#this is apparently a startlingly tall order for some people

[unbidden-yidden]

Hello friend!

Ahoy! You are now anonymous (because you asked so nicely and it's a valid question.)

G-d I wish I had a real answer for this. I think it depends on the person, but is this someone you feel like will be receptive to you approaching her with some vulnerability about how unsafe that makes you feel? Do you think she will listen to reason if you give her fact-based explanations for why that rhetoric is more antisemitic than it is helpful to the Palestinian cause? + your perspective and feelings on it? If so, it's worth a try if you are intent on maintaining a trust-based friendship.

If you don't think you'll be safe/you aren't really in a place to take the risk of vulnerability, I'd say you have a few choices:

Avoid her or at least talking about that with her for now, and talk to her later when some of the heat has died down on this issue. Admittedly, this is not optimal because it's way easier to apologize and backtrack when the stakes are low(er), but if you really work on it with her maybe you could rebuild some of that trust.

Stay friends but don't trust her with your safety (emotional or physical). Up to you about how you answer her if she notices and asks about this.

Cut ties at whatever speed you are comfortable with and don't tell her why. You can drift or just start avoiding her. That happens sometimes for non-political reasons.

Cut ties with her and tell her why you aren't interested in maintaining the relationship. That's obviously the most direct, confrontational version; if you go this route but don't want to have a fight about it, you could just say "hey - this really showed me that you do not value the lives and human rights of my people and therefore me, and so I no longer feel safe around you. I wish that was different, but it can't be fixed at this point because I can't trust you anymore." That's a tough lesson, but it's one some people need to learn.

Obviously none of that is ideal, but we're not working with ideal circumstances here unfortunately. Idk if other people have suggestions, but those are mine. I'm sorry you're in this position and hope that you have other supportive community no matter what you decide and how she responds.

[kujakumai]

cleaned up old WIP, 2800 words, AU where Yami Bakura succeeds in switching hosts in DK and Mokuba makes friends with an evil ghost. Not going to be continued but it literally would not leave my brain alone until I finished it.

Things were not going according to plan.

The plan was to take control of a soulless puppet, an easy vessel incapable of interfering with his ends. He had the vessel, had accomplished that much, but he was not expecting the pharaoh and his little friends to succeed and convince Pegasus to give everyone their souls back. So now not only was there a second person in this body he had to keep suppressed, but now he was stuck impersonating a child, smiling through an awkward reunion and then placed onto a helicopter next to a gangly high school student who was watching him like a hawk.

The spirit-that-was-no-longer-Yami-Bakura knew that he was supposed to be Mokuba, but he did not remember the tall one's name. K-something. He had a stupid jacket and hardly took his eyes off him the entire ride, as if he thought his little brother was going to disappear in a puff of smoke when he wasn't looking. Annoying. Infuriating. Luckily it did not seem he wanted to talk, or at least accepted silence. No one expects recent kidnapping victims to say much, which was a boon. A little dazed, a little quiet, a little off, and no one really found it unusual.

They dropped off the pharaoh and his friends, and finally landed at a gaudy and ostentatious house so large it took him a second to realize it was a home at all, an absurd monument to decadence with grounds full of ugly topiaries. Wealth, then. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad. He could work with this. The rich kid in the stupid coat quietly held his hand the entire walk up the driveway, until they entered a foyer just as gilded and obscene as the outside had been.

No, things were not going to plan, and playing grade-schooler was awkward and an insult to his dignity, and he was farther away from the other millennium items as he ever had been. He would have to grit his teeth through it until he could figure out the next step. In the meantime, perhaps, enjoy some amenities.

Richie rich sighed, relaxed his shoulders the moment they got inside. He looked at who he thought was his little brother and gave him a small, exhausted but genuine smile. He struggled with what to say next.

"Mokuba," he said, "I have to check on a few things in my office. See what kind of damage they did. Do you want to come with me?"

"No." Finally, a chance to be out of this idiot's sight.

This answer seemed to surprise him, a twitch of skepticism. "Will you be okay by yourself?"

He nodded. Keep answers short, when you're impersonating.

His face betrayed more skepticism, concern, and the tiniest hint of disappointment. As if rich kid himself was the one who was scared to be alone in his own house. He accepted the answer, though, to the spirit's relief.

Rich kid bent down and pulled him into a tight hug and ruffled his hair. "We'll get something special for dinner, okay? And ice cream."

"I do like ice cream." This was true. Ryou Bakura almost never bought ice cream, and when he did it was the stupid healthy kind that everyone knew shouldn't even really qualify as ice cream, which was another reason he was a terrible host. That and the fact that he was startlingly pale and had the upper body strength of a limp noodle and the personality of skim milk. This would be better, even if he had to deal with the abrupt drop in height.

Rich kid headed off towards the staircase with another tired but trying-to-be-reassuring smile, and it was then that the spirit of the ring felt an annoyance in the back of his brain. A presence. A scratching, biting, flailing presence, screeching mad, which he had been suppressing for a while now but finally broke through.

get out get out get out get out give it back its MINE get out

The host, awake. What a bother. More rambunctious than Bakura, then? No matter. He could handle a child.

that was MY hug and MY headpat and MY big brother and you can't have them he's been gone for ages and they're mine not yours get out get out get out

The spirit pushed back, ignored him. Shush. He had planned to hold this body alone, and he did not intend to go back to sharing. If you're good, I might let you have it back for a little while later.

shut up go away go away go away go AWAY

And then Mokuba Kaiba did something, something the spirit was not accustomed to or expecting at all, something which Ryou Bakura had never been willing or able to do. He shoved, violently, and the spirit of the ring was ripped out of control with some amount of panic.

"SETOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Why you insolent little--

Seto Kaiba was not aware of the mental turf war happening over his little brothers body. What he did see was his brother scream his name and fall down, and the whole room echoed with a metal clatter as his briefcase fell on the floor and he ran towards him.

--

The ring had been discarded unceremoniously to a side table, and not-Bakura-and-not-Mokuba-either had no choice but to wait and observe, as a pediatrician on a sudden housecall shined lights in the boy's eyes and rich kid, who the spirit had since gleaned was named Seto Kaiba, looked on in worry.

"You said you heard a voice?" The doctor asked.

"Uh-huh. I think it lives in the necklace."

"You got that thing at Pegasus's house?" Kaiba asked, in disbelief.

"I don't remember. I was just wearing it when I woke up."

"What did the voice say?" the doctor continued, professionally ignoring any talk about magic necklaces.

"Not a lot. It was kind of mean."

"I see." She turned to Kaiba. "He's fine, physically. You might want a psychologist." and Seto Kaiba made what could politely be referred to as A Face. This was not what he wanted to hear, this was news that worried and annoyed him in equal measure, and to some degree was news he had half-expected.

"He's had a rough few months. I'll look into it." and she was dismissed, and Mokuba hopped down from the counter.

"Can we order pizza?" he asked, with big pleading eyes.

Kaiba watched him with dry amusement. "Mokuba, you can have anything you want from any restaurant in a forty mile radius."

"And I want pizza. Real pizza, from somewhere that doesn't also serve caviar."

"Cheap pizza?"

He nodded very seriously. "The grossest greasiest cheapest."

"I can do that. Anything else you want?"

Mokuba's eyes lit up, and soon he was dragging Kaiba by the hand towards somewhere else in the house. "I got to this really hard level in my game I can't get past and I wanted to see if you could beat it, and I found this really cool video I wanted to show you, and I got a really good report card you never saw, and--" and months worth of pent up requests were tumbling out rapid fire, and Kaiba was smiling with affection and some amount of relief.

Loud and clingy, then, was the normal and expected behavior. The spirit of the ring made note of this, as he lie abandoned.

--

The ring was still sitting on a side table, in Mokuba's bedroom, apparently because no one knew what to with it or thought it mattered much. This was a problem. The spirit couldn't do anything without a host, and now everyone was suspicious, these stupid rich people worried too much and paid too much attention.

He was forced to sit there all night, pondering about how he was going to get out of this mess, when at one or two in the morning he observed Mokuba wake up, and rub his eyes, and hop out of bed. He did not turn the light on, but he did check the time, and reach under his bed to retrieve what appeared to be a small backpack. He took it with him as he moved quietly towards the door, and the spirit saw his chance.

Hey, kid. He was near enough to speak into his head. Maybe this wasn't a dead end.

"You!" Mokuba stopped in his tracks and looked right at the ring.

Yes, me. This could be salvaged, he thought, concocting a plan. This was a child. Play friendly ghost and imaginary friend. Surely it would not be hard to weasel himself into the good graces of a sixth grader.

Mokuba glared at the ring with suspicion. "I don't think Seto believed me when I said you could talk, but I knew it." He picked it up delicately by the string to examine.

Where on earth are you going at this time of night?

Mokuba was the current host, technically, so there was a connection, and 11 year olds are not particularly used to or adept at hiding their own thoughts, especially inside their own heads. The answer, if not in words but in abstract concept, was provided instantly as it bubbled to mind. He was going to the kitchen, as he did once or twice a week, not their personal kitchen but the house staff kitchen, where he would move a chair to stand on the counter to reach the very back of the highest shelf of the third cupboard to the left, which was where one of the cleaning staff kept a pile of chocolate so he could cheat on his diet without his wife knowing, a fact Mokuba knew through surreptitious eavesdropping. Mokuba's end was to steal just enough of it that he wouldn't be noticed, and add it to a stash of snacks and other shiny trinkets currently hidden in the bottom of a pile of legos in his closet.

...You steal food to hide in your closet? Why would a child who lived in a three-story mansion need to steal?

Mokuba was only mildly perturbed by the fact that someone had just read his mind. He was mainly curious, now. "Our dad didn't like junk food, so I always took stuff to keep around." he explained, "I guess I don't really have to anymore, 'cuz Seto will let me have whatever I want, but--" he faltered, unable to finish or give a reason.

There wasn't a reason, and Mokuba knew that. There was no need to sneak or stash or steal anymore, but he kept doing it, irrationally, for reasons that confused him, a complicated swirl of things a child could not name or understand but were very easy for the spirit to read. Fear; compulsion; habit; the illusion of safety; the sense that your life was precarious, unstable; a need to exert control over your surroundings. It was not the food or the stealing that mattered, but of the hiding, of having something they could not take away from him.

Mokuba didn't understand any of that, because he was 11 and 11 year olds don't understand why they do anything. He just knew he liked sweets and hated people telling him what to do and that having bags of chips and other people’s lost jewelry at the bottom of an old toybox made him feel better.

Can I come with you?

"No! You tried to take control of me!"

Yes, but you kicked me out, and you'd probably be able to do it again, so I would be stupid to try. I also like chocolate, you see, and it's very boring to be stuck here on your desk.

"Can you even eat? You're a necklace."

I can when I borrow a body.

"You tried to take over me so you could eat chocolate? I'm not stupid enough to believe that."

That and other things. I can't do very much at all, while stuck in the ring. No food, no sunshine, no running around. It's no fun to be without a body, which is why I am occasionally driven to steal one. Terribly sorry about that. he added, in his most pathetic-sounding tone, Please? I don't have anyone else to talk to.

Mokuba was hesitant, but clearly found the fact of his existence too interesting to ignore. "Fine." He picked up the ring and dropped it unceremoniously into his backpack, which had a dragon on it.

Not trust yet, but tolerance and curiosity. One step at a time.

You shouldn't go barefoot, you know. Socks will be quieter if you're trying not to get caught.

"I didn't ask you."

So Mokuba descended down the stairwell, in the dead quiet and dark of the Kaiba Mansion, with no flashlight because he knew it well enough to navigate blindfolded. The place was decadent in the ugly way rich people's houses were, luxury but without taste, soft carpets and gilded banisters.

Mokuba had not quite realized yet how to think at the ring, so he spoke in a low whisper. "What are you, anyway?"

A ghost. So much more complicated than that, but simple words were suitable for children.

"How'd you end up a ghost in a necklace?"

I died, and then someone put me in a necklace.

"That's not an answer." he followed up, "Do all dead people become ghosts?"

No. Just sometimes, maybe, if the way they died was especially violent or gruesome or terrible.

Mokuba frowned. He had caught on remarkably quickly to guarding his own head, but the spirit could tell he didn't like this answer.

This was delicate, but he risked a push. Was there someone you had in mind?

Mokuba said nothing. He reached the staff kitchen on the lowest floor, and opened the door, slow and careful. He was deciding whether to say anything, as he climbed up as quietly as he could and reached far into the back of the cupboard, scrabbling.

"Our dad killed himself last year. Jumped out a window." He finally said, hopping down with his spoils. He said this the same way one might dolefully report the milk had gone bad. Unfortunate but boring.

You don't sound very sad.

"Nah, he sucked. And he never liked me." he said, "Seto was really really upset though. He was pretending not to be, but I could tell." Now there were feelings there, big and weird and sad and clinging ones. For reasons the spirit could not discern, the simple phrase ‘Seto was upset’ carried with it more weight, a thousand million times more weight, than news of a father's tragic death by defenestration. "I hope he's not a ghost. I don't wanna see him again."

Probably not.

Mokuba sat down cross-legged on the kitchen floor, unwrapped candy in silver foil. "You really can't do anything from in the necklace? Like, ghost stuff? Make things float or anything?"

No. It is a bit like being trapped in a very small box.

Mokuba mulled this over for a little while. "If you wanted to borrow a body to do fun stuff, you could have just asked."

Really?

He nodded. "Not being able to eat chocolate sounds lame. It'd be mean to just leave you like that." He put one chocolate into his mouth and dumped the rest in the backpack, where they covered the ring unceremoniously. More indignities. "Not in front of my brother, though. And you have to give it back whenever I say so."

...I could agree to such a compromise. Your candy haul is impressive, by the way.

"Thanks!" He grinned, emanating genuine pride. No one had ever complimented him for stealing before.

Tragic, the work of great thieves. How the very best of it can never be bragged about, the most impressive of skills gone unnoticed by nature, how the very success of a perfect crime relies on keeping your mouth shut about it. An unappreciated art, where even mastery gains you no respect.

You don't care that this poor man has to go out and buy twice as much food to make up for what you steal?

"No, he's a jerk. One time when I was six they confiscated my gameboy, so I went to steal it back and he caught me and told my dad and I got in huge trouble. So every day for a week I snuck down here and moved his keys to a different place so he couldn't find them. They were all so mad at him for losing them all the time, and he thought he was crazy."

Why was your gameboy confiscated?

"Don't remember. I think I bit someone at school." he shrugged, "They probably deserved it, though."

Mokuba Kaiba. he said, I think you and I are going to be excellent friends.

"Okay. Do ghosts watch cartoons?"

[tlaquetzqui]

Watching videos about the Amazon Wheel of Time, by fans of the books. Now their total disregard for Tolkien is a lot less surprising. Tip for YouTubers reviewing this type of shit: don’t pussyfoot around what you want to say, when you give spoiler warnings. Say it: “Not that you can ‘spoil’ carrion.” You’ll feel better.

The worst one is some girl, her accent is probably a Romance language but I can’t tell if it’s Italian or Spanish or some smaller thing. She sees the trailer and she’s super enthusiastic, innocently happy to see a work she loves adapted. And then she gets more and more disappointed and hurt by each episode, till at the end she’s just a ball of pain. It hurt to watch.

Apparently they didn’t only make the tiny isolated villages nobody ever leaves be super ethnically diverse, without having them be rabid segregationists—which is the only way small isolated communities don’t quickly all round out to one phenotype. That is but a trifle, an hors d’oeuvre before a feast of shit.

They:

Aged up all the characters by about half a decade.

Made the goofball twerp into a philanderer who steals from women he sleeps with. In, again, a relatively small community where word would get around fast. There wouldn’t even be many women who’d sleep with him at all, let alone women who wouldn’t have heard about stuff going missing. How many unattached women willing to knock boots with some rando do these writers think there would be, in a small village society?

Gave a character a wife he didn’t have in the books, because, again, teenagers. Then they kill her off in gruesome fashion to try to be edgy. (Apparently someone at Screen Rant claimed to be a fan of the books but then said “That might fly in the 1990s but not now, because Women in Refrigerators™”—homes if you’d read the books you’d know she only even existed now, step off.)

Had a character who has a family, instead be a Moses-style foundling, and deprived her of a very notable tic.

Decided that the prophesied dealy that’s always a man can be male or female. Just in general they fucked with the gendered aspect of the setting’s magic system, something even I know about. And I can only name one book in the series (The Eye of the World), and only because they name dropped it a lot in the videos.

Delayed the entrance, then utterly drab-ify, the clown dude. And not let him teach the two guys to play instruments, and earn their lodgings.

Removed the dumb inquisitor guys’ insignia and had them send people to someone they actually hate for medical care.

Turned a treasure room into a pile of trash.

Had the protagonists build a bunch of fucking bonfires while being chased by what amount to greenskins crossed with beastmen. Which is suicidal foolishness.

Had the noncanonical wife show up in her not-widower’s nightmares as a zombie getting her guts eaten by wolves.

Utterly drab-ified the nomadic people who are apparently described as wearing like “so many bright colors it hurts”.

Cast a woman described as “tall and beautiful” with a startlingly homely actor, of average height or less. She’s also gotta be pushing fifty, and her order actually basically never age due to their magic. (Canonically you can catch them in disguise because they have young faces with old eyes.)

Also they killed off one of the members of that order, her or one of the others I wasn’t paying attention, when she’s supposed to live for at least a few more fucking books.

Had characters in scenes they would never be allowed to be present for.

Deleted a male clan elder from the nomad people so they can make them a matriarchy. He’s also supposed to be a guy that controls wolves that were apparently still included in an episode even though they now make no sense.

Added a bunch of child murder, cannibalism, and evisceration, just to be edgy. Also a bunch of combat.

Put whole towns and inns that don’t exist and remove ones that do.

Removed entire romance plotlines.

Added hamfisted supervillainy to characters that were clearly already pretty one-note. Also added some weird exploitative stuff (if you think a work can’t use something to titillate while also portraying it as bad, you are unacquainted with the “women in prison” genre).

Shoehorned in a lesbian romance not only out of nowhere but between two women who fucking hated each other, whose respective branches of their order had hated each other for 2000 years.

Turned a no-nonsense tactician who rules as a mother figure into a power-tripping petty tyrant and a vindictive sadist. Though it’s been suggested the showrunner (taking bets now for how long before he’s accused of sexual harassment or worse) thinks this egotistical bullshit is a strong woman, rather than a monstrously weak and pathetic one trying to hide it.

Decided that platform shoes were sufficient to portraying a giant, and gave him honestly some of the most amateur-hour, “BBC pre-Doctor Who reboot” makeup I’ve ever seen.

Rushed through important plotlines from the book, to give more screen time to a different lesbian scene involving one of the characters from the previous one. Who is straight in the book. With a bondage-y subtext because the other woman in the second one is that power-tripping asshole from before.

Changed how the fast-transport magic statues work, fucking over the giant guy’s people to no purpose.

After the actor playing "former goofball turned larcenous philanderer” left, apparently because he didn’t want to get the COVID shot, they put in multiple monologues about what a bad person his character was. Which he was but nobody noticed till the actor left, which is to say the writers don’t know they wrote him as a reprobate, they’re just lashing out at the actor for displeasing them.

Gave a character the ability to defeat a demon creature that haunts the transport-statue network, because Girl Power™ (possibly just “we wanted to shoehorn in a fight no matter how little sense it makes”—likely both), where in the books the only way to survive is to get the fuck out of Dodge.

Changed a wooden city built into a cliffside, with roofs designed for dealing with snow, to a stone city in what looks like a subtropical desert with nary a cliff or mountain to be seen. Also made it a star fort with no artillery. Which is like a tank without a gun.

Changed the reason the protagonists go to the eponymous Eye of the World, from investigation to directly confronting the villain. Also kept a character from going there even though it’s his homeland. And he, a tracker and woodsman who’s been guarding one of those mage ladies for a decade, has to be told how to track his own liege by a goddamn farmgirl.

Changed a character’s power from seeing auras around people that seem to mean something like “something important is gonna happen to you” to having actual specific visions. Probably just for plot convenience, because her real power allows less exposition per scene.

Apparently rushed the development of the main guy’s power and the introduction of an artifact by like four books. There are fifteen of these fucking things, guys, if you’re worried about getting to them all maybe do a better job on the first one.

Randomly had the main guy go through another character’s backstory. Only for him it was the present. Because…who the hell knows.

Apparently forgot the only people with magic, with one exception, are members of that order. So it makes exactly zero sense to have a member of the order ask other people that can use magic to help them: they’re all already members, dumbass. (Oh wait, apparently they made the queen one herself. Which she is not.)

Failed to understand how a chokepoint works. In a battle that doesn’t exist in the book but is clearly intended to rip off Helm’s Deep.

Made characters repeatedly do stupid shit nobody would, just to make other characters look better when they do the not-stupid things. Which on the rare occasions they’re actually using the book, is usually something the turned-stupid character actually did.

Spent a significant portion of an episode getting a box out of a place it’s not supposed to be. Because moving containers (which are clearly empty) is good television.

Had a like group-spellcasting thing that apparently doesn’t exist, at least not like that. I would have to see the effect play out in realtime (for which I would have to watch the show, so…) to be sure, but at least one person says the spell they cast like this was clearly copying visual beats from Thor in Wakanda in…whichever of the last two Avengers movies. Which I can easily buy between “let’s force this PG-rated story to be The Next Game of Thrones��” and that Helm’s Deep shit. (Also I did see the spellcasting itself and it really does look like the Ark of the Covenant melting Nazis.)

Had an avatar of the setting’s ultimate evil, who is apparently not even encountered yet, get easily outwitted by a moderately skilled ordinary mage.

Had the main guy fake his death and infodump things he would not know.

Had the one mage, the one randomly inserted in multiple lesbian scenes, lose her power somehow.

Had someone who died come back to life, which is absolutely forbidden by the setting’s rules.

Basically, Rafe Judkins decided to deliberately fuck up his adaptation, motivated by vaguely ideologically-rationalized malice. Which is not surprising, given that a former Survivor contestant who wrote a few episodes of second-rate shows would not be put in charge of something like this on merit. He was put in place because he greased the right palms and kissed the right asses, and mouthed the right platitudes. He may be the most evil of these vandals yet, which is saying something; the sheer glee with which he deliberately ruins something people love is amazing to behold.

On the other hand I’m going to see if I can get my hands on the books, since apparently there’s a lot more there than I thought.

[tisfan]

Title: Learning to Work Together (Opposites Attract) Rating: T Triggers/warnings: None Word count: 4681 Tags: Alternate Universe: College/University, Alternate Universe: No Powers, Summary: When Professor Nutter assigns a partnered project for her Theories of Personality class, Aziraphale finds himself tracking down the mysterious and elusive Crowley. Posted for the @ineffablehusbandsbingo - square “Destruction of Books” ( @27dragons) / square “Food Fight” ( @tisfan) Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20579354

Professor Nutter stood up behind her podium, smiling in that vicious little way of hers that meant she was about to unleash something terrible. The collective mood of the students dropped as she held up a piece of paper. “There is a copy of this handout on the back table,” she said, gleeful. “I’ve matched you up for a group project, based on your questionnaires at the start of term. There will be no swapping partners, you will learn to work together, or you will not pass my class--” the group let out a groan, as one, like a forest of dying trees. “And complete the assignment. You will turn this in the last day of class before exams for thirty percent of your final grade. It was in the syllabus!”

Theories of Personality, psychology 405, had been billed as an easy A class. Be present, participate, pass.

The teacher last semester, Pulsifer, had given out sixty A’s, the highest percentage of any upper level class on campus.

That was last semester, apparently.

Nutter was… well, a Nutter.

(more below the cut)

Aziraphale stayed in his seat as the rest of the class made their way to the back of the class. Surely, whoever’d been assigned to work with him would make themselves known. And he really wanted to finish reading the chapter he’d started. Fascinating stuff, really, even if some of it was a bit, well, medieval in thinking.

He jotted a few notes as he read -- things to look up or cross-reference, things to specifically ask about during class, in case they were part of the exam, possible starting points for the project...

Speaking of which-- Aziraphale looked around. The class had emptied. No one had come up to him to introduce themselves as his partner. Sighing, Aziraphale tucked a marker into his textbook, gathered up his things, and went to look at the pairing sheet. He scanned down the list and found his name, right beside... A. J. Crowley.

Who in Hell was that?

He looked over the list again. He recognized all the names on it. Everyone had spoken up in class discussions, or asked questions, or (on a few occasions) been chided by Professor Nutter for being late. He could swear he’d never heard the name Crowley before.

“Er, Professor,” Aziraphale said cautiously. “Are you quite certain you didn’t mix someone from one of your other classes in here? Because--” He turned around to find that Professor Nutter was gone.

Blast. He was going to have to track this Crowley fellow down.

“Why I always gotta work wiff you?” someone demanded, just outside the door. Ligur was scowling at the sheet, and his apparent partner, Hastur, was smirking. “Always make me do all th’ work, you do.”

Well. At least Aziraphale hadn’t been partnered with Hastur. Aziraphale didn’t like to complain, but Hastur smelled. “Excuse me, gents,” he said, edging past them into the hallway. “Neither of you would happen to know who A. J. Crowley is, would you?”

“Uff, Crowley,” Hastur said. “I hate that flash bastard. Don’t trust him.”

“Yeah,” Ligur said. “He’s inna Hell-dorm. Cross th’ hall from Beez. You know Beez, right? Everyone knows Beez.”

Hell-dorm wasn’t actually called that, officially; the building was named after whichever alum had donated the most money in the last few years or so, which meant it had been rechristened about a dozen times, and no one bothered to remember what it was actually called. Everyone called it Hell because the air conditioning didn’t work in the summer, and worked all too well in the winter.

And, unfortunately, Aziraphale did know Beez, though luckily, by reputation only. Still, he imagined it wouldn’t be too hard to find. “Thank you,” he said, though he wasn’t sure they heard it -- they were already back to bickering about the project.

Aziraphale checked the time and decided there was no time like the present. He straightened his clothes and made his way across the campus to Hell-dorm, where a few inquiries of increasingly surly residents got him the direction to the floor where Beez lived.

Once there, it wasn’t hard to spot the door with “BEEZ” written on it -- not on a whiteboard or tacked-up sign, but directly on the door itself, in what Aziraphale was fairly certain was permanent marker. Below that, in a startlingly elegant hand, someone had written, Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

The opposite door was unmarred. And unlabeled. No board, no notes, no posted schedule, no name, no decor, no posters in questionable taste. Nothing, no hint as to the character of the person within. Just a door.

Well. There was nothing for it, really. Aziraphale brushed a few wrinkles out of his sweater and knocked smartly.

For a long moment, there was no sound at all, and then-- thud, whump -- someone rolled off the bed and hit the floor like a load of wet laundry. A groan. And then more silence.

“Hello?” Aziraphale said. He rapped on the door again. “I’m looking for someone named A. J. Crowley?”

Another groan, then someone yelled, somewhat slurred, “go away, Beez, tol’ you I’m not lending you any money.” 

The door opened suddenly and Aziraphale blinked at what was a very… green room behind the man. “You’re not Beez,” he said. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone quite so very un-Beezlike in my entire life. What do you want, angel?”

“What?” Aziraphale looked around, but the hallway behind him was entirely deserted. “Are you Crowley?”

“Who’s asking?” Crowley, if that was Crowley, was tall and lanky, dressed all in black except for a shock of red hair. He wore sunglasses, little round, deeply black ones that didn’t show a hint of his eyes, and he had cheekbones sharp enough to cut paper. He stood in a way that reminded Aziraphale -- in no way that he could actually put words to -- of a snake.

“Oh, yes, quite,” Aziraphale stammered. He shuffled the books in his arms around until he could offer a hand. “Aziraphale. I’m your partner for the project for Professor Nutter’s class.”

Crowley actually lowered his sunglasses to peer at Aziraphale over the rims. His eyes were a shade of brown so pale they could be deemed yellow instead. “What? Agnes gave us partners for a project?” He said this in a deeply aggrieved voice. “What project, oh, bother, you’d better come in then.”

Aziraphale was not, perhaps, the most fastidious student on campus, but his room was at least clean.

Crowley’s room, on the other hand, was spotless. Pristine. Dustless. And filled from the floor to the rafters with thick, luxurious plant-life, living in beautiful, matching pots. There were custom lighting tracks set up to give the plants everything they needed in the way of sunlight, and the whole room smelled of sweet earth and green, growing things.

Crowley grabbed an apple from a fruit bowl on a side table and took a bite. “Apple?” he offered the bowl to Aziraphale.

“Oh, thank you,” Aziraphale said, pleased. Breakfast seemed like a distant memory by this point in the morning. A little nosh would be just the thing. He picked out one of the fruits, heavy with juice and lusciously dark red. “This really is something,” he said, gesturing at all the plants. “Simply lovely. Quite the green thumb you must have.” He bent close to examine the flower buds on the nearest specimen.

“I talk to them,” Crowley said. “They don’t like to disappoint me. What’s this nonsense, then, about a project? Agnes really gave me a project? She loves me, why would she do that?”

“I can’t see how she’d have any opinion about you at all,” Aziraphale said, rather tartly, “as I’m quite certain you’ve not been to a single class all semester.” He certainly would have remembered seeing someone as striking as Crowley before. “Have you even cracked the book?”

“Which one?” Crowley asked. He was slinking around the room, examining all his plants and checking the moisture levels of the soil. “Hand me my mister, would you, angel?”

Aziraphale looked around and spotted the mister, though he had to put his stack of books down in order to have a hand free for it. He dropped them on what he presumed was Crowley’s bed, then handed over the mister. “Prophecy of Personality,” he said, waving at it where it was on top of his stack. “The textbook. For the class you haven’t been attending!”

“Oh, that book,” Crowley said. “Yeah, uh, I think I might have burned it.”

“You what?” Aziraphale screeched. He snatched his books back up off Crowley’s bed, dropping the apple to clutch them close lest this apparent demon start setting fire to them, too.

“It was, you know, a dorm-thing,” Crowley said. “Beez’s idea. We had a big bonfire and, well, there was quite a lot of wine involved. Truly, epic amounts of wine.” Crowley waved his hand around aimlessly, like someone had replaced all the bones in his wrist with overcooked pasta. “I don’t really remember.”

“Your dorm had a book burning and you don’t really remember?” Azirpahale demanded. He looked around, somewhat wildly. He couldn’t stay in this place, in this hell, for one second longer. He pulled the project handout out of the book and shoved it at Crowley. “Here. This is the project. Read it. And then come to my room -- I’m in Heaven dorm -- this afternoon, at four.”

“Of course you are,” Crowley drawled. “Am I allowed… I mean, inviting me to your room, that’s very forward.”

“To work on the project,” Aziraphale snapped, feeling heat climbing up under his collar. “Unless you’d rather meet at the library.”

“No, no, the library is for people who are worried about their grades,” Crowley said. “I wouldn’t be caught dead at the library. Your room. Four o’clock. I’ll bring take away. Unless I fall asleep.”

Aziraphale scowled and gathered his things back up. “Don’t,” he said icily, “fall asleep.”

                                                           ***

Crowley watched, somewhat stunned, as the ethereal figure scrambled for the door, leaving the room in a cloud of stern disapproval.

“Well, that went over like a lead balloon,” he said, rubbing at his face. He flipped the project assignment sheet over a few times and read it. Nothing on the hand out indicated that Professor Nutter was a complete lunatic, brought in at the last minute to replace Professor Pulsifer, who had, indeed, been cheating on his wife, the Dean of Student Affairs, and who had made a hasty escape from the collegiate life and his marital strife by moving with his mistress to Surrey. Or that Nutter had made it her personal goal to make Crowley have to actually do some work. 

Didn’t make either of those things less true, mind.

What it did say was that they’d have to do several sets of interviews with student volunteers, to test their hypothesis about personality cues. And then write up a monograph for it. Ug. 

The apple that Aziraphale hadn’t eaten was laying on the floor, bright and shiny, and bruised on one side from where he’d dropped it. Crowley bent to pick it up. “What are you lookin’ at?” he accused his plants.

He eyed the apple for a long moment, the very faint imprints of Aziraphale’s teeth where they’d just started to pierce the skin.

Crowley took a bite, right there. Guess he’d go up to Heaven ‘round four and see what all the fuss was about.

But first. Nap. Mornings were, he decided, some sort of Divinely inspired curse, and should be outlawed almost immediately, if not sooner. He fell back into bed and got up a few hours later, much more coherent and refreshed.

Contrary to Aziraphale’s belief, Crowley had attended every single one of Agnes Nutter’s classes. He just did it in the afternoon instead. She taught the same material at both classes, and it wasn’t difficult to slouch around in the back and catch up on the notes. He’d sit the test at the proper time, but the less Crowley had to be awake in the morning, the happier everyone was going to be.

He placed an order by telephone with the curry-shop just off campus, gathered his notes from class -- he did not, however, grab his copy of the book, which was not burned, but then he couldn’t remember which of his class texts had been deposited on the blaze, but there was no point in giving Aziraphale the satisfaction -- and headed over to Heaven.

There was something more than a little sterile and creepy about Heaven dorm, with its white paint and chrome accents. It looked like a hospital. Or a morgue. Cold and crisp and utterly devoid of sentiment.

“Oi,” Crowley barked at one of the students in the front lounge. “Where’s Aziraphale?”

They looked up, patted perfectly coiffed hair as if to smooth fly aways that weren’t there. Michael. Great. Crowley had swimming class with Michael. Fastidious git. “Down the hall.”

“Thanks. Michael. Dude,” Crowley said, giving Michael finger guns. Michael hated being called dude.

Crowley shifted his burdens, getting the curry out front. A peace offering, of sorts. Walked down the hall and, after frowning at the door, kicked it a few times.

The door opened a moment later to reveal Aziraphale, scowling. A scowl shouldn’t look so adorable on anyone, but there it was. Utterly adorable. “You needn’t bang when a simple knock would-- Oh.” He hesitated, seeing how full Crowley’s arms were. “Well, I suppose it couldn’t have been helped.” He stepped aside, waving Crowley in.

Aziraphale’s room wasn’t empty and sterile like the halls of Heaven. It was filled, top to bottom and side to side, with books. Every sort of book, at every possible age. Crowley wouldn’t have been surprised to find a set of scrolls in there, somewhere, tucked behind the dimestore paperbacks, perhaps. Even the bed was covered with books.

Aziraphale took the containers of curry from Crowley’s hands and then looked around, frowning slightly as he tried to figure out where to set it down. He finally shuffled a few stacks around to make a space on what was, probably, a table or a desk of some sort. “There we are.”

Crowley twitched as Aziraphale came closer. “Are you wearing cologne?” What sort of student was this guy, dressed in pristine, cream colored slacks, wingtip shoes, an embroidered vest, with a blessed pocket watch chain curving neatly across a soft belly. 

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale said, in a tone that suggested Crowley was the odd one for even asking. “It’s new, actually. My barber recommended it.”

He couldn’t quite resist, most students smelled like stale food and forgotten antiperspirant and cheap scented spritzers. He leaned in, nose going a few inches from Aziraphale’s throat. “Nice,” he growled. “I’ll take two.” He wasn’t even quite sure if he meant two bottles of cologne, or two of Aziraphale.

Aziraphale backed up half a step, eyes widening a little. “Ah, yes, well,” he stammered, a faint blush rising out of his collar. “Perhaps we’d better get on with the project.”

“Food first,” Crowley countered, “dont’ want to get sauce on your books. Read through th’ notes today--” He opened the take away box, looked down at his bowl of curry and rice and sauce and shoveled a mouthful before going on to suggest a handful of potential project topics.

Aziraphale huffed a little and produced from somewhere a pair of napkins. Not the paper napkins that had come with the takeaway, but actual cloth napkins. He handed one to Crowley with a somewhat stern look, then spread the other across his lap before picking up the second box.

“Oh!” he said, suddenly delighted, a smile blooming on his face that was as bright as the sun. “My favorite! How did you guess?” He picked up the fork and scooped up a bite, somehow managing to avoid dripping curry sauce anywhere and putting it into his mouth without getting any on his lips. It was a damned miracle, that was. He still picked up his napkin and blotted his mouth as he chewed. “This is quite good,” he said. “Where did you get it?”

There were words out there. Words, nouns, verbs, adjectives. Punctuation, sometimes, even. All of them vacated Crowley’s head and went swirling off to Alpha Centauri. He couldn’t have put a coherent sentence together if someone’d held a sword to his throat. He could only stare and watch and deal with a squirmy, heated knot of something in his belly, rather lower than his navel, and might not even count as his stomach at all.

The flittering little shy glances, the way Aziraphale’s whole face radiated joy and pleasure and appreciation.

All for a bowl of take away curry.

“Uh…” Crowley managed. He gestured, hand spread, out there somewhere.

Aziraphale’s smile dimmed just a little, just enough to no longer be blinding. “Oh, yes, sorry, I shouldn’t ask questions while you’re trying to eat.” He took another dainty bite of his own. “So, for our project, I was thinking we--”

“Card! On th’ bag,” Crowley burst, struggling to find a few words. “The curry cart. Good place, my favorite.” He cupped one hand under his bowl, balancing it neatly while he bent backward from his chair to snag the paper bag from the trash.

“Do be careful,” Aziraphale said. “I’d hate for you to fall and hurt yourself.” He took the bag as Crowley handed it over, though, and examined the card stapled to the top. “Lovely,” he pronounced it. “We’ll have to try it again, find out what’s best.”

Crowley sat up, brushing rice off his shirt. “I don’t fall, I just sort of… saunter vaguely downward.” That something in his belly was twisting itself up in knots. We. Again. He didn’t think there were more lovely words in the entire universe. “Whatever you like, angel. Anywhere you want to go.” 

Aziraphale shifted a little in his seat. “Yes, well. As I was saying, about the project--”

Someone knocked on the door and then it opened to reveal a slightly older student, immaculately groomed and wearing -- was that a bespoke jacket? “Just a routine check,” he said. “I heard voices.”

“Ah, Gabriel,” Aziraphale said. “Yes, this is Crowley, my partner for Professor Nutter’s class. I imagine he’ll be around quite a bit for the rest of the semester.” He gave Crowley a tight, thin-lipped smile. “Gabriel is our R.A.”

Crowley could almost feel all the synapses in his brain going off at once. “You’re Gabriel? Oh, that’s… heard about you, mate. All good things.” Of course. Literally anyone who lived on Hell’s third circle knew about Gabriel. Beez had… well, Crowley couldn’t decide if it was a thing for Gabriel romantically, or a thing for Gabriel like wanting to cut his head off and stick it on a pig pole. Somehow, Crowley had pictured someone who was… less of a prissy little bastard, though.

“Well of course they’re all good things,” Gabriel said with a self-assured smile. He looked them over. “Is that curry? From off campus?”

“Nothing against the rules in that,” Aziraphale said.

“Perhaps not, but I wouldn’t want to soil my vessel with it,” Gabriel said disapprovingly.

“Your body is a temple, we can tell,” Crowley said, insincere and dripping with it. “Shoo, bzzz. We have work to do.” He waved one hand around, nearly knocking over a book. “We’re all fine here, surely you have the whole rest of the dorm to watch over.”

“Yes, quite,” Gabriel said, entirely missing Crowley’s sarcasm. “I’ll look in again later!” He waved and backed out of the room again.

Aziraphale sighed. “He means well, I’m sure.”

Means well? Means well? That was utter bollocks. “No, he means to be flaunting his authority.” He stretched the word out obscenely. Author-a-taaaaai.

“Well, better Gabriel than getting Her involved,” Aziraphale said, pointing upwards with a meaningful lift of the eyebrows. “You know. The dorm monitor.”

“I’m not entirely certain She exists,” Crowley muttered. “So, angel. Project. Let’s do this.” He scraped the last bit of his curry out of his bowl, tossed the bowl in the trash, and then his jacket in the other direction, landing neatly on a pile of books -- there was nowhere else for things to go, why on earth did Aziraphale need so many books. Surely he couldn’t possibly have read them all.

“Yes, let’s,” Aziraphale said, looking pleased again. He reached into a pile of books and brought out the class textbook, from which he withdrew a folded copy of the syllabus. “We’ll need to choose our subject group, and then our set of cues to interview for. Or perhaps we should do them in the other order.”

Crowley discovered another good side effect to having no text; he was constantly having to read over Aziraphale’s shoulder, or nudge him into pushing the book across both of their laps. He didn’t think he’d ever been quite so pleased to be part of a group project before. Aziraphale had really gorgeous handwriting, too, taking notes on their project so that Crowley didn’t have to.

His phone alarm chirped somewhat after seven and he hadn’t even realized that he’d been there for three hours. “Need t’ grab a bite to eat before my last class,” Crowley apologized. Then, as if it had just occurred to him, “want to have dinner with me?”

“Oh, that would be simply divine,” Aziraphale agreed brightly. “Where shall we go?”

“Just the commons,” Crowley said, trying not to wince as Aziraphale’s smile flattened a bit. “Can’t eat off campus all the time, otherwise, what’s a meal plan for? Besides, I have t’ run to astronomy, right after.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Aziraphael allowed. “Astronomy sounds interesting, at least.” He packed up his books. There was an ink smudge on the side of his face that was entirely too cute. “Very well, let us go and see what’s on offer that’s least likely to give us indigestion.”

They made an odd pair, strolling across campus. At least Crowley noticed more than half the student body turned to watch them pass. He wondered how he’d never seen Aziraphale before, the man had an aura about him that was like a gravity well made of light.

Crowley was not a gourmand of any sort; he liked fizzy drinks and greasy take-away, when he remembered to eat at all and not just talk through the entire meal to whoever happened to sit at his table.

And it was his table. He barely raised an eyebrow when the chattering female students who’d clumped there scattered like startled ducks. “Mister Crowley,” one of them exclaimed as he dumped his tray in front of where she’d been sitting and then waited until she vacated the spot.

“Sit down, angel, take a load off, those books look like they weigh as much as you do,” Crowley teased.

“Oh, hardly that much,” Aziraphale said, but he set his books down. “You didn’t have to run them off; we could have found somewhere else to sit.”

“Well, I didn’t have to, no, but it’s so much fun. And this is my spot,” Crowley said, sprawling on the bench. “Right here, my initials…” He traced his thumb over the groove in the wood, the pale color against the dark patina of age on the bench. “A. J. Crowley.”

Aziraphale looked slightly scandalized, but he reached over to rub the carving thoughtfully. “What does the A. J. stand for?”

“Anthony,” Crowley said. “The J’s… just a J. You know, it’s a thing.”

Crowley picked at his food, eating the tips off his chips, leaving the mushy middles on the plate. Took the crust off the top of his steak and kidney pie and sorted through the resulting mess trying to figure out if there was anything in there that had once even vaguely been near a cow.

Aziraphale picked at his dinner just as listlessly, though he’d managed to snag some fruit that looked half-decent, and he made consideringly pleased hums around his pudding. “So, astronomy, then? Is that your major?”

“Yeah,” Crowley said. “I like the stars. Beautiful nebulas. Makes all this--” he waved a hand around, indicating the commons, the college, the country, the whole miserable planet. “--seem a little unimportant. Which is the only thing that gets me through conversations with my mother.”

“Stars are nice,” Aziraphale said, somewhat diffidently. “I prefer literature, myself. All the different ways we have to express an idea or a feeling -- it’s fascinating!”

Crowley was just getting ready to launch into his favorite topic, how the entire universe had formed and that, however unlikely, it had made such a delightful person as the one sitting across the table from him, when-- ooff, something hit him, nearly knocking him out of his chair, more from surprise than anything else.

Another squishy thud and Aziraphale’s cream coloured jacket suddenly had a big, blue stain on it.

He looked over his shoulder at the stain in swiftly increasing dismay. “That’s not coming out,” he said, pouting. “My favorite coat! It’s ruined!”

Crowley reached over and ran a finger through the stain. “Blueberry pie,” he confirmed, then glanced around the room. He loaded a mushroom, some gravy and a bit of pie crust onto his fork and-- there. Davis, the economics major, talking in a low, conspiratorial voice with some of his fellows. “This is about to get nasty,” he predicted, and then launched the forkful of pie directly at Davis’s hair. 

“Oh dear,” Aziraphale said. He picked up his tray and held it up like a shield. “This is so juvenile, really!”

“That’s what makes it fun,” Crowley said, ducking a poorly aimed bit of baked cod. “Oh, look, it’s your R.A.” 

“What, where?” Aziraphale peeked over the rim of the tray. He spotted Gabriel just as the R.A. took an entire soft-serve ice cream cone to the face. Aziraphale coughed out a laugh and then quickly covered his mouth with his hand, his eyes still dancing.

A quick scan of the room, and he found Beez and their group of hangers-on. “Get ready to run, angel,” Crowley said. He moved, quick, lithe, and stealthy, snuck the bowl of treacle pudding from Beez’s table while they were occupied looking at something else and launched it at Gabriel, before flattening himself on the floor to crawl back over to Aziraphale.

“This way!” Aziraphale said, pointing. “We can sneak out the staff entrance!” He gestured for Crowley to go first and followed, holding that tray over Crowley’s head for protection.

They made it to the door, dodged around a confused caretaker, and found themselves outside in the courtyard, Crowley laughing so hard it was difficult to stay upright. “Well, that was exciting,” Crowley said, practically hanging off Aziraphale like a scarf.

Aziraphale was laughing, too, in that restrained sort of way that meant he was trying not to. “The looks on their faces,” he gasped. “Oh, that was wicked. We shouldn’t have done that.” He didn’t try to distance himself from Crowley, however.

“Of course we shouldn’t’ve,” Crowley said. “That’s what makes it delightful. Here, give me that--” He held out his hand. “Your coat. I’ll get it cleaned.” If nothing else, it would give him another excuse to visit, something not schoolwork-related.

“Really?” Aziraphale beamed up at him. “Thank you.” He shucked the coat and carefully folded it stain-inward before handing it carefully over. “Well. Delightful as that was, I believe you have class. And I have homework to attend to.”

“Sure,” Crowley said. “I’ll… see you around.” He watched as Aziraphale walked away, looking somehow even more delicious in his light blue shirt and the silken back of his vest displayed. It was… charming and adorable and… “Bugger,” Crowley said. “I’m in trouble.” He brought the jacket up to his nose, inhaling the scent of Aziraphale’s cologne. He was… desperately in trouble. And not just because he was going to be late for class.

[girlinthepictureframe]

The Briefest Kiss Part 14

P 14

Spring

After two days of no sleep, heavy home-improvement and -- generally speaking -- very little rest, Alex stood in front of a restaurant a few kilometers south of Sheffield and checked his reflection in the door’s glass. He’d worn one of his favorite leather jackets. He knew he’d promised Miles not to wear one when he knew his friend was in the vicinity, but tonight, Alex was a man on a mission.

A mission to find out whether Miles was in love with him or not.

He was determined.

And a bit scared.

The latter was the reason why is was almost midnight and Alex yet had to enter the restaurant, even though the party, audibly, was well on its way. One last deep breath and Alex pushed the door open, took confident strides and tried to find the one person he had come for. The prospect of seeing Miles made his heart beat irregularly fast and he was uncharacteristically nervous.

Seeing Miles was the most normal thing in the world. And yet, tonight, it felt like a huge event. Unlike this party, which had been sold to him as an actual event and even though it was loud and crowded, it really wasn’t much of anything. He took in the surroundings and felt underwhelmed.

He hadn’t even needed Victoria’s help in figuring out whose party it was and where it was held. He’d mentioned wanting to find out about it to his mother, who - lucky for him - knew everything and everyone and immediately let him know that it was today and that the guy celebrating his birthday was somebody called Jim who considered himself a rockstar by proxy.

This ominous Jim was telling everyone who couldn’t run fast enough that he was a friend of the Arctic Monkeys. That he’d toured with them. Even jammed with them on stage. Well, Alex might have spent a great portion of his rockstar life drunk or occupied, but he was pretty sure he would have remembered touring with some guy named Jim, especially inviting him on stage. That privilege was reserved for those who deserved to stand on that stage.

As Alex made his way across the surprisingly large restaurant, which had cleared out its tables to make room for dancing, he remembered something very important that he too often forgot. He was, indeed, a rockstar. And people recognized him.

“Oh my God, you’re Alex Turner!” some girl squealed at the sight of him. “Jim was right all along! You are friends!”

He was tempted to make up an elaborate lie and claim to be none more than a mere lookalike, but that would require effort and words and, really, he wasn’t in the mood for a prolonged conversation anyway. So he just went with it. “Yep, me and Jim. We go way back. Have you seen my friend Miles?”

“Miles Kane?” The girl laughed. “Oh he’s having the time of his life back there,” she told him and motioned towards the back of the restaurant. She leaned an inch towards him and he leaned an inch backwards. “He’s drunk, I think. Or drugs. Rockstars,” she shrugged. “Can we do a picture?”

“Later,” he lied and made his way towards the back. And there he was. Miles Kane. Dancing the Macarena with his bassist and some other people Alex didn’t recognize. One of them wore a shirt with the name ‘Jim’ printed on the front. He assumed that person was Jim. He spotted Victoria and walked up to her. When she noticed him, he could see the shock in her eyes.

“You? Here?”

“Hi, Vic.” Her attention immediately returned to Miles and when Alex spotted the concern in her eyes, he began to worry. “What’s happening there?”

“Uh…bit of a clusterfuck, I’m afraid.” She glanced at him sideways. “Miles sneezed a few times today. And you know him. He freaks out at the mere idea of getting a cold. So he took some cold medicine. Then, when we got to the hotel, he asked the guy behind the desk if they could get him some more cold medicine. They did. Turned out it was different cold medicine. Which,” she added with an eye-roll, “didn’t stop him from taking that as well. It wasn’t as bad as we feared. He even perked up, got funny and…well, then we got here and next time I saw him, he was holding on to an empty Margarita glass and suggested doing the chicken dance.”

Alex groaned. Typical Miles. Leave it to his favorite rockstar to get high on cold meds the night Alex wanted to talk about love and feelings! “How long has he been doing the Macarena?”

In that moment, the song began anew. Victoria sighed. “This will be the fifth time.”

“Okay. Time to put a stop to it.”

“Probably best,” she agreed. “I’m so ready to leave this party anyway.”

“Miles said this Jim-guy is your friend?”

“What? Are you kidding? That weirdo?” She looked insulted at the mere idea. “I have a few friends near Sheffield, which I had planned on visiting this week. Nathan was on his way to Manchester and Dom wanted to head to Leeds. Somebody mentioned this party. Miles jumped at the chance to go, because it gave him a reason to be near Sheffield, in case you showed up there! Poor fella misses you. Can’t you guys make up already? That way he can just go and visit you when he wants to see you? This whole pretense-shit is really annoying. Oh no!” She tugged on his arm and dragged him backwards. “Incoming! That’s him!”

“Jim with the Jim-shirt?” Alex scoffed. “Classy.”

“Alex, my friend,” exclaimed Jim and hugged Alex before he could run away. “I’d knew you show up! It’s been ages since we saw each other!”

“When was that?” asked Alex. “Remind me!” He was so very tempted to be rude and dismissive but he was really pushing his Karma lately and it would be mean to ruin this guy’s night just for the fun of it. Right? Alex endured. “Somebody said we played on the same stage once?”

“Yes!” Jim laughed. “I may have exaggerated. You don’t remember me, do you? We went to high school together! I sat next to you in Biology!”

“Biology?” Alex’s ears perked up. “Hey, you don’t happen to remember if I ever scribbled anything important into my book, do you?”

Jim gave him a weird look. “What?”

Stellar achievement, Turner! Alex was silently laughing at himself. This guy had to wear a shirt with his name on it just so people at his own birthday party would know who he was and yet, somehow, Alex ended up looking like the idiot.

“He’s headed for the bar again,” said Victoria.

Alex snapped out of it. “Great party, man! But I gotta go. Happy Birthday!” Then he followed her to the bar, where Miles was in the middle of ordering.

“Miles!”

Miles turned around, saw Alex and smiled bashfully. The barman was ignored and Miles beelined towards Alex, wrapped both arms around him and squeezed all the air out of his lungs. It felt so bloody good! Alex returned the hug, all but bruised his friend’s ribs by the sheer force of it. “You okay?” he asked hesitantly.

“Because we’re hugging?” wondered Miles.

“No!” Alex chuckled. He leaned back and felt Victoria tap his shoulder.

“All yours now,” she smiled. “I’m out. Night, guys! Oh, by the way, he’s staying at the Meadow Hotel, across the street.” Then she was gone.

Alex let go of Miles and grabbed his hand. “Let’s go, Miles. Party is over.”

“No,” complained Miles and tugged Alex back. For someone who was completely drunk and felt feverish, Miles had surprising amounts of strengths left and Alex had to put in some effort to drag him with him.

“Miles, come on. You might have fever!” Alex had felt the heat coming from him when they had hugged. “Trust me, you need rest.”

“I don’t want to be alone right now,” he pouted.

“I’ll stay with you,” promised Alex. As if would leave him alone in this state! And what a wonderful excuse to remain near to him, chimed a sneaky little voice in his head. Bad, Alex! He admonished himself. “Bad!”

“What’s bad?” asked Miles.

Alex cursed. “Nothing. Let’s go, Mi.”

It took a lot of tugging and willpower, but somehow Alex managed to walk with Miles across a startlingly busy street, managed to make it up the stairs with him in tow, because the little hotel had no elevator, and at long last succeeded in fishing the key out of Miles’ pants’ pocket without actually touching him too much. The last part had been the hardest bit.

“Now what?” Miles dropped onto the bed and laid back, arms stretched out. “I’m thirsty, I’m bored and that was a great party you dragged me away from!”

“It was not,” countered Alex with an eye roll as he got rid of his leather jacket.

Miles saw it and pointed a finger at him accusingly. “Leather! You little shit, you’re wearing your leather jacket!”

Well, yes. For a reason! But Miles wouldn’t understand that reason at the moment! So Alex got defensive, instead. “It was cold outside. You’re wearing your old cologne!” He’d smelled it on him when they had hugged. The things it made him want to do… Alex shivered.

“I didn’t know you’d show up! Are you cold? Oh no, did you catch the cold from me?” His face faltered. “We shouldn’t have touched. It’s dangerous when we do that. We either kiss, have sex or get sick! It always ends up being awful!” Miles sighed deeply, apparently greatly disturbed by the fact that life was such a rude companion.

Alex had to laugh. “Oh stop it! All is well. Besides, I honestly wouldn’t describe the sex and the kissing as awful. Quite the opposite,” he said as he grabbed a glass and poured water into it. He handed it to Miles. “Drink that.”

Miles took the glass but stared at Alex with his big, round eyes. He seemed stunned. “You liked the sex?”

Alex mentally cursed himself. “Well,” he admitted, “I never said I didn’t, did I?”

“Guess not,” allowed Miles, still looking confounded.

Trying to change the topic, Alex grabbed a shirt from Miles’ bag and tossed it at him. “Strip and put that on. And then climb into bed.” He walked up to him and gently placed a hand against Miles’ forehead. “You’re hot.”

Miles grinned. “I know. It’s why I wore the suit. Makes me look much taller and fitter than I am.”

“I meant feverish, Miles.” Alex was back to laughing. “You have a slight fever.” He leaned down, kissed his forehead and then made his way to the window to open it. “And you don’t need the suit to look tall and fit. You are tall and fit.”

Trying and failing to undo his tie, Miles stopped mid-struggle. “What’s with you? You’re all flirty tonight. It’s not fair. I’m sick and defenseless! And what if I don’t want to defend myself against you? I couldn’t even kiss you if I wanted to, cause I’m bloody sick!” He was pouting again. “I hate being sick!”

“I know you do.” Alex took pity on him. He looked so helpless and miserable. He took the ends of the tie out of Miles’ hands and removed the whole thing from his neck. When Alex began to undo the buttons of Miles’ shirt, meticulously, one by one, he felt his own temperature beginning to rise. There was no torture greater than to be this close, this intimate, and be unable to take this where he so desperately wanted to take it. “Up,” he croaked, his throat dry, his hands shaky.

Miles stood up and watched as Alex pulled the shirt out of his pants. While Alex fought with the buttons and his fast-slipping control, Miles’ hands went to his own belt. Alex grinned when he saw it. “You’re wearing my belt again.” Their foreheads were touching now and he felt Miles nodding softly.

“I like wearing it.”

“It’s a very nice belt,” agreed Alex.

“I like it cause it’s your belt,” whispered Miles.

When the last button was undone, Alex took a large step back. Miles dropped back to the bed and looked hazy. Alex certainly shared that feeling. One more bloody button and he’d have lost it entirely. “I’ll be…” He motioned towards the bathroom and hurried there. The air in there felt much cooler than in the other room. Wherever Miles was, it was always hot and sticky and bit foggy, too.

Alex stared at his reflection in the mirror. Miles is sick, he scolded himself. Get a grip!

“I’m underneath the covers,” called Miles. “You can come back now!”

“That’s not…” Alex returned to Miles’ bedside. “I didn’t…”

“It’s okay,” assured Miles, his voice low and hoarse. “I would have bolted. But the room was spinning and I got dizzy. You always do that to me. You were right, you know?” Miles smiled more than a little loopy. “I do need rest. I feel exhausted. Will you stay with me? Please.”

He was so bloody adorable when looked at him with that helpless expression. Alex nodded. Unable and unwilling to say no. “Of course.” He walked around the back and laid on top of the covers, to make sure that there was a very real, very efficient barrier between them – a thought that made him laugh. Miles would understand the humor of it. Miles turned to face the window, tugged one of Alex’s arms around him and Alex made no move to fight it. Instead, he scooted closer, ignored the gnawing voice in the back of his head that snootily bedeviled what he was doing, and placed his cheek against that of Miles. But not before pressing a quick kiss to it. “Try to sleep,” hushed Alex and closed his eyes as well.

When he woke up a few hours later, he felt exceptionally well rested and wonderfully content. The air was fresh and clean, the sun had already risen and Miles was half on top of him, face buried in the crook of his neck, snoring softly. His friend no longer felt feverish, which relaxed Alex even more. Holding him in place with one arm, Alex reached for his phone with the other. A bunch of unread messages, some missed calls. But nothing of importance. He put it away, rested his head against Miles’ and closed his eyes again. The world could wait a few more hours.

Miles on the other hand…well, he decided to wake up instead.

“Why are we sleeping in the same bed,” he murmured against Alex’s neck, disrupting that magnificent silence he’d enjoyed so much a moment ago.

Alex opened his eyes and prepared for impact. “You were sick, high and needy for contact. I’m weak,” he deadpanned, “I missed you, and I’m not awake enough to have yet another discussion about boundaries. Go back to sleep!” He kept his arm around him, refusing to let go.

Lucky for him, Miles made no effort to detach. “I was high? What did I take?”

“Cold meds and liquor. The good stuff.”

Miles groaned against Alex’s neck, the soft vibrations of it in return made Alex groan because that sound woke a part of him that had, until now, slumbered peacefully. And it immediately craved for attention. “How’s your cold?” asked Alex, trying to ignore his increasing state of arousal.

Miles swallowed, then breathed deeply through his nose, and finally smiled. “Better. Gone, I think.”

“Perfect. ‘Cause there are a few things you and I need to discuss.”

“Sleeping arrangements?”

“Something like that.” Alex gathered all of his resolve and moved ahead. “I told you on the phone the other day that I had that weird thought that I couldn’t really figure out or make sense of. But I could. Finally. However, I don’t know if I made the right sense of it…you know?”

“No,” admitted Miles, surprising Alex when he curled himself deeper into his arms. “Do we have to discuss this now, Al?” He sounded vastly uninterested in having any kind of conversation. Instead, his nose dug deeper into the curve where Alex’s jaw ended and his throat began.

“Miles,” he whined, “what are you doing?” He wasn’t opposed to what he was doing. But he wanted to talk first. He needed to know if he was reading the whole situation right. He needed to know for certain whether or not Miles was in love with him. If the answer was yes, then they could have sex. All the sex in the world. The whole day. And night. Every day and every night. He’d love that very much. But Alex needed to talk first! His head felt close to exploding!

But Miles didn’t know any of that as he placed a featherlight kiss on Alex’s jaw. “I’m doing a bad thing,” whispered Miles, licking the spot that he’d just kissed. “A very bad thing. Do you want me to stop?”

Yes! “No…” His head rolled back, giving Miles more space. And boy, did he make use of that! “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop!” Fisting his fingers in Miles’ hair, Alex moaned loudly. “Feels so good!” He closed his eyes, wet his lips, and when Miles bit his earlobe, Alex arched against him. “Baby, don’t stop!”

Miles bit him again, teasing the last bit of reluctance right out of him. “First time you called me baby,” he breathed into Alex’s ear. “Say it again.”

“Baby.” Alex was melting on the spot.

Miles became more brazen, rolled on top of him, tried to get closer, but he was struggling. Something was in his way. “What the—” Grabbing the edge of the very annoying comforter and trying to push it away, Miles became impatient. “Why are you on top of this thing?” He grumbled, bothered.

It allowed Alex a chance to take a breath and assess what was happening. He snapped out of his aroused stupor, placed a hand against Miles’ chest and pushed him off of him. “Get back, you! Bad Miles!” God, that was close! If it weren’t for the comforter, who knows what they’d be doing right now! Well, he had a pretty good idea what they’d be doing right now. So had Miles, apparently, who had the guts to look rejected and angry. “Oh I could strangle you right now!”

“What? Fuck, Alex! I thought you liked it!”

“I did! That’s not the fucking point!” Alex climbed out of bed, completely ignoring the fact that he was sporting some serious wood. Anger was overcoming him. His blood pressure was rising. Being sexually frustrated made it all that much worse. “I had to listen to you over and over again telling me that we need to stay away from each other and suddenly here you are, mauling me! I had to endure weeks of separation because you were the one who wanted space and distance! You all but accused of seducing you and here you are, bloody nibbling on my earlobe! I spent the night on top of what I can only assume is a very warm comforter and it was a cold night! I was freezing for the sake of our friendship! Then I tell you I want to talk to you and instead of listening, you get all horny!” Alex was pacing up and down the room, venting, when Miles held up the comforter. “What are you doing?”

“You said you were freezing tonight. I’m offering you some warmth.” Miles was dragging his teeth along the corner of his bottom lip. Guilt was written all over his face. “I promise I’ll stay on my side and not touch you. And I’ll listen to every word you want to say. Will you please come back to bed?”

Alex closed his eyes. He buried his face in his hands. At some point he’d have to figure out a way to say no to him. But not today. He walked to the bed and climbed back into it. It was nice and warm. It also smelled of Miles, which made talking to him that much more complicated. Rolling to his side, propping his head up on one arm, Alex watched him for a moment. “What happened to your boundaries?” he asked with a much softer voice.

Miles lowered his eyes. “I haven’t seen you in weeks. I’m weak, too. I missed you just as much. And I fucking want you,” he blurted out, rolling on his back and squeezing his eyes shut. He drove his hands through his hair, disgruntled and unsatisfied. “You have no idea how much!”

Oh, he had a pretty good idea of it, actually. Alex cursed under his breath, took a hold of his friend’s shirt and roughly pulled Miles against him as he climbed on top of him. “Feel me,” demanded Alex as he pushed himself against Miles. “Feel how hard I am for you?” He took Miles’ lips in a bruising kiss. “That’s how much I want you. Every day. All the time.” Another kiss. His tongue plunged deeply into Miles’ mouth. “I want to fight it, but I can’t!”

“Me neither,” whispered his friend, digging his nails into Alex’s ass, bringing him impossibly close. “It’s too strong.” Miles kissed Alex forcefully. “It’s all I can think about.” Tongues were tangling. “Day and night.” They were breathing hard, fully rubbing against one another, frantically seeking more. “What happened to talking,” asked Miles with a heady grin, his voice husky.

“Fuck talking,” declared Alex.

“Fuck me,” said Miles.

Alex stared into his eyes. Miles leaned up, placed a provocative kiss on his lips, and smiled at him in such a trusting, loving manner that Alex’s heart almost stopped beating. “Make me yours,” urged Miles.

Those words! Alex’s eyes began to flutter. He leaned down, kissed him hard and drowned completely.

Until his phone rang. Miles chuckled against Alex’s lips, unwilling to let go. Two sets of hands fumbled around, trying to find it. “Bloody thing,” muttered Miles, simultaneously leaving marks on Alex’s throat and struggling to get hold of that phone. “Here!” He grabbed it, pulled it from underneath some pillow and smiled victoriously. Until saw the name of the caller.

Alex shut the phone off without looking, tossed it across the room and went back to Miles’ soft, pliant lips, only to find them hard and unwelcoming. He let up. “What?”

Now it was Miles’ turn to shove Alex off of him. “That was your girlfriend,” he let his friend now. “She’s probably worried about you. You should call her back.”

Out of breath, out of words, and covered by a comforter that no longer offered warmth but rather felt like the lid of a coffin, Alex closed his eyes, then let out a loud and frustrated groan. “Fuck!” His mood took a nosedive into the deep end. “FUCK!”

“You should go,” suggested Miles somberly as he reached for the shirt that Alex had somehow stripped off of him.

“Miles, no! I’m not leaving now!”

“So stay. I’ll go.”

Alex sat up, reached for Miles’ shoulder and held him back. “No! Listen to me! Damn it, Miles…this whole thing, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this! This isn’t what I came for! I swear on anything that you want me to that I had honest intentions! I came to talk. I missed you, that part is true! I wanted to see you and…” He still tugged on his shoulder. “Would you please look at me?”

When Miles did, it broke Alex’s heart. He looked so hurt. His vibrant and shiny eyes had turned dull and empty. To know that he was the reason for that made Alex feel worse than he ever had. “Baby—”

“Don’t!” Yelled Miles and shot off the bed, away from him. “Don’t you fucking dare call me that.”

“Okay. Okay,” promised Alex. He sorted his next words in his head. What was he trying to say? Should he just blurt out that he loved him? Would he even believe him? Should he ask Miles about his night with his ex? Was it any of his business? Did it have anything to do with this? Should he explain to Miles why he was still with Louise? Wouldn’t that make him lose all respect for him?

“Is there anything you want to tell me or can I leave?” asked Miles tiredly, disappointedly, by now wearing pants and shoes.

Alex snapped out of his thoughts. “Are you and Suki back together?”

Miles’ eyes widened. Then they turned away from him. “I’m leaving now. Don’t call me.”

“Shit, Miles!” Alex hurried after him. “Don’t! I didn’t mean to ask it.” Fuck, why had he asked it? He hadn’t believed that Miles’ eyes could turn even colder. “Miles!”

Bag in hand, Miles tossed Alex one last disillusioned look and then walked out of the room and let the door fall shut.

Alex dropped back onto the bed. He’d never felt so powerless, so dumb and so lonely. “But I love you, Miles.”

Two weeks later

“Say that again,” demanded Matt and placed his beer away. The Monkeys were all in Los Angeles, sitting in Matt’s backyard, enjoying burgers and fries. Until Alex had decided to drop a bombshell on them, that was. Now they just sat in awe. “You broke up with her?”

“Two weeks ago,” stressed Alex. “I’ve been meaning to tell you guys. But I’ve lost all appreciation for phones, little though I had for those to begin with. I’m not getting another hair cut,” he added, well aware of the fact that his coif was a constant topic of discussion amongst his friends. “I’m not heartbroken. I’m not lonely, or depressed because of it. It just had to be done. She’ll remain at my house in France until the end of the month and then, hopefully, we’ll be done with one another. I take all the blame. She was kind, and understanding, and tossed none more than two Prada bags and a pair of spiky boots at me.”

As his band-mates laughed, Alex nodded. “Let it all out. I deserve it.”

Jamie grabbed some fries and ate them. “Why’d you end it?”

“I don’t love her,” stated Alex and admitted what was rolling off his lips much easier these days. “I’m in love with Miles.”

Jamie spit the fries out again, coughing wildly. “I’m sorry, what?”

Nick slapped Jamie’s back, trying to help him while Matt succumbed to deep, roaring laughter. “Fucking finally,” the drummer rejoiced. “I thought you’d never get there!”

Ignoring the startled looks from Jamie and Nick, Alex faced Matt. “What?”

“Oh, come on,” said Matt, still grinning. “Back on tour, on the bus, my bunk wasn’t that far away from yours. You’ve had some pretty noisy dreams about him. So you’re dating now? Or are you skipping that dating nonsense and head straight into marriage?”

Huh. Interesting, thought Alex, as he pondered Matt’s question. He really wasn’t into the concept of marriage. Never had been. But spending the rest of his life with Miles? He sure liked that idea. There was only one problem. “Miles isn’t speaking to me at the moment. Which, naturally, is my fault.”

“Details, man. You can’t drop something like that and be all vague about the rest.” Jamie gave up on food and was listening intently to Alex and his lack of explanations.

“What details do you want,” asked Alex, irritated.

“Start at the beginning,” suggested Nick.

And he did. A few cigarettes and some beers later, all the Monkeys knew that Alex and Miles had done it last fall, knew all about their struggles to carry on from there and now shared Alex’s opinion that he was a stupid little idiot for wanting to confess his love to Miles without breaking up with his girlfriend first.

“Now what?” asked Alex as he sat back, a bit tired from talking about his heart so much.

Nick tapped his finger against his chin. “You need a grand gesture. How about a love song?”

“Pff,” scoffed Matt. “A love song from Alex is the most boring gesture ever!”

“Excuse me?” Alex glared at him.

“You write love songs like other people peel potatoes. It’s nothing special when you do it. How about a hot air balloon ride? Or a romantic yacht trip?”

“How about a new drummer,” suggested Alex snidely. “Fellas, I appreciate the help. But Miles won’t even pick up the phone at the moment. I sincerely doubt he’ll join me on a yacht trip.”

“Should one of us talk to him?” suggested Jamie. “Or we invite him somewhere and you show up.”

“No. Thanks for trying to help. But this is my mess and I have to clean it up. Besides, it’ll teach me a lesson. I’m sure of it.” He wasn’t that sure of it, but that’s what his mother had told him when he’d spent the day after the Miles-fiasco with her. She had felt so bad for him that she’d actually gotten him out of doing even more garage work.

Something else occurred to him just then. Something he’d also noticed when talking to his parents. And Louise, now that he thought back to it. “Why isn’t anyone ever surprised about the fact that I’ve fallen in love with a man?”

“It’s not some random male model or whatever,” said Nick.

Matt agreed. “It’s Miles.”

“And the two of you…well, we all kind of saw it coming. We had just given up hope, cause you guys were taking so bloody long to get there,” added Jamie.

“That means,” reiterated Alex, needing as much reassurance of it as he could get, “that you also think that Miles has feelings for me?”

Matt was back to laughing, and Jamie and Nick just rolled their eyes. The drummer spoke up. “Listen up, dear and dumb friend of mine, that guy has it bad for you!”

Well, Matt had a good point – he was dumb! So Alex could only hope that he hadn’t ruined it all by being his usual self…

Spoiler for Part 15:

“You must be tripping right now,” concluded Alex, reached for the bottle of water on table next to him. And froze.

Miles noticed, saw what his friend’s eyes were focusing on and all laughter died.

“How did that get here?”

[qqueenofhades]

in the dark of the night

Happiest of birthdays to my dearest @prairiepirate, who wanted dramatic and slightly angsty de Clermont brothers, horses, guns, and general Dashingness. I hope this will hit the spot. Ahem.

Bavaria, 1754

The sun set an hour ago, the temperature is dropping, and there is a keen in the wind that, to Garcia Flynn de Clermont’s ears, sounds like snow. They are getting a late start as it is, since the godforsaken coach broke an axle again before they could leave the post inn, and hasty repairs had to be contrived before they continue. In Flynn’s opinion, they should have stayed here, much of a shithole as it is, and not risked going on in this weather. They are near the border with Austria, deep in the mountains, and the Prince-Elector of Bavaria has been at war with Austria almost interminably, even if they are supposedly presently at peace. There are wolves, and wild dark forests, and other things. But Maria Theresa demanded that they press on anyway, and here they are.

It is not the most glamorous job the de Clermont brothers have ever taken, working as hired bodyguards to escort wealthy young ladies to Salzburg. Flynn (he acquired the name in sixteenth-century Ireland, under the auspices of Grace O’Malley, the pirate queen, and he’s kept it) still isn’t entirely sure how they were landed with it. But Herr Gerhard Pfaffenburg is very old and very rich, insisted on the best for his daughter, who awaits some sort of splendidly titled marriage in Austria, and somehow wound up engaging a pair of immortal vampire knights to accompany her. They are being paid handsomely for it, to be sure, and Herr Pfaffenburg does not actually know that they are vampires. He is under the impression only that they are particularly good soldiers, and he is not wrong.

Flynn cocks an eye at the unfriendly black sky, urging his horse to a canter alongside the lumbering coach. Maria Theresa, like most young ladies of quality, is not used to hearing the word “no,” and it was to avoid any petulant fit that he, who often finds himself baffled by women anyway, agreed to set out. It’s not snowing yet, at least, and the coachmen keep a steady touch of the whip on the horses’ backs. The lanterns on the spars rock and jostle, and Flynn, who can see in the dark much better than they can, peers ahead in search of sudden obstacles. Then he circles around and gallops up to Gabriel, who is presently serving as rearguard. “This is a stupid idea.”

“You should have said that to her.” Gabriel’s teeth flash white in the night, his thick black hair artfully ruffled by the wind. He seems amused, as he knows that the entire reason they are out here is because Flynn was once more bested by a small and feisty woman, and apparently preferred to sit back and watch him struggle rather than step in and put his foot down. Technically it does not matter – nothing can happen to them, and a night of hard, rough, and unpleasant travel might teach Fräulein Pfaffenburg a few valuable lessons about listening to her guards. “Come on, darling, where is your sense of adventure?”

Flynn grumbles under his breath, checking that his flintlock musket is slung over his back, as if it would be anywhere else. They are clad in the belted blue frock coats of the Bavarian army, they have Maximilien-Joseph’s personal medal on their chests, and they are far more than a match for any lurking bandits or other persons of ill intent. If even robbers are out on a night like this, as any sensible people are indoors. The ground is turning steeper, one of the horses skids and whinnies in fear, and Flynn curses. “If she gets into some sort of accident, even if this was her idea, you know we’re the ones that will be blamed for it.”

“Indeed.” Sounding utterly unconcerned, Gabriel pushes his blowing hair out of his face, then kicks his horse to a gallop and vanishes into the darkness. Flynn spots a delicate hand pushing aside the curtains of the coach to watch. Despite (or perhaps because of) her imminent matrimony to stout old Graf Ludwig Otto Hoffmeister with his impeccable family connections and influence with the Hapsburgs, Maria Theresa is considerably taken with her extremely handsome and gothically romantic mercenary escort. If Gabriel said something about this being a fool idea, she’d probably flutter her eyelashes and call the whole thing off. Flynn is not going to be blamed for this. Thank you very much.

They manage to make another half an hour with no significant calamities, though they’re going slowly enough that, Flynn thinks pessimistically, they have only managed to wear out the horses for no real reason. He hopes vainly that Maria Theresa will decide that she is tired and wants to rest – surely she cannot be in haste to become Gräfin Hoffmeister any faster? Unless this is part of some secret plot that the young lady has contrived, in order to have herself kidnapped, or snatched by thieves, or anything else, to spirit herself away from an unwanted marriage and into some new life instead? Has Flynn, by trying to prohibit their onward journey for the night, nearly thrown her entire escape plan into jeopardy, or is he just far too suspicious, and they really should stop before they –

At that moment, somewhere off in the woods, he hears the crack of a gunshot. He can’t see who is shooting at them, or from where, but it spooks the horses, makes the coachmen look around and yell in alarm, and Gabriel reappears in a flash. He unslings, primes, and aims his musket all in the same motion, and firing expertly into the dark trees. This is all accomplished while riding at full gallop, which is unlikely to do anything to dim Maria Theresa’s hopeless fancy for him, and even Flynn has to admit, it is a nice bit of shooting. But then there is the sound of more shouting from up ahead, and he catches sight of some kind of log barrier built across the road (which out here is little more than a muddy track through the trees). With the coach going full tilt, they will crash into it, kill the horses and severely wound Maria Theresa, and whether or not this was the intention, Flynn cannot permit it to be carried out. There’s another shot, one of the coachmen screams and falls, and Flynn, noting that the horses are panicked, one coachman alone cannot stop them, and there are only seconds in which to prevent catastrophe, acts all at once.

He gallops alongside the out-of-control coach, kicks his boots out of the stirrups, and springs directly up out of the saddle and onto the running board with a swift vampiric leap. He grabs hold of the reins and wrestles six very strong and fast-moving Percherons to his will just in time to avoid a full-speed collision, as Gabriel reloads with his hands, rides with his knees, and shoots into the tangled trees. By the sounds of things, he’s hit at least one of them, and he yells at Flynn, “That way!”

Flynn jerks the reins to the right, they go on two wheels around the logs, and hit the ground on the far side and keep galloping. Flynn thinks it must have been a nest of local outlaws, lying in wait for anyone stupid enough to dare the road at night, and thinks of several very clever and pointed things to say to the Fräulein later. But because it seems that their woes for the evening are not over, they still have a few of them on their tail. Flynn cannot drive the coach and shoot at the same time, and the surviving coachman is goggling at him, having never seen one man fly off his horse and handle a coach-and-six all by himself – not to mention Gabriel’s preternaturally accurate marksmanship in pitch darkness. A dark suspicion is starting to form on his face, of which he will need to be disabused posthaste. Flynn has had enough of this night already, and does not need to avoid a staking on top of it. Bavarians are notably not very fond of vampires.

“Back there!” Flynn yells down to Gabriel, who once more expertly reloads the balky flintlock, aims, and fires. They work together this seamlessly, they know each other’s thoughts and movements before they make them, from centuries of fighting at each other’s sides, and indeed, Flynn barely needs to speak aloud. He has the better vantage point from his seat atop the coach, so he can just look down and from that alone, Gabriel will know where to shoot. But now there are the sounds of more guns, another register of shouting, and torches burst through the woods, carried by men in uniform who look official (and angry). The leader gallops right into the coach’s path and shouts in German, “Stop right there!”

Since the only other option is to run him over, and Flynn has a feeling that would not go over well with his friends, he wrestles the coach to a halt, the horses snorting, frothing, stamping, and ploughing, billows of steam jetting from their nostrils in the cold night. The leader is wearing a blue army jacket of his own, the golden epaulets on his shoulders mean that he is a captain, and they have the look of Prussians. What the hell? Prussians and Austrians hate each other, so a company sneaking around this late in the dark, near the Austrian border, cannot be up to any good. That, or –

“What are your names and what are you doing?” The captain, for all that he is up to the exact same sort of skullduggery, has apparently decided to act as if he is in the right and has nothing to answer for. He is tall, lean, and has a long dark ponytail, a dark shadow on his jaw and startlingly blue eyes, and although his German is flawless, Flynn can detect the hint of a familiar accent beneath. God, he hasn’t heard that since – since 1192, probably, washing up on Lokrum island with Richard and the rest of the shipwrecked crusaders, Ragusa with its mighty walls overlooking the Adriatic. He was born there in the sixth century, before he left for Gaul, and curiosity prickles at him. Is this man from Dalmatia too?

The national origin of the captain holding them up is, however, far from their most pressing concern. Flynn glares down at him. “We will thank you to let us pass. You have no authority here.”

Gabriel gallops up at the coach’s side, and the de Clermont brothers and the Prussians glare at each other. The captain does not seem intimidated. “The Kingdom of Prussia is the greatest sovereign authority in the German states,” he reminds them coolly. “We have every right to be here, and indeed, more than you. Your trim is Bavarian. Envoys of the Prince-Elector? If so, and your business is legitimate, then you may pass. But we have heard gunshots in these woods, and – ”

“Those were outlaws,” Flynn growls. “We did not start it. We are conducting a young lady of good breeding, Fräulein Maria Theresa Pfaffenburg, to her marriage with Graf Ludwig Hoffmeister in Salzburg. If you wish to make yourself useful, you can go look for the scum who shot at us. They have built a roadblock, just a few miles that way.”

The captain eyes him suspiciously, finally snaps orders to a few of his men, and they gallop out of sight, as if to verify the truth of his story. Then the coach door cracks open an inch, and Maria Theresa – sounding rather terrified, but not overwrought, and Flynn has to grudgingly admire her nerve – peers out. “What is – what is going on?”

“You would be Fräulein Pfaffenburg?” The captain considers, then dismounts. His spurs click as he strides toward her. “Your… escorts have said you are bound to Salzburg. Is that so?”

“Yes.” Maria Theresa bites her lip. “If there is difficulty, please do not blame them. I was the one who insisted we press on late into the night.”

The captain considers her with those intent blue eyes. Not a man who misses much, this one, and Flynn finds himself oddly intrigued by him, even in the midst of the danger and general inconvenience that he is causing them. “Why is that, my lady?”

Maria Theresa flushes. “I was…” She glances guiltily at Flynn and Gabriel. “The marriage that awaits me, it was… I thought that perhaps if something happened to us, I would not have to… he is an old man. Rich. My father’s choice. But I had heard no good report of his kindness or his character, and… it was foolish of me. I am sorry.”

Flynn has just enough time to feel grimly vindicated that she did want something of this nature to happen, and he and Gabriel exchange eyebrow-raised looks. For his part, the captain frowns thoughtfully. It has apparently not escaped his attention that if Maria Theresa’s Austrian marriage was thwarted, it would be useful for the Prussians, and that they do not necessarily have a strategic interest in merely conducting her on and hand-delivering her to mean old Graf Hoffmeister. Then he says, “That was audacious of you, my lady, if very foolish. You could have gotten your men killed as well. It seems to have already cost you one of your coachmen.” His eyes flick to Flynn. “You can drive a team of six by yourself, sir?”

“Yes.” Flynn stares back at him.

“You do not look like a stableman, or a groomsman.” The captain considers, then turns to Maria Theresa. “Very well. While I do not know if it should be customary to reward such filial delinquency, I can see you safe to King Frederick’s court, and once you are there, it would be difficult for either your father or Graf Hoffmeister to retrieve you. If, of course, it is truly what you wish to do.”

“Yes,” Maria Theresa says fervently. “Oh, yes, yes, please.”

The surviving coachman starts to make a noise of protest, there is a shocked whimper that must come from Maria Theresa’s maid, and it is felt best for everyone that they do not have the chance to interfere. While the Prussians search the coach to make sure that they are who they say, Flynn and Gabriel discreetly remove the coachman and the maid, tie them to a tree, and sit there watching them, daring them to say a word. This has been one of the more eventful nights of the brothers’ lives, which is rather something when you consider how much of it there has been, and Gabriel finally slings an arm around Flynn’s shoulders. “You know that if we come back without his daughter and an apologetic tale that we accidentally let her get abducted by some passing Prussians, Herr Pfaffenburg is going to be very angry. He is not going to pay us, and he may be inclined to express his displeasure in other ways. We might have to find a new occupation.”

“I wasn’t aware we were planning to do this again anyway,” Flynn grumbles. “Tell me. Did you know about this?”

Gabriel shrugs. “Not the details. But I had a sense that the good Fräulein was unhappy with her matrimonial arrangements, and should be granted a chance to thwart them, if it was at all possible. So.” He shrugs again. “Truly, it worked out for everyone.”

“Oh God.” Flynn rubs his face. “Tell me you didn’t sleep with her.”

Gabriel gives him an insulted stare. “You may have my word,” he says, “that Maria Theresa will leave our custody as virginal as when she entered it. That was a neat bit of driving back there, Garcia. If you hadn’t missed those logs – ”

“Aye, well.” Flynn stretches out his long legs with a sigh, feeling as if even he may need a few days to recover from this. “It was good shooting from you.”

Gabriel gives him a soft, crooked smile, and they sit there in companionable silence until the search of the coach is finished, the Prussians have apparently been convinced of their bona fides, and they pick up the trussed coachman and the maid like a brace of chickens and carry them back. It is, as all sensible people argued long ago, too late to proceed for the night, so a makeshift camp is pitched. Maria Theresa and the maid sleep in the coach, and the Prussians make a fire and invite Gabriel and Garcia to share their drink and tobacco. The men sent to investigate the roadblock return with a pair of dead outlaws dragged behind their horses, and the captain raises an eyebrow. “So you were telling the truth. I can say, I wasn’t entirely sure.”

“Why else would we be out here?” Gabriel asks innocently, making Flynn glare at him; he is not intending to let Gabriel forget for a while that he got them into this. “But aye, we are men of honor. I am Gabriel de Clermont, and this is my brother Garcia.”

“Frenchmen?” The captain considers. “By your names, at least. But you were born somewhere else, I think?”

Flynn is startled at this perspicacity, though perhaps he can detect the faint accent as they heard his. “My brother was born in Rome,” he says. “I was born in Ragusa.”

“Ragusa?” The captain looks startled, and wistful. “I was raised not far from there, though I left to make my fortunes elsewhere. If you will be searching for new occupation after this, the Prussian army always has room for gentlemen of valor and skill – though perhaps best,” he adds wryly, “that we make no mention of this particular episode. Don’t you think?”

Gabriel and Flynn assure him that they are in no haste to go spreading the news, and they pass around the drink and tobacco with the Prussians. It is the same rough campfire camaraderie of any army, talking about the same things that soldiers everywhere do, and Flynn is startled to realize that it feels as if he has already known them for a long time. Then, as the soldiers are undoing their bedrolls, the captain looks surprised that the brothers are not following suit. “Do you not intend to sleep?”

“We’ll keep watch,” Flynn says. He does not intend to be taken off guard again. Something else, some spur to painful honesty, makes him add, “There are… things you don’t know about us.”

“I imagine there is a great deal I do not know about you.” The captain’s eyes remain on him. “Perhaps I will learn some one day, Garcia de Clermont.”

“Perhaps.” Flynn feels oddly tongue-tied. As the captain starts to stride away, he blurts out, “I do not believe I’ve yet had your name?”

The other man looks at him over his shoulder. There is something in his gaze which Flynn might be imagining, or which he might not, and he does not know which is the more terrifying. “My name,” the captain says, “is Matej. Captain Matej Radić, at your service.”

[iamashamedofmyfanfics]

The Ability To Know

The Ability To Know (by iamashamedofmyfanfics)

Pairing: Woozi & Mingyu Genre: Friendship Universe: AU where harsh words cause physical scars Rating: PG13 Warnings: Swearing, mentions of verbal abuse (both purposeful and unintentional). Length: Oneshot (5765 words)

Notes: I wrote all this in one day please save me. part of the Skin Deep Reality AU but this AU is a collection of oneshots so there’s literally 0 need to read the others.

{ao3 version}

Summary: There’s a distinct difference between being afraid of people as a whole, and being afraid of giving them power over you. Being scared to leave your home, for fear someone will say something and give you a new pattern of insults on your skin, is inherently different from being afraid that you’ll allow someone the chance to speak, only for them to take that chance to do something which breaks whatever trust you’re allowing them.

Jihoon isn't scared of people. He really isn't.

What he's scared of are the scars already resting on his skin.

Though you’ll never fully understand someone with just a first meeting, there’s a lot you can learn in the first few minutes you know someone. In the nearly seventy years before Jihoon was born- before the generation born around that time and everyone born after started gaining scars from harsh words- and the years since, this has become even more true. There’s a lot you can tell about someone, if you can see their scars, by what words stick with them. What words they, at one point, believed or hated enough for them to be carved into their skin.

Not every mean thing shows up, after all. If you don’t realize it’s an insult, or, maybe, if you truly, with all your heart, don’t believe it, it wont scar. If you can block the words out, wholly and completely, then they wont be seared into your skin by whatever yet unknown force decided humanity didn’t have enough ways to hurt each other. And, the less you believe them, the more the existing scars will fade into soft marks, instead of blistering, blaring, reds.

There’s a lot you can learn, when you first meet people, by just looking at them. If they choose not to hide their every scar, then which ones are startlingly red- new, or old and truly believed- which are faded, despite matching the same word, somewhere else, that’s harsh and fresh looking- the ones that were more self inflicted, than given. There’s a lot you can learn, in just a few seconds.

Which is as good a reason as any to wear long sleeves, and jackets, and scarves. To make sure that whatever scars he has- few, and faded, but there- aren’t visible when meeting new people. Not that Jihoon makes a habit of meeting new people. More often than not one of his already existing friends introducing him to someone is the only way that happens.

As is, currently, his- unnecessarily tall- friend, Mingyu, has dragged him out of his dorm- when he’s supposed to be studying for a test, the next week- to meet his new friends. A group of people Mingyu apparently shares multiple of his courses with, this year. Not surprising, since he’s downgraded his number of classes to be more manageable, and most of them are relating to his major. Last year he’d signed up for far too many, and spent most of his time stressed. Something which did no favors for him, especially when multiple stressed people spending time together was a disaster waiting to happen.

So, he’d cut back this year, and decided to primarily focus his attention. Thus leading him to meet his new friends. Friends who, of course, needed to meet Jihoon. For some reason. Jihoon’s pretty sure this is just an excuse to make him leave his dorm, but he was also offered free food. Hunger won out over the want to never interact with another human being.

“I still stand by the fact that this is entirely unnecessary. Can’t I just meet your new friends naturally? Or, you know, never.”

“Because then you wouldn’t get free food?”

“I hate you, and your using my weaknesses against me.”

“That’s a lie.”

The first generation often talk about how difficult it was to grow up in a world where not only did harsh words cause physical scars, but also where nobody really understood anything behind it. It’s only a recent study- nearly five years old, now- that figured out that how much the person hearing the words believed them, or were hurt by them, had an affect on how they appeared. Over time, though, things have gotten arguably better.

At the very least, people know better what is going on. How much of an affect their words have. This had always been true, but the fact that it causes physical damage, now, helps solidify what people had been saying for hundreds of years. Words hurt just as much as anything else.

That doesn't stop some people, of course. It certainly doesn't help that sometimes the words aren't even meant to insult, or were simple things twisted around by tone of voice. 

So, really, is it any surprise some people choose to avoid new people, and the risk they’ll say something that causes new wounds?

People who didn’t avoid them are either thick-skinned enough to ignore the words, or open enough to admit that they hurt, but not give up on people in general. It takes a lot for people to be public figures, or even to pursue careers where lots of people will see them regularly. Though he’d met his fair share of both people who were unbothered, and those who chose to interact with others regularly either way, it is still hard for Jihoon to understand the reasoning of it.

Why give anyone else that kind of power over you? The ability to carve reminders of your own doubts into your skin, despite your best effort.

It took a lot to trust the people he was close to, while spending time with them semi-regularly, but strangers? They aren’t worth that effort. People are either worth the risk, or they’re not, and it’s far too easy to find out when they’re not.

People who are worth it are harder to find, and it’s an effort that seems unnecessary when you already have plenty of people in your life.

Unfortunately, despite any complaints Jihoon has, Mingyu is his friend, and he probably would have agreed- eventually- even without the promise of food. Not that he’d go around admitting that any time soon- he’s known Mingyu long enough to know he wouldn’t let that go if he did. Mingyu had been his friend since they were middle school students- Mingyu in the year bellow Jihoon, but being his new neighbor, at that time- and even though they get annoyed with each other, that friendship has lasted so far. If they had to put a reason for it, it was probably that they knew each other well enough to know times when they can use certain words- ones one or the other has as scars- without causing more damage. Because they’re well aware of each others limits, and aren’t nearly as willing to let each other hear those words from other people, as they are from each other.

And, in general, because they’ve both at some point been aware of every one of each others scars.

“Try me, I’ll turn back right away, you giant loser.”

“You wound me, you tiny, bitter man.” Mingyu rushes forward, ahead of Jihoon, to avoid being hit by him. They’re nearing their destination- an on-campus coffee place that also happens to sell the best, sweetest, bread on campus- so Jihoon doesn’t bother to give chase. He still makes mental note, however, to hit Mingyu later. It’s a mental note added to a pile of mental notes consisting mostly of violence towards people he calls friends.

“That’s a lie, shut the fuck up.”

By coincidence- and the fact that their college is fairly small- Jihoon already knows at least one of Mingyu’s new friends. He shares a class with Seungcheol- a class said man happens to be failing- and they’ve briefly talked on one or two occasions. The other two- Wonwoo and Hansol- he’s only ever heard of from Mingyu, and even then it was without knowing their names.

They aren’t, by any means, bad people. At the very least, they don’t seem it. Still, it’s hard to ignore the ever-nagging voice that says that someone doesn’t have to be bad in order to hurt someone else. Idly, Jihoon runs his hand over his left arm, as they talk to him.

“I think Mingyu exaggerated how scared we should be,” Hansol says, leaning against the table.

“Don’t be fooled,” Mingyu puts a hand on Jihoon’s shoulder, only to have it immediately shrugged off, “I was serious about him being evil.”

“How dare you. I’m an angel.”

“Don’t lie to the people.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You once punched me in the face and broke my nose because I tried to wake you up.”

“That was an accident, and also: shut the fuck up.”

People think they’re being nice. 

Contrary to popular belief, he actually used to considered a taller kid. Then most everyone had growth-spurts, and ended up approximately 7ft tall, and suddenly it wasn’t true anymore. People think they’re being nice, sometimes, when they say things that personally offend you. It isn’t as if they’re trying to, it isn’t as if doing so makes them inherently a bad person.

People think they’re being nice. So the faded, curvy, letters- overlapped by the same word, multiple times over- that curl their way up his left forearm really aren’t things he can actively blame anyone for.

Cute.

When they were in high school- Jihoon in his last year, and Mingyu just one behind him- they spent a lot less time together. It wasn’t as if they were suddenly not friends, and more often than not one of them would spend dinner at the others home, since they lived right across from each other. It was just that they had other friends, and didn’t need to see each other much. Then, at one point Mingyu disappeared for three days in February.

It wasn’t like he was just gone or anything. He was at his home. Jihoon knew that much because his parents mentioned it, briefly. But Mingyu didn’t leave his house, or come to school, for those few days. Then, when he returned, it was like nothing happened.

People assumed he was sick. Most people assumed he was sick.

Except one person makes a comment about thinking that they, “finally made one he’d be too ashamed to come back to school after,” and, really, it should have been more surprising than it was. Should have been harder to process. Because Mingyu is a good person, really, and nothing burned into his skin is something he deserves.

And, so, it’s not really surprising when Jihoon gets a detention for kicking someone in the face.

He finds that Mingyu’s shoulder is engraved with tiny, faded, lettering. Giant, followed by a mess of overlapping letters that’s indecipherable. Caused by multiple words, unable to be made out, but hateful none the less, being thrown at the same time.

They separate from Mingy’s new friends (“They’re basically yours now, too,” Mingyu says when Jihoon says something about them seeming like good friends for Mingyu) as it begin to get dark. With excuses about studying, and a pointed look at both Seungcheol and Mingyu, Jihoon manages to escape the situation. Mingyu follows him all the way to his dorm- since they’re only three doors down from one another- in surprising silence.

“Thanks,” Mingyu says, just before Jihoon closes his door on Mingyu.

There’s a pause. Jihoon nods. “You did promise me food.” He closes the door.

Once, when he was very young, Jihoon heard an insult thrown at him that, despite knowing lots of words, for his age, he didn’t understand. All he knew was that it was said harshly, like an attempt to tear him down as a person. So, even though he didn’t know what it was supposed to mean, it etched its way over his right leg, in blocky font.

It wasn’t until years later, when he looked down at it and had a startling moment of realization that it didn’t mean anything.

Fairy.

Mingyu and Jihoon have a mutual friend- most of their friends are mutual, actually- who wants to be a dancer. He’s good, too. He- Soonyoung- has a honestly admirable amount of determination. Even when scars trail over his skin, over even his hands, visible. He doesn’t shy away from attention, nor his scars, and it’s admittedly a feature of his that one can look up to him for.

It should be something that is purely that, too. But people don’t like knowing that they’re incapable of doing something. The fact that he’s able to wear those words so openly on his sleeves- in a literal sense, as well- when Jihoon more often then not hides his from himself, is frustrating.

The fact that it bothers him, is frustrating.

“Hello you’ve reached the phone of Lee Jihoon please don’t leave a message ever.”

“I know this isn’t your answering machine.”

“Beep.”

“Jihoon.”

“What do you want, Soonyoung?”

“More people to come to my performance.”

“And you called me?”

“We’re friends.”

“On occasion.” Soonyoung laughs, and Jihoon finds himself rolling his eyes, despite knowing Soonyoung can’t see him. “Yeah, okay, I’ll try.”

“Thanks.”

When Jihoon was twelve years old, he decided, very adamantly, that he would never leave the house again. He was forced to go to school, despite his insistence that he could be home schooled, but outside of that he’d chosen never to go outside again. It last, too, because nobody really wants to force him outside. His logic is something that his parents can’t argue with, really, even though they want to. Even though they want to assure him he’s wrong.

“If I don’t go outside then I can’t get any more words.”

It’s not entirely true. He could insult himself, and have the same result, if he means it enough. But there’s such a smaller chance, if he doesn’t leave his house. They try to argue that he has to leave the house sometimes. That he can’t avoid people entirely. That there’s enough good to come from it. Just as much of it as there is bad. Maybe even more.

Jihoon is having none of it, though. Refuses at every chance, and ignores everyone when he is forced out of the house.

He keeps this up, too. For years. Then Mingyu become his friend- all but forced into his life by his parents inviting the new neighbors over almost daily, or the other way around- no matter how much he tries to pretend they aren’t. Then, Mingyu makes friends with someone he promises Jihoon will like, and tries to get Jihoon to leave the house to meet him.

Refusal is kept up for a while. Jihoon doesn’t give up so easily that it happens right away. But, as stubborn as Jihoon is, Mingyu is just as persistent.

“You can wear headphones, and not speak directly to him, or whatever you want this time, just please? I want my friends to know each other.”

“Fine.”

Jihoon leaves his house, bundled up far more than anyone needs to, in the late spring weather, with headphones on his ears, and the volume turned up enough it might just damage his hearing. He communicates purely by typing things out on his phone. To his credit, Mingyu still seems to see this as a success, and that’s how Jihoon meets one Boo Seungkwan.

Seungkwan is an energetic, bright, person a couple years younger than Jihoon, who takes the state of their meeting really well. It’s through him, that Mingyu and Jihoon both meet Soonyoung.

Soonyoung, who’s hands bare scars of words that Jihoon has a hard time picturing anyone saying. He wonders, somewhere in the back of his mind, if it’s difficult. If looking at them every day, unavoidably, is painful. If they hurt, still, like fresh, burning wounds.

But they’re faded, soft, and if they hurt, Soonyoung would wear gloves. If they were too much, he’d hide them. If he was as messed up about them, as Jihoon is of the few, easily hidden, scars he has, then he would cover them.

Whatever frustration he feels, part of him does take solace in that. In the fact that it is possible to move past them. To look at them and not feel anger, and guilt, and pain.

It still hurts, knowing he isn’t able to do that yet, but it’s something. And, maybe, the bitter feeling in his gut will turn into a motivation to stop believing other people.

When he’s sixteen, Jihoon stops adamantly refusing to leave the house, even if just every once in a while.

As it turns out, Soonyoung’s performance is just an hour after Jihoon has a final for his English course. A class he only took because it would help his overall progress towards his major, and one he dislikes immensely. It would be easy enough to just say that he has a final right before, and that he wont be able to make it. Even if it’s only partially true- he’ll be a bit late at most, if he does go- it would still work.

Which is why, when he leaves the class, that afternoon, he isn’t really sure why he only rushes to his dorm to drop off his stuff, before heading there. It would be easy enough to avoid, and he’s usually expected to avoid anything that means being around other people.

Still, this is important to his friend, and he cant actually bring himself to lie in order to get out of it.

Mingyu seems surprised, when Jihoon finds him and drops down next to him. Soonyoung’s performance is just a minute away, he managed just barely not to be late.

“You came?”

“Obviously. You can see me.”

“I just mean, you had a final today…”

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t have to say it, for Jihoon to understand what the look on Mingyu’s face means. He hits him- because he hadn’t forgotten his mental note to do that, and because he doesn’t like the look- so he’ll stop. Mingyu has no right to look so damn proud about this, of all things.

Mingyu is, undeniably, far too tall. Like, unfairly so. It’s a fact no one would really argue with, and is the reason that comparing someone to him, in terms of height, is entirely ridiculous. Most people would, in turn, think this is a good thing. A quality that, more often than not, is the one used to mock other people. Mingyu has never really cared much about it, according to his own words. He’ll occasionally use this trait as a means to halfhearted teasing of people who are shorter than him- which is most every one of his friends, but especially Jihoon- but otherwise it’s not something he thinks much about.

It’s not.

By the time they are both graduated, Jihoon and Mingyu are fully aware of each others scars. When you’re close friends with people, for a long while, you tend to know them fairly well. Tend to find out things that they don’t always share, or don’t always think about themselves. It’s a scary thing, to have someone know so much that they could use against you.

By the time they both graduated, Jihoon and Mingyu are fully aware of each others scars. There’s a perfectly type-font word on Mingyu’s back that might as well be a matching piece with the messy scrawl on Jihoon’s right shoulder blade.

Sometimes, even if the word doesn’t sound bad, its meaning is enough. The reason it was said, is enough.

Building, is a stark contrast to, child.

The first generation is sprinkled in between people lucky enough to be born just a year, or a few months, before the generation that would end up with scars. Before the populations slow transition into one where words marring your skin is normal. Jihoon’s grandmother was lucky enough to be born just before then, and she, sometimes, looks at him far too sadly.

“I wish you didn’t have to deal with them. You shouldn’t let them get to you, they’re not true.”

It’s strange, really. To hear someone talk about people insulting them and, despite the words mentally sticking with them, having nothing to hide, physically. It’s stranger, still, how words of comfort feel so… wrong. How, “shouldn’t let them get to you,” makes him feel sick to his stomach.

It isn’t like he has a choice.

“How’d you get into my dorm?” Jihoon glances shortly at Mingyu, who’s leaned back in Jihoon’s desk chair.

“Your dorm-mate let me in.”

“Damn it, Jun.” Jihoon would make a mental note to hit Junhui, if it wasn’t for the fact he sees his dorm-mate approximately twice a week in passing. Their schedules being practically the opposite of each other, had more benefits than negatives, but not being able to complain to the person himself when Junhui did something like this, is certainly a negative. “Why are you here?”

“Can’t I just visit my friend?”

“You could. But you don’t.” Jihoon drops his bag next to his bunk, before flopping onto it and glancing at Mingyu, across the room. “What is it?”

“I really did just want to visit.”

“Are you avoiding studying?”

“No…”

“Fine, fine. But did you even come up with something to talk about, while you’re here? Or do you plan to just shut up for once?”

“Have you ever known me to shut up?”

“Yeah, back when you were scared of me.”

“I’m still scared of you.”

“That’s good.” Jihoon sits up, stretching in an attempt to shake off exhaustion. “So what’s wrong?”

“I told you I just wanted to visit.”

“You wouldn’t have had Jun let you in, if that was the case.” Mingyu usually just waits for Jihoon to get back, if he wants to visit. The only reason he wouldn’t, is if he was upset and didn’t want to risk that Jihoon wouldn’t let him in. Jihoon knows him too well not to realize that.

“Was just thinking.”

“A dangerous thing.” Jihoon glances at the clock, before sighing. “Next time bring food.”

“No promises.” Mingyu laughs, spinning in the chair. “I just wanted to share my sweet new scar with my best friend.”

“But you came here instead?” Jihoon motions Mingyu over, despite his joking tone, and Mingyu rolls the chair towards him.

“Yeah, well, he’s really mean, so.” Mingyu shrugs. Jihoon only nods, taking Mingyu’s arm when he holds it out. “It’s not a new word, but…”

“Doesn’t really matter.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s pretty faded already, though.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve already dealt with it, haven’t I?” There’s a bitterness to his tone that is so unlike Mingyu that Jihoon actually fails to come up with a response right away. He knows, if he’s honest, that it’s a very him-like response, more than a Mingyu-like one. The feeling like it shouldn’t have done anything- shouldn’t have scared, shouldn’t have hurt- because he’d already dealt with those feelings. Already reflected on that word. Already understood why it hurt, and why it shouldn’t.

Already moved past this. Should be fine, now.

“Yeah, well, when have feelings ever decided to be logical for once?”

“Sometimes I get ice cream and feel happy. So that’s logical.”

“Now you’re just mocking me with food.”

“Ice cream isn’t food.”

“It is if you hate yourself enough.”

“You worry me.” Mingyu shakes his head, before turning to cough. Jihoon instinctively moves away, knowing Mingyu has a habit of not taking logical precautions not to spread disease. If he’s honest, the fact that none of Mingyu’s scars are related to being a walking epidemic, is surprising. Good, but still, maybe if one were he’d be more cautious. Which is a terrible thought, and one Jihoon pushes aside.

“You worry me, you sky-scraper sized walking illness.”

“Whatever, kid, you’ll survive my coughing.”

“I’m older than you, you walking epidemic.” Jihoon kicks at Mingyu’s outstretched legs, then the chair, forcing Mingyu back a few inches.

“And here I was, going to offer ice cream.”

“I don’t want food that’s gone anywhere near you.”

“Rude.”

Left forearm. Right thigh. Right shoulder blade. Left wrist. Left rib. Under the right of his collar bone. Lower, left back. Words, different fonts. Mostly all easily hidden, with long sleeves and scarves. There aren’t any mirrors in the dorm that aren’t hand mirrors, and it’s easy, really, to hide them from himself. To pretend they don’t exist, because he never has to look at them.

Cute, and Fairy, and Child, and Evil, and Hermit, and Get To You, and Failure.

If you take them, one by one, and go over them- think about why they aren’t true, or why they aren’t insults, or why they shouldn’t hurt- they really shouldn’t hurt. Why do they hurt?

If you take them, one by one, and go over them, you might get over them. Get past them, and decide that they don’t matter, that they don’t hurt. That nobody has enough power over you to make you think about something they said so much. (To make you look at it and know that someone meant it.)

But no matter how many times he goes over the words, again and again, for some reason he comes to the same conclusion.

Even if he should be over this, he isn’t.

And he hates that.

“Are you sure about that? It’s ice cream, after all, which is apparently food.”

“It is food.” Jihoon rolls his eyes. “But actually, real food is probably a good idea.”

“Have instant noodles?”

“Yeah.” Jihoon nods, understanding. Despite joking about not wanting food that’s gone anywhere near him, Jihoon knows Mingyu is actually pretty good at cooking. Even if noodles aren’t exactly a challenge. “Go ahead.”

It’s strange, really, Jihoon thinks. Mingyu stands to move to what could be called the dorm’s ‘kitchen’ while Jihoon flops back to maybe get some rest. It’s strange, but he knows no comparisons to building from him will do anything to Mingyu. Just like any use of all but one of Jihoon’s words from Mingyu wont do anything to him. They’ve mastered using them in ways that make them easier to hear, at least from each other, over the past few years. It’s strange, he thinks, that he can’t hear the words from himself, still, despite this.

“Why are literally all of your pans dirty?”

“Jun is a heathen.”

“Don’t blame your roommate.”

“Fine, we both are. Happy?”

“Yep.”

There was a time, when Jihoon was twelve- and a few years following that- when he refused to leave his house except to go school. The logic of why, and the habit of it, haven’t ever really left. It’s not unusual for him to stay in his dorm for days on end, except if he has to attend class. Nobody is really surprised by this, when it happens.

There was a time, when Jihoon was twelve, that he decided that going out into the world, that interacting with people, wasn’t worth the risk.

There’s a time, when in college, that Jihoon locks himself in his dorm for nearly a week, before he decides that he really can’t get away with this anymore. When he remember that his classes are important, and that most people will just ignore him anyway.

“You’ve risen from the dead, again. How rare. I was worried I just made you up.”

“It’s a talent, truly.” Jihoon breathes a sigh, not bothering to look at Mingyu. “Somebody put me on a cryptid show or something.”

There’s a distinct difference between being afraid of people as a whole, and being afraid of giving them power over you. Being scared to leave your home, for fear someone will say something and give you a new pattern of insults on your skin, is inherently different from being afraid that you’ll allow someone the chance to speak, only for them to take that chance to do something which breaks whatever trust you’re allowing them.

Jihoon spends at most five minutes with Soonyoung, on one summer afternoon. It’s nearly the end of the year, and despite the usual weather for the area, the summer heat is worryingly warm. Soonyoung takes note of this and, without any hesitation, removes his jacket. There are more scars, there, nearly looking purposeful in their patterned arrangement.

Jihoon spends at most five minutes with Soonyoung, that day, and is immediately reminded of something he both admires and hates in the other. It’s less than five minutes, really. Just a few minutes.

“Do you think anyone would notice if I started wearing short sleeves again? Summer is murdering me, and college was already doing that well enough on it’s own.” Jihoon’s question is directed at Mingyu, instead of the person that prompted it.

“Notice? Yeah. Care? Probably not. If they do, I’ll hit them?’

“You’re not about to fight anyone.”

“Are you insinuating that I’m not totally prepared to beat someone up?”

“I’m insinuating that I once watched you try to punch a stationary punching bag and miss.”

“To be fair, I’m pretty sure he had also been spun in circles before that happened,” Soonyoung adds, from where he’s packing up his stuff to leave. He has a final later in the day.

“No this was before that. Somehow he did better that time.”

“Can we just… not remind me of this?” At Mingyu’s frown, the other two nod.

During finals week most people are far too caught up in their own heads to pay attention to anyone else. This is something Jihoon takes solace in, when for what may be the first time in years, he allows some of his scars to be visible.

There’s an itching in the back of his mind, about how bad and idea this is. About how it’ll just make things worse. How it-

“Oh wow, you actually did it. And here I thought It was just me.” Mingyu’s voice is vaguely startling, and Jihoon spins around to face him. They’re just outside the dorm building, so he’s not sure why he’s so surprised.

“Why are you...” Jihoon doesn’t need to complete the question, glancing over Mingyu.

“Solidarity.” Mingyu raises on of arms, the newest scar readily on display, and makes a fist.

“Don’t be dumb, that’s not necessary.”

“Most things I do aren’t.” Mingyu shrugs. Despite not knowing exactly what that’s supposed to mean, Jihoon gives a small snort of laughter in response.

“Yeah, okay. That’s fair.”

If a middle school Jihoon was asked to describe his worst nightmare, it would probably be something along of the lines of being forced to go outside, without absolute certainty that all of his scars were hidden away.

If you asked Jihoon, now, what his worst nightmare was, it would probably be something like having a new scar appear somewhere visible while around other people. That’s probably it. The reason he feels anxious the second he no longer has a test in front of him with which he can distract himself.

Mingyu spends most of the day trailing behind Jihoon when they aren’t in classes (they don’t have any together). It’s borderline annoying, but there’s just enough fondness in having known Mingyu for as long as he has- and the reason behind his actions- that he allows it.

“Hey, you’re back early,” Junhui greets, when Jihoon enters their shared dorm, closing the door in Mingyu’s face. Jihoon shrugs. He doesn’t miss the brief second where Junhui glances at his arms, but Junhui doesn’t comment on it. “Are you really going to leave the poor guy out there?”

“He lives literally three doors away.”

“Yeah, but you know he’s still standing there.” Jihoon doesn’t want to admit Junhui is right, but he knows he is. So, with a sigh, he turns around and opens the door.

“Fine, you weirdo, come in.”

“I’m not weird. Closing doors in your friend’s faces is weird.” Mingyu glances around Jihoon- not that it he actually needs to, so he’s just leaning to the side to annoy Jihoon- and waves at Junhui. “Hey Jun.”

“Hey.”

The one day is far too stressful, and Jihoon has returned to his usual habits by the next day. Still he feels a small amount of accomplishment, at managing to make it through the day before. Something reflected in his unusual willingness to be genuinely nice without even pretending he’s not being. Something Mingyu wastes no time pointing out.

“Who are you and what have you done with my friend?”

“You’re the height of comedy, truly.” Jihoon rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, obviously, why else would you keep me around.” Mingyu shrugs, moving back when Jihoon halfheartedly kicks him.

“Don’t say shit like that.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. What’s up with you?”

“I’m counting yesterday as a success, but that doesn’t change that I’m back at it again today.”

“Progress takes time. Or you know, overcoming years of habits takes times.”

“Don’t suddenly become one of my smart friends.”

“Jokes on you, I was one the whole time.”

“Shocking. Heartbreaking. Call an ambulance I think I’m having a heart attack.”

“Nevermind what I said earlier, you’re definitely yourself. Just as mean as ever.”

“It’s my only defining feature.”

“Okay but, on a serious note: you’re okay?”

“Yeah, obviously. If I wasn’t I wouldn’t be out of my dorm. I don’t know, I guess I expected so much worse that I’m pretty okay at the moment.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“And, uh…”

“Yes?”

“Thanks.” Jihoon meet’s Mingyu’s eyes briefly, and the other nods. “I said it was unnecessary- which it was- but, you know... it might have made it slightly easier.”

When meeting people, in a world where harsh words can leave physical scars, you can learn a lot about a person, right away. Even if you can’t see a single word, there’s a lot to be gathered by the way they hold themself or dress. And while over analyzing these things when meeting someone isn’t really good for anyone, it tends to happen.

A middle school aged Lee Jihoon meets Kim Mingyu and instantly knows three things. Mingyu immediately seems smaller than he actually is, because of his posture. Mingyu’s attempts to cover his own scars are so obvious, that Jihoon can instantly pinpoint where are least two of them are, despite not trying to. And Mingyu isn’t the kind of person he expects to be friends with.

When meeting people, In a world where harsh words can leave physical scars, you can learn a lot about a person, right away. College student, Lee Jihoon has been friends with one Kim Mingyu since middle school, and wonders what he’d think, if he just met him now. If his thoughts of that Mingyu, and current Mingyu, would be different, when it comes to first impressions.

“You know, I thought I’d hate you when we first met.” Mingyu gives a small hum of acknowledgement at this.

“Weird, I thought I would hate you.”

“The perfect start to a friendship.”

“Obviously.” Mingyu laughs, not looking up from his phone.

“Hey, make food.”

“Why do I have to?”

“Because you love me?”

“Try again.”

“I’ll help you edit an essay next year or whatever.”

“Deal.”

[keptin-indy]

7th Sea: The New World 2

Notes at the bottom.

Previous installments

Tamara sent a jollyboat with some rowers and the entirety of Lady Gwendolyn’s escort, who were curious about the shipwreck.  The shallow drafted boat made it safely past the hidden reefs that the larger ship had run up against, but an unexpected current threatened to dash the small vessel against the island’s rocks, and the rowers had to struggle to bring them safely to shore for far longer and with more effort than they had anticipated.  Lady Gwendolyn called out for whomever had left the beach-side cry for help and was greeted by an exceedingly Avalonian voice asking if she had been stranded too.  Gwendolyn told the unseen man that they had an undamaged boat, but he then asked if they had weapons, and that they should bring both them and the boat “in”, as sunset was approaching fast.  Misha dragged the boat up the beach to a cave as directed, where the landing party found Sir Brandt Aelfwigg, an exceedingly tall glamour knight who was already known to Gwendolyn, Mariandl, and Etienne.  Along with Sir Brandt was a heavily robed person with a Vesten accent who introduced himself as Inge - it was his ship that sat on the reefs.  All around the mouth of the cave were pointed sticks facing outward and makeshift barricades - to which Brandt added the new boat, explaining that predators came out at night due to some manner of curse.  Seeing Etienne’s miserable appearance, Brandt asked flippantly who had died and was taken aback when Etienne indignantly answered his wife, Heather Wintersweet, who Brandt was also acquainted with.  Soon after this exchange, the sun dipped below the horizon, and at that moment, four large white wolves burst out of the ocean, two with vicious-looking, inhuman riders.  They immediately made for Inge, but were not expecting so many more defenders than previous nights.  Misha threw the entire boat at the front wolves while Ansgar startled them with his lit combat lantern; Tamara leapt onto the boat when it landed and used it as a defensive platform to shoot at the creatures; Gwendolyn revealed that she was a Duelist after all and the unarmed Brandt borrowed her guns while she was occupied with her sword; Etienne melted into the shadows to sneak behind the wolves, unnoticed, with his knives.  The slain wolves melted back into the seafoam they had apparently been made of, but their riders proved more durable.  One pounced on Brandt, but he managed to catch its claws with startlingly fast reflexes, allowing Ansgar to slam his flame-filled lantern into it, shattering the creature into shards of ice.  The last was easily dispatched by the other combatants, and it too proved to be made of ice.  Mariandl checked everyone over for injuries and Inge explained that these creatures were a curse of his people: if any of them stayed in one place for more than a few days, a vengeful goddess sent such hunters after them, and since he’d been shipwrecked, he hadn’t even had the option to avoid the curse by moving.  Tamara offered him a place on the ship and Inge told her that he was a cook by trade, but that he couldn’t be above deck during the day.  Tamara recognized this and the curse as signs that Inge was probably a green troll but decided that she didn’t mind since they weren’t the kind of trolls that ate people.  Not eager to risk the current and reefs in the dark, the landing party decided to row back in the morning and spend the rest of the night in the fortified cave.  Etienne asked how Brandt had ended up on the tiny island and Brandt said that he’d hired onto a privateer and had a difference of opinion with the captain, who had ordered him to walk the plank not far from there.  Gwendolyn  said that she had intended to hire him for the expedition but couldn’t find him in Avalon and Brandt said that it seemed he had little choice but to join on, but Tamara pointed out that she could set him down in some other port if he didn’t want to come; her ship was a democracy and it was important that he have the choice.  Mariandl asked how Inge had gotten there, and he said that he was the only survivor of the shipwreck on the reef.  Tamara asked if the rest of the crew had been trolls and Inge surprisedly replied that they were not.  He took off the long cloak to reveal craggy green skin, shocking everyone, including Brandt, who had been marooned with him for the better part of two months and somehow not realised.  Inge explained that he would turn to stone in direct sunlight, though he would turn back at nightfall, which is why he had swathed himself so completely and stayed in the cave.  Tamara told him that her offer still stood, as she didn’t care what he was, and Inge was surprised that humans would accept a troll with so little fanfare.  After that revelation, Brandt asked Etienne if he wanted to talk, but Etienne put him off until they were no longer in such close quarters with the others in the cave.

The next morning everyone boarded the jollyboat to leave, but as soon as Inge’s feet left the island, the deadly current noticeably subsided, apparently part of the green trolls’ curse.  Once back on the Golden Dream, Gwendolyn offered Brandt a contract for her expedition, but Brandt attempted to refuse all payment in exchange for his rescue from the island, accepting only when she both insisted on the formality and reminded him he could donate the money somewhere else.  Inge was settled with the regular crew, who accepted him as readily as they had their captain’s invisible pet demon.  Gwendolyn explained to Brandt that she intended to visit the Isle of the Dead and had hired everyone as an escort.  Etienne asked if the person she was seeking had died in the Atabean if she expected to meet him there; she said no, but that he was from there and died in Avalon.  No matter where they were when they died, as she understood, Theans did not go to Soryana.  Gwendolyn offered Tamara a letter of marque from Queen Elaine to legitimize her exploits, but Tamara said she already had several from various nations, Avalon included - as did most Brothers and Sisters of the Coast.  Brandt attempted to make himself helpful around the ship, but was mostly shunted from person to person and occasionally given menial tasks that had nothing to do with his specialized skills as a watchmaker.  After a few days at sea, enormous stormclouds were sighted on the horizon but the crew didn’t seem concerned at all.  As the ominous thunderheads approached, Tamara climbed to the top of the mainmast and eagerly awaited the storm.  She laughed as lightning struck around her, but miraculously hit neither her nor the ship.  Eventually, a strong gust of wind threw her from her perch, but she was caught serendipitously by the rigging.  The storm had ceased being entertaining for her, so she calmed the winds and rain with nothing but a gesture, climbing down and letting the normal operations of the ship recommence.  When questioned as to how she had survived and then quelled the storm, she said only that the dieva had helped her.

After some days of further sailing, another ship was sighted on the horizon.  Though inclined to try and take it, Tamara ordered the crew to hold their course, since they were under contract with Lady Gwendolyn and not currently free agents.  The decision was taken out of her hands, however, when the other ship altered course to meet them and ran up the flag of Klaus Stortebeker, a notoriously vicious Eisen pirate.  With six Duelists aboard, the Dream wasn’t inclined to surrender, and in fact Lady Gwendolyn hailed the other ship and suggested that they should surrender instead, her face twisting into a sharp, inhuman thing as she faced the other crew across the rails.  A few of the pirates had second thoughts and dropped their weapons, more willing to take their captain’s punishment than face whatever awaited them on the Dream.  Heartened, Tamara readied her own crew to board the other vessel with a rousing speech about being the better pirates.  Mariandl prepared her small sickbay for combat surgery and Ansgar headed below to the carpenter’s station while the remaining escorts picked out their targets on the enemy ship and waited to close within range.  When they’d closed to pistol range, Captain Stortebeker took a potshot at the person who looked most like a ship’s captain, correctly singling out Tamara’s fancy hat, but she summoned a strong burst of wind which nearly threw him from his ship, forcing him to drop his weapon to catch himself.  Brandt swung across the gap between the ships on a rope, landing at the now-vacant helm and taking the wheel, but Stortebeker was having none of that, and attempted to take the knight by surprise with a blow from his panzerhand.  He was not expecting Brandt to turn swiftly, catch the gauntlet with his sword, and - noticing the captain’s ebony and brass false leg, a sure sign of sacrifice to the Devil Jonah - riposte the attack, informing him that he was crippled and therefore shouldn’t try to dance.  Etienne commanded the gun crews while Tamara brought them alongside the other ship, where several more of the enemy crew lost spirit at the sight of Misha’s bulk and enthusiasm.  Enemy fire hit the Dream in exactly the wrong place for Ansgar, who had never been in combat before and received a large dose of shrapnel for his inexperience, making him Mariandl’s first patient of the fight.  Back on deck, the duel between Brandt and Stortebeker continued, but somewhat more bewilderedly when an unexpected and unlucky seagull accidentally took an armoured punch meant for Brandt’s face.  The Golden Dream closed to boarding distance, firing her cannon at point-blank range, and the crew began to cross over to the enemy ship.

New character!  Sir Brandt Aelfwigg is the third absurdly tall partymember.  Characteristic of Avalonians, he views life as a grand quest to do what is Good and Right in the World and fall in love with all manner of inappropriate and unavailable people along the way.  When not getting into wacky hijinks, he studies clockwork and “helps” others by getting all up in their business. (Jeweled Krait from Exalted)

[ghoultyrant]

FoZ Notes 6

As I don’t expect to be online tomorrow much, if at all, I’ll be posting another Notes update to keep myself on schedule.

------------------

We finally meet Eleanore. Who is an older clone of Louise, but blonde like their father. She insists Louise should have a female attendant, gives no fucks about what the attendants (Saito and Siesta) are up to. [Reader note: Kissing et al]

Due to war conditions and insufficient officers for the army, Henrietta and company close the Academy down and recruit aristocrat kids to fill slots. Osmond and "one teacher" object, but are ignored. [Reader note: I’m pretty sure the ‘one teacher’ is supposed to be Colbert, based on later events. Though really, one teacher?]

Louis is all too honored to join the army... but the Valliere family objects for some reason? Eleanore is dragging Louise home by carriage for some reason.

Albion holds court on a round table of stone. Because Arthurian legend. [Future note: Never crops up again]

Cromwell wants to banish the whole "guy announcing people as they enter" thing because "none of us stands above the other!" (Says the Emperor...) [Future note: This mildly interesting bit of characterization has no relevancy and what it suggests about Reconquistador philosophy is never built on]

Gallia has declared itself neutral in this way... but Albion is trying to talk them into being willing to backstab Germania and Tristain. No wait, they were always Secret Allies of Albion, the defeat at Tarbes just wrecked the original plan to simultaneously invade Tristain. In fact, Gallia is the party that suggested they backstab when Albion is invaded! [Future note: Surprisingly, I don’t think this is a Surprise Plot Tweest the author just made up, as later events are startlingly consistent with this scenario. Could’ve been better set up/presented, though]

Cromwell can raise the dead... and that's all he can do. At least, out of "long incantations". [Future note: Again, he’s not actually a Void mage. He’s just using the Ring of Andvari. Which, by the way, can do other things, so he’s really lame]

Say hello to Zuko. I mean. "White Menvil". Also known as "the White Flame." He's almost parodically evil and killed his own family after dishonorable behavior got his title stripped because lolevil. Albion is hiring him because lolevil.

Cromwell wants Wardes to transport Menvil and a small squad to the Academy of Magic to take nobles as hostages. Never mind that the school is closed?...

... cut to the Academy, where the students are primarily female because the boys all volunteered to be officers. Er. What? Male teachers are gone, except Colbert. Tabitha didn't volunteer. Kirche did, but was refused because gender, though it's unclear whether they mean Germania or Tristain. Kirche views Colbert as a coward.

Ominous Foreshadowing involving a fire stone. [Future note: Wait what? Fire Stones get played up as this insanely big deal we only are now introducing several volumes down the line!]

The Valliere estate is so large there's a goddamn inn to wait at after half a day's travel! What, do they own a third of the country?

Eleanore is engaged. Doesn't like it. Louise is a moron who can't tell when her own sister is enraged, congratulates her. Oh wait she's furious because the engagement got canceled. 'kay. [Reader note: As far as I can gather, it got canceled because Eleanore is a bitch. Yes, Overlady’s presentation of her is more accurate to canon than you might think!]

Finally meet Cattleya. Also an older clone of Louise, only with identical hair color. Her carriage is filled with animals, including a tiger, a snake, a bear, and the more ordinary dogs and cats. Uh. How do they fit and why aren't they violent? In any event, Louise LOVES Cattleya's animals, while Eleanore is reluctantly tolerant.

Eleanore has a pocket watch. [Future note: You guessed it! Never crops up again. Not just hers, but in general we never hear about pocket watches]

Talking owl!! [Future note: Say it with me: this never crops up again]

Giant drawbridge golems!! [Complaint: what are the mechanics and limitations of golems, seriously, this is ridiculous]

Saito is allowed to be at dinner with Louise, but he stands behind her rather than getting a seat.

Sexism, Louise asserts, is "old-fashioned". Uuuuh. What changed, here in Halkeginia??

Eleanore knows about Louise being called "the Zero". Louise is unwilling to let her family know about her Void powers.

The Vallieres are one of the five biggest families of Tristain. [Future note: I still haven’t seen a reference to the other four]

Somethingsomething water magic doesn't work on Cattleya's illness because if you fix a part the degeneration moves elsewhere. "Various" medicines and magics are used to suppress her symptoms, instead. Cattleya can't go to the Academy or marry, as a result. She's supposedly never left the Valliere grounds. [Complaint: Water magic’s ability to fix or not fix things seems to have no even half-coherent system in mind beyond ‘whatever the author wants at this moment’]

The father is "retired". He is opposed to the war with Albion, on the basis that they should "siege" Albion instead, as they don't have a big enough numbers advantage in his opinion. He thinks the Tarbes victory has made Tristain overconfident. He disapproves of recruiting kids, too, claiming they're "useless" in war.

Then he places Louise under house arrest until the war is over. No leaving the castle. Louise ends up claiming her affinity is Fire, gets believed, told "same as your grandfather",  a "sinful" element drawn to war. [Future note: This elemental stereotyping thing goes away after, like, the next volume] Ordered to pick a husband -which is interesting, actually. [Reader note: By that I mean I figured that the story would go Full Historical Sexist Mode and have Louise’s father pick out a husband for him, or perhaps demand she accept the overtures of an existing set of people attempting to court her we’ve never heard of before. Instead Louise’s father seems to be operating on the idea that, essentially, she can pick any male noble and be reasonably expected to have the proposal excepted even though she’s a woman and the usual thing is for men to be pursuers]

Cattleya magically knowing things because she's "sharp". [Reader note: Seriously, she just has magical insight/awareness for no real reason. How on Earth Halkeginia did she even develop this level of social insight if she doesn’t interact with people?]

In Tristain, at least, nobles were originally just people who swore they would give their lives for the princess. Riches and land were rewards... and the magicalness isn't addressed. Or at least that's how the Vallieres started, implying Louise's loyalty is a tradition in her family stretching back eons. Fits with the playmate thing.

Cattleya supporting Louise's decision in a sneaky way. [Reader note: She converts the drawbridge’s chains into dirt, so the bridge stays down and Louise and Saito can escape. Mind, this just raises all kinds of questions, as either castles shouldn’t be a thing if they’re so easy for a single noble to trivialize major components of the defenses or the Valliere estate ought to be benefiting from that ‘hardening’ thing we heard about back in volume 1. But noooo, consistency is unacceptable]

Louise uses Henrietta as a guidepost for behavior. [Future note: This... could be set alongside future events to point to as signs of Louise experiencing major character development, but I suspect ‘this never crops up again’ syndrome]

Royal Army, National Army, Sky Navy. Respectively: Mercenaries under the Crown's direct command (through nobles...), farmers levied by landed nobles, and the ships, the last of which... uh... work, somehow.

Guiche's father is Marshal of the Royal Army, because he's retired from military service. (??) Guiche has three brothers.

The students get two months of training.

La Rochelle's sky tree is called Yggdrasil. Shock.

The Air Navy promotes by merit, not birth. [Question: How do they choose who to recruit, though? We never find out]

After Tarbes, Tristain recruited some of the Albionese officers for the Sky Navy. This bothers a lot of the Tristainian airpeople. So much so that there are people plotting for "enemy fire" to kill these guys during combat.

Agnes home of Angleterre/Angle Province is, unsurprisingly, Albion immigrants who integrated into Tristain over time, but always tried to be independent and stuff. Twenty years before canon, roughly, they "forced" the Tristain government to recognize their independence and built a temple to, presumably, Protestantism. This pissed off Romalia, who promptly pressured Triustain into butchering them.

Not-at-all-coincidentally, a month before putting Agnes’ home to the torch, a Romalian New Religion noblewoman washed up nearby. Killing this woman was the reason people were there. The torching was claimed to be about preventing the spread of a disease, though the "New Religion Hunt" it was part of didn't last long due to changes in Romalian leadership.

Some De Poiters guy is blocking the Musketeers from participating in the invasion of Albion because he thinks they'd steal his glory.

Agnes trying to find out who the man who headed the torching/carried her out is so she can kill him. Stonewalled by the page naming him being ripped out of a book about a "magical research group". [Future note: We never get an explanation for this page being missing, I don’t think]

Trolls are as tall as five people. (25 feet?) They live in the northlands of Albion, and are apparently willing to be hired by humans to fight humans, though they're prone to ignoring orders and they hate humans for no clearly given reason. They just like killing humans. And fighting. They're basically Warhammer Orks, really. They have their own language and wield spiked hammers. [Future note: In the not terribly distant future the plot is going to go right back to ignoring the existence of what it calls ‘demi-humans’. Ugh]

Menvil thinks burning flesh is the best smell there is. Finally get confirmation on the obvious point that he was involved in torching Angletierre. Also learning the Magical Research Group actually DID do research -in between being called to suppress dissent and the like. And said research was focused on things like "how much damage does an AOE spell actually do?" and "burning flesh what happen?" Menvil got his Zuko-scar when he tried to attack the leader because he looked up to the guy. Even Menvil isn't sure why he attacked the guy.

Wardes has no soul. Fouquet can feel horror. Gender stereotypes. [Reader note: I forget what this was about, but basically Wardes feels nothing when doing horrific things and Fouquet actually does feel bad. You know, other than about stealing]

Mazarini is ALSO insisting that Tristain could starve out Albion. What, is Albion seriously running at a food deficit it resolves via trade? [Reader note: I didn’t note down the original claim that starving out Albion is a realistic possibility, because it’s dumb. No, the floating island is not a castle. It is, to all appearances, a self-sufficient land that grows its own food. Starving them out makes no sense unless they believe trade embargoes are a possibility, and even that is questionable since Albion apparently flies all over Halkeginia and so could simply trade for food from sympathetic countries when over them. And now that I’m thinking about Dumb Albion Things: why do we never hear about Albion blocking out the sun, or dumping literal rivers of water on the lands below it, or anything of the sort? It’s supposed to be flying overhead!]

Henrietta hates herself blah blah blah. [Reader note: For kicking off a war. Never mind that Albion started it when they tried to kidnap her with a goddamn zombie version of her lover. Nooo, she feels guilty because it’s totally her fault]

Louise is of the belief that sex should only occur after marriage, and only after three months at that, for nobles such as herself.

De Poiters gets entrusted with commanding Louise's Void magic in the invasion.

The story seems to be implying Dragon Knights are all people whose familiar is the dragon they ride?...

Osmond feels a war that takes women and girls lives cannot possibly be just. Agnes' response is "what justice does a war that takes only men's lives have", followed by saying that death is equal. He's got no response for either of these. Colbert freely admits to being a coward/afraid of war when called such by Kirche.

Demo airships. Uh. This seems like an incredibly bad plan. [Reader note: As in unmanned airships filled with explosives and then launched in the direction of the enemy to explode on impact. This is an actual naval thing, historically, but naval combat isn’t three-dimensional]

Raven familiars as an early-warning system. Sensible. [Future note: Later we find out there’s a low-level wind spell that can be used to get a birds-eye view of nearby locations. So actually not sensible]

Colbert invents magic-seeking missiles -as in, heat-seeking rockets, but chasing magic. Aaaargh. [Future note: The plot makes infinitely more sense if you assume Colbert is a Worm-style Tinker. Or Girl Genius style Spark. He’s ridiculous]

Illluuuusion magic. [Reader note: I... don’t remember what this was in reference to. Something stupid, that’s all I recall]

Ice spear reflecting off the Liar's Mirror to kill the caster. Really?

So if Agnes recruited the girls, why are they at the Academy?... [Reader note: Not sure why I didn’t note it down, but earlier Agnes came along and interrupted Colbert’s class to conscript all the female nobles of the school as soldiers. The implication is that they all leave to go be soldiers at Albion. Then instead the Academy is attacked by Menvil and everybody is at the Academy with no explanation or justification provided. I don’t think this is a failure of the translation, I’m fairly sure this is just one more way in which the author was incapable of being consistent on any level]

Menvil is actually blind, but somehow uses his Fire affinity to have omnidirectional thermal vision. Because shut up. Oh and Colbert is the ex-captain of the Magical Research Group. Because of course all this him-being-a-coward shit is so it can turn out he's a badass who saves the women. Because sexism.

Naturally, fireballs can be used to block other fireballs. Physics. And Colbert uses a transmutation spell to suck all the air out via explosion, instantly suffocating Menvil. Because that's how physics and biology work, right? (Wrong)

A number of "magic arrows" is too serious an injury for magic healing to fix without ingredients. Because drama trumps consistency. Let's have multiple girls faint from trying to fix Colbert! He's too beloved to die! Ugh. [Reader note: We’re supposed to find Colbert a likable, heroic figure, much like Saito. Also much like Saito, he’s nonsensical and not actually likable. Unlike Saito, he’s not a wannabe-rapist... because he used to be a mass-murderer! Classy]

End volume 6.

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Surprisingly little horrible garbage of pointlessness! But a lot of dubious mechanics and inconsistent/probably inconsistent worldbuilding.

[In retrospect: No, there wasn’t much ‘harem shenanigans’, but this was still a horrible volume and all the Colbert-centric stuff isn’t even plausibly fanservice. It’s the author getting off on having his super-awesome regretful mass-murderer do a badass heroic thing and Prove Those Bitches Wrong for thinking he’s a cowardly wuss and have all of them feel sorry and bad for him now that he’s proven them wrong.

And the worst part?

He doesn’t stay dead]