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catmiemy · 24 hours

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Another Chance to Live Final Part (Ana Maria Crnogorčević x Reader)

Summary: Ana and you are facing some big changes.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

A/N: I'm actually very proud of myself for finishing this story relatively fast. And it was a lot of fun to write :)

Thank you to everyone that stuck around till the end. I hope you enjoy this last part!

Of course you didn’t just trust your parents to respect the boundaries you had set in place; that had never been their strong suit after all. Once you had successfully weathered the first onslaught of emotions, you thought about it more carefully and together with Ana put a few precautions in place.

For one you informed the staff at Real that none of your family members should be granted access if they came by to see you. A wise decision, as it turned out. Only a few days later your mother showed up, arguing for so long that she had to be escorted off the premises by security personnel.

You also basically moved in with Ana. No one from your family knew where she lived, so they couldn’t just drop by like they could at your apartment. Another good call as you learnt when your neighbors told you that they had almost called the police because a man fitting your father’s description had been standing in front of the house for so long.

All of this made your guilt kick into overdrive and you were grateful for your girlfriend’s support. She never told you what to do, she was even hesitant to tell you what she would do in your place, but Ana was always there to listen and help you keep apart what you truly wanted from what you felt you should do.

While things with your family were at an all time low, you were incredibly happy with Ana, and practically living together was a welcome change in pace. Both of you were committed to making each other smile with small gestures, so your everyday life was filled with much more happiness than ever before.

Ana loved to start your day off with a big smile by turning your coffee into a small piece of art, constantly trying out new foam designs. And it didn’t matter if they turned out right or not, you appreciated the effort, and attempting to guess what your girlfriend had been going for was half the fun.

You knew Ana felt the same about something you were doing to brighten her day: learning some Swiss German words. Which wasn’t easy because you couldn’t just use any old translator, you had to invest some time to find the correct words. And often times you failed horribly at pronouncing them, making your girlfriend giggle while she was trying to decipher what you were saying. That in turn always got you laughing as well, which made it even harder to pronounce anything properly.

The biggest laughing fit set off by your Swiss German attempts occurred when you very proudly asked Ana if she could give you a Schmützeli. You didn’t get quite the reaction you hoped for, a kiss; instead your girlfriend was staring at you, and you couldn’t tell if she was amused or annoyed.

“Wait, does it not mean kiss? Did I mess this up? I’m so sorry if I said something offensive,” you apologized frantically, already pulling out your phone to look at your sources again. You had been so sure, you had even double-checked this.

At that point Ana began laughing, so hard that she couldn’t even say anything. Now it was your turn to stare at her, wondering what was so funny. It was a huge relief though; it couldn’t have been anything too bad if your girlfriend found it so amusing.

After a moment you couldn’t help but join the laughter. You didn’t know what you were laughing about, but Ana’s laughter was simply infectious.

Once your girlfriend had calmed down, she explained it to you still a little out of breath, “Okay, so it’s not even really that funny, but Schmützeli isn’t a word you would use with a partner. At least not where I’m from. It’s more for like small kisses between family members or friends. And it just really caught me off guard.”

You silently agreed, this wasn’t really that funny, and you were still a bit confused why it had made your girlfriend laugh so hard. Then again you were always happy to make Ana laugh, so you weren’t going to complain. And you definitely kept using the word again every once in a while because it amused her every time.

There were other things you did for each other, like Ana playing the guitar for you, sometimes even singing a song you requested, which made you all chocked up whenever she did. Or you taking pictures of small beautiful things you saw in your day to day life to show to your girlfriend in the evening, eager to share the beauty you had encountered with her.

You also did your best to make your everyday life as special as possible, savoring the time you got together. A part of this was ensuring that you weren’t just spending time together by being around each other, but also by doing things and actively spending time together whenever your crazy schedules allowed it. And sometimes even if they didn’t, carving out time when you didn’t necessarily have it.

It was a good thing your personal life brought you so much happiness because the same thing couldn’t be said about your work. To be honest thinking of football as merely that, work, was painful enough by itself. Sure, it was, but it also always had been so much more than just a job.

Sometimes you still debated if you should just retire and try to find something else that would spark some sort of passion again. However, at the end of the day you weren’t ready to give up on what had been your life’s biggest passion so far.

So you resigned yourself to this reality, where the joy you once found in football only showed itself on very rare occasions. And whenever it did, you clung to it with ferocity to tie you over until the next minuscule moment.

Then, completely out of the blue, you got an offer from another team. It hadn’t even crossed your mind to look around for another club; leaving Madrid had never been something you considered. It hadn’t been something you thought you would ever want to do.

But when you were approached by the managers of Tigres Femenil, you realized all of the sudden that it might be exactly what you wanted. It helped that it was the team Jenni was playing for, so you knew if you actually decided to go through with this, you wouldn’t be totally alone on another continent.

That wasn’t the appeal though, that was merely a helpful factor. What really made you want to do it was the fact that it would be your choice, only yours and no one else’s, not your family’s and not your club’s. It would be you deciding what to do with your life, instead of rolling with the punches others kept throwing at you.

Was that a good enough reason to move halfway across the world, though? Especially since there was one obvious reason keeping you in Madrid, Ana. The thought of not seeing her daily was hard to bare. Then again it probably wasn’t healthy that she was the only good thing in your life at the moment, that was too much pressure to place on one person. So perhaps it would be better for your relationship in the long run if you decided to do this?

On the other hand, Mexico was a long way from Madrid. Would Ana be okay with doing long distance or would this be the end of your relationship? Because in that case you wouldn’t do it.

As was in your nature you drove yourself crazy thinking about every possible outcome either of your choices could have. You did your best to not let on that something was bothering you, but Ana must have noticed anyway because she began acting a bit odd herself, switching between being weirdly distant and overly clingy.

You had almost reached the point of finally broaching the subject, when your girlfriend took the first step. In the morning before leaving for your respective training sessions, Ana nervously asked if you could talk later that night. Of course you agreed, thinking that she wanted to ask you what had been on your mind lately.

Consequently you spent the entire day agonizing about how you could put your thoughts and feelings into words. You made countless drafts in your mind, even though you knew that you wouldn’t be able to remember them in the moment. At least they made you feel a bit better prepared.

Ana was back at your apartment before you and she set everything up nicely with candles and flowers she had gotten for you. You appreciated how she went out of her way to make sure you knew everything was okay. Every once in a while you still got in your head, worried that your girlfriend would leave you if you made on small mistake.

Once you had both settled down, Ana took a deep breath, blurting out, “There is something I have to tell you.”

This took you by surprise. You had been under the assumption she had set this all up to get you to talk. And you instantly began wondering what your girlfriend had to tell you. Naturally your first thought was that she might break up with. However, even you had to admit that preparing a romantic candle light dinner would be a very strange move if you wanted to break up with someone.

“Oh, what is it? I actually have something I need to tell you as well,” you replied, trying to keep your worries out of your voice.

“Really?” Ana exclaimed in surprise. This in turn surprised you, you didn’t think you had been doing a good job at keeping your over thinking a secret.

“You can go first,” your girlfriend quickly offered.

Normally you wouldn’t have accepted such an offer, especially not when Ana had been the one to set all this up to talk to you about something. However, something in her tone sounded almost pleading, as if she desperately wanted you to go first. And begging from your girlfriend was something you could never resist.

“Well, I’m guess I’m just going to come out and say it,” you started, taking a deep breath, steeling yourself for whatever might be Ana’s reaction, “I’ve gotten an offer from another club. And I didn’t think it was something I would be interested in, but now that I have it, I realize that I really am. You know how I feel at Real, so this might be my chance to enjoy football again. But then I also don’t want to leave you alone here because I love you and…”

Ana had been listening to you rattling on for a moment, her face unreadable, until she interrupted you sounding oddly excited, “Wait, you’re thinking about leaving Madrid?”

You frowned at her happiness. It was one thing to be excited about something good happening to your partner, but being so happy about them moving away seemed weird to you, and a little painful.

“Wow, no reason to be so happy about getting rid of me,” you mumbled, avoiding your girlfriend’s eyes.

“What? No!” Ana cried out, reaching over to grab your hand. “That’s not what this is about at all. The thing is that I too have gotten offers from other clubs and I didn’t really consider them, but then a few days ago Atleti told me that they wouldn’t renew my contract, so I have no choice but to leave.”

“And I have been feeling so bad about it because just like you said, I didn’t want to leave you behind here either. But if we’re both leaving, it’s a totally different scenario. Sure, long distance is going to suck, but it won’t be forever and at least this way we hopefully both end up in places where we feel happier than at our current clubs.”

Suddenly Ana’s behavior over the last few days made a lot more sense. You had thought she was acting weird because she had picked up on your distress, but really she had been dealing with something herself. Being dropped by yet another team and faced with having to upend her entire life again.

“Ugh, I didn’t think I could hate Atleti more than I already do! How stupid of them to let you go,” you grumbled.

Your girlfriend blinked a couple of times, a smile appearing on her face, “That’s what you’re focusing on right now?”

“Yeah! I’m really annoyed with them! But also…Why didn’t you tell me?”

It wasn’t something you could really complain about since it was very much exactly what you would have done in Ana’s position. Your girlfriend was much better though, when it came to opening up and discussing her struggles. So the fact that she hadn’t told you before didn’t sit right with you.

Ana sighed, rubbing her forehead. “I made up my mind so many times to just come right out and say it, but every time I lost my courage in the last second. Because at it turns out it’s not so easy to tell your girlfriend who you love very much and who has a hard time at work and with her family that you’re moving to another country.”

“Oh.”

You understood that, it was the thing you had been worried about, that Ana felt too much pressure to bring joy to your life because so little else did. Under different circumstances this might have been harder to swallow, but in the current situation it actually helped. It left not a single doubt in your mind, that leaving Madrid was the right choice.

“So, what are your options?” You asked to move on the conversation.

“There are different clubs in Switzerland I could go to, but I don’t really see myself doing that. It would be nice to be close to my family and maybe I should do it to help further women’s football in Switzerland, but it feels more like something I should do, not something I want, you know?”

You knew precisely what she meant. In fact for so long you had made all decisions based on exactly that feeling of ‘I should’, so you were happy Ana didn’t plan on making the same mistake. And you tried to show her that by nodding encouragingly.

“However, the other option is pretty far away, so I just want you to know that no decision has been made yet, and I really want to know what you think. Because if long distance on that scale is a deal breaker for you, I won’t do it,” your girlfriend continued.

Again you nodded, hung up on the fact that you had been having exactly the same thoughts. So as far as distance went this would either work out well for the two of you or Ana would really end up on the other side of the world. What even was on the other side of Mexico? You cursed yourself for your geography knowledge that was clearly lacking.

“Okay, so, the other option is Tigres Femenil. Jenni’s team in Mexico,” your girlfriend rushed out, her eyes flicking between you and the table, as if Ana was torn between wanting to study every miniscule reaction you might show, while also trying to avoid jus tthat.

“What?”

This had to be a joke! Ana probably learnt about your offer from then and decided to play a prank on you. Maybe Jenni had heard about it and told your girlfriend to do this, that would be a Jenni thing to do.

Except not really, though. Your older friend was known for playing pranks and amusing herself at the expense of others, but there was a clear line that she never crossed. And playing with someone’s heart and feelings was on the “don’t”-side of that line.

“I’m sorry! Like I said I haven’t decided yet and if it’s too far then I’ll go to Switzerland. I’m sure that will be great,” Ana apologized frantically.

“No, wait, that’s not why I reacted like this. The thing is my offer is also from Tigres Femenil, so it just seems a bit unbelievable? People don’t get this lucky in real life,” you explained, disbelief still coloring your tone and set firmly on your face.

“You’re joking right?” Your girlfriend inquired, apparently also having some issues fully accepting this miraculous coincidence as true.

“No, I’m not. They offered me a one year contract with the option for additional years if I like it there and fit well into the team.” Hopefully the added details would make it easier for Ana to believe this was actually happening.

After that the two of you stayed silent for a while, your hearts and minds needed some time to let themselves open up and accept that you were getting much more than you ever hoped for.

You reached that conclusion almost at the same time, huge grins spreading across both of your faces and then there was nothing holding you back anymore. Ana jumped up from her chair first and you swiftly followed suit.

Mere seconds later you basically jumped into your girlfriend’s arms, thinking in the back of your mind that this was exactly how you would celebrate a goal if you would play for the same time. Your heart jumped happily when you realized that you might get a chance to do precisely that next season.

“I’m so happy!” Ana squealed into your ear and you echoed that sentiment.

Moving abroad and playing for another team had sounded excited, but doing so with your girlfriend? That seemed more like a dream than anything else.

Ana and you stayed wrapped up in each other’s arms for a good while, just basking in the happiness. It was a welcome change from the usual reasons you spent so long in each other’s embrace. Normally you did so because one of you, more often than not you, was sad and needed comfort. Now there was not an ounce of sadness present, the air was electrified by excitement and the possibility of everything that was to come.

---

Of course you didn’t decide that night to accept the transfer, not legally at least, but emotionally you definitely did. Still, like the reasonable adults you were, you thought it through, gathered some more information before officially making the choice you had already made the moment you learnt both of you could go to Mexico together.

You called Jenni together to tell her the good news and she was overjoyed. Although if the amount of teasing you had to endure during one measly phone call was anything to go by, you were going to have to put up with a lot next year. You didn’t mind, though. Also you were aware that Ana would put a stop to it if she thought it was getting out of hand. You could as well, Jenni would listen if you seriously told her to stop, but you knew yourself well enough to know that you wouldn’t.

After that Ana and you focused on wrapping up everything in Madrid, sorting out your apartments and such. There was one particular subject you avoided like the plague, your family. You couldn’t leave for Mexico without at least telling them and try one more time, but you also weren’t ready to face them again in the slightest.

Finally you reached a point in time where you could no longer postpone it. Your girlfriend offered multiple times to go with you, but you declined every time, much to Ana’s chagrin. In the end she decided that she would at least drive you and wait for you in a nearby parking lot. You gladly accepted that suggestion.

“And please leave if it gets too much, yeah? Or call me and I will come get you,” Ana reminded you resolutely, still reluctant to let go of your hand.

“Don’t worry, tesoro, I’ll be fine. I don’t think much will come off today, but I just have to try one more time before we leave,” you explained. And it was true; you didn’t have high hopes for your conversation with your family. But even so you ended up being disappointed.

It started with a very frosty greeting, your father leading you into the living room where the rest of your family was sitting. You had chosen that day specifically because you had thought no one else would be over, but apparently you were out of luck. All of your aunts and uncles were assembled, staring at you disapprovingly.

You swallowed roughly, wetting your lips nervously when it became apparent that you would have to lead this conversation. This had been expected, you had even practiced a bit at home with Ana, but now in the moment your mind felt terrifyingly blank. With everyone glaring at you the only thing you could think of was to apologize. And that was the one thing you remembered you didn’t want to do.

“Did you just come here to stare at us?” Your mother questioned unfriendly.

“No, I…This isn’t so easy. You’re making this really hard for me,” you muttered

“We’re making it hard for you? Do you have any idea what you’ve done to us? Just completely cutting us out of your life because of some random girl you met a few months ago,” your mother accused you.

The guilt and self-doubt threatened to consume you, but you tried to focus on your anger instead. At least the anger would allow you to say what needed to be said, even if you couldn’t lay it out as calmly and clearly as you wanted.

“See, this is what I mean. Everything is always my fault and you never listen to what I have to say,” you defended yourself. “And Ana isn’t just some random girl. I can’t stand that you talk like this about someone I love, someone who I’m pretty sure is the love of my life.”

Your family exchanged meaningful glances, the sentiment on their faces clear as day; they thought you were being ridiculous or childish or dramatic. Three adjectives they loved using to describe you.

“You’re getting too emotional again, niña, that has always been your problem. How do you expect us to take you serious like this? And think about this, you say we’re always acting as if you’re the problem, but in reality it’s you doing that. You always blame everything on us, your horrible family. Poor you with parents, aunts and uncles that support you!”

Condescension was something you were used to, and it had always made you feel very tiny and incredibly mad at the same time. You were an adult for crying out loud, not a little kid. And still in that moment you felt exactly like that.

“Fine, you know what, I can see that this is totally pointless! I don’t even know why I thought I should try again. So I’m just going to tell you the one thing you need to know; once this season is over I’ll go to Mexico to play there. So I guess, see you never?” You yelled, turning around and stomping out of your childhood home, without giving your family any chance to reply. What was the point?

Tears were already streaming down your face as you ran down the street to where Ana was waiting. Your girlfriend saw you coming; she had been keeping an eye out for you practically from the moment you had kissed her goodbye.

When she saw you rushing towards her, Ana’s heart broke. She had hoped this would go better, but your demeanor and the fact that you were back so soon told her everything she needed to know.

Ana quickly clambered out of the car to meet you with open arms. You fell into them, allowing yourself a moment to completely lean into your girlfriend and absorb some strength from her. Not too long though, you didn’t want to risk anyone catching up with you.

“Come on, let’s go,” you requested, already moving to the passenger’s side.

The drive home was mostly silent, your girlfriend held your hand whenever she didn’t need both of them to drive, and only asked you in the very beginning if you were ready to talk. You just shook your head in response. First you would have some more crying to do, before you could even hope to use words.

And you did exactly that, once again safely tucked away in your girlfriend’s arms. You couldn’t wait to get to a point in your life where you didn’t need so much comfort anymore.

“How are you feeling?” Ana prompted once she noticed you were ready to talk. She had seen you biting your cheek, contemplating how to start the conversation and decided to help you out with questions.

“I didn’t have much hope to begin with, but apparently I still had some that could be crushed. And also…,” you stopped, uncertain if you should continue. It felt like you kept bringing up the same things; shouldn’t you get over them at some point?

“Also?”

There was nothing but love and concern on your girlfriend’s face. You didn’t have to worry about her judging you, this was a safe space.

“I’m so annoyed with myself. I couldn’t even say much before I ran away. I can just hear them calling me a dramatic little girl who runs away as soon as things get though”, you gritted out.

Ana tensed at your harsh words towards yourself and she forced herself to count to three before answering, not wanting to sound too intense. There was however nothing she could do about the emotions lingering in her voice.

“Please stop listening to their voices in your head. I don’t think removing yourself from a bad situation is running away, that’s a smart move really. You need to take care of yourself.”

You nodded thoughtfully, “You know I’ve been thinking about that and realized I often put their needs and wants over mine. But I guess putting others first only works if they do the same. Otherwise if I always put them first, but they never put me first, I’m just always going to end up last, right? I think that’s what’s been happening all my life and I’m done with it!”

“Absolutely! If anything your parents should be putting you, their child, first. That’s what my mom said when I talked about it with her. She also said some other things, but I’m not sure if you want to hear them or if it’ll just make you sad.”

Ana studied you carefully, every sign of pain embedded in your body hurting her as well. She hated how that you had to deal with this, so the last thing she wanted to do was to add any pain to it.

“No, please, tell me. I think it will be helpful, hearing what an actual good parent thinks about all of this,” you requested.

You had only met Ana’s parents twice before, but they had been everything you wanted your own family to be. They were excited to see their daughter, but expressed that without making her feel guilty for not being around more. And they had welcomed you with open arms, clearly very pleased that Ana had found a special someone to share her life with.

“She also said that nothing makes her happier than seeing us, her kids, living our best life. Not some life my parents pictured for us, but the life we choose. She can’t really understand why so many people try to force their kids to be something they’re not. According to her slowly getting to meet your children’s truest self is one of the biggest joys of them growing up.”

Your eyes filled with tears again causing your girlfriend distress. You had been sitting opposite each other, hands intertwined in between you, but now Ana pulled you into her embrace again.

“See, I knew I shouldn’t have said anything,” your girlfriend cried out.

You shook your head, “I wanted to hear that, I needed to hear that. It makes me feel less unreasonable and ungrateful.”

Ana gently kissed the top of your head, rubbing comforting circles on your back. “You’re anything but, you’re absolutely amazing.”

The longer you were with your girlfriend and the more she told you things like these, the easier it became to believe them. It wasn’t easy or natural yet, but you found yourself questioning your old beliefs much more often.

You didn’t speak more about it that evening, indulging in some self care instead. However, a few days later you recognized that it was still bothering you. There was no way you would try again, but it also didn’t feel right to shut the door to your family completely.

Surprisingly when you brought it up to Ana, one day after training when you were cuddling on the couch, you practically on top of your girlfriend, she informed you that she had been thinking about that as well.

“How about you set up an email account just for them? This way you can check it every once in a while when you feel up to it, or I can even check it if you prefer. That would allow them to contact you if they have a change of heart, but you aren’t constantly bombarded with unwanted messages.”

A huge weight was lifted from your heart when you heard this suggestion. That was precisely what you wanted, some small gap left open, but nothing that would affect you in your everyday life. The last thing you wanted was to constantly get attacked by hurtful messages.

You placed a few kisses everywhere on your girlfriend’s face, uttering one word between each kiss,”You. Are. The. Best. Girlfriend. In. The. World. And. I. Love. You. So. Much.”

Ana happily accepted your kisses. “So, no second thoughts about moving to Mexico?” She inquired cautiously.

“Not a single one, I’m so excited for it, and I won’t let my family ruin it. Plus it would be the same if I stayed here. If anything being not only in another country, but on another continent might actually be good for me.”

“Good, because I’m very excited about it,” your girlfriend announced with a big smile.

“Me too,” you agreed.

In fact you couldn’t wait to start that adventure with Ana. You had never allowed yourself to be an adventurous person, telling yourself, or really being told by your family, that you were anything but.

However, now you realized that you did have an adventurous streak and it was high time you used it. For too long you had lived the life everyone else wanted you to live, but now you were getting another chance at life, at the life you truly wanted.

You didn't even wait until you moved to Mexico. A few days before leaving, you dragged Ana to a hairdresser, stating that both of you should change up your look to start over fresh.

What you didn't expect though, was for your girlfriend to decide she wanted to color her hair pink. You had thought about something more along the lines of cutting your hair a little shorter.

But then Ana announced with a big grin that she was going pink, and you made a split second decision, telling the hairdresser to whip up some purple hair dye for you.

And that's how the two of your started off your new life, one of you pink haired and the other one purple. You loved the way it looked and couldn't care less when pretty much the first thing out of Jenni's mouth when she picked you up from the airport was, "Where are you two going? A five year old's birthday party?"

"Shut up, Jenni, you're just jealous of us," Ana retorted.

Jenni rolled her eyes, "Maybe, but I get a feeling you're going to help me get over that by annoying me with your lovey-doveyness."

"Absolutely," you agreed, pulling your girlfriend against yourself and kissing her passionately.

"Fine! I'll stop if you stop!" Jenni exclaimed, grabbing one hand from the both of you and marching you towards the exit. "Bienvenida a México, chicas!"

#woso #woso imagine #woso x reader #woso fanfics #ana maria crnogorcevic imagine #ana maria crnogorcevic x reader

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thelampisaflashlight · 9 months

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Some Swiss headcanons, because I am thinking about him. Let's go.

-The biggest ham you'll ever meet. He has dad jokes for days and will say the corniest things with greatest confidence a man can muster.

That being said, he absolutely does get embarrassed by some of the things he says, because he says them so sincerely, even he's caught off guard sometimes.

-More of a physical contact/quality time kind of guy when it comes to relationships.

He sometimes holds someone's hand if they're standing next to him or if he wants to show them something, even if they're not dating, because it's sort of his default, "I don't know what to do with my hands." thing.

And lastly;

-Swiss gifts people socks all the time. Chances are if he sees a weird pair of novelty socks at a truck stop or in a regular store, he's gonna buy them and give them to someone.

Even if he buys other things for them, too.

There will always be socks.

It's gotten to the point that if Swiss gives someone a gift and there's no socks, they get legitimately upset about it.

#lamp rambles #shitghosting #nameless ghouls #swiss ghoul #ghost band #the band ghost #ghost bc #nameless ghoul headcanons

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ravenssilver · 8 months

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more aeon angst. somewhat goes along with this, but could be read on it’s own, as well.

1.2k words of slightly depressed aeon taking on the burden of others, if you please.

He felt… heavy, he supposed.

It was hard to get out of bed, his feet dragged wherever he took himself, his shoulders slouched.

He just felt heavy. The headache dead center in his skull didn’t help much, either. An ever present ache that only seemed to get worse.

Aeon’s lilac eyes looked more gray now, dull with the shadows of abandoned that he felt himself drowning in.

He ached for some kind of contact—anything would be better than nothing.

He wished for someone to hold him and tell him everything would be okay. He wanted to he told that whoever had been his predecessor wasn’t actually all that grand, but he knew with the way he had heard his packmates talk about the older Quintessence, that would never be true.

As Aeon sat on the couch in the common room, staring blankly at the TV ahead of him, his thoughts drifted to this Aether that he had heard so much of while standing behind the corner of the living room wall when the rest of the pack were in a cuddle pile.

He sounded awesome, if Aeon was honest with himself. He sounded kind and compassionate. A rock for the pack. A guide.

What was Aeon?

He definitely wasn’t a support for the pack. If anything, he was deadweight for Mountain and Cirrus. Just something to drag along for the ride because it was what they were supposed to do.

What if they wanted to leave him behind? What if they were planning to abandon him as soon as they could? What if they did it on the upcoming tour? He would be stuck then. Trapped. Not even forgotten about, but purposely left behind.

What if-

Aeon jolted as the couch shifted with a new weight, Swiss slumping down onto the cushions next to him with a big huff. His lilac eyes remained on Swiss, taking in his appearance.

The multi’s helmet was nowhere to be found, and the vest to his uniform was unclasped. He had an exhausted look on his face, his eyes drooping as the day wore down on him.

Aeon’s eyes widened when he realized Swiss was looking back at him and he quickly looked away, looking back at the TV which he saw was a news program.

At least, that’s what he thought it was.

Swiss chuffed softly, an amused sound as he settled further into the couch, crossing his arms as he stared at the TV as well.

Aeon’s spine was stiff as a board. Granted, he was still slouched, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to sit up right without the muscles in his back complaining.

What was Swiss doing? Sitting, obviously. But he was sitting next to Aeon. Close enough that their tails could brush.

Why?

Why was he so close? Did he want to talk? What would they talk about? What if he wanted to get to know Aeon.

Aeon paused, his eyebrows furrowing.

What was there to know?

Up until this point, Aeon had felt like nothing but a piece of driftwood in this sea of stress. It was nothing like he thought it would be Topside. Though, Aeon didn’t take loneliness Topside into account. He had lived it enough in the Pit, wouldn’t that mean he would be free Topside?

“You holding up fine?” Swiss asked, pulling Aeon from his thoughts yet again. Aeon glanced over at Swiss, the spade of his tail flicking as he took in Swiss’ words.

Was he? He wasn’t a crumpled mess on the floor, so that had to have been something. Though, he still hurt the same way he did in the Pit. Is that considered fine? Do the other ghouls still feel the pressure and ache from the Pit? Or do they live the freedom that Aeon so desperately yearned for?

“Yes.” Aeon replied with a slight nod, looking down at his lap. Swiss nodded, sighing a bit as he thought about the little Quint’s simple response.

“Are you?” Aeon asked, catching Swiss off guard. Swiss stared bug-eyed at Aeon for a moment before nodding slowly.

“Yeah… yeah, I’m doing fine.” Swiss muttered. As he finished speaking, there was a crackle of electricity in the air around him and he sighed, forgetting the full capabilities of quintessence ghouls.

“Why did you lie?” Aeon asked, a frown on his face as he hesitantly turned towards Swiss, his lilac eyes showing oceans of concern for his pack mate, despite the fact that Swiss had given Aeon zero of the same treatment.

Nobody had.

“It’s just casual Ministry stress. They always load us with work before tours. I’m alright.” Swiss waved off Aeon’s concern, though the new summon was insistent.

“You’re tired.” Aeon mumbled. “I can help.” He stated, wanting nothing more than the acceptance of at least one of his pack mates. Swiss looked into Aeon’s eyes and saw his desperation, a slight frown on his face when he realized the true extent of Aeon’s need.

“Alright,” Swiss nodded. “You need me to do anything?” He asked. Aeon quickly shook his head, moving closer to Swiss with an excited grin.

He could finally, finally prove himself. Swiss could see that he was a valuable member of the pack and he could tell the others. Aeon could be accepted the same way Aurora was. He could be invited to the dinner table on time, or to cuddle piles. Maybe he could even walk with the pack to practice instead of behind them.

Aeon placed his palms on Swiss’ temples and slipped his clawed fingers into the multi’s curly hair, being careful not to snag it in any way. Aeon took a deep breath and closed his eyes, letting his element fill his system, flow through his veins and into Swiss’ mind and body.

Swiss sagged with relief when the quintessence entered his body, his eyes fluttering shut as he felt all aches in his body and mind slip away as if Aeon was absorbing them into himself.

Aeon’s eyebrows furrowed as he felt his headache get worse, the ache now turning into a slightly stabbing pain. He felt his shoulders burn with strain as if he had been standing and lifting heavy things for hours. His ankles hurt the same way they would after wearing the uniform boots for too long. And he was tired.

Exhausted, even.

With the little energy he had left, Aeon sent a rush of energizing quintessence into Swiss’ system, slipping his hands away from the older ghoul as he opened his eyes.

Aeon panted as he gave Swiss the slightest smile. It was meant to be happy, maybe hopeful, but he was just worn out.

“Damn, that’s amazing. What’d you do?” Swiss asked, his eyes lit back up with the energy that Aeon was so used to seeing from afar. “N-Nothing big.. just dug up all the tiredness I could,” Aeon smiled haphazardly, feeling his eyes try to droop with how tired he was from taking on Swiss’ burdens.

“Dropped it off into the ether, too, huh?” Swiss grinned as he bounced up to his feet again, back to his usual self.

Aeon’s eyebrows furrowed. Had Aether not done that for the pack before? Or, if he had, did he not tell them how it just transferred the ache into his vessel instead of the other pack member? Why would Aether not tell them?

… Should he keep it to himself as well?

Aeon gave a slight, tired laugh after a beat of silence and nodded, entertaining Swiss’ slight tease.

“Y-Yeah.. the ether…” he mumbled, his eyes drooping with disappointment and exhaustion as Swiss grinned again before walking off to continue his day.

#ghost band #aeon ghoul #phantom ghoul #swiss ghoul #swiss x aeon #swiss x phantom #kind of #not yet. but soon ;)#ghost the band #the band ghost #ghost bc #ghost band fic #ficlet #the nameless ghouls #nameless ghouls ficlet #aeon is still alone #oh well #ravenssilver writes

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blackswaneuroparedux · 11 months

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‘Pimpernel of the Hellenes’, ‘Major Paddy’, ‘Enchanted maniac’: Will the real Paddy Leigh Fermor please stand up?

Paradox reconciles all contradictions. - Patrick Leigh Fermor

So one evening I was baby sitting my nephews and nieces here in our family chalet in Verbier, high up in the Swiss Alps. It was my turn to baby sit as the rest of my family enjoyed the fantastic classical music concerts and events showcased at the two week long Verbier 30th Festival. The little scamps had gone to bed and my father and I watched an old British war movie on DVD, ‘Ill Met By Moonlight’ (1957). It was filmed by the legendary team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger based on the 1950 book ‘Ill Met by Moonlight: The Abduction of General Kreipe’ by W. Stanley Moss.

I’ve seen the film a couple of times before, but until now never really paid attention to where the title came from. My father said it was from Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream’ And so it was. In the play, Oberon, the king of the fairies and the Queen are having a fairly bitter drawn-out fight over custody of a changeling Indian child, and this is how the pissed off king greets the queen when they run into each other, “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania”. Oberon is basically saying "Oh Lord, it's you..." and Titania's response is basically a flippant middle finger. One of the best modern reasons to read Shakespeare: to throw playful erudite shade at others.

Anyway, the historical background of the film is the German invasion of Crete in May 1941. After an intense ten-day battle, Allied troops were driven back across the island, and many were evacuated from beaches along the southern coast. Some Cretans and British officers took to the mountains to organise resistance against the occupying forces. The German occupation that followed was especially brutal. Dreadful reprisals followed every act of resistance. The German commander, General Müller, insisted on taking 50 Cretan lives for every German soldier killed; he became known as ‘The Butcher of Crete’.

As a Classicist side note, there had been a close association between Britain and Crete since the early 20th century, when archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans had uncovered the sensational remains of a Minoan palace at Knossos. The headquarters of the British archaeological school in Crete was a large villa alongside the site, known as Villa Ariadne. Several archaeologists, who knew the island and its people well, went underground after the German occupation to aid the Cretan resistance. Continuing in this tradition, scholar and travel-writer Patrick Leigh Fermor, who had got to know Greece in the 1930s, joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

During the German occupation, Major Paddy Leigh Fermor travelled to Crete three times to help organise local resistance against the hated German occupation. On the third occasion, in February 1944, he was parachuted in with a specific mission to kidnap German commander General Müller, to boost morale on Crete along with his erstwhile SOE comrade Capt. W. Stanley Moss MC (aka Billy Moss) of the Coldstream Guards. However, just after they parachute in, General Müller was replaced by General Heinrich Kreipe, who transferred from the Russian Front. Thinking that capturing one general was as good as another, Fermor merrily go ahead with the daring kidnap operation.

It’s at this point that the narrative of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s ‘Ill Met by Moonlight’ (1957) picks up. Dirk Bogarde plays Paddy Leigh Fermor, David Oxley plays Moss, and Marius Goring plays the taciturn German paratroop general. Blink and you’ll miss the late great Christopher Lee making a cameo appearance as a German officer in the dentist’s room scene.

The film naturally takes some liberty with the facts but it’s a cracking yarn of high adventure and drama. Xan Fielding, a close friend of Leigh Fermor from the SOE in Cairo, was taken on as technical adviser. The fact the film was shot in in the Alpes-Maritimes in France and Italy, and on the Côte d'Azur in France, far away from the craggy valleys and mountains of Crete itself. The director Michael Powell spent some time walking in Crete to get to know the island, but decided that, with the confused and volatile state of Greek politics, it was not suitable to film there.

Looking back years after he had directed it Powell didn’t think much of his own film. By contrast, Paddy Leigh Fermor, who was on set throughout the film shoot, was very happy with Bogarde’s portrayal of him with Byronic glamour. Watching the movie again ‘Ill Met by Moonlight’ remains a classic and stands out from many British war films of the 1950s because of its realism. The British SOE men and the Cretan guerrillas look absolutely right for their parts. It is dramatic and full of suspense while filled with much boyish humour.

I was disappointed with one notable omission in the film that did happen in real life. According to Patrick Leigh Fermor, at dawn one day during the journey across the mountains, General Kreipe was looking at the mist rising from Mount Ida and began to recite, in Latin, the opening lines of Horace’s ninth ode:

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte nec iam sustineant onus silvae laborantes geluque flumina constiterint acuto?

Behold yon Mountains hoary height, Made higher with new Mounts of Snow; Again behold the Winters weight Oppress the lab’ring Woods below: And Streams, with Icy fetters bound, Benum’d and crampt to solid Ground

(John Dryden 1685)

Leigh Fermor picked up on the General, and recited the remaining stanzas of the Ode. ‘Ach so, Herr Major,’ said Kreipe when Leigh Fermor had finished. Both men were amazed to realise they shared a classical education and a love of ancient Latin poetry.

Leigh Fermor later wrote that it was as though the war had ceased to exist for a moment, as ‘We had both drunk from the same fountains before.’ It brought captor and captive together with a strange bond. The scene was not reproduced in the film, as Powell and Pressburger probably thought it would make the men sound too academic for a popular cinema audience.

Leigh Fermor and Kreipe met again in the early 1970s, on a Greek television show, and got on famously together. The General said Leigh Fermor had treated him chivalrously as a captive. They remained friends until Kreipe’s death.

After sharing a late night drink with my father after the film, I began to muse on the figure of Paddy Leigh Fermor, a family friend and someone I met along with his wife, Joan, as a little girl. My grandparents, and especially my grandmother, knew Paddy briefly from their days during and after the Second World War.

My father shared a few stories about him when he and my mother visited his beautiful home in Greece, where even at his advanced age he remained the most generous of hosts and the most outrageous flirt.

One of my memories was getting into his battered old Peugeot in the drive way and trying to drive it when my feet could barely touch the pedals. It wouldn’t have mattered in any case as the brakes didn’t work as he cheerfully said later as we careened around a dirt road to go around the mountains for a drive.

Many years later in April 2022, I tried to visit the home of the late Patrick and Joan Leigh Fermor - a sort of pristine shrine to their memory that one can also stay in any of the rooms as a vacation rental - in the coastal fishing village of Kadarmyli in the Peloponnese, as part of a hiking and mountaineering sojourn around Greece with ex-Army friends. We couldn’t stay there as it was already rented out to other guests, and so we stayed higher up the mountain in a villa, but we swam in front of the Fermor’s home which was on the water’s edge.

You could never put your finger on Paddy Leigh Fermor. He hid behind his gift for telling yarns, and pulling Ancient Greek verses out of the thin air, as well as boisterously singing local Greek songs with a drink in his hand.

Even after his death in 2011, the question keeps nagging as to who was Paddy Leigh Fermor?

The Dirk Bogarde film too seems to ask, who exactly is the ‘real’ Patrick Leigh Fermor - or the real anyone? Taking its title from a Shakespearian play concerned with dreams and disguises, magic and power, ‘Ill Met By Moonlight’ is all about questions of identity.

Under the film credits, we see Dirk Bogarde in uniform; then, unexpectedly, we see him in the flamboyant outfit of a Cretan hill-bandit. A title informs us that Major Leigh Fermor was also known by the Greek code-name “Philidem.” In other words, there are two of him (at least), and on one level the adventure the film is about to unfold reflects a conflict in his personality. It’s a conflict shared, unknowingly, by his Nazi opposite number, the fierce, arrogant General Kreipe (an unlikely “proud Titania,” but it’s true that he “with a monster is in love” – the monster of Nazism). Kreipe’s human side is so rigorously repressed by the demands of war and “glory” that he is genuinely unaware of it; ironically, this humanness, which constitutes the true manhood of this Teuton warrior, is revealed by a boy (equivalent to Shakespeare’s Indian Prince?) - who, in turn, is the most grown up person in the movie.

If “Philidem” appears under the credits, caped and open-shirted, a romantic dream-figure out of an operetta or a storybook, he is first seen in the film proper as a coarser, more down-to-earth version of the same thing – an ordinary Cretan peasant in a shabby suit, waiting for a bus. When he makes contact with the Resistance, his personality fragments further.

To some, he is the mystical Philidem, Pimpernel of the Hellenes and righter of wrongs. To others he is “Major Paddy,” the happy-go-lucky Englishman of popular movie myth conducting war as if it were a branch of amateur theatricals, a gentleman adventurer relying on breeding to get him through and making fun of the whole business. To Bill Moss (David Oxley), the newly arrived junior officer sent to assist him, he is the cool, fast-thinking professional soldier. And to himself? In his quietly passionate defence of Cretan life and culture, he seems someone else again: a scholar and aesthete outraged by the barbarism and folly of war, and by the moronic arrogance shown by his captive toward the Cretan people.

Whatever his persona, Leigh Fermor is a chameleon who never seems to change very radically in himself. Perhaps because he has this quality of seeming all things to all men – and being those things - he remains unfazed by the monolithic might of the German military machine. Fluent in Greek, he can also speak German like a German and is easily able to assume another disguise, that of a faceless Nazi officer. Although he and Moss make fun of themselves - “If only I had a monocle!” muses Moss when Leigh Fermor tells him he “looks like an Englishman dressed like a German, leaning against the Ritz bar” - they are able to effect the kidnapping with an ease that seems appropriately Puckish. General Kreipe is ignominiously thrust onto the floor of his own limousine, gagged, and sat upon by a couple of the peasants he so despises. Kreipe’s rage is compounded by his firm conviction that he has been snatched by “amateurs” - a belief Leigh Fermor and Moss slyly make no objection to, knowing how it will gnaw at his already shaky Master Race self-confidence.

Patrick Leigh Fermor, aka Major Paddy, aka Philidem, in the film’s closing moments, is far from being self-assured intellectual or dashing amateur adventurer or legendary outlaw of the hills. He’s just a tired man who wants to go home and rest up. “How do you feel?” asks Moss. “Flat” is the reply. “You look flat!” says Moss. “I know how I’d like to look …” murmurs Leigh-Fermor wistfully. Moss knows what he’s going to say, and joins in the litany: “Like an Englishman dressed like an Englishman – and leaning against the Ritz bar!” It’s easy to imagine them ordering drinks at that renowned watering-hole with all the suavity required by this little fantasy.

Still, the film’s last images of Crete receding in the distance, until all we can see is the sea, suggests that maybe Major Paddy’s heart is really back in those hills in the “fair and fertile” land that has become as much a Powellian landscape of the mind for us as the studio-built Himalayan convent of ‘Black Narcissus’ or the monochrome Heaven of ‘A Matter of Life and Death’. And, as the film POV closing shots departs both Crete and this film, I began to think that being “dressed like an Englishman and leaning against the Ritz bar” would, for Patrick Leigh Fermor constitute yet another disguise. After all, he said he was of Irish aristocratic stock.

Traveller and writer Paddy Leigh Fermor is best known for two events. He’s known for leading the commando group in occupied Crete to kidnap General Kreipe. But he is also known for the boy who, at a mere 18 years old, set off with little money and a lot of nerve in 1933 to walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople.

Patrick Leigh Fermor was, in the words of one of his obituaries, a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene. Self-reliance and derring-do were lessons learnt from the cradle. When Fermor’s geologist father was posted to India, he and his wife left the infant with family in Northamptonshire and did not return until his fourth birthday. In retrospect, he took great delight in being sent to a school for difficult children and getting himself expelled from the King’s School, Canterbury, when he was caught holding hands with a greengrocer’s daughter eight years his senior. His school report infamously judged him ‘a dangerous mix of sophistication and recklessness’.

Sharing a flat in Shepherd’s Market, one of Mayfair’s seedier corners, Leigh Fermor schooled himself in literature, history, Latin and Greek.

He honed his character with the company of extraordinary people and the words of great writers - he had a prodigious memory for prose as well as poetry. He befriended literary lions such as Sacheverell Sitwell, Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford. His travels began aged ‘eighteen-and-three-quarters’ when he rejected Sandhurst Royal Military College in order to walk the length of Europe from Hook of Holland to Constantinople. He took with him Horace’s Odes and the Oxford Book of Verse though Leigh Fermor could recite Shakespeare soliloquies, Marlowe speeches, Keats’s Odes and as he modestly put it ‘the usual pieces of Tennyson, Browning and Coleridge’ from memory.

Leigh Fermor was then a self-made man in the most literal sense.

Setting off from England in 1933, Fermor resolved to traverse Europe living like a hermit; sleeping in bars and begging for food. But his manly charms and boyish good looks found him being passed like a favourite godson from Schloss to palace by European nobility and he developed a lifelong penchant for aristocratic company. I his own words, ‘In Hungary, I borrowed a horse, then plunged into Transylvania; from Romania on into Bulgaria’. Having reached Constantinople in January 1935, Fermor continued to explore Greece where he fought on the royalist side in Macedonia quelling a republican revolution. In Athens Leigh Fermor met Balasha Cantacuzene, a Romanian countess with whom he fell in love. They were living together in a Moldovan castle when World War Two was declared.

Fluent in Greek, Leigh Fermor was posted as a liaison officer in Albania. Recruited as a Special Operations Executive (SOE), he was shipped from Cairo to German-occupied Crete where he lived disguised as a shepherd in the mountains for two years. On his third expedition to Crete in 1944, Leigh Fermor was parachuted alone onto the island and made connections in the Cretan resistance movement. While waiting for his compatriot Captain Bill Stanley Moss to land by water from Cairo, Leigh Fermor hatched a plot to kidnap German Commander General Heinrich Krieple. He liaised comfortably with Cretan partisans and bandits to pull off one of the war’s greatest coups de théâtre.

Disguised as German soldiers, Leigh Fermor and Moss stopped Krieple’s car at an improvised check point en route back to Nazi HQ in Knossos. Abandoning the General’s car after a two-hour drive, Leigh Fermor left a note indicating that the kidnappers were British so that there wouldn’t be reprisals against Cretan nationals. When the abduction of the unpopular commander was discovered, a German officer in Heraklion allegedly said ‘well, gentlemen, I think this calls for champagne’. It turns out that General Kreipe was despised by his own soldiers because, amongst other things, he objected to the stopping of his own vehicle for checking in compliance with his commands concerning approved travel orders. It’s why for instance the German troops, both in the film and in real life, dare not stop the General’s car as it drove through the check points at Heraklion.

Krieple was evacuated and taken to Cairo and Leigh Fermor entered the annals of World War Two’s most devil-may-care heroes. With characteristic panache, when he was demobbed Leigh Fermor moved into an attic room at the Ritz paying half a guinea a night. But his first travel book, ‘The Traveller’s Tree’, was not about the European odyssey or the Cretan escapades and centred on Leigh Fermor’s adventures in the Carribbean. Published in 1950, ‘The Traveller’s Tree’ was an inspiration for Ian Fleming’s second James Bond novel ‘Live and Let Die’ (1954).

As a host and house guest, Paddy Leigh Fermor was much sought-after. At one of his parties in Cairo, he counted nine crowned heads. He was a confirmed two-gin-and-tonics before lunch man and smoked eighty to 100 cigarettes a day. His party pieces included singing ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ in Hindustani and reciting ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ backwards. In Cyprus while staying with Laurence Durrell, Leigh Fermor apparently stunned crowds in Bella Pais into silence by singing folk songs in perfect Cretan dialect. As Durrell wrote in ‘Bitter Lemons’ (1957), ‘it is as if they want to embrace Paddy wherever he goes’.

He struck up a partiuclar friendship with the famous Mitford sisters, especially Deborah Mitford, later ‘Debo’, the Duchess of Devonshire. It was at the Devonshires’ Irish estate Lismore Castle that ‘Darling Debo’ and ‘Darling Pad’ met and began to correspond. A characteristic letter from the Duchess in 1962 reads ‘The dear old President (JFK) phoned the other day. First question was ‘Who’ve you got with you, Paddy?” He’s got you on the brain’ to which Fermor replies of a broken wrist ‘Balinese dancing’s out, for a start; so, should I ever succeed to a throne, is holding an orb. The other drawbacks will surface with time’.

After the war he travelled widely but was always drawn back to Greece. He built a house on the Mani peninsula - which had been, significantly, the only part of Magna Graecia to resist Ottoman colonisation since the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Before his death in 2011 at the age of 96, he wrote some of the most acclaimed travel books of the 20th century.

His books contain some of the finest prose writing of the past century and disprove Wilde's maxim that "it is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating".

Charm, self-taught knowledge and enthusiasm made up for the lack of a university degree or a private income. His teenage walk across Europe and subsequent romantic sojourn in Baleni, Romania, with Princess Balasha Cantacuzene are proof enough of that. But the difficulty of capturing such an unconventional and glamorous life is made harder by the certainty that Fermor was an unreliable narrator.

He was also an infuriatingly slow writer. Driven by a life-long passion for words yet hampered by anxiety about his abilities, Leigh Fermor published eight books over 41 years.

‘The Traveller's Tree’ describes his postwar journey through the Caribbean; ‘Mani‘ and ‘Roumeli’ (1958 and 1966) draw on his experiences in Greece, where he would live for much of the latter part of his life. But it is the books that came out of his trans-Europe walk that reveal both the brilliance and the flaws. ‘A Time of Gifts’ was published in 1977, 44 years after he set out on the journey. ‘Between the Woods and the Water’ appeared nine years later. Both describe a world of privilege and poverty, communism and the rising tide of Nazism, and end with the unequivocal words, "To be continued". Yet the third volume hung like an albatross around the author's neck. As the years passed, Fermor found it impossible to shape the last part of his story in the way he wanted.

Leigh Fermor was that rarest of men: a man determined to live on his own terms, if not his own means, and who mostly - and mostly magnificently - succeeded. Always popping off on a journey when he should have been writing about the last one, always ready to party, he was forever chasing beautiful, fascinating or powerful women, even when with his wife, Joan Raynor. She was the great facilitator who funded his passion for travel and writing, as well as women, from her trust fund. His love affairs were discreet but legendary.

Leigh Fermor was happiest among the rogues. Over a lifetime on the road, he sought them, and in turn they responded to his charm, nose for adventure, and his famous wit. He was a keenly-anticipated dinner guest - once outshining Richard Burton at a London society soirée, who he cut-off midway through a recital of ‘Hamlet’. As Richard Burton stormed out, the pleading society hostess said, “But Paddy’s a war hero!” to which Burton grouchily replied, “I don’t give a damn who he is!”

His partnership with and then marriage to Joan Raynor was an open relationship, at least on Leigh Fermor’s side. Paddy saw in Joan his kindred spirit. Like him, she spent much of her youth travelling to where she pleased; largely in France, where the photographer and literary critic Cyril Connolly became besotted by her. Joan was the daughter of Sir Bolton and Lady Eyres Monsell of Dumbleton Hall, Worcestershire. She was not only stunningly pretty but also 'a beautiful ideal, with the perfect bathing dress, the most lovely face, the most elaborate evening dress', as the Eton educated Connolly described her. Joan also stood out from the upper-class beauties of her day in that she supplemented her mean rich father's allowance by earning her living as a decent photographer.

In 1946, she met Leigh Fermor in Athens, while he was deputy director of the British Institute. Joan met him at a time when he was then in a relationship with a French woman called Denise, who was pregnant with his child, which she aborted. The pair would travel to the Caribbean together under the invitation of Greek photographer Costas, falling madly in love.

She was the only woman that - after decades of sexual scandals - matched his own erratic behaviour. Stories of how they dined fully-clothed in the Mediterranean, dragging a table into the sea, as well as their myriad cats and olive groves, paint a restless couple, who, when not out articulating the peoples of their adopted homeland, kept themselves very busy.

The attraction between Paddy and Joan was instant. So many love affairs that Paddy indulged in seemed about as brief as the flame from a burning envelope and you expected this one with Joan to be too. But somehow, miraculously, it lasts.

The two were apart a great deal, but in their case, absence did make the heart grow fonder. While Paddy was staying in a monastery in Normandy, supposed to be thinking monk-like thoughts that he would eventually put into his masterpiece A Time To Keep Silence, he was also writing sexy letters to Joan: 'At this distance you seem about as nearly perfect a human being as can be, my darling little wretch, so it's about time I was brought to my senses.' And: 'Don't run away with anyone or I'll come and cut your bloody throat.'

She tantalised him with descriptions of Cyril Connolly making passes at her; but she, like Denise, sounded a rather desperate note when she wrote: 'I got the curse so late this month I began to hope I was having a baby and that you would have to make it a legitimate little Fermor. All hopes ruined this morning.'

Fiercely independent - a trait that must have enamoured Paddy - they were best imagined as two pillars of a Greek temple, beside one-another but capable of holding up the roof of the world that they had built for themselves through the lens of ancient history and Hellenic culture. Indeed, it was said that they had a special ‘pact of liberty’. It is this unconquerable aura that led poet laureate John Betjeman to declare his love for her (he called her ‘Dotty’ and remarked that her eyes were as large as tennis balls). For Cyril Connolly, the photographer she shadowed, and with whom she had a scandalised affair during her first marriage, she was a “lovely boy-girl” and Laurence Durrell named her the ‘Corn Goddess’ because of her slender figure and short hair. But of all of these worthy candidates, it was the warrior-poet Patrick Leigh Fermor who finally won her heart.

To Joan, who described herself as a ‘lifelong loner’ in her diaries, her companionship with the uncomplicated Paddy was a relief. They had no children, nor did they want any - or so Paddy claimed. But those who knew Joan suspected she did want children but it never came to pass; and so she became a devoted aunt or dotted on other friends’ children. For both of them their dozens of cats gave them the next best thing to paternal satisfaction. Still, her morbid fascination with photographing cemeteries painted a much darker side.

Joan Raynor’s inheritance subsidised his peripatetic life at least until the enormous success of ‘A Time of Gifts’ in the late 1970s, which in turn created a new market for his previous volumes about Greece, ‘Mani’ and ‘Roumeli’.

With Joan’s tacit consent, Paddy enjoyed amorous flings, discrete sexual affairs with high society women and sampled the low delights of the brothel. This activity rarely made it into his private letters, but the exceptions could be piquant. Writing in 1958 from Cameroon, where he was on the set of a John Huston movie, he told a (male) friend: “ Errol Flynn and I . . . sally forth into dark lanes of the town together on guilty excursions that remind me rather of old Greek days with you.” In a 1961 letter to the film director John Huston’s wife, Ricki, with whom Leigh Fermor had been having sex with (and would die in a car crash in 1969). “I say,” the passage begins, “what gloomy tidings about the CRABS! Could it be me?” Riffing on pubic lice and their crafty ways, he conjectures that, during a recent romp with an “old pal” in Paris, a force “must have landed” on him “and then lain up, seeing me merely as a stepping stone or a springboard to better things” - to Mrs. Huston, that is. As comic apologies for venereal infection go, the passage is surely a classic.

Like most high flying lives, it was far from blameless. Wounded women were littered in his wake. Some British visitors to Athens were less than impressed by this Englishman who posed as “more Greek than the Greeks”.

Some Greeks shared their disdain. Revisionist historians criticised his role in wartime Crete, and warned their fellow Hellenes that for all his fluency and charm, Leigh Fermor was no latter day Byron. His unoccupied car was blown up outside his Mani house, probably by members of the Greek Communist Party which he had vocally opposed. The accidental fatal shooting of a partisan in Crete led to a long blood feud which made it difficult for Leigh Fermor to re-enter the island until the 1970s, and possibly explains why he chose to settle in the Peloponnese rather than among the hills and harbours of his dreams.

His own books had already eclipsed those incidents, not only among readers of English but also in Greece, where in 2007 the government of his adopted land made him a Commander of the Order of the Phoenix for services to literature.

Travel writers such as the great Jan Morris have described Leigh Fermor as the master of their trade and its greatest exponent in the 20th century.

When ‘A Time of Gifts’ was published in 1977, Frederick Raphael wrote: “One feels he could not cross Oxford Street in less than two volumes; but then what volumes they would be!”

They are not for everyone. Leigh Fermor wrote that written English is a language whose Latinates need pegging down with simple Anglo-Saxonisms, and some feel that he personally could have made more and better use of the mallet. His exuberance is either captivating or florid. It is certainly unique among English prose styles.

Artemis Cooper, his patient and careful biographer wrote that “Paddy had found a way of writing that could deploy a lifetime’s reading and experience, while never losing sight of his ebullient, well-meaning and occasionally clumsy 18-year-old self … this was a wonderful way of disarming his readers, who would then be willing to follow him into the wildest fantasies and digressions”.

Those fantasies and digressions took decades to express. ‘A Time of Gifts’ had arguably been 40 years in the making when it was published in 1977. Its sequel, ‘Between the Woods and the Water’, did not appear until 1986. The third and final volume has been awaited ever since. Following Leigh Fermor’s death, a foot-high manuscript was apparently found on his desk.

Once he knuckled down to it, Leigh Fermor loved playing around with words. He was one of our greatest stylists and he was devoted to producing un-improvable books. But writing did not come easily to him, at least partly because it was something of a distraction from the main event, which was living an un-improvable life of unrepentant gaiety and fun.

For forty odd years, a legion of friends and admirers would beat a path to Paddy and Joan’s door. Artists, poets, royalty and writers came, all taking inspiration from their erudite hosts. A visit was an act of communion, a sharing of ideas and stories.

Leigh Fermor influenced a generation of British travel writers, including Bruce Chatwin, Colin Thubron, Philip Marsden, Nicholas Crane, Rory Stewart, and William Dalrymple. Indeed when Bruce Chatwin died, it was Paddy who scattered Chatwin’s ashes near a church in the mountains in Kardamyli.

When I was there in April 2022, I went to that same church to pay my respects.

But some of Paddy’s life energy was sucked out of him when Joan died in Kardamyli in June 2003, aged 91. It was related that Joan said to her friend Olivia Stewart, who was visiting: 'I really would like to die but who'd look after Paddy?' Olivia said that she would. A few minutes later, Joan fell, hit her head - and died instantly of a brain haemorrhage. Joan had often quoted Rilke: 'The good marriage is one in which each appoints the other as guardian of his solitude.' Now Paddy Leigh Fermor was all alone.

Leigh Fermor was knighted in 2004, the day of his birthday which he delighted in like a giggling schoolboy. But he missed Joan terribly.

For the last few months of his life Leigh Fermor suffered from a cancerous tumour, and in early June 2011 he underwent a tracheotomy in Greece. As death was close, according to local Greek friends, he expressed a wish to visit England to bid goodbye to his friends, and then return to die in Kardamyli, though it is also stated that he actually wished to die in England and be buried next to his wife, Joan, in Dumbleton, Gloucestershire. He stayed on at Kardamyli until the 9th June 2011, when he left Greece for the last time. He died in England the following day, 10th June 2011, aged 96. It was reported that he had dined in full black tie on the evening of his death. Paddy had style even unto the end.

A Guard of Honour was formed by the Intelligence Corps and a bugler from his former regiment, the Irish Guards, delivered the ‘Last Post’ at Paddy’s funeral. As had been his wish, he was buried beside Joan. On his gravestone in Dumbleton cemetery is an inscription in Greek, a quote from Constantine Cavafy: “In addition, he was that best of all things, Hellenic.”

Although Joan had passed away at the age of ninety-one, after suffering a fall in the Mani. Her body was repatriated to Dumbleton, the place of her birth - ironic that her dream was to be as far as she could possibly go from the rolling humdrum Worcestershire hills. But perhaps she intended to return all along. When Paddy was buried beside her it seemed that the ‘pact of liberty’ that these two lonely souls had forged themselves could be tested in the great elsewhere. Joan was more than his muse (as many of her obituaries were at pains to declare) but his greatest adventure.

To come around full circle from the movie ‘Ill Met By Moonlight’ (1957) that I saw that night in Verbier, my father told me that rather poignantly, General Kreipe, the German commander Leigh Fermor had captured - once an enemy, and later a friend - left behind notes and photographs from across his life. On one of those notes, it was discovered, the following was scribbled from a brief visit to Greece: “Somewhere, amidst all the disarray, was the story of Joan and Paddy, and” it concluded, “…of their lives together.”

His life with Joan and all that she meant to him was one part of the mosaic of who Paddy Leigh Fermor was. But it’s incomplete.

Paddy didn’t like the idea of a biography, and neither did Joan when she was alive. But friends had persuaded them that unless Paddy appointed someone to write his life, he might find himself the subject of a book whether he liked it or not. In Artemis Cooper they couldn’t have chosen a better writer to chronicle Paddy’s life as a man of action and letters. Cooper, was the daughter of another accomplished diplomat and historian, John Julius Norwich, and grand-daughter of Duff and Diana Cooper. As the wife of the historian Antony Beevor, she became a trusted friend of the Leigh Fermors. Cooper was too good of a historian to let her friendship lead her astray from being a faithful but serious biographer. Knowing this, she was told she could go ahead, but she had to promise not to publish anything until after they were both dead.

Paddy did not like being interviewed, and would keep her questions at bay with a torrent of dazzling conversation. He was the master at deflecting discussions away from himself.

He was also very unwilling to let Cooper see many of his papers, though the refusal always couched in excuses. ‘Oh dear, the Diary…’ It was the only surviving one from his great walk across Europe, and I was aching to read it. ‘Well it’s in constant use, you see, as I plug away at Vol III,’ he would say. Or, ‘My mother’s letters? Ah yes, why not. But it’s too awful, I simply cannot remember where they’ve got to…’ It was quite obvious that he and Joan, while being unfailingly generous, welcoming and hospitable, were determined to reveal as little as possible of their private lives.

While they were more than happy to talk about books, travels, friends, Crete, Greece, the war, anything - they would not tell her any more than they would have told the average journalist. But she persisted and got closer than most. He showed particularly gallantry in not talking about his romantic entanglements. But she soon twigged that anytime he described a woman as ‘an old pal’ it was a sure bet that he had an affair with her.

Intriguingly, Paddy liked to claim he was descended from Counts of the Holy Roman Empire, who came to Austria from Sligo. Paddy could recite ‘The Dead at Clomacnoise’ (in translation) and perhaps did so during a handful of flying visits to Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s, partying hard at Luggala House or Lismore Castle, or making friends with Patrick Kavanagh and Sean O’Faolain in Dublin pubs. He once provoked a massive brawl at the Kildare Hunt Ball, and was rescued from a true pounding by Ricki Huston, a beautiful Italian-American dancer, John Huston’s fourth wife and Paddy’s lover not long afterwards.

And yet, a note of caution about Paddy’s Irish roots is sounded by his biographer, Artemis Cooper, who also co-edited ‘The Broken Road’, the final, posthumously published instalment of the trilogy. “I’m not a great believer in his Irish roots,” she said of Leigh Fermor in an interview, “His mother, who was a compulsive fantasist, liked to think that her family was related to the Viscount Taaffes, of Ballymote. Her father was apparently born in County Cork. But she was never what you might call a reliable witness. She was an extraordinary person, though. Imaginative, impulsive, impossible - just the way the Irish are supposed to be, come to think of it. She was also one of those sad women, who grew up at the turn of the last century, who never found an outlet for their talents and energies, nor the right man, come to that. All she had was Paddy, and she didn’t get much of him.”

And I think that’s the point, no one really got much of Paddy Leigh Fermor even as he only gave a crumb of himself to others but still most felt grateful that it was enough to fill one’s belly and still feel overfed by him.

Paddy never tried to get to the bottom of his Irish ancestry, afraid, no doubt, of disturbing the bloom that had grown on history and his past, a recurring trait. “His memory was extraordinary,” Artemis Cooper noted, “but it lay dangerously close to his imagination and it was a very porous border.”

Within the Greek imagination many Greeks saw in Paddy Leigh Fermor as the second coming of Lord Byron. It’s not a bad comparison.

Lord Byron claimed that swimming the Hellespont was his greatest achievement. 174 years or so later, another English writer, Patrick Leigh Fermor - also, like Byron, revered by many Greeks for his part in a war of liberation - repeated the feat. Leigh Fermor, however, was 69 when he did it and continued to do it into his 80s. Byron was a mere 22 years old lad. The Hellespont swim, with its mix of literature, adventure, travel, bravery, eccentricity and romance, is an apt metaphor for Leigh Fermor’s life. Paddy Leigh Fermor was the Byron of his time. Both men had an idealised vision of Greece, were scholars and men of action, could endure harsh conditions, fought for Greek freedom, were recklessly courageous, liked to dress up and displayed a panache that impressed their Greek comrades. Like a good magician it was also a way to misdirect and conceal one’s true self.

What or who was the true Paddy Leigh Fermor?

Like Byron, Leigh Fermor appeared as a charismatic and assured figure. He was a sightseer, consuming travel, culture, and history for pleasure. He was an aristocrat moving in the social circles of his time. He was a gifted amateur scholar, speculating on literary and historical sources. Leigh Fermor, Byron’s own identity, is subject to textual distortion; it emerges from a piece of occasional prose in his books and is shaped by the claims of correspondence on a peculiarly fluid consciousness.

There is no hard and fast distinction to be drawn here between real and imagined, only a continuity of relative fictions that lie between memory and imagination as his biographer asserted. If there is a will to assert identity here, to disentangle fact and fiction, to give things as they really are and nail down the real Leigh Fermor then it is somewhere between the two. This is where we will find Paddy.

For many his death marked the passing of an extraordinary man: soldier, writer, adventurer, a charmer, a gallant romantic. As a writer he discovered a knack for drawing people out and for stringing history, language, and observation into narrative, and his timing was perfect. Paddy often indulged in florid displays of classical erudition. His learned digressions and serpentine style, his mannered mandarin gestures, even baroque prose, which Lawrence Durrell called truffled and dense with plumage, were influenced by the work of Charles Doughty and T.E. Lawrence. But one can’t compare him. I agree with the acclaimed writer Colin Thurbon who said, “There is, in the end, nobody like him. A famous raconteur and polymath. Generous, life-loving and good-hearted to a fault. Enormously good company, but touched by well-camouflaged insecurities. I would rank him very highly. ‘The finest travel writer of his generation’ is a fair assessment.”

As a child I didn’t really know who Paddy Leigh Fermor was other than this very cheerful and charismatic old man was kind, attentive, and took a boyish delight in everything you were doing. Only later on in adulthood was it clear to that Paddy was not only among the outstanding writers of his time but one of its most remarkable characters, a perfect hybrid of the man of action and the man of letters. Equally comfortable with princes and peasants, in caves or châteaux, he had amassed an enviable rich experience of places and people. “Quite the most enchanting maniac I’ve ever met,” pronounced Lawrence Durrell, and nearly everyone who’d crossed paths with him had, it seemed, come away similarly dazzled.

I am equally dazzled - more smitten in retrospect - for alas they don’t make men like Paddy any more. But every time I dip back into his books I think I discover a little bit more of who Paddy Leigh Fermor was because I find him some where between my memory and my imagination.

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cheerycherrycandy-resurrected · 9 days

Text

What You've Done, You Cannot Undo (Medieval AU)

Chapter 7

Rain's fate hangs in the balance.

I'm away on a conference next week, so I had to fit in an update before I left! Hope you won't be too mad at where I left things... jk I've been planning the chapter split here for weeks!

Rating: M Content: violence, imprisonment, injury, imminent threat of death Words: 5041

Links to full fic: Tumblr | AO3

Hello tag alert-ees! @revengeghoulette @everybodyshusband @rainsbasspick

Read below, or on AO3!

Aether, Mountain and Swiss were settling down for their fourth night camping outside of town. As the days passed and no opportunities for rescuing Rain had presented themselves, the plans they discussed had become more and more desperate, and less and less likely to succeed. As well as Swiss bringing Rain food and herbs, they had all kept an ear to the ground while skirting through the streets for news regarding his fate, of any weaknesses in the humans’ plan that they could exploit.

One of the first things they had heard was talk of a stolen horse. From the stables out east of the village, one of the finest mares had gone missing, it's tethering chain melted clean through. They had heard no more on that front; it seemed like Dew had made a clean escape. All three ghouls had struggled not to feel bitter about this, Mountain especially.

There was also talk of hunting parties being sent after the remaining ghouls. Aether had shivered when recounting this rumour, none of them wanting to think about what their fate would have been if they had ignored Dew's advice. They didn't know the fate of their farm, nor did they really want to, but not one of them assumed it could still be standing. It was abundantly clear that they were not going to explain their way out of this situation by saying it was just a mistake, not with the village this riled up and baying for blood.

Quickly, the ghouls had come to realise that they would have to wait until Rain was brought out of his cell to make their escape. The walls of the jail were an impenetrable fortress, and the only entrance was crawling all over with guards. From Swiss’s nightly visits to Rain and the gossip picked up by Aether and Mountain, they had ascertained that the humans were absolutely terrified of him and what he was capable of. As such, it was almost guaranteed that the only time he would be let out of the jail would be when he was being brought to the gallows.

They would have a limited time in which to carry out a rescue, so their mission had to be meticulously planned. They had discussed all manner of approaches, both violent and non-violent, but each option ended up either too dangerous to themselves or too unlikely to succeed. The main issue was their mix of elemental magic: as ghouls traditionally lived in single element clans, there was no reason for them to be protected against each other’s abilities, and if anything it benefitted them to have defensive abilities.

Mountain had suggested causing a large earthquake. He argued that in the chaos, they could simply grab Rain and make a run for it. Aether had quickly shot that idea down, pointing out that it was just as likely to harm them as it was the townsfolk. Only a strong earth ghoul such as Mountain would walk out of that scenario unscathed. Any mistake or misjudgement would not only ruin their chances of escaping safely with Rain, but could also result in any or all of them being returned to the pit. They all secretly wondered though if that would be better than the alternative; their very existence being snuffed out at the hands of malicious humans.

Aether’s plan for Rain was less destructive, but equally unlikely to be successful. He had considered ripping the senses from the assembled crowd, blinding them and leaving him free to take Rain and run. The only issue, Mountain pointed out, was that it would have to be a solo mission. If Aether truly planned to plunge the entire population of the village into darkness then the power of it would be inescapable, even for Swiss with his small amount of quintessence magic and certainly for Mountain. The concentration required for such a large effect would leave little room for Aether to maintain an awareness of his surroundings, rendering him vulnerable and alone.

Swiss had tried his best to envision the outcome of each strategy they devised, but saw no future in any of them. Whether that was because they were all doomed to fail, or were just too unpredictable even for him, he wasn’t sure. The only time he saw even a flicker of life seemed to be when they planned to assemble in town, and no further. Aether had looked at him like he’d grown a second head when he suggested this. Swiss took it as a sign that things were so unpredictable right now, that by attempting to plan anything, their interference was sufficient to muddy the future beyond comprehension.

In quiet moments alone, Swiss wished he could have a strong ability like his packmates, instead of simply being the sounding board for Aether and Mountain’s hare-brained schemes. For now though, he would settle for simply being the go-between to Rain in the jail, the face the young ghoul got to see each day as he smiled down at his with words of encouragement and false optimism.

Visiting Rain every night, Swiss had watched him slowly recover his strength. Maybe his visions were really trying to tell him that they were all worrying for nothing, and Rain would be capable of freeing himself? He mentioned this to Mountain and Aether in an attempt to cheer them up. Both ghouls had been sceptical at first, but the cautious hope they clung to was all they had right now.

Mountain reflected on this turn their lives had taken. It was sad that things had come to this; he thought they had built a good life here. After so long alone, the relative comfort and ease of living with a pack had grown on him. With news of Rain’s continuing recovery, Mountain hoped they could have a chance at rebuilding everything, albeit far, far away from here. They certainly couldn’t stay here, but maybe they could stay together. If only we knew where Dewdrop was… Mountain though that if things turned out well, he might even consider forgiving him.

He was on first watch again tonight, keeping an eye out for any signs that they had been followed back to their camp. So far, his wards were working well: the closest anything had got was a lone rabbit, which they had eaten. He watched Swiss flop down onto his bedroll, the continued exhaustion in him so clear Mountain could feel it leeching into the soil around him.

Mountain shuffled closer, as if pulled by an invisible string. He’d felt an unavoidable need to be near the multi ghoul lately, even before all the events of the last few days. Mountain wasn’t stupid; he knew what it meant, but he’d spent so many years denying himself from even entertaining the thought of finding a mate that this new development felt especially strange and alien.

He observed Swiss’ face as he settled in to sleep, trying to be subtle but probably failing. It really was a nice face, Mountain thought. From the small crease between his eyebrows to the generous dusting of stubble on his chin, Mountain felt like he had only recently started to see Swiss the way he deserved to be seen. Others before him had clearly noticed what he only observed now, that was certain. Every giggling girl who hung off his every word, and indeed off his arm, in the tavern saw it. Hell, he thought even his packmates saw it; the way he’d seen Dew staring at him for a fraction of a second too long, how Rain would blush when Swiss complimented him. Mountain wondered if Swiss felt the recent tug between them too. He hoped so.

As he stared at the wrinkles of concern etched into Swiss’s face finally begin to smooth out with sleep, he saw his expression suddenly contort with pain.

“Swiss?” Mountain hissed in alarm. He got only a low whine in response.

“What’s wrong Snapdragon?” He looked frantically at the now wide awake quintessence ghoul next to Swiss, “Aether! Something’s wrong.”

“Talk to us Spark, what’s going on, what can you see?”

Swiss stared dead ahead, rocking side to side and occasionally flinching as the vision continued.

“It’s got to be Rain,” fretted Aether, “something’s going to happen to him.”

Mountain grasped both of Swiss’s hands, rubbing calming circles on the backs of them with his warm, calloused thumbs. He cooed quietly at the stricken ghoul, trying to calm him as he was rocked by the second-hand pain.

“Tonight,” Swiss finally rasped out, “soldiers, half a dozen of them, they’re going to break into Rain’s cell.”

Mountain and Aether exchanged horrified looks.

“They want revenge. For the girl killed in the flood.” With a final shudder, Swiss looked up at his packmates. “They want to be the ones to kill him, as painfully as possible.”

He took a deep, shaky breath and shuffled closer to his packmates as the vision played out.

“He’ll be hurt, but they won’t succeed.” Around him, Aether and Mountain’s shoulders lowered in relief, but the tension remained. Swiss tried to smile, “Our Rainy’s gonna shock them good, the second they lay a hand on him.”

~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, Rain was sat on the cold and damp floor of his cell nibbling on the rind of some cheese from his nightly rations Swiss had brought earlier. The rest was safely stowed away on his person. Rain didn’t think he could be too careful with keeping his supplies hidden: he didn’t want to risk anyone discovering that his pack were sneaking into the town each night, putting them in danger. He was especially carefully with rationing out the herbs and elixirs from Aether, wanting to remain as strong as possible at all times in case things went south before Swiss could warn him.

Rain could feel his strength returning. The shock of his power bursting forth after a series of tumultuous emotions, followed by his capture and beating at the hands of the villagers, was gradually subsiding with rest and food. Now, he was able to feel the gentle thrum of his magic under his skin, connecting to it in a way he never had before.

Rain wasn’t quite sure what had happened in the field that morning. Never would he have imagined himself being capable of such deadly feats. He couldn’t explain why his powers had exploded out of him so suddenly, like a geyser, or why he had awoken to a strange buzzing feeling all over his body. It tickled like the anticipation of a thunderstorm, making the fine hairs on his arms stand up straight. Intrigued by the new sensation, he had prodded at it with his mind, feeling the pent-up energy twitching to be released. He had let it, and seen the blue sparks ripple across his skin.

In the days since, Rain had been practicing; he had never seen or heard of any sort of ability like this before, not from anyone in his clan or family. Was it an innate skill he had always been destined to have? Or something unlocked by being in grave danger? Either way, Rain wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Hopefully it could go some way to help him protect himself, if he needed to.

In his initially fuzzy mental state, he had waved off all recollections of the destruction he caused as another symptom of his attack. Rain convinced himself that while the flood of memories of his earlier life were very real, and his subsequent unglamouring was likely terrifying to the farmers who had witnessed it, the carnage and death that followed must have just been another hallucination designed to torment him. That must be why he was in the jail – they had seen a monster cowering before them, confused and scared. As he came back to his senses however, it became painfully clear that all of his memories of the day were true, and were the real reason for his incarceration.

Rain had thought Dew was a hallucination too, for a while. If it hadn’t been for the very real food he’d brought him, and Swiss confirming his visit, he would probably still think so. Of all the ghouls in his pack, Dew was the one he would have least expected to risk coming looking for him, especially after how he had antagonised him that morning. A small voice in the back of his mind desperately wanted to blame Dew for what had happened out in the field, for setting him on edge before his day even began. However, Rain knew there was really no one to blame but himself; he was appalled at what he had done even if it was an accident. He could see why the village was out for blood, he would likely be doing the same if it were one of his packmates killed, but couldn’t they see it was an accident?

Probably not, he thought. They didn’t give him a chance to explain himself before knocking him out cold, and no one had stuck around for longer than it took to throw some crusts of dry bread and water his way since. Rain knew it really was just that, an accident, but that nagging voice in the back of his head insisted that he truly was as useless as Dew had insinuated, and if he hadn’t gotten so lost in his own head then none of this would have happened.

Rain sighed to himself, and looked around his cold, dark prison. It was hopeless, the others planning how to break him out. There was no escaping here, unless they could find a way to break through stone. Rain felt the twinge of guilt bubbling in his stomach again, knowing his packmates were risking their lives every night instead of running away while they had the chance.

Rain was shaken from his self-pitying slump by a commotion outside his cell. He could hear raised voices getting closer, angry shouting echoing down the corridor outside. He quickly finished his cheese, washing it down with the last of the water he had pulled from the earth into his metal bowl, and pulled his feet underneath him in a crouch.

There was the jangling of a key in the lock, and the door burst open, slamming against the stone wall. Half a dozen or so men barrelled through it, screaming foul threats of revenge.

“This is for Marina, you monster!” one howled, launching himself at Rain on the floor. Rain tried to talk, but after several days of silence his voice caught in his throat.

“Cat got your tongue?” another one sneered, as the first tried to pin Rain to the wall by his throat. As his back hit the stone with an agonising crack, Rain desperately tugged on the thread of his new magic. The man dropped him with a shout as he flew backwards, whole body spasming.

“The fuck?”

“Get him!”

More of the men descended on Rain, but soon leapt away in pain and shock when they touched him.

“He’s cursed!”

The men still standing switched to kicking, the thick leather of their boots protecting them from further shocks. Rain curled into a ball to protect his head, and silently begged them to leave him alone. He hurt all over, from the brutal kicks as well as their loud shouts ringing in his ears.

All the noise soon attracted another guard, one who was seemingly tasked with keeping Rain alive for the next few days until his very public execution. He began yelling for the men to disperse and herding them out of the cell. Rain uncurled, his vision blurring but wanting to take a look at his saviour. As he did so, one of the men leaving aimed a final sharp kick into his stomach, and the world went black.

~~~~~~~

Back at the Abbey, Dewdrop, Copia and the ghoulettes spent the afternoon going over their plan. Cirrus was right: it definitely wasn’t Dew’s style. Even if it was all fake, the thought of confessing his supposed love for the ghoul who had, until the events of the last few days, irritated him immensely made him squirm.

“This plan is perfect.” Mist had gushed to him; he suspected she was a little biased. “It avoids anything crazy or dangerous, and it saves the whole village from being exterminated!”

Dew huffed at her,

“I still don’t see why they’re worth saving – they want to kill my friend over an accident!”

Mist smiled serenely at him. It was the first time Dew had ever referred to anyone as a friend. Dew realised it at the same time, and blushed. He wasn’t sure Rain would say the same thing about him, given how he’d treated him in the past.

“It’s not for their sake, trust me,” she added a conspiratorial smirk, “I’d love to watch them burn at your hands, I’m sure you’d do a fantastically thorough job!”

Dew nodded, chin up as if to confirm that yes: if he were allowed to burn the village down, there wouldn’t be a single chair left for him to sit on to survey his work.

“But that would attract rather too much attention, don’t you think? This way we can avoid suspicion for all of ghoul-kind, as well as your pack.”

Dew had to begrudgingly agree with her: if they wanted a chance at a quiet life after this, no matter where, then they had to keep a low profile.

Later that evening as Dew was packing his bag ready to head back to the village, transcribed copies of the law in hand, he found Mountain and Aether’s anthology of plants nestled in the bottom. He weighed the heavy manuscript in his hands; it really was a precious compendium, the culmination of his packmates’ work since before he’d even met them. Dew still felt a pang of guilt at how he had arrived back on the Abbey’s doorstep, demanding help with no mention of any sort of repayment for it. He was surprised Copia had offered his assistance so willingly without discussion of payment – such a debt was why he had brought the book, after all.

That was how things were usually done here, the Abbey may not trade in gold or precious goods, but they exchanges their services for something far more valuable: knowledge. The ghouls and clergy within the imposing walls would offer aid freely to those who agreed to stay and serve as Dew had done previously, albeit only for a brief period. For those who could or would not spare the time, they had an alternative. Taking inspiration from the fabled library of ancient Alexandria, they would request any literature of value be handed over. If the weary traveller would agree to stick around just a little bit longer, while a copy was made, the original would be returned to them, otherwise the tome would find a new home amidst the expansive Abbey library. Dew knew how it worked, he had even helped with a few transcriptions himself, and so he dithered, book in hand, until he was startled by a knock at the door.

“Come in?” Dew called to the door.

Copia opened the door, his robes billowing as he entered. Dew started at him in surprise; he’d never seen him or anyone else of the Clergy’s status in the ghoul wing before.

“Good evening, Dewdrop.” He smiled graciously, “I see you are preparing for your journey tomorrow, I have offered up prayers for a smooth conclusion for you and your pack. Saving your packmate like this is very noble.”

“Thank you Papa,” Dew bowed his head, “that is more than I could’ve asked for.” The book, still in his hands, felt heavy with purpose. Before he could change his mind, he thrust in in Copia’s direction.

“Payment.” He said simply, as Copia looked at him in confusion, instinctually taking the book shoved under his nose. “For your help.”

“Nonsense, my dear ghoul,” Copia’s face softened, “you were one of us, even if only for a brief time, so you will always have a place here.”

Dew shuffled his feet awkwardly, unsure of how to respond to such a sincere sentiment. Luckily he didn’t have to: curiosity getting the better of him, Copia had begun absently flicking through the book. Dew watched with some amusement at how easily the man could be distracted by the mere promise of new knowledge.

“This book is... This is incredible, Dewdrop. Where did you get it?”

Dew beamed with pride on his packmates’ behalf.

“Two of my pack have been working on it for years, an earth and a quintessence ghoul.”

“Fantastic…” Copia mused, before finally looking back up at Dew. “If you are serious, I would be delighted to hold onto this for safekeeping until you can next return to us? I know the earth ghouls here would be honoured to transcribe its contents.”

Dew shrugged slightly,

“It’ll be safer here than with me.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Copia murmured, once again leafing through the detailed illustrations, “should you and your pack come and stay, you have my word that we would return it immediately. It would be wonderful to meet the ghouls who wrote it too, sharing in their knowledge and power would be the real gift here.”

Dew made a non-committal noise. He had no idea if his pack would even want to talk to him again after running away, let alone be convinced to traipse all the way back here. Copia reached out with his spare, leather-clad hand to grasp one of Dew’s.

“Think about it, but for now I’ll let you finish packing, and get some sleep. Good luck, Dewdrop. Safe travels.”

~~~~~~~

The day was finally here. The day when they would either get Rain back, or lose him forever. None of the ghouls had slept well. Rain had been looking worse and worse over the last few days: the mirth Swiss had seen was gone from his eyes, now replaced with a dull horror. They’d all soon learned of the attack on Rain, how the band of thugs had broken in with the intention of carrying out their own justice. Less talked about was how Rain had responded. The rumours of his shocking defensive skill were quieter, only talked about by scared guards tasked with keeping him weak but alive.

Clearly they were not trying very hard with the second part. Every time Swiss had visited he looked skinnier; they had obviously given up on trying to feed him. Whether this was due to fear or malice was anyone’s guess. He was now barely responding when Swiss tried to speak to him, instead staring straight ahead at the wall, frozen in fear. The black eye from his original capture had faded to an ugly yellow, but in its place were more bruises, shining angry and purple. Swiss had to assume he was eating the food he brought each night as it had always disappeared by the next day, although he never saw Rain make any move to do so with his own eyes.

Mountain, Aether and Swiss's camp was packed and stowed closer to town, ready for a speedy getaway. Swiss's visions of the day hadn't changed, despite all that had happened with Rain, leaving everyone on-edge and uneasy. He still saw no success in any of their plans, only different variations on their own demise. Leaving Rain to his own devices and simply hovering in the crowd was still the only option that produced even a spark of optimism for the future. So, the ghouls were planning for every eventuality, desperately hoping that when the time was right they would see their opportunity for a rescue. Each of them was prepared to sacrifice everything, should the need arise. It was an unspoken agreement that going full scorched-earth on the village, revealing their cover and undoubtedly cursing themselves back to the pit separated but alive, was a better option than the cold abyss of death. If it came to it, that could be their only choice: a human with murderous intent could easily kill them, but getting caught in an accident? Maybe the pit wouldn’t be as bad as they had heard.

The three ghouls headed into town, their faces disguised by large hoods. Closer to the village gates they found crowds to blend into, locals and visitors alike all pouring in to witness the execution of a supposed demon. As they had hoped, all of the village gates were unguarded: it seemed the entire populous was distracted by the planned spectacle. They filed down the main street towards the central square, mercifully still undetected. The plaza bordered the front entrance to the town hall and the walled inner courtyard with the cells where Rain had been kept. A wooden gallows had been erected specially for the occasion, and a large crowd was gathering in front of it. Swiss paused, before gesturing to a spot close to the gallows and in line with the main gate.

The space around them began to fill with spectators for the macabre show, as the sun crept higher in the sky. When it was almost at its noontide peak a commotion broke out by the entrance to the jail, and a ripple soon spread through the assembled crowd. Something was happening. Mountain, Swiss and Aether shared a nervous glance, and then they spotted him: Rain. It was the first time Mountain and Aether had seen him since he left the farm that sunny morning a week ago. They both shot horrified looks at Swiss, as though to confirm that what they were seeing was real. Swiss nodded grimly.

Rain looked awful. Swiss had watched his steep decline over the last few days from meters away and behind iron bars, but nothing could have prepared him for how completely drained and haggard their young packmate looked while being forced to stagger past the leering crowds. In the midday sunshine it was suddenly all the more apparent how much he was hurting: the bruises that had partially blended into his skin in the dim light of the jail cell now stood out like angry ink splashes up and down his body. Each step he took was laboured, like the very act of contracting his muscles to move his legs was putting him through agony. Some of his wounds looked like they were trying their best to heal, but were layered below more recent injuries.

The guards dragging him toward the gallows were wearing thick, leather gloves and heavy tunics that covered their entire bodies. Swiss was grimly pleased that Rain had been exercising his new talent, although it was clearly not fool proof, and the fact he had needed to defend himself in the first place made him shudder. He almost lost his balance as he was forced up the few wooden steps to the platform of the gallows, stumbling hard. Rain was shaking like a leaf as the town officials filed onto their own podium and prepared to address the crowd.

This was the ghouls’ chance. Until this moment there had been too many eyes roaming around, too many people who could stop them. Now, all eyes were fixed on either the shivering water ghoul, or the town Judge reading his crimes aloud. Mountain and Aether looked to Swiss, silently asking if they should continue waiting or move forward with plan B. Swiss gave a small nod, and they readied themselves to attack.

After much discussion, they had decided that smaller, more targeted versions of their original plans would be most likely to succeed, or at least not backfire completely. Mountain would sow the seeds of distraction by causing a small earthquake. It would not be the ground-splitting calamity that he alone would have created, rending the earth in two in a roar of total destruction, but it would divert the attention of the crowds enough for Aether and Swiss to pounce.

With three packmates also needing to escape alongside him, Aether too had scaled back his earlier plans. Instead of blinding everyone present, leaving them to flounder in an endless sea of black nothingness, he would instead go straight for the guards; lunging forward to incapacitate only those with the ability to hurt or hinder Swiss, who would be following close behind him in order to grab Rain.

Water ghoul in hand, the four of them would then flee the chaotic scene, out the unguarded main gate and back to the relative safety of the trees. There, they would collect their meagre belongings and continue their escape into the wilderness. They would travel for as long as it would take for the landscape and language around them to become foreign; far enough that no word of the events of the last week could follow them. That was, of course, if everything went to plan. They all knew it was a long shot, and the slightest mistake could result in their doom.

“…for your crimes, I hereby sentence you to death!” the Judge’s voice commanded, echoing across the stone square. The silence of the crowd hung thick in the air, the onlookers listening with rapt attention. Aether looked towards Mountain as the ground beneath their feet began to vibrate rhythmically. Mountain looked back in confusion, his eyebrows pulling together as if to say that’s not me.

Just as they were about to start their plan properly, the thudding through the ground became louder and more distinct, morphing into the sound of horseshoes striking the ground. A wave of mutterings spread through the assembled masses as they parted for the reckless horseman. The ghouls decided as one to ignore it, and utilise the distraction for their own gain. Mountain was just beginning to pull at the bounds of the earth, causing it to grate against itself and shake the very foundations of the buildings around them when a familiar voice rang out across the square.

“Wait!”

Three sets of ghoulish eyes whipped around to stare at the new arrival. Aether’s breath was forced out of his chest in a huff of relief,

“Dewdrop.”

#what you've done you cannot undo #cw violence #cw injury #cw imprisonment #cw angst #trans dewdrop #the band ghost #nameless ghouls #foot of the gallows marriage #medieval au #historical au #enemies to lovers #ghost #ghost bc #dewdrop ghoul #rain ghoul #raindrop #ghost fanfiction #em writes

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swiss-mrs · 3 months

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bestie… what does clubbing with goth and/or post-punk steve look like in your eyes? 👀 i would like to know

BESTIE

Not you opening the floodgates to us sending back and forth requests 🤭

Fun Lil #Swiss Fact: Back in Summer of 2021 my friends and I were trying to club/bar hop in a city/state we weren't familiar with and after 3 failed attempts (including crashing some rando's all-white party [I was in head to toe black]) we stumbled into a goth club and had the time of our lives.

I was in my little big titty goth girl era, so I just so happened to be in perfect dress code LMAO. This request has singlehandedly removed me from my pop girly mode and straight back into 80s/90s alt girl.

Haunted Haus

Steve Harrington x Goth Club Owner!Reader

Word Count:

Warnings: Good Music ✌️🤪, Steve-isms (some bad flirting, not so discreet looking, but also some not well hidden nerves), a lil angst👀, a single, '90s reference (just ignore), Reader being an absolute goddess.

Reader/Unnamed Character Description: No Descriptions Beyond Clothing, No Mentions of Age, Race, Ethnicity, Height, Etc., No Use of Y/N, She/Her Pronouns, Mentioned as "woman" and "madame", Bodily Descriptions kept minimal/gn

Synopsis: Steve may be in a chokehold by the abundance of hot goth girls in media rcently and decides to indulge in the dark and alternative scene irl.

××××💀❤️💀💀❤️💀💀❤️💀××××

Steve sat in the driver's seat of his BMW, gripping and twisting his hands around the wheel. The car sits stagnant in the grassy parking lot as minutes pass. "Come on, Harrington. You got this." Steve says for the millionth time, this time finally releasing a hand from the poor steering wheel to reach up for the review mirror, abruptly adjusting it to make eye contact with himself. "You got this." He uses his other hand to point at his reflection. Steve drops his hands to his lap as his gaze is taken from himself and to the paper sitting on the passenger's seat.

It was a flyer he'd stumbled across, or more accurately Robin stumbled across.

"I found the perfect thing for you." She burst through the door, taking Steve off-guard. He gave her a skeptical look, shifting his weight to one side, not really amused.

"And what is that, I ask regrettably."

"Ooo, that's a big word." Robin quips back a little too easily, causing Steve to roll his eyes, but Robin pays no mind as she averts her gaze to the paper in her hand.

"Haunted Haus, Goth Night." She flips the paper around to shove the front side in Steve's face. He jerks back, just out of reach. "Found this little baby." Steve’s brows furrow as his eyes adjust to try and read the text on the paper being held far too close to his face. "This may be your chance to find you a Hex Girl." Steve snatches the paper from her grip and gives her an unimpressed look, but Robin remains unfazed, leaning forward and resting her elbows on the counter with a smug look.

Steve props himself on one hand as he leans his weight against the counter with one foot crossed in front of the other. He looks down at the paper in his hands, reading off the provided information and address. "Isn't that the old creepy church looking building?"

"Yeah, the one right outside of town." Robin confirms. "I did a little investigating, and turns out someone bought the cursed thing and turned it into an 'unconventional' night club." She replied, lifting a hand to place air quotes. Steve huffs in response. "As far as I've heard, it's pretty underground but also pretty popular."

"Oh yeah? And who have you heard that from?" He raises a brow, looking over invisible glasses over at Robin. She scoffs in offense.

"I have my sources." She rolls her eyes at Steve's continuous skeptical look. "Look, you obviously still aren't having much luck here, and now that you've officially developed an interesting niche," Steve scoffs again and rolls his eyes at her subtle jab. "I'm just trying to help."

"Where did you even find this?" Robin stands up straight and shrugs.

"Sources." She replies nonchalantly.

Steve lets out a huge sigh before ripping off his seatbelt and throwing the car door open.

As soon as Steve's white nikes hit the field and he stood to full height, it was like the cool night sucked all the warm air from his lungs. He stares up at the gothic structure ahead of him. Even from the back of the lot, you could hear the music flooding from the open doors. It was quite shocking to see the number of people attending, at least to Steve. There was no way there was this many people in Hawkins who were into this scene.

Steve stepped away from his car just enough to close and lock the doors behind him, beginning his tread to the club. The closer he got to the front door, the more he started to feel his heart thump against his chest. He's no stranger to parties by any means, but all his experience was exclusive to house parties and school dances. Since graduation, he honestly fell out of the party scene almost completely. He wasn't in college, and the thought of attending a high school party after graduation made him cringe. This was an exciting new venture for him.

Just as he clears the last row of cars, he gets a good view of the small crowd just outside the doors. People who, outside of their clothing and makeup choices, seemed like unlikely friends. People of all races, ethnicities, and statures all gathered together. It was odd to Steve to see such diversity, but it was refreshing.

He suddenly became a little self-conscious by his own outfit choice. Though he was in the standard all black getup, he was severely lacking the accessories, leather, and/or face paint, and it became extremely obvious as soon as he cleared the lot.

Resting on the doors of the entrance was a scary looking man and a brutish, equally scary looking woman. The man leaning against the left door was tall, a whole head above Steve. His arms were crossed, showcasing the muscle on muscle he was packing. His unamused, grey eyes pierced through Steve with one simple glance. There was no telling how he was able to keep going, but the striking gaze didn't stop Steve's body from moving forward.

Just as his foot met the cement of the sidewalk, the lady on the right side, nearly equal in height to Steve, took as step forward and held her hand up. Steve’s eyes met her green ones. Steve stopped in his tracks, waiting for the woman to speak first. Before she uttered a word, Steve could see her eyes track up and down his body with a keen gaze. "You here solo?" Her deep southern accent through Steve off.

"Yes." He dares to glance back and forth between her and the guy to the left. Once Steve's eyes land back on her, he lifts his chin in fake confidence. "I am." The woman's eyes squint slightly, seeing right through his confident facade. Steve's eyes flit back to the man to find steel eyes staring back with their ever-present empty glare.

"You won't be causing any trouble now, will ya, son?" She asks, bringing Steve's attention back to her. He raises a confused brow. Why is he being singled out? His eyes nervously bounce around.

"No? I'm just here for the..." He trails, gesturing to the lively club behind them. "Why? Do I look like trouble?" His confusion slightly over taken by his sassy tone. The woman steps aside and gestures toward the club.

"G'on." She says before stepping back to her 'post' by the door. Steve stands in place for a few more seconds, still a little thrown off by the interaction. The woman gives him a look as if to dare him to test her patience, and Steve takes that as a sign to get moving.

Steve cautiously walks through the doors, side-eyeing both bodies occupying the entrance, the man's eyes following him. Steve begins to question what he's gotten himself into.

Once he's officially inside, the lights and music are quick to overwhelm his senses. It's dark within the confines of the building, but the red strobe lights cast an intimate, sensual, almost sinister glow over everything. "Nice hair." A voice just barely over the music brings Steve out of his trance. He looks towards the voice to find a short woman behind a pedestal with a raised brow. Her hair was dyed black with short bangs and curled wisps of short layers just above her shoulders. Her skin was as pale as the moon, and her nails were chipped and painted red. "$3.00"

Steve stared at her as he fished in his pocket for the cash. Thankfully, he remembered to check the entry price on the flyer before leaving home. He plops the bills into her outstretched hand before receiving a short nod as an 'OK for entry'.

Steve walks further in, stopping at the top of the short set of stairs that lead down to the main floor. Being slightly above gave him a slight vantage point to get a quick scope of the club. Again, what did he get himself into?

Steve took each step one at a time, pausing on each one as he looked around. There was nothing but black clothing and flowing fabrics on the dance floor, limbs moving in every direction to the mixture of synth, bass, and fast drums. A few years ago, Steve would've viewed this crowd as a bunch of weird freaks in a derogatory sense, but now, Steve just sees the opitome of freedom.

Steve cringes at the thought of his younger self. If only he was as carefree and comfortable to just be himself from the beginning, instead of being so judgemental and close-minded, maybe he could look back fondly at his youth. Well, no time like the present. He buried those thoughts and moved forward, deciding to plant himself at the bar for starters.

Moving through the crowd, he had to dodge arms and legs. Most of those dancing were doing so with their eyes closed, truly doing so as if no one was watching. His head was on a swivel as he walked, not only to make sure he didn't accidentally get hit but also cause he had this itching feeling of being watched.

Steve looked over his shoulder towards the door, but neither the 'security team' nor the wispy haired girl were paying him any attention. He continued to look around the crowd. Maybe someone from town was there and spotted him, but no. He couldn't find eyes on him anywhere.

Shaking off the feeling, he gets to the half empty bar and leans one elbow on the bartop. He looks over to a girl just a seat down from him with gel spiked bangs and a messy, half updo similar to Elvira's. Just as she's handed her drink, she turns and makes quick eye contact with Steve. He tilts his chin up at her with a slight grin, but it must've not been as smooth as he had hoped cause all it did was get him a once over and eye roll in return as she walked away sipping through her straw.

Steve doesn't drop his grin until she's disappeared back into the crowd, and the bartender addresses him. He orders his usual before turning away from the bar and leaning back on his elbows, scoping out the club again. He sighs.

"Just don't pull that same cheesy crap you try on the girls that unfortunately find themselves here." Robin says.

"Hey, it's not-"

"'That bad.' Yes. Yes, it is, Steve. It IS that bad, and quite frankly, it's just as hard to watch." She deadpans. Steve scoffs, offended, shifting his weight as his eyes look around, trying to find a rebuttal.

Steve scoffs out a short laugh, shaking his head at himself. He doesn't know how or why, but ever since Nancy, it just seems like he's lost all 'game', and that loss is really not helping when it comes to moving on once and for all.

The bartender returns, setting the glass down next to Steve, causing him to turn and rest his forearms on the bartop. They exchange nods before the bartender goes back to work, and Steve takes his first sip. Soon, Steve finds himself getting lost in the liquid contained within the glass.

Was he ever really as 'smooth' as he thought? He never seemed to have such an issue with 'charm' before, but then again, he was never really himself back then. Not since her. He was always able to seamlessly put on this charismatic, flirty facade before. Everything he did was the same persona that won her over. When he let it falter, she left him, but now that he's trying that guy back on, it doesn't fit quite right anymore.

A part of him should be grateful that he's found a friend group that is willing to accept him for himself, all his good and bad, his true self, but when it comes to his love life, he can't help but wish he could be that guy again. He's been alone for so long now, and it's lonely.

He just wants someone again. In the beginning, that someone could've been anyone, but the more time he's spent alone, the more he's started to think he couldn't take that someone just being anyone. The idea of him 'peaking in high school' scared the ever loving shit out of Steve.

His fingers fiddle with his glass, spinning it round and round in his hand. He glances down at his fingers through the glass, metal reflecting through. Shit.

His heart suddenly feels heavy at the thought of his fallen friend. Steve retracts his hand slightly from the glass to stare down at the ring on his index finger, a thick silver skull. If only he could see him now. As if he could hear his laugh, Steve turns his head to the right. Out of the corner of his eye, he could've sworn he saw that cheesy grin staring back at him, but he's instead met with a row of empty seats. Steve furrows his brows. If Eddie were here, he would've loved this.

Steve lets out a humorless huff of a chuckle through his nose. He wants to laugh at the thought, but it just feels heavy knowing he's not here to actually enjoy it.

Before Steve can get too deep in his head, he feels an odd sense to look behind him, so he does. He turns his head to glance over his shoulder, only to be caught in awe. Just opposite from him was the woman of his dreams walking down a flight of stairs, staring in his direction. Jesus, you were gorgeous. He couldn't tell if you were actually staring right through his soul or just so happened to look towards the bar.

Adorning your body was a long black dress with a slit up the side, stopping at the top of your thigh. Your legs were covered with sheer black stockings that had delicate, intricate lace patterns. The leather of your black corest reflected the red lighting, absolutely sinful. Though your dress was lowcut, your neck, shoulders, and arms were covered in a black lacy fabric that flowed out at your wrists. Your red bottom, black heels topping off your entire look.

You stalked down the staircase with a dark elegance that could move mountains. You are the definition of the kind of woman men would go to war for. You must be the queen of the underworld if there is one, and God, did Steve feel some type of way about it.

Unlike Steve, the sea of bodies seemed to unconsciously part ways for you as your eyes locked in on Steve. Steve was the only one in this very spot at the bar. There was no other logical reason for you to be looking that direction besides looking at him, but he still left as if he was not the object of your gaze, not even when you were standing right in front of him.

"Nice hair." Steve scoffed. If he had a nickel for every time he- Oh God, you're on the move again. You maneuver to step around him and claim your spot next to him at the bar. Steve watches you place your 'usual', getting a 'Yes, madame' in response. Steve can't help but raise a brow slightly at the formality, but his face drops when you turn back to face him. "You're obviously," your up and down gaze burns through Steve's skin. "New."

Steve suddenly feels as if he was standing naked in front of you. He'd been 'once-overed' at least four times since he's gotten here, but your eyes make him question if he actually remembered to put on his clothes. When there's a bit of a silence between you two, Steve clears his throat to try and regain his voice. "That obvious?" He holds a slight grin on his lips, but his eyes bounce around nervously, a dead give away of his true inner turmoil.

You raise an amused brow, "Well, to be fair, we don't get many well-tailored suit jackets and non-distressed jeans, but the all-black is at least a start." A glass is placed at your side as you finish your sentence. You give the bartender a quick smile and a thank you before he nods and moves on. Steve's hand self-consciously goes to tug at the lapel of his jacket. He tries to think of a witty, charming come back, but you continue before his mind can catch up. "So, are you here to find a girl to fulfill a fetish, or are you finally coming out of the suburbian closet?" You bring the glass up to your mouth. Steve tries to answer but is too focused on your red colored lips around your straw.

"I, uh," he clears his throat, looking away. He hopes you didn't, but you definitely caught him staring. "The second one." You let out a small giggle.

"Well, that's better than the former, I guess." It's a little bit of both, but Steve would be damned if he admitted that aloud. "Let me guess. Popular boy in high school, couldn't be caught being 'weird'?" You tilt your head in a way that Steve couldn't help but feel was both a bit condescending and also adorable.

"Right on the nose." He leans his forearms on the bartop again, grasping his glass in both hands to discreetly try and cool his sweaty palms. You lean on the bar right next to him. The scent of you overwhelms his nose, replacing the stench of alcohol, evermore heady and dizzying. The fight against gravity had never been so tough on his knees.

"Cute." You state simply, bringing your straw back to your lips and taking another sip. Steve looks over at you, a bit shocked. He was completely ousted from the crowd around him. He's the outsider here. The one trying and failing to fit in. He didn't think this whole 'loser boy' thing would be what got him brownie points, but to hell with it. If it works, it works.

"So," He leans up a little bit to adjust himself to face you, leaning more prominently on only one arm. "Are you a regular here?"

Your brows raise, "Repackaging 'come here often', I see?" There wasn't much room between that sentence and the next, but it was just enough for Steve's stomach to drop to his stomach, already feeling the rejection incoming, but it didn't come. "You could say that." You shrug nonchalantly. "It is a nice space and all." You add. "I haven't seen you in these parts." You shoot back a bit more dramatized, fully leaning into the cheesy line delivery.

Steve looks around, nodding and fixing his jaw as if he got caught red-handed for something. "Touché." A smug grin grows on your lips as you take another sip of your drink. He turns back to look at you, you already holding eye contact. He swallows down the saliva that builds on sight. "This is my first time here, first time at a party type event in a long while, actually." He admits.

"Well, I'm glad I could be here for your first time." You reply seamlessly, fully aware of the innuendo. Steve huffs out a chuckle. His face warms both at the thought of what you're insinuating but also at the slight embarrassment of it all. "Tell me. Are you here because you like the music or is it something else?" The way you adjust yourself has Steve screaming 'something else' in his head, his eyes following your every movement as you turn.

"The music." He replies shortly, still checking you out. He blinks away, trying to control his wandering eyes. He clears his throat, "A... friend of mine was really into heavy metal, and one rabithole after another landed me here." You hum out a response, nodding to confirm your understanding.

"Too heavy for you?" You quip back. Steve scoffs out another laugh, shaking his head and looking down at his glass, a few strands off hair falling into his face.

"I guess you could say that. It wasn't bad, just wasn't quite my vibe." He glances over at you, finding your eyes oh so easily once more. "This fit me better." A genuine, intrigued smile slowly grows on your face.

"So, is your friend here with you tonight?" You already could tell he came here solo, but you couldn't help but ask for confirmation. As soon as you did, though, something in his eyes changed, that little glimmer that was barely there to begin with was stomped out like a dying ember. Steve pauses a second before responding.

"No." You immediately regretted bringing up what must be a sore topic. "He, uh, he couldn't make it." Your smile long faded, but you couldn't stop your brows from quirking up slightly in curiosity.

"That's too bad." You say with a slight kind smile, trying to lighten things up. "Maybe come back next Friday, Metal night." Your smile widens hopefully with your suggestion. It brings a small one to Steve's lips but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"Maybe." And you both leave it at that. A few beats go by before you try and change the subject.

"Well, since this is your first time and all," you start, leaning in on the two words with a small brow wiggle. "Would you like to dance?" Your question seems to throw Steve through a loop. You just asked him to dance?

"I, uh, yeah! Sure, of course." He stumbles a little, but overall excited, trying to play it cool. His little 'nonchalant, cool guy' facade fighting with his seemingly more natural 'playful and charming' attitude causes you to squint with a knowing smile. It's a bit comical how you can see right through him.

You finish the remainder of your drink by omitting the straw and drinking from the glass. Once the glass is placed back on the counter and stained red with lipstick, you grab his hand and start leading him away from the bar.

You don't get too far before your path is interrupted by the towering, grey eyed man from the front door. Steve's heart weighs down on his stomach at the sight of the man. He just looks like he could kill. "Pardon the intrusion, madame." His deep Australian accent cuts through. Steve furrows his brows in confusion once more at the reoccurring formality. "There is a matter that requires your attention. It won't take up much of your time." You look up at the man who looms over you even in your heels. You sigh.

"I will be right there." You reply. He takes a step back to give you space, but maintains a close enough distance to lead you away once you're ready. You turn to Steve with an apologetic glance. "I'm sorry. Would you mind giving me just a moment?" Steve is a bit stunned.

"Yeah, sure..." He trails, confused. You give him a smile.

"Save me that dance, will you?" He melts at your smile, thoughts clearing of any and everything just at the sight. He nods mindlessly. Your smile grows in return before you release his hand and turn to follow that security guard who came for you.

Steve watches you leave and can't stop himself from looking you up and down. Once you're out of sight, Steve makes his way back to the bar, returning his grip back to his sweating glass.

×××

Just as you said, you wouldn't take long, but the few minutes Steve had to wait felt like an eternity until you arrived back beside him. "I'm so sorry. You ready for that dance?" Steve stood up straight and turned to face you. Every time you appeared, it was like a God sent. You were ethereal in a way that Steve couldn't quite put into words.

"Y-yeah." But he made no move to get to the dance floor. You close the distance between you both until you're toe to toe. You cock your head to the side, silently questioning him. His heart feels like it'll beat out of his chest, the air wafting your scent straight back into his brain. "Why does everyone keep calling you 'madame'?" He manages to get out. He's not sure that was the question he meant to ask, but that's what came out. You sigh, pouting like you've been caught.

"Fine, I guess that cat's out of the bag." You shift your weight to jut out one hip. "I'm the owner of this place." Steve's brows shoot up. He wasn't expecting that. Maybe a manager or something, but the owner?

"You're the owner?" He repeats the question outside of his own mind. You let out a soft chuckle, grinning proudly.

"The one and only." After a few stunned seconds coming from Steve's end, you reach out for his hand again, stepping back and pulling him with you, leaving his now empty glass behind. You gently guide him away from the bar once more before turning to properly lead him to the dance floor.

Steve's mind floods with more follow-up questions and conversation starters, but there you go again, 'walking away' though with him in tow. His eyes find themselves glancing over your figure again. He wants to continue a conversation with you, to get to know you and all other secrets you're hiding, but as soon as you're away from the safe haven that is the bar, music overpowers all other noises on the dance floor.

You settle on a good spot for you and Steve, ample room for the both of you, but also a safe spot to be experimental, not really knowing if he has any dancing experience. The look you give him forcefully removes the air from his lungs. You start moving and flowing to the beat effortlessly, keeping your movements tame and fluid. Steve's eyes follow your hands as they run up your thighs, your hips, your waist, and eventually in the air.

At first, he's left there just watching you dance, but the show doesn't last too long before he feels your hands on his, pulling him close to follow your movements with his body. He slowly joins in with gentle swaying of his hips with yours, leaving his hands where you placed them, at the base of your waist. You allow your arms to move freely, the fabric of your sleeves flowing along with them. You throw your head back, allowing the music to take over.

The whining of your waist and gentle roll of your shoulders sparks electricity through Steve as he stares down at your body in all its glory. He can't stop the heat from rising within him.

Eventually, your eyes return to him and force his gaze to meet them. You give him a look before bringing your arms down gently to caress the sides of his neck and face. Steve couldn't pinpoint if it was the dancing, the alcohol, or you causing him to sweat so damn much.

You reach a hand up to run through the front of his hair, pushing his damp bangs out of the way. His eyes flutter to look down at your red lips, painfully watching the way they smirk. You tug on his hair, causing his head to get thrown back a bit. His eyes close, and his mouth falls open, and he has to fight the urge to moan at the feeling.

He continues to sway to the music with his eyes closed and head thrown back, just as you commanded, and as predicted, it had the exact effect you wanted. He gets lost in the music, lost in the moment.

Steve was instantly knocked into a state of bliss. He felt equally invincible and nonexistent. Nothing could hurt him. He was just here with you. Nothing else mattered. A weight was lifted off his shoulders that had been weighing down for so long he forgot it was even there. Now that it was gone, he felt weightless, like he would float away if you weren't there to ground him, if his grip on your hips loosened, if your hands on his neck left him. He was in pure euphoria.

Steve couldn't tell you how long you two stayed that way or how many songs passed, but suddenly, the tempo slowed, and the music quieted slightly. Your hands found their way to his cheeks, tilting his head down to no longer be thrown back. As soon as his head was facing forward, those pesky strands of hair flopped down again. Steve's eyes remained closed, so when you reached to run your hands through his hair again, the feeling of your fingers against his scalp felt like they were massaging directly against his brain. He felt lightheaded at the touch.

"What's your name?" Even through the ringing of his ears from the unknown stretch of loud music, your voice still flooded in as if you were speaking directly into his mind.

"Steve." He replies softly, not ready to leave his nirvana. You smile softly.

"Steve." You repeat. He was fine until you said his name. Now, he wasn't too sure how long before his legs gave out from beneath him. "Regrettably, the night is coming to an end." At this Steve's eyes open, though remaining half lid.

His eyes bore into yours, causing your soft smile to widen. You tilt your head as if trying to get a better look at his eyes beneath his eyelids. His eyes open up a bit wider at your small action. He looks away from you to let his eyes wander the room.

The dance floor has half the amount of people on it. The bartender is wiping down the bar top and glasses, and the two security guards are talking with the wispy haired girl towards the front doors. You move your hand higher on his cheek to grab his attention.

His eyes take in your face like it's the first and last thing he'd ever see. It causes your heart to warm. "Will I see you again, Steve?" Your voice melts through him. His lips part as he nods gently. His hazel eyes dance around your features with a small smile.

"I've never looked forward to anything more." Your soft laugh causes him to furrow his brows a little as he watches you.

"That was a good line." You approve. Steve scoffs, joining in with your soft laughs. He shakes his head, eyes bouncing around at nothing in particular before looking back to your eyes.

"It wasn't 'a line'." His eyes widen playfully as his grin widens, showing his teeth. "I mean it." His gaze goes from your eyes down to your lips. His head shakes again, hair bouncing as his small antic repeats itself. "You're quite honestly the most beautiful person I've ever seen, and I would really like to get to know you." You give him a genuine smile.

"You are quite the charmer, aren't you?" By now, it's only you and Steve left on the dance floor, the last stranglers leaving out the door, the music just loud enough to hear.

"Is it too much to ask for your number?" He raises his brows with a hopeful expression. You give him a big smile and drop your hands to grab his, leading him back over to the bar. You reach over the bartop to grab a napkin and a pen, writing down your phone number before slipping it into his breast pocket with a smile. Steve smirks, eyes dancing back and forth from your eyes to lips and back up.

A sharp whistle cuts through the venue, grabbing both yours and Steve's attention. The brutish, green eyed security guard waves her hand in a circle, signaling to 'wrap it up'. Steve turns back to you just in time to see your eyes roll in response. He bites back a smile, lifting an arm and offering his elbow. You loop your hand around his arm and begin walking with him to the door.

Just as you reach the entrance/exit, the three employees leave from their posts, heading to the bar to give you both some space. "You better give me a call, cool guy." You raise a brow, releasing his arm to turn and face him properly with your chin held high. He gives you one of the most charming smiles you've ever seen, resting his hands on his hips. His brows quirk up again.

"You better answer, gorgeous." You fight your flustered expression with much difficulty, ultimately failing. You roll your eyes to try and cover up your inability to hold eye contact with him right now. You shake your head, turning slightly back to the inside of the club. You look at him through the corner of your eyes. He raises another teasing brow, awaiting a response. A beat passes before you close the gap between you, lifting your hand to capture his face, dragging his face to yours and planting a kiss on his lips.

Steve's eyes nearly pop out of his head the second he feels your lips on his. His eyes just begin to blink closed as you slowly pull away from the short-lived kiss. Steve chases after you, not wanting the contact to end. He couldn't remember the last time he had been kissed. He didn't realize how touch starved he truly was until you graced him with your touch.

"Goodnight, pretty boy." Steve’s eyes open back up to find you've made your way back inside, hands holding open the doors as you bid him farewell. Steve’s mouth opens to say something, but nothing comes out, his eyes blown wide. All he can do is lift a hand to wave in response as you slowly close the doors.

"She sounds hot. Did you call her?" Robin asks, leaning over the counter with wide eyes. Steve scoffs with a sassy hand on his hip.

"Robin, I didn't get home until like 4am. I could just call her."

"Okay, well, that was Saturday. Today's Monday, and you still haven't called, dingus?!" She looks at him as if he's the biggest idiot in the world. He sputters a he tries to redeem himself.

"I'll call her today." Robin rolls her eyes, smacking her hand down on the stack of movies next to her before dragging them off the counter and into her hands.

"Whatever." She walks around the counter to get back to work. "It's the end of your shift. Clock out and give Morticia a call before I do." Steve's eyes follow her as she walks away until she rounds an isle and is no longer in view.

The entire drive home, Steve was racking through his brain thinking of different scenarios. "How was the rest of your weekend?... What's your favorite band?... How's owning a club like?" He talks to himself, practicing questions and answers. A part of him just wants to skip passed all the introductory questions and just get to the nitty gritty.

He craves to get to know you on a deeper level, on every level. He wants to share with you all his goals, all his fears. He wants to just spend more time with you. He yearns for your touch on his skin again, your hands on his neck, on his face, fingers in his hair, nails scratching his scalp, lips on his. He can't help but laugh at himself. He feels crazy. You've only met each other two days ago, and he's already aching for you.

He parks in the empty driveway, sighing. He's always been used to arriving to an empty home, but since graduation and his parent leaving him the house for his own, it has been even more lonely than before. He locks up the car and makes his way into the empty house. He hangs his keys on the hook by the door and makes a b-line to the phone.

Steve pulls out his wallet, taking out the folded up napkin he's been carrying around with him since Saturday. His heart races in his chest as he listens to the dialing, resting the phone between his cheek and his shoulder as he twirls the chord around his fingers. Just as he's about to give up and hang up with the phone, there's a distinct click of someone answering.

"Hello?"

×××

Hope you liked it, bestie☺️☺️😩 Not me making Steve a little hot and heavy in the club🥵

if it wasn't obvious, I'd do anything to run my hands through his hair 😩

💀❤️💀❤️💀❤️💀❤️💀❤️💀❤️💀❤️💀

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x black reader #steve harrington x black!reader

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ladylooch · 7 months

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Timo has a post game interview and Liv will not leave him so she’s just cuddled up to him while he dose post game interviews.

Livia Meier is done.

Done with this arena.

Done with standing next to her mom when her dad is right. There.

DONE with Lio getting to go into the locker room with her dad and uncle while she has to stay with mommy.

So when mama isn’t looking, she books it. Her little legs pump hard as she weaves through the various clumps of adults waiting in the main gathering area, up the ramp, to the locker room door where a man stands in front.

“Hi, my daddy is in there.” She points. The security guard knows her, has seen her with Timo countless times throughout his long career in jersey.

“Okay, but where is your mama?”

“Um, down there. She said I could go to him.” Liv lies boldly.

“Oh okay.” He opens the door, letting Liv dash in.

Inside, she finds her dad surrounded by media personnel. He stands at his locker, in his sweaty post-game clothes, backwards hat on with two hands on his hips as he answers questions.

“Yeah, I mean, I think we need to keep focusing on playing our game from the drop of the puck. When we play like that, things go our way and it allows…” He lifts his gaze to the doorway, seeing his daughter, with the Devils logo on her cheek and her small jersey with Daddy and 28 on the back. “Livy?” He questions. “Can you guys let my daughter in for a second? Sorry.” He kneels down to her level. “Where is mommy?”

She knows better than to lie to her daddy like she did to the security guard. She brushes that off completely.

“I miss you. Can we go home now?”

The reporters awe.

“Not yet.” Timo chuckles. “Wanna sit in my locker and wait for me?”

“Yeah.”

Timo takes her hand and helps her crawl into his spot on the bench. She glances over to the left, seeing her uncle Nico looking at her.

“You want a snack?” Nico asks, holding up a cutie to her. He knows they’re her favorite fruit. She grins widely, snatching it from his hand.

“Liv.” Timo corrects, a hand on her head between her two, high pigtails.

“Danke!”

“Gern geschehen, Lieblingsnichte.” Nico gives her knucks, then resumes taking his other shin pad off.

Liv munches on her orange as she watches her dad answer interview questions. Timo strategically places his body to hide her from the cameras, asking everyone to keep her out of their frames. They all oblige, understanding how private the Meiers are about their children.

“Thanks, Timo.” The group calls as he finishes his last answer.

“Thank you all. Sorry for the interruption.” He chuckles, turning to his daughter. “Okay, we need to get you back to mama. I’m sure she is worried.” His look is pointed to her. He grabs a pair of shorts, stuffing his feet into his Adidas slides, then puts his sweatshirt over his large shoulders. He helps Liv off the big bench, holding her hand out of the locker room with so many people moving around. Emma is outside the door, arms crossed over her chest, glaring. She zones in on Liv, then looks at her husband.

“Thanks for the heads up!” Emma snaps at him.

“Baby, I was doing interviews, we just got done.”

“Liv, if you ever.. and I mean, EVER, run away from me again like that here, that will be your last game of daddy’s you watch live. You scared me!” Emma is clearly upset, scolding their daughter in frantic Swiss German. Timo feels bad that he continued his interviews without telling his wife their daughter was with him.

“Sorry, mama.” Liv shrugs. Oh, she is most definitely not sorry. Emma pauses, stopping her reaction, then stands to her full height.

“Hurry up.” She snaps at Timo instead.

“I feel like you’re mad at me and I didn’t do anything.” Timo calls after where Emma is hoisting Liv up onto her hip. She shoots a glare over her shoulder at him.

“Go shower! You stink!”

“You could join me?” Timo chuckles after her.

The only sign that Emma hears is the way she sways her hips just for him as she walks away.

#TM: loving & leaving

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random-french-girl · 1 year

Text

Since I was asked for headcanons a million years ago and never had time to do it... here you go @sshepardcommander merry crisis

I think the first time Ava uses Bea as a pillow happens on their way to the Alps. After Lilith teleport them to safety, after they meet up with mother Superion and agree that Beatrice will take Ava away to one of the OCS's hideouts in Switzerland. After Bea and Ava hastily change out of their bloody combat clothes, and make their way to a bus terminal in the southern suburbs of Rome - "less crowded than the train station, less risks that someone will notice us" Beatrice explains, as they buy tickets for the last bus to Milan. It's a night bus, not too full, but all the passengers are talking about the Vatican attack, and Bea and Ava sit in the back, both exhausted and vibrating with adrenaline, tense and silent the whole journey, unable to even close their eyes. From Milan, in the early morning, they take a train to Interlachen, then hop on a slower, older, smaller train that takes them into the Swiss Alps proper - and it's in this slow, small, old train, in the middle of the day, that Ava finally passes out from sheer exhaustion.

They're sitting next to each other, Ava near the window, Bea by the aisle. Beatrice is still alert despite her fatigue, standing guard, focused and professional, until suddenly there's a weight on her shoulder : Ava's head. For several minutes, Beatrice doesn't dare move. Ava's breath tickles her neck, displacing the small strands of hair that have escaped Bea's bun. Ava's nose bumps against her skin, her lips too close to Beatrice's pulse. Then the old, small, rickety train shakes and rattles and jostles them both as it passes through a tunnel, and Ava lets out a tiny disgruntled whimper of discomfort as she startles awake, and Beatrice doesn't even think before she gently guides Ava down to lay her head on Bea's lap. She doesn't need to say anything - Ava doesn't resist. Simply curls up on the train seat, feet tucked under the armrest, one hand resting on Bea's knee, her cheek on Bea's thigh. She mumbles something that sounds like sorry, or thank you, or good night. Beatrice hesitates this time, hand hovering above Ava's body, before she places one arm around Ava's shoulder, then brings her other hand to Ava's head. She strokes Ava's hair softly. There's a little contented noise as Ava snuggles deeper into Bea's lap. Maybe Beatrice's heart skips a beat, maybe her chest tightens suddenly - who's to say, really.

What matters is: Ava falls back asleep immediately. Bea watches her sleep for the remaining hours of their trip, wide awake, keeping Ava's sleeping body safe in her hands.

#:)#avatrice #ava x beatrice #warrior nun #sshepardcommander

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ghostieboi1 · 7 months

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Resurrection

Teen!Reader & Primo/Secondo/Terzo Genre: Scenarios, fluff, hurt/comfort Characters: Primo, Secondo, Terzo, Copia, Sister Imperator, Mountain, Swiss, and Aether Summary: Reader is the child of Primo/Secondo/Terzo (depending on the scenario) and they react to their father getting resurrected. Reader is also either a few days/weeks from turning 18 or recently turned 18 (so they would've initially died when they were around 13 or 14). Warnings: GN!Reader, SFW, crying, I'm putting more emphasis on the HURT/COMFORT part, poorly translated Italian, all gifs not mine A/N: Whoa, two Ghost fics in two days? I'm getting productive before my annual hibernation lol

Primo

You had caught a rumor of one of the Papas getting resurrected from the dead but it was only a guess who it was going to be. It wasn't until you overheard Copia and Sister Imperator talking in Copia's office about the Papa they resurrected; your father.

Running down the corridors of the Ministry to Primo's old bedroom, your adrenaline spiking beyond belief for the first time in years. When you reached the door, a ghoul was standing in front of the door, clearly on guard. It was Mountain and he immediately recognized you.

"I'm sorry, (Y/N), but I can't let you in yet." Mountain warned but his voice was soft, sympathetic even.

"Please, I have to see him. I need to know if he's okay." You practically begged, you felt your voice shake and knew you'd start becoming emotional any minute.

Mountain opened his mouth to protest but the way you looked so desperate and the fact he knew you were so young when Primo died... He eventually just sighed and stepped aside.

"Be careful with him though, he's still trying to understand everything." Mountain warned, gently placing his hand on your shoulder before letting you enter.

You sighed before opening the door, preparing for honestly anything. What you saw made your heart feel whole again. Primo was sitting on his sofa, his favorite and prized flowers in front of him as he inspected each pedal for any damage. He had heard the door open and shut but didn't look up right away, when he did, the expression he held softened.

"(Y/N)...?" Primo asked, his voice was a little gravelly but you expected that.

All you could do was nod, not trusting your voice. Primo stood up and made his way to you, it was a little slow but you knew he was just trying to wrap his head around everything. When he was close enough, you hugged him, allowing yourself to cry now.

"Oh, mio caro..." Primo sighed, returning the hug. His hand gently placed itself on the back of your head. "I'm so sorry I missed out on so much." His voice was now shaky.

"It's not your fault." You muttered, you were trying to not cling too hard to him because you didn't know how he was physically. But if you could, you'd squeeze him for dear life.

"I know, but I still feel awful about it." Primo said, he was definitely crying now too.

"I missed you." You muttered, afraid to let go of him.

"I know, mio caro, but I'm here now." Primo comforted, kissing the top of your head.

You finally pulled away and smiled at him, he smiled back.

"(Y/N), could you tell me who took care of my garden while I was gone?" Primo asked, glancing at his flower pot.

"I did, with the help of Mountain. It made me feel like you were still here even if it was just my imagination." You admitted, chuckling a little.

"Well, you did an amazing job, mio caro." Primo said, taking your hand in his. "I'm sorry I left so sudden and when you were still so young, but let's try to make up for time, sÌ?"

"Sì, Papa." You nodded, wiping your tears away.

Secondo

Instead of running, you hurriedly walked towards Secondo's bedroom. You didn't want to hold your breath and hope it was true because you had been lied to by Sister Imperator before, not Copia so much unless he was trying to protect you.

But when you saw Swiss standing in front of the door, a place he normally wouldn't be, you knew for sure he was back. You slowed your walking down a bit as you got closer, Swiss was already giving you a look that said "I'm sorry".

"(Y/N), please..." Swiss muttered, shaking his head slowly.

"Please what? I deserve to see him." You said sternly, now standing directly in front of him.

"I know, but Papa didn't want him to have any visitors yet and honestly, how do you think he'll react when he sees you—" You cut Swiss off.

"He deserves to know. You weren't here when he was but he wasn't informed about anything, everyone left him in the dark and I will not let that continue now that he's back." You practically ordered, raising your voice a little.

It wasn't common for humans to be able to scare ghouls, but it seemed you had this ability to do just that. Swiss didn't want to argue with you anymore and just decided to let you enter the room, you thanked him and apologized because you did feel bad for yelling.

Secondo immediately looked up at the door when it opened, he didn't seem to recognize you right away until he thought about it. The way you were standing and your features were all too familiar, then it hit him, but he was a little too slow.

"Hello, father." You greeted, your voice was soft because you didn't want to startle him and because you were nervous.

Secondo stood up and began walking to you. "(Y/N)," he trailed off as he glanced over you. "You... You've grown." He chuckled, a stark difference from him before.

You nodded, chuckling with him. You weren't sure what to feel right now, all you knew was that before long, you had tears falling down your face. "Oh, ragazzino." Secondo cooed, bringing you in for a hug.

This sudden show of this much love coming from Secondo felt weird but you didn't care, maybe he's realized that life can be short and to accept everything as is now that he's back, he wants to fix anything that may have been broken.

"I'm so sorry, (Y/N). I wish I had been there for you just a little bit more back then, but I can try to make it up to you if you'll let me." Secondo offered, gently swaying you side to side as if you were still a baby.

You nodded, smiling a little. "I thought you were too stone cold to do anything like that." You joked, chuckling a little.

"Never, just was too busy. But if I was, Hell must've warmed me up then." Secondo joked back, there was a slight shake in his voice.

"I thought I'd lost you forever." You sobbed, clutching his robes.

"Oh, mio caro. You could never lose me, even in death. I'll always watch over you." Secondo comforted, the shake in his voice more prominent. "Ti amo, (Y/N), tanto."

"Anch'io ti amo, Papa." You whispered back, smiling the best you could.

Terzo

Dread filled you, not because he was back, but because you were afraid how the Ministry would treat him again. Regardless, you went to find him. You had to remain mostly professional still because you were pretty much the only person in the Ministry up for being elected Cardinal but you had to wait until eighteen to be officially a Cardinal.

Once you made it to the last corner to his room though, you changed. Now desperate to see him again, you ran for the door and, despite Aether telling you not to, opened it to see Terzo staring at the wound around his neck in a mirror.

Terzo noticed the door opening immediately turned around to look at whoever opened his bedroom door so suddenly. Aether followed you in and tried ushering you away but you lightly argued with him but it wasn't until Terzo told Aether you could be here that the ghoul left and shut the door.

You stared at him in disbelief, he was alive despite how they killed him. You also seemed to be taller than him, which kind of surprised you.

"I left you alone for, how many years, and you had the audacity to grow taller than your old man." Terzo teased, crossing his arms in front of him.

You chuckled, it was airy and more like a sigh but the smile on your face let him know you were happy. "Are you okay? Your, uh..." You trailed off, glancing at his neck.

"Oh, this thing? Beats me how they managed to do it but I'm also not going to question it because our Dark Lord works in mysterious ways." Terzo sighed, gently touching the stitches.

You fell silent, not sure what to say or do. Terzo noticed, the look on his face changed from confident and cocky to concern and sadness. He sighed before opening his arms, allowing you to hug him. You didn't hesitate on returning the gesture and clung to him as if he was just in your mind and you would never see him again. You began crying, unable to hold your emotions back.

"Oh, amore mio. I'm so sorry I left you alone when you needed me." Terzo apologized, his own voice breaking as he cried.

"It's not your fault." You muttered, sniffling.

"Ti amo, (Y/N). Mi scuso per tutto." Terzo whispered, kissing the top of your head.

"Anch'io ti amo, Papa." You muttered, smiling a little as you pulled away a bit.

You wiped the tears from your face and chuckled a little at the small stain of tears on Terzo's shoulder, Terzo did the same.

"There is something I should probably tell you before anything else. Um, I'm gonna become Cardinal shortly after I turn eighteen." You explained, fidgeting with your hands.

Terzo's eyes widened before he smiled big. "You really have grown up, taking on a Cardinal's responsibilities at an early age isn't easy." Terzo chuckled, he was definitely proud of you.

"I know, but Copia has been helping me with it when he can." You informed, shrugging a bit.

"Copia... How's he been handling the whole 'Papa Emeritus IV' thing?" Terzo asked, it wasn't bitter or mean, it sounded as if he actually cared about him.

"Good. Better than most thought." You admitted, sighing.

Terzo paused a bit, a small smile growing in the silence. "I'm so proud of you, mio caro." Terzo admitted, giving you another hug.

"Thank you, Papa." You muttered in return, resting your head on his shoulder.

#ghost band #the band ghost #papa emeritus i #papa primo #papa emeritus ii #papa secondo #papa emeritus iii #papa terzo #papa emeritus iv #papa copia #sister imperator #gn reader #teen reader

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