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damn-stark · 3 years

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A new friend & A new problem

Chapter 9 of Different Light

A/N- I hope you all like this chapter :)

Warning- only slight angst, Slowburn

Pairing- Harry Potter x Malfoy!reader, Fred Weasley x Malfoy!reader

(Let me know if you want to be tagged)

————

“So your parents are fighting?” Fred wandered once George had separated from the both of you.

You sigh and stop in your steps so he could catch up beside you. “Yeah, just a bit, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

Fred nods while he puts his hands in his pockets, looking to the floor before glancing at you. “Really? Because, well Harry seemed to know a lot about it.”

Damn.

What could you say to ease the situation? “I’m sorry Fred, but Harry is just easier to talk to.”?

No, that would make this matter worse. Even if it was true.

You continue to walk towards your common room, and Fred follows by your side, waiting for your response that you delayed a bit, just truly tensifying the situation even more. “It’s not that I didn’t want to tell you,” you begin slowly, “it’s just I didn’t think you’d really care.”

“Not care?” Fred scoffs, “I’m your boyfriend, of course I’d care, plus I understand having parents argue,”

You sigh and begin to gently rub your wrists, avoiding his gaze and looking to your approaching common room door. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.”

“Yeah,” Fred nods slowly, “well you know you could tell me anything right?”

You stop just a few feet away from the door and turn to face him, leaning your back on the wall and watching him stop just inches before you. You nod in agreement to his comment and add a small smile. “I know.”

Fred smirks and looks down to your lips, taking another step towards you and grabbing your hand that was at your side and slowly sliding his hand all the way to your cheek, “how was your summer by the way?”

You shrug and sigh in an exaggerated manner, “boring. How about yours?”

“Interesting. Very interesting.” Fred replied cheekily.

“Oh?” You quirk your brow.

“Well you know with George and I starting our business, making our boxes and other stuff to sell here.” He lied unbeknownst to you.

You add a feigned smile and grab his free hand that remained at his side. “Well I will say that I missed you.”

“Is that so?”

“Definitely.”

Fred’s gaze drops again and this time he leans in to crash his lips on yours, pulling you closer to deepen the kiss just a bit before parting away and offering a cockier smile. “I missed you too, darling.” Fred steps back and his cocky smile turns mischievous. “By the way I do hope you could help George and I sell our Skiving Snackboxes.” He proceeds to take out a small pile of yellow fliers and pulls your hands out so he could drop them on your hands. “Just put these around school, yeah?”

You scoff and chuckle, looking to the flyers and then Fred, noticing he was being serious. “You’re serious,” you calm down and grow serious, “Fred, you know next year is my last year, I’m very busy this year studying for exams and trying my best to get the best scores.”

Fred finds some humor in your comment where you hadn’t and he doesn’t seem to grasp that you weren’t joking. “You got NEWTS last year, you’re in Snape's NEWT class and just about every class that you wanted. You’ll be fine.”

You furrow your eyebrows and take a step towards your common room. “Fred? You’re not being serious are you? Being an Auror takes a lot of work.”

“And yet you don’t have to please your parents all the time, Malfoy.”

You frown deeper and tilt your head slightly, “impress my parents? Fred I’m doing this for me. Just like George and you are doing that joke shop for yourselves. Yeah my parents may require me to do a good job at school, but that doesn’t mean anything. I’m just doing what I want and what will make me proud.”

Fred frowns and nods, “I’m sorry.”

You sigh and keep backing to your common room. “I’ll hang the flyers, and try and help George and you when I can though, okay?”

Fred puts his hands back in his pockets and nods slowly, “okay,” he turns around and doesn’t say a simple goodbye, or goodnight, he just turns and begins to walk off before stopping to add one last thing. “By the way, get ready, this new professor is going to provide a lot of fun this year. That’s a promise, darling.”

A half smile tugs on your lips whilst you nod in slight agreement, “right. A lot of fun.”

——

“Your previous instruction on this subject has been disturbingly uneven, but you’d be pleased to know from now on you’ll be following a carefully ministry approved course of defensive magic.” The annoying pink lady explains in a squeaky voice that hid the fact that this all sounded monotone, like if she has rehearsed saying this hundreds of times. Her weird, creepy smile seemed that way too.

Regardless you look down to the yellow book down in front of you, and you part your lips and blink in disbelief at how childish this book looked. When you skimmed through the pages it got even worse, there was nothing on new spells, or spells at all actually. All there was on the book was paragraphs upon paragraphs about stuff you didn’t even want to bother reading.

Curiosity was getting the best of you and just as you planned to ask what was going on, a hand beside you flew up. Professor Umbridge plastered on a bigger feigned smile and pointed to the girl next to you.

You shift in your seat to look to your side at said girl, seeing her stand up and hearing her clear her throat before speaking in a soft, soothing and elegant voice. “Ma'am there isn’t anything on defensive spells here, it’s all….just a whole bunch of mess.”

Professor Umbridge giggled and it made you cringe, she walked up to your table and looked to the girl beside you. “Well that’s because we won’t be learning spells, there's no need for them.”

You scoff, “no need for them? I would think that learning spells would be our highest priority since you know who is back.”

Professor Umbridge snapped her head to you and her gaze turned icy as she glared at you. “The next time there's a question please raise your hand like miss?” she turns and points to the girl beside you and her smile turns more genuine.

“Clementine Zabini.” The girl you knew as Clementine answered sweetly, sitting back down as the pink lady turned around and walked back to the front of the class. “I’ll tell you,” Clementine continued in a loud enough whisper so you’d be able to hear her, “If Monday was a person, this old hag would definitely be it.”

You blink in disbelief and look at her just the same, noticing her red lips lift to a smirk. “And here I thought today was Friday.”

You scoff lightheartedly and glance back to the front of the class to pretend to be listening to the professor as she went on. “Yeah well as my boyfriend says, she’s a complete destroyer of fun.”

Clementine snorts and nods, “yeah I can agree. What do you think of her.”

“Well,” you shrug, “let’s see, beside frigenteing, I think she’s a bore and well a complete fake pink lady that seems to be up to something.”

Clementine nods and puts her book to pretend to be reading as she examines the professor. “What could it be?”

You shrug and prop your elbows on your shared desk, glancing at the girl next to you and noticing her robes match yours; the same green color, same snake on the side of her cloak. How come you hadn’t seen her before? Or really noticed her? She had the same surname as one of Draco’s only good friends, Blaise Zabini. And she was obviously in your same year—perhaps it was because last year, you only really focused on the twins as your sole companions and didn’t care for much else even if Hogwarts was a hundred times better than your previous school. Maybe with this new year, you being secluded to only a couple friends could change. Plus she seemed to have the same vibe the twins gave. That could be fun.

“I’m y/n Malfoy,” you introduce yourself kindly.

Clementine meets your gaze and offers you a kind smile, “you already know my name so I won’t even bother, but I will have to ask, your brother is friends with mine, right?”

You nod, “yes.”

“Hmm, well how poetic is that?” She continued as she neatly clasped her hands together and rested them on the table. “Our brothers are friends, and now we are.”

“Ladies in the back, I do hope you can write up here on the board what rules I’ve just said.”

Clementine and you turn your attention to the pink lady and you both offer a feigned innocent look, you shake your head and speak up first. “We can,” you both stand to do as she said and Professor Umbridge just watched the both of you with a narrowed gaze as you make your way to the front of the class. However neither of you actually knew what she had said.

Knowing that, you both look at one another from the corner of your eyes and then glance at the board, picking up chalk and lifting your hands to start writing. Before either of you could try to write down whatever rubbish you could think she’d say, you inch towards Clementine and bump her shoulder with yours, earning her discreet attention to then whisper a spell on the both of you without a need for a wand that would write what was instructed. Your gazes slid back to the board and you pretend to write, smiling proudly once you were done and saw Professor Umbridges taken back expression.

“I do hope it’s right,” you tell the pink lady once you’re back on your seat, trying to suppress your threatening smile.

The professor looks to the board and her eyes scan the rules of what appeared to be hundreds of times before looking back at you and nodding slowly. “It...is.”

“Good,” Clementine interjected smugly, smirking wider as the pink lady just returned to her teaching. “That was nice, y/n. Saved both of our arses over there.”

You shrug nonchalantly and prop your clasped hands on the desk. “Thank you.”

“Look,” Clementine pointed out, tapping on a spot on the desk beside her elbow, “I drew the horror on her face just now when she saw that she was wrong.”

Your gaze lowers and you have to bite your bottom lip to keep yourself from laughing out loud at the carved out drawing, and the name scribbled at the side of the drawing that said; “pink silly old witch.”

“You know,” you attempt to warn her, cutting off by her reassurance.

“Don’t worry, I put a spell on it, she won’t see it, just us and the other students who sit here.” She winks at you and in that moment you knew that she was going to be a great friend.

——

“I’ll catch up with you later, Clementine!” You wave as you start walking back towards Harry.

“Dinner?!” She shouted out and you nodded before spinning around and running to fall by Harry’s side.

“Hello, Harry.”

Said boy jumps slightly and looks up at you with a slightly frightened gaze.

Your lips twitch and you quickly apologize. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“No,” Harry lied, “you didn’t.”

You narrow your gaze on him, but let it go. “Okay if you say so.”

“New friend?”

You look over your shoulder to where Clementine was before for a second before turning back to Harry and nodding. “I hope so. I think it’s about time I had a friend in my own year. Albeit I don’t think professor Umbridge likes us that much.”

“I don’t think she likes anything at all,” Harry remarks bitterly.

You glance at him and can’t help but smile at how angry he looked at just the mere talk about the professor. “You should’ve seen her face when we proved her wrong today,” you snicker, “looked like she was going to get an attack of some kind.”

The corner of Harry’s lips tug into a small smile that doesn’t disappear as he changes the subject. “How are your classes going so far?”

You breathe out deeply and feign exhaustion. “It’s going to be tough this year. The easiest class surprisingly with Umbridge’s stupid change, is defense against the dark arts.”

“That class is compelelty boring and stupid,” Harry grumbles in a tone that caught you by surprise. “How are we supposed to learn to defend ourselves if we’re getting taught nothing but damn rubbish.”

In your disbelief at his new anger and the frown that had so quickly formed on his face you walk in stunned silence for a brief moment. “You’re right,” you pause and glance at how hard he was grabbing his books and that’s exactly when you notice a fresh scar on the back of his hand. “Harry what happened to your hand?”

Said boy without even looking at his hand just dismisses your concern. “It’s nothing to worry about. It’s just a scratch.”

“Just a scratch?” You scoff, trying to grab his hand to examine it better, but suddenly stopping as he pulled away swiftly and put some distance between him and you.

“I said it’s fine,” Harry continues, only growing your concern, “I need to get to class. I’ll talk to you later.”

Before you could say goodbye, Harry walks off in a hurry.

That was odd.

——

“SAVE YOUR MONEY NOW!”

“YOU WON'T REGRET IT! A DELICIOUS MYSTERY WITH EACH SWEET!”

The twins announce in a booming voice, showing off their skiving snackboxes to passing students in the courtyard. All while you hand out the brightly colored flyers.

“Oh, hello, Malfoy, I didn’t know you worked.” Clementine teases as she stops by at the sight of you next to the twins.

“Well since I’m not getting paid,” you say out sharply whilst you glare at George and Fred. “It’s not work.”

“You’re doing it because you love us,” George butts in with a smug grin as he comes up behind you.

“Exactly, it’s an act of kindness,” Fred adds. “Besides when we go big, you get anything you want for free. That’s your pay.”

You roll your eyes and take a flyer and hand it to Clementine. “You won’t regret it.”

“That’s the spirit.” Fred exclaims as he pats your shoulder.

Clementine smiles and sighs, “fine, I’ll buy a box. It’d be a shame if I didn’t support a small business.”

George grins and pulls out an orange box to hand it to Clementine after receiving the needed amount of money. “You—”

“Won’t regret it,” Clementine finishes for George, “I got it.” Her eyes shift to a couple of passing first year Slytherins and her lips twist into a mischievous smirk; she gently elbows your arm and whispers, “watch this—hey wait!”

“What is she doing?” George asks as the three of you turn to watch what she was planning to do with a curious wonder that stopped you from trying to sell for that moment.

“I see you’re fellow Slytherins and I know how tough it can be so—”

“Oh,” Fred grins, “wicked.”

Clementine rambles on in a tempting manner that wins the kids over and gets them to take the box from her hands and try it right there. All of them innocently falling for her trap just like many other new year students did when George and Fred attempted too. And it's as funny as before as it is now, watching the students eat the candy and not expect to get pranked and temporarily change in appearance, or experience some odd feelings.

“Eh, that was wicked!” George blurts when Clementine returns, “Slytherins are usually the toughest sell.”

“More like an impossible,” Fred corrects him.

“Hey! I try!” You interject, feeling Fred grab your hand to head to your other spot to continue and sell their snacks.

“Maybe you could team up with us, that way you and y/n try selling to your house mates.” George explains in an over excited tone.

You scoff and shake your head. “Don’t bring her into this.”

“It’s not bringing her into this if we’re friends,” Fred continues.

Clementine smirks continues to walk beside the three of you. “Well when I’m not too busy with homework, or studying, we’ll see. It’s a maybe.”

“Maybe is almost a yes,”

“No it’s a maybe,” Clementine argues with George.

Just as Fred was going to pitch in, the moment the four of you turn the corner, the pink lady rounds another corner and almost runs into all of you. You try to just walk past, but she gets in the way and looks at all of you with that same wicked look.

“What is that in your hands?”

Fred steps up and attempts to ease the situation. “It’s just a group project we need to finish.”

“A school project?” She repeats with a raised brow. “So early onto the school year?”

“Well,” you add, “we are busy.”

Her eyes burn into Fred and you before her eyes drift down to your connected hands, proceeding to pull out her wand and use a charm that parted you from each other. Neither of you said anything after the action, you just looked at one another before backing away as she tried to get one of the boxes. “If it’s just a school project then it won’t mean anything if I just take a peek right?”

“Well if you take a peek then our project will be ruined,” George protests, hiding the boxes under his cloak.

Umbridge shoots him a cold feigned smile and uses her wand to pull the boxes towards her, she looks at all of you and smirks. Clementine glances at you and smirks, discreetly pulling out her wand and secretly using a charm to hide what was actually inside.

“See,” she innocently adds, “nothing but boring school stuff.”

Umbridge snaps her gaze towards her and shoots her a scowl. “Well I’m still taking this for further examination. You see I don’t understand how two six and seven years are teamed up.

Fred shrugs, “they’re smart.”

Professor Umbridge huffs and just turns and walks off with all the boxes, leaving all of you with nothing.

“Well that was a bust,” you grumble.

“Well I guess we’ll stick with more discreet ways.” George attempts to lighten the mood.

Albeit the next day a rule went up that read, “all Weasley products will be banned”, just like there was a rule that “boys and girls are not to be within eight inches of each other.” Not only that but there was more and more each day, she was slowly turning school into some kind of prison; no type of fun was allowed, she regulated the halls and classes, she checked uniforms, she kept all talk that had anything to do with anything bad, forbidden. She was changing everything and trying to take away professors, she was trying to be under control, and proclaimed that she would, that the ministry of magic would approve of it.

She was changing things for the worst.

——

“Have you noticed that Gryffindors, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuffs all talk with one another; they’re all so friendly, but when it comes to talking with a Slytherin it seems that they’re suddenly so quiet and competitive.” Clementine mused while the both of you “studied” in the courtyard; when in reality, you were just talking about anything that came, and watched as students from other houses all talked peacefully. “I mean why is that?”

You tilt your head to the side and study the students closer, noticing the big gaps left between Slytherins and the other students from different houses—“when I was put into Slytherin, the other houses ‘booed’.”

“See,” Clementine exclaims, “they put us aside. I know some fellow Slytherin can be a bit rude, but that’s only because they know the other students are being the same. I know a lot of friendly Slytherin; like you for example.”

A heat grows on your cheeks at her compliment and you turn to offer her a sweet smile. “Thank you, I think you’re very nice too.”

Clementine returns your smile and then looks back to the courtyard. “I mean they’re not all mean towards us, but a lot of them are.”

“Yeah I see what you’re meaning,” you sigh, leaning back and resting your hands on the grass, from the corner of your eye catching Harry and Herimone walking up to you. You fully twist your head and smile softly when they reach you. “Hi, guys, what a surprise.”

“Hi, y/n,” Hermione greets sweetly, glancing at your friend beside you. “Hello.”

Clementine offers them a simple “hello,” and let’s them speak what was obviously on their mind.

“Y/N, can we talk to you for a minute,” Harry interjects in an almost nervous manner.

“Sure.”

“Uh,” Hermione parts her lips as her eyes nervously drift to Clementine. “Alone.”

“Oh,” you breathe out slowly, glancing at your friend and preparing to stand up to follow them, but stopping as you recall your conversation that happened just mere seconds ago. “It’s okay, I trust her. You can too.”

The pair hesitate and look at one another for a second before deciding to do as you say, sitting down to begin with this talk that brought obvious tension.

“Well,” Hermione starts, “you know how poorly Umbridge is teaching defense against the dark arts, and how she’s trying to rule this school with an iron fist and not let us practice any important spells. Well…” Hermione glances to Harry and without a word to do so he continues.

“Well since we know you’re good at defensive magic, we wanted to ask, or really I did, if you’d want to join our secret group where I’ll be teaching other students defensive spells.” Harry turns even more nervous and averts his gaze so he wouldn’t see what reaction you’d give, instead he talks to the ground. “And if your friend wants to join that’d be good too. The more the better.”

“But,” Hermione interjects, “it’s top secret, nobody outside of our group can know. We’ll be trusting the both of you with our secret.”

Without hesitation, or much thought, you sit up and offer a single nod. “I’ll do it, I’ll join your secret group.” You look to Clementine and quirk your brow. “What about you? It’s fine if you don’t want to.”

Clementine looks at the three of you before landing her gaze solely on you, taking a long agonizing minute before giving an answer. “I’ll join too.”

“Great!” Hermione grins cheekily, “thank you! I’ll tell you both when and where we’re meeting! Thank you y/n and….”

“Clementine.” Said girl says.

Hermione nods and offers one last sweet smile before she stands up along with Harry.

Albeit before Harry could leave he turns to you just as nervous as before. “Can we talk later?”

Your face lights up and you nod. “Of course.”

A/N-I just wanted to provide a faceclaim for our new character just so it’s easier for some of you to imagine the character :)

Yara Shahidi as Clementine Zabini

Tagged- @peter-laufeyson , @swiftlymoniquesblog , @spideyyypeter , @gsvshsjsbs, @accio-prozac , @cherriesanwine , @kokomaesadie , @april-14-blog , @prettypinkpeachh , @pest-ill-ence, @ilovespideyyy , @m3ssytrash , @hogwarts-babe-blog @yodaboo , @missryerye

#Harry Potter #different light #fanfiction #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter x malfoy!reader #harry potter x reader #harry potter imagine #harry potter imagines #harry potter and the order of the phoenix #fred weasley x malfoy!reader #fred weasley x reader #Draco Malfoy #Malfoy!reader #hermione granger #professor umbridge #George Weasley #blaise zabini

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a-duck-with-a-book · 3 years

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REVIEW // Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle, #1) by Jay Kristoff

★☆☆☆☆

So I’m very late to the party, but I just finished reading Nevernight by Jay Kristoff I had such high hopes for this series based off of what people recommending it had told me and what I read about it before picking up. Dark fantasy? Check. Strong leading lady? I’m here for it. Gays? It’s literally my only personality trait. Sign me up. Unfortunately, this book fell flat in all those categories. It reminded me a lot of Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass, which made me take one point off of to begin with simply for making me think of Maas’s writing. Overall, I just found the book to be too predictable, with bad writing, exposition, and pacing, and too many parts that just made me ~uncomfortable~.

In case you are not familiar with this novel, Nevernight tells the story of Mia Corvere, a girl who lost her family when she was a child after her father was convicted of treason. When the book begins, she is 16 years old and embarking on a journey to join the Red Church, a school for assassins, so that she may one day be able to avenge her father’s death. Along the way she meets a bunch of forgettable characters whose names I can’t be bothered to remember and is taught by the most fearsome killers in the Republic. Here she gains many valuable skills, like how to survive being poisoned, how to fight, and how to get big boobs.

+ Side note: by chapter 3 three I started picturing Mia as the crow guy from RWBY and I could not shake that for the rest of the book

I had many issues with this novel that I will try to summarize in some sort of coherent fashion, but to be honest this book sucked the will to live out of me so I don’t know how much energy I can put into this review.

// image: official cover art by Jason Chan //

FOOTNOTES

The footnotes were probably the most jarring element of the book for me, and, unfortunately, there’s a lot of them. Their function seems to be twofold:

they are the form of most of the world-building, explaining several customs, the history of the institutions and peoples Mia meets, and the mythology followed by the people of the Republic.

they allow for the narrator of our story to interrupt with comical one-liners or cryptic foreshadowing

In my humble opinion, both of these are unnecessary and stupid. The interruptions come off as crass and immature and make the other more textbook, boring exposition come off as a joke, especially when it is dealing with sensitive or serious topics. There is one that explains this brothel called the Seven Flavors, which the footnote explains refer to “Boy, Girl, Man, Woman, Pig, Horse, and, if sufficient notice and coin was given, Corpse.” Now, on its own, this passing mention of pedophilia, bestiality, and necrophilia could very well contribute to the world building and tone of the novel, but when placed side by side with the childish, joking tone of the “cue the violiiiiiiiins” or, regarding the acoustics of a room, “…they were, as it happens, exceptional. Falalalalalalaaaaaaaa”, come off as way too light-hearted for the topic at hand. Maybe I’m being way too sensitive, but I’m pretty tired of authors using serious topics as off-hand remarks as a lazy way to make their world daker and grittier. Plus, these footnotes were just so incredibly cringy that I would recoil from second-hand embarrassment every time. They resemble the things I wrote when I was 14 and trying (and miserably failing) to be funny. Also… there are way too many of them. While at first I appreciated the attempt to deepen the lore of the story (I’m a sucker for world-building), after a while it became evident that the author was just forcing information down our throats without taking the time to actually weave the lore and background into the story itself. It came off as a very lazy way to force exposition.

OVERLY FLOWERY LANGUAGE

This story is BRIMMING with similes and metaphors, like every other sentence is some overly complicated way to describe something that could have been presented in three words. When you include so many metaphors/similes/etc., they begin to lose power. They should allow the reader to extrapolate more meaning and emotion from a sentence, but if the book is bursting at the seams with them, they become increasingly ordinary, to the point of losing all of their luster. One prime example appears on page 30:

“It was a bucktoothed little shithole, and no mistake. Not the most miserable building in all creation. [here there is a footnote about some other inn/brothel] But if the inn were a man and you stumbled into him in a bar, you’d be forgiven for assuming he had—after agreeing enthusiastically to his wife’s request to bring another woman into their marriage bed—discovered his bride making up a pallet for him in the guest room.”

So first of all what the fuck is that supposed to mean? That whole paragraph is a fever dream. Let’s begin with “bucktoothed little shithole”. Bucktoothed? Really? What does that mean. Please, someone explain to be right now what a bucktoothed building is. Is it uneven? Is it awkward? Is it half-finished? Is one side longer than the other? Did they do a bad paint job that only covers on side? Are the windows askew? Is the door too big for its frame? We already know from the paragraph above that it is “disheveled” as well, so why the need for another weird phrasing of its appearance? We then move on to that whole JOURNEY of a sentence, where the inn is compared to a man being cuckolded. That is the most insane tale-can you imagine running into someone in a bar and that story being the VERY FIRST thing that runs through your mind??? I know I’m focusing way too much on this stupid paragraph, but basically what I am trying to get at is that even though we spend half a page talking about how bucktoothed and disheveled and cuckolded this building is, we get no actual physical description of it. Imagine if Kristoff had just written that it was a run-down, ill-kept building that looked as worse for wear as its owner did. Done, one sentence. Great. Let’s move on. Instead, we spend so long reading these absolutely batshit descriptions that ultimately tell us next to nothing. Flowery language is placed over actual context. You may think that a description this long and complex means that this inn is a significant or recurring setting in the novel. Nope. It’s not. Mia leaves and that’s that. The reason that I’m focusing so much on this objectively irrelevant paragraph is because it is so representative of the biggest issue I have with the writing in this book. There are so many unnecessary comparisons that function only to make the author feel clever rather than add anything to the story at all. It’s very à la 2010s Tumblr.

THE (IN MY OPINION, BAD) WRITING

For the first half of the book, we are constantly being TOLD things rather than being SHOWN things. With the exception of one of the teachers cutting off Mia’s arm, we rarely see the ruthlessness that the assassins are so feared for, but we hear about it in nearly every other sentence Where are the consequences? I think this book would have been way more enjoyable if there were actually consequences to the characters’ actions. The inclusion of the weaver and the weird vampire guy completely remove any tension regarding the fate of the central cast. When Mia had her arm chopped off, I was shocked, and pleasantly surprised. How was she going to overcome this unexpected obstacle in her training? Then a couple pages later, its reattached with absolutely no lasting consequences. All of the initial tension and shock value of the loss of Mia’s arm is entirely removed because of the two incest-y siblings. Their entire purpose for existing is just to undo all damage to the main characters. Then suddenly, out of the blue, Mia is willing to take on a ton of consequences and completely throw away her chance at becoming initiated in order to avenge her family just to save Tric from receiving like one punishment??? Like why?? As an aside, the only moment I truly enjoyed was when Ash fucking stabbed Tric to death. I assume that when the reader’s favorite moment is one of the central characters’ death, it does not bode well for their reception of the book.

THE THEMES

TW: rape-y subjects

The author seemed a little too keen to include rape and sexual assault in his story. Mia withdrew her consent in the sex scene in the very first chapter, and even if you read it as consensual (which I do not), it is described as incredibly unpleasant on her end. Tric is the result of a rape, which is brought up several times throughout the story. Further, Mia is constantly facing harassment from men. I understand that this is frames the idea that the world she lives in is misogynistic and ruthless, but there are other ways to push that idea through other than constantly putting in her in those situations. As in, this didn’t need to be the ONLY way we explored this subject. Beyond the uncomfortable propensity for sexual assault, I also very much disliked the sexualization of the 16-year-old main character. Oh. My. Gosh. Mia is CONSTANTLY sexualized. Every single damn character makes comments about her body, how hot she is, how much sex she potentially has. It is so weird and uncomfortable. I feel the need to reiterate that she is SIXTEEN. There is, however, a focus placed on the power Mia can gain from seducing her targets. Girl power? Not to me, really. The issue I have with this is the idea that a woman has to be overtly sexual in order to be considered powerful. This is something that we can see in many female assassins and supposedly powerful female characters in fiction (like Black Widow) especially those written by men. Now, there is nothing wrong with using one’s sexuality as a weapon, and I’m certainly not saying that a strong female character cannot be sexual, but the idea that a sixteen-year-old girl is shown having her body painfully modified tp be more desirable, and in a graphic sex scene with another character, in order to for the reader to read her as liberated and powerful does not sit well with me. I don’t really feel like this aspect of her training should be relevant to the overall story. I wish the time that Kristoff had dedicated to hammering into our heads that Mia is a femme fatale to developing her Darkin powers instead. The way she is written now feels more like she is a faux strong female character written for a male audience.

Secondly, Mia is fully written as “the plain-girl-who-is-actually-pretty”. This whole trope bothers me IMMENSELY. YA is full of girls who are described as plain, forgettable, or ugly while their physical descriptions are just the dictionary definition of conventionally attractive. It seems like a way to market off of girls’ self-consciousness while still being able to market the main character as a hot heroine in official art. And there is, of course, the issue of Mia’s boob job Readwithcindy (just “withcindy” now!) did a whole video about this so I won’t get into it much just to repeat what she already said, but I agree that the idea of a 30-something year old man including this completely unnecessary detail regarding the sexualization of teenage girl, who we have ALREADY seen in a rape and being sexualized by other men in the story, made me really, really, uncomfortable. I highly recommend you go watch her video, as she touches on this in way more detail. [Cindy's video

RATINGS

Worldbuilding: ★★☆☆☆

A lot of thought obviously went into the world-the mythology, society, and politics are well-thought out. But the way they are introduced is annoying and bland. It seems like the author put a lot of effort into constructing this world but realized a lot of it would be left out of the book, so he crammed it into footnotes instead.

Tone and writing style: ★☆☆☆☆ for first half, ★★★☆☆ for second half

The tone of the first half is all over the place, like it doesn’t know if it should be dark and gritty or comical and immature. Footnotes and character dialogue ranges from lighthearted and crass to seeped with themes of torture and sexual assault. It is jarring, to say the least, and often feels like the author doesn’t take these ideas of rape or violence seriously. There are so many instances where the scene is tense or gritty, and Kristoff is actually writing it pretty well, I’m enthralled and on the edge of my seat, and then Mia or some other character (or the footnotes) throw in some stupid comment or make the same “Mia is such an asshole lol” joke for the billionth time and completely ruin the mood of that scene. The second half of the book moved much faster and was helped with way better writing, but it really did not do enough to make up for the horrendous structure of the first half of the book.

Pacing and structure: ★☆☆☆☆

The first half of the book really drags on. Once we arrive at the school, there are constant jumps in timeline, marked with periods when a thousand things happen all at once and the plot moves forward at a dizzying rate, and others when the characters just seem to be going about their daily lessons.

Concept: ★★★☆☆

I found the overall idea of the books to be very interesting, even though it is certainly not the most original or unique concept for a YA fantasy book. The issue is that the potential is squandered with a poor execution.

Characters: ★☆☆☆☆

I truly did not care about any of the characters. The token mean girl, the bumbling nice-guy-who-is-definitely-the-love-interest. too many of the characters just sat nicely within their tropes, doing nothing much to pique my interests. I think my favorite overall was Mister Kindly.

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ocegion · 3 years

Text

Joe hadn’t been able to read a single paragraph in his book for the last fifteen minutes. His eyes couldn’t stay on the page for more than a few seconds before they fleeted over to the other side of the room, fixing on Nicky, who was reading a book of his own. The lamp in the little, narrow bedroom in their current safehouse had a cold, sterile light that that made him look paler than usual, nearly sick. His gaze trailed on the way Nicky’s fingers twitched on the edge of the page, again and again, before they unconsciously rose up to brush the exact point on his neck where he’d been sedated, little more than 24 hours before.

He’d had a bullet come out the back of his head, and yet it was that syringe, the sensation of its prickle faded before its effect could even kick in, that had his body dealing with the aftermath.

For Joe, it was the sensation of his bound wrists. The feeling of his skin tearing and healing as he pulled and pulled as hard as he could, as hard as he’d pulled in his long life, and earned nothing to show for it but the worry he saw in Nicky’s eyes from the bed next to his.

Pain was easy to brush off at this point. Not so much what came along it.

Joe sighed, minute and silent, barely more than an exhale, and closed his book. Nicky hadn’t given any sign of having being paying attention to him, but he closed his own book as well immediately after. His eyes remained on the cover for one, two, three seconds before looking at Joe, expectant.

‘We need to talk.’

No one else would have noticed the way Nicky’s lips twitched, less than half an inch, less than half a second. But no one else had spent centuries studying that face. Joe studied it once more, never tired of it, took in the way the other waited for him to go on.

He shook his head lightly, crossed his arms.

‘So twenty years, huh?’

Nicky tried his best to remain stoic, but the edge of his lips twitched again in a far more noticeable manner now. Slowly, he mirrored Joe’s position, a slight tension giving a square shape to his shoulders.

‘A hundred years, Joe. We settled on a hundred.’

‘That’s not what you wanted. You wanted to make it twenty.’

‘What does it matter? I agreed on a hundred, we all agreed on it, and I’m going to stick with that’ the other said, voice even, the layer of frustration under his voice barely even there. ‘Do you think I’m going to sneak behind your back to send him text messages? I’m not that childish. I can commit to what I say.’

‘You’re not that obtuse either’ Joe huffed, rolling his eyes. ‘You know what I’m getting at.’

‘You expressed your opinion, and so did I. We didn’t agree at first, so what?’ Nicky’s lips thinned and he crossed his arms tighter, nearly petulant. ‘We’re far past thinking we should be of a single mind about every single subject. You know that as well as I do.’

Joe stood up, his jaw twitching in annoyance, his fingers tapping repeatedly on his bicep. He took two steps closer, more than half the distance between them. Nicky raised his eyes at him, but remained unimpressed. ‘I know that. I know you. Which is why I’m having such a hard time believing you think Booker deserved as little as that.’

The scowl on Nicky’s face faltered, and again it was just long enough to be noticed by someone who knew those features better than his own. He looked away, at the floor to the right of Joe’s feet, and shifted in his seat. ‘Booker betrayed us, he exposed us and put us at risk, and he has to answer for that. I’m not denying that, Joe, I’m not. But how can we ignore what drove him to betraying us in the first place?’ He met Joe’s eyes, his own wide open, earnest, as if honestly looking for an answer. ‘A hundred years is going to leave all of us worse off than we’re now. Leave him worse. Do you really not feel at all like we’re making a mistake?’

‘Don’t be self-righteous, it doesn’t suit you.’

‘And it’s not like I was letting it slide with an apology, like Nile’ Nicky continued, pointedly ignoring Joe. ‘Twenty felt like enough to get the point across.’

‘Nile is young and she is soft. Life will take those things from her, and I have no intention of speeding up the process. But you, Nico, you should know better than that. You know what he’s done deserves far more than twenty. That’s letting him go with a warning. A symbolic punishment.’

‘To us, but not to him’ Nicky raised. ‘It’s so much more to him. He’s barely older than Nile. He’s almost a child.’

‘A brat, that’s what he is’ Joe huffed, narrowing his eyes. ‘A selfish brat who doesn’t want to grow up because he likes wallowing in self pity in the corners saying no one understands him. And you know what? Maybe he’s right and we don’t. I don’t care. That doesn’t give him the right to drag us down with him, to resent us for daring to be happy. Don’t forget, Nicky’ he added, pointing a finger, ‘that this isn’t about him, or about getting a point across. It’s about the time we need to get past that stunt of his. I can’t speak for you, but twenty years isn’t going to cut it for me to forget he was willing to have all of us tied to a lab table being experimented on for who knows how long. We have a right to be angry.’

Nicky didn’t immediately answer, just stared for a long moment, jaw tense, and then looked down. Joe managed to stay firm for about ten seconds before he couldn’t keep the angrily stern look on his face. Closing his eyes, he let out a long, deep sigh, the frustration and roughness leaving him as the air left his lungs. He felt like a wound that had had the scab ripped off, exposing the flesh underneath, an angry, furious shade of red, but most of all tender and vulnerable.

He found himself getting into his knees, making a space for himself between Nicky’s legs as he reached for the man’s hand, meeting no resistance at all. He held it, gently, then brought his other hand around it so that he was sheltering it between his own. He kissed it once, twice, thrice, then brought it up to his face, held it against his cheek. Nicky’s thumb gingerly brushed against his jawbone, and Joe sighed again. Their eyes met, both calm this time, searching the depths of the other’s gaze.

‘I know what you’re thinking. But Nicky, you’re allowed to be angry. You know that, right? You are.’

Nicky didn’t immediately answer. He escaped Joe’s gentle yet firm eyes, jaw clenching as he swallowed hard and his lips twisted into an uneasy grimace. Not at Joe, just at it all.

‘He did what he did because he felt alone. How are we supposed to look him in the eye after leaving him on his own for a hundred years? Tell him we didn’t care he was suffering on his own, then act like nothing happened? I don’t know how I can do that.’ He stopped, waited a long moment, then added, unsure, ‘Do you think…? Have we ever given him reason to think we don’t care?’

‘No’ Joe replied immediately, gentle but giving no room to argument. ‘Andy knows we care for her and would do anything for her, and it’s not our fault Booker didn’t want to see it too. Even if it was, he had no reason to keep it all to himself and then blame us for not being able to read his mind. He’s not a kid and he’s not a moody teen, either. He’s been an adult for nearly three centuries, it’s about time he learned to act like one. That includes learning he can’t wipe it all away when he fucks up just by saying he’s sad. You’d agree with me if it was anyone else.’

It was, mostly, things that they’d already said the previous day, but Joe knew Nicky needed to hear them again, in private, calmly, from him. Needed it so he could accept it.

‘He’s our friend’ Nicky tried one last time, unsure.

‘He’s our friend,’ Joe accepted with a nod, ‘and he betrayed us both. He betrayed us all. He betrayed Andy as if she hadn’t given us her everything since the very beginning. He betrayed Nile and he didn’t even care that she’s a kid going through the most terrifying moment in her life, he was willing to have her experimented on all the same. How am I supposed to act like he deserves having his feelings taken into account over ours?’ He reached out, brushed his fingertips on Nicky’s chin, asking for him to look at him again. ‘Nicky, he had you tied to that table. I can’t forgive that within a lifetime.’

Nicky’s eyes were still cast down, his expression tense, conflicted. Joe’s thumb dragged along his chin, traced the edge of his lips.

‘He had me tied to that table to be tortured until I died. Are you okay with that? Nicolò, do you expect me to believe you’re not angry about what he did to me?’

Nicky’s eyes shot up, sharp and full of a cold clarity. ‘Of course I’m angry’ he said, and his words shook with the latent strain underneath he no longer bothered to hide. ‘I’m furious. I’m confused and I’m hurt. I swear to God that I’d kill him with my own hands if he were here. I hate him, Joe. I don’t want to, but I hate him.’.

‘Nicky, let yourself be angry. It’s alright. You don’t need to be the better person, not when he’s hurt us like this.’

Nicky brusquely stood up, taking Joe with him so he could embrace him. He wrapped his arms so tightly around him that they shook, fisted his hands on his back until they dug into his flesh, hid his face on Joe’s neck to the point he feared he’d suffocate himself. Still, all Joe did was hush him and lovingly return the embrace.

‘He heard us talk about Quynh and he said nothing’ Nicky said, the strain stronger now, making the words come out in uneven exhales of hot air on Joe’s skin. ‘He had already set us up to suffer the same way she did and heard us talk about how much we feared it and he just- He said nothing. He could have told us what he’d done, give us enough time to run, and I would have understood why he did it and forgiven him. But- He didn’t care. He didn’t, Joe, he didn’t. I can’t believe- I wanted to hurt him, when he told us. I wanted to make him feel it, and I feel awful about it. And then I get angry because I shouldn’t be the one feeling bad. Of course I’m angry. How could I not be?’

Joe didn’t say anything, just caressed his head, kissed his temple, encouraged him to go on.

‘I just- I can’t understand it. I’m trying to, but I can’t. And all I can think of is that he must have been suffering so much and we didn’t even notice, because I can’t understand how he could be so selfish. We’re his family. We’ve tried to be, at least, but he clearly doesn’t feel that way, and I want to understand when and how we failed him so much, and if I’m angry at him then I’m not going to figure it out and I can fix nothing and it’ll be the same, so I can’t be angry, and that makes me feel worse, and I just-’

‘You can be angry’ Joe repeated, soothing, gently rocking Nicky with him. Nicky didn’t protest the interruption, just inhaled deeply and buried himself deeper in Joe. ‘You need to be angry. He’s got to deal with this shit, but we have to deal with it too. That’s not gonna happen if we don’t accept it. I know sometimes it’s hard for you to be selfish, but please, Nico, be selfish. Accept it. Tell yourself it’s okay to let him face consequences and forget about him until then. I don’t want you to still be hurt over this in a hundred years, alright? Promise me.’

Nicky didn’t say anything back, but the small nod Joe felt on his shoulder was more than enough for him. He breathed in, filling his lungs as much as they would with Nicky’s scent, still needing to make sure he was there with him, safely in his arms.

For a long, long moment neither of them spoke. Then, Joe let out a shaky chuckle.

‘I was terrified’ he confessed, his tone nearly cheerful as the hysteric tension finally left his body after having been kept in for so long. ‘I’ve forgotten the last time I felt so scared. I was terrified of them actually figuring something out and then I’d lose you. Or I’d leave you alone. I’m going to have nightmares about yesterday for years. I can’t just brush that off. I can’t and I don’t want to, and I’d like to think I have a right to that.’ He realized a tear was falling down his cheek, and he promptly let the rest follow suit. He buried his face in Nicky’s hair and let out a sound that was halfway between gasp and sob.

Nicky’s grip tightened even more, then loosened, just a bit. He waited for a long moment, waiting to see if Joe had to let any more else out, and then drew back, just enough to be able to look at his face. He cupped his cheeks with his hands, brushed a teardrop off, and came closer, kindly pressing their lips together.

‘I was being selfish’ he muttered against Joe’s face. ‘I didn’t want to even think about it and didn’t realize you needed to talk about it. That I made you think I didn’t care. I’m sorry, Joe. I’m so, so sorry.’

Joe shook his head, denying the apology, the need for it. Nicky scowled, took air, but Joe beat him to it before he had time to complain. ‘I needed to know that you understood me’ he admitted, his smile weak but more genuine than he’d been able to muster lately. ‘Of course I know you care, Nicky. You always do. And I have no doubts about what we did. But it helps, hearing it’s just not me.’

Nicky still looked unconvinced, but he said nothing, merely shaking his head instead. He caressed Joe’s cheek agan, then pressed his forehead to his neck. He let out a tired chuckle.

‘And I say Booker’s a child. Look at me. You’d think emotion management would be something I’d have under control by now.’

‘We’re still human, Nico’ Joe supplied kindly. ‘That’s the one thing we’re never going to outgrow.’

Joe patted Nicky on the back, directing him towards the bed, and the other presented no effort otherwise. They lied down, side by side looking into each other’s eye. Their hands were joined in between them, and their faces so close that their breaths mixed, hot on their faces. For a long while, that was all they did.

‘He’s right, you know’ Nicky eventually said, barely more than a whisper. ‘We’re lucky. We’ve always had each other. If it hadn’t been like that… I couldn’t function. I don’t want to know the person I’d have become if you’d never been there. He would have done much worse things than Booker.’

‘You wouldn’t’ Joe complained, and Nicky let out a laugh before going in for a kiss. Joe’s features softened immediately, and his eyes were warm with tenderness when they parted.

Nicky had had nightmares, too, and had spent the day afraid of going back to sleep. Now, his eyes went over Joe’s face once more, taking in every inch of his skin, and had no doubt that when he showed up in his dreams that night, this would be what he looked like.

‘I’m glad we never have to find out.’

#Yusuf al Kaysani #Nicolo di Genova #joenicky #kaysanova #my writing

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browniefox · 3 years

Text

Waking from the Long Winter

Ace Attorney - 5K Words

Phoenix Wright and a few moments during the ten weeks it takes to receive results from the Bar Exam.

A one-shot written solely for the half-joke I make within the first couple paragraphs lol. Character exploration of Phoenix finding himself again. Hinted narumitsu but just hinted.

oOo

Phoenix is sure there’s a joke here, somewhere.

Something about a lawyer walking into a bar, and then knowing to duck the second time. Or maybe not ducking, but running into it at top speed. Or trying to vault over the bar and getting his feet caught on it and falling on his face instead. There’s something there, he’s sure of it. More than anything, however, Phoenix wishes his brain would focus on the Actual Bar Exam instead of trying to make this stupid joke work.

He took the bar once before, of course. His memory of having done so, however, is shaky at best. Trying to look back at it, it’s nothing more than two days of pure stress. If he tries to pin the experience down to a word, it's just a really long and drawn out scream.

Taking the bar the second time, ten years later, is… different.

Phoenix studied, of course. Apollo had still had his flashcards and big binder full of notes. Slow days in the office were often punctuated with spontaneous quizzing on terms and laws and procedures. He’d spent late nights reading big law books and then falling asleep on top of them like he was in college again. He sat in on a lot of trials, reviewing the roles of the people in the court.

Now that he’s finally actually taking the Bar, it’s like a math test.

Obvious not as far as subject matter went. But it reminds him strongly of what taking a math test back in middle/high school had been like. Going into it scared and then being surprised by how quickly and easily he seemed to go through the questions. Of course, that also always ended with him getting the test back with a million red marks that revealed the test hadn’t been easy, he’d just been dumb.

For the first five minutes, nerves making Phoenix fidgety, the Bar exam had been scary and the words had refused to form comprehensive sentences. He’s pretty sure he almost had a panic attack. But then the five minutes pass, and Phoenix takes a few deep breaths, and when he opens his eyes again, he realizes he actually does know this stuff.

He was a lawyer, once, seven years ago. It feels like that should be more than enough time for him to have forgotten what being one was like, for all of the words to have become greek to him once more. And yet, his previous cases stick out to him on the page. Yes, he remembers using evidence law for the Skye case, he knows this. Ah, yes, he remembers studying this case because it reminds him of the Powers one. There’s even a question about spirit mediums at one point and Phoenix almost laughs out loud.

It probably also doesn’t hurt that he’d kept his enemies close during his disbarment, as well as working on MASON.

Kristoph had often asked for Phoenix’s opinion on cases, setting out the evidence and asking for the ex-lawyer’s input and expertise. He wonders if it was supposed to sting, if Kristoph had been trying to rub salt into the wound. If so, he had succeeded, sometimes. Other times, it’d been nice to fall back into those familiar ways of thinking, of trying to piece together a story, of trying to find justice.

Phoenix would never ever thank Kristoph for anything ever, but he did admit there were unexpected rewards for having put up with him for so long.

oOo

Paying for a barber hasn’t exactly been in the budget for years.

Not that there weren’t places you could get a haircut at fairly cheap, but every single dollar and penny counted. Even the months where things looked alright, where there was a comfortable sum left over after rent and taxes and food, most of it was set aside for when the rough times would return. They always did.

“Just a trim?” Trucy asks. She wears the fake mustache she insists on wearing every time he asks her to cut his hair. Her own was just trimmed by him, the floor littered with split ends. There’s layers throughout it, and now that it’s started to dry back out he can see his handiwork and nods to himself. The days of terrible and uneven cuts while trying to watch a video tutorial are well behind both of them, years of practice instead showing through.

The swivel chair from the desk has been moved into the bathroom and Phoenix looks at himself in the mirror, his hair for once not bunched up inside of his beanie. It’s long enough to pull back with a hair tie. Trucy is already gearing up to cut off an inch, the same inch she cuts off every time to keep it from getting too long. For years, that’s been the only reason to cut his hair. He runs his fingers through it. It’s to his shoulders right now and he blinks when he realizes that he hates it.

He hates how the long strands get in his face. He hates how sometimes he pulls his beanie off and his hair is staticy. He hates how if he doesn’t pull it back while cooking, if he has something on his hands, he has to awkwardly flick his head in usually-futile attempts to get the hair out of the way.

He hates it and he’s hated it for a while. But for some reason, every time before now, it’s felt easier and safer to keep it long and annoying.

“Actually,” He says, and then hesitates. He’s had his hair like this for so long now, and shorter hair… He steels himself and straightens a bit, “Actually, Truce, could you go a little shorter this time? Just, you know, a little-”

“Don’t worry, daddy, leave it to me!”

There’s a mischievous little glint in her eyes and Phoenix almost changes his mind, but she’s already spun the chair around and started cutting. Phoenix closes his eyes and waits. Trucy hums as she cuts his hair, and usually she does little tricks with the scissors, but this time she’s just cutting. He tries not to think about how close to his head the scissors sound, how much she must be cutting off. He’d asked her to, and he hates how long it was, and yet now that it’s too late to change his mind he’s nervous.

“Alright!” Trucy chirps and spins him back around to face the mirror. Phoenix opens his eyes.

A young lawyer, full of hope and trust and pure stubbornness, stares back at him.

And then he blinks, and the man has little tired wrinkles around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth and prominently between his eyebrows. He still has the couple-day-old stubble that he had yet to shave. There’s dark shadows under his eyes. He runs a hand through his hair. It spikes up in the back, just like it used to, just like it always has, like how his mom used to hate and try in vain to flatten down.

“Well, what do you think?” Trucy beams at him.

“It’s perfect.” He says.

And it’s true.

oOo

Phoenix has never owned a perfectly tailored suit in his life. He never found an issue with this. Off the rack was just fine, and a lot cheaper, and you didn’t have to worry about anything happening to it.

Apparently Miles thought that this was an issue.

Two weeks after Phoenix took the bar, Miles drags him to get a new suit. Phoenix stresses that his old suit was perfectly fine. He at least assumes it's fine. It is shoved somewhere near the back of his closet and by now is probably made up of as much dust as fabric. But it should still looks like a suit, and he can probably send it to the dry cleaners or something if he ever needs it.

Still, Miles insists on dragging him to get a new suit.

The people there all recognize Miles right of the bat, greeting him as ‘Mr. Edgeworth’, with a lot of ‘So good to see you again’ and ‘Are you here for the usual’ and ‘How is dear Ms. Von Karma doing’. His answers are amicable enough: ‘It’s nice to be back in the country.’ ‘No, not today, I’m here for my friend.’ ‘Franziska is doing well, thank you.’

Phoenix sees how they look at him when they don’t think he can see them. They don’t know that Phoenix is well used to being on guard constantly, no matter the time or place. He cedes that maybe he should’ve worn something today other than his hoodie and beanie and flip flops, especially with how the ‘flip-flop-flip-flop’ is just shy of echoing throughout the large store. He knows they must look an interesting pair, prim and perfect well put together Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth next to disbarred pianist and poker player Phoenix Wright. He doesn’t let it bother him as Miles picks around the room, finding suits that he approves of.

There’s too many shades of blue. Half the time, Miles holds up two and asks which one Phoenix likes more, and they look exactly the same. Still, they eventually end up with a few different ones for Phoenix to try on, and Miles and one of the men - the tailor? Maybe? Or the owner of the store? - walk around Phoenix and critique how it looks on him and then send him back to try on another. It reminds Phoenix how much he hates shopping. The whole process of having to try things on and take them off and then repeat is just a bit too tedious for his sake.

Miles more than Phoenix decides on which suit is best out of the ones he’s picked out, and then Phoenix's measurements are taken so that it can be fixed to fit him just right.

They’re looking at the ties, the last thing to grab before they leave, when Phoenix finally says,

“I haven’t passed the Bar Exam yet.”

Miles pauses for a second, then hangs the white tie back up. He doesn’t turn to face Phoenix but his eyes do glance over.

“You took the test.” He says, and Phoenix can hear the unsaid in there. ‘You took the test, right? You didn’t lie about that? You didn’t purposely sabotage your own test? You haven’t done something incredibly stupid already, have you?’

“I did.” Phoenix nods, and means ‘I really did. I gave it my all. I tried my best, I swear it.’

“Then you’ll need a new suit.” Miles says.

“But I haven’t passed yet.”

“Mm,” Miles hums, grabbing a dark red tie and looking it over, comparing it to the swatch of fabric that matches the color of Phoenix’s new suit, “You’re not going to fail.”

“But-”

“If you fail, then you’ll still have a new suit. There’s more reasons than being an attorney to own a nice suit, you know. If you ever eat somewhere nicer than the Borsch Bowl, for one. Or I have a wide array of incessant events I’m expected to attend throughout the year. They’ll be more manageable if I have someone there with me, but there is usually a dress code. Or perhaps I’ll be in need of a co-council at some point. I could use your eyes, and lord knows they’ll let absolutely anybody co-council, qualifications be damned.”

Miles doesn’t say anything else, and neither does Phoenix. He does, however, pick a wine red tie and add it to the growing stack.

oOo

When he moves the items off of the piano, he’s careful to make sure he remembers where everything goes.

It’s his office, it’s his piano, and while maybe most of the things he takes off aren’t his they also haven’t been touched in weeks, and he doubts that Trucy or Apollo would notice anything different. Still, he feels oddly like a kid sneaking food out of the cupboards while his parents are out. Trucy is setting up for a show and Apollo is out looking at a crime scene. It’s the perfect chance.

He lifts up the covering from the keys of the piano. He sits down on the bench, and a chill rushes over him that isn’t there. He can almost hear the sound of the Borscht Bowl, the clamour of patrons. He’s played this piano so few times, he can count them on one hand. He’d given practice a couple tries when he first got hired, until it became clear that being paid not to play was probably just as lucrative - if not more so - than actually having the skill.

Phoenix rests his hands on the keys, cold ivory under his warm fingers. He’d taken classes, once, years and years ago, when he was small and young. His piano teacher then had been an old and nice woman, but she’d had to stop teaching after a few months due to health problems. He can still find middle C, and that is more or less where his skills end. Usually, when someone requests a song, he plays ‘hot cross buns’ or ‘heart and soul’ or any other classic of the sort.

This time, Phoenix lets himself bang around with wild abandon on the keys, like he had as a kid, caring little for melody or timing or anything at all. The piano is probably out of tune. Not that he can hear that sort of thing, but it's a fair and safe bet to make. The piano hasn’t been played in a long while.

He steps away for a moment and runs a finger over the spines of the books on the shelves until he came across a thin one, so thin that the spine didn’t have any kind of title, just staples holding the pages together. Some hot-shot customer had come into the Borscht Bowl, slapped the ‘Beginner’s Piano Lessons’ book on the top of the piano and declared that Phoenix was going to need it once he was beaten at poker that night.

Of course, Phoenix had won. He got to keep the book anyway. By ‘got to keep’, he meant the customer had punched Phoenix in a fit of rage after losing and had been kicked out, leaving the book behind. Phoenix had kept it.

He isn't any good at reading music, but he has the afternoon to himself. He gets out a pencil, writing the letters above the notes, counting the keys to make sure his fingers land on the right ones. It is slow, and tedious, and not something he has to do. It's something he's doing because he wants to.

oOo

Phoenix has a love-hate relationship with Parent-Teacher Conferences.

He loves to go when the teachers will tell him ‘oh, Trucy is a joy to have in class! Trucy brings such a brightness to the classroom! Trucy is brilliant, what an amazing daughter you have! She’s so talented!’ And then Phoenix gets to beam at Trucy, and Trucy gets to glow under the praise, and then he gets handed her report card that he can place on the fridge so he can look at it every morning and be filled with pride again.

He doesn’t so much like them when the teachers look at him funny.

Look, Phoenix is an adult, he can admit that his appearance took a pretty sharp decline after he was disbarred. But some days it was all he could do to put on the hoodie and beanie, and he had learned pretty early in how to rationalize it all away as ‘putting on an act’, as trying to get Kristoph to underestimate him. However, an adult man who adopted a daughter, and thus had had someone declare him fit to raise a kid, looking like he was one trip to McDonalds away from being completely broke wasn’t always the best way to present one’s self to other adults, especially ones on high alert make sure their students were in a stable living condition.

One time, Trucy had even had to warn him to clean up a bit. She’d picked up on the worried questions her teacher had been asking her, about how often she ate and what her dad did for a living. Phoenix had put on actual shoes and a button up for that PTC. The teacher had still looked at him suspiciously, but he’d done his best to exude confidence and ‘I’m perfectly capable of raising a child on my own’. He couldn’t risk losing Trucy. If he lost Trucy…

He can’t lose Trucy.

Of course, the days of those sorts of PTC’s are behind them. Now that Trucy’s in high school and has eight different teachers, PTC’s consist of going between the school’s cafeteria and library to find Trucy’s teachers, get told if she’s a good student or a distraction or doing well or doing poorly, and then heading right to the next teacher. Some teachers they just outright skip, like Trucy’s gym teachers.

“C’mon Daddy, you have to dress up too!”

Trucy spins around in her magician outfit. The straplessness of the dress made it against the school’s dress code, so she never got to wear it to classes. She’d been talking about showing it off during the PTC, when school wasn’t technically in session, and Phoenix knew that she was probably going to take the chance to dazzle her teachers with some of her smaller tricks as well.

Put that in the list of reasons why he did like PTC: getting to see people be amazed with Trucy’s close-up magic tricks.

“Trucy,” Phoenix sighs.

“No, please? I always get dressed up, and you never do.” She pouts, crossing her arms.

“That’s because you’re the star of the show tonight.”

“But you’re my assistant! Please, just this once? I know you don’t like getting dressed up, but...” And then Trucy hesitates, which is so unlike her it catches Phoenix’s attention right away, “But I’d like it.” She finishes. For a moment, the room is plunged into darkness that only Phoenix can see as chains shoot out of nowhere and a single psych-lock places itself in front of Trucy.

Phoenix sighs one more time. He’s not going to pry, not unless it becomes a big deal.

“Sure, can’t have you performing with a sub-par partner.” He relents and Trucy claps her hand excitedly.

He goes back into his room, reaching for a button down. Something simple, he figures. Just something a little nicer than usual.

And he sees the suit Miles had bought him.

It’s in a big black bag to keep it safe from dust or whatever. Almost without thinking to, he takes the hanger off the rack and sets it on his bed, unzipping the bag and looking at the suit. It’s so much like to his old one. He runs a hand over it and then almost puts it back. But if he can’t wear it to a PTC, how can he wear it to any of the myriad of events Miles had listed off? He used to wear a suit everywhere. It had been border-line mandatory.

“Hurry up, Daddy, or we’ll be late!”

Phoenix jumps at the banging on his door.

“Just a minute, sweetie!” He shouts back.

It feels… different. He blames that on the light blue waistcoat that Edgeworth had insisted on. That, and the fact that it was a suit that was made to fit him exactly. His old suit had been second-hand, all that he’d been able to afford at the time. The blue, what many people seemed to remember about him, had been due to lack of options rather than real choice.

He looks at himself in the mirror, running a wet hand through his hair to try and get it into some semblance of presentable. He still has his stubble. He hadn’t shaved this morning. It’s not too late to tear off the jacket and vest and go with his original plan of just a button up.

“Daddy!” Trucy calls again.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” He shouts back, and with one last look at himself, one last effort to convince himself he looks fine, leaves his apartment looking more like the Turnabout Terror than he has in years.

oOo

More of Miles’ things seem to come weekly.

Apparently Franziska is doing a deep and thorough cleaning of the Von Karma estate. She keeps finding more things, and so boxes and boxes turn up on Miles’ doorstep.

Phoenix finds himself spending a lot of his time in Miles’ office, and it means he ends up spending a lot of time helping Miles unpack boxes. Some of them are things that really shouldn’t have surprised Phoenix, like Steel Samurai manga and dvds that Franziska has unearthed from hidden corners of the estate. Miles had admitted he’d kept them anywhere he thought Manfred wouldn’t look. Other little things like that showed up - small mementos or notes, most of which seem innocuous, but that Miles insists would’ve been disapproved of.

There are also other things, like pens or books or pictures. Some of these do belong to Miles while others of them are items Franziska 'didn’t wish to hold on to any longer’. While that seemed to be the case with some, it only took looking at Miles face to confirm for Phoenix that a lot of them had secret sentimental value.

He never understood their relationship. He’d been an only child, and while there were people he was close to, he’d never grown up in the same building with them, nor under the harsh condition Miles and Franziska had. He's glad he doesn't have to jump through the weird hoops and unsaid rules that Miles and Franziska do when navigating anything to do with the other.

“Okay, you can’t tell me these are important.” Phoenix holds up a pair of scissors. They’re cold and pure metal, no plastic handle like the three pairs Phoenix himself owns. All three of them always go missing at the same time too, which completley defeatst he point of having so many pairs.

Miles sighs and rolls his eyes. He’s sitting on the ground in front of the bookshelf. With the most recent influx of books, alphabetizing them means that the previous books need to be pushed to the next shelf, and it has created a chain of necessary rearrangement to every subsequent shelf as well. Phoenix has seen Miles force the work onto some younger prosecutors or even unlucky detectives, but with Phoenix here he does it himself.

“Open them up.” He says and Phoenix does just that. There are initials welded into the metal, M.E.V.K. Phoenix raises his eyebrows.

“Miles Edgeworth… Von Karma?” He says, just to be sure, and Miles nods.

“Mm, yes. Those are my shears. Franziska insisted on the initials so that if I ruined my pair, she’d be able to tell they were mine right away, and I wouldn’t be able to try and steal hers. She took them to get initialed herself.”

He speaks of the event with the calm and cool that is so Edgeworth, but Phoenix has learned to read between lines. He runs a finger over the four initials. Von Karma. The household Edgeworth had lived in and belonged to in all but the official name change. The name that he was able to carry on these shears.

“I’ll put them in your desk.” Phoenix says instead of the millions of other responses running through his head. He’s standing in front of it anyway. He pulls open the first drawer as Miles says,

“No, I’ll be taking them home. They’re fabric scissors, Phoenix. Using them on paper will ruin them.”

Phoenix’s response to that completely leaves his head when he sees the small golden pin in the drawer.

“What’s this?” He says, more to himself than Miles. He knows what it is, and yet he asks anyway. It’s a defense attorney pin. He can see the petals, the image of scales in the center. It’s not as if he hasn’t seen one recently, he has defense attorneys working for him, after all. But it’s so out of place to see one in Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth’s office that it takes him completely by surprise. He picks it up, turning it this way and that.

“Is this... your dad’s?” He asks, the first answer that comes to mind.

“Is what- oh. No. It isn’t.” Miles is looking over now, and there’s something in his voice that makes Phoenix’s brow furrow. He sounds… hesitant? Scared? Nervous? None of those seemed quite right, but Miles didn’t seem completely at ease. Phoenix returned his focus to the pin.

There are teeth marks in it, like someone had bit into it at one point. The edges of it are worn slightly, softened with time. It’s nostalgic to look at.

It’s even more nostalgic to turn over and see the number 26381.

“Wait, this is…!” Phoenix stares at the number, the number that is burned into his memory. He’d memorized it soon after receiving the pin. It was his number, the number that meant he was really a lawyer, that he had done it.

“... yes. It is.” Phoenix looks back up. Miles is still looking at him, the odd expression still there. Not hesitance, not nervousness, not fear.

Anticipation. Miles is sitting there, watching in anticipation, as Phoenix finds his old defense attorney’s badge in Miles’ desk.

“You have my badge.” Phoenix says. He turns it back around to stare at the face. Yes, that bite mark… that was from Ema, wasn’t it?

“I do.” Miles confirms.

“Why?” Phoenix says. He weighs the small pin in his hand and then tosses it, catching it easily enough. It’s so light and small.

Miles considers both Phoenix and the pin, eyes tracking the movement of the pin as it goes up in the air again and then returns to Phoenix’s palm.

“I didn’t want anyone else to have it.” He says. He’s still anticipating something.

“I see,” Phoenix says. And… he thinks he does, “You never told me. Would’ve been a lot easier to have given it to you personally instead of having to take it off and give it to the board.” He gives Miles a half grin.

“They wouldn’t have accepted that. They’d be upset with you.”

“What would they do? Disbar me?” Phoenix jokes. Miles looks like he’s trying not to crack a smile at the joke. It’s a joke at Phoenix’s expense, but the pain of the event has been numbed by time, and the joke is made to Miles.

“I suppose there wasn’t much they could do at that point, no,” Miles agrees, “It would’ve been easier to have gotten it from you personally. I had to pull some strings to get it.”

“And you didn’t tell me.” Phoenix brings up again.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“I thought you’d want it back.” Miles answers honestly.

Phoenix looks back down at the pin, his pin. He can see himself, six or five or even three years ago, finding out that Miles had his pin and begging the man to give it back to him. It had meant so much to him. Its absence had meant even more. It wasn’t as if he would’ve been able to do anything more with it than Miles had been doing; he’d have stuck it in a drawer, and on his worse days he would’ve pulled it out and cried over the small piece of metal.

Maybe if he’d found out a few years earlier, he would’ve been upset at Miles for not telling him, for keeping this from him. It was his badge, after all.

But now, seeing it placed in the top drawer of Miles’ desk where he could quickly open it and look at it whenever he’d wanted to, it fills Phoenix with something warm. This whole time, it hadn’t been locked away somewhere, or handed off to some rookie, or tossed away. It had been with Miles, watched over, polished, kept safe.

“Thank you.” Phoenix puts it back into the shelf, closing the drawer. The anticipation finally leaves Miles to be replaced with relief.

“It was my pleasure.” Miles smiles, and Phoenix returns it.

oOo

A lawyer doesn’t cry until it’s over.

For seven long and painful years, through even terrible twist and turn in the road, Phoenix hadn’t cried. Oh, he’d come close several times. Times where everything had started to get to him, when his chest had shaken with the sobs he so desperately wanted to let out, when he was reminded that he wasn’t a lawyer anymore, that the rule wasn’t his rule anymore. And yet the tears never came. His face stayed dry. And he’d rise again to carry on.

The packet comes in the mail ten months after the test.

It’s thick and heavy. He’s home alone, Trucy at school and Apollo doing some last-minute preparation for a trial. Sometimes it seems like the kid has better luck getting clients than Phoenix ever did.

He knows what the packet is the moment he sees it in the mail slot. He feels numb as he carries it to his apartment. He considers waiting to open it, but that seems like putting himself through unnecessary cruelty.

There’s a knife in the kitchen and he grabs it so he can cleanly slice open the top. It feels wrong to rip into it like an animal.

His shoulders shake as he slips the knife under the flap, his eyesight becomes blurry as he cleanly cuts across the top.

Win or lose, pass or fail, Phoenix thinks he knows how Godot felt at that trial. He imagines that if someone was watching him with the magatama, they’d see a final psyche-lock, placed firmly there when Phoenix had first started to close himself off for the war against Gavin, break apart.

Alone, in his apartment, for the first time in seven years, Phoenix cries.

It finally feels like it’s over.

#ace attorney #phoenix wright #fanfiction #fanfic #browniefox writes #i shall post fic here #as a treat to myself

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fawnofmythos · 3 years

Text

Not My Name (Part 1)

Summary: soulmate au with Jason Todd. People have their soulmate’s name on them from birth. When the reader meets Jason Todd, they recognize his name as the one sprawled across their inner thigh. However, the reader has been going by a pseudonym. How long will it be until they give in to the urge to outs themselves and potentially be put at risk?

Warnings: cursing. Some angst and thriller.

The burner phone wedged between your ear and shoulder rang as you waited for your friend to pick up. Acrid odors greeted your nostrils as you stepped off the subway, piss most likely. You were still surprised that cell phone coverage had extended even this far down. Gotham just didn’t seem to be the type of place to have tech in their subway stations. At all.

Paranoia slowly sunk it’s claws into you as you glanced around. You pulled the bill of your cap down further. You tried to seem as grounded and not, well, scared as you were. Stay invisible.

“Hey,” the gentle voice of your friend greeted as he picked up, pushing your anxieties aside just a bit. “I take it you just got off the subway?”

“Yeah... at 14th,” you responded quietly.

“Okay, head south,” he paused. “You still have the address?” You responded affirmatively. “Good, keys under the mat. Shitty hiding spot I know but it’s only been there like an hour.” He attempted to lighten the mood and you appreciated it, a small smile lighting face.

“Remember to avoid cameras! ATMs have them so I had the bank send a second credit card to the apartment. They’ll think I’m on a business trip to Gotham so no problems there.”

“I’ll pay you back I-“

He scoffed. “None of that. I’m a fucking lawyer working for the biggest firm in America. I think I can take on some financial burden to protect my best friend.” The emphasis on the word ‘burden’ made your lips twitched into a small smile. Sarcastic bastard. A beat of silence passed as you ascended the stairs. It had been so long since you had been to this city and you paused to look around. The promise of impending fall lingered in the air as you noted a slight chill go through your body. Good, you thought, more layers would be easier to hid in.

“I-” you cut yourself off with a sigh, knowing how stubborn he could be. “Thank you, Tom.”

You could tell from his chuckle that he was pleased. “Security at the building knows you’re staying in my apartment and won’t bother you. Be warned, there are cameras in the lobby but try not to seem suspicious, alright?”

“Did you give them my fake name?”

“Yeah...” you could hear him shuffling around a bit, his dog barking in the distance. “Make sure to check in frequently. Nick and I will look into our next options, alright?” You agreed. “Alright, gotta go. Love you, call me soon!”

“Love you too,” you mumbled while hanging up.

As you moved through the dreary city, you kept your head down and simply dodged any oncoming people. The dark towering buildings of Gotham caged you in but at the same time, gave you a little hope that you would be hidden within it’s shadows. The walk was short and easy, but unnerving. The hair on the back of your neck stood on end, it felt like eyes were on you at all times. You didn’t breath easily until you were in the comfort of Tom’s apartment.

Even though you were happy to be away from people, you still did a sweep of the apartment, making sure nothing was out of place and nothing was suspicious. You knew it was unlikely that anyone knew you were here or that it had been bugged, it helped easy your nerves just a little bit. The second thing you did was unpack your large duffle bag. Beyond clothing and necessities, all it really had was your official papers (id, passport, etc), a phone charger, and a pistol. You let out an uneven breath as you placed the weapon on the table. This is the safety lock. Be careful there is recoil with it. Arms like this, yeah. Nick’s words rang in your head, this was real. You were shocked by how heavy it was and still couldn’t see yourself using it even in self defense.

“Credit card,” you mumbled to yourself, breaking the spell of the glinting metal. You needed food and food required money so unfortunately that meant braving the world one more time. “Fuck.” With a sigh, you rubbed your hand over your face, tired and drained.

You grabbed the hat one more time, a common Gotham Knights baseball cap and fixed it to cover your face. The plain, baggy navy hoodie worked to obscure your figure. One more look over confirmed that you looked like an everyday Gothamite. Deep breaths.

You avoided the elevator, less chance of being on camera, bonus: less people. The card was in the mail, just like promised and you headed once more out to the streets.

About an hour later you were a block away from the apartment building, arms laden with bags. It was going fine, no one paid you attention (though the burning feeling of eyes on you persisted). A sharp hit to your shoulder sent your bags flying, eliciting curses from you, directed at the man that bumped you. He looked at you, surprised as though you had materialized out of nowhere.

“Seriously dude?”

“Shit, sorry,” his voice was rough. He shoved a hand through his black hair a shock of white in the front, looking flustered. You gave him a roll of your eyes but mumbled something along the lines of ‘yeah it’s fine.’

He awkwardly helped you gather the strewn groceries. Had your anxieties not been going haywire, you would have noted that he was attractive with blue eyes, and a tall, muscular body. When you had all your bags back, you walked away, ignoring the fact that he looked like he wanted to say something else.

Back in the apartment you kept yourself together long enough to put away the groceries. By then you were too tired to cook and the anxiety had left you with no hunger.

You paced in the living room, which was an open concept with the kitchen, giving you a direct eye line to the daunting gun on the table. By the time your feet were tired, you were able to at least sit down and realize pacing solved nothing. Unfortunately. You decided another sweep of the apartment may help though, so thats what you did.

After debating it for far too long, you took the gun into the bedroom and placed it in the nightstand. The bedroom was typical with white walls and nice furniture. The comfortable looking sky blue duvet was no surprise. Suddenly you were appreciative of Tom’s taste for the finer things. The apartment overall was very nice and you couldn’t fault it. Thankfully he was also concerned with security, you mused. Your nightly routine was short and you quickly got into bed before you could get yourself stuck in another loop of bad coping mechanisms. Maybe something else would help you relax, the tense muscles of your shoulders beginning to ache.

You picked up the book on the opposite nightstand and began to read. The words ran together and you couldn’t untangle them, causing you to re-read the same paragraph over and over. Then you attempted to meditate. All you saw was red and yellow and orange. You glanced to the nightstand where his white noise machine sat. When in Rome... Almost immediately you regretted that decision as the noise simply overwhelmed you.

After a few minutes of sitting in silence, the room dark, your eyes felt heavy, but your anxieties spiked. You tried to sleep anyway. Eventually, the world faded away and you slept. It was not restful.

You hummed as you stirred the ingredients in a bowl. A song played that you kind of knew - not enough to sing but enough to sway your hips. Your apartment was cozy and exactly how you wanted it. Intense eyes stared at you from the window of your apartment, you could feel his fiery gaze.

Burning. Burning. Burning.

The bowl slipped from your hands, flames rose from the stove, the oven roared to life.

“Mine.” His voice melded with the sound of the flames. “You are mine. Do not run from me.”

As the flames spread around you and your apartment fell away, he rose before you. Intimidating figure cut from stone, eyes of fire, hair of gold. The god he thought himself to be, brought to life.

Breathe.

The roar and crackle of the fire intensified until it was so loud you had to clamp your hands over your ears. The god’s lips move, smiling as he does. The words his lips formed repeated. Over and over. Over and over.

Slowly, you removed your hands to be met by not a roar but deafening silence. You couldn’t hear the god. Now, you could read his lips, “I will find you. Do not worry. I am coming. I love you.”

Breathe, fucking breathe.

#jason todd x reader #jason todd x you #jason todd fanfiction #jason todd imagine #jason todd x y/n #dc comics reader insert #oof I am r u s t y #not my name fic

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katlyn1948 · 4 years

Text

I Love You

Katlyn1948

Summary:

Arya and Gendry talk...and other things

Notes:

So...when I say that this story wrote its self, I mean it wrote its self. It took me four hours in the span of two days with good old fashioned pen and paper. I think it took me longer to transfer it to my tablet then to actually write it. This is also based off an Alex and Sierra song that I will link (or try to) and it a part of a bigger series that I have been wanting to do for sometime. I have a Spotify playlist for these two characters and there are a lot of songs that I want to write one shots off of and I just so happened to start with this song. I have NO IDEA when or what the next will be, but I’m sure it will be fun.

I am still working on Firestorm (I have a few more paragraphs to write) and I am working on the next part to “Lover” (it will be smut, you have been warned). I plan to upload all of them come next weekend, since it is Thanksgiving in the states. I am also working on my Arya/Gendry secret Santa, that I can’t wait to share!

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy!!

Work Text:

https://open.spotify.com/track/2ELVVIbpucfOqGFC21Q4yR?si=dHYuguzAT0Grj5jjv-s4Ug

The air in the sky emitted a cool breeze that made the sea waves shift amongst the red castle. If one were to look beyond the horizon, there would never be an inclination that the city behind the giant stone walls now was nothing more than a pile of ash and rubble.

In the two months since the Battle of King’s Landing and Daenerys’ rise to power, little effort had been made to rebuild. It wasn’t for lack of trying, for the new queen, along with her king regent, made it their top priority to mend the fractured ruins. However, the sheer amount of what had to be done made it seem as if little had been touched.

Arya herself helped in any way that she could, if it meant that she could distance herself from Gendry. She hadn’t mustered the courage to go to him and explain her wrong doings. It was cowardly and so unlike the young assassin that it warranted feelings she had yet to experience within herself.

Self-loathing had not been an emotion that Arya had had the pleasure of experiencing, but after the long night, she seemed to be doing a lot of self-loathing. The only way to quench that heat was to speak to Gendry. She knew that eventually, she would have to. Of course, being the way she was he would have to be the one the conversation. She just had to get him alone.

It was nearing sunset as Arya stood on the dock of King’s Landing; one of the few places left untouched by wildfire, waiting for Gendry to make his appearance.

She had written him a letter earlier in the day asking him to make his way to the docks after supper. She hoped he would comply, his curiosity getting the better of him. However, in the off chance that he didn’t show, Arya would mentally have to prepare for that.

She was unsure how angry Gendry was with her, if he would be able to even stand being in her presence. If she were in his boots, she would be irrevocably furious at her. In fact, she was. She was angry with herself and her stupidity.

There were only a few times in her life were she could blatantly acknowledge her undeniable stubbornness that caused her say or do stupid things.

The night after the battle was one of those stupid times.

It was pathetic really, how the stubborn bull had awakened a part of her she never knew existed. There were feeling that sparked the moment she saw him ride into Winterfell on some white horse. Much like the princes and knights in one of Sansa’s stupid fairytales. It was ridiculous that such a sight made her stomach knot in certain, unfamiliar ways. On the other hand, how the steam that bellowed from behind him as he worked on the dragon glass caused an ache in between her thighs that the whores in Bravvos used to banter on about throughout the night.

That night, after her intense encounter with Gendry in the forge, she slipped her hand in between her legs, picturing his large, soft, calloused hands flicking the delicate bud of nerves. She could see his deep blue eyes behind her closed ones as she continued to work herself. When the slight pressure in her abdomen began to rise, she had to bite her pillow to keep from screaming is name in ecstasy.

Even when her fantasies had come to fruition and they spent, what was supposed to be their final night of life, had been everything Arya could only imagine. She promised herself that if they did survive the night then she would tell him how she truly felt. She would let him know how he made her body quiver at just the tiniest touch and how she wanted to taste the bittersweet flavor off his soft lips.

Everything she had been feeling would come into light.

But when he found her in the store room, shooting arrows, and professed his undying love to her, she calmed shut, saying the words she knew that would hurt him. His broken eyes had nearly crushed her soul, but the need for revenge was just too great. The choice between life and death, at the time, was easy to choose. Death would always be her outcome, even if other’s told her otherwise.

Now, as she stood on the dock waiting for a person she wasn’t sure would show, Arya truly began to feel alone.

“Arya?” The voice was soft, but had the power to send shivers down her spine.

She knew it was him, the voice alone giving her validation, but she needed to be sure that he was the one standing behind her. She need to see his deep blue eyes and feel his large arms wrapped around her.

Slowly she turned and sighed in relief when the blacksmith was standing just a few short feet away.

“You got my letter.” She said as her eyes darted to the parchment in his twiddling hands.

A humorless chuckle escaped his lips, “I did. Although I;m not so sure as to why I showed up.”

“I needed to get you alone. You’ve been quite popular these days. Everyone wants your help somewhere or another. I’ve hardly seen much of you.” She softly smiled.

“What do you want, Arya?” His voice was stern and hard, not like the lighthearted conversations of the past.

Arya shifted here feet as she inched towards where Gendry was standing. She was so close to him that she could smell the smokes of the forge on his jerkin. She lifted her hand to his cheek and slowly lifted herself on her toes so she could reach his lips.

The kiss was light, so much so, that Arya hardly felt the chapped skin his lips were sure to have. It was such a soft peck that one could hardly tell it was a intimate gesture.

Gendry didn’t protest, but was caught off guard by the sudden shift in atmosphere.

As Arya lowered herself down, she clasped Gendry’s hand into her own, bringing it close to her chest. “I want to talk.” She said with his hand still clasped in hers.

“And where do you suppose we do that?” He asked, Arya could see the conflict in his yes as he struggled to down at her.

“You see that ship?” She pointed to the a ship anchored just beyond the docks.

Gendry nodded, “Yeah, what ‘bout it?”

“It’s mine, stupid. We can talk there. The crew are on the mainlands tonight, so we have complete privacy.” She hoped he would take her up on the offer and not leave her heartbroken and alone like she had done to him. Although, she couldn’t blame him if he did.

“How are we supposed to get to it?”

Arya smiled, taking his question as confirmation. She let go of his hand and crossed the dock to where a row boat was tied to a post, “I believe, Lord Baratheon, that you are quite familiar with this.”

A noticeable blush creeped onto Gendry’s face, “I’m going to kill Davos.”

“Don’t be mad at him. If anything be mad at me, I was the one that pried it out of him.” She confessed as she climbed into the dingy. Gendry was close behind and visibly revolted at the thing.

“Fine, I’ll go, but you’re the one rowing.”

Arya smiled, “As you wish, mi’lord.”

“Don’t call me that.” He grumbled as he took his position in the boat. He immediately took the ores from Arya, never intending her to row the both of them to her ship, and began treading them through the water.

They rowed in silence; Arya capturing quick glances at Gendry as he worked the ores though the water. With the waves calm and the slight breeze drifting through the air, Gendry had little to no difficulty navigating through the water.

The ship was just a few hundred yards away when Gendry suddenly stopped rowing, bringing the dingy to a halt.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Arya questioned.

Gendry sighed as he placed the ores in their respective sockets to keep them from falling into the sea. “What’s your plan, Arya?”

“What do you mean?” Pure confusion dripped from her voice.

“Why are you taking me to your empty ship?” He paused, searching her eyes for any answers.

“I told you, to talk.” She said curtly.

Gendry scoffed, “Talk? Arya we could have talked on the damn dock! We were alone, no one would have bothered us there, so why the ship?”

Arya sighed, giving herself a few moment to compose her emotions before speaking.

“We could have been interrupted. Some errand boy would have fetched you to do something for some lord! The only way for me to get truly alone was if no one knew where we were.” She confessed. Her breath was uneven as she tried to keep everything from spilling out.

“Fine, you got me alone. Now talk.” He urged with annoyance.

Arya let out an exasperated chuckle, “I am not having this conversation in a fucking dingy! If you don’t want to row anymore, then hand me the ores and I’ll take us to the ship!”

She grumbled in frustration as she shifted her position on the boat in order for her to grab the ores out of the sockets. Her hands grabbed for the handle when Gendry quickly stopped her. His hand had engulfed her as he placed them over hers.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” He huffed. “I’ll take us to the damn ship.”

Arya quickly snatched her hands out from under his, placing them in her lap and twiddling her fingers to keep her mind off at how much the small interaction burned her skin with desire.

The rest of short boat ride consisted of soft grunts as Gendry treaded the water. Arya didn’t dare glance his way, waiting until they were firmly on the ship before making any more advanced.

Once docked at the ship, Arya and Gendry climbed the rope ladder left for them by her crew just the day prior. They hauled themselves over the side and Gendry was immediately at a loss for words at the shear size of the vessel. It could house at least fifty or so crew members, not to mention enough storage to hold at least a few moons turns of supplies.

The decorative finishes showed exactly whose ship it belonged to.

“Let me guess...Davos.”

Arya smiled, “You are correct. I went to him after the battle at Winterfell. He told me he could find something, but I never imagined it would be something like this.”

“Well he is one for making sure people have the best, whether is be advice or a bloody ship.” He looked around the deck, marveling at the Stark sigil printed on the sails. “Why do you have a ship, anyway?”

Arya sighed as she felt her hear sink into her stomach, “Follow me.”

“Where are we going?” He asked as he began to follow in her footsteps.

Arya weaved below deck and continued I until they were at least two stories below deck, “I keep the good ale in my cabins to keep any wandering hands away. Trust me when I say that we will need it.”

They walked for several minutes before Arya haunted at the a large mahogany door. The Stark emblem had been engraved into the wood with a large wolf’s head designed as the knocker. Arya unlatched the door, pushing it open to allow Gendry to step inside.

For such an extravagant ship, Arya’s cabins were quite minimal. There was a table situated by a port window with two chairs. There were two goblets already set out for the two of them. A wardrobe was placed against the wall opposite to where the bed was placed.

Gendry tried not to blush as his eyes lingered on the feather bed.

It was substantially larger than the bed in her chambers back in Winterfell, and even that bed had been quite comfortable, but this one looked as if it were going to be heaven to lay upon.

Arya noticed his gaze and tired to suppress a smile at the thoughts that were no doubt going through his mind, for they were the same that went through hers. She’d be lying if she said that she didn’t want to throw him down onto the bed and ravish his body until the morning sun rose.

She wanted him, more so than the night of the battle. Her body craved for his and it made her scoff at how ridiculous it all was. She had one taste of such intense visceral pleasure that now she couldn’t wait for more.

But now was not the time for inappropriate thoughts; now was the time for talk and there was so much that Arya had to say, she wasn’t sure if she could get through it all without breaking down into a pile of puddles.

“Please, sit.” She gestured to the chair across from where she was standing.

Gendry shuffled out of his cloak and draped it behind the chair before taking a seat. Arya had pulled a jug of ale from the cabinet beside the wardrobe, pouring a hefty amount of ale into each of the goblets. Gendry didn’t hesitate as he chugged his goblet, reaching for the jug in Arya’s hand before she had a chance to place on the table in front of them.

“So, you got me here. What do you want to talk about?”

Arya took her seat across from Gendry and took a swing of ale before answering, “Us. You...me.”

Gendry scoffed, “I thought ‘us’ ended the night after the battle.”

Arya ignored his jab as she gathered courage to speak from her heart.

“You want to know why I have this ship? I was planning on sailing west after Jon’s coronation. I was going to hire a navigator and few more crew members and sail beyond the horizon, never letting anyone know I was leaving.” She paused as she tired to ease her shaking breaths, “But as I spent time here, around the people that I love and care about, I came to realize that that would be a stupid mistake. I was trying to run away from a past that I didn’t want to remember, or a life I believed I didn’t deserve.”

She hadn’t realized the tears streaming down her face until Gendry’s thumb gently wiped them away.

“I’m so sorry, Gendry. I didn’t mean to break your heart the way that I did. I was just so focused on revenge and killing Cersei. I thought that if I severed ties and broke your heart that it wouldn’t have hurt you so much if I didn’t make it out alive.”

She couldn’t help the sob that escaped her throat, shaking her body with the sheer force of it.

Gendry was quickly by her side, pulling her into his chest as she let the tears take over her body. “Gods, Arya. How could you ever thing that? I would have never stopped loving you, even if you did rip my heart out of my chest. It’s impossible for me to stop loving you.”

Arya shook her head, pushing herself from his grasp, “No, but you have to. I’m not good, Gendry. I’ve done bad things; things that would make you see me differently. Gendry, you deserve someone good.”

Gendry sighed and pulled Arya’s hands into his own, “Arya, i fell in love with a strong, smart and beautiful girl. Every time I look at you, my breath escapes me and I can’t help but smile when your name is brought up in conversation. It feels like the most natural thing in the world.”

“But you can’t.” She whispered as she looked from his eyes.

Arya knew Gendry’s felling for her and it made her heart burst at his confirmation, but even with her own undeniable felling for him, she couldn’t give him what he needed.

“Gendry, I wanted to tell you about this ship because, despite my revelations, I still need to leave. Maybe with everyone knowing, but I have to go.”

Gendry’s eyes snapped to hers, “Arya-”

“No! Let me finish. I have to leave to find myself. I lost who I was when I was in Bravvos, and although my family and you have given me pieces of myself, there are still some that are missing. I can’t be with you, as I am, without finding myself completely.”

“Gods, Arya, I just professed my love to you, again, and now you’re telling me not to, again. I can’t do that. Not this time.” Arya now saw tears welling in his eyes and it nearly killed her to see him so broken and vulnerable.

She sighed, “But you have to try. I can’t have you becoming your father. Not having my aunt broke him and I would never be able to forgive myself if I did that to you.”

A chuckle escaped his lips as he shook his head, “If you think I’ll end up anything like Robert, then you must have hit head harder than you thought.” He brushed a piece of loose hair from her face as she resorted his hand upon her cheek, “You are the most infuriating woman I have ever met, Arya Stark. You are stubborn, mean, and scarier than any wight I have ever faced, but even that won’t make make me stop loving you. I don’t think you realize just how much I do love you. If you have have to leave to find yourself, then I will wait, no matter how long. And if you never return, then at least I can pray to the gods that I see you in the after life. I love you.”

“You’re stupid, you know that?” She scoffed as she wiped the tears from her face.

Gendry smiled, “So I’ve been told.”

There was a beat of silence between the two as they looked into each other’s eyes.

There was so much emotion swirling in Gendry’s blue irises that spoke so much more than words. Arya was confident that even her gray eyes betrayed her, giving Gendry all the consent he needed to place his lips upon hers.

She was surprised by the action, but accepted it with much anticipation.

It had been too long since she had been this close to him and now that she placed firmly in his arms, she never wanted to let go.

Quickly, the kiss deepened as Arya felt Gendry’s tongue slip past her teeth, swirling with hers in a mirage of emotions. She sighed against his lips as he brought his hands to her waist, squeezing them tight with need.

They stumbled from the table, crashing onto the bed as Gendry dragged Arya down with him. She straddled him easily as their lips continued to explore each other’s mouth. Eventually, she released her lips from his, gasping for air. The action burned her lungs as she took fast breaths to try to ease her racing heart.

Gendry was heaving, as he too, tried to catch his breath.

For a few moments, all they could do was stare at one another, waiting to see what the other would do.

With Arya still straddled around Gendry’s waist, she leaned down and whispered into his ear, “Love me, Gendry.”

And that he did.

For hours, they explored each other’s bodies, taking the time to admire the nooks and crannies that they were deprived of all those nights ago. With no one to disturb their love making, Arya could be as loud and as rough as she pleased. Gendry had no qualms, although he was sure to regret the claw marks on his back come morning. They even enjoyed the gentler parts of their union as Gendry took his time sheathing himself within Arya, nearly pushing her over the edge of no return.

There was no need for them to rush and for once, they could truly learn their lover’s body.

It was as if they were discovering not only themselves, but each other, for the first time.

Arya may have know Gendry for years, but this was a part of him that she had to earn to learn, just as he had with her. They trusted each other with, not only their lives, but their bodies and that was the most vulnerable anyone could become.

It was hard for Arya to let down those walls for Gendry to truly know her as man and woman, but once she did, it was if the whole world had opened up endless possibilities. For the first time in her life, she was no longer alone, but rather one with him, now and forever.

Their extensive indiscretions had left them numb and exhausted.

The soft rocking of the ship against the calms waves had lulled them into slumber more than once that night, but with the moonlight shining through the small port window in Arya’s chambers, she couldn’t help but watch him as he ran his fingers down her spine, trying hard to spell out his name. It was amusing to feel his hard work at learning his letters. It left her with soft tickles and more than a few giggles as he did so.

“Are you still leaving after Jon is crowned with Daenerys?” Gendry asked as the sun began to rise over the horizon.

Arya swallowed and nodded softly, “I do, but that is a week away. We can spend all we can with each other until then.”

“I’ll keep you to that, mi’lady.” He chuckled.

Arya smiled, but was too exhausted to correct him.

“I’ll write as often as I can, but I cannot promise that the ravens will get to you in a timely manner, if at all.” She confessed.

“I’ll keep an eye out for them.”

“And I truly don’t know when I may return, but when I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Arya-”

“And you have to promise me that if your heart does change and find a lady to spend your days with, that you’ll be happy.”

“Arya-”

“And try to watch after Jon, will you? He will be devastated when I tell him-”

“Arya! Please do not worry. All will be as it should, even if it takes years. Now, can we please enjoy each other’s company before we have to return to the docks and explain where we’ve been these past hours?” He pleaded.

Arya blushed and smiled, “I love you.”

Gendry pulled her close as he wrapped the furs around their naked forms, “And I love you.”

#arya stark #gendrya #got #arya/gendry #gendry baratheon #gendry waters #gendry x arya #gendry/arya #arya x gendry #i love you #alex and sierra #arya/gednry playlist

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iffeelscouldkill · 5 years

Text

it only means there is no room for you to fall

A/N: I wrote a fic! This very fun, self-indulgent ficlet helped me get out of a bit of a fic-writing rut that I’ve been stuck in for the past month or so, and I loved writing it. I wrote a longer ramble about it in my notes on AO3, but basically, it’s a post-Episode-5/alternate-Episode-6 fic in which Sana talks Violet through a panic attack after Elion, and then pining ensues between Sana, Violet and Arkady. But don’t worry, it ends in cuddles <3

Content note: This fic contains a description of a panic attack - not from the perspective of the POV character (that is to say, outsider POV) - quite early on. If you’d like to skip over that section, it starts about a dozen paragraphs in with the line “It’s Sana. Are you all right?” and ends with “Eventually, Violet’s breathing slows and quiets.”

Cross-posted to AO3

After the complete and unmitigated disaster that is Elion, Sana is angrier that she can remember being in a long time.

She’s angry at not having been able to do more to protect Violet, Brian and Arkady from what just happened. She’s angry at the creeping certainty that they’ve been sold out, and at what that must mean. And she’s furious at the Regime for causing all of this, for hounding her and her crew across the galaxy, never giving them a moment to rest.

Because she’s the Captain and the crew are depending on her to get them through this, she pushes the anger down, compressing it into a tiny ball, and does what needs to be done. She helps Arkady dump the body of the unfortunate guard at the Capitol Landfill; there’s a hollow look in the other woman’s eyes that Sana hasn’t seen in years, and had hoped she wouldn’t see again. After they get back to the ship, she watches Arkady disappear into the air vents, and tells Krejjh to chart a course for Rosalind.

As she walks through the ship’s corridors, Sana fans herself with her hand. Is she imagining things, or is it warm in here? Her train of thought is cut short as she runs into Brian, who is humming to himself, looking perfectly at ease. Sometimes she thanks God – well, maybe not God, but the universe, or fate – for Brian and Krejjh, and their unwavering positivity at times like these.

“Hey, Captain. Anything more I can do to help?” Brian asks. “Violet and I got the cargo all stowed away.”

“Thanks, Brian. Nothing much at the moment, but if you can help Krejjh keep an eye on the rearview in the cockpit for the next hour, that would be appreciated,” says Sana. “Is Violet around?”

“Pretty sure she went back to her room,” Brian says. “She was starting to look kind of pale and shaky, so I told her I could finish up on my own. I think she went to go lie down.”

“Thanks, Brian,” says Sana. Brian gives her a salute and heads off in the direction of the cockpit.

Sana worries her lips together, thinking about what Violet just went through. She knows that some people – Arkady being a prime example – prefer to be left alone and not bothered with company when they’re upset. But she has a hunch that Violet would benefit from some company right now.

Her mind made up, she walks along the corridor to the other woman’s room and knocks on the door. “Violet?” she calls gently. “I just wanted to check that you’re okay.”

There’s no answer, but the light around the button next to Violet’s door is green, so it’s not locked. Sana hesitates, wondering what the odds are of Violet having fallen asleep this quickly, and then knocks again. “Violet?” she calls, a bit louder. “It’s Sana. Are you all right?”

She listens, and thinks that she hears ragged breathing coming from the other side of the door. Okay then. Sana puts on her Captain Voice (Arkady calls it her Mom Voice) and calls through the door, “Violet, if I don’t hear anything from you in the next few seconds, I’m coming in, okay?”

There’s a pause, then she hears Violet call, very faintly, “Come in.”

Sana presses the button, and the door slides open to reveal Violet sitting on her bed, clutching onto a pillow for dear life. She’s shaking all over and taking uneven, panicked breaths in, her pupils dilated. Sana rushes forward, catching up Violet’s hands without thinking about it and looking into the other woman’s eyes. “Violet. Focus on me,” she says, speaking as evenly and calmly as she can. “You’re safe. We’re all safe. No-one got hurt.”

“Sana-” Violet tries, her breaths becoming faster and sharper. She grips Sana’s hands tightly, her skin clammy and cold.

“Don’t try to talk, just breathe, Violet,” says Sana, squeezing Violet’s hands. “Breathe with me.” She starts taking slow, deep breaths in and out.

For what feels like an age, Violet’s panicked breathing pattern doesn’t change, and Sana wonders if she’s just making things worse with her presence. Then, slowly, she notices Violet’s breaths in getting longer, and her breaths out becoming slower and more even.

“Good. That’s good,” she murmurs, rubbing soothing circles on the backs of Violet’s hands with her thumbs.

Eventually, Violet’s breathing slows and quiets. Once she’s sure that the danger has passed, Sana moves to sit beside her on the bed.

“Thank you,” Violet says quietly, hoarsely. Then, “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologise for,” Sana says immediately. “You went through an unbelievably stressful situation and managed to stay totally calm the whole time. You did amazingly. But it’s okay to be…”

“A total mess afterwards?” Violet asks, wryly.

“I was gonna go with ‘shaky’,” Sana replies, smiling. “The point is, don’t feel bad about it.”

“But… all of the rest of you are so calm and collected when dealing with this kind of situation,” Violet says, quietly. “And here I am just… having panic attacks-”

“Hey,” Sana says, squeezing Violet’s arm, not wanting to let her go any further with that train of thought. “First of all, we’ve had a lot of practice in dealing with that kind of thing. We didn’t develop a whole system of colour codes from nowhere. And secondly, you do not want to see how hard my hands were gripping the steering wheel when Arkady and I drove back from meeting the Fowleys. I think they’re still shaking.” She holds her hands out to show Violet. They are trembling slightly, though in reality it’s more due to the adrenaline of talking Violet down from her panic attack, along with her suppressed anger over everything that’s happened.

Violet laughs slightly (so, mission accomplished) and leans into Sana a little. It feels natural for Sana to put an arm around her, so she does. She’s a tactile person, but keenly aware of other people’s boundaries, and usually prefers to let them initiate contact. Violet, to Sana’s slight surprise, rests her head against Sana’s shoulder. Sana looks down at Violet’s dark hair and thinks about pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Instead, she holds Violet just a little bit tighter.

What started as a brief spark of attraction the first time she saw Violet laugh – startled, when Sana offered her a cup of moonshine that she mistook for a cup of tea – that Sana was sure would die down in a couple of days has grown and grown, into a mixture of attraction, respect and fondness that some days feels too much to contain. Sana has watched Violet devote herself to the hunt for the other Violet Liu, take being thrown into the midst of a crew of renegade smugglers in her stride, and drastically reconsider her entire worldview. She’s resilient, brave, funny and insightful. Also, Sana will admit to having always had a thing for smart women.

Unfortunately, so does Arkady. Sana has seen the way she looks at Violet (and vice versa), and she doesn’t intend to stand in the way of that. Not when Arkady has had so, so few good things in her life to call her own.

Sana used to be on the receiving end of those looks, once upon a time. But she’d been too afraid to act on them, back when it was just the two of them, in case it all went south and they both lost the only person they could really depend on. She told herself she’d rather have a best friend who had her back than a romance that might not last, and she almost believed it.

It still hurt a little when she realised that, at some point, Arkady had moved on from her. But if it has to be anyone, she’s glad it’s Violet. The two of them go well together.

Sana has her crew; she doesn’t need any more than that.

“Um… Have you seen Arkady since we left Elion?” Violet asks, as if she’s somehow picked up on Sana’s thoughts.

“Yeah, uh…” Sana tries to think what answer to give. She doesn’t want to lie to Violet, but she isn’t sure when Arkady plans on coming down from the vents. “She’s around. I think she just needed to… regroup for a bit.”

“Oh, yeah. Okay.” Violet sounds a little resigned. Sana waits for her to say or ask something more about Arkady, but instead she says, “Is it just me, or is it pretty warm in here? – I mean, not ‘me’ in the sense of that cheesy joke, but uh, in the sense that I can’t tell if I’m just-”

Hiding a smile, Sana takes pity on Violet and cuts her off. “No, it’s definitely not just you, I’ve been feeling it too. I may need to take a look at our temperature reg.” Violet tenses, as if about to pull away. “If you need to go do that now, I can-”

“No, it’s fine, it’ll probably start working again on its own,” Sana assures her, and Violet relaxes back against her side. “Some of our equipment is a bit temperamental.” “Temperamental?” asks Violet, with a tiny smirk.

“Oof. Bad pun,” Sana says, smiling. “If it’s still acting up in a few hours, then I’ll give it a closer look. And pray that we have the parts to fix it.”

Violet winces. “Right. And if we don’t?”

“I’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.” Worst case scenario, Sana could probably jury-rig something. They would just need to make sure they picked up the right parts on Rosalind.

Violet nods and sits up. Sana’s side feels suddenly cold.

“Well, still, I shouldn’t keep you any longer - I’m sure you have plenty of more important things that need your attention.” “My number one priority is always the wellbeing of my crew,” Sana says firmly. “Anything else can wait. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. I’m.. I’ll be fine, Captain,” says Violet with a small smile. “Really.”

“You know you can call me Sana if you want to,” Sana finds herself saying. She’s not sure why; the others all call her “Captain” and “Sana” interchangeably, but she doesn’t think she’s heard Violet use her name yet. Maybe she just wants to hear it once.

Violet gives her a full smile, and it’s devastating. “Thank you, Sana.”

—

The temperature reg does not start working again on its own, and the next six hours are hellish as temperatures slowly and steadily climb inside the ship. Despite Sana’s best efforts, it’s past two in the morning by the time the temperature reg is finally fixed. Arkady spends as much of that time as she can bear lurking in the air vents, avoiding Violet. Finally, when she thinks the stuffy recycled air might be preventing oxygen from getting to her brain and she’s sick of playing back Violet’s horrified expression on a constant loop, she eases herself down and heads for the cockpit.

She winds up talking to Krejjh about the war. It’s been on her mind ever since they ran into Eejhgreb and Krejjh recounted the tale of how – and why – they deserted the military. Arkady has her own memories of that night, but they’re bittersweet. She and her unit had celebrated all through the night, but lurking under it was a fear much greater than anything Arkady had felt during the war. Of what would happen when they no longer had a common cause.

Sana would probably say the conversation has been a “long time coming”, that it’s good for Arkady to get it all out. But all it does is make Arkady feel more frustrated and angry over things that happened years ago. All she’s ever wanted is to put her past behind her.

After they’ve exhausted that topic, as Arkady digs into Krejjh’s stash of fruit jerky, Krejjh jokingly changes the subject. “Speaking of which… do you want some love advice?”

“No,” Arkady says flatly.

“Cripes, trying to lighten the mood a little here, First Mate Patel,” Krejjh says, holding up one of their pairs of hands. “Y’sure?”

“Krejjh, remember when you and Brian weren’t officially together yet?” Arkady reminds them. “And he kept asking you to dinner, and you kept inviting the rest of the crew?” God, that was a shitshow. A very funny shitshow, but by the end of it even Arkady was feeling sorry for Jeeter. All that time spent studying mediaeval Dwarnian hadn’t given him a single clue about Dwarnian romantic customs.

“Yeah, romantic tandem eating is not as universal as you guys think it is,” Krejjh says.

“Well, I don’t need your advice.” God, nothing says ‘romantically incompetent’ like taking love advice from a purple space alien.

Krejjh, of course, persists. “Just sayin’, if y’like someone, maybe don’t spend all your time hiding from them.”

“I’m not being bashful, Krejjh,” says Arkady shortly. “I all but murdered someone in front of her.”

She looks up to find Krejjh giving her an odd smile. “I wasn’t just talkin’ about Science Officer Liu,” Krejjh says.

Arkady stares at them. “What are you talking about?”

Krejjh leans back a little in the pilot’s chair, seeming to look up and out at the stars. “Ya know, one of the other human romantic customs I’ve never understood is why relationships are supposed to be limited to just two people. I guess it’s a hold-over from the whole gender binary thing, but from what I can tell, even most humans don’t think that’s important any more. So why keep limiting yourselves?”

Arkady swallows, her throat suddenly dry. “We do have polyamorous relationships too,” she points out. “They’re not even that unusual these days, but legally there still isn’t that much recognition. A lot of human society is still geared around two-person relationships. And a lot of people still… prefer them.”

“That sounds like a pretty big assumption,” Krejjh counters. “Why not just talk to ‘em? See how they feel about it? What’ve you got to lose?”

Arkady raises an eyebrow. “Okay, assuming we’re talking about me and Liu and Tripathi here and not about you and Jeeter inviting me to some weird interspecies ménage-à-trois…”

Krejjh laughs. “First Mate Patel, I am wounded that you would reject our advances like this.” They put a hand on their chest, a distinctly human gesture that Krejjh has picked up – Dwarnians don’t have a heart in the middle of their chests in the way that humans do.

Arkady snorts, but then becomes serious again, looking down at her lap and toying with the half-open pack of fruit jerky. Now that they’ve broached the topic, she might as well keep going. She could have pretended that they were still speaking hypothetically, or discussing human social conventions, but all of a sudden she’s too tired to keep dancing around things.

“What do I have to lose? One of the best friendships I’ve ever had, with one of the only people I can count on to always have my back,” she says. “And at the same time… someone that I’m only just getting to know, who is also the first people I’ve felt any kind of connection with since…” Since Sana, she doesn’t say.

Arkady can feel Krejjh’s eyes on her, but doesn’t look up for fear of seeing pity in them. “Besides which, Krejjh, my life just doesn’t work that way. I don’t get things that I want – it’s a well-established fact. I’ve had a long time to come to terms with it.”

“That doesn’t sound fair at all,” Krejjh says quietly.

“Yeah, well, life isn’t fair,” Arkady replies. She meets Krejjh’s gaze defiantly, but instead of pity, all she sees is empathy.

Silence falls between them, and Arkady figures that as the person who brought the mood back down again, she should be the one to lighten it this time. But while she’s casting about for another change of topic, Krejjh says,

“Where has Crewman Jeeter got to with that ice? I can’t think who he could be talking to down there.”

Arkady gives Krejjh a suspicious look, not trusting their casual tone. “What, are you implying that-”

“Krrrejjh to all crew,” Krejjh sing-songs, activating their comm. “Folks, this is your pilot speaking. I’ve got a very important announcement to make to the whole crew.”

Arkady stiffens in alarm. “Krejjh, what are you doing?” she hisses.

“Boy am I embarrassed,” Krejjh goes on, in a rueful tone, “but I seem to have misplaced something important. My fiancé? Crewman Jeeter? Along with a cup of ice he totally still owes me? Gonna advise that you sit tight as I dispatch our very own First Mate Patel to the kitchen to solve this little mystery. So, keep an eye out for that, crew, and plan accordingly. Krejjh out.”

Krejjh meets Arkady’s unimpressed stare with a smug look. “Maybe you can’t have everything, but you can at least go talk to Science Officer Liu,” they point out. “Can’t hide from her forever. You might as well clear the air.”

Arkady rolls her eyes and reluctantly makes for the door of the cockpit. “Fine, but if it’s a disaster? I’m officially blaming you.”

—

It’s not a disaster. Although Arkady would never, ever admit it to anyone, least of all Krejjh themself, Krejjh was right. After they’ve got past the horrible first five minutes of what Violet would call “puking it all out”, things get… better. Violet pours them both a cup of kai shui (Mandarin for boiled water – something Violet says her Chinese grandparents drank back on Earth) because they’re out of tea, and they talk properly for the first time since Violet came abroad the Rumor. And okay, maybe Arkady had jumped to a few too many conclusions based on those fraught early interactions.

She’d still liked Violet in spite of what she thought was Violet’s hero worship of the regime, but she’d been fighting it down, convinced that it was just a front that Violet was putting on because she had to, that she’d be shot of them tomorrow if she was given the chance to clear her name and make a clean getaway. It had made it much easier to ignore the feelings flaring in her chest, the way that Violet’s admiration inexplicably lifted her mood, the guilt that she felt over having tricked and lied to her.

Now that she’s come to terms with the fact that she’d misjudged Violet (or at least, judged her too quickly), those feelings have come rushing back in full force. Arkady tries to will her frantically hammering heart to calm down at Violet’s gently affectionate tone as she says,

“Okay, I’m not going to keep arguing with you, because I don’t see us getting anywhere on this tonight, and I’m not even going to try to thank you again for saving my life-” here, a small smile that threatens to give Arkady an aneurysm “-but. For what it’s worth? Except for the times it really does seem like we’re all about to die, living on this ship is the safest I’ve felt since before the war.”

“Well, Violet,” Arkady begins after a beat of trying to find her voice. “That’s very disturbing!” She utterly fails to keep an answering smile off her own face.

“Then why are you smiling?”

“Sometimes I smile! Y’know, every now and then.”

“Good to know,” Violet teases. Arkady mentally composes an epitaph: Here lies Arkady Patel, slain by a cute girl flirting with her. She hopes she’s not blushing as hard as she thinks she is.

An expectant silence falls between them, and Arkady reaches for the first thing she can think of to fill it. “Look, I’m… sorry for vanishing on you right after we left Elion,” she blurts out. Violet gives her a quizzical look, but Arkady has been feeling worse and worse about disappearing and avoiding Violet in the wake of what happened. Sure, she’d been feeling like shit about killing that guard, and part of that had been down to the look on Violet’s face, a look that had seemed to confirm every one of her fears about how Violet saw them. Saw Arkady.

She hadn’t been thinking about what the aftermath of those events would have been like for Violet. How she’d managed to suppress all her panic and terror, remain calm, act and improvise in the face of mortal danger – only to get caught and believe she was about to die. Again. Finding out that Violet has an anxiety disorder only compounds Arkady’s guilt.

“I wasn’t thinking about… you did really well with the, uh. Setting aside your panic thing. But I know it was hard for you, and then you literally thought that you were about to die again when everything went south…” Arkady’s rambling, and she really wishes she could stop. “I just mean, I could have stuck around. To make sure you were okay.”

“It’s okay,” Violet says quickly. “I mean, you’d just – been responsible for getting us out of a really bad situation-”

Arkady snorts. “If that’s what you want to call bludgeoning a guy over the head-”

“-and then I, well, kind of freaked out,” Violet continues over her. “So I don’t blame you for needing some space.” She pauses, and smiles a little. “Actually, the Captain – Sana – came to find me. To make sure I was all right.”

“Really?” Arkady asks, feeling a lurch in her stomach like she’s missed a step. She supposes it must be jealousy, but she’s not sure who she’s jealous of.

“Yeah.” Violet has a soft, admiring look in her eyes that Arkady recognises all too well, though she stopped gazing starry-eyed at Sana years ago, wanting the other woman to see her as more than just a naïve kid. “She just talked with me, calmed me down, and then… sat with me until she was completely sure I was okay. She didn’t once act like she had somewhere else to be.”

Arkady swallows. “Yeah, that’s the Captain for you. She’s one hundred percent genuine with how much she cares.”

“And then she must have gone straight on from sitting with me to her shift in the cockpit, and then to fixing the temperature reg,” Violet goes on. “Brian said she was pretty worn out… Does she ever take time for herself?”

Arkady snorts. “It’s a battle. She can’t rest until she makes sure that everyone on the ship feels loved and appreciated.” She’s aiming for snark, but the words come out fonder than she intends them to. “Trust me, I’ve tried to get her to take more breaks. She acts upbeat, but I think things get to her more than she lets on.”

Violet looks thoughtful. “Maybe next time we should try together.”

She meets Arkady’s eyes, and gives her the tiniest of smiles, just a quirk of the lips, and her eyes are so knowing, and Arkady feels it again, that missed-a-step lurch in her stomach like she’s taken a leap into the unknown. This time, she doesn’t think it’s jealousy.

“She might listen to both of us,” Violet finishes.

“I- uh- sure, yeah, we should. Do that,” Arkady stammers. Jesus. Tonight is not her finest night for dignity, but somehow she finds herself not caring as much as she normally would.

Violet smiles fully and looks away, down at the floor, her cheeks red. “Cool. Great. Um, listen, on a different topic, there’s something that I’ve been meaning to tell you – well, more like show you…”

—

Sana is having a no-good, very bad night.

As if having to run for their lives on Elion and barely making it out hadn’t been enough, the broken temperature reg had stubbornly resisted Sana’s attempts to fix it. She’d sworn and sweated in the engine room as the temperature climbed steadily higher, and eventually managed to improvise a solution with some spare fuse wire and a viciously-applied screwdriver. (She’ll have to switch it out for a more permanent fix after they get some proper supplies, but for now, it’ll do).

It’s coming up on 3 a.m. and she’s hot, irritable and exhausted, but instead of being able to get any kind of rest, Sana has had to endure a tense and difficult call with Campbell that resulted in her cutting off contact with one of their longest-standing and most reliable customers, and leaving Sana with the nagging feeling that she’s made a serious error in judgement. But she hasn’t even had the chance to process that, because minutes after Campbell severed the connection, Ricky Q rose up like an elitist, blackmailing spectre from the depths of her and Arkady’s shared past to make threats against Sana’s crew.

Something about it doesn’t fit right, and she’s convinced that there’s more to what’s happening than Ricky Q’s “middleman” story. Unfortunately, the only way she can know what it is is to play along for now.

Sana can feel a headache building as she practices how she’s going to sell the idea of changing course for Hafizah to the crew. It only gets worse when, in the middle of making the case to Brian and Krejjh, Violet and Arkady enter the cockpit, full of shared excitement about some epiphany they’ve had. They’re standing closer together than usual, shoulders brushing, and as badly as Sana wants to be happy for them, she just can’t deal with this right now.

“So, me and Violet were talking about that alien robot swarm cloud, and she said-” Arkady begins.

“Arkady, is this pressing?” Sana interrupts tiredly.

“It could be,” Violet puts in.

“Is the swarm outside the ship right now, knocking on the door, trying to get in?”

“No, but we think we might’ve found a possible connection-”

“You think you might’ve found a possible connection,” Sana repeats, placing sceptical emphasis on all of the relevant words. She knows she’s going to feel bad about her tone later, that normally she’d be in favour of Arkady and Violet devising theories and following whatever lead they can, but her headache is intensifying and she’s just done with everything tonight. “Have we made any progress on tracking down the other Violet Liu? Are we any closer to solving Alvy’s mystery? Given how we changed our entire course for this, I’d love to get past speculation and into… anything else.”

She sees Violet’s face fall, hurt flashing across it at the implication that the detour to rescue her had been a burden for the Rumor crew. Sana will feel terrible about that later, too.

“Look. We all liked Campbell,” Arkady says gently (for her). “But when somebody turns on us because we missed an appointment? Their loyalty was never worth shit.”

Arkady clearly believes that Sana’s terrible mood is due to Campbell’s probable betrayal, and it’s far easier to let her go on believing it than to go anywhere near the truth, so Sana doesn’t correct her. “I appreciate that. But honestly, it’s just – been a long couple of days, and it’s almost 3 a.m., and I don’t see why this can’t wait until tomorrow?” She injects a pleading note into the last syllable, in a last-ditch attempt to soften things.

“Yeah. Of course,” Violet says.

“Captain, if there’s anything we can do-” begins Arkady.

“Don’t worry, I’ll let you know,” she promises them, already turning to leave the cockpit. As a result, she misses the look of concern that passes between Arkady and Violet, Violet’s raised eyebrows, and Arkady’s slight nod. “Krejjh, I’ll update you on those coordinates as soon as I’m able to.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.”

Finally alone, Sana trudges down the corridor to her room, goes in, and presses the button to lock the door behind her. She flops face-down onto her bunk with a groan.

“Fucking IGR. Fucking Ricky Q,” she mumbles into her pillow.

Barely a few minutes later, there’s a knock at her door, polite but firm. Sana raises her head angrily, and only just manages to clamp down on her urge to shout, “Go away!” She knows that being a captain is a full-time job and that the others depend on her, but damn it, can’t she rest for just a few hours?

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, Captain,” comes Arkady’s voice. Sana frowns. Arkady wouldn’t bother her in her room unless it was important, but…

“Kady, seriously, whatever it is, can it wait?” she asks. “I’m really just… I really need to crash right now.”

There’s a pause, and Sana thinks that her best friend is going to relent, but then her voice comes back, insistent: “This will only take a minute. I promise.”

Sana sighs heavily and sits up, brushing her hair out of her face. At least with Arkady she doesn’t have to be as put-together as she does for the others, but she also doesn’t want Arkady to start asking questions about what exactly has got to her so badly. She walks over to the door and presses the button to open it. “What do you need?”

Arkady stares at her for a few seconds, almost as if sizing her up, and then very slowly and stiffly pulls her into a hug.

“K-Kady?” says Sana, shocked. Arkady doesn’t do hugs unless she’s really, really drunk. “What are you doing?”

“Giving you a hug.” At least the flat, snarky, I’m-stating-an-obvious-fact tone is one hundred percent in character.

After a moment, Arkady lets go. That’s when Sana spots the other person standing slightly apologetically behind her. “Violet? What are you doing here?”

“Also giving you a hug,” says Violet a little shyly. “If that’s okay.”

She waits for a second, and when Sana doesn’t resist, she wraps Sana up in a warm, gentle hug. It’s a little more satisfying than Arkady’s stiff embrace, though Sana was touched by that, in a bewildered kind of way. Violet is very good at giving hugs; she squeezes just enough to make the hugged person feel cared for, but not so much that it becomes suffocating. After a few seconds, Sana hugs her back, feeling a little guilty for taking as much pleasure in it as she does. The only real downside is that some of Violet’s hair is tickling her nose.

Violet lets go after a few minutes, and Sana tries to summon up a breezy dismissal, or better yet, to ask just what exactly is going on, but the words get stuck in her throat.

“Captain,” Arkady begins. “Is something going on? Something you’re not telling us about?”

“Whatever it is… we want to help you,” Violet puts in. “You don’t have to deal with everything on your own.”

“I…”

I’m fine, Sana wants to say. Needs to say. But her throat is closing up, and she’s so, so tired. She’s been holding it together by a thread, and suddenly, that thread is fraying. She squeezes her eyes shut against the suddenly-spinning room. Damn it, don’t let me do this, not now…

“Okay,” she hears Arkady say, and then there’s a tug on her hand, leading her into her own room. Sana goes. She hears the door swish shut behind them and the lock engage.

Sana follows the pull of Arkady’s hand down onto her bunk. Someone is gently taking off her shoes. She lies down and feels warm, strong arms around her, holding her together. Violet slips in on Sana’s other side, a reassuring presence at her back.

Sana blinks and looks into Arkady’s dark eyes. “I don’t understand what’s happening here,” she mumbles.

“We’ll figure it out in the morning,” Arkady tells her.

Violet slides an arm around Sana’s waist. “Go to sleep, Captain,” she says, and so Sana does.

#TSCOSI #The Strange Case of Starship Iris #Sana Tripathi #Arkady Patel #Violet Liu #femslash #just fluff and cuddles and some pining thrown in #this was actually meant to be much shorter but someone (ARKADY) insisted on pining longer than I expected #in all seriousness though I can't blame her #Krejjh is a matchmaker in every timeline #also hugs for Sana plz #this is a fix-it of sorts for Episode 6 in which Violet doesn't bring up the samples right away #and Sana gets the love and support she deserves in the midst of all that ugh #also I have a lot of headcanons about Violet's little smiles okay #I just realised I put them in like... every fic #but she definitely has a cute smile #Tripateliu #Sana/Arkady/Violet #I realised that I originally used two different ship tags for this and the epilogue SMH #but ghostsquidandspacebees came up with the perfect OT3 ship name!

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netlifxandcastielclosed · 5 years

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Fic where Cas and the reader go trick or treating together?

“I don’t think it’s a wise choice, Y/N,” Cas said deeply, imagining every dangerous possibility that can happen from ringing stranger’s doorbells.

“It’s a human tradition, Cas! The Celts thought the barrier between our world and the world of ghosts and spirits got really thin on this day. So they threw a big party to try and scare them away! And don’t worry about going door to door! We do that all the damn time when we are working a case.”

Cas furrowed his brows in confusion as you slipped on your costume. The one you had picked out for him had not moved an inch from his clenched fist. He was overly concerned about the fabric being too revealing.

“And where am I suppose to hide my angel blade in these?” Cas stuffed his thick thighs into fuzzy black tights that had none of the pockets he’d grown accustomed to in his trench coat.

“Here, give it to me. I’m bringing a big bag. More room for candy,” you said gleefully.

Now that the two of you were fully dressed, Cas picked up his plastic candy bucket that was shaped like a giant flower and the extra pillowcase you suggested packing, for which he did not know the purpose. He followed you through the bunker hallways and up to the front room. Sitting doing research and avoiding all possible reminders of the holiday was Sam. Across from him sat Dean eating his second dinner of the night. Dean’s smile stretched from ear to ear when he saw you both walk into the room.

“Sammy, you gotta get a load of this,” Dean nearly choked on his doughnut burger hybrid and almost fell out of his seat.

“You know how I feel about Halloween. I want no part of this,” Sam grumbled.

“No, really. Sammy. You don’t want to miss this.”

Sam reluctantly peeled his eyes away from his laptop and saw his two best friends standing side by side in giant fuzzy bee costumes. You, with that typical worry-free sparkle your eyes and Castiel looking more puzzled than ever before. It’s worth noting that this is the first smile Sam had cracked a smile on Halloween night in years.

“Well don’t the two of you look just…” Sam started to say.

“(Y/N) chose this costume for me. Do you think it will scare away the spirits,” asked Cas genuinely. “I do like the honeybees in the garden but I have noticed many humans are terrified of them. I’ve packed some salt and holy water in my bag in the instance this doesn’t work out”.

“As long and your bumble butts bring me back some candy, I don’t care how y’all dress,” said Dean trying to pretend like he wasn’t a little jealous of being able to go trick or treating. Truthfully, he was a little turned on seeing you and Cas in bee costumes. He thought to himself, you both could buzz on into his room later that night when Sammy was asleep.

—

Before walking up to the first door of the night, you explained to Cas what to say and how to hold out his bucket for candy. He only slightly heard what you said but didn’t bother to ask you to repeat yourself. He was more worried about the trick part of the night and he assumed he could deal with it once it came around.

DING DONG!

“Tricks nor Treats,” Castiel grumbled deeply, arms stuck straight out to the old woman who wondered why a fully grown man dressed as a bee was out trick or treating.

“It’s ‘Or’ not ‘Nor’, lovey. We’ll try it again at the next place,” you said sweetly. “Thank you for the candy, M’am. Happy Halloween. Stay safe.”

As you walked back down the path, Cas sprinkled some salt on the uneven cobblestone and murmured some Enochian under his breath.

Door number two. DING DONG!

“No tricks, just treats, please.”

You shot a look at Cas that would make any celestial being cower. His shoulders stiffened and then he shook off the chill that went down his spine. He thanked the couple at the door and shuffled back down the driveway. More salt sprinkled and on to the next house.

A few blocks later and a pillowcase filled to the brim with candy, Cas had a completely different look across his face. He was more eager to keep going after each house but your feet had other ideas. It had a been a few hours and you were more exhausted than when you fought that vamp last week.

“Last house, okay? I’m ready for bed and I’m sure Sam is tired of hearing Dean complaining about wanting candy.”

“Of course. We’ve managed to avoid all of these tricks so far. Now might be a good time to call it a night.”

Both of you walked up to the last house and when Cas went to knock, the door was ajar. It swung open after the first attempt at a knock. No lights were on in the hallway but a dim glow was coming from the kitchen.

“Hello,” Castiel cautiously ask. “Trick or treat?”

“Is anyone home? Your door was unlocked. Hello?” You took a step forward, one foot on the threshold of the door. A smelly wave of sulfur hit you and you found yourself abruptly being dragged into the house by an invisible source.

“(Y/N)! What’s going on? Where’d you go?” Cas began to panic slightly. He instinctively reached for his coat pocket in hopes of grabbing his angel blade, only to feel polyester fuzz on his hands. A second later he realized it was at the bottom of his candy filled pillowcase. He dumped the candy on the floor and flew into the kitchen. He found you stuck on the ceiling above the stove. An angry demon sat at the counter examining a plastic decorative skull.

“Ah, my favorite time of year, Halloween. Teenagers dressing up as monsters and playing games to summons us from the depths of Hell. It’s quite entertaining, really.”

“The trick,” Cas said pointedly.

“And just as my luck would have it, the one house that decided to summon me would be the one I find you and your human pet, Castiel.” The demon chuckled, stood up and continued to ransack through the kitchen.

“Who are you,” growled Castiel.

“You don’t remember me, angel? I thought we shared an intimate moment all that time ago. It’s not every day that an angel and a demon breathe the same air and live to tell the tale.”

Castiel looked up at you with a questioning look to make sure you were not hurt. Your mouth was sealed shut and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t move an inch. But the look in your eyes gave Cas some peace, and no visible blood or injuries was a good sign.

“I remember you,” Cas recalled, “and I also remember what I said I’d do if I ever saw you again. I sent you back to Hell with Crowley and he said…”

“The King is dead, angel. There’s nothing to fear in Hell anymore. It’s all free rein and I don’t have to answer to anyone anymore. Not even you. So here I am. Even I deserve a little fun, don’t I?”

It had been a long while since you’d dealt with your average everyday demon. Most hunts were about saving the world these days but ever since Crowley died more stray demons were running amok. Castiel was tired. ‘Not today’, he thought to himself. He wasn’t going to let some low-level demon ruin this night for him.

The arrogant demon parted his lips to speak again but before he could get a sound out, Castiel’s hand was pressed to his forehead. Bright, blinding light and some dissipating black smoke filled the room and the next thing you remember is being carried out of the house in the arms of your angel.

—

Your eyes blinked open and the first thing that comes into focus is Dean with a pile of empty candy wrappers sprawled across the table. Sam was asleep in the chair next to you, hunched over with drool dripping down his chin from waiting for you to wake up.

“Welcome back, (Y/N),” smiled Castiel.

“Cas? Wha- What happened? Where’s the demon?”

“Don’t worry your fuzzy little ass about that, (Y/N),” said Dean mouth full of fun-sized Twix bars. “Cas saw you sticky stuck on that ceiling and stung the crap outta that demon.”

“Enough with the bee puns, Dean,” Sam murmured groggily, “He’s been at it all night since you guys got back.”

When you went to stretch out the pain in your muscles, you realized you were no longer in costume but in soft pajamas.

“How did I,” you ask concernedly.

“Cas,” smirked Dean, “I offered to help out but,” knowing very well Cas hung the bee costumes in Dean’s room for later, “he said it would bee inappropriate. It’s too bad. I would have loved to get a peek at your boo-bees. I’ll be the bird and you two can bee the bees!”

“Dean,” Sam shouted disgustedly.

“I’ve pollen for the both of you so buzz on in and bee mine,” winked Dean.

“We’ll never hear the end of this, will we, Cas,” you sighed.

“I’m afraid not, Honey,” Castiel said without hesitation.

Dean stood up, smiled that never-ending shit-eating grin until Sam ran to his room, locked the door and put in earplugs.

—–

NOTE: Ha! I’m not going to pretend like it didn’t take me days to write this. I legit wrote maybe a paragraph a day because I procrastinate more than anyone I know haha ALSO I didn’t intend for it to be this long but it’s cute so yeah. Halloween is my jam, yo! also tagging @imamotherfuckingstar-lord because I mentioned I was writing :PP.S. I didn’t proofread this so if there are errors OH FUCKING WELL

Happy Halloween, Bitches!

#bookcaseninja #SPN #Supernatural #spn family #spn cast #Destiel #Dean #Cas #Castiel #Dean Winchester #Misha Collins #Jensen Ackles #my angel boo #the great love of my life #Sam #Sam Winchester #Jared Padalecki #asks #netflixandcastiel

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 5 years

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Okay, I say this cautiously. (Don't want haters) It kinda irks me that the game kinda implies that Violet is the better choice. I love Violet, no hate towards her. But... I like Louis more, I've gotten shit for saying this and shit for saving Louis over Violet. It's just I like Louis more, he reminds me of one of my best friends. But why do people have to hate for not choosing Violet? She's amazing yes, so is Louis.-🎨

Yeah, this is something that we’ve all seen debated, and I’ll be completely honest with you anon: I actually feel the same way sometimes.

Looking at their routes as a whole without any input from players [the ending percentages], I do believe that they’re fairly even. They’re stronger in certain aspects and weaker in others and it all boils down to who you prefer.

And yeah, each side gets shit because some people are dumb and like to fight.

Every once in a while, I get these long paragraph asks that are nothing but “here’s why Violet is better than Louis and why you’re a homophobic piece of shit for not shipping violentine” and actually, the last one I got said that Clementine’s voice actor ships violentine and doesn’t like Louis’ character [which btw when? I’ve never heard that one so] and that’s why clouis is “wrong.”

I’ve quit even bothering to read most of them, honestly. I just delete them. I never post them because I’m not giving them the time of day.

That’s not why I’m here.

That aside, looking at how even they are...

For me, I like how much time we get with Louis after first meeting him. We get the scene with him in the music room, he talks with us a lot during the walker fight, he eats with us and gives AJ the rest of his dinner, and he’s talkative [and flirty] during the card game. At that point, we’ve spent more time with him than Violet.

However, that gets made up for in ep2 when Louis is upset and Violet’s sided with you. You do interact with her a little bit more than him.

It does even itself out.

I think it also plays into the fact that they made Violet’s route seem.... based in survival? Haha is that the right way to put it? Like, “Oh go fishing with Violet because she and Brody are only having issues but hey Louis probably won’t even show up lolz.” And when it comes down to appealing to one of them, a lot of people turn to Violet because they don’t believe Louis will help due to his friendship with Marlon.

Then, there’s the fact that Louis is mad at Clementine and AJ, and certain players take that as “You were mad at Clementine? Well, that can’t go unpunished asshole Violet stayed with us therefore she’s better-” and they don’t even care if they really like Violet or not? You know how nonsensical certain people get towards characters who don’t agree with Clem 100% of the time.

Again, that evens out IF you save Louis because then it’s Violet who’s upset. However, if you do the Violet route, they’re on good terms throughout her entire route. And we all know what happens to Louis.

So I can see where someone would say they’re uneven if you’re looking at it through only Violet’s route.

I’m like you and I highly prefer Louis and his full romance route. It’s my personal canon route. And yeah, sometimes I feel like he doesn’t get certain things in his route that Violet does, but they’re different characters and it usually makes sense.

BUT

My selfish ass will never, ever get over the lack of piano mini-game for Louis’ romance route, or the fact that Violet gives Clementine a pin but Louis doesn’t get to give her anything.

I know why this was done [again, we all know the limitations the creators had and they’ve explained themselves and blah blah] but it still irks me.

A piano mini game and Louis giving Clem the piano key necklace? That shit makes my heart feel warm and fuzzy and I will forever be salty that I didn’t get those things.

But, the way I see it, that’s what fanfiction and fanart are for. Through that, I can give Louis and Clementine the ultimate route with everything it deserves: More cute moments, the piano mini-game, the necklace, more smooches, a better part for betrayed Violet, and a better ending for them.

There’s no point in fighting. Use your energy on creating new and beautiful content for the ships and characters you love. It’s fun to have debates and disagreements when they’re not fueled by hate.

Anon, you’re feelings are valid and understandable, and you shouldn’t be shamed for liking Louis more.

#asks #twdg louis #twdg violet #twdg clementine #twdg clouis

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rmjagonshi · 4 years

Text

Whole Again Chapter 23

Whole Again on AO3

The violent tension between them eased. Stan went back to sleep for the remainder of Christmas Eve, Stanford following soon after, choosing to nap on the floor of the cabin. They did not discuss Ford’s actions, nor attempted to deal with the emotional fallout. Ford himself couldn’t fathom why he did what he did. The shame compounded when he informs Mason of what happened when the boy texts him on Christmas Day. Unable to talk to the boy face to face, instead he texts a more coherent story to him than he had told Mabel. He didn’t leave anything out, even if he desperately wanted to.

He had typed out the whole story in several paragraphs, and sending each text out in rapid succession. He didn’t want to give the boy a moment to respond. Once the last text was sent, he flipped the screen over on the work table in front of him.

He was sixty years old. He had traveled the multiverse for thirty years. Very little scared him anymore, but this…

He was terrified of what Mason would think. Logically, he knew Mabel had told him something. Really, Stanford wasn’t telling the boy anything he didn’t already know. But it still scared him to admit it fully.

He sat waiting for several hours. Or was it minutes? Was it minutes? It felt like ages just staring at the back of his phone case. It was clear so he could place a photograph behind it. He hadn’t yet. He really should, but the only photographs they had were tacked up on the walls.

Stanford sat in his chair, elbows braced on his knees and hands folded in front of his mouth. He watched his mobile pone with an intensity reserved for things with a particular degree of danger. He tried to focus, but his mind spun off in several different directions. Sure, Mabel seemed to handle it well enough, but Mason may not. He wouldn’t blame him. Couldn’t blame him. Stanford couldn’t defend this. It wasn’t rational.

But he’d given up trying to explain it. It didn’t matter. No explanation was really necessary. What he needed to do now was stop. Just let Bill go. Let the happy memories fade and be crusted over with bitterness and hatred.

Hadn’t he tried to do that with Stan all those years ago? Cover up nostalgia and longing with anger? It hadn’t worked then either.

He felt like crying again. He had cried more in the last six months than he had in the past thirty years. His eyes were itchy. The skin around his orbits was dry and red and bruised. The skin around his fingernails nibbled to the point of bleeding. He hadn’t shaved in days. Neither one had. Wasn’t much point out here, and there were far more important things to worry about.

Like whether or not his grandson would ever talk to him again. Nephew! Grandnephew. Mason is Sherman’s grandson. Not mine.

He jolted when his phone buzzed. His first instinct was to tear open the window and chuck the thing into the water so he wouldn’t have to respond. It buzzed twice more, vibrating on the smooth surface. The glow from the screen faintly shining along the edges.

He didn’t want to answer it. Instead, he stood up, and paced the small length of the cabin. There wasn’t much room, little less than ten feet or so. He passed by the window where Herman sat. The little tree peered up at him with concern. They hadn’t been paying any attention to him the past few days. The tree waved its tiny branches at him; a child reaching for its parent.

Stanford patted Herman’s green and leafy head, twiddling his fingers as Herman made attempts to grab them. His tiny mouth soundlessly opened and closed. When Stanford didn’t react, Herman grasped his second pinky, the only one small enough for him to hold onto, and shook it. Stanford blinked, unsure of the tree’s meaning, until he noticed that Herman was trying to pull his hand down. The soil was dry. How had he been so neglectful? He picked up the watering can sitting beside the tree on the windowsill. The water tipped out in several divided streams and Herman squeaked in delight, dancing back and forth in the rain.

Stanford smiled at the little thing. “Look at you. All you want is attention, water and sunlight. You have no worries. You don’t care what anyone thinks of you.” He placed the can back on the windowsill and watched as the excess water seeped into the soil, passed Herman’s interlocking roots and through the hole in the bottom of the pot. The now slightly brown water beaded at the edge of the pot and the chipped plate it was balanced on.

A tiny squawk pulled his attention back to the tree. It waved its branches towards his face, flicking water droplets on his cheeks and glasses. Stanford stepped back, wiping his glasses on his shirt before looking down at the still squawking tree. It seemed to be gesturing in his direction, then to an area behind him.

He turned, expecting Bill, but he was alone in the cabin. If he listened closely, he could still hear Stan’s snores from down below. A buzz echoed through the silent cabin. His phone…again. He should answer it. He turned back to Herman and the tree squawked loudly, waving his branches angrily at Stanford, then towards the table.

Stanford sighed.

“I know, ok? I know. I need to respond. But what if he doesn’t want to speak to me again? This is Bill, we’re talking about. I…” His hands came up to rake through his already disheveled hair. “I don’t want him to hate me.”

Herman just gave him a somber look and cooed. His phone buzzed again.

That was five. He had to respond now. He walked the ten or so feet from the window to the side work table like a man marching to his death. His pace was hesitant and uneven. Then, all at once, he was standing beside the table with little memory of how he got there. And little desire to pick up his phone.

It’s fine. It’s going to be ok. No matter how he feels, no matter what he says. I have no idea what he’s going to say. What is he going to say? No! No. It doesn’t matter. It’s out now. No more secrets. I’ve kept too many secrets already.

Stanford sat back down in the worn chair and waited. Come on! It’s not going to bite you. Words might…hurt, but they won’t actually cause physical harm.

He took a steadying breath and reached for his phone. The cool plastic bit into his fingertips as he flipped it over to read the screen.

It was dark.

He took a second breath and pressed the side button, drawing in his passcode pattern before Mason’s texts appeared on the screen.

He held his breath as he read the first message.

Ok, first, it’s gonna be ok. Mabel and I are here for you. So is Mom and Dad and everyone else. We still love you.

A gasped sob forced its way from his lips. He couldn’t even finish reading before his sight grew blurry with ever more tears.

DAMNIT! Pull yourself together! You are too old to be weeping at the drop of a hat anymore!

He wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket so he could keep reading.

But you have got absolutely ship taste in…boyfriends? Is that the right word for this? What is Bill anyway?

Stanford chuckled at the auto-censored profanity. He’d usually call Mason out on it; there was no reason to use profanity when other, more colorful and accurate descriptors were available, however he doubted there was a better descriptor in this instance.

As to Mason’s question, Stanford himself wasn't sure what his relationship with Bill could be called. Though he was certain it wouldn’t be something so juvenile.

He scrolled to the next text.

Second. I would ask why? But this is Bill. I think I can get an idea, and frankly, I don’t really want to know the details. You told me enough already. And Mabel won’t shut up about what you told her.

He grimaced. He would have to apologize to the boy. He had promised both of them and himself that he wouldn’t keep any secrets from them. Mason had asked and Stanford had told him. In age appropriate terms, but still. He supposed it was akin to hearing about your parent’s or grandfather’s relationships. Kind gross when you looked too closely at it.

He read further.

Third, and yes Mabel told me, how are you doing with this…whole new…’thing’…now that Bill and Stan are…well…Bill and Stan? I mean, we’ve been trying to figure it out for a month now, and it seems to be the best theory we have so far.

He felt phantom bile build up in his throat. Yes. Mabel’s theory. It was a good one. And one he hadn’t bothered considering until she had told him. It was still one he wasn't willing to contemplate for any significant time. He wasn’t ready for that yet. He may never be ready, but he needed time to collect evidence before he made any decisions of faith. And if he was going to have a breakdown, he really wanted to do it where he felt safe.

He didn’t know how to answer Mason’s question. So instead, he ignored it and continued reading.

Btw, I think there might be something we need to talk to you about. I don’t really know what’s going on, but we told Mom and Dad about what happened. You know that part. Well she called Soos to confirm and he sent over some pictures and scans of your journals. Not many pages, just some. But my point is that everyone knows what happened. But when we told Mom and Dad, they

The text had reached its character limit and had been split.

Thought that you and Stan had done…’things’. I don’t know how to put this. Mom said that Great Grandma Caryn had told her something. But she won’t tell us.

Stanford frowned. He hadn’t spoken to his mother since mid-September. He and Stan both had sent her postcards as often as they sent them to the kids, but they never scheduled calls. Something his mother had told his niece? Something his mom had told Diane that had gotten her concerned enough to question the safety and health of her children? There was something he was missing.

Mason, I don’t think I understand what you’re getting at. I know it might be difficult, but I need you to be clear.

He could address Mason’s previous questions later. The reply came almost immediately.

Mom thought Stan molested Mabel and me.

His cell phone hit the table with a clatter as his hands went slack. He blinked several times to clear his vision and leaned over the table to re-read the text. It didn’t change. He swallowed to clear his suddenly dry throat and tried to formulate a response. But his mind was blank. He just stared to the phone on the table, the glaring words from Mason’s text boring holes into his brain. The boy was only thirteen! Why did he know about thigs like that? What possessed her? How could she think?

The insanity of it whipped up a torrent in his mind. He tamped it down enough to reply.

What? How? What on Earth gave her that impression?

Well, Weirdmaggedon was kinda traumatic. For all of us. Mabel still has nightmares sometimes and…and I get them too. Mom took us to see a therapist and we were being screened for PTSD. I was supposed to be taking anti-psychotics and Mabel was being treated for depression.

What in the hell had been happening in Piedmont!? Why hadn’t the kids told them? Sure, they had written and talked about doctor’s appointments, but nothing of the context. The next text shook Stanford out of his thoughts.

When we told them about summer, that all stopped. But Mom said something she heard from Grandma Caryn made her think that. Do you have any idea what she means?

Not even the faintest.

I may have a few ideas. But none of them substantial. Influenced by the news? Stan’s sordid past maybe? Your guess is as good as mine.

But it was something your Mom said.

And that was what confused him the most.

I really have no idea. There’s something nagging, like I should know. But I can’t bring it to mind. Mason, this is a serious accusation. I think I may have to sit down with both of them and figure out where this is coming from. But it will have to wait for now. Stan is still healing and…

And there were more important things to consider. This speculative nonsense could wait until he talked to them.

And I don’t know how I’m feeling. This ‘whole new thing’ as you put it. I still need to collect more data.

He paused a moment before continuing.

And you have no idea how good it is to hear you give your support. I know I don’t deserve it. But all the same, Thank you. I know my…’feelings’ towards Bill are asinine. But unfortunately, they are real. Bill wearing Stan’s face, or whatever this is now is

The text auto-sent when it reached the character limit. He was rambling now anyway.

I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know what I’m doing.

It was the honest truth. He really didn’t.

You can’t stay out there forever.

Technically, yes, we could have.

Could have?

Bi Stan’s been sealed. He agreed to create or magic up some unicorn hair. Just enough for a proper seal. I had the moonstone and mercury already. It’s still in the early stages, and he’s sleeping off the stress from the past few days, but it seems to be holding.

He didn’t bother to correct his typing mistake. What was the point now?

Does this mean you guys are coming back?

He didn’t want to crush the boy’s hope. Even if Mabel’s theory was correct, even if Stan and Bill were the same person and even if he was sealed, he still had Bill’s memories. Bills personality. It was too dangerous to take them anywhere near their family. But it was quickly becoming clear that they would have to find a port to restock.

I don’t know. No more magic means our supplies will dwindle. We will need to make port eventually. If the seal holds, and he can’t take it off…

He didn’t really want to think about it just now. Too many steps ahead.

I don’t want to tell you what to do Grunkle Ford, but COMEHOME!

He wanted to. At this point, he wanted to. But there were still far too many unknowns, far too many variables to account for.

And Call your mom!

That on the other hand he could do. And really probably should do sooner rather than later.

Even if it we are wrong. I will risk fighting Bill again to make sure you come home safe.

Mason’s final text left his head spinning and his heart full.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Christmas Day was spent in quiet contemplation. Stanford with a phone in his hand chatting with and reassuring the kids - abandoned book on seismic activity in the Atlantic on the bed beside him - and Stan propped up with a makeshift puzzle to test his finer motor control now that his natural depth perception was gone. Stanford hoped that, given enough time to recover, Stan's previously documented healing magic would set in again and would repair the damage.

He could only wait and see what happened.

Stan, despite still being disoriented in the mornings and a little clumsily when it came to judging far distances, was recovering uncannily quickly. Like it was his natural condition, and having binocular vision was foreign. He struggled for less than a few hours adapting to everything being skewed left, but it seemed as though his brain and body adjusted easily.

Stanford was still taking notes on his condition. Vitals, rate of adaptation, how quickly Stan completed the puzzle each time, what sort of music Herman liked to listen to, Mabel's recovery from another bout with Smile Dip, memories of Bill…memories of Stan.

He’d called his Mom at Mason’s behest. Christmas evening. He’d been too scared to try a skype call, so he’d opted for a standard phone call. It was somehow more intimidating than talking with his grandson. NEPHEW!

“The little ones filled us all in on what’s been happening out there. But I want to hear it from you. An’ don’t try and lie to me, or hold anything back, Stanferd Pines, ‘cuz I’m yer mama. You can’t hide anything from me.”

Hearing her voice, her real honest to god voice was still soothing in ways he didn’t even know he was hurt. He’d neglected to call home much after college, and with Bill and the portal and spending thirty years…well, he never expected to hear her voice again. It was a relief to know he could apologize to her. To make peace. To her her say that she loved him.

He’d spoken at length. Telling her as much as he was able about his research, the portal, Fiddleford and Bill. About what happened to him for the thirty years he was in the multiverse. About his feelings for Bill. About their relationship. And about what had happened since the end of summer. Much of it repeated from his last call to her, but she listened silently, only interjecting with the occasional question or asking for clarification. She made no comment about his relationship with Bill. She didn’t ask him to explain, even though he did. She just listened.

“And I just don’t know what to do now. I don’t have a plan anymore. I’m out of my depth.” It felt so strange to say. Stanford had always had a plan of action. Even in the most dire of situations, he had something.

Caryn’s Jersey accent cracked over the speaker.

“Where’s Stanley now?”

“Sitting in the galley. He’s doing a puzzle. His depth perception should be gone, but he’s recovering alarmingly fast.”

“Can I talk to him?”

NO! Stanford’s ears rang with the force of the mental shout. He stepped close to the stairs to see Bill, but Stan had pulled himself into the corner of the booth, hidden from Stanford’s angle.

“I…I don’t…” He stuttered, hesitating at the top of the stairs.

“Stanford?” His mother’s voice was growing concerned.

I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t. Not her. Stan’s voice rang out in his head, so full of fear that it was staring to seep into his own thoughts. He gulped, clenching his free hand to steady his nerves.

“Mom…you have been listening, right? I mean…about Bill and…everything. Stan isn’t…he’s not…” He had explained it right? Stan wasn’t himself.

“Stanford Pines, he is my son and I want to know that he’s ok.” There was urgency on her voice. He couldn’t refuse her that.

“He is. As much as he can be. I’m doing my best to make sure he is.”

“You’d better. And what about you? Are you ok?”

Well, she had told him to be honest. He pulled away from the steps to the cabin door, pushing it open and standing on deck.

“Stanford?”

He took a breath, but it came out as a sob anyway.

“…..No.”

“Stanford, honey…?”

“I still love him, Mom. He hurt me so much. But I still love him.”

“Who’re you talkin’ about? Stanley, or this Bill fellow?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, and that’s part of the problem. They’re so much alike. I never noticed it before, but they are. And I can’t tell the difference anymore.” He didn’t think there were any tears left, but sure enough, his voice cracked and his eyes stung.

There was a sight on the other end of the line.

“Stanford, sweetie. Maybe it’s time you stopped tryin’ ta figure this out on your own. Let us help. Let your family help you.”

“I can’t! What if he hurts you? What if Mabel’s wrong? What if something bad happens?!”

“Just…we’ll think of something, ok? We can figure this out together. Just come home. Please.”

Twice. That was twice now his family asked him to come home. He didn’t want to give up this opportunity, but wasn’t it lost anyway? They weren’t sailing around the world looking for anomalies anymore. If they did, he would be putting his entre family in danger. Again. He couldn’t do that.

But there was nothing else he could do here. They were going to run out of supplies soon. He was out of ideas and Stan needed real medical care if his magic was truly sealed. He needed help. His family was willing to help.

Maybe it was time.

“I think…I think we are. Just a few more days to see if the unicorn necklace works. I won’t leave until I know for sure. And I can’t sail by myself. I need to know Bill can maneuver well enough with….with one eye.”

“Thank you.” The relief in her voice was palpable.

“I love you, Mom.”

“And I love you. Just get back here so I can say it to your face.”

He hung up without thinking to ask about Mason’s question. He shook his head. It didn’t matter. That was a conversation he wasn't ready to have just yet.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Three days passed in relative calm. He kept everyone updated. Stan was recovering. His color returned and his balance was as steady as ever. Depth perception gone, but you wouldn’t know it from the way he handled things. His appetite returned with vigor and they were alarmingly low on food. Stan had tried fishing again, but nothing was biting. They were in an ecological dead zone.

Preliminary tests yielded much needed relief. Stan was unable to use magic. His fingers flickered with tiny blue flames, but the unicorn seal was effective. He was unable to manipulate objects or pull things from the ether. Stan’s previously documented healing ability was muted. He was unable to actively use magic to heal, but his natural healing process was decidedly unnatural. Stanford was still uneasy about Bill still being able to invade his mind, but he supposed mindreading and thought projection was preferable to out right possession.

Stan had told him that their connection was instinctual rather than something actively sought out. Stan didn’t utilize magic when he read Stanford’s mind or projected his thoughts.

The implications were unsettling.

It was mid afternoon on the twenty-ninth when Stanford returned Stan’s phone.

Stan had been sitting on deck with a pole, hoping in vain that he’d be able to catch something for dinner that wasn’t rice and beans. But there was nothing. Stan still wore the bandage covering his eye and hands, but the wounds were mostly closed now. He sat in the fold out chair beside the railing, eye focused on the listless bobber.

Stanford stood, arms crossed, and leaning in the doorway of the cabin, watching him. The face was the same grizzled and scruffy profile of his brother. Stan had grown a nice beard in the time they had been out there. The grey surprisingly dark despite the shade of his hair. The balding spot at the back of his head less noticeable.

Stanford could almost imagine that everything was normal. The calm ocean breeze, Stan fishing for their dinner. His hand clenched around the smart phone tucked under his arm. He wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do, but it felt…earned. Stan had earned it.

Stanford’s history with Bill made him wary, but Bill as Stan…it was hard to say.

Stanford told himself that this was a test. What would Bill do with access to the kids? At least communication. Both Mason and Mabel had expressed their desires (and trepidations) to speak with Stan. And they were prepared to deal with the fallout of Bill chose to speak instead.

Mabel had assured him that his fears were groundless.

Stanford crossed the deck quietly, steps muffled by the pink bunny slippers on his feet. He stood at Stan’s left side, eyes on the horizon for a moment, or six, before he held the charged phone under Stan’s nose.

When nothing happened, he turned to see Stan had leaned back in his chair, eye trained on the phone in Stanford’s palm like it was going to bite him.

Stanford’s voice lodged in his throat. They should talk. They needed to talk. But he couldn’t. He he had gathered enough from the little Bill let leak from his mind that Stan wasn’t ready either.

Baby steps.

This was his peace offering.

Stan had turned to look Stanford in the eye. Stanford felt the hesitant probe into his mind. It was like a cooling effect starting at his temples and radiating over his scalp. Bill was trying to see if he was serious. The fishing pole sat tucked into the arm of the folding chair, forgotten, as Stan reached for the phone. Fingers brushing against Stanford’s palm as he took it.

Stan cradled the phone to his chest, hand covering the entirety of it as if Stanford would take it back. Stanford, instead, nodded, dropping his hand and turning to head back into the cabin. A firm hand wrapped around his wrist stopped him.

Stan’s fingers traced over the leather band of Vegvisir, dipping under the band to trace his wrist. He hadn’t taken it off much since they left Iceland. It was supposed to guide lost souls, and he needed any guidance any Gods were willing to offer.

Stan’s fingers trailed up and of the heel of his palm and across his fingers. He offered Stanford a soft smile, turning away abruptly and blinking back tears.

Damnit, Sixer! Keep makin’ me cry like this an I’m gonna get an infection.

Stanford smirked at Stan’s mental words, pulling his hand free and walking back to the cabin.

“As long as you let me change the bandages, it’ll be fine.” Funny how he could find his voice only when he was walking away.

“Huh? What did you…?” The fuck was that!? Was I that loud? Fuck. Need to control it better. Freaks him out.

“Yes, you are that loud. And…I’m used to it. That doesn’t give you permission to do it all the time, but, I’m fine with it.” Stanford entered the cabin and made his way down stairs to start making their meager meal of rice and beans.

“Sixer, I wasn’t talking.” Okay. Small thoughts. Private thoughts. Breathe.

Stanford felt a distinct change in the cool feeling over his scalp. Like it was pulling back, taking part of his mind with it. He frowned, rolling his eyes at Bill’s pathetic attempts to quiet his thoughts.

“Can still hear you!” He called, rooting around in the cupboards for a clean pot to boil rice. He heard a clatter from upstairs and the rapid pounding of steps coming nearer. He really didn’t want to fight. They had spent the last few days in relative calm. He had hoped that it might last a bit longer.

What does it mean? What does it Mean?!

“It means you’re loud. Now stop. I need to cook dinn…” But he was interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. Stanford whorled around, fist at the ready, despite logically knowing it was Bill. His instincts were still in top form.

But his fist was caught, Stan’s face fearful.

“Sixer, I ain’t talkin’. With my mouth or my mind. How’re you hearin’ me?”

Stanford glared, yanking his hand free to turn back to the counter, but Stan grabbed his arm, intent on having this conversation.

Same way I always hear you. How else?

But Stan’s eye widened. His thoughts louder still and woven with fear and confusion. What the hell is that?! Why’s my head feel hot? Why’re you so loud? How can he hear me?

“What on Earth are you talking about now? What…”

The ship shuddered. Hard. Stan instinctively wrapped his arms around Ford, tugging his brother close. His first instinct to shield Ford with his own body. Ford had made an effort to push Stan away, arms coming up to bunch in his shirt before he realized the greater danger. They stood silent for a moment before the ship shook again, this time, nearly throwing the twins off balance.

“Look, we can fight later. We got bigger problems.” Stanford pulled away from Stan and darted up the stairs again, Stan a step behind him.

The cabin door slammed open, handle digging into the paint on the wall behind it. Stan leaned over the railing beside his toppled chair and fishing pole, Stanford skidding to the rail on the other side of the deck.

The water was choppy, waves slapping against the side of the ship well past the name plate. Moments before it had been dead calm. There was no wind, lest none strong enough to cause wavs like this.

“Something’s out there.” Stanford’s voice floated just above the sound of the waves.

Stan strained his sight as far as it would go, but the unicorn necklace held firm. The water was too dark to see much below its surface. But whatever hit them had to be at least the same size as their ship. Which meant either they needed to get the fuck outta dodge, or grow wings.

Sub maybe? But then why aren’t we sinking? Got to be living. What the hell is that big?

“PORT!”

Stan was sliding into the port side railing beside Stanford in four strides. There was a rapid churning in the water some hundred yards from their ship. The water was noticeably lighter with tiny whitecaps and it was growing bigger, all coalescing into…oh fuck.

“Maelstrom!”

“How the Hell?!” There isn’t anything here. It was all a joke!

“The Bermuda triangle has been a hotspot for paranormal activity for centuries. What’s surprising is we haven’t run into anything yet.”

“No, it isn’t, and I would know.” He would know. There’s nothing here. There wasn’t supposed to be anything here. It was just an arbitrary patch of ocean that didn’t even have anything interesting at the bottom. It was just the Hatteras Abyssal Plain. It was called an abyss because there was nothing there!

Although the whirlpool virulently forming on their port side begged to differ. Stan wracked his mind to explain why a fucking maelstrom was forming in the middle of a mono-directional current. Whirlpools formed near shores, hell some of the biggest were tourist locations. So why here?

“Then what is this?” Ford’s questions were not helping him find the answers.

Stan just spread his arms, palms raised and face looking shocked and baffled. “Fuck if I know!”

“I thought you knew everything?”

“Yeah, well, it takes time to find things. And I never said I knew…”

The ship lurched violently again, knocking both men off balance.

Ford raced to the starboard side and peered over the edge. The water was too dark and to choppy to see anything beneath the surface. Stan could feel that they were being watched. It crept up his spine and pinched at the back of his neck. There was something in the water. Something that was not supposed to be there. Many somethings. Stan’s palms grew cold, and his throat seized.

“We aren’t caught on the main pull, just the feedback. Turn the engines on and get us out of here!” Ford bellowed, climbing on the roof of the cabin to grab the stabilizing rope for the antenna.

“On it!”

The ship lurched again, sending Stan careening sideways into the wheel. A dorsal fin came into sight over the railing. It was dark, and grey and the lack of a visible tail fin told Stan all he needed to know. He hoped they were hunting something else.

“That’s not just a whirlpool, Sixer!”

“I see that!” Ford’s response was muted by the water slapping against the side of the boat. Stan hadn’t turned the engines on yet. Had they been bumped, or just jerked around by the currents? He could hear Ford’s phone clicking as the dorsal fin slipped below the water.

“But they’re extinct! They’ve been extinct since the Pliocene. There’s…is there enough food to support such an apex predator? They shouldn’t exist.” Now was not the time to be a scientist Poindexter! They really should have installed a hull cam for instances like this.

“You gonna be the one to tell him that?” Go ahead, Sixer, tell it that it was in the wrong time period. The disappearance of the dorsal fin indicated a dive. Which meant they really needed to move. But they were cold, they had virtually no heat signature. Wait no, the engine was hot. And they gave off an electrical current. But if he started the engines, they would be noticed if by some miracle they hadn’t been already. Shit. Shit shit shit!

The whirlpool sputtered, like something enormous had passed through it.

“Just go!” Stan slammed the ignition and turned the wheel hard to starboard. The Stan O’War II jerked to life and sliced through the water at a top speed of 14 knots. It wasn’t fast, not really, but it was the fastest they could go with their craft. Stan crossed his fingers and hoped they would go unnoticed.

He knew that the universe hated him when he risked a look back and saw the dorsal fin re-appear and give chase.

“GO!” Ford roared, swinging down off the roof, and pulling the stern antenna guide rope to the railing. The bow guide rope already secure.

“We can’t out run a Meg!” His brother was crazy. Top speed of a Great White was nearly 20 knots, Megalodon was at least that fast. They would be overtaken within minutes.

“We’re gonna try,” was Ford’s only response.

The only way they were going to out run this thing was to outmaneuver it. Time to utilize those shitty driving skills. Stan cracked his proverbial knuckles and spun the wheel hard to port. They cut right in front of where the snout would be and Stan felt the ship spin 30 degrees as the beast grazed the bottom of their hull.

Stan pushed the throttle as far as it would go and gunned it back in the direction of the whirlpool.

“What are you doing?!” Ford was at his side now, braced against the cabin door frame. His eyes stretched wide and mouth hung agape.

“The only thing I know how.” Stan barked, spinning the wheel back to starboard. Ford jerked and leaned into the turn as they banked just shy of the whirlpool. It wasn’t enough to tip the boat at this speed, but the splash of water on his right side was unnerving. He’d have to be more careful.

Ford charged from the cabin door to the railing and aimed a sniper rifle in the distance. He held his breath for one, two three, seconds and takes the shot. Stan wants to tell him that it’s a waste of time to try, and a sniper round isn’t going to do anything against that hide. But he doesn’t, he just turns the wheel to ride with a rogue wave.

Ford shoulders the rifle and pulls back the sleeve of his jacket, the anomaly tracker strapped to his wrist. He clicks the button twice and a tracking beacon blip appears on the hologram.

“You really think you hit it?” Stan asked because he really doesn’t know if Ford could have made the shot. Ford shows him the beacon momentarily before heading in the cabin and hooking it to the main sonar beacon and slips on the heavy and oversized set of headphones. Herman cowers close to his pot. Ford spares a moment to pat the little tree before turning his attention back to the sonar.

Stan can hear the faint blips of a few larger-than-they-should-be things in the water around them. They hadn’t used the sonar much since leaving Iceland. Ford’s main focus was making it to a safe area to contain Bill, to contain him. They used it briefly in the Baffin Bay up near Greenland but that was to avoid icebergs or any other ships in the area. They hadn’t needed it much. It was limited, but it was far better than sailing blind.

Stanford’s voice crackled over the speaker mounted on the wheel console. Stan flicked the two way switch on the mic so he could reply.

“Got her locked, It’s a big one. Damn near eighty feet!” Stan heard a few more clicks and pings from the sonar. “And it’s small compared to whatever else caused that maelstrom.”

Eighty Feet!? Jesus Christ, what does it eat?!

“Coming up on your 5 o’clock.” It was eerie how calm Ford sounded, like he’d done this before. They really needed to have that talk about Ford’s adventures. But later, they had a monster to run from.

Stan yanked down on the throttle and leaned into the wheel, steering them to port and gunning it again. Stan yelled over the buzz of the engine, “How many we got?”

“It’s fuzzy, but I’ve got four distinct pings, we only got one on our tail. And she’s closing fast!”

Damnit! Give UP!

“4 o’clock!”

DAMNIT! God, I hope this works.

Stan slammed the throttle to zero. They listed for about 100 yards, losing speed fast. The ping darted past, not expecting its prey to stop. Stan engaged the engines and wrenched the wheel with all his strength sixty degrees. It was a hard turn, one that splashed his side again, but they were clear.

“Jesus!” Ford’s veneer of calm was finally cracking. Stan whooped and pounded the wheel with his fist.

“At current speeds and trajectory, it will be at our 1 o’clock in 2100 feet. You got a minute-thirty!”

Shit. This was gonna be hard. He couldn’t slow down. If the thing was aiming for their 1 o’clock, then it was gonna be leaning right when it met them. Best case, they graze the starboard bow, worst…well, he didn’t fancy their chances with their entire bow gone. Time to pull off a miracle.

Stan kept course. If he changed direction now, it would notice and readjust its own trajectory. He’d have to rely on the turning radius of the ol’ girl. No magic to help this time.

The seconds ticked by in a surreal state of taking forever and slipping passed at unnervingly fast.

“900 feet.”

“I KNOW!” Stan gripped the wheel, willing his heart to stop beating hard enough to bruise him from the inside out. A niggling voice told him to have Stanford take off the unicorn necklace. Stan couldn’t. He couldn’t even touch the thing with his hands. But no. He couldn’t control it. He was more likely to put them in more danger than they were already in. They were just going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.

Stan jerked the wheel to keep on course.

We’re gonna make it. We’re gonna make it. We’re…

“It’s changed course! 3 O’CLOCK!”

FUCK!

“Starboard!”

“You’re fuckin’ crazy!” Stan shouted over the wind. What the Hell was Stanford on? If it was coming in on their 3, then they were going to hit it head on if they turned now.

“Starboard, NOW!”

“Damn you!” With his magic bound, he wasn't able to see what Stanford could. It was a moment of trust. Did he trust Stanford?

The answer was obvious.

Stan spun the wheel hard to starboard, right into the jaws of a creature of legend. He braced against the wheel, waiting to heat the crunch of steel and fiberglass. But nothing came. He opened his eyes in time to see a dorsal fin taller than he was pass by their boat close enough to touch. A thump from below told him they had slipped over the head of the monster.

It was over in a moment and he slammed the throttle as hard as he could and leaned further into the turn. Protective symbols faded in an out around his hands and neck as he pushed harder. He strained against the seal to get eh ship to move faster. Just a little faster.

“It’s not acting right! Megs are ambush hunters, its chasing.” Stanford’s voice was shaky over the speaker.

“I know! Sixer, I know!” He didn’t care if it was acting like it should. Hell, it could be typically an herbivore and he wouldn’t care because it was chasing them right now!

Several pings and sonar feedback reverberations spat out of the speaker. The pings were faint and spaced. Did they lose it?

Stan heard a lever switch on, a few buttons press and his ears were ringing with the magnified sonar. Stanford had cranked it up to eleven.

“It’s headed back!”

Stan felt a wave of exhaustion as much of the adrenaline left him. He leaned on the wheel console as he slowed the ship down to a stop. He could hear the sonar. There was nothing after them, but he was still on edge. Something wasn't right.

After a few more moments and close monitoring of the sonar, Stanford stepped out on to the deck, binoculars in hand. He raised them to his face and leaned against the railing.

“Jesus! I think it finally got tired.” It came out as a gasp. Stanford’s shoulders shuddering with each panted breath. Stan’s mind slammed against the inside of his skull hard enough to blur his vision as magical symbols wrapped around his head.

“Nope, found better prey” How the hell did we miss that?

“What?” Stanford had dropped the binoculars to tun back, but Stan just nodded at the water.

There was an eruption of water 600 yards off their ship. A juvenile whale rose up out of the water, twisting and writhing. As the water fell back, they could see the form of the giant shark that had been chasing them. Pale underbelly rippling with the effort to stay upright. Teeth sunk into the flesh of the whale easily bigger than their ship. The snout jerked back and forth sending frothy spurts of blood and tissue.

“Holy mother of…yeah ok.” Stanford pats frantically at his pockets searching for his phone to snap pictures.

Stan pats his on the shoulder and turns to head back inside. “I’m gonna get a beer, you want one?”

Stanford grunts and nods distractedly, giving up on his search for his phone and instead bracing against the railing and watching the monstrosity slip beneath the surface of the water with its victim.

Stan heads down the steps to the galley, pulling out the last two beers they had. Well, Stan had a bottle of rum tucked away behind his mattress, but he didn’t suppose either of them were intending to get drunk. He cracked the tab and took a sip. The chilled liquid doing its job at cooling his over heated insides. The galley was in disarray. Paper and tools and books all strewn about the floor and bench. The cupboards were locked closed, but he was sure that the plates and silverware were a mess behind those closed wood panels. They’d deal with it later. First, they needed to figure out where the hell they were. They were probably still in the Bermuda Triangle, but there was no way in Hell they were staying around with one Meg around, let alone however many came through.

Stan grabbed the second beer, taking another sip from his own and making his way back up to the cabin. He met Stanford at the door and passed him the can.

“You were saying something about the Bermuda Triangle not being a hotspot of paranormal activity?” Stanford raised an eyebrow, popping the tab and taking his own sip, grimacing at the taste.

“But it’s NOT! I made it up. Why do you think it’s a triangle?”

“You made it up?” Stanford stared at him incredulously, beer held slack.

“I thought it was funny!” Stan rests the can against his forehead, hoping the cool liquid will cool his aching head. “Jesus, where the hell did those things come from? They sure as shit ain’t from this dimension, that’s for damn sure.”

Stanford hummed, leaving his can on the table and waling over to the main computers. A few switch flicks and the sonar display is off and their main computer display takes its place. Stan ignores it, choosing instead to gulp down the wheaty swill Iceland claimed was beer. Maybe he would pull out that bottle of rum. It was either that, or water. They really needed to decide when they were going to make port.

“I’m hacking into the satellite array over the area. The whirlpool seems to be gone now. Either that or the re-fresh rate on these USNCEC arrays are garbage.” Stan wandered over to the computers, leaning over Stanford’s shoulder to get a better look at the screen.

Sixer was right, the resolution was crap, but that maelstrom had been near sixty feet across and was sure to pop up on any satellite image, but there was nothing. And it had been just a few minutes since they stopped.

Stan rubbed at his chin, beer hanging loosely and forgotten in his left hand. He tapped his foot intermittently as he thought. A whirlpool pops up out of nowhere and comes with four fucking leviathans easily big enough to swallow our boat whole. Fuckin’ Christ, this is stupid. Had the whirlpool been caused by previously unknown creatures lurking in the ocean or had the vortex brought the beasts from somewhere else? That wasn’t a typical whirlpool. He was sure of it now. It was a crack. He just didn’t know where from.

Stan paused, he really didn’t want to think about this. Sure, it was the theory that he’d pushed Sixer to back when Ford was studying the strange things in Gravity Falls, but it wasn’t true. The weird things that existed in this world had been always been here, they didn’t slip over in some crack between dimensions. And cracks were notoriously unstable, they didn’t last long. Maybe a few days at most. Hell, the only reason the one between here and the Nightmare Realm had lasted as long as it did was because some outside force was keeping it open, namely the portal Ford had built. The rift had then been kept open with his own magic, though, it would have closed by the week’s end. Even he had his limits.

But this, this was unprecedented. Cracks don’t form on their own. They were side effects of something much bigger. And those leviathans weren’t from his dimension, so Weirdmageddon had not caused this. Stan pressed his fingers into his eyes and took a calming breath before speaking. But Ford beat him to the punch.

“Those weren’t from you and yours, I’ve seen them before. In my travels I came across a dimension where sixty percent of the planets were primarily aquatic environments. I was…marooned on Tifus 8, ocean planet, for three weeks when trying to gain access to a sanctioned portal.”

Stan didn’t bother responding. Instead leaning over Ford’s body to stare at the satellite images on the screen. He pressed a few keys, expanding the image and waving off Ford’s indignant scoffing. The whirlpool was gone, but the after effects were just starting. The energy needed to open a portal, even a small one, was immense. That excess energy needed to go somewhere. In Gravity Falls, the energy had emitted as gravitational anomalies and power surges. Here, it seemed, the energy was radiating out into the water and air. The image was fairly clear, a few scatted clouds here and there. He refreshed the image. More clouds. So many they almost completely obscured the image. And it was at least four minutes old.

Stan’s eye flicked up to the window to confirm. The sky was dark and the wind was continuing to steer waves into their hull.

They were in for one hell of a storm.

“The closest port is either Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic. Got a preference?” Ford was already a step ahead of him it seemed. Not a big step, but still. Stan smirked.

“Puerto Rico is probably not the safest place, but I doubt we’ll get better supplies elsewhere. Set the course. I’ll take first shift. You get sleep. We ain’t stoppin’ till we hit land. And this is gonna get bumpy real quick.”

*~*~*~*

Stan was wrong. Quick implied that there was a window of time before something was to happen. A few moments to a few hours depending on the circumstance. However, Stan’s definition of quick was not applicable. Immediate was a better fit, as fat rain drops splatted on the deck the moment he stepped out to ready the engines again.

With the GPS set, all he had to do was keep following the path highlighted on the hologram mounted on the wheel. Which became a blessing forty minutes later when the sky got darker and the rain came down in sheets. He could hear the distant sounds of rumbling and took a moment every now and again to glance at the sky.

From their current location, they were about two days from Puerto Rico. Just shy of 48 hours. He’d sail until dawn (or at least until morning if the storm hadn’t let up enough to actually see dawn) before going down to trade off. Ford had come out to wrap a blanket and raincoat around him before going to sleep, with the promise that Stan would wake him if anything happened. Stan had wrapped him in a brief one-armed hug without thinking. Ford hadn’t hugged back. They stood there for an awkward moment, Ford’s arms hanging limp at his sides before Stan let out an embarrassed cough and pulled back to steer.

Hours passed quicker sitting in a hospital waiting room than they did for Stan bundled at the helm of the Stan O’ War II. The rain dumping buckets as the crack’s energy dissipated. He followed the hologram’s map, hoping that their satellite connection would hold. He didn’t fancy trying to navigate the old-fashioned way in the storm.

His mind wandered with the hours. Memories overlapping and merging together. They were, not ok exactly, but they were amiable. If strained. The last few days had really helped to ease the tension from before. But their ‘encounter’ had taught him that he was not going to lose control again. He had gotten too wrapped up in his own emotions and wasn't thinking rationally. And he didn’t have the best record even when he was rational.

His hands shook when his now eidetic memory thoughtfully provided the images of said ‘encounter’. Not even the deafening storm could drown out Ford’s cries. Stan kicked at the metal console hard enough to bruise his toes. It hurt like a bitch, but it cleared his mind. The memories not so vivid.

Never again. He promised himself. Never again would it come to that. He would shoot himself before he lost control like that again. Even if Ford had wanted it in the end.

Nothing would happen between them. Not while he was still trying to figure out who the hell he was. Because as much as he wanted to be Stan…he wasn’t. He wasn’t Stan anymore just like he wasn’t Bill anymore. Though it was almost sick how much better he felt now. His eye was gone. Not just incapacitated, or blinded. No, it was gone. He’d torn out the leftover tissue himself. Ford had severed and cauterized the nerves and blood vessels. It should be disturbing. Violently horrific. But he just felt calm. It was like having slowly deteriorating eyesight for years and then finally putting on glasses. The world shifted right, and became clear again. He’d done Poindexter’s like puzzles to appease him, but on the whole, Stan felt great! The skin around it still ached and the wounds itched, but otherwise, everything was right. He had decided not to tell Ford that. Sixer had too much on his plate already.

Stan tested the unicorn seal periodically through the night. Attempts to create a bubble around himself to keep him dry only made his headache worse and his fingers tingle. Trying to steer the wheel without touching it resulted in it smacking him in the face when he let go. It was holding. He could still heal himself, more an amplified version of his body’s natural healing, but nothing else. He wasn't even able to heal the paper cut Ford had gotten while taking notes.

Stan couldn’t remove it. That was the first thing they had tested. His fingertips got within half and inch and were repelled. Of course, that meant he couldn’t scratch his own neck anymore, but he’d pick himself up a back scratcher when they landed. He could always get Ford to do it, but that was headed back down the road with a large yellow “Dead End” sign.

When the storm hadn’t let up at 7 a.m., he knew the crack had been much large then they saw. What else had come through? What caused it? Had it happened elsewhere? Stan could swear he’d seen a movie like this somewhere. Portals opening up in the middle of the ocean for monsters to come through. But nothing came immediately to mind.

He was soaked everywhere the raincoat didn’t cover. The insulated blanket the only thing keeping him from becoming numb. He slowed the ship to a crawl, checking the satellite connection again, before wandering into the cabin. He shucked his clothes in the engine room to keep the water from tacking everywhere before he went to wake Ford. He stalled in the doorway, acutely aware that he was naked and how uncomfortably familiar this was.

“Ford. I got the boat listing. I’m gonna shower and make food. I’ll bring it up to ya when I get out.” Stan heard a questioning grunt but no other response. He sighed, white knuckled grip on the door frame.

“It’s morning. I’m freezing. I’m showering. You go up and man the boat. I’ll bring food.” Stan risked tossing his pillow at the dark form before backpedaling to the bathroom. A faint, “Alright, I’m up” followed him, but he was already closing the door.

He flipped the shower on as hot as it would go and waited a moment before stepping under the spray. The bathroom didn’t have a separate area for the shower, no shower curtain. Not enough room on the cramped space. If you had to shower, everything was gonna get wet. On the plus side, if you had to take a shit, all you had to do was turn around. They kept the paper in a plastic box and a towel hung on the door out of the spray.

Stan had only a few blessed moments under the hot water before the door swung open and his brother wobbled in, still sluggish from sleep.

“The FUCK, man!” Ford had already snaked a hand out to lower the pressure of the shower so it didn’t reach the toilet.

“I have to pee.”

“Pee off the side of the boat!” But Ford was already undoing his zip and Stan stepped as close to the wall as he could. Jesus, couldn’t it wait ten minutes?

“No. Besides, I’m already done.” Stan didn’t turn around to confirm, but he could hear the sink turn on. The hot feeling in his head was back again. And he was sure he hadn’t said anything. Did he say something? Sixer heard it, so he must have. Or he was projecting his thoughts without realizing it. He was going to have to work on that. Stan squeezed his eye closed, keeping his head down to stop water from running into his empty eye socket. He really should have kept it covered, but any damage would just heal by morning anyway. A hand patted his shoulder before flipping the water pressure back up.

Stan would deny the high-pitched squeak that echoed off the bathroom walls to his (probably) dying day.

*~*~*~*~*

They took turns piloting the ship for the next 12 hours, but neither one was really able to sleep. Stan took the helm and followed the GPS hologram without much complaint, but Ford kept checking and rechecking the signal. He was agitated about something, but Stan wasn't about to try and bait him to explaining what. Just follow the signal and they would be in Puerto Rico by late evening the next day.

That was until they passed under the worst of the lightning.

It seemed to grow stronger the further south they sailed. Ford had made attempts to change their course to go around it, but it seemed to follow them. The sky lit up with a web of light, visible even through the thick rain. It wasn't a matter of if they would be struck, but when.

The bow and stern guide wires for the antenna were secure. Ford wanted to tie the side wires, but Stan wasn't about to let him climb up next to a metal pole in the middle of an electrical storm. That metal plate in Sixer’s head the least of his reasons. The engine was insulated against electrical surges and would be fine. Unfortunately, their engine was all that would be fine. They would lose their GPS, Sonar, water pump and stove, computer and radio connection. Heck, they might even lose power in their phones if it was bad enough. That was the trade off with a fully electric (or in their case, nuclear) engine over sails.

Stan knew it was going to happen soon. Despite the rain, the air felt tight. His hair stood on end and he swore he could taste metal. Ford had tried everything he could to adjust their course. To signal out. Something. But the storm was interfering with their radio. Stan had caught a snippet of a radio conversation with a passing shipping freighter, but the call kept cutting out, and Ford’s Spanish was rusty. Stan didn’t bother trying to look for it. Even if it was close enough to see, he wasn’t going to through the rain.

Ford pushed out of the cabin, cursing in some alien language Stan wasn't going to take the time to identify. Stan ignored him and checked the GPS hologram again, adjusting for the pull of the current. A tingling sensation clawed down his spine, growing stronger and radiating over his shoulders, scalp and legs. His hands grew slack on the wheel. The metal taste was back, filling his mouth and dripping down his throat.

He heard a scream. Felt the pull of something at his jacket, and he was on the deck, Ford’s arms around his middle. Stan’s arms wrapped around Ford’s head as the bolt struck the antenna. White light blinding them both and ringing filling their ears.

Nothing to do but ride it out.

*~*

Everything was gone. They could still move, (thank God they had the foresight to insulate their engine), but everything else was gone. Stan once again at the helm with a compass and a map in a plastic folder taped to the window. They had been sailing for almost two days now, but something wasn't right. They should be nearing Puerto Rico but they weren’t. Ford had been searching the horizon with the binoculars and telescope for hours. The storm had let up some, but the rain hadn’t stopped. It was approaching evening on the second day. Ford had triple checked their course but it didn’t add up. Maybe they had missed it? They both agreed to adjust southwest in the hopes that they had just been blown off course by the storm after their GPS went down.

Two hours after sunset, they spotted land. Stan whooped and even Ford let out an elated yell. Another hour and they were ready to dock and get a hotel, or a hostel or fuck anything warm and dry. Ford had their passports ready and waiting to be stamped. Stan, who had a much better grasp on the Spanish Language, collected their paperwork and what was left of their American cash to pay the harbor master a docking fee. The pier was dark, no one around in the late hours. He hopped off the ship as soon as Ford had it tied down and made his way to the main building. He got within ten feet of it when he stopped dead.

The sign on the office read in big, bold letters:

Barranquilla, Colombia.

-End Chapter 23-

Chapter One

#stancest #whole again #Stanley Pines #stanford pines #same coin theory

2 notes · View notes

blackjack-15 · 5 years

Text

Curtain Call — Thoughts on: The Final Scene (FIN)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are notspoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: FIN, mention of SSH, ASH, non-spoiler mention of STFD, CAR, RAN, TRN, DED, GTH, SPY, LIE.

The Intro:

The Final Scene is the fifth game in the Nancy Drew series and the game that caps off the Classic Nancy Drew games (according to my own very non-scientific divisions of the Nancy Drew games), as the games that follow are bigger, longer, and more complex — not to mention they start tying themselves together, opening up Nancy’s world, and at least make some use of her “amateur detective” title rather than always being set up for the mysteries, or having her stumble upon them while on vacation.

For full disclosure, I will start off here by saying FIN is one of my least favorite games in the Nancy Drew franchise for one big and a few small things, so I’m going to attempt to be as measured as possible, addressing its good points just as much as the bad points.

From here on out, Nancy Drew games grow more but they also grow more unevenly, making jumps in some areas and failing in others. FIN is slightly uneven, but it’s still more balanced than the games that are to come, and I quite enjoy that balance in this game.

FIN is also the game where Her Interactive realized that just having Bess, George, and Ned (apart from one or two throw-away characters) as phone contacts was going to become dull very quickly. Eustacia is an attempt at bridging that gap, but it’s the next game that actually solves the problem, opening up the Nancy Drew world with the addition of the two most enduring (and endearing) phone contacts of the series – Frank and Joe Hardy.

Complexity-wise, FIN is closer to STFD and MHM, taking a step back from TRT’s complexity and richness of location and character. It’s the last “small” game, as far as location goes (excepting a few later games like CAR, RAN, and DED), with the tiny theater feeling almost claustrophobic.

This feeling is compounded with the lack of puzzles in the game; it’s mostly a “sleuthing” type game like STFD, but without the variety of sleuthing locations and continually refreshed locations that other heavy sleuthing games like GTH or LIE have.

While the Royal Palladium Theater is as important to the story as the Mansion from MHM or the Tower in TRT, it just doesn’t have the atmospheric presence that the other two locations do. The theater is gorgeous, but it doesn’t feel like a character.

This is the last “small” game for Nancy in-world as well — between the moderate publicity she got at the end of TRT and the enormous amounts of publicity she gets for this game, Nancy has moved up in the world. She’s still an amateur, but she’s no longer a small-town or anonymous amateur detective.

FIN attempts to be a game that rides on high drama, and it largely succeeds — except for the fact that a few large logical gaps in the game cut the tension and the drama, leaving the player happy but always wanting it to be a little bit More.

The Title:

As a title, “The Final Scene” is a decent one — we’re dealing with the final “scene” of the theater, the final “scene” of the three-day deadline, the possible “final scene” of Maya’s life — and the final scene of the culprit’s time at the theater, as well. It’s a cinematic title, fitting for such a cinematic theater.

That does lead us to the question — what “final scene” is the title talking about?

As a kid playing this game with my sister, I probably would have said that the “final scene” is that climactic moment when the police are clearing the theater and Nancy has to hide, where she finds Maya, and where Joseph confronts Nancy, raving about the theater and his ultimate, insane plan.

As an adult, nearly two decades later, the phrase “final scene” has a bit more of a somber tone. Although this issue will be addressed fully in the “fix” section, it should be mentioned here.

Joseph is in the “final scene” of his life, via his age, and has determined that this — this three-day madcap abduction, featuring a clueless cast of know-nothing know-it-alls and a hapless demolition crew armed with a 2,400 pound closing curtain — will be the ultimate Final Scene.

Viewed that way, the title is just as effective, but it’s a somber title — matched in tone by “Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon” and “The Silent Spy”. This isn’t a problem in and of itself, but it is a problem that the tone of the game doesn’t back it up.

Ultimately, it feels like “The Final Scene” was picked because they were like “oh, theater pun! Tip the intern .05c for that, Timothy!” rather than “this fits in many different ways, providing nuance to new and returning players”.

The Mystery:

When the game starts, much like TRT, there is no mystery — but that doesn’t stay true for more than 20 seconds. Nancy’s visiting her (and Bess’ and George’s) friend from high school, Maya Nguyen, in St. Louis, where Maya is interviewing cinematic “hunk” Brady Armstrong.

When Maya goes into Brady’s dressing room, however, she screams — and when Nancy gets in the room, she’s gone. Maya’s disappearance is punctuated by a threatening call from her kidnapper (abductor? Maya’s too old to be kidnapped, per se) telling Nancy she has to stop the demolition of the theater or else Maya will be killed when they knock it down.

From there, Nancy abandons any of the usual whispers of tact that she employs and straight up yells at the other people in the theater (and the police outside), trying to find Maya through what seems to be sheer intimidation tactics rather than Actual Sleuthing, desperate to beat the 3 day deadline.

It’s not easy, what with no one but the old caretaker of the theater, Joseph, cooperating with Nancy — not even the police, despite a witness to the kidnapping testifying of, well, the kidnapping. Nancy uses her smarts and a bit of luck (along with a lot of snooping) to solve the question of who kidnapped Maya and what every one of the people within the theater were hiding.

As a mystery, FIN is gripping — a personal stake, a strict mission, and four people hiding things explicitly from Nancy, rather than each other. It’s a shame that the mystery is a little undercut by a scarily easy-to-figure-out culprit — and the mystery that their state of mind brings up.

The Suspects:

Joseph Hughes takes care of the Royal Palladium Theater and has for decades. He’s the first suspect that Nancy meets — over the phone, right after Maya’s kidnapping — and is the first to know about the kidnapping.

Joseph is an obvious culprit, but obvious in a different way from any of the previous games. In the past, it’s about the 1/3 mark that the culprit becomes stunningly obvious, and it gets a little old watching Nancy treat others as if they’re equally (or more!) suspicious. Joseph, however, is not only obvious as the culprit immediately — he’s the closest when it happens, for one thing — but he’s also obviously insane.

There are several culprits where the first reaction might be “wow, they’re crazy”, but Joseph is obviously suffering from clinical dementia, exacerbated by the looming fate of the theater and losing the thing most familiar to him. It’s not that I expect this fact to be treated with delicacy in an early Nancy Drew game — or the early 2000s as a whole — but the fact that it’s not even touched is concerning to me.

This isn’t really touched on in the fandom as well. Joseph is Obviously Unwell and needs medical help and care for his condition, but even the ending of the game just plays it off as “wow, what a crazy culprit, good thing Nancy caught him” instead of “wow, this Ill man really needs help and it’s tragic that his dementia led him to endanger multiple lives”.

He’s an uncomfortable suspect and an even more uncomfortable culprit, and he really just bothers me. A lot of people class him as their favorite “sympathetic” suspect, but the question of how much “Joseph” there even is left is both one that’s incredibly important and incredibly overlooked.

It makes rating Joseph as a suspect hard, and even harder to rank him as a culprit. Other than the shortness of this game and its lack of puzzles, Joseph is probably the biggest reason I don’t replay FIN. He makes the game significantly less fun, and is alternately disturbing and pitiable.

He’s also the one that Her Interactive decided to “trick” the fanbase with, as he follows the “early cleared suspect who becomes Nancy’s helper” trope…with the exception of being cleared even a little bit.

I appreciate the attempt at subverting the formula — though since the formula started in the 3rd game, subverting it by the 5th might feel a bit early — as it shows a willingness to come up with new and fun ideas. I just wish it worked here.

Simone Muller is Brady Armstrong’s hard-liner agent, running every part of his life and fame — and doing, by all accounts, a fantastic job with it, as he’s the hottest rising star in Hollywood. She’s catty, awesome, practical, and cunning; she’s an unflappable woman willing to do what it takes — teenage detectives crawling out of her wardrobe or not.

Simone doesn’t really do anything the whole game other than be incredibly entertaining with her fake names for Nancy (Fancy Jackson is so disco, but she could totally work it) and order a funeral wreath for Maya — which, macabre or not, is a total power move.

Simone might not be the most moral person (though she’s hands down the most moral suspect in FIN) in the world, but she knows what she wants and gets it, and is one of the two active suspects (as Brady and Nick are passive), which already makes her more likable.

She also is the first to bring up “Samantha Quick” (as a stage name for Nancy), marking the first (but certainly not the last) time we’ll hear of the superspy.

Simone is the most moral and innocent of the bunch, and is (not coincidentally) the only one with a love life — a very successful-seeming love life, if her PDA notes are anything to go by.

She is also in all probability a Domme. So that kind of rocks too.

As a suspect, Simone is a decent one, seeming shifty without hiding something, and ultimately self-interested. She couldn’t have been the culprit, as she had no need to make Brady more famous in connection with the theater, but she was more than willing to spin a bad situation to her gain.

Simone is entertaining, competent, and even has a few character traits (her willingness to take a chance on making a hot dog seller into a star; her relationship with Georgie-Bear, etc.) that make her delightfully 3D.

Brady Armstrong (Thompson) is a hot-dog-seller-cum-actor discovered a few years ago by Simone and (secretly) the descendent of the theater’s owner, JJ Thompson, setting him up as the legal heir of the theater and the person behind the demolition.

Brady is, without exaggeration, an idiot, whose “big idea” for the land that the Royal Palladium is on is “Planet Tinseltown”, an idea that he’s very proud of for its originality, even though it’s not an original idea at all.

He’s alternately sheltered and taken advantage of by Simone, but you can’t really feel sorry for him, because he’s an enormous douchebag who wants Maya out of the way because she discovered the truth about him.

As a suspect, Brady is decent; secret past in relation to the theater, surprisingly unscrupulous for his general personality, and out to silence Maya. It’s nice that he is kind of the villain in that he refuses to stop the demolition even while lives are at stake, but that he’s not an over-the-top cackling maniac.

One of the best decisions Her Interactive made in this game was to have their suspects each be guilty of something Bad but not the ultimate Crime, rather than having them like Rose in MHM who is so innocent as to be boring. Brady’s a good example of that, and it saves him from the garbage heap.

Brady ultimately is a dumb bro who thinks that everyone wants his dick, but he’s just dumb enough to think himself intelligent, which is a dangerous trait that leads perfectly into his actual villainy. He very much could have been the big bad, but it works out better for his character that he’s not.

Nicholas Falcone is the founder of the incredibly niche organization “Humans Against the Destruction of Illustrious Theaters”, named specifically to spell “HADIT”, who’s still moping about his grandmother’s past with the Royal Palladium and has, according to police records, actually kidnapped someone in order to stop a demolition before.

Though a fan-favorite, I never really understood the pull to Nick; he’s just the “crunchy hippie” type douche to Brady’s “slimy prep” douche — he’s still a douchebag, all things considered. Maybe it’s the facial hair, which I believe is the first for the attempted “scruffy yet handsome character”, and the second overall (after Jacques in the last game).

Maybe it’s the tragic-yet-legally-questionable backstory, inspiring sympathy in all of us that were young enough to see the matter as black and white.

Maybe it’s the horribly cringe-y slang even for 2001.

The ‘happening’ slang is a weird point with Nick; while it’s probably intended to make him seem ‘hip’ and ‘with it’, it has the opposite effect when Nancy, a recent high school graduate (and thus younger than Nick) has no idea what he’s saying.

Sure, Nancy’s a square who doesn’t really use slang herself (though that’s relaxed a bit more as the series went on), but she went to high school. She’s gonna recognize modern slang, as observant as she is — which leads the player to the only conclusion possible: Nick is using horrifically outdated slang and trying to make Nancy seem even less ‘hip’ than she is already.

Welcome to the Twilight Zone, buckaroo.

It turns out that Nick’s grown up at the theater, so Joseph refuses to tell him to leave despite the fact that Nick has literally kidnapped someone to stop a theater demolition before (which honestly should be a huge clue who the villain is).

He’s harboring a grudge against JJ Thompson for never compensating his great-grandmother Louisa Falcone. While it’s a douche move, Nick has no legal right to the theater (see below), so it does come off a bit “…huh?” at the end for him.

As a suspect, Nick is one of those suspect-of-the-times characters that made a lot of sense back in the early 2000s and hasn’t made any sense…since. While he has his motivation in his grandmother being slighted, he’s mostly just there to spout slogans and sound ‘radical’. In 2019, he’d be a #keyboardwarrior, competing with Simone on Twitter and Instagram over who could “get the word out” most effectively. #corporategenerica #cancelcharmstrong

Whether Nick works as a character largely rests on if you can overlook the unsigned contract and if you find his spiel charming or annoying. He’s a time capsule of turn-of-the-century Seattle activism, and Her Interactive nails that…but it’s just not interesting to me.

The Favorites:

While this game is one of my least favorite among the entire series, it has plenty of high points that are incredibly enjoyable.

The design of the theater and the secret rooms is fabulous. The Palladium Theater is based off an incredibly sumptuous real life theater, and the animators went to great lengths to represent it accurately. The music, the colors, — these are great, and go a long way to making the game great to look at. The fun little knock-off posters in the lobby are a great example of this.

Nancy yelling that RUBBER IS SHOCK PROOF when absolutely nobody asked is a fun little moment that I look forward to, as well as Simone’s hilariously over-the-top funeral wreath.

The fact that the flower people were just like “hmm a Quirky Message” and not like “…call the cops” just shows that absolutely no one other than Nancy (and even not even Nancy sometimes) is taking this kidnapping seriously.

Eustacia Andropov is a bright, shining star in this game and remains, almost 30 games later, one of the most memorable phone characters that the series has ever produced. Her morbid sense of humor, dry tone, and absolutely awesome voice actor all combine to create a character that is possibly my favorite in the entire game, and definitely sits in the Phone Contact hall of fame.

There’s not really very many puzzles in FIN, so The Amazing Monty might take the title of my favorite by default.

The best overall moment of the game is Nancy being like “gross used gum” and immediately putting it into her inventory. Disgusting, Nance.

Though Nancy’s pretending to be Brenda Carlton is a high point as well.

The Un-Favorites:

My least favorite part of this game is that Nancy, in order to not make the game last five minutes, doesn’t ever consider Joseph a suspect, and instead confides everything in him, even setting him up to be in charge of giving evidence to the police.

When that evidence disappears, she doesn’t suspect him for a moment — that alone kills the game, and it’s the worst feeling in the world when you have to consider that the game makes Nancy stupid in order to have a game at all.

The Falcone part of the game is another part that is my least favorite — and not just because no one pronounces “Falcone” correctly (darn you, Seattle-based Her Interactive!).

Louisa Falcone’s name is on the contract, yes, but she never signed it. That means that the contract isn’t legally binding…and also means that Nick has no right to the theater, either. The fact that Her Interactive didn’t even bother to fact check this does sour the whole storyline for me, which is unfortunate.

The last “unfavorite” in this game is how empty the theater feels. The lack of more than a dozen puzzles and far too few things to click on, look at, or investigate (in some ways, the opposite problem that STFD had) makes the game feel even shorter than it always is, and takes away some of the enjoyment I have (and the potential to have) of the Theater as a Character.

I don’t really have a least favorite puzzle in this game — though if I had to choose, it’s the endless identical keys at the very high-stress ending sequence. My absolute least favorite moment in the game is when Joseph’s giant head appears over the trapdoor and Nancy’s forced to stare at it for upwards of 30 agonizing seconds.

The Fix:

So how would I fix The Final Scene?

The biggest single, contained thing to fix would be The Joseph Problem. Not only does he make it over distances that a sprinter would struggle with in too small a time to even teleport, but there’s also the whole dementia thing, along with Nancy blindly trusting him and never treating him as a suspect.

Besides the issue of Joseph’s apparent Instant Teleportation, which is a common problem in Nancy Drew video games, the most game-breaking problem with Joseph is that Nancy trusts him implicitly, refusing to consider him a suspect even a little bit — even though he tells her to— instead choosing to make him her partner in…solving crime?

A simple fix would to be to make her not do that, but I’d actually prefer to change as little as possible about these games in the fix section, so instead I propose this fix: make it explicitly in-character for Nancy to do this.

It would make sense for Nancy to be weak to people of a certain age; her father, given the timeline, would have to be slightly older (a young lawyer during Alexei’s trial as a 20 year old), Hannah is elderly as well, her Aunt Eloise — the backing for this in-story is fairly strong.

So if Joseph reminds her of these older people in her life (and make her say this at least three times during the game), it then makes sense as to why Joseph would be above suspicion.

Sure, the player would still have the ability to see her trust of Joseph as a mistake, and it might even be a little frustrating still, but then at least the reason isn’t “Nancy is an Idiot”, it’s “Nancy’s making a mistake” — and a mistake justified in-story.

The Final Scene fails as a game — literally, as a game— because of its lack of, well, detecting and puzzles and other game mechanic stuff. Sure, it’s a snoop-heavy (versus puzzle-heavy) game, but there’s not even much snooping to do. Play a few mini games, talk on the phone, and you’re at the culprit confrontation before you expect it.

Alternately, miss noticing one tiny thing and you’re stuck on Day 1 without the ability to progress.

Obviously, including a few more puzzles is a great way to help this problem (Houdini was involved with the theater! Why aren’t there more secret locks and false walls and stuff?), but that should be added along with making the progression from day to day smoother.

Give Nancy a concrete goal that establishes itself at the beginning of the day, and prevent it from being able to happen until a few other tasks/conversations have happened as well. Making this obvious prevents the sense of time/urgency from being lost while Nancy wanders the theater playing mini-games.

Giving the police more of a presence would be a good idea as well. Nancy, despite lack of visual confirmation of a kidnapping, still qualifies under the law — then and now — as a witness of a kidnapping.

The police coming in on the second day didn’t ruin the plot or shut down the theater; a few detectives coming in on Day 1 wouldn’t do it either. It’s pointless for the police not to have a presence — it’s not like Nancy’s not gonna investigate anyway.

A junior police detective at the very least to add in as a “bonus character” that Nancy can interrogate/work with would be a good compromise. I know an extra character is a big “add”, but it’s better than hours with faceless police jabbering.

The Final Change (geddit?) is more thematic than concrete, and thus wouldn’t take more than a line of dialogue here and there.

“Rot” is present, thematically speaking, throughout the first part of the game: the theater is falling apart, there’s the “rotten” person who kidnapped Maya; Joseph’s brain is succumbing to age-driven “rot”; Nancy even calls out Brady as a “rotten fraud” (which he is). Simone represents the “rot of Hollywood”, and Nicholas, besides being a “rotten” person (kidnapping), is also stuck in the past of the theater — a past rotting away.

Bringing this to the forefront, reinforcing it through dialogue and Nancy’s own musings (or to Bess/George/Ned, working their characterization), would go a long way to thematically tying these character to this game. Making the characters and game inseparable is the mark of a successful Nancy Drew game — think GTH — and FIN is in sore need of it.

#nancy drew #nancy drew games #clue crew #the final scene #nancy drew meta #FIN #video games #my meta

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finaloop · 2 years

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updates for the #fans:

i am not dead. i took a hiatus from working on AtDaS for a while bc i had a Lot of other shit going on but now i have a real job in my field (pog) and have started working on it again. (also i just can't be fucking bothered to fill my queue lmao)

the hope is to have another chapter out in time for april 16th/23rd since that's another fun anniversary. not sure if i'll make it there because the middle section of this is still very... improv-y? like, the story outline for AtDaS is basically just:

episition chapter (POSTED)

next scene of SFeli subplot (DONE)

FLRciano subplot proper introduction (DONE)

next scene of darkroom subplot (planned-ish, partially done, but i got stuck on it a while back for a reason lmao)

stages subplot ("planned" in that i have fragments of vibes and a general kind of escalating arc, but not really anything that can be specifically outlined perhaps? like i know where this is going and how it's going to get there but unlike the other arcs where i know what certain scenes are going to be ahead of time all i can really say is that these are going to be RAW dialogue that i later go back and add tags for because that's the best way to write barely-not-arguments)

the rest of the SFeli subplot ("planned" in that i know where it Needs to go, but there's complicated shit here that i need to figure out. FL (probably) doesn't have enough material in the right places for me to be able to stretch this for how far it needs to go, but we'll get there when we get there)

the rest of the FLRciano subplot ("planned" in that i know where it needs to go, but there's a lot of stuff to sort through here because there are very particular kinds of energies that im looking for with this subplot? the "proper introduction" gets one set of the criteria across, the finale section gets another set, and the 170 is going to be :chefkiss:. you'd think this would be major beats only but it's actually kinda the opposite of that - it's the lucidity (and anti-lucidity, which is not the same thing as un-lucidity) that matters more. either way this is more about picking specific points to riff from and then exploiting the uneven distribution of these points to create ENERGY energy)

the rest of the darkroom subplot (this needs to go places but i have no idea how im going to get it there lmao. this subplot is VERY likely to get cut tbh, or at minimum cut down. there's very little that it does that the stages subplot doesn't do better and what little this does that that can't could be condensed into like. one scene. rip)

stages subplot finale/third type of magic (has been DONE since like september lmao)

a few scenes either directly preceding third type of magic or in between it and the finale chapter for each of the subplots. mostly thinking of FLRciano 170, but there's other shit that could maybe go in here too. (PLANNED though placement as you can guess is WIP, mostly because there's a REALLY cool scene that im somewhat including with third type of magic that i really don't want to cut, but it leaves off on a WAY wrong tone to directly join with the finale chapter)

finale chapter (all DONE minus like four paragraphs that i got stuck on rip. also has been done for a very very long fucking time, one of the scenes in here was the first thing i wrote of this before i even had the idea to turn it into a fic)

expologue short-chapter (basically DONE though i might change some things here)

so that's about where that is. ill probably want to get a similar amount of content out to what i did for the first chapter, which will probably be 5-6 "standard" length scenes instead of a bunch of snippets (because most of the snippets were exposition of sorts). which means the chapter's about 30-40% done depending, because ive got those two scenes complete already and ive maybe got a few other pieces of things that could go here.

so, there's that! and god one of those scenes fucks so hard. a chess game as an exact metaphor is far better than i was hoping for but i sure did find it lmao.

also i got a new ipod bc my old one Broke broke and it's got sick ass theming lmao ill post pics at some point maybe.

also the entire album of Until by Fewjar fucks. so fucking hard. all kinds of pogger energies and god the songs flow so well on the actual album instead of youtube.

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ivars-snowflake · 6 years

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His

Ivar & Reader & Sigurd fanfic thingy

So, hi hello, dear people of tumblr. As I said, once I start, there’s no stoping me, so excuse my eventual grammar mistakes in this one, for it was written long into the night. If you find a sentence or a paragraph that makes no sense, please let me know. :)

Lenght: 3000 +/- words

Warnings: Uhm, no smut, there’s a part that leads there, but it’s really more fluff then anything else. And, you know how it goes with Ivar and Sigurd - brotherly bullying, low self esteem and overly high one on the other side, if you know wht I mean. I’m so sorry I always talk shit in my intros, sometimes I wonder if it makes people not want to read it, and I still can't stop myself from rambling.Oh, not to forget Sigurd being an ass and performing an attempt of sexual assault.

Anyway, I hope you like this, and if you do, let me know, because I really wish to explore it further (and if you don’t like it, let me know aswell!)

Okay, here goes nothing...

You were laying on your bed, with your husband next to you, his back turned to you. There was no contact between the two of you, no skin on skin, anything. You should have gotten used to it by now, but it bothered you more than ever, more every day. You watched his strong shoulders move slightly with every breath he took, your body trembling with every painful sigh that he would make every now and then.

For over a year now, you’ve been married to Ivar the Boneless, yet in that year you had never felt as if you were a wife. You felt awful, unwanted and unloved, at first not understanding anything about his behavior towards you, but with time, as you learned more about him, you came to understand. That still didn’t mean you were okay with it, though.

You never wanted to marry him, you were scared to death of him at the beginning. Ivar was known to be ruthless and cruel, a monster you would dare say, but in your four walls he was never that. He was far from a loving husband, but you couldn’t complain about him treating you badly, but then again, he didn’t treat you at all, it felt as if you were nonexistent, a breeze passing through the house. A housekeeper, a cook, a healer sometimes, that was all you were.

Ivar had his angry outbursts, he was not very good at controlling his temper, but he never hurt you in any way but with his words, and you took good care of not holding yours back neither - you poured your venom at him with equal force as he did his at you. Gods, his words stung sometimes, your eyes would fill with tears, but you never allowed those tears to spill in front of him, showing weakness. If Ivar hated something, it was weakness.

On his bad days, when the pain caused by his state would get the best of him, he would become insufferable, but still, you would withstand it. You never pitied him, he was not a man to feel sorry for, he was the man to be either feared or admired, either hated or loved. With Ivar, there were no in-betweens. You both feared and hated him once you got married, but things tend to change, and they did, but you had a hard time confessing it to yourself, since your relationship was everything but what it was supposed to be.

And you grew sick of it, sick to the extend of feeling actual sickness in your stomach every time you would try to touch him, but he would just push you away. As said already, it was hard to confess it to yourself, but you grew fond of him, you actually adored the strength he had in him, the tough life of his being the cause of that, but even more, it surprised and scared you simultaneously when you realized you were falling for the amazing, yet twisted, mind of his. He, however, appeared to be blind to any of it.

It’s like your first night together left a mark on him as deep, and scarring, and as hard to wipe away, that you kept failing. You avoided to go back to that night in your head, but somehow you couldn’t escape it at this very moment, as you watched him breathe next to you, the warmth of his body reaching your skin without touching it. He was beautiful, a beautifully wounded monster you had in your bed, and you knew very damn well what you would do with him, if only he would let you. And you felt bad, bad for the words you said to him on your first night, the only night he ever tried to touch you.

-Don't you dare touching me ever again, you monster! I would rather die than be touched by you!

Yes, you said that. It burned inside of you now, filling every piece of you with sorrow and regret. Oh, how things tend to change.

A silent shriek escaped your mouth, as he suddenly twitched and moaned in pain after the tough day he had. You wondered if he was actually asleep, or just pretending. You saw his body tremble, as it was an ice-cold night, with wind howling like an enraged animal, and your heart racing at the sudden wish that hit it. You turned to your side, facing Ivar’s back, crawled a little closer, your hand gently traveling across the bare skin of his back, up to his shoulder, where you allowed it to rest. He didn’t push you away, so he probably was asleep. Slowly and gently, you moved your hand to his stomach, caressing his muscles with your fingertips, as they traveled the said distance. Cautiously, you moved a little closer, and he started to wiggle.

-Ivar, I’m cold. You whispered, but he just took your hand and moved it, turning towards you, and pulling the covers up to your shoulders. You couldn’t help but smile, though that’s not what you had in mind, it was as sweet and innocent as it gets with Ivar.

With his face now turned towards you, you took a moment to study his features. He had an angel’s face, and you were weak for it. You were weak for him, confessing the amount of your weakness for the first time in the past year. You weren’t ready to give up just yet. You stroked his cheek, your touch featherlight, and then turned your back to him, pulling as close to him as you could, pressing your body against his skin. You took his hand, and put it around your waist, keeping a grip to it, so he wouldn’t just pull away.

-What is this, woman? He mumbled, sleepily.

-Shhh, it’s cold. Let’s just warm up together, hmm? You whispered, still tightly holding his hand, desperate to keep it around your waist. He tried to pull it away, but you kept your grip firm, so he didn’t insist. You smiled to yourself, proud of this little victory of yours, luckily wiggling even closer to him.

The warmth of his body, the one you were dying to feel lately, was truly intoxicating. With your eyes shut, your restless fingers traveled up and down his arm, gently stroking it, finally causing him to relax and silently sigh, in what you interpreted as pleasure, and there was no stopping it now.

You outstretched your arm behind you, and reached for whatever part of his skin you could reach, caressing it, feeling his length come to life, pressed against your butt, as you were curled beside him. Outstretching your arm a bit more, you grabbed his behind, pulling him closer. The feeling of his manhood pressed against you, caused a silent cry of joy escape your lips.

You knew the stories of him not being able to please a woman were not true, even if Ivar himself was convinced they were. But you were set to prove a point, set to the cause of making your life better, of making both your lives better. And at the current event breakdown, you were doing a good job, and no old mistakes or old failures would make you stop what you were doing.

Your grabbing his butt evidentially woke him up, and he mumbled in protest. You turned around to face him, gently pressing your finger at his lips. His breath was hot, uneven, you could feel his excitement. Just don’t blow it up yet, you kept repeating in your head.

A big bad wolf out in the open, a quiet little lamb in your bed. For now.

-Ivar…you whispered, your voice shaky, resembling a moan more than a whisper.

He never heard you say his name sounding like this, and he froze at the sudden display of gentleness from you, as he was not used to it. Both your stubbornness hasn’t really been a blessing to your marriage so far.

-No, no…stop this, now. He said, slowly getting to his senses, and starting to panic.

You took both his hands in yours, trying to calm him down, for you weren’t nearly done yet.

-Ivar…please. Trust me. You whispered, putting one of his arms back around your waist, while your other hand slid down his stomach traveling lower. You felt his body grow tense.

-Hey, hey. Look at me, look at me. I want to please you, yes? Allow me…

He simply shook his head, pulling back his hand, and pulling back yours in process. You had failed, but it was just a first try.

-Ivar, it’s okay, I don’t want to push it. I just… Need you. That’s what you wanted to say, but the words were left unspoken.

-Can I just…stay like this, hmm? You asked instead, meaning to stay curled with your back pressed against his chest, next to him, feeling the warmth of his skin against yours, and he silently agreed, making you immensely happy.

You took his hand and pulled it back over your waist, intertwining your fingers with his. He didn’t protest. You don’t remember when was the last time that you slept as peacefully as you did that night, feeling completely safe in his embrace.

Ivar, on the other hand, stayed awake long into the night, wondering what it was that happened tonight, what it was that caused you to touch him, to taunt him with your restless fingers, your burning lips or your silent moans. What changed? Was it a trick of some kind?

Though not much happened that night, things changed, and the days to come were a promise of a better, brighter fumes surrounding your marriage with Ivar.

It was almost as if you started to seduce each other now, flirting daily, stealing shy looks, and some even more shy touches.

You were happy, finally you could say you were happy, and not much was missing to make you the happiest now.

It was the evening of celebration, when it happened. The Great Hall was buzzing with people, and you were floating around happily, when you felt someone grab you from behind and pull you outside. You tried to protest, but were quickly silenced by a hand on your mouth, and you calmed down when Sigurd whispered to your ear. But what the hell, he could just have come to you and asked you to come out with him!

-What in the name of gods, Sigurd! You mumbled, as you were free form his grip.

You didn’t like the look he gave you, the mix of intoxication with all the ale that was spilled that night and lust, burning lust staring you right in the eye, not saying a word.

-Sigurd…you whispered, taking a step back, your hands reached in front of you, so you could stop any unwanted movement of his. If he came upon you, you feared you wouldn't be able to resist.

You had a history with Sigurd. Before your cards fell wrong and it all fell apart with you marrying Ivar, Sigurd and you had already stolen many moments, many kisses. You laid with him once, and he was back then, the one you wanted to be your husband one day. But your father decided differently. Or was it the gods?

-What is it Y/N? Don't tell me the desire to be touched by a real man isn't killing you. We both know Ivar isn't much of a husband. He laughed, coming closer, continuing to spill poison out of his mouth. You got angry, you could feel your blood boil, your body tense, and your fists clench, but still, Sigurd was faster.

The night was loud, the music and voices coming from the Great Hall making it impossible for the two of you to hear the very recognizable dragging sound of your husband approaching, reaching his shadowy hideout, in the very moment Sigurd pinned you to the wall, and connected his lips to yours in a drunken desire.

What you didn’t know was that Sigurd knew very damn well what he was doing, and he chose his moment wisely.

What you missed to see and hear, while you were carelessly mingling through the crowd in the Hall before Sigurd grabbed you, was another argument between the two brothers. You learned in your past year just how much Sigurd enjoyed taunting Ivar, he was pushing it constantly, bullying him, tormenting, he found immense fun in Ivar’s rage, that being the main reason for you to finally see Sigurd for what he was.

So, when he grabbed you and dragged you out, he did so to prove a point, the point being that you do not belong to Ivar, the point being he can have you anytime, the point being he was better than Ivar. How wrong he was.

Ivar, in that brilliant strategic mind of his, struggled hard to stay silent, but he did, despite the rage that consumed him.

His eyes were glimmering with raging storm inside of them, but he kept silent, for the scene he just witnessed needed context. He refused to believe, and it made no sense to him that you would betray him with such ease, now that things started to get better between the two you. Or was it a trick all along? Were you that good of an actress? You must be, for there you are, kissing Sigurd. His expression darkened even more with the thought. Sigurd's behavior didn't surprise or disappoint him, but yours did, and that was the only reason he kept silently waiting for you to show it was not a trick after all, giving you a chance.

When you pushed Sigurd of off you, not having the slightest trouble to resist his touch, the realization hit you like a lightning - this was not out of fear of Ivar that you did it, it was out of love for Ivar. The growl you made while you pushed him away sounding much like a battle cry, and it was, for you’ve risen your hand just to stick it to his face with a thud.

He laughed.

-Oh, come on now, sweetie pie, we both know you crave to be touched. You crave to be fucked...you crave for a man that can give you pleasure, a real man...

He came closer once more, but you wouldn’t allow him to touch you again. Not him, he doesn’t have any right to. You pushed hard, while your leg found the way behind Sigurd’s and you successfully managed to knock him down. Quickly, you climbed upon him, grabbing his hands, trying to tame him. He found that amusing, so it wasn’t very hard to do.

Truth be told, Sigurd was right about one thing, you did crave to be touched, of course you did, you were not made od stone, but Sigurd wasn’t the man who’s touch you wanted. His words enraged you, made both yours and Ivar’s blood boil, but he kept silent, as he watched you climb on top of Sigurd, not really understanding what you’re trying to do, nor knowing what to expect from you. He sure didn't expect you to stand up for him, for Sigurd was right, and he knew it, but he did still hope you would. At the same time, with or without hope, he was ready to release his anger upon the both of you, but then your words froze him death.

Sitting there, on top of Sigurd, finally in the position to do so, it was you who unleashed your wrath, growling at him, your usually soft voice turning into thunder.

-How dare you, Sigurd, son of Ragnar, to put a finger on your brother's wife?! How dare you torture your brother like this with your rotten words and actions day by day? How dare you, Sigurd Snake in the eye, to even assume you're more of a man than Ivar is?

Sigurd laughed, mocking your words, but the things you said next left him with his mouth agape, silent and wordless for a fraction of a second at least. Ivar didn’t see that coming either, and his facial expression softened, a smile creeped lightly to the corner of his lips, and he relaxed, finally being sure where your heart lies. Finally being able to confirm that there is at least one thing that his brother will not be able to take away from him.

There was no lie in your fire, and he saw you then and there in another light. Patient and gentle, yet strong and independent. Fierce. His. You were his. Your every word confirmed now who you belonged to.

-Hmm, Sigurd?

You grabbed his chin with your hand, making him look you in the eyes as you hissed at him.

-Listen now, Sigurd. You may be my prince, but that does not make you any less of an ass. And mark my words, sweetie pie, I am a wife of your brother now and solely that should be enough for you to keep your hands of me, but in case it's not, do remember that soon enough, I will be the wife of your king. For not only is Ivar the boneless as big of a man as you, he's the better one. And I, Sigurd, will be your queen, so if I were you, I’d watch out.

He deafly stared at you, until the moment you decided to get back to your feet, but then he grabbed your wrist, and finally finding words, he whispered, laughing.

-What a nice little lie to tell yourself, woman. Does it help you fall asleep when you lay next to him in your bed at night? You are deranged if you truly believe that Ivar will ever be king.

You pulled your hand, setting it free of his grip, and finally lifting back to your feet. You smiled, your smile wicked and threatening.

-And you are blind, if you do not see that he will.

***

(I admit it, I was never fond of Sigurd.)

#ivar fanfic #ivar the boneless #sigurd snake in the eye #vikings fanfic #vikings

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