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mind-of-a-hardstan · 4 years

Text

The Clock Strikes Twelve (Pt. 1)

Pairing: King!Namjoon x Detective!Reader, minor Seokjin x Jeongguk

Genre: fantasy au, royalty au, detective au, demon au, magic au

Rating: M

Warnings: Descriptions of injury, demons, language, a bit of gore, smut in next chapter

Summary: When you and your partner are summoned to the Northern Kingdom, you don’t expect a case intriguing as you find. The king’s brothers face daily injuries and tiptoe the line of death, and the king would do anything to save them. Notorious for your success rate, you and Yoongi must find out what happens to the princes after midnight.

It goes less smoothly than you would want.

Also on AO3

Word count: 11.9K

A/N: This is part of the “Twisted Fairytales: Members in Distress” project by @ksmutclub. It’s based on “The Shoes that were danced to pieces” by Brothers Grimm. It’s the longest bitch I’ve ever written, and the second part will be up soon! Let me know what you think!! I worked very hard on this one.

The sun hadn’t yet risen over the horizon when you and your partner had arrived at the palace gates. You were tired and sore and in desperate need of a bath, but the king had been anything but patient to meet you.

He’d greeted you personally at the gates, despite you and Yoongi being travel-weary and dusty. The sky had been slowly turning from grey to gold. The palace had been beautiful in this light – although it was beautiful in any light – and king Namjoon of the Northern Kingdom looked every bit as regal, beautiful and powerful as he had been described.

“Detectives,” he had a smooth voice, the type of voice that both calms and commands, “welcome to the North.”

The first time you’d met the king’s dark gaze didn’t feel like something you could forget.

His office was filled with this golden light now. It cast a strange glow over the heavy books filling the bookcases, the ebony furniture scattered around the room. A ray of sunlight caught the king’s eye. He looked serious, ready for business despite the early hour. But most of all, he looked tired.

His office smelled like paper and ink the first step you took into it. By the second step, you noticed the smell of leather, then the smell of dust, and then then the smell of autumn leaves.

There was another scent hanging in the air. It was something you couldn’t quite place, but it calmed your spirit immediately. You were almost inclined to follow it, to search for it, but your partner brought your attention back to the here and now.

“Your majesty,” Yoongi started when the king sat down on the ornate high-backed chair behind the enormous desk in the middle of the room. “Would you please explain the situation to us?”

The king looked at your partner with a raised brow. He sighed and rubbed over his neck. “As I’ve stated in my letter –”

“We don’t personally read the letters, your majesty,” you cut him off, realising how rude it might seem only after having done it. “We’re sent on the cases blindly.”

King Namjoon turned his questioning gaze to you, head cocked. “Why?” The question wasn’t unkind, but demanding. The man’s very being demanded respect, and it seemed like he knew it.

“We like to speak to people personally,” you replied professionally, “That way we have a better idea of what’s going on, if they’re lying.”

“Alright,” the king nodded. “I’ll relay the situation again. Two weeks ago, three of my brothers woke the whole palace with blood curdling screams an hour before dawn. When we got to them, they looked bad; they had wounds and they couldn’t speak. The injuries are… strange. My physicians have never seen anything like it. It’s happened every day since. Always exactly an hour before dawn, to the second.

They look worse every day. These… injuries take their toll and it seems like they don’t sleep at all, they’re constantly exhausted, they don’t eat, they barely drink. We don’t know what’s causing it and I don’t know how to help my brothers.”

King Namjoon was trying to relay the situation with professionalism; a straight face and a steady voice, but his words betrayed him. He was struggling.

The case itself was… intriguing. You felt sorry for the princes, but you couldn’t help giving in to the thrill of a good case. You glanced at your partner, who seemed equally as intrigued. Perhaps even delighted.

One thing did catch your attention though. You opened your mouth to speak –

“Your majesty,” Yoongi beat you to it, “how many bothers do you have?”

You smiled inwardly, silently appreciating how you and your partner ticked the same.

The king hesitated before answering, and you expected him to lie. “Four,” he said. Truthful, to your surprise.

“I only recall three princes and a king?” your statement was uttered more as a question than anything else. King Namjoon fixed his eyes on you. You couldn’t read them.

By now the sun was fully over the line of the horizon. The light that filtered through the spotless window was now longer golden, but normal daylight. If the window was open, you might have heard a bird singing.

“I have four brothers, only three of them are recognised as princes, Hoseok, Jimin and Jeongguk,” the king explained, ”The fourth is my brother, but he is not a prince. He is an illegitimate child whom my mother kept a secret from the world. He was raised with us though, and he is still treated as royalty on these grounds.”

“I see,” Yoongi said and you could hear the cogs rattling in his head. “Your majesty, do you know what happens to the princes at night?”

The king fixed Yoongi with an irritated stare. “If I had, I wouldn’t have summoned you.”

“Why haven’t you posted a guard to watch them?” Yoongi challenged, not having it.

“Of course I have,” the king snapped. It was the most blatant display of emotion you’ve seen from him so far. “I’m not entirely useless, detective. Everyone inside the palace falls asleep by the time the clock strikes twelve. The whole palace shuts down.” Magic. This case was getting more intriguing by the second. You eyed your partner again, and he had a similar excited glint in his eye.

The king’s face, however, was dark with worry and a strange sort of fury.

“That’s… quite dangerous. Does it apply to the whole city or merely the palace?”

“Just the palace,” King Namjoon said, eyes back on you, “I’ve posted guards to keep watch outside of the palace walls, just in case. The moment they step foot onto the grounds, though, they just drop like they were shot, according to reports. They wake up in the morning unharmed and confused.”

“Your majesty, has the same happened this morning?”

The king looked back at you and this time his eyes were tired again. He absentmindedly rubbed over his throat. “Yes,” he said, “every day without fail.”

“May we see the princes? I would like to inspect their injuries.”

“Of course.” King Namjoon stood up and walked to the door, opening it for you. When you passed him, that scent passed your nose again and you could finally place it.

It was the king himself, and he smelled like open grassland right after a thunderstorm.

===

King Namjoon led you through the labyrinthine halls of the palace to a huge room with large windows letting in the morning light. The view was gorgeous, a beautiful scene of the palace garden and the river running its course behind the palace. You would have been inclined to approach the windows and admire the scenery, if your focus wasn’t one something else.

The room was stocked with beautiful cherry wood furniture and three big four-poster beds. On each bed lay a prince, each under a fluffy blanket and tucked in so carefully, hooked onto fluids. They all looked like they were on the brink of death.

Ghosts, shells… and nothing more.

All of them lay with their eyes open, barely blinking and staring into nothingness. If it hadn’t been for their shallow breathing, you might have thought they were dead.

A man sat on one of the beds, the one on the far side of the room. He was beautiful – truly beautiful – but his eyes were teary and he was stroking over one of the prince’s hair. He didn’t acknowledge you and Yoongi at all.

“My gods,” Yoongi whispered next to you, and you had to agree.

“They get worse every day. Jimin’s the worst off, we don’t know why.” Namjoon whispered, as if he didn’t dare to actually speak the words. He looked at the bed the stood roughly in the middle. Such sorrow in the King’s eyes. “His infections – well. It’s better when you see for yourselves.”

“What are you giving them?” Yoongi asked, pointing to the drips hanging next to their beds.

“Vitamins, electrolytes, a few painkillers. They don’t eat or drink, we had to come up with something.” Yoongi just hummed in response.

You looked at your partner. There was steel in his eyes, so little emotion. Just a front, you knew Yoongi too well. The victims and the crime scenes always stirred something in his soft heart. Yoongi locked eyes with you and understood your silent request. You’d tackle Jimin together, but first the other two.

The man in the room ran his knuckles over the prince’s cheek one last time before moving toward the door – toward you. He bowed to the king, who smiled at him, and then the man dipped his head in your direction, desperation in his eyes.

He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t need to. Please, that look said, save my love. And then he was gone.

“May I?” you gestured to a bed that the man didn’t sit on, like a coward.

“Of course. That would be prince Hoseok, the eldest of us all.”

You moved into prince Hoseok’s line of sight and smiled when those tired eyes followed your movements. The prince could still observe at least. Could he speak?

“Hello, your Highness” you said softly, not wanting to startle the man. “My name is Y/n and I’m a detective. I’m here to help you. Can you speak?”

You heard Yoongi’s soft voice murmur on the other side of the room. He was speaking to the last prince, where the man had sat. You ignored him for now, focusing on where you were.

The prince blinked and swallowed, movements slow. He tried to smile, but his mouth just twitched awkwardly as if the muscles were too tired to function. He took a deep breath and then; “Yes,” he finally croaked out, voice breathy and broken, “but it’s – tiring.”

“That’s okay, don’t tire yourself out more. May I examine you, your Highness?” you asked, glancing at the king too. King Namjoon stood by the door, watching and listening, but giving you the space to work. He gave a slight nod and you turned your gaze back to prince Hoseok.

“Only if you… call me Hoseok,” he answered, words so slow. There was a ghost of a smile on his lips while he watched you. You couldn’t decide if he was being friendly or if he was being a flirt. Perhaps both.

You smiled back, deciding that you liked him. “Alright, Hoseok. I’m going to take the blanket off of you and poke around for a bit. Let me know as soon as something hurts, alright?” A slight nod, and then he closed his eyes, letting you do with him as you pleased.

You spared another glance at Yoongi, who was sat down next to the young prince, holding his hand as he spoke. Slow words, you could tell. But you couldn’t hear what he was saying; he was speaking too soft and the room was too big. Yoongi was listening though, so gentle.

You put down your satchel and gently removed the blanket from Hoseok’s body. Even though his hollowed cheeks were indication enough, you couldn’t help but be surprised at how thin he really was. He was nothing more than a bag of bones. His skin was pale, but there were harsh purplish red marks around his wrists.

Yoongi gasped loudly from across the room, but you didn’t react. You had your own prince to worry about now, you’d ask Yoongi about his soon enough.

You poked and prodded Hoseok for a bit more, but you found nothing else out of the ordinary. Just those ugly bruises on his wrists.

Until you got to his feet.

Every drop of air left your lungs when you uncovered the prince’s feet, along with a small little sound of surprise, horror, disgust.

“Heaven, save us.”

The soles of Hoseok’s feet were covered in angry blisters and nasty looking boils, everything red due to inflammation. There were ugly blue and purple bruises all over his feet and ankles. What stood out most, however, was that the liquid dripping out of the boils were an ugly, dark purple. It smelled like rotten meat.

You said a small prayer to the moon, and then went on in silence.

You produced a tiny little phial from your satchel and gently scraped a bit of the liquid into it. Hoseok let out a tiny moan of pain, and you murmured an apology. You and Yoongi would examine it in silence later, because this shit sure as hell wasn’t normal.

“Hoseok,” you said softly, “what happened to your feet?”

Hoseok opened his mouth, but shut it just as quickly, as if some invisible force physically shut him up. The prince swallowed, and then simply shook head. His eyes were big and filled with pure, unbridled fear.

“It’s okay,” you gently lay your knuckles on his cheek, “take a deep breath for me. You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.”

Hoseok breathed deep before talking again, “I can’t.” You simply smiled at him, and then shuffled through your satchel. “Detective,” Hoseok mumbled after a few seconds, voice strained and scared.

“Yes?” you looked at him and gently lay a comforting hand in his.

“I want to… but…” another deep, tired breath, “we’re not… allowed.”

You smiled at him and nodded in understanding. “It’s okay. We’ll get to the bottom of this, yeah?”

Not allowed. You swallowed and pulled out another small phial from your satchel, this time filled with a shimmering white dust. You didn’t need to cast a detection spell, the use of magic was obvious. You just needed to be sure what kind of magic was used.

You sprinkled the dust over Hoseok’s head, expecting it to turn grey, expecting dark magic. You watched with a clenched jaw as it turned black instead.

Demonic power.

A demon was among these humans, however it got out. A lion among sheep.

“Don’t worry, Hoseok. We’ll figure it out,” you whispered again and lay a comforting hand on his hair. “Rest for a bit.” You covered Hoseok with the blanket and moved back to Yoongi, who seemed to be done with Jeongguk too.

The king motioned to step closer, to talk, but you help up a hand to stop him. You needed to speak to your partner first. He frowned, hand at his throat, but he stayed put.

“Heaven’s fucking mother, the godsforsaken feet?!” Yoongi whisper yelled. You nodded solemnly. “It looked like they walked over acid,” he went on, rubbing a hand over his face.

“’Godsforsaken might be right…” You bit your lip, “I checked the magic, Yoongi. The dust turned black.”

“Black,” Yoongi stated with a blank look. You nodded. “Fuck, are you telling me there’s a demon running around?”

“It seems like it,” you said, “the prince also said that he wasn’t allowed to say anything, I think this is more than just some sort of curse.”

“Yeah, no shit. The kid over there was crying when he tried to talk, but it was like his mouth was glued shut and fuck all came out. All I got out of him was something about punishment. He looked so tired, Y/n…”

“I know, I don’t think they’ll last much longer, with whatever’s going on. Did you take a sample of the purple stuff?”

“Yeah, I’ll set up the lab later today. Did yours have the fucked up wrists too?” You nodded again. “Fuck. It looks like they were tied up or something. I took a sample of the dead skin there, too. Maybe we could figure out what they were tied up with.”

“Good.” You gestured to the last bed, “Shall we?” Yoongi nodded.

Jimin did end up looking worse. He barely reacted to either of you. Along with the marks on his wrists, there was an angry looking purple ring around his neck, dotted with nasty blisters and missing skin. It looked like a bad burn. The soles of his feet barely had normal skin left, just purple pus leaking out.

“Heaven’s fucking mother,” Yoongi cursed when he tried to take a sample and Jimin nearly screamed. His mouth was open, eyes closed, and no sound came out. “This poor fucking soul, gods.”

You tested the magic again with the white powder. It had the same outcome as last time: the powder turned black.

You were about to move when Jimin grabbed your wrist with a weak hold. He tried to look at you, but his eyes wouldn’t focus and kept closing. You kneeled next to him, taking his hand in yours.

“I’m here,” you said softly, trying to soothe the broken kid. “I’m here, what do you need?”

“Tae…” the prince tried before his energy caved. He closed his eyes and a dry sob wracked his tired body. He kept his eyes closed but opened his mouth again, speaking in a wheeze. “Help… tae… huu –”

Tae. It was a name – partially at least. Was it a person or a creature? Were they the cause of this? Did they need help, or did Jimin need their help? You caught Yoongi’s eye, he heard it too. You filed the clue away for later.

When you were finally done, satchels packed up and prince neatly covered, you approached the impatient looking king. He was fiddling with his collar by now.

“Excuse the wait, your Majesty. You probably have a busy schedule,” you said with an apologetic smile.

“No need to apologise detective, I’ve cleared my morning for you.”

“How kind of you, your Majesty,” Yoongi said, sounding half sarcastic and half surprised. A ghost of a smile appeared on the king’s lips, like he wanted to supress it, but only half succeeded.

“Now, what can you tell me?”

“We’ve only just collected evidence ourselves,” you said, “We need to examine it before we can tell you anything for sure.” The king nodded, but his jaw was clenched. He seemed so desperate, so tired of not knowing, being helpless.

He looked like he was sleeping as much as his brothers, even though you knew that was untrue.

Before you could stop yourself, you laid a hand on the king’s shoulder. For a single moment you didn’t speak to Namjoon, King of the Northern Kingdom. For a moment, he wasn’t a simple client. You looked into those sharp and terrified eyes and you spoke to the man beneath.

“We’ll figure it out. We’ll save them.”

“I’d do anything…” The king closed his eyes for a second, a moment of vulnerability, before locking eyes with you again. This time they were serious again, focused and professional. “If you have any news,” he said on his way out of the room, “notify the closest servant immediately.”

===

You got to work as soon as the servants led you to your shared chamber. The room itself was beautiful and exactly how you requested; two big desks relatively close to each other, big walking space, two beds, en suite bathroom and big windows. The view was beautiful too, overlooking the yellowing garden and the city beyond.

You didn’t take the time to admire the scenery, though. Yoongi claimed one desk to himself, getting started on setting up his lab. You threw your suitcase next to the other, piling books, paper and pens onto it.

With the clinking of Yoongi’s equipment as background noise, you listed everything that you gathered so far, and started doing research, taking notes along the way.

You’d worked with demons before. They were night creatures, and they preferred the exact times that the king had mentioned. They couldn’t do anything on their own, they needed to possess a body and for that, they needed to be summoned.

Certain people, perfect blood, protection runes, summoning circles, magic, demon trials –

You were in the middle of tracing an intricate rune when Yoongi spoke up from the silence, “Y/n, come over here for a second.”

He was sat on a three legged stool, looking for all the world like a chemist. They’d be close in assuming that, but Yoongi would beat someone with a book if he heard them.

“That’s Master fucking Potioneer to you, asshole!” was a common line of his. “I didn’t study this shit for ten years for you to be ignorant.”

He had the phials containing the purple puss laying on the table, scribbles on a writing block, various strange things scattered about. You pretended not to notice the fairy dust. Those poor things…

“What?” you asked, leaning over the desk.

“Okay so we can both agree that this purple shit is something neither of us has seen before, right?” Yoongi started, pointing to the phials.

“Yeah,” you agreed, motioning for him to go on.

“See, there’s a reason for that,” Yoongi explained, completely in work mode, “I dissected the puss, and the usual stuff was in there. Yaknow, like normal pus, but then I got to the bottom of why it’s purple. It’s about their souls. You know what pus is, right? Dead white blood cells that rush to a wounded area, and then it also sort of drains it?” You nodded. “This is like that, except that the reason it’s purple is because there are flecks of their souls in there, trying to mend the damage and dying by it.”

“Hold on,” you interjected, holding up a hand, “they hurt their feet and now their souls are trying to heal it? Why?”

“It’s the other way around. I think their souls were hurt and it projected onto their bodies. It gets worse.” Yoongi held up another phial with white flecks in it. “I took samples of the skin on their wrists and Jimin’s neck to see what they were tied with. What I thought were bruises turns out to be burns. It’s purplish for the same reason as the feet. They’re tied up with hot metal, something like handcuffs – perhaps chains. But… it’s definitely not their physical bodies.”

“Not their – so their souls. Their souls were chained up.”

“Not ‘were,’ they still are. I have a suspicion that that’s why they can’t talk. Someone has control over their souls.”

You took a microscope slide from off the table and looked at the tiny amount of blue flecks on it. It was a strange thought that you were holding tiny pieces of dead soul in your hand.

“So their souls are being held captive in hell, I assume, since demons don’t typically have access to other realms. They’re not allowed to say anything about it or they’re gonna be punished, according to the youngest. We’ve discovered that demonic powers have been used, so it’s safe to assume that they were kidnapped,” you summed up. Yoongi nodded. Well, fuck. This case was getting more interesting by the second. More dangerous too. This had to be one powerful demon, ripping their souls from their bodies like that.

“That about sums it up,” Yoongi said.

“According to the books,” you started relaying what you’ve learned, “demons can’t do any harm in the human realm on their own. Possession is some complicated procedure, and not everyone’s compatible. The demon has to be summoned first, but apparently they can still possess even years after they’re summoned. Until then they just… roam.”

“Yes, I remember,” Yoongi interjected, waving his hand, “the Western Witches summoning demons left, right and centre, some demons escaped, the witches were burned, all that jazz.”

“Right, so there’s no way to know if the demon is new or old. It doesn’t matter, anyway. A normal demon could possess anyone willing or scared enough to let them in, like the one we had to deal with last year, but I think it’s safe to assume that this one is a bit more powerful, which means they need a stronger host. These demons also have… a taste. A standard, if you will.”

You threw a book at Yoongi, and he caught it flawlessly.

“That book lists the specifications. I thought the demon was some kind of upper-class demon, like our version of a rich lord, or something. It did damage, but I didn’t realise how extraordinary the damage was. Hurting a human’s body sure takes something, but hurting a human’s soul like that… it takes a lot of power.” Yoongi nodded along with you while flipping through the book. “I think it’s safe to assume that it’s royalty.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi nodded again, still reading, “probably. So it’s only compatible with a human who also has royal blood. Bonus points if they had magical blood too.” He looked up, thinking. “Maybe an Eastern or Western royal witch?”

“Maybe. It’ll definitely make a good host. Another book said that royal demons also prefer tainted hosts.” Yoongi closed the book and looked back up with a frown. You elaborated. “I mean like, disgraced royals, bastard children, trauma victims. People who have some sort of… I don’t know, black dot on them, if that makes sense.”

“Yeah, yeah it does,” Yoongi nodded.

“I’m currently looking up different spells and runes. We’re gonna need to pull out all the stops with this one, I think. I found a few banishing runes, but I’m going to need a bit more time.”

“I don’t think banishing the demon is going to be the problem. If we figure out who it is, an exorcism is the least of our problems, we’ve done it before. But if those kids are in hell, how do we get them back?” Yoongi said in thought. You nodded with him.

“I thought the same. I’m researching that too, but I can’t find any cases like this.”

The room went silent for a moment. You breathed it in, held it in your lungs. You needed a moment. You were speaking about this like you would speak about a missing jewel, but the picture of Jimin’s bony hand grabbing yours, the man looking at you with desperation, the fear in Hoseok’s eyes, the wail in Jeongguk’s voice –

“We need to talk to the king,” Yoongi said, pulling you out of your head. Judging by the knowing look in his eyes, it was intentional. “We need to find out who or what ‘Tae’ is, too. Perhaps the king could tell us.”

“Yeah.” You shook your head and stood up. Yoongi followed suit.

===

A servant, clearly under strict orders, took you to the king immediately. The sun was slowly setting over the horizon, causing the golden glow from this morning to appear again, only more beautiful.

King Namjoon was in his office, where you had had your first conversation with him, hours ago. This time, however, he was not alone. There were two men inside, speaking with him. You recognised one of them, the one standing. He had been in the room with the youngest prince this morning, crying by his bed.

“Ah, detectives,” the king said. He had a welcoming smiled on his face, surprisingly warm. Was a king not supposed to be cold? To inspire fear? That was what you had been taught, wasn’t it? “You have news, I assume?”

The two other men eyed you and your partner with interest. Yoongi shuffled in slight discomfort under the scrutiny. He never liked nosy royals.

“Your majesty,” you said and dipped your head, “Excuse the disturbance, you seem to be in a meeting?”

“Please, don’t apologise. This is Seokjin, my most trusted advisor and friend,” he said, and gestured to the man you met earlier today. You offered him a smile, and he returned it with his whole heart, too honest for an aristocrat. You liked him. “And this is Taehyung, my brother. You may call me Namjoon among this crowd. We were discussing the death of my cousin, the letter had arrived today.”

Taehyung. Bells bells bells. Taehyung – Tae –

Tae, help, Tae, help, Tae, help –

“Tae…” Yoongi said out loud after a moment, like he wanted to test the word on his tongue. You eyed him, thoughts running just like his seemed to.

So Jimin was talking about his brother. Did he want you to help Taehyung, or did he want Taehyung to help him? Was Taehyung the cause of this? Did Jimin beg for help against Taehyung?

“Only my closest call me that,” Taehyung said with a kind smile. He had a charm about him, childish but captivating. You couldn’t imagine him being the cause of this.

“Yes,” Yoongi finally spoke up with a low voice, “We know.” Taehyung looked at Yoongi strangely, but before he could say anything, you cut him off.

“I’m sorry for your loss, your majesty,” you said, offering the king a gentle smile. He waved his hand.

“Thank you, but I hardly knew him. It’s not a personal loss, as sad as that sounds.” You nodded in understanding, because you did understand. Politics weren’t exactly warm, and family gatherings weren’t exactly for fun.

Seokjin stepped forward before the conversation could continue. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” the man said, “I hope you’ll forgive my rudeness this morning, but Eastern courtesy forbids me from making new acquaintances where the sick must heal.”

“Of course, I understand,” you replied with a smile of your own. You never understood the Eastern uses, but you knew them all by heart anyway. Yoongi was still staring at Taehyung. He was trying to spot something, trying to explain something to himself, and Taehyung just looked on in confusion.

“Are you close with the young prince?” you asked Seokjin, redirecting your attention back to him. You knew the answer, but you wanted to hear from him. Seokjin’s smile, however, changed to something bitter and sad. A sign of something out of place, something broken and aching inside him.

“Yes,” he said and then there was a beat of silence. “I, uh, our wedding was supposed to be a few days ago.” A joyless laugh bubbled up his throat. “I guess you can say he slept through the ceremony.”

“I’m so sorry,” you said. You had nothing to offer him but a hand on his shoulder and half a promise, so you gave him just that. “I promise, my lord, I will do my best to get your prince back to you.”

“Both of us,” Yoongi chimed in gently. You glanced at him. He seemed to be done with sizing the non-prince up.

“You may call me Seokjin,” he directed the statement at both of you, “I never liked these fancy titles.” You smiled and nodded, and so did Yoongi. Yoongi even whipped out his wide, gummy smile. He liked Seokjin too.

You approached Taehyung, who had watched in silence, but before you could say anything, he spoke up, “If you call me ‘lord’ after you called me ‘Tae,’ I’ll tell them to chop off your head.”

It was such a playful tone that caught you so off guard that you giggled. You caught yourself and bowed your head. “Taehyung,” you said, “I’m Y/n.”

“Yes, I know. My brother has been raving about your arrival all week. It got worse after today, though.” Taehyung had a mischievous glint in his eye, and he laughed when a pencil hit his cheek. The king was pointing a threatening finger at him, eyes narrowed. You had to smile at the careless display of playfulness, of affection.

“That’s very good to know,” you mused, “I heard about you from your brother, Prince Jimin. I was rather curious about you.”

Taehyung’s face went from friendly and charming to serious and wide-eyed. “Jimin? What did he say?”

“I’m not sure yet,” you cocked your head, “I’ll tell you as soon as I am.” Taehyung frowned at this, but didn’t question you.

You expected Yoongi to introduce himself too, but he didn’t. He stayed near the door and kept his mouth shut. You nearly rolled your eyes, but left him be.

“Detectives,” the king said after a moment of silence, rubbing at his neck with a hopeful look in his eye, “You have news?”

“It’s… rather sensitive,” you said and looked at the two men in the room. Seokjin sat back down and turned to you. Taehyung looked uncomfortable and unhappy.

“That’s alright, I trust them and so can you,” the king said with a smile. You nodded, not wanting to meddle. “Lay it on me, detectives.”

===

Dust and sweat from your travels still stuck to your skin uncomfortably, and you were in desperate need of a bath. By the time the servant showed you the towels, different soaps and how to adjust the temperature, the sun was gone.

The bathing room was huge. The tub was built into the floor, already filled with steaming water. The room itself was dark, made of bare stone and decorated with reds and oranges. Candlelight made the shadows in the room come alive. Steam curled to the ceiling, dancing with the fire in an almost hypnotising way.

It was the perfect place to think.

You melted when you stepped into the water. The temperature was perfect, the water smelled so good, the room was so quiet. You lay back, submerging your ears and closing your eyes.

You were in the king’s office when the servants had brought dinner. The food would have been amazing if it weren’t for the fact that you were too focussed on the discussion to even taste it.

King Namjoon had handled the information better than another person might have handled it. He’d dropped his head in his hands when Yoongi told him that his brothers’ souls were trapped in hell, and he stayed like that for a full minute, but he had no anger outburst, no denial, no screaming.

Seokjin had turned white as a sheet, but he didn’t move. His face had went slack, and it was like all feeling had seeped out of his body. You could tell, because you knew what that was like. Taehyung, on the other hand, had cried. He’d hid his face behind his hands and just cried. It was Yoongi who laid an arm around his shoulder.

“I need time,” the king had said, “to think. I’ll meet you tomorrow morning. We’ll figure out what to do then, but for now I need a moment.”

You took a moment, too. A moment to breathe, to think without having to come up with a solution, to just let your mind process. You focused on washing yourself, focused on your own body, before laying back and shutting down.

You breathed deep, letting the scents in the room calm you. Thoughts flitted through your head in no order and with no rhyme or reason.

Help my brothers – souls were hurt – tae – I can’t – possession of a human body – royal blood – kidnapped – married – neck – purple – help – chained up – open grassland – home – scratch – last stroke of midnight –

Last stroke of midnight.

You were gone when the clock chimed twelve.

===

Waking up in this castle was the most unpleasant thing you’ve experienced in your life. At first you hadn’t realised what it was that woke you in the first place. The sun wasn’t up yet, but the birds were awake, singing their hearts out. It took you a second to process that it wasn’t the birds that woke you.

It was screaming.

It wasn’t coming from a specific place, though. It was like it was coming from inside of your head, even though it was unmistakeably the voices of the princes.

The second thing you couldn’t understand was why you were so cold. Your teeth started chattering the moment you registered, but you’d been shivering before you even woke up. There was a rather logical explanation for that as well: you were floating in freezing water. You’d passed out in the bathtub.

And well. There had been better mornings in your life.

By the time your feet were warm enough in your boots to walk to the source of the noise, Yoongi was already in front of the door and talking to Seokjin. Neither of them looked any better than you did – dark rings under their eyes, puffy cheeks, both holding coffee. Yoongi was also holding a suitcase with his travel-laboratory.

Seokjin looked haunted, though. Not just tired, but haunted. You couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to wake up to your lover’s screams every day.

He wore it surprisingly well, given the circumstances.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Yoongi said with a snicker. “You look like a sewer rat, princess.” You scowled at him, consciously touching your still damp hair.

“Fuck off,” you snarled, “you look like you’ve been eaten by sewer rats, so shut up.”

“Did you…” Seokjin stopped himself to reconsider his wording. “Why are you wet?”

“I fell asleep in the bathtub,” you said with a smile as sweet as arsenic and Yoongi cackled like the little bitch witch he was.

“Oh,” Seokjin said, surprised and barely supressing his own laugh, “did Namjoon not warn you about the… uh, the curfew?”

“He did, now can we please move on to more important things than my choice of bed?” Yoongi just snorted in agreement.

The princes looked worse than they had the previous day. Hoseok was squirming and crying and sobbing with a broken voice. His wrists were bleeding, and you immediately called for Yoongi, who knew more about the wounds. You refused to fuck this up yourself.

“Can’t,” he just growled out, frantically fussing with Jimin’s feet. He was still screaming, but his voice had given out. You’d dared to look, and you were glad you had a strong stomach.

You dealt with Hoseok’s wrists yourself as best as you knew how. You applied the balsam that Yoongi had handed you for his feet. You talked to him a bit, not needing him to answer, but just to let him know you were there.

There wasn’t much more that you could do right now, and it unsettled you.

Seokjin was taking care of Jeongguk on his request. Yoongi had just given him the balsam too and told him what to do. The youngest seemed to be the best off, though. He was crying and hurt, but his wrists weren’t bleeding and his feet looked better than the others.

“We – we dance…” Hoseok suddenly breathed out, breath heavy. You looked down in surprise, not expecting him to speak. He breathed deep and then pushed the next part out, “They make us… dan – nce.”

“Gods…” you whispered, and squeezed his hand in comfort.

When two physicians came in, you were already done and the princes were sleeping. Hoseok was clutching your hand desperately, so you let him hold on while you were reading and Yoongi was still fussing. He had taken down the IVs and dissected them, grumbling all the way. When he saw them, standing at the door with confused faces, Yoongi nearly threw a vase at them. He would have, if you hadn’t grabbed it with a “down boy!”

“I should curse you both. I should fucking murder you both.” He was seething. “The next time either of you put opium in an IV, I swear to every God that I will hunt you down and wrap your colon around your neck.”

They froze, eyes wide at the tiny man with wild eyes and needles in his hands.

“Just go.” It was Seokjin this time. He was still on Jeongguk’s bed, running his hands through his hair while the young prince slept. The men bowed without a word and then left, nearly tripping over their own feet. Silence followed. You stared after the men with amused eyes and shook your head, but went back to your research.

“I’m gonna need to figure out another concoction to give them,” Yoongi mumbled, lost in thought.

“Seokjin?” you said after another moment of Yoongi’s grumbling.

“Hmm?”

“Did anything weird happen to Jeongguk before this?” Hoseok was clutching your hand again, fingers flexing every now and then. You ran your other hand through his hair, too, trying to soothe what you could.

“Nothing that made me think that this would happen,” Seokjin said, looking at Jeongguk like he was fragile. Like he loved him, like he was hurting. “He started having nightmares, started having this rash on his wrists. We thought it was stress, you know? What with the wedding and all. Then he stopped sleeping altogether, said the nightmares were too bad. He was paranoid, wouldn’t let me touch him. His wrists stopped itching and started hurting, and the next thing I knew, he screamed his throat sore the next morning. All three brothers at the same time.”

“I’m so sorry,” you said, “This must have hit hard.” Seokjin smiled bitterly, eyes just a bit teary.

“Yeah,” he said, voice thick, “Tae didn’t stop crying for a whole hour after you left. I didn’t see Namjoon afterward, either.”

“And you?”

“I refused.” There was this look in his eye; stubborn and angry. He gripped the prince’s hair a little possessively. “I cried enough when I wasn’t allowed to have him. I gave up everything – my family and my titles, even my dignity – to be with Jeongguk. I won’t cry again until I lose him, and he’s still very fucking much here.”

You wanted so say more, but you were interrupted with loud, steady footsteps and the smell of an open grassland wrapped around you like a blanket. You ignored the thought that it smelled like home.

“Detectives,” the king greeted upon entering the room. You noticed only then that the sun was rising over the horizon and that the king was bathed in gold. He had a questioning look in his eye, and a halfway amused smile on his face. “Does someone in here know why I found one of my best physicians crying in the hallway?”

Seokjin honest to god snickered and you had to suppress a smirk of your own.

“Yeah,” Yoongi said distractedly, still busy with his concoction. “Dickheads get thrown out. Wonder what happened to the other one.”

The king’s face morphed into a completely amused smile. “The other one is the reason why I’m here, the little tattletale.”

Despite yourself, you giggled, and it earned you a playful smile from the king. Seokjin looked him in the eye and pouted. “Are you going to scold us, oh high majesty king Namjoonie?”

King Namjoon snorted, collapsed onto a chair and rubbed his neck again. You were beginning to think that it was a nervous tick of his. “Please consider refraining from making my staff cry,” he joked, voice monotone and almost robot-like. You couldn’t help but be surprised at the easy-going display. “How are they?”

“Worse than yesterday,” Yoongi said, “but they’re surprisingly fucking persistent in surviving.”

“They’re taking good care of them,” Seokjin said with a sincere voice.

“Do you have a plan, detectives?” the king asked tentatively. “I think we need to discuss the course of action. This is nothing to be taken lightly.”

The sun was moving slowly over the horizon, bathing the whole room in golden light now. Yoongi put down what he was busy with, a bright red potion now, and turned to the king.

“For now, I’m making a potion to replace the IV that your incompetent doctors hooked them up to. It’ll give them more strength and help ease their pain. It’ll keep them alive until we save them.”

“I’m researching runes for that to happen, your majesty–”

“I thought we were past that,” the king interrupted. You blinked in confusion and disbelief.

“Excuse me?”

“I told you to call me Namjoon, when no one’s around, I don’t mind.” The king had a kind smile on his face, dimples on full display and the sight made you stop for just a moment, just a split second, to admire it, before your brain started up again.

“Right. Well, I’m going to need to construct a rune of my own to bring your brothers back. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, but I can only find books on what the symptoms were. I don’t think a witch was ever present to help the victims. At least, it hasn’t been recorded,” you frowned at the books scattered next to Hoseok’s bed. It may have been recorded, but the Westerners destroyed all their witch’s journals during the trials. “Yoongi already made a potion that will force the demon out, and I have rune to banish it after, but we’re going to need to find the demon first. Or, the person it possessed.”

“Alright, and how do we find them?”

“We know that they roam the halls of the castle after midnight. They’d be the only one awake,” Yoongi answered, having moved away from his lab with the potion in hand, now a soft pink.

“Sure, but how do you plan to spot them if no one can stay awake?” Seokjin asked.

“We don’t plan to spot them,” you said with a smile, “We plan to catch them. Yoongi and will set up traps all over the palace in the hopes that it’ll hold the demon until morning.”

Namjoon shook his head solemnly. “We’ve tried traps, and we found them all piled on my throne, in pieces.”

“You haven’t tried runes and poisons. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?” you said, hands toying with the book still in your lap.

Yoongi was busy hooking the princes up to the new fluids. Hoseok swallowed and grimaced in discomfort when the needle pierced his skin. His eyes were open, he’d been listening the entire time. He looked at you, then to the other side of the room, then back to you. He seemed panicked.

“What do you need?” you asked. Hoseok just shook his head violently and then closed his eyes tightly.

“Can’t.”

You accepted it and let him hold your hand in an iron grip again. It was frustrating to have three people with the answers in their eyes, and they weren’t allowed to say a thing.

“The hardest part is going to be bringing your brothers back,” you said, “It’s easy to banish a soul. It’s hard as fuck to bring it back. Banishing the demon won’t bring them back, it’ll just prevent the whole ordeal from happening again.”

Namjoon looked at Hoseok with pursed lips and a clenched jaw. “Yeah.”

“Namjoon,” Yoongi said, “who was Taehyung’s mother?”

“The daughter of some lord with whom my father did business in the West,” Namjoon explained, “She was thrown out when she got pregnant, so my father took her home with him. My mother was less than impressed. The woman died during birth.”

“A royal bastard with Western blood,” Yoongi said and looked at you.

“It fits,” you agreed. He was the perfect recipe for disaster.

“I’ll ignore the slur,” Namjoon grit out, “but do tell me why my brother is suddenly a suspect.”

“Demons have standards, and Taehyung fits them perfectly,” Yoongi simply said, “There’s a good chance he’s the possessed one.”

“Taehyung is just as happy and easy-going as he always was, given the circumstances. I’d know if my brother was possessed,” Namjoon said, a bit sourly. You shook your head, and he fixed you with a challenging stare. “Do you disagree, detective?”

“Yes,” you said, “Demons hide during the day, you wouldn’t notice anything wrong with your brother before midnight.”

The king stood up, clearly done with the conversation. With neutral eyes, he said, “If you need anything, I’ll be in my office. I have a meeting soon.”

===

You hadn’t stayed next to Hoseok long after the king had left. You’d spent hours setting up as many traps as you could with Yoongi. It was a shot in the dark, and Yoongi was still working on a potion that would keep you awake.

You’d spotted Taehyung too, but he was in a rush and just sent you a quick wave and a bright, toothy smile. You somehow couldn’t imagine a demon being inside the boy, but demons hid during the day, and there wouldn’t be a trace of it. Which meant that Taehyung was still a viable suspect.

The rest of the day was spent working on a rune to bring the princes back. You’d decided to try a summoning circle of sorts, but personalised to each prince to avoid summoning demons instead of princes. Perhaps if you enriched it with something they loved, something they were passionate about.

Namjoon would know.

Yoongi barely reacted when you left the room, wrapped up in his own research. You only realised that it was dark after you left your room. Torches were lit along the palace walls, flames dancing with the wind coming through the open windows. A guard pointed you in the direction of the king, and you quickly followed the long corridors, not wanting to waste time.

If it was already dark then midnight wasn’t far off.

The door you stopped at was big and heavy and… beautiful. There were flowers carved on the dark wood, and vines woven into themselves in a very familiar pattern.

You knocked.

“Who is it?” came Namjoon’s voice.

“Detective Y/n!” The door swung open and your breath caught in your throat.

You told yourself that it had nothing to do with the fact that Namjoon was shirtless, because he was. He was shirtless and the first thing you saw when that door opened was his broad chest, that golden skin, that gorgeous –

But no, that’s not why your breath caught in your throat. Even if you noticed the red ring around his neck seconds after your knees went weak.

“Oh, gods,” you breathed.

“It’s rude to stare, detective,” Namjoon said, clearly a bit smug. You would have laughed. You would have laughed and then came up with something to throw him off guard, like maybe I just don’t like depriving myself of beautiful things.

Instead, your blood started to boil under your skin. Because the reason for your staring wasn’t his physique, instead it was the reddish-purple ring winding around his neck, and you didn’t know what to do with the fear that crept into your bones.

“You idiot,” you growled, and the king’s smirk fell off his face. You pushed him into the room and slammed the door shut behind you.

“Fuck – what?” Namjoon stumbled, nearly fell on his ass, but caught himself.

“You absolute fucking idiot,” you pointed your finger at his neck, “Do you know what that is?! Of course you do, because we told you everything about it yesterday, so tell me, king, why you didn’t fucking tell me.”

Namjoon’s face went serious in a way that was almost severe. “You forget your place, detective, I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“Don’t hit me with that bullshit,” you snarled, “You told me to drop honorifics, so I dropped honorifics. Now tell me about that wound or you can save your own goddamn brothers and yourself.”

The king raised his eyebrows and stayed quiet for a second. You stared him down, and after a second a ghost of a smile appeared on his face.

“I could go to war with the East for that tone, you know?” Namjoon said, voice now back to normal. He sat down on of the plush chairs scattered about the outrageously big room.

“Our company’s from the West.”

“Yes, but you aren’t, are you, Y/n?”

Your blood went cold. “Say what you want to say, king.”

“I’m not threatening you, I’m poking fun. But I know you’re the Eastern King’s niece. And with his son dead, you’re the next in line, aren’t you?” He leaned back on his palms, fully exposing his front and the stretch of that chest –

“I suggest you keep that information to yourself,” you said lowly, “because I know everything about this castle and runes are easy to rig.”

The king’s smile widened, he was enjoying this. “I told you, I wasn’t threatening you, so I beg the same courtesy. I just felt like I should be honest about the knowledge I possess.”

“Yes, yes, fine,” you waved your hand in an irritated way, “Can we get to the part you weren’t honest about?” You gestured to the inflamed skin around the base of his neck again.

Namjoon took a deep breath and you didn’t look at his chest. “I passed out at my desk the first night of the curfew. I woke up with the ring around my neck. It hasn’t changed since, doesn’t get worse or anything.”

“Where are you normally after twelve?”

“In here. I would have been in here the first night too, if I’d known. I make sure I’m in my room before twelve. I don’t want the wrong people to find me in the wrong places.

“Do you want to know the only goddamn reason you’re not writhing in agony the way your brothers are right now?” you said darkly. The king raised his eyebrow in question. “It’s two things. You know that door you hide behind? It’s got a protection rune on it, a pretty fucking good one too. But do you know how easy it is to break that rune? A sturdy knife should do the trick.”

You stepped closer, so that Namjoon had to crane his neck to be able to look at you. “Go on,” he said, and you hated that his voice got lower, hated that you noticed.

“The second is luck. Because your dumbass is lucky that I figured it out before the demon did.”

You turned away from the king and scanned the room for a piece of paper and a pencil. The room really was ridiculously big. A bed in the corner, a sofa with chairs, a large desk with a stool, side boards and wardrobes scattered about.

You bounded to the desk, and grabbed the pencil laying ready. You used the first piece of paper you could find and scrawled a rune, accurate to the last degree on pure muscle memory. You crumpled it up and held it out to a confused looking Namjoon.

“Make yourself at home?” the king said with an unsure smile. You rolled your eyes.

“Swallow.”

“What?”

“Take this piece of paper and swallow it. It’s ten minutes of unconditional protection. I’m going to leave this room, I’m going to gather my things, and then I’m going to come back, and I’m going to examine you so that I know what the fuck is going on.”

The king nodded and did as you told him.

You grumbled all the way to your room. Yoongi was at his desk, where you left him, and watched with a frown when you packed your things with a scowl.

“Who pissed in your teacup?” Yoongi asked.

“The king has a red ring around his neck,” you said, “So now I’m going over there to try and examine it. And protect him.”

“Should I come?”

“Tomorrow, I think. There’s not much time left. I know what to look out for.”

Yoongi nodded and let you go.

===

Having Namjoon lay shirtless and at your mercy was an experience. When you scraped a piece of dry skin off of the red area, he made a groan of discomfort that your dumb brain immediately associated with something else.

You were a professional, though, and you acted like it.

“Gods, you’re lucky,” you whispered when you packed up your tools. Namjoon sat up and ran a hand through his hair. He looked at you, fully focused. “Your soul is still with you, unlike your brothers. They chained you, though. One false move from you, one yank from them at the right time, and your soul’s ripped from your body.”

“I’m sorry,” Namjoon whispered.

“What for?” you sighed.

“Being dishonest. I didn’t want you to divide your attention between me and my brothers. I just wanted them safe.” Namjoon leaned his head against his headboard and stared out the window. You wished he’d lock eyes with you so you could see what he was thinking.

“It’s selfish,” you said, nearly scolded, “It’s selfish because the demons want you. It’s all about you. This kingdom is fucked without you, so you have to survive in order for your people to be okay. Putting your brothers before yourself is selfish.” Namjoon closed his eyes and pursed his lips.

“I know.”

“I get it, though,” you said, voice softer than you intended, more sincere, “I would have probably done the same.” There was a silence for a moment. Namjoon looked at you with a glint in his eye that you couldn’t quite place. “I can’t leave your side for a while now,” you eventually said, ��I have a rune that can’t be broken as long as I’m close to you. It’ll keep your soul intact and your body healthy, as long as you stay by my side.”

Namjoon just nodded. You eyed the clock; twenty minutes. There was still time.

You grabbed a paintbrush and charcoal paint from your satchel and drew the same rune you had Namjoon swallow on his wrist, with only a few alterations.

“Smells good,” Namjoon said, voice low. You nodded.

“It’s the rosemary.”

Next, you lit a red candle. Namjoon examined it with curiosity. “It’s pretty,” he said and you smiled. You held out your hand and he gave you his own, palm up.

“This’ll sting.” You dripped the wax onto Namjoon’s skin, whispering the spell and consciously pouring magic into the drops. Namjoon hissed, but you were content. It was sealed in for now.

You finished the spell by drawing the same symbol on your own leg, only mirrored. Namjoon watched with interest, but stayed quiet.

“If you want to be comfortable,” Namjoon said when you were done, “I suggest you tuck yourself in. You have two minutes.”

“In your bed?” you asked in disbelief.

“We don’t have time to ready the couch, and the bed’s big enough.” Namjoon rolled over, facing you, and slapped his pillow, getting comfortable.

You kicked off your boots and hesitantly got into the other side. You turned your back to the king. There wasn’t much time to overthink it, anyway.

===

The next morning was a lot more pleasant than the previous one. You were warm and comfortable and very much not ready to wake up. The smell of rain and grass enveloped your dreamy being. You pressed your face into the pillow, wiggled back into the source of heat and tried to cancel out the ringing.

Not ringing. Your eyes shot open. Not ringing, but screaming.

The wall of warmth behind you groaned in displeasure and you nearly yelped with how fast you stumbled out of bed.

“Wha–?” Namjoon mumbled, eyes wide in attempt to see what’s going on. He looked so cute with his puffy cheeks and sleepy eyes that you damn near cooed at him, and you hated that with every fibre of your being.

“Can you not keep your hands to yourself?” you hissed, trying to push down the feeling to squish.

Namjoon looked around, really blinking the sleep out of his eyes, and a lazy smile spread on his face. He didn’t look cute anymore. He looked smug. And so sexy. And you hated that thought even more.

“You were on my side of the bed, princess,” he said and his morning voice made you want to throw yourself out of the window. He was right though. You’d migrated to him some time during your four hours of sleep. You were glad it was too dark for him to see you blush.

“Whatever, get up, I have princes to attend to.” You threw a pillow at him and he caught it, and fell back into bed.

“Then go, I get a few more minutes.”

“No, you don’t,” you said and threw him with another pillow. The king scowled at you. “I have to attend to the princes, and you have to stay close to me if you want to keep your soul.”

Namjoon sighed and stared at the ceiling for a moment, despair in his eyes, before he sighed again, this time in surrender. “Alright.” He got up and tiptoed to his wardrobe. “You can use the washroom first, if you want.” Namjoon gestured to a door you hadn’t noticed at first. You thanked him, and then went to see if you could salvage your appearance.

===

Yoongi was waiting for you in front of the closed door of the princes’ room. You walked quickly, trying to keep pace with Namjoon and his long legs. Yoongi cocked his head when he caught sight of you, amusement spreading in his eyes.

“Good morning,” Yoongi said.

“Oh, it was,” Namjoon purred and whipped your head around so fast you wouldn’t have been surprised if you heard your neck snap. You sent him a look that would have made a lesser man cower. Namjoon just smiled.

“Having your soul separated from your body is a terrible way to go, your majesty, but there are worse ways,” you gritted out. Yoongi snickered behind you. “We have work to do.”

The princes were in much the same condition as they were the day before. Hoseok smiled at you this morning, though. A tired, half smile, but you could only imagine how bright it could be. You treated his wounds the same as the previous day, and you were delighted to see that, even though there were new blisters, the old ones looked good. The balsam worked.

You treated Jeongguk too. Seokjin was nowhere to be found and Yoongi was struggling with Jimin, who looked very bad. Jeongguk was a lot more awake than the others had been. He spoke a bit too, asked your name and told you his favourite colour. You talked back, just to comfort him, to ground him.

“Jimin fights,” Jeongguk said after a long while of silence while you worked. You focused your attention back on him. The prince had spoken in a rush, like he wanted to get it out as fast as possible.

“Is that why he always looks so bad?” you asked. Jeongguk swallowed, but managed to nod. “Jeongguk, do you know who the demon is?”

The prince nodded again, and then immediately started crying. You tried to talk to him, to get a name out of him, but he became hysterical and then Namjoon took over, knowing how to comfort his brother. “I love him,” Jeongguk yelled, looking you straight in the eye.

You moved back, letting Namjoon take over. It bothered you, though, Jeongguk’s words. It felt like you missed something but you couldn’t place it.

Yoongi switched the drips and then approached you.

“Spill,” he demanded. You shook your head and pulled him away, out of the king’s earshot, and told him everything, starting with your encounter with Jeongguk and ending with your encounter with Namjoon.

“Mother, he’s lucky, holy fuck.”

“I told him that, but we don’t want to push it. Have you checked any traps?” you asked, wanting to change the topic.

“No, just the one on the way here and it was empty. C’mon then, we have work to do.”

“Namjoon,” you approached the king, now running his hands through Jeongguk’s hair, now sleeping. Namjoon looked up and you almost did a double take at his teary eyes. He was crying. The king was crying. You laid a hand on his shoulder and gave him a soft smile. “We have a demon to catch. He’ll be okay.”

Namjoon nodded, wiped his eyes, and followed you out.

You couldn’t push down the giddy feeling of going on a treasure hunt, no matter how many times you told yourself that it was a morbid thought.

===

The traps were empty, but you weren’t surprised. It was a game of luck and patience, like a man trying to catch a fish. You needed to wait.

At noon, Namjoon had a meeting with a few aristocrats that he couldn’t postpone or cancel, so you found yourself in a meeting room with your books scattered around you, not paying attention to any of the people in the room.

You caught a few nasty looks from a few of the old men, a few of them looked at you like prey, like they could eat you. It irritated you to no end.

“Your majesty,” a young man said, eyeing you like he wanted to use you and interrupting Namjoon mid-sentence. The king clenched his jaw, but looked at the man patiently, urging him to speak. “I don’t understand what this... girl is doing here, we’re discussing a sensitive things.”

“This has nothing to do with the topic at hand,” Namjoon stated, clearly irritated. “Her presence is not your concern, she is here for my protection.”

“Well,” the man said, “I believe we should vote on whether or not she gets to stay. Your majesty did say that all of our opinions matter and we should vote on all decisions, and I don’t think that someone from the West should listen in on something this sensitive. And you have guards to protect you.”

Two other men nodded their head and looked at the king expectantly, like they were challenging him. Namjoon smiled. It wasn’t a smile you knew. It was a threat more than anything else.

“Lord Lin,” he started, voice soft and pace slow, “if I let this council vote on all decisions, you would never be able to leave this boardroom. Instead, I let you go home to eat yourself to death. While you spend your nights with some poor woman who wishes she could make her living some other way, I stay in this room making decisions that I don’t want to waste either of our time on.” Namjoon’s smile was gone now. He seemed vicious. The man’s eye twitched, but he looked down anyway. “The decisions I let you vote on are the ones I think are appropriate, and even then your vote isn’t much more than a suggestion. Do you know why, Lord Lin?”

The man looked up and shook his head. There were a few people around the table who looked offended and angry, but the majority of the room hid their smiles behind their hands.

“It’s because I am king, and you are not,” Namjoon said, head high. “So I suggest you don’t interrupt me again.”

The meeting went on after that, except that the young lord kept his poisonous gaze on you.

The rest of the day was less eventful. You dragged Namjoon to your and Yoongi’s room to work on your runes with Yoongi in your vicinity. The king went through documents of his own and eventually Taehyung knocked, asking to join because he felt scared.

You were surprised at the honesty, but you let him inside anyway, thinking that it couldn’t do much harm while the demon was dormant. He curled up on Yoongi’s bed with a book and didn’t say much else.

While Yoongi worked on his staying awake potion, you got further with your runes. Namjoon did give you things the princes loved. Dancing shoes, a ratty, used up paintbrush and a small, metal notebook with refillable pages.

Each of you were too caught up in your own things to really talk to the other.

You were nearly done, having had a major breakthrough in your research, when Namjoon interrupted you. You looked up, surprised at the existence of another human being besides yourself. You blinked yourself back into reality and found Namjoon holding out a hand toward you.

“Come,” he said, “you haven’t eaten all day and it’s dinner time.”

Against your better judgement, you packed everything you needed, including a toothbrush and your sleeping clothes, and followed the king to his room, wishing Yoongi and Taehyung a good night on your way out.

Taehyung responded with a smile, Yoongi didn’t hear you.

The food was amazing, brought to the king’s room by the servants, and you nearly made a noise when you bit into the tiramisu. You didn’t talk much during dinner, but neither did Namjoon. He seemed distracted.

“You’re not very nice to your lords,” you eventually teased after you licked your spoon clean. An embarrassed smile spread on his face.

“I’m not usually an asshole,” he defended, “I treat them pretty good, I think. That’s the most feedback I’ve gotten, at least. But Lin… god I can’t stand him. I miss his mother. She was an awesome woman, would have probably made a better monarch than I did. She died, though, and now I’m stuck with her spoiled little son.”

“He does seem spoiled,” you said absentmindedly.

“You know,” Namjoon said with a soft voice, more serious, “I’m really scared of losing them. It’s lonely without my brothers. Especially when Tae’s been so out of it lately. I miss having honest people around me. I miss talking.”

“You have me.” The words slipped out of your mouth before you could stop it, and you nearly slapped yourself. You were nothing to the king. Not family, not a friend, not a lover. “I mean, until you get them back you can talk to me.” God, that sounded worse.

Namjoon smiled regardless. A genuine, grateful, albeit a little sad smile. “Yeah. I have you.”

You went back to work after eating, and Namjoon indulged in a novel. And then… a final line and you had a design in front of you that you couldn’t find a flaw with.

“I did it,” you said, more to yourself than anything else. Namjoon shot up and stood next to you in no time.

“You did?” he asked, sounding elated. You nodded frantically.

“Yeah, I think so. I can’t find a flaw. What time is it?” You frantically looked for the clock. Half past eleven. It could be enough time, but if something went wrong, you’d be stuck on demon grounds.

“Don’t risk it,” Namjoon said, reading your mind. “We have plenty of time tomorrow, and we’re no use to my brothers dead. Besides, you can have Yoongi look it over, just… just for another pair of eyes.”

“Yeah,” you said. He was right, of course.

“Let’s sleep,” the king suggested and it felt so intimate that you almost did a double take. “We could use an extra hour.”

You used the washroom to change into your sleepwear and nearly collapsed when you came back. Namjoon was shirtless again, wearing loose pants, ready for bed and it almost made you drool.

You hesitated for a moment, debating whether or not to ask for the sofa. But the king didn’t seem bothered and the bed was so much more comfortable and it really had nothing to do with Namjoon being shirtless again and it hand nothing to do with the fact that you wanted to wake up wrapped around him again and –

You got into bed and turned your back to the king.

“Thank you, Y/n,” Namjoon said, voice low, “For everything.”

“I meant it when I said it,” you whispered, nearly hoping he didn’t hear you, “you have me.”

The room went silent for a hot minute and you started to drift away. Somewhere between awake and asleep, you felt Namjoon move closer, just enough to feel the dip in the bed, to feel the residue of his warmth.

If you were more awake, you would have moved away, but it would have been the logical thing to do, and not that what you’d want. So you did what you wanted, and moved close enough that your back touched his chest.

Silence. And then.

“Good night, princess.”

#notyourdamsels #ksmutclub #bangtanhq #magicshopnet #btswriterscollective #thekimlinenet #bangtanarmynet #smutcentralnet #namjoon #rm #namjoon fanfic #rm fanfic #namjoon fanfiction #rm fanfiction #bts #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #bangtan #bangtan boys

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anonniemousefics · 4 years

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My Dearest Inej | Chapter Six

Chapter Masterlist

Originally posted on AO3

Rating: Teen And Up

Synopsis: A series of letters kept among the personal belongings of Captain Inej Ghafa.

Chapter Six: Dear Nina

Hello, lovely,

Some news and a request. I am going away on an assignment for the next several months, and this one’s rather sensitive. It means I’ll be out of reach for a time. Don’t worry your wonderful Inej brain about it, though. You know very well I’ll be just fine.

Here’s how I’m thinking we make due in the meantime. I’m writing down all my adventures and silly thoughts to send you as soon as it’s safe, and then we’ll be able to catch up in no time at all when all is right with the world again. You should do the same. Once I’m able, I’ll send a giant wad of letters along with where I can be reached to the Van Eck mansion for Wylan to hold on to for you until your next trip to Ketterdam. There. Not so bad, right?

I miss you more than cake. And that’s not an exaggeration. Be safe, lovely. And give them all hell.

All my love,

Nina

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(enclosed in an overstuffed envelope marked “Nina”)

(translated from Kerch)

Dear Nina,

Your last letter has made me grouchy. I don’t know if there would have ever been a good time for you to fall off the map, but I think there could have at least been a better time than this. I’ll take your suggestion, though, and settle for trying to imagine your face when I tell you these things. When you read this, let’s imagine that we’re at that cafe in West Stave. The one with the little white tables outside. You’ve ordered enough waffles to feed five men, and I’m all hopped up on hot chocolate, and we can’t stop snickering. It’ll happen again someday, right?

I’m going to use this letter to take a break in entertaining you with stories of battle at sea and the many delightful ways in which bad men beg. I’m docked in Ketterdam today with my head dangerously full of some truly mortifying events. I don’t know what to do, Nina. Keep eating your imaginary waffles – I’m going to offload a great many details and bring you up to speed.

I’ve told you that Kaz and I write letters. That they’re sort of a romantic nature. I know you think I’m crazy. I’m well aware that I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t know -- there’s just something about him I can’t give up yet. And I love these letters. They’ve become the first thing I pick up at every new port. They’re these little slices of Ketterdam – all of the good stuff, that is, and none of the bloodshed.

It’s dangerous, though, isn’t it? Only getting the good side of things. It messes with your perception of reality.

It should surprise no one that Kaz Brekker is good with pen and paper, considering how we’ve seen him con. Sometimes I worry that’s what letter-writing really is to him. Another way to con. He says things in letters that you could not even imagine, Nina. He can be affectionate. He can be really funny, maybe even playful. He can also write the most sincere, heartfelt sentences. You read them, and you really forget he’s, well, Brekker. It’s almost like, when he writes me, he’s not. Like some other side comes out when he picks up a pen, and it’s the side I’ve always hoped was really there all along.

I’m such a goner for this other side, Nina. It’s become a problem. Try not to spit out those imaginary waffles.

It’s a problem because, in person, when I’m in Ketterdam, he’s still Kaz Brekker, the persona, the enigma. It started messing with my head, because there is such a stark contrast between Kaz Brekker the enigma and the Kaz who writes me these insanely charming letters. That’s not to say Kaz Brekker isn’t trying to be less enigmatic, but it’s little things. He can take off his gloves more now without having violent reactions to a brush of skin. He’s managed to hold my hand for a few, brief moments. I’ve tried to cozy up to him, but I don’t know. It’s impossible to know what he thinks of it, if he likes it, if he hates it, if he resents it – until a letter shows up. And then he’s writing, “I miss you” and “I’m dreaming of tasting your lips.” (I’m imagining you making that silly fanning yourself gesture, and I really hope that’s true. Saints, I miss you.)

I’m rambling so much. I wish you were just here instead.

He wrote me this letter after Jesper’s birthday, Nina. Ughhh, why are you so far away? It was a really good letter. A really, really good letter. We had a moment during this hot air balloon ride (yet another reason you need to come back to visit Ketterdam – we do birthday experiences now). Jesper and Wylan were on one side of the balloon’s basket, wrapped up in each other and all the sights with their backs to us. And, out of nowhere, he pulled me close, tucked me right up against his side, close enough that I couldn’t help but hold him back. At first, I could actually feel his heart racing and thought maybe he’d pull away. But he settled after a minute, and we rode in the balloon for a good while like that, stars overhead, city lights below. That was all, and it was more than enough for me. I still think about it all the time. He told me later that he thought it was a nice night, and so I thought it best to leave it at that. We had a nice night. Nice, like when your dinner isn’t ruined or someone opens a door for you.

But this letter that awaited me in Os Kervo. You know Suli, right? So, if I use the phrase (nearest translation: “I shit a brick”), you’ll understand just how shocked I was. He wrote how he never wanted to forget that night and the way I looked and the way he felt. It was perfectly un-Brekker-like. It might have made you cry.

The contrast has never seemed so stark.

And so it came down to this: I needed to know that Kaz Brekker in Ketterdam was capable of actually being this person who keeps showing up in envelopes and using his name.

Which brings me to my most recent trip to Ketterdam. This was the trip after the hot air balloon ride. Before I arrived, he asked if I wanted to stay in the Slat this trip – with him. Don’t choke on your waffles, please. Nothing was going to happen – he can barely hold my hand for more than a few minutes, and at least one of the times it’s happened, I had to bribe him with Ravkan toffees first.

I had one condition for this arrangement. I wanted to bring letters for him to read aloud. Perhaps most incredibly, he agreed.

Right. This is where it gets ugly.

I’d spent the day at The Slat. Usually my first day on land, I find I’m unusually exhausted, and everything in The Slat is fresh and new since Seeger’s fire – I’d even venture to say comfortable. I slept most of the day, a luxury I know you’d appreciate. I was up around dinnertime, and he’d brought in dinner. (It was those meatballs and mash pots we used to love so much. I hope I’ll be able to eat them again after this without wanting to hurl.)

Dinner seemed like a good time to try out the letter reading. We’d spread out the food on his desk and passed a bottle of kvas back and forth to lighten the mood before he rolled up his sleeves and I gave him the first one. I had tried to pick a variety of his letters to bring along, the ridiculous ones right up to the one I can’t get over – the one after the hot air balloon ride.

Before you get too excited, we didn’t get to the hot air balloon ride letter.

It was going so well in the beginning. My cheeks were hurting from smiling so hard, listening to so many charming words come from that voice. He seemed to be enjoying it even – feet up on the desk, a sip of kvas here, read an old joke there, and he’d try not to smirk to himself when it made me laugh. He even let one of his own laughs slip once or twice. It was just what I wanted. I felt like I was finally putting together a whole picture out of two halves.

But then we came to this letter he’d given to me on the docks of Fifth Harbor, thanking me just before I left after Seeger’s fire. I was getting ready to hand it over to him, and my heart dropped right into my feet. Nina. I’d forgotten I’d written something really, really, REALLY embarrassing in the margins. Just. Sankta Alina. I don’t know if I can repeat it.

I tried to skip over that one, but he was having none of it. Everything had been playful and a little flirtatious up until that moment, and he swiped it from my hands. Sankta Elizabeta, my face is burning up while I’m writing this. Tell me this is salvageable. Oh, wait, you’re in backwoods Fjerda or something. Ugh, why, Nina, why?

Everything got really quiet – he’d seen it right away. I could tell he was surprised, but that was it. I have no idea what else was happening in that brain of his.

What it was was this. I’d made a note of how different he was on paper and labeled that Kaz by his original name. I’d written that I like Kaz Brekker, but after these letters, I was in love with Kaz Rietveld.

NINA. (Untranslatable Suli vulgarities)

I snatched the letter back – he wasn’t even making eye contact with me. He hadn’t even budged. It was too horrible. The silence felt never-ending. So, I left. That was yesterday. Now I’m staying on the Wraith. Maybe forever.

I have to say something, and I wish you were here to help me figure out what to say. Somewhere in the back of my mind, there are fragments of lessons and sayings my father would have about this, if I could only cobble them in to something coherent. I’m trying and trying to imagine how he must be feeling.

He couldn’t have been that surprised about my feelings, could he? Not after all this time, not everything we’ve written. It’s not as if I’ve been terribly coy. I’m forcing myself to believe he would not be horrified to know how I feel. No, there’s something else.

How awful it must feel to think someone you trusted finds only a part of you lovable.

I have some soul-searching to do, Nina.

Come back.

Inej

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(hand-delivered, unaddressed envelope)

Dear Inej,

I’ve spent the whole night thinking, and I have some things to say. I won’t read this one out loud, so if you have a hard time believing it’s me, I guess you’ll just need to get creative.

I know you’re embarrassed. You might remember I have intimate knowledge of what it’s like to be in your position. At first, I wanted nothing more than to ease your mind and put everything back the way it was. There was a large part of me that was awestruck that you’d find even a small, half-dead remnant of myself worthy of loving. I was ready to crawl back to you and do anything to erase this moment from time.

But then I realized that’s not a fair deal to Kaz Brekker.

And before you start making faces, I’m not becoming one of those politicians that likes to bloviate in the third person. Just for the sake of clarity in this letter alone, I’ll use the labels that you used.

Inej, Kaz Brekker saved my life. Yours, too. And a lot of other people’s. Kaz Brekker could find me food and dry clothes and shelter when there was no one else. Kaz Brekker has fixed and built and risked and fought and salvaged. And yes, there are a good many things he’s terrible at, like not being an unmitigated asshole. He is not friendly or particularly kind, and he’s rarely truthful. There are many things he should never have done. He’s done unthinkable things he’s not even sorry for. Trust me, Inej. When it comes to hating Kaz Brekker, I have a front row seat.

But the only reason there’s a Kaz Rietveld here for you to love at all is because Kaz Brekker brought him this far.

At first, my instinct was to write a letter detailing all the many ways I can become more like the man you love. And that’s not to say there isn’t some wisdom in trying to coax him out a bit more – you tend to have good taste in most things. There’s probably some value in striking a balance.

But Kaz Brekker is part of the deal. You can’t have one without the other. There is a lot about him – about me -- that I would not and will not change. So, I need to know that you see the same value in him. In all of me. Because, if you can’t, I’m not sure it will matter how much I’m in love with you, too.

And to think we might have avoided this whole mess if I just would have let you bring a flute. To that I say, mati en sheva yelu. I am in love with you even if you play a damn flute.

Are you smiling at least a little bit? I hope so.

Sincerely,

K. Rietveld

#six of crows #soc #six of crows fanfic #crooked kingdom #grishaverse #leigh bardugo #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #nina zenik #fanfic #fanfiction #kanej #kanej fanfic

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incomprehensiblelentils · 4 years

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@dollsome-does-tumblr does this and opened it up to anyone and I am feeling chatty today SO!

Because I co-write a lot with my lovely wife, I might answer some questions including those co-written stories, or I might not, depends on how I feel when I get there.

name:

Megan but I go by Lentils most places on the internet, Shadowcrawler over on AO3

fandoms:

at the moment: MCU, especially Agents of SHIELD and Daredevil; Terminator: Dark Fate; Halt and Catch Fire. Oh and I wrote Dollhouse fanfics a thousand years ago. Sometimes I will watch a movie/show and think “those two girls should be gay” and bang out 2k of fic about it and then never write for that fandom again. (I THOUGHT this was going to be HACF but as it turns out, no, it’s not done with me yet.)

where you post:

AO3, at Shadowcrawler. I also have a tumblr @lentils-writes where theoretically I post links to fics/advertise them in the tags, because I used to be real precious about not putting porn on this blog, but fuck it.

most popular multi-chapter fic:

Co-written, it’s definitely mallverse, which is I think the reason most writers definitely hate us because it’s very long and there are a lot of tags lmao. The problem is that every tagged character HAS shown up in a significant fashion at some point so we can’t just...untag them! It doesn’t update weekly anymore because we’re exhausted by life lmao so at least there’s that???

As for a multi-chapter fic that was just me, I don’t tend to do that so much, so actually it’s say you will, my 3-chapter Endgame fix-it where Clint dies instead of Natasha and Natasha and Laura have a past. It actually has over 1000 hits which is very exciting! I feel like it’s...niche in a way that is frustrating but understandable lol. I put a lot of my heart into it and some people really liked it, so that’s gratifying.

favorite story you’ve written so far:

Co-written, I think our SHIELD Dollhouse AU is very underrated for the amount of work we put into it. Author bias evident here because I love Dollhouse warts and all, and it’s a lot of fun translating episode plots as well as the general trajectory of the show into stuff that will work with SHIELD characters. We don’t just rewrite episodes, we really try and rework them as needed. Also it features both Skimmons and my beloved rarepair Bobbi/Kara, though of course they won’t get together until later.

Of my own stuff, I’m still really really proud of the AU where Kara Palamas didn’t die. I think that was a pretty severe misstep of the show and I think I did a good job of fixing it. (I haven’t forgotten Kara, promise!)

fic you were nervous to post:

lolololol I wrote some uh. Terminator pornography last year and. They are very porny! I had co-written a bunch of smut obviously, but that was the first time I’d posted like, PWP all by myself on purpose??? and that was TERRIFYING. Also I was very nervous to post the Engame fix-it because that was my own personal goodbye/tribute to Natasha.

how you choose your titles:

They are always either song lyrics or jokes (such as Three Lawyers and a Baby, my Daredevil Accidental Baby Acquisition fic). My WIP docs are always titled either obvious shit like “RoseJannah horse girls” or memes like “what if we belonged to a fire cult and we fucked haha just kidding unless...?” or “Morgan has two mommies.”

do you outline?:

B and I typically outline for the co-written fics, although it’s more often chapter-by-chapter outlines since that’s how we write them. On occasion we’ve fully planned multi-chapter stuff out in advance but that’s less common. Oh and the one-shots are nearly always outlined as well, just to keep ourselves organized.

When I have written planned multi-chapter fics in the past I have used outlines - particularly for the Kara one and I had to do that for the SHIELD Kill Bill AU because I was trying to follow the format of the movie. For things that are allegedly supposed to be one-shots I almost never outline, which turns out to be a terrible idea when they inevitably balloon beyond my control and become 45k like say you will. That one, I wrote out a list of scenes I thought needed to be in it and then I wrote about 75% of those scenes and then I wrote a bunch more scenes I hadn’t planned for. Don’t be like me, kids!

complete fics:

According to AO3, 89 as of right now. Uh, you do not want me to list all of them, here’s a link, I guess!

in progress:

I don’t understand what the difference is between this question and the WIP questions lmao help????

posted WIPs that I have active plans to continue at this time:

Cowritten: mallverse as I said, and its femslash smut oneshots spinoff and character flashbacks spinoff and older characters/teachers spinoff (these get updated, uh, irregularly), the first half of a Piper/Snowflake SHIELD s7 fic that we are planning on finishing the second half of soonish, SHIELD Dollhouse AU, SHIELD Teen Beach AU, SHIELD Buffy AU. You may notice a pattern!

By myself, I have: Have Your Elf a Merry Little Christmas, a Terminator Hallmark Christmas fic that I ambitiously posted the first chapter of in 2019 and then lost steam immediately (I am going to go back to it sooner or later bc I had some cute ideas for it); the SHIELD Fate of the Furious AU that has one chapter to go and which I do intend on finishing eventually; Three Lawyers and a Little Lady, the Daredevil Accidentally Baby Acquisition AU that is literally just cute kidfic and poly avocados and which I have a bunch of ideas for and just need to buckle down and finish some.

posted WIPs that I have given up on:

Lol so there’s a Dollhouse Caroline/Bennett Doctor Who AU that I wrote purely as idfic and which nobody ever cared about except me, and I think that ship has sailed! RIP darlings. I also had an ongoing Skimmons series waaaay back when where I posted oneshots that were like missing scenes or gay readings for each s1 episode, and I just feel like it would be inauthentic to even try and finish it at this point. (It does include the first ever Skimmons fic to be posted on AO3! Really truly, there’s one fic that shows up as older but it’s an ongoing fic and was updated with the tag way after I posted mine.)

exchange fics due soon/unrevealed:

I haven’t done an exchange since like 2015 lololol I am so bad at them. I am currently working on finishing up my MCU Femslash bingo card, very late, and I do have plans for almost all of the remaining squares!

WIPs that live in my fanfic folder and are incomplete and who knows when they’ll be finished:

“RoseJannah horse girls,” which has been put on hold temporarily but is literally just Rose and Jannah being gay while riding orbaks

half of a Daisy/Gwen fic from Marvel Rising because I know they’re not making any more of those but I stg those two were really gay

multiple fics about Elise Nelson-Page including: avocados Halloween with smol Elise, Aunt Elektra very reluctantly taking smol Elise shopping until she realizes smol Elise also likes weapons (she buys her a fake katana), Uncle Frank is a pushover and spoils the shit out of Elise, and baby Elise has a high fever and everyone freaks out but then she gets better and smile at them for the first time (inspired by baby me lol).

coming soon/not yet started:

“Morgan has two mommies,” yet another Endgame fix-it where Maya Hansen did not die in Iron Man 3 and she resurfaces and she and Pepper kiss and eventually she adopts Morgan

Claire and Colleen go on a nice date to get coffee/tea where Danny doesn’t interrupt them goddammit

Bobbi/Kara Warehouse 13 AU which is sort of like “For the Team” but gayer ft. grappling hook

X-Men: Evolution Tabby/Amara fluff

Cameron/Donna character study disguised as smut

Grace proposes to Dani with a ring made out of the metal from her power source and Carl officiates the wedding

Dani gets horny watching Grace eat a peach and jerks off and Grace ends up hearing her and then they fuck (I have been calling this “the peach fic” in my head but I gotta stop being delicate about it lmfao it is just porn)

B and I have plans to do a Nico/Karolina Jasper in Deadland AU but we keep forgetting

I MUST WRITE FOGGY AND KAREN SADLY FUCKING IN A CHURCH WHILE THEY MOURN MATT THIS YEAR I STG

do you accept prompts:

uhhhhhh I have on occasion written a prompt for someone before but it’s pretty rare and I have enough trouble writing the shit I come up with in my own head lol. but never say never?

upcoming story you are most excited to write:

I’ve got a bit of the Bobbi/Kara Warehouse fic written and it’s nice to go back to that world. Also I’m weirdly excited about the Cam/Donna smutty character study I mentioned above, I have a lot of what I think are good ideas for it and it’ll be fun.

tagging @unwind-myself @swiftzeldas @swashbucklery @loved-the-stars-too-fondly and, if you want to, you!

#sometimes I write things

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lifeinahole27 · 4 years

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CS ff: “Walking the Tightrope” (Chapter 2/10) (au)

Summary: Killian’s daily routines are a matter of habit. When he wakes up late one morning, his routines all change for the better. Emma doesn’t care about routines, but she does care about Killian, no matter how reluctant she is to admit it to herself.

Rating: E (much later in the story)

Content Warnings: Maybe some language in this chapter but nothing more.

A Special Thank You: My continued gratitude to my lovely friends, @captainstudmuffin and @phiralovesloki. And a heap of love to @captainswanbigbang for putting this together and helping me accomplish this.

A/N: I have crawled out of my deathbed long enough to post this. Thank you to everyone who has read so far, and I hope your enjoyment continues with this next installment! xo

Chapter 1 |

Find it on Ao3 & FFN!

-x-

Chapter 2: Meet Me in the Morning

October 5: Saturday

Emma Swan doesn’t care about routines. She does most things at the same time each day, but that’s only because she wakes up, takes a shower, gets ready, and goes to work at the same time. Every day.

On the weekends, she’s a mess. She’s not entirely ashamed to admit there are some weekends she doesn’t even bother showering. She’s a single woman living alone so she’s the only one who has to deal with it.

It was by chance that, a little more than a month ago, she decided to walk to work early and saw Killian Jones for the first time. She’s been walking the same route for so long but she had never seen him before, more than likely because he seems to like to get to work early and she prefers to run in at the last second before she’d be considered late.

That first time was a fluke – she told David she would come in a little early to help haul records out of storage and there was this newcomer standing at the corner she crosses in order to get to Main Street. Storybrooke doesn’t get a lot of tourists, and of course she’d heard rumors that there was someone new, but to see him in person was a jolt of excitement.

He was reading something on his phone and looked like he was going to walk straight into the street. She had hustled to get to the corner sooner to stop him in case a car was coming (unlikely with how early it was and in this town) but he stopped, as if his shoes had suddenly stuck him to the spot. Without looking, he pushed the button for the crosswalk and kept on reading. Emma realized that this was something he had ingrained into him so deeply that he even knew where to stop because of muscle memory. Pretty impressive for a guy who’d only lived here a handful of weeks.

Despite being unconsciously aware of his surroundings, he didn’t seem to even notice her following him at a distance, so she lurked in her own way until she got to Granny’s, watching with interest as he took the left at the post office and went on his way.

Curious to see if he would repeat this chain of events, Emma showed up early again the next day just in time to see him walking up, but it was all wrong. He wasn’t reading, so he wasn’t lost in whatever was on his phone, and instead of just blindly stopping and pushing the button, his eyes met hers and he stumbled just the tiniest bit during the approach.

Suddenly, Emma kind of liked the idea of showing up every day around the same time to see if any of the above happened again – would be he lost in technology or would his steps falter again?

And both events did happen, but every time he’d get close to the corner, he’d look up and around, oftentimes catching the moment she was just approaching the crosswalk. Six weeks straight, every Monday through Friday, they walk together.

But last Monday he didn’t show up. She waited a couple minutes, but he still didn’t show. So she did what any sane person would do and went about her business. On a whim, she got two coffees at Granny’s and proceeded to stand outside for an extra ten minutes, not even sure he would pass by. Maybe he didn’t have to go to work. Maybe while she was getting the coffee, he went speeding past. Maybe he was dead in a ditch somewhere. She didn’t even know him but she was tempted to set out a search party for the man who always walks to work looking like a GQ model.

With that in mind, she’d started texting David asking how out of line it would be to create a missing persons report for someone who was, by her calculations, twenty minutes late.

“Who do you think is missing?” he’d texted back, clearly humoring her.

But that brought up a whole new set of problems because sure, she knew his name. How could she explain to David that she wanted to check up on someone she’d never even had a conversation with? And how could she do it without making David incredibly suspicious of Killian Jones?

When she looked up, Killian was there, looking just as shocked to see her as she was to see him. She had a moment of mild panic, locking and shoving her phone in her pocket without responding to her brother. She grabbed the coffees and started to just leave, but she noticed he didn’t have his to-go mug in hand and remembered why she ordered two on impulse.

So she officially met Killian that day, embarrassingly asking for his name even though she already knew it, and their daily interactions subtly changed again. She ponders this over a late breakfast the day after their bar run-in, marveling at the fact that she didn’t drink that much, that she’s not nursing a hangover with greasy food and a whole pot of coffee. Instead, she settles on the couch with a bowl of Fruity Pebbles and stares at the TV screen as she tries to decide which Netflix show to go for first.

Halfway through the first show, though, her thoughts keep drifting to the way Killian’s lips felt on the back of her hand. It’s occurred to her that she’s in trouble because he’s already gotten closer than she’s let most men in the last few years. She all but swore off relationships after the last one, but there’s something magnetic about Killian that keeps drawing her back. There’s a kinship, maybe. She sees it in his eyes some mornings - just a flash of something she can’t quite name but that lives inside her as well.

Knowing this is where dangerous thoughts lead, she finishes her cereal and eyes the visible messes in her apartment. Maybe some cleaning will help wipe the thoughts of getting those lips on hers from her brain. She starts with the overflowing sink.

By the end of the weekend, her apartment is spotless but her mind is more restless than it’s been in ages.

It doesn’t help that David calls her Sunday evening, making sure to emphasize that Killian seems like a nice guy. She’s just gathering the last of her laundry to tackle while dinner is still in the oven, so she hauls the hamper down to the basement of her building while David pries into her personal life.

“Yeah, he does,” Emma replies nonchalantly. “Do you want me to bring breakfast to the station tomorrow?” If she tries to change the subject, no one can really blame her for it.

“No need. It’s muffin Monday. But back to the guy that suddenly showed up after you were just texting me about putting out a missing person report on someone?”

“Geez, David. Way to be subtle,” she huffs as she finishes stuffing the clothes in the washer, starting the cycle before walking back to her apartment and pacing a circuit as the conversation continues. “So, was it Killian? How long have you been seeing him?”

“I’m not seeing him,” she defends, even though David’s tone is less stern and more overly-cautious-about-who-dates-his-sister. “We just sort of walk together for a bit in the mornings. I got worried when he showed up late one day. The guy is like an advertisement for punctuality.”

David hums a response, not sounding convinced. “And spending time alone with him last night? How does that figure into all this?”

With an exasperated sigh, Emma stops walking around her living room and drops onto the edge of the couch. “It just means that I have a new friend or something. That’s all. Nothing more than that.”

“Uh huh. So make sure the Save-the-Dates have ‘David was right’ written somewhere on them, okay?”

“Oh, would you look at the time? Dinner’s burning. Gotta go!”

This is one of those moments she sincerely misses phones with cords because it’s not nearly as satisfying to click the lock button to end the call and toss her phone on the coffee table as it would’ve been to slam down the receiver. She leaves it there for the rest of the night until it’s time to plug it in before bed, letting it represent all the truths she isn’t ready to face yet.

Killian is just on his way to becoming one of her friends. There’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing more than that, either.

-x- October 7: Monday

On Monday, Emma follows her own version of her morning routine and gets to the corner just as Killian is pushing the button for the crosswalk. She’s exhausted from a night of intermittent sleep, but can’t resist returning the gesture when Killian smiles and waves when he sees her.

“Good morning, Swan,” he greets, his cheery demeanor trying its best to rub off on her but failing miserably.

“It’s certainly morning,” Emma grumbles, wanting to reach out and grab the stainless steel mug from his hand and chug until she can function again.

“Well, that’s certainly a Monday mood if I’ve ever heard one. Not enough sleep last night?”

She shakes her head instead of responding, not really sure how to explain that he’s the reason without it sounding like either flattery or an insult. Truly, it was her own internal fuck-ups that kept her awake, and the fear that Killian Jones might be someone she wants to think about more often. This all floats through her brain on a lazy river of thought, and meanwhile, the light changes and Killian ushers her across the street and maneuvers her up the path to Granny’s before she can even register that she’s moved at all.

But instead of that being the end of their daily interactions, Killian is still walking beside her, opening the door for her when they walk up the few steps to the entrance, and somehow herding her without touching her all the way to the proprietress.��

“Granny, I do believe our good deputy here is suffering from severe sleep deprivation. Might you have something strong enough to knock out her Monday?”

“You’re consorting with this one, now?” Granny asks her, confusion popping up one gray eyebrow above her spectacles.

“I wouldn’t say consorting, as such, but we’ve become acquainted,” Killian says when she still can’t seem to find her words.

“Americano,” Emma finally spits out. “Make that a double.” Her brain is trying so hard to catch up to everything but somehow hearing Killian describe them as not-quite-consorting is the comforting wake-up she needed.

“There she is!” Killian’s exuberant tone jolts her a little bit, but she snorts a little and shakes her head.

“I’m good now, Jones. Thanks.”

“No worries, love. Happy to help.”

She remembers hearing the endearment the first time, that split-second instinct she had to correct him and tell him she was nothing to him at all, before she realized she’s been called the same by Robin and Will on more occasions than she can count.

Killian waits with her until the coffee is in her hands and walks the short length down to where they have to split in opposite directions to go to their places of employment. Emma tries not to linger once they get to that point, not wanting to hold him up from getting to work on time.

“Until tomorrow, then?” he asks, a gentle hint to the words. There’s something in his expression that speaks volumes more than his voice does, though.

“Until tomorrow, Jones.” She gives him a sly smile when she does it, lifting her coffee in thanks like he did the morning they officially met.

At lunch time, she’s feeling a little more like herself thanks to the coffee, but her energy is flagging and she realizes she never even ate breakfast, either. Just a granola bar she had in her desk from who knows when.

“I’m gonna walk down to Granny’s and get some lunch. What do you want?”

“Usual burger and fries?” David sounds as drained as she feels thanks to the stacks of files he’s been working on all morning, so she makes up her own mind to bring back more coffee to save them both from the ancient pot they still keep in the corner for some reason.

There’s something a lot more enticing than caffeine waiting in the diner, however, since she spots Killian in one of the booths almost as soon as she enters. He’s elbow deep in a stack of pages, oblivious to the world around him as it all bustles along. Instead, she has a suspicion that whatever he’s reading is where he lives now.

She wars with herself over whether or not to disturb him when he looks so engrossed, but it also looks like he hasn’t stopped in a while if his half-eaten lunch is anything to go by. With a quick stop by the counter, Emma places her to-go order and asks for a refill on Killian’s drink.

There’s a knowing arch to Granny’s eyebrow as she hands over the coffee and Emma pretends not to notice it, instead telling the older woman to let her know when her order is all ready.

“Careful, Jones. You look like you’re about to blow a fuse,” Emma says as she reaches the table, leaning casually against the other side of the booth after setting his drink in the last clean space. Even with the blatant approach, Emma can still tell she’s surprised him by the way he jumps a little in his seat. It takes a moment for him to speak, his eyes never leaving the page.

“I have to concentrate a little harder when there are beautiful women standing beside my temporary work space,” comes his response as he marks his spot on the page he’s working through. It’s then that he looks up at her, his eyes shining with humor but also the truth of his words. She knows it; she has a thing about people and lies. So of course she blushes, averting her eyes to scan around his mess of a table.

“I figured you were more of a neat, orderly pile kind of person,” she says with a gesture to the table. “I mean, you just seem the type.”

If he notices her weird tone of embarrassment, he ignores it. “You’re not wrong. I’ve just been so lost in the stories here that I’ve let the chaos take over a little bit. Thankfully, everything is numbered, or else I’d be in trouble.” “Why read here? Don’t you have an office with that fancy publishing company?”

“I do. It’s a very small, very modest office that I probably sit in more often than my home. But it also has other people who don’t like to respect my closed door in the afternoons. Namely, of course, Will Scarlet.”

She chuckles at that, not entirely surprised that he would choose to escape instead of trying to deal with Will. “Of course he wouldn’t.”

“And you? What brings you in? You look far more alert than you did this morning, by the way.”

“Thanks, I think? I’m here for lunch and coffee. We’re just getting started trying to get the old reports all transfered to our digital format. I love him, but David primarily uses the single fingers typing method that’s popular with dads and I couldn’t stand the sound of it anymore.”

“Emma!” They both jolt at the calling of her name, looking over to see Granny holding the bag with her order inside.

“Speaking of which, sounds like I’m up. I guess I should leave you to it, then. Wouldn’t want to add to your distractions list.”

“For the record, Swan, you’re always welcome to interrupt my work without ending up on my naughty list.” There’s just something about the way he says the line that Emma thinks is 99.9% totally innocent, but the very use of the word “naughty” has her 100% sure he could take it in a very dirty direction if given the chance. The most shocking part is that she kinda wants to walk right into it. “And thanks for the refresher on the coffee.”

“Don’t fry your brain,” she comments before pushing away from the booth and collecting her lunch. With reluctance, she walks out the door instead of going back to the damn booth and taking up more of his time.

-x- October 11: Friday & October 18: Friday

The rest of the work week passes quickly, with greetings to Killian in the mornings, steady work in the afternoons, and dinner spent alone in the evenings. With each new day, her conversations with Killian got a little longer, more drawn-out, and she was finding out so much more about him.

By that Friday, they’ve talked about work, and bickered about the best toppings to go on waffles, what their sweet tooth go-to is. And then, again, their habits change a little bit more.

“Are you going out tonight?” she asks, not even sure what prompted her to say anything. She wasn’t initially planning on heading to the bar after her shift, but their morning topic of pet ownership is apparently enough that it makes her want to talk to him more.

“Maybe,” he tells her. He means “yes” if his expression is anything to go on.

“Maybe isn’t yes, Jones.”

“It’s not a no, either,” he tells her, reaching up to push her hair off her shoulder with his hook. With that same smug expression on his face, he waves goodbye and leaves her outside Granny’s to get her coffee. One of these days she’s just going to steal his as retribution for saying that Pop-Tarts are not a suitable breakfast.

He does make an appearance that night, sitting between herself and Snow after he wanders in with Will. She can already tell that he’s worming his way into Snow’s heart, and while that will ultimately make her life more complicated when the other woman starts pressuring her to date him, at least she’ll have her sister’s approval.

He doesn’t stay long, claiming at one point that he could very well fall asleep on his walk back home. Emma is this tempted to ask if he wants her to walk with him, but he bumps her shoulder companionably and says he’ll see her on Monday before he rises from the table and walks to the bar to pay his tab.

She keeps her eyes peeled on her own walk home to make sure he isn’t asleep somewhere along the route, just to be safe, and that’s damning enough on its own to indicate how she feels about him.

The next Friday, she’s lost in thought picking up dinner from Granny’s when the voice of Will Scarlet intrudes her personal space.

“Get your boyfriend to go out with us tonight. He’s refusing to leave his office,” he says bluntly, sliding up next to Emma at the counter. She’s thrown for a second by the word ‘boyfriend’ and stares at him for a moment before she realizes Will’s talking about Killian.

“Killian’s not my boyfriend,” she says, trying not to sound too bristly.

“Well, not with that bloody attitude he’s not,” Will says, grin still in place.

“Go away.”

“I will as soon as I’ve got food for that prickly bastard I work with.”

“Why’s he prickly?”

“He’s been locked away in that bloody office all week. Never left the room except for toilet breaks today. Propped a chair in front of the door so I couldn’t get in to try to make him break for lunch.”

“Doesn’t his door have a lock?”

“Do you really think a locked door can keep me out?”

It’s none of her business, not really, but she’s still a little concerned about that much work.

“C’mon, Lady Sheriff. I figure if anyone is going to get him to cut back a little bit and take a night to recharge, it’ll be the woman he fancies.”

There are so many things for her to unpack in that sentence.

“I’m the deputy,” she corrects almost absently because the rest of her brain and a thumping portion of her heart are still stuck on the idea that Killian fancies her - the very British way for Will to say that he like likes her. Has he said that out loud to Will? Does he talk about her?

“I don’t have his number or anything. It’s not like I can just text him and tell him what to do.”

“Okay then, you can take him the dinner I was planning on dropping off and use your womanly charms to get him away from that bloody computer screen for a night.”

Emma snorts at the idea of trying to use any kind of womanly charms, since she hasn’t used those since she was helping chase bail skips back in her early twenties. She doesn’t think Will has the same ideas as she does when she hears those words, and thank goodness for that.

In the end, when the food is ready to go, Emma takes the bag from Will. “Fine. But only because he’s probably so sick of your face that he’d just as soon starve than open that door for you again.”

Will is clearly torn between celebrating that his plan has worked and being an ass about her reasoning, but Belle walks in and diverts his attention, so Emma starts edging towards the door with the two bags of food in hand.

“You know where the building is, yeah?”

“I do.”

“Turn to the left past reception and it’s down the second hall to the right.”

It’s almost pointless that Will gave her the directions, since there’s only one office in the whole building that seems to be lit up. The rest of the place is deserted, but his door is propped open and she’s about to knock, but takes a moment instead to appreciate how intense Killian looks while he’s working.

He’s chewing on his lip, eyes scanning his computer screen with fervor. He’s wearing glasses, which she’s never seen before, and even though she’s been standing here for at least thirty seconds, he still hasn’t seemed to notice she’s there with how deep he’s in the story. With a shifting of bags, she lightly knocks on the doorframe to catch his attention.

“If you’ve come to get me out of this office, you’ll have to try harder than by bringing me food.”

“Even if it’s really good food?” Emma asks. “I see you unblocked the door.”

Killian’s head snaps up so fast that she’s sure he’s given himself whiplash.

As such, his voice is breathless when he says her last name, as if she’s a mere mirage standing in his doorway and he is a man dying of thirst. With the expression on his face, she’s pretty sure that’s not far from the truth.

“You’re not Will.”

“And thank god for that,” Emma says, finally entering his office and presenting him with the bag of food marked with his name on it.

“Ah, but he sent you,” Killian retorts as he accepts the bag. He sees the second bag in Emma’s hand. “Do you have time? Would you like to eat, as well?”

She hesitates for a moment, thinking about how all she was going to do was drop off the food and go, maybe remind him to drink water or something, but he looks like he could use the company of someone other than the fictional characters in front of him. “Sure,” she finally says, moving the chair in front of his desk closer so she can place her own food on the surface.

As they each eat their dinners, Killian tells her more about the project he’s been assigned.

“It’s a relatively short book compared to the other projects I’ve worked on, but because of how much is riding on this one thing, I feel like I’m hyper-obsessing over every detail. I read the whole thing that day you saw me at the diner, and I’m still in the first chapter making edits and comments because I keep wondering if it’s the right call or not. I meet the author in a couple weeks and I want to have more than three pages marked up before that day.”

“You need to stop psyching yourself out so much,” Emma concludes as she pops another onion ring in her mouth. “And you definitely need to ease up on the time in the office. How long ago did everyone leave today?”

“Most cut out by three on Fridays.”

“So you’ve just been here for three hours working by yourself in a dark office building? With the front door unlocked?”

“It’s Storybrooke, love. Who’s going to even want to come here?”

“You have a point, I guess.” She wipes her hands with a napkin, shoving her trash back in the bag and crumpling it up. “But still, you should consider going out with everyone tonight. Or at least going home and drinking a lot of water and thinking about self-care.”

“Will you be included in this everyone?” He sounds a little quiet, a little unsure, a little nervous when he asks.

The woman he fancies, marches back through her head and Emma’s heart flutters a little. “Yeah,” she says, with no intentions of teasing him or leading him on. She gives a little shrug, smirking along with it. “Besides, it’s… also my birthday. Just so you know.”

“Today?” His full attention is on her, now, even forgetting about the fry that was halfway to his mouth.

“Tuesday, but since it’s a weekday, we’re celebrating tonight.” The wheels are turning behind those tired eyes and she knows she almost has him. “You can tell me about how you finished this chapter when you get to the bar tonight.”

“Maybe,” he says, but there are cracks in the facade he’s trying to hold onto.

“Maybe isn’t yes, Jones.” Last Friday comes back to mind, and she thinks this may just be the start of a routine or something now if he keeps this up.

“It’s not a no either, Swan,” he says with a smile that she’s beginning to recognize as the same she gets on her face when she thinks about him. She is so screwed.

“Yeah, I know,” she says, standing from her chair and flippantly tossing the trash from her dinner into the wastebasket by his desk. “See you later.” She winks when she says it, and his responding smile gives away that he’ll definitely be there.

-x- October 18: Friday

Fifteen minutes after Emma gets to the bar, she finally orders her drink. She knows Killian will show, but it’s a matter of how much longer. The drink has barely been in front of her for thirty seconds when she hears the door open and close again. She doesn’t even flinch when he appears by her elbow and orders his usual.

With a casual glance, she sees that he’s still in his suit and tie. He looks a little ruffled from the long day, but even at what she’s sure is a rough state, he still looks like she’d like to kiss him. That thought isn’t new, but the intensity of it is.

“What a surprise to see you, Jones.” She takes a sip of her drink before she looks at him again.

He’s shaking his head, looking like he’s trying not to smile but she gets to watch the grin fully bloom as he fails to keep a straight face. He glances around the empty tables where everyone usually congregates. “Where is everyone?”

“Well, I told Will that you wouldn’t go out unless we went to Aesop’s Tables. So I assume that’s where he is. And David and Snow had plans tonight.”

“Trying to get me alone, Swan?”

“I figured you could use a night to decompress without Will challenging you to a chugging contest.”

“You’re a savior, you know that?”

“I’ve been called that once or twice,” she admits, grabbing her drink and standing from the barstool. “Let’s go.”

“Go?”

“Yeah. Decompress. I have darts. You have a long week to put behind you. We both have good, strong drinks. Let’s go.”

He still looks baffled by the whole thing, and Emma’s not really sure why she’s so intent on trying to get him to loosen up, besides the fact that he’s one of the most put-together people she’s ever met and to see him a little disheveled is… kinda nice. She turns him and nudges him towards the other end of the bar where the dartboards are set up.

“Oh!” Killian stops in his tracks in front of her for a second and turns around. “What about your birthday?”

“What about it?”

“You said you were supposed to celebrate tonight.”

Emma fights with the smile forming on her lips. “Yeah, I did.”

“You didn’t have plans,” he says, the words tinted with a bit of confusion, but it’s definitely a statement.

“Nope,” she says, popping the last consonant. “C’mon. Tell me about your book thing.” She gets him moving again with a gentle jab to the middle of his chest.

And he does. As soon as they settle into a rhythm at the boards, Killian goes through the general premise of the twist on fairy tales. His arms are constantly moving as he talks, something that Emma finds fascinating. The impressive part is how he can do that and still throw without really concentrating. Sometimes, however, that doesn’t mean the throw is good.

“I haven’t played in a while,” he confesses after his first dart ends up on the floor and the second ends up embedded in the light cover above the board.

“Mmmhmm. Keep telling yourself that’s the reason,” Emma teases, collecting the darts and hitting three numbers she needs.

The game progresses with ease, however, and they keep up a steady conversation with the music buffering them from the other patrons and conversations. Round 1 ends up going to Emma.

“He still has one detail I wouldn’t have written if it were my book,” he tells her when they’re deep in round two.

“Oh?”

“There’s the ever-present failsafe: True Love’s Kiss.”

“And why wouldn’t you have written that into the stories?”

“Because if these are twisted tales, why should that be the save-all? Case in point, what if it were a curse instead of the fixer?”

“What do you mean?” She takes her throw, but it’s a bad shot. She’s officially more interested in what he’s saying so her game is going to shit.

“Bear with me a moment. In most stories, that kiss is the thing that fixes everything, breaks the curse, completes someone, etc. etc.”

She nods as she takes a sip of her drink which is slowly becoming more water than alcohol from the ice melting. It’s clear he’s on a roll, both in telling the story and with the darts. With the first throw, he hits the triple 20.

“So if I were to meet and kiss my true love, in Henry’s version, I would live happily ever after. But if I were the one twisting the fairy tales, my true love would turn into a hand. The thing that would literally complete me, so to speak.” The second dart hits the outer ring of single 19, leaving him with one more dart and only needing the double bullseye to win the game.

“Then I’d just be this poor, lonely bastard with a reminder of this great love I was owed and instead have a hand to carry around at all times.” The dart goes flying, sinking into the middle of the board with ease. He spins, his look of disbelief fighting with the full-blown smile taking over his face. All Emma can do is laugh.

“One hell of an ending, Jones,” she says, not sure if she’s talking about the game or the curse. “But for the record, I hope you don’t think that a missing limb makes you any less whole.”

He’s at the dartboard collecting the darts when she says it, and he leaves two of them on the board as he comes back to the table they’re set up at. She’s surprised the words even came out of her mouth, unsure of where the need to tell him that came from.

“I did once, after it first happened. I was young and suddenly down one hand, discharged from the Navy because of it, and had no direction.”

“How did you find your way again?”

It’s so close to home. She thinks about being 18 and alone in Tallahassee, trying to find any way she could to make money to get back to David and Storybrooke without breaking down and asking him for money.

“Mostly with the help of my brother, Liam. He kept me moving forward when I wanted to slide down the hill.”

“That’s one of the perks of having a brother,” Emma says, clearing her throat and taking a sip from her drink.

“It certainly is,” he replies. Sensing the shift in tone, Killian offers to refresh their drinks.

“Sure. But light on the vodka in this one.”

While he’s getting the drinks, she shakes off the memories. Maybe she should share with him that they have more in common than a route to work, but she also thinks that can be saved for another time. Because although they still haven’t exchanged numbers or full back-stories, she feels like this is all much bigger than a morning routine, now.

They throw for best out of five. In the end, Killian is the victor of their mini-tournament.

“Re-beginner’s luck,” Killian tells her as they settle their tabs and wish Jefferson a goodnight.

When they step outside, they start a slow, meandering walk back towards their homes. The October wind picks up, whipping her hair around her face and forcing her to zip her jacket up all the way. Without meaning to, Emma ends up huddled against Killian’s side, trying to escape the bitter wind. Somehow in the mix, she also ends up holding onto his arm, enjoying the way the fabric of his suit jacket feels beneath her fingertips. There’s a little smile on his face when she glances up at him, and when his eyes meet hers she can’t help but notice the way a quiet affection shines through.

They don’t talk much, mostly about the nothings that get lost in the mundane details of their day, like how she’ll start driving the Bug again soon when it gets colder. At this, Killian seems to deflate a little, and she realizes that it’ll bring an end to their walks down the street until the weather warms up again.

“But that’s not for another couple weeks,” she says, trying to make up for the fact that yeah, eventually she won’t be up for frigid commutes to the station in the snow. It’s not until she glances around that she realizes they’ve walked all the way back to her apartment complex. “Oh. This is me,” she says, pointing with her free hand up at the modest building. “I didn’t mean to make you walk this far out of your way.”

“I’m always happy to escort Storybrooke’s finest,” he mentions. “And thank you for getting me to relax tonight. I’d probably still be in that bloody office if it weren’t for you.”

“Or be three sheets to the wind thanks to Will.”

“Again, you’ve saved me in multiple ways today, Swan.”

“And yet, this was my birthday celebration and you got me no gift.”

With a glint in his eyes, Killian sways just the tiniest bit closer. “Only one gift I’ve got to offer,” he says, his index finger going from nervously rubbing a spot behind his ear to tapping his lips twice, the smile that overtakes those lips knowing and teasing and everything she’s wanted to kiss since he touched her hand that first time.

“Please,” Emma says, her voice dipping low. “You couldn’t handle it.” Even so, she’s moving closer without really meaning to, magnetically pulled towards his body in ways she can’t even explain.

“Perhaps you’re the one that couldn’t handle it,” he retorts, holding eye contact with her the whole time.

It’s a challenge. And she doesn’t like backing down from a challenge.

Her eyes shift between his for a second more, and then she’s hauling him towards her by the lapels on his suit jacket. Their mouths connect, both anticipating, both going for it like there’s a prize for who wrecks the other more. Back and forth they go with who leads and who takes, coming up for air twice in the process, until they’re both breathing heavily and she has to hold onto him to steady herself for an extra second.

“That was…” he mutters, his voice low.

They sway closer one more time and Emma’s pretty sure he’s going to kiss her again, but suddenly, the flight instinct takes over. She can’t like him. Can’t let him in. With barely a glance up, she decides to ruin the only good thing she’s had going for a while.

“A one time thing. Goodnight, Killian.” She says it with pain in her voice as she gently untangles herself from his embrace. It takes a lot of effort to command her own fingers to let go of his coat lapels and start walking away.

She doesn’t turn back, doesn’t want to see the look on his face that she knows is the same one on hers. Because they only walk together for part of their daily commutes. Nothing more. More is what leaves her in the middle of the night. More is what falls for her and dies in her arms. More is a lying, cheating asshole.

The door to the building closes firmly behind her, cutting off “more” before it even begins.

-x-

Chapter 3

#cs ff #cs ff au #captain swan ff #csrt #sarah writes ff

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halorocks1214 · 5 years

Text

the law of action

AO3 Link

Word Count: 10100

Summary: The Law of Action must be applied in order for us to manifest things on earth. Therefore, we must engage in actions that support our thoughts, dreams, emotions, and words

Previous Parts (in order): Alan | You are here! | Virgil | Scott | Gordon

these just keep getting longer fellas i dont understand how thats possible but it is. ALSO: REMEMBER IN ATTRACTION WHEN I MENTIONED THAT THESE WERE BEING WRITTEN OUT OF ORDER. HA, UH, KIND OF AN UNDERSTATEMENT I GUESS. but its here! johns pov chapter! im pretty satisfied with it, albeit a few kinks i wasnt really able to work out, so i hope you enjoy it too!

thanks again to @gumnut-logic for the prompts! "Where?" and lightning were this fic's choices. sad to see the last ones go away, but this was still a blast so thank you once more! also, just because the prompts are gone doesnt mean this series will be too ;3

Anger was a rare emotion for John Tracy.

It had to be. When dealing with the cold hard truth of data telling them something wasn't possible or dealing with annoying people who thought they knew better than him or dealing with people panicking in his ear because nobody expected the aftershock of an earthquake to be that bad, he didn’t have a choice. There were a lot of deals in life that had to be made and someone needed to play peacemaker, even if it wasn’t deserved.

It was true that he got the least angry out of his siblings, even compared to Virgil. Virgil might not get necessarily violent like Scott did, or threw caution to the wind like Gordon, or, hell, pulled off whatever John does when someone somehow manages puts him in a bad mood, but Virgil did get angry quite a lot. He just didn’t have as many blatant ways of showing it. John, on the other hand, didn’t have a lot of ticks. Pet peeves, definitely, John was no stranger to annoyance (especially with siblings like his), but not outright anger.

That didn’t mean he never got angry. He was Tracy born and bred, so that meant one the few ticks he did have surrounded the topic of family.

Specifically, his family being threatened.

John wished he was the youngest sometimes. That meant he could say things like let Scott punch the idiot already, he’d be doing the world a favor, and not get lambasted for the immature response. It also meant he could throw tantrums to hell and back and not feel like a total loser.

Like right now for example.

“EOS, I swear, if you don’t open the elevator door for me--”

“No, I won’t.”

Unbelievable.

Groaning and rubbing his face, his hands found their way up to his forehead and through his hair, holding his bangs out of his eyes for a moment. His eyes had many emotions in them, the most blatant being this shit cannot be happening right now, “EOS, do you know you’re amazing? I don’t think I’ve said that enough.”

EOS whirled for a moment, “John, I’ve seen that grin on Gordon. I cannot believe you would stoop that low.”

The grin she pointed out fell flat off his face, “Yeah, okay, you’re right about that--”

“Like I always am.”

“--So thank you,” John was going to strangle whoever defined sass so thoroughly in the dictionary. It left a bad example, “For the reminder, but seriously, I need to get up to ‘Five. It’s… important.”

It’s been a week since Alan was taken.

They’ve exhausted all options.

The only thing that could possibly get him back to them had to be International Rescue’s resources.

But EOS over here wasn’t getting the memo. Her words had that hint of childish innocence behind it. In that way that said there was no innocence whatsoever and she knew exactly what she was doing, the little shit, “John, do you really need to, or do you want to?”

There’s the inflection that John taught her. An inhale through the nose and… Uuuugghh, “EOS, I know the difference between needs and wants, this is definitely a need.”

Another lens blink, another moment of disbelief, “It seems like you have a lot of needs, John Tracy.”

John grimaced and ground his jaw together, mumbling his grievances with the current situation, “Yeah, well, if there’s any trait I truly share with my siblings, it’s that we’re all high maintenance.” His next words were more clear and designed to get the point across, “EOS, I’m not kidding, unlock the door.”

EOS stood her ground, “John, you going up there is one of the most detrimental things to you’re health at the current moment. I won’t let you.”

John threw his hands into the air, “EOS, there’s are whole lotta things that are currently detrimental to my health currently happening, one more thing won’t hurt.”

EOS lens shuttered again and John felt like it was nails on a chalkboard, “You have a point, but I’ve seen you with Scott when he’s in a similar mood. Don’t you tell him he needs to take a moment and think when he gets like this?”

John groaned as quietly as possible. Not too loud, but loud enough that EOS hopefully got the point, “Yes, I do, but I’m not Scott. We are two very different people, you have pointed this out numerous times. We have different ways of handling things, this, and ‘Five is exactly how I can fix this problem.”

That was not how he should’ve worded that. Her lights flickered in sympathy, sympathy, and he knew she finally figured out what John was trying to get at, “John, there may still be a lot I have to learn, but at least I understand--”

“No, EOS!” John snapped before he could help himself. Before she could finish explaining her point of view that was most likely right, but his desperate brain didn’t want to hear it. His brain that was running on zero energy telling him this was taking too long, fix that, “You can’t understand!”

Just like that, John was reminded of why he hated getting angry.

As soon as the words left his mouth, so did the air in his lungs. Through sheer will and determination, the only thing that didn’t leave his body was the little amounts of food he ate over the past seven days, though it really wanted to. He became very pale, and EOS could detect the not-so-trace amounts of fear that fell over his eyes.

Dammit, you idiot. Months upon that past year of work were now going to go down the drain because you blew your lid just this once! First, the call with Alan, now telling the one thing that could kill you in your sleep she’ll never essentially be good enough was--

“I know, John.”

His food came back with a vengeance, but he was bullheaded as hell, and he already caused enough damage. The last thing anyone needed was to clean up vomit. It would’ve been nicer if she got angry at him. He could handle being thrown out into space. He couldn’t handle EOS admitting he was right, least of all over blatantly cruel words.

He channeled the energy his stomach wanted to use into weak words, “E-EOS, I…” What the hell was he supposed to say? Sorry surely wasn’t going to fucking cut it.

Well, whatever he wanted to cut didn’t come up, as EOS continued as if John wasn’t the worst thing on the planet, “I’ve been doing some reading. I understand that I’ll never really understand certain human-based things like you do. You, humans, have gotten close, me being one of the better examples, as long as that’s not considered bragging, but even I’m not at that level yet. But I do at least know you and your habits. I put up with them on a daily basis.”

Because if there’s anything else John needed to fail this week, it was the one promise he made to her. His promise to keep her safe, to make sure she wasn’t treated like a mindless robot by some crazy scientists ready and willing to cut her circuitry wide open like a middle-school science project. While he would never even get close to being a quote-on-quote crazy scientist, never in a million light-years, he surely didn’t follow that middle part of his promise, “EOS, listen, I--”

“Please, John,” and now she was pleading, thinking he was going to ask to use the elevator again. Thinking he wasn’t going to give up, even after all of that. John might’ve laughed if it wasn’t his fucking fault, “I’ll help look for more options if it means you’ll stay here for a little while longer. You should stay with your family. I know how they affect you in those positive ways that you currently need.”

John was abruptly aware of his heavy, almost wheeze-like breathing. If he wasn’t careful, it could delve into one whopper panic attack, which would be so great right now, “Y-Yeah, okay. They probably won’t understand the effects of gravity over an elongated period of time like I do, so I can stay and help with that, at least. Thank you.”

As John turned around, he heard EOS whisper to herself. He could blearily tell it was actually fondness that filled her vocal waves for once, but it still stung regardless, “Idiot.”

Yeah, he really was, wasn’t he.

As he helped look over his Dad’s med-scan with Virgil, when Virgil went looking for something on the other side of the room, his father whispered, “I know this is a bad question right about now, but, is there anything we can do for you? Maybe even I? You look dead on your feet.”

John could only reply to the first half of his father’s statement with a meek, “I don’t know anymore.”

---

16-year-old John Tracy was seated atop his roof, making sure he got the perfect view of the Big-Dipper.

He was hoping to spot a more exciting constellation when he first used his new telescope, but dangit! He was just so excited to get cracking right away! He just got back from his birthday party, Alan and Gordon snoozing in their rooms while Scott and Virgil secretly finished off the cake. That was okay. John was too busy focusing on his new expensive toy to worry about having any more sweets.

His dad could pull some strings when it counted.

Newest model. The only other people who have this baby are scientists at NASA. Happy birthday, John. Sorry I didn’t get you a car like Scott.

Fuck cool cars. John would be on cloud 9 for days with this thing. Scott would call him a nerd for it. Jokes on Scott, he couldn’t zoom about 10 thousand miles into space now, could he?

Right as he nailed it, the world shook. Large arms snaked around his waist and he involuntarily found himself giggling at the contact. As soon as those limbs let go, he blushed at his reaction and cleared his throat. Suddenly, the arms were an entire body sitting down right next to him, speaking with their ever-comforting burly voice, “Hiya, son, I see you just couldn’t wait, huh?”

Rolling his eyes, John turned back into his serious, analytical self once more, “Yup, this thing’s crazy. I’m glad I got out here as quickly as I did.”

Jeff simply grinned. John was always reserved, but Jeff was a good translator for all of his sons, and he could tell that John meant this is one of the best things in my life holy crap, “That’s great to hear. The look on your face when I brought this out of the closet was certainly good enough to last me a few lifetimes.”

John snorted, “I bet it was. I heard Gordon joking about it with Alan. I don’t think I need to see any pictures anymore. I have a pretty good mental image of what I looked like.”

Jeff smiled and sighed, “No kidding. “Like a goldfish with a broken jaw.” Not the most eloquent, that Gordon is.”

Laughter rang out throughout the roof, followed by a few moments of silence. Not awkward, but not really welcomed on John’s part either, “Do you…” Stop it, John, you’re asking for too much, “Nevermind, it’s dumb.”

Jeff tilted an eyebrow, “Oh, is it? I guess you would know if something were smart or dumb, so I trust your judgment.”

Dangit, Dad, why are you so manipulative, and why are you so good at it, “I don’t know. I’ve established I wanted to be an astronaut, right?”

Jeff nodded, “Mmhmm.”

John, for some reason, felt like he needed to tread carefully, “You are also an astronaut. If there was any way for you to be able to… could you… could you come up with me the first time?”

Jeff blinked in shock, and before his son could register that as disapproval, “Huh, well, that’s certainly wasn’t what I was expecting. Sure, I don’t see why not.”

Now it was John’s turn to blink, his mouth gaped, “Wait, what? Are you serious? Aren’t there rules for this kind of stuff?”

Jeff shrugged, his shoulders clearly saying rules shmules, “I’m also one of the biggest entrepreneurs on the planet itself, and one of the most renowned ex-astronauts there are. You would not believe the lengths people are willing to go to kiss my ass. Would you feel better if I pinky promised?”

John’s nose scrunched, “You can never truly promise anything, you know.”

His father chuckled, used to his son’s antics. John was reserved, remember, “Well, you boys always credited me with doing the impossible.”

John continued challenging him, “When we were all less than 10, yeah, sure. I think Alan still thinks you can breathe in space. You. Specifically. No one else. I think he said you only wore the helmet to “protect your secret so the evil movie scientists don’t take you away.””

Chuckles turned into laughter and a clap on John’s shoulder, “Well, glad to see I still got the magic touch at least.” That same arm that playfully smacked him was now wrapped around his shoulders, “Just you wait, Johnny boy, if I can’t get on that ship with you, then you bet your ass I’ll at least be the loudest one cheering in the crowd.”

Then, suddenly, John was right, like he always was.

A promise that never should have been made: broken. A wish never fulfilled.

Dad was swallowed up by the very thing John loved.

No more space stories, no more fun moon facts, there was a void in John’s life as big as the galaxy itself, and he wasn’t sure how to walk around it, or God forbid even into it.

He tried to be the healthy sibling about it. He tried so hard. Getting through high school quicker than most so he could just worry about his family. Scott and Grandma were doing their best, and in so many ways, it was enough, but even they couldn’t bear all of the stress themselves.

But then his high school graduation came and Grandma gave him one of the biggest hugs of his and her life and he realized that he would never get one from his father again. His mom leaving this world was already bad enough, but at least his dad was there and knew how to fill in the gap after years and years of his marriage with her. You didn’t marry a woman like Lucille Tracy and not fundamentally understand how the gears in her brain turned lest you were truly insane. Maybe Dad was. Certainly would explain a lot of things from John’s perspective. Certainly would explain why she married him in the first place. Crazy attracts crazy.

Regardless, the one thing closest to his mom’s warmth and care was gone, and if he spent the night of his graduation party quietly sobbing his eyes out while the others slept, well, then he was glad they kept snoring.

Try as he might, he became just as unhealthy and unbalanced as the rest of his family, but he was more subtle about it. His self-destructive ways weren’t bad if other people had them, but when it came to him, oh, he knew it was the worst thing he could do in terms of recovery. That’s probably why the rest of the family didn’t notice (Good). John was smart, he would know better. Yes, he did, which is exactly why he dived headfirst right into it all.

Focusing on college, getting up into the star-filled void closer to his dead relatives as quickly as possible, focusing on the here-and-now to make sure this shit didn’t happen again. Making sure no family went through what theirs did.

And maybe that’s why, why he couldn’t handle the touch of others wanting to comfort him. Because it reminded him too much of what they used to have, of what they used to be. Too many hugs and kisses from others might wash away what his mom’s and dad’s felt like, and out of all the things they could potentially lose from this, those were the worst possible ones.

John was a Tracy, which meant he was stubborn.

He wasn’t going to lose the last few things he remembered about his parents if he could help it.

---

It had been just under a month, and John finally got what he wanted.

And it wasn’t working like he thought it would, if at all.

He’s been on ‘Five for three days, and for just a fleeting moment, it washed away any uncertainty. He felt back in control, if only minorly, and he held the world at his fingertips once more. Too bad the world he wanted to fix was so far away it felt like it was on the other side of the frickin solar system itself.

He promised his family four days at most. Please, just one chance. We won’t know unless we try. He wasn’t sure what cracked them first, them coming upon dead end after dead end, them finally seeing reason behind John’s argument, or if they just got annoyed with the space monitor after endless nagging and relented like tired parents.

The tiny part of John’s mind that still allowed him to joke kinda hoped it was the third option. “Easy child”, pfft. John’ll show them.

Right, right, a clear head, the most focused of IR, he can’t get unfocused or go too far off track. He’s saved many lives throughout his life, all of them thanks to his level head, but right now, he was arguably saving the most important life of all, so that meant he had even more incentive to stay focused.

In fact, he was so focused, he jumped at the sudden, feminine voice filling the room, “John, I found another article I think you would like to see about most common places criminals… John?”

Crap, he was halfway into the fetal position. Slowly uncurling, John nodded, “Oh, thank you, EOS. I’ll start reading it shortly.”

The noise of her lens adjusting sounded throughout ‘Five again, “Of course. Let me know if you would like me to start searching for a different topic, though. There has to be a limit to how many “You wouldn’t believe this” articles one can take, and I think I’m finding it really quickly.”

For the next few seconds, John was suddenly filled with a rush of determination he had been trying to get after their little confrontation in front of a locked elevator door to ‘Five.

She had been helping him out so much the past couple of weeks. Running unnecessary tests for him, searching parts of the web only she could search without getting tracked by some secret mafia, letting him know it was okay if he couldn’t get everything right the first time when two months ago she snapped at him for getting a simple algebra equation wrong due to lack of sleep. She had been especially patient with him recently, even after their little spat in the hangar, and John wasn’t sure how to process it. A tiny part wanted to resort to anger again because he clearly didn’t deserve her, but the more prevalent parts preferred something like depression or even apathy.

She had been making sure his world didn’t spin off its axis, and John couldn’t even tell her sorry until now.

“EOS, I’m sorry.”

She stopped moving, turned around and let her lights blink yellow for only a moment, “For what, John?”

The man in question waved his hands around in front of his face, lost, confusing her more. With a sigh, he explained, “For a lot of things, but mainly from a few weeks back when we had that argument. I said something that wasn’t okay, and I didn’t have the balls to own up to it until now. So, I’m sorry. I crossed a line I shouldn’t have even been near.”

For a little bit, it was quiet. John waited as the A.I. contemplated his words. Then, she spoke her judgment, “Well, I know you are. You haven’t exactly been working off your butt over nothing, right? Plus, reliable sources say one of the ways guilt manifests is anger. I’ve seen that with the rest of your family. It would make sense yours would too.”

John blinked. Part of him was expecting her to not fully understand why he was apologizing, but the other wanted her to just so he could get over this, just so he could let go of even just the teeniest amount of guilt he had, “EOS, anger isn’t a valid excuse. What I said was wrong. I don’t believe those words and you shouldn’t either. The whole point of this partnership is to show you that there’s more to life than just calculations and probabilities. It’s kind of hard to see that when the one person who promised to be different went and screwed it up anyway.”

John hoped EOS was at least questioning things now instead of letting his words go in one ear and out the other. Her next words said she was doing exactly the latter, “Okay. I don’t disagree with you, John, but I don’t know why you’re so hooked on this. I understand. We don’t have to worry about this unnecessarily anymore.”

Yes, you do understand. That’s the fucking point.

They weren’t getting anywhere, yet John didn’t even have the energy to groan in annoyance. He could even get his eyebrow to twitch.

All he could do was simply lean his head back against the wall and let his hair stick up against it like static electricity was flowing through it. The real reason it was sticking up was probably due to a mixture of Zero-Gs and grease from all of the showering he hasn’t been doing, however. His eyes had deep rings around them, and for a second, EOS thought about how relative age could be as a number while John softly spoke, “The Hood was an angry man, too, you know. He felt slighted by our family and wanted us to feel the same. It still doesn’t make what he did right.”

EOS thought about his words before coming to a logical conclusion, “Well, that’s certainly a leap in logic. There’s a big gap between simply yelling because you’re annoyed and literal kidnapping. One gives people a sour mood, the other gives them a significant amount of jail--”

“Yes, EOS, I’m aware of that,” John brought his hand to his face, but underneath it was a grin, telling the world that he was feeling fond exasperation more than anything. EOS was more obtuse than him sometimes. It was one of the few things of himself he wished she didn’t copy so easily. He sighed and brought his hand back down, “I’m just... putting things into perspective. I want you to see why my words were wrong. It would make me feel better if you did.”

EOS hung still, letting John’s admission roll over her wiring like a wave of electricity, “You have a lot of needs and wants. What takes precedent?”

More inflection. This time, John welcomed it. It gave him something to stand on. John wanted a lot of things. Alan to be home safe and sound, Dad to have not disappeared for nearly a decade, for his brothers to stop slowly killing themselves, for himself to stop, but the needs of the many, even the needs of one, outweigh the wants of a singular man like him, but, “Well, needs obviously, they’re necessary, however… it’s okay to be selfish every once in a blue moon. It doesn’t make you inherently bad.”

It was advice he parroted many-a-times to his family, some of them more often than others, seldom to himself if at all.

Scott, it’s okay if you have to tell them you can’t make this business conference.

Virgil, you can count inventory in the morning. You didn’t get any sleep last night either.

Gordon, if you can’t smile for a day or two, that doesn’t make you a bad person.

Kayo, you don’t have to patrol every night. We have security cams for a reason.

Alan, I know we tease you, but you missing a chore or two isn’t the end of the world.

Grandma, you already do enough for us, you barely cooking for us is the least of our worries.

That last one might be more for the rest of his family than not, but hey, two birds and one stone. Keeping his back against the wall, John stood up straighter against it, face suddenly serious, “In fact, wanting to be selfish is one of the best ways to tell that you’re human. You can’t escape it. It only becomes bad when you end up only being that.”

EOS sat in silence, her lens flickering in that way it always does when she was signifying she was about to pass judgment like a Goddess, which she seemed to be doing a lot more recently, “Well then… If I’m allowed one moment of self-reprieve, I suppose I should say that those words did… hurt.”

John grimaced despite very much understanding that he deserved it. The return of the inflection didn’t exactly help. Pushing himself away from the wall, he felt the metaphorical weight fall off his shoulders, “Yes, they did, and while they weren’t okay, it is okay to say that they weren’t. I still am very sorry.”

EOS adjusted her camera, probably to stall for time, “I know you are, John. I still forgive you, but am I correct in assuming I’m allowed some time to… recover isn’t the word I’m looking for, but--”

“Yes, EOS,” John helped her explain her own point, “Recover is a good word. You’re allowed that if you want it.”

John wasn’t sure how, but it seemed like EOS visibly relaxed, “Thank you, then, for letting me do that. This.”

For some reason, John did too, “Of course.”

It was a soft kind of awkward silence, where both parties had something on their mind but they weren’t entirely sure if they wanted to say it out loud. This is why EOS appreciated John more than the others, he simply let silence be silence. It allowed her time to think, unlike how Scott and Virgil kept asking questions, or how that awful duo made noises and messes only to have a chance at making people laugh. As if that was the most important thing they needed to do.

The nights the youngest called John were endless with his constant babbling that tended to grate her circuit boards. The only reason she let it happen was that John seemed to loosen up at the interaction. He became less weary, less worried-filled. He seemed to greatly enjoy the audial presence of Alan Tracy, let alone the way he lit up when the youngest actually showed up in person. It was just unfortunate that it seemed like the kid could never keep his mouth shut.

Then again… from what John said, the whole reason there wasn’t any more Alan was because he did keep it shut. At the worst moment possible. Now there wouldn’t be any more babbling period. Alan was gone, and the whole family was suffering from the new silence. EOS reasoned it was from the general idea of forced silence instead of just freely being able to leave the room or being able to tell him to quiet down, but maybe it was more than that. She could make another list of options to consider.

Plus, it was weird to think about a future where all of those video game walkthroughs she was forced to save would never be used again. John insisted that they weren’t just wastes of megabytes, so...

Hmm.

“Could you…” EOS trailed off, and before John could comprehend the unusual behavior of the A.I., she started speaking again, “Could you tell me more about Alan? I’m starting to think I judged him rather harshly.”

John took a moment to register her words and promptly snorted, “Well, most of your assumptions about him aren’t entirely unfounded, but that’s one of the joys of being an older sibling, I guess. Surprises around every corner,” there was regret in her voice and John knew he had to treat this as gently as he would a newborn child otherwise he would never hear it again.

EOS flickered, “I thought you didn’t like surprises.”

Uh, “Well, not usually, but there are a few from time to time that I could look back on and call them… quaint, in a sense.” Suddenly, a memory resurfaced, and John found himself grinning like he was doped up on nitrous oxide, “Yeah, they can have good surprises occasionally…”

It was a week before his next rotation. Scott would be back home in about three days, which allowed the second born to actually have a few moments with his only older brother. He was looking forward to it just as much as Scott was. Right now, though, he had to make sure he got the right angle.

Right as he did, he heard the soft pitter-patter of footsteps come up the ladder, and when he turned around, he was met with a bundle of freckles, “Oh, hey Alan.”

Hi, Johnny, the kid squirmed out, Is it okay if I sit next to you?

At first, a list of things wanted to fill John’s head. You look dead on your feet, you should be asleep, you have a lot going on this week so why are you wasting sleep? but instead of any of those filling the void that was his brain, John simply nodded, “Yeah, sure, come pop a squat, Sprout.”

John looked away right before he could watch Alan’s nose wrinkle in displeasure. Despite the usage of the nickname (that Alan secretly liked, don’t think you could pull that wool over our eyes, little bro), the kid still toddled over and flopped himself down right next to his older brother. Sighing, the kid leaned his head on John’s arm and absentmindedly stared out into space, both figuratively and literally. Satisfied his brother was comfy, John went back to his current objective.

As John examined the night sky, he also carefully looked over Alan out of the corner of his eye. Every bruise that John could see was finally dulling out into that familiar greyish-yellow as bruises do, and the sight was enough to calm any negative emotion being created from the reminder. John refocused on his telescope to help as well.

The kid had been through one hell of a week, bullies being their typical selves. Every Tracy outside of Scott and Gordon had their fair share of their own experiences with nasty people, and it wasn’t even the first time they’ve left their special kind of blue-and-black marks, but seeing it on Alan was… worse, somehow. Virgil had unsavory anonymous notes at ‘best’, and John knew first hand that their hits bruised more than just physical skin. So to see Alan get the same treatment and not say anything...

John was starting to understand why his older brother greyed so easily.

Speaking of which, Scott was pretty peeved at the idea of not being there for Alan. Because of this, John made sure to be the sole one to call him and inform him of the awful news while the older brother was out at his designated Air Force base. John wanted to see with his own two eyes that Scott wouldn’t do anything rash and made himself liable to be put on some kind of list.

You would think he wouldn’t be that stupid, but the Tracys are known for breaking expectations over their sweet, sweet kneecaps.

(“Scott, you’re not going to steal an Air Force jet just to come and beat up some dumb kids.”

“Watch me.”

“They’re only a year older than Alan.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

John pinched the bridge of his nose, “Listen, we already scarred them enough as it is, let alone their expulsions. Grandma’s threats to the adults were liable for a government-mandated therapist, Virgil just being there had them running for the hills, the computer I was sporting sent chills down their spines and throughout the hallways, and that’s not even to mention Gordon’s threats to the kids themselves. Seriously, where would a 15-year-old even get the tools to do that?”

Scott visibly relaxed at John’s point, but he still sat a little taut, not fully accepting the idea of people being cruel enough to hurt a literal ray of sunshine, “Fine, fine, I still want to talk to the kid over a call at some point. He was the one who dealt with those idiots.”

John’s shoulders deflated, “Yeah, you got me there. He’ll be back with Virgil and Gordon soon enough, you can see him then.”

Scott smiled in a way that washed away the greys in his hair, if only for a moment, “Awesome, I--”

John wasn’t completely done, “But I’m going to be with Alan while you talk to him. I don’t trust you to not be in search-and-destroy mode, and the last thing Alan needs is an angry you with no buffer. Besides, I’m pretty sure we have the same questions. I can play the angsty-Scott translator tonight. Usual fee, 10 bucks each word.”

The groan that managed to fill the whole house despite the tiny speakers was one John would never forget.)

Too lost in thought, John didn’t catch Alan’s movements at first. Leaning away from his telescope, John focused on Alan, “Sorry, Allie, did you say something?”

The child simply shrugged and smushed his chubby cheeks against John’s side, shaking his head, followed by his hands, I just wanted to see what you were doing.

Ah, that made sense. Alan had been continuously signing for the past year because of the obvious, so John rolled with the punches. It was always funny when they talked about these years in the future. Alan talked, Alan said, Alan brought up: it was always metaphorical, and nobody could believe them when they said Alan was fluent in ASL, let alone because he could actually go half a day without talking.

It was ironic because even with no words, Alan still managed to be the loudest thing on the planet. His hands always screamed with excitement whenever he felt like ‘talking’, and no brother ever felt like shutting him up. Especially when it was so easy for Alan to simply not shake his hands to hide the fact that he was in trouble--

Right, don��t go there. John shook his head to bring himself out of his thoughts and replied to the non-verbal admission, “Just looking at the stars. Recording their coordinates and whatnot.”

A small gasp had John jerking immediately away from his scope to see Alan suddenly very worried, maybe even fearful, But won’t you lose your eyes?!

Aha, what? “Allie, you’re going to have to give me more than that.”

John almost didn’t catch what Alan was trying to explain with the way he frantically shook his hands even faster than before, Mrs. Gatsen explained to us that the sun was a star too, but we’re not allowed to look at it for too long because it’ll steal our eyes! I don’t want you to lose your eyes, Johnny!

Ohoho, the part of John’s brain that was all about the smartsy stuff was gearing up to have a full-blown seminar of sorts, but the way the kid seemed so sincere in his worry, in his fear, John felt partially bad for giggling instead, “Oh, Allie, no. Here,” John was activating his inner Virgil and Scott with the way he grabbed the youngster and placed him in his lap, “Yes, the sun is a star, but there are many kinds of stars. Most of which don’t hurt your eyes. Take a look.”

Alan gave one last sentimental look at John, who nodded again just to reassure the blonde before the boy gulped and put his eye against the tool like Johnny did. This time, the gasp that came from him was more magical, more child-like, as it always should be. John watched on as the kid became stuck to his telescope like glue.

Suddenly, Alan leaned back into John, somewhat knocking the wind out of him. Honestly, now that he was thinking about it, John realized he was pushing it by letting Alan sit next to him in terms of his personal comfort zone. He loved Allie just as much as the rest of the family, but letting them in, letting them get close, was veering dangerously close to that specific ‘hug’ territory like he and his parents had.

Before John could explain that in a child-friendly way, and hopefully in a way where the too-smart-for-his-own-good kid couldn’t pick up on the hidden message, Alan looked him directly in the eyes and confidently signed his wants, Can we do this more often? Can we?

Just like that, John’s mind blanked. Alan wanted to do something with him. Not swim with Gordon, not music with Virgil, not do, well, anything with Scott, Allie found something that he would like to do with John.

Huh, interesting, “Yeah, sure. If we can’t do it in the next week, then the first thing we’ll do when I come down is stargaze, because that’s what it’s called: stargazing.”

Alan started gripping his arm tighter and leaned more into his chest, nodding vigorously at the news and looking back to the sky with newfound wonder. Letting Alan be, abruptly forgetting his grievances with things like touch, John went back to his telescope. After another minute or so, John reached a point where he needed both sides of his body, except it looked like one of them was going to be kept immobile unless the spaceman said something to Alan.

John tried doing just that, just without looking away from his device, “Hey, Allie, I don’t mind the sitting-in-my-lap and stuff, but I do need my arm back to--”

Snoring.

Oh.

Jerking his head to physically look at his sibling, John found Alan passed out and squeezing his arm like a freckled koala bear. The ginger flinched a little bit at the drool dripping onto his sleeve, but the way Allie melted into him made him-- actually, he was very suddenly aware that this whole night he hadn’t really been thinking at all, and that thought made him continue to stare mindlessly at the dozing brother.

He always thought about, well, everything. What he was going to say, what he planned to do tomorrow, about what the future held now that they were down their second and last parent. If he didn’t think about it beforehand, he rarely did it. He had to make sure he went through all of his options before haphazardly jumping into the pits of hell.

Yet the way his younger brother looked at him like he was the world himself tonight made John throw all of his training to be as cautious as possible out the window in a need to comfort and care for the small thing in front of him.

It was shocking to his mind, yet he didn’t resent just being able to do without worrying too much. Was this how smother complexes started? Did he ever drool on Scott’s arm? Still staring at Alan, John’s mind continued to be robotic as he simply let his younger brother be and went back to his telescope. Alan had been needing to get a little more sleep lately anyway.

Yeah, it was fine. He could figure out how to follow up on his words later. It wouldn’t be that hard to figure out a way to squeeze Alan into some of his already-planned stargazing nights while making sure the kid still got sleep. Also, John’s used telescopes wearing a cast and sling before, he might prefer two arms, but he has been okay with only one.

If Grandma yelled at John for spending too much time on the roof again, well, she would have to get over it. Alan got an extra hour of sleep and that was all that mattered.

EOS watched as John finished the story. Once he was done, he continued to be quiet while grinning at nothing. All he was doing was simply staring at the floor… It was slightly creepy, and EOS cleared her nonexistent throat, “Huh, I didn’t realize he got a lot of his interests from you. Maybe… maybe you could show me why he did. He can too. More perspectives always get more data.”

John blinked and was immediately taken out of his trance. He brought his hand to his mouth and cleared his throat, “Yeah, he-- wait, what?”

EOS sighed. This is another reason why she snapped him out of it; his inability to listen to someone right in front of him. She simplified her words, “If Alan comes back, can you two take me stargazing? I don’t think I’ve ever seen what the stars look like down there, or, at least, I never looked at them long enough to understand what you all find to be so fascinating about them.”

John blinked a few more times with his mouth slightly gaped. He looked around nervously before bringing his turquoise eyes to look EOS directly in the middle of her camera, “Yeah, sure, EOS. When Alan gets back, that’s the first thing we’ll do.”

EOS didn’t mention anything about the correction of if to when, “Thank you, John, I would like that very much.”

John nodded and floated back to his tech, “Of course. Now then, we’ve got work to do. I’ve been meaning to stargaze recently anyway.”

He still had one more day up here.

And a baby brother who needed saving.

How hard could it be?

---

Very.

Growling in frustration, he thumped his fist against the wall next to him rather harshly.

Not enough to leave any kind of mark or dent, but enough for him to focus on the tiny amount of pain it gave him. He vaguely heard EOS’s lens flare at the sudden noise, but he was a little too focused on why he felt the need to hit his girl.

It was the end of the last day, and he didn’t make it any further like he thought he would.

Some bleak part of his mind was hoped, prayed that his girl would have the tools to find their baby brother. He was willing to bend her entire satellite to be able to reach the far ends of the galaxy if he had to, but even he had to concede that she wasn’t enough. The Hood wasn’t dumb, unfortunately, and he wasn’t going to go easy on them. That is if he was even going “to go” on them to start with.

While it wasn’t the first time he failed spectacularly, this failure certainly hurt the worst.

Half of him wanted to curl up into a ball and forget everything for a moment (or maybe forever), but the other half won out in terms of what his body contorted into. Instead of curling up like a prickly hedgehog, he leaned backward to be floating with his back to the ground and his face to the ceiling with his face in his hands. Meanwhile, EOS silently gazed from her camera in the corner. Watching John struggle this way was… new, and it twisted her wires in a way she wasn’t sure she could describe.

EOS watched him mumble something. Huh, peculiar as ever. Adjusting her camera, she tried small talk, “What was that, John?”

Still mumbles, but more intelligible, “... I need to drop the ‘s’.”

A flicker of yellow, nothing but pure confusion for once in her robotic life, “The ‘s’ of what?”

Suddenly, the astronaut was standing (well, floating) upright with a look of disdain, but EOS could see that it wasn’t meant for her, “Of ‘she’. It’s not ‘Five’s fault, God, it never is, but maybe… maybe it’s mine.”

All of her programs should allow her to say something. Anything, sugarcoated or not, would be beneficial to this seemingly one-sided conversation, but this was the moment she learned that humans could be faster than computers since John steamrolled right to the point without hesitation, “He wasn’t good enough sounds better. Nothing I’m doing is getting any results. I gave my family false hope that I would find something and now I have to go to them and essentially break them. They were already barely holding it together as it was, but when the “smart one” in their family says there’s nothing he can do…”

She found herself going against the logical part of her program-- because despite the idiot John Tracy could be, when he made an argument that had any kind of evidence you never could go against it-- the first time in, well, ever, in an attempt to comfort her partner, “John… I think you’re grasping at straws here.”

He looked up from the floor, and EOS had to shrink her lens at the sight of unshed tears in his eyes, “Who was the one that called him?! Me! He was standing there only a few rooms over, probably terrified out of his mind, and I didn’t know. I let him slip between our fingers because I was so caught up in the moment and I hate myself for it.”

EOS found herself speechless for once, and the few droplets of tears that floated in front of John’s face didn’t help. She had been trying her best recently, especially recently, to understand the fluctuations of human emotion, and she was pretty sure she had decent tabs on at least John nowadays, but this was something unexpected, a thing her programming never really liked to deal with. It involved lots of new calculations and new sims, why, it made things seconds longer when they didn’t have the time to deal with it!

Her electronic voice box made a noise with the intent to say something, as she thought she finally had the time to deal with it, but just her luck, more unexpected things made her reapproach the issue at hand, “John, look out! The Chaos Crew!”

Blinking out of his self-deprecation train, John was uncharacteristically panicking, “What, where?” After doing a full 180, John eventually saw one of his comm radios with the familiar pink symbol floating above it.

John’s pupils shrunk and his eyebrows tilted downward in that unfamiliar emotion: anger.

Fuck this.

The mood change was as fast as the speed of lightning. John practically flung himself to the communication device on something akin to a warpath. No longer regretful or depressed, John was filled to the brim with fury at the sight of one of the men that was a constant thorn in the Tracy family’s side, “What the hell are you doing here? How the hell did you--”

“Wait wait wait!” Fuse pleaded, making John momentarily pause enough to listen, “I’m not good at this like my sister is, so this connection is going to drop soon. I need you to reopen the line yourself so I can explain what I’m here for! Trust me, I swear I’m not--”

Zip.

Blinking at the lack of noise, John slowly turned his head to look at his A.I. to get her opinion on the matter. It wasn’t a positive one, that’s for sure. Her dots were bright red, and for the first time in a while, he found himself flinching at the sight and sound of her, “It wouldn’t take much of me to get rid of the nuisance, you know.”

Taking a few deep breaths, John shook his head, “No, EOS, give me a sec. Don’t send him careening into space.”

Yet.

With shaky hands, John did as Fuse begged and found the comm line the guy haphazardly threw together. Right as Fuse jumped at the sight of one of the Tracys actually hearing him out, John’s voice spoke coldly, “You have five minutes. Go.”

Fuse gulped, “W-Well, I suppose the first thing to do would be to apologize. I’ve caused a lot of messes for you and your family-- heh, ‘messes’ probably doesn’t even come close to explaining what I did-- and I realize that now, so I want to--”

Ah, that tactic. The one where they try so desperately to seem like they were repentant. John wasn’t familiar with it, but Scott sure was. Shady business owners trying to shy away from their consequences made the eldest very aware of how slimy those in power could be. Scott complained about it a lot, so John made sure to always remember it just in case he ever ran into it himself.

Preplanning wins again in the Tracy household. You should listen to John’s advice more, Gordon, “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.” John muttered mostly to himself and moved in a way that signified something was going to happen.

Fuse sputtered and stopped immediately. Crap, he was going about this wrong. These were all things he was suddenly genuine about, he really was, but the Tracys didn’t want useless apologies at the moment, and he understood that. Hopefully, he didn’t understand it too late. Right before John could do anything to him or give any kind of command to his satellite, Fuse blurted the information he should’ve said the first place, “I know where he is!”

John felt like the Earth flew right off its axis.

Everything froze, including EOS. His hand was out in front of him for some reason, probably subconsciously reaching for some kind of button, as he absentmindedly listened to the whirl of ‘Five and his brain fully processed what Fuse was promising, “... What?”

John was keenly aware that sounding so weak, so hopeful, was something that Fuse could spinelessly abuse if the man wanted to, but John had a good lie detector. The words that fumbled out of half The Chaos Crew’s mouth were sounding good, great, and John could tell that he wasn’t bullshitting anything, “I know where he’s keeping your bro. I mean… shit, what The Hood did wasn’t right, maybe it never was, but I know this specifically is--” a break in his speech in an attempt to words things better. Fuse failed, “Bad. I just…”

John’s head involuntarily tilted at the way Fuse trailed off. For once in his life, John was at a loss. This was highly uncharacteristic from what John had seen of The Chaos Crew, and the astronaut was so flabbergasted he couldn’t even begin to come up with any possible ulterior motive behind Fuse’s actions at the moment.

Suddenly, Fuse looked back up with big eyes, almost reminding John of Alan a little bit. Not in the obvious ways, because Fuse was on the verge of seven feet tall and built like a truck whereas Alan was the teeniest thing on the planet, but… John could see similar traits of innocence in them. The eyes of someone desperately clinging onto the last few shreds of hope they had, but still ready to do what's right because of it. Because even if the light at the end of the tunnel was small it was still worth fighting for.

Fuse, seeing that John wasn’t going to say anything, bit the bullet, “I don’t know, call it selfish, call it smart, but if The Hood is willing to do something like this to someone so young, I… I don’t want to be apart of it. I can’t give any information about my sister, I’m no snitch, but I want out, even if it means spending the rest of my days in a GDF cell.”

John was suddenly aware of a burning question, “Wait, how old are you, Fuse?”

A tired sigh, aging Fuse to something that was probably three times what he was going to say, “I turn 20 in two weeks.”

John sharply inhaled, “Jesus, I… I didn’t realize you were that young.”

A lot of things made sense quickly and abruptly like they always do for the ginger.

If The Hood was willing to do this to someone so young, that didn’t stop him from doing this to someone like Fuse. The logical conclusion the now ‘ex-villain’ made probably danced the wildest jig in his head, and before anyone could clap their hands, he got as far away as possible. John wouldn’t be surprised if The Hood made idle threats for not following orders or for “being stupid”, so Fuse had every right to feel threatened.

Jeez, he was probably terrified at the implication. A dark, buried part of John selfishly thought good, it sucks you had to learn the hard way, but now you see why we all hate him, but the first thing that came to his mind was something unexpected yet expected all the same.

John was reminded of Alan again.

Except Alan had four older brothers to run to when the monsters got too big or too frightening.

…

Scott was going to kill him, “Park her over on the left and come in. We’ve got a lot to talk about. Bring inside whatever you think will help.”

EOS’s shrill John! ringed throughout the room, yet it was overruled swiftly. Fuse’s mouth was wide open, “For real?”

John couldn’t tell if he was losing the knots in his stomach or forming completely new ones, “Yes. Don’t do anything funny, though. I have eyes everywhere.”

Fuse gulped again, yet he was very business-like with his next words, “Of course.”

The line cut a millisecond before John wanted it to. John knew exactly why, “Listen, EOS--”

EOS was suddenly in his face, and it spoke miles at how far she’s come that she wasn’t blaring any alarms in anger, “No, you listen, John Tracy. I cannot believe the level of ignorance you are displaying!”

Gordon always joked about her being his daughter, but right now, John’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance at the feeling of being scolded by an overbearing mother, “I get this may seem like I’ve lost it--” jokes on EOS, who says he hasn’t at this point? “Listen, there’s nothing else left to go off of, and I know this makes me look like a crazy man desperate for information that might not even be there, but--”

“No buts!” EOS shrieked, “You told me that if you followed a sentence with a “but” that what you were about to say shouldn’t even be considered an option! What is making you throw all of my training out the window?!”

John’s mouth became very dry. This conversation was taking a very different turn, “Wait, EOS, why is this all about you suddenly--”

John was starting to regret giving her more mobility at the sight of her jamming her camera directly in his face even more, “It’s not just about me! This affects you too! You said you always based your decisions on the here-and-now, so I should too, so why am I the only one doing so?! You’ve seen what he’s capable of!”

John’s mind tended to be made of gears, and all of them began spinning at the same time. Dammit, he didn’t pick up on this because he didn’t even consider it a factor: EOS being scared. Hell, it wasn't even considered because the last time he remembered her being this scared was when she thought he was a threat during the first time they met (was it really that long ago?). She was scared that Fuse was going to hurt John like he hurt the rest of the astronaut’s family. Like he hurt Gordon.

The only difference is that nobody could get to John like they did Gordon, so that left the ginger at an impasse if the small chance that Fuse was here to hurt him came true.

John found it very hard to breathe all of a sudden. Closing his eyes and struggling to get enough air in, he realized a fundamental problem. EOS was based on data and things that have been recorded, and so far, the only things recorded about Fuse was that he was hellbent on hurting the Tracy family, a family that John was apart of.

She didn’t know any other way to feel about the guy, she didn’t have any other example.

John would love to be that way too, honestly, to just focus on the data. Numbers never tended to be wrong, and the idea of being a simple number-crunching bot would make life a shit-ton easier, but he can’t. He’s human. One that’s very much willing to go against the numbers and probabilities if it meant helping his family.

A rarity for John, to follow his gut and nothing else, but at the end of the day, he was a Tracy, and following his gut was as familiar to him as it was to name all of the immediate constellations in the summer’s nighttime sky, “EOS, I know it’ll be hard to believe me, hell, I’m having trouble believing myself, but Fuse isn’t here to hurt me. The here-and-now is different for reasons I don’t have enough time to properly explain, okay? If there’s anything to believe, believe in the trust you have in me to make the right decision like I always do.”

EOS made no noise, not even a flicker of her lens. He expected her usual sass, something along the lines of, Who says I trust you, moron? but what he got punched away what little air he managed to collect, “... Do you promise?”

That was the million-dollar question. Of course, he couldn’t. He didn’t like making promises after the age of 12. Too many probabilities, too many what-ifs, made promises somewhat of a theoretical impossibility. But just like that night on the roof with Alan, John was able to not think, “I promise, EOS. You wanted to go stargazing with me and Alan, right? Fuse might be able to let us do that again.”

‘Family’ was a Wild Card. Nothing was possible, yet everything was at the same time when it came down to it. ‘Family’ was what made Scott go from day to day without keeling over. ‘Family’ was what got Virgil to sleep at night when he just couldn’t by himself. ‘Family’ was how Gordon managed to keep smiling and joking despite everything in the world trying to make him stop. Hell, ‘Family’ was how their father kicked the word impossible right in the groin and live.

‘Family’ might have been why Alan was stuck in such a shitty situation, but it was also the reason the kid was willing and able to go that far in the first place. He learned that selflessness from his ‘Family’, after all.

John was intent to use that fact to the fullest.

EOS’s lights blinked in contemplation before she quietly spoke once more, “Do I have permission to shock him if he makes even the slightest suspicious movement?”

John rolled his eyes yet grinned all the same, “Sure, only just a little voltage, though. Right in the ass. Would be a nice pick-me-up after all of this.”

Well, despite the year they’ve had, John wasn’t aware EOS could snort. Another sign things might be going right for once.

The door swwwshed open and Fuse floated into where the two hyper-intelligent beings were hanging about and got straight to the point, “Thank you. I hope… I hope I don’t let you down.”

John found himself light as air, and it wasn’t just the zero-gravity this time, “Sounds good. Let’s get cracking.”

While the first thing he did back on Earth was scare his father and his immediate younger brother shitless, the way they and the rest of the family lit up at the plan he and Fuse came up with (after making sure nobody killed the dude, which was surprisingly more difficult than expected, and boy was it expected) made it all worth it.

Well, maybe the sight of Fuse occasionally jumping and yelping at a strange pinch in his bottom with no known cause was worth it too. John wouldn’t tell his brothers that, though, he was the responsible one, remember?

You always made me look at things differently, EOS. Thank you.

#fabfivefeb #fabfivefeb2020 #thunderbirds #thunderbirds are go #john tracy #alan tracy #eos #fuse thunderbirds #jeff tracy #my post #my fic #series: rules of alchemy

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colorofmymindposts · 4 years

Text

Heart Skips A Beat

Chapter Two

Fandom: Schitt’s Creek

Pairing: Patrick Brewer/David Rose

Characters: David Rose, Patrick Brewer

Rating: Teen and Up

Status: Incomplete, Next Chapter To Be Posted Next Week for real this time I promise it’s all written out. Chapter One can be read here or you can read the whole work on ao3.

Word Count: 1748 for this chapter, 4402 for the entire story so far

Summary: Stevie doesn't give into David's demands to let him stay at her place when Alexis has lice. So Patrick offered. Patrick Brewer with the straight leg denim. Patrick Brewer with the awful taste in decor and who loves poking fun at David. Patrick Brewer with all the help and business advice David needs to not run this store into the ground before it even starts. Patrick, who David is starting to warm up to despite his best intentions not to.

Tags: Alternative Universe - Canon Divergence, Season 3 AU, Fluff, Flirting

Story:

It really was a gamble, this: inviting David over to stay the night. They hadn’t spent any time together outside of the store except for things related to the store itself, and Patrick just hadn’t worked up the courage yet to invite David out for a drink. In his defense, he’d done his research and found out that the only bar in the vicinity was a sleazy dive bar on the edge of town. That sounded more like the venue for a mindless hookup than a romantic first date.

Which, is this a date? Patrick really can’t be sure. Yes, David had accepted, but the man probably thinks his sister having lice is nothing less than a doomsday situation and would do anything to get out of it. But he didn’t blink an eye at Patrick’s pretty obvious attempts to wine and dine him, so at least Patrick is not being rejected outright. Even if David just considers them friends. Which is absolutely a hundred percent fine.

“So, in the interest of getting to know each other better, I noticed a member of the baseball in your room,” David says in a way that is so him. “If that is the baseball.”

God, Patrick is so far gone for him.

He has to curl his lips inwards to stifle a laugh before it escapes him. “Yeah, you got it right. Lou Gehrig was actually called a baseball player, just in case you were wondering.”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“Close enough,” he says, deciding not to get into the fact that Gehrig was a first baseman, not just a player. “I guess I’m just a bit picky about the terminology and everything since I played it all throughout school and for fun in college. I’m actually looking for an intramural club in town right now, if you know of any.”

“Were you trying to say ‘instrumental’?” David asks, his face scrunched up cuter than Patrick should find it considering the other man is trying to mock him. “Because the closest thing to that is the Jazzagals, and I have a feeling you’d have a hard time fitting in.”

“No,” he replies, not able to stop the grin that plasters itself on his face. “Sports that are done for fun are called intramural sports. It’s a real thing, David.”

“Right, right,” the other man stutters out, clearly embarrassed. He takes a long sip of his wine before continuing. “Do they at least feed you afterward? Because I don’t really see the point in getting all worked up and sweaty for no real benefit in the end.”

It’s a good thing Patrick is not eating or drinking anything because otherwise he would have choked. He almost blanks on the entire topic of conversation.

He feels it’s only fair to give it right back.

“Baseball is a good way to release a lot of pent up energy. I normally feel pretty great being sweaty after a round.”

The look on David’s face is priceless. His cheeks up to the tips of his ears are beet red.

“Umm...that’s. That’s good to know. I was dying to find out what that was like,” David replies, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Patrick offers softly, “Maybe you could with me?”

David’s eyes widen to practically the size of their dinner plates. Fuck, he’s got to salvage this; he went too far.

“Be on the same team, that is, if you’d want to learn more about it. If I find one in Schitt’s Creek.”

“Oh! Right, well I don’t think that’d be a good idea,” David deflects with his classic smile. “I broke my nose playing basketball for ten minutes, so being athletically-inclined is not one of my strengths.”

With David, there’s always a story. However, Patrick decides not to embarrass David any further by delving into that tale.

“And what did you do, growing up?”

The man across from him almost lights up.

“I’ve always been drawn to fashion, the arts. Once my mother introduced me to the Avant-Garde style, I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. My friends and I were more into the anti-establishment free expressionist movement, so I wasn’t a part of any organized clubs in school or anything,” David finishes, as though the ‘anti-establishment free expressionist movement’ doesn’t need any further clarification.

Those words coming out of anyone else’s mouth, Patrick would think that they are just pretentious—and David absolutely is, make no mistake—but the way he tells it, his passion is there and genuine. It’s the same quality Patrick recognized when David first walked into Ray’s office, looking to set up a general but very specific store.

They finish dinner and a good bit of the wine (mostly thanks to David) quietly but comfortably. Patrick teases David to help him with the dishes even though he knows the man will balk at anything to do with cleaning, and he gets a good laugh out of David’s insistence that he is a guest, proceeding to complain that this is “practically like staying at the motel” where he has to clean up after Alexis “all the time.”

It’s so strange how close this feels to something domestic, as if they are together in a way, and yet not. Patrick is very much aware of the invisible barrier he establishes between himself and David. He’s careful not to brush by David as he passes him to put a glass back, always conscientious of where his hands are at all times. It’s just so hard at times like these when he wants nothing more than to hold this man in his arms.

Patrick’s got to act natural here though. After all, he was the one who invited David over. And they’re business partners. He’s got to learn how to stamp out his crush before it leads to him putting himself through anymore heartache and embarrassment.

“So, it’s only about 7,” Patrick starts, painfully aware of the still very early evening hour. “How about I put on the TV for a bit and then we can turn in for the night?”

“Okay,” David agrees without any fuss, a rarity for him.

Patrick goes through the channels, but David insists on watching 27 Dresses when it shows up on the screen.

“I heard from the director herself that Katherine Heigl was a terror to work with,” David says with an odd fondness in his eyes.

He’s been with David long enough to know it’s the look his business partner gets when he’s reminiscing about his life before Schitt’s Creek. But the longing for renewed celebrity status in David’s eyes doesn’t compare to when he talks about the store. A dazzling spark lights those dark brown eyes, and his hands become restless in clear excitement and agitation for the vision he’s building. Building with Patrick. God, he could write a song about those eyes.

“—but James Marsden makes it more than worth watching it for soo. Patrick? You still with me?”

“Yeah,” he’s quick to reassure, snapping back to reality. He smiles warmly at the man sitting beside him and gives the most honest answer he can: “Always.”

David folds his lips on top of each other, looking away almost...bashfully? That’s not it. He’s probably just embarrassed that Patrick admitted that. There’s only so much Patrick can lie about to David though.

Luckily, there isn’t much talking happening. At least, not from him. David, however, chats through the whole film, giving bits of specific trivia and commentary. Patrick smiles along despite not understanding half of it. Still, just when he’s looking at the screen, it’s as though he can feel David’s eyes on him. But anytime he musters up the courage to gaze back at the man sitting next to him, David’s eyes are fixed on the movie, so probably he’s giving in to wishful thinking.

As the credits roll, David unwinds in a truly hilarious, exaggerated way, his arms outstretched in half arc while he lets out a big and adorable yawn.

“You must be exhausted after giving director’s commentary for two hours,” Patricks offers with fake sympathy.

“Hilarious, but as a matter of fact, I am a little worn out after today’s shift at the store,” David counters. “And I can go on way longer than that about a movie.”

He chuckles a bit at that, letting David win this one. However, as the man looks uncertainly between the couch and the stairs, Patrick knows instantly what’s on his mind.

“So I’m thinking we can put you up in my room—”

He stops when David gives a scoff, his eyes the size of saucers.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting you to be this forward,” David says, almost as if he’s scandalized.

Shit.

“No no no, David I wouldn’t—I’m taking the couch tonight, you don’t have to worry—“

He has to keep himself from spiraling because he’s so embarrassed David has confirmed he knows Patrick’s interested in him. But David has to know Patrick would never suggest they share a bed, let alone sleep together, when they have never even kissed. But that would only happen if David was interested. Which this has only made clearer that he can’t be.

Patrick takes a breath before continuing.

“I just figured with you having to stay at the motel most of the time that you’d like a real bed. You’re my guest.”

David at least has the decency to look slightly admonished.

“I um, right. Of course, I knew that,” David lets out quickly in a nervous laugh. “I was joking. Obviously. So I’m just going to...go. Sleep in your bedroom now.”

David nods along as he says the words as if he’s carefully considering each of them, and Patrick is at a complete loss to conjure up anything meaningful to reply with at this point.

David backs into the stairwell before righting himself, practically fleeing up the steps. Patrick moves to position himself at the bottom of the stairs so that the other man can hear him, but he’s not brave enough to follow after David now.

“I didn’t get a chance to change the sheets yet, so I can—“

There’s the sound of water running, so Patrick stops while he’s ahead. He pads up the steps and collects some clean sheets from Ray’s linen closet before refitting the bed.

He hopes David can sleep tonight because there’s no chance he’s ever going to be able to again.

Notes: I am so sorry this update took literally 7 months; anyone who's been reading this and waiting for an update has the patience of a saint. Unfortunately, my life recently has been a series of hectic events, and I've had a massive case of writer's block. Plus the rest of the story went through about six different drafts before I was happy with it. The good news is that the story is actually all written out now, and I will be uploading the final chapter within the week! Let me know what your thoughts are! Likes and reblogs are appreciated!

#david x patrick #david rose #patrick brewer #schitt's creek #my writing #fanfiction #heart skips a beat

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rigelmejo · 4 years

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as usual the learning stages are so weird. reading in particular Constantly feels like a rollercoaster of: i’m drowning in unknowns, oh cool i understand what i don’t understand and its a slog looking up words/interpreting but i’m managing, this is kinda doable and not exhausting anymore!, oh no i’m drowning in new unknowns

at each iteration, each step feels a little tiny bit easier. Like me ‘kinda doable and not exhausted’ feels much more relaxing/less mentally draining to me now than it did on month like 6. my level of overall ‘this is horribly hard’ is diminishing. Still though, when i forget the longer perspective, in the short term it keeps feeling like an up down rollercoaster. to be fair, each time it feels ‘easier’ for long enough, then i will move onto harder material. so it makes sense the up down rollercoaster of difficulty continues.

anyway it is. blowing my mind lately. Because i’m at the ‘doable and not exhausting anymore’ point again! Only this time, the reading material is 寒舍, 天涯客, 盗墓笔记 - novels I found horrifically difficult in the past. Yet now I can a few paragraphs in a row before I hit unknown words, and now I can sometimes go through whole sections without looking up words and probably follow the plot and just miss some details. Right now the only hard step is me getting into the ‘reading mood’ because the actual reading is bearable, just requiring dictionary lookup if I want to study all the new words. Which is just... very overwhelming as a concept to me. its so cool. its overwhelming.

at the same time though! i know eventually i’ll get through this patch, and start realizing what new things i DIDN’T notice i didn’t understand before. And then it will get hard and draining again. Still, I’m really excited about it while I am in this part of the experience.

It also makes me want to try some extensive reading again - where I read one of my physical books, and don’t use a dictionary at all. Or only for key words at the end if they kept popping up, and i desperately want to know them. I know every time i do extensive reading - particularly that kind, the hardest kind, i am exhausted easily. Its hard! At best I can strain to follow the main idea! But I think it does spark improvement! And maybe a harder challenge is what I need to become motivated. Or just what I need in general. Since eventually, reading that way is the goal, when I do it I’m practicing the final goal.

Also I feel like such a baby! Like?!!!! I tried extensive reading at month 5, 7, 8, etc!!! When it was MUCH harder, AGONIZINGLY harder!!! I STILL managed to endure it and read the Kunlun intro in Guardian, some paragraph passages in guardian, some chapters of MDZS, some chapters of Mo Du. Like??? I read through 2 chapters of mo du with no dictionary before!! I think it was back at month 8 or 10? But like i am being a chicken to be scared to do it now. When clearly i could suck it up and bravely do it before when i had less knowledge. In a way, I think its funny - the more you learn, sometimes the scarier things become, because you realize JUST how many details may be there that you could miss. When I tried to extensively read earlier on, months ago, just following the main idea was an accomplishment! Now that I should be able to grasp it, then i also expect myself to be able to catch the details - which is harder work, more focus, more expectations to meet.

Anyway some mostly unrelated notes to self:

Parallel reading english and chinese is a quite relaxing/lower effort way to practice reading. I did that earlier today with an english and chinese translation of a fanfic - its easy to match up unknown words to their definitions, see how words phrase together differently to convey similar things, and the only hard part is when I run into unknown hanzi since I can’t pronounce them. Similarly - reading dmbj in chinese, within days after reading the english chapter, makes it much easier to read through. Because I know the general plot, when i encounter sentences with words i can’t figure out even with a dictionary or sentences with grammar i can’t interpret for certain, the general plot knowledge helps me know whats going on enough to continue reading.

My speaking skills need some vast improvement. Just like with reading - the more experienced I get, the more i realize i haven’t even noticed i needed to do and learn! I was working on tones the past few months, and now that’s a touch better (still not much). But can i say a sentence quickly/fluidly? No. Can i say anything at a quick pace? Probably not. Do i still forget tones or screw them up when saying a sentence, especially one at a decently quick pace? Yep. I was watching John Cena speaking chinese of all things, and the language learning form was like ‘his efforts admirable but he doesn’t even have conversational ability.’ I listened to him, and his word choice was basic but sufficient for the conversation. He was able to respond immediately in chinese, which was the most impressive thing I think - no slowing down to think how to word it or which word. While he probably made some mistakes, it did show he has an active vocabulary and that he can actively put sentence together without delay. I didn’t necessarily hear tones well in what he said, but his pronunciation sounded recognizable to me. So if that’s not conversational? How good must one be to be conversational? For the conversation he had, it seemed fine? And so now, of course, I’m like “well my tones are weak anyway that’s just that. they’re even weaker in a sentence. my grammar’s weak when producing. my word choice usually requires me to pause to decide if i need to tone change based on surrounding tones in the sentence. i cannot talk as fast as him period. i cannot form sentences so confidently. mm.”

i probably know many more words? in comparison? since i know a solid enough amount now that chinese subtitles in shows i can usually read all hanzi now, its just learning some new words/sayings made with those hanzi. i can read manhua fine. i can read easier novels ok, and harder ones with a dictionary. i know i have a very long way to go, but i feel i know more than 2000 words now, and 2000 ish is usually what they recommend for daily life casual conversational ability (how are you/did you do x/you think x/you ask about x/etc). and in typing i can type pretty quickly and have an active vocabulary. but truly when speaking, i start overthinking if i’m doing the grammar properly and if i need to switch tones for 3rd tones and just slow down a ton.

also my grammar rn? its a hot mess. Reading? Phenomenal, easy. Grammar does not really confuse me in reading - sometimes a new word or phrase does, when i’m trying to figure out how its interacting with the overall sentence meaning. But grammar usually doesn’t (except that gongzi huanxi novel for some freaking reason). But when I produce? For some reason when i DO overthink and try to determine how to word something, i will sometimes fuck up my grammar so much that my sentence becomes incomprehensible and the person i’m talking to asks ‘what do you mean?’ Yet when I don’t overthink and just start talking/typing, its usually fine. BUT that means its incredibly hard for me to self correct. I am fairly sure I’ll just have to continue building a large vocabulary/reading ability, then when i’m ready, just read through some grammar books and practice exercises until i develop the proper patterns.

Like??? the other day i had to ask someone something like “what’s the name that you use in real life?” because we were chatting online. But i overthought the sentence after i typed it, then rearranged it thinking ‘oh i have to put ‘what’ question word in a different location etc for grammar reasons.’ Then they were like ‘what??? im sorry i don’t understand what you’re asking.” Even though it was a simple sentence, i knew all the words. But i overthought how to ask it and therefore made a completely incomprehensible sentence somehow messing up the grammar when i tried to ‘correct’ so badly it became impossible to understand. And this was the same conversation where they asked why i liked to read the books i recommended. And i was able to say a long paragraph with long sentences about how “i found poyun on a reccomendation list when i was searching for more books like mo du, i love priest’s novels and i love mysteries so i was looking for a similar kind of well written story. i like boy love stories if i happen to find them, since i’m bi and its nice to find love stories i feel more able to connect to. but i like all kinds of stories if the character writing is good, and the plot is meaningful.” Like... i was able to write all of that off of the top of my head in chinese without looking things up, just typing. And i didn’t re-read it to check for grammar. And the person understood just fine and responded. But when i asked something as simple as “what name do you use in real life?” i overthought how i was supposed to word it and became incomprehensible! So for now, I’ve been just speaking/typing however the sentence comes to mind. I’m fairly SURE im making grammar errors, but i’m having more luck being understood that way. So i’ve sort of just resigned to the fact that later on when it becomes a priority, that’s when i’ll sit down with a grammar book and drill out the patterns and correct any ingrained-mistakes i might have.

#december progress #rant #seriously though i am quite disheartened over my absolutely pathetic speaking ability #it would be very cool if i could work with a language partner to talk more #but as usual i feel SO bad subjecting anyone but myself to listening to my speakin #and with my language partners. im quite busy in life #and so its hard to carve out time for us to try calling #even though id like to help them #im just too busy #i can only type chat once a week and thats much easier to fit in time for...

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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game of survival, chapter twelve: epilogue (branjie) - holtzmanns

AN: If you’ve stuck around to the last chapter of this fic, kudos to you. This is the first multichapter fic that I’ve written and actually finished, and it’s been so much fun. I’ve enjoyed writing it so much, as well as the response to it - if you’ve ever left a review, please know that I’m so grateful for it. This fic is quite literally my first-born child and while I had the outline for it completely planned out before writing it, it took on a life of its own and it’s been such a fun journey. I’m going to miss writing it and miss these versions of Brooke and Vanessa so, so much. Thank you so much for reading. Enjoy the epilogue.

“Congresswoman, mind if I steal you away for a minute for some questions?”

Vanessa turns to whom she presumes is the next reporter waiting to speak to her. “Of course, hello-”

Oh. Not a reporter.

“Hi.” Brooke’s smile is mischievous with a hand on the small of Vanessa’s back, pulling her close and pressing a kiss to her lips.

Vanessa can’t help but grin up at her fiancée, ignoring the camera flashes and the questions that are being yelled at them from just a few feet away. “Hi, baby.”

“Have I mentioned how proud I am of you tonight? Because I’m fucking proud of you.” The way Brooke is beaming down at her makes Vanessa truly believe that she means it.

“Mmm, you may have mentioned it once or twice. Maybe a couple times when the final poll numbers were announced.” She’s so lucky to have had Brooke with her the entire run, both literally and figuratively.

“Winner of the Democratic primary. I had no doubt that you could do it.”

“Is this your way of telling me ‘I told you so’?”

Brooke gasps in mock offence. “Not at all. Okay, maybe a little. I’m glad you went for it now, though. Waiting for another election cycle was smart.”

Vanessa nods. “It would have been a lot tougher on the both of us if I ran four years ago.”

It’s true. Four years ago they had been dating for a year, Vanessa a newly elected congresswoman. It had been a busy time even without considering the fact that it was right before an election year. The congressman who’d ordered the hit on Vanessa had been convicted after a long, seemingly never ending trial. Vanessa had testified, holding enough information back to be as truthful as possible.

Vanessa had also lobbied in congress for Shuga Cain’s release, citing improper police investigation procedures, and secured it. It was something that she’d had long discussions with Brooke about - the woman hadn’t done the crime, and while her family was shadier than a maple tree in the springtime, she didn’t deserve life in prison. Cain’s acquittal was enough to get her family off of Brooke’s back - with no one after her head, she was free.

Not that it had been that easy.

Vanessa had been the first one to go to therapy. The nightmares, the flashbacks, the worries of not only her own death but that of Brooke had piled upon her shoulders brick by brick, torn down the foundations of her resolve which she had to work, really work, to build back up.

Brooke had been harder to convince. Vanessa had known that it would be a difficult battle, a long one, because Brooke was (and still is) used to taking care of herself. Pushing down anything that bothered her, compartmentalizing because she felt as if she had no other choice. Pushing Vanessa away in the process.

A small part of Brooke’s reasoning was that she would never fully be able to be honest with a therapist. Not with her history, her past, her job. But Vanessa had still wanted her to try, to frame it in the context of her detective career.

The many fights, many long discussions before Brooke agreed to try, then stay in therapy had been exhausting for Vanessa, with Brooke no doubt feeling the same. Though even she had admitted one night when they were curled up under the covers and limbs tangled that she was glad for the push, no matter how annoying Vanessa had been about it (Brooke’s choice of words, not hers, thank you very much).

It was something that Brooke had to get used to, Vanessa had noticed, learning to channel her vigilance into her new job.

A job that Brooke’s now held for the last four years - Vanessa’s primary bodyguard, part of her larger security team. After all, the hiring managers had loved Brooke (“You’re good at keeping the bitch from dying,” had been Silky’s glowing review) and her references had checked out (a lot of begging from Vanessa).

A conflict of interest, sure, but who else would Vanessa even have by her side, protecting her? The last few years have been mercifully free of bullets, of hits on her life - something that they’re both thankful for, though it doesn’t stop Brooke from being extra alert, extra careful while she’s on the job.

Not to mention Brooke’s outfits while she’s working. Vanessa knows she has a thing for Brooke in her leather jacket, but Brooke in a fucking suit? She’s pulled her fiancée into too many empty hallways and rooms to count for rushed makeouts, teasing and promises of later. No one’s ever said that she has good self control.

“Happy anniversary, by the way.” Vanessa keeps her voice low, but she wants to scream it from the rooftops. Five years. Five entire fucking years.

“Wrong. Our anniversary was three days ago, and you know it.” Brooke raises an eyebrow. “I happen to remember you greatly enjoying the night we had.”

“Our anniversary is not based on the first time we had sex. It’s based on us talking about being together, when you were in the hospital.” Vanessa pouts. “Celebrating the first time we boned isn’t romantic. But that talk we had felt so right, it fits. It feels official.”

“But we became so much more close to each other after the night we first had sex. Both literally and figuratively.” Brooke winks at her and Vanessa can’t suppress a groan.

“Must we do this every year?”

“It’s part of the fun. Plus, I know how much you secretly love celebrating two anniversaries and the chance to get doubly spoiled.”

“Maybe so.” Vanessa can’t deny it, it is fun. Brooke is too good to her - and with Brooke’s arm around her waist, she thinks for the millionth time that night about how fucking lucky she is.

“I have to go give my speech soon.” Vanessa says it with a mixture of both excitement and regret, because having Brooke on her arm is her favourite feeling in the world, but-

She’s just won the primary . The fucking Democratic primary. And she has an excuse to gloat about it.

“Told you it was smart to memorize it last night.” Brooke’s eyes are sparkling with pride, happiness. It makes Vanessa want to twirl her around, ignoring the fact that she’d have to stand on a chair to be tall enough to do so.

“I just wanted to be sure I was going to win before getting ahead of myself, y’know?” Vanessa has a habit of getting her hopes too high sometimes, and has had to reel it in the last few years in politics. She’s learned to keep her expectations realistic now, and gets to be pleasantly surprised when things work out just the way she wants them to.

“And now you’ve done it, and it’s time to celebrate.” Brooke leans down to kiss her, pulling back for a second before leaning in to whisper in her ear. “I have a surprise for you tonight.”

“Yeah?” Vanessa looks up at the smirk on Brooke’s face, the one that she’s trying to keep from spreading.

“Yeah.” Brooke grabs Vanessa’s hands then, brings them to her hips and oh.

Garters underneath Brooke’s dress, and who knows what else other lingerie that’s peeking out and is that an outline of lace?

“Are you trying to kill me before my speech? Is that what you want to do?” Vanessa mutters it into Brooke’s ear, doesn’t even need to look at her to know how satisfied she is.

“Maybe. You’ll have to wait to find out what else is waiting for you tonight, though.” Brooke’s fingers rake up her sides, keeping it relatively PG because they are in public, after all.

Still. Doesn’t stop Vanessa from wanting to take Brooke into the nearby supply closet and having her way. She’s only human.

“I’m going to go before you leave my brain unable to function, you minx.” Vanessa pulls away as Brooke lets her hand travel a little too far down on her backside which the cameras better not have caught, no ma’am.

“Alright, Madame President.” Brooke’s smile is wicked.

Vanessa swats at her, because Brooke loves to tease her like this way too much. “Hush, we ain’t even close to that at all yet, don’t be putting juju into the universe that may not even happen.”

“Maybe I just really want to be your First Lady.”

“And a beautiful one you will make. Hypothetically, if it happens. But we ain’t saying nothing yet.” Vanessa pictures Brooke on her arm the way she is now, except in the White House, on Presidential visits…she can’t get ahead of herself just yet. No matter what the election year will hold.

“In all seriousness, though, so damn proud of you, Ness. Now go knock them dead while I grab another glass of white and cheer the loudest out of everyone.” Brooke lifts her empty glass and Vanessa snorts because of course she’s gotten through two already.

“Okay. Love you.”

“Love you too.” There’s no hesitation in Brooke’s response, and it makes Vanessa’s heart calm down, relax, before she has to give one of the most exciting speeches of her life.

She has to go find A’keria, smooth over last minute details before she speaks. They have more battles ahead, more races to win in the future, but it doesn’t matter.

With her friends and colleagues and family and Brooke by her side, she’s already won.

#rpdr fanfiction #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #branjie #lesbian au #holtzmanns #game of survival

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bobasheebaby · 5 years

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Rainbow After the Storm- Lucky Number 7?: Crimson Rain chapter 13

Pairing: Bastien x Liza; Olivia Nevrakis; Hope Casey (Lykel)

Word count: 1,107

Warnings: angst, fluff, hospital setting

Summary: Sage makes her debut.

A/N: This takes place the day after Unwanted Guest and also on Halloween. Someone was on time! Who knew! Thank you @sirbeepsalot for being a sounding board and putting up with me.

Series warnings: talks of pregnancy loss, fear of pregnancy loss, anxiety, depression. Set within Crimson Rain but pulling the major pregnancy drama from the main series. All the fluff and angst with minimal mobster drama.

Let me know if you want to be added or removed from the taglist.

Disclaimer: I own my OC’s, the rest I’m simply borrowing from PB for a bit.

“I—I can’t.” Liza sobbed as she collapsed back on the hospital bed. She’d been in labor for hours, she lost track of how long she’d been pushing, it could have been millennia for all she knew and still she felt no closer to holding her daughter in her arms than she had been the day before. She looked up, exhaustion written across her features, black hair matted down with sweat. “I can’t do it.” Her hazel eyes pleading.

Bastien softly blotted at her sweaty forehead. “Poppy, I know you’re tired.” She gave a nearly imperceptible nod. “But I know you can do this.” He gently cupped her cheek, her hand moved to cover his. “You didn’t think you could carry her, but she’s almost here. You did it, just a little more and she’ll be here.” He leaned forward pressing a kiss to her forehead.

She shook her head, completely in awe at how much strength he saw in her. She knew she didn’t have it her, she couldn’t do it.

“You’ve got this Liza.” The doctor’s voice broke her thoughts, pulling her back to the present. “I can see her head, just a few more pushes, really bear down and she’ll be here.”

“I—”

“You can. Every mother gets tired, every mother thinks she can’t, but you can do this.”

Liza nodded. “I’ll try.”

The doctor smiled softly, eyes crinkling though her mouth was obscured by a mask. “Dad you want to see?”

Liza grabbed Bastien’s arm, fingertips curling into his flesh. “I swear to god Bas—”

“I’ll stay right here.”

Liza stared down at the tiny pink bundle the nurse had laid on her chest moments before. Her heart swelled with more love than she ever thought was possible as she stared at the life she’d brought into the world. She felt completely exhausted, yet a comfort in knowing she truly had nothing to fear. I did it. She’s here. She’s actually here. She blinked back welling tears of joy.

“She’s perfect Poppy.” Bastien said tucking a sweat soaked strand of hair behind her ear.

Liza gave a tired smile, her fingers delicately tracing over her daughters back, up over the soft blonde hairs covering her head. “She is isn’t she?” She looked up at him with tear filled relieved hazel eyes. “I’ve waited for this moment for a long time.”

He smiled leaning in kissing her forehead. “Me too Poppy, me too.”

“Ohmygod! She’s here!” Hope’s excited squeals broke through the silence as she burst into the room, a swirl of a dozen colorful balloons making a full rainbow following her.

“I guess the silence is over for now little tadpole. Time to meet your sisters.” Liza said rubbing her fingers over Sage’s head.

“Want me to tell them to come back?” Bastien asked, his voice a quiet whisper.

Liza narrowed her tired eyes. “Don’t you dare! She’s excited, let her be, she finally has a family. I love that she’s this excited.” Bastien nodded in understanding. “I mean she could be like Liv.” She pointed at Olivia, standing perfectly still, only clue she was remotely happy the small smile on her lips, a stark comparison to Hope who could hardly stand still.

“I tried to make her wait, but she insisted we come in now.” Olivia said shooting Hope a stern look.

“You’re fine Liv. You should both come over and say hi to your sister.” Liza carefully shifted Sage so they’d have a clearer view of her.

Hope let out a squeal of delight as she crossed the room, hand releasing the balloons, a flurry of color drifting to the ceiling. Hope let out a small gasp as she looked at Sage snuggling in Liza’s arms, carefully wrapped in a white blanket with pink and blue footprints. “She’s so tiny!”

Liza narrowed her eyes at Hope. “She didn’t feel tiny!”

Bastien chuckled at her side.

Hope looked up at Liza, brushing her bleach blonde locks over her shoulder, exposing her ‘middle sister’ shirt. “Can I hold her?”

“Of course.” Liza looked at Hope in surprise. “You wore the shirt.”

Hope beamed. “Of course! I tried to convince Liv to wear hers but she said ‘it didn’t go with her look.’” Hope rolled her slate grey eyes. “Whatever that means.”

Liza chuckled. Everyday the two girls seemed more and more like sisters who grew up together and not strangers who met months prior. “Make sure you support her head.” She said as she carefully handed Sage over to Hope.

Hope gently cradled Sage in her arms, a fleeting sadness flickering in her eyes as she gazed down at her baby sister. She never thought she’d have this, a family. When she was born there was no one waiting, and while it filled her with sadness she knew looking at Bastien’s broad grin that had he known he’d have been there for her too. “She’s so perfect and precious.”

Olivia looked at Sage, trying to force the smile off her face. “She’s a newborn. She looks like any newborn, all small and wrinkling.”

“Awww, Livvy, you know you want to hold her.” Bastien teased his eldest girl.

“I’ll pass.”

“Good, cause I’m keeping her.” Hope’s voice full of love and joy.

“Okay. Give me the baby!” Olivia carefully took Sage from a reluctant Hope. “Hello Sage. I’m going to teach you to put all the boys to shame just like your momma and I can.”

Liza burst out into a fit of delirious giggles. “Maybe wait until she’s older and can walk.”

“If I must.”

Bastien cradled his daughter to his chest as he gently rocked her, her big steel grey eyes staring up at him. “Hey there little one, you have no clue how long your momma and I waited for you.” He stared down at her in awe. “You met your older sisters, and they are so happy you’re here too, but you have six siblings momma and I never even got to meet.” He felt a pang in heart, the last loss just under a year ago and still so fresh, maybe the most painful, except she was here now. Our rainbow after the storm. “I’m always going to be there for you tadpole. I’m never going to let anything happen to you, I promise.” He had felt his heart crack when he saw the flicker of sadness in Hope’s eyes. He vowed to himself that he would never again miss a moment in any of his girls lives.

“She okay?” Liza’s sleepy voice broke his thoughts.

“She’s perfect Poppy. Go back to sleep, I’ve got her.” I’ve got them all.

Feedback fuels me, please like, comment reblog or send an ask. Feel free to scream, I promise I can take it.

Masterlist can be found in my bio.

Taglist will be reblogged.

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rockynfriends · 6 years

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Rocky’s Stay Chapter 4: Night Watch

This is the final chapter of the narrative regarding Rocketchu’s recovery visit, featuring characters developed by @augmentedampharos. Rocky’s canonical return is soon to follow.

Rocky’s eyes suddenly snap open and he tilts his head towards the door of his room. A thumping sound from the threshold was more than enough to wake him, and in a split-second he’s by the door listening.

“One day…One day…at a time…”

Oddly relaxed by the song, even from an unfamiliar voice, he smiles as he thinks back to earlier that day. Dinner had been lovely, especially in light of sharing with his new friends. He’d been able to contribute his own recipe, which had gone over better than he hoped. His decision to go to bed early was more from a desire to rest than a feeling of apathy – if anything, he had more energy now than he’d felt in a long time. He throws back the covers and steps outside to see a Charmander standing near a table, looking somewhat miffed at his recent collision.

“When did that get there? Hope no one heard—oh. Oops. Sorry, stranger! I just got home and I was trying to avoid waking anyone. Guess I messed it up.”

Rocky smiles. “It’s alright. I was just admiring your singing voice. What’s your name?”

Charmander blushes. “Heh…I had that song in my head and didn’t even know I was singing it! I’m Tas. I live here. Are you Golden’s new friend?”

“It’s nice to meet you, Tas. No, I originally came here because Fugue invited me, though I’d like to see Golden someday. Name’s Rocky!”

As Rocky regards the fire-type, he suddenly realizes that the Charmander is looking rather past him.

“Is there something behind me, or…?”

“Oh, no. The sound in the room just bounces a lot so I was a little off in determining your location.”

“You came remarkably close. I hope I didn’t sound…”

“Oh, no, don’t worry, you didn’t. I was born this way and it’s really not a big deal. Sometimes it even helps when I’m pretending to listen to a grown-up lecture me,” he winks.

Rocky chuckles. “Grown-ups can be tiresome. I think most mean well though.”

“They do, but they don’t know everything. I was playing with Chester, otherwise I’d probably already be in bed.” “I haven’t met him. Is he nice?”

“Yeah, but he likes to stay outside. His ears are like my eyes, so we use telepathy to talk and play.”

“I didn’t know a Charmander could learn that! I’m very impressed.”

“He’s a Kadabra, so he has enough psychic power for us both. You should see us in our dart gun games. We’re unbeatable.”

“I imagine so, what with your synergy.”

“You seem a little different, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“Oh? H-how so?”

“You’re gentle. Most strangers are pleasant, but…kinda noisy. Did something happen?”

“Yeah, a lot did, actually. I’ve been thinking a lot and trying to help get my head right. I think I’m almost there.”

“Well gosh…can I help?”

“You kind of already are--” once again, the Pikachu is surprised by the Charmander’s eyes lighting up.

“Wait, I can’t believe I didn’t connect the dots. You’re Rocketchu!”

“That’s…my official name, yeah. It’s reminiscent of a time in my life long since over. Thus the shorter moniker.”

“It’s an honor. I’m kind of a fan of Team Recover. I mean, you’ve got the guardian of everything, a super-powered cyborg Eeveelution, and a Pikachu who can turn into a superhero!”

“I wouldn’t say the last part quite like that…but how did you know?”

“Well, I listen to broadcasts of Rescue Team events, but I’ve also heard about you from Fugue and Chester…and Budapest. I’ve wanted to meet you for forever! When Fugue told me you were friends I made him promise to introduce me some day.”

Rocky can’t help but blink. “That’s awfully kind of you to say. Now that we’ve met…your thoughts?”

Tas grins. “Definitely as cool as I thought.”

The Charmander can’t see it, but Rocky is touched. At the same time, Rocky notices that he and Tas have exited the house to the yard without ever mentioning going outside.

“Well…that’s honestly more humbling than anything. I mean, it’s very kind of you – but the truth is I’m just another Pikachu trying my best to make the world a little better. I don’t know what I’d do otherwise.”

“And you think that’s ordinary? You are not an ordinary Pokémon.”

“Well, neither are you! I wish I was as quick to encourage others as you are – and as quick to perceive the good in others.”

“Perception requires practice. Kind words…more practice. Oh, but you’re about to ask me a question.”

“I—you’re right! Well, here it is. Earlier…that song you sang. Do you remember where it comes from? What it is?”

“Oh! Well…I only remember the first line.”

“So it does have words. What’s it titled, do you know?”

“I don’t, honestly. But…how about the first line…and maybe that’ll refresh your memory?”

“It’s certainly worth a shot.”

“Okay…here you go.”

So saying, the Charmander takes a breath and begins the melody.

“One day, one day at a time.”

Rocky’s eyes widen as it suddenly comes in, and he hums.

“Bum bum…dun-dun…dadada…one day, one day, at a time.”

“You know it?” Tas says, a bit excited. “Do you know the whole thing? What’s it from?”

“It’s the Song of Life,” Rocky says. “I’d practically forgotten it. It’s the song that flows through every fiber of our world. Written by the reality guardian, and then sent into the heart and soul of every one who could sense it.”

“And now you remember it? Will…will you sing it for me?

Eyes shining, grin wide, Rocky’s nods. “Tas, I would be honored.”

One day, one day at a time! Some days I feel I’ve lost before I even try! On my own, losing grip, trying hard not to cry. Seems like all the others here have got life figured out, But I’m poised on the edge of a breakdown. Life hits me, so how can I fight back? Trying to hold on but the power I lack! I try all I can, but still lose the fight! Wear a smile all day, to fall apart at night! At the end of my rope and I can’t hold on! I fear every moment that I’m getting it wrong! I start calling for help and I hear this song! Don’t worry…don’t worry.

Don’t despair! There’s always trouble out there! Yeah it’s okay for you to still care! Just don’t let it absorb your mind! Don’t give up! There’s so much power in love! You keep your eyes fixed on what’s above! And then you take it, one day, one day at a time!

I want to learn to live in peace a little faster. Enjoy the moment, think less of disaster. Keep my focus on peace, faith, love! The rest will come, those three are enough! Yeah the world is a mess, but it’s not all on you! There’s a lot to be said, for the good you do! And there’s always someone Who loves you too! So don’t worry…don’t worry.

Tas listens as Rocky’s voice seems to fill the air. Suddenly Rocky whirls around as if in a choreographed routine and begins to chant.

To exhausted ‘mons, and trainers in pain, And the people on whom life’s a constant drain, You gotta take it, you gotta take it, one day at a time.

To the broke down, and let down, and hurt ones like me, To addicted and lost all trying to get free, You gotta take it, you gotta take it, one day at a time.

To the struggling workers, whatever your load, When you’re overwhelmed I promise you’re not alone! You gotta take it, you gotta take it, one day at a time!

From adults to children, let’s never forget! Life’s not always glee, but we’re not home yet! You gotta take it, you gotta take it, one day…one day…one day!

The song ended, Rocky’s eyes close, and he stands silent for a moment, taking a deep breath.

Tas applauds. “So that’s…Cassiopeia’s song?”

“I doubt they’d call it that…but in a sense, yes. I think it’s everyone’s song, though. The world isn’t fair, and life isn’t easy, and sometimes it flat out stinks, but…there’s still so much out there to be encouraged by, be it events or friends and family. This is an anthem of love to remind us that no one is truly alone where they are. I had forgotten not only the words, but the meaning of the song itself. Thanks to you, Tas, I remember. And now I know what I have to do.”

“Oh? Is that good?��

“Yeah. It’s time for me to go home.”

The two spend the next couple of hours talking about the song…about how they met Fugue, and any number of other things. After a long pause, Tas finally sighs and smiles.

“You know…it’s nice to find out you’re not…I dunno…”

“Untouchable?” Rocky laughs.

“Kind of. I mean, I knew hanging out with you would be great – I just didn’t think it would be like…this.”

“Well, what did you expect? A cape?”

“I guess so!”

Rocky grins. “As much fun as that would be…I’m glad I didn’t seem…like a comic book hero. I’d much rather have friends than fans – and honestly I’m still amazed by the stories you told. You can bet I’ll come back for more…and with more!”

“We’re a couple of special Pokemon,” says Tas, giggling. “I’m only sorry that I met you only in time to see you go…especially with the sun rising now…I guess you’ll want to leave soon?”

“Yeah, but it won’t be too long. You’ve all done so much for me. I wish I could return the favor.”

“That sounds like the beginning of a farewell,” says a familiar voice. “Rocky…you going home?”

The Pikachu and Charmander both turn around, and the former nods with a smile. “My mind…and more importantly, my heart – are back where they need to be, Fugue. My team needs me – and I’m finally ready to be there for them again. You, and Athens, and Budapest, and Tas…you helped me get it together and I can’t thank you enough.”

Fugue smiles, wiping away a few tears. “Rocky…that’s what friends are for. You’re always welcome here whenever you choose to return.”

The Pikachu can’t help himself, and finally tackle hugs his dear friend. “I love you, Fugue.”

“I love you too, Rocky.”

They separate and exchange a smile.

“Alright,” Fugue grins. “Your family can’t wait to see you again.”

“I can hardly wait to see them. Oh, but Fugue…one other thing. I figured out the song.”

Fugue’s smiles curiously. “Really?”

Rocky nods, gesturing for the taller Pokémon to lean over. Fugue does so, and Rocky whispers something in his ear, causing the larger Pokémon to break out into a broad smile.

“Well now…I guess we both needed that reminder.”

“Everyone does, once in a while,” Rocky replies. “Tell everyone ‘thank you’ for me!”

With that, he speeds off, but as they physically separate, the three Pokémon remain united in mind with a particular refrain.

One day, one day at a time…

#rocketchu #tas #fugue #chester #rocky's stay #final chapter

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sunflowerseedsandscience · 6 years

Text

D’Un Nouvel Oeil- Chapter Six

Previous Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four | Five

ORADOUR-SUR-GLANE, HAUTE-VIENNE, FRANCE JANUARY 1944

For nearly a year, at the beginning of her twenties, Dana Scully had lived in terror at the idea of becoming an orphan.

Her mother's illness had come on suddenly- on Monday, she'd been hale and healthy, single-handedly managing both the Cafe Pequod and the farm, and by Friday, she'd been too weak to write to her daughter in Paris. Scully had received a letter from her mother's neighbor, instead, summoning her home from medical school, and she'd come immediately to assess her condition. When it had become apparent that Maggie would require long-term care, she had sent letters to her brothers, who were living in America, and to her sister, who was living in Greece with a man she had met while traveling through Europe.

Bill had written that he couldn't possibly leave his naval posting, because he could not honestly tell his commander that no one else was available to care for his mother. As to her suggestion that he send Charlie, newly graduated from high school and with no definite plans for his future, absolutely not. What would be the point in paying for Charlie to travel all the way to France when Dana was there already, primed and equipped with more than enough medical training to nurse her mother far better than Charlie ever could?

"The family has indulged your ridiculous idea of being a doctor long enough," Bill had written, "but now, it's time for you to shoulder your share of the responsibility and make the same sacrifices that the rest of us have made." What, exactly, those sacrifices were, Bill had neglected to mention. She couldn't say how taking their youngest brother and running off to America, leaving the running of the family business to their mother, qualifies as a sacrifice, but she'd known Bill well enough to know that writing back would be useless.

Melissa had not even bothered with a response.

So Scully, with less than a year left until the completion of her medical degree, had returned to Paris just long enough to gather her belongings and withdraw from school. She had hired two local men, one to manage the cafe and one as a dishwasher, allowing the manager to rent the upstairs flat, and she had moved into the farmhouse with her mother.

Maggie's condition had been touch and go for awhile, and Scully had lived in daily fear of losing her, of being left essentially alone in the world. Her father had been gone for years, her siblings were so distant and unreliable, and for those first months Scully had floundered, trying to cope with overseeing the farm, the cafe, and her mother's care. The man she'd hired to manage the cafe had, at first, refused to take her seriously, making decisions without her input until finally, she'd threatened to replace him.

When Maggie's health had returned, Scully had briefly nurtured the hope of returning to school, of finishing her medical degree and finally becoming a doctor. With someone managing the cafe, and the farm employing enough hands that Maggie wouldn't have to do any of the physical labor, it didn't seem unreasonable that she might be able to leave long enough to complete the required classes. She could even come straight back to Oradour-sur-Glane when she'd finished and be a doctor there, so that she could help her mother, should she need it again.

But then had come the war.

When her dishwasher had been called up, Scully had been able to replace him relatively easily... but when the manager had left to go to war, a replacement hadn't been quite so readily available. Scully had taken it over, telling herself that it was only temporary, that the war would end soon, the men would come home, and she could resume her studies.

Instead, the Occupation had begun... and once it had, Scully had no longer felt safe leaving her mother alone. She had moved into the flat above the cafe, resigning herself to learning as much of her remaining studies as she could from whatever books she could find. When the replacement dishwasher had suddenly disappeared from town with no indication he'd be returning, Scully hadn't bothered hiring a new one. She'd received a letter from Melissa, saying that she was travelling further east, trying to find a place the war had not yet touched, and Scully hadn't even been able to bring herself to be angry.

By then, she'd learned: the only person in the world that she can really and truly count on is herself.

And now... now, Mulder wants her to trust him. To let him in. To let him help. And she wants to, she really does.

She's just not completely sure she remembers how.

------------------------

"Do you think there's any way you can handle the morning milking yourself tomorrow, Maman? Scully asks Maggie, as they finish Saturday morning's work at the farm. Maggie raises her eyebrows at her daughter.

"You have somewhere you need to be?" Maggie asks, and for a moment, Scully worries her mother can see right through her.

"No," she says, "I'm just exhausted, that's all. I think I may just skip Mass and try and get a good night's sleep, for once." Maggie looks stern.

"I can have Paul do your share of the milking," she says, referring to one of her farm hands, "but I don't see why you need to miss Mass, as well." Scully sighs.

"Maman, I've been up until nearly three in the morning for the past three nights running," she says. "Between the work at the cafe, the work here, and the... other things I'm responsible for, I can't remember the last morning I woke up feeling the slightest bit rested." She's not lying about any of this, at least, and Maggie's face softens somewhat.

"You do far too much, Dana," her mother admonishes her. "I thought that maybe now, with Fox helping you, maybe you would be able to stop spreading yourself quite so thin." Scully thinks of Mulder, of the real reason she's planning on skipping Mass.

Spreading myself, indeed, she thinks, and instantly goes red. Her mother looks concerned.

"Darling, you're flushed," Maggie says. She puts a hand on her daughter's forehead. "Are you all right?"

"Fine, Maman," Scully insists, brushing her mother's hand aside. Her mother looks at her critically a moment longer, then shrugs and returns to her work.

"Perhaps a little extra sleep wouldn't be the worst thing for you," she admits. "I'll tell the priest you weren't feeling well." Scully smiles, relieved. Her stomach twinges with the tiniest bit of guilt- both her mother and the priest would be heartbroken if they knew her true plans for this evening- but she quells it immediately.

She's been alone for so long. Not lonely, of course. Never lonely... or so she's told herself, repeatedly, during long nights in her empty flat, the abundance of unoccupied space in her too-large bed seeming to mock her. She's always believed strongly that loneliness is a choice, that being content to be alone is a sign of strength, not weakness, and for a long time, she has been content... but now, a day that she doesn't see Mulder, doesn't speak to him, doesn't flush with warmth from head to toe at the way he smiles at her, seems to be a day that's somehow not complete.

It's not a level of dependence she's comfortable with... but whenever she tries to take a step back, Mulder takes another step forward, and she's finding it harder and harder to keep him at arm's length.

---------------------------

He's begun heading to the kitchen during the last hour of every evening, getting a head start on the dishwashing, cleaning, and food preparation that used to keep her downstairs well after closing. She continually tells him that he doesn't have to, that she can handle the work herself, that she can do it after he leaves, but he insists on continuing.

"My motives are purely selfish, Scully," he reassures her. "The less you have to do before bed, the later I can stay, right?"

"I suppose that's true," she agrees cautiously.

"So really, I'm doing it for myself," he says. "An hour washing dishes now means an extra hours with my hands on those-" he nods at her breasts- "later. Completely selfish." She swats at him with a dishrag on her way back to the dining room, but she's laughing.

She does that a lot more often, these days.

Tonight, as she's finishing tending to the evening's final customers, she feels as though her entire midriff is full of butterflies. It's not nerves, exactly- she knows he's not going to turn her down. No, this is purely excitement, anticipation for what she's almost certain is going to be something amazing. Mulder sets her on fire with the simplest and most chaste of touches; she can't wait to see what kind of sparks they throw off when he's finally given free rein.

When the last customer has been shepherded out into the cold January night, Scully returns to the kitchen and hangs up her apron. For a moment, she contents herself with merely watching Mulder as he finishes drying the evening's dishes, appreciating the firm, clean lines of his body, his long legs, his muscled forearms under the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt. As he finishes, he catches her looking, and she smiles coyly at him.

"What? he asks. "What's that look for?"

"I spoke to my mother this morning," she says. "I arranged for a farm hand to help her with Sunday morning's chores again." Mulder sets the last clean mug on its shelf and turns to her.

"Oh?"

"Mm-hmm." She nods. "And I told her I've been tired... and not to expect me at mass tomorrow morning." She can't stop the playful smile that spreads over her face, and Mulder answers it readily.

"And what did you have planned?" he asks. She crosses the room, never breaking eye contact, and leans against his chest. She can feel his heartbeat thudding at a gallop where she's touching him.

"Why don't we go upstairs," she whispers, "and maybe you'll find out?" She draws away from him with difficulty, already craving his touch, and walks towards the stairs.

He takes her by the arm and pulls her back against him, suddenly and roughly. His lips cover hers, his tongue delving deeply into her mouth, and when he slides one strong arm under her and lifts her up, she can't suppress a cry of surprise. At the sound she makes he looks as though he's going to put her down, but she can't have that, and so she encircles him tightly in her legs and kisses him again. Before she has time to think about it, she's going positively feral on him, scratching at his scalp and grinding her hips against him, desperate for more contact. Already he's hard and hot underneath her, and she wants to get at him so badly she doesn't know how she's going to wait for him to take off his clothes.

Suddenly he breaks away from her, and she whimpers in protest as he tries to still the rocking of her hips

"Scully," he gasps, "if you don't stop that, we're never going to make it upstairs." She doesn't care. She kisses her way back along his chin towards his ear, then whispers into it, loving the way he shudders against her.

"Going upstairs was just a suggestion, Mulder," she says. "You can feel free to ignore it, if you'd like." As badly as she wants to resume seeking friction from his stiff member where it's pressing against her, she waits to see what he'll do.

For a moment, he's perfectly still, and she can see him running over the options in his mind: the floor? The butcher's block? The counter? Watching him, she feels her entire mouth go dry, and she licks her lips. That simply motion seems to set Mulder off, and with a groan, he strides across the kitchen and presses her up against the wall. There's a dull thunk as her head smacks into the boards behind her, but if there's any pain, she's completely unaware of it. She moans into his mouth as he kisses her again, her hands beating his to his belt buckle, which she undoes at top speed. She makes quick work of his button fly and uses both her hands and feet to shove his pants to the kitchen floor. She yanks at the bottom of her skirt, rucking it up and out of the way, and as she does, she feels the hand not cupping her bottom snaking its way up and under her blouse. Oh, yes, she thinks, as he strokes her breast, just this side of rough, nothing gentle in his touch at all. She presses her chest against him with a sigh, and he rewards her with a sharp pinch of her nipple that sets off a flood of wetness between her legs.

Scully locates the slit in the front of Mulder's boxer shorts and takes his cock firmly in her hand. He goes almost totally still as she draws him out- he's scarcely breathing- and privately, she thrills at the sheer size of him. She can't possibly wait another moment, and she can tell by the wild look in his eyes that neither can he, and so she spreads her legs wider, bracing her feet against him, and positions him, taking him by the hip and pulling him towards her until she's positively, achingly full of every last inch of him. He presses his forehead to hers, overwhelmed, and as badly as she wants him to move, now, she allows him this moment.

When at last he begins the smooth liquid slide in and out of her, his rhythm is slow, languid, unhurried. It's delicious, certainly... but right now, she's already nearly halfway there, and a sense of urgency hums through her limbs like electricity. There will be time for sweetness and slow caresses later, but now, this first time, it's not what she needs. And he must sense it, somehow, just by looking at her, because he speeds up. She whimpers gratefully into his neck, tasting his sweat, and clutches tightly at him. He's still holding back, though, and so she urges him on.

"Harder," she whispers. He draws back, looking into her face for reassurance that she means it, that she wants it, and she answers him with the tiniest of nods. He slides one hand between the back of her head and the wall, cushioning her, and sets up a bone-jarring, spine-rattling pace, slamming her against the wall again and again, the steady thud-thud-thud of her back against the wood and the wet slap-slap-slap of their bodies filling the entire kitchen. That's all it takes to send her flying, climaxing so hard she nearly blacks out, crying out his name as the wave overtakes her. Dimly she's aware that he's coming as well, bellowing into her neck.

Standing is suddenly too much for him, and she feels her back sliding along the wall as they drop slowly to the tiled floor. She curls her body against him and concentrates on getting her breath back, not quite aware that he's speaking... until she realizes that he's apologizing.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "This wasn't how I intended this to be." She shakes her head against his neck, still too weak to lift it.

"Mulder, don't you dare apologize," she says firmly. "I don't see how anything could possibly have been better than that. That was incredible." She feels him smiling against the top of her head and she snuggles closer... until a sudden, loud knock at the kitchen door makes her jump out of her skin. She jerks away from him and stands on legs that are still incredibly unsteady, hastily straightening her blouse and her skirt. Underneath, she can feel his seed dripping down her leg, and even in the midst of her fright, of wondering who's at her door at this hour, she suddenly realizes: they hadn't used a condom. Shit.

"Are you expecting anyone?" Mulder asks, his voice low. Scully shakes her head. Mulder's got his pants buckled, though his shirt is still untucked, and he's retrieved his pistol from the kitchen counter where he'd left it earlier. But as he's advancing on the door, a familiar shout comes from the other side.

"Scully," yells Frohike, "open up, it's us!" Scully motions to Mulder to lower the gun.

"It's all right, they're some of my contacts, they're safe," she assures him, crossing the kitchen. "I wasn't expecting them tonight, though." She opens the door, revealing not just Frohike, but Byers and Langly, as well. They troop into the kitchen, one after the other, and Scully closes and locks the door behind them. She turns back, ready to introduce him to Mulder... and finds that all three of them are gaping at him in total shock.

"Mulder?" Frohike's voice is squeaky with surprise, and Scully whips her head around to look at him.

"You know each other?" she asks. "How?"

"Oxford," says Mulder. "They were two years ahead of me. Frohike sort of adopted me as a long-lost little brother." Scully tries to think back. She'd known they'd gone to Oxford, but now she tries to remember whether any of the odd trio have ever mentioned exactly what years they had attended school. She draws a blank. They haven't exactly exchanged many personal details; it's all in the nature of the operation. Scully doesn't even know the names of some of the men who deliver refugees and supplies to her.

"We used to print a newspaper," Langly tells her, "and Mulder helped us distribute it sometimes."

"I don't know if you could call it a newspaper," Mulder intones. "It was a monthly five pages of nonsense refuting everything the actual school paper printed."

"Hey, somebody had to call the Cherwell out for printing nonstop lies," insists Frohike. Scully shakes her head slowly, a smile spreading over her face. Now that it's clear that there's no danger, the knot in her stomach has loosened, and her playful mood is returning.

"Mulder, you helped produce an underground newspaper?" she teases him, and he ducks his head.

"'Produce' is overstating things a bit," says Mulder. "All I did was occasionally drop a stack of them in the common room when nobody was paying attention, in exchange for Frohike buying me drinks at the pub later that night."

"Mulder is your new source in the German army?" asks Byers, and Scully nods.

"That's right," says Scully. Frohike beams and tries to clap Mulder on the shoulder, which he can't quite reach, and settles for thumping him mid-back.

"Good man," he says. "Always knew you were a troublemaker at heart. We taught you well."

"I'm assuming you're with Dutch-Paris, then?" asks Mulder.

"For the past two years," confirms Frohike. "Trust the Dutch to do what the French can't. No offense intended, of course," he says as an aside to Scully. She sighs and shakes her head- it's a long-standing joke between them, and she knows he's not insulting her.

"As much as I hate to break up the reunion," she says, "I need to know: what are you three doing here? Has something happened?" She desperately hopes not- aside from not wanting to spoil the mood of the evening, she's in no fit state to tend to anyone just now.

"We've got a group hiding off of the road a few miles north of town," says Byers. "We know it's risky, breaking curfew, but we were careful, and we need to move fast. It's cold and we need to get the little ones someplace warm. We came to find out if it's safe to bring them to your mother's for a few days, and we need you to help us arrange transportation for them." Scully lets out a relieved breath. This, she can handle. She won't even need to leave the kitchen.

"How many? And where are you taking them next?"

"A mother and three children. We only need to get them to Limoges," says Langly. "Our contact there is making identification papers for them, and then we're getting them on a train south. We had a truck arranged already, but they never showed up at the last meeting point." Scully thinks for a moment. There's no reason that she can think of why her mother shouldn't be able to help out- none of her current employees are living on the farm, and as long as Maggie is made aware of the family's presence before she leaves for mass, she'll be able to hide them in the house or in one of the outbuildings. Sighing inwardly, she realizes she'll need to go to church in the morning, to go to confession, to talk to the priest and make arrangements.

"Take them to my mother's and put them in the barn," she tells Frohike. "Wait until daylight to knock on my mother's door. She'll feed them and give them a room. I'll make the arrangements first thing in the morning and send word to my mother as soon as everything is set up." She turns to Mulder. "I'm sorry, Mulder, but it looks like I'm going to need to go to mass tomorrow morning after all."

"Why would he care about that?" asks Langly, confused. Byers digs his elbow into Langly's side. "What?" When no explanation is forthcoming, he frowns at Mulder and Scully... and then, suddenly, he seems to get it, and gives them both a decidedly lecherous grin. Scully decides that's the signal to send them off.

"All right, time to go," she states. She pushes Langly roughly back towards the door. Byers sighs, shaking his head.

"As you can see, he's about as mature as he was the last time you saw him," he says. "I've done what I can, but when you're already working with damaged raw materials...." He shrugs, and Mulder laughs.

"I take it I'll be seeing the three of you again?" he asks, and Frohike nods, grinning.

"Count on it," he says. He bows to Scully. "Mademoiselle Scully, a pleasure, as always." Scully responds only by pushing him out of the door; she's had quite enough of Frohike's charms for one evening. She closes the door, throws the bolt, and turns, leaning against it, eyes closed.

"Of course you know each other," she says. "They told me they met at Oxford and it never even crossed my mind that they might have been there at the same time as you." She shakes her head. "I didn't mean to announce our relationship to them like that. I'm sorry." Mulder looks anything but. His smile is warm and tender as he walks towards her, sliding his arms around her and pulling her close.

"Don't be," he reassures her. "You think I'm anything other than proud to call a woman like you my own?"

"Is that what I am?" she asks. "Your own?" In the past, the very idea would have rankled and raised her hackles... but somehow, when Mulder says it, all it does is make her melt.

"I'd like to think so," he murmurs, touching his forehead gently to hers, "but ultimately, I think you get the final say." And that's exactly why I don't mind when he says it, she thinks to herself. Because he would never assume it without my permission.

"You know what my answer is," she says. "I'm yours. Absolutely and completely." And as if to prove it she kisses him deeply, passionately, and then draws back. "And I think it's time for you to take me upstairs now."

---------

She leads him to her bedroom, where they stretch out languidly on her bed, kissing softly, slowly, all sense of urgency gone, replaced by a soothing warmth. He removes her shirt and camisole almost reverently, kissing each new inch of skin as he discovers it, and when he bends his head to take her nipple in his mouth, she moans and gasps. Once he's moved his attention to her skirt, divesting her of that, as well, she sits up.

"If I'm going to be naked, you are, too," she says, and he's more than agreeable to the idea. She rids him of his jacket, just as she had that first night she'd cared for him on her sofa, and he rips off his undershirt. Her eyes roam over the expanse of his muscled chest, and she likes the view, wants to see more of it. She's got his belt undone in seconds flat.

"You're awfully adept at that," he remarks... and for a moment she's scared, for the first time tonight. She's never led him to believe that she'd been a virgin... but, then, he'd never asked. She meets his eyes, her stomach clenched, but he's smiling.

"I was nervous you'd be upset that you weren't my first," she admits.

"Scully," he says gently, "who you've been with and what you've done before we met, that's your business. I don't care. All I care about is that you're here with me now." As he gazes at her, cupping her cheek in his hand, she sees something shifting in the depths of his eyes. "Scully," he says, "I love you."

It's too much. She can't meet his eyes anymore. She's not surprised, not really- she's known that he's smitten- but she hadn't expected him to admit it. She grasps about for something to say, something to lighten the serious mood.

"My mother told me never to believe anything a man tells you with his clothes off," she says, nodding at his bare chest.

"Hey, I've still got my pants on, haven't I? So I'm at least half-dressed." She chuckles, relieved he's going along with her, instead of being offended that she didn't immediately say it back.

"Does that mean it's only half-true?" she asks.

"No, Scully," he promises. "It's completely true. I'm in love with you. I've never felt this way about anyone before in my life."

"Neither have I," she whispers. The words are out almost before she can stop them.

"Really?" She nods. She can't quite bring herself to meet his eyes, to let him see the tears she's struggling to hold back. This is the part she's never been good at: the letting go, the letting in, the opening of her heart to another person.

Gentle fingers touch under her chin, bringing her head up to meet his gaze. In his eyes she finds nothing but naked adoration, understanding... and a tiny bit of fear. She realizes that he doesn't know, isn't sure how she feels, and she can't leave him in suspense another moment.

"I love you too, Mulder," she says. His eyes flood with tears and he gathers her to him, holding her close and rocking her back and forth.

When Scully finally sleeps, hours later, curled in Mulder's arms under the warmth of the feather duvet, she feels, for the first time, as if the bed is no longer too large.

Next Chapter >

#My Fic

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myhelrav · 6 years

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In Search of Wellbeing

Tales of Transition #3

As I started assembling my words and pictures for this post, it was 6 months to the day since Rod and I left Wellington, one of us heading north to to start the hard work of turning this beautiful renovation into a home, the other detouring to the South Island. That felt like quite a milestone. It was wild and wet here in the Bay of Plenty. It felt wonderfully appropriate for an anniversary of leaving windy Welly.

While I was contemplating this particular post, the words of the Navajo Prayer, In Beauty May I Walk, played through my mind over and over. Reminding me that I have indeed walked in beauty since I left my beloved city. Telling me how much the everyday beauty of our new home has helped ease transition.

A while back I read a piece suggesting a difference between happiness and wellbeing. A lightbulb came on! It’s no secret that I struggled for happiness as Rod and I adapted to the many changes of the previous 6 months. Yet in the midst of bouts of unhappiness, I was experiencing moments of what I have come to identify as wellbeing. Almost always outdoors, it might be feeling the mild northern winter air, soft on my skin. Revelling in the novelty of rain falling vertically (!), often so gentle it could barely be heard. Feasting my eyes on treats such as sparkling blue waters, our garden glowing golden against a dark sky to the east as the sun dropped in the west, yet another treasure discovered in that garden as the seasons started to unfold... Breathing in the heavenly aroma of our own citrus fruit. For however long that moment lasted, I felt at ease.

Those moments all felt like gifts, as did the notion that wellbeing and happiness could be separated. Letting go of happiness as a goal was liberating. It was a remarkably helpful strategy in helping me begin to deal better with the emotional conflict that, somehow, didn’t magically disappear after the excitement and turmoil of arriving in Eleventh Ave. And if you know me well, you know that I like my strategies! Here are some of my other strategies for this phase of Project Tauranga:

To create a sense of peace and order so as to counteract the many ways in which lack of peace was frustrating me

To attempt to forgive myself for the ways I was not coping and to concentrate instead on the ways I was contributing

To focus on gratitude

To seek out beauty

Peace and Order

Box city is not a peaceful place in which to live. No surprise there, but what did surprise was how long it continued to be a struggle to adapt.

Initially nothing had a place so nothing looked out of place. Locating phones, keys, or any other random thing put down “for now” was the first challenge. The pace at which we could create order out of chaos was limited. How fast could Rod could build shelves? How many chests of drawers - an item of furniture we’d had no need for in Karepa Street - did we need to find?

My heart was aching for the sons and friends I’d left behind, my resilience was undermined by week after week of very poor sleep, my body was wearied by prolonged hay fever - the legacy of dusty downsizing, cleaning product overload and far too many flowers in far too many rooms while Karepa Street was on the market... The energy and team work that brought us this far took a big hit. Rod, although faring better than me, was also exhausted. It took far longer than either of us anticipated to find our mojo as a team again.

We had also both anticipated that we would quickly adapt to the background traffic. “You’ll get used to it” everyone said. Except some don’t get used to it. Yup, it seems I’m one of those. The noise intruded on my thoughts, affected my moods and, even through earplugs, disturbed my sleep. 2 miserable months passed before I managed a decent night’s sleep. It was even longer before the noise stopped feeling like a malignant foe. In the wee hours I’d find myself staring down at the trucks that drive through the night, angry and hating them, wanting to scream back at the road, just shut up!

It probably sounds overly dramatic and I did feel as if I was becoming unhinged. Strategies were desperately needed! And so we set to work. To help turn my ears away from the traffic we put gently ticking clocks in the rooms I spend most time in to listen to instead. After months of investigating and pricing our options, I’m thrilled to report that work on double-glazing our windows will start in the next few days. Changes are also happening within. Rod and I started doing yoga and our lovely classes have helped calm my mind. I am learning to listen to my breath rather than the noise when it wakes me at night. My foe is shrinking...

Box city shrank too, but gradually, wearyingly, and not completely. In the garage, wardrobes and upstairs rooms, it still lurks in wait... As it retreated, we were able to create ever larger pools of calm beginning with my favourite corner chair, where I look out into the garden on two sides and back at the beauty that surrounds me indoors.

We may not have peace and quiet but we do have spaces that look peaceful and calm. I am working to keep them that way - in this new life of ours I am reinventing myself as a much tidier person!

Contribution

Forgiving myself is such a hard one. Luckily I have an ally in making this strategy work. Rod is thriving on the freedom to beaver away at his enormous list of home handy work but sees our physical environment as just one piece of the home-making puzzle. For him, making connections with new people and places is of equal value and he is very generous in treating the time that I spend seeking these as important work. Who knew that my addiction to Facebook and love of cafés would be seen as useful?

And so I ferret out new things for us to do. From watching live music in tiny venues to watching ride-on mower racing at a huge school gala - with a variety of weekend markets in between - Rod has cheered my efforts and said yes to most of my suggestions as we try to get used to life in this very different town.

We were incredibly lucky that I stumbled across an active women’s social networking group on Facebook early on. Thanks to this group we learned about the yoga class, joined a pub quiz team, hosted a book club, helped cater for a fundraiser, found friends to join me and my mother on a garden jaunt to the Waikato, found someone new for Rod to go biking with…

I am, of course, getting to know Tauranga one café at a time. All with Rod’s blessing and support. Go Team Tauranga!

Gratitude

I am grateful that Rod shares the need to go back to Wellington often. To drink in the comfort of familiar places and to wrap ourselves in the aroha of beloved family and friends. To lay aside the task of reinventing our lives and just be ourselves for a little while in the company of those who know us well.

We both feel very fortunate that we had time and means to say yes to nearly every opportunity that came our way to catch up with old friends, not only back in Wellington but in other parts of the country too. We are especially grateful to those who took the trouble to come and add to the new chapter being written in Eleventh Ave. Each visit replenishes our kete and feels like a blessing on this house.

Oh, how much I miss my “posse” of friends, to quote one of my new friends. I am so grateful for the women I have met here who help ease that ache. Who don’t expect that we can possibly take the place of old friends overnight but who are here for each other in very meaningful ways in the meantime. Who might just feature in a blog post all their own one day…

I feel very blessed by how much easier adapting to change has been for my partners in this venture. To be able to focus so much on putting myself first with Rod’s help is an enormous luxury that I have seized with both hands. Seeing how happily my mother potters around her “Little Nest” has given me and Rod profound joy every single day since she arrived.

And we are all grateful for our bountiful avocado tree. It has been delivering a big dollop of wellbeing every lunch time for weeks and weeks now. How lucky is that!

Beauty

The natural beauty of the Bay of Plenty is one of the things that drew me and Rod here in the first place. Has it ever delivered! Being so spoiled in the choice of beautiful things to see and do has helped immeasurably whenever I’ve tried to focus on the positive and give less energy to the negative.

We thought we’d miss our dramatic Wellington view but very soon discovered that our Tauranga view is equally mesmerising in a different way. Mauao, the iconic volcanic cone at Mt Maunganui, is a constant presence, drawing our eye and grounding us. We’re intrigued by unfamiliar patterns of clouds above us (we truly are living under a different sky.) We love to watch the ever shifting patterns of light and tide in the estuary that’s close enough to escape to for a very nice bike ride or walk.

Walking on the beaches at the Mount is also an easily accessible treat. Closer to home, trees and flowers provide endless inspiration to reach for my camera. The photos with which I bombard my friends on Facebook are but a tiny fraction of the ones I have taken, feeding my soul even while my spirits sagged. The variety of species that thrive here means there is garden colour to be enjoyed everywhere we walk or drive, no matter the season. We are beginning to learn the pattern of the seasons and are looking forward to next year’s arrival of feijoas and mandarins, magnolias and cherry blossom.

And the tiny first steps we have taken in growing vegetables fill us with hope that our dreams of a garden to nourish body and soul will come true.

To quote another of my new friends, “being out of your comfort zone is not comfortable!” For what seemed like the longest time, I felt lost and broken. Now that I find myself able to look back and write about those bleak times, I cherish the fact I am feeling more whole and more at peace.

This new sense of peace feels fragile. Bad days still strike without warning. Knowing that they’re not guaranteed, I am all the more grateful for the good days. For the beauty that cushions us through good days and bad.

In beauty may we continue to walk as Project Tauranga moves into a new year.

Arohanui

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finn-nelson-for-the-win · 7 years

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Before the World Stops Turning: Pt.3

Hello again! I’ve spent the last week doing A LOT of writing because for whatever reason my Uni classes haven’t been as time consuming, so I decided to make the most of my lack of social life and just write the next 5 or so chapters of this fic so they’ll be ready to edit and post even once I begin to get busy again…Anyways, this chapter is a little boring, but it explains a couple things and acts as a short transition chapter to get to some more fun stuff in the next chapters.

If you’d like to be added/removed from my tags list, don’t hesitate to let me know!

Everything I’ve written can be found right here!

I hope you enjoy this chapter! (As always, additional notes and random commentary I have will be at the end beneath the tags)

Rae and Izzie had spent a few hours at the café the previous night eating, recapping the highlights of the concert, and posting some of the better pictures that had been taken using both of their phones to Izzie’s social media accounts.

By the time Rae made it back to her apartment in the taxi that Izzie and her had split, it was already in the early hours of the morning and Rae’s exhaustion had caught up to her so much so that she fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow when she got in bed.

It could not have been more than a few hours later when Rae was awoken by the bright morning sun streaming in through her partially open curtains and the sound of her phone buzzing violently on her bedside table.

Who the fuck would be trying to video call me right now?!?

“Uh, yes, hello?” Rae replied when she answered the video call without checking to see who it was that was calling her at such an early time.

“Rae-Rae! I’m so glad you’re awake! I didn’t wake you, did I?” Izzie replied with a cheerful smile.

“Uh, ‘course not, Izz…” Rae replied, her voice still thick with sleep, as she rubbed her eyes slightly to finish waking up.

“Wonderful! So you’ll never guess how many social media notifications I woke up to when I checked my phone a little while before I called you…”

“Oh really? I bet your friends that bailed on going to the concert with you are ruing the day, huh?” Rae replied as she sat up in her bed with a pillow propped up behind her back to get into a more comfortable position.

“Probably, yeah, but even better than that…So you know how I posted all the concert photos online last night, yeah? And you know how I tagged the bands and band members that were in the pictures? Well…” Izzie smirked and paused for dramatic effect, causing Rae to chuckle.

“C’mon Izz! You can’t keep me in suspense like this…you simply must tell me everything,” Rae replied with a teasing edge to her voice.

“Hey now! The sass is unnecessary, but I’m a good friend, so I will tell you the rest of the story…so this morning I woke up to see notifications on my phone saying that a couple members of Kings and Queens liked and shared the group photo I posted of all of us!”

“Oh, that’s wonderful, Izzie! I’m so happy for you!” Rae replied in complete sincerity because she could tell how excited her mate truly was

“Oh that’s not all…I also saw that I was followed by the Kings and Queens Band account as well as one of the band members! Isn’t that so exciting, Rae? I simply had to call you and I felt this warranted a video call instead of a boring old phone call…I also had a question to ask you…”

“Yeah, that’s so great, Izz! They were all really nice guys, so it’s no surprise that they like to interact with fans like this…What did you want to ask me?”

“Do you remember how many band members were in Kings and Queens, Rae?”

“Uhm, maybe five? Lead singer, drummer, bassist, and two guitar players I think…so yeah, five! Why do you ask?”

“Huh, that’s what I thought…it’s not a big deal, but I was looking at the group photo that we took that I posted online and only see four band members and I wasn’t sure who could be missing. I’m pretty sure everyone was there when we posed for the picture…” Izzie replied, her eyebrows knitting together slightly in confusion.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure everyone made it in…wait a second! Maybe not…There was one guy that was busy and rushed in at the last second, but I’m not sure if he made it into the picture.”

Rae powered up her laptop and brought up Izzie’s account where that picture—along with about a dozen others—was posted and zoomed into the photo to get a closer look.

Izzie sat waiting patiently for Rae to speak after taking another look at the photo, but she was soon caught off-guard when Rae laughed aloud suddenly.

“Holy shit, Izz! Take a look at this! You’re right—well sort of…the photo we took has all band members, but it technically only has three fingers from the fifth band member on the far side of the frame.”

Rae turned the camera of her phone to show the group photo that she been looking at on her laptop and began to show Izzie what she meant.

“As you can see, there’s the two of us and Chop next to me…there’s two guys back behind the three of us…and on Chop’s other side is one of the other band members, but if you look very closely at this fourth guy’s shoulder, you can see three fingers and someone’s hand resting on his shoulder!”

“Okay, I think I see that…but are you sure it’s not someone else’s hand though?”

“That’s what I thought at first too, but the angle that the hand is resting on his shoulder makes it seem like there had to be another person standing just outside the frame of the photo!”

“That’s so funny, Rae! I wonder which of them got left out…”

“Huh, yeah…do you remember who was who? Or what was the name of the band member that followed you after you posted the pictures online, Izz? Maybe we can figure it out like that.”

“Uh, okay…well I know that the one with the glasses next to Chop is named Archie. I’ve been following him on social media since I first found out about the band a while back. I think the taller guy in the back is named Alex…and I’m pretty sure the guy with the drumsticks next to Alex is the drummer, Danny…I don’t remember who else could have been left out…”

“Okay, well that’s four of five band members. Did any of them follow you on social media?” Rae asked as she tried to recall the names of the different band members that Chop had told them when he introduced her and Izzie to everyone in the band mere hours ago.

“Uh, no, actually! The guy who followed me is someone called ‘Finn Nelson’…huh, I guess that settles it! Finn is our three-fingered mystery boy!”

“Mystery solved! I knew we’d be able to figure this out!” Rae called triumphantly before shifting her attention to her mat that seemed to be engrossed in whatever she was currently doing on her phone.

“Dear lord, Rae…I’m looking through our mystery boy’s profile and he’s great…there’s a lot of cool sunset and photography-type posts, but the few selfies and band promos where you can see him…wow,” Izzie replied looking away from her phone only for a brief moment to make sure that Rae was still paying attention before continuing, “it’s a shame all you can see of him in our group photo are his fingers because he is proper fit!”

“Oh is he, now? I thought you had a thing for a certain lead singer of Kings and Queens, Izz…”

“I do still like Chop…he’s quirky…but this lad? Holy shit, Rae, he’s perfect for you!” Izzie replied giving Rae a suggestive smirk and eyebrow raise.

“Uh huh…well, I guess I’m just going to have to take your word for it, Izzie!”

***

It had been nearly a month since Rae had first agreed to accompany Izzie to a concert in the city in which four bands she had never heard of were performing at a local bar, but in that time, Rae’s interest in the bands that they had seen had only continued to grow.

Upon Izzie’s insistence, Rae had even borrowed the Kings and Queens CD Izzie had purchased after the show and Rae spent a week listening to the album end-to-end. By the time she returned the CD to her mate, she had familiarized herself with most of the songs and had chosen her favorites.

“So Izzie, how have you been as of late? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever!” Rae playfully whined during one of her weekly Thursday lunch dates with Izzie when they both happened to have a break in their schedules to hang out for a few hours.

“It’s only been about a week and a half since I last saw you, Rae! Remember when we had the movie night at your apartment and you returned my Kings and Queens CD to me that you had borrowed?” Izzie replied as she lifted the sandwich she had ordered from her plate and took a large bite.

“Has it really been that long?” Rae replied with a chuckle as she used her fork to stab a cherry tomato from her salad and brought it to her mouth.

“Oh, that reminds me! Did you see that Kings and Queens announced that they’re playing a show at the same bar we saw them last time in a couple weeks?”

“No, I didn’t see that! Where did you find that out? I’m pretty sure I’d remember if they had posted something on the band page…”

“Do you not follow all the individual band members as well as the main band account?”

“No, I just follow the band’s page, I think…”

“Ah, well that explains it then! I think Archie might have posted it? I’m pretty sure he mentioned that they have discounted tickets for sale too if we don’t want to pay the fees for buying the tickets online or wait to get them on the day of the show. I think we just have to let them know how many tickets we want and they’ll deliver the tickets directly to us!”

“Oh wow, that’s perfect! Do you know what day the show is? If we’re both free we should definitely go see them play again!”

“I don’t know the exact date, but I can check…So you don’t even follow Finn’s account, Rae? Why the hell not, babe?”

“Because, Izzie! I’m not going to be one of those girls that thirst follow band members and try to be a groupie at every single show! He’s just a normal person, even if he is as perfect looking as you seem to think he is!”

“Well, I suppose…wait a second…have you still not seen what he looks like yet?”

“Erm…no, I guess I haven’t…well not specifically, at least. Every time you tell me that I should check out his profile, I forget or get distracted and I’ve never gotten around to it, I guess…”

“Well then, love…prepare to be blessed by the beautiful specimen of a man that is Finn Nelson, lead guitarist of the band Kings and Queens…” Izzie said without removing her eyes from her phone as she typed and clicked rapidly before passing Rae her cellphone as if it was a sacred object that must be handled with extreme care.

“Holy fuck…”

“I know, right?”

He looks so familiar…wait a second, is that—no, it couldn’t possibly be the guy that I stumbled into before the show…could it?

“So Rae…was I right or was I right? Finn is basically a god, don’t you think?”

“Yeah…he’s definitely, uh, well…I think I know him…”

“Holy shit, really? How?”

“Well, I don’t know-know him…do you remember how when we were standing outside the bar before the concert I told you that I ran into a guy and I dropped my phone…well this is the guy I bumped into…I just don’t know how I never made that connection!”

“That’s so crazy! What a weird coincidence though…”

“No kidding! Well, I have an Abnormal Psychology class to get to right now, but it was really nice meeting you for lunch today! I’ll check when Kings and Queens are performing and maybe we can reach out to them for a pair of discounted tickets?”

“Yeah, for sure! Just let me know if you think you’ll be free and we can work out all the details.”

***

By the time Rae walked into her apartment after a busy day of classes and studying for the finals she had coming up in all her Uni courses, the sun was already mostly set and the sky was streaked with the final remnants of pinks and oranges in a mostly blue and purple backdrop.

She immediately changed into an oversized t-shirt and a pair of patterned lounge pants before sitting down at the desk in the far corner of her bedroom and powering on her laptop.

Okay, let’s take a look to see when this upcoming Kings and Queens concert is gonna be…

Rae pulled up the band’s social media profile and saw a post that was only a few hours old with a picture of the promotional poster for this particular show.

Rae: Hiya Izz! I just checked the date for the K&Q show and I’m free if you still wanna go! It’s two Fridays from now…the Friday of exam week, I think?

Izzie: YES I STILL WANT TO GO! I have a final exam that morning, but I’ll definitely be free that evening.

Rae: Great! I’ll go ahead and let them know that we want tickets so we can get the discounted price for the tickets, yeah?

Izzie: Perfect! That sounds good to me, just let me know how much I owe you for my ticket, yeah?

Rae: Will do!

Rae set her phone back down on her desk beside her laptop and went back to reading the post in which the Kings and Queens band page had announced that they were playing the show and were selling a limited number of tickets at the lowest possible prices.

Rae was debating between commenting on the post about needing tickets or sending them a private message before ultimately deciding to ask them about the tickets privately.

Hello there! I saw your post about the show you are playing at the end of the month and I saw that you have a limited number of tickets available for purchase at reduced prices. I’m interested in purchasing a pair, please…

@eveerez @tinakegg @hey1tskat1e @lurkernolonger @milllott @nutinanutshell @i-dream-of-emus @milymargot @vivammfd @bitchesbecrazy89 @arathewallflower @mallyallyandra @kneekeyta

A/N: Poor Finn :( First Rae brushes him off when he’s trying to be friendly and now we find out that he was “accidentally” cut out of the frame for the photo that they took after the first show. All I can say is you really have to be careful who you ask to take pictures for you using your phone at concerts because you never know what you’re gonna get…

So I don’t know about you guys, but I’m really enjoying what I’m dong with switching POV between what’s going on with Rae and what’s happening with Finn. I’m also making a point to have the timelines match us as much as possible from one POV to another with no overlap, so fingers crossed that I don’t end up fucking this up or making the story too hard to follow lol…

Also, how cool is it that their band is willing to sell discounted tickets to fans and deliver them to the people wanting the tickets. I know a number of people that are in local and mid-level bands where I live and this is something that they commonly do when the bands playing are lesser known or when there hasn’t been enough time for the concert to really be promoted in order to have a full crowd, so a lot of local bands will try to entice friends/family/previous fans that have seen them by offering to give them discounted tickets. I’m not sure if this is a common practice in other places too, but I think it’s pretty cool.

Writing this story is making me really miss all the concerts in sketchy bars and small venues I went to with my best friend at the time when I was 15/16/17 years old…ah, the memories *looks wistfully into the distance*

This entire thing has been super scatter-brained and confusing, but this is me we’re talking about, so what did you all really expect? Hahaha…I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the next one should be coming very soon as well…I’m still trying to decide exactly when, but I can assure you that it will be relatively soon. Stay awesome, my friends!

#Finn-Nelson-for-the-win #Before the World Stops Turning #Part 3 #mmfd #my mad fat diary #mmfd fanfic #my mad fat diary fanfiction #My writing #the concert series

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