to look Parr in the eyes. Those tired, red eyes, still wet with tears formed over a man who didn’t matter one bit. Not in this moment, he didn’t. 

The two make their way to Boleyn’s room, a twin bed being the only place for them, but it would be plenty of space. Anne lays down first, patting the small space next to her for Parr to join. It’s almost as if they’re out as soon as they cover up. 

Kit sleeps through all of this. Perhaps it’s the music blaring from her speakers, or the exhaustion from the events of the day, but it’s the first night the girl doesn’t wake up screaming. The other queens are really surprised to see her downstairs in the morning, looking well rested and pouring herself a cup of tea, seemingly fine. “G’morning.” She yawns, and the others just kind of look at each other as if reality has shifted. “Where are Cathy and Annie?” 

“In bed, still.” 

“Ja.” 

“I should check on them.” Kit says, setting her tea down. Cleves joins her, cringing a little when Kit knocks awfully loudly on the door and pushes it open. “Halt die Klappe, Kit…” Kit turns and looks at her, a puzzled look on her face. Cleves rolls her eyes jokingly, and then whispers again. “You’re too loud.” 

The sight upon opening the door is a combination of comedic and sweet. Parr is absolutely sprawled out on top of Anne, snoring loudly and taking up most of the bed. One of her hands is on Anne’s cheek, as if she had fallen asleep holding the girl’s face. Anne is awake, quietly scrolling through TikTok with headphones in. She looks at the two in the doorframe and smiles, looking down at Parr. ‘We’re okay.’ She mouths, and Jane and Aragon peek in, a small laugh coming from the Spanish queen. It warmed her heart to see the two all bundled up and Parr seemingly at peace, even if only for a moment. 

Parr makes a small noise and shifts, essentially pulling Anne closer and wrapping a leg around her. The ladies all smile, electing to leave the two alone. It was evident that everything would be okay, at least for now. Anne kisses Cathy on the forehead, letting out a happy sigh. Parr subconsciously replies with a small snore, and the two stay there, safe in each other's arms, for most of the day. 

A couple hours seem to pass and it’s about… noon, when Parr starts stirring. Anne notices this, and begins to smile. At least she was waking up. However, things were not going to go to plan, because in comparison to Anne, Catherine was a whole lot taller, and took up just a bit more space. Thinking for a moment she was still in her room, Parr went to try and roll to the other side of the bed, but immediately woke up at not having anything underneath her. A loud enough thudding noise got everyone’s attention.

The other four queens almost immediately ran to the doorframe, and Anne was sitting up.

In typical Boleyn fashion, she was laughing.

Parr on the other hand, was not very happy. “Ow…” Looking up, she just sees the green queen essentially laying back down because of the laughter, and a glance to the doorway reveals four others holding back laughter. “Oh haha, funny that Cathy Parr fell off a bed now is it?”

Through the laughter, Boleyn responds.

“It’s marvelous, love!”

[aesthetic4ngel]

Letters.

Yuta Nakamoto x Reader !

2.7k Words !!

Primarily Fluff with hints of Angst! (swearing and very brief hint towards sex)

Summary — You & Yuta met when you were children. However after a long time you two finally reunite rather suddenly and realise that there’s a possibility you two could work out after all.

A/N: Hey angels! I’d appreciate if you’d let me know what you think of this one-shot! It’s my first ( properly written & uploaded ) fic! Not to mention, I’m curious yet anxious to know how well this is perceived! 🖤 also let me know if you would like a spicy part 2!

This was loosely inspired by an 80’s movie!

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ .⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⋆ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⋆ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀. ⠀ ⋆ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀

Osaka prefecture, Japan, somewhere your family absolutely loved visiting every year for their summer vacation, the city was filled to the brim with; modern architecture mixed with traditional Japanese buildings, hearty cultural cuisine, nightlife. Osaka had it all. However, the beaches were amazingly unforgettable, the white sand and how it complimented the crystal clear ocean was something that would always remain in the memory of your household.

Speaking of your household, your parents were very fortunate to be very successful business folk, both managing a business that they had bought many years ago, the duo also owned shares in many other popular companies globally and to put it bluntly? Your family were mega rich. Your parents had it all, from expensive cars, to a big mansion. To be painfully honest, they didn’t expect to have a child and it was a shock when your mother had found out she was pregnant. In fact, they didn't really want to have any children at all, your parents were the workaholic type, constantly focusing on company and shares matters and whatnot, that's all that was important in their little business savvy minds.

So, that ultimately meant that your parents didn't really pay much attention to you, unless it was absolutely necessary, for example when you had wandered off in a store, curiosity getting the best of you, their voices calling your name pretending like they cared — you know, situations like that. There was one thing you were appreciative of and that happened to be the holidays to Osaka, it provided fresh air for you, both literally and mentally. Your favourite part was the beach, a youth like you would find yourself being too engulfed in making sand castles to ever notice the world around her, it was your escape from your life. . . Getting lost in your imagination, your innocent eight year old mind naively worrying about how your castle should look, like this was something important but finally you could bask in the glory of this calming moment of peace. Until. . .

"KONICHIWA!"

You let out a gasp, clearly startled, "You scared me!. . . What do you want? I'm trying to build this!" huffing, you turned to face the person whom had disrupted your attempts at sculpting the perfect sandcastle, folding your arms out of annoyance but your expression immediately softened when you realised who the voice belonged to, it was a boy.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I-I just wondered if you want to play?" He stood there with a frown, his high pitched voice becoming quiet when the realisation hit him that he shouldn't have approached you and spoken so abruptly like that.

"Well, would you like to help me build this?" You looked up at him with a smile, easily forgiving. Taking his hand, you gently pulled him down so he was sitting beside your frame, the two of you exchanged a toothy smile, before beginning to work on finishing your already halfway completed sand castle.

You found yourself and your new friend talking and giggling for what felt like hours, whilst working hard on completing the build, it was obvious that the two of you shared a lot of things in common; such as what you watch on television, likes and dislikes, upon many other things. It felt amazing to finally have someone to talk to.

"Soooooo, what's it like where you live?" You had always been curious about the Japanese culture and how everyone lived and frankly, you wanted to know everything there was to know, just so you could brag about it to your snobby friends back at the lavish private school you attended.

"It's okay, I mean, my house isn't that big but it's still home," the boy replied with a weak smile, which made you frown and look away, for the first time you actually felt guilty for ever asking such a personal question, that didn’t sound as intruding in your mind. Nevertheless you panicked a little, anxious that he was offended so you tried your best to make a smooth recovery with the conversation.

"You'll always have me y'know! I know I live far away and I'm going back home tomorrow but just know that I'll always be here for you," finally smiling, you nudged the boy playfully with your elbow to cheer him up, truthfully, you hated how you had to go back home tomorrow, back to school, back to being ignored, having nobody, it hurt — you didn’t want to leave this boy who actually enjoyed spending time with you.

"How will we talk if we'll never actually see one another?" He spoke up, raising his eyebrow in confusion, thinking for a moment before suddenly standing up, his eyes lighting up at his genius idea, "I know! Why don't we write to one another? Then we can always talk!"

"That's a great idea! I—" you were suddenly cut off by a voice that could be heard in the distance, "musuko! It's time to go home!" The voice was aged and you only assumed it belonged to the boys mother. Your attention was shifted due to his frantic search of his pockets, trying to find something that he could write on, eventually he pulled out a piece of scrunched up paper and a pencil. ( who knows why he had a pencil and some paper in his swimming shorts ) He scribbled some words and numbers down before swiftly handing it to you.

"Wait! Before you go, what's your name?" Your small self called out, comprehending that after all of the talking and enjoying each other’s company, you never learnt what the boys name was, yet you had told him your name, I guess both of you got caught up on more exciting topics.

"Yuta! Yuta Nakamoto!" He shouted in response, jogging up to his parents' shabby car before turning back to face you, "Don't forget me!" He shouted again, his tone sincere — smiling and waving goodbye before getting into the car, and just like that, he was gone.

With a weak smile, you straightened out the dishevelled note, your smile gradually growing wider upon reading what was written down, it was Yuta's address, you clutched the note and held it to your chest letting out a relieved sigh, before hastily running back to the holiday home your family owned that resides next to the beach.

~"Don't forget me!"~

It had been weeks since your return from Osaka and there you sat, at your perfect and polished white desk where homework would normally be sprawled out all over the table, your head down getting on with work, but this time? You were there for a different reason and that reason was to write to the boy you met in Osaka, Yuta Nakamoto. You smiled, looking down at the note which had his address scribbled on it, getting lost in your own thoughts momentarily. However, instead of procrastinating for any longer, you finally began to write the anticipated letter, crossing your fingers, hoping that Yuta and you would remain in contact.

Present Day. . .

Fortunately for you, that wish you had crossed your fingers for? Hoping and praying for? It was granted. Yuta immediately wrote back and this continued back and fourth. Suddenly, you felt like luck was on your side, everything was going just how you planned and finally, finally, you had that friend you had been waiting for all of your life, as cheesy as it sounded.

All throughout your childhood you confided in Yuta, he may not have been there physically to support you but he certainly felt like he was there spiritually — just how you trusted Yuta with your thoughts, so too did he with yourself. The Japanese boy had informed you about how he had picked up the hobby of football, how he hoped to carry that on and make a career out of it some day. As much as you wanted to support him, you had this odd feeling that despite his passion for sport, he wouldn’t pursue it. As for you? Well, you didn’t really have a choice in the matter in regard to your future or your occupation, it was all mapped out thanks to your overbearing parents, you had to become a successful business woman. . . You acted like that was a terrible idea through the span of your teenage years but the older you became, the more you realised that your parents only wanted what was best for you, for you to be successful like them and you were appreciative for that, because it finally felt like they cared for you, loved you.

Your family resumed the yearly vacations to Osaka, so that fortunately meant both Yuta and yourself could meet again, it was like the two of you practically grew up together and with every passing year, Yuta was growing into a handsome young man and you couldn’t help but develop this small crush on him at fifteen years old, it was cringeworthy yet cute looking back on it.

You honestly assumed this crush would have subsided but boy were you wrong, with every letter that arrived to your manor, with every word your eyes read, your heart would skip a beat and just as quickly as you became friends; you fell in love with Yuta just as fast. The next trip to Osaka was on your sixteenth birthday and it was a blur, all you remember is Yuta whispering a quick “close your eyes,” and the next thing you knew were his lips were on your own, they molded together perfectly with yours. Then his hands; how his hands curiously wandered your body, how yours did the same in return. It was blissful but it was short lived.

“I passed.”

“You passed what?”

“I passed the audition.”

“O-Oh, you never told me about an audition.”

“I wasn’t going to... y/n, we can’t meet again after this, that kiss last year? It was a mistake, I don’t like you in that way, when you go home, don’t write to me again, don’t call or text, because I won’t answer.”

That last conversation played repeatedly like a broken record within your mind, you still could not begin to fathom why Yuta had turned, it was almost as if a switch flipped, the way he left you standing there on the beach, sobbing alone, after that you definitely did not send him another stupid letter. Yet here you were present day; a fully grown adult, sitting in your parents holiday home in Osaka, all alone, dwelling on the past like usual. Then it occurred to you how you used to escape your thoughts all those years ago, by relaxing on the beach.

“I’m sorry, this area is blocked Miss.” the security guard held out his hand, blocking you from proceeding, making your face twist into confusion, ‘since when did they start closing the beach?’ You thought.

The guard was quick to pick up on your internal question, after all, it was written all over your face, “this beach is closed because a member of NCT 127 wants to be here without fans bothering him.”

“Who?” This heightened your confusion, who were NCT 127? You had no idea at all, it had been a while since you visited Japan so you weren’t up to date with the newest celebrities and pop culture or anything for that matter.

“Miss, I cannot give you access-” the security man trailed off, ranting — you stopped listening, instead preoccupied with this man you noticed in the distance beyond the barriers. His hair bleached blonde, dark and shaven along the sides, his presence ( although far away ) was familiar and you had no idea why; you couldn’t quite put your finger on it.

You hadn’t even noticed when the mysterious man had approached you and the guard, the “drama” taking place outside of the barriers clearly catching his attention. Immediately Yuta knew it was you, he could tell a mile off, as soon as he heard your voice he froze, feeling his heart skip a beat and he knew he had to investigate further.

“Let her in. I know her.” It was rather blunt but that’s all Yuta managed to communicate, he was shocked, it had been so long but regardless, he wanted to keep a cold and distant exterior, he wanted to seem tough for some reason, maybe he was used to doing so when having to deal with clingy fans.

For a moment you were panicking, trying to piece together how you knew this man who was famous but as soon as you heard the guard mumble a quick “whatever you say, Nakamoto,” waving you in. That’s when it hit you like a ton of bricks, this was Yuta, this man with his eyebrow shaved, eyebrow piercing, clearly a celebrity, was Yuta.

Rage filled you quickly, especially when he flashed a smirk in your direction, you couldn’t believe that after all of this time, after practically abandoning you, he was acting so nice, like nothing ever happened! Then again, you couldn’t help but stare, he was so handsome, not to mention, extremely hot too, this look he was sporting, definitely suited him.

So when the two of you finally reached the beach, you did what was appropriate — slap him. Your actions made Yuta let out a small groan in response, his hand coming up to his cheek.

“What the fuck was that for? You should be grateful! Without me coming to the rescue you wouldn’t have been allowed on the beach!”

“How dare you! After all these years, you had left me crying and begging for you to come back! Now here you are saying I should be grateful? As if Yuta!” There was no hesitation to get all up in his face, you were feeling so many emotions at once in that moment, it was overwhelming to say the least, you genuinely believed that you would never see him again, yet here you were, standing on the exact same beach where the two of you had first met as children.

“I left you to protect you y/n!”

“Protect me?! Don’t even try and lie! You said you didn’t even like me! Then you left me! and look who gets all of the luck now, Yuta Nakamoto who’s famous! Oh and who’s a major asshole too!”

Within no time, this turned into a screaming match between you both, many times you had gone to slap Yuta again and every single time his hands caught your wrists, gripping both of them tightly, just so you couldn’t wriggle out of his grip.

But what happened next? You didn’t expect that at all. . . It was an all too familiar feeling. Your eyes widened in shock, your hands wanted to push him away but you couldn’t, having Yuta’s lips meet yours once more made your eyes flutter closed, just like that you were weak at the knees for this man again, although you hated to admit it. Yuta slowly loosened his grip, gradually moving his hands elsewhere, deciding on wrapping them around your waist but your hands made their way around his neck, eventually slithering down to rest upon his chest, the kiss turning into a makeout all because of Yuta’s tongue forcefully pushing its way past your lips, he was so eager to explore what he had been missing. Before things could get too heated, you pulled away, panting, regaining your breath.

“Just because you kissed me, doesn’t mean I forgive you.” It was your turn to smirk now, you enjoyed how hot and bothered Yuta was, your fingers toying with the buttons on his shirt, teasing him.

“Seriously y/n, I’m sorry, I was an idiot, I wanted to protect you from everything, I didn’t want you receiving hate from my company or any fans, I want to start again because I do love you and as cringy as it sounds, I’ve always loved you. . . So please, will you give me a second chance?” Yuta pleaded, biting his lip, preparing himself for the worst possible outcome, you could easily leave him, exactly how he left you but you weren’t like that, you were in love with Yuta.

“Of course I’ll give you a second chance you idiot!” You giggled, tilting your chin to plant a small peck on his lips before smirking once again.

“Now why don’t we continue what you started back at my vacation home, big boy?”

[mareebird]

200 Followers Fics Pt. 2

This is the second of the two fics I wrote by request, celebrating my reaching 200 Followers.

This one came from @makerofrunevests who wanted something about Christmas, within the world of The Relic.

Now, I have one caveat.  This is entirely AU.  It has to be, because The Relic takes place around Halloween.  If I wrote about actual events I have planned, then I would spoil everyone.  So... The following does not actually take place.  Sorry.  BUT I took the opportunity as an excuse to write about a trope I like and some hardcore fluff.  ...With a dash of angst, as always.

Title: Christmas in Norway (A Relic AU)

Words: 1806

Summary: Loki and Cora enjoy a significant first on their second Christmas together.

“I’m not going to make it.”

It was very late and very dark and Cora’s gloved fingers fumbled with the keys.  Loki watched over her shoulder, frowning, pitying her.

“Here, let me,” he said, calmly reaching for her frantic hands.

“This is the worst,” she said, but otherwise she did not protest and handed over the ring.

“You’ll make it,” said Loki.

He opened the door and Cora was off like a laser blast, tearing through the dark kitchen and up the stairs, somehow managing not to trip.  Loki lingered behind at the entryway, breathing in the sea air, the sweet smell of lutefisk, and stealing a moment to gaze at the green and gold, not un-Christmassy garland of the aurora borealis.

The sliver of the crescent moon seemed to smile down upon him.  Loki smiled back, and then he closed the door.

He did not mind the cold, but it was good to be finally inside.  Cora’s squat townhome had grown on him, with its familiar smells and patterns on the walls, providing a kind of warmth unrelated to the temperature.  Loki’s tensed muscles gave over to relaxation.  They had only been to a neighbor’s julebord party, but it felt like an eternity of answering the same question over and over and over and over:

“And what are you doing for Christmas?”

“Oh, nothing much.  My brother will be visiting.  We’re keeping things low key this year.”

Loki giggled childishly to himself, thinking about it now.  No one in the village knew him by his real name and it was fabulously entertaining to say it again and again, directly to their faces.  His anonymity above the Arctic Circle was a delight.

But no, it had been a nice party and he had a nice time.  Thinking of Seine as home came so easily whenever he happened to be here, and he suspected that he and Cora would be lingering for quite a while on this visit.

Loki flicked a switch along the wall, lighting not the living room, but the Christmas tree in the corner.  The little red bulbs twinkled.  The house smelled of coffee and cinnamon and Loki breathed deep.  Yes, he even enjoyed the smell of coffee these days.

Aside from Cora upstairs, the night was silent.

The holiday itself was three days away, but the home was rather bare compared to the others in Cora’s tiny development, with the exception of the tree.  That had been Loki’s project.  Cora had managed to put out several red-capped nisse gnomes, which were a decidedly unique Norwegian staple, but she was not really up for decorating.  It was a shame.  She loved to do it.  Last year, for Loki’s first Christmas, the two of them had gone absolutely wild with the decorating.

Of course, Loki could have covered the house with lights and garland in an instant.  Indeed, he had tried, but it only made Cora cry about how “lazy” she felt, and so it had all come down as quickly as it went up.

Loki hung his coat and took off his boots and put on the kettle.  He was in the mood for cocoa.  And he suspected Cora would have honey and lemon so he took those out, as well, working by the light of the oven hood.  It was not long before Cora reappeared at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, signaling her entry with a loud sigh.

“That sounded rather rough,” said Loki.

“Whoever decided to call this morning sickness must never have been pregnant.”

“It’s 2 AM,” he replied dryly, as he pulled two mugs from the cabinet.  ”It is morning.”

Cora shot a glare at him, but the smirk on her lips betrayed her.  She shuffled across the kitchen to his side, his arm already outstretched to pull her close.

“You were magnificent, tonight, by the way,” he said, continuing to prepare the drinks with his free hand.  “An absolute soldier.  Had I not personally been present for the conception of our child, you would have fooled even me.”

Cora snorted, ducking her head against his chest, and Loki awarded himself a point.  He had never lost the habit of counting each peal of laughter as a personal victory, even though Cora laughed quite easily.  They were moments that belonged to him.

He pressed a kiss to her temple, which was still a bit clammy from her ordeal upstairs, but it did not bother him.  “Carrying around that glass of wine all night?” he murmured against her skin.  “What genius!”

She chuckled again and tilted back to meet his eye.  “Yes, well, I’ll be relieved when we can be upfront about it and I can stop deflecting with wine and stinky cheese.”

“A few weeks?” Loki said, pressing his lips to her forehead.

Between them, he felt Cora lift her hand and slip it over her belly.  She fiddled with the fabric of her sweater in that way of hers that belighed some passing anxiety.  Without hesitation, like a well-oiled cog, he slipped his hand beneath hers, separating her from the fraying fibers of her clothing.

“A few weeks,” Cora echoed.

If they could keep their secret for that long.  Her figure was beginning to round off.  Cora said that he was imagining things, that it was too early to see a change, but Loki was certain.  No, they would not be able to keep this to themselves for much longer.  He even doubted they would be able to conceal it from Thor, once he arrived.

The kettle began to whistle, but Loki was in no hurry to move.

They had only known about the baby for a week.  They ought to have realized much sooner, rather embarrassingly.  It was Cora’s nausea that ultimately tipped them off.  She was never sick and then suddenly she was sick all the time.  She chalked up missing the more obvious signals due to the holiday tourism boom.  Suddenly, they were nine weeks weeks along and no one in all the universe knew but themselves.  Well, with the exception of the doctor they had visited, but doctors were a given and thus they did not count.

Although sometimes Loki would take out the black-and-white photograph the doctor had given and just stare at it, marveling at his little bean-shaped progeny.

Cora gently nudged her shoulder against his chest and with a quick hand, she killed the flame beneath the kettle and poured water into their mugs.  The two of them made quiet work of preparing their drinks.  Loki stirred cocoa into his.  Cora, as expected, dissolved honey and lemon.

“Come on,” she said.  “Let’s pass out by the tree.”

Loki lingered to search for marshmallows.  When he turned around, Cora had already seated herself on the sofa.  He felt it necessary to take a breath at the sight of her, awash in Christmas lights.  The mother of his child.  Norns, a week ago they’d had no idea.  And for all the blessed peace of this moment, it was not a discovery made without shock and awe.

Cora had been through all of this before, long ago, in what seemed like a previous lifetime to the both of them these days.  This was her second child.  Her first had long since passed through this universe and even Loki felt haunted by loss, but for Cora it was far more acute.  He could sense the sadness that came and went, the grief and longing, and the fear.  Bereavement never fully let go of one’s heart, did it?  Even joy had ways of tearing open old wounds.

Loki had been tossed about on the sea of his own complicated feelings on the matter: the initial bomblike impact of the discovery, the utter disbelief which followed, and then panic.  The truth was that he had been abandoned by one father and raised at an arm’s length by another.  He could place Frigga on a pedestal as high as the heavens, but her many virtues had never been able to seal off that chasm.

Not a day had gone by without a moment of panic -- at the beginning of the week, it was nary an hour -- and between the cacophony of fear were odd phases of absolute numbness.  In fact, for a full day after learning of the child’s existence, he and Cora did not speak to one another other than to request items around the house, as if they were groping for some semblance of normalcy.

And then, at night, Loki recalled glancing up from a book on which he could hardly concentrate, and spotting Cora standing beside their Christmas tree, bathed in the prettiest twinkling lights, and his frozen heart melted like frost on the windowpane.

“You and I are going to have a baby,” he recalled saying, while Cora adjusted the position of a glass ornament.  The words simply fell out of him.

Cora looked over her shoulder, a bit startled.  She stared at him for a moment, until her eyes began to glisten, and she slowly brought her hand over the spot where the child was hidden, beneath her sweater and warm winter leggings, deep within her body.

And she smiled at him.  “We are.”

Loki was not healed in that moment.  Nor was she.  He still did not know how to be a father.  At times, ge hardly knew how to be himself!  Everything inside of him was always so intense.  His strangest fear was that he would love this child too intensely, as well, that he would smother him or her with love.

The panic continued to come, for the both of them, but for Loki it was panic wrapped, occasionally, in the most dizzying, rapturous joy.  And whenever he caught sight of Cora placing a tender hand on her not-quite-so-flat-as-before belly and saw her smiling, he knew she was being overtaken by the same happiness.

Now, he joined her on the sofa beside the lit tree.  The presents wrapped in foil-paper reflected the rosey lights.  Everything about Christmas in Norway was flush with red.

Cora lifted her mug to her lips and lowered it to her lap again.  Her eyes followed.

“I think you’re right,’ she said.  “I am starting to show.”

“I’ve been saying…”

She glanced at him with that same weak attempt at a glare, betrayed by her smile, before resting her head on his shoulder and releasing a sigh.  “I’m sure a few people noticed I wasn’t actually drinking my wine.”

“Oh, who cares if they notice,” he breathed into her hair.  “I rather like the idea of putting my ardor for you on display.”

She laughed.  Loki awarded himself a point as he kissed the crown of her head.  “Happy Christmas, Cora.”

He gently slipped a hand over her belly.

“And a Happy First Christmas to you.”

[thealphabetmurders]

Scrambled Thoughts

Pairings: Romantic Logince, Sibling Analogical

Word Count: 2228 (for Chapter 5), 12714 in total

(Previous) (First)

Summary: Roman was not a rebel by any means. Roman was not a fan of breaking rules. Sure, he bent some from time to time, but never done anything blatantly wrong, that was not in service to his passions. Yet, despite the protests his best friend and his consciousness, he picks up two dozen eggs and goes to vandalize. Now, Roman has to avoid suspension, make amends with Virgil, alleviate the concern of Patton, and not fall in love with his enemy Logan.

Triggers: Bullying, Violence, Vandalism, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Mentions of Racism, Classism

Authors Note: And we are done. Thank you so much to everyone who has read this, I am so very proud of it. I have two announcements for this. #1. I was thinking about getting Roman and Logan's first kiss commissioned by someone, because I really like the way I wrote that. So if you do art or can recommend me someone, then go ahead and comment or message me on here. #2. I have the skeleton of an epilogue for this. It ends the fic on more of a humorous note and finally resolves the eggs, so let me know if you want that. This journey is at it's close.

(This fic was inspired by a dream @misplaced-my-notes had, thank you).

Taglist (for everyone who seemed interested): @misplaced-my-notes, @jaszczurkaaa, @an-atypical, @jughead-is-canonically-aroace, @mystrangedarkson

(Read on AO3)

“Hey.”

Roman felt a harsh kick on the back of his shin. “Ouch,” He responded, turning around to see his former (?) nemesis standing over him, crossing his arms with a small smirk on his face, “What exactly was that for?”

Virgil shrugged, but offered a hand to help Roman up from drilling the bottom section of the flat. “I just need to talk to you,”

Roman frowned at this omission, “What exactly would we need to talk about, no offense,”

Virgil groaned, looked around the auditorium, quickly snapping his head from side to side, then he grabbed Roman by the bicep and pulled him out of the stage area to the spare woods shop and tools room.

“Look, I just wanted to get some things straight with you, okay?

“Impossible, I am a gay as a warm spring day!” Roman flourished, half-bowing. Virgil pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, muttering something under his breath.

“That is obviously not what I meant,”

“What do you need, we are still in class, y’know,” Roman frowned, now getting concerned. He had been watching the anxious kid for about a month now, and he never seemed to go out of his way to talk to anyone. No matter what, he was always recluse and a bit cold, nevertheless, he went out of his way to talk to Roman, which means it must be important.

“Do you know what day it is?”

Roman scoffed, rolling his eyes, “Seriously genius, you couldn’t just look on your phone to see it is Wed-”

“No no, you misunderstand, the date,” Virgil waved his hands in front of Roman, obviously frustrated.

Roman winced in spite of himself, forgetting that Virgil is speaking his second language and translating everything he is saying in his head, so making fun of his vernacular is a dick move, “Ah, sorry, it is September 29th.”

“Right, and do you remember what happened a month ago?”

“I-” Roman’s realization dawned upon him, “Oh, right, that. Did Logan say he was going to-”

“No, he is not,” Roman cocked his head to the side as Virgil continued, “He told me last night that he has ‘let the whole thing go’,” Virgil dropped his air quotes, wearing a disgusted look on his face, but Roman’s expression perked up.

“Well, that’s great, yeah? He is not going to say anything about me egging your house and I obviously am not going to say anything. This is fantastic!”

“Yea, fantastic,” Virgil grumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking down at his shoes.

“Is it not? Do you- do you want me to get expelled Virgil? Because I swear I thought you liked me. I know we are kind of enemies but I always thought it was in a playful banter type of way, not that you would ever actually try to “take me down” or whatever,” Roman gasped, “Unless that was your plan all along. Oh my God, that is genius, you really are an incredible actor, Virgil, you should join theater with-”

“Drž hubu! Drž hubu Roman, I swear, you talk so much,” Virgil shouted. “I just- That is not what I am saying, this has nothing to do with me,”

“What does this have to do with, then?”

Virgil sighed, calming himself down a bit, before speaking, “What are your feelings towards Logan?”

Roman was taken back a bit by the question, which must have put a shocked expression on his face, making Virgil quirk an eyebrow up, “We- we’re friends. Good friends, Virgil,”

“Just friends?”

“No!” Roman said, putting his hands up a bit too defensively, “I mean, yes, obviously just friends, I said no because we are no more than- not more than friends. I just- No, we are friends,”

“I just cannot think of any other reason why Logan would let this go other than him being,” Virgil shivered a bit, “In love. He would do anything to get ahead and is a crazy ambitious guy. He has all the proof he needs as well,”

“What do you mean ‘all the proof’-”

“And you two spend everyday after school together now. I see how you hold onto him on his motorcycle,”

Roman scoffs, thinking about his afterschool activities as of late, specifically, the ride to his apartment, “If you mean how I hold on for dear life because motorcycles are giant death bicycles, then you would be correct,” Virgil widened his eyes, very obviously mouthing ‘wow…’ in Roman’s direction, making the latter frown, standing in akimbo, “Maybe Logan has just, I dunno, thawed out a bit. That whole Ice Punk Prince act was getting tired,”

“Act?” Virgil repeated incredulously.

“No, no, no,” Roman waved his hands in front of him, “Just, a phase,”

“A phase, huh?” Virgil frowned even deeper, crossing his arms over his chest after zipping up his jacket.

Roman sighed, shrinking in on himself, “Well, yea. Clothes often times are a direct reflection of how we are feeling, and Logan tries to distance himself from whomever he feels he is getting close to. This creates problems whenever he tries to form meaningful relationships with anyone because of his abandonment issues with his parents. They were never really there for him so he does not realise how important those kinds of relationships can be, on a fundamental level. The phase that he is in now cannot be held up forever because eventually he is going to need a support system for himself, and I believe he is recognizing that,”

Roman bit his lip a bit, “It feels nice to be one of the first people he is warming up to, y’know? I am sure you understand, Virgil,”

Virgil straightened out his shoulders and uncrossed his arms and was wearing a soft smile on his face, one that was really only reserved for his brother most days, “Yea. I think I do understand, Roman. I am shocked about how well you know Logan,”

Roman laughed, “Well, he was a tough nut to crack, but I try my best to get to know people now before making snap judgments about them. And, I took AP Psych last year,”

“Oh, hey,” Virgil pointed at Roman, “I am in that now,”

“Really? Roman asked, foregoing their original conversation, “Do you have Woodstock?”

“No, I got Davis,”

Roman pouted, “Lucky, you got the easy Psych teacher. She does not grade worksheets, it is all participation,”

“It is not so easy for someone who has anxiety,” Virgil deadpanned. Roman opened his mouth to refute/apologise, until Virgil spoke up again, “Nah, I am just playing, she normally takes pity on me because I am the exchange student,”

“Either way, that is just my two cents from my year of Psych. Maybe all Lo wants is a meaningful friendship.”

Virgil rolled his eyes, “Friendship, sure. Either way, I support you,”

Roman smirked, “Or, maybe, he just really wants my coc-”

There was a harsh rapping on the metal door leading to the shop room where a teen’s voice could be heard, “Roman, Virgil, Mr. B says if you are done making out then you need to come out and help clean up,”

Roman could not help but laugh wildly as Virgil turned beet red and quickly shuffled out of the shop room.

Despite the boisterous laughter, Roman could not cover up what he was thinking: Did he have deeper feelings for Logan? Logan always was a really clever, handsome guy. He was the type of person whose voice carried like silk throughout a room and was pleasant to listen too, and his tight jeans were not doing the world a disservice.  He was always willing to help and to learn, even in a trade he did not necessarily need to know about. Logan will most likely never change oil in his life, but the idea of even having the option to learn was just enough to get him to become excited. Logan had so much passion. Most people thought of him as cold or robotic or unfeeling, but Roman saw the human and the warmth and there was so much passion packed in his stout frame, so much Roman fears sometimes the smaller man will start singing like a teapot and burst.

Logan and Roman continued to text and hang out every day. Roman rode on the back of Logan’s motorcycle enough for his to stop screaming, but the tightness of his grip only increased. They continued this routine for a few days, but Virgil’s question still burned in his mind.

It burned and consumed his every thought. Every interaction now had a deeper meaning and he couldn’t look at anything surface level. It kept him up at night, he couldn’t close his eyes without imagining his smile. It became increasingly difficult to talk or hang out and it made his emotions go haywire, but luckily Roman was an actor by nature.

After two weeks, Roman knew, and Roman had his answer.

Roman: I am head over heels for Logan.

Pat-Man: oh dear… D:

A Tuesday, afterschool

“You ready to go, pretty boy, I don’t like to wait?” Logan threw the helmet at Roman who barely caught it in his haste to put his jacket back on from his waist.

“I told you not to call me that,” Roman grumbled, putting on his helmet.

Logan shrugged, “Why not, it’s so fitting,”

“Wait, what is th-” Roman was cut off by Logan’s motorcycle engine turning on and raised an eyebrow before putting on his helmet. Roman got on the back of the motorcycle before they sped off to Roman’s apartment.

After 10 minutes, they reached their destination. Logan parked his bike and took off his helmet, running his hands through his black hair, climbing off the motorcycle. He looked off into the distance at the parkway he just came off of. Roman let his eyes trail over his frame. Logan’s dark blue button up paired with a black tie nicely accented his subtle muscles. He didn’t wear ripped jeans often, but today, he wore pitch black jeans with rips on the knees and thighs with those oh so familiar combat boots. Roman’s mouth went dry. It was a partly cloudy day, but Logan was glowing. Roman was barely paying any attention until he fell off of the motorcycle back and hit his shoulder hard on the pavement.

“Roman! Are you alright?” Logan rushed over to Roman’s aid, muttering to himself, eyes filled with worry and concern. Roman almost forgot how nice and cool Logan’s voice sounded. He realised he was wrong, Logan’s voice is velvet. “Roman, what is wrong?” He realised only then he had been staring at the other with a blank look on his face, saying nothing.

“No, nothing is wrong. I feel fine,” Roman’s voice wavered a bit as he looked away from Logan.

Logan said nothing as he led Roman over to the curb and they both sat down, Roman let out at sigh of relief, standing up and the short walk to the ledge somehow became very difficult.

“Roman, did you sleep at all? Eat?” Logan asked. Roman shook his head, and Logan took his hand in his and rub his thumb across his knuckles, Roman’s pulse speeding up exponentially at the act, “Do you, uh, want to talk about it?”

Roman’s eyes widened and shook his head, “Oh, good, I would not know how to deal with that,” Logan said, running his hands through his hair with his free hand. Roman smiled at this and shook his head, “Well, here is some generic advice then: you are, uh, incredible, Roman. Whatever this is, it is not worth you not eating or sleeping over,” He raised an eyebrow at Logan and the man in question gripped the bridge of his nose, “I’m sorry, I wish I could be more empathetic. I care about you, Roman. I care… A lot,”

Roman eyes shot up and looked at Logan. He was not looking at any part of Roman and was biting his lip, looking vulnerable and open. He was frantically rubbing his knuckles now, his eyes filled with worry. Roman thought back to what Virgil said, then back to Logan giving him homework, then his apology, then the altercation in the hallway, and the first time they declared war upon one another in the vice principal’s office, what did they all have: Passion. Logan is passion. He tries so hard to subdue it, but it is who he is, and Roman cannot get enough of it. Poor Logan’s stoic demeanor is cracking ever so slightly, and just enough for Roman to read between the lines.

“Hey Logan,” Roman started, his voice scratchy and raw, “Did you know that the lips are among the body parts that have the most nerve endings out of the whole body?”

“Yes, I did. Though I am unsure as to why you’re telling me-”

Roman cut Logan off, he cupped his face and connected their lips, effectively shutting him up. The kiss was sweet and tender and chastate. Yet, somehow the kiss was filled love and admiration, and walls broken down of tension between them. Logan responded and gripped the back of Roman head, slightly tugging his brown locks and deepening the kiss. The kiss now had heat and fire in their lips. A blazing inferno was created with every second passing of the pair’s kissing. Eventually, Logan broke the kiss and rested his forehead against Roman’s.

Roman chuckled slightly, “It is what makes contact with them so perceptible,”

Logan laughed, “Oh, you gorgeous bastard,” He cupped his face and kissed Roman again, filled with that same passion that enraptured Roman so many months ago.  

[lenalvthor]

Ayyyyy, so idk of this is the right blig, but if you wanted ideas for little mini fics relating to the hsau, I'd love to see how Sara and Ava's relationship was before the whole thing with Ava's coming out. Anyway, I love the fic and I hope you have a wonderful day!

hi!! 💛apologies for leaving this in my inbox for so long, this last week has been a ROLLERCOASTER but i promise you, i did see this and get very excited abt it and send it to rachel and we were both freaked out a bit abt getting prompts for the fic

so we have many, many ideas about pre-fic avalance in this au. like Many. many to the point that we don’t have the time to write an actual mini fic about it because the fic would be the furtherest thing from mini. also, bc it would be rlly weird to have to try and go back and write them before all of this, like we go back and read ‘don’t you like you’ and everything feels so strange bc we wrote it before we had this big detailed plan for everything that was gonna happen between them and it just feels crazy that they were in this place where they weren’t even friends let alone in love 

but what i am gonna do. is give you a fuckload of bullet headcanons instead. so i hope that suffices bc buckle up, there’s gonna be a few 🌈🌈

so ava and sara don’t go to the same elementary school. they’re both star city natives though so they kind of know of each other. sara did dance when she was little and was in layla’s dance class and ava was sometimes there when barbara came to pick her up etc etc. 

(ava’s school was a little nicer, was the fancier star city school that barbara teaches at. damien insisted nora went there bc of it’s good reputation and gary’s mom wanted the best possible start for her son, hence how the three of them ended up there and became friends) 

so by the time middle school comes around and they actually become a part of each other’s spheres, they know the other vaguely by name and the like 

in middle school, ava and sara meet and they don’t quite get along but they don’t rlly know each other so it’s not an issue - sara’s this reckless trouble maker that ava wants nothing to do with bc she wants to just do well and be liked and successful and normal while sara’s off getting into fights and sneaking out of school and never doing anything by the rules, so not interacting pretty much suits them both just fine

until in 8th grade, after spencer leaves to join the army and ava’s still trying to piece herself back together and he left around the time that she decides she was going to quit basketball after this season and she was scared she might be gay and starts vehemently ignoring any and all possibilities of that fact - that’s when sara lance comes out as bi

and sara doesn’t know why ava suddenly makes a point to argue with her more than usual, or call her out in her bullshit, or just be a general pain in the ass but she is, and what sara doesn’t realise is that ava’s angry that sara came out bc it put ava in a position where we had to actually confront herself abt her sexuality

sara has a quiet suspicion of why ava’s acting like this, and it would sort of make sense that ava would be gay (or bi, but sara thinks gay) but also she doesn’t wanna assume so she leaves it and just pushes ava’s buttons just as hard 

but it’s not all bad, bc the day nyssa and sara start dating, everyone at school is talking about it and ava knows her friends will be too and she’s terrified bc she doesn’t want to know if they think it’s weird, but kuasa just goes “whoa, no way” and lily whistles and says “damn, they’re probably the hottest couple at school” and gary doesn’t say anything but he’s got this look of curiosity and relief on his face and nora is looking at him carefully before she just glances over at sara and says “good for them” and ava doesn’t know if she wants to laugh or cry with relief

(and it’s still 2 and half years before she even tells nora - the first person she comes out to - but it’s a start at least) 

ava and sara get better for a bit in 8th grade, but then high school happens and suddenly they’re in the same homeroom and heaps of classes together and being partnered / grouped up for projects all the time and they both just get on each other’s nerves to no end

both of them are vying to be rip’s favourite in class and it makes ava furious and sara so smug because ava wanted to be the teachers pet bc she worked hard and did a load of extra curriculars and was always polite and on time and we’ll behaved, whereas rip just liked sara because she was entertaining and good at soccer and a little too cocky for her own good

and around this time, sara is slowly becoming friends with amaya and ray and jax and nate, is being less reckless and dangerous and unbearable as she was in middle school, starting to mellow a bit

but anyway; they’re at each other’s throats all of freshman year but their rivalry ends up being kind of fun bc arguing in class when it’s actually about school isn’t as frustrating for all the teachers and sara notices that ava actually makes her think, makes her feel smart, bc she can actually kind of keep up with the smartest girl in their entire grade, and ava meanwhile realises that sara is actually pretty smart, she’s actually kind of a genius and if she actually tried, she could probably give ava a run for her money and that both infuriates and pleasantly surprises ava 

but then early sophomore year, nyssa leaves. sara’s not at school for a few days and by the time she comes back, everyone Knows because it’s high school and nothing can stay secret for long, and everyone’s trying not to gossip bc sara’s slowly become quite popular around school but they can’t help it, they all wanna know what’s going on

and ava detests sara but she’s always admired her for coming out, for being so proud abt it and dating nyssa when there was like a grand total of 3 other lgbt people at school all of whom fit every single stereotype that ava wanted nothing to do with (and she’ll never admit it, but she had always felt kind of safe and comforted knowing nyssa and sara were dating bc it made her feel like she would be ok one day), so she can’t even imagine how sara feels especially if the rumours about why nyssa left are true 

sara’s heartbroken and angry and confused and she keeps pushing ava with jabs and mocking retorts and remarks that are lot harsher and more biting than usual but ava just smothers the urge to respond and rolls her eyes pointedly and ignores her bc she knows sara’s just lashing out

and at one point in gym, sara just drops her back and turns to face ava and demands “what the fuck is your problem sharpe?” and ava crosses her arms and goes “pretty sure you’re the once with the problem here, lance.” to that, sara glares and spits out “i’m not the one walking around with this fucking holier than thou attitude as if you’re better than me. can you at least argue back instead of rolling over like a doormat?” and ava literally wants to throw a dodgeball at her but she just holds her ground, doesn’t say anything, keeps sara’s gaze before biting her lip and looking away for the briefest of seconds. sara makes this smug huff of triumph, as though ava’s abt to fight back but ava just looks back at sara with an expression that’s too gentle, and says “i’m sorry about nyssa, sara.” and goes to join her dodgeball team

(amaya comes over to ask sara what it was about and sara can’t bring herself to answer, just shakes her head because she doesn’t quite know what just happened) 

things get better quickly, like. sara would never say it at the time but zari is this refreshing burst of fresh air who didn’t know nyssa the way all her other friends did and it’s so nice to have her around, even tho she’s still quite new. and then wally comes to star city and everything is fun and exciting w the legends and things aren’t perfect, definitely not bc oliver and laurel break up and sara and laurel have been fighting just usually like sisters do and dinahs been calling, on saras ass abt her slipping grades at school and sara just wants to piss them both off so she hooks up w oliver (and they’ve known each other for so long that they both feel guilty abt it and they try to make it a Thing bc they don’t want to admit that they both just used each other for different reasons)

it it’s sometime after that, after she and oliver collapsed under the very weak foundation their relationship was already built on, after laurel starts dating tommy, after amaya promises sara she’s not a bad person for what happened with oliver, it’s sometime then that ava makes that challenging retort abt sara even trying to get a better grade than her in french

and all sara can think of is laurel, the way laurel hadn’t been mad when she hooked up with oliver, the way laurel had just snuck into her room late at night and slipped under the covers and hugged sara close as sara broke down abt why their mom just didnt care abt all the good things sara was doing, the way laurel had softly murmured “you’re brilliant sara. you are, you’re so smart and so capable and if mom can’t see that, then she doesn’t deserve to.”

so sara does try. and she gets an a+. and the beam on laurel’s face when she sees it on sara’s desk, the pride on quentin’s when sara tells him - sara never looks back (and she also starts to look a bit more at ava, because maybe she’s not all horrible) 

gary comes out at the very end of sophomore year, sara goes over to give him a hug and she sees the expression on ava’s face - proud and protective and kind but also sort of hurt and definitely, definitely jealous, and sara suddenly remembers the way ava had acted towards her after sara had first come out and she remembers her vague, kind of unfounded assumption that maybe ava was gay, realises that ava’s never had a boyfriend, never said yes to any of the numerous attractive guys who have asked her out 

but also, sara’s known ava for like, 4 years by now and she knows what kind of family ava has and she feels this sudden ache in her chest bc ava must be in the most difficult position - sara doesn’t even know if ava is aware of it, so she doesn’t wanna say anything or offer support (also bc ava still grinds her gears to no end)

but she just keeps an eye out, checks ava’s facebook / instagram every once in a while to see if she’s posted anything abt it or added smth like a pride flag to her bio

and then on a sunday evening in october junior year, ava comes out on facebook. sara doesn’t see it first, in fact, she’s lying on the living room couch trying to not fall asleep reading her social studies text book when from the armchair, laurel lets out a quiet “huh” and both quentin and sara say “what?” at the same time and laurel goes “ava sharpe’s in your grade, right sara?” and sara nods and quentin’s like “is that the girl you did that chem assignment with earlier in the year?” and sara wrinkles her nose and goes “unfortunately. she’s a pain in my ass.” and laurel just hums and says “well, she just came out.”

sara almost falls off the couch, scrambling into a sitting position and snatching laurel’s phone and ignoring laurel’s protesting “hey!”

she reads the post through several times before she goes to comment and realises she’s on laurel’s phone, grabbing her own but then she hesitates, wanting to write something genuine but it feels too vulnerable so instead goes “ffs sharpe, on top of everything else, i now have to compete with you for hot girls too?”, but she opens messenger and goes “hey, just wanted to say congrats on coming out. i know it’s nowhere near easy to tell your family so like, hope that went okay. and i’m here if you wanna talk abt it at all.”

and the day after, as they’re clearing up microscopes and stuff in bio, ava quietly thanks her for her message and sara shrugs, goes “i get it.” and ava pauses before quietly admitting “you know i always admired you for being out. especially when we were so young back in middle school. i’d only just started thinking about it then and … i was a mess. seeing you being out and happy and just - the same person you’d always been … that helped more than you know.”

and it’s probably the most meaningful conversation they’ve ever had (or at least had in a Long time)

and 4 days later, ava shows up on sara’s doorstep after a fight with her mom at dinner and this entire fic began. 

also, for your own reading pleasure, some other random moments we thought of; 

sara only ever called ava ‘sharpe’ or ‘sharpie’ or any other variation of her name until they were both 15/16

ava used to roll her eyes every time sara got a a bad grade because she could be so much better if she tried, but she doesnt

sara nearly started a fight the first time she and ava had to work together on a project, and once they started it and it became clear they worked well together she was the Most Annoyed™️

back in middle school ava always scoffed and made some patronising comment every time she watched someone break up a fight sara had gotten into (except for the one time in the first few weeks of class when she had to stop sara throwing her second, or maybe third punch at a homophobic jerk in their class who’d cornered her on the way back from school - that time she shoved him away and watched him go before turning and cautiously asking if sara was okay, and sara glared at her and told her she’d had everything under control before storming off in the opposite direction)

there are probably many many headcanons for this part of the universe that we will think of but i hope this suffices for now, feel free to come yell about anything legends / fic related bc this was so much fun 💖💞

[ruwithmeguys]

It’s that time where I look at my fic writing schedule - a clue? I have no schedule. What I developed last year is an utter lack of control in when or how I write, so I’m aiming to have that return at some point this year.

Now Arrow could stop after season 7. In fact, it’s quite likely - Stephen’s contract ends after that. If it continues, even if it’s simply for one more short season, we’ll be blessed. But it also means that anything I want to write should be given serious due/consideration in the next 6 months; basically, by the end of S6. The good news about S7 being the possible last season is that, they won’t care about ratings so much. They might go all out in the writing side of things which jazzes me up because this year, the script has been spot on in comparison to the previous seasons. Olicity may get more focus or Dig might take literal flight! Who knows?

(There will always be characters we don’t like/understand and story lines that make no sense. For me, a big one is Curtis. Can he actually have anything of his own or is he so... well, boring, that they have to keep stretching Felicity’s hard earned position into his playground so that he has something to do with his time? Just curious. OTA will always come first for me, but it doesn’t mean I don’t like the other characters. I just wonder why there should be more cast members when they have to steal from another’s spotlights. Writers? Please solve this. I want Curtis to be happy, I don’t need a second sub-par Felicity.)

So! 

IP - my current main WIP. I’m aiming for no more than 15 chapters.

She hadn't known what to do... so she'd said yes. To Slade Wilson. For Oliver and all the people he cared for. But she'd had no idea, no clue, just how far this would go. And that in making this sacrifice, she was playing directly into Slade's hands.

OR, how Oliver would gladly - and literally - go from 'you made me a hero Slade' to 'this is me killing you'.

WWID - It has one last chapters split into 2/3. It was promised by Christmas but personal issues stopped that from happening. But I’m getting to it :)

We all know that Slade killed Oliver's mother: we were there, we saw it. But where was Felicity? What would she have done if she'd known? How would it have changed things?

True Face - I know people don’t know much about this one but I’ve recently re-edited this to make it flow better and am two-thirds through the next chapter! 

Returning to Starling, Oliver Queen faces himself in the black mask of the city’s already established vigilante. A person the city has already labelled with the moniker: Watchman. As they begin to move in sync, he starts to see just what the city really needs and how far it has gone to make the existence of two vigilante’s necessary. At the top of what he didn’t anticipate is a woman who makes the past five years, and all they entailed, suddenly make sense to him. A women with secrets of her own that may connect her to him in ways he'd never considered. In ways that make him... want.

Taken - currently in the air. I want to continue with it but I need to draft WWID first.

(Based loosely on the movie Taken) Despite the breaks in their sibling relationship, Oliver Queen loves his sister dearly and there's nothing more anyone can really say. Then, after Thea leaves for week long holiday in France, the worst happens. Felicity Smoak - his beloved friend - and Laurel Lance - the woman he's secretly and shamefully sleeping with - find out just far he'd go for his kid sister...

How Did This Happen - it’ll be coming around the time I next update IP.

If Tommy and Felicity knew each other, wouldn't she help a guy out and be his pretend date? It all goes swimmingly. But then Oliver's there. With Laurel. But he's looking at her. But so is Tommy. And Laurel. Ergo, problem. Guys, I wrote this today. It might feel a bit rushed. But it wanted out of my head. Read the tags: you'll get it ;)

There are two fics that have been nagging at me especially.

One I ran through a tad with @dust2dust34 after one of my smallish Blood Hands rants and she made me want to write it. It’s basically an Arrow re-write from season 1, which I know has been done before but... this one will basically been from the view that felicity was always meant to appear on the show, i.e. episode one and has agency as opposed to the side role she had. i get the side role. Imagine not having her at all? We’ve been very lucky.

When I started talking about it, Bre suggested all the ways in which it would be different by that one addition and I was shook. And agency in a show like Arrow, on CW, means quite a few different things. I really want to write it but I have to put ducks in a row first.

Another is a fic called Jonas, involving an Oliver (Bratva) who never returned to Starling and a Felicity Smoak who fled the city after serious threat on her life by Moira and Malcolm. I have to wonder about that one a bit.

There are more. 

But.

I am... now. @ash818 I have a very slight obsession with her Legacy Verse. I am, is a one shot following Book Of Love. I want to write a sequel amongst other things, set roughly five or so years into the future of that one shot. But there are other things I’d like to touch upon and may never get to. I love Olicity’s children: Jon and Abbie - Abbie who’s like most of us except full of heart and talent - and I want to know more about their growth but I’m most interested in... Terry. Let’s just see what happens. 

...because Ash is an evil/fabulous genius at creating stories with original characters and making you fall in love with them. This is a small tribute for a fanfiction that has been making me think about it over and over and over... It's a gift to Ash818 for her Legacies Verse series. It's mainly about Terry and if you guys like (and Ash approves) I'd gladly write a 5 part sequel. I'd describe this best as a series of small one shot's regrading Terry and his lifestyle over the years. I REALLY hope I did this justice (FEELING SO FREAKING SICK - THE NERVES ARE REAL)...

I really hope to get these out to everyone. I can only thank you for your patience.

P.S. I’m getting a real kick out of all the reviews headed my way, particularly in re to @eilowyn1 who I both antagonise and satisfy with my (hopefully accurate) portrayal of Laurel Lance.

[shakespeareanqueer]

EXPERIMENT (Part 3)

Summary: Peter and Gwynn own up to their feelings. 

Word count: 2,015

Experiment Masterlist

And we’ve made it to chapter 3 of my submission to @keepingupwiththeparkers 4K follower celebration writing challenge! Only one left! (Well, there’s two versions of chapter 4. I’m still trying to decide if I want to save the smutty scene I wrote for another fic, or even if I feel comfortable publishing it at all, but if I do choose to keep it, then there’s a smutty and a non-smutty version to the end of this story.) 

This one’s shorter than the other ones and I’m not as happy with it as the others, but it gets us from point A to point B. Please let me know what you think!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

Gif source

Nearly every time Peter’s gone out as Spider Man for the past week, those two other spider people have shown up. He doesn’t always need them, but they help him finish the job faster. Peter’s grateful. But he’s curious. They always disappear before he gets the chance to thank them. Sometimes they swing away, but sometimes they seem to just… be gone. He’s confused.

They haven’t joined him, at least not yet, this particular night. Peter’s just stopped a run-of-the-mill mugging and is walking through an alley, when he feels himself being yanked around the corner by the collar. Just then, a bullet flies through the air and lodges itself in the brick wall right behind where his head had just been. Eyes wide, he turns to thank his savior, and instead of, you know, a human being, he is met with two tiny spiders (that is to say, normal size for a spider, not giant person-sized spiders like him). They’re hanging from webs extending up to the fire escape above their head, and they’re looking him dead in the eye. It’s dark, but he can tell there’s something off about them. There don’t seem to be enough legs? But, again, it’s dark, so maybe he’s just not seeing correctly.

He was seeing correctly. The tiny (I.e. normal sized) spiders suddenly grow into giant (I.e. normal person-sized) spider people: his two mysterious compatriots. Eyes wide, he finally splutters out the ‘thank you’ he intended when he first turned to face them. They give him the same two-fingered salute they’ve given him every night this week, and then press their hands to their emblems, which are on their belts instead of on their chest like his, to shrink down again. But one doesn’t shrink. The black and white one just keeps poking their belt, but nothing happens. They shrug, and turn to walk away, the white and red one now perched on their shoulder. Peter grabs their other, spider-free, shoulder and turns him to face him.

“Wait,” he says firmly. “Who are you?”

The miniaturized spider person starts poking the human-sized one furiously in the neck. They just sigh, shake their head and fire a web up into the fire escape again in order to swing away, out of Peter’s curious reach. But Peter got one clue; the deep and audible sigh had revealed a deep voice. Not much to go on, but something.

Gwynn has taken to sitting with Peter’s friend group at lunch and even hanging out with them outside of school. She used to spend all her lunch period frustratedly staring at chemistry notes in the library, but now that she’s doing better in that class, she has more time to make and hang out with friends, like Miles was able to do ages ago because he’s a genius who has never needed to take lunch time to study.

MJ and Ned take to Gwynn immediately. She’s bubbly and warm. And responsive, if that makes sense. She laughs at jokes and nods slowly with sympathetic eyes when listening to something sad. She’s an attentive listener, and always willing to help with anything. She isn’t afraid to get enthusiastic about things; she and Ned nerd out over Star Wars and other sci-fi (Gwynn can appreciate sci-fi even if she doesn’t get real-life science). She’s observant like MJ, and they come up with elaborate hypothetical scenarios for random people in the lunch room and on the street based on their expressions and mannerisms.

She wears her heart on her sleeve, and MJ and Ned are a little astounded that Peter, who is supposed to be super in tune with people’s emotions because of his heightened spidey-senses, can’t see what they feel is so obvious: Gwynn likes him. And he likes her.

The two of them still have to spend time together because they’re lab partners, but the biggest project of the semester is out of the way and Gwynn doesn’t need as much help anymore. They spend just as much time together overall, though, since she’s been hanging out with the group. But if he’s honest with himself, Peter misses spending time one-on-one with her, and, because he’s oblivious to his own emotions, he doesn’t understand why.

When he finally asks her out on a date, it’s kind of an accident.

It’s Saturday early afternoon, and Gwynn and Peter have finished studying for chemistry, and are now independently doing other homework while they wait for Ned and MJ to come over and watch a movie. Peter’s looking forward to it, and he definitely wants to see his friends, but he feels weird about how he doesn’t want them to butt in on this time he has alone with Gwynn. They’re on the couch, and she’s leaning against his shoulder while she watches a video with headphones in for history class, while he reads for English. And it’s nice, and peaceful, and he doesn’t want it to end. So something crazy comes over him.

He pokes her on the shoulder. She pauses the video, takes one headphone out and peers at him. “Hmm?” she asks.

“After the movie, do you want to go out to dinner? Since May’s out of town, she suggested the four of us order a pizza after the movie, but if you want I’d love to take you somewhere nicer.”

Understandably, because English doesn’t differentiate between the singular and plural you, Gwynn sees this as a group invitation at first. “Sure! Where were you thinking? Well, I guess we should decide that as a group, so we can wait to talk about it.” She goes to stick her headphone back in her ear, but she can actually feel the heat radiating off of Peter’s cheeks as whatever confidence possessed him to initiate this interaction fades away.

“Um, well actually, I was kind of hoping it would be just the two of us?”

Gwynn takes the other earbud out and closes her laptop slowly. Avoiding looking him in the eye, because she can feel her own face going pink, she asks, “Like a date?”

“Um,” Peter stutters. That wasn’t what he was thinking when he asked it, but the concept of it sounds wonderful to him.

Gwynn incorrectly registers his hesitation as aversion to the idea. “Or just as friends. And I’m the one making it weird. I’m sorry. Boys and girls can be friends and hang out and it doesn’t have to be romantic don’t let me-“

Peter cuts her off by swerving his head to stick himself in her line of sight to force eye contact. “I’d like it to be a date,” he says. Then the urge to reassure her that had caused him to swoop in smoothly like that disappears and he starts spluttering, “if you want it to be. If you don’t want it to, that’s cool too. I’d still like to hang out with you. Either way.” He fiddles with the bookmark sticking out of the copy of Twelfth Night he’s holding.

Gwynn is still staring at her lap, grinning like an idiot and trying to will herself to respond when the doorbell rings and they hear MJ’s voice shout, “Open up, losers. Movie time,” through the door.

Peter starts to stand to get in, and Gwynn grabs his arm and says, “I want it to be.” She hadn’t finished smiling like an idiot, but she needed to get it in before he opened the door, so he actually for the first time registers in her face what MJ and Ned and even their chemistry teacher had been seeing since the beginning: her total infatuation with him. And it makes him grin like an idiot back.

He swings open the door with more force than he intended, forgetting about his super strength in his excitement. Both MJ and Ned are standing there, and are startled by how elated he looked.

“Woah, someone’s excited to watch Indiana Jones,” says Ned, but then MJ elbows him and tilts her head towards where Gwynn is sitting inside, that goofy grin identical to Peter’s redirected at her lap. Ned’s face illustrates his dawning realization, and he gives Peter a congratulatory punch on the arm on the way in.

MJ and Ned share a lot of the same type of knowing glances, which they’ve gotten very used to at this point, through the whole of the movie. When Peter puts his arm around Gwynn. When she leans into his shoulder. When he comes back from the bathroom to find her stretched out, having invaded his seat on the couch, and instead of joining MJ and Ned on the floor or grabbing a chair, or even lifting her legs to place them on his lap, he lifts her torso and places her head on his lap and starts playing with her hair. Lots and lots of knowing glances.

As Peter is turning off the TV at the end of the movie, Ned’s stomach audibly growls. He remembers what Aunt May had said when she’d been present when they first made the plan to watch the movie, which was the suggestion about the group pizza. “So May-”

MJ punches him right in the groin and finishes his sentence for him, having put the pieces together as to where it was going. “is out of town?” She knows the answer to that question, but she asks it anyway.

“Yeah,” Peter responds. “Sorry she’s not here to make dinner for us.” He glances briefly at Gwynn, who has risen from his lap and is stretching. MJ gets it.

Ned doesn’t. “We could- Ow!”

Another punch to the groin. “We could come over another time to enjoy May’s delicious cooking, but if we want to make it home in time for dinner at our own house’s we should probably go, right Ned?”

Ned’s realization of the situation is so clear on his face that Peter rubs his hand on the back of his neck and glances at Gwynn again, praying she didn’t notice. She did, but she’s successfully playing it off like she didn’t by closing her eyes and stretching more.

An hour or so later, Peter and Gwynn are sitting at the Mexican place down the street from Peter’s apartment. Their options are limited due to transportation and high school budgets. They’re having an excellent time, chatting and munching on chips and guacamole. At some point, Gwynn goes to the bathroom, and when she returns, Peter’s brain has wandered. Where Peter’s brain is at: wondering how the two spider people who keep swooping in haven’t been picked up by the media yet. His super hero name was plastered all over newspapers and magazines, and videos were popping up on YouTube, immediately upon Peter beginning his escapades nearly two years ago. And yet, he hadn’t heard a thing on these additional spider people ever in his life. How were they managing to be so covert? Does it have to do with their ability to miniaturize? Probably.

Gwynn’s return from the bathroom coinciding perfectly with the arrival of the entrees brings him back to reality, but this problem keeps pestering him.

This was the first date Gwynn and Peter go on, but it’s far from their last. They get into a routine of weekend evening dates: going to the movies and dinner, but also more budget-friendly options, like star gazing on the roof of Peter’s building or walking in the park. Peter feels guilty whenever he has to duck out because of a crisis that needs Spider Man, but Gwynn doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, her sudden needs to exit tend to coincide pretty exactly with his, which Peter figures is her just being nice. But she genuinely doesn’t seem bothered by what everyone else in his life has considered one of Peter’s worst traits: his flakiness. They make up for lost time in small pockets and slivers, and also grand apologetic gestures. It’s totally cool.

They’re both really happy.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Animorphs/Wicked

@miraculoussparrow requested more information about an Animorphs and Wicked fic I speculated about a while ago.  My idle thoughts turned into a whole mini-fusion, so here’s part one of two—I divided it in half for the sake of sanity.  [You do not have to be familiar with Wicked to follow, although I do recommend the soundtrack strongly.] 

No One Mourns the Wicked Some small part of Cassie is perversely grateful when she steps up to the podium at Rachel’s funeral and never gets the chance to utter a single word.  She’s already choking on fear, desperate to get this right and devastated by the knowledge she won’t be able to—and then she’s drowned out by the sudden and devastating poppoppoppopBANG of fireworks that rattles the graveyard with a horror of sound.  

Someone, somewhere across town is having a parade.  Because of course.  Because the war’s over, and this is a happy occasion.  She can hear them singing, in the silence left between explosions.  The graveyard itself is silent, the mourners shellshocked into stillness.  

Later she’ll stumble away into the city, tear-blind, inadequate eulogy a crumpled wad of paper in her pocket, and a total stranger will pull her into a hug so suddenly she starts morphing in surprise.  After she registers what the woman is saying—it’s a babbled string of gratitude and joy, nearly incoherent—she pulls away more gently.  Later that night someone will thrust a bottle of wine into her hands; someone else will gently place a pileus on her head.  Five more total strangers will shake her hand; sixteen will recognize her long enough to shout thanks or praise.  It’s the single largest celebration their small city has ever seen.  

Surrounded on all sides by singing and clapping, wearing a crown of yellow flowers she doesn’t remember receiving, Cassie thinks back to the last sight she saw before leaving the graveyard.  Jake was silhouetted against the last light of dusk, shoulders hunched and shaking as he stood over the far headstone two rows down from Rachel’s, smaller and unadorned but part of the Berenson family plot all the same.  They both deserve better than this gaudy horrorshow.  All of them do.  

One Short Day The first time Cassie suspected that girl Rachel she knew from camp was going to be her best friend, they were on the playground in third grade.  Rachel had marched over to where a fifth-grade boy was making fun of Cassie’s shoes to shove her face up against the older boy’s.  “Yeah, Cassie’s got old sneakers,” she said brazenly. “So what?”  

Amazing the power of those words, so what, to shut down anyone who criticized their clothes or their voices or anything about them.  Cassie never learned to say them with the confidence that Rachel used, but she learned to hold her head up high all the same.  

Rachel was the one who taught Cassie about the sheer power that came with not caring—or at least appearing not to care—what other people thought.  They were both weird, both not quite perfectly aligned with what the other girls in their class thought they should be.  Rachel kicked all the boys’ butts at soccer in gym class and shouted out correct answers without bothering to raise her hand, even though girls were supposed to scorn sports and wait their turn before speaking.  Cassie wore jeans with bird poop and cared more about equestrian health standards than My Little Pony dolls, even though she was supposed to wear pink dresses and fantasize about horses without actually owning any.  The thing was, Rachel could get away with being the wrong kind of girl, because she was joyous and unapologetic in her rebellion, able to laugh in the face of anyone who had a problem with the way she acted.  Cassie could get away with it too, because when you were friends with Rachel there was pride rather than shame in standing out from the crowd.

What is This Feeling? Dearest Daddy and Mom, Rachel wrote in her best penmanship.  (Given that she was seven years old, the best that can be said is that it was legible.)  Sleepaway camp has a lot of fun things.  Today I made a friendship bracelet and learned how to tie a knot.  The only thing is my bunkmate.  Here, Rachel chewed on her pen in thought, trying to come up with a way to describe the weird girl with the overalls and the boyishly short hair without being mean.  It wasn’t like there was anything wrong with Cassie, after all.  She just didn’t know anything about Limited Too or Boys 2 Men or Nintendo.  And she had the weirdest stories.  She’s weird, and her clothes are awful, but she’s the best in camp at woodcrafts which is dumb, Rachel wrote at last.  I miss you guys.  Please write back.

Hi Dad, Cassie scribbled on camp stationary.  I hope you and Cinnamon and Misty and Star and Blaze and all the other horses and the sick crow and the baby foxes and also Mom are all good.  I am not good.  Camp is stupid.  Our cabin leader is super old, like 15 or 16, but she STILL doesn’t know the difference between ash leaves and elm leaves.  My bunkmate is the stupidest part.  She thinks ponies are a type of horse and paints her nails before we go pick up bugs in the woods and wears dresses on the jungle gym.  She brought 5 pairs of sandals to camp and wears more hair clips than anyone I ever saw.  Just because she’s the best in camp at gymnastics doesn’t mean I like her.  Please please please please please please please come pick me up.

Walter didn’t come to pick Cassie up, and good thing too: later that week she and Rachel beat every single other pair of bunkmates at the Nature Fun Time Obstacle Course, working together to rush through the activities (and across the rope bridge, and underneath the zip line, and all over the Fun Facts Path) in record time.  They won tickets to free ice cream at a shop downtown for the entire summer.  But it meant far more to Cassie when Rachel ran up on their last day, friendship bracelet in hand, and tied it around Cassie’s wrist.  

For Good Cassie always knew that Crayak would find a way to get revenge against Rachel and Jake for the way they’d hurt him.  She just never imagined it would come like this: the sharp whistle of a rock in the air followed by a hideous wet crunch of gristle and bone.  She never knew the fallout could be this bad, Rachel’s skin so pale it has gone a dull grey color except for the places on her hands where David’s blood seeped between her fingers.  Rachel came out of the warehouse silent and shaking, and Cassie couldn’t find it in herself to say anything.  

Not until, a hundred yards down the sidewalk, Rachel drew a sharp breath and started crying in near-silence.

“You’re right about me,” Cassie blurted, for something to say.  “I’m not strong enough.  I can’t do it.  I can’t be like you.  I’m sorry.”

Rachel whirled around, grabbing Cassie by the arm.  “That’s a good thing.  Don’t be sorry.  People like me would be nothing without people like you.”  She shook herself off.  “No.  Worse.  Without you…”  She made a sharp gesture back to the warehouse.  “I’d be him.”  

“That’s not…”

“I know myself.”  She barked a laugh.  “You’re the only reason I’m still a halfway decent person.”  

Cassie did her best not to notice the splotch of David’s blood that had transferred to her arm.  “You realize it goes both ways, right?  Without you, I’d have quit years ago and left the rest of you to die.”  

Thank Goodness People cry during weddings, Cassie reminds herself.  It’s perfectly normal to be crying on her wedding day.  So what if she happens to be crying for entirely the wrong reason?  

It’s the dress.  It’s the long cakelike frills of the dress and it’s the fact that when she looked in the mirror after the stylist was done with her veil, all she could think of was what Rachel would say to see her so swankified.  It’s the way that Ronnie is so patient and kind and loving, so willing to wake Cassie from nightmares and hold her close every year on Christmas, on Victory-Earth Day, on the anniversary of the date Marco and the others were officially declared Missing Presumed Dead.  It’s the fact that he is so good to her, in a way no one else ever has been… and she still can’t bring herself to love him.

Ronnie has never lost patience, has never stopped being devoted and sweet.  He’s also never killed someone to save her life.  He’s never stood shoulder-to-shoulder and flank-to-flank with her as they marched into battle.  He’s never committed a terrible crime so that Cassie herself wouldn’t have to, and he’ll never know the terrible crimes Cassie herself has had to commit anyway.  

He never tore a piece of her heart out, either.  He never went and died on her because she couldn’t find the words to keep him here.  

Cassie lowers her veil to hide her tears, and she picks up her bouquet.  She’s as ready as she’ll ever be.

Not That Girl “And then,” Rachel said, “he showed me this spot downtown where they’re putting new tar down on a parking lot, and my god.”  She whistled between her teeth.  “You can just coast up and up until you’re miles off the ground, and then you dive… And he just figured this out, all on his own.  He’s, like, some kind of genius at this.”

Cassie shifted to a more comfortable position on the end of her bed, trying to look like she was enjoying this conversation.  She got it, really she did.  Tobias had those big soft eyes—well, sometimes—and that sharp sense of humor and that knack for picking up new skills on the fly… He was sweet but also practical, melancholy but willing to be sarcastic too.

It didn’t stop her from wanting to cry sometimes when Rachel talked about him.

“Anyway, how are you and Jake?” Rachel asked, flopping over in her sleeping bag to look Cassie in the eye.

Cassie laughed, looking down.  She and Jake were experimenting.  Feeling each other out.  Hoping for a spark that would probably never come.  They were friends, and she loved him as a friend, but... But she wanted what she couldn’t have.

Because if she had it her way, Jake wouldn’t be the one who held her hand and tried to work up the nerve to kiss her goodnight.  Tobias wouldn’t be the one that put that starry-eyed smile on Rachel’s face.  Rachel wouldn’t be on the floor during their sleepovers, she’d be right next to Cassie in the bed—

“Enough about boys,” Cassie said quickly, shocked by the direction of her own thoughts.  “You want to go get some of my dad’s hot chocolate with chili powder?”  

The Wizard and I During the war, sometimes, Cassie would think back to the call she got late one night in eighth grade.  Rachel had been almost laughing as she spoke, enthusiasm bubbling through in every word.  It took Cassie a while to parse what Rachel was talking about, but finally she figured it out: Melissa’s dad had given them the number of this new organization in town, and the new organization was willing to sponsor any young athletes who joined it.  

Sponsor, in this case, meant just about anything.  Mr. Chapman had assured them that student athletes who joined the Sharing could access its full resources for buying uniforms, connecting to coaches, and even meeting the big names in the field.  (“Dominique Dawes!  Amy Chow! Kerri Strug!” Rachel said, and Cassie made noises of agreement like these names meant anything at all.)  She might not have understood some of what Rachel was gushing about with competition levels and professional trainers, but she found herself grinning anyway.  It was always so cool to hear how amped Rachel got about everything from sales at Express to WNBA results, because Rachel was the kind of person who could make anything brighter or more special with the way she saw it.

They’d taken a shortcut home through the construction site the very next night.  Cassie thought of that phone call, sometimes, as the last time their future had been clear and bright and easily understood.  

Part 2 Here